A/N: Here's another chapter which kind of took off once I started writing. Thanks for reading, reviewing, following and favouriting. I hope you like it.

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In all the years Derek had been travelling back to Chicago to visit his family, the drive from the airport to his mother's house had never seemed to take so long. It had been a bad idea to fly, even if Emily was still insistent that any other means of transport would have been more tiring. She'd spent most of the journey with her eyes squeezed shut, trying to block out the spells of pain and vertigo. While he'd tried not to make it too obvious, he'd been watching every move she made for the entirety of the hour and a half they had been on the plane. Now she'd fallen asleep, with her head resting against the passenger side window of the rental car, but he just wanted to get her somewhere she could properly rest.

As he made his way along the familiar streets he couldn't help glancing towards her. Just to check she was okay; just to remind himself she was actually with him. He'd brought a few girls home before, but none were like Emily. He knew that and he knew his family would pick up on it almost instantly. And maybe that was why he'd been nauseous since they left the hotel.

He rounded the final corner and saw his childhood home come into sight. After everything that had happened it seemed to draw him in with the promise of safety and normality. He liked the thought that, as they pulled up outside, his mom would be fussing over whether she had everything she needed to feed her son and his girlfriend, despite the fact there was a twenty-four hour convenience store just a few blocks away. Her mind wouldn't have been lingering on the circumstances of their visit like his was.

"Emily, wake up," he called, as he killed the engine. Reaching over to the passenger seat, he smoothed her hair back from her face. "Come on, Princess, we're here."

He frowned as she slowly came round and mumbled something incoherent. He was starting to think it might have been a better idea to let her rest at home for a couple of days before they travelled to Chicago. The journey had left her exhausted.

Realising she would need some help, he got out of the car and round to her side.

"Let's get you inside," he soothed, wrapping his arm around her to ease her drowsy body out of the car.

She complied with barely any conscious thought, and it wasn't until the cold air hit her face that she properly opened her eyes.

"We're here?" she half-repeated, half-questioned. The thought filled her with an odd sense of fear. Meeting his family, as his girlfriend rather than a team member, was something she had been dreading even when she was at full strength.

"You can lie down soon," he promised, pressing his lips to her forehead as they stood on the doorstep. "My mom will understand."

Oblivious to what was going on outside, Fran Morgan dashed from the kitchen to greet her son as soon as she heard the door bell. It had been several months since he'd last been home and the smile which lit up her face didn't even begin to cover how happy she was to see him.

"Oh, honey! What's happened?" she gasped her expression dropping as she opened the door to find her son supporting his bruised and battered girlfriend. Her eyes flicked between the couple, searching for an explanation. This wasn't what she'd been expecting.

"Mom, can we just get inside first?" Derek asked, maintaining a tight grasp on Emily's arm.

"Of course," Fran nodded, stepping aside and ushering them in, as her shock was quickly replaced with the instinct to take care of the couple. She didn't need her son's level of training to see there was an ulterior motive to their visit.

What on earth was her baby boy caught up in?

/
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The office was littered with the debris of another sleepless night, and it filled the air with the nauseating scent of sickly sweet energy drinks and leftover take-out. Amongst it all, he sat at the desk, his foot tapping against his chair as the number he was dialling rang out. All the time his agitation grew. They should have provided him with an address by now. He had to speak to her.

When someone finally knocked on the door, he jumped, swiping his barely touched tray of Kung Pao chicken onto the floor.

"Don't do that!" he yelled, as Damien and another man entered the room.

"Man, you need to lay off on the caffeine," Damien remarked, though his tone lacked the easy humour it had carried the previous day. His friend and business partner was spiralling out of control and it was starting to put him on edge.

"Where is she?" Connor demanded, his frantic gaze settling on the man he now recognised as the person he'd hired to watch Lauren.

The man in question turned towards Damien with a worried frown. After a nod of encouragement from the latter, and a little hesitation, he answered the question.

"They left the hotel this morning and went to the airport."

"Where did they go?" Connor demanded, springing to his feet as his agitation overspilled.

"I don't know. I couldn't go inside. There's too much security at an airport," he replied, turning paler as Connor's jaw locked into a growl of frustration.

Too much security? What did he mean there was too much security? He only wanted him to follow her. It wasn't like he was expecting to snatch her there and then.

"Find her," Connor instructed.

"I don't think..."

"Find her!"

He grabbed the gun from his desk and pointed it directly between the man's frightened eyes. His sweaty palms had to adjust their grip to prevent the metal slipping free, but he kept the trembling weapon trained on its potential target. It was only at the click of metal from his other side that he looked away.

"Put it away," Damien warned, his own gun directed towards his friend. "Don't be an eejit."

Connor's heart thundered erratically in his chest, as he slowly lowered his arms. Only when the weapon was safely returned to the desk did Damien do the same. The third man backed away towards the door, eager to make his escape.

"Not so fast," Damien told him, nodding at Connor as though to assure him that, despite what had happened, he had his back. "He's right about Lauren. Find her."

"Her name's not even..."

Damien's stern expression cut his response short. He knew that the woman they were talking about was called Emily, but provoking Connor wasn't going to do anything to help the situation.

