When Nothing Goes as Planned


Week 20

Hotch had woken up an hour before the alarm on his phone was supposed to ring. He laid for a moment in bed and just looking up at the ceiling. He had not slept more than six hours, but he was not tired and after five minutes of just lying there, Hotch got out of bed. He took a long shower, got dressed and ate half an apple, but there was still over an hour till he was meeting up with the others for breakfast. So he toke off his jacket and sat down on the bed with the file about Simone Hartmann. He spread the papers out on the bed to get a better over look of things.

Hotch and Morgan had been the ones who went to talk to Lola Rees, the woman who had witnessed Simone's abduction and made the 911 call.

Hotch and Morgan had gotten out of the car and walked across the road to the now empty playground where a woman was sitting on a bench with a young boy in her lap. She was stroking his blonde hair and holding him close to her chest. When Lola noticed Hotch and Morgan walking to her she sat her son down and rose from the bench.

"I'm agent Hotchner and this is agent Morgan," Hotch said both of them shaking her hand. "We would like to ask some questions about what happened."

The woman nodded her head yes. "Of course." But then she hesitated and looked down at her son, running her hand through his hair.

Morgan kneeled down in front of the boy. "What's your name?"

"Aiden."

"Do you like to swing, Aiden?"

"Yes," the boy said.

Morgan smiled. "What about you and I go swing for a bit while your mom talks with my colleague?"

Aiden looked up at his mom for permission to go. She nodded and Aiden jumped of the bench and took off running to the swing set with Morgan right behind him. Lola sat back down on the bench and Hotch sat down next to her. "What do you want me to tell you?" she asked.

"You told the other officer that you saw Simone before the abduction?"

Lola nodded. "That's true. Aiden was playing with some other kids and I was sitting here watching him when I saw the girl. She was trying to get off her bike, but it was too big for her and it looked like she was about to fall, so I walked over to her to help her, but I got there too late. I helped her up from the ground and asked her if she was okay. She said she was fine and before I got to ask her anything else I heard Aidan cry. He had fallen and gotten a bloody knee. After I took care of him he ran off and turned to look for the girl, but she was gone."

Hotch noticed how Lola kept calling Simone "the girl" and instead of calling her by her name, but he decided not to mention it. "When did you see Simone again?"

Lola thought for a moment and then said, "The first time was about 10 minutes later. She walked by the park with the bike next to her. When she walked by the third I figured she was probably lost and I was just about to get up and walk over to her when a man approached her."

"What did the man look like?" Hotch quickly asked.

"He was a head taller than her and had dark hair," she said and sighed. "That's pretty much all I could see from here and to be honest, I just thought the man was her father, because they talked for a bit and then started walking together. I turned my attention back to Aiden, but then I heard her scream and I turned around and saw the man pushed her into the backseat of a dark green car and drove away." Lola looked from Hotch to her son. He was swinging, holding the cord tight laughing as Morgan pushed him higher and higher.

"Can you describe the car?" Hotch asked.

Lola looked back at him. "No, it was too far away, but I'm positive it was dark green."

"Okay, thank you for your help," Hotch said, reaching into his pocket after a business card. He handed it to Lola. "Call me if you can think of something else that might help.

Lola flipped the card over between her fingers, looking at the phone number. "Will you be able to find her?" she asking, looking up at Hotch.

"I hope so."

Hotch looked up from the papers when there was a knock on the door. He carefully moved the papers aside so they would not fall on to the floor and then got up and opened the door. "JJ," Hotch said surprised, expecting to see Emily and not JJ on the other side of the door. He looked at his watch, thinking he bit be late for breakfast, but saw that it was only a little after seven. "Is something wrong?"

"I don't know if I should say anything," JJ said, fiddling nervously with her hands, "but I'm kind of worried about Emily."

"Emily?" Hotch stood up a little straighter and tried not to show how worried he got by JJ's words. "What happened? Is something wrong with the babies?"

"No, no!" JJ quickly said. "It's nothing like, it's just…" She looked over her shoulder and down the hall at the door to the room she and Emily shared. "Can I come in?"

Hotch nodded and stepped to the side, closing the door behind JJ as she walked into the room and sat down on the side of the bed. She moved a couple of papers around so she could see what he was looking at and a picture of Simone Hartmann appeared. "This case is getting to Emily. Or at least this girl is," JJ said, picking up the photo. It was a school picture. It had the traditional blue background, but the girl did not have that big fake smile that all kids usually have. She actually did not smile at all. "She's not smiling," JJ said as Hotch sat down next to her on the bed.

