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Time	By : cr8zymommy Category: 1 through F > Criminal Minds Views: 4585 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story

Chapter List
- 7
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Gripping tight to the handle above her window, Emily leaned slightly to keep her seat as the SUV whipped around yet another corner. “Do you really think she’s going to be there?” She asked, turning her head to look at her Unit Chief. The hard lines to Aaron Hotchner’s face seemed to be even harder than normal. Emily hadn’t ever thought that would be possible.
“It’s the only lead we’ve got right now.” Aaron said. His eyes never left the road. “We better hope she’s there. He better hope she’s there.”
Behind them, Dave grunted his agreement. None of them wanted to voice out loud the thoughts that were raging inside their minds. If this woman wasn’t here, then they were all responsible for putting Reid back in with his attacker for no good reason. That thought was enough to make them cringe inside.
Each one of them had seen the worst that the world had to offer. They’d seen exactly how bad people could be. The things that men, women, even children could do to another human being. Yet, this was person to them. Spencer Reid wasn’t the typical victim. They always hurt for their victims; if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be able to do their job. But it hurt so much more when it was someone you loved.
Not only that, but Reid was their youngest, the kindest, and at one time had been the most innocent. He’d worked hard from his first day at the BAU and had proved himself time and time again to be an intricate part of the team.
But beyond that, anyone who watched the team interact for a while could see how Reid was viewed by his teammates. He was their equal, yes, but at the same time, he was their sheltered one. Maybe it was because of his age, so young compared to them all, or his size, which made him appear even younger. Maybe it was that he was one of the smartest people they’d ever met, but he lacked some of the most simple social graces. Maybe it was his awkwardness around others, or his shyness that had still been there before he’d been taken. Or Maybe it was all of the above. One thing was abundantly clear, though. Every member of the team had always tried to look out for Reid and protect and shelter him as best as possible.
This kidnapping had made them all feel like failures. Each member was dealing with their guilt and grief in their own way. They’d spent too many years learning to lock away emotions on crime scenes and while talking to victims; it had spread over into their personal life. Those shields had started to crack when Reid went missing. Now that he was found, they were slowly breaking away, piece by piece.
It was evident in the way that Aaron’s eyes would flash with more emotion than he’d ever allowed to show. It was there in the look that was on Dave’s face each time that he stopped to think about what had been done. It showed in the slight tremble that kept trying to come out in Emily’s hands, or the way her eyes kept trying to fill with tears. The emotion was there in JJ’s tears and in the heartache that was written all through her. Garcia’s showed in the fierce protectiveness she was displaying. And Morgan, his showed in the mood swings, the way he alternated from broken hearted to furious to calm and back again.
Emily laid her head back as all these thoughts ran through her mind. They may have found Reid, she realized, but the fight was nowhere near over. And it wasn’t just Reid that was going to need to heal from here on out. It was the rest of them, too. All of them were going to need some time to recover from the last few years.
Her thoughts seemed to stop when she saw the property come into view. Everything emotional inside of her clicked off. She wasn’t Emily Prentiss anymore. She was Agent Prentiss—and there was potentially a victim here.
The car parked abruptly and the three Agents were out in a flash. They all had their vests on already, prepared for any eventuality. Though their suspect was in custody that didn’t mean that this area was safe. It was even more suspicious because of how easily they’d obtained the location.
Even as the police cars and the ambulance pulled up behind them, Aaron was already gesturing his team forward. They held their guns drawn as they moved across the grass and through the trees that lightly dotted the landscape.
Dave was the first one to notice the shack at the back of the property. “Here!” he called, gesturing with his hand. He ran forward, gun tight in his grip, moving through the last few trees until they opened before them.
The three Agents moved as a unit, covering one another as they moved closer, checking for danger all around them. They’d come up on the back of the building, so they moved carefully, preparing to circle around toward the door. Emily was the first to make the turn around the building. What she saw on the side made her stop in her tracks.
The top half of a woman was sticking out of a window. Her hands were placed on the wood on either side, working to help her push her way further out. Cuts and bruises dotted her arms and chest, as well as her face and back, all of which were visible. It was obvious that the woman was naked.
