Chapter Text
Margaret Jareau knew her mother’s job came with criminals upset at her family. People were angry about being caught; and they were extremely angry at the people who did the catching. Sometimes the criminals went as far as taking revenge. They investigated the Behavioral Analysis Unit’s team members, who they were, what they looked like, who their family is.
Maggie knew all of this, and she knew what to do if the criminals acted on revenge.
Her mother had been teaching her how to defend herself ever since she was eight years old. She took martial arts, and always carried her cellphone on her incase she got lost. She had a code word that she could text her mom to let her know she was in danger, though she almost never had to use it.
All of these precautions were in place, and yet somehow they still managed to fail.
Maggie’s afternoon schedule was almost always the same. Debate Club lasted until 3:30, then her and her friend Elise walked home from school. She picked up Henry from his friend's house, and they finished the walk home together. The two did homework, then waited for either Will or her mom to get home with Micheal from daycare.
Maggie liked having a routine, because she always knew what to do next. If she didn’t have structure, she freaked and froze.
On her way home from Elise’s house, she texted Will to let her know where she was.
On my way to pick up Henry right now,
just left Elise’s house
Ok. Mom’s working late tonight, I’m going to
pick up Mikey and grab pizza on the way
home.
Extra cheese?
Of course.
Maggie smiled, sending a smiling emoticon in response. She turned her phone off, continuing the route towards Henry’s friends, Zach and Luke’s house. It was a short walk from Elise’s and she usually arrived 5 minutes after she left.
Henry and the twin boys were normally outside on the play set when she arrived, so it felt a little off when Maggie saw no one in the front yard.
Walking up to the front door, she rang the bell hoping for Mrs. Richards to respond.
“Hey Margaret!” The woman opened the screen door, smiling down at the teen. “What can I help you with?”
“Hey Mrs. Richards, I’m here to pick Henry up?”
“Well sweetheart, your Uncle Spencer already picked him up a couple minutes ago! Said you were stuck at school with your clubs.”
“Uncle Spencer?” Maggie said questionably, fishing her phone out of her pocket. “Has he ever picked Henry up before today?”
Mrs. Richards paused for a moment. “Not that I remember. Why is he not supposed to? Henry seemed to know him, so I let them go!”
“Oh, it’s completely fine, just different from the routine is all.” Maggie started down the steps, opening her contacts on her phone. “Thanks Mrs. Richards!”
“See you tomorrow honey!” The screen door shut as she called Spencer Reid’s contact in her phone.
Maggie was two years old when her mother joined the BAU. The team quickly became like their second family, and she has always seen them as her aunts and uncles. If they could make it, they almost always came to big events in Maggie’s life. Penelope even chaperoned one of her class’s field trips.
It was out of the norm for Spencer to pick up Henry without telling Will or her, but it wasn’t odd. Maybe he had just forgotten. At least, that’s what she kept telling herself as the phone rang.
“Uncle Spence?”
“Hey Maggie, what’s up?”
“Did you pick Henry up from his friend's house today?” She asked, praying for a good answer. She started to walk in the direction of her home, which was a couple blocks away.
“No, I’m still finishing things up at work. Why, do you need me too?”
“No, actually I’m here right now, and their Mom said you-” Maggie fell completely silent, her eyes falling to the gloved hand that fell on her shoulder.
“Maggie?”
“Daisies.” She stated, trying to remember the exact code she had.
“What?”
“Mom’s favorite flower is daisies!” Her phone fell from her hands as the hand spinned her around.
“Maggie? Mags, what's going on?”
“Uncle Spence, help me! Help-” The gloved hand snaked around her mouth, her cries stifled.
“Margaret?”
“Answer him, and I’ll kill both Henry and Micheal.” Was whispered into her ear, and she stopped fighting his arms.
He had them both.
She listened to her phone continue to vibrate on the concrete sidewalk, Spencer’s voice getting quieter as the man pulled her farther away.
“Maggie? JJ, somethings wrong-”
This call has ended. 3:38pm
***
15 minutes earlier...
“Why do I have to be the alien?” Henry whined, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m never the good guy.”
