Proxy

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at [Link]

Rating: Explicit
Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Category: F/M
Fandom: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Relationships: Spencer Reid/Original Female Character(s), Spencer Reid/Original
Character(s)
Characters: Original Female Character(s), Spencer Reid, Aaron Hotchner, Jennifer
"JJ" Jareau, Emily Prentiss, David Rossi, Tara Lewis, Luke Alvez
(Criminal Minds), Penelope Garcia, Original Characters, Original Male
Character(s), Derek Morgan (Criminal Minds)
Additional Tags: Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Spencer Reid Needs a Hug, Spencer Reid
Fluff, Spencer Reid Angst, POV Spencer Reid, POV Original Character,
Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Canon Related, BAMF Women,
Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Eventual Smut, Eventual Happy Ending,
Masturbation, Oral Sex, Sex, Rough Kissing, Drunk Blow Jobs, Drunken
Confessions, Novel, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trauma,
Childhood Trauma, Accidental Kissing, Scars, Soft Spencer Reid,
Protective Spencer Reid, Spencer Reid Smut, Kidnapped Spencer Reid,
Pining, Mutual Pining, Behavioral Analysis Unit (Criminal Minds), The
BAU Team as Family (Criminal Minds), Protective BAU Team
(Criminal Minds), Strong Female Characters, Canon-Typical Violence,
Swearing, British English, Workplace Romance, Strangers to Friends to
Lovers, Extreme slow burn, And I Mean EXTREME Slow Burn,
Complete
Language: English
Series: Part 1 of The Thompson/Vasquez Universe
Stats: Published: 2023-09-04 Completed: 2024-10-04 Words: 281,277
Chapters: 119/119
 Proxy
by R_A_Mayes

Summary

SSA Koraline Thompson wanted to join the BAU the second she read one of David Rossi's
books. When she's handed the golden opportunity to fill in for Agent Morgan during his six
month recovery, she takes it without hesitation. What she didn't expect was to befriend the
gorgeous genius with comforting brown eyes and an entire encyclopaedia in his head.

Dr Spencer Reid had been in the BAU for almost twelve years. He'd seen his fair share of
agents join and leave the team, but none were as stunning as Morgan's proxy. Between her
perfectly proportioned face, her sense of humour, and tolerance of his ramblings, he inferred
that he was in trouble. As per usual, his hypothesis was right.

The only thing standing between them is Kory's rule: no dating coworkers.

Between that, FBI rules, and the shadows of their pasts, a relationship is simply off the table.
Or it should have been.

If only he wasn't able to read her so easily. And if only she wasn't one of the few people
interested in every word he had to say.

This would be a long six months.

||Seasons 11-15 (mostly original content with important canon events)||

||Content warnings inside||
||Complete||

Notes

Hey guys! So here we are with yet another Spencer Reid fan-fic. Who would have seen that
coming? Certainly not me. Doing a second fic for the same character is new for me, but I am
super excited to get onto this and share it with y'all.

Quickly, before we begin though, I just wanted to list trigger warnings for the book. I'll put
specifics for anything important at the start of the chapters so y'all don't get caught by
surprise, but I won't be doing specific warnings for violence and general grossness. It should
kind of be expected with Criminal Minds tbh.

Anyway, trigger warnings are:

- PTSD
- anxiety (on page panic attacks) and depression
- sexual assault (season 12 storyline and OC's history)
- canon-typical violence
- canon-typical trauma (AKA everyone in this show is traumatised and nothing ever gets
resolved)
- murder of varying degrees (obviously)
- torture (flashbacks for my OC)

I want to thank you for being here and I hope you enjoy your stay. Now, let's get into it, shall
we?
 the interview

°•°•°

PART 1: TEMPORARY

“Life is about change, sometimes it’s painful, sometimes it’s beautiful, but most of the time
it’s both.” - Kristin Kreuk

°•°•°

°•°•°

"SSA Thompson," Aaron Hotchner greeted me as I walked into his office. He held a hand
outstretched for me to shake.
"It's nice to see you again, SSA Hotchner," I replied as I shook his hand, a gentle smile
slathered on my face.

"And you too," Hotchner replied as we let go of the shake and settled into the seats on
opposite sides of his desk.

"How many interviews do you have for this position?" I asked. It was a not so subtle attempt
at blurring the lines between light conversation and fishing for information. I wanted to
figure out my competition, how much there was and whether I should be concerned. And I
cared quite little if he knew what I was doing. This was something I'd wanted for years, and I
would show my dedication to this position through any means necessary.

"Just a handful." He seemed tired, which didn't surprise me in the slightest. The BAU was
running one person short, and if I assumed correctly Hotchner was likely the one picking up
the slack. "However, you are the last interview of the day so I hope you don't mind if I'm a
little more to the point than I might normally be." He warned me, and I shrugged my
shoulders as he took a sip of his coffee. I might have told him it was a bit too late in the day
to have caffeine, especially if he planned on sleeping tonight, but I also didn't want that to
come back and bite me in the ass.

"I would much prefer that, to be honest, sir." That wasn't a lie. I hated dancing around the
topic at hand, and I hated having to tread carefully. I'd much rather be straight to the point,
unless I was toying with a suspect that is.

"I thought that might be the case, which was why I scheduled you to be last." Hotchner
smiled before he took another sip of coffee. "To get formalities out of the way, I have to
confirm that you know this is an interview for a temporary position here at the BAU. So, you
are aware of this?"

"Yes, sir," I replied as I straightened my shoulders.

"And you're also aware that this position will only be for the remaining five and a half
months that Agent Morgan is having off for recovery?" He asked, and I nodded once more.

"Yes, sir," I confirmed.

"And that it's extremely unlikely that this will turn into a permanent position?" God. I
furrowed my eyebrows and tilted my head to the side.

"Has anyone said 'no' to these questions?" I asked, he took a sharp intake of breath like he
was going to give me an answer but thought the better of it. Instead he just stared at me,
clearly waiting for my confirmation. That meant at least one other applicant said 'no', which
was good. It meant I wasn't going to be the last choice for the position. "Yes, sir, I'm aware
this position is only temporary for the next five and a half months and won't end up in a
permanent placement at the BAU." Even if I wanted to make it permanent I wasn't sure I'd be
able to, so that didn't matter to me.

"Okay." Hotchner finally opened my file and looked through the single page of my CV
before he moved onto my military stats and the mostly blacked out mission reports. "So the
reason I've called you in for this interview is solely because we've previously spoken when
you told me your interest in joining the team. You asked me to keep you on file in case of a
circumstance such as this, and I almost didn't. Why would that be?" So he wanted me to
profile myself? And to profile him? Alright.

"My history, sir. The one you're looking at," I answered as I watched for any kind of tell that I
was heading in the right direction. He gave nothing away, so I proceeded with my theory.
"My past work is more to do with fighting fire with fire, rather than dousing the flame with
water or starving it of fuel. My experience in both the military and HRT don't necessarily
blend with what you do here at first glance, so I could understand why you would’ve thrown
my file out. But you didn't, because you know there's more to what I did than the blacked out
mission reports and my confirmed kill count. I'm assuming that's what you'll ask next, why
you actually did keep my file."

"That's quite a high number," he said as his eyes settled on my kill count. Sixty-seven. "And
yes, that is my next question. Can you elaborate for me?" He briefly looked up from the
paper and straight into my soul, so I nodded and continued.

"You kept my file because you wanted to find out why an ex Special Forces sergeant is on
your doorstep begging for a chance to be in the BAU." It was obvious to me that it was the
only reason I was even getting this interview right now. "Simple curiosity, sir."

"You're not wrong..." he trailed off as he flicked through my file for a second time. His eyes
very occasionally reached for mine, but were otherwise stuck to the pages. "So can you tell
me why? Just to sate my curiosity."

"I have two answers for you, both are the truth but one is probably better for you to hear than
the other," I answered honestly. If I had any chance of getting this job I had to be completely
open, which was going to be fucking hard but I'd get it done.

"Then I'd like to hear both. Give me the palatable answer first." He closed my file and looked
up, completely focused on me even as he picked up his coffee mug again. This was the part
that would matter, possibly even more than the proof that I could profile.

"In Hostage Rescue... I'm constantly too late. I'm too late to stop people from getting hurt,
and too late for the solution to be anything other than shooting the bad guy. I can confidently
say that I'm the most accurate sniper in the FBI, my test scores will back me up on that, so if
I'm called to a scene it is simply to find a clear shot and act on it." I began my answer, which
might have sounded a little overconfident but it wasn't. "I don't believe in an afterlife, so to
me when I do kill a bad guy they get away with it." I folded my hands in my lap as I sat up a
little straighter, and then continued with my answer.

"So they don't get punished for what they've done, and I'd like to stop them before it comes to
that. I want the killers and the rapists and every other criminal we go after to rot in prison." I
held eye contact with him, just to gauge his reaction to my words. Still he gave me nothing to
work with. "And of course I understand that to catch and stop unsubs that occasionally we do
have to kill them. It's just that my entire career has been about killing people, about fighting
them and putting an end to their terror by any means necessary. Even if it's just for a few
months, I can do better than that and I can do that here."
Silence encased his office for a few moments before his face relaxed and the faint glimmer of
a smile replaced the cold nothingness. He liked me as an option. It was working. My plan
was fucking working.

"Do I want to know what the second answer is? Because I don't want to take away from that,"
he said and I grimaced before I smiled. I had to be completely open, it was the only way to be
sure I'd done everything possible to join the BAU.

"When I was twelve my... someone close to me was murdered." Even though I wanted to be
completely open, there was some part of me that didn't want to say it so soon in front of him.
If he took me on then he would find out later, but for now the details of who didn't matter. "I
couldn't understand why someone would do what they did, so I turned to psychology and
started reading true crime when I was fifteen to try and help me. That was when I stumbled
upon Agent Rossi’s books." Hotchner pinched the bridge of his nose as he nodded for me to
continue the story. Okay, this was either going okay or I had just screwed myself over.

"They helped me understand why the killer did what they did, and from that point onward I
had a very keen interest in criminal psychology and decided I wanted to be a profiler." Hang
on, that might sound a bit disingenuous considering the fact he'd looked at my file. I needed
to explain further. "I would have come straight to Quantico after getting my degree if my
family wasn't heavily involved in the military. There's generations of veterans that preceeded
me, so I thought it was expected that I would join the military too."

There was silence for another few moments as Hotchner processed what I’d said. His coffee
mug was now empty, and the mountain of files on his desk seemed to threaten to fall over at
any given moment. It was a clear indicator of how busy the unit was, and how desperately
they needed someone to help fill the gap left by Agent Morgan.

"Alright, run me through your work history." Okay, that was a good sign. It meant he wanted
to know more. It meant he was seriously thinking about letting me onto the team. My plan
was still working.

"As soon as I turned eighteen I joined the military, and after a few years and some vigorous
training I went into Special Forces." I ran through the first stint of what was in my CV, and
Hotchner cut in straight away. I knew exactly where this was going.

"So you're Ranger Qualified?" He asked, and I nodded.

"Yes, sir." I bit the inside of my cheek as I ran over my rehearsed answer to the question I
knew was coming. It was the same question I had been asked multiple times while
interviewing for the FBI and every role I'd had within the institution.

"Ranger School was only opened to women last year." Either he thought I was lying or he
was just trying to work out what made me different. Luckily for me it was neither of those
things.

"My grandfather was a General. He was not liked at all, so when he put his career on the line
to give me the chance to get into Special Forces, everyone agreed. They assumed I wouldn't
even fit the requirements for Ranger School or fail out of it, but they were wrong." I broke
eye contact then. It was something that still managed to make my blood boil, even after
seventeen years. Pop told me that a few of them assumed I'd be too damned short to make the
requirements, pity they never looked at my file and saw I was five-foot-ten, and probably
taller than they were. "I completed multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq over the span of six
years before I was medically discharged. After three years for recovery I came to the FBI,
where I joined SWAT but by the time I graduated I was immediately head-hunted for HRT
because of my scores and history in Special Forces."

"Three years is a long time for recovery..." Hotchner trailed off. Right, so he didn't want to
ask the question but wanted to know the answer. That was fine, I had nothing to hide.

"My team's vehicle was hit with an IED. I broke my back in the explosion and was
temporarily paralysed." While he didn’t completely react to my response, I noticed the way
his face had hardened. Internalised regret. "It took almost two years to start walking again,
and the rest of it was to build my strength back to some semblance of what it used to be. It
might look like a long gap, sir, but during that time I was taking classes here at Quantico
while also getting a degree in criminal psychology. I finally finished my masters last year
before I contacted you."

"Right, so..." he didn't seem to know what to say or where to look after what I'd told him. It
hadn't even been the entire story, but what I'd said was more than enough. It was more than
anyone really had to know. "What makes you a good fit for the team?" Changing the subject?
I was definitely on board with that.

But the question he asked wasn't the question he meant, I was sure of it. Maybe it was the
long day catching up to him after a long week, but the words weren't right. Not from the
expectant look he gave me. This was a question I had to answer well or I was screwed.

"From what I know of the BAU, everyone has an area of knowledge that they bring to the
table. Alone the BAU is strong, but together they are unstoppable." I pointed out what I knew
and insinuated where I thought his question was heading. "In all of my positions, my
superiors and my colleagues have all pointed out my observant nature. I take in the world
around me in a lot more detail than the people I'm with, and I'm easily able to pick up
patterns and the like because of it. Patterns such as tells and body language, one of my
colleagues over at HRT has taken to calling me the Human Lie Detector." That ability to read
patterns was why I ended up with a fucking broken back in the first place, so it was
something I despised as much as I appreciated.

"Okay..." he wanted more. Alright.

"I have good deduction skills, but the rest of the team likely has that as well, just like the
observance." I took a deep breath and shuffled in my seat. Fuck. This was the part that I knew
would slip through my fingers. "Look, my knowledge lies in military and fighting. I can read
scenes extremely well, can figure out how people got where and the best vantage points for
an LDSK, and I can plan a raid or attack or anything with almost guaranteed success. No one
can outrun me, no one can best me in a fight, no one can out-gun me. The issue is that
beyond that, I haven't had a chance to find out what else I am. I can tell you I'm a quick
learner, and if I notice there is a certain thing that is lacking that I will try and fill that gap. I
work best in a team, so I understand the need to make sure it's rounded."
His hardened expression softened just enough for me to notice. Maybe he liked my answer,
maybe it was the right one to give. God, I fucking hope so.

"Okay, last portion of the interview now." Hotchner picked up a file from a pile on his desk
and handed it to me. "Most of our work is done here in the office where we consult on cases,
look at the evidence given to us by local police and send a profile back to them. So, have a
look at the case in your hands. That already has a profile made by one of our agents here that
led to an arrest, so I can compare your thoughts to theirs. Tell me what you think, and run me
through your entire thought process."

I nodded as I opened the file and looked through the list of evidence, through the victims and
the MO. It seemed extremely straightforward if you only had a brief look through it, but there
was something that screamed at me.

"At first glance it looks like an arsonist case gone wrong. The trail of fires seems to almost
prove that, but..." I pulled out a crime scene photo and looked closer at it. "This fourth fire, it
was a targeted attack. The first three look to be trials, since they're in abandoned houses
similar to the fourth one. I don't think it was an accident to kill the squatters in that house, I
think that was the purpose. Same goes for the sixth fire after what appears to be another trial
run." I flicked back through the pages of the case.

"This takes planning and patience to do right, so the killer isn't too young but the targets are
high-risk so they're not too experienced. Mid-thirties to mid-forties..." I trailed off as I
furrowed my brow. Originally I thought that the case was just someone trying to kill
homeless people. But if that was the case then why so many trial runs? The fires that killed
people were targeted, yes, but not for the reasons I assumed.

"The trial runs were to see how fast the fire department would respond to a report of a fire on
what should be an unoccupied house. The consistency in the fuel proves that." I looked up at
Hotchner then, who had his head resting on his hand. "The unsub did another trial run after
the first kill because they needed to see if the times improved. This unsub isn't trying to kill
people, per say, they think that they're helping train the fire department to act faster. They
themselves are either homeless and squatting or lost someone to a similar situation. I'd
recommend that the police look into recent fires from before this string of them, and see if
any were in unoccupied houses that resulted in a squatter being killed. I'd be willing to bet
that was a stressor."

Hotchner nodded as he looked at the piece of paper in his hands, likely the report from the
agent who'd already looked at this case.

"Anything else?" He asked, so I looked through the papers once again. I would not miss a
damned thing, and if he asked me if there was anything else then it meant I'd missed
something.

I looked most at the crime scene photos, at the placements of the fires on the small map of the
town. There was something else. There had to be something else.

It was a smaller sized town, and these unoccupied homes were scattered all over the map.
Normally they would be condensed into one area, but if they were spread all over like this...
"The town itself is not a wealthy town, this many unoccupied homes and squatters livin' in
them... the unsub just lost their job, it's why the fires are happening during the day. They're
likely looking for a man with a saviour complex, almost like..." oh shit. "He was a part of the
fire department, maybe an EMT. If the department got to a fire late and a person died because
of it, this unsub may hold a lot of resentment, especially if they've been let go. I-"

"You're right." Hotchner cut me off before I kept going on my spiral and handed me the
report that he'd compared my theory to. "Agent Reid came to that same conclusion, and they
caught the unsub three days later. Although it did take a little longer for him to piece together
the sociology of the town..."

"So I did well?" I asked shamelessly. I had to know.

"You're the only interviewee that came to the right conclusion, so yes." He answered. Holy
shit, really? "So, if you were to join us here, how much notice would you need to give your
current Unit Chief?"

"He's already been made aware of my interest in this position, so I can begin on Monday." I
answered and he nodded his approval. "There is one catch, however..."

"Yes?"

"He's asked that I still be available to HRT if they have need for me. I have been assured it
will only be under an extenuating circumstance, but my talents with a rifle are too valuable to
let go. Even for five months." I said with a smile. There was a moment where I thought that
would be the one thing that would screw me over, but it wasn't.

"That should be fine. Now, if you get the position is there anything else I might need to
know?" Hotchner asked, and I took a deep breath.

"I was diagnosed with ADHD during my recovery, and um... I was just wondering if it's okay
to listen to music in the office. I've found that I can focus better if I do, so I just like to be
sure that I-"

"Of course, that's not a problem. Now with your military history as well, can I assume-"

"Yes I do have PTSD but I have it under control. You'll be the first to know if there's any
issues, you have my word, sir." Maybe I shouldn't have cut him off, especially this late on a
Friday, but it was too late to take it back now.

"Alright..." Hotchner stood up so I mirrored the action. "So you can start on Monday?" He
double-checked, and I nodded.

"Yes, sir."

He looked down at his piles of paperwork and sighed. "And you promise to hand your reports
in on time?"

"Deadlines help me function, sir." I answered with another smile, even though he didn't smile
back. Right, he probably wanted a straight answer. "Uh, yes, sir. I promise." He glanced at the
mess on his desk once more before he looked up at me.

"Okay." My heart sat in my throat as I stared directly at him. I didn't know what else to do,
how else to convince him to let me have this job. I'd done all I could. "I'll get the paperwork
sent through tonight, and we'll see you in the office on Monday. Uniform standards are a bit
more formal than what you're used to, I recommend going through the standards and making
sure you're set, okay?"

I looked down at my current uniform, since I'd come here straight from HRT and nodded. It
made sense that my training leggings and shirt wouldn't be up to standard in an actual office.

"Yes, sir."

"We meet in the conference room at ten every morning, it's just down the other end of this
half level. I'll introduce you to the team then before we give you a tour, don't be late." He told
me, and I nodded once more.

"I won't be, sir." I couldn't believe this was happening.

"And no matter what happens, you don't tell Rossi why you want to be here. We don't need to
inflate his ego." God, this was really happening.

"Of course not, sir."

"Welcome to the BAU, SSA Thompson." He stuck out his hand to shake mine once again,
and I did so without a second to waste.

"Thank you so much, sir, I won't let you down."

 first day jitters

°•°•°

God, I should not be this terrified. It was just an office, and these people were only my
temporary co-workers. Everything was going to work out perfectly fine.

I walked in with my coffee in hand, carrying my recommended 'ready bag', as Hotchner had
called it, as well as my satchel of daily things I'd need for the office. Everyone in the bullpen
looked over at me with curiosity on their faces, but I only offered them all friendly smiles
before I walked right into the conference room.

I was five minutes early, so I dropped my bags on the chairs on the edge of the room and
stood in the vacant space. They might have set chairs they liked to sit in, so I didn't want to
take the wrong one and seem rude. The first of them walked in, a gorgeous blonde woman
with blue eyes and a welcoming smile on her face.

"You must be the new recruit," she said as she walked over to me and shook my hand.
"Jennifer Jareau, but everyone just calls me JJ."

"Koraline Thompson, everyone just calls me Kory." I replied as she dropped my hand. If it
was possible, her smile became brighter.

"It's lovely to meet you Kory. Hopefully it doesn't take long for you to settle in." She placed
her hands on her hips before she tilted her head to the side.

"I hope so too," I said and the head tilt straightened again.

"Texas?" She asked, and I smiled.

"Yes, from a smaller town called Albion," I answered and she nodded.

"Pennsylvania, also a smaller town." Okay, that helped me make sense of the accent. Before I
could ask anything else another person entered the room. He was maybe three inches taller
than me, had brown curls that fell into his soft brown eyes and a lopsided smile on his face.
God, he was a pretty thing to look at.

"Hi, I'm Kory," I said as I stuck out my hand for him, but he didn’t do so much as move to
hold it. Instead his soft smile turned to one of almost apologetic nature.
"Did you know more germs are passed between shaking hands than two people kissing?" He
asked, and I immediately curled my fingers on my outstretched hand. Was he...

"Are..." I trailed off as I slowly drew my hand back to me. "Are you flirting with me?" I
asked with a smirk, and his eyes suddenly went wide.

"No!" He shouted before he lifted a hand in apology. "No, I just... I... um..."

"He's our resident nerd," JJ said from my side. "Do you want to introduce yourself?" She
asked next, but her blue eyes were focused on the newcomer.

"Um, Agent... Doctor..." he fumbled over his words, and even stuck his hand out for a brief
second.

"Agent Doctor?" I smiled as I looked down at his outstretched hand. "I assume you don't
actually want to shake my hand."

"Uh, no. And it's..." he pulled his hand back to his side and took a deep breath. Why was he
so flustered? "Dr Spencer Reid." He rolled his bottom lip between his teeth as if to stop
himself from saying anything else, so I just smiled.

"You're the agent who did the profile for the case on the fires, the one where the ex-EMT
ended up being the culprit." I realised and his eyes widened before he nodded.

"Yeah, that was me. I did that two weeks ago, they caught him three days after I sent in the
profile. How do you know about that?" Wow, he was all over the place. That was fine by me,
it meant I had someone else around me with a chaotic thought process.

"It was a part of my interview, I had to look it over and give my theory and it got compared to
your profile." I answered, and he nodded his head. "Out of curiosity, how long did it take you
to get that theory for the profile?" Maybe it was a question I shouldn't have asked, because
timing how long it takes to do these things was likely bad practice, but he gave me an answer
anyway.

"I had another ten cases on my desk that day that I was kind of doing all at once, but... I think
all up it was thirteen minutes for the base theory?" Oh, I really shouldn't have asked. "Then I
had to get the evidence to prove it and all that. How long did it take you?"

"Eight minutes..." I trailed off, and I saw his soft smile falter for a second. "Although I'm
assuming thats because I had your file, and all the information I needed was all there in front
of me."

"You must be our temp," an older man said as he walked into the room and saved me from
the conversation I'd just destroyed. Fuck, it was him. "Agent David Rossi, but I prefer Dave."

"Koraline Thompson, but I prefer Kory." I shook his hand and made sure to follow
Hotchner's very specific instruction, to not inflate David’s ego.

"Are you going to keep things interesting around here?" He asked me as I let go of his hand.
That was an interesting question to ask.
"I'll try-"

"She's already broken the robot, so I think your need for drama will be perfectly sated." JJ
said behind me, and I turned to look at Spencer Reid again. His cheeks had turned slightly
pink as his shoulders rounded just a little.

"Broken?" David asked before he looked over at Spencer as well. "Ah, broken." What was
going on? How did I manage to break someone?

"Fresh meat!" I heard shouted from behind me, and I turned to see another blonde women
dressed in bright colours and wearing glasses I wished I could pull off. "Oh, you're gorgeous
too. I'm Penelope Garcia, I do all the techy stuff." She introduced herself after she
complimented me as she rushed over to me as fast as she could in her heels.

"Kory Thompson," I replied as I quickly shook her hand too.

"Another one! Watch out boys, this is going to be a girl's club soon enough." Another voice
reached my ears. God this was getting a little overwhelming. I turned to find a woman
slightly taller than me, which was a rarity in itself. "And someone almost as tall as me!" She
seemed excited by that fact as she walked calmly over to me. "Dr Tara Lewis."

"Koraline Thompson, but please call me Kory." How many of them were there? Surely that
was everyone. It had to be, aside from Hotchner who was the last to walk in. And he
thankfully broke up the group around me.

"I see you've met everyone and everyone has met you. I know this is exciting, but we need to
get this meeting started. We can talk about Morgan's fill-in at the end, okay?" He said, and
everyone sat down in a seat with their things in front of them, so I took the last chair that
remained after grabbing my bag.

"I see you use a satchel too," I said as I looked to my neighbour, the Agent Doctor, as he
pulled out a notepad and pen from his bag.

"Uh, yeah..." he trailed off as I reached for my own things. Everyone else at the table had a
tablet, but I hadn't been issued one yet.

"Don't like technology?" I asked. He didn't seem to know how to answer, just like how he
didn’t seem to want to look at me for too long.

"I, um... no. I prefer paper and pen." He answered, I nodded slowly.

"Respect. I don't think I could keep track of paper. I mean, I have one notepad close by at all
times to write down things I shouldn't forget but otherwise it's much cleaner for me to be
digital." I rambled on in an attempt to make up for whatever I'd done wrong before. No
matter how many times I'd run over the interaction later tonight after I got home, I knew I
wouldn't be able to pinpoint the moment I'd screwed up.

"Okay." Fuck. He didn’t like me. Alright, that was fine. I wasn't here to be friends with
everybody, as much as I wanted to. I was here to work. And this didn't hurt, not in the
slightest. It definitely didn't feel like I'd been punched in the gut. Not at all.

"Right, I want to hear about the cases you're currently working on, progress being made, and
what you might need help with..." Hotchner began the meeting, and I took the opportunity to
observe how they functioned.

They went around the table, skipping me of course, and talked about the cases they were
consulting on. They gave their theories, asked for advice, and gave a new to-do list to Garcia,
as they all called her. It seemed they were allowing me the chance to settle in for today, since
no important questions were directed at me to answer, and they didn't expect me to chime in
to help with the profiles either. I assumed it would be different come tomorrow.

"Now, Thompson, would you mind answering some of the questions everyone likely has?"
Hotchner asked once the circle was complete, and I nodded.

"Of course, sir." I tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear as I answered. "Fire away."

"Where did you transfer from?" JJ asked.

"HRT."

"Hostage rescue?" David questioned, so I turned to look at him.

"Yes, I'm a trained sniper," I answered.

"So you and Hotch have something in common then," he replied. Hotchner was a sniper? I
looked to my temporary unit chief who shook his head.

"Not in the slightest. I won't even think about touching a rifle while we have Thompson with
us." I could have sworn I saw Hotchner smile. "She has much more experience and a lot more
training than I do. Thompson is ex Special Forces."

"A Green Beret... how long did you serve?" David asked, likely interested because he was a
vet too.

