Somebody To Lean On -
A Criminal Minds Fan fiction -
Written By: AutumnMalarkey.
I apologise for any spelling mistakes or typo's in this story as it is my NaNoWriMo story, I feel that I barely have had the time to write it, let alone proof read it. However, if anyone wants to be my beta-reader they're welcome, just PM me.
This is dedicated to everyone who favourited and/or alerted to this story, of course, I got all of the e-mails and it's like a mini-review in a way, so thank you and enjoy! - AutumnMalarkey.
Chapter 2: Danger Danger.
"This is Mia Walker, she is 39, brunette and has a large build. She was killed just two days ago." JJ clicked the remote in her hand and a picture showed of a slaughtered woman lying in a dumpster. Everyone in the room sat un-cringed besides the Technical Analyst, Penelope Garcia. "3 other women were found in the exact same way, with the exact same look. Layla Jensen, was reported missing one month ago, and was found in a dumpster three weeks ago. Kaley Porter went missing a few hours after Layla's body was found three weeks ago and was found in a dumpster two weeks ago and Meaghan Howard was taken shortly after Kaley's body was found two weeks ago, and she was found last week." She clicked through each horrifying picture.
"So he basically takes them for a week, then kills them?" JJ nodded to Reid's question.
"Well, according to pattern, someone else has gone missing…" Emily inputted just as JJ clicked the remote in her hand again.
"Caitlin Bryan. Was reported missing three days ago by a neighbour." She informed them.
"Three days? That means we only have four more days to save her."
As Emily's eyes came to close she remembered the horrific memory of the last week. The sting in her arm, the bruise in her back, on her face. It was all too close for comfort. She remembers the body, lying in the dumpster, placed messily, blood everywhere. Her vomiting on the side and JJ coming over to her concerned. Emily had told her that today she was too tired to even bother compartmentalising. Everything was just too overwhelming and everything was taking it's toll on her. Hotch knew this was not going to be easy. Another woman would go missing soon and they still had no leads. They needed to stop it. So he did all he knew to do. Sent out one of his team undercover that fitted the profile, unfortunately, that meant Prentiss and her baby were at a risk. She regretted not telling him right then about the baby, but she could still do her job, so, dressing in slightly less professional clothing, she walked around the local park that lunch time, stopping to eat something, stopping at the swing park. But she carried on just walking through the park. As she came to a more secluded area, she heard leaves rustling. The footsteps and before she knew it, a cloth was over her mouth, knocking her to sleep… Waking up sometime that night, she heard Hotch talking in her ear, and her eyes flew open, only to reveal a dark, cold, horrible basement that she was stuck in. Her heart stopped, no sign of Hotch, maybe she had not been saved. But the voice came again.
"Prentiss… Emily, wake up." He must have said it another three or four times before she responded.
"I'm awake, Hotch." She heard relieved sighs.
"Can you tell us where you are?" He asked, hopefully.
"No, he knocked me out, I don't remember a thing." Now panic had started to set into her; if they could not get to her in time, she would be dead, and if they could not get to her in the next few hours, her baby might be too.
"Alright, don't panic, we're trying to find you now. Do you see anything that could be of use to us?" He asked, patiently. Emily's eyes, on the other hand, were doing the exact opposite as she panicked, looking round the room frantically she found a small window.
"There's a small window. Not big enough for me to climb through." She informed Hotch.
"Okay, try and look through it, see what is on the other side, anything that could be helpful." Still slightly dizzy from the drugs she walked, wobbly, over to the window and climbed on a desk to peer out.
"It seems to be a neighbour hood. Kids playing, people walking dogs. It's really surreal and calm." She told him.
"And I'm guessing that you are in a soundproof basement then?" He asked.
"I would think so, but I'm not testing it out." She heard Hotch rustle on the other end.
"Alright, that's understandable." He was about to say something else to Emily when he heard the basement door fly open and footsteps begin to heavily come down the stairs. His heart stopped in his chest.
Emily panicked, and raced back over to where she had previously lay on the floor, her eyes shutting once again as she pretended to still be asleep.
"Wakey, wakey." She heard his voice say, and he was quite obviously drunk.
Everything that happened next was a blur, a very painful one as she was dragged off of the floor by a man's hand in her hair. A punch to the face and she cried out, she was threw over into the wall on the side, and her back immediately bruised, and her arm collided with a fish hook on the wall as it dug in her right arm and ripped her skin open. Her left arm, all the time, staying at her stomach, stopping him from harming her baby. The next thing she remembered was grabbing a bucket of fish bait off of the shelf and hitting the unsub over the head with it, sending him flat out cold. Before she could do anything else, she raced up the stairs and tried to open the door, finding it to be locked she searched frantically for the key, but figured it probably had dropped somewhere amidst the fight. Instead of a key, she found his wallet, in his trouser pocket, and inside was his drivers license.
