Europe, 2014

Dani stood up from her chair in a haste as soon as she locked her phone, knocking down pencils and papers in her way. She didn't really care, though, shoving her phone in her pocket, Dani grabbed her coat and her purse and pulled open her office door, her heels clicking as she walked through the bullpen of the FBI field office in Paris she had been working on for a while now, causing everyone there to stop and turn to look at her.

"Agente Moreno?" One of the other agents called, as she followed the woman with worried eyes. "Est-ce que tout va bien?"

"Oui, agente Moulin." She answered with a nod of her head, even though it was clear that wasn't really the truth. "Tout va bien."

Dani could tell poor agent Moulin still seemed worried about her - actually, everyone who saw her rushing through the office was worried about her - but she didn't particularly care. Not when the conversation she had just had still kept replaying in her head.

"JJ is in trouble."

Agent Hotchner didn't even have to say much more for Dani to jump up from her chair, but he had. He had told her she had been missing for hours now and that they had figured out something about Integrity.

"We don't know what it is yet, but we think..."

"JJ was taken because of it." Dani had said. "I'm on my way. I should be there in a few hours. We'll debrief on the plane."

And so, Dani had rushed out of the office and straight to one of the FBI jets. She had wanted to head to D.C. immediately. JJ had been taken because of Integrity and that probably meant she was at the hands of Askari. For hours now, according to Hotch and if she had been in Askari's hold for that long... Oh, she wanted to be there now, she wanted to find her and burst through whatever door tried to keep her away from JJ and she wanted to kill Askari with her own hands, but she needed to make another quick pit-stop first. So, telling the pilot to take her to London, Dani paced around the jet for the whole duration of the flight, only stopping when they landed once more, pulling her coat over her shoulders as she rushed out of the jet.

"Don't leave." She told the pilot, who just nodded dutifully at her. "I should be back soon."

"Yes, ma'am." The man said, moving to sit back down in the control cabin to wait for her return.

Dani thanked him briefly, rushing through the tarmac and straight toward the building she needed to be in. After telling the secretary who she was and who she needed to see, she had been allowed inside quickly.

"It's an emergency." She had urged, as soon as the poor secretary had reached for the phone. "You can announce me, if you want, but please, let me in."

The secretary hesitated, but that was Supervisory Special Agent Daniella Moreno and if she said it was an emergency, especially considering she looked as disheveled as she did, then it probably meant it was an emergency. The woman had nodded then, offering Dani a card and pointing at the elevators behind them.

"Seventh floor, to the right." She said, as Dani nodded.

"Thank you."

And, after that, Dani ran toward the elevator, waiting for it for a second, before sighing when the doors didn't immediately open for her.

"Screw this..." She mumbled, rushing up the stairs as she climbed up the seven floors as quickly as she could in her high heeled boots.

Pushing the door open, Dani walked through the floor, sparing no one a single glance as she made her way toward the office she needed to go to and the secretary must have announced her arrival, truly, because, just before Dani could even knock on the door, it was pulled open and, standing there in front of her, was no one other than Emily Prentiss herself.

"Dani." She said, her voice sounding desperate as she looked the other woman up and down for a second, while still as professional as she could manage it to be. "Come on in."

Dani nodded then, stepping inside Emily's Interpol office and turning around just in time to catch her closing the door behind her.

"I'm sorry to come like this, but..."

"It's okay." Emily assured, moving to close the blinds in her office so the people working in the desks outside couldn't see them as they talked. "I was told this was an emergency. Is everything okay? Are you in danger?"

"It's not me." Dani shook her head, the adrenaline finally starting to wear off, causing Dani to stumble in her feet a little as Emily rushed over to her to keep her steady. "I'm not... I'm not the one in trouble, I..."

"Okay." Emily nodded, trying to sound as reassuring as possible in spite of her worry for her friend. Pushing Dani back a little, Emily guided her to sit down on the small couch she had in her office before spinning around to grab Dani a glass of water. "It's okay, just breathe for a moment. Here, take this."