"Nine years. Did tours in Afghanistan as well as Iraq, part of the 5th Special Forces Group.
My team was adept in special recon and unconventional warfare. I was behind enemy lines
more often than not." Was I trying to impress David? Of course I was. The man was an idol
to me, so obviously I needed to have him think the best of me.

"There's enough time for two more questions," Hotchner said to keep us all on track.

"Did you do any joint CIA-army missions?" JJ asked, to which I bit my lip.

"Well that would be classified." I knew that answer was exactly what she'd been searching
for. It felt like a waste of a precious question, to be honest.

"How many tattoos do you have?" Garcia asked, and I lifted my hand at the question. She'd
likely seen the delicate outline of snake that twisted along my skin from an inch below my
wrist to the first knuckle of my pointer finger. Or any of the other multitude of delicate lines
that marked my hands. There were plenty of others over the rest of me, but the style was all
the same. Fine black lines with minimal detailing.

"I think it was twenty-three last time I counted," I answered.

"Okay, that's enough questions for now. You can talk when I can't see you wasting time,
alright?" Hotchner picked up his things. "The only empty desk is the one next to Dr Reid, he
can show you where it is. If you have any questions or need help with anything, feel free to
ask whoever is closest." I nodded as he stood up, and I turned towards Dr Reid.

"Looks like we're going to be neighbours for a little while longer." I said with a smile.

He almost looked terrified.

 the right foot

°•°•°

"Looks like we're going to be neighbours for a little while longer."

Hotch did this on purpose. He had offered up the desk next to mine specifically to mess with
me. He might not admit it, but he liked to make things difficult in subtle ways, and this was
one of them.

"Uh, yeah..." I trailed off, still unsure of how to cover the blatant shock that ran through my
body. Emotions were never something I was great at grasping. Socialising was another. That
meant that when I was faced with a pretty girl that I... well, long story short, I was screwed.

And Kory was the prettiest I'd ever seen.

JJ was right. I was broken.

Even if all I saw of Kory was her eyes, I'd still be stuck in the same position. They were a
clear green, with veins of warm gold that ran through the irises. That bright colour was only
enhanced by her dark lashes and black winged eyeliner, which was drawn so sharp that it
might be able to slice through paper. Or me.

Her golden skin was covered in freckles, her full lips painted with a dark nude lipstick, and
her hair... it was deep brown, nearly black, and cut in a longer bob that fell three inches below
her heavily pierced ears. And to top it all off, I could smell her perfume from an arm's length
away. Vanilla and strawberries.

"Lead the way," she said as she stood up and grabbed her satchel. She had a rich voice, made
all the more comforting by the southern drawl that clung to her vowels.

I didn't say anything in response. Instead, I stood up, grabbed my things, took care to ignore
the looks that both JJ and Rossi gave me, and walked out of the conference room. I heard her
footsteps run after me. Maybe I should have waited for her to grab her duffle bag, but I
needed to be out of that room as fast as possible.

She caught up once I reached my L-shaped desk, and I gestured to the empty one sidled
against mine. This was just perfect because now I would always be able to see her whenever I
got distracted from my work. Hotch really knew what he was doing.
"Could I be a pain and ask if you could show me around real quick? Just to prevent me from
irritating you later when I need to find things." Irritate me?

"Uh-"

"I can ask someone else if you don't want to." What? Why would... oh, my awkwardness
might have come across as stand-offish. Maybe. Or maybe it hadn't. I...

"No, I can show you around." And well done me. I'd finally managed to scrape together a full
sentence again. This was going to be a long five and a half months.

"Are you sure?" She asked, so I nodded in response. "Okay, um... did I do something
wrong?" She placed her bags on her new desk, even though those gorgeous eyes of hers were
focused on me.

"What?" I wasn't easily confused, but I'll admit that I was. Surely I hadn't made her think that
I didn't like her, had I?

"You've hardly looked at me, kind of stopped responding to me. I was just wondering if I said
something or did something... I've been here for less than an hour, and I just want to make
sure I'm starting on the right foot with everyone." Oh, my awkwardness really had come
across wrong. My inference was correct once again.

"You're all good, I swear. It's just me," I said.

"Okay..." she tilted her head to the side, and I don't know why, but it made it even harder to
think straight.

"It's just... look, I'm always a little awkward around new people, so trust me when I say it's
not you. You're all good, I promise. You're great, actually. It's just me not being good at
people." Alright, I had been doing well up until that point. At least when my work output
would inevitably fall to pieces, I could put the blame right back on Hotch when he
reprimanded me.

"Not being good at people? I thought JJ said you were smart." Okay, that was a fair jab.

"She never actually said I was smart. She said I'm a nerd... and a robot." I took a deep breath
as she smiled at me. It was the same smile from when I'd thrown out that stupid fact about
germs and shaking hands and kissing, but I wouldn't let it affect me again. It would only
prove the fact that I was broken, and I had to prove to both JJ and Rossi that I wasn't. "I
swear, I am smart."

"And how smart is smart, Agent Doctor?" Why did I have a feeling she wouldn't let that one
go?

"A hundred and eighty-seven." I blurted out the number, no context, no base for it. Damn it.
Why was it so hard to help myself?

"What?" She asked gently.

"My IQ is a hundred and eighty-seven." I gave the context—which I should have done in the
first place. "And I have an eidetic memory, which works better for reading than hearing. And
speaking of reading, I can read 20,000 words per minute." Her lips parted for a second, and I
had to refrain myself from continuing to talk. And from staring. The staring part was
definitely harder than the non-talking.

"Jesus..." she whispered. "Are you like a walking encyclopaedia?"

"Uh, kind of? I don't know everything, but I do know a lot." And what I didn't know I could
usually guess from the data I already had stored in my brain. God, maybe I was a robot like
JJ said.

"We can test that theory over the next five and a half months. Figure out how much you do
actually know." Did that mean she wanted to continue interacting with me? I hadn't scared
her off?

"I'm pretty sure the team's been doing that since I started." She smiled at my response.

"How about we start this tour before I end up talking your ear off for the next five hours?"
She offered, and I nodded.

"Sure, but I'm the one who normally talks too much. Once I start, it seems to be like a broken
tap, and it just keeps going and going until someone..." until someone gives me the look that
told me to stop. Or they simply told me to stop. Or joked about me and my intelligence and
habit of rambling when stuck on a train of thought. But she hadn't given me that look. Why
hadn't she given me that look?

"Sounds like we'll get along just fine then." She gave me another dangerous smile before I
gestured to start the tour.

Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.

"And the last stop, which Garcia would argue is the most important, we have–"

"The humble abode of your new techy Goddess." Garcia cut me off as we walked into her
office.

"I showed her the code to get in, I hope that's okay," I said to Garcia as she stood up from her
desk and did her familiar half-run over to us.

"That is perfectly fine," Garcia said as she reached us. "Now, I didn't get to do this before, so
I hope you're a hugger because you haven't been welcomed into the team without one of my
signature hugs." Garcia pulled Kory into a hug, one that made something twinge in my chest.
"I'm not huge on hugs, but I'll take them when they're given," Kory replied with another huge
smile on her face.

Garcia pulled away from Kory, and in that moment, they looked like two sides of the same
coin. "Good, because this job can get real dark and sometimes what we need to get through it
is just a good ol' hug." Both of them seemed energetic and friendly in their own ways—but
where Garcia was splashes of bright colour and fun patterns, Kory seemed to like black
clothing and simplicity.

The easiest way to compare the two was simply through the fact that Garcia wore a print
dress and a pair of high heels that seemed nearly dangerous to wear. Whereas Kory was in a
black dress shirt, tucked into skinny cut black work pants and a pair of black boots that
completely lacked a heel. She was tall enough to not need the boost, and if I took into
account her history, she likely didn't enjoy wearing them. At least not often.

Maybe she did when she went out, for drinks or on dates...

What would she look like in a dress with heels? What kind of dress would she wear? Maybe
it would be skin-tight, obviously black, cut off at her mid-thigh. Maybe she'd wear her hair
down in loose curls that—God, what is wrong with me?

"So, Pretty Boy, tell me why you've brought gorgeous Kory to my lair." Pretty Boy? I was
hoping I could avoid that nickname while Derek was away. Why couldn't I catch a damned
break?

"Pretty Boy?" Kory asked with a slight laugh, and strangely enough, I didn't mind the
nickname when she said it in her honeyed voice. She turned to look at me, and I recognised
the look that was similar to everyone else on the team when they found a new way to mess
with me. Never mind. I didn't like the nickname, full stop. "Oh, I like that."

"I was just giving Kory a tour so she knows where to find things. You're the last stop," I
explained, which was a blatant attempt at diverting the conversation away from the nickname
in hopes it would help Kory forget hearing it. Although, I had a feeling that wouldn't work. I
almost didn't want it to.

"So you saved the best for last then." Now that I'd noticed the similarities between their
personalities, I was starting to think this might have been a bad idea.

"Where does the nickname come from?" Kory asked, dragging us back to the topic I hoped to
avoid.

"Morgan," I answered as I rubbed my neck. Yeah, judging from the smile on her face, this
was definitely a bad idea.

"Well, I am supposed to be Morgan for the next five months, so maybe I should take my role
a little more seriously." Yep, bad idea. Terrible idea, actually. "How can I do that for you,
Garcia?"
"No one could replace what Morgan and I have... it's just too..." Garcia couldn't seem to find
the right words, which was fair. I didn't really know how to describe it through any other
words than 'uncomfortable for those around them'. "I'm his baby girl, and he's my beautiful
muscular man. That can't be replicated."

I watched as Kory's smile shifted to something a little more subdued, a little more... seductive
even? Was that the right word? "Are you sure about that, sugar?"

"Oh..." Garcia took a step back, out of shock more than anything else, and I had to as well.
Although my step back was more out of a weird feeling that settled on my chest at hearing
Kory use a pet name. Or maybe it was specifically because it was a pet name for someone
else. Oh god, this wasn't me being jealous, was it? "Oh, that could work. The southern accent
really just pulls it together. Okay, we can give this a go and see where the night takes us."

"It'll take us wherever you want to go," Kory replied. "Although, unfortunately, it might have
to wait. I think we should get back to work." She looked over at me as she spoke, and even in
the dimmer lighting of Garcia's office, her green eyes were still far too bright.

"Uh, yeah, we..." god, that smile was going to be the cause for a lot of my future problems.
Luckily, she turned her eyes back to Garcia and away from me.

"So if I ever need anything dug up or whatever, I come here?" Kory asked, and Garcia
nodded.

"Either that or give me a quick call, and I'll find whatever it is you need." Garcia picked up a
file and pointed towards me. "Speaking of which, I found some stuff for you if you'd like to
go over it here with me."

"Um..." I felt like I should stick with Kory, mainly because I felt that Garcia was actually
luring me into a trap and wouldn't actually give me the information I'd asked for during the
meeting.

"I'll find my way back to the bullpen and get my desk set up." Kory smiled before she left the
room, and I couldn't help but watch her leave. She was tall, but still a few inches shorter than
me, and muscled enough that she could snap me in half. Yeah, I was in trouble.

"I'm not here to talk about a case, am I?" I asked, and Garcia shook her head as she dropped
the file onto one of her desks again.

"No, we're here to confirm a little suspicion of mine." Here we go. "You think Kory's pretty."

"I don't think she is. Objectively speaking, she has pleasing features. Her face is near
symmetrical, and fits the Golden Ratio. She is factually pretty." That wasn't a lie. I didn't
think she was pretty at all, I knew she was. Although pretty wasn't the right word, it didn't suit
her sharp cheekbones and jawline. Stunning? Captivating? Striking?

"Sure thing, Einstein, I just wanted to let you in on a little something I noticed." Why did I
get the feeling this was going to end badly?
"What?" Did I sound tired? Because I felt it.

"She thinks you're pretty too."

"No." Well, that was a perfectly coherent response. Once again, well done, me.

"She does, I can tell." What kind of delusion was Garcia living in?

"Garcia–"

"It's the way she smiled at you, and if I were you, I would not let that chance slip through my
fingers." Before I could protest, she continued. "All I'm saying is to think about the
opportunity you've been given here. She's only here for five and a half months, so you could
have a quick fling, or if you don't want to date a coworker, you could wait until she leaves.
Just be open to something, okay?"

What was wrong with everyone today? Couldn't I just live in peace? While no one else had
said anything yet, I knew that JJ and Rossi were no doubt going to. The others would as well,
as soon as they realised there was something wrong with me.

And maybe Hotch expected it to happen, and that was why he'd assigned her to the desk next
to mine. Or maybe that was me just reading far too deep into it.

"Okay..." I said, more to just get the conversation over and done with than anything else.

"Alright, now run along lover-boy, you've got sniper to woo and Bad guys to catch. I hope
you can multi-task." She pushed me out of her office and closed the doors behind me.

What just happened?

I walked back to my desk and saw Kory with hers already set up. It was exceptionally
minimal in its decorations, just some sleek black stationery and a pile of brown files that
were no doubt dropped behind for her the second we walked off for the tour. Her bags were
nowhere to be seen, likely stashed away in her temporarily empty drawers.

We didn't make much conversation for the rest of the day. She was focused on work, with a
pair of black Bose headphones on to prevent talking, and pretty much only spoke when
asking questions. She'd eaten her lunch at her desk, working as she shovelled some reheated
pasta in her mouth, so we couldn't even talk then.

And I, too, was focused on my work to talk anyway... and on making sure she settled in okay.
Multi-tasking, just like Garcia told me to.

It was only when we were making our way out of the building that we talked properly again,
after I'd offered to walk her to her car.

"What kind of car do you drive?" She asked.

"Uh... I usually take the train." I answered bluntly.

"Oh," she replied, which prompted me to remember that I was supposed to be more
conversational.

"I do own a Volvo Amazon P130, though, for when I do have to drive."

"What year?" She seemed genuinely interested... did she like classic cars?

"It's a '66."

"That is so cool. My pop has a '67 Impala that's part of my inheritance. I don't want him to
go, but I do want that car." She laughed as she spoke, and I felt a smile grace my face.

"What kind of car do you have in the meantime?" I assumed she drove something modern,
sleek... black.

"I have a '98 Toyota Supra." She pointed to it as she spoke, and I smiled again as I saw it. It
was matte black, obviously, and seemed absolutely pristine. "I'd offer you a ride home in it,
but I don't even know where you live to know if it's in the right direction for me or not."

"Do you really want to be in a car alone with me? I tend not to shut up, sometimes..." I trailed
off.

She furrowed her brow. "Are you kidding me?"

"I don't think so..." We reached her car, and she threw her bag to the passenger footwell.

"I feel like I could talk to you for hours and never get bored, so I will not mind in the
slightest."

"We can test that theory." I repeated her words from earlier that day, and she laughed again.
So I told her which suburb I lived in and that laughter repeated.

"I have to drive through there to get here. We could carpool if you wanted to." Really? What
kind of coincidence was this? "I'm sure it would be cheaper than catching the train." Was this
what Garcia was talking about? Was Kory just being nice, or was she doing this because... no,
she was just being nice and trying to make friends at her new job.

"How much will it cost me?" I asked. She smirked in response.

"A half-decent cup of coffee once a week? You seem like the type to know where the best
cafes and bakeries are so... how does that sound?"

This felt strange, but maybe Garcia had a point. Kory was only in the BAU temporarily.
What's the worst that could happen?

"That sounds like a good deal to me."

 a jolt of something

°•°•°

"I thought we could start the first ride off with the first payment," I said as I folded myself
into Kory's passenger seat. She smiled at me as she took the takeaway coffee cup from my
hand; her fingers lightly brushed mine and sent a jolt of something through me.

"I didn't think you would start so soon," she replied before she took a sip of the drink. "And
it's perfect, how'd you know what I like?"

"I watched you make coffee yesterday. Long black with one sugar." Was that too much?
Should I have maybe waited until after she'd told me what her coffee order was? Should I
have offered to take her in and paid attention when she made her order?

She smirked at me, as if she could sense what I was thinking, and began to drive us to work,
her coffee placed in the cupholder.

"You don't drink coffee, at least not as often as you drink tea, even though it's obvious you
prefer the former. But tea is probably the smarter choice because of the caffeine." Okay,
maybe it wasn't too much then. I smiled back and furrowed my eyebrows. For some reason
my thoughts weren't running in overdrive, they were focused on one thing. Her.

"What else have you noticed about me?' I asked as I rubbed my forearm. Seriously, why was
my brain so calm?

"You're extremely smart, but a little awkard around people. You work better in the afternoon
than in the morning, and you avoid using your computer as much as possible. You wear odd
socks consistently which implies it's on purpose, and you like the colour purple." All that
from one day?

"Purple?" I questioned, because I didn't think it was that obvious.

"You wore a lilac tie and one sock with purple detailing yesterday. Today you've got a purple
scarf and I see you've got the matching sock from yesterday on." Right, maybe it was a little
obvious. "Now, what have you noticed about me?"

"You're intelligent, and good at reading people. Your favourite colour is black, and you pay
attention to the finer details around you." That wasn’t even the tip of the iceberg of what I'd
noticed about her, but that also seemed like a safe place to stop. I couldn't let her know just
how invested I'd been in learning about her yesterday.
"And how do you know I don't just wear black because it's slimming?" Slimming? That's the
argument she chose?

"Two reasons. Your tattoos are all fine lines with black ink, no colour, so it means you like
the black. Second, you don't want to look slimmer. You've built muscle, and you don't want to
hide it, that's why you wear skin tight pants and tailored shirts." Yes, I assumed they were
tailored. They fit her too well to be off the rack, especially with her body type. "If you
wanted to look slimmer you would be spending your time in the gym building that body type,
not this one. You want to show off your hard work. So, therefore you wear black because you
like it and it looks extremely good on you."

"Extremely good on me, huh?" She asked with a raised eyebrow. Had I said that out loud?
Shit. "No one's picked that my shirts are tailored before, thank you for noticing. Now, as for
the fact that black is my favourite colour, I feel that was too obvious for you. What else did
you notice? No holding back, I need to know what everyone sees when they look at me."

"You feign openness, when in reality you're closed off and don't let people in easily." Her
hands gripped the steering wheel a little tighter before she relaxed them.

"That obvious, huh?"

"I only noticed because of how you introduced yourself to everyone. You mimicked their
own introductions, matched their level of energy or repeated their sentence structure. You
wanted to imply you were friendly, which you are, but you also wanted to give the illusion
that you were opening up. But you weren't." Maybe I shouldn't have said that. We had an
agreement in the BAU not to profile each other, but I guess that's exactly what I'd done. I
couldn't stop myself from doing it anymore, not when it seemed like the best way for me to
understand the people around me.

"I guess I'm working with profilers now, so my usual tricks won't work anymore." Her voice
quietened slightly as she looked over at me. "Is it going to be an issue?"

"No. No one expects you to be open the second you walk in, it takes time to trust the people
around you and we all get that," I answered. She nodded as her green eyes turned back to the
road.

"So, tell me, why do you wear odd socks?" Her smile had returned to her face, so I figured
we were back to friendly conversation. It was probably best not to push the profiling of each
other any further. It only ever ended badly anyway.

"For good luck." I answered, and I expected the usual response I received. But the predicted
light laughter never came.

"Maybe I need to start doing that." Was her response instead, and she wore a gentle smile on
her face as she looked over at me. "I could use all the luck I could get."

"Only works with coloured socks," I replied and she shook her head.

"You don't know what kind of socks I wear, Agent Doctor. It's best not to make assumptions."
Well, I guess she had a point.

°•°•°

"We have a new case in Boston. Three women over the last three weeks, all with their
tongues cut out and all of them found in the same ten block radius," Hotch addressed all of us
at the round table.

"Well, it's safe to say this unsub doesn't like women," Kory said as we all looked over the
new information.

"They were alive when he cut out the tongues. There's blood in their lungs according to the
coroner's report," I backed up her point.

"They drowned in their own blood?" Garcia asked as she read through the same section I had.

"That's not an overly efficient way to kill someone..." Kory trailed off. "The disposal area is
quite small, only ten blocks?"

"It is very concentrated. Is there anything important in the area?" Tara asked.

"I haven't found anything, but I don't have much to work with yet," Garcia replied.

"I was going to get Reid onto a geo-profile once we had a conclusive list of the places they
were taken from." Well, that made sense.

"I'll do that as soon as we land," I confirmed. Kory had furrowed her brow at my words. She
was confused about something... I guess she would get me to clarify once we weren't in this
room anymore.

"Good, now we don't have much to work with. They found some fingerprints and DNA, but
so far there's no matches so we can't rely on it." Hotch explained, and we all nodded in
response. "Tara, JJ, I want you two on victimology. Reid, the geo-profile. Rossi and
Thompson will go with me to the latest disposal site and see if we can find anything of use.
Wheels up in twenty minutes."

Everyone stood up to walk out of the room, and after we made it down the stairs into the
bullpen, Kory took hold of my left elbow. She had a smile on her face, an excited one.

"Does this mean I get my first ride on the jet?" She asked, and I nodded.

"Yeah, I guess so." She let go of my elbow, and it suddenly felt cold in her absence. I grabbed
my bag as she took hers, and we both walked towards the door.

"So, what's a geo-profile?" She asked as we waited for the elevator.

"A geographic profile..." I kept my answer short. She'd already been stuck with me on the
way here, and had listened to me talk without reprieve so I thought it would be nice to keep it
relatively simple for the rest of the day.
"Was kind of fishing for a little more detail there, I assumed that 'geo' was short for
'geographic'. I was wondering more how you make one." How was she not sick of me talking
yet?

"Um, I take all the relevant locations we have and use them to find the unsubs comfort zone.
There's usually an important place to the unsub in the centre of it, usually their home but
sometimes their workplace or something similar." Her eyes glinted with curiosity at my
explanation. This wasn’t her just being nice to me, this was genuine interest. Whether it was
interest in geo-profiling or just the fact that I'd said it I didn't know. I assumed it was the
former.

"Right..." she trailed off. "Then you give that general area to Garcia and she can use that to
help narrow down suspects and the like?" We walked into the elevator and I hit the ground
floor button.

"Yeah, pretty much. It, uh, it also helps the local police and can be used for a little bit more
than just figuring out where they live or work." If she wanted details then... I guess I could
give them to her. After all, she seemed interested in all this stuff so why wouldn't I indulge
her?

"That's cool..." The doors to the elevator closed, leaving us alone for a few minutes. "So,
that's what you do? You do all the smart stuff?" The smart stuff?

"Uh, yeah? I guess so." I tightened my grip on my bag as I looked down at her.

"David is good at interrogations, he teaches it after all." She rubbed her hands together as she
spoke, her green eyes reaching for mine. What was she trying to work out? "JJ is real good
with people, Tara has a doctorate in psychology, Garcia is amazing with computers... Hotch is
a great leader, he understands the strengths and weaknesses of everyone on the team." She
was trying to work out her place...

"Morgan had bomb squad experience, and usually prepped our teams for-"

"Field work, SWAT, anything involving multiple guns and people to catch an unsub. The
tactical plans." She cut me off with a smirk as the doors to the elevator opened. "I know, I
asked Hotch yesterday. That much I'll be able to help with, obviously, but..."

"But what?" We reached the outside world and she tilted her head to the side. Once again it
made it hard to think. Damn it, this was not getting easier.

"I don't have a... a thing, I guess." A thing? "I mean, I obviously have my sniper training, but
I doubt that will come in handy too often. And I doubt I'll be trusted to control tactical, not
for a while at least, from what I can gather Hotch is slow to trust. So, I don't know how to fit
into the team."

"You don't need to have a thing to be a part of the team, but I do think you do have one," I
responded.

She smiled again, and nodded her head slowly. "And what would my thing be?"
My response was either going to end well or end badly... I had a feeling it would be fine. I
had a feeling she might actually laugh, which was something I hadn't heard from her yet.

"You're my personal driver, obviously."

She scoffed, and hit my arm before she laughed. It was a gentle sound, deeper than I had
expected, but still musical in it's tone. I could listen to it all day and not get bored of it.

"Well, if that's the case, I might need to up my price to a coffee every single day instead of
once a week." We reached the car and she looked over to me once I was in the passenger seat.

"That wasn't the deal..." I trailed off, to which she laughed again.

"Neither was me being your personal driver. Situations change, Agent Doctor, and you have
to change with them."
 rules against fraternisation

°•°•°

"So, what do you see here?" David asked as we reached the crime scene. There wasn't much
to it, wasn't much around. It was in a relatively well-off neighbourhood...

"Not a whole lot," I answered. The markers for where the body had been found were still in
place, but they had been removed hours ago. "No blood, which means the bleeding had
stopped when she was left here. Implies she'd been dead for a while before they disposed of
her body." I tucked my hands into my pant pockets and looked around.

"Anything else?" Hotch asked and I bit my lip.

"It's a well lit area. There's lights all around us so they must know the area well enough to
know when the best time is to dump a body without being caught." I spun in a slow circle as I
spoke, trying to locate any cameras but not finding any. "They knew there were no cameras
here, so they wouldn't be caught on any surveillance."

"So he was prepared, scouted the disposal sites before he used them," David replied, to which
I nodded.

"Which implies he's planned all of it. From where he takes his victims, to who he takes and
where he dumps them." Hotch lifted his phone, ready to dial one of the other team members.

"And he has no remorse for what he's done. The bodies are simply dropped, no positioning or
covering. He really hates these women, so he might know them." I pointed out, to which
Hotch nodded.

"Garcia." He said as he lifted his phone to his ear and walked away.

"So... you broke the good Doctor." Was now really the time? We were at a crime scene.
Although JJ did say David had a need for gossip, and maybe it was a distraction technique.

"I know JJ said you have a thing for drama, but I thought I'd get a full few days before you
started to drag me into it," I admitted as we walked back towards the cars.

With the scene already half-cleaned there wasn't much more we'd be able to find. We'd just
have to work with the pictures and the other information we had. Well, that and the geo-
profile Reid was in the process of making.
"Look, we all need a way to distract ourselves from the dark parts of the job. This is my
method, I get too involved in everyone's lives and love every second of it. So, kid, you broke
the good Doctor..." damn it. This would not go away quickly, would it?

"Apparently so," I answered with a smile. I had no idea what breaking the Doctor entailed,
but apparently that's what I'd done. If I knew what I'd done to do it in the first place I'd make
sure I never did it again. Breaking people didn't seem like an ideal way to make friends.

"That doesn't happen very often," David said. Well I would hope not. Being broken wasn't
my preferred state of being, so I doubted it was Reid's. "I mean, he isn't the socially adept
person in the world but I haven't seen him like that before."

"What do you mean?" I asked quietly before I looked over my shoulder for Hotch, who was
still on the phone to Garcia. Damn it. I both wanted him to save me from this conversation
and stay far away from it.

"Well, I think it means he, uh..." he rolled his hands over a few times, as if he knew what he
wanted to say but didn't want to say it out loud. Oh, shit.

"You think it means he's attracted to me?" I whispered with wide eyes. When I imagined
working with David Rossi—my idol, David Rossi—this was not how I thought it would go. I
pictured some enlightening conversations, some unforgettable advice and his help to catch
the fucker who killed-

"Uh, well, yes." He smiled at me as if he thought the mortified look on my face was
encouragement to continue. "And, you can tell me if I'm off base, I think you might find him
a little attractive too." Was this level of openness normal in the BAU? It might be too much
for me if that was the case.

I stared at him for a moment, but all he did was continue smiling at me. Damn it, was I really
that easy to read?

"It wouldn't matter if I did, because there are rules against fraternisation with fellow-"

"Between you and me, I am the reason for that rule. However, I can also tell you that no one
really cares about it." Oh my God. This was the exact reason why people say to never meet
your celebrity idols. It always ends badly.

