Thank you SO much to everyone who reviewed the previous chapter! It was the most reviews for ages, so it's clear, dear readers, that you rather like beautifully done prose... or maybe it was the smut!
Shorter chapter up tonight as I've been feeling aggrieved by car dealers today – and had to go in work to sort out my classroom. I'll be replying to reviews tomorrow with a short HP piece as a thank you.
I'm approaching 1000 reviews (wow!). Whoever is my 1000th reviewer I will write a oneshot for them based around any HP prompt they like, or the 'unseen' bit of an episode...
If you review, which I hope you will, when did you first start to think of HP as a ship, and if this is your bag, which episode prompted you to think that there might be an undercurrent of a relationship there. I do wonder if this is how Prentiss will leave the show...
I have a new oneshot posted called 'Colorado' if anyone's interested and hasn't already read!
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Where the Blue of the Night
"Night hangs like a prisoner,
Stretched over black and blue,
Hear their heartbeat,
We hear their heartbeat."
- U2, Mothers of the Disappeared
Chapter Forty-Two
November 10th
The silence outside was too quiet; a statement that Reid knew wasn't possible, but it summed up what they had found. A few stars twinkled brightly in a sky that had only just stopped shedding rain, the darkness an unseeing witness into what Reid knew had just happened.
"She can't be far," he said, noting that his voice was shaking. "It's only four minutes since she gave the message to Officer Dickinson. Even at speed, she can't be far."
Rossi's lack of words was unsettling him and Reid felt desperate for some form of reassurance, the kind Rossi was always so good at handing out.
"We need to get men out looking for her. Call out search teams..."
"We don't know what we're looking for," Rossi said, his voice almost inaudible. "She said Alfie was in an out building in the community gardens nearby – we should direct the search teams to those; I think there are a couple in the neighbourhood."
"You think that's where she's gone? She would have waited. She wouldn't have gone without us!" Reid knew he sounded almost hysterical, but he was beginning to panic. "We need a helicopter – start looking for vehicles travelling quickly..."
"Reid," Rossi said, his voice loud and firm this time. "Call Hotch. Tell him and Emily to get here now. I'll start to get people looking straightaway. You need to hold it together – we're going to need you if she's not at the gardens."
Reid nodded, feeling numb, as is someone had anesthetised him from the inside. He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialled Hotch's number from memory, not even having to think about pressing the digits. Hotch sounded sleepy when he answered, his first words not quite coherent.
"Hotch, JJ's gone. You need to get here fast. Now," Reid said, the words jumbling in his mouth like he was suffering from aphasia.
"Reid, slow down. What's happened?" Reid heard Emily's voice in the background.
"JJ went outside to meet someone who said he knew where Alfie was and now she's gone," Reid said, sure he hadn't inhaled since finding JJ wasn't there.
"Okay," Hotch's voice was controlled, calm. "Have you checked the place where she said Alfie was?"
"Rossi's onto the search teams to go now." An ambulance siren blared in the distance. Reid wondered where it was heading.
"Emily and I are on our way. I'll have Garcia start to check traffic cameras in the vicinity. Keep ringing her phone; she may just have gone to look for Alfie," Hotch said.
"But it's not likely is it? We said at the start JJ was the probable target. We should have told her, Hotch, then she might have been more careful. She might not have gone out. We should have said something," he knew he was rambling, but it was making him feel better. Slightly anyhow.
"Reid, JJ knew she was a likely target for our stalker. And we all knew we had to be careful. But it's late, it's been a hell of a day, and she thought one case was about to be over. Go to Rossi and tell him you're going to where JJ was told Alfie was. Help head up the search for him and hopefully she'll be there too. You got that, Reid?"
"Hotch," he said, not knowing if he got that or not, just that JJ wasn't with them and she should be.
Rossi had already tried her phone, which was going straight through to voicemail. He'd figured that reception could be a bit dodgy, or that her battery had died. Or that someone else had turned it off. He knew that Garcia would be searching for any sign of it being switched on, but that wasn't something to hold his breath for.
"Reid," he said, as he saw him. "Is Hotch on his way?"
Reid nodded. "He told me to go to the community gardens and see if she is there," Reid said, his voice almost mechanical.
"Then you do that. We already have four cars out on patrol, and a copter has been requested."
Reid nodded again. "Who shall I go with?"
"Officer Trent is just about to head over there. He's going to walk the way JJ would have from here," Rossi gestured to Trent and watched Reid step over to him. He should have told Reid to put on a jacket as it was freezing outside, but Rossi knew he wouldn't feel the cold at the moment, and the instruction would just confuse him.
"Dave."
Rossi heard a familiar voice and turned round to see Llewellyn emerging from a small cleaning cupboard he seemed to have used as a hide out.
