In the conference room JJ and Garcia exchange a worried look. JJ slowly starts to shake her head.
"She wouldn't…"
Morgan's voice explodes back over the radio. "PRENTISS AND ROGERS ARE IN THE RIVER! I REPEAT: PRENTISS AND ROGERS ARE IN THE RIVER!"
They can hear Shield's spouting off religious dogma as Morgan starts to read him his rights. JJ grabs another radio.
"This is Agent Jareau to rescue boat 3. Two victims in the water from point Alpha. Do you copy?"
"Rescue boat 3, copy Agent Jareau. We're ready to launch when we see them. Over."
JJ puts the radio down, unable to control her shaking hands. "I'm gonna kill her, Pen."
Garcia reaches over and takes JJ's hand. JJ closes her eyes and prays for Emily's safety.
As they are running down to their SUV, Hotch looks at Reid. "Chances?"
"Without a drysuit…not good," Reid answers.
"Fuck," Hotch mutters.
The cold water hits Emily like a sledge hammer. The initial plunge had taken her well below the surface of the water and it takes her body a moment to obey her survival instincts and kick to the surface. By the time she does, she is out of sight of Morgan's position. She orients herself down river and starts to swim with the current. Up ahead she can see Marielle Rogers fighting to keep her head up with her hands bound. As cold as Emily is she can't imagine what the woman in the bikini is feeling.
Dodging rocks and river debris, Emily sees she is catching up to Marielle. She remembers the river map on the wall and knows she needs to get Marielle out of the raging river soon or they would be in the rapids. Emily knows it will be nearly impossible for them to survive the rapids without protective gear.
Just as Emily nears Marielle, the woman goes under.
"Oh, no. Not when I'm this close," Emily thinks.
Emily strokes harder and is relieved to see Marielle resurface once more. Emily reaches out and grabs the woman by the hair. Marielle spins, shocked to see Emily. Emily quickly pulls the woman closer, wrapping an arm around her neck and aiming their feet down river. Emily tries to speak but finds her mouth is so cold she has trouble forming words.
"That can't be good,"she points out to herself. Knowing economy is the best way to go, she gets her mouth near Marielle's ears. "R—rocks." She stutters. "O—on t—t—top."
Emily is shocked that Marielle seems to understand what the agent has said. Emily aims for a large rock, her feet together to help with the idea in her head. If she hits it just right she should be able to use the momentum from the river to vault them up and onto the top of the rock. She braces herself for impact.
"UNGH!" She screams as her right ankle twists when it hits the rock. But the two women do get pushed upward by the force of the river like Emily had hoped. But her weakened ankle starts to give before they get completely up onto the rock. Emily uses all of the strength she has left to propel Marielle up onto the rock. As she lets the woman go, the river takes hold of the agent and drags her back into the racing waters.
As she is spun around, Emily sees Marielle safe on top of the rock. As she gets dragged under by a rip current, Emily sees a helicopter streaking through the sky.
"Oh good," she thinks. "They'll be able to get to Marielle." She fights to surface one more. She notices her legs and arms aren't quite obeying her. "Maybe I just need a nap and my legs will—NO! No, Emily, fight! Don't you dare give up! You have too much to live for!"
A picture of JJ and Henry flashes through her mind. She fights against the pull of the river, trying to get her arms and legs to move her towards the shore. Just when she thinks she might make it to an eddy, she is dragged under again. She resurfaces a little closer to shore. She has a moment of hope. Unfortunately the nexy thing she sees is a rock seeming to rise up out of the water at her.
"Oh, shit. Not good."
Her only blessing is that her body is so numb from the cold it doesn't hurt nearly as much as she thought it would when she crashes into the rock. Fireworks explode behind her eyes lids and her body slides limply into the water.
In the chopper, Rossi is yelling out directions to the rescue boat below. As much as he wants to stay after Emily, he understands they have to hover over Rogers to make sure the boat doesn't miss the unmoving woman. Though he knows he'll hate himself for the thought later, he can't help but think that Rogers already seems gone and they should ignore her and go after Emily.
He glances down river and sees the red of Emily's jacket still bouncing in the current. It looks like she is still fighting towards shore but he can't be sure.
He looks up river again and sees the rescue boat coming. "Rescue 3, you need to get 10' to port or you'll miss her. Over."
"Rescue 3, copy."
Rossi watches as the boat corrects its course. Everything seems to be going in slow motion to Rossi but the boat is finally guided up to the rock. He watches as two men settle the boat and two men get out to retrieve Rogers. Once they have her on the boat, his radio cackles again.
"This is Rescue 3, we have one victim on board. Breathing is shallow. We'll need an ambulance to meet us at Emergency access 4."
Rossi breathes a sigh of relief. The chopper heads on down river. Rossi scans the water. He can no longer see Emily's red coat.
"Come on, Prentiss, where the fuck are you? You're too damn stubborn to lose to a damn river. Where are you? Damn it, Emily! You have too much to live for! Where the fuck are you?"
The chopper flies beyond where Emily could have gotten in that amount of time. The pilot hovers to a stop then rotates the helicopter around and starts back up the river. Just when Rossi is ready to accept the unacceptable, he sees a flash of red.
"THERE!"
The pilot slows the craft and heads in the direction Rossi points. The entire BAU team is listening to their radios, holding their breaths, praying.
"This is Chopper 1 to Rescue 2. Victim spotted on east bank just before the start of rapids. We don't have enough room to sit down but will hover near her location. Over."
"This is Rescue 2. Copy."
In the conference room, JJ can no longer sit still. She stands and starts to pace. Garcia closes her eyes and prays harder than she's ever prayed before. Hotch leans against his SUV, not knowing what he will do if he loses an agent; a friend. Reid does his best to command the stats that fly through his head to stop. Morgan stares at the man now in the back of a police cruiser and knows he will gladly lose his badge getting revenge if they lose Emily. From his spot in the air, Rossi stares at Emily's body, praying for her to move but the dark haired agent remains motionless.
Though it had only been a couple of minutes, it seems like hours before the radio comes back to life.
"This is Rescue 2. We've spotted the body and are moving in to collect."
In the conference room, JJ can't stop the tears. "Why the fuck are they saying it like she's dead? She is NOT dead!"
Garcia gets up and pulls her into a hug. "I know, sweetie. They don't know her like we do. They don't know how tough she is and how much she has to live for."
On the banks, two men jump out and race towards Emily. Another man follows with a large medical kit, even though it doesn't look like it will be needed. The first man to reach the agent leans down and searches for a pulse. A moment later he leaps up, frantically waving at the man with the medical kit. Rossi lets out the breath he'd been holding as he watches the first two men start to pull the wet clothes off of Emily's body. Soon she is wrapped in thermal blankets and strapped to a backboard, her neck in an immobilizer, her right leg in an air cast.
JJ shakes as she hears the radio come to life again.
"This is Rescue 2. Transporting patient to Emergency access 6 for immediate transport to a medical facility. Over."
JJ's knees give out and she would have fallen if Garcia hadn't caught her. "She's alive, Pen. She's ALIVE!"
"Of course she is, Jayje. She's Emily!" Garcia says as if that's all anyone needs to know.