"I care, I don't date coworkers," I said, and his smile faltered. Wait, I couldn't have him think
that I disliked Reid though, because that would be a lie. How could I summarise this without
actually saying anything about it? "I've done it before, and it ended... badly." Badly was the
understatement of the century, or maybe just the completely incorrect word, but it was the
closest I could get without revealing any details. I liked to keep the details between me and
my therapist, especially since I hadn't told another soul yet.

"Oh, that's kind of disappointing. I was excited for the kid to go on a date. He hasn't really
gone on one since Maeve..." David trailed off, and I furrowed my brow.

"Maeve?" I asked, he grimaced.

"That was too much for me to say. That was a situation that also ended... badly. Probably best
he tells you about that himself if he ever wants to instead of you hearing it from me." What? I
started to rub my forehead to ease the headache that had throbbed behind my eyes. If this was
how conversations were going to go, this would be a long temporary tenure.

"Is everything okay?" Hotch asked as he reached us. He'd likely done so because he saw the
way I rubbed my forehead like my life depended on it.

"Yeah, Agent Rossi here just attempted to set me up with Dr Reid," I said without second
thought. If anyone could stop this topic from ever being brought back up again, it had to be
the unit chief, surely.

"Agent Thompson, I thought we were going to be friends..." David said, to which I rolled my
eyes. "Besides, Hotch is the wrong person to try and help you here. There's a reason you got
the spare desk next to Reid."

My eyes widened as I looked at Hotch, who smiled at me. What kind of fucking workplace
had I walked into?

"Jesus Christ, y'all have no shame."

***

"What did you find at the scene?" Reid asked as we walked into the precinct.

"Not a lot, hopefully you had a little more luck than we did," David answered as we settled
around the conference table.

"Well, I got something but... hang on." Reid stood up and went over to the map that was
pinned up into one of the evidence boards. "So these were the dump sites for the bodies," he
said as he pointed to each of the markers. "These were the places they were last seen, and
these were where their cars were found." He pointed to some of the other markers as well.
"He seems to be dumping the cars and bodies in different places, but all in close proximity to
where the others were dumped. For example, all the bodies have been found within a ten
block radius and the cars within nine. They also seemed to have been last seen within an
eight block radius over here." He drew three not-so-perfect circles to show the three zones.

"So what are you thinking?" I asked, more than a little curious about how this all worked.
While I understood the basics of it, I was always interested in learning specifics.

"Well like Hotch pointed out when he called me, the dump sites are all well lit areas, no
cameras, in a good part of the city. They also seem to have been taken in similar places, well-
lit, no cameras but surprisingly no witnesses either." He drew smaller circles within the
abduction zone and the disposal zone. "The car dump sites were a little less carefully chosen,
we might have a shot at some footage since car number two was left near one. Garcia's
working on it now..."

"Alright. What are the smaller circles for then?" I asked, and he nodded as he pointed to the
one in the abduction zone.
"He knows this area well, as well as the area he's using for dump sites. Now the women go
missing at night and bodies are dumped in the morning, so I'm assuming that he works in the
abduction zone, somewhere in the middle here, clocks off of work and finds his target. He
then takes them home to a house in this area, kills them and then dumps the body on the way
to work. If that's the case then he likely lives in this area here." Okay, that was good. That
gave us something to work with.

"JJ, you're on speaker," Hotch said as he answered his phone.

"Good, because we were not given all the information about the victims and how they were
killed," JJ responded.

"What was missed?" Rossi asked, and Reid sat back down in his seat two chairs away from
me.

"All the victims were stabbed in the genitalia at least eight times," Tara answered. Holy shit...
that was...

"We asked if there were any signs of rape but with the wounds from the knife..."

"It's too difficult to tell." Reid finished for JJ.

"Yeah, that's the easy way of putting it," Tara said.

"So he cuts out their tongues and rapes them with a knife... why? What does he gain from
that?" Rossi asked as I ran a hand over my face. What did this unsub gain from all of this?

"Power and control..." I offered up the two things I could think of. "This is overkill, they
wouldn't need to do this if they had power and control in their everyday life. They must work
a job where they don't have much of it, but attacking women specifically... a woman must
have control over him as well. Like his boss or a family member."

"A wife?" Reid asked, but I shook my head. I normally didn't like gendering an unsub until I
knew for certain which way it went, but this... there was no way this was a woman. It was far
too much to cut out a tongue and stab the genitalia eight times, at minimum.

"I don't think he could hold a relationship with a woman. This much anger, he likely thinks he
deserves something from women but never receives anything, he lets that anger out everyday.
Going on a date with a man like this, something would feel off and then he'd start spieling
about how he's a nice guy and all that bullshit." That was too much to say at one time, that
much was obvious from the way the three men in the room looked at me. "What?"

"Speaking from experience?" Rossi asked, which forced me to grimace.

"I've been on a few bad dates, so yeah." There was no point in hiding it, but that didn't mean I
wanted to admit it. Especially not to the agent who just tried to set me up with another agent
in the room with me. And definitely not in front of the unit chief who seemed to have the
same interest in my love life. Or Reid's love life. Was I just a pawn in all of this?

"Kory's right, this is..." Tara said, and I looked to the phone her voice echoed from.
"And one other thing, all of the victim's underwear were missing," JJ said. Their underwear
was missing too? Jesus Christ.

"I think we're ready to give the profile," Hotch said and I nodded my agreement. The sooner
we gave the profile, the sooner we could catch this asshole, and I was more than happy to do
that.
 my big green orbs
Chapter Notes

Yes, ya'll are getting a surprise update. I'm also thinking of changing the updating
schedule to twice weekly, because I have all these chapters just sitting and waiting for
you guys to read to I might need to speed the process up.

°•°•°

"So we're looking for a sexual sadist..." I trailed off as I drove myself and Reid to the newest
crime scene. Only a few minutes after we gave the profile another body was found. It meant
he'd broken pattern and killed faster than he should have—much faster.

"Yeah," Reid replied.

"And right now he's devolving, it's why he's attacked faster than his usual pattern." All I
wanted to do was make sure that I had all the right information, because something didn't sit
right with me. The newest victim was last seen in the same area, disposed of in the same area,
and her car had just been located within the same area as all the others. But she was somehow
different.

Reid nodded, which made his soft curls bounce a little as I glanced at him. "It means we
should be able to find something with this victim that could help us catch him. Something
pushed him to kill this woman, we just have to find out what it was."

"Okay..." I rubbed my face as we reached the crime scene. It was swarmed with police, a
crime scene investigation team and media.

"I can do the talking, if you like." Reid looked over at me as he spoke. The words were likely
an attempt to help bring some colour back to my face. This was the one part of the job I
hated, because I hated cameras. But it was something I'd have to become used to, even if it
was only temporarily.

"It's all 'no comment', right?" I asked, and he nodded. "The police have kept the details of the
murders under wraps and we want to keep it that way. So it's best not to say anything..."
"Pretty much. We don't know enough yet to give anything to them, so we'll just give them
nothing and hope for the best." He opened the car door and slipped out, so I took a slow
breath and followed in pursuit.

"Agents! What do you have to say about this string of murders?"

"Is this the work of a serial killer?"

"Should we be concerned for our safety?"

"Who does the killer seem to be targeting?"

"No comment." My voice was blunt as I tried to push through the reporters, who seemed to
have forgotten the meaning of personal space.

"For the moment, the FBI is simply here to assist with the investigation, if you have any
queries please direct them to the local police department. They'll release information when
they're ready." Reid's voice reached my ears, and I checked over my shoulder to make sure he
was behind me.

He was, but he was getting lost to the crowd.

I took hold of his forearm to help pull him through the mass of cameras and reporters, still all
shouting their questions at us, before we finally reached the safe side of the police tape. By
that point my hand had slipped down his arm to land in his own grasp, so I shook my hand
free and turned my attention to the crime scene. I couldn't afford to get distracted.

"Okay, so this is similar to the other disposal sites." I looked around, and took note of the
multitude of street lights and the lack of cameras. "He scouted this site before he used it."
Reid nodded as we walked over to the body.

She was unceremoniously dumped like the other victims. Her blonde hair shrewn over the
concrete, her body had no real positioning to it. The unsub had simply thrown her and left
her, no remorse and no care. He'd gotten what he wanted from her, and after that there was no
point in keeping her.

Reid knelt next to her body and opened her mouth slightly.

"The tongues been cut out..." he then looked down to what I had. The amount of blood on her
dress was all the evidence we needed to know the other half of the MO was there. She was
actually dressed relatively nicely, almost like she'd been on a...

Oh God.

"How set are you on your geo-profile?" I asked, and he furrowed his brow at me.

"I'm fairly confident with it, why?"

"I think you might be wrong about where he works..." I took my phone out of my pocket. "I'll
prove it." I dialled the phone number I'd already saved to speed dial and waited for it to be
answered.

"What do you mean-"

"You have reached the highest of Goddesses, how may I be of assistance?" Garcia asked as I
put the phone on speaker to cut Reid off.

"Well, Sugar, I was hoping you'd have those pretty little fingers at the ready for me," I said.

"I'm always ready for you. Just tell me what you need and it's yours."

I smiled at Reid who seemed to be a little confused. He'd get his clarification in a minute,
first I needed to be a little more annoying...

"I need you to help me prove Pretty Boy here wrong."

"Hey-"

"And how do we do that?"

"Well, you know the abduction zone? What's the area like? Residential, business or
pleasure?" I asked, and it only took three seconds to receive a response.

"Pleasure, definitely. There's a high concentration of bars, restaurants and clubs in the area,"
Garcia said.

"I don't think he works in that area. Judging from the women's clothing, they were either
going on dates or simply going out with the purpose of finding someone to spend the night
with. I think he found them while either going out or going on a date." I looked down at our
newest victim once more.

"So where does he work then?" Reid asked. "Where the cars are dumped or where the bodies
are left?" I closed my eyes for a second.

"Garcia, what's the percentage of people who own cars in Boston?" If I had that information
then maybe I could figure out what theory was trying to make it's way into my head.

"35.4% of households in Boston don't have a vehicle," Reid said.

"I didn't realise your name was Garcia..." I trailed off, and then watched as his shoulders
curved a little bit. Oh, I didn't meant to... "I'm kidding." His shoulders didn't straighten. Fuck.

"The boy genius is right with his numbers, as per usual." Garcia confirmed the number for
me, so I nodded and decided it would be best to move on.

"So one in three households don't have a vehicle, and yet all of our victims had one. Now, I'm
thinking that he dumps the bodies close to home, it would explain why it's the biggest radius
of distance. I think he works in the car disposal area, and I think that because he drives the
cars to work, gets out a few blocks away and walks in like nothing's wrong. The population
density of the area during work hours helps cancel out the proximity." I stated.
"Okay, well if he finds his targets at clubs then the victims should have stamps on their hands
from where they've been." Reid immediately picked up the dead woman's hands to look at the
backs of them. "He probably cleaned away the evidence from the others, but if she was
unplanned then maybe..." he trailed off as he picked up her furthest hand, and on the back of
it was a red stamp.

"Garcia, I'm going to send you a picture, would you mind trying to find out where this stamp
would give us access to?" I asked as I took a picture of the stamp and sent it off.

"Give me a minute my lovelies and I will send you the address the second I have it." Garcia
hung up before I could say anything else, so I helped Reid off the ground.

"You are... really good at this," he said as I looked to the crowd of reporters as they continued
trying to make their way into the scene.

"Good at what?" I asked, and he smiled at me.

"Figuring this stuff out, profiling..." Well, I damned well hoped so. It was why I got the job,
after all.

"Maybe don't get ahead of yourself, we need to find out if this leads to anything first."

My phone chimed and I saw a message from Garcia, detailing the address for the club we'd
have to head to. I fucking hoped they had working cameras.

"On the drive over, I think you should call Hotch and tell him about the clubbing stuff. If we
can confirm the other three victims also went out the night they were taken then we might be
able to catch him."

"Lady, do you know how many people I see every shift?" Jake asked. He was one of the
bartenders who'd been working last night.

"I assume a fair amount," I answered, unsympathetically. He was likely unhappy about the
fact that his manager had called him in to talk to Reid and I, but I couldn't really find it in
myself to care. "The video shows you talked to her a few times last night, we just need to
know if there was anyone you noticed that kept looking at her. We're looking to catch a killer
here."

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

"I... last night was really busy, that's all. I can't remember..." that was fine. We have as much
footage as we needed, but the unsub somehow managed to get away with never showing his
face. We'd caught the back of his head, his silhouette, but he'd worn a cap the entire night.
The only reason we knew it was him was because of the carpark camera, when it showed him
getting into the victims passenger seat.
"Was it busier than normal?" Reid asked, which was an excellent question. The bartender
nodded.

"Singles night last night, it's always busy. I wasn't even meant to be working but Steve called
me so I rushed in..." Jake replied. Singles night, okay. That was helpful.

"Is that a regular thing or was it a special event?" I asked as I pulled out my notepad and
quickly scribbled down: singles night, possible way to find targets?

"Weekly. We do it on Wednesdays so we can spread out sales a little more," he answered.

A regular singles night was a constant way to find new targets. You didn't have to worry
about a protective partner if you found a girl at an event like that. And on a weeknight they'd
be more likely to stay the right side of drunk so they could drive home afterwards and not
have a hangover the next day for work.

"How many other clubs and bars around this area also have a regular singles night?" Reid
asked.

"Most have one monthly, but never on the same day, it's kind of an unspoken agreement
between everyone to not steal customers." That seemed fairly chivalrous for business owners.
"Uh, one other place does a weekly one though, on Mondays."

Mondays.

All the women were taken on Mondays and disposed of Tuesday morning. Up until this last
victim, that is.

"What's the name of this other place?" I asked without a second to waste.

"Um, the Black Dove." The Black Dove? Alright. "It's like three blocks that way." Jake
pointed in an eastern direction, and Reid looked at me with slightly widened eyes.

"That's dead centre of the abduction zone," he said in a quiet tone.

"Shit," I swore. "Thank you for your help, Jake. You've given us our best lead so far." I shook
Jake's hand quickly before I walked back outside to the car.

"So he's using singles nights to find his victims... but why have they been spotted all around
this area before they went missing?" Reid asked as I slipped my phone out of my pocket.

"Singles nights can be busy and crowded. You saw the footage from the carpark, the victim
let the unsub into her car willingly. Maybe they agreed to go somewhere more private..." I
offered as I pulled up Hotchner's contact in my phone.

"But one of them was last caught on camera at a drug store..." his voice softened as I smiled
at him. "Oh."

"Mhm," I hummed as we got into the car.

"But I thought we agreed he would likely be off putting to women." God, this poor boy had
no clue.

"Yeah, if we're strictly speaking about women who want a long term relationship. A one night
stand is very different, it's less about talking and more about... well, fucking I guess," I said
and watched as his cheeks turned slightly pink. How was he fine speaking about an unsub
violating a woman with a knife but as soon as the conversation switched back to an everyday
discussion he did this? I wouldn't complain, the flush of his cheeks was kind of cute.

"So if he's managed to find four women over the last four weeks who are willing to..."

"He has to be attractive, with a good sense of false bravado," I said as I called Hotchner's
phone number.

"Thompson," Hotchner's voice echoed through my phone as I put it on speaker between Reid
and I. "How's the club angle going?"

"We think the unsub is using singles nights to find his targets. We're just going to a place
called the Black Dove; they have a weekly singles night on Mondays." I explained, and
watched as Spencer rubbed his arm.

"All the women have gone missing on Monday nights..." Hotchner trailed off. "Good work.
Garcia is running a list of people who live in the body disposal area and who work in the car
disposal area. Do you have any ideas to help narrow down the list?"

"It's likely someone that doesn't own a car." Spencer cut in, and I nodded my agreement.
"Kory theorised it but we just saw footage of the unsub getting into the victims car. He's
controlling, if he had his own then he'd force them into his passenger seat, not let them drive
their own vehicle."

"Alright, keep me posted on anything else you find," Hotchner said before he hung up.

It only took three minutes to get to the Black Dove, where the manager was already present
due to a mountain of paperwork they had to get through.

"Oh Jesus..." Ruby whispered after Reid gave her the barest of details we could about the
case. And why we were there, and what we needed from her. And by barest details, I meant
more gruesome detail than he should have given. "Of course, anything you need to catch this
guy. I just can't believe he..."

"It's just a theory, we won't know for sure that this is where he finds his victims until we see
him on the footage," I said with wide eyes. I know David said that this genius wasn't good
with people, but holy hell.

"Yeah, just follow me and I'll take you to the office," she said before she lead us up a set of
stairs to the loft that oversaw the club. Once we were inside she pulled footage from Monday
night, and we all watched it to catch a glimpse of our victim.
"There." Reid pointed to the screen and the manager paused the recording. "Do you have
another angle?" Our victim was talking to someone, a man facing away from the camera. He
was of a similar build to the man from the video we'd watched less than an hour ago.

"Yep, give me two seconds and..." she switched the cameras and we saw a perfect view of his
face. Well, it wasn’t perfect but it was the best we'd seen so far. "Is that him?"

"Maybe. We'll have to see them leave together to know for sure," I answered. Ruby nodded
and continued to play the video feed. We followed our victim around the club, as she danced
with the man and eventually left with him. "Are you able to send a copy of this to our
technical analyst? She might be able to use facial recognition on it." Ruby nodded so I wrote
down the email address for her.

"I hope you catch this guy," Ruby said as Reid and I bid our thanks and farewell.

"We will." I shouldn't have made that kind of guarantee, but it had already left my lips. I
ignored the concerned look that Reid gave me.

Once we were outside again, Reid called Garcia.

"Yes, my lovely?" Garcia asked through the speakerphone.

"Garcia, there should be a video coming through to you from the Black Dove. It has the third
victim and possibly the unsub in it, we were hoping you could-"

"See if I can get facial recognition to work on his face?" Garcia asked.

"Yes, please," Reid replied as I got the keys out of my pocket. From here I assumed we'd
have to go back to the precinct so we could regroup and make the next steps of the plan now
that we had a suspect.

"No problemos, I will get started on that right now. While we wait, how about you tell me
how everything's going with your little cru-" Reid took his phone off speaker and
immediately put it against his ear. Why were his cheeks flushed?

"Garcia, you were on speakerphone." He hissed through his teeth, and I bit my lip as I got
into the driver's seat of the car again. "No, I'd prefer that didn't... you know what? Maybe you
should just focus on getting your job done and stay out of my personal life." He ripped the
phone away from his ear and hung up. I'm sure that wouldn’t come back to bite him in the ass
at all.

"Everything alright?" I asked. He nodded, even though his expression didn't seem the least bit
believable.

"Yeah, just... Garcia has a habit of getting a little too interested in people's lives." Well that
didn't seem overly believable either.

"Okay," I said, also in an ingenuous tone.

Garcia had just been about to ask how everything was going with his 'little crush', and I was
sure of it. But it wasn't my place to bring it up, or to point it out, even if I wanted to see that
soft pink stain his cheeks for a little longer... alright, maybe I could push a little bit.

"David tried to set me up with you earlier today if that helps you feel any better about all of
this," I told him. His eyes widened for a second as I turned over the ignition. "And apparently
Hotchner gave me the desk next to you back at Quantico for the same reason." That pink
became a burning red that spread to his neck.

"I knew he was up to something," Reid replied which made me laugh. "No, you don't
understand. Everyone on the team likes to see me suffer, and I swear they all take enjoyment
in it-"

"Is my presence really that horrible for you?" I asked with a smile, and he started shaking his
head.

"Oh, no. No. I promise, no, but they like to torture me by-"

"Being around me is torture?" My smile grew as he lifted his hands and started using them to
help him talk.

"No, that's not what I meant. What I meant is that..." he trailed off and froze. "Oh, you're
doing it too." His brown eyes shifted away from me, even though there was a ghost of a smile
on his face. "You know, I thought I might be able to get a bit of a break from it with Morgan
gone but you... you've been part of the team for two days and you've somehow managed to
make everything worse for me."

"You get to ride in a Supra everyday to work with a gorgeous new chauffeur, and you want to
look me in my big green orbs and tell me that I've made your life worse?" Was I still doing it?
Yes. Did I think it was fun? Also yes.

"Oh, no. That's not what I meant. I meant..." He sighed, and dropped his hands onto his lap.
"You're doing it again, aren't you?"

"And to think, you have 187 IQ points... yet not a single one of them is coming to your rescue
right now." I smirked and got us back onto the road. We had to get to the precinct before my
playfulness went a step too far and turned into straight bitchiness. It tended to be a little
difficult to see when I crossed that line until it was too late.

"I..." Reid trailed off. "I'm confused by your use of orbs."

"My eyes, Reid." Well, I thought that would have been straightforward. He might not have
understood the joke, but I thought he'd understand that.

"Obviously you mean eyes, I just... where would it be common practice to use orbs as a
replacement?" And now he had made my cheeks start to burn. How was I meant to explain
what I read without judgement here? Because while I tended to summarise my preferred
genre as romance, I knew I spent the same amount of time reading fan-fiction as I did erotica.
Neither were a comfortable thing to admit to a person you found attractive—especially when
that person didn't seem like the romance reading type.

"I, um..." well, how the tables have turned. This was why I had to be more careful about what
I said, because it was otherwise going to work me into a corner like I'd done just now. There
was no possible lie on the planet that could save me, not against a profiler.

"Uh, Kory I..." him saying my name wasn't of any help either. Damn it. Maybe the best way
to say it was to pretend it was in my past, and that I didn't do it anymore. It would simply be a
perversion of the truth, not a lie. Surely that would make it okay.

"Look, I-"

Thankfully his phone ringing cut me off, so I bit my lip to shut myself up.

"It's Hotch," Reid explained as he answered and put it on speaker. "Hey Hotch, you've got
Kory and me."

"The video you sent to Garcia has given us a positive ID. The rest of the team is going to his
house for the arrest, I want you and Thompson to go to his workplace and see if you can find
anything of use there," Hotchner explained.

He didn't want me to help with the tactical? He didn't want me with a gun to do field work
and arrest someone who would likely want to go down by bullet? I thought that was my
thing... but Hotchner knew his team, he thought this was best. While I might not know him
very well yet, I trusted his judgement.

"Yes, sir," I agreed.

"Garcia should be sending you the address now. We'll see you back at the precinct
afterwards." Hotchner hung up and I heard Reid's phone chime to say he'd received a text
message.

"Take the next left," he told me so I nodded and did exactly that.

There was a few seconds of silence as I followed his instructions to get me to the unsubs
office building. Well, I guess he wasn't an unsub anymore.

"What's his name?" I asked, and Reid looked at his phone again.

"Joe Colbert," he answered so I nodded. "I'm sorry Hotch didn't want you on the arrest. It's
probably because you're with me. I'm not the best choice for that kind of stuff." He told me.

"I..." still lost for words. That was a good sign.

"It's probably best you're with me anyway. He might still be at work, and if he is then we'll
need to bring him in ourselves. It's likely he still won't go down without a fight and your
strength in this stuff should balance out my weakness." Maybe that's why Hotchner had done
it this way, just in case...
Alright.

"Yeah, it's all good." My hands gripped the steering wheel too tight for him to possibly be
able to believe me. "Let's just find something so we can pin this fucker."
 project scarlet
Chapter Notes

Officially changing the updating schedule to Mondays and Fridays so I can get these
chapters out a little faster but still have a backlist because I suck at consistency (this is
subject to change legit at any point in time but I'll always let you guys know). Anyways,
to the next chapter!

°•°•°

"You must be the FBI agents..." Ariana greeted us in the foyer of the office building.

"Yes, I'm Agent Thompson and this is Agent Reid," I replied as I shook her hand.

"Uh, Doctor..." Reid specified.

"Oh, you want me to introduce you as Dr Reid instead of Agent?" I asked, still shaking
Ariana's hand.

"Everyone else does." Okay, why didn't he mention that back at the first club we went to
instead of waiting until the third time I... don't overthink it.

"My apologies then," I said as I turned back to Ariana and let go of her hand. "I'm Agent
Thompson and this Dr Reid." Ariana smiled briefly before she reached to shake Reid's hand,
but he didn't move a muscle. Or say a word. "Sorry, he's not the biggest fan of germs."

"Oh, no problem," Ariana replied as she retracted her hand again. Reid looked at me with a
small smile on his face. Was he embarrassed? "Now you're looking for Joe, right?"

"Looking for his office, yes. We need to see if he's brought anything here, hidden anything
or-" Reid started, but Ariana cut him off.

"Oh, well... he's here today." Joe is fucking what? "I kept your phone call quiet, so he doesn't
know you're here, but he came in unexpectedly today. He's called in sick for the last two days
and wasn't meant to come back until next week."

"I'm sorry, he's here?" I asked.

"Yeah, he's in his office." Ariana's eyebrows furrowed. "That's what you're here for, right? To
arrest him?"

"Shit," I whispered. "He was supposed to be at his house."

"Maybe we should put our vests on-"

"You go get them and I'll make sure the floor is clear," I cut Reid off. "Which floor?"

"Uh, four." Ariana answered.

I turned to look back at Reid who'd furrowed his eyebrows.

"Go, I'll meet you up there." I pulled my gun out of it's holster as he ran out of the foyer back
to the car. "Now, Ariana, I need you to stay out of sight."

"I-"

"Joe has been killing women by cutting out their tongues, literally silencing them. It shows
anger, likely directed at a woman in a position of power over him. You're his office manager,
yes?"

"Yeah, but-"

"Have you been riding on him recently?" I asked, and she hesitated before she nodded.

"His performance has been slipping, and his behaviour has been atrocious." That makes
sense, given the aggression in the murders. "We've had discussions with HR, he knew he had
one strike left before he'd be... oh God, is this my fault?"

"No, this isn't your fault, not in the slightest. This is all on him. I just need you to stay out of
sight so he doesn't try to hurt or kill you," I explained and she nodded. "Which office is he in
specifically?"

"He got a promotion last year, so he got the corner office at the end of the hallway on the
right," Ariana said, her words rushed.

"Okay, we'll get him out in no time," I said and she nodded before she went behind the
recptionist desk.

"I'll be just back here if you need me," she said, pointing to a frosted glass door that likely led
to a printing or file storage room of some kind.

"Alright," I rushed towards the elevator the second she went behind the door.

"Hold the door!" Reid shouted as I walked in, so I stopped the closing doors with my hand.
He walked into the elevator and handed me a vest, which I put on without a second to waste.
"I called Hotch, told him that Joe is here..." the doors closed ans the elevator started taking us
up.
"We're all good to go ahead?" I asked, he nodded.

"It'll take too long to get a team here, and there's a video camera on his doorbell. He knows
they're at his house, so we need to get him before he does something," Reid explained.

"Do you want to take point or-"

"Hotch asked me too, just because this is your first case in the field and-"

"That's fine." I said through gritted teeth. "It might be best anyway, he has a problem with
authoritative women. You take point and I might be able to gain some sympathy with him."

"Hotch also asked that you don't interview him yet either."

What was the point of hiring me if I wasn't going to be trusted to do my fucking job? I could
tell that Hotchner was slow to trust, but for the love of fuck, had I not proven I would be
good a this job through my interview and reading the crime scenes? Through piecing together
everything that I had already figured out on this case?

"Alright," I whispered.

"I, um-"

"Its fine, Reid." It wasn't fine. I'd been doing this shit for years, and I wasn't trusted to take
point because it was my first time working on this team? The amount of high risk situations
I'd been in, the amount of times I could have died...

