Undercover Family

I would love to hear your opinions and look to working further on the story.

I do not own or have connection with the "Criminal Minds" program or its characters.

Chapter 37.

On the bus heading out of town to a completely unknown location, our little family has been able to get seats together except for Aaron, the unsub has kept him separate from the other children. They are worried about the boss man but their concern is for the innocent children on this bus. They look out the window but do not know the area and so see nothing with which to familiarize themselves with. The woman has told all the children that they were not to talk, although there were many who were whimpering or sobbing. Some were chilled because they did not have heavy enough coats to keep out the cold. The driver turned up the heat as much as possible. Aaron was sitting on the man's lap in the front seat. He has tried to get down but the man would not let him loose. He wanted to talk to his team and so he kept trying to squirm his way off the lap. The man keeps tightening his grip and finally loses his temper with the baby. He turns him on his stomach over his lap and gives a mild smack on his diapered bottom.

"You sit still." Aaron was shocked that the man did that, it didn't hurt as much as he felt humiliated by it. He squirmed even more and started to whimper because he couldn't do what he wanted to do. He decided to distract the man and bit his hand. The man swore and put the baby on the seat next him, who scuttled off the seat and went under the seat and crawled until he found some familiar boots. He reached up and pulled on the pants leg. Spencer looked down and saw his boss looking up at him. Spencer slid off the seat and crawled under the seat next to him.

Spencer hugs and then asks, "How are you doing? We have been worried."

"I am fine, how are things with you? Is Derek okay? How about the missing children, are they okay?"

"Yeah, everyone is okay. According to Derek, there has been no abuse or hurting of the children. They have been well fed and kept clean. They had toys and games to play with. We just haven't really figured why they were taken."

"We're being sold to a pedophile and child slavery ring."

"You really think that."

"That's where we are being transferred to now. He had a time limit and had to have a certain number of children, that's why he grabbed us. We became the final number of children needed and we were not as difficult to get as it would have been trying to get some alone in the paranoid atmosphere of the town."

"I'm sure momma is going ballistic."

"Yeah, all her being overprotective has failed her and shows that it doesn't how well you try to protect your children, if someone wants them they will find a way." A face appears under the seat to look at the two children. Aaron shrank back thinking it was the man. It wasn't. It was JJ.

"What are you two doing down there? It's filthy and you shouldn't be there. Spencer get back on your seat before he finds out that you're not in your seat and Hotch, where did you come from? I thought you were in the front seat with that man."

"I was but I wanted to see and find out the information about the team from you and make sure Derek was good."

"Derek is healthy and good and you need to come out from under there." She reaches for him and he allows himself to be taken out of the area. She looked up front and then picked him up and put him on the seat between her and Emily. She took off her scarf and wrapped it around him. Remember the man did not allow him to have his snow suit on, all he had on was a t-shirt and jeans over his diaper with socks and shoes and he was actually cold, not freezing but cold. David handed his hat over to her to put on the boss man.

"Thanks everybody. I was cold.'

"You wouldn't be if he had allowed us to put your snowsuit on."

"I am kind of glad about that. I don't like that snowsuit. Why couldn't I have just a regular coat like everyone else? That snowsuit makes me feel so much like a baby."

"You are a baby."

"I am not." He scowls are her and curls up to get warmer. The movement of the bus does to him what it has done for several of the children, he drifts off to sleep.

After several hours, there begins to be whining happening by the children on the bus. Some need to go to the bathroom, some are hungry or thirsty and some just scared of where they are going and are tired of sitting in the same seat. The man and woman look at each other with slight irritation. But because they do not want smells and whines abounding. They have the driver stop at a McDonalds. They took the children off the bus in small groups to go to the bathroom and then get food and play on the playground.

When it finally comes to our little family to get off, JJ carried Aaron with her.

The man sees the baby in her arms and says, "So he found you in the back. Keep him quiet and you can keep him with you. He hands the diaper bag over to David, who took it and then took Aaron from her and took Spencer's hand to take to the bathroom, Derek followed them. JJ and Emily went to the girls with a group of other girls. In the boys' bathroom, David took Aaron to the changing table to clean him up. Spencer waited his turn to go into a stall; there were many boys in the room jostling each other. Derek took the empty bottles out of the diaper bag and began to clean them out and then filled them with water. He kept one empty, however. David said that hopefully he can get the man to buy some juice for Aaron that they can put in that bottle.

"I don't need to always drink from the bottle, Dave."

"I know that Aaron, but right now it is just easier for us if you did. So stop complaining."

"Momma has been working on toilet training me Dave."

"I know."

"Can you put me on the toilet, to see if I would use it?" The two 'men' look at each other in the eye and Dave takes Aaron into a stall and places him on the toilet, holding him on the seemingly large seat. They are both smiling when Aaron does business in the toilet. Dave cleans him afterward and then puts a fresh diaper on him. He notices that there are only two clean diapers left and makes a mental note to tell the man.

After our boys have finished their business in the bathroom, they go to the counter to order some food. The man has set it up that the children can order anything they want and he would pay at the end of all the orders. Dave gets a big kid meal for him and Derek, a happy meal for Spencer, and a toddler meal for Aaron. He also got a small size cup of orange juice in addition to the milk with the meal. They look around to find the girls and go over to them. JJ had already brought the high chair over for Aaron. At the table, they eat. Aaron drinks his milk at the table, but David puts the orange juice into a bottle for later. There was a little left in the bottom of the cup and he gave half of that to Spencer and half to Emily. Sometimes it seems that our agents also forget that they are not really children and act very big sibling protective to each other. After eating, they all go to the play yard and with the other children begin to play. David does take the time to talk to the man and tells him that there are only two diapers left and they won't last too long. The man takes that into thought and tells the boy not to worry about it.

After about an hour of playing, the children are herded back onto the bus. Many of them curl up and fall asleep in the seats, while others just sit and try to sleep sitting up. After a good meal, the children are tired and it is beginning to get dark. Out little family is sitting on two seats with three of them on each seat. They decide to put Aaron between David and Spencer on one seat and Emily is seated between Derek and JJ on the other seat. They work to keep each other warm and the little ones fall asleep quickly. David and JJ stay awake and watch over the children, theirs and those around them. Some of them are quite cold because they don't have warm coats. David gave his coat to another little child. He says that he is okay with just his sweater. He did multilayer his clothes that morning. Has it just been since the morning that the left the house with this man? The two discuss the events of the day and then they worry about how momma and Penelope are taking this. They firmly believe that momma will find them before anything truly bad happens. They trust in her device and in the locator that will be used to find them. They've just got to hang on and be strong until it happens.

The sky was very black over head when the bus finally stops at a large house, the children are herded off; they need to each bring their sleeping bags and are brought to a room with many doors to other rooms. Groups of children are separated from each other and placed into rooms. There are different ages in each group of about 8-10 children. Our children are placed in one room with three other children ages 7, 9 and 10. Two are girls and one is another boy and they are scared. Our family introduces each other and everyone cuddles up to each other for warmth and comfort. Soon however the man comes in and takes Aaron out of the room, even though he screams No and the others try to stop him. Aaron is taken to another room and placed in the play pen that the man had set up. Although he wanted to look around and see what was happening around him, the baby in him just wanted to sleep and he succumbed to that baby. The children in the other room worry but climb in their sleeping bags to sleep, they trust that their boss will be okay and they will see him again soon.