Reality kicked back in when she heard the woman hiss in pain. Emily came back to life, moving forward. “Ma’am…” That was all she managed to get out before the woman’s head shot up, a scream already starting to push past her lips. Bruised eyes locked onto Emily, for the moment not really seeing her. Emily held her hands up and tried to present a calming image. “Ma’am, my name is Emily Prentiss. I work with the FBI. We’re here to get you out of here.”
Knowledge flashed in the woman’s eyes. Some of the fear dwindled backwards. “FBI?” she croaked out. The sound of her voice had Emily wanting to wince. “Yes, Ma’am.” She reassured her. Behind her she heard the other two agents as well as the cops, but she tried to give a gesture behind her back for them to stay back. She didn’t think this woman would react well to seeing any males at the woman. “Ma’am, are you alone here? Is there anyone else here?”
The woman shook her head, her raven hair swaying around her as she did. “No, no. He’s gone. I…I have to get free.”
“That’s what I’m here for, ma’am.” Emily said. She took a cautious step forward, holstering her gun as she did. “Will you let me help you? You look injured.”
After a moment of silence, a little more life came into the woman’s eyes. She nodded. Emily was careful to move slowly when she stepped forward. Her hands hooked around the woman, trying to brace her at the armpits. To her surprise, the woman was extremely light. It didn’t take much at all for the two of them to get her out the window. But once she was out, her legs seemed to give out. She slid down to the ground, her back against the wall.
“I need a medic over here!” Emily called out. Then she squatted down by the woman. When she saw movement out of the corner of her eye, Aaron moving forward with a few blankets in his hands, she smiled at him and took them.
Emily kept her voice gentle as she wrapped the blankets around the trembling, slight woman. “Can you tell me what your name is, ma’am?” She asked her.
The woman swallowed, her arms crossing over her stomach. Little trembles seemed to run up and down her even with the blankets that Emily had put on. With those blankets, it was a little easier for Emily to look at her. To look without having to see the marks all over this woman that obviously came from fists and belts and so many other things that no one wanted to think about.
“It’s Cindy. Cindy Meyers.”
The soft voice was barely able to be heard, but Emily caught it and gave the woman a smile. “Good, good, Cindy. Now, there’s some paramedics on their way over. We’re going to get you looked at and taken to the hospital, ok? We’ll get you cleaned up and treated. Is there someone you’d like us to call for you? A family member?”
Just as Dave and Aaron led the paramedics over, Emily’s words seemed to spark something in Cindy. Her eyes grew wide and her breath hitched. “Someone…” she whispered, almost to herself. Then, to everyone’s shock, the fear on Cindy’s face seemed to explode, growing beyond what they’d expected. “You have to help!” she cried, reaching out to grab Emily’s hands.
Emily was startled, but she tried to keep her voice calm and soothing. “That’s what we’re here for, Cindy. We’re here to help you, I promise you that.”
“No! No, you don’t understand! You have to help him!”
There was the sound of movement that warned them only seconds before Dave Rossi knelt down in front of Cindy. To all of their surprise, she didn’t flinch away from him. Didn’t even react to it except to turn her frantic, pleading eyes toward him.
“Him?” Dave said gently. “Who is he, Cindy?”
“The boy! You have to help the boy! Please!” she begged, tears falling down her cheeks. The tears weren’t for her; they were for him. “Please, I told him I’d send help. Please, you’ve got to help him!”
Dave and Emily locked eyes before looking up to their leader. Aaron stepped forward, his commanding presence pulling the attention to him as it always did. “The boy at the house? His name is Spencer Reid and he’s currently at the station with my other agents, ma’am. We’ve got him.”
That seemed to be enough for Cindy. The last important thing that she’d needed to do. While paramedics swarmed around her, she dropped her head down onto her knees and sighed. If it wasn’t for the paramedic and Dave, the woman would have toppled sideways as her body gave in to the stress it had been under and fell into the safety of unconsciousness.

Emily was the one to ride to the hospital with Cindy. She stayed with her as the paramedics brought her in, but then she was forced into the waiting room as the examination was done. Waiting wasn’t exactly one of her favorite things to do. It left her mind too much time to wander. To think about things that she didn’t really want to think about.
