A/N: I know I'm probably driving you all mad with all the downtime chapters I keep feeding you, but they'll continue for another few before I come back with a bang, so please continue to be patient with me; we are definitely getting closer to the action. It will hopefully be worth your wait and I shall endeavour to update as frequently as I can so you aren't left waiting too long.

Reviews are gold to me, and worth so much more because gold can be spent or stolen but I keep all my reviews in the one place so I can treasure all your encouragements and on my bad days, find warm fuzzies to make me happy again. My solid gold bars for chapter 17 came from Hazmatt, greengirl82, Wtiger5, HGRHfan35, miaa29 and HPforever-after. Thanks for being so faithful to let me know what you think guys...I really do appreciate it more than I can put into words. J

Rated M for violence, torture themes, drug use, coarse language and sex scenes. (yes, this is going to have a little bit of everything)

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Criminal Minds at all, although they do own me and I do own Carrie and Toby, Chloe and India, Kelly and Brad and Ben.

Arabian Nights – Chapter 18

She was utterly exhausted and not even nearly done for the day; how she longed to just put her head down and weep.

"Emily?"

She turned. He was the only reason she was still going and she wondered if there would ever be enough time in her life to get across to him how very completely she loved him.

She started slightly as something heavy and warm settled upon her shoulders. His worry for her was obvious but his touch was so gentle and tender...she closed her eyes against the threat of tears that pressed closer as she saw the depth of his love for her in his eyes.

"Emily?"

"I'm alright," she whispered.

"Clearly that's a lie. Don't shut me out; talk to me."

She nodded and stepped in closer to the heat his body was putting out. The only time she'd felt warm since the night before was when he was making love to her only an hour ago. But the second he'd left her body to dress for their trip here to the office, she'd been cold again. She knew distantly it was shock and she also knew that Alex was a part of it, but he was a small, very distant part. The greater shock came from the knowledge that she would have to relive what she'd been through a second time as she told whoever interviewed her about what she'd experienced.

"I'm not sure I'm ready for this."

He nodded as he folded her close. "I think I understand that, but unfortunately we need to know what you do and the sooner we get that information from you, the less likely we are to lose any important information you may know. Perhaps it wouldn't be so important if the other girls hadn't all indicated that you were the only one who could understand what those men were saying. We urgently need this. Otherwise I'd sweep you up and run off with you and they could all go to hell."

She smiled just slightly at his fiercely protective attitude and loved him even more.

"I don't know how to put it in words enough to adequately cover what I mean." He tipped his head to the side, curiosity on his face. She lifted her hand to touch his cheek. "I don't know how to explain to you the depths of how very much I love you."

He turned his head and kissed her palm, his hold on her not easing even slightly.

"Not a second, a breath, a heartbeat go by for me where I don't love you with everything I am. Not just with a love that burns steady either, but with a love that is always growing and deepening with every moment. Whether I'm here with you like this, or far away from you it doesn't seem to make any difference. I just love you."

The tears she'd been trying to hold back slipped out and tracked down her cheeks. She thought she'd done enough crying to last a lifetime, but apparently she wasn't done just yet. He waited her out, holding her shaking body close and slowly, as her tears eased completely, slowly she became aware that she felt warm inside again where it counted.

"Did that come close to what you wanted to say?"

She nodded and tipped her head back to look at him again. "I don't know quite how I got so lucky as to find you a second time, but your unconditional love and acceptance are healing something in me I wasn't even aware was still broken. Thank you."

He captured her mouth in a deep, drugging kiss that she more than returned while she wished desperately that she was actually alone with him again. She could feel him deep inside where it counted and hoped that he could feel even slightly from her what she was getting from him in that moment. Her heart was so full it was overflowing.

He pulled back as a gust of wind whipped snow in a small frenzy around them, causing them both to shiver slightly. He offered her his hand and she took it with a small smile, allowing him to lead her into the tall building in front of them. She was calmer than she'd been in days and for the first time since she'd seen Alex again, she actually felt confident enough in herself to hold her own if he started accusing her again.

Not that she thought he would, not with Aaron so protective at her side. He steered her through the bullpen and into a side room. Everyone turned to look at them and she winced just slightly.

I definitely think he'll be keeping to the back.

Alex looked her over from top to bottom, flicked a look at Aaron who had tensed at her side, then away. She hadn't seen him wind up, but she'd seen him hit her ex-fiancé hard enough to knock him back a few feet from her after his words had escalated to him shouting at her while she was trying to wind the situation down so she could go to bed the night before. He'd shoved her in anger and while she'd been struggling with the shock of being threatened by someone she'd once admired and respected, Aaron had turned on him. Only Sampson's presence had kept Aaron from beating the other man to a pulp, but it had been that shove that had ended the conversation.

