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Of all the types of criminals the team was put in charge of profiling, a pyromaniac and compulsive arsonist duo were probably the best option they had when it came down to flying out to Wyoming in the dead centre of winter. The weather dipped below freezing in the evenings, so camping season was far off to say the least.
They had only worked out there were two unsubs after an entire day of profiling the crime scenes. Each of the scenes were out in the dense wood, majorly abandoned aside from particularly avid campers. With seven dead and two in critical condition, the stakes were high, and in all honesty, everybody wanted to go home.
Boots were wet from the sludgy, grey snow. Reid was the only one who hadn’t familiarised himself with the temperatures of colder states, and therefore ended up looking painfully younger than he already seemed. He stood beside Hotch and the local sheriff, wearing a thick, fur-lined jacket on top of his already bulky winter pull-over. It wasn’t helping the fact that the sheriff was struggling to dish out a fair amount of professional respect for the youngest agent, when he only succeeded in making himself look smaller than he was.
“So, if you’re the doctor… why aren’t you at the coroner’s office with the other two agents?” The man asked, entirely missing the way Hotch frowned and turned from the crime scene to glare at the back of his head.
“I’m not a medical doctor, I have three PhD’s,” Reid answered. His voice was even despite the obvious undertones of exasperation Hotch could identify in his teammate.
Their witness coughed, prompting Rossi to overtake the conversation with the local sheriff. Reid turns in the snow, continuing to shove his way through the slop until he’s standing at the top of the bank, overlooking the small clearing.
Hotch moves to follow, briefly pausing only to exchange a wordless keep an eye on him to Morgan.
Whether his unit chief meant keep an eye on the sheriff, or Reid, Morgan didn’t know. He would oblige all the same.
“What are you thinking,” Hotch says to the younger man. Reid’s overtly pink nose is scrunched as he stares down at the campsite. One side of it is stained with soot and ash which has mixed with the melted snow, creating black puddles about ankle-deep.
“The remnants of the victim’s tent is burnt, but I don’t see any tearing. So, our unsub must have lit the fire that woke them up somewhere else and they were able to use the zipper to escape the tent before being covered in gasoline.” Reid points to the prints in the snow then gestures in front of him to where Morgan is trudging his way down the slope, closer to the crime scene. “Morgan already identified the type of boot those are from with the nearest camping equipment dealer. They’re the most common boots in the entire state, so they won’t give us much information.”
“And what about the prints themselves?” Hotch asks.
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out now,” Reid pointed out. He stumbled about halfway down the slope, his work shoes giving little traction on the snow. Hotch winces, ready to climb down after the kid and pull him out of the icy mush, but Morgan’s already gripping his shoulders, steadying him with a grin before the kid face-plants.
“Easy there, pretty boy,” he laughs. Reid’s red-from-the-cold face flushes darker and he manages a facetious sounding ‘thanks’ as he untangles himself from the slightly older agent.
Hotch turns his attention towards where the sheriff is speaking with the only other lead they had. The young man – not really, Hotch thinks he’s at least in his late twenties, perhaps early thirties – was a backpacker from somewhere in Europe who had been holed up in a tent about a kilometre away from this clearing. His boots are different to the prints, by about two sizes, and his accent in non-existent, but he doesn’t seem to know the area too well, which removes a reasonable amount of suspicion.
The conversation between Reid and Morgan, who are gingerly poking their way around the scene, keeping a distance from the reservable evidence, drifts up to where Hotch stands, mingling with that of the sheriff and witness’. He waits patiently, observing the way Morgan hovers a few steps behind Reid when they eventually begin to ascend the slope to meet him.
“Hey, Prentiss and JJ have some evidence down at the coroner’s office they’d like us to compare to this scene,” Rossi said as Reid and Morgan made their way to the head of the incline.
“If it’s physical evidence then you and I can head over and meet them with the Sheriff,” Morgan suggested.
“I’ll drop the witness off at a lodge where it’s safer and then head back to local station and get Reid set up to work on the geographical profile,” Hotch expanded. “Rossi, can you make sure the sheriff sends the witness’ DNA to Garcia so she can do a quick background check.”
----
It took a few minutes of discussing with their witness where he wanted to be dropped off, but eventually they settled on a lodge just a ten-minute drive away from the camping grounds. By the time Hotch was pulling out of the lot and onto the road, Morgan, Rossi and the sheriff were already a few minutes ahead of them.
