Final chapter! Thanks so much for reading. I hope this sums the story up well enough.

P.S: The song at the end is just what I'd imagine would play is this was an episode. I just wanted to include some lyrics so I thought I'd clarify that : )

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'Ow, that hurts.'

JJ squirmed in the back of the ambulance as a paramedic dabbed a cloth on her cuts and scrapes.

'No pain, no gain' said Morgan cheerfully as he stood a few feet back from the open doors of the white van. Reid was sitting on the ledge where the doors were open examining the white cloth wrapped around his wrists. The events of the last day didn't even seem real to him.

'Where's the boy?' JJ asked trying to forget about the pain that seared through her as the paramedic applied some sort of cream to a rather deep cut on the right side of her face.

'Oh,' said Morgan, caught off guard, 'he's back with his mother now. Poor kid was shaken up real bad.'

'Did you happen to find out what his mother does for a living?' Reid interjected, his eyebrows knitted together in deep thought as he kept his gaze focused on the bandages on his hands.

Morgan laughed a deep, hearty laugh as he glanced down at Reid. 'Not my idea of small talk, boy genius. But it turns out the kid was actually adopted… I don't know if that factors into whatever you're thinking about.'

JJ shot up off of the tiny bed inside the ambulance. 'Do you know who his birth parents are?' Reid spun around to face her and they both wore a similar look on their faces.

'Jeez, what are you two getting at? I'm not sure I follow…'

Reid got down off of the ledge and ran over to Anderson and his mother who were about a hundred yards away or so. JJ, despite protests from the paramedics and Morgan, soon followed in suit. 'How much do you want to bet that his biological mother was Annabelle?' JJ had a curious expression on her face.

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Emily stood back a few yards from the apartment complex, a few scrapes on her forearms from the gravel which she dove into an hour earlier. Annabelle Mays had committed suicide, and thankfully enough, didn't take anyone else out with her. She didn't know much about homemade explosives and miscalculated the amount of supplies, causing her explosion to be relatively small. Fortunately Emily had managed to get out of the building before the bomb went off but she was still shaken up nonetheless.

'You know,' Morgan said as he came up from behind, 'you shouldn't have gone in there. You could have been killed.'

Emily kept her gaze focused on the building, a grim line for her mouth. 'I know,' she replied.

'Then why did you go in?' Morgan was confused.

'I don't know, I just did,' she said with a sigh as she turned around to face him. 'You know, you just do these things without thinking them through.' Her eyes drifted over to the small boy who was now giving JJ a hug in the distance.

'But usually these things shouldn't put your life in jeopardy,' Hotch said coming out from behind the building and invading their conversation. The remains of Annabelle were covered up and taken out on a stretcher. 'You were lucky and I don't want you to have to rely on luck again, Ms. Prentiss.' With that, he escorted the stretcher to an awaiting ambulance.

'Listen Em,' Morgan said, sensing her sadness, 'you did what you thought was right, I get it. But you can't save everyone and that's just part of the job.'

Emily's stony gaze penetrated Morgan and he did all that he could not to look away. 'This,' she said, waving her hands around to encompass the entire scene around them, 'is not a job. This is a lifestyle and I'm pretty sure they don't come with a mandatory guideline book or any of that.'

Morgan shrugged and began to walk away. He had only taken a few steps before turning around to see Emily's silhouette in the streetlights.

'They may not come with rulebooks,' he said quietly, 'but I think we are supposed to learn something from the mistakes we make.'

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'Can you believe that? What are the chances?'

JJ was looking down the street blankly, trying to comprehend what she and Reid had just discovered. Anderson was adopted and his birth mother was Annabelle Mays. According to the boy's mother, Anna was in her early twenties when she had him and unfortunately, wasn't deemed mentally capable to care for a child. Reluctantly, she put the boy up for adoption but never forgot the small freckle underneath his left eye. This significant marker lead Annabelle to figure out that her biological son was trick-or-treating at her apartment.

'I don't understand though,' JJ said thoughtfully, 'why did she hold the boy hostage like us?'

Reid spun around, a quizzical look on his face. 'She probably wanted to kill her son. I mean, she had a strong idea of right and wrong; maybe she saw him as a mistake that she couldn't fix so she'd take them both out together.'

JJ's eyebrows knitted together in confusion as she crossed her arms over her chest, wincing at the pain it caused. 'I guess it made sense to her somehow,' she said quietly, 'but not to me or you.'

Reid thought about this for a moment before he answered back. 'Well, no, I can see where she's coming from… schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder is a hard thing to understand. She's trying to make sense of who she is, what she's done, and how she can fix it whilst she's switching between all these other people and thoughts and…'

'Reid,' JJ said, stifling a laugh, 'just shut up. It's been a long day and frankly, I'm sick of you.' He faked a mock-hurt look and took a few steps back.

'Okay, okay, you win.'

She smiled weakly and started to make her way back to the cluster of police cars.

'Yes, Genius Dr. Reid let me win.'

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The plane ride back to Quantico was quiet, as usual, and seemingly long. The team was tired and hungry but satisfied nonetheless. Emily sat in a seat near the back, head reclined and her eyes almost shut as if trying to black out her surroundings. Morgan was in the seat ahead playing Tetris on his cell while Hotch was reviewing the details of the case and going through various legal documents. The scenario was always the same on these plane trips back but the feelings varied slightly for all.

'Do you watch Heroes?' Reid piped up from his seat. He and JJ were playing Go Fish and every once in awhile he'd interject with a random observation or question.

'No, I don't usually have time for TV,' she answered flatly as she placed an 8 on top of the pile. 'Hearts,' she said through a yawn. 'Your turn.' The previous days effects were the most evident on JJ; she was quiet, withdrawn, and spacey. In short, she looked and felt the same way she had after Reid went missing the previous winter.

'Well, there's this girl that has spontaneous regeneration. I mean, she can heal herself instantly if anything happens. I was just thinking that it'd be really great to have that ability now, huh?' He looked at her bandaged face briefly before laying a 4 down on the pile.

'Yeah,' JJ said faintly, her eyes drifting towards the window as the runway lights glowed dimly below her, 'it would.' As hard as she tried, she couldn't push the mental image of Annabelle Mays' tortured face out of her mind. It wasn't her fault and it shouldn't have had to end like it did, but as Hotch had told her when she first started doing field work, it's impossible to save everyone. And as Reid began to ramble about the various other super powers the characters had, she silently thanked a higher power for saving them both that day.

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Another mother's breakin'
Heart is taking over
When the violence causes silence
We must be mistaken
It's the same old theme since 1916
In your head, in your head they're still fightin'
With their tanks and their bombs
And their bombs and their guns
In your head
In your head they are dyin'

Zombie, by the Cranberries