Genre: Horror

Author: hotchityhotchhotch


"Getting foggy," Emily remarked not long after Hotch pulled out onto the highway. An eerie mist was settling over the road, cutting visibility down to nearly nothing.

"Yeah, odd…"

"And dark kind of early."

"Well, it is cloudy," Hotch said. Ha glanced at Emily in his peripheral vision and saw her chin propped up on her hand, her forehead touching her window. "You all right?"

"Hmm?" Emily snapped out of whatever daze she was in. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking."

"About what?" Hotch asked casually.

"Nothing, really," Emily lied, shrugging. Only about how being crammed inside a bathroom stall with you gave me the chills, and they still haven't gone away. You touched my fucking arm and I'll remember that more than the last time I had sex.

And with that, a torrent of rain fell from the sky without warning. Hotch fumbled to turn the wiper blades on in time to see.

"Hey, is that a—" Emily said a few minutes later as they drove right past a man standing on the side of the highway with his thumb stuck out.

"A hitchhiker? Yes. And I never pick them up," Hotch said decisively.

Emily had no problem being blunt with Hotch most times, and now was absolutely no exception. "Well, that makes you sound kind of like an asshole. Come on, Hotch, it just started pouring."

"Then the next guy can stop for him. Do you know how dangerous hitchhikers can be?"

"He looked perfectly harmless."

"They all do," Hotch said with a sardonic glance.

"If you go back and pick the poor guy up, I'll blow you," Emily announced. She laughed when she felt the car jerk slightly, either from Hotch braking or accelerating—she couldn't tell.

"Fine. If it means that much to you, I'll go back. But not so you'll…you know…"

"Say it," Emily said with a dirty grin. She wished she had some gum to chew on—it would have perfected the naughty little demeanor she had going.

"No. That's not a gentlemanly thing to say," Hotch said distractedly as he made a U-turn.

"I did not call you for a prude. Boy, was I wrong," Emily murmured teasingly.

"There's a difference between being a prude and being a gentleman," Hotch said.

"Jury's still out on whether you're a prude because you can't say 'blow me.' But, for the record, you turning around to pick up that poor guy is a gentlemanly thing to do."

"Why thanks," Hotch's dry voice rumbled. He stopped across the road from the lone traveler, who waved and looked both ways before trotting across the empty four-lane highway with a large pack on his back. Hotch rolled down his window. "Where're you headed?"

"Landover," the man said, crouching to meet Hotch eye to eye. He looked like a remarkably ordinary man, but that did nothing to quell Hotch's uneasiness. He remembered all too late that his gun was in the glove box. He had decided upon leaving the mall that he couldn't risk getting pulled over with a gun on his hip and no identification. But to get it out now would be tactless if not downright dangerous, depending on the nature of the stranger.

"We're…not going quite that far," Hotch said. "Only to D.C."

Emily punched Hotch in the shoulder and leaned over his lap. "But we can take you as far as we're going," Emily said. "Climb in."

While their new passenger boarded and dragged his pack in after him to sit behind Emily, Emily remained hovering over Hotch. He gave her an irritated look. She leaned in quite close to him, waited for his eyes to fog up and flutter shut in anticipation, and then sat herself back down, basking in the effect she knew she had on him. Boy, was he wrapped around her little finger. A badge and a gun (although he didn't have either on his person) were no match for her sexual prowess.

"What's your name?" Hotch asked in an effort to be friendly as he turned around to head east once again.

"George. Thanks so much for the ride."

"No problem. What left you standing out in the rain?" Hotch asked. "Car break down?"

The man paused before he answered. "Yeah. I'd already been walkin' a couple miles when it started getting' foggy, then the rain hit and I saw your lights."

"What's wrong with your car?" Emily asked, turning to look behind her, at George.

He smiled halfheartedly. "Transmission totally blew out. I figure if I can get to my brother's place in Landover, I can crash there for the night and he can help me check it out in the morning, get it towed."

"It's going to need to be towed either way," Hotch pointed out.

"Well, it doesn't matter," Emily said with little patience for Hotch's rudeness. "It's not like we have a phone to call for a tow truck anyway. Let's just bring him to his brother's place. It's not that far out of the way."

"Thank you, Miss," George said from the backseat, nodding briefly. "I appreciate it."

"Don't mind him," Emily said, glaring at Hotch. "He has no manners."