Majority of Wyoming’s roads consisted of long, straight stretches of campsite-rich forests, so the other vehicle was visible ahead of them. Reid was leant over in the backseat, his map spread out beside him and several coloured pens tucked in his hand. The witness sat in the passenger seat, idly continuing a strained but silence relieving conversation with Hotch as he drove.
Rossi was busy helping the sheriff sat in the backseat figure out how to send the email with the prints and statement from the witness to Garcia, who was patiently waiting for them back in Quantico. Morgan was speaking with JJ and Prentiss as he drove, listening to their recounting of the coroner’s report.
“There were two sets of DNAs under the victim’s fingernails, one of them Garcia was able to find in the system. Our first unsub was arrested this morning and is being detained for a stolen vehicle which matches the one missing from the second crime scene,” Prentiss explained. Morgan distantly heard Rossi sighing as Garcia confirmed that she had finally received the sheriff’s email of the witness’ report.
“And what about the second lot of DNA?” Morgan asked.
“Running it now,” Garcia confirmed after Rossi placed her on speaker phone and leant back in his seat.
“Great, let Hotch and Reid know once you’ve gotten it.” Rossi picked the phone back up, thanked her profusely before hanging up and finding directions despite Morgan’s futile attempts to convince the man he would be able to find the coroner’s office through process of elimination.
----
“Hey Garcia,” Hotch greeted, passing his phone into the backseat to Reid. The younger agent shuffled until he was upright before taking the phone. “I’m giving you to Reid.”
“Boy wonder, I’ve got some information for you,” Garcia said happily. “You’ll be back home in no time; we’ve got both sets of DNAs from the coroner and luckily they’re both in the system.” He grinned, putting his map aside and tucking the phone under his ear as he folded it up small again. “One of them is already in custody, he was picked up driving around a car missing from the second crime scene.”
He nodded, smiling at Hotch positively in the rear-view mirror, flashing a thumbs up. “And, if I’m not mistaken – which I never am – the other DNA is from someone called…” there was shuffling, and Reid could hear Garcia fumbling around with some paper before she finished. “Mathew Wrights,” she finished.
“Mathew Wrights?” He repeated, waiting for Garcia’s answer as the conversation between Hotch and their witness finally died out.
“Yeah, I thought it sounded familiar too – I think the sheriff mentioned him in the witness repor – oh! He is your witness, duh.” Garcia laughs. “Do you want me to call Rossi and Morgan to get them to swing back to camping grounds and pick him up?”
Spencer suddenly felt the cold a lot more than he had outside. His chest gave a flutter of worry before he waved off Garcia.
“No uh, c – can you get them to call ahead to the station though?” He glanced up at the mirror, hoping to catch Hotch’s attention. He was met with the steely eyes of their witness-turned-unsub.
“Sure Sugar, what do you want me to get them to call ahead for?” Garcia asked in his ear. Spencer swallowed, opening his mouth to answer before the unsub shook his head minutely. He closed his lips again, lowering the phone as if he had hung up, leaving the line active in the seat beside him.
“You know,” the man in the passenger seat said. “I was doubtful at first, your job sounds like utter drivel.” Hotch frowns from the front seat, looking as if he were about to protest. “But it sounds to me like you just found your guy. Is that right, Doctor Reid?”
“Hotch!”
The wheel jerked sharply out of Hotch’s grasp as their unsub violently wrenched it towards himself. The bonnet of the car slammed into something harshly, and Spencer barely had enough time to gag against the tight, ripping pain of his seatbelt as he was thrown forward.
----
“Woah, slow down Baby girl,” Morgan laughed. Garcia was shrieking in his ear.
“No, Morgan where’s Reid?!” She yelled. He frowned, turning to check with Rossi.
“Turn around,” Rossi directed suddenly. Morgan got one syllable out before Rossi repeated himself again, yelling this time. The two combined agents yelling at him only increased the velocity and sharpness of the vehicle as he spins it in a clumsy one-eighty-degree turn.
For a moment, he doesn’t understand why Rossi had yelled, in fact he couldn’t even see Hotch’s car on the road behind them. “The ditch, off the shoulder of the road –” Rossi lifts his arm, pointing to the side of the road they had just driven up.
It takes Morgan a moment before his eyes swivel over the side of the road. He can faintly make out where two lines of muddy, smeared tyre tracks have torn the grass away from the slim shoulder. He hits the accelerator and doesn’t even hesitate to apologise for it as he quickly rattles off their location to Garcia and gets her to call for medical assistance.
