Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and all characters and recognisable themes belong to the respected creators.
Warzone:
'Okay, that's great Reid, that's really great. Alright, well call us if you need us pretty boy and give Emma our love', Morgan tells Reid down the phone.
It was only when Emma's adoptive parents had finally arrived at the hospital, after having been stuck in traffic for hours because of a serious snow storm, that Reid finally left his sister's bedside to give the team an update.
After snapping his phone shut, he walked back into the small hospital room. Emma was sat up in the bed, wearing a grey jacket and looked up and instantly smiled when she saw her brother enter the room.
'Is everything all right?', she asked Reid.
'Oh yeah, everything's fine, the team send their love', Reid said smiling. 'Hey, uh, do you mind if I get some coffee?'.
At this, both Emma, Julie and Harry started laughing.
'Yeah that's fine', Emma replied, 'But I swear you drink waaay too much of that stuff though'.
'HEY!', Reid protested, putting his arms up in his defence.
'You do! I'd like to see you find some statistics in that brain of yours that show the benefits of drinking 6 cups of coffee each day, each with about 4 spoonfulls of sugar in!', Emma replied.
Reid paused for a moment, before saying, 'I'll get back to you on that one', before leaving the room to get his coffee.
The team all looked up anxiously, after Morgan entered the room in the police station after his phone call with Reid.
'She's fine. She came out of surgery a couple of hours ago and she's consciouss and talking', he told them.
JJ and Garcia breathed sighs of relief, whilst Emily asked,
'And is Reid okay?'.
'Yeah, he's good now. Relieved as hell I think. You know it's still weird to hear him talk about his little sister like that', Morgan replied as he joined the team who were looking over all of the notes on the case.
'He clearly adores her', Garcia said with a small smile on her face. 'But I'm glad he has someone, I've always thought of Reid as so lonely.'
'So, have the police found Parker yet?', Morgan asked.
'Not yet', was Hotch's reply, a grim look on his face. 'It seems he's got lucky with the snow - it's pretty much covered all of his tracks'.
The police had quickly begun to search the area around the warehouse for Parker, but a heavy snow storm quickly meant that their search was unsuccessful.
'Well, at least we know he can't leave the country', Emily stated, 'We gave all the airports his description'.
'No, he won't leave. He wants to see what he's done - the damage to Reid', Gideon muttered. 'He knew we'd find the warehouse, that's why he left the note. His appartment was empty, but his car's still missing. He's got to have some other property here'.
'Well if he does, it has to be under another name. I literally searched everything and the appartment and the warehouse was the only property I could find', Garcia told them.
'Maybe there's a clue to where his other residence is in the warehouse, is it still being searched?', JJ suggested, looking round at the team.
'I think forensics might still be there. But it'll take us too long to travel to that warehouse again in this weather. Time we can't afford to waste', Hotch said quietly. 'Can any of you remember anything odd or significant about the warehouse that might give us any clues?'.
After a few moments, Morgan broke the silence,
'Hey Prentiss, what you thinking?'.
'Did it not strike anybody else as odd that Emma's head wound, which was clearly the wound that he made when he first kidnapped her, didn't leave a trail of blood through the warehouse?', Emily asked, her face showing her to be deep in thought.
'What do you mean?', Gideon asked.
'Well, if he'd taken Emma straight there after he'd kidnapped her, then there'd be a trail of blood, because the head wound would still have been fresh and bleeding heavily. I don't think this is the kind of guy who cleans up after himself, so he must have taken Emma to another location prior to keeping her in the warehouse, somewhere where her head wound stopped bleeding so much', Emily said.
'I think you're right.', Hotch told her.
'Well, we all know what this means', Morgan sighed.
'A cognitive interview', Gideon murmered.
'There's no way Reid's gonna agree to that. You heard him, he's never gonna let anything hurt Emma again. I highly doubt he's gonna let us get her to relieve almost the entire experience', Emily protested.
'We have no other choice. This may be our only way of catching this guy', Hotch said.
'Wait, wait', JJ interrupted, looking confused. 'How do we even know Emma would have been consciouss at all until you guys found her. It was a wound to the head, wouldn't that have knocked her out?'.
'We spoke to the paramedics at the warehouse and they said the head wound wasn't actually that deep. So there's a big chance that she would have drifted in and out of conscioussness at some point. There's no memory loss, so those moments are probably still there in her head somewhere', Gideon said.
'And you're gonna draw those back out of her', Garcia asked, looking concerned.
'Babygirl, we don't have any other choice. She's our only living witness. You know we wouldn't do this unless it was absolutely necessary', Morgan told her, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.
Garcia huffed, slumping back in her chair, before reluctantly saying, 'Okay. But I think Reid's gonna be a lot harder to convince.'
'We'll bring him round', Hotch said, sounding confident but not looking it.
JJ looked at her watch before saying, 'Hey you guys. You might wanna leave for the hospital now - official visiting times don't start for an hour but in this snow, it's gonna take you a while to get there'.