Hotch rolled his eyes, then kept them on the increasingly invisible road. He slowed down gradually, unfamiliar with this particular highway and wanting to play it safe. "Shit," he muttered after a long silence.

"What?" Emily asked, looking over at the instrument panel.

"Really low on gas," Hotch said. "You know, you never have a full tank of gas in your car," he added to Emily.

"My car, my problem, not yours. There's a gas station in about a mile, I think."

"Yes, sir, she's right," George piped in.

"Good. Maybe you can call for that tow truck while we're—" Hotch grunted when Emily's fist hit his gut. "What?"

"We're driving him as far as he needs to go. For Pete's sake, stop being such an ass."

"Fine," Hotch mumbled. "Can you keep the physical violence to a minimum, please?" Suddenly he felt overwrought with guilt. This poor stranger had done nothing to deserve the treatment Hotch had given him. "I'm sorry, George. I'm just a little…hyper vigilant sometimes."

"Hitchhikers, I get it," George said offhandedly. "Gotta be careful." And just as suddenly as Hotch felt guilty for being inhospitable, he felt chills rush down his spine at George's last words. He didn't say another thing, though, and neither did anyone else. The rain beat down on the windshield harder than ever.

"There it is," Emily said as they approached a generic gas station.

Hotch had a hard time even finding the entrance off the road; the rain was falling in sheets now, cutting visibility even further as it bounced off the hood of the car. As he pulled up to a gas pump, a quick decision had to be made. He certainly didn't want to leave Emily alone in the car with this man neither of them knew, but at the same time, he couldn't ask her to go out in the pouring rain to pump gas and pay for it. George would certainly find such a lack of chivalry a bit off. If he was indeed a dangerous person, then the latter option would tip him off to Hotch's wariness, which could only be a bad thing. If both Hotch and Emily got out of the car, one to pump gas, and one to pay, that would look almost equally suspicious, like Hotch didn't trust the man alone with either one of them. And again, making Emily go outside in the rain would still be a dick move in George's eyes.

The best Hotch could hope for was that the man wasn't dangerous at all, but that Emily was prepared for the possibility. Thinking fast, he put the car into park and leaned over to Emily. She looked at him, frowning, but her expression softened when he snuck his lips to her ear and whispered into it.

But the audible kiss he left at her temple, surely as some sort of show for George, though she didn't know why, had no lasting effect. It was followed by a whisper that made her heart thud, and not in a good way. "Don't ask questions. My gun is in the glove box. You don't have to know how to use it, but if anything seems fishy, just let him know you're armed. Okay?" Hotch realized he'd been talking to Emily far too long for it to look to George like a simple affectionate gesture. Hating himself for it, he added, "Kiss me. Just do it." He saw the sheer terror in Emily's eyes before he laid a soft kiss on her lips, which she accepted obediently. An amalgam of fear and ecstasy made for an interesting floating feeling. "Be right back," he said to them both, smiling. He silently prayed that he was worried over absolutely nothing, that the chills George had given him meant nothing more than the fact that he, Hotch, was trained in hyper vigilance and was letting his work bleed a little too much into the real world. His jacket was soaked through in less than a minute. He tried not to be obvious with his occasional glances through the window as he filled up the gas tank (he'd also decided that, although it would shorten the amount of time Emily was alone in the car with this man, only putting a few dollars in the tank would also seem odd to George). He could see their mouths moving, though over the splashing rain he couldn't hear anything they said. He made his way quickly inside to pay.

"Hey," said a man not much younger than Hotch, behind the counter with a baseball cap stuck on backwards.

"Hey," Hotch said, digging out his wallet.

The phone rang from a back room. "One sec," the clerk said.

"Can't you ring me up first?" Hotch asked, but by the time he was halfway through his sentence, the clerk was gone. Hotch sighed impatiently, then caught the noise of a small television above his head. With nothing better to do, he backed up and glanced outside quickly, just to make sure nothing seemed unusual. Deciding that was the case, he checked out the television screen.

"Expect at least two inches of rainfall over the next few hours. Flood advisories are in effect through tomorrow afternoon. Now to Chuck…" Hotch's attention was torn temporarily from the screen when the clerk came out of the back room.

"Sorry, man," the clerk said, operating the register to figure out how much money was owed.