“You're really good at playing the bad guy though!” Zach retorted. “You can play the astronaut tomorrow.”
The boy sighed, picking the foam sword up off the floor. “Fine. Now run, human scum, before I take over your space ship!”
“Commander Zach, we’ve gotta protect the computers!” Luke exclaimed, running over to where the imaginary motherboard of the ship was. “If he destroys them, the whole ship goes down!”
“I’ll fight him off, you guard the-”
“Hey kiddo, you ready to go?” The fake-fighting stopped, Henry putting his foam sword down and turning to where the voice came from. It was a man, one that he definitely didn’t know. He wore a coat over his shirt, even though it was above 70 that day. He kept glancing down the block, as if expecting someone to come.
“Who are you?” Henry asked.
The man held his arms out, as if to signal how obvious it was. “Uncle Spencer? Obviously?”
“Your not Uncle-”
The man laughed, cutting him off. He knelt down, so he was the same height as the boy. Henry went to take a step away, but the guy grabbed his wrist stopping him. “Look kid, I have Micheal in the car. If you want him to live, you do everything I say.”
Henry’s breath hitched in his throat. He looked back at Luke and Zach, who were watching the situation with a mixture of fear and confusion on their faces. He nodded, and the man stood up again.
“Excuse me sir, can I help you with something?” Mrs. Richards must have noticed something was going on in her front yard, cause she appeared on the front porch, dish towel in hand.
“Just picking up Henry miss, Margaret got caught up with her debate club at school. His mother asked me to bring him to the office, he’ll hang out there for a bit.”
Mrs. Richards nodded, skeptical. No one besides Margaret and their parents have picked up Henry before, and she has never seen the man before. She turned towards the boy. “Do you know him, Henry?”
“Yes ma’am.” He nodded, refusing to look the woman in her eyes.
After a short pause, Mrs. Richards turned back to the man. “Alright, tell Jennifer I say hi please.”
“Will due miss,” He put an arm around Henry’s shoulder, guiding him down the path. He quickly grabbed his backpack from the grass, grasping it tightly to his chest. Neither of them said anything until they reached the corner of the block.
At the corner, a dark gray SUV was parked. The man guided Henry towards it, opening the back door. “Get in the back,” He shoved him in, and the boy landed on the floor of the car. The seats were occupied with toddler car seats, one of them with Micheal, his cheeks shiny with tears.
“Henny?” The little boy sniffled.
“It’s me Mikey.” Henry’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Are you okay?”
“Kiddo, get in the back,” A new voice came from the front of the car. The same gloved hand shoved his shoulder, pushing him over the console and into the back set of seats. The new voice belonged to a woman, with brown hair and blue eyes. She stared straight forward through the window, not even noticing what was going on.
“Henny!” Micheal cried, new sets of tears forming in his eyes.
“What did I say about crying?” The man snapped. “You cry, and Mommy and Daddy go bye-bye, got it?”
Micheal sniffed, continuing to cry silently. The man seemed to be content, turning her focus back to Henry. “If you scream, or try and fight back, little Mikey’s brain goes-” He made a gesture imitating an explosion, before getting back out of the car and slamming the door shut.
Henry felt like he couldn’t breathe. No one knew where they were, who they were with, and if they were even in any danger. In the past minute someone has threatened to kill his parents and blow his brother’s brains out, and his head feels like it’s pounding from hitting the seats so hard.
What was the word that Maggie used, that Mom yelled at her for?
Right. Hell.
This was hell.
Quantico; 3:38pm
“Maggie? JJ, somethings wrong-” Spencer hung up the phone, making his way over to JJ.
“What? What’s going on?” She looked up from her report, seeing the concerned look on his face.
“Everything alright?” Emily was walking by, and stopped in front of their desks.
“Maggie just called me, and she’s in trouble.”
“What do you mean trouble?” JJ asked, standing up out of her seat.
“Trouble as in she called out for my help before she stopped talking on the phone.”