'Okay, let's get going then', said Morgan, grabbing his jacket.
'Hey, I think we should all go', Hotch told them, 'It'll be good for Reid to have our support and I don't know about you, but I think we've all seen enough crime scene photos for today'.
'Oooh! This is so exciting, we're all gonna get to meet Reid's little sister!', Garcia squeled, making the other team members laugh as they all left for the hospital.
JJ was right. The snow meant that it took the team an hour and a half to finally reach the hospital. They'd already called Reid to let him know they were coming, but they hadn't told him why yet.
They found the young genius waiting in the corridor outisde Emma's ward for them. The team were relieved to see Reid looking slightly better than when they had last seen him - the dark circles were still there and his eyes were still slightly red, but at least he looked a lot happier than before.
'Hey, you okay?', JJ asked in a concerned tone as she quickly hugged Reid.
'Yeah, I'm a bit better thanks', he said quietly, giving the team a small smile.
'And your sister's okay?', Garcia enquired.
'Yeah, she's good', Reid replied, smiling a little wider, 'The doctor said she's responding well to the drugs. She's gonna have to stay in for a few more days, but she should be fine.' He paused before gesturing to the door to the ward, saying 'Are you guys gonna come in? I have to get back to Em. Julie and Harry went to pick up some of her stuff and I don't want her to be alone for too long.'
'Lead the way', was Emily's reply, as she looked back at the other members' of the team nervously: this was not going to be easy.
'So how's the case coming along?', Reid asked as he lead the team towards Emma's room.
'Actually that's what we needed to talk to you about', Hotch said.
'Okay?', Reid said, sounding confused at why everyone was looking at him like he had his gun pointed at them. He paused outside his sister's room, before deciding not to go in and he turned back around to face the rest of the team. 'What's going on?'.
'We worked out that Parker must have a third residence, seeing as he's not at the warehouse or his appartment, and his car's still missing, but we don't know where that is yet', Hotch told him.
'Uh, okay. What does that have to do with me?', Reid replied, a perplexed look still on his face.
'Prentiss noticed that there was no trail of blood in the warehouse, suggesting he took Emma to this residence where her head wound stopped bleeding so badly, before he took her to the warehouse', Gideon said, looking directly at Reid to see if he had worked out what they were getting at yet.
Seeing that the young genius' brain hadn't quite clocked onto their plan yet (they all assumed it was because his trail of thought was still somewhere with Emma), Emily added calmy, but hesitantly,
'Reid we need to do a cognitive interview with Emma'.
Reid's face expression suddenly became that of anger and his stance turned defensive towards the door to his sister's room,
'NO! No way!', he shouted.
'Reid, come on man, she's our only living witness, you know we don't have any other choice!', Morgan said.
Seeing that Emma was beginning to notice that something was happening outside her room, Reid led his team members closer towards the ward desk, saying,
'I don't care! I am NOT gonna let her relieve that! I promised to protect her, what kind of brother do you think I am if I'm gonna let Em have to go over all of what happened to her?', he said fiercly.
'Hey, Reid, we get that, we really do. We don't wanna have to make your sister relieve it any more than you do', JJ sighed, 'But this could be our only chance of catching this guy. Don't you wanna see the person who did this to Emma put behind bars?'.
'Not like this', Reid hissed.
Just as the team thought they were getting nowhere, they heard a door open and then footsteps behind them. Emma was slowly limping towards them rolling the drip she was attached to beside her, still wearing the hospital gown, but with the grey jacket on too.
This was the first time JJ and Garcia had seen Emma in the flesh, and Morgan, Emily, Hotch and Gideon had seen her without being covered in blood. Upon laying their eyes on the young girl, JJ and Garcia gasped and the rest of the team looked stunned; Emma looked startingly like her brother, the same hair colour, the same eyes, nose and mouth. She was quite small, with long, wavy hair and she was wearing glasses, which reminded them even more of Reid. She wasn't obviously pretty, but you could tell by looking at her that she was intelligent, yet she didn't have an arrogant air about her. The likeness with Reid, meant that the team almost didn't notice her injuries, but after a few moments they did in fact see that she had small cuts and a few stiches on her face, as well as a gauze and bandage over her head wound and the way she was walking didn't let them forget about the injuries to her abdomen; upon seeing these, and seeing just how fragile and innocent Emma looked, evoked a sense of guilt amongst the team about what they were asking.
'What's going on?', Emma asked as she walked over towards the team. She had a London-English accent, but not a strong one, and she looked curiously at her brother for the answer to her question.
'Em, what are you doing? You're not supposed to be out of bed sweetheart, you're in pain!', Reid said, his voice soft and gentle, but with a slight hint of panic in it, and he looked a little distressed as he saw that Emma was limping. He walked over towards his sister, but before he could try to help her back into her room, she said,
'I'm not leaving until you tell me what's going on. Is it about Parker?'
'Nothing's going on, everything's fine', Reid replied, sounding exasperated.
