Title: Material Place
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Universe: Zombie Cantos
Characters/Pairing: Emily, Morgan, Team - Gen
Genre: Horror/Drama
Summary:

Zombie Cantos: Material Place

* * *

One need not be a chamber to be haunted,
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.

Far safer, of a midnight meeting
External ghost,
Than an interior confronting
That whiter host.

Emily Dickinson – One Needs Not Be a Chamber to Be Haunted

*

Without the capacity to provide its own information, the mind drifts into randomness.

Mihaly Cskiszentmihalyi

* * *

Fourteen months after the Zombie Apocalypse.

It's an older looking house – not the first one Emily would have raided for supplies, but they've hit this town a few times before; the supermarkets and most of the other houses have been stripped bare. The infection had hit here pretty fast – no time for any of the townspeople to react, they'd all turned before escape had even crossed their minds.

It's good news for them, in a way, because it means that the town has more supplies. It's bad news because it'd been over-run with the undead their first time through, and they'd lost a couple of people. Most of the zombies are gone now, but they occasionally find a stray one; brain-dead creatures that have no idea how to work a door.

Of course, it being the apocalypse and all, there's no-one hanging around to stop the buildings from falling into disrepair. Floorboards creak, and the stairs look downright terrifying - almost as though a chunk had been blown out of them. She sees the World War II medals hanging on the wall, and wonders if the man that lives – had lived – here had gone down fighting zombies to the last.

She thinks it would have been a terrifying way to die. Unable to do anything but repel hordes of creatures until they over-run you. She hopes that when she goes out, it's much quicker than that. Then, Emily wonders how long she's been referring to death at the hands of zombies as an inevitability, rather than a possibility.

She tightens the grip on her pistol, and makes towards the staircase, thinking that if the person who lives here – lived here – had gone down fighting zombies, then there might still be some ammunition and weaponry that they can add to their own stocks. Even after over a year, it still feels wrong to steal from the dead, but that's survival for you.

She turns at the sound of a foot creaking against the wooden floors, her finger tightening against the trigger. 'Damnit, Sam,' Emily breathes, her heart racing. 'No sneaking around, okay? I really don't want to explain to Sheriff Pegg why you've been double-tapped in the head.'

'Sorry,' Sam Harrison says with an awkward smile. 'I was just checking the front yard. Zombies lurking in trees, you know?'

'What?' She puts an almost hesitant foot onto the first step of the staircase, willing it not to collapse beneath her. 'Are there zombie birds waiting to tear our eyes out?'

'No,' he deadpans. 'The zombie virus only affects humans.'

The staircase wobbles slightly under her feet as she continues to ascend, and a glance backwards tells her that Harrison is waiting until she's upstairs before he attempt the climb. It'll take longer, but it means there's less chance of them ending up with some rather inconvenient broken bones. Morgan and Rossi are searching the houses in the next street over, so if something does happen, then chances are they'll be waiting a while for help.

It's eerily quiet upstairs, the only sound she can hear being breathing and footsteps.

And a soft moaning, she realizes, coming to a screeching halt. The sound is unmistakable. There are zombies in this house. Well, one zombie, at least. Harrison stops behind her, and she doesn't turn to face him, simply holding up two fingers of her left hand to warn him of the potential danger. Without even thinking about it, she slips into offensive mode, both hands curled around the Glock, feet as soft as she can make them on the creaking wooden floors.

Noise as a tactic only really works to scare zombies. It also attracts them, which is why it's only preferable if your plans involve running away as fast as possible. Here, they don't need to run away, and if there are any more zombies around, she doesn't want to attract them. As it stands, they can probably take this one down without killing it – Reid had mentioned his needs for a new test subject, and it's easier now, than trying to isolate one out of hundreds in some of the more zombie-infested towns.

Eyes kept straight in front of her, she scrambles at her belt for the tranquilizer gun. In any other town, she would have packed a little more heat, but today, they hadn't expected anything other than the occasional stray.

The reason for this particular zombie's stationary nature becomes clear the moment she steps into the room. The zombie is wheelchair bound, its legs amputated below the knee. It looks skeletal. Inhuman – much more so than any of the other undead that she's seen. She thinks she should be feeling some kind of sympathy for it, but then she remembers it doesn't really feel anything at all.

