Beep. Beep. Beep.

The noise kept repeating over and over. Reid couldn't figure out what it could be. A watch? Maybe one of the unsubs had a watch with a heart rate monitor. Heart rate? Yeah, that sounded right. Could it be his? But that would mean…

He was in a hospital. It was confirmed when he pried his eyes open. Ow. The fluorescent lights were intense. He started to notice other sounds now. The murmur of voices coming from a hallway, a newscaster's voice from a television and snoring. The last one through him off. But who?

Ah, that explained it. Morgan was slumped in a chair beside him fast asleep. The light coming from the window told him it had to be around 6 a.m. As much as he wanted to fall back into the darkness he focused on keeping his eyes open.

Looking up, there was a television set with the early morning news on. It was a local Montana station. Suddenly, footage appeared on the screen that he readily recognized. It was the house. What looked like 50 officers and countless reporters were there documenting what the news banner was calling the "worst serial killings in Montana history." If he wasn't hooked up to so many wires he would have jumped out of bed for joy. Those bastards were in custody. And if anyone deserved the death penalty – which existed, albeit flawed, in Montana – it was them.

His energy was slowly starting to creep back up, but when he tried to call out to Morgan no sound came out. God, his mouth was dry. He tried again. A strangled sound came out that vaguely resembled Morgan's name, but it wasn't enough to wake him. Plan B.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP

Morgan's eyes shot open. He frantically looked at Reid's heart rate monitor and then at his friend.

"Dammit Reid, you scared me," he gasped with exasperation, rubbing his eyes to reach complete consciousness.

"Sorry," Reid rasped. "I-I need water."

"Shit, yeah. You've been out for almost 24 hours, makes sense," Morgan told him groggily as he went over to a dresser where a pitcher and a cup sat on top.

"Here you go," he said, handing him the cup.

Reid couldn't remember water tasting so good. They were hydrating him through an IV, but that didn't do much for dry mouth.

"Thank you," he said, after inhaling the entire cup.

"No problem, kid," Morgan responded with a smile, "Just glad to see you awake."

"What about Emily? And J.J? Are they…?" he asked with desperation in his voice. Why hadn't he thought of them sooner. It was as if his mind was in slow motion.

"They're alive," Morgan answered more solemnly than Reid would have expected. "J.J is doing great actually. Her ribs were broken and she's shaken up, but nothing permanent."

"And Emily?"

Reid didn't like the look on Morgan's face.

"What? What's wrong?"

"I told you, she's alive," he sighed. "But she's in bad shape. Those freaks did something to here… used some device on her, uh, lady parts. They took her into surgery right away but they had to remove her ovaries. There was too much scarring."

His words were like a punch in the gut. This was all his fault. If he hadn't gotten them into this… and now… now she would never be able to have kids. They had never had a conversation about whether she wanted to or not, but he supposed everyone would like to have the option.

God, how would he ever be able to look at either of them in the face again. He knew they would tell him not to blame himself, but he had let his guard down around that bitch Angie.

"Morgan, how much do you know?" Reid asked. If Emily was still fresh out of surgery she couldn't have told them much. Meanwhile, J.J had been separated from them for most of the nightmare in that house.

"Just what J.J could tell us. You guys were lost and running out of gas… you stopped at that house for help and it turned out to be a horror show," Morgan recollected.

Reid nodded. So he probably didn't know about the… rape. God, it was such an ugly word. But it was an ugly thing so it made sense. Reid could still feel their hands on him. Oh God…

"Reid, you okay? Your heart rate…" Morgan said, nodding to the monitor.

Reid exhaled slowly and watched it go back down. He needed to stay calm if he was going to maintain some dignity. He had to tell Emily to keep what happened between them and them alone. The team would never look at him the same way if they knew what he did.

"What about the family? Are they all alive?" he asked. With the exception of Luke, he would feel safer if every one of them were dead.

"They're all in custody, except a kid in his 20's. J.J said his sister stabbed him because he saved her. The sister was almost gone, actually. I guess he strangled her before he died."

Reid clenched his fists. Luke was essentially innocent and now he was dead. Why should Angie get to live over him?

"It's not right," Reid muttered.

"None of this is… they found like 100 cars behind that house," Morgan explained. "It's going to take awhile, but they've been recovering belongings from missing people from all over the country. It seems like they've been luring people there for decades."

Reid wasn't surprised. He remembered all those tools in the basement and the stains on the mattress. So many people had suffered and died there.

"If it wasn't for you guys they would have kept going for who knows how long," Morgan said. "It's rough, but it's the truth."

Reid nodded. He knew what Morgan meant, but it didn't make it any easier to digest.

"But how could the local police not have suspected anything?" Reid asked. "That's a lot of missing people."

"County lines, politics, any number of reasons. Why don't we know about half the sickos that are out there right now? They're good… too good," Morgan said.

Morgan made a good point. There were so many of them out there still. Sure, they could catch a handful every year, but some people were never going to stop or be found. So what was the point?

"Reid?" Morgan asked after almost a minute of silence.

"Yeah, sorry, I'm just…"

"No, yeah, you're out of it. I get it. I just want to make sure you're okay," Morgan said. "We love you, kid. You're going to be alright."

He highly doubted that, but he nodded all the same.

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Authors note: Gasp! Two chapters in one day? Who am I? I just wanted to thank you all for being so supportive and tolerating my long absences. I went back to school for my Master's degree this past winter so I had very little time to write anything other than papers. But I'm off for the summer and my muse is stronger than ever so expect more chapters in the near future. I'm debating whether to end this story after the next chapter and then continue with the trio's recovery in a sequel. What do you guys think? But once again, thanks for the love and support. Your reviews made my day 3