Dani was shaking by now, but obeyed Emily's wishes and reached for the glass of water she had offered her. Emily watched in silence as Dani took a little sip of the water, but she could see the woman still had too much in her mind and her eyes seemed to come in and out of focus every once in a while. Emily sighed. Never before in the months she had known Dani had her seen the woman so distressed. Daniella Moreno had always been so poised and so composed. Never once had Emily seen her stressed or angry or anything that wasn't serene, but now... Now it seemed like Dani had too many emotions inside of her to control and she seemed to be leaking fear and anxiety through her every pore. It made Emily nervous because, if Dani was agitated, it definitely meant Emily needed to be too.

"Thank you, Em." Dani smiled gently - or as gently as she could considering her state - and passed Emily her empty glass of water.

"No problem." Emily smiled back at her, grabbing the glass from her hands and placing it on her desk behind her before allowing her eyes to meet Dani's again. "Now, could you please tell me what's going on?"

"Hotch called me." Dani said, and those words were enough to bring a chill down Emily's spine. Because if Hotch had called her, it could only mean one thing.

"JJ." Emily breathed out the name, causing Dani to nod her head as she ran a hand over her face.

Now, Emily wasn't sure where the connection between Dani and JJ had really started - she wasn't sure anyone actually knew -, but she knew enough to know the two of them were close. Emily also knew they were close in a way that most people usually weren't. She knew Dani had worked in the bureau for years before she had been relocated to Paris seven months before. She knew she still held her position of unit chief, but most of her work happened remotely now.

"Government figured it would be best to have someone from Counterintelligence in a field office overseas." Dani had told Emily one day, during one of their few lunches together whenever Dani managed to visit London. "I'm not entirely sure why they picked me, but it was a decision made from above me and above Strauss, so there was nothing much that could be done about it."

"Didn't they tell you the reason behind this transfer?" Emily remembered asking.

"No." Dani had shook her head as she played with her food a little. "They never really told me anything, but... It is what it is, I guess."

Emily had nodded then. After all, she sort of understood - having to leave a place she loved to live somewhere miles and miles away. Sure, her situation had been different, but it felt the same. Luckily for her, when she was forced to leave the FBI to live in Paris for a while after her traumatic encounter with Ian Doyle, she had had the company of Cheeto Breath for online scrabble every once in a while and, apparently, after her transfer, so had Dani because that had been how Emily and Dani had met the first time - not face to face, not during work or over a phone call for exchange of information or anything, but through a game of online scrabble, hosted by Cheeto Breath.

The first time JJ had asked Emily to join her and a friend in a game of scrabble, it had been six months before. Back then, she wasn't told who JJ's mystery friend was - all she knew was their online name: Cheesy Chess. Emily hadn't questioned further. After all, she was about 90% sure JJ hadn't told her friend who Emily was either so they only knew her as Black Kitty. Emily had enjoyed the distraction then and, after that, the three of them had had many matches of scrabble together. It had lasted for around a month before Emily had received a call saying that an SSA Moreno would be heading to her office from the FBI Paris field office to discuss some files the Interpol had in a man the bureau was investigating.

The first time Emily and Dani met, it had been a rather professional occasion. Dani had introduced herself as Agent Moreno, unit chief of the Foreign Counterintelligence Unit of the FBI. She had shown Emily her case and asked her for the files they had on Pierre Allaire. Emily had given her everything and, after a two-hour-long conversation, Dani had been about to leave. She had raised from her chair and was shaking hands with Emily when her eyes fell on Emily's personal computer behind her and her eyes lit up when she recognized the open page of scrabble there.

"Agent Prentiss." She had said then, a small smile forming on her face as she looked back at her. "Emily... Prentiss, is that right?"

Emily had frowned then, but nodded, regardless.

"Yes, why?" She asked.

"Do you happen to know an agent Jareau?" Dani had asked back, to which Emily nodded. She frowned a little when Dani laughed. "I think you might actually know me as Cheesy Chess?"

"Oh!" Emily had smiled then, her own chest bubbling up a laugh as she looked over at Dani. "Oh, I do know a Cheesy Chess. They are actually very good at online scrabble."

"Not as good as Cheeto Breath, I'm afraid." Dani laughed too.

"No." Emily shook her head. "No one is as good at online scrabble as Cheeto Breath."