"You can call me Spencer, you know?" It might have been an attempt at getting me to be
calm around him. It wouldn't work.

"Sure thing, Reid." How could he be trusted to take point but I couldn't? I had been chosen
specifically because of my history. This was...

"Okay," he whispered as the elevator doors opened.

He moved out first, and I followed behind with my gun raised. We moved through quickly
and efficiently, and we pointed any civilians towards the stairs. If we sent them to the
elevator we would create a bottleneck and we couldn't afford to have that many people in the
potential line of fire.

"Last office on the right," I whispered, and Reid nodded before we reached the door.

He pushed it open, and walked in. I followed suit, my gun pointed directly at Joe who stared
at his phone screen with a scowl on his face.

"Joe Colbert," Reid said, his voice gentle as the man looked up from his phone. "We're with
the FBI, you need to come with us." Joe's blue eyes turned towards me for a moment before
they looked back at Reid.
"Am I under arrest?" Joe asked, reaching for something in a desk drawer. If I was taking
point I would have said something, I would have warned that him reaching for something
was a bad idea, but I wasn't the one in control right now. It was Reid.

"For four murders, yes," Reid replied as he slowly put his gun away. It was a technique to get
your target to feel more relaxed... but we didn't want Joe to be. Not yet, at least. "If you come
quietly, we might be able to work something out for you. All it will take is a little cooperation
on your part."

"And if I don't cooperate?" Joe asked as Reid slowly lifted his hands.

"Well, I won't shoot you, but I make no guarantees for my partner here," Reid replied. When
Joe didn't so much as look like he was about to stop reaching for what was likely a gun, Reid
continued. "She has the highest tactical scores in the FBI at the moment, so I wouldn't push
her if I were you." Had he looked up my scores? Or was he just talking Joe down from doing
something stupid? Either way, it worked.

Joe looked at me once more before he lifted his empty hands above his head.

Reid walked over and cuffed him.

I only lowered the gun once we were walking him down the hallway.

This wasn't working. I ran a hand through my hair and watched as Reid left the interrogation
room. Joe had just made the call to his lawyer, and we still needed an admission of guilt or
fingerprints or DNA or something that would help lock him away. The videos of him at the
clubs were useful, but when brought up in court there was every chance his lawyer would
argue it didn't prove anything without doubt.

"I know what we need to do," I said as Reid walked into the viewing room with me. The
others were still at Joe's house, tearing it apart to try and find evidence that he was the one
who had committed the murders. The missing tongues or underwear would be ideal to find,
but the more we had against him the better. A confession would be perfect. "You need to let
me interrogate him alone." My hands were shaking.

"Kory, you know that Hotch said-"

"Hotchner isn't here right now, you are," I stated the obvious. If I could just convince him to
let me do this... if we got in trouble, I would take the blame. I wouldn't let Reid go down for a
decision I'd made. "The others are on their way here now, but so is his lawyer. We don't have
the time to wait for the rest of the team. His victims are all women who hold more confidence
and power than he does..." I looked similar to Ariana, we both had dark hair and bright eyes.
I could emulate her, but sympathise with him instead of tearing him apart. "You believe this
man is the unsub, yes?"
"I..." Reid furrowed his eyebrows. "Yes."

"And do you trust me to do my job?" I asked. The look in his eyes told me he knew what this
was about, that this was a retaliation against the fact that Hotchner didn't want me acting in
the full capacity of my position yet.

"Yes." Good, at least one of my team members did then.

"Then give me three minutes to get ready. Get him a cup of water, don't take a jug in and ask
if he would like some food. I'll get us the fingerprints, just... please trust me." Not being
trusted was always the hardest part of joining a new team. I hated the phase of having to
prove myself, of having to show that I was more than capable of doing what I had been hired
to do.

Reid nodded. "Alright, but you only get five minutes alone with him. It's your first
interrogation as a profiler and-"

"Five minutes is all I'll need." False confidence. Fake it 'til I make it. I could get this done in
five minutes, if I played my cards right. "Now get the water and ask about the food, tell him
it's specifically not what you wanted to do but I asked you to. Tell him whatever you need to
make sure he thinks I'm on his side here, and that you're in the wrong. Imply that I think your
tactics so far have been incorrect-"

"You do think they've been incorrect..." That wasn't true.

"No, your tactics are right for you to interview him, but right now we need a faster way and I
have one." God, was this really going to work? It felt like my entire career was hanging on
this decision. "Three minutes and I'll be in there, I promise."

Reid nodded before I ran out of the viewing room and reached my bag in the conference
room we'd been set up in. I pulled out the shirt I needed and my makeup bag, and sprinted to
the bathroom.

Project Scarlet was either going to end well for me or my first case with the BAU was going
to be my last.

God I hoped I was right about this.

 focus on her eyes

°•°•°

"Oh, so now you'll get me some water?" Joe asked as I placed a plastic cup of water on the
table in front of him. Damn it, I hated this man.

"You're lucky SSA Thompson is out there." I shook my head as I spoke. "If I had it my way,
we'd let you starve in here. She just gave me a stern talking to about it though, so... can I get
you something to eat?" I forced a smile to my face. I hated the way he smiled back, like he
thought he had some form of control of the situation. How wrong he was.

"No thank you. I don't need you using anything I touch against me, since all you want are my
fingerprints. It's all you have to tie me to these horrific crimes, not that it would work because
I didn't kill those women." Bullshit. Before I could argue, the door opened behind me.

I would have looked over my shoulder to check who it was, had I not caught the scent of her
strawberry and vanilla perfume. God, that smell was distracting.

"No, I promise there's no fingerprint fishing going on. I believe you just have some
information that could help us," Kory said as she put a hand on my arm. "I'll uncuff him, have
a quick conversation and then send him on his way. We wouldn't want to waste anymore of
his valuable time, surely."

"I..." I went to argue, but as I looked down at Kory my throat went dry.

She'd spent the last three minutes minorly altering her appearance. Instead of the black dress
shirt she'd been wearing, she'd changed into a red silk button up. The top few buttons were
undone, showing some of her cleavage that I was struggling to ignore. Focus on her eyes,
Spencer. Focus on her damned eyes.

"Agent Thompson, I-" a brain-melting smile graced her now maroon-painted lips. It was the
only to describe the expression since I had just lost the ability to think straight... was that the
point?

"You weren't thinking, I know." Okay, I had to pull myself together and pretend like all of
this was normal. If I acted like this was out of the ordinary then he'd know something was
wrong, and that would end badly for us. "Now, if you wouldn't mind, I'm sure Joe here has
seen enough of your face for a lifetime." She let go of my arm as I nodded in response.

"You're lucky," I said as I looked to Joe again.

"Whatever you say, string bean." That wasn't the worst thing I'd been called, so I'd let it slide.

"String Bean?" Kory asked, another one of those distracting smiles on her face. "Oh, I like
that." Of course she did.

To stop myself from retaliating I walked out of interrogation room to hide behind the
mirrored glass. Damn it, these coming months would be so much worse than they should
have been.

"Now, to start with, I would like to apologise for my partner there. He might not look like
much but he can get a little invested in his interrogations." A blatant lie since she'd never
seen me interrogate a subject before. And not being able to see her face made getting a read
of her more than difficult, but I'd make do.

"Well, that's alright. You've got a killer out there to find, so I understand the need for a bit of
ferocity." What the fuck was this guy talking about? Holy shit, had he already folded because
Kory had simply sent her signature smile his way? Honestly, it would be reason enough for
me to do the same.

"I appreciate the understanding, and I hope you could extend it to the next few questions I
have to ask you. I know Agent Reid already did so, but... for the sake of being honest, I left
the room behind that pane of glass to make a cup of coffee. I started getting a little angry and
had to calm myself down." Another lie that Joe believed without a shadow of a doubt. Kory
leaned forward, placing her elbows on the table as she folded her hands on top of the file I'd
left there for her. "So, where were you last night between midnight and three in the
morning?" Her voice was gentle, calm, like she was soothing a spooked animal instead of
interrogating a probable murderer.

"Like I told String Bean; I was home, asleep in my bed." He answered, which was a blatant
lie considering the fact we had him on the camera from the bar. Kory nodded in response.

"Of course you were." Was she a good liar because she was talented or because her eyes were
enough of a distraction to trick anyone into believing her? I guess it didn't really matter in the
end. "Is there anyone who could corroborate that? A wife or girlfriend for example?" That
was too pointed, far too pointed. He would sense that something was-

"Oh, no... nothing like that." He sent Kory a soft smile as she tilted her head to the side. Oh...
she was flirting with him. The question hadn't been too pointed, not when it was under that
guise.

"Wow, I don't know how that's possible," she whispered. Was this working? She shook her
head before she pointed to his cup. "I am absolutely parched, would you mind if I had a sip of
your water? The coffee here tastes like shit and I didn't get a bottle of water like I should
have."

"Go for it," he replied with slightly widened eyes. No, this surely wasn't working.

"Are you sure?" Her shoulders lifted just slightly as if to make herself seem a little shy.
"Yeah, of course." God, he was falling for it without a second thought.

"Thank you." She took a sip of the water and stained the edge of the plastic cup with her
maroon lipstick. She then placed it back on his side of the table, close enough for him to
reach it easily without thinking about it. "Now, I do have to ask, do you recognise any of
these faces?" Kory pulled out the crime scene photos of the victims, and Joe looked at them
without the shock that probably should have been there if he was innocent. "They all attended
singles events fairly often, so I just need to know anything you might remember about them.
Any little detail could be useful."

He looked at the pictures closely, and because he was already flustered and distracted by the
fact Kory was speaking to him, his body language showed more than it ever did with me.
Because of that it was easy to see the way he looked at the pictures was the same way he
stared at Kory...

"No, I don't know any of these women."

Hotch and Rossi walked into the viewing room then. Their presence made me tense, but I
couldn't look away from Kory as she worked. She both questioned our subject so subtly he
didn't notice, and also tricked him into loosening up at the same time.

"We need to get her out of there. Reid, this specifically goes against what I told you to-"

"It's working," Rossi cut off Hotch, and they moved to stand either side of me as Joe eyed his
cup of water. He was thinking about picking it up. She was right, this was the fastest way to
get what we needed.

"No, she’s working," I corrected him. I then also decided to ignore the side eye he gave me. It
was something that was best to pretend I hadn't seen.

"What is she wearing?" Hotch asked as Kory tilted her head back in laughter. The still
unfamiliar chime of it reached into me and clawed a sensation out of my chest that was also
unfamiliar. Was this jealousy again? Was I jealous of our suspect? Damn it.

"Does it matter if she gets us the prints or the DNA?" Rossi asked, and I saw Hotch's
reflection in the glass as he shook his head.

"No, but you and Thompson should have asked for my approval before you did this," Hotch
replied bluntly. I think I was understanding why Kory had snapped at me in the elevator just
under an hour ago. She'd been hired to do a job, and Hotch so far hadn't really trusted her to
do it. If she was meant to be Morgan's proxy, even just temporarily, then she should have
been involved with the tactical plans to storm Joe's house. Instead, she had been stuck with
me as we were side-lined to investigate his workplace. While she didn't seem like the type to
complain about orders, especially with her military history, that didn't mean she had to like
them.

It was more than easy to tell that she didn't. She just wanted to be a part of the team, to be
trusted, and this was her trying to prove that she was worthy. I'd help her do that if that's what
she needed.
"We were running out of time. His lawyer is on the way and..." I trailed off as our suspect
picked up the plastic cup and drank the entire amount of water in one go. All of his fingers
were on the clear plastic, which meant we had all the evidence we needed, as long as they
matched.

Well, I guess she didn't need me to help prove she was an asset to the team. She'd managed
that all by herself.

"She did it..." I whispered as I uncrossed my arms and shoved my hands into my pockets. It
had only taken her four minutes of conversation with the suspect to get him comfortable, and
to get the fingerprints. Her technique wouldn't work for every suspect we came across, but if
she was able to utilise herself in this way and get results that efficiently...

She was more than just an asset. Hotch would be stupid to let her leave when Morgan came
back.

"Okay, we need to get that cup out of there before his lawyer gets here," Hotch stated the
obvious. Right, of course.

"Got it." I walked to the door and realised there had been a specific reason Kory has asked
me not to take in a jug of water. It was so when he drank it all she could remove the cup to
'fill it'. I assumed that instead of doing that she would switch out the cup for a new one that
she would mark with her lipstick and hand that one to him.

I opened the door and stuck my head into the interview room. "Thompson, the team’s back."

"Excellent, I'll be out in a moment." She smiled at me, and I gave her a curt nod before I went
back into the viewing room. "Would you like me to fill that for you?" She pointed to the
empty cup, and Joe nodded. "Easy, I'll be back in a few minutes. The team likely just wants to
do a quick debrief. Is there anything else I can get you while I'm out there?"

"No, I'm good." I hated the way that Joe looked at her. This jealousy thing did not feel great
on me.

"I'll see you in a minute then," she said as she walked out of the room. The second she
crossed through that door I felt like I could breathe again. She turned to look at me with a
huge smile on her face after she closed the door behind her, but that smile faltered when she
saw Hotch and Rossi. "Sir, I am so sorry-"

"Don't apologise," Rossi cut her off. The sheepish look she'd sported slowly eased away.
"You acted fast and got what we needed, and we can't ask for more than that." She smiled
again as her eyes trailed over to Hotch.

"I know you didn't want me to-"

"No. I hired you for this job, I should have trusted you to do it." There were a handful of
things I could fault Hotch on, but he always admitted when he was wrong. He might never
apologise for it, but he did admit fault. "Good work. Now we need to get that bagged up so
Reid and run it to the lab."
"Oh, I assumed I would-"

"You've built rapport with the suspect. We have everything we need to convict him of the
murders. What I'm interested in seeing is what you'll do from here, because a confession
would be complimentary to the evidence. But for the rest of it I would like David to be in the
room with you for support. The dynamic is going to shift a little once the lawyer arrives, but
he'll help keep it balanced," Hotch explained.

Kory put the cup down on the table and smiled at me. I smiled back before I left the room to
get an evidence bag.

God, she was good at this.

 it's a nice face
Chapter Notes

Sorry it's a day late. I'm an idiot who can never remember what day we're on lol

°•°•°

KORALINE

"I'm so sorry about the wait, I had to explain to my superior what was going on," I explained
as I walked back in with Joe. He wasn't looking at me though, he was too focused on David
behind me to do so. "This is Agent Rossi. You can just pretend he's not there, he's just present
because he's a little protective of me. That's all."

"He looks old enough to be your grandpa." God this idiot didn't like people. At least he'd
already fallen for the important part of all this, whatever happened from here would be a fun
little bonus.

"Again, there's no need to worry about him, he's just here to keep an eye on me." I drew the
attention in the room back to me as I passed him his new cup of water. I'd marked the clear
plastic with a lipstick stain to match the old one, and I knew he wouldn't be able to tell the
difference. If he actually paid attention to details, he wouldn’t have left fingerprints behind in
the first place.

"And this is the same-"

The door opened and a man in his mid-forties strolled in. He wore a pressed suit and carried a
black briefcase. Well, I guess the lawyer had arrived.

"Mr Colbert, as your attorny I would highly recommend you exercise your right to remain
silent." I looked up at the lawyer as he spoke and let out an exaggerated sigh. If I could get
just one last little bit in before the lawyer asked to speak privately with his client, then I
might be able to get a visceral reaction that would help our case.

"Thank god, this was starting to get exhausting," I said as I slouched in my chair. If Hotchner
was interested to see what else I could squeeze out of Joe, then he must be standing on the
other side of the glass with some damned popcorn. The show had only just begun.

"What?" Joe asked, but I didn't even look at him. Instead I started doing up the loose buttons
of my silk dress shirt.

"All this pretending, it's tired me right out." There was silence in the room as I did up the last
two buttons of my shirt.

"You're just like her..." Joe trailed off. I only looked at him after I straightened my shirt and
picked off a non-existent piece of lint from my shoulder.

"Just like who?" I asked as I looked him in the eye. "Like Ariana?"

"She acted like she wanted me, but once I helped get her that manager position she left me in
the dirt. She's been trying to get me fired for a year now, through lies and rumours..." Wow,
this was working much faster than I had anticipated.

"Mr Colbert," his lawyer cut in. "I highly recommend you-"

"You deserve to have your lying tongue cut out, just like the others." Okay, this had all
worked far too well. Apparently playing into his anger had been the right call. Well done me.

"And by the others, do you mean these four women here?" I pointed to the pictures.

"Every last one of them."

Well, there was no possible way I'd be able to top this interrogation. Even if I kept this job for
another forty years, I'd never be able to beat it. While he hadn’t outright admitted guilt, he'd
done something just as incriminating.

"That piece of information, about the victims having their tongues cut out, was never released
to the public, Joe," I told him. I glanced at his lawyer who seemed about ready to walk out.
"Only law enforcement, the victims and the killer know that the women's tongues were cut
out. Now you aren't law enforcement, and you're alive with your tongue so that rules out two
of the three groups. So, is there something you want to tell me, Joe? It might be nice to get it
off your chest."

Joe stared at me in shock, his blue eyes wide as he slid back in his seat. Yep, he'd realised
he'd fucked up and it was far too late to fix it.

"Then again, Agent Rossi, correct me if I'm wrong but that was definitely enough to be
incriminating, right? Like we don't need a full confession when we have that?" I asked as I
looked over my shoulder. David was looking at his phone screen as he casually leaned
against a wall, the vision of disinterest.

"Well that plus the fingerprints and the videos makes three, which is usually a magic number.
Add onto that the fact they've just found the missing underwear in Joe's bedroom and the
women's tongues in the freezer..." he looked up at me with a smile on his face, so I turned
back to Joe.
"It seems like you're going away for a long time." I stood up as I spoke and glanced once
again at his lawyer. "Good luck."

"You bitch-" was that the worst he had in his arsenal?

"I wasn't talking to you." I straightened my shirt as I looked down at him. "I was talking to
your lawyer."

I then walked out of the room, and didn't so much as think of looking back.

I walked into my townhouse, and let out a deep breath as the familiar scent of home overtook
my senses.

"Hey, Caitlin! I'm home!" I shouted.

"Hey Kory! Kody's outside!" Caitlin shouted down from her bedroom upstairs.

"Thanks!" I walked to the back door and opened it, and Kody the missle shot through the
open door. "Kody, guard." Immediately my German Shepherd sat between my feet as I closed
the sliding door again. "Good boy." I rubbed my hand over his head. "Break." He ran straight
up the stairs, and I heard Caitlin screaming as he no doubt barrelled straight into her room.

Even though the damn dog was eight years old, he still had the energy of a puppy. Honestly, I
didn't know how he did it but I wished he'd teach me.

I went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. It was late, and I knew there were leftovers in
here from last night's dinner. She better not have eaten all of it or I would go on a starving
rampage.

"How was your first case?" Caitlin asked, her hand on Kody's head as she reached the bottom
of the stairs. I pulled out a container of leftover carbonara from last night and shoved it in the
microwave for a few minutes. I then walked over to the white marble countertop of the island
bench and leant my elbows on it.

"Fast... super fast. We were on the ground for less than forty-eight hours. I broke the suspect
within ten minutes, so it was an easy solve. I'm not sure how the unit chief is going to justify
us even flying over there," I said with a laugh as Kody ran back over to me and sat next to my
right foot, waiting for his well earned attention.

"Sounds like you proved your worth then," Caitlin said as she threw herself onto the slate
grey couch. "And I see you broke out the red shirt. I thought you were going to hold onto that
secret weapon for a little longer?" I looked down at the red silk shirt I still wore and sighed.

"Nah, we were on a time crunch to get something out of him before his lawyer showed up."
We'd made an agreement years ago; we could talk about our work, but we didn't go into the
gory details of our cases, only the important stuff like workplace drama. Fortunately for her, I
always had plenty of shit going on, and unfortunately for me, her unit was boring as hell. She
was the technical analyst for the counter-terrorism unit in the FBI, and she somehow had to
get her fix for drama through me.

"And how did the little doctor react?" Caitlin sat up straight on the couch and looked over the
back of it at me.

"I don't know what you're-"

"Kory," her saying my name was a warning. "You mentioned him by name after your first
day. You only give me names of the coworkers you like, and never this quickly."

"Cait, no." I responded bluntly as the microwave began beeping at me. I pulled out the
container, grabbed a fork and walked over to sit next to her on the couch. Kody walked
straight over to his bed and curled into a ball on it, knowing that me holding food meant he
had to be tucked away.

"Come on, you think he's cute." I took my first bite of the pasta and tried not to convulse at
the fact half the forkful was too hot and the other half was too cold. Honestly, I was too
hungry to want to fix it, but I took a few extra seconds to stir it all together it hopes it made a
balanced temperature. "And you said he gets flustered around you, which means he probably
thinks you're cute too." God, I could never let her know that my unit chief and my role model
were both trying to set me up with the Doctor.

"It doesn't matter-"

"Yeah I know, your little rule about coworkers." She turned on the TV and flicked it over to
the Bachelorette, which I was a few weeks behind on and so I had no idea of what the current
drama was anymore. I was meant to catch up over the weekend, but then I had to get prepped
for this new job and I ran out of time. Not that it mattered too much, it was usually easy
enough to piece together, and I had more important things to be doing. Like going upstairs for
a bath with my Kindle the second I finished eating. "But if he's cute, and you're only working
together for the next five months, what's the worst that could happen?"

I knew what the worst possible outcome could be. I'd already faced it. There was no way I
could do that again, so dating Agent Doctor Spencer Reid was out of the question.

"Caitlin, it's not happening." I forced another mouthful of pasta into my mouth, even though
my stomach suddenly felt like acid.

"Right... could you tell me more about this unit chief of yours then?" She asked, I rolled my
eyes and shook my head. "What? I looked him up and he's... well, he's..." and by 'looked him
up' she meant 'pulled his file from the FBI database'.

"He's attractive, I know." I couldn't deny that fact, but he wasn't really my type. I preferred
men my age, but Caitlin was a couple years older than me and into men that were at least a
few years older than her. "He has a kid though, Cait. He's not looking for a hook-up." It was
best to draw the line there for her, to stop any further questions of her asking me to set her up
with him.

How would I even bring that up? Hi, Agent Hotchner, I know this definitely crosses a line but
my roommate and idiot of a friend might like to take you on a date if you're interested. You'll
have to ignore the 'no fraternisation' rule between agents though. Then again, he'd apparently
set me up next to Reid with an ulterior motive, so maybe he might be—Kory, no.

"Well neither am I. I'm thirty-six, I need to settle down at some point." Since when had she
decided on that? "And if he already has a kid then that means I don't need to push one out.
This seems like a win-win situation." Oh for the love of God. I ran a hand over my face. "Can
you put in a good word for me?"

"I don't think there is any possible way that this could crop up naturally in a conversation, so
no," I said with a laugh.

"What if I come and visit your floor? You could introduce me to your team and I could take
things from there." She was not going to let this one go, I knew that for certain.

"I'll think about it," I replied as she smiled at me.

"Really?" She seemed a little too excited about the mere idea of possibly being introduced to
Hotchner.

"Yeah, I just... once I'm settled in and he trusts me then you can come visit and I'll introduce
you, okay?"

She nodded her response. "I just... his face..."

"I know, it's a nice face." I confirmed before I ate some more of my pasta. If I'd played my
cards right in that response then she was about to go into a monologue that would go through
all the topics I'd missed over the last two days.

"And his voice? It's like deep but not too deep but like super soothing at the same time,
and..."

She kept talking about my unit chief for another four minutes before she told me she'd also
looked up everyone else on my team during the slow parts of her past two days. She then
caught me up on the cases she'd worked on and what else was going on in her life. It was a
long enough talk that I managed to finish my dinner before I had to say anything.

"Oh, and I almost forgot, but your grandparents called about three hours ago wanting to
organise a dinner. They're apparently coming up for a holiday and want to see you."

Finally, some good news. I smiled as I put my empty container on the coffee table.

"I'll call them back tomorrow," I said and Cait nodded again.

"Good, I can't wait to see Nan and Pop again." Cait had pretty much claimed my
grandparents as her own, not that I could blame her. She had lost all of hers, and they had
taken to liking her just the same as she had for them. "Do you think they're going to get your
dad to come this time?"

A chill ran down my spine at the question. She should have known better than to ask that, but
here we were.

"He still hasn't initiated contact, so no." I replied, and a sheepish look came over her face.
"It's probably just going to be seeing him at Thanksgiving and Christmas again this year so..."

"Oh, sorry. I don't know why I-"

"It's fine, Cait." I pushed myself off the couch and Kody followed me as I took my dishes
into the kitchen. "I've kind of just given up on Dad, but it'll be nice to see Nan and Pop
again."

"Maybe you could introduce them to your new Doctor friend." I rolled my eyes and headed
directly for the stairs.

I didn't say anything on my way up to my bathroom, where a bath, my kindle and a vibrator
of my choice were waiting for me. Instead I sent her a middle finger and walked away.
"That's right, run away and imagine your little doctor going down on you, Kory!"

Damn it. It seriously wasn't that obvious, was it? I thought that maybe the others on the team
knew because they were all profilers, but if Cait knew as well...

"Fuck you, Cait!" I shouted back.

All I heard in response was laughter.

 your little doctor

°•°•°

Kory had been a part of the team for two months when everything started to go downhill.
Getting a ride into work with her everyday was now normal to me, talking to her every spare
second of the day was now my preferred method of wasting time and things had... well they'd
changed slightly.

While I thought the crush I apparently had on her would eventually go away, it seemed to
have only become stronger.

Whenever we had to interrogate a suspect we thought wouldn't handle being around a

beautiful woman for long, we'd send her and JJ in together. Or her with Tara depending on
the suspect and whether Tara was with us or not. She'd broken out the red shirt only once
more since Joe Colbert, which was something I was grateful for. It didn't just trip up the
suspects, it made it harder for me to think too.

Kory had settled into the team easily. Within the first few cases it was established that she
was able to read a scene better than most of us, that she could picture exactly what the unsub
had likely done and how they'd done it. It was honestly terrifying to watch, but fascinating at
the same time.

She was still my personal chauffeur too. Everywhere we went together, she drove. During
cases she was my sounding board for the endless ideas in my head at any given time. Outside
of work hours she listened to me talk about whatever topic I was hyper-fixated on at the time.
And she usually learned things about the topic so during the next car ride she'd be able to
hold a better conversation with me. It was all so strange... and it had all made it so much
harder to be around her.

But today was the day when everything would become even more difficult. If I'd known it
was going to happen I would have stayed away, but it was near impossible to tell the future
when it came to Kory.

"Well hello there, you must be Agent Spencer Reid." An unfamiliar woman answered the
door, and for a second I thought I might have had the wrong address. But she knew my name,
so that had to be a sign that this was right.

"Uh, hi. Um, is Kory-"

"She's just finishing her makeup upstairs. You're welcome to wait inside if you'd like." The
woman backed away from the door, so I walked in. "I'm Cait, by the way, Kory’s roommate
even though technically I'm a tenant of hers since she owns this place."

She owned this place?

"And I won't try shaking your hand, I know you're not the biggest fan of touching people,"
Cait continued as she led me through the hallway to the open plan loving area and kitchen.
The townhouse was more light and airy than I had expected from Kory. I don't know why, but
I'd imagined a moodier setting, with dark colours and dramatic flourishes. This was simple,
and clean...

"And I hope you don't mind dogs, although Kody isn't attacking you right now so I assume
Kory's vested him up to trick him into being perfectly obedient." A dog? Kory never
mentioned the fact she had a dog.