There's a rifle on the ground, from where it must have fallen after the monster had first turned. Her speculation had been correct – all obstacles aside, this man had gone down fighting.

But not the way he would have liked to have gone down, she realizes, too late seeing the grenade in his hand. The pin is caught in a bony finger, and his arms are flailing at the sight of fresh meat, which means that they are well and truly fucked, never mind the other half dozen grenades that are in a box on the floor.

'Run!' she calls out to Harrison, the noise breaking through the silence. They both reach the top of the stairs at the same time, tripping over each other in an attempt to get down before they're blown to pieces. Halfway down, the running turns into falling, and she grunts with each bump, giving a soft cry when her arm cracks on the final step. She tries to pull herself from the ground, but is immediately overwhelmed by an immense heat, and a noise that floods her ears. A piece of wood falls from the ceiling, landing heavily beside her, and she realizes that the grenade must have gone off. The crawl to the door is cut short when a heavy beam falls across it. The next piece of wood hits her head, and dizzy, she lifts her good arm to the wound, fingers coming away crimson.

She hears her name, but the voice sounds as though it's coming from a million miles away. She slips further and further out of consciousness, before finally closing her eyes to the last of the settling dust.

* * *

She feels like she's been bashed with a sledgehammer as she wakes up. Or, more accurately, as though a freaking house has just fallen on top of her, Wicked Witch of the East style.

Shouldn't have worn those ruby slippers today.

It hasn't completely caved in, for which she's grateful. She'd be dead already if that had been the case. As it stands though, survival hangs on a pretty fine precipice; her head is pounding, and everything's still fuzzy, and she's pretty sure that she's got a moderate concussion. She tries to move, only to find that her leg is pinned down by something heavy, but she can't quite lift her neck to see what it is. Trying to move it out of the way isn't really a viable option, but she tries anyway, earning a shooting pain down the right side of her body for her troubles, the whimper of pain escaping her before she can stop it. She's glad she'd worn long pants today, even if it is summer, and even it does mean that she's sweating like nobody's business. Dust gets into her open mouth, and the moan turns into a long, protracted cough, which starts the pain rippling all over again.

'Oh God,' she mutters. She's been in dangerous situations before, but this one seems that little bit more hopeless. She can't move, and she's not sure how much oxygen is in the confined space, and she's not exactly the perfect picture of healthy living. Broken arm and a concussion, at the very least. The leg's probably not in very good shape either, considering the fact that it's stuck under a massive bit of rubble.

Hopefully Harrison's doing a little better.

Oh shit.

Her eyes widen as she remembers that she hadn't gone into the house alone. She's not the only one trapped inside. She almost kicks herself for forgetting him, but kicking isn't really an option right now.

'Harrison?' she calls out, the simple act of talking burning her throat. She coughs. 'Harrison?' There's no answer. 'Sam?'

His answer comes through a veil of haze, and it takes her a few seconds to realize that it's a voice, rather than a figment of her own imagination.

'Emily?'

'Yeah, I'm here,' she wheezes, trying to turn her head to see where he is. It's a fruitless effort. The angle, and the darkness means that she can only hear his voice, and the concussion means that even that is a little indistinct. 'Probably should have gone into the house with the nice rose garden,' she says. 'Probably less chance of paranoid old guys with volatile weapons caches.'

'I hear you.'

'You think they're coming?' she asks, as much out of a desire to keep the conversation flowing as it is out of a need to know that hope is not lost.

'Probably,' he says. 'Never leave a man behind, and all that.'

'Marines, right?' she asks, vaguely recalling that he had brought the subject up once.

'Sure,' he tells her, pain creeping into his voice too. Wherever he is, he's probably trapped as well. 'Grew up in town, then joined the Corp for a few years...'

'Why come back?' she asks. 'Small-town cop is pretty far from the stuff the Marines do.'

'Yeah,' he laughs. 'To be honest, I missed my family. I wanted a job where I could help people, but still be with them.'

Emily grimaces at the admission. His parents had both died in the first few days of the attack, along with most of the rest of the town. It's another stark reminder that no matter how much they do, it's never going to be enough.

'What about you?' he asks. 'Why join the FBI?'

She laughs bitterly. 'To piss off my mother.'