"I'll find her," the man assured them with no real conviction, finally rushing out of the door and away from the risk of sustaining a bullet wound. Getting involved in this had been a big mistake.

Once he and Connor were left alone, Damien scanned the office and took in the full extent of the mess. His friend's appearance mirrored the state of the room. Dishevelled and crumpled, as he mumbled to himself, he'd be mistaken for someone homeless and crazy if he stepped outside.

"Thank you," Connor said suddenly, somewhat snapping back to reality. "We can't have men that don't follow orders."

"You need to drop this obsession with Lauren," Damien muttered in response. He wasn't sure if the other man was making him more annoyed or worried. "And you need to get some sleep."

Connor shook his head defiantly.

"There's too much to do. I need to speak to Lauren before Valhalla."

Damien only just restrained himself from knocking his friend to the floor. The use of code words and aliases was beginning to infuriate him beyond belief. All he wanted to do was retrieve and offload the guns and ammunition before it got them killed. He didn't have time for Connor's increasingly risky schemes and tributes to Doyle.

"I'm going home," he announced, before he really did lose his temper. "You should do the same."

"I'm better working alone anyway!" Connor shouted, in the direction of the closing door.

He threw himself back down onto the desk chair and stared at the ceiling, picking out shapes in the cracks and shadows of the white plaster. Why couldn't the others see that there was a way things had to be done? You had to look out for the people you cared about. You had to protect the innocents who needed defending. And you had to honour those who'd been lost.

Damien didn't understood that, but she did.

Eventually the room grew too quiet, and all he could hear was his own fast heartbeat. He couldn't just wait around for everything to fall into place when there was only one person who could help him. Knowing and accepting that it was a risk, he picked up the phone and dialled the number he had scribbled down when he saw it cross the TV screen for the tenth time in the early hours of the morning.

"I need to speak to Lauren Reynolds," he informed the puzzled operator. "She isn't really dead."

/
/

"How's it going?" JJ asked, approaching the two-way mirror, where Hotch watched Rossi and Reid interrogate Mark Pearson. She was still a little annoyed to be kept away, but was doing her best to hide it.

"He still doesn't think he's giving anything away," he replied, not taking his eyes off of the man in question.

"But he is?" JJ continued, sounding hopeful.

Hotch nodded.

"The cover business is in his brother's name, but he's definitely in charge of the operation. He's arrogant, narcissistic and believes he's untouchable."

JJ smiled slightly at her unit chief's summary. It was almost a certainty that their suspect would trip up soon. She turned her attention to what was happening on the other side of the glass.

"JJ, I need you to know that my decision to take you out of the field isn't a reflection on your strength as an agent," he told her, after several moments of silence. It had been weighing on his mind that she might have been offended at having no say in the matter when he normally afforded his agents a degree of leeway.

"Hotch, you don't need to say anything," she assured him. "I understand why you did it."

He smiled - at least she wasn't stretching the truth as far as to say that she was okay with being cooped up in the office.

"You need to stop second guessing yourself," she continued, placing a hand on his arm. It was unsettling to see Hotch lacking confidence and she knew she wasn't the only one to have noticed it.

Before he could respond, they were both distracted by the sound of someone clattering along the corridor.

"Sir! Boss man!" Garcia called, almost breaking into a jog as she raced towards them.

"What's wrong?" Hotch asked, immediately reacting to the obvious urgency in her voice.

"There's a caller on the tip-line," she informed him, slightly out of breath. "The call's been put through to your office."

He waited for the key point in her hurried explanation before he took off.

"He wants to speak to Lauren Reynolds."

/
/

What should have been an occasion for smiles, as Fran cut up the cake she had baked for their visit, had turned into a more tense affair. Derek and Emily sat side by side on one sofa, while Fran and Desiree were perched on the other. Sarah returned from the kitchen, with the last of the mugs of coffee, to complete the group.

"Thank you," Emily smiled, as Sarah pressed the warm mug into her hands. If anything could counteract the concussion and medication it was strong black coffee.

"Are you sure you don't want to lie down?" Fran checked again, frowning at the younger woman's washed out pallor.

"I'm fine," she insisted. "Really," she added, as Fran shared a look of disbelief with her daughters.

Derek placed his hand on his girlfriend's knee and patted it reassuringly. From the disoriented and drowsy woman he'd helped from the car, Emily had transformed into someone much more like her formidable self, but he hadn't failed to notice the effort it was taking.

"Are you going to tell us what happened?" Desiree asked, directing the question at the front of everyone's mind towards Derek. "Was it something at work?"

He sighed, knowing they weren't going to be satisfied without a proper answer. He'd decided not to explain the circumstances when he called to arrange the visit. But while his family didn't like to be reminded of the dangers of their line of work, their was no explaining away Emily's injuries.

"I got into an altercation with a suspect," Emily began, sensing Derek's hesitation and stepping in. "I was taking care of a victim at a safe house when we were attacked. But it looks worse than it is," she finished with an attempt at a smile.