"Vested?" I asked, but before she could answer, footsteps echoed down the stairs and Kory
came into view, wearing black leather work pants and a black silk dress shirt with her usual
pair of black boots. Fuck, I was screwed for today.

I only snapped myself out of staring at her by turning my attention to the German Shepherd
by her side. He wore a red harness that had a notable label on the side.

SERVICE ANIMAL.

Since when did she have a service dog?

"Hey, I thought I was running late but then I looked at the time and realised you were early,"
Kory said. The dog didn't have a lead on, but walked at a perfect heel two inches away from
Kory's leg. He looked excited to see me, but his focus was completely on Kory. With the
harness on it was a signal that he had a job to do, and he seemed to enjoy doing it. I couldn't
blame him. If it was my job to keep an eye on Kory I would probably do it with the same
enthusiasm.

"Yeah, I just wanted to make sure I got here with enough time to spare," I said as I tried to
take in what I could of the living room. There was a grey couch, a large TV and a fairly large,
but full, bookshelf. If I was a bit closer then I might be able to read some of the spines and
figure out what she liked to read...

"Task completed successfully then," she said with a laugh. "Now, would you like a coffee or
anything before we go? We can make one here or stop somewhere on the way in." Kory
offered, and I shook my head.

"I've got our coffees in the car already," I said and her jaw slackened for a moment.

"That wasn't the deal. You're the one doing me a favour, I was meant to buy you the-"

"Habit." I cut her off, and she shook her head.

"I'm buying you lunch then, and dinner." Kory responded, and her tone left no room for
argument. "Now, are you okay with dogs? I need to take his harness off before I leave, but I
can wait until you're outside if-"

"No, it's okay. You didn't need to do any of that for my sake." I said as I looked down at the
German Shepherd. His muzzle was starting to go grey, but that seemed to be the only sign
that he was a senior dog.

"Alright, just make sure he doesn't get any attention until he's sitting," Kory said as she gave
a hand signal to the dog and he immediately sat.

"No problem," I replied as I committed the hand signal to my memory and prepared myself
for the dog to come to me.

"Oh, and let him sniff you first. If likes you then he'll stay, otherwise he'll just come back to
me." Kory took the harness off the dog and he bounded over to me, even though he slowed
just in front of me.

"Did you say his name was Kody?" I asked Cait, who nodded. Kody walked around me three
times, sniffing carefully to work out whether I was friend or foe. After a final fourth circle he
sat next to my right leg, so I scratched the top of his head. "How old is he?"

"He's eight," Kory answered before her eyes went wide. "I left my bag in the office, give me
two seconds and I'll be right back." She ran back up the stairs and I heard her footsteps
running around on the second floor.

"So where do you work?" I asked Cait. It was an attempt at small talk, I wasn't sure if it was
working just yet.

"FBI as well, I'm in Counterterrorism, the Analytical Branch." She answered, a smile on her
face. "You like details though, don't you. So you would probably like to know that I'm in the
Counterterrorism Analysis Section of my branch. And that I'm a technical analyst like your
Penelope Garcia, except focused on terrorists instead of plain old murderers."

"You're not going in today?" I asked, noting the fact she was dressed in a pair of stained
sweatpants and a pyjama shirt.

"Hell no. I had to work a case over the weekend, I'm getting my two days off now even
though I'm still on fucking call." She replied before she looked down at her clothes. "I did
know you were coming though, so I probably should have dressed a little better but... I
haven't had any coffee yet."

"That's fair," I replied as I noticed Kody still hadn't left my side.

"Kody likes you..." I looked over at Cait again as she spoke. "That's a good thing." It was
clearly a good thing, because I'm sure the alternative was getting bitten by the dog.

"How?" I asked, and Cait walked over to me and scratched Kody's greying nose.
"Because Kory trusts this dog more than she trusts any person in her life. Get on the dog's
good side and you'll get on hers." She explained and I shook my head.

"I don't-"

"You don't drive this far out of the way to pick up a work friend, especially not with coffee
bought for the person you're going out of your way to pick up." Damn it. Would the rest of
the team notice that too? Probably. They already knew something was wrong with me, and
figured out it was because of Kory. Hell, Morgan had even called me asking what was going
on since Garcia had told him about his fill-in and how I thought she was... I still hadn't found
right the word yet.

"I thought it was fair, she still drives me to work everyday and-"

"You live on her way in."

"Well that's what she said but now that I've come here I know picking me up adds an extra
eleven minutes to her commute. That's not really on the way, so it seems fair I come and pick
her up today and still get her a coffee." I explained and Cait's eyebrows furrowed at me for a
second.

"God, the both of you are so damned oblivious..." oblivious? How were we-

"Okay, we good to go?" Kory asked as she ran down the stairs, her satchel over her chest.

"Yeah," I replied as Kory's eyes took in how close Cait was standing to me.

"She wasn't flirting with you, was she?" Kory asked, and I furrowed my brow. What? Cait
wasn't... was she? No, we were talking about Kory so surely there wasn't any...

"No," Cait groaned as she took a step away from me. "We both know who I have eyes for,
and it isn't your little doctor."

Kory's cheeks flushed pink as she took hold of my arm and forced my down the hallway to
the front door.

"Your little doctor?" I asked as I heard Cait laughing behind us.

"She's just being a dick, you can ignore her. I usually do." She pushed me out the front door.

"Uh, bye Cait!" I shouted back into the townhouse.

"Bye Doctor!" I heard shouted back before Kory slammed the door shut.

Why would Cait have called me Kory's little doctor? "Do you talk about me?" I asked, and
Kory let out a sigh.

"I talk about work, and you are a part of work so I guess so." That would have been
believable if she'd been able to look me in the eye at all as she spoke.
"She called me 'your little doctor', I feel like that's more than just work-"

"We're going to be late if you keep standing around. Let's go." Kory cut me off, but she was
still unable to look at me.

"We won't be because you don't need to account for the extra eleven minutes it takes to pick
me up." I smiled as she finally lifted her eyes to meet mine again.

"What are you trying to say, Reid?" She asked, so I shrugged my shoulders.

"I'm saying that eleven minutes is a lot of time when you multiply it by the amount of times
you've picked me up and dropped me off," I said as we reached my car.

"It's not that much-"

"Out of the last nine weeks you've gone out of your way for me 58 individual times to and
from work. That equals to an extra 638 minutes, or 10.6333 hours." I ran the numbers off the
top of my head. Fifty-eight car trips with Kory, and that was just to and from work. That
didn't include when we were out of state on cases and she still drove me around.

Kory stared at me with wide eyes and an open mouth. "What?" I asked, and she licked her
bottom lip before she ran a hand through her hair.

"I forget that you're actually like smart smart. It's a little intimidating." She replied.

"You're smart smart too..." it wasn't a lie. She was highly intelligent, I could tell that much
from the way she observed the room around her. The only difference was that she also had a
high EQ, which was where I was slightly deficient.

"Yeah, well my measly 132 IQ is nothing compared to your 187." She smiled at me as she
spoke.

"132?" I asked. If that was true then she was in the gifted percentile... but she hadn't
graduated school early.

"Yeah, I found out after I got my ADHD diagnosis." She told me, another smile on her face.
"I used to do all my assignments the night before they were due, but I'd always get a high
grade. Apparently that was my ADHD making life difficult for my IQ, but the intelligence
always pulled through for me. According to my friends, you're actually supposed to put in
work to pass classes with flying colours. That was honestly shocking information for me."

"You're..." full of surprises. That's what I wanted to say but the words never left my mouth.

Instead I just unlocked my car and got into the driver's seat. Was I more attracted to her now
because I knew her IQ? That seemed weird... maybe I should ask Morgan about it. He might
be able to help me understand.

"This is weird..." Kory whispered as she got into my car. "I'm seeing the wrong side of your
face."
"We've been in a car together eighty-one times and this is the first time I'm driving you
somewhere so... yeah, it is weird." I agreed before I flicked over the ignition.

"Well thank you for picking me up anyway. Usually I take the train when my car is in the
shop, so I do appreciate you giving me a ride in your cute little P130. Especially since it's an
extra twenty-eight minutes added onto your normal commute." Was she just listing numbers
now because she knew they made me happy?

I briefly looked over to her and saw she'd already grabbed her Kindle out and had started
reading. Maybe I was reading too much into it then.

The conversation that filled the commute was easy, as per normal, even with her reading at
the same time. There were rare moments of silence, but the few that occurred were calm and
not in the least bit awkward. I'd become far too comfortable around her, and I had a feeling it
would only end badly for me.

"Oh, I almost forgot. Rossi wanted to invite everyone out for drinks tonight. He realised we
haven't really given you a welcome party or anything, so he wanted to do something," I said
as I pulled us into the carpark.

"Oh, we don't have to do that. I'm happy to not-"

"He said he'd pay for everyone." I cut her off, and the grimace on her face turned into a smile.

"Well, alright then. I guess I could do welcome drinks." She said as I reversed into a park.
"Will you be going?"

"I, um..." did she want me to go? I wasn't the most fun to have out for drinks. But then again,
I didn't think I was the best company for a daily commute but she wasn't sick of me yet.
"Yeah, I'll be there."

"Good, it'll be more fun with you there, Spencer, I'm sure of it."

I really didn't understand how she still thought I was fun and interesting, but I'd take
whatever attention she'd give me. Wait...

Spencer.

She'd called me Spencer.

I looked away from the steering wheel and realised she hadn't noticed the slip, since she was
engrossed in her eBook. She'd always called me Reid. Or Agent Doctor. Or Pretty Boy. Or
String Bean. Or quite literally anything other than my first name.

"Are you alright?" She asked, but she hadn't even looked at me. Was she able to read my
body language without looking at me? Could she hear the way my breath changed and know
exactly what I was thinking?

Did I want to point out the fact that she'd called me by my first name or not? What if I did
and she never called me by it again? I don't think anything would devastate me more...
"You called me Spencer..." I whispered, and her bright eyes lifted from her Kindle to meet
mine. Her eyes narrowed at me for a moment before they relaxed, as if she'd replayed the
words she'd said through her head.

"I guess I did, didn't I?"

 that tells me a bomb exploded

°•°•°

I'd called him by his first name.

That hadn't been my intention. What I'd meant to do was be annoying—to call him any other
stupid nickname.

Instead his first name had slipped past my lips and... and I'd liked saying it.

I knew I would, which was the entire reason I'd avoided it. I'd been a part of the BAU for two
out of the five and a half months I would be here for. In that time Spencer and I had become
friends... good friends. I had so few of those, I couldn't screw that up.

Even though the little attraction I'd felt to him had grown into something that I couldn't really
bury anymore.

Even though I'd become used to hearing his voice and seeing him nearly every day and him
buying me coffee and—

"Holy shit..." I whispered as we walked into the office. The extremely full office. "Did we
miss a call in?" I asked as I checked my phone.

"No, I never miss one," Spencer replied as he held the glass door to the bullpen open for me.

"Then what the hell is going on?" I asked, before I saw Hotch on the catwalk as he talked to
David. He caught my eye and pointed to the conference room, so I nodded.

"I guess we're about to find out," Spencer said before we both walked into the conference
room and found the rest of the team already inside.

"A bomb threat has been called in on the White House," Hotch said the second we were
inside the room. I wanted to ask questions immediately, but figured it would be best to wait
until after he finished talking. "While the group has yet to name themselves, the common
theory is Al-Qaeda."

I furrowed my eyebrows. Surely it wasn't... this was a large scale attack, a symbolic one. If
they attacked the White House then they would start a focused war they couldn't win. I'm still
in IRR, if we went to a full-scale war against an enemy I'd already faced...
"That would be idiotic of them," I whispered, but everyone heard me and looked at me with
confused expressions. Alright, maybe I had to explain myself. "The last time they attacked us
on home soil, it instigated the beginning of a war we're still fighting. They attack the White
House and every resource currently being focused elsewhere will be reassigned to fighting
them." And I would no doubt be taken out of reserve and put on the front line again.

"Well, if it's not them then who could it be?" Tara asked as if I had a fucking clue.

"I..." I didn't know what to say.

Maybe I shouldn't have said a damned thing before. It was just my fear that had cropped up,
it wasn’t a logical thought. It was just terror at the idea of having to dress in my uniform, pick
up a rifle and head behind enemy lines again. Even though I was just reserve, they would see
my file and immediately want to know if I was still capable of the things I'd already done.
And knowing me, I'd fall right into the trap of showing them I was extremely capable.

"That's what we're going to work out. One attack has already happened in a bar downtown,
it's why this threat is being taken so seriously." David explained, and I saw the look in his
eye. He knew exactly what was running through my head. Damn it.

"Until we find who's responsible we're going to have all hands on deck here. We've got
counter-terrorism—" Cait's unit, they'll probably call her back in—"army and some others
here to help. Our office is going to be headquarters for the time being. Dave and Thompson, I
want you at the crime scene, figure out what you can. The rest of us are going to work from
here for the time being. Any questions?" Hotch asked.

No one made a sound.

"Good, let's stop this group before they hurt more innocent people."

"So... Morgan specialised in bombs since he had experience in bomb squad. Do you have any
knowledge that could help us out here?" David asked once we reached the crime scene.

It had been a bar, but looking at what was left, I couldn't really imagine what it looked like
before the attack. There was some colour on what was left of the ceiling, but other than that
there was nothing.

The attack had been badly timed if the aim had been to kill as many people as possible. And
from what the bomb squad and eye witnesses had told us, it had to have been set off by a
mobile phone or something along those lines...

"To do with bombs?" I asked, and David nodded his reply. Oh boy. "Sure, do you see those
markings on that wall?" I asked as I pointed to the wall nearest to where the bomb had gone
off, the only one that was still relatively intact.
"Yeah," he replied.

"Well, that tells me a bomb exploded," I replied as I narrowed my eyes at the wall. "And that
it was a fiery one," I added as I took in the ash and soot quite literally everywhere. "Look, my
knowledge on explosives was limited in Special Forces. I was the dedicated sniper, I kept my
distance from anything of the sort. But then a bomb almost fucking killed me so I proceeded
to stay even further away from them."

"Ah, right. Hotch did mention that." David grimaced slightly but moved on nonetheless.
"Three years for recovery?"

"I broke my back, it takes a while to heal from that," I answered.

"Yes, but the fact you made it to HRT means you had plenty of time to fix the physical
wounds. I think the three years was for something else, something that ties into why you're
sure this isn't Al-Qaeda." Damn it.

"I hate working with profilers," I whispered and he shook his head.

"I don't think you do," he replied as we walked through the crime scene. Once again he was
right, which I didn't like. The team at the BAU could read me—could tell when something
was wrong. No one at HRT had been able to do that, and that was the reason none of them
had been in contact with me. I didn't get close to any of them, because none of them could
figure me out. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, but if it might be
beneficial to the investigation then-"

"It's not." I cut him off, and he nodded.

"Okay." Was he going to stop pushing me? Why did that make me want to talk to him about
it? He would probably be the only other person on the team who might be able to understand
some of what I went through, but definitely not all of it. No one could. But I guess I didn't
have to tell him everything...

"In Iraq I was taken hostage by an Al-Qaeda unit. My team was gathering intel for an op, and
I sacrificed myself for capture when I realised the guards movement patterns were off. They
had me for three weeks." I explained the absolute bare minimum of what happened to me,
and David froze as he looked at me.

"I..." he trailed off. I let him stand in silence for a moment as I took in the scene around me a
little more. This entire bombing didn't make sense to me, but I had to figure out why. "You're
on Reserve."

Fucking profilers. I focused back on David who had furrowed his brow as he stared at me.

"You had that figured out back in the conference room," I said and he tilted his head to the
side. He could tell I was deflecting. "Fine. It took two years for me to walk because I was
mentally blocked, the psychological trauma was too much for me and I... I honestly don't
know how I survived it." To live through what they'd done to me, and then lose my team
because of it... to say I didn't want to be alive during those years was an understatement.
"You don't want this to be Al-Qaeda because if it is then you might have to face everything
again. I understand that fear, believe me, I do. But we need to look at the evidence we've got-
"

"The evidence? This bar was attacked when it was near empty. If it was Al-Qaeda they would
go for the most amount of damage possible. They don't care for warning shots, they care
about killing as many people as they can." I explained, before I threw my hands up. "If this
had been Al-Qaeda, they would have attacked this place in the middle of the night when it
was busiest. This group didn't do that, they set the bomb off to create minimal damage and a
low mortality rate, like they're practicing. It's almost... amateurish." I rubbed my forehead
and took a deep breath.

"Okay, so if they're an amateur group, what are you thinking? Who would it be?" While I had
enjoyed working in the BAU for the last two months, I didn't enjoy still being asked
questions like that. It sounded like David had a theory but wanted to see if I could come to
the same conclusion or not. The tests were getting annoying, to say the least.

"It's hard to say without any evidence. And my opinion doesn't matter until we have proof
that it's not Al-Qaeda. No matter how much I argue that it's not, the army won't care until we
can say it with complete certainty." I shoved my hands into my pockets and took in the scene
one final time. "I looked this place up while you were driving. It's a gay bar, nothing of note
has happened here since it was renovated into a queer business. Nothing happened here
before that either. The only thing that could make this place a target is the fact that it's for..."
oh my fucking God.

"I don't know if I like the look on your face, it's similar to Reid when he pieces something
together," David said, and I couldn't blame him.

"Just hear me out for a second. This is just a hypothetical, unproven theory with a complete
lack of evidence to back it up," I made sure to get the disclaimers out of the way first. It was
something I'd done regularly over the last two months, so if I was wrong then it couldn't be
held against me. "What of this is a right-wing group trying to start some shit?"

"You mean trying to start a war?" He checked, and I nodded.

"They picked a gay bar for a reason, and if they try to pin it on Al-Qaeda then they... it would
drive out Muslims from our country if a war broke out." Maybe it was too far-fetched. There
was no reason for my theory to have any substance to it, I...

"It would cleanse the country of the people they want to see gone." David murmured. Did he
agree with me? Did he think it was possible?

"Well not all the people they'd want out, but it'd be a start." This was fucking
terrifying. David nodded as we had one last look around.

"We can bring the theory to the team, but you're right. No one else will listen until we have
proof, so that's what we need to find. We're going to go to the street, see if we can locate any
cameras and get all the footage we can to Garcia. Aside from that, all we can do is wait for
more information," he explained.
I nodded my agreement even though my chest felt like it would explode. I didn't want this
much weight on one of my theories... what if I pointed us in the wrong direction and all our
energy was focused on the wrong people?

"And if I'm wrong and this is Al-Qaeda?" I asked, he put a hand on my shoulder and pushed
me back towards the car.

"How about we focus on one thing at a time?" He offered, so I nodded again. "The part I'm
concerned with is how much Garcia is going to have to go through-"

"I might be able to help with that," I cut him off, and he raised an eyebrow at me. "Well, not
me personally but I know a tech analyst from the counter-terrorism unit. She might already
be called in but she could work with Garcia."

"Okay, I'll call Hotch and update him. You call your friend and get her to Garcia's office." He
instructed as we reached the car.

He then walked away after putting his phone to his ear, so I pulled up Cait's contact and
immediately pressed dial.

"Kory, now is not the time-"

"You want to meet my team?" I asked, and all I heard was silence. "What are you doing right
now?"

"A whole lot of nothing. I got called in for this bomb threat but we don't have anything to
work with so I'm just sitting here waiting for-"

"I'm currently out in the field, but we could use your help. Our analyst is about to be
absolutely drowned with footage and she's going to need help to go through it. You up to the
task?" I asked, and I heard her shaky breath from the other side of the phone.

"Kory, I don't think I'm on the same level as Garcia. I-"

"Cait, do you know what Hotch finds attractive? People who are good at their jobs." It was a
lie, because I didn't really know what Hotch found attractive in the slightest. What I did know
was how to convince Cait to do what I needed her to.

"You are not using my horniness against me," she whispered.

"You know where my floor is, Reid will be there somewhere. Find him and he'll take you to
Garcia's office after he introduces you to Hotch, okay? Just..." I took a breath as I looked at
David who'd just finished his phone call. He gave me a thumbs up, meaning Hotch was good
for Cait to help. "Just promise me that you won't make me look bad. I'm putting myself out
on the line for you, so you better pull your best work out of your ass or so help me-"

"I'll tell my supervisor, but I'm pretty sure Hotch is the one in control at the moment so it
should be fine. I won't make you look bad." I heard her move, likely standing up from her
ergonomic office chair that she'd advocated for in her office. "And thank you, Kory." She
added, and I smiled.
"No problem. I'll call Spencer and let him know you're coming, I'll get him to meet you at the
elevator." I explained.

"Spencer? Did you just call him-"

"Bye Cait."

I hung up before she could respond and ran a hand over my face. This was going to be an
exhausting case.
 you don't look okay

°•°•°

"Hello again," I said as Cait walked out of the elevator. Her dark hair was pulled back into
the messiest bun I'd ever seen. Between that and her haphazardly tucked in shirt and wrinkled
work pants I would say she was not prepared for today. That didn't even take into account the
fact that I'd seen her this morning before her coffee. "I see you got your caffeine sorted." I
pointed at the flask she was somehow holding with two fingers while the others carried her
phone, keys and a tube of lip balm.

"Yeah, unfortunately it is not helping me at all, but what can you do?" She asked as she
adjusted the strap of her laptop bag that was in her left hand as well as a tote bag full of files
and God knows what else.

"Do you need me to carry anything?" I asked as I lead her to the bullpen. Hotch was in his
office and I needed to introduce Cait to him before we went to Garcia.

"Oh, I'm good. I am determined to carry all of this until I need to set it down," she answered
as I held the glass door open for her. "So where am I—"

"Just straight up those steps."

She nodded and followed me through the mess of people in the bullpen. I hated when it was
like this. There were too many people around and my space would always end up messy from
whoever had claimed that area as theirs. While my desk was usually a little chaotic, there was
a method to the madness.

I looked over at my desk and stifled the groan that wanted to leave me. There were a group of
army people in their uniforms around mine and Kory's desk. They'd spread their stuff over
the both of ours, but had focused on using hers since it was still perfectly organised.

I wasn't entirely sure how she did it, but the desk had looked the same as it did on day one of
her working here—aside from the handful of files that were in her 'incoming' document tray
made of black sprayed metal. I remembered once when one of the other agents had come
around to give us new cases and they'd put it next to the tray instead of in it... they never
made that mistake again.

I knocked on Hotch's office door and heard a mumbled 'come in', so I let Cait and I in.

"You must be Ms Vasquez," Hotch said as he stood up from his desk and walked over to us.
"You can call me Cait, sir," she said as she shuffled her stuff around to be able to shake
Hotch's hand. I don't know how she managed it, but she did.

"Aaron, please." Aaron? I looked at Hotch with a raised eyebrow. Had he really just asked
someone at work to call him Aaron instead of Hotch? Why would he do that? "Kory speaks
very highly of you." And now he was calling Kory by her nickname instead of Thompson?

"You too," Cait replied as they dropped the handshake.

"So you're here to help Garcia," Hotch checked, to which Cait nodded. "Reid will show you
to her office." I ushered Cait back towards the door, but she looked over her shoulder back at
Hotch.

"It's nice to meet you, Aaron. Terrible circumstances aside," she said. He pulled a tight smile
in response and nodded.

"Likewise," Hotch replied before Cait and I walked out of his office.

"What the hell..." I whispered to myself as I took Cait back out of the bullpen and into the
hallway. What the hell just—oh. "This morning you said 'we both know who I have eyes for,
and it isn't your little doctor' to Kory. It's because you like Hotch."

"Kory said that working with profilers sucked," Cait replied as I pushed open the door to
Garcia's office. I wanted to make a point that Kory was now one of those profilers, but there
wasn't any time.

"Is that reinforcements?" I heard Garcia shout.

"Yes!" Cait shouted back, and she dropped her stuff on an empty space of one of Garcia's
desks. "Caitlin Vasquez." She held her hand out to Garcia who quickly shook it.

"Penelope Garcia," Garcia replied before she turned her attention back to her screens. "I hope
you brought your lightning fingers with you because we have a lot to sift through."

"Holy shit..." Cait trailed off as she saw the tens of video streams all playing at once on all of
Garcia's screens.

"Kory and Rossi kept sending me new cameras to get the feeds of and I am... I am
overwhelmed but getting through it. They stopped sending me new ones a while ago, so I
hope they're on their way back but I feel like people forget I'm only one person and I-"

"We can work this out." Cait cut off Garcia. "You..." Cait pointed to me. "Out. I've already
taken you away from what you were doing for too long. We have bad guys to catch."

"She's right, Einstein. Go put your big beautiful brain to work out there," Garcia said, even
though her eyes never left the computer in front of her.

"Okay," I said before I walked out and left them to it.

"You find anything?" I asked as I came across Kory and Rossi walking back into the bullpen.
"No, nothing of use. Hopefully Garcia and Cait can find something in the footage," Kory
responded. She seemed to be on edge, not that I could blame her.

"Are you okay?" I asked as Rossi beelined straight for Hotch's office.

"Yeah, why?" Kory replied. Her body was too tense for that to be the truth, and for the second
there wasn't anything I could do to help with the case so...

"You don't look okay..." I trailed off as we walked up the stairs to the round table room. She
looked over her shoulder at me with narrowed eyes. Did I do something wrong?

"Then stop looking." What?

"Kory-"

"My shit doesn't matter at the moment. What matters is catching these fucking assholes,
okay?" She'd been acting a little off since the case came in, specifically since the mention of
Al-Qaeda.

"Well, what about after we catch them?" I asked. She flinched at my words.

"Reid, I don't want to talk about this." Did she call me 'Reid' again? Why have we reverted
back to that? I didn't want her to distance herself again. Now that she'd started calling me by
my first name, hearing my last felt like a slap to the face.

"You don't have to," I said, and I saw her shoulders relax. "But I'm here if you ever want to."
Her green eyes softened as she turned to look at me.

"Spencer," she said my name so carefully, like she was reminding herself to be gentle. "You
don't want to hear what I've been through, it's..."

"I've been through things too. Possibly not as bad, but still..." I ignored the way her eyes cut
through me. "If you ever need someone to talk to, even if you wake up at three in the
morning, you can call me. I'm here."

She didn't say anything, but she nodded slowly as she let out a slow breath. I smiled at her
and sat down in front of my map.

"Um, I think Hotch might like Cait," I said to change the topic. If she didn't want to talk
about what was bothering her—which I assumed to be her past—then we could use a
distraction. After all, no new evidence had come in yet and there was essentially nothing we
could do until it did.

"What makes you say that?" Her voice perked up a little, which made me think I was doing
the right thing for her.

"He asked her to call him Aaron..." I trailed off and she furrowed her brow for a second. She
always did that when she was thinking, and the severity of the crease between her perfectly
sculpted brows determined how deep in thought she was. For the moment it was light, barely
noticeable to anyone else, but I'd stared at her face enough to tell the difference in her micro-
expressions.

"Well that sounds unusual." Kory smiled as she spoke, and I smiled back. "I assume you
figured out that she finds him attractive too."

"Oh, yeah. That was pretty obvious, even to me," I responded. "Do you think they'll..." I
didn't really know how to say it. This was my boss we were talking about, so it felt kind of
wrong to be discussing his love life in the first place. But at the same time he'd inserted
himself into mine, so maybe it was fair.

"If Cait has anything to do with it, then yes. But, I don't know if Hotch will go along-"

Kory was cut off by the rest of the team running into the round table room. Before I had the
chance to ask what was going on, JJ turned on the TV and got up a live streamed video.