He laughs too, and for a moment, it's almost as though they're not trapped under an exploded house. 'Seriously?'

'She's a politician. Wanted me to join the State Department, or follow her footsteps. Joining the FBI's pretty much the most scandalous career option I could think of while still retaining my dignity. "Plumber" was next on my list.'

'Well, you know what they say,' he says. 'Not everyone needs a brain surgeon in their lives, but everyone needs a plumber. Plus, they can make a shitload. No pun intended.'

'As tempting as it sounds, I prefer running the risk of taking a bullet than having my arms elbow deep in sewerage.'

'So the sleepless nights, the nightmares, the dead bodies. It's all worth it?'

It occurs to her that she's talking about her career in the present tense, even though it's been fifteen months since she's so much as profiled a disorganized blitz killer. In a way, the job's still the same. She still has the sleepless nights, the nightmares, the dead bodies. She wonders what her mother would think of her now.

'It can be,' she says finally, but she's not entirely sure she believes it.

'She was an Ambassador, right?' he asks, and it's a little bit non-sequitur, but in a way, she's glad of the subject change. 'Your mother,' he adds, in case there had been some confusion in the matter.

'Mmm,' Emily says. 'She was in the Ukraine when…when it started. Even if she's still alive…' She gives a shrug and immediately regrets it. They're not even really sure how far the infection has spread. Maybe it's just their landmass. Maybe the rest of the world has decided to shut them away and get on with their lives. It's not really a comforting thought.

Time passes in a strange fashion, and part of it's the head wound, but part of it's the fact that there's no real indicator of chronological progress. She can't see the sun setting on the horizon, or the ticking of a clock. Sensory deprivation in its purest forms. The closest she gets to having confirmation that there is in fact an outside world comes when she hears her name being yelled through the piles of debris. It's soft at first, but grows louder as – she assumes – they dig their way inside. She calls back, but she's not really sure that her voice breaks through, because anything louder than a normal speaking voice is impossible, thanks to the dust that's infiltrated her lungs.

A little while later, her stomach growls, and she laughs, because really – if there's a time for food, this is not it. Still, she ponders the merits of McDonalds. It's been fifteen months and nine days since her last cheeseburger, and she hadn't even realized that she'd been counting. Fries. Fries would be good too. And a cinnamon melt. Thanks to an ever-changing array of foreign embassies and fancy dinner parties, she'd become something of a fast food connoisseur in her adult life, if only to make a point. It's especially useless now, seeing as the food they've got amounts to processed non-perishables that are starting to expire, and whatever grows in the hydroponic gardens that have been set up. Garcia's heard rumors of people taking back farms and rekindling cattle ranches in other parts of the country over the ham radio she and Kevin have been tinkering with, but that's still a long way from golden arches. Some water would be good too, because summer in Arizona is no joke, and it would be horribly ironic to get out of this alive only to die of dehydration, or heat stroke.

'Everything okay?'

'I'm hungry,' she says, with a noise that's half laugh, half cry. 'God, I could eat a horse.'

'You know, that's just a rumor. McDonalds only use beef in their burgers.'

She laughs loud at that, in spite of – or perhaps, because of – the pain. The fuzziness is almost gone now, but she knows she's not out of the woods yet. They're still trapped under god-knows how much rubble, and it's getting harder to breathe by the minute.

She hears her name called again, and this time it's close. Close enough that she can tell which direction it's coming from, that she can tell there's not much debris left between them.

'Morgan,' she chokes out, with the same half-laugh, half-cry.

'I'm here, Em,' he calls back. 'We're almost through. Just hold on, girl.'

'Looks like we might survive after all,' she says. There's no immediate response, but she doesn't really think anything of it.

Then, the light's streaming in, and there's a gust of air, and she sucks down oxygen like it's going out of fashion.

'Emily!' Morgan's still digging through the rubble, trying to get to her. She'd been fairly close to the wall when the house had collapsed, so there's not so much to dig through. Rossi's there with him, and so is Hotch.

Strange. She doesn't remember Hotch having come on this mission. Then she sees Reid and Jean and realizes that someone must have made a radio call back to the town at some point. It makes her wonder just how long they've been trapped under there.

