Finale Fix

BONUS PROMPT: Surprise (Buffy)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Showdown

Emily could not breathe.

"Damnit!" Derek swore behind her, but Emily couldn't focus on anything.

"Mom?" Cami called, voice raw. "Mom, come on."

Then she was swearing, every word she'd ever learned in every language she could think of while she whipped out her cell phone. Then she swore more when his cell phone and office phone both went to voicemail. "We have to get back to the Bureau," she said, shaking her head. Her fingers trembled as she tried to make her phone work again. She needed to get in touch with Hotch. She needed to warn him.

"Em, come on." Derek was taking her elbow and she allowed him to guide her out of the room.

"Why is he not answering his damned phone?" Emily said under her breath as she heard his voicemail click on again.

"What's wrong?" Dave asked.

"Foyet's after Hotch," Derek answered. "Cami was a distraction."

Dave sighed. "Shit."

Hotch had been single-minded when it had come over the speaker that Cami was perfectly safe. He needed to get to that crime scene, needed to see the place for himself to see if Foyet left any clue as to where he was off to next. He was the expert on the profile, there was no one else who would know all of Foyet's intricacies as he would. He had his gun tucked in his pants, his badge in his hand as he fumbled with the keys.

"Going somewhere, Agent Hotchner?"

Hotch whirled, his hand automatically going for his weapon, but Foyet had his gun trained on him first.

"Ah, ah, ah. Why don't you throw that my way?"

"Not going to happen," Hotch replied, voice low and deadly. Don't show him fear.

"You're just looking to get shot again, aren't you? Blame yourself, do you, for those other deaths? Think that getting shot will somehow make it all better, make it all worth it?"

Hotch kept his mouth shut. He wasn't going to give Foyet the satisfaction of an affirmation and he didn't want to risk lying.

Foyet almost cackled. "You thought you'd outsmarted me, thought you'd found me, didn't you? I've been watching you, Agent Hotchner and I've done my research."

Which meant he'd known exactly who Cami was when he took her, exactly the reaction he'd get out of not only the team, but out of Hotch himself. The guilt, the pain, the thought that Foyet had taken Cami in an attempt to turn the team against him…It all made perfect sense. But he, and the rest of the team, had been way too focused on finding Cami, on re-establishing the status quo, for anyone to step back and think that maybe all of this had been completely part of Foyet's plan. And now here he was, in a parking garage, with no way out.

"He's on the security cameras getting into Quantico," Derek said. They were gathered around the front gate where Foyet had taken out the front guards.

"You've got it, my chocolate Adonis," Garcia agreed, on speaker phone through Derek's cell. "We've got him coming onto campus, and heading into the parking garages. He's on a handful of cameras climbing, climbing, climbing-" She cut herself off with a gasp.

"Garcia!" Emily knew her voice was filled with fear and trepidation, even as she supported Cami on one side, JJ on the other.

"He's got Hotch," Garcia replied, tears obvious in her voice.

"Where, Baby Girl. You have to tell us where."

There was a little whimper before she finally came back on the line, "Level five. He's got a gun."

Derek snapped the phone shut. "Let's go."

"Wait!" Dave stopped him. "We can't go in there guns blazing. If Foyet's got a gun and Hotch… That's a lot of leverage."

"We don't have time to call in a tactical squad," JJ pointed out. "We've got us."

Derek looked at each of them, redialling Garcia again "Then we're just going to have to make use of what we've got. Mama, I need you to get me a map of that parking level."

Hotch grunted as he took another punch to the gut. Only moments before, when Foyet had been close enough to striking distance, the sociopath had withdrawn a switchblade, flicking it open threateningly. Hotch had zeroed in on it, focusing on the exact moment Foyet made to strike. Now the knife and gun had skittered away under cars and Hotch and Foyet had only their hands and bodies as weapons. Even Hotch's gun had been lost somewhere in the cars of the night shifts.

"Come on, Agent Hotchner. You're in no shape to be in a hand-to-hand combat," Foyet taunted, a smirk on his face that Hotch wanted nothing more than to scrape off with the switchblade.

Unfortunately, he knew as well as Foyet did that he wasn't going to be the one coming out on top of this battle, at least not in his current physical state. His healing wound had been throbbing, but he'd been shoving the feeling to the back of his mind. He had other things to worry about, first and foremost being his own survival. But now that Foyet had drawn attention to his pain, he had to admit he could feel it. He'd never admit it outloud.

Foyet was almost gleeful as they traded blows until, eventually, he had Hotch up against one of the cars, his arm crushing the agent's windpipe. Then he leaned forward, whispering, "I'm going to watch you die, watch the life drain out of you, and then you know what? I'm going to go after the rest of your little family. All because you didn't make the-"

Then he was splattered with blood and brains and Foyet was collapsing in front of him the sound of the glass of a car window shattered behind him. As the sociopath's body fell to the ground, Hotch blinked at Emily, her gun still raised, her eyes hard. It only took a few seconds for her to collapse in on herself, her gun falling and clattering to the ground as her knees gave way beneath her. He managed to struggle to her side, dropping beside her. She turned into him, despite the disgusting blood covering him, burying her face against him, her hand fisting in his shirt.

He held her close, as they sat there, the rest of the world working around them, speeding around them. Finally, she raised her head, gasping. "Jesus."

"You had the shot," he reassured her, though not only did he wish she hadn't had to kill someone, even if it was Foyet, he wanted to have been the one to put a bullet through the bastard's brain.

She didn't seem even placated by this, her eyes still completely distressed. "He almost had you."

"He never had me," Hotch answered, his arms coming around her. "Never."

"His hands were around your throat," she contradicted, shaking her head, fingers coming up to brush over the red, irritated skin. "He could have killed you."

"But he didn't," he said quietly. "He didn't, Emily." And he never will again.

Derek and Dave stood over Foyet's body, both of them not bothering to hide how close they were watching Emily and Hotch.

"Hotch? EMTs are here," JJ's quiet voice startled both him and Emily. "They need to check you out."

He almost countered her when Emily's fist tightened in his shirt.

"Do not even think about saying 'no', Hotchner," she said with such conviction that Hotch would have felt utterly terrible to say no.

"Okay," he croaked out. "Okay."

One quick little epilogue, and this baby's done!

I'm so sorry it took me FOREVER to update this. And I'm sorry if you don't feel like Foyet showing up in the parking garage was plausible. I had literally THE HARDEST time coming up with a way to weave him into this after I managed to back myself into a corner in the last chapter.

For those of you who are still with this, I'd appreciate the feedback!