Helpless (Aaron Hotchner Fanfic)

Chapter Nine

After Hotch got all of his dangerous bottled up emotions out of his system, Melanie slipped out to leave him alone for a while and went to go quietly explain to the team what was going on with him and that he needed time to just breath and process. The team understood and Melanie sat in the conference room with them all, going over the case file again. Even after all those fake case files she had done, this was nothing compared to what she had seen before. No leads, no prints, just a ransom note and seventeen hours left. 

Melanie took the copy of the letter in her case file out and laid it on the table in front of her. I am always in you, sometimes on you, but if I surround you, you die. Melanie gritted her teeth and went through everything in her brain to figure out what this meant. I am always in you, sometimes on you ... but if I surround you ... 

"I've got it!

The whole team jerked up from what they were doing and looked at Melanie. She cleared her throat and apologized. "What can you not live without?"

Prentiss started rambling off things. "Food, water-"

"Water exactly Prentiss. I am always in you, sometimes on you. You cannot live without water in your system. Water can take form on your skin in the form of perspiration or it can come from outside sources. But if I surround you, you die. You get surrounded by water, you drown."

"So he wants us to meet him down at the docks. Melanie your a genius!" Reid exclaimed and raced out of his chair to kiss her on the cheek. Melanie blushed. "Even I couldn't figure that out!"

After a moment of standing there, realization set in and Melanie stated: "I need to go tell Hotch."

While the team nodded and wrapped up the case files, Melanie practically ran out of the room and skidded down the deck to Hotch's office door, bursting it open. Hotch looked up surprised at the sudden and dramatic entrance, but relaxed when he saw Melanie's beaming face. 

"Hotch," she said, out of breath. "I think I just found your son!"

"What?" he exclaimed, forgetting his fatigue and standing up excitedly. "You found my son? Where? How? Wh-"

"Calm down, Agent Hotchner," Melanie warned, afraid he was going to hyperventilate. "Come to the briefing room, I want to explain something."

Hotch nodded quickly and followed Melanie out of his office and down to the briefing room. They were finally going to find his son and get him home (hopefully) unharmed. He was very interested to see how Melanie figured this all out, but right now, he wanted to jump in an SUV and get his and the team's butt down to wherever his son was. 

When Melanie and Hotch walked in, the whole team sat down, eagerly awaiting what Melanie had to say. Right now, as tired as they all were, the team had nothing and was hoping that Melanie could step in and give them some fresh ideas to bounce off of. Being profilers, they knew than Melanie had more to say than just the riddle. Before she spoke, though, the team called Garcia and put her on the line. 

"Hey Garcia, can you hear me?" Melanie asked.

"Yeah, go right ahead sweet cheeks."

"Okay, so I figured out what the riddle was meaning. The answer is water. You cannot live without water in your system, and water takes the form of perspiration on your skin or it can fall on you from outside sources such as rain," Melanie explained to Hotch. "He wants us to meet us down by the water. The problem is we have to figure out where this water is. There is a large stretch of coast to cover and I have no idea where to find him."

"Guys? Sorry to interrupt your thinking and very important discussion, but we might have bigger problemos," Garcia said nervously over the phone.