It was Al-Qaeda. They spoke in Arabic, which was admittedly not one of the languages I
knew, and lacked a translator. This must only be broadcasted to officials, where a translator
would be present. We didn't have one, though—

"We do not take credit for the bomb threats on US soil. The group claiming to be us are not
aligned with our views," Kory said, staring directly at the screen. Or maybe we did have a
translator. It made sense that she spoke Arabic, she had been in Iraq for years. "The threats to
your 'White House' are coming from home soil. If you pin the blame on us, we will retaliate
with force." Her voice was quiet, weak even. Something was wrong, it had to be.

"So it's not Al-Qaeda," Tara pointed out. It probably wasn't something to take off the table
completely as a theory, but it seemed that Kory was right.

"To reiterate, the threats are not from us. We do not claim these threats, nor do we support
them." Kory translated the next few lines of dialogue. The livestream then shut off, which
meant the leader had obviously finished whatever he needed to say.

While I thought that Kory might be happy that it wasn't Al-Qaeda and that she was right, it
seemed something else had thrown her off. It was almost as if she'd seen a ghost.

"Kory..." I said her name and she slowly looked away from the screen. While she plastered a
smile on her face and everyone else decided to continue working to figure out what was
going on, I took an extra second to look at her.

She'd gone pale.

That couldn't be good.

 a never-ending rollercoaster

°•°•°

That voice...I knew that voice.

But that voice shouldn't exist anymore.

I was told that every person who'd held me captive had been killed in the process of getting
me out.

"Kory?" Spencer asked, but I couldn't acknowledge it. If I did then my false bravado would
shatter and I needed to keep this fucking smile glued to my face.

But that voice... maybe he hadn't been on site during the infiltration. That had to be it. That
could be the only explanation. But why wouldn't he have been there? Did he know my team
were coming? I... fuck.

"Kory has a theory she might like to share..."

I snapped my attention back to the room I was in as David’s voice reached my ears.

"Hmm?" I looked over to him and away from Spencer, who watched me too closely to not
know that something was wrong with me.

"Your theory for the group that's doing this," David repeated for me. I nodded and crossed my
arms over my chest.

"Right." I heaved out a breath to calm myself before I continued. There would be no
disclaimers. Not this time. "My theory is that it's a right-wing group diverting blame to create
disorder. By attacking a gay bar and directing our attention to Al-Qaeda, their intention was
likely to spark military retaliation while also taking out a group of people they deem as less
than. By choosing Al-Qaeda specifically as their scapegoat they would put targets on the
backs of every Middle-Eastern immigrant in this country. It wouldn't just be a war overseas,
it would be one on home soil too."

"That's a big call to make, who's to say that Al-Qaeda isn't lying?" JJ asked, which surprised
me. Of all the people in the room, I thought she would be one of the most supportive. Maybe
I was wrong.

"Because, I..." I trailed off as my smile faltered.

Fuck, I was not meant to be in this room. That much had become pointedly clear over the last
two months. This was too far. I should have stuck with HRT, where I was good at what I did
and I was top of my squad. Here, surrounded by all these extremely intelligent and talented
people... I was out of fucking place.

"They're liars, and they're terrorists. I'm not going to believe they aren't behind this until I
have proof otherwise." JJ actually shook as she spoke... so before wasn't a pointed warning to
me. This was something else. There was a history here I didn't know about.

I took a shaky breath in as I realised no one would come to my defence. We couldn't waste
anymore time, not on trying to prove this was Al-Qaeda. That meant I had to tell them
exactly why I knew their leader wasn't fucking lying. I briefly looked at David. As it had
turned out, that history I didn't want to talk about was beneficial to the investigation.

"Eight years ago, I was in Iraq behind enemy lines to gather intel with my squad. We were
going to infiltrate one of Al-Qaeda's smaller bases when I realised they knew we were
coming, so I... I went off script. I made a commotion which distracted their men and drew
them to me while I told the rest of my team to get out. They took me, held me captive for
three weeks and tried to break me for information." I explained as I rubbed my forearms.

My entire God-damned body burned with the memory of what they'd done, and I had to
remind myself that I was in a safe space. They couldn't hurt me here. Nor did I have to go
into all of the painful details either. This temporary team of mine didn't have to know
exactly what happened to me in Iraq. "I was blindfolded for all of it, because they wanted me
docile, but I learned their voices. I learned that voice we just heard. He was one of them, and
that means I learned his inflections and how he speaks. I learned how to tell when he was
lying and when he was telling the truth, and he was telling the truth just then."

JJ furrowed her eyebrows for a moment, almost in shock before the expression turned to
remorse. And understanding. But Spencer... I couldn't even look at him. I couldn't bear to see
the pity that would no doubt be sitting in his eyes, so I didn't even give myself the option to.

"I will need to update the others on the development and our theory, however they'll probably
need more to go on to believe us. So let's get to work. We need to figure out exactly who is
behind this before it's too late," Hotch said. "JJ, Rossi, I want you looking into potential
groups and getting everything you can on them. Tara and Reid, I want you two working with
Garcia and Cait on any suspects that might pop up and getting a geographic profile settled.
Kory and I are going to the White House, we need to look over what was sent there. We also
need to convince the President that this isn't an attack by Al-Qaeda, or things could escalate
before it's too late."

"Won't we need approval from the Director to—"

"Already working on it." He cut me off, and it was almost abrupt enough to distract me from
the fact he had both called me by my nickname as well as Cait. I guess I could figure out
what those details meant later, but for now I just nodded my head and picked up my bag.

"Hey, before you go..." JJ rushed over to me, her hand on my arm. "I'm sorry about before, I
um... I did some work for the CIA a few years ago to gather information against Al-Qaeda
overseas and then I was taken hostage on home soil and tortured so they could try and get
access to the database we had. So, um—"

"It's okay, really." I cut her off as I looked over my shoulder at Hotch who was talking on the
phone in the hallway. It seemed I had a moment to sort this out while he talked with the
Director.

"No, I—"

"It's PTSD, it's fine. I get it." I smiled at her and she nodded back at me.

"If you ever need someone to talk to about it, I'm here. Spencer is too. He was taken hostage
a few years back and tortured for a few days while we couldn't find him, so he gets it as well.
Neither of us probably had it as bad as you, but we understand." Did they? Did they really
understand? Were they covered in scars like I was? Physical and emotional ones? Did they
have such terrifying nightmares that they had to get a service dog who could lay on their legs
to stop them from thrashing through the night?

"Thanks, I'll keep it in mind." I replied with another brief smile before I walked out of the
room. If I stayed any longer then I would say the wrong thing, or snap at someone who didn't
deserve it. At least being paired off with Hotch meant I should be able to ride with him in
silence.

"You're driving," Hotch said as I approached him. So, I nodded and let out a brief sigh.

"Yes, sir."

"So, how long have you known Cait?" And so much for a quiet fucking ride.

"She moved into my place four years ago," I answered Hotch who hummed his response. He
was in the passenger seat, focused on the tablet likely to coordinate all the information he
needed to.

"So you like her if you've let her stay with you for that long." Oh, I think I know what this is.

"Yeah, I guess so. Why are you asking?"

"You seem to be a good judge of character," he responded. Well, that was a vague answer that
didn't give me any information in the slightest. It was time to pull out the big guns.

"She's single, if that's what you're hunting for." I kept my eyes on the road so I could pretend
he hadn't shot me a pointed look.

"I—"
"You started calling me Kory and you've been calling her Cait. Spencer also told me that you
asked her to call you Aaron, it's fairly easy to put two and two together," I told him. Hotch
hummed. "She likes you too."

"Thompson, this—"

"You and Rossi are still trying to get involved in my love life so I think it's warranted that I
get the chance to do it back," I cut him off once again. Was this an inappropriate conversation
to have with my boss? Definitely. But I was only with the BAU temporarily so it wouldn't
matter in the long run.

"You haven't even spoken to her yet." God, this man was about to find out how insane Cait
was. It would either help her chances or hurt them, but I wouldn't let it go unsaid.

"She's had her eye on you since I started with the BAU." The only sound in the car was
stunned silence. "She's been asking me to introduce her to you guys, so I was going to invite
her to drinks tonight with the rest of us. After my first case with you I came home and she
told me she'd looked at the files of everyone on the team. She watched some videos of you
talking to the media and liked the sound of your voice."

I risked a look to my unit chief then and saw a small smile on his face as he looked at his
tablet.

"My voice?" He asked, the tone a little gravelly compared to normal—kind of like it was a
struggle for him to say it out loud.

"She likes your face too," I said. There were a few moments of silence as he processed the
information, but it seemed that he didn't want to continue on the topic.

"You know you can call me Hotch instead of sir, right?" He asked.

"Okay, Hotch."

"And I wanted to let you know that I'm currently looking for a way to keep you with us after
Morgan comes back. These last two months you've proved yourself, even if you think you
haven't." What? Why was today a never-ending rollercoaster?

"Um. I don't think I'm—"

"You don't give yourself enough credit for what you—"

Boom.
 irritable and anxious

°•°•°

Boom.

I immediately ran to the windows and saw a plume of smoke in the not-so-far distance. It was
next to a main road, the one that Kory and Hotch had left on a mere few minutes ago.

Shit.

Without wasting a second I pulled out my phone and called Kory's phone number, but it rang
out. I dialled again, but it went to voicemail again. And I tried a third time, just in case, but
no luck.

"Reid—"

"Kory and Hotch are in that direction, and I can't get a hold of her." I cut Tara off and ran to
Garcia's office. "Another bomb just went off, I need you to try and get either Hotch or Kory."

"Why?" Cait asked, her face gone slightly pale.

"They were heading in the direction of the explosion," I answered.

"Oh. Oh. No, please, no..." Garcia said as she dialled Hotch's phone. Voicemail. She tried
again. Voicemail. She tried Kory, but it was just the same as before.

"Garcia, can you get a hold of..." Rossi trailed off as he walked into the office.

"I'm trying, sir, but both of them are just ringing through to voicemail." Garcia replied, and I
tried to take a calming breath. This wasn't happening. Surely this wasn't fucking happening.

"Keep trying," Rossi prompted, but it was futile.

"I haven't stopped."

"Okay, uh..." Rossi ran a hand over his face as Tara and JJ walked into the office as well, just
as panicked as the rest of us.

"JJ and Reid, get to the bomb site and see if you can find them or just get whatever
information you can. Tara and I will stay here to run point, Garcia and Cait, you two-"
"Keep fishing through footage?" Cait asked, and Rossi nodded.

"And trying to get a hold of Hotch or Kory. Keep us posted on anything you find or if you
reach one of them."

I immediately followed JJ out of the room.

I'd tried calling Kory the entire drive to the explosion site, but when JJ and I arrived at the
scene it was easy to see why it kept going to voicemail. The bomb had gone off in front of a
queer-owned café, one that I came into regularly when I needed good coffee or a croissant in
the middle of a work day.

The owner was out the front—thankfully okay—talking to police about what they saw and
anything that could be of use. I gave them a quick nod and they nodded back before I
surveyed the rest of the scene. A few cars had been hit, and one was recognisable.

A bureau SUV.

It was on it's side, like it had been closest to the explosion, but there weren't any bodies
inside.

"Kory!" I shouted, my voice carried over the commotion of the fresh crime scene and the
chaos of people trying to find their loved ones.

"Hotch!" JJ shouted from next to me, and that was when I spotted the ambulance. Without
wasting anymore time I ran over to it, and found a woman arguing with an EMT.

"I'm fine, there are people who are actually hurt that need to be taken care of. Go help them."

"Ma'am you could still have a concussion, you need to go to hospital-"

"I've been through worse, I'll be fine. If I feel like somethings wrong then I'll go straight to
the emergency room. I swear." Kory replied, a hand over her heart and the EMT looked
between her and Hotch who nodded.

"Okay," the EMT turned their focus to someone else as I reached Kory.

"Are you sure you're-"

"Kory," I cut Hotch off and Kory turned to face me. "You're okay?" I asked, she nodded.

"Yeah, I'm fine, what's-"

"We've been trying to call the both of you, we thought maybe you'd..." JJ trailed off from my
left.
"Our phones are still in the car, I didn't even think to grab them." Kory replied, and Hotch
nodded once more.

"We're fine," Hotch assured me, but the wound closure strips over a gash on Kory's forehead
told me otherwise. "The car took most of the damage."

"Seven people have already died, more could still..." Kory trailed off she looked at the
explosion site. There were blasted tables and chairs, and there were scattered remains of
people who had come here for a coffee. They never would have seen the explosion coming,
and it was too difficult to tell whether it would have been a merciful and fast death or
whether it had been a painful and prolonged one. "These fucking assholes have to be caught,
they..." I could see the tears in her eyes as she continued staring at the aftermath.

"Kory..." she snapped her eyes back to me as I spoke her name, and she took a deep breath.

"I think they left the bomb and detonated from a distance the same as the first attack." She
ran a hand through her hair, but winced at the action. There was a bandage tied around her
upper arm. What exactly happened to her?

"Kory, you should go to the hospital—"

"I'm fine. I'll go after we catch these assholes." She nudged past me to get back to the car
stuck on it's side.

"Hotch—"

"I'm not about to tell her what to do right now. I already suggested she go to the hospital—"

"Order her to." I cut him off, he shook his head.

"She's passed the field tests for a concussion, the EMT wants her to get a scan just to be on
the safe side. It's not necessary for her to go to," Hotch explained, but that wasn't good
enough.

"Hotch, she's clearly irritable and anxious which are signs of a—"

"I would be worried if I thought it was an out of character response from her, but I don't think
it is. She just went through an attack similar to what she went through in Iraq, not on the
same scale but... I think that she's just angry about the attack." Was he serious?

"That could be arguably worse considering her PTSD. She needs to take a minute and sit
down." I told him. He raised his eyebrows at me before he looked over my shoulder at her.

So I did the same and saw her talking into her phone, her words rushed and loud out of anger.
From what I could gather, she was speaking to Cait, which meant the person on the other end
at least understood why Kory was shouting.

"Are you going to tell her that?" JJ asked, looking over at me with her arms crossed over her
chest. My eyes flicked to Kory for a second before I threw my hands up in the air.
"Well, if no one else will," I replied before I walked over to her.

"No, Cait, I swear I saw a man on the corner of the street up ahead just staring at the café
before the bomb went off. You need to hack into the cameras." Kory rushed the words from
her mouth, and the tone was none to pleasant either. She sighed and gingerly touched the
gash on her forehead. "I'm fine, really. I just need you to catch this guy for me." She
immediately hung up the phone before she whipped around and nearly took me out in the
process. "Jesus Christ, Reid!" She jumped as she shouted. So she wasn't just irritable and
anxious, she was completely on edge too.

"Sorry," I said as I reached towards her but didn't touch her. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare
you."

"Well, I sure fucking hope you didn't." She went to push past me again, and maybe she
should have succeeded. Maybe she thought she would because I hated touching people, but I
had to override that fear. Instead of letting her slip past I put my hands on her shoulders and
forced her to stay in front of me. My fingertips tingled at the contact.

"Have you sat down yet?" I asked, she furrowed her eyebrows at me.

"Sat down? Are you fucking kidding me?" Her voice was almost loud enough to be yelling.

"Kory, you've been caught in an explosion, you need to-"

"Yeah, I'm aware that a bomb went off next to me. I don't need you to mansplain how that
works and what I should be doing. What I need is for us to do our job," she snapped. Okay,
she was lashing out. That was okay. I could deal with that.

"You're hurt. You just need to rest for-"

"I'm fine," she stressed. "The last time I was attacked with an IED I couldn't walk for two
years, so this time around I think I'm doing extremely well. Now let me go."

"No, I need you to stop for a second and breathe."

"Let me go." The anger in her eyes faltered for a second; I was getting through.

"Kory, please, you need to-"

"Let me go," she hissed, but her shoulders shook in my grasp.

"No," I replied simply, and the rage melted from her face. "No, I won't let you go. In fact..." I
trailed off, kind of unsure if I actually wanted to do this. But the way her sclera had turned
red told me I definitely wanted to help her. "In fact, I want to hug you, if you think that would
help."

There was a moment of silence as she stared at me with a furrowed brow, and tears filled her
waterline. She seemed like she wanted to say something, but couldn't bring herself to. Instead
she just nodded, so I pulled her to me.
I wrapped my arms around her chest to hold her carefully against me, my hands splayed over
her back as I brushed my thumb back and forth over her spine. With her arms stuck beneath
mine she reached around my stomach, but her hands didn't rest against me in any form of a
relaxed embrace. Instead they fisted in my shirt, and I felt the material tighten around me.

Even though it was such a terrifying situation to be in, it felt nice to hold her. The scent of her
vanilla and strawberry perfume was strong when she was this close, and I could feel every
staggered breath through her ribs as she tried to stop herself from crying.

"It's okay, you know. Don't hold it in, that will only make it worse," I told her, and
immediately her head tucked against my shoulder as she shook against me.

Her crying was one of the most heart-breaking sounds I'd ever heard, but I couldn't let it get
to me. I could let out my bottled fear about this later when I was by myself—where no one
would question why I was so panicked in the first place.

"Why would they do this?" She whispered against me.

"That's what we have to work out, motive is..." I trailed off as I realised she'd frozen in my
arms. "Kory?"

She pushed away from me, her eyes locked on the crowd that was stuck the other side of the
police tape. Her makeup had smudged from her crying, and her mascara streaked down her
cheeks with her tears.

"It's him..." she trailed off.

"Who?" I asked as I followed her eyeline, but it was easy to see who she was talking about
when he turned and ran.

She sprinted after the man, and I followed. We ducked under the tape and Kory got ahead of
me quite easily.

"FBI! Freeze!" She shouted but the man kept running. That was usual, I honestly wasn't sure
why we bothered shouting that anymore. It never worked to get the suspect to stop.

I readied my gun as Kory closed the distance between her and the man. Before I could line up
a shot to hit him in the knee, she flew through the air and tackled him onto the asphalt.

She pulled her cuffs from the belt and shackled his wrists behind his back as she recited his
rights to him.

Well, it seemed we had a suspect in custody.

 Supervisory Special Agent Thompson

°•°•°

"He's not talking," Rossi pointed out the obvious as he walked into the viewing room with
Kory, Hotch and I.

"Garcia and Cait are still working on ID, but they've isolated footage of him at the crime
scene. From what Garcia described, he waited on the corner for a little over two minutes
before he set off the bomb," Hotch summarised for us.

"So, what was he waiting for?" Rossi asked, and Kory tilted her head to the side as she
looked at our unsub.

"He shouldn't have waited, it increased his chances of getting caught which means the plan
changed..." she trailed off as she wiped under her eyes again. While she'd already cleaned up
the smudged makeup, it seemed she still felt like there was a mess on her face.

"What changed though?" I asked, and she let out a breathy laugh before she walked out of the
room.

Oh God, she was going to kill the guy.

"Kory." I tried to get her to stop, but I was the only one who bothered running after her.
Hotch and Rossi both stayed put, and while I didn't know what that meant I knew it was up to
me to make sure Kory kept her anger under control.

She threw the interrogation door open so hard it threatened to fall off it's hinges, and she
stared directly at the unsub through the opening.

"You waited for me," she said as she walked into the room and sat down across from him.
"Well, not specifically me but the Bureau vehicle. You saw us sitting at the red light and saw
a golden opportunity to take out some FBI agents, didn't you?"

The man looked up from the table, straight at her. It was the first time he'd looked up, and the
look on his face... he smirked at Kory,

"Miss..." he trailed off, fishing for her name.

"Agent Thompson."
I looked back at Hotch and Rossi, and the former nodded towards the room so I closed the
door behind me and walked to sit next to Kory. The man looked at me for a second, but it
seemed he thought of Kory as the easier target. What a mistake that was.

"Miss Thomp-"

"Agent." She cut him off, leaning her elbows onto the table.

"Miss-"

"Agent."

I doubted he knew what he was getting into by arguing with her, but he was about to find out.

"I have not worked my ass off for you to completely disregard my title. You did not kill all of
those people to then disrespect me, do you understand? If you have a problem with the FBI,
which I don't think is your issue, then you can call me Sergeant." She told him, and I saw him
start to shake.

"Sergeant? I don't know what kind of perverted lesbian bullshit you have-"

"Not sure how sexuality has anything to do with it, but I'm not lesbian; I swing both ways
which tends to confuse you righteous types even more. But because of your response, I'm
going to go into technicalities. I served in Afghanistan and Iraq with Special Forces, and I
was a Sergeant Major for my unit. Now my current position is as a Supervisory Special
Agent, so..." she trailed off and clasped her hands together. "Address me by one of those
titles, and we can move the conversation forward."

"Miss Thompson-"

"You have one chance to talk. If you do not address me by either one of my titles, Dr Reid
and I will both walk out of here and the extremely small opportunity you have to cut a deal
with us gets thrown out the window." She leaned back in her seat and stared down the man.

"If I were you I would just address her correctly," I said quietly to give the implication that
Kory was the one in control. I guess it wasn't an implication, since I wouldn't dream of taking
over from her.

The man just kept his mouth shut and clenched his jaw.

"I don't think he wants to talk. I think confident women might scare him," Kory said as she
stood up.

"I think you might be right," I replied.

"Honestly, the poor thing is probably just lonely." She walked towards the door and I stood
up to follow her. "And he probably doesn't like me being queer because I've likely slept with
more women than he has." Was that true or was it something she was saying to get on the
man's nerves? Well, if that was the case then maybe I could play into it a little more.
"You've never told me that before, what's your count?" I asked, and she turned to look over
her shoulder at me with raised eyebrows.

"Spencer..." she trailed off as she put her hand on the door handle. "That seems inappropriate
to ask me in front of a suspect. We can talk about it at home if you want to, darlin'." Darling?
It didn't sound like a mere pet name with her heavy accent, it sounded...possessive, I think,
even though there was nothing about the word that gave that implication.

What was the purpose of calling me that? There had to be a reason for it, a reason to make
this man think that we were... oh. Living together before marriage. If this guy was a devout
Christian then it would be another reason to make him uncomfortable around her. It could be
enough to push him to talk—even if his only words were derogatory or religious extremist
nonsense. Maybe I could help make that even worse.

"Sure, and I could tell you about the men I've been with too."

She placed a hand on my chest and looked up at me with a dangerous smirk on her face.

"You never told me you were bi too, darlin'. I'm so happy you could trust me with—"

"You'll both burn in the pits of hell." The man cut her off, and I saw the glint of joy in her
eyes that she quickly hid.

"Oh, I don't believe in that shit so..." she shrugged her shoulders. "I also don't bother with
threats from men I don't know the name of. So, shall we head home?" She asked me, and I
pretended to think about it for a second before I nodded.

"This guy seems like he doesn't know anything of use so... home sounds good. We could get
some rest—"

"Or we could do something else..." she trailed off, tilting her head to the side as she moved
her hand to run down my arm. There was one reason and one reason only that I looked down
to her lips, and that was to keep the façade. No other reason. Absolutely none at all.

"Or we could do that," I agreed as my throat went dry.

"You're the exact reason that we're doing this." The man said, and Kory finally paid attention
to him again.

"Us?" She questioned. "This seems like a lot for targeting just two people, or do you mean
the FBI or—"

"Sinners." He cut Kory off. "Living with a man before marriage? Sex out of wedlock?
Relationships with the same—"

"Oh, I'm sure you're going to make a... coherent point soon, but it's such a pity that you still
haven't addressed me properly so no one's going to hear it." Kory smiled before she turned
towards the door again, and the second her fingertips touched the handle once more the echo
of his whisper reached my ears.
"Supervisory Special Agent Thompson..." it was hardly audible, and Kory smirked at me.

"Sorry, what was that?" She asked as she walked back to the table. The man looked right
back at her, which was either a ballsy or stupid move. Maybe it was both.

"Supervisory Special Agent Thompson."

"See, was that so hard?" She asked as she sat back down at the table. "So, you and your
friends are doing this to attack sinners?"

I moved to sit down next to her again, and he briefly looked at me.

"Yes," he answered.

"Sinners being those who don't adhere to your religious beliefs?" I asked, and the man just
stared at me. "What's your name?" His jaw clenched again, and I realised we needed one
more push to get him to talk.

So I reached over to hold Kory's hand, and she interlaced our fingers together. The usual
repulsion at touching a person wasn't there, instead I felt a tingling warmth at where her skin
touched mine.

"We can't really tell people what your story is when we don't know your name. After all,
words tend to hold less weight when they're just said by some random guy being held by the
FBI." Kory verbally pushed our suspect, and he looked at our hands as his face turned red.

"Jason Kinsley." Finally, a name.

"And what do you and your friends call yourselves, Mr Jason Kinsley?" Kory asked, still
holding my hand even though it was in no way necessary anymore. I also took note of the
derogatory tone she applied to his title.

"The Paladins," he answered. I honestly expected a little more intrigue to the name, or a little
more detail.

"Would you like to tell us exactly what the plan is? What are you and your Paladins wanting
to achieve by threatening the White House?" Kory asked next.

"We have a manifesto, it might be best for you to read that instead of having me explain it to
you." Jason responded.

"Is that because you're scared I'll poke holes in your argument?" Kory questioned, and the
man froze. "Look, you're clearly just a grunt in all this. So, hear me out. You cooperate with
us now, and we'll make you as comfortable as possible. I'll even forgive your pitiful attempt
to kill me."

"No." Interesting choice. "You won't be able to stop us. Our plan is fool-proof, and no matter
how many of your people you have on this case, you won't—"
"I'm sure our technical analyst will be able to get us a list of Paladin members within the
space of twenty seconds," Kory said as she looked over to me.

"I think it would be closer to ten," I replied. "And she'd be able to cross-check that with
people who are currently in the state."

"And we'd be able to send SWAT, the police and the military after all of them." Kory stood up
from her seat again and I followed, our hands still connected.

"Do you think we'd be able to go after one of them?" I asked her, and she smiled at me.

"Well, sniping terrorists is a favourite past-time of mine, so I hope so."

She only let go of my hand once the door to the interrogation room was closed behind us.

"Good work," Rossi stated. "We might need to get you two doing more interrogations
together."

"Probably best to not get used to it, I'm only temporary, remember?" Kory asked, and for
some reason the words hit me harder than normal.

"We'll see," Hotch replied. What did that mean? Did that mean he was trying to keep her on
the team permanently? That would...

"I'm not getting my hopes up on that front. I know how the FBI works. You don't need me
here, but with your interest they'll likely give me a promotion and send me somewhere I can
do both profiling and run a SWAT unit," Kory replied. Somehow I knew she was right, that's
exactly what they would probably do.

Although, I hoped Hotch found a way to keep her here with us.
 maybe the dog had a point

°•°•°

Kody's bark woke me with a start.

I immediately rubbed my chest that had constricted to the point of pain. My body felt like it
had been dipped in acid... and burning tears had gathered on my cheeks.

Kody was lying on the bed, using his body to weigh my feet down and stop me from
thrashing in my sleep. Sometimes, when I woke up from a nightmare, just being able to feel
his weight on me was enough to shake me back to reality. If my nightmares were true then I
wouldn't be able to do that; I'd be back in a wheelchair, unable to feel a damn thing past my
middle back.

"Good boy," I whispered as I sat up. He crawled up my leg to rest his head on my lap. "Good
boy," I repeated and gave him an affirming scratch behind his ears. He looked up at me.

And then he whimpered.

"I know, you don't understand," I whispered. It always made me feel a bit guilty, the fact he
didn't know what was going on with me. All he knew was that he had to help me through it,
and how to do exactly that. "Thank you, you did good."

Bile wound its way up my throat, and I forced myself to swallow it down. While feeling his
weight usually helped, I don't think it would tonight.

