A Fathers Daughter: Alternate Ending

*Alternate* Chapter Twenty-Four (Spencer's POV)

I wake up to the sound of my phone ringing on the coffee table. I rub my eyes and realize I fell asleep in the living room waiting up for Cara. I yawn and pick my phone up to see Garcia's name flashing across the screen.

"Hello?"

"Thank god! Reid answered," Garcia's voice is panicked on the phone, clearly speaking to someone else before asking, "have you heard from Cara or has she reached out to you?".

"What? No," I say, shaking my head and standing up, instantly more awake. I glance over at the clock on the wall, it's a few minutes past midnight. Cara should have been here over an hour ago. "She was supposed to come over after Hotch got home but she isn't here yet. Is everything okay?"

"No!" Penelope exclaims, "No, everything is not okay. You need to get to Hotch's right now. We'll explain more once you're here."

She hangs up without another word and I feel my heart drop into my stomach. What the hell happened?

I arrive at Hotch's apartment ten minutes later to find the building is swarming with police officers and other FBI agents. I show my credentials and the officer allows me inside. Panic washes over me and I run up the stairs to his apartment. Cara was babysitting Jack tonight and given the police presence, something horrible must have happened.

I run to Hotch's door to see that it's been kicked in. There are clear signs of a struggle and I see Hotch sitting at his kitchen table with his head in his hands. The rest of our ever shrinking team is already there, but Cara is nowhere to be found.

"Hotch?" I say as I approach everyone, "what's going on?"

"They're gone," he says, his voice quiet and barely audible.

"Who's gone?" my eyes dart between my coworkers. Garcia is sitting next to Hotch, comforting him while Morgan paces behind them and Blake and Rossi are speaking with one of the officers in the living room.

"Reid," Morgan says gently, pulling me aside, "Cara and Jack have been kidnapped."

"What? No, no that can't be possible," I say, taking a step back, "no, she's supposed to meet me at my place after she leaves here. She's not gone."

"Spencer," Morgan says, placing both hands on my shoulders, "Hotch got home about thirty minutes ago with Rossi and both Ash and Jack were gone. We checked the security footage and it looks like they were abducted by an armed, masked, unsub. No cops were called because the apartment next to us is vacant and the neighbors across the hall are out of town. Hotch has already compiled a list of people who may have wanted to do something like this to him, but we don't know about Ash. We know she worked in sex crimes before this so we're looking into any arrests she made there, but you know her better than any of us. Can you think of anyone she's told you about from her past that might want to hurt her?"

I stare at him for a minute, trying to rack my brain to think of anyone who'd ever want to hurt Cara. But then I realize I know almost nothing about her other than surface level facts. I know she grew up in New York with her mom, her dad wasn't in the picture, her mom died when she was 18 from a drug overdose. Then she went to Boston University with a double major in criminology and psychology and a minor in sociology, and joined the FBI after graduation. 

I know a few personal details about her, like that she feels safest at museums, loves Sherlock Holmes, her favorite flowers are black dahlias, her alcoholic drink of choice is either tequila or sauvignon blanc, she hates the taste of coffee but loves the smell, and that her favorite color is a lilac even though her wardrobe consists of mostly black and dark clothes. But I don't know anything else. 

I'm in love with someone I don't even know well enough to say for certain that she doesn't have any enemies.

"I," I start but my words escape me. How can I be head over heels in love with someone that I barely know? "I, um, I don't know. I don't think so but I'm not sure."