"Edd Harding." She said snappily. Waiting to hear a reply and in a second or two she heard Garcia telling the team an address.
"Okay, Em, we're coming." Morgan said into her ear piece.
"Hurry, please." Her eyes closed as she took herself away from the place, imagining herself to be lying in Hotch's arms, her baby next to them, and Jack smiling happily at the baby. All the time while clutching a plank she had managed to get off of an old boat in the basement; just a precaution in case he woke back up. Apparently he never did, as the next thing she remembered was the door flying off of it's hinges and a loud set of four or five footsteps coming down the stairs. Her eyes opened to meet the eyes of her team and she smiled slightly. JJ carefully guided her out of the basement and up onto the street where an EMT team waited.
Emily opened her eyes and looked around at the BAU jet. She saw everyone but Hotch asleep, and he was not watching her, so she slowly, trailed her hand to her stomach, and rubbed in small circles. She hated today, all the pain, she could have lost the baby at any moment. What if the punch had been to her stomach and not her face? Instead of her back going to the wall, it could have been her front. What had the drugs used to knock her out done to the baby? Of course she was not getting the baby checked out while the rest of the team were watching, so she decided that once they landed she would go to the hospital and get checked. Her teeth chewed at her bottom lip, trying to stop herself from wincing with the pain in her arm. Yes, she had been given painkillers, yes, they had stopped to get the prescription, no, she had not taken them. Emily already knew, on the back of the bottle lay a warning. 'Do not take if pregnant'. She guessed she had put the baby in enough danger today without adding that on top of it. Her heart sank; she was going to be an awful mother. She could not even protect the baby when it was in her womb never mind when it was born. That was it, today was too much of a close call for Emily, and she stood up and went over to the other person awake on the jet. As she walked over towards Hotch, her heart was beating sixty times a minute.
"Sir, can we talk?" She gulped slightly.
"Sure, Prentiss. Sit down." As she sat down, he put the file on the table in front of him. "What's this about?" Emily became lost for words, just staring into his eyes. "Prentiss?" He snapped her out of her thoughts, watching as she nervously twiddled her thumbs.
"I… er… I'm." She had no way how to phrase it, and with her nervousness it was not coming out right.
"Just calm down." She felt Hotch's hand steady hers which only made her more nervous. "Deep breath." She took a long, deep breath.
"I'm pregnant." She had no clue what was going on in Hotch's mind in the moment's pause, but she knew he figured out what she already had.
"Pregnant? As in…" He waited for her to finish.
"As I there is a baby in my stomach." She looked down at her hands.
"I got that, Prentiss. What I don't understand is how you allowed us to send you in as a hostage in the first place?" Emily heard his voice slowly raise which was not the best of things considering she did not want anyone else to know.
"I know, Hotch, just quieten down. Please." Looking into her eyes, Hotch saw a slight hint of fear, mixed with the pain from her injuries.
"Is the…" He quietened his tone to a whisper, "Is the baby okay?" For a moment Emily thought he was human!
"I don't know." Her eyes fell to her lap, avoiding the angry look from Hotch.
"Prentiss, how could you have not gotten checked out? You were drugged! Beaten!" He too looked down, missing her look of 'don't you think I already know that?' "Did you take your pain meds?" The shake of her head gave him relief. "Good, when the jet lands I will drive you to the hospital and they'll check, alright?" Emily knew the question was rhetorical, there was no way she had a choice about this.
"Yes, Sir." Another gulp made her add some more, "Please don't tell the rest of the team, not yet. I'm not ready. I will tell them when I am." A nod from Hotch made her relax a little more and both avoided each other's eyes until Emily's yawn snapped Hotch's eyes to meet her watery ones.
"Sleep." Was all he said and he watched as Emily began to stand up. "No, stay here and sleep. I'll get a blanket and pillow." As he stood up he watched the amused eye of Rossi who had woken up the second Emily tried to move back. Hotch gave him a smile before carrying the two things back, and a satisfied Rossi nodded back off to sleep. Carefully he helped Emily adjust so her back and arm were not causing her any pain and then threw the blanket over her. The last thing Emily remembered before she went to sleep was the one thing she would remember forever, the soft smile Hotch gave her, and the human words of, "Good night, Emily."
Emily was unsure what had woken her up, maybe it was just the plane moving? But she felt it again, it was like a soft nudge in her leg. That was weird, she thought as she sat up and her eyes fell into Hotch's brown ones.