"Emily just needs some rest, and we wanted to visit the next time we had the chance anyway," Derek added, moving his hand away from her knee to wrap her fingers in his. She'd done a pretty good job of telling the truth but playing it down.

"Then we're glad to have you here," Fran smiled, accepting the explanation and making a conscious effort to move on. She got to spend little enough time with her son to spend it eyeing him, and his partner, with worried suspicion. "I've been telling Derek he's kept you to himself for too long! He does nothing but talk about you!"

"Mom," Derek muttered, as his sisters made no effort to hide their smirks.

Emily smiled along with the girls, relaxing slightly as the atmosphere gradually changed. If she could just ignore the pounding in her head for the time it took them to drink their coffee, then this might just be okay.

/
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It didn't take long after Penelope's notification for the team to gather in Hotch's office. The call had been placed on speaker, and while the unit chief took charge, and Penelope traced the caller's location, the others listened intently.

"This is SSA Aaron Hotchner. Can I ask who I'm speaking with?"

"I need to speak to Lauren Reynolds," the voice demanded, revealing an accent which suggested an Irish influence, but a long time spent in the US.

"There's no one here by that name," Hotch replied.

They heard a thumping noise, which sounded very much like fists slamming into a table.

"I know there's no one by that name," the caller hissed. "But I also know she works for you."

Hotch looked at Rossi for confirmation that he was adopting the right strategy, and then continued.

"I'm sorry, I don't know a Ms Reynolds."

"She goes by a different name," came the frustrated response. "Agent Emily Prentiss," he completed, with a reluctant sigh.

From the corner of the room, Garcia signalled that she had latched onto the location. Knowing that the pressure was off to keep the caller on the line, Hotch was less hesitant in his reply.

"Agent Prentiss is unavailable just now," he advised. "Do you have a message for her?"

They were greeted with a prolonged silence from the other end of the line, as the unknown man contemplated his options.

"She knows what she has to do. She's done it before," he replied at last, before abruptly ending the call.

/
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As Emily opened her eyes, she was confused about where she was and what was going on. It took a second for her to recognise her surroundings as Fran Morgan's living room, and even then she couldn't quite piece together how she'd gone from drinking coffee with her partner's family, to waking up on the sofa. Instinctively, she began to scan the room for answers, but preferably for Derek.

"He's just gone to the store to pick up a few things," Fran informed her guest, noticing that she was awake. "How are you feeling?"

Emily tried to shrug off the blanket which covered her body, and sit up before she replied to the older woman. The impression she wanted to leave with Morgan's family was not one of her lying like a sick child tucked up on the sofa. Her body however had other ideas, and the wave of dizziness and shock of pain that forced her to lie back down more or less answered Fran's question.

At the look of worry on Fran's face, she forced herself to speak.

"I should have taken a painkiller earlier," she mumbled, pinching the bridge of her nose and giving up on any chance of getting herself upright.

"Where are they, honey?" Fran asked, quickly getting to her feet. She'd nursed Derek through his fair share of concussions when he played football, and she was more than ready to do the same for his girlfriend, even if her injury had come about in more frightening circumstances.

"My purse," Emily replied, too focussed on the ache spreading throughout her skull to care that she was no longer putting on a front for the woman.

Ignoring the sense that she was intruding into someone else's personal space, Fran reached for the black leather purse and began to search for the pills. As she reached for the bottle, eager to bring the brunette some relief, her hand fumbled through the purse's contents and a pink pacifier fell to the floor.

Had Emily's half-shut eyes not grown wide at the sight, Fran would have thought nothing of it. Someone of Emily's age was bound to have friends with young children. She'd have assumed it had found its way into her belongings while babysitting or after visiting a friend, and simply dropped it back where it came from. But Emily's slightly panicked expression made it clear there was a more significant story.

It was, however, a story which could wait until her son's girlfriend wasn't in too much pain to lift her head from the arm of the sofa.

"Here you go," she soothed, crouching beside Emily as she scanned the label and tipped the correct dose of pills from the bottle. There was already a glass of water on the coffee table, from when Emily had first fallen asleep and Derek had done his best to make sure she'd have everything she needed when she woke up. Placing the painkillers in Emily's hand, she reached for the glass. "Do you need a hand?" she asked.

Emily's embarrassment was quickly starting to rival her need for pain relief, but even she could see a few more seconds of humiliation would be better than trying to ride out the headache. She nodded slightly, slipping the pills into her mouth before Fran brought the glass to her lips. Swallowing quickly, she offered a faint smile of thanks.

"Fran," she began, her thoughts drifting back to Lucy's pacifier.

"You can tell me later," the other woman cut her off, realising where the conversation was headed. "Just get some rest just now."

Emily let her eyes close again, more as a means of stopping the room from spinning than anything else, but it wasn't long before she felt the weight of the blanket being pulled back over her body and her mind growing hazy.

Fran paused for a moment before she walked away. Even as she drifted to sleep, Emily looked troubled, and there was definitely something off with Derek as well. She suspected it ran far deeper than whatever had caused Emily's physical injuries, and before either of them had a chance to leave her house she was going to reach the bottom of it. They might have been the big tough FBI agents, but that didn't mean a mother's touch couldn't make things better.