Images of Cindy kept popping up in her mind. The way the woman had looked as she’d been trying to climb out the window. The bruises that had peppered her entire body. It was obvious that she’d been beaten, severely. Physically, unless there was internal damage, her chances of survival looked high. But that was just physical. The mental part of things…
That thought invariably brought Emily’s mind back to Reid. Just thinking of him tested her compartmentalizing skills to the extreme. In any other situation, with any of the victims and killers they’d dealt with over the years, she’d always been able to detach herself a little bit. To feel, yes, but not let it overwhelm her. In the privacy of her own home or over a bottle of something bubbly with Garcia and JJ, she let down her walls and grieved over those they’d seen. But she’d always been able to keep up her professionalism until she was alone. Not now.
Ever since they’d got the call that had told them Reid was alive, alive, she felt like she’d been battling back tears. Joy and heartache had equal places in her heart. Reid was alive! But…he wasn’t the same man he had been. He’d lived through so much.
She didn’t need Reid’s eidetic memory to bring up perfect mental images of the marks she’d seen on her friend’s body. No, not friend. Her brother. Because that’s what Reid felt like to her. A younger brother she had always tried to take care of and watch out for. She realized that he’d been like that for everyone. To Aaron, he was like a son. To Dave, like a favorite nephew. To JJ and Garcia, he was like a son as well. To Emily, he was a younger brother. To Morgan, well, Emily had her opinions of that, though she’d never voiced them. Morgan acted like Reid was his brother on the outside, but anyone who had seen him over Reid’s disappearance, anyone that knew him, would be able to see under the surface of that. There was feeling there, more than just a brotherly love.
That only made Emily’s heart ache even more. Their lost one may have been found, but was he ever going to be the same again? He didn’t even recognize anyone but Garcia! Logically she knew that it was understandable that Reid suffered from a traumatic form of amnesia. It could be a defense mechanism to keep himself from hoping and hurting even more. But when he’d looked at her with that terrified look in his eyes, a look that showed he clearly had no idea who she was, she’d felt her heart start to break a little more.
That break had grown when Reid had come apart in Garcia’s arms. Emily could still hear him saying “…You have to get out of here, Garcia. You have to go now. Take the pretty lady with you…”
God, even his voice sounded different! Emily wrapped her arms around her waist as she perched in the hospital waiting chair, her eyes staring unseeing out the window. Reid’s words kept playing over and over in her mind.
He didn’t sound like he used to. The Spencer Reid she knew had always sounded unsure of himself in normal conversation, at least until he started spouting out the facts and statistics that he was so fond of. There he was comfortable. He’d been afraid before, after the horrors he’d had to live with in his short life. They’d heard it in his voice once or twice. But he was so internal with those kinds of things that he typically tried to hide it from them.
But now, well, now he sounded like a terrified child. ‘Child’ was the key word here, Emily realized. Reid spoke like a child. His words were smaller than normal, not as sophisticated. He spoke with hesitation, when they could get him to speak at all, and he spoke in a way that Emily could only describe as ‘dumbed-down’. Never had she thought she’d admit to missing hearing him ramble about the inaccuracies in movies or in statements that people made. That she’d miss the way he corrected peoples’ grammar when they spoke incorrectly. But she did.
His physical wounds would heal, just like Cindy’s would. But also like Cindy, what was inside was going to take a long time to heal. Emily just prayed that he one day, he’d be able to. That he might return to a semblance of the man he had once been.
“Cindy Meyers?”
The cool voice broke into Emily’s thoughts. She forced herself to push away the internal pain. To do her job.
Her feet were steady and her face was composed when she rose to her feet. “I’m Agent Emily Prentiss.” She introduced herself, showing her ID to the female doctor that stood before her in green hospital scrubs. “I’m the one that rode in with her. How is she?”
The short woman looked at Emily’s badge before giving a slight nod. She barely came up to Emily’s shoulder, and her short cropped red hair gave her an almost pixie like look, but the doctor had a commanding presence to her that actually reminded Emily a little of Aaron.
