Stay with me

Chapter 6- Hour 1

Hotch, JJ and Reid were finally allowed into the larger room that contained the pressurised glass one that the rest of the team occupied, the room was pretty bare except for a row of computer equipment along one side and a row of medical supplies along the other, and of course the large transparent prison in the centre. They'd been in quarantine for less than an hour and Hotch could already tell they were going stir crazy in there; Morgan was sat on the floor rolling a baseball back and forth against the glass, Emily was fidgeting on her bed as though she couldn't get comfortable, Blake was pacing the width of the room with her arms folded infront of her, and Rossi, well Rossi seemed fairly relaxed unlike his fellow roommates, he was lying on his bed, looking up at the ceiling, probably counting the tiles of the outer ceiling through the glass.

JJ walked up to the container and knocked to catch the attention of the people inside who clearly hadn't noticed their friends' arrival. They each popped their heads up and ran to the glass.

"Hotch! When can we leave?" asked Prentiss.

"Not for a while I'm afraid. I spoke with the doctors and they said they need to keep you all under observation for at least 72hours because that's how long it would take for symptoms to first appear if the BZ gas was at its weakest, and since we don't know how he altered this strain yet, they need to be extremely cautious." Explained Hotch.

"Good news is that they don't think the infection is transferrable, so if one of you does have it, the rest of you won't catch it." JJ announced.

"Well that makes me feel much better," said Blake sarcastically. They all chuckled, it was nice to be able to laugh despite the terrible situation they were in.

Suddenly, a loud chirping voice could be heard entering the outer room, Garcia came running through the sliding doors on her ridiculously high heels carrying bags of god knows what in her hands saying "My babies, my babies. Oh my goodness how could this happen? Oh I'm going to destroy this guy's cyber space, I'm going to leak all of his nasty vacation pictures and and and..." she ran out of things to say when she saw her friends pressed up against the glass watching her.

"Garcia, breathe," commanded Rossi.

"What's in the bags?" asked Reid.

"Oh well I figured these guys would be bored in here so I brought lots of fun stuff for you to play with," she said with a smile, pulling out puzzle books, a deck of cards, board games, tennis balls and whatever else she could get her hands on by the looks of it.

"Wow baby girl, you really went all out," said Morgan with a flirty smile.

"Anything for my beautiful crime fighters," beamed Garcia.

Dr Collins took the items from Garcia with a smile and sent them through the negative pressure vacuum to clear them of any microbial substances before passing them into the glass room. "Agents," the doctor started, "the nine victims from the initial law firm attack are also under quarantine upstairs, none of the other employees have since tested positive for the infection caused by the BZ gas so they have been released. We are still working on testing the gas from the canister that affected you to see how it's molecular structure was altered, and once we know that, we can get on with testing you all for the infection. Until then, enjoy your stay at casa-de-quarantine," she said, making them all laugh, "oh and there should be people revolving in and out of here fairly often and there are security cameras placed in their to monitor you, but if you need anything or there is an emergency, press that big red button on the wall, and someone will be right down to help." They all nodded in understanding and with that, the kind doctor left, leaving only the BAU agents in the room.

"Hotch, do we know anything about this guy or why he's doing this?" asked Morgan with a deflated sigh.

"We have enough to build a profile, but we don't know why he's doing what he's doing just yet, only theories."

"What about you Garcia? Did you find anything on the security tapes?" asked Blake.

"Well the video from the night before the attack confirms that our unsub is male, and approximately 6ft tall, but I could use your guys help to look through the recordings from this morning and see who doesn't belong." Stated Garcia. She pulled out her laptop and opened the video file, they all huddled round her and watched intently as the employees began going insane, focusing on the area where the canister was found, they watched for anyone suspicious. They saw the trashcan being knocked over, and then minutes later a tall blonde man could be seen quickly placing the canister underneath it. Garcia zoomed in closer and used her size algorithm to confirm his height of 6ft.

"Garcia is there another angle of this?" asked Emily hopefully.

"Of course my sweets," she replied, switching camera angles; you could just make out his defined features and bright blue eyes.

"Garcia I need you to work on identifying this man while we go back to the police station and deliver the profile," declared Hotch.

"What about us?" wondered Blake.

Hotch lowered his head, "for now, you guys have to focus on your health. Look after each other and call if you need anything, there's nothing much you can do from here but we will keep you up to date on what we find." The quarantined agents nodded disappointedly, they all said goodbye as the healthy agents left the room, and a silence fell among those who were left. They hated feeling useless, but Hotch was right, they couldn't help anyone if they were stuck in a hospital for three days.

They each returned to their beds, and with nothing else to think about, they allowed their minds to drift, which was a rare luxury with their demanding jobs, so they tried to make the most of it.

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3 minutes later:

"Soooo... who's up for monopoly?"