Normally I would wake up from a nightmare, talk to Kody and run through exactly what
happened. I would then write in the journal on my bedside table, including the date and time,
what my nightmare was and what I felt in the aftermath. But judging from how I felt, it
wouldn't be enough. And I didn't want to wake Cait, she'd had a doozy of a week and didn't
want to hear about my past... again.

"If you ever need someone to talk to, even if you wake up at three in the morning, you can
call me. I'm here."

I picked up my phone and opened Spencer’s contact details.

What I needed was to talk this through with someone—with a human who could talk with
me. But if I called him then I would have to tell him what exactly happened in Iraq, and I...
I couldn't do that.

So I wouldn't.

I locked my phone screen and threw it back onto the pillow next to me. There had to be
another way for me to cope with this—one that didn't involve waking Spencer up in the
middle of the night after a fucked day involving bomb threats and me almost dying because
of an explosion.

Kody whimpered again, and his head lifted off my lap so he could look right at me. Oh, so he
had an opinion on the matter, did he?

"Don't look at me like that," I murmured. He let out a low grumble in response. "Don't give
me that attitude either." He huffed out a sigh, which meant he would give me that attitude.
But maybe he had a point. "If I tell him what happened, he's going to look at me differently. I
don't want that."

He grumbled again. For fuck’s sake.

"Kody, you don't get it." His ears perked up at his name, but then he grumbled a final order to
me. "Fine, but I'm not telling him everything."

I picked up the phone with a sigh and quickly pressed the dial button before I could second-
guess my decision. Look, if nothing else, I could blame the call on delirium from a lack of
sleep. Or I could pretend Kody actually talks to me and get sent to a psych hospital.

That could work wonders on keeping me out of HRT too...

The line rang three times before it stopped. For a moment, in the silence that followed, I
thought he might have declined the call.

"Hey, Kory, is everything okay?" Spencer's voice was quiet, and husky with sleep. Maybe I
shouldn't have called at—I looked at my phone and silently swore.

Four in the morning was a bad time to call someone, even if they told you that you could call
them at any point in time when you needed. Fuck, I'm an asshole.

"Um..." no. This was a bad idea. I should let him sleep. Even though we only had a half day
tomorrow, we still had work. I could get through this by myself, or wait until morning and
talk with Cait. "Yeah, everything’s fine. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have called you. I'm gonna—"

"Do you want to talk about it or do you want to just talk?" Oh God. Was just talking an
option?

"I..." maybe this was the alcohol that was still in my system telling me what I wanted. "Could
you just talk to me? Go on a tangent about anything you want, for as long as you want. I just
need to hear your voice."

So he did.
He talked for half an hour about his current fascination with different cultural death rites,
their similarities and differences and the meanings behind them all. It was interesting to learn
about, but I wasn't sure if it was interesting because of the subject matter or because of his
excitement.

"Would you mind opening your front door?" He asked, and for some reason I got out of bed
to do so without hesitation. I should probably figure out why he wants me to do that before I
just go down at half past four in the morning and open my door to the world.

"Why?" I asked as I pulled a sweater over my head to hide the scars on my back since I'd
been sleeping in a loose tank.

"Because it's freezing out here." No. He wasn't... was he?

"Spencer, I swear to God, if you are out there right now I'll..." I trailed off as I ran down the
stairs and down the hallway.

"You'll what?" He asked with a laugh, and I took a deep breath.

"Make you regret it? I don't know, I'm tired and..." I opened the front door and found Spencer
looking down at me with a smile on his face.

"How would you make me regret it?" He asked as he hung up his phone. He was still dressed
in his pyjamas too, with a thermos in his hand and a bag over his shoulder.

"By calling you an idiot and slamming the door in your face." It was the best I could come up
with considering my lack of sleep.

"But if you did that then you wouldn't get any of the hot chocolate I made." He made hot
chocolate? I assumed the thermos was full of coffee...

"You didn't have to do this," I whispered and he shook his head.

"I know, I just... your voice was too quiet and I didn't like it. I also assumed that you probably
had a nightmare and wouldn't be able to sleep after it, and I wouldn't be able to sleep
knowing you weren't sleeping so I figured we could just not sleep together." Fuck, that was
the nicest thing anyone had ever... I had to do something before I cried.

"Please, come in, it's fucking freezing out there." I let him in and he walked straight to Kody
who sat at the end of the entrance hallway.

"I hope you don't mind that I brought a bag. I just wanted my work clothes with me since I
figured I'd be taking you into work again today." He assumed correctly as he knelt down to
pat Kody.

I didn't receive a call from my mechanic yesterday so my car wasn't done yet. It probably
wouldn't be done until the end of the week, which was fine. There was a reason I took it
somewhere over an hour away—because they were the only ones I trusted with my baby
Clark.
"I was going to ask, but I..." no, that's not what he wanted to hear. He wanted to know if it
was okay that he'd brought a bag of his things into my home. "And that is perfectly okay with
me, if it saves you making another trip then that's fine."

"Thanks," he said as I walked over to him and Kody. I led him to the lounge room where he
dropped his bag on the floor next to the couch. "So did you want me to keep talking about
death rites or..."

"Well did you want to do something? We could watch a movie?" I offered, and he smiled
again.

"I haven't seen Solaris in a while... it could help you sleep." Solaris?

"Isn't that a movie with George Clooney?" I asked. The only part that confused me about it
was that he didn't seem like someone interested in modern movies. From what I'd heard he
liked the classics, especially international ones.

"That was the remake from 2002. I'm talking about the original movie from 1972. They're
both based on the novel from 1961 but the original movie goes for almost three hours and is
in Russian. It's better than the remake, trust me." I did trust him, and I would have to on this
matter.

"I don't speak Russian..." I trailed off, and he nodded.

"I could translate for you," he offered. He would translate the entire movie? Why would he...

"Let's see if we can find it on a streaming service first," I told him and he nodded. I sat down
on my couch, turned on the TV and started searching. "What makes you think it would send
me to sleep?" I asked as he started to rummage through my kitchen.

"It has slow pacing, but it's worth it if you can watch the whole thing," he explained. "Where
are your mugs?"

"Uh, cupboard above the coffee machine," I answered. "And why would you translate it for
me when subtitles exist?" I asked next as I heard him pull out some mugs from the cupboard.

"Because if you're having to read all the words then you won't be focusing on the movie." He
sat down next to me and handed me an empty mug before he opened up the thermos he
brought. "And my translation is probably better than whatever is in those subtitles anyway."

I looked into his eyes and furrowed my brow.

"Alright, if I can find it we can watch it." I said as I put the mug down on the coffee table and
he filled it with sweet smelling hot chocolate.

"Did you want to talk while you look?" He asked, and I looked over at him. Did I? Over the
last twenty-four hours I'd already told the team more about myself than what I'd told my unit
at HRT that I'd been with for years. Honestly, I already felt so vulnerable with what I'd
already said and... and I probably wouldn't be staying with them.
I understood that Hotch would fight to keep me with the team, but I knew the chances of his
success were slim. They'd been trying to get me to head a SWAT unit for the last two years,
and if I said I didn't want to go back to HRT then that's what would happen. Why was I
opening up to people that likely wouldn't stay in my life?

Why was I letting one of them into my house at nearly five in the morning because I'd called
them to help me through my nightmares? Why had I even called him? I couldn't work out
why I'd let myself be so vulnerable. I mean, I understood the fact that I liked him, and that we
were friends but...

"No, I... I'd like to just watch a movie with you," I said. He nodded.

"I'm here if you need."

I nodded. It was obvious he would be there for me if I needed, I mean he'd just driven to my
house in the early hours of the morning because I'd...

Fuck it.

What's the worst that could happen?

 you don't need to feel alone

°•°•°

"The whole situation was fucked, in Iraq." I said as I opened up the next streaming service to
try and find this damned movie. If I didn't look at him then it might make it easier to talk.
"Obviously I was held captive for weeks, and then I was freed by my team. But they should
have left me there to die..."

"Why?" He asked. It was strange to hear that response. The few times I'd had to bring it up,
the other person told me 'don't think like that' or 'you deserved to live'. No one ever bothered
trying to figure out why I thought that way, aside from my therapist.

"Because the ride back home..." I trailed off as I opened the next service. "They were
bringing me back home when we were hit by the IED." Silence encased the room for a few
moments as I found the movie and picked up my mug of hot chocolate.

"That's not your-"

"I know it's not my fault. I don't blame myself, it's all on Al-Qaeda, but objectively
speaking... if they hadn't of come for me, they wouldn't have been hit by that IED. They
would all be alive." Silence followed my words again. "Do you disagree?" I asked as I finally
looked at him.

"Yes," he answered and I shook my head. "They might not have been hit by that specific IED,
but there's no guarantee they wouldn't have been hit by a different one at a different point in
time. I don't think I could calculate the probability for that, but it's a thought to consider."

Maybe he had a point.

"Well, either way, I still get nightmares from both the torture and the explosion. When one
part of my trauma is hit, so is the other, but today I got both. That voice of the Al-Qaeda
representative in that video and then being caught in that explosion... it was just a lot for one
day." I explained, and he nodded.

"That's understandable." I'm glad he thought so.

"Thank you for being here, it means a lot to me," I said a little too quietly. He smiled at me,
and the expression was enough to slow my still racing heart.
"No problem," he replied before he looked at the TV. "Now, would you like me to do
different voices for each of the characters?" I appreciated the topic change.

"Well, if you're offering..." I trailed off, but paused before I clicked play on the movie. "Hey,
um, personal question, you don't have to answer if you don't want to."

"What?" He reached forward to fill his own mug with hot chocolate before he settled back
into the couch. Maybe I shouldn't ask. He'd driven eleven minutes to help me calm down
after my nightmares, so maybe it would be rude.

"Are you cold? Would you like a blanket?" I asked. He furrowed his eyebrows but nodded.

"Yeah, a blanket might be nice."

I stood up and pulled a blanket out of the cupboard beneath the stairs. Fuck. The others were
in the wash, and I was fucking cold too.

"I hope you're alright with sharing, I have three but two are in the wash because of Kody
and..." I trailed off as I realised he already had a covering for his legs.

"Sorry, is he allowed on the couch? Because the second you walked out of the room he
jumped up and settled right onto my lap and I didn't know so I just let him." Spencer said, his
hands raised with Kody curled into a ball between Spencer's legs.

"Well, he's supposed to be asked but..." I looked at Kody who looked at me through the
corner of his eyes. God damn it. "It's fine, he's settled in so as long as you're alright with it
then he can stay." It was strange that Kody would lay on someone else, especially when he'd
woken me up less than an hour ago, but he liked Spencer. I didn't know why, but he did, not
that I could blame him. If it was socially acceptable for me to curl up between Spencer's legs
I might have done the same.

"What did you actually want to ask me before?" He questioned as I sat down and covered
myself with the blanket.

"It was nothing." Maybe lying to a profiler was a bad idea, but I did it anyway.

"It wasn't." Yeah, lying had been a horrible idea. I took a deep breath.

"When we were interrogating that guy, you said you'd been with men before. Was that just to
get him riled up or..." It was too personal. We weren't close enough for me to ask him that.

"Um, well..."

"You don't have to answer that, it is just my curiosity getting the better of me. Just pretend I
didn't ask." I picked up my mug of hot chocolate that the man I was interrogating had brought
me. God I was a fucking asshole.

"Have you been with women?" Okay, that was fair. And maybe it was also fair that I
answered first since I'd brought up the topic.
"Yeah, I have. Only since I've been back from Iraq though. Before that I had a boyfriend
through high school until I left for the military and then I had one while overseas." He just
stared at me, like he wanted more information but didn't know how to ask for it without
seeming rude. "My body count is five, in total." That wasn't the entire truth, but I couldn't
count the others. There were the minor issues of a lack of consent and the fact I genuinely
didn't know how many there'd been. I could make a guess from how each of them had
smelled and sounded, but... "Two men, three women." That was probably too much
information, but it was too late now.

"I've been with, um..." he trailed off as he scratched Kody's head. "I haven't really told
anyone, but I've dated a guy before, years ago..." he bit his lip. "And I've dated two women."
Was he embarrassed? And why did he specify dated? Oh, was he a... no, surely not. There
was no way he could be a virgin with a face like that.

"Thank you for telling me, you didn't have to but I'm glad you could trust me." I rubbed my
arm and realised this was not going the way I had planned. The air was too heavy. I'd pushed
too much too soon for information on him, especially since I would only be around for
another three months. "Are we bi-buddies now?" I asked, just to break the tension that I'd
created. He smiled as he looked up at me, and the awkwardness that had been in his
expression faded.

"Yeah, I think we are." He didn't seem overly convinced, and I didn't have a fucking filter so I
couldn't stop myself from asking the next question.

"Why haven't you told anyone else?" I asked as I tilted my head to the side. "Again, you don't
actually have to answer that. I am so sorry, I have a tendency not to think before I speak so
—"

"It's not important in the grand scheme of things, so it's easier to leave it unsaid. I think JJ
suspects, but she's never said anything. And now that Rossi and Hotch have heard me say
what I said they probably suspect something too, but they won't ask either. They respect my
privacy, usually anyway." Oh God, did he think I'd prodded too much?

"I'm so sorry, it's not my place to-"

"No, it's not a bad thing that you asked. They sometimes respect my privacy too much... I had
an addiction to dilaudid a few years ago, but no one ever asked me about it even though they
all knew something was going on. And then a couple of years ago I was having health issues,
and again they knew something was going on but they never asked. I have a feeling you
wouldn't have stayed silent back then if you were a part of the team." Was that why Kody
liked him? Was he offering his expertise as a service dog to Spencer? That made sense, he
was trained to read distress and PTSD in people, and it sounded like Spencer had plenty.

"Yeah, I wouldn't have. But maybe that's what they thought was best..." I trailed off, just to
avoid sounding like I was dragging the rest of the team. It actually made me quite angry to
hear him say that they never checked on him, but it was in the past and there was nothing I
could do about it now aside from be there for him... for the next three months.

"You don't have to do that," he said.

"Do what?" I asked as if I didn't know.

"Defend them for what they did, or rather what they didn't do." Kody sat up before he left
Spencer alone on the couch. Apparently the position he'd been in wasn't as comfortable as
he'd hoped, and instead my dog had opted to go upstairs and sleep on the bed with Cait.
"Oh..." Spencer trailed off as he suddenly didn't know what to do with his hands anymore.

"Yeah, he's getting old, prefers sleeping on human beds these days instead of curling into
tight shapes," I responded. Maybe I could go over and we could share the blanket. We didn't
have to be stuck to each other, or even touching. I shuffled closer to him on the couch and
threw half the blanket over his legs and covered myself with the other half. Even though the
intention had been to keep some space between us, I'd still managed to have my legs to touch
his. "And defending your team, it... it's more for me than you. I would like to think they did it
for a good reason, rather than just ignoring that something was wrong and hoping that you'd
solve it yourself. They were both big things, so it's lucky that you did."

"Well, I solved one of them myself. The other I had Maeve to..." Maeve? That was the name
Rossi mentioned two and a half months ago. But I had already pressed too much for one
night, so I shouldn't ask about her. It wasn't my place.

"Well I'm glad you weren't completely alone then. From now on, if you need help with
something you can call me. Doesn't matter where I am or what the problem is, I'll help you
through it." I said, taking hold of his hand and squeezing it.

It was nice to hold his hand. His skin was soft and warm, and it felt like his fingers fit
perfectly between mine as he angled his hand to entwine them. His hands made mine look
small, which was easier said than done, and it made my heart hammer in my chest.

This was wrong, and yet so right at the same time.

"You don't need to feel alone anymore." I looked away from our hands and towards his doe
brown eyes. And that was a mistake, because now I could see how he was looking back at
me.

"I don't," he replied quietly, so I nodded.

His eyes dipped for a second, towards my lips... fuck. I know that people had said it before—
that he found me attractive—but I never quite believed it. I mean, I took care of my
appearance because it was something I could control, but I never really believed it when
someone... and I wasn't even wearing make-up. Was this the first time he'd seen me without
any? Yes, and yet he was still...

"Spencer..." I whispered his name, with the complete intention of following it with a
question. The question never came.

Instead he angled his head towards mine, and all the air in my lungs suddenly emptied. He
was close enough that our noses brushed, and maybe I should have pushed him away before
anything else could happen. Maybe I shouldn't have been selfish and made sure not to cross
that line... but maybe I could blame it on the last dregs of alcohol fading from my system.
"You're not alone, either," he told me. The words felt like a shot to my heart, because no one
had really said them to me before. Not since Iraq, not since...

What would happen if I didn't pull away? Would he close the last half inch between us?
Would we share our breath and bodies? No, we wouldn't go that far. Not in one night. But
maybe I could just have a taste before I denied myself the rest of him...

The torture would be sweeter if I knew what I was missing out on.

His lips lightly brushed mine, and the world around us froze. When I didn't pull away he
pushed a little more against me, and my eyes fluttered shut at the sensation.

And like a fucking sadist, I kissed him back.

This was a bad idea—an idiotic one, actually. But could it really be a bad idea when he tasted
like hot chocolate? Or when every part of me buzzed like I'd taken some form of party drug?

My fingers lifted to entwine in his brown curls, and they were just as soft as I thought they
would be. With the leverage I angled his head to deepen the kiss, and he responded perfectly
for me. With the new angle I ran my tongue along his bottom lip in hopes he would open up
for me.

He did.

What was the worst that could happen if I ignored my rule? What could possibly go wrong if
I allowed myself to cross this line?

He could get caught in crossfire, or in an explosion, and I would have to hold him as he died
just like I did—

I ripped myself away from him and clenched my hands into fists so I wouldn't reach towards
him again. It was difficult to stay away, especially when his eyes displayed only hurt at the
rejection. He didn't understand why I had to do this, why this was such a big thing for me.

So, I had to make him see that this was the best choice for the both of us. He had to see that
this was the only way to keep working together. And I had to make him see that this wasn't
because I didn't want him, because I did.

God, I wanted him.

"I don't date co-workers..." I trailed off, and my voice was too weak to continue.

"Oh, I..." God, this was bad.

Why did I let that kiss happen in the first place? Because you wanted to know what he tasted
like, Kory.

"Please, don't... I do like you in that way, Spencer, but I can't do this. I'm so sorry, it's just that
I have a bad experience with dating a co-worker and I can't repeat that." He nodded in
response. Why did he have to be so understanding? Why wasn't he upset with me right now?
"What about in three months?" Three months?

"What?" I asked, and he smiled at me. He smiled even though I'd just completely rejected
him. What the fuck was going on?

"If Hotch can't keep you on the team, then we won't be co-workers anymore. Would you be
okay with it then?"

"I haven't really..." that had not been an option before. Would he even still like me in this
capacity in three months? It's a long time to be around someone and not get anything from
them. And I didn't even know what would happen in three months. I could go back to HRT or
end up literally anywhere else in the country.

If we had to do long distance then I don't think I could agree to start a relationship. But if I
stayed assigned somewhere in Virginia...

"Can we reassess in three months? I need to know what's going to happen before I..." holy
shit. Why did this make me feel more vulnerable than talking about my past?

"But you'd want to do that? To discuss it?" His voice was too quiet, almost as if he was
unsure of it all himself. To fix that issue I nodded, because there was no point in lying.

I doubted the attraction I felt to him would go anywhere within the next three months, and if I
had a possible future to look forward to then it definitely wouldn't budge.

"Yeah, we can talk about it then," I confirmed.

He smiled at me again before he looked at the TV screen. "Did you want to watch that movie
now, or..."

I also looked to the screen. "Are you still offering to do the voices for me?"

"Definitely."

"Well then obviously I want to watch the movie."

 she was leaving

°•°•°

*three months later*

"What did Morgan want to talk to you about?" I asked as Kory finally reached me at the bar
again.

"Nothing important..." she replied, which meant it was something important.

"You were gone for thirty minutes," I pointed out and she looked at me with wide eyes.

"Really?" She asked before she looked at her watch. "Oh, shit. I'm sorry, I..."

"What are you apologising for?" I asked, and she smiled. She'd had a few drinks by this
point, the six whiskey and cokes were likely catching up to her and I was already buzzed off
two cocktails.

"Because I told you we needed to talk, and I've been off talking to your friend instead," Kory
replied, her words slow and slightly slurred. "Probably me procrastinating, which I've already
done for three weeks now..."

"What's going on?" Her smile faltered, as her hand gripped her seventh whiskey and coke so
hard her knuckles turned white.

"I'm leaving, today was my last day with you guys and Morgan's coming back and..." she
trailed off as she took a deep breath.

"But you're just going back to HRT, right?" I asked, and Kory shook her head.

"I, um... I actually got a job offer somewhere else that I'm going to take," she answered.

"What? Where?" I put my drink down as she lifted her to her lips to take a sip. "You're going
to run a SWAT unit, just like you thought would happen after Hotch displayed interest in
keeping you on the team." She put down her glass and nodded.

"The field office down in Dallas offered me the position of ASAC for SWAT. It's a promotion
and I get to be closer to... home I guess, so it's a win-win situation." She took another sip of
her whiskey, which meant there was something she hadn't told me about her family, but now
wasn't the time to press it. "There's nothing keeping me here in Quantico anymore, so..."
She was actually leaving.

Damn it, she was leaving the state.

She wasn't just leaving the team, she was leaving the damned state.

"I thought you liked being a part of HRT?" I asked, and she shrugged her shoulders.

"Helping people when they most need it was always... what's the word?" She asked, and I
thought about what she was trying to tell me. I'm sure that if she wasn't borderline drunk she
would know exactly what word she was fishing for, but this must be difficult for her to talk
about, and I assumed that from the fact she'd been procrastinating about this for three weeks.

"Gratifying? Rewarding?" I offered two words that I thought worked for what she was trying
to say.

"Yeah, but this new position I'd get to do more investigations which is what I've realised is
the part that I enjoy doing. And now I have the experience from the BAU to do consultations
and make interim profiles when asked." Her smile didn't reach her bright eyes, and it
saddened me to see that lack of a spark. Because of that I didn't know what to say, any form
of 'congratulations' from me would be empty and it was a struggle to form any other words. I
didn't want her to leave, but there wasn't a damned thing I could do about it.

"What is it?" She asked, and I realised my eyes had trailed to my drink and away from her.
"Are you going to miss me, Agent Doctor?" Well, there wasn't any point in lying, she'd be
able to tell.

"Yeah, I am... a lot, actually." Her broken smile faltered once more.

"Well, I'm only going to be a phone call away if you ever need me for something or if you
just want to hear my voice..." she trailed off, tilting her head to the side in the process. "And I
don't start for another two weeks anyway, and I told them that if I get a better offer from
anywhere else that I'll take that instead. They were pretty confident I won't get another offer,
and I'm inclined to agree with them. I mean, if I was offered a permanent position in the BAU
I would take that instead but the likelihood of that happening..."

"And what about HRT? Will you still—"

"They'll always have access to me, wherever I go and whatever I do until I start failing my
tests, just like the Army," she finished the rest of her drink and crossed her arms. "You don't
want me to go, do you?"

"No," I answered honestly. Once again, there wasn't any point in lying, she'd be able to tell
and then I'd have to spill the truth anyway.

"Why not?" Why not? Because over the last five and a half months I'd become used to her.
Because over the last five and a half months we'd spent hours upon hours within her car
together. We'd spent hours and hours watching international movies that we translated for
each other with different voices for the characters. How many hyper-fixations had she
listened to me talk about? The answer was seventeen, and for each one she paid the same
amount of interest as the first.

"Because..." I looked around the bar behind us, just to make sure the rest of the team was too
busy to pay attention to us. Hotch was talking to Cait, who'd been invited because of Kory,
and the others were speaking to Morgan to welcome him back while also fussing over
Savannah. I'd already done my part for that, and it seemed like the night was coming to a
close for everyone else. I hoped that wasn't the case for me. "Because you said you don't date
co-workers." I looked back to Kory once I was satisfied that no one was paying attention to
us.

"I know, and I said we could talk about it when I left. But I wasn't even sure if you'd want
to..." she replied. What made her think I wouldn't want to?

"I just thought that if there was something still between us that we would," I replied, and she
leaned closer to me with her elbow on the bar top.

"You saying you still like me?" She asked. While I was near certain it was more than just a
simple 'like' situation, I wouldn't hand her more than that.

Most of the team shouted their goodbyes, so Kory and I broke our conversation to wave back.
They'd already hugged and said their more emotional goodbyes at the end of the workday,
before we'd all decided to come out for drinks. That was surely the reason none of them came
over... it wouldn't be for anything else. It couldn't be because they saw how close we were
and didn't want to disturb us, surely not.

The only ones that stayed were Hotch and Cait, who were still talking in a darkened booth,
and JJ and Will who were likely making the most of having someone else watch the kids.

"Answer my question, Spencer," Kory instructed once we were back to being ignored. "Do
you still like me?"

"Yes," I answered, looking back to my drink. I hadn't had enough alcohol to even think about
having this conversation. I picked up the glass and started to drink the last mouthful.

"And have you been replaying our kiss over and over in your head?" I choked on my drink as
my cheeks ran warm. Had I been... that was the least that could be said about my thoughts
regarding our kiss.

I'd replayed it over and over again, imagined what it might have felt like had I pushed my
fingers into her hair like she had done with mine. I would never say it, but that kiss had been
both a thought that calmed me enough to sleep and worked me up to the point where sleep
was impossible without...

It was not something I was proud of, but seeing her nearly every day since then made certain
things rather hard when I imagined certain situations between us. That constant imagining, it
wasn't healthy for me.

"So have I..." Kory whispered, even though I never gave her a verbal answer.
Wait, what? Had she really—no. There wasn't a possible way that she could want me too. I
mean, looking at her sitting next to me right now, she was beyond out of my league. Even
after a full day of work and two hours here at the bar, her hair was still perfect, although the
straightened strands were starting to curl again due to the heat in the room. Her makeup
hadn't budged at all. Her clothes were still pristine, her fingernails flawlessly black... and then
there was me. Next to her I had to look like a slob, but it didn't stop me from reaching to hold
her hand and whispering my next words.

“Then stay...”

"Spencer, I can't. This is my career, and while I would prefer to stay at the BAU since I've
wanted this position for years, there isn't an opening for me. I'm grateful I managed to get a
temporary position with you guys, but there isn't a permanent place for me. I need to take the
next best thing I could be offered, and that is a promotion with the opportunity to do some
good. I was always just Morgan's proxy, the only thing that changed about my plan was that
where I'm going is different to where I came from."

Why did everyone always have to leave? It hurt to know that she would, but this was as good
a reason as any to do so. Her career was more important than the slight chance that we could
have been something.

I nodded my response, and she sighed.

"Why do you have to be so understanding? I... why aren't you angry? Why aren't you
shouting at me or telling me you never want to see me again or just walking out on me?" She
asked, and I squeezed her hand.

"I can't..." I whispered, and she furrowed her brows at me. "It would be idiotic of me to be
angry at you for doing what's best for your life and your career. It would be selfish of me to
ask you stay just because I feel something for you."

"Look, we can stay friends." Kory told me, and I nodded through the ache in my chest. I
wasn't sure if I could even manage that if she was gone. "We could play online Scrabble or
something and stay in touch that way, but I don't think I could make a long distance
relationship work. I don't know how busy I'll be, and I do know how busy you'll be and I hate
making promises I can't keep." Online Scrabble?

"It's okay, I... I don't know if I could do long distance either." It was true. After Maeve I
wasn't sure if I could do just phone calls and emails again. I'd lost so many opportunities with
her because of our enforced distance to keep both of us safe, and while I was grateful for
what we did have... the regrets outweighed that joy. I couldn't go through another relationship
where I couldn't spend every possible second with my person. I wanted to have everything I
could from them, I wanted there to be nothing between me and my partner—between me and
Kory.

