The wife answers the door in her pajamas. The panic is clear in her eyes when she hears you identify yourselves as FBI.

"Has something happened to Craig?" She whispers at you. Reid asks to come in while you peer into the house. The reason for her whisper is clear when you register a child standing at the bottom of the stairs. He can't be more than eight years old.

"Have you seen your husband this evening?" you ask.

"He went into the office today. I haven't seen him since he left this morning." Her voice is shaky but slow enough to be understood.

"Does he take a cell phone with-" Reid begins

"I saw daddy before I went to bed." The kid calls out.

You and Reid both pause for a moment.

"Did you see him before or after you put your pajamas on?" you ask.

"After. I wanted to sleep but I couldn't. I heard him walking up the gravel."

"Does your husband drive to work, ma'am?" Reid asks.

"No," she wipes tears out of her eyes. "He owns the electricians shop up the road. He likes to walk.

Reid gives you a small nod and you step out onto the porch to call the team. Within ten minutes of mentioning a missing father, the street is filled with flashing lights.

Hotch directs the family into protective custody. As members of the team show up, Hotch starts directing a search on foot.

Strapped into bulletproof vests, you and Reid are sent west of the house. Being a rural area, the house is surrounded by thick woods. You both keep flashlights out ahead of you and Reid keeps his hand on his gun. There isn't a formal trail, but it's clear from the beaten down brush that local teens probably spend a lot of weekends out here. Teens or not, the pseudo trail keeps you from busting your ankle on a rock.

Fifteen minutes into your trek, you wind up at a river. It's a little tough to gauge the size in the dark. Whatever the width, you can hear the rush of the water and see the other bank. It's not a river you would have tried to cross on foot. It runs perpendicular to your path so that the only way to continue your search is to creep along the edge.

"Go left." you tell him. "Radio if you find anything." You don't stick around to hear his response. You head up river.

It's almost peaceful out here, with the dark and the sound of the water. The further you went, the less steep the edge of the bank was. When the drop into the river is under two feet, you come across imprints in the mud. It looks like something was dragged through here, either an injured animal or a human body.

You radio Reid, but get no response. The rest of the team is probably out of range with how far you've gone. You mark your exact path by grabbing sticks and putting them vertically in the ground. You pass your starting point and start to follow Reid's footsteps.

That's when you hear an abnormal rush of water.

Somebody's jumped into the river.

You take off as fast as you can. Your blood is pumping fast and it feels like no time has passed at all. The beam from your flashlight settles on Reid's figure on the bank. The tightness in your chest loosens a bit at the sight of him safe.

"He's in the river. He's trying to drown the dad." Reid calls out as you approach.

Then he turns and jumps.

You scream after him. When you get to the edge, you can see he's left his gun and radio.

Which means he jumped into a body of water fully clothed-including a bulletproof vest. If he drowns, you are so hiring a psychic just so you can yell at his ghost.

It takes your eyes a moment to register the motion below. You can't hear the men's voices below. Which means they won't be able to hear you. You don't have a shot at getting the unsub to stand down. Reid probably figured that out already.

You try your radio. You rattle off your best estimate of the location and that an agent is down (technically true). After an agonizing couple of seconds, Hotch's voice crinkles through the speaker.

That's all you needed to hear.

You strip down to your underwear as fast as you can, including losing your boots.

You take a couple running steps and jump in, aiming as best as you can for the sounds of splashing.

The chaos disappears when you feel the cold water rush against your skin. Your ears are filled with the odd noise of submerged water. Instinct has you kicking to the surface, and it all begins again.

You landed within a few feet of the three men. The victim barely has his head above water. Reid has attempted to get a hold on the unsub and drag him away, but it's clear that both the men are struggling, both against the water and each other. The unsub has his hands on Reid's shoulders and keeps trying to push him below the surface, but without any leverage, they are stuck in limbo. The pair of men are closer to you than the victim, so you go for them first.

The unsub's button up is surprisingly helpful when you grab his arm. The cotton gives you a decent grip and you're able to pull his arms back and pin them by hooking your arms through his.

"I got it!" you call to Reid. "I got it! Go help him."

The unsub is physically bigger than you, but the water acts as an equalizer. You lean back to balance the force of him trying to swim off in front of you, effectively leaving the two of you to tread water. You can't turn to see what happened to Reid and the victim, so you try to focus on keeping your grip.

Help comes in the form of a floodlight burning your eyes. You can't hear anybody on the top of the ledge, so you shut your eyes against the light and keep swimming.

Reid's voice brings you back to reality. The medics had lowered a basket stretcher down for the victim and they had just lowered a second, complete with zipties. Reid slips his hand in front of you to zip the unsubs wrists together-a shitty method but it'll hold until they get him on shore. Together, the two of you drag him over and into the stretcher.

You hadn't realized how much energy you'd been expanding until you were swimming alone. Your whole body felt sore, and you still had to swim against the current. You insist Reid get out next, since he was the one clad in water logged gear, but he wouldn't listen.

Despite the water being cooler than the air, you're somehow more freezing when the air brushes against your skin. Most of the medics are trying to get water out of the victims lungs, and the rest are focused on getting Reid out. You sit still, waiting for your eyes to adjust to the light when you feel arms grab at your shoulders, pulling you away from the stretcher. You don't even try to stand, instead just settling on the ground again. One ear is filled with the sound of Prentiss's voice, while the other hears Hotch. It occurs to you that they must be the ones with their hands gripping your upper body.

a/n: as promised, another daily chapter! i spent most of my day moving all my stuff from my parents basement to my childhood room and im gonna do it all again in three weeks when i move into college so im pumped to write some tonight and wind down a little lol

there will be another ch up tomorrow :)