"…thought to be armed. He is the prime suspect in four murders over the past two days. The murders took place in two separate instances, both involving a couple whose bodies were found in wooded areas not far away from their abandoned vehicles. The police are warning anyone who crosses this man's path to call local authorities immediately—do not approach him." Hotch backed up again and looked up at the screen. Just as he did, the news program showed a composite sketch of a man who looked shockingly like the man who sat in the back seat of the car. Hotch gulped. As casually as possible, but with his face set, he strode back out to the car.

"Dude, what the hell?" the clerk called through the doorway, but apparently not concerned enough about the theft to go out into the rain. "I'm calling the cops if you don't get back in here and pay up!"

Now he had absolutely no idea what to do. There were no remotely good options. He could open the passenger door and pull Emily out, but where would they go? The element of surprise wouldn't last long enough for him to get his gun out of the glove box. And what if George (if that was even his real name) had a gun? Distance wouldn't equal safety. As Hotch was scrounging for other alternatives, the sight before him made him realize what a grave mistake he'd made. His breath caught in a giant lump in his throat.

George rolled his window down. "Get in and drive, or your pretty little girlfriend dies," he said simply, rolling his window back up immediately. Hotch saw the glimmer of the knife that was held to Emily's throat. Her eyes were closed by relaxed and her lip stretched across her face in a thin, taut line. Having no other choice, Hotch hurried to the driver's side and got behind the wheel again. "Turn around. Go back west," George said shortly.

"What do you want?" Hotch asked as simply as he could manage, but heeding George's orders at the same time.

"I want you to shut the fuck up and keep driving," George growled, his hand still hooked tightly around Emily's seat, the knife blade just touching her throat.

"I'll do absolutely anything you want," Hotch said in a panic, forgetting every bit of Academy training. "Please, don't hurt her."

"I'll do whatever the hell I want. You drive."

Hotch willed himself not to take more than a couple fleeting glances at Emily, though he could see her chest rising and falling rapidly in his peripheral vision. He drove for what must have been an hour in the same blinding, deafening rainstorm. before George suddenly said, "Here's good. Pull over." Once Hotch had done so, George said, "Good. Now get out. GET OUT!" he screamed when neither Hotch nor Emily moved for a moment. He'd relinquished his hold on Emily's neck so she could move freely.

Not sure whether it was allowed, but unable to care, Hotch enveloped Emily in his arms the second he met her after circling around the front of the car.

They both heard an indistinct mutter from George and looked up.

"I said, run."

Only for a moment, Emily glanced up at Hotch. She then took his hand and they tore off down the road together, splashing through puddles.

"Get off the road!" George bellowed behind them, though his voice sounded further away, meaning he hadn't followed them.

"Listen to him," Hotch panted, pulling Emily off the shoulder of the road and into some tall grass on mushy soil.

"What the fuck is going on?" Emily whimpered between labored breaths as they cut between a thickening wall of trees.

"I just saw his picture on the news at the gas station," Hotch answered, already finding himself out of breath, but not for lack of physical fitness.

"What has he done?"

Deciding now wasn't the best time to lie to protect Emily, Hotch answered honestly. "This. Twice in the last two days. No matter what happens, I need you listen to me, okay? Do whatever I tell you. Do you trust me?"

Emily squeezed the life out of Hotch's hand right before they heard a loud crunch behind them.

"What was that?" Emily cried.

"He's not going to make it easy for the cops and leave the car at the side of the road," Hotch panted. "He drove it into the trees. Keep running."

"Adrenaline only lasts so long," Emily couldn't help but complain. "I'm a shit-ass runner, Hotch. Just so you know."

"Well, you're about to pick up a new hobby. Save your breath and just run. No more talking until I figure something out, okay?"

Emily swallowed the spit that had gathered in her mouth, then nodded. She let Hotch lead her into the dense forestry she didn't even know the area had to offer. Although they were both soaked to the bone already, at least the canopy sheltered them from a little of the rain.

After a couple of minutes that stretched into what felt like forever, they both silently wondered where on earth their hunter had gone.

"Whooo-weeeee!" he cried, as if on cue, from a few hundred yards back. He'd apparently given them a minute or two's head start.

"Do you think—he can—see us?" Emily said between heaving breaths. She felt a side stitch coming on. "It's dark enough. Maybe we—can climb up a—tree or something."

"He probably hasn't let us out of his sight." Hotch felt Emily slowing down. "Keep up with me. You can do it."

"I'm trying, I swear. Your legs—are a lot longer than mine. Why don't we split up?"

