And here it is, chapter 4! :D Thanks again as always for your kind reviews, story alerts, and favorites on this story! It means so much to me!
Of course, I do not own CM nor do I own the characters.
Ian Doyle was quickly making his way down the street, rushing to get to the safety of his run-down motel room he had been inhabiting for weeks now. He needed to call his friend, Paul Connolly to see if he had done what Doyle asked him to. It would set the entire plan in motion, and Doyle was more than ready to see it through to the very end.
He raced up the stairs once he made it into the motel building, too anxious to wait for the elevator to take him up to the fifth floor. He swung the door open, slamming it loudly behind him. He pulled out his phone and dialed Paul Connolly's number, pacing the length of the room several times.
"Did you do it?" Doyle asked as soon as he heard Paul pick up.
"Yes, it's done," Paul confirmed.
Doyle smiled, knowing that the plan was officially in motion. "Good," he said quietly. "You have your eyes on him?"
"Yeah," Paul confirmed. "I'll let you know what he plans to do as soon as I know,"
"Alright," Doyle said. "Talk to you then," he hung up the phone, quickly packing up everything he planned to bring with him. If he was right, which he was sure he was then Emily Prentiss would be brought back to the States. He would meet her and the little girl there, and then he would finally get his revenge.
Doyle and Paul had met years ago, during the days when Doyle's weapons deals were his life. Paul owed Doyle a favor, and Doyle was using him for that favor now. He had instructed Paul to go to Washington, DC, where Aaron Hotchner still lived. He had Paul watch him, just to see what his daily routine seemed to be. Paul had informed Ian that the man seemed to be retired now, or at least out of work. He didn't seem to have a girlfriend, and he spent a lot of time with his son who looked to be about a teenager. Doyle's next instruction was to wait until Aaron Hotchner was out of the house, then stick a note on his front door letting him know Emily and her daughter's locations were compromised.
"Mark it with a clover," Doyle had said. "He'll know what it means,"
That's just what Paul had done. Doyle was now waiting to see what was going to happen next. He knew the former team leader and the blonde liaison had been the ones to fake Emily Prentiss' death. He knew that Hotch would contact her, and he knew they would immediately fly Emily and the daughter back to the States.
To protect her. He thought. We'll see how safe and protected they feel when I'm through with them.
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Hotch was frantic as he waited for JJ to answer her phone. His mind was absolutely racing with questions, and he was honestly terrified.
As soon as JJ finally picked up, he left no time for greetings or casual conversation, he went straight to the point.
"JJ! I just got home from Jack's soccer game… and on the door… a note… Doyle said he 'knows where they are,' who's they? Do you know? What do we do?" He said trying to get it all out in one breath. Normally he handled things with professionalism, rarely losing his cool, but right now he didn't care about any of that.
"Are you home alone?" JJ asked quietly.
"Yes, Jack's out. He will be for awhile. Why?" He asked, wondering why she wasn't freaking out as much as he was.
"There's something we need to talk about, but you need to hear it from me in person. I'll be there in ten, fifteen minutes tops okay?"
They hung up the phone, and Hotch's throat went dry. What was JJ going to tell him? What did she know that he didn't? He paced the length of his living room so many times in the time he waited for JJ, he was sure he'd burn a hole in the floor.
What felt like another ten years, but was really only twelve and a half minutes later, he heard a soft knock at the door. He practically ran to the door, stumbling a little over his own feet as he grabbed the doorknob to let the knocker in. Before unlocking and twisting the doorknob, he looked through the small peephole in the door, just to make sure it really was JJ standing on the other side and not someone else, someone much more dangerous. A miniscule wave of relief washed over him when he saw JJ, who he then opened the door for.
Again making no time for small talk, JJ let herself in, closing the door behind her. She took Hotch's shoulder in her hands and guided him over to the couch as they sat down next to each other.
"JJ, what is it?" Hotch asked, breaking the silence.
JJ sighed, and he could see the hurt in her eyes. "There's something that happened with Emily that I never told you,"
"Is she okay?" he asked, fear setting in the pit of his stomach, his mind racing with hundreds of scenarios gone awry.
"As far as I know, until you got that note, yes. She… she was pregnant Hotch. With your baby. She called and told me one day about a month after we relocated her. She got a permanent identity, a more secure identity. She told me she wouldn't raise a child under several different names. So I had a guy get her a permanent identity. I don't know it, I haven't spoken to her since that day. But it seems like Doyle's found their location…" JJ said, and Hotch could see the tears forming in her eyes.