'Uh, actually...', Emily began, but Reid cut her off,
'No', he said simply, giving his team a look as if to say 'You dare'.
'Oh my gosh, is this the team Spence?', Emma suddenly said, her voice sounding brighter, and a smile beginning to form on her face, as she realised who these people were.
'Yes we are!', was Garcia's enthusiastic reply. 'Hi, I'm Penelope, but everyone calls me Garcia!'. She smiled happily at Emma, who grinned back.
The rest of the team, who weren't as forward as Garcia, looked at Reid, waiting for him to introduce them.
'Yeah, it is Em', he said, a half smile managing to creep onto his face, 'This is Hotch, Gideon, JJ, Emily and Morgan', he gestured to each member as he said their name.
The team noticed that Emma blushed slightly, a rush of pink to her pale cheeks, when Morgan gave her a little wave and a smile, and she smiled shyly back at him.
'So, what were you gonna say before Spence interrupted you?', Emma said, regaining her composure slightly.
'I said no. Not a chance in hell', Reid reminded the team.
'Oh come on, why can't you tell me? I'm curious now', Emma chimed in.
'Can't we at least ask if your sister's willing to do it?', Gideon gently asked Reid.
Looking between the interested face of his sister and the pleading faces of his team, Reid sighed.
'Fine, but only if Em's one hundred percent okay with it!', he said defensivly.
'That's fine. Thank-you', Emily said, looking at Reid, her expression a mixture of gratefullness and understanding.
'But can we at least get you back into your room first Em, I don't like seeing you in pain sweetheart', Reid said affectionately, turning to his sister, who nodded. He helped Emma back into her room, the team following closely behind him.
Once they had all filed into the room, Reid sat down next to his sister, lightly holding her hand, and Hotch and Gideon stood by the door, Morgan said,
'We want to do what's called a cognitive interview with you'.
'What's a cognitive interview?', Emma asked.
'It's a special kind of interview where we try to draw out the specific details of what you can remember from your experience using your senses', Emily told her. 'We believe that our unsub had taken you to another residence, prior to taking you to the warehouse, and although you may not remember much about it now, we'd like to see if this interview could give us some insight on what this residence is like and the area around it'.
Before Emma could say anything, Reid turned to his sister and said,
'Em, it would mean you having to remember things about what happened to you - things that you don't remember now because your brain's stopping you from remembering them - to protect you. Do you really want to relieve all that?'.
Instead of answering her brother's question, Emma instead turned to the rest of the team and asked,
'Will it help to catch him?'.
'Yes, we believe it would', Hotch replied gently.
Emma then turned back to face her brother, who had a pleading look on his face.
'I have to do it Spence, or at least try. I want to help', she said stubbornly. Just as Reid was about to say something, Emma quietly asked, 'What if he comes after you? What if he hurts you because I didn't help you guys? Do you think I could live with that guilt?'.
After a few moments, Reid sighed, 'Fine', he said quietly. 'But I'm gonna be in the room during the interview! And if you want to stop at all during it, just say Em, okay?'.
'Don't worry, I'll scream the place down', Emma said jokily, which made her brother smile.
'Okay, well I suggest Morgan and Emily stay in here and conduct the interview and we'll be waiting outside', Hotch told the team.
'Sounds like a plan', Gideon said, as he, Hotch, JJ and Garcia made their way out of the hospital room.
'Wait!', Emma cried, stopping them in their tracks. She nodded towards a vending machine just outside the door of her room, saying 'Those tubs of Ben and Jerry's ice cream have been looking at me for the past four hours. Seeing as worry guts over here (she jerked her head towards her brother, causing the rest of the team to laugh) won't let me get out of bed to get one myself, is there any chance one of you could get me one please, if you don't mind that is? I have the money!', she asked tentatively, looking around for her purse and pulling out a few pound coins.
JJ smiled, and said, 'Sure, that's fine', as the four left the room, quietly closing the door behind them. A few minutes later, JJ returned with Emma's ice cream.
'Cheers! Wait, no, sorry, that's an England thing! Thank-you!', she said, giving JJ a warm smile which she returned.
As soon as the smell of the ice-cream hit Emily's nose, she sighed.
'You made the right choice there. Chocolate's always good to calm the nerves', she said to Emma.
'Agreed! I love chocolate', Emma replied, before taking a big spoonful of ice cream.
Morgan and Reid were both smiling, until Emily spoke again, softly, saying,
'Okay my fellow chocolate-lover, I'm gonna need you to close your eyes...'.
Author's Note: Another chapter done! I decided to write the interview into the next chapter, but you'll also find out a secret Emma's been hiding in Chapter 7 as well ;) Onto Criminal Minds - has anyone seen the season 7 finale? I watched it and cried all the way through, the Reid scenes were adorable! Thank-you so, so, so much for staying with the story and for reviewing, alerting and favouriting it! I'd love to know what everyone thinks of it so far, so PLEASE review, the reviews really make my day! I'll stop rambling on now, until the next chapter! :D