A/N - Following the really positive feedback I received last night from the previous chapter I wrote this one pretty quickly. Depending on the feedback I receive from this one will decide whether I write another chapter tonight or not:)


Chapter 2

The following morning, Emily was sitting at the breakfast bar eating bacon and eggs prepared by one of the cooks, whilst she waited for the others to wake up. She turned her head when she heard movement from the next room and JJ entered and joined her, sitting on the stool next to her. Jennifer's black eye had visibly made itself known this morning, so a very angry looking black/purple bruise was blossoming on her face.

"Oh my God, JJ, I'm so sorry." The brunette agent apologized again. JJ turned to her, one eyebrow raised, smiling.

"Seriously, Em, don't worry about it. You do pack a good right hook, though." She joked, chuckling slightly, and received a half smile from Emily in return.

The two agents continued to eat their breakfast in peace, until JJ remembered a question that had been burning in her mind since the events of the early morning.

"Em?"

"MmmHmm?" She replied through a mouthful of her coffee.

"What was your nightmare about?" JJ asked tentatively. Emily froze what she was doing and her eyes widened before a familiar mask covered her feelings.

"It doesn't matter." She shrugged noncommittally.

"You can tell me, Emily. Something's got you all worked up ever since we got here." She paused when Agent Prentiss looked at her. "Don't think I wouldn't notice." Emily sighed.

"I was in the basement and my dad was in there, but he kept running away and I couldn't catch him… Then something grabbed me and I guess that's when I woke up." Confusion was evident on JJ's face.

"But when you were asleep you kept saying 'don't hurt her'. Hurt who?"

"My mother." Was the only explanation she received. Just as she was about to ask Emily what she was talking about the rest of the team filed into the room. Morgan whistled.

"Whoa, JJ, that's a good shiner you got there." He joked and everyone else looked at her as she looked down into her coffee mug. Reid stepped up to look it over again, but JJ shrugged off the contact.

"I'm fine, guys. Just remind me to never get in a fight with Prentiss." When the laughter died down, Garcia spoke.

"So, my lovelies, what are we doing today?" She looked round at all of them.

"I know." Everyone looked at JJ. "We're going to see what is in the basement. Your dad never let you down there before, but he's not here now, right?" She spoke to Emily, who nodded.

"I guess." She agreed, but looked a bit uncomfortable.

"It's settled then." Garcia confirmed and the team nodded in agreement.

Once everyone's stomachs were full and thirst was quenched, Emily led the way to the door for the basement. Breathe. Emily reminded herself as a familiar panic set in and her heart began beating faster. JJ rubbed her arm comfortingly, but it didn't do much to help when she stepped up to open the foreboding door.

Emily felt a flash of a memory of standing in that very spot, in the open doorway. Her mother had gone down there to talk to her father and it wasn't long before an argument ensued. To this day, Emily could still remember her father backhanding her mother across the face until she agreed with him, at the bottom of the concrete steps.

"Em, you okay?" JJ asked and Emily realized everyone was waiting for her to move.

"Yeah, sure." She replied, flipping on the light switch. As she stepped through the doorway a somewhat familiar chill enveloped her and she shivered and wrapped her arms around herself in a protective manor. The team descended down the steps and their footsteps reverberated around the solid concrete walls. They all stopped at the bottom of the stairs looked around them at the large-ish room.

"There aren't any doors leading off which means this is the whole basement, but I would have thought it'd be much bigger than this." Rossi's ever working profiler mind stated.

"You have a point there." Hotch agreed. Emily looked confused.

"I always thought there was a lot more down here than this. My father used to spend hours down here…" She trailed off, preoccupied with looking around. The team fanned out, checking out a different part of the room. Emily stopped, staring at one of the walls.

"Em, what's up?" JJ walked to stand next to her. Emily's brow furrowed.

"This part of the wall looks different to all the others." JJ looked around too.

"You're right." She agreed. Wanting a closer look she stepped forwards. The stone tile on the floor suddenly gave way and JJ fell.

"Shit!" She screeched, bracing her arms on the floor so she didn't fall all the way through the hole, but her whole body from chest down had disappeared into the gaping hole left in the floor. Everyone suddenly rushed forwards, Morgan and Hotch each took one of her arms and pulled her back up and sat her on the floor next to it.