And, after that, a rather solid friendship had been formed. Emily and Dani didn't see each other all that often, with their busy jobs and the few miles separating the two of them, but, considering Dani was always travelling all around Europe for work, whenever she found herself in London, she would give Emily a call and they would share a meal or two together. Even so, the two of them - and Cheeto Breath, of course - had ongoing matches of scrabble - one every week, if they all had their Wednesday nights free. Emily had never asked either of the two women where they had met each other and, considering neither of them had bothered telling her, Emily knew better than to push them, but she knew that, however that meeting had happened, it had brought the two of them close.

Close was probably not the word most people would use to describe the relationship between Jennifer Jareau and Daniella Moreno since, as far as Emily was concerned, they barely even interacted when they worked in the same building, but Emily knew better than to assume. Considering their little interactions through scrabble and the inside jokes they had together, Emily knew they had more than a few secrets shared, which was probably why, in that moment, Dani sat in her office, distressed over JJ's state after a call from Aaron Hotchner himself.

"She's in trouble, Em." Dani finally spoke up still rubbing her fingers against her temple in a clear sign of anxiety.

"How do you know?" Emily asked and, even though she was more than a little scared to know the answer to that, if she wanted to help, she needed to know.

"Hotch told me." She said. "She said JJ had been missing for hours now."

"Missing?"

"Yes." Dani nodded. "Your old team is looking for her, but... But if Hotch called me, it means... God, it means..."

"What?" Emily frowned. "What does it mean?"

"It means JJ is in danger." Dani shook her head, standing up from Emily's couch in a flash. "It means we need to go over there and help her. Now."

"How do you know?" Emily asked, grabbing Dani's arm gently as the woman sighed, turning to look at her with a desperate look in her eyes.

"I... We... God..." Dani groaned, rubbing her forehead a little with a frown. "I'll explain everything, Em, I swear, but I'll do it in the jet."

"The jet?" Emily asked, growing more and more confused with each passing second. "What jet?"

"Why, my jet, of course." Dani chuckled quietly, trying to joke a little as Emily offered her a weak smile. "How do you think I came over to London?"

"You grabbed an FBI jet to fly from Paris to London?" Emily asked.

"I grabbed an FBI jet to fly from Paris to D.C." Dani corrected. "London was just a necessary rest stop."

"I see." Emily smirked a little. "And necessary for what?"

"I needed to come and grab you." Dani shrugged. "If JJ's in trouble, I'm sure she would want you to help. And... I kind of needed some files that only the Interpol had so..."

"Oh, I see how it is." Emily joked, smiling a little when she managed to make a laugh fall from Dani's lips. "I'm only important for my access to the files, huh?"

"No." Dani shook her head with a smile. "But we kind of need to hurry because the pilot is waiting for me to come back soon, so..."

"Sure." Emily nodded then, any trace of the light exchange she had just had with Dani wiped from her face as the two of them switched back to work-mode. "Which files do you need? I'll grab them as fast as I can."

"I need you to pull out anything you have on Tivon Askari and any associates he might have." Dani said, as Emily nodded.

"I'll go get it." She said. "I'll be back in fifteen minutes."

And, with that, Emily rushed out of her office and toward the room where they stored their files. Left alone in the dark room, Dani sighed, her breathing going faster and faster with each passing second she spent in London and not on that damned jet toward Virginia. Dani paced around for a while before her eyes fell on Emily's personal laptop. It wasn't open and, this time, she hadn't been playing scrabble - how could she, anyway, when Dani had been up in the air the past hour and JJ...

Dani shook her head. She wouldn't think about this now. She couldn't. Now, she just had to focus on get herself back to D.C. to help JJ's team figure out where Askari was holding her. Now, she had to focus on helping JJ and not the secretive scrabble games they had been having for years now, communicating, without words, just how much they missed each other, considering the State was always breathing down their necks so they would have as little contact with each other as they possibly could.

Dani was sure this wasn't a case the BAU had been invited to work in and she was even more certain that Hotch contacting her had not been a decision approved by anyone but himself in the bureau. She knew the government wouldn't like her helping out the BAU in another one of their rogue cases and she knew the State would not take lightly her involvement with JJ's rescue mission at all, but the State be damned.

Jennifer Jareau's life was at stake here and Dani would rather die before letting her spend another day in Tivon Askari's hands.

"Hold on tight, my blackbird..." Dani mumbled to no one in particular as she prayed silently to whatever entity was out there that she wouldn't be too late. "I'm coming for you."