'Help me move this,' Morgan demands of Rossi and Hotch, and neither of them argue, in spite of the insubordination. Technically, "supervisory special agent" and "unit chief" don't really mean that much anymore, but Hotch is still in charge, whichever way they look at it.

The beam lifts off her leg, and she tries to move it, but that's a no-go. It's broken too, apparently, which is unsurprising considering the velocity with which it must have fallen.

'Harrison,' she coughs, trying to at least move her head to try and see him, and when she does, it's like a stab to the heart. He's still, and his eyes are closed. She feels the tears swimming, threatening to break free.

'He's gone,' Reid confirms, and that's all anyone really mentions of it. She wants to grab them by their shirts, and scream at them. Tell them that he's worth more than just two words. That the only reason she's alive is because of him. She knows for a fact that she'd be dead if not for him keeping her going.

It hurts even to move, though, so she doesn't say anything, just tries to grit her teeth against the pain as they slide a board underneath her and carry her out. Morgan has a water bottle in his hand, and he's trying to help her drink some water, even as they're still moving. The liquid seems to sooth her dry throat, even if it'll hurt again in five minutes, and it spills across the lower half of her face, but she's still insanely thankful.

As if realizing now that it's okay to let go, she once more closes her eyes to darkness.

* * *

She's not sure how much later it is when she wakes up. It's been at least a couple of hours though, because she's not in the abandoned town, or in the car, she's in a hospital. It's not technically a hospital, it's the lab, but that's where Jean keeps most of her medical supplies, and the air flow is better here. She takes a deep breath, cherishing the oxygen.

She casts a quick glance over her body; the arm and the leg are both splinted and bandaged. There's something of a shortage of real plaster. She wonders just how long she'll be spending bed-ridden. A couple of months at least. The thought doesn't please her.

'Morning sunshine,' a voice says from her left, and she turns as much as her body will allow her. It's Morgan, and he's trying to mask the worry in his eyes with a smile, but just because she's lying in bed with broken bones doesn't mean she can't profile.

'Hey.' Her voice is a little croaky; the after-math of all the debris she must have swallowed.

'You scared the crap out of me,' he says, a little more seriously.

'Sorry.' Her voice is sheepish, and she can't help but feel the slightest bit embarrassed; surviving hordes of undead only to be almost taken out by a grenade.

He grins slightly. 'You just keep yourself alive from now on, you hear?' His hand covers her good one, squeezing her fingers.

'I…' There's something she needs to say, only she's not so sure how to say it. About how she hadn't been the one keeping herself alive. But that would sound crazy, even if she's not sure why. 'He was dead the whole time, wasn't he?' she asks, and Morgan's confused. He doesn't know anything about what had happened in the house yet; they've probably all been waiting for her to wake up for that information. 'Sam,' she elaborates, 'He died the moment the house collapsed.'

Morgan nods. 'The beam crushed him. I don't think he was in pain.' He misinterprets the reason for her question, but she's not quite ready to correct him. The end of the world isn't the best time to be going insane.

'How long was I in there?'

'Around nine hours. I was afraid that I'd…I was afraid that we'd lost you.'

'You can't get rid of me that easily,' she chokes, battling the tears that are threatening to break free.

'I brought you something,' he says, turning to grab something from behind him, and she for a moment she feels defeated from the lost of his touch. 'I knew we had one in the ration packs we'd swiped from the army surplus store, and I know it isn't Mickey D's, but I thought you might appreciate it anyway.'

She loses the battle with tears as he produces the hamburger, and she spends a good two minutes just crying. Crying about everything – the loss of home, of family, of friends. The loss of Sam. The loss of her mother. Her arm aches, and her leg aches, and really, everything aches. His arm curls around her.

'I didn't realize you hated ration packs that much,' he says softly, and she has the presence of mind to give a small laugh, if only to reassure him that she hasn't completely broken down.

'How did you know?'

'You talk in your sleep,' he smiles, pressing the burger into her hands. 'Unfortunately, they didn't have a ration pack for fries.'

She takes a cautious bite, and almost gags at the taste. Morgan laughs.

'I had the feeling it might be like that. They're certainly not made to be gourmet.'

She takes another bite anyway, and for some reason, the second one doesn't seem as bad. 'You want some?' she offers, through a mouthful of food.

'Sure,' he says. 'Why not?'