“Oh my god-”
“Reid, go see if Garcia can track Maggie’s phone. Everyone else, conference room.” Emily addressed the rest of the team, who were all sitting at their desks. “Since there’s no other active cases, this one’s now ours. Margaret is a part of this family, and she will make it home safely.”
Everyone stood up, following Emily into the conference room while Spencer headed down the hall towards Garcia’s office.
“Hey Penelope?”
“Yes my love?” She spun around in her chair to face the doorway.
“I need you to track Maggie’s phone for me.” He headed over to her desk, taking his usual spot next to her main monitors.
“Maggie? You mean like our Maggie? My sweet darling Maggie?” Her demeanor changed almost immediately, at the thought of her niece being in any sort of trouble.
“Yeah. She was at Henry’s friend's house a couple minutes ago, but she could be within a couple mile radius at this point, depending on what happened.”
“Oh my god- yeah I’ll check it right now.” Spinning back towards her computers, Penelope got to typing, and in under a minute a blinking blue dot was pulled up onto the screen.
“1739 Hanes Avenue.” She stated.
“Thanks Garcia,” Spencer turned to leave, but Penelope grabbed his wrist before he could.
“You keep me updated every minute. Please.”
He sighed, knowing how difficult cases involving one of them were for her. Well, they were difficult for everyone of course. It was hard to keep your judgment clear when one of your own was in danger. But they usually hit Penelope the most, although with Maggie on the line… that role would most likely be replaced by JJ.
“You know I will Pen, I always do.”
Penelope let out a breath and Reid’s wrist, standing up. “See, this is why you're my favorite. Now let’s go save our Maggie boy wonder!”
Meanwhile, in the conference room, everyone was settling in.
“We don’t have official case files, nor do we have any leads as to where Maggie is besides the way she ended the phone call with Reid. JJ, where was she meant to be right now?” Emily asked, turning to the only other person refusing to sit in the room.
“Around this time she normally picks up Henry and walks home with him.” JJ looked at her watch, confirming the time; 3:41pm. “It’s always the same house, and usually around the same time.”
“So she has a routine?”
“She refuses to do anything else. That’s just the way Maggie is.”
“Alright. JJ, I want you here at all times, in case a call comes through for-”
“Absolutely not. I’m not sitting here, waiting for a phone call while my daughter could be being-” She paused, searching for words. “I can’t stay here. I’ll go insane sitting down, I need to be on the field.”
Emily paused for a moment, before giving in. “Fine. You and Reid can go to Henry’s friend's house and ask them a few questions. There was a reason Maggie called Reid specifically and not you or Will. Tara and Luke-”
“1739 Hanes Avenue.” Spencer entered the room, with Penelope right behind him. “That’s where Maggie’s phone was last pinged.”
“That’s the Richards’ home, Henry’s friends.”
“Tara, why don’t you accompany Reid and JJ, just in case. Penelope, keep track of any child abductions in the area, we don’t know if he’s after Maggie specifically or if he’s grabbing others as well. Matt and Luke, you two head to Micheal’s daycare, just in case he decides to show up there. David and I will stay here in case there’s any leads.”
“Spence, what did Maggie say on the phone exactly?”
“She asked me if I had picked Henry up from his friend's house. She continued to say something else but was cut off… then she mentioned daisies.”
“Daisies?” JJ repeated, subtly grabbing the back of her chair for support.
“Specifically ‘daisies', mom’s favorite flower is daisies’.”
“That’s our code word.” She started out of the room. “If she mentions that my favorite flower is daisies, that means someone’s watching her.”
Once JJ was out of the room, followed shortly by Tara, Emily turned towards Spencer. “Keep an eye on her. I’m afraid she’ll break if anything else happens to Maggie, or if one of the boys is taken.” Reid nodded, about to leave before he turned back around. It was just him, Emily, and Garcia now, Matt and Luke having left to go to the daycare. “Hey Emily?”
“Yeah Spence?”
“If it comes down to it, all of us would take the shot. Not just JJ.” He then turned on his heel and left, leaving Penelope, Emily and David.
“He’s got a point.” The blonde said, tears still pricking the corners of her eyes.
“I know he does. And that’s what scares me.”