Disclaimer: No one you recognize is mine

A/N: This came about basically on a whim. Essentially, I became convinced that in a fandom this huge, there needed to be some M/P quarantine fics floating about, and that it is a crying shame that there don't seem to be any. Also: I miss Prentiss.

"…What's open?"

"Sat's still falling."

"I need more suction…"

There is no way that it is actually that much brighter and louder in the emergency department corridor than it was in the back of the speeding ambulance, but the minute the double doors burst open it is like tumbling into a wormhole. Reality fractures, and sensory input seems to come in bursts, like disjointed movie clips.

"…Ok, go ahead and prep for intubation."

A nurse cocks a skeptical eyebrow at the young resident. You notice that, even in the midst of the hospital white that threatens to overwhelm you. You feel the freeze frame like a physical lurch in the pit of your stomach before everything starts whirling again. "You sure you want to do that now?"

"...No, uh… you're right. Let's set up for a rigid bronch. And page thoracics and ID."

You can no longer see the stretcher; there are corners, doors, medical personnel between you and your partner, and you don't like that one bit. The waiting room of … whatever institution this is is beige and green, upholstered cheaply but with apparent care for the emotional state of those doing the waiting.

(Incidentally, the nurse does not call it that. Instead she invites you to sit in the "Quiet Room," and for some reason this makes you feel like laughing in her face. You don't. But you don't sit, either.)

You wait. The room is green and beige but it looks faded out and whitewashed to you, and you don't like that either because it reminds you of another room in some other place.

Your breath comes out white like the cheap cotton covering you both, like the colourless walls, and like the thin, white sheet spread over a cold surface onto which a rivulet of bright red blood flows, drip, drip, over unnaturally warm skin.

The red of the blood in your vision, so lurid and out of place against all the cold and white, startles you out of the memory of that room; you're not there now. The team will be here soon, you realize with another start. Then, yet another. No. You have not spoken to them since—this morning? Days ago? –before. Your phone is gone. Left behind somewhere, or incinerated. The department clerk tells you to dial 9. You do, and you continue with the first 10 digits that come to mind.

Rossi. You should call Hotch, you know. Rossi picks up. His panic is not evident in his voice, and you are ridiculously thankful for that. You exchange few words, give him the name of the hospital (provided to you by the clerk. You note as you look around for the second time that everything is less white than you had originally thought.) You know Rossi is on his way and will bring the team with him. You go back to sit in a green and beige Quiet Room and wait for your team to arrive, their imminent presence both calming and terrifying. When they get here, this will undoubtedly become more real, but at least you will be living it together.

First, though: they will want to know what happened.

****48 hours earlier****

It escaped none of the profilers that Garcia looked a bit queasy as they took their seats in the briefing room.

"Ok," she started, foregoing her usual greeting, "This is a nasty one. People are turning up dead in Lake Michigan. Three of them in two weeks. Matthew Van Dyke," she began, and smiling headshots appeared on screen as she introduced the victims, "Victim number 1. 23 year old white male. Reported missing from his home in Milwaukee two weeks ago by his girlfriend, found floating in Lake Michigan a week later. Elaine Wiggins," Garcia continued in a forced monotone, "40 year old white female, reported missing by her sister 10 days ago, found by some recreational boaters last Monday. Finally: Addie Saunders. 28 year old black female. Never made it home from a party last weekend. Wednesday evening a group of teenagers found her body washed up on the shore."

"Any connection? Signature?" Rossi inquired when Garcia trailed off and seemed hesitant to recommence. "This victimology is all over the place. There must be a reason they called on the BAU for help."

"Um, yeah," Penelope's eyes flashed to his only briefly; she then twisted away with an exaggerated grimace so as not to have to look at the next picture in her presentation. "This would be his signature."

This time, no one could really blame Garcia for becoming slightly green around the gills. The images were gruesome; each body, bloated from several days in the water, was split vertically from collarbone to upper abdomen, leaving cavernous holes in the victims' chests.

"Yeah," Garcia continued, still averting her eyes. "None of what is supposed to be in there" she gestured to her upper chest "is actually in there. In fact, pretty much all the victim's insides are apparently gone."