Even as they pull over to the side, unbuckling their seatbelts and throwing themselves from the car, it’s hard to figure out what’s happened.
Only when Morgan realises the shoulder of the road is accompanied by a steep ditch does he comprehend the seriousness of the situation.
The ditch is about fifteen feet wide and six feet deep. The snow which presumably had covered the bank at one point had melted and pooled at the bottom of the ditch, mixing with the mud to form what was effectively a sizeable puddle that submerged the front half of the car.
The SUV was tipped upside-down, the back two wheels stuck up closest to the road. The sound of muddied water rushing in through the half-opened, driver’s side window threw him into action.
“Hotch! Reid!”
He lost his breath almost as soon as his waist was submerged in the water. It was freezing and had soaked through his jeans in less than a second of exposure, his boots rapidly sloshing about as he waded his way up towards the car.
Rossi swore from behind him as he skidded down into the water on the opposite side of the car. The only opened window was on the driver’s side, and it made awful, suctioning thuds as water forced its way in. The wheels were entirely dry, stuck up in the air like an upturned beetle.
“Hotch!” He yelled again, seeing something dark thrashing against the door of the car. A wet cough arose as the figure broke the surface, submerged up to his chest where he knelt. Morgan threw himself forward, ignoring the way his toes felt numb and stiff as he moved.
“Morgan –” Hotch choked out. He seemed unscathed, covered in slick mud and entirely soaked through, but unharmed. “R – Reid’s still in the backseat.”
Hotch had done just about every training course in the book, so Morgan was impressed yet unsurprised that he had managed to unbuckle, roll down the window and pull himself out of the car in the mere sixty seconds it would have taken to fill with water.
“Aaron?”
Morgan shuffled Hotch out of the way of the window and towards Rossi who was clambering around their side of the car, calling for him. He knelt down as Hotch had, using his hands against the frame of the window to push himself under. He kept his eyes closed; the water was dark enough with the mud from the ditch that it wouldn’t have made a difference.
Luckily, the amount of water in the ditch was only enough to fill the car from ceiling to headrest. The seats and floor of the car – which was now arguably the new ceiling – were untouched by the water. He managed to take a breath, gather his surroundings and work out where the glovebox was so he could use it as a foothold as he climbed into the backseat.
On his right, he could see Spencer still half braced against the seat with the belt digging into his chest and waist. His head was submerged, neck arched forward, hair spilling out in a gruesome halo around his skull.
“Shit,” he cursed, immediately reaching out and lifting Spencer’s unresponsive head from the water. The younger man didn’t cough, nor did he flinch in any way as Morgan struggled to unclip him from his seat.
When he did, the man’s body dropped entirely, spilling water against the sides of the car which groaned metallically. Morgan tugged Spencer upright, supporting his head until he could tuck it against his own shoulder, hooking one arm beneath the man’s knees and lifting with only a slight strain.
His foot slipped from the glovebox and he barely managed to steady himself using his hip which slammed against the wheel of the car. He held Spencer’s weight above the water line for as long as he could before having to tuck him tighter against his own frame.
He ducked back under, struggling massively to fit both himself and Spencer through the gap of the driver’s window. He had to snap the partial remainder of the window before he could tug himself out and up above the surface.
Immediately, Hotch was lifting Spencer from Morgan’s hold and Rossi was tugging him into an upright position, checking him over for injuries.
Aside from the breathless heaving he was doing from both the exertion, fear and cold, Morgan was fine, same for Hotch. Spencer however – well, he was yet to be assessed.
Hotch stumbled over to the edge of the ditch, cupping the back of Spencer’s neck as he laid him out flat.
There was a small gash across his forehead, and the blood dripping down his cheek mixed with the water, diluting in small puddles in the curves of his arched neck. Morgan splashed towards the bank, leaning heavily against it as he forced his shaking fingers to begin peeling off the layers of winter clothing the kid had insisted upon wearing as soon as they had all clambered off the jet the previous morning.
“How long was he in there before we got here?” Rossi asked gravely as he watched Morgan and Hotch both struggling to shove the layers out of the way.
“Two, maybe three minutes at the most,” Hotch answered. “W – was he even submerged?”