"We're landing in fifteen." He informed her and Emily immediately registered that everyone else on the plane was still asleep and understood what Hotch had meant when he told her that. Slowly, as the ache in her back only increased, she went back to her seat, taking the blanket and pillow with her. Her eyes shut again, never realising how tired she was until she was in a deep sleep. Obviously, this sleep was not that deep, as she heard distorted voices in the back of her mind of Hotch waking everyone up on the plane and telling them they had ten minutes left. She then heard the distorted voice of Morgan, asking if they were going to wake her up yet. Then Hotch's answer of no, leave her to sleep for a little longer. The rest of the words became blur as she felt her mind leave completely and herself drop back into the full deep sleep she was accustomed to before.
The next time she woke up, it was because the cut in her arm was being poked and she really felt the sting that time. Instead of her eyes just opening, she shot up from her seat in an attempt to move her arm away from the thing causing her the pain, only to regret it as her head collided with Hotch's and she doubled back into her seat in pain.
"Ah, Hotch, sorry." She apologised fast and took a quick glance at him as he was checking his head for any blood or bump.
"It's fine, Prentiss, I should know better than to wake a sleeping, pregnant profiler." Now, if the poke had not woke her up before, it was the 'pregnant' part in his sentence. She looked around the jet frantically and saw that only her and Hotch remained in the metal container.
"Why are you the one still here?" She asked, holding her head still.
"I said I'd take you to the hospital, remember?" He then panicked, not that it was evident to Prentiss. "Did you bump your head too hard? We should get that checked out too…"
"No." Was all she stopped his rambling with. "I just need a blood test and a scan to find out what the hell the drug they used to knock me out with has done to the baby." She explained.
"But what if you have a concussion?"
"What are they going to do about it if I did?" Her eyes rolled.
"I guess they would probably send you home and not let you sleep for an hour or two and have someone watching you." He used his knowledge.
"I will be fine, Hotch, no one needs to watch me." She waited for a minute while he moved out of her way and she tried to get her go bag off of the shelf but Hotch beat her to it.
"Should not be carrying heavy things." He simply stated.
"It's not heavy, just a couple of tops and pants." She informed him as he put the blanket and pillow away before taking the bag off of her and helping her down the jet's stairs.
Arriving at the hospital in record time, Emily watches as Hotch races from one desk to another, trying to get her seen to as soon as possible. Once again, it's the three words 'injured' 'agent' and 'pregnant' that make them get a move on, and before she knows it, she's in a horrible room again, this time on a stingy little beige bed in a foul hospital night gown. When the doctors told her they had found no problem with the foetus she was relieved, but they said they should monitor her for any changes. That is how she ended up here. The only big difference to last time was the company. Last time she was all alone and had instructed Garcia to stay in the visitor's room, this time she was not so sure if she could have made Hotch stay there, but she was not going to protest, to be honest the company was nice. She had watched as Hotch left the room to call Jessica and tell her that he would not make it home that night. When he returned he seemed slightly pissed, so obviously that phone call did not go too well. So, Emily tried to convince him to leave, but he would not. It was a few hours after she was admitted, and horrible machines were wired to her stomach, that she finally felt her eyes close, but before she did, she tried to get Hotch to leave again.
"Go home, Hotch. Get some sleep." She tried to convince him.
"Go to sleep, Prentiss." As she dozed off she remembered him reaching over to hold her hand, and his other hand moving some hair off of her face. Both of them combined with the smile he had given her on the plane and the safety of her baby was beginning to make this a perfect day.
As she slowly woke up, her eyes opened and took in the bright light and she immediately squinted at the bright light of the sun shone in her eyes. She smirked with amusement hearing a soft snore to the side of her. A laugh through her nose at his expense woke her truly up and she attempted to sit up, forgetting that his hand was still locked in hers. The tug on his hand made him jump awake, with his profiler alert and he looked around frantically, but he stopped seeing Emily awake.
"Morning." He took his hand from hers. "Stay lying down until you get the all clear." He told her and Emily knew she had no choice but to stay down. She regretted waking him up now!
"Morning to you too, snore-y head." She laughed slightly and Hotch turned a slight shade of red.
"Sorry, did my snoring wake you up?" He wiped some sleep from his eyes and watched as she shook her head.
"No, I don't know what woke me up…" After a moments thought, her stomach began to rumble and she realised what had woken her up. "I guess it's that." Hotch gave her a little smile as she too turned slightly red.
"How about I go and get a doctor to check you over and then we go and get some breakfast?" Emily paused.
"Shouldn't you be home by now? Taking Jack to school?" She asked, afraid of the affect that night would have had on the boy.
"It's alright, Emily, don't worry. He's used to daddy not being there to take him to school." Emily groaned, not accepting that as an answer.
"What time is it?" She asked, starting to get up.
"It's just half seven." He informed her, "Prentiss, what are you doing?" He asked, not liking the look of her trying to get up, and the pain on her face as she tried to use her bad arm to get herself up.