"Kept by the unsub? Or just eaten away by fish?" Morgan mused.

"It takes an astonishing amount of energy to cut through human bone," Reid offered. "I would find it surprising if the unsub were to have gone through the effort of opening the chest cavity without some sort of purpose. I think it's more likely he's keeping trophies."

"If we can figure out what he's taking and what he's doing with it, we might find out a lot about what motivates this guy," Emily said. "The heart seems most likely, and if that's what he's after we might be looking at something highly emotionally-motivated."

JJ cocked her head in thought. "True, but the inconsistent victimology doesn't particularly indicate a sexual or romantic basis for the murders."

"Morgan, Prentiss, when we land in Milwaukee I want you to go straight to the ME's office" Hotch spoke up decisively. "Let's learn everything we can from the bodies early. I agree that we'll know a lot more if we can figure out what the unsub is keeping. The rest of us will start with the Milwaukee PD. Wheels up in an hour."

It was Morgan's turn to pick the radio station, and Prentiss was not thrilled. "I'm pretty sure it's always your turn," she griped.

"It is not always my turn. And I think it's perfectly reasonable to use the rule that practically everyone else on the continent uses- whoever drives picks."

"Yeah, as I said, always your turn. And speaking of, why do you always have to drive anyway?"

Morgan rolled his eyes at her. "You drive plenty."

"Yeah, I do. When Hotch is thoughtful enough to give me a break from your ass and pair me with Reid." Prentiss gave him a sideways smirk. "Or when you're otherwise occupied beside me clutching some automated weapon that's serving as an even better phallic extension than a government-issued SUV."

Morgan feigned disgust and offense. "Prentiss, why the hell are you always so filthy?"

Emily just beamed at him and reached for the radio.

It was jarring, sometimes, working the schedule that they did and realizing that a lot of the rest of the population actually kept regular hours. The city Medical Examiner's Office seemed uncannily deserted at first, before Prentiss realized that on a Sunday afternoon, the office would have a skeleton staff at best. She looked over at her partner. "They are expecting us, right?"

Morgan shrugged. "Garcia talked to the secretary. He's not here over the weekend, but he said at least one of the juniors would be in for lab work and could walk us through the report. He apparently talked to one of them who said he'd be in and able to meet us no later than 1."

They reached a set of double doors with a large Restricted Access sign across the centre of each side. A small, utilitarian workspace was set up just outside the doors and off to the side, and a few cheap waiting chairs that had seen better days lined the adjacent wall. A yellow button was mounted onto the wall beside the doors and featured a sign, instructing visitors to "Please ring once for assistance." A simple 8.5 x 11 typed sign was attached crudely with a piece of tape to the front of the desk. "If no one is here to assist you, please have a seat and an OCME representative will return shortly." Prentiss pressed the button, then took a seat beside Morgan in the chairs. She glanced at her watch: five minutes to 1. If the junior ME who was supposed to meet them was not here yet, he would be soon.

Morgan's attention was already focused on his phone, where he was reading through the preliminary ME's report that Garcia had emailed all of them. The report was fairly cursory and only included the investigation up until Friday afternoon, when the Chief Medical Examiner would have left for the weekend. "Looks like Addie Saunders's body was in the best shape; the report says she was in the water for the least amount time and that while her lungs were gone, some of her organ tissue was still intact, including cardiac tissue.

Emily nodded. "So I guess JJ was right about the heart theory… but lungs are pretty delicate, right? They could have been eaten away quickly."

"I don't think so. A lot of this stuff I don't understand, but it does say the trachea seems to have been cut straight across directly under the cricoid cartilage. I doubt a fish did that."

"A trachea," Prentiss raised her eyebrows. "We've seen some weird paraphilias before, but what the hell would someone want with a trachea?

Morgan shrugged. "And lungs too, maybe. This is looking less and less personal and more like some sort of science experiment."