She bit her lip to keep from turning to Aaron and kissing him in gratitude. Alex had a massive bruise down the right side of his face and his eye was swollen completely shut. She knew it was mean, but a small part of her thrilled to see him hurt and know that it was her man who'd dealt out the damage.

Phil came towards her, shot Aaron a wary look, but still pulled her into his arms like he'd obviously intended to do. She hugged him back, but quickly stepped back to Aaron's side. She didn't want him hurting Phil, who had only ever been good to her.

"Emily, I didn't get a chance to say it the other night so I'm going to say it now and then we'll get down to business. You look amazing, congratulations on your marriage and your children who, by the way, are absolutely enchanting, and I'm really glad that you are alive and safe, not just because you will be a fount of much-see desperately-needed information."

She blushed slightly and after a hesitant look at Aaron to see that he was somewhat relaxed, she stepped from his side, embraced Phil a second time and then made her way around the room. She hugged the guys and enquired briefly about their lives since they'd last been in contact and she introduced herself formally to the two female agents, thanking them for their parts in caring for her children when she herself wasn't available. The only time Aaron made any sound at all was when she was within feet of Alex; however the other man stayed leaning against the wall with his hands behind his back so she was past him quickly enough for Aaron to feel confident staying where he was. And his confidence was hers as she made her way back to stand with him.

"So how is this going to work?"

"We're going to wait for your nanny, Carrie, to arrive and then we'll interview the two of you together. That way, things you might say might jog her to remember more and vice versa."

Emily groaned internally. "I'm not sure that's such a good idea. Some of the things I heard I really wish I hadn't and with Carrie's past, I'm not so sure she needs to know any of it that she doesn't already."

Cassie smiled. "Then perhaps we can go off to the side here and you can tell all of us what you heard and when Carrie arrives, we'll still interview you together, but you can just say something like, 'they conversed together for a minute before' or something similar without going into the details that you have already given us."

Phil nodded. "That works for me as well. Good thinking Cassie. Emily?"

She nodded with a small smile. "That works for me also, as does the sitting down part. I'm really very tired right now."

So she sat down at the table opposite Cassie, with Aaron at her side and the rest of the men strewn around the table on all sides, each with a notepad. Clare positioned herself near the door and stated that she would keep an eye out for Carrie and Mirkal, who also hadn't as yet arrived.

Emily kept her suspicions to herself about Mirkal also being absent. Particularly after an interesting and extremely private, girls only, conversation she'd once had with Carrie.

"How many languages do you speak Emily?" Cassie asked curiously.

"Three fluently, one not so much." At her enquiring look, she elaborated, "I speak Arabic, Spanish and Italian, but only a little bit of Russian. I read that last better than I speak it. You?"

"Spanish, French, Russian and Chinese fluently, as well as US sign language and a little Arabic and German. Again, I read the last two better than speaking them, but I can also write them better as well. The girls mentioned that the men who had you were speaking Arabic?"

"The two in the back with us conducted the majority of their conversation in Arabic, though they did speak heavily accented English when they addressed us. The two in the front only spoke in the last minute as the van started to slow and they too spoke Arabic, though not with the same confidence."

"How could you tell?"

"Their hesitancy, as if they were sounding the words out in their heads to ensure they came out right before speaking them. I've spent most of my life around people who are just beginning to learn a language so I know what it sounds like. They'd been speaking Arabic for years, but it wasn't their first language and that they still had to think about it tells me they aren't all that confident in it, even if they are fully in with the enemy."

"Enemy?" Phil asked curiously.

She shrugged and looked down. "The profiler in me carefully catalogued everything I saw, heard, smelt or touched so that I could give the most information should we get free. But I am still a victim and I will still have nightmares for years to come. You guys can refer to them as unsubs; I'll call them the enemy."

Aaron's hands settled on her tense shoulders and started a slow massage that made her want to melt as relaxation settled into her muscles. He finished the massage with a brief hug around her shoulders before stepping back again.

She lifted her head slowly and found everyone was watching her calmly, not seeming to be in a hurry to continue as they waited for her to pull herself together. She took a deep breath, settled herself more comfortably in the chair and nodded slightly.

"Okay, so thinking back to the first time they spoke a foreign language in front of you, were you surprised that they weren't using English?"

She shook her head slowly. "Not really. I could see from just the look of them that they weren't born in the US, or if they were, they had ancestors that definitely weren't. And their accents were incredibly thick."

"What were they discussing in the first instance?"

"They were happy that holding knives to JJ and Penelope had gained them the cooperation of the entire group and that we didn't appear to be looking for ways to escape; they were also happy that they hadn't had to cut anyone as they brought us under their control."