"What the hell was that?" Morgan exclaimed loudly. Hotch laid down on the floor next to it and shone his phone light into the hole and confirmed his suspicions.

"There's a ladder going down there." He told them all.

"This just keeps getting creepier." Rossi stated.

"Are you okay, Cupcake?" Garcia asked to the shaken form of JJ still seated on the ground.

"Umm…" JJ replied, at a loss for words.

"Can you stand?" Hotch asked her which she nodded weakly to in reply. Emily grabbed her hand and pulled her up, but the blonde agent winced when she put her weight on her left foot.

"Does your foot hurt?" Dr. Reid asked as Emily put a supporting hand around her waist to stop her from toppling over.

"Yeah, I think I twisted it when I stepped on that damn thing." JJ said, annoyed.

"Lets go take a seat upstairs and see what we're going to do next." Rossi suggested.

"Okay." JJ nodded, in no place to argue and with the support of Emily began to hop towards the steps.

"Uhh ,uhh…" Derek scolded her, then lifted her up bridal style.

"Morgan put me down, now!" JJ protested angrily.

"Nope." Came his reply and he stuck his tongue out at her cheekily as she huffed and crossed her arms. Chuckling slightly at the pair's antics, the rest of the team followed their lead.

Back on the ground floor, Morgan settled JJ on the couch and the rest of the team sat down surrounding her, apart from Reid who left the room and came back with ice wrapped in a towel. He elevated JJ's leg and put it on the coffee table and gently eased off her shoe.

"Reid I'm fine, it'll be okay in a few minutes." JJ assured him while he placed the ice on her ankle.

"Well it's better to be safe than sorry." He told her, matter of factly and ending the conversation.

"Am I the only one who really want to know what is down that ladder?" Morgan asked.

"As long as I don't get eaten by any more flooring." JJ replied.

"I'm game if you all are." Emily told them, wanting to get to the bottom of what was going on in her childhood home.

"Oh, we're game alright." Morgan confirmed.

"Next time I suggest we take flashlights, though. We don't know what is going to be down there or if there are any lights at all." Hotch suggested and they all agreed readily.

"I know where they're kept." Emily told him and went in search of them.

The team assembled back around the hole in the floor. After a couple of minutes rest JJ's ankle was slightly better and she could walk on it.

"Soooo… Who's going first?" Emily asked apprehensively.

"I'll go." Derek stepped up eagerly. As he lowered himself down he placed the flashlight in his mouth so he could see where he was going.

"Are you down?" Hotch yelled down to him.

"Yeah," Morgan yelled back, "It's just some kind of hallway. I found the light." He told them just as the hole in the floor lit up to show Derek standing ten feet below them.

"Let's go." Emily said as she lowered herself down and the rest of them followed.

Reid looked up at the hole the missing tile created.

"Is it fine to just leave it like that?" He asked Emily.

"Yeah, I don't think anyone else comes down to the basement." They began to make their way down the hall, all of them subconsciously checking a floor tile before they stood on it. The walls were just the same as in the basement, with nothing on them. The group reached the end of the hall and it took a right turn at the end. With no other direction to go they followed it. There was one room at the end.

When they entered it they expected it to be the same as the other rooms they had already seen, however this was not the case. The room had a desk on one side and around the edges were bookshelves filled with stacked papers and old diaries and novels. It was hard to tell how long ago all of it was last touched.

"Well, this I was not expecting." Jennifer said, walking up to a couple of papers littering the desk and sifting through them.

"What are they?" Reid inquired.

"I'm not sure." JJ replied, sitting down at the desk and beginning to sift through them.

"Well, there wouldn't just be one room at the end of a hall, that just doesn't make sense." Rossi deliberated.

"Prentiss, JJ and Reid stay in here and see what you can find and the rest of us will go and see if we missed anything out in the hall." Hotch instructed. As Reid and JJ looked through the desk, Emily began to look around the room a little.

"What the Fuck!"


A/N - Sorry for the cliffhanger, you'll have to wait until next time to see what happened!