He blinked several times. He had another child? With Emily? He didn't know what to say. Over the years, he would often find himself thinking about Emily. He would think about the future that could have been. He pictured himself proposing to her. He imagined their wedding. He could see Emily adopting Jack as her own. He knew they would be happy, and often he pictured a pregnant Emily. He imagined her being extremely hormonal, letting the smallest things get to her. He could see himself talking her out of slapping someone who cut in front of her in line at the grocery store. Hotch imagined Emily crying at shows on TV she would normally have laughed at. He could see her practically breaking his hand during labor. But he knew it would all be worth it, because he would have been able to give her the one thing she had wanted most: a child. They would be able to raise the child and Jack together as a family. He couldn't fathom the fact that he actually had a child out there with Emily. Was it a boy or a girl? Did he have a little boy with his dimples? Did he and Emily have a little girl who was a spitting image of her beautiful mother? He had a thousand more questions, but every time he opened his mouth to ask one, no sound would come out.
"I.." he started, but JJ held her hand up.
"That's literally all the information I can give you. When she made the decision to keep the baby, we had to cut off every tie between each other to keep them both safe," she said sadly.
"What do we do? We can't just sit here and do nothing! He knows where they are!" Hotch nearly yelled, desperate for a solution to the problem.
"It's been ten years, Hotch. It's gonna take me some time, but I'll call the guy I had give her the information and see what he can do. Once we find her, we bring her back. We have to. If she's here with us, we know she's safe," JJ said, doubt obvious in her voice.
"We have to call him now!" Hotch stressed, his only thought on getting Emily and their child back to him safely. They could deal with Doyle later, but right now, he needed to see them both.
"I'm on it," JJ said, taking on her professional attitude, and dialing a number on her phone.
"This is Jennifer Jareau," she said once the person she called picked up. "Do you remember ten years ago, I had you go to France to give a woman a fake identity?" She paused. "You do? Great, okay. Her location has been compromised by the person we're keeping her from. We need her name and location. She needs to be flown back to DC as soon as possible," JJ emphasized the phrase, to make it known to the person this was a serious matter.
"No," she said firmly. "It needs to be done now. It cannot wait! The man that's after her is highly capable of killing her, and her child! Can you please take care of this?" Another pause.
"Thank you," she said finally, letting out a breath of air. "We'll be awaiting your call," she said, hanging up the phone.
Hotch looked at her. "So?" he asked.
"He's going to call her and tell her, and get her and the child back to DC. After that, I don't know," she said honestly. "I don't know what to do. If he found her once, he'll find her again,"
"But we'll be ready. I'm not letting him win again. He took Emily from me once, but it's never happening again. Should we tell the team?" Hotch asked.
"The team? Hotch, it's been so long…" she trailed off.
Each member of the team had since gone on to different things since what they thought was Emily's death. They had all kept in touch, some of them still lived close enough to hang out together, but JJ and Hotch had remained the closest of them all.
Rossi had taken another retirement, this time not planning to return to the field. He had written several more books in the past ten years, but spent much of his time perfecting recipes in the kitchen of his mansion. Morgan lead his own team now in Chicago. He was closer to his family that way. Reid moved to Las Vegas to be closer to his mother. He had earned two more doctorate degrees. He was writing books and giving lectures on various subjects whenever he was needed. Since Emily, he found it increasingly difficult to continue working in the field. Garcia and Kevin had married now, and still lived in the DC area. Both still worked for the FBI as Technical Analysts, but even the always bubbly Penelope Garcia had lost some of her zest over the years.
"I know it's been years," Hotch said. "But don't you think they deserve to know? We all still keep in touch. We can't just do this and not tell them. Maybe they can help us? Morgan's got his own team. They can make it a case!" Hotch told her.
"I don't know. We need to keep it quiet for now, okay? Just… just let her get here and then we'll figure everything out," she said, pulling her blonde hair back into a hair tie, then resting her elbows on her knees and putting her head in her hands.
"This is.. I never thought… we have a child together. Emily and I have a child. What if Doyle gets to them first?" he asked, growing nauseous at the thought.
"That's what I'm afraid of," JJ mumbled into her hands, the sick feeling rising in her stomach as well.
Hotch began pacing again. He didn't know what else to do. The woman he loved and the child they had together that he'd never met were out there, threatened by a terrorist-turned-serial-killer, and all he could do was wait.