"Emily or…?" Hotch asked a bit confused.

"Simone." She showed him the picture. "Emily doesn't smile either. She just cries."

Hotch looked up from the picture quickly. "She was still crying?"

JJ nodded, but kept her eyes on the photo. "Last night when I came back to our room, she was still working on the case even though you had told her to go to bed. We argued about it for some time and then she just started crying." She looked up at him. "She cried most of the night, so I think it might be a good idea to let her sleep a little longer."

"She's not awake yet?"

"No I turned off the alarm clock before it woke her up and then got dressed quietly and left," JJ said. "I know she will get mad when she finds out I didn't wake her up, but I really think she needs to sleep."

"I agree," he said and got up from the bed and started gathering the papers together and laid them back in the file. "We should go meet up with the others now." JJ nodded and Hotch laid the Simone file and the others from the case in his briefcase and then they both left the room.

/

When Simone woke up the room was no longer filled with darkness, but light fell through small windows on the top of the wall to her right. She realized the tie around her wrists and the gag had been removed and that someone had banded her elbows. She was still lying on the floor and still wearing her own clothes, but to her horror she noticed it had been washed. The dirt from her fall off the bike was gone from her pants and a there was only a faint amount of blood left on the sleeves. Shivers went through her as the thought of that man touching her, taking of her clothes and then redressing her again. Simone wanted to cry. She wanted to get out of there. She wanted to go home, but how? She slowly rose from the floor, expecting to see stars flash before her eyes, but this time her sight stayed clear and the throbbing in her head was not unbearable.

On unsteady feet Simone got off the floor and walked the four feet to the wall with the windows. When she reached the wall she collapsed against it and slid to the floor. Her body was weak and she wondered when the last time she had gotten anything to eat or drink. She sat down on the floor, her back against the wall and look around the room. To her left was a white bed with a pink cover and pillows. There was also a nightstand with a small lamp and a big bookcase filled with books. On the opposed wall than the one she was sitting by was the door she had tried to get through earlier and to her right was the stairs that lead to the door the man had come through. Had all of this happened last night? Or had more time passed? Simone wondered if today was Saturday and if there was a way for her to figure out.

Simone still felt too weak to walk, so she crawled across the floor and collapsed on the bed. For a moment she could not figure out what the sheets smell of, but when she realized it was lavender her eyes filled with tears. Simone closed her eyes and hugged a pillow close to her chest, inhaling the sweet smell of lavender that was the same as the shampoo her mother used to use.

/

After the team finished breakfast they drove to the precinct and each member of the team got started where they had left off the day before. Even though it was only a little after eight, there were already a lot of people in the small police department. Hotch noticed a man by the coffee machine that seemed out of place. He was normal high with brown hair and glasses and he looked tired. He pushed different buttons on the machine, but could not get it to work. Hotch walked over to him and gently push the right button. When the plastic cup was filled with coffee and the man took it from the holder. "Thank you," he said, looking from the warm cup to Hotch.

Hotch nodded, looking at the man's face. He noticed the eyes. They were the same blue eyes as the kidnapped girl. "Are you Simone's father?"

The man looked confused at Hotch, but then nodded. "I'm Kim Hartmann."

"Aaron Hotchner," Hotch said, shaking Kim's hand. "I'm the agent in charge of your daughter's case."

Kim sighed in relief. "Then maybe you can tell us what's going on."

"How much have you been told?"

"Not much. My wife and I got here at five this morning, but no one has really been able to tell us anything," Kim said frustrated.

Hotch laid a hand on his arm. "Let's go find your wife and then I'll tell you what we know."

/

Emily woke by the sound of a baby crying in the room next to her and JJ's. She opened her eyes slightly and noticed that the room was filled with much more light then she expected to this early in the morning. She rolled over to look at the clock and then jumped out of bed when she saw that it was almost 10am. How had she been able to oversleep this much? Why hadn't any of the others woken her? And where was JJ?