“Ms. Meyers in recovering nicely in her room. Her right wrist was broken, but we’ve casted that now. There were two cracked ribs and we’ve done what we can for her to set those towards healing. Otherwise, she’s a lucky young woman. The bruises and cuts are her body are minor and should heal in no time. There was no internal damage. We stitched a cut on the back of her head where it appears she was struck by a blunt object, but I’d guess it’s days old. She’s showing no current signs of a concussion. We’ve got her on pain medication to keep her comfortable.”
“Was a rape kit performed?”
The doctor nodded. “Yes. Thankfully, it came back negative. She stressed that she wasn’t raped and our tests confirmed it, thank God. It was hard enough to get her to talk to us. She’s been demanding to speak with the police since she woke up.”
That had Emily quirking an eyebrow. Seeing that, the doctor sighed. “Apparently there’s someone, a boy, she feels is in danger. That’s the only reason I’m letting you in right now. Otherwise, we’d like to sedate her and allow her body to rest. That’s the thing she needs the most right now.”
Understanding washed through Emily and she gestured for the doctor to lead the way to Cindy. In minutes, Emily found herself in the girl’s hospital room. Underneath the bright hospital lights and in the crisp white sheets, Cindy looked worse than she had outside the house. The bruises on her face seemed darker, one of them almost swelling her eye shut. But those eyes locked on Emily almost the instant she was in the room.
“Hi, Cindy. Remember me? I’m Agent Prentiss; I was one of the ones that found you.” Emily said gently as she stepped into the room. She kept her voice calm and her posture easy as she stepped up to the bed; not too close so as not to startle the girl. That apparently wasn’t necessary. Cindy reached out with her good hand, grasping Emily’s in hers.
“Please.” The girl begged in a hoarse voice. “Please, the boy. You need to help the boy.”
For a second Emily had to battle back the lump in her throat. She needed to be professional. Do her job. “I think you’re talking about Spencer Reid.” She finally said. She held tightly to the girl’s hand, trying to reassure her with the physical contact. “Taller, skinny man, unkempt brown hair? Big eyes?”
“Yes, yes! Him!”
“Ma’am, he’s at the station right now. We have him.”
Tension seemed to suddenly drain from Cindy. “You have him?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, thank God. You got him free. I told him I’d send him help. I promised him I would. That poor, poor boy.”
As much as Emily hated to do it, she knew she had to do her job. She had to. “Do you think you could answer a few questions for me, Cindy? Talk to me a little about what happened? You don’t have to if you’re not ready to do it right now.”
“No, no! I want to. I want you to be able to lock that bastard up where he belongs.”
“Ok.” Shifting, Emily took a seat on the chair beside the bed, making herself comfortable. She made is if to move her hand, but Cindy just held on tighter. So Emily adjusted so that she could still sit and look at the girl while holding her hand at a comfortable angle. From her pocket she pulled out a small recorder that she’d brought with her, just in case. She set it up to record their conversation. “Can you tell me what happened to you the day you went missing?”
“That…that part of things still seems a little foggy.” Cindy started slowly. Her voice stayed soft. There was something in her eyes, a distant look that Emily thought was partially the morphine she’d been given and part her being lost in memories. But the Agent said nothing; just let her go at her own pace. “I, well, I remember getting up and starting my morning. Brushing my teeth, eating breakfast, all that kind of stuff. I remember going out of my apartment and then it just kind of goes blank.”
The question in her eyes was obvious. Here, Emily filled in the gaps. “If he’s anything like with the previous victims, it would indicate that he blitzed you. Your injuries suggest he came up behind you and struck you on the back of the head with something blunt. It’s totally understandable that you don’t remember that part of things.”
Pain flashed over Cindy’s features. She leaned back just a little into her pillow without ever letting go of Emily’s hand. Before Emily could suggest letting her rest, the woman continued with her story.
By the time she was done, Emily felt sick to her stomach. But she stayed there as the pain medication finally sucked the woman back down into the healing waves of sleep. Once she was sure she was out, Emily Prentiss rose to her feet to take the statement back to her co-workers. She had no idea how they were going to react to hearing this.
- 7
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- 9
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