Copycat//Criminal Minds FanFic

Paths

The smile on Fuchs's face turned into a grimace of shock. "But... I thought... you said... they would leave me alone..." He fell face forward onto the field.

Hotch and Prentiss both quickly reached down and grabbed their guns. They slowly advanced on the fallen unsub, weapons ready. A snap in the brush made them both jump.

"Relax, guys, it's only me." Morgan stepped from the trees, his arms raised in mock surrender.

"Thank goodness you came!" Prentiss said as she holstered her gun.

"Don't thank me yet, you're still going to have to listen to Garcia."

"You're going to have to listen to Garcia. We don't have to be any near," Hotch reminded him.

Morgan laughed nervously. "So, where's Reid?"

Hotch and Prentiss didn't speak. All three just looked at each other.

____________________________________

Five minutes earlier...

Rossi exited his SUV as the cops pulled up. He pulled his coat tighter. It was getting colder. At least the rain is letting up, he thought.

"Agent Rossi?" an officer asked.

"That's me."

"Sheriff Handel sent us over. He said that you might need assistance."

"Yes. One of the FBI agents that came here was taken hostage. We kept it on the down low, but now we know that he's somewhere in these woods. We need your help to find him."

"Understood." The officer turned away and spoke to his team.

Rossi looked over to the path Hotch and Prentiss had first disappeared down, followed by Morgan.

A loud report of a gunshot echoed suddenly over the trees. Rossi and the team of police whipped to look in that direction.

"Let's move!" Rossi yelled as he started trotting toward the path. Please let them be okay, oh please let them be okay...

Rossi paused when he came to the fork in the path. After hesitating for half a second, he chose the same path as Hotch and Prentiss. He barely waited long enough for the cops to catch up. In his rush, he almost ran into Hotch, Morgan, and Prentiss as they came around a tree.

"Hotch!" Rossi managed through ragged breath as he clapped a hand to Hotch's shoulder. "I thought you guys were in trouble."

"We were until Morgan got there," Prentiss admitted.

"Where's Reid and Fuchs?"

"Fuchs is dead. Morgan shot him to save us. Send some police to go and collect the body."

"Okay." Rossi motioned to a couple of policemen to come over. Hotch gave them directions to Fuchs's clearing.

"No," Rossi continued. "Where's Reid?"

"We don't know," Morgan said bitterly. "He wasn't near the clearing. We've checked all over."

"There was a fork in the path back ways-"

"That's right! I remember taking this path when we saw the red threads!" Prentiss remembered.

"Reid must be down that way."

____________________________________

Reid stumbled blindly through the trees. He was totally lost. His clothes were freezing onto him. He was missing a shoe. He thought back to what had happened earlier.

Fuchs had dragged him to a river. Fuchs had given him one more shot of Dilaudid. Then Reid had been pushed into the water.

It was deeper than he had expected and moving faster because of the rain. Reid's shackled hands dragged him down. Using all the energy he had left, Reid managed to make it to the surface and from there to the shore. Fuchs was nowhere to be seen, but Reid didn't want to stay to see if he would show up.

Now, Reid was shivering badly. He had no idea which direction he needed to go to get out of the woods. He could only hope that he was going in the right direction and that if Hotch and the rest of the team were here, they would be able to find him.

____________________________________

"I found something!" an officer called from the top of a rock.

The team went up to meet him and immediately saw what he had seen. In the water just under the rock was a shoe in the water.

"Is that Reid's?" Morgan asked.

"I think so," Hotch said with a stony face.

"Oh, Reid," Prentiss whispered.

"Come on," Rossi led them back down to the river. It was moving fairly quickly. It was deep towards the middle. The rock they had been on was close enough to the centre that, with a good push, a man could go straight to the centre.

"The currents going this way. Let's look in that direction." Hotch motioned down the river. "It's our best bet."

Sadly, this story is drawing to a close. One or two chapters I think. :*(

I had so much fun... I'll save my thank you speech for the last chapter.

Oh, did any of you guys cheat? Are you psychic? How did you know I was going to have Morgan save the day?