Emily looked confused around the room and saw that JJ's clothes were missing from the back of the armchair in the corner, so she had definitely left. Why hadn't JJ woken her up? She needed to work! Instead of calling JJ to yell at her and Hotch – since he had to be in on the whole thing. JJ could not just decide to let her meet late at work without Hotch's permission – Emily decided to get dressed first. She changed out of her sleep clothes and into a pair of black dress pants and a light green t-shirt. It was a bit too tight, so it showed of her round stomach, which she usually liked, but not while on the job. Still she kept it on and just decided to wear a jacket over it. If it got to hot, then she would just have to take it off.

Emily got the jacket of the bed, put it on, grabbed her phone and keys and then left the room quickly – too quickly. Because when she stepped out she almost walked directly into a small boy.

"Kian!" Emily looked in the direction of the voice and saw a young woman carrying a baby on her hip, walking towards her. "Kian!" she yelled again, but the boy did not listen to her and instead hid behind Emily's legs.

Emily looked down at him with a smile. "You better run back to her, before she gets too mad."

The boy looked up at Emily very confused. "June, hvad sagde hun?" (June, what did she say?) the boy asked the woman as he ran back to her.

This time it was Emily's turn to look confused. She had not expected the boy to speak a foreign language and she really had no idea what he had just said, but she guessed that the young woman's name was June and that the boy was probably called Kian.

"Sorry about that," June said, moving a piece of long brown hair behind her ear. "My brother isn't very good at doing what he's told."

"That's okay, I know how boys that age can be," Emily said with a smile, thinking about Jack.

June moved the little girl to her other hip and asked, "You have a son that age?"

"No, no, but the father of the little ones here," she said, tapping her stomach, "has a boy that's turning five soon."

June smiled and was just about to say something when Kian pulled at her jeans. "Skal vi ikke snart have is?" (Aren't we getting ice cream soon?) June nodded and smiled down at her brother. "I have promised them ice cream," she told Emily.

Emily thought it was a bit too early for the kids to eat ice cream, but she did not say anything. Instead she started walking with them down the hall. "Are the little one yours or…?"

"No this is Sheila, she's our sister," June told her and as soon as the words left her mouth the smile that had been on her lips throughout the whole conversation disappeared and her eyes filled with tears.

"Is something wrong?" Emily asked placed her hand on the young woman's lower back, which made her stop walking. There was something about the June's eyes and the "none" smile on her lips that reminded Emily about someone.

"My…" June started to say, but then stop. "It has just been a long flight here and I haven't gotten any sleep yet."

"When did you get here?"

"At about 4 this morning I think," June said with a sigh.

"I'm guessing you aren't here by yourself with these two, so where are your parents?"

"They left for the police station as soon as we got here?"

"Police station?" Emily asked surprised and then it was like a light went on in her head - foreign language, just arrived in the country, parents at the police station and, if she did not remember what Garcia had told her about the siblings wrongly, then Simone had two sisters and brother. She could not remember exactly how old they were, but she remembered that the age differences were big. "Are you Simone's sister?"

"How did you know?" June asked, grabbing Kian's hand and holding Sheila closer against her. Emily could see that her words had frightened the young woman and she completely understood why. It was not logical that some unknown woman in a foreign country would know anything about her or her sister, so Emily quickly fished her badge out of her pocket and showed it to June. "I'm agent Emily Prentiss from the FBI. I'm working on your sister's case."

"Sejt, FBI!" (Cool, FBI) Kian said reaching out for Emily's badge. She would have let him hold it, if June had not pulled him away. Emily showing June her badge and telling her that she was a FBI agent had not seemed to calm the young woman at all and she still held her siblings away from Emily and as tight as she could without hurting them.

Emily took a step back. "I'm heading to the police station now, do you want me to show you the way there?"

"No thanks, we're just going to buy the ice cream and then go back to our room and stay there."

Emily smiled. The way the young woman was protecting her sibling showed Emily what a great parent she would one day make. "I think that's a good idea."

June nodded. "Bye," she said as she tucked at Kian's hand to get him to move and then they started walking down the hall. Half way down the boy turned around and weaved at Emily. She weaved back at him before putting her badge back in her back pocket and fishing her cell phone out of her front. She turned the corner, walking in the direction of the exit as she pressed speed dial 1, ready to tell Hotch exactly what she thought of him right now.


A/N – I know it's been over 3 months since my last update and I'm sorry about that, but school has been crazy and I haven't really been able to have a life. BUT yesterday my summer vacation started, which means no school for the next 2 months! I finally have time to write :D