"Not happening," Hotch said resolutely. He slowed down just enough to match Emily's pace, then veered off to the left. He knew they could each run faster if they let go of each other's hands, but he couldn't bear to do that. He felt as if the second he let go of her, she'd be snatched away from him, done for. What they needed was a place to hide. He had no idea where these woods ended, where they could find open land or other people.

Hotch strived to listen for George above the crackling underbrush, to somehow locate him. He was either taking slow steps or no longer moving at all, as far as Hotch could tell, because he didn't hear a sound between his and Emily's feet dragging through the leaves.

Someone up there had to be listening, Hotch realized, spotting a cluster of four or five trees in a tight circle. "Over here," he rasped. When they reached the grouping, he helped Emily between the widest opening first, then followed behind her. "Sssshhh," he hissed, drawing a much-needed lungful of air right after that.

Emily dutifully hid in a corner, her back to two of the trees, and waited for Hotch to join her down in the mucky soil. And that he did, sitting right next to her and pulling her to his side.

"Where is he?" Emily whispered.

"I don't know. Hang on. Shh-shh…" Hoping Emily wouldn't take offense, Hotch covered her mouth with his hand to muffle out her ragged breaths. He heard nothing. No leaves crunching, no branches breaking, no birds flitting or talking. Just the rain. "I don't know where he went. Our best bet is to wait it out here."

Screw bravery, Emily said, burrowing her face into Hotch's chest, figuring it would at least give the added benefit of covering up the sound of her heavy breathing. His large hands felt even more so as he ran them up and down her damp back, luring her to sit sideways between his legs. Curled up into a tight ball together, they waited. Neither of their pulses fully settled, nor their breathing fully evened out, but they waited long enough to calm down considerably. The situation was no less terrifying, but at least they both seemed to gain control over their physical reactions as much as they could.

"Are you okay?" Hotch asked after an unknowable amount of time.

"As okay as I can be considering there's some sort of serial killer out there looking for us," Emily said dryly.

"I meant to ask whether you're hurt."

"I'm not hurt. Just get us out of here, please, somebody,"

"I won't let anything happen to you," Hotch said.

"Don't say that. That's not up to you," Emily argued. But at her protesting, Hotch just held her more forcefully.

"I mean it."

"Hotch, stop—"

"Look at me," he said so firmly that Emily had no choice but to acquiesce. Her eyes had adapted to the dark just barely enough to see Hotch's eyes zeroed in on hers.

"We'll be okay," he said, touching his lips to hers so softly that she wasn't sure whether he was trying to kiss her or trying to move in closer so she could hear him. A bit more certainty on his part answered that question for her and she surged into him, making not a single sound until their lips separated for the first time. She took the break in the kiss to slink her arms around his neck. A sigh sneaked its way past Hotch's lips before Emily found them again. They both knew damn well that this was not the best use of their resources, physically or mentally, but that fact couldn't unglue them from one another. His tongue snaked between her lips, not waiting for her to reciprocate. She did, opening up completely to him and running her tongue down the side of his, moaning minutely against him when he combed his fingers through the roots of her wet hair at the nape of her neck. A minute of this seemed to have a soothing effect that neither one of them had expected.

"Do you believe me now?" Hotch asked gently, his lips against her ear once more. She fell back into him again, not answering, drowsy out of nowhere.

"We can't stay here forever," she said after a while. "Maybe he ran right past where we turned off. Maybe we can get back to the road."

"He could just as easily be staked out right by us, waiting," Hotch countered.

"Then what are we supposed to do?" Emily whispered frantically.

"I think this guy gets off on the chase. He wants us to run. And he has the tools and the capability of catching us eventually. It isn't a matter of if he'll catch us, it's when. And what he'll do to us when he does. We need to stay put. The best we can hope for is that someone sees the car in the trees and sends the cops out to look for us. The longer we wait, the more bored he gets—"

"And the angrier he gets, no?" Emily hissed.

"You said you trusted me, right?" Hotch asked.

"Actually, I never answered," she said stubbornly.

"Now's not the time to be cute, Emily. Trust me. Just trust me. Let's wait." Emily sighed and gave in.

"I'm sorry," Hotch said after several painfully quiet minutes.

"For what?"

"For leaving you alone in the car with him. For not keeping my gun on me. I made every mistake in the book."

"I'm the one who made you pick him up. Don't bother with your apologies. They're no good here." Emily felt for the arm that was around her waist, then ran her palm down it until she found Hotch's hand. "Is it my turn to reassure you?"

