The blood from her fingernails mixed with the dirt as she continued her climb, her leg almost completely immobile unless she found it impossible to move without pushing the broken bones against the hard mountainside. She could feel the sweat pouring down her neck even though she was freezing cold, her limbs shaking from the freezing winds that threatened to knock her off her path.

Hours earlier, her daughter had finished off the last of their food and water, Emily no longer able to deny her crying baby girl the food she had been begging for. Now when she heard her daughter asking for another bite of a cracker, the FBI agent had to do her best to veer off into another subject, not able to bear the burden of telling her daughter they had nothing left to eat.

She had been climbing for the entire day, the sky already turning from the overcast clouds that had been hovering above her for hours to the dark night sky she was learning to hate. Without the light, she wasn't able to climb as fast as she could nor could she see where her hands were going and grabbing at. If she were to think she was grabbing a rock to help her climb up and it instead was just a pile of hardened dirt, that was a big difference that could send her falling back down toward the river.

At one point hours ago she thought she had heard something, anything, but taking the time to stop and look around her the brunette woman finding no one around had her heart breaking.

Crickets started up just as the sun was setting, something Emily hadn't heard the night before. Did that mean they were getting closer to civilization or was it just a small stream they were closing in on? The woods had always been the ambassador's daughter's second home, but one thing she didn't study up on were facts about the life of a cricket.

Pausing to take a breath, feeling the pain in her thighs and arms from climbing for hours, she could feel bugs starting to crawl around her fingers that had dug themselves into the dirt. "I've dealt with worse than bugs," she breathed, closing her eyes to collect herself before she continued climbing. "I've dealt with worse."

Phoenix's little head lolled back, her big brown eyes finally closed as she got in the most sleep she could, her tiny little lips that puckered when she wanted her sippy cup parted as she slept.

The one year old had cried along with her mother when the helicopter had passed them, feeling the older woman's sadness bleeding through their jackets and into her little heart. She had sobbed harder than she ever had, even when her tiny wrist had broken after her uncle crashed their bike into a car, but seeing her mother so heartbroken had the little girl sick to her stomach with sadness.

Emily glanced down to her sleeping little girl, wishing she could run a hand over those hairs on her head as she reached up to grab a rock to hoist her up.

She didn't understand how people could do it, how she could do it for years. How could people hold their emotions back? After having her daughter, Emily wasn't able to put those bad memories back into those stuffy little boxes she'd had for so long.

When Phoenix was born, Emily was in tears. When the little girl she loved had to go to the doctor at two weeks old for an ear infection, Emily was in tears. When her baby finally took her first steps, Emily was in tears.

How she was able for so long to not let any emotions phase her at the wrong times she didn't know, but she'd have to relearn if they were getting back up to that path.

Blowing out a breath as a cramp started pinching at her side, Emily pulled herself and her daughter up onto the next ledge they came upon. She could hear her stomach rumbling but quickly put that aside, reaching back and taking her phone from her backpack once more to check service.

One bar.

A gasp escaped the scared woman, seeing how low her battery was. Quickly, the brunette woman pulled up her contact list and dialed her friend.

"Come on," she whispered, hearing the delayed ringing in her ear. "Pick up. Please pick up."

One ring.

Two rings.

"Emily?"

She couldn't hold back her tears at the worried voice on the other end. "Hotch," she cried, her voice strained as she tried not to take her daughter.

"Emily where are you? You didn't answer any of our calls."

"I was hiking with Nikki." She shook her head, still in awe of how stupid she could have been to not watch where she was going. "We fell off the path and started rolling down the side of the mountain."

She could hear his teeth clenching from the other end. "Tell me you're ok."

Emily looked down to her leg. "Minor injuries," she rushed out. "I need you to get us out of here. We're out of food and if we have to stay here throughout the night again, Nikki might freeze."

"We sent a helicopter. You didn't see it?"

"It didn't see me," she countered, looking out to see if the chopper was around again. "I guess with all the mud we fell through, we kind of blended in." Wiping away her tears, she looked down to her daughter who was slowly waking in her arms. "I need you to send it again. We've climbed higher on the mountain, but I still don't know how far I am from the path."

The Unit Chief was quick to use his other cell phone to contact Rossi. "We're coming for you, ok? Stay exactly where you are."

Emily couldn't do anything but nod when her signal cut off. Pulling the phone from her ear, the crying woman could see that her phone had died.

Now all she had to do was wait.