“Yeah,” Morgan bit, finally finding the long sleeve shirt that was plastered to Spencer’s torso beneath the rest of his clothing. He leaned forward, pressing one ear to the kid’s chest and reaching out to grip his wrist for a pulse. “He’s not breathing, but there’s a pulse,” he affirms.
CPR is one of the courses Morgan knows back to front. The team re-takes the course once every six months, and although it feels like repeated information, he’s never been more thankful for how deep the facts have been drilled into him.
Spencer needs ventilations without compressions, approximately one every five seconds.
It only takes three before hands are scrabbling at Morgan’s torso.
He pulls back immediately, aware of Spencer’s back arching off the side of the ditch as he chokes up the water from his lungs. The kid hacks for a while, one hand still tightly grasped in the fabric of Morgan’s shirt as he coughs to the side. After half a minute he goes limp again, exhaling shakily and falling back to let the ground support his weight again.
His eyes are open, but they close again quickly as another wet, rattling cough shakes his frame. Morgan leans forward, supporting Spencer’s back as he rolls to his side. The kid shudders, relaxing again as he’s shifted. “Rossi, can you –”
“Yeah,” he says quickly, already beginning the task of pulling himself back out of the ditch towards their vehicle. With the colour of Spencer’s ashen face, and the way Hotch is already beginning to shiver – heat, blankets and first aid are top priority.
“– ights?” Spencer croaks. Hotch bends down, resting himself against the wall of the ditch where Morgan still has Spencer propped up against his side. “W – Wrights?” Hotch shakes his head, a wordless answer to the kid’s question.
Spencer nods, closing his eyes again and loosening his hold on Morgan’s shirt. “Sorry, I tried to warn you,” he mumbles. Hotch exhales through his nose, huffing a short, exasperated laugh at Spencer’s willingness to apologise at the most unimaginable time.
“Garcia’s planning on giving you a mouthful for pulling the disappearing act on her, Spencer, but the medics are five minutes out.” Rossi gestures to the three of them, “we should get you out of there.”
It takes careful, precise footing that none of them have with how shaky they all are, but Hotch is able to spot Morgan from behind as he carries Spencer up and out of the ditch, letting Rossi pull him the rest of the way.
The kid is immediately covered in shock blankets and deposited in the backseat of the undamaged vehicle with the warmers on blast. Morgan settles himself beside Spencer, pulling him into an embrace.
Whether it was for reassurance that Spencer was okay – was alive – or to share what little heat he emanated, Hotch was unsure. The two agents were still packed away in the back of the car when the ambulance pulled up.
Rossi stayed at the scene, soaked as he was up to the hips, and helped direct the rest of the crews that pulled up. They still had to fish their unsub out of the wreckage after all.
Hotch offered to stay but was quickly guided back into the ambulance with Spencer and Morgan when the EMT’s got a look of his sopping form and slightly blue-tinted lips.
Spencer had his forehead resting against Morgan’s temple as the EMT listened for any discrepancies in his chest. There was excess water that caused off-putting rattles every time the kid exhaled. Every time Morgan perked his head up to look at the medical personnel with a concerned expression, they assured him nothing was life-threatening, and everything could be treated at the emergency room.
Spencer looked like he was struggling to keep himself fully conscious, the exhaustion hitting him obviously. Morgan was plastered to his side, worrying more than the EMT’s were. He looked like he was about to throw up when Spencer’s shirt was removed, and he saw the bruising the seatbelt had left after the initial impact.
Hotch was better off in his entirety, he hadn’t inhaled any water, but his bruising was as significant as Spencer’s.
They were all separated off to their own areas for evaluation once they made it to the emergency room. All Morgan had to do was change out of his soaking clothing and clean the mud off his face and arms so the doctors could check for any cuts or bruising, despite the fact that he hadn’t actually been in the accident in the first place. He was able to calm Garcia down over the phone as he paced around the waiting room.
Hotch was given a prescription for pain medication he likely wouldn’t use, and a set of new clothing before he was joining Morgan in the foyer. JJ and Prentiss had arrived by the time Spencer was released, even though it had taken some heavy convincing to not be kept overnight for evaluation.
Garcia practically demanded they got onto the jet as soon as Rossi had wrapped up the remainder of the case.
“Thanks for not dying,” Hotch said ironically once Spencer had settled himself against Morgan on the two-seater across from where he sat.
“Thanks for not letting me drown,” he replied with a grin. Morgan rolled his eyes, but watched fondly as Hotch held back the paternal look he often found himself giving after a near-miss for one of his younger agents.