Fighting For Life

| Chapter Nine |

BAU

The team waited, hoping for a message from the unsub. Garcia was sitting at a desk, she had been crying. Elle walked over to her and sat on the desk.

"Penelope, I'm so sorry. I should have tried harder to warn him, or shoot the unsub" Elle whispered. Garcia looked up at her and smiled.

"It isn't your fault Elle" Garcia said. Elle shook her head and stood up. Garcia also stood up and pulled her in for a hug. Hotch walked into the room and knocked.

"Elle, I need you to go over what you saw" he said. Elle nodded.

"Can I talk to Reid?" She asked quietly.

"Of course" Hotch said he left to go find Reid. Elle walked out of the room and sat at a table. She looked over and saw Emily and Rossi talking, Blake was looking at the evidence board and JJ was sitting on a couch with her phone near her ear, probably talking to Will. JJ looked across and saw Elle staring, she hung up the phone and walked over.

"I'm sorry Elle, I shouldn't have said those things" JJ said.

"I'm sorry as well. You're right, my jokes aren't very funny" Elle offered a smile.

"What I said about you running away wasn't right, what happened to you on that case, that was something you should never have had to deal with" JJ said thoughtfully. Reid and Hotch came into the room.

"We can talk on the roof. Where it happened?" Reid asked Elle. She nodded her head. Hotch and JJ left the two and walked over to Rossi and Emily and joined in on the conversation.

"Hey" Emily said sighing. JJ smiled in return. Hotch was about to say something before his phone began to ring.

"Aaron Hotchner" he answered. Emily watched him closely, noticing his eyes were bloodshot. It didn't take a profiler to know he was tired.

"Hotch, I can call you that right? It only seems fitting" The voice on the other end said. Hotch ran to Garcia with Rossi, Emily and Blake following. JJ stayed behind.

"What do you want?" He asked. Garcia began to track the phone.

"I want to talk, about Derek and little Leah-Elizabeth" the voice laughed. Hotch shook his head.

"You said if we stopped working this case you would leave us" he said, trying to trick the unsub.

"Did you really think I would? Who's to say Derek wasn't the original target and Leah-Elizabeth was a ruse, a mousetrap of sorts and now that I've got Derek I can dump her" The unsub answered.

JJ came running into the room. "They've just found four bodies. Beaten and killed just like the Johnson's" She said. Hotch glanced at the phone to see the unsub had hung up. Blake turned to Garcia.

"Did you get him?" she asked. Garcia shook her head.

"I'm sorry, I tried. But he was using so many different, different" Garcia stuttered, trying hard not to cry. Emily wrapped her arms around Garcia tightly.

"JJ and I will head to the new crime scene, Rossi you and Blake wait at the morgue for the bodies and Prentiss, you stay here with Garcia. Inform Reid and Elle when they finish" Hotch said. Emily nodded and watched as her team left. She turned back to Garcia.

"I'm so sorry Derek" Garcia mumbled. Emily watched as her friend, the happy bubbly person who tried so hard to not break down, finally cracked.

"Penny, we'll find him" Emily tried. "Alive" she added.

-♠️ -

Elle and Reid had made their way over to the elevator, they rode it to the last floor and then climbed the stairs to the roof. Once they had reached the edge of the roof Reid turned to Elle. "Take me to before it happened" Reid said.

"Well, JJ and I had just fought and I needed some fresh air, so I went to the roof. I remembered what JJ had said, about me always running away" Elle stopped, not sure whether it would be a good idea to tell Reid. She closed her eyes tightly. "I had thought about it before, but I didn't want to give up that easily. But when JJ said those things it just, I don't know. It felt kind of, right. So I stood up here and as I was about to jump, Morgan saw me" Elle started. Reid gasped.

"You're suicidal?" He asked. Elle bit her lip. "Why didn't you tell anyone?" He asked suddenly angry. He cared about her and realising she was going to take her own life, leaving him, the team, that infuriated him. Elle was about to answer but she closed her mouth, not sure how to.

"So he called out to me. I looked down and saw a man with a knife coming closer to him. I tried calling out but, I couldn't. He grabbed Morgan and he just fell to the ground. He didn't even fight" Elle was cut off by Reid's voice.

"You can't get angry at him for not fighting, when you were about to give up" He said.

"They put him into a car, a white SUV. I didn't get the full license plate but I think it started with an FCZ" she finished.

"They? You said man before" Reid questioned.

"Yeah, there was one man, he grabbed Morgan and then a group of them put him into the car, three actually and another one driving" she said. Reid nodded his head.

"I'm sorry Reid" She whispered.

"Don't" he argued. Elle wrapped her arms around her stomach.

"Reid, please" She started.

"No Elle! You may think that if you die, no one is going to care, but that's not true! The team care's , you may not know Emily or Blake or Rossi, but they would!" Reid said angrily. Elle stared at him, shocked that Reid had said those words.

"I nearly died, I did die! Because my team, my family let me down" She fought.

"How could you say that? We didn't let you down! You let yourself down" Reid answered. It had now turning into a yelling match, all emotions flying.

"You don't know how it feels Reid!" Elle yelled, tears were pooling her eyes. "You don't understand what I went through, I died Spencer!" The tears she had been trying so hard to hold in came flooding out.

"You're wrong, I do know how it feels. I was kidnapped, killed and brought back. I took drugs. But I didn't blame my team, they helped me! Just because they weren't there to stop me from dying, doesn't mean it was their fault" he finished. He turned to walk away. Elle stood still, shocked.

"Why didn't anyone tell me?" She whispered.

"Because you left" Reid stated. She took a step towards Reid, expecting him to move away but he didn't.

"Reid! Elle!" Emily called out.

Reid turned to Emily. He walked over to her and smiled. Elle stood still, watching him leave.

"They found four new victims and we believe Derek was the original target, not Leah-Elizabeth" Emily informed the two. Elle nodded her head while Reid took of towards the first floor. "Hey uh, what happened up here? I saw you two, pretty close" Emily grinned, trying to lighten the mood.

"Nothing, we need to find Derek. I'm sorry" Elle sputtered. Emily frowned and watched her walk. She shook her head and followed after them.