"I'm discharging myself. I feel fine Hotch, but we both know Doctor's rounds are about ten, and if we leave now, we can pick Jack up and drop him at school." She saw him surrender, knowing the idea of seeing his little boy's happy face would make his day.
"Okay, let me just get someone to check you over first anyway." Emily knew it was a compromise so she agreed and waited for Hotch to return with a nurse.
Once she was told she was fine, Emily asked to be discharged, which, of course, the nurse protested against because it was standard procedure. But Emily decided to discharge herself anyway, and now she waited in Hotch's car, outside Hotch's house as he got Jack ready and in no time the young boy appeared at the door of the house a smile on his face that Emily knew was only reserved for his Daddy. As he raced over to the car, he threw his door open and willingly climbed into his seat, waiting for Hotch to come out and buckle him in. It had only been two minutes that they had been waiting, all the time both had been chatting with each other, but the door was also open and Emily was finding it to be unreasonably cold, so she got out of her seat and went to buckle Jack in. By the time she had clipped in the young boys' seat belt with great difficulty because of her arm, she had learned that Jessica and Hotch were having an argument, and it was over her and Jack. Her heart broke as Jack told her about the argument, and learning that he hated to see his Aunt and Daddy arguing made her tear up slightly. Even though it was only slightly, Jack saw the tears and wrapped his arms around her, enveloping her in a deep hug.
"It's okay, Em'ly. I love you." If she was not already going to cry, the words the small boy had just said were enough to make her well up all over again.
"I love you too, Jack." She gave him a small peck on the cheek, which made her smile as Jack quickly wiped away the lipstick mark she had left. "I will be right back." She told him before shutting the car door and taking Hotch's key from the ignition and locking it.
Entering the house Emily felt the mood change dramatically. She heard shouting, a lot of it, and really bad words being passed between the two people. Some of them calling her all kinds of bad things, others calling Hotch bad things and some calling Jessica bad things. And it was all over Jack. Apparently it was her fault that Jack had been sadder lately, because Hotch had been spending all of his time with her. Of course, he had been spending a lot of time with her, but he had been spending it all with the team too. The past night had been the only time he had spent with Prentiss alone. That was all. Of course, Hotch shouted that back at Jessica, and more bad words were flew around about Emily, now, she felt would be a really bad time to interrupt. But, sensing that Jack would be getting impatient in the car, she pushed the kitchen door open. The daggers that flew at her were enough to make her pass out.
"Hotch, Jack's getting impatient." She informed him.
"Oh, pretending you care now. Well, you didn't care last night when he was asking for his dad to tuck him in!" As she lunged towards Emily, she backed away slightly, not wanting to put her baby in harm again.
"Jessica, leave her the hell alone!" Hotch pulled her backwards, not in an attempt to hurt her, but in an attempt to protect Emily.
"Sticking up for her again!" She shouted and turned to pull her arm out of Hotch's. "I'm sure Little Miss Perfect over here can handle herself!" She shouted, and before she lunged to hit Emily, Emily moved out of the way.
"Prentiss, go to the car and stay there, I'll be out in a minute." She did not have to be told twice and as she left the house she heard more shouts.
It seemed to be forever until Hotch left the house and when he did, Emily could tell things did not end too well, and by the marks on his hand that were clearly scratches on his hand that was on the stirring wheel, Emily knew it had definitely ended badly. Dropping Jack off at school proved to be a bad idea as all he seemed to do was talk, and without him in the car, silence filled all of the space and Hotch could feel Emily's awkwardness.
"It's not your fault." He said, not looking at her and still looking straight at the road although he could see Emily turn to look at him from the corner of his eye.
"But the argument wouldn't have happened if it weren't for me." She tried to reason the blame onto herself but Hotch was having none of it.
"You tried to make me go home, I refused, it was all down to me. And anyway, I could have been at work that night anyway, I know I probably would have bee anyway, you were just a good reason not to be in the office for a night." Emily believed that to be true.
"But your hand, Hotch." She looked at the marks, which now were red and sticking out of his hand.
"It's nothing, Prentiss. Nothing compared to the damage of what she could have done if she had got her hands on you." Emily looked down.
"But…" Hotch cut her off.
"No buts. Look, Emily, I am the only other person that knows about the baby, and I swear no harm will come to that child while I'm around." She looked down and nodded.
"Fine." She surrendered.
"Alright, now where are we going for breakfast?" She looked up to see him smiling at her which made her smile back.
"I don't know, you pick, Sir." Emily knew, she was happy for the time being of just letting him know about the baby and as Hotch suggested places that she was not really paying attention to, her hand went to her stomach and her smile grew wider.