Cassie grinned. "I'll take it as a given that you were already assessing every variable looking for an avenue of escape, no matter how slim the hoped-for outcome might have looked. So this conversation was happening when exactly?"

"We were walking to the van, about 3 metres from us."

"Did they say anything else then?" When she'd shaken her head, Cassie made a notation on her notepad and asked, "What came next?"

"They threatened us a fair bit in English and said we would be driving for a long while so we might as well make ourselves comfortable. Penelope asked about toilet breaks and they said they'd think about it. She pointed out that a pregnant woman couldn't hold it as long as the rest of us and they told her in a more forceful voice that they'd think about it. It was obvious that if she continued to push him for a better answer, he wouldn't hesitate to hurt her to make a point. So she stopped speaking and they lapsed back into Arabic.

"It hurt to hear what they had to say. I gathered they were brothers from the way the younger one listened attentively to the older one explain that the younger one had a difficult choice to make; whether to abort Pen and JJ's babies medically or whether to let them go into the Ritual of Rebellion as they were and to see how they did coming out of it."

"Ritual of Rebellion?" Alex asked.

Emily turned her head slightly to regard him for a moment before she returned her attention fully to the woman in front of her.

"From what they were saying, I got the impression the woman is stripped naked, placed in a room with three 'holy men' for lack of a better term, and beaten almost to death in order to remove any spirits of rebellion they may have attached to them. They're then checked over by a doctor to ensure they aren't actually going to die and then they get placed in the temporary accommodation that is granted to the women who have not yet been through the marriage ceremony. Those women who are pregnant when they are taken are cleansed of the babe in their womb before the ritual to minimise the potential harm to the wife if a spirit latches on to the babe and causes excessive bleeding to occur."

"That's barbaric," Clare muttered angrily at the same time Alex challenged her quietly.

"How are you so certain of all that you've just told us?"

She shot him another look as she reigned in her annoyance over what would otherwise have been an extremely valid question. "By the sounds of it, the older brother had gone through this process twice and is mentoring the younger brother, who appeared to me to be slightly nervous, but desperate not to show this to someone he clearly idolises."

"What did they say next?" Cassie asked, shooting a look at Alex that clearly told him to stow whatever he was about to say in reply.

"The younger one asked his brother if the ritual could be skipped if he chose to let the women keep their babies and the older one shook his head sadly and said, "Remember the Rose Garden". The younger man flinched slightly, nodded gravely and that appeared to end that part of the conversation."

"Did they ever mention the Rose Garden again?"

"No. I gave it some thought when things were quiet and again over the last couple of days and I came to a fairly solid conclusion once I realised from Aaron how many women may have been kidnapped successfully before us." When Cassie nodded to her to share, she continued, "I figure that somewhere along the way, in maybe one or more times, someone tried to escape or perhaps in the early days bring others together to rebel against the men who held them. If they hadn't thought it all through, they may have simply killed those women and perhaps the Rose Garden is where they were buried. This is all just speculation of course."

Cassie nodded slowly. "Speculation it may be, but we are all about the theories at the moment since we have such little in the way of facts so I'll note that down and we can come back on it later. What next?"

"They stayed silent for a long time after that; they were clearly thinking about different things because the older one looked happy, and happier the further we went. The younger one looked troubled by something."

"Did they discuss..."

"No," Emily interrupted with a slight shake of her head. "The next time they spoke, the van was coming to a halt and they were threatening us to stay still and be quiet or someone would die. The drivers changed over and then we were off again. For the most part, they didn't talk a lot but they also didn't seem to mind if we talked quietly amongst ourselves either. The problem was, whenever they did speak, I would stop, so I think they may have figured out that I might understand what they were saying. But I'm not completely sure of that fact."

"So did they say anything else that might help us find them?"

"No...I really wish they had. But after that initial conversation, they only really spoke in English until right before we bailed out on the interchange. Then the discussion was focused on trying to figure out what was going on and what they should do. I may have missed parts of that discussion because I was fully focused on looking for the perfect opening. Everyone was looking at me and I was feeling the van as it slowed to a stop and thinking that this might be our only chance. Particularly since Austin was already bleeding badly and we didn't know what was happening; I knew we didn't have time to hesitate."

"That's understandable." She shot a look at Clare as the other woman made a soft noise. Cassie nodded her understanding and asked about the moments when Emily was assisting with getting all the women out of the van. Emily started trying to work through what she actually remembered about their rapid escape as Carrie walked in the door followed closely by Mirkal. Watching their body language, she smothered a smile.

Carrie and I are definitely overdue for a little heart to heart; oh yes we are.

End-

A/N: We're getting closer...

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