"If Dan Clark has her, he's likely to still be on the move. He has no known connection to any property within an eight mile radius, unless there's something we don't know about," Llewellyn said. Rossi could see a trace of worry in his face that was usually as expressionless as a puddle.
"Shouldn't you know everything about him by now?" Rossi said, impatience brewing like a thunderstorm in a heat wave.
Llewellyn nodded. "But we're not dealing with your common stalker here. He's incredibly intelligent. His IQ is off the scale and he is pretty much a genius with technology. He'll be able to hide property easily from searches. He's been planning this for God knows how long."
"You think this was planned tonight?" Rossi said, doubting that anyone could have that good a crystal ball.
Llewellyn shook his head. "He was obviously planning something with the bomb under Hotch's car, and the tracker in your phone. I suspect he may have tried to abduct JJ from the safe house. He doesn't know that the bomb has been discovered either, so we may have one over on him there. Taking JJ now is opportunistic – but it will be interesting to see if he has found the boy."
"I can think of other words," Rossi said, looking to the open door through which cold air was streaming.
He walked out into the night, a melee of officers now merging round him. People were being called in from anywhere that had anyone spare on a double hunt. Seeking an FBI agent and a child, both missing on this most chilled of nights.
He could see her, her eyes closed. Like sleeping beauty. He was finally taking her home, taking her back to a safe place where he could begin to show her the new life he had planned for them.
And in a few minutes, he would hear that Alfie Fletcher had been found safe and well. Safe and well just like his beautiful sleeping butterfly.
It had been easier than he had thought. He'd imagined he would have somehow had to get her on her own away from those two imbeciles, Reid and Rossi, but instead she'd come alone. He'd have to speak to her about that, about watching her personal safety. He could risk this happening again, that someone else, maybe that idiotic fiancé of hers, would try to take her back. No, he'd have to keep a very close eye on his angel, make sure she wasn't caught in anyone else's net.
He checked his mirrors, although he was certain he'd not seen the lights of any other vehicle. There was no doubt in his mind that they wouldn't find him; he was more intelligent than they were, as he had already proven over the course of the last few days. When he returned home, he'd let the Sophie girl go; take her to some place she could be found and returned to Prentiss, with a message of course. His butterfly had been given to him, so he was giving back theirs. It would be a peace offering they couldn't refuse, and then all would be forgiven. JJ would bring him into their midst.
When she woke she would see him properly for the first time. He'd no longer just be the guy she sometimes stood next to while making coffee, or passed in the coffee shop. He'd be her sun, her centre, because he knew that she would be love with him when she realised.
He knew.
Reid wasn't really looking where he was going. Usually his eyes would be focused on his feet, especially if it was dark, as he had a habit of tripping up or stumbling. But tonight his eyes were everywhere, thus he did keep losing his footing, and he was pretty sure he'd twisted something in his foot, probably his tibialis anterior. And he hadn't seen JJ.
Panic could be controlled, he knew that, and he had tried some of the techniques he'd told others over the years; breath control, visualisation, repeating a mantra. They weren't working, and he hadn't expected them to. He tried to focus on developing the profile that they had now they knew the individual that was responsible for the attacks, and probably JJ's abduction, and Reid found that that steadied him some. He knew that JJ was unlikely to be harmed if she was compliant, if she smiled and showed that she accepted what he was saying. If she fought back, then he was likely to be rougher with her, because things weren't going his way. Reid wished they had gone through this before; how they thought he would react if he was to take one of them, but they hadn't. Their investigation so far had been full of holes, given to their mental states and the double case they'd been working.
But it was no excuse now.
"We've found him!"
The world should have stopped at that point, and rejoicing should have been had. They should have patted themselves on the back, smiled and gone back to a hotel or home, knowing they had done their job, but those three words were not enough tonight.
Reid quickened his pace, still looking for JJ in the crowd of officers and civilians who had been helping to find Alfie, but the usual desperation to reach the final point in a case was not there.
He pushed through the crowd that had formed towards the shed whose door now hung off its hinges, and Reid saw a small almost skeleton of a boy, lying there with his feet bound with duct tape, some that was used by his side, and an untouched plate of food close by. He'd been bound, then untied by someone, but Alfie had lacked the strength to eat, or had maybe been unconscious by then anyway.
"His pulse is weak," one of the officers said. "It's faint, real faint."
Someone passed blankets over and the boy was wrapped up, his skin looking grey. Reid took a step back, his heart aching for the child, but he still needed to find JJ.
He began to shout her name, as if calling a badly behaved dog back from its unleashed walk, but no one heard, no one was listening. He yelled again, stepping away from the bustling crowd, hearing sirens in the distance, calling her name. But there was no answer.
No returned call, no returned words.
Just the night, listening for heartbeats, however faint.