They fell into silence for a few moments, Prentiss glancing around impatiently and Morgan still scanning the report. He was the first to speak again. "Apparently the mucosa lining the nasal passages and pharynx were really damaged – more so than the rest of the body. Looks like they took cultures to see if anything grows that could indicate an infectious source of the damage and are examining the tissue to see if it was some sort of inhaled environmental substance."

Prentiss nodded distractedly and, glancing at her watch again, got up to press the button yet again. While Morgan went back to his reading, she moved over to the double doors and peered into the small windows built into them and into the lab on the other side. Cluttered tables were aligned in the centre of the room, and the walls were adorned floor to ceiling with shelves and cabinets overflowing with lab equipment and hastily-labeled organizing containers. Emily could not see much of the room through the small window and was about to retreat to the waiting area when something caught her eye. A smear of dark red on the front of one of the cabinets straight ahead. Betadine? She thought to herself. Surely they used it in a lab, right? She took in the rest of what she was seeing. While lab equipment seemed to cover every available surface, giving he room a haphazard look, everything was immaculately cleaned- a controlled environment would be crucial to the labwork done here. Emily rose to her tip toes to increase her field of vision as much as possible. No, it was definitely blood- and, she saw now, a small, matching spatter of it was on the floor underneath the cabinet.

"Morgan," she whispered. She didn't need to look back at him as she pushed on one of the swinging double doors and reached for her gun to know her partner would be behind her instantaneously. She met resistance from the door at first, until the hydraulics kicked in and it swept smoothly open before her. She gestured quickly with her gun to the blood stains that had caught her attention and knew that Morgan had seen it and understood when she heard him draw his own weapon. "Hello?" She called out. "FBI…"

She felt Morgan touch her shoulder and directed her attention to where he was pointing. Her jaw tightened as she took in what he was indicating. A man in a dark blue monogrammed OCME lab coat lay sprawled, half under a table. There was no need to feel for a pulse; he had obviously been dead for several hours at the very least. Dried blood was caked onto his face and neck from nose down, and small pools of it had congealed beneath his head and around his shoulders.

Morgan and Prentiss tightened their grip on their weapons and continued their search of the huge space. After only a few seconds of eerie silence, both agents' phones began to ring nearly simultaneously. Neither allowed the interruption to break their concentration on clearing the room, however, especially when over the ringing they suddenly made out the sound of a weak cough coming from a corner slightly hidden by one of the lab's numerous shelving units. When they saw what had caused the sound, Prentiss glanced at her partner and lowered her weapon as he gave a terse nod and continued clearing the rest of the room.

The woman was young, barely out of her mid twenties. Her crisp lab coat and the blouse underneath were stained with the blood that was flowing liberally from both her nose and mouth. Her pretty blonde hair was messed, stringy with sweat, her eyes were closed, and she was obviously struggling to breathe. Emily crouched down beside her, ignoring the intrusive dings of several new text messages from her phone, then the ring of another call. Her attempts to rouse and reassure the young woman, however, were met with only another feeble cough and a fresh flow of blood from her mouth. Emily reached for her phone to call an ambulance but felt her heart drop when the laboured breathing of the woman in front of her finally ceased all together. Swallowing the lump in her throat, Emily made a decision. The woman was dead, and there was nothing she could do about it. Now, her first priority was having Morgan's back and making sure the room was cleared.

Prentiss moved to put her phone away, then furrowed her eyebrows when another text flashed on her home screen. From Hotch: GET OUT NOW. Frowning, she scrolled quickly through her missed texts- at least one from every member of the team. She felt her panic begin to rise as on the other end of the room, she heard Morgan ignore yet another call. She hurried towards him, eyes falling on only key words from the texts her team members had been sending her. Different information, simultaneously from each of their phones. Smart. "Milwaukee OCME on lockdown..." "CDC called in…" "Get out…" "Get out…" "Get out…"

"Morgan?" She heard herself say, but her voice came out thin, timorous. Finally, she spotted him. Her partner was crouched near the body of the first scientist, examining a container of a gelatinous substance that seemed to have fallen off on of the tables near him.

It was all it took for Prentiss to find her voice. Her phone fell from her hand and clattered, forgotten, on the cold, tiled lab floor.

"MORGAN!"