Hotch laughed into Emily's hair. "Maybe."

"So we wait," Emily said.

"We wait."

"Until what?"

"Until—hang on." They both held their breath at the crunching of leaves not too far away. It was the only sound besides the tapping of the rain on the leaves of the trees and the ground.

"Come on out, little love birds. Hiding's no fun. Unless you really are foolin' around in there, in which case, I hope you don't mind if I watch," he said with a bone-chilling grunting laugh. He was now only thirty feet from them at most, by Hotch's calculations.

Emily's heart thudded once again and she felt Hotch's do the same, as her ear was still pressed against his chest. She drew in as quiet of a breath as she could and held it, listening to the brush give way beneath George's feet as he approached. But the sound of more feet through the leaves sounded off in the distance. George seemed to stop in his tracks, which led Hotch and Emily to believe that the new footsteps were unexpected.

"Emily Prentiss!" yelled an authoritative voice.

Emily's first instinct was to yell back, but she ignored it, sealing her lips.

"Emily Prentiss!"

George seemed to weigh his options, then decided that the best one was to run for it. He either had lost the desire to make sure Hotch and Emily died by his hands, or didn't have the capability to do so quickly and still get away. His footsteps gave him away to somebody.

"Over here!" someone shouted back in the other direction.

Before Hotch could decide whether to reveal themselves to what appeared to be friendly faces, the beam of a flashlight shined in his and Emily's eyes.

"Emily Prentiss?"

"Yeah," she choked, struggling to stand up with Hotch.

"Who's with you?" As the figure drew closer, Hotch and Emily were able to make out for sure that he was a police officer.

"Agent Aaron Hotchner, FBI. I…don't have my credentials with me, but I work security clearances for Ambassador Prentiss."

"That's fine, Agent. Just making sure Emily's safe."

"Well, thanks a lot for being worried about me," Hotch wished he could say.

"You wanna know how we knew to look for you?" the cop asked in amusement, apparently not worried about the present pursuit of the criminal or the fact that Hotch and Emily had almost been killed. Not waiting for a response, he said, "This kid at a gas station forty miles east called with your vehicle description, said a guy in a suit took off without paying for a fill-up. And you know what, we almost drove right past your car. Pretty rainy out. Your lucky day. You don't get murdered, and you get a free tank of gas."

As Hotch and Emily followed the police officer out of the woods, they heard a gunshot far off in the distance, in the direction George had run. Hotch had kept a protective arm around Emily's shoulders as they walked, and controlled their pace such that they followed far enough behind that they could talk privately, which they still hadn't done. All three of them stopped in their tracks.

The radio of the officer ahead of them crackled to life. "Suspect down," Hotch and Emily both heard. The latter shivered.

"They got him," the officer informed Hotch and Emily, turning around momentarily. They simply nodded in reply.

"I told you we'd be okay," Hotch murmured.

"Oh please," Emily scoffed playfully. "You were just being protective."

"Maybe," Hotch admitted, squeezing her shoulder.

"It was cute, though."

"Cute? We almost got killed. I don't think the word 'cute' fits anywhere in description of what happened tonight."

Emily chuckled. "What abut you standing up to that guy at the mall? That was cute."

"I'm going to remember your mocking me the next time I consider helping you out."

"God, I'm freezing," Emily said, her teeth chattering. Neither of them had been able to dry off as it was still pouring. Without a thought, Hotch shrugged off his jacket and laid it over Emily's shoulders. A wet jacket was better than no jacket, he figured.

She laughed as his hand found its place on her shoulder again. "What?" he asked.

"You can't say no to me, can you?"

"You know, I don't appreciate being mocked," Hotch said lightly.

"He's gone, GSW to the head," sounded a voice through the officer's radio.

Emily gulped. Though she thought she had already bounced back, she realized the gravity of the situation. A killer had held a knife to her throat, had chased them through the forest, had stalked them, had come this close to making them his next victims. She wondered how on earth it was that she could be laughing at a time like this. When she rehashed the events since they'd left the mall, she realized how many times Hotch had put his life on the line for her. "Thank you," she said.

"For the jacket? I thought you were busy making fun of me for not being able to say no to you."

"No. Not for the jacket. Well, for everything. So…yeah, the jacket too."

Hotch smirked and pulled Emily closer.

A/N: Thanks for reading! Please leave a review!