"You won't stay in contact, will you?" She whispered, and I didn't know how to respond. I
could hope to stay in contact with her, but I knew my history. If someone wasn't directly in
front of me, I tended to forget they existed, except for Mum and Maeve.
Kory seemed to realise my answer as she stared at me, and I wished I knew what was going
on in her head. All I could tell was that she was thinking something over. That something
seemed to be conflicting for her and she was leaning towards an outcome that had potential to
end badly.

"What if I leave you something to remember me by instead, then?" She asked, and I furrowed
my brow.

"Like a picture or—"

"No." She cut me off, and her conflicted expression eased to one of... I didn't know what it
was. "Come with me, and make sure the others don't see us." She took hold of my wrist and
dragged me from my seat.

I looked around and found Will and JJ saying goodbye to Hotch and Cait. It meant the four
remaining people of importance to us were distracted, which was good, I guess. It didn't help
me with figuring out what Kory's plan was, though.

"Kory—"

"Shut up," she whispered as she looked around and found whatever it was that she was
looking for.

"No, what are we doing? Where are you taking me?" She pulled me through the dying crowd
and into a quieter hallway. It lead towards the bathrooms, which were a series of three
separate rooms rather than gendered collectives. "Seriously, Kory—"

"Please just keep quiet for two minutes," she told me. For lack of better judgement I heeded
the instruction. She looked around one last time, as if to check the coast was clear, and then
pulled me into one of the dark bathrooms. The door slammed shut behind us and she
immediately locked it. Oh God, she...

She wanted to fuck me in the bathroom.

 do I have you speechless, Doctor?

°•°•°

"Kory, I don't want... I don't want to have sex in a bathroom." I managed to get the words out
in a tone hardly louder than a whisper.

She turned towards me with a smile on her face. "Well, I didn't plan on going that far. I just
thought we could kiss a little bit, and I could maybe give you a hand job if you wanted one."
What? Was she... was she serious? No, she couldn't be. This was a prank, or something along
those lines. This was like when that pretty girl in school asked me to—

"Kory..." I whispered. This was moving too fast, it had to be. There was no possible way that
the prettiest girl I knew was actually offering to... how was she even able to say it so easily?

Probably the seven whiskey and cokes.

"Is that..." she trailed off. My hands shook even though she hadn't moved a muscle yet. She
didn't need to. The absolute threat of her standing in the same room as me after she implied
that she wanted to get me off was enough to pump adrenaline through my body. "Is that
something you'd like me to do, Spencer?" Why did she have to say my name like that in her
rich voice? And what kind of question was that? Would I like... I was still a human male, the
answer to that should be obvious.

"I..." Or maybe the answer wasn't obvious. I mean, I knew it was something that I wanted
from her, but in this place? In a bathroom? It felt... dangerous—like we could be caught at
any second. I wasn't sure just yet if that changed anything for me. I wasn't even taking into
account the amount of germs that were likely on every surface in here, but I couldn't let that
thought distract me. Not now.

"We could start slow, if you want, and you could tell me if you're uncomfortable and I'll stop.
Or, we could just pretend I didn't drag you in here since this was definitely the whiskey's
doing." Even in the dim light, her bright eyes shone. But if this was just because she'd drunk
too much...

"Kory, if you've had too much to drink—"

"I haven't, I'm still in full control of myself. Even if I wasn't, I've been thinking about this for
months. Do you know how hard it is to focus at work when I'm looking at you and imagining
how your distracting hands would feel on my body?" Did I know? Yes, fucking obviously.
Had I known she'd been having the same trouble as me though? Definitely not.
"Could we just..." I trailed off. "Couldn't we just go back to your place, or something?" She
shook her head.

"No, if we go home together then I'll let us go all the way and I..." she couldn't seem to spit
out the words, even with the alcohol. Maybe she wasn't too drunk to be thinking over her
actions. Maybe it wasn't the whiskey that had made her drag me in this room—was I really
what she wanted? "This is what I can give you, and it is completely up to you whether you
want it or not. I know it's not ideal, but if we do anything more then I'll get attached and
possessive and I can't afford that since I'm... since I can't stay."

Maybe it was the two cocktails running through my veins, ones that I'm sure had double shots
of tequila in them. Or maybe it was the simple fact she was offering me something I'd been
thinking about an embarrassing amount the last few months...

"Kory..." The words that should have followed her name got caught in my throat as she
stepped towards me. This wasn't happening. This was just another one of my troubling
dreams, that's all this could be.

"Just nod your head yes or no," she told me as she stopped less than two inches directly in
front of me. With her closeness I could feel her warmth in the cold bathroom and smell her
damned perfume again. I'd need to figure out what perfume it was, so I could maybe buy
some to make remembering her easier. "Would you like me to touch you, Spencer? To kiss
you?" God, I wanted that more than anything.

I nodded.

"And will you tell me to stop if you feel uncomfortable with what I'm doing?" She asked
next, her eyebrows furrowed as she looked at me with a kind of compassion I hadn't seen
before. I think she could ask me to do anything and I'd be comfortable with it—as long as she
was the one holding my hand and leading the way through it.

I nodded once again, and she smiled a wicked smile I'd never seen on her before.

"Okay, I'm going to kiss you now if that's alright," she whispered before she closed the
distance between us. She waited until I nodded again to tenderly place her lips against mine.
It was slow and gentle as she pushed me against the wall, the tile cold against my back
through my dress shirt.

I kissed her back and let the familiar feeling of serenity and calm wash over my body. Just
like when I'd kissed her on her couch, my mind became quiet. Every protesting thought I had
silenced itself.

This couldn’t be a bad idea. It couldn't. How could it when... when it felt so... right didn’t feel
like a strong enough word.

I entangled my fingers in her soft hair as her hands ran over my chest. At the sensation of her
touching me, that quiet calm gave way to a burning sensation that I was more than willing to
get used to. Without thinking I pulled on her hair, and she pulled her lips away from mine in
response.
"I'm sorry, I—"

"Don't." She cut me off, and the green in her eyes seemed to glow in the dim lighting of the
bathroom. "Don't apologise, if you want to pull on my hair then go ahead. I just wasn't
expecting it from you, that's all."

"I—"

She shut me up by kissing me again, but this time it was harsh and impatient in nature. It
made my body ache to be closer to her, to want to feel her against me with nothing between
us. So I kissed her back with the same desperation she showed me and then some.

My fingertips tingled as I pulled on her hair again, and this time instead of retreating from
me, she ran her tongue over my bottom lip. The sensation sent a shiver through my body
before I actioned her silent request and opened my mouth for her. Feeling her tongue run
against mine was enough to make me uncomfortably hard, and that response was only made
worse as she ran her hands down my stomach.

Those dangerous hands reached my belt buckle, and wasted no time in undoing it. The
movement elicited a pre-emptive groan to leave my throat, and I felt her smile against my
lips.

I thought we were meant to be going slow, and this wasn't that... but I wouldn’t tell her to
slow down. I couldn't when I knew it would only take her making the right sound at the
wrong time and I'd be done before she even unzipped my pants.

I had to think of something else—had to get out of my body for just a moment so I could last
a little longer. If I'd known this was going to happen I would have... I don't know what I
could have done to prepare myself for this.

Maybe I could have warned my body about what would happen. Or maybe I could have
taken the edge off this morning before work instead of torturing myself through the day with
her perfume and waiting until I got home to take away the tension. I don't know if it would
have made a difference, if I was honest with myself.

It always felt different with someone else, always felt... more. And now with Kory that
more made me feel like I could implode from her touch. It was almost too much.

Almost.

"Are you okay with this?" She murmured against my lips. I had to ignore the way my
stomach twisted at hearing her breathy voice. She sounded different when she was... aroused.
The tenor was something I wanted to get used to hearing, but I wouldn't be able to. Why did
she have to leave?

"Mm," I hummed through my throat before I could get caught up in my thoughts. I wasn't
sure if I would be able to get any actual words out of my mouth, and any chance of that
slipped through my fingers as she unzipped my pants.
"Do I have you speechless, Doctor?" Her voice was a mere whisper, but I knew I'd still hear it
if we were in a crowded room.

But I couldn't respond. I physically couldn’t. There wasn't enough cognition left for me to do
so—to be able to string together a coherent sentence. Instead I opened my eyes and looked
down at her, to see a smirk on her maroon lips, the makeup smudged and likely all over my
mouth too.

God, I hoped the rest of the team were gone so I could leave without being caught covered in
Kory's lipstick.

"That feeling’s about to get worse," she warned me, and before I could attempt asking why, I
felt it.

Her hand dipped beneath each layer of my clothing and took hold of my shaft. Her warm
fingers wrapped around me and tightened just the right amount before she—holy shit.

I didn't know what to do with my hands, but I knew I couldn't hold my head up anymore. The
tile was hard against my skull as I let my head fall back to it, and it was something I shouldn't
have done. It gave Kory a chance to have her lips meet my open throat as she stroked me,
slow and purposeful. Each movement pushed me closer to the edge, and I moved to hold her
neck in my hands as the pressure in the base of my spine threatened to erupt.

"Oh God," I whispered as she ran a thumb over my tip and sucked on my collarbone hard
enough to trigger a small spark of pain which likely meant she'd left a hickey in her wake.

"God?" She asked as she pulled her lips away from my skin. Her spare hand reached between
us, and her fingers took hold of my chin to force me to look down at her as she continued to
stroke me with a steadily increasing speed. Why did she seem to be enjoying this? "This is all
me." Her head tilted to fall further into my left hand.

"So from this point forward—" she let go of my chin to run her hand down my chest once
more—"the only things I want to hear from you—" her body started to lower in front of me,
but her eyes were completely locked on mine—"are the sounds of your enjoyment, you
swearing because no other words are enough—" she settled on her knees and smiled up at me
—"or my name."

Wait, she was on her knees. Was she about to... oh Go—oh Kory, she was. I... I wanted her to
but...

"Are you okay with this?" She asked, looking up to me through her dark eyelashes. Why did
she have to be so... ethereal? Was that even a strong enough word for her?

"I..." Why was it still impossible for me to speak? Probably because the most beautiful
woman I'd ever seen was on her knees asking if I was okay with her having me in her mouth.

Okay, that actually made a lot of sense.

"Has no one done this for you before?" There wasn't a hint of judgement in her tone, just
simple curiosity. She wanted to know my history so she could make this the best experience
possible for me. Was it that easy to tell that no one had done this for me before? Or was it just
because Kory knew how to read me?

"Uh..." and I still lacked the ability to speak. This was going fucking perfectly.

"Would you like me to be the first?" There was every chance that she might be the only if she
did. "Or did you want to wait for someone better than me?" Someone better?

With Kory I felt a strange comfort. There was no fear that she would judge me, and I felt no
shame for the fact I wasn't overly experienced in any of this. Hell, I was comfortable enough
that I could tell her I'd only really had sex once before, but it was rushed and confusing. This
was unexpected, but I felt none of that confusion or discomfort. Who else could ever help me
feel this kind of security? Who else could make me feel safe like this? Who could possibly be
better?

"Why?" Was all I could ask as she smiled again. She understood the point of the question,
that I wanted her to do this but had no idea why she'd offered it to me.

"I want to make you feel good, Spencer. Do you want me to?" She wanted to make me feel
good? Well, she'd already far exceeded that goal.

I nodded and she gave me one last smile.

"Good, now relax for me," she said before her maroon lips encased me. My eyes shuttered
closed as I tilted my head against the wall again and took in the new sensation. Her hand was
still wrapped around my base, which she couldn't take in her warm mouth.

If this felt... if this felt like... like this, then what would the rest of her feel like? What would
it feel like to hold her against me without anything between us? Or what would it feel like to
touch her skin? Or to be inside of her?

"Kory..." I whispered as my tip hit the back of her throat, and her hum of approval at saying
her name vibrated the entirety of my cock. "Shit."

Her spare hand moved one of mine to her head. She wanted me to hold on, to wrap my
fingers in her hair... it was an easy command to comply with.

Not that I complied for long.

There was no need to.

"I'm going to..." I trailed off as she took me so far in her throat that I felt her choke on me,
and the sensation pushed me over the edge.

A whimper left my throat as she coaxed my release from me. It was only when there was
nothing left for her to take that she stood up. There was a smirk on her face as she wiped the
corner of her mouth with her thumb. Wait... had she... had she swallowed?
Why did that knowledge make my cheeks burn more than everything else she'd just done to
me?

"I—"

She cut me off by kissing me again, but this time she tasted different. This time she tasted
like... like me.

My hands rested on her waist as she held my cheeks. If this was my only chance, then maybe
I should make a good impression. Maybe I should return the favour... not that I knew exactly
how to, but I knew anatomy and biology. I could figure it out. I could read her responses to
know where to touch her. I would figure it out, I just needed a little time to learn what she
liked.

I moved my hands towards the button of her jeans. Before I could even attempt fumbling it
undone, she took hold of both my wrists and pulled her entire body an inch away from mine.

"Kory—"

"That isn't a question I want answered," she told me. That was when I noticed the tears in her
eyes. Why were there tears in her eyes?

"Kory, what are you..." she let go of my wrists and took another step away from me. As she
retreated I felt something in me break—no, shatter. "I want to make you feel good too," I
said in a last ditch attempt to get her to stay, just for a few more minutes. It didn't work. She
shook her head as I did up my pants and attempted to piece together what was left of my
pride.

"I can't let you. It's going to make everything harder on my end." What? Harder for her? So
she was worried about her feelings? But what about mine?

"I just let you do something that no one has ever done for me before. What about me? This
is..." at the very least I needed it to be even between us. She couldn’t do what she did to me
and then just walk away. "This isn't fair, Kory."

"I know, and I'm... I'm sorry." A tear fell down her cheek, and with the last five and half
months of knowing her up my sleeve I knew she was being honest. That honesty might be the
only reason I didn’t feel completely used. "The issue is that if I know what you can give me,
I'll just take it all. I won't leave for Dallas and I'll just take everything that you'd be willing to
give and then some. I can't, Spencer."

"Kory..." I didn't even know what to say. What could I say to make her change her mind?

Why was I able to profile killers and know exactly what I needed to say to make them stand
down or hand themselves in, but I couldn't figure out what she needed to hear from me? Why
couldn't I use that ability when it mattered to me? I should know how to make her stay, or to
give us a chance. Fuck, I should know how to let her feel secure enough for me to do for her
what she did for me. So why couldn't I?
"I'm going to miss you too. A lot, actually." She retreated to the door and looked at me one
final time. The image of her in the dim light was immediately burned into my mind, a painful
reminder of the fact I couldn't hold onto anything good in this fucking world.

"Goodbye, Spencer."

And then she was gone.

What the fuck was I meant to do now?

 I want him anyway

°•°•°

What the fuck did I do? Oh my fucking God, what the actual fuck did I just do?

That's it. I would never drink whiskey again.

Just like I would never see Spencer again.

Damn it.

All I could taste was him. All I could hear was the whimper that escaped him as he let
himself go. I could see the way his body shook, feel his fingers pulling at my hair while his
cock was in my mouth. The only thing I could fucking smell was him.

Fuck. This was now how tonight was meant to go. I was supposed to tell Spencer about my
new position, shake hands with him, say my final goodbyes and leave. But no, that would
have been too sane and reasonable and easy for good ol' Kory Thompson. No, I had to leave a
damned mess wherever I went. I had to take the option that involved the most amount of risk
and recklessness without thinking over the consequences until it was too late.

The consequences of what I'd done to Spencer tonight were me rushing out of the bar without
saying goodbye to the remainder of the team still there, calling a cab to get home and going
straight to my bed. Sleep wasn't the purpose of going to my bedroom, though. Not yet at
least.

There was no possible way I could close my eyes and drift off, not in my state.

Instead I pulled open my left bedside table drawer and took out my purple bullet vibrator. It
had always been a favourite of mine, but then I found out purple was Spencer's favourite
colour and—fuck, I was messed up.

After double checking that Kody was outside of my closed bedroom door, I took off my pants
and clambered beneath my sheets. I could hardly believe the shit I'd said in that fucking
bathroom.

"God? This is all me."

Why did I come across like some possessive piece of shit? Because you are one, Kory.
I turned the vibrator on and wasted no time in pressing it where I needed it. My body
shivered as my core immediately clenched.

"Kory... shit."

His voice had been so beautifully strained, and hearing him say my name had been near
enough to get me off. Mercifully, he'd finished too fast to have the chance to make him say it
again.

“I want to make you feel good too.”

He had no idea that he'd been doing that for months now. He was completely oblivious to the
fact that since I'd laid eyes on him, the only way to get myself off was to imagine he was with
me. And he sure as hell had no God-damned idea that I was doing it again right now.

I sped up the vibrator and my breath caught in my chest. Warmth pooled between my legs
and spread through the rest of my body.

I needed this to be over.

The sooner it was over, the sooner I could stop imagining him.

But I wouldn't stop yet, I couldn't. I needed his image with me, his voice in my head.

I moaned as I pictured his fingers running over my body, touching each part of me with care
and gentleness that should be illegal. I shivered as I thought of all the words he might
whisper in my ear, the dirty compliments and encouragements.

My head pushed back into the pillow as I felt the ghost of what his lips must feel like against
my throat, kissing and sucking and searching for the spot that would illicit the strongest
response.

What must it feel like to have his weight on top of me? Or his hands around my throat? Or to
have him go down on me just as I'd done for him? What would that perfect length of his feel
like inside of me?

"Shit," I whispered just as he had when his body jolted underneath my hand. Tonight I had
shown him an entire range of new sensations, but I think his favourite was when I choked on
him. It had been that good that it pushed him over the edge after a mere few seconds.

I'd been his first fucking blowjob... I'd taken the chance from the person he was meant to be
with to give him that experience.

Good.

I wanted him to think of me on my knees in that bathroom whenever someone else gave him
that same kind of pleasure. I wanted him to compare the sensations and know that it wouldn’t
ever feel as good as it did tonight with me. No, I needed him to do that—needed him to know
that I was the one who ruined him.
My entire body shook as I made the vibrator speed up again.

Fuck what was wrong with me? I couldn't give him the relationship he wanted or deserved.
He needed someone who would be there for him, support him through thick and thin. As
much as I wanted it to be me, it couldn't be. I was too closed off, too selfish and possessive
and... and fate had pushed us in different directions. We weren't meant to be.

But I want him anyway.

Fucking damn it.

The warmth spread through my body and threatened to explode as I sped up the bullet one
last time.

He would be the death of me, but at least I wouldn't have to pretend anymore. Spencer was
going to stay here and I would go to Dallas. There was no hope for us, no chance in hell that
we would ever work out. This was for the best... right?

All we could ever be was the memory of what happened in that fucking bathroom. All I could
ever know was how I imagined he might return the favour.

I was sure he'd start slow, experiment with what made me feel best and gather all the
information he could. After he extrapolated the data he'd use it against me, would figure out
the best ways to ruin me over and over again. God, it would be the best sex I'd ever had.

The only proof I needed to back up my theory was the look on his face as he moved to make
it even between us. It didn't matter to me that he wasn’t experienced—hell, I wouldn't care if
he told me he was a virgin. All that would mean was that he wouldn’t have any bad habits I'd
need to break out of him. It would mean that I would be his first and only data set and I
would have to teach him everything he would need to know. It was a good thing I was an
excellent instructor.

"Fuck," I hissed as my core threatened to explode. But I needed it to. I needed to push myself
over the edge.

So I replayed what I'd done to him through my head again. I felt his body through his clothes,
sucked on his collarbone—so he could hide the marks I'd left on him—and felt his stubble
rub against my face as I kissed him. And I replayed the look on his face when he realised I'd
swallowed, the way his cheeks burned pink with his eyes slightly widened in confusion and
shock. He liked it, though. I could tell.

And then I replayed that sweet sound of him straining out my name again.

And again.

And again.

Electricity jolted through my entire body as I came, I felt it try to escape me through the tips
of my fingers down to the tips of my toes.
I turned the bullet off and let the feeling flood over me. If this was what I felt from just
imagining him...

No. No more imagining.

Tears ran down my face as I sat up and the realisation hit me like a tonne of bricks; I would
never see him again. What had happened between us was a once off. There was no chance
that every imagined encounter I'd ran through my mind would ever come to fruition.

What the actual fuck did I do?

"So when are your grandparents getting here? " Cait asked as I taped up my third box. We
had made our way to the office, where we had to go through everything to separate what was
hers from what was mine.

"They're leaving Albion first thing tomorrow, so they'll probably take it slow and get here the
next day," I explained. They were bringing up their truck, which all of the shit I had to take
would go in. The smaller stuff would go in my car, along with Kody as my company for the
drive.

"Are you sure you don't want me to come with you? I could catch a flight back up from
Dallas and help you get settled in." I smiled at her, and shook my head.

"You have work, important work. I'll be able to handle myself," I replied. I'd be staying in a
hotel for a few weeks until I found a house, and Kody would stay with my grandparents until
I had a place for him.

"I know, I just... you're my best friend and now you're leaving me in Washington all by
myself, it's rude."

"Cait, I'm keeping this place. You'll be able to stay here as long as you want, it's not like I'm
kicking you out." I reminded her, and she tilted her head to the side as she started to fill the
next box with some other stuff I would take with me. "And I'm also leaving all the furniture
here for you, so you should be thanking me right now instead of trying to make me feel bad."

"You are fucking good at guilt-tripping, aren't you?" Cait asked, and I just shrugged my
shoulders.

"Whatever do you mean?" I asked, and she shook her head.

"Thank you, Kory." She replied with a roll of her eyes. She must have realised it was best to
just move on.

"You're welcome," I said as I picked up one of my journals and put it in the box. "But you
better keep paying rent on time or I will kick your ass to the street." I joked.
"No you won't." I wouldn't, and I couldn't find the energy within myself to make her think
otherwise.

The events of six nights ago still weighed on me. It might not have so much weight if I hadn't
of talked to Morgan beforehand and his fucking words didn't keep echoing through my head.
I'd spoken with him for half an hour because he'd been talking to me about Spencer. I'd been
a little too tipsy to tell him that it wouldn't matter.

"All I'm saying is that he's a good kid, and I don't want you to break his heart."

And then I went right ahead and did exactly that.

"Are you ready to talk about the Doctor yet?" Cait asked, as if she could read my fucking
mind. I shook my head. "Okay, well, um..." She trailed off so I froze with my hand in the
box.

"What?" I asked, and she licked her bottom lip.

"Look, there's something I need to tell you. I've been needing to tell you for a while now, but
I never did, but now you're leaving so I probably should. Um, the last three months—"

Cait was cut off by my phone ringing. There were very few contacts who were set to an
actual ringtone on my phone so I never missed a call from them, and that meant this was
important.

"It's Hotch..." I trailed off as I saw the contact name. Why was Hotch calling me? "This has
to be important, give me a second." I said, and Cait strained a smile and nodded. So I
answered the phone and lifted it to my ear, just in case it was something that Cait shouldn't
hear. "Hey, what's going on?" I asked.

"I have a favour to ask you," Hotch said and I took a second to process it.

"What kind of favour?"

"Savannah's been shot—"

"Shot? Who the fuck would..." I trailed off as I realised the answer to my own question. "The
people who hurt Morgan six months ago."

"Yes. She's in hospital right now, but we... could you keep an eye on her? I'm worried
Morgan's going to disobey orders and leave and..." Savannah was pregnant, why would
they...

"As an armed guard?" I checked, just to be sure.

"Yes. Um, once again this is just a favour I'm asking of you personally. You don't have to do
it, it won't affect you in any way if you don't, I just—"

"I'll do it." I looked up at Cait as I walked over to my gun safe and unlocked it. "Which
hospital?"
"Bethesda Gen—"

"I'll be there in twenty minutes."

 break both promises

°•°•°

I didn't know Morgan, not beyond the singular time we'd met when I was on the wrong side
of tipsy. While driving over to the hospital I'd thought over how he would react to seeing me,
whether he would trust me to keep an eye on his wife or not. And there was also the fear that
I would see Spencer... I didn't really know how to proceed with that issue, but I guess I'd have
to work it out sooner rather than later.

"Hey," I said gently as I came across the waiting room that Morgan and David were in. I kept
to the doorway, so it didn't feel like I would be intruding.

"Ah, your Special Forces personal guard has arrived," David said, but even the light tone
wasn't enough to shift the mood in the room. I understood, because if I was in Morgan's
position I'm sure I would have done a lot worse by now.

"Is Savannah still in surgery?" I asked as Morgan looked at me. There was a mixture of
emotions in his eyes, they ebbed from him in pulses. Anger. Terror. Panic. Confusion.

"Yeah, she is," Morgan replied and I nodded slowly.

"I should go and stand guard—"

"No, you can stay here with Morgan for the time being. You can watch Savannah once she's
out of the OR," David changed my orders, so I nodded again.

"Okay..." I walked into the room. David walked over to me and placed a hand on my
shoulder.

"Try and keep him from... spiralling." He whispered with a circle of his finger. Even though I
wasn't overly sure of how to do that, I nodded for a third fucking time and he walked away.

Great, now I was left alone with the person I'd stood in for over five and a half months. How
was I meant to keep this man from spiralling? He was in a position I hoped to never find
myself in...

"Are you here to tell me that everything's going to be alright? That it's all going to turn out
perfectly okay?" He asked, a little on the defensive side. That meant the current emotion at
the forefront of his whirlpool was anger, but that was okay. I could work with that.
"No," I responded as I took a seat and leaned forward with my elbows on my knees. "The
only thing I'm here for is to lighten your mental load. You can focus on worrying about
whether Savannah will be okay, but you don't need to think over whether you're safe or not.
That's what I'm here to do."

He looked at me as he ran a hand over his head, and I gestured for him to sit in the chairs in
front of me. He didn't.

"You're really ex-Special Forces?" Why did everyone ask that damned question?

"Yes," I answered simply. "I was a sniper for six years." Morgan walked to stand directly in
front of me, maybe as a form of intimidation. It didn't work on me, that shit never did.

"Sniper?" And why did people always question that too?

"Someone has yet to beat my scores..." that was true, as far as I knew. My grandfather kept
me updated on that front until he retired three years ago.

"Kill count?" He asked, and while I was normally adverse to people asking that question, I
knew the purpose behind it this time. All he was doing was making sure I was a suitable
candidate to protect his wife and unborn child, and I'd be damned if I let him think otherwise.

"Um..." it was still hard to spit the number out, though. Honestly I'd hoped to forget it by
now, but it was burned into my memory. "Just military or from my time with HRT as well?"

"Fuck, you were with HRT... I forgot about that." He backed away a single step.

"Seventy-nine, all up." I decided to give him the answer he probably wanted, and he sank into
the seat in front of me.

"That's a high number..." he trailed off, and I nodded.

"That's just my confirmed kills." I sighed and did my best to try and give the illusion that I
was comfortable. But once again, in the presence of a profiler, my usual cover didn't work. If
I didn't speak first then he would, and I didn't want to explain that I was uncomfortable
because I was sitting across from him.

"There's another reason Hotch asked you to be here." Morgan got the first word in, which
meant I was going to be caught in this conversation whether I want to be or not.

"No, just because of my history." That wasn't a lie, the only reason Hotch wanted me here
was because of my experience. That was it.

"Okay, if it's not Hotch then it's you. You agreed to come here, even though you don't know
me or Savannah. And judging from how quick you got here, you did it without hesitation."
Well, I guess I'd stopped him from spiralling. Was this what David had meant? Probably not,
but it was too late to change it now. "Why?"

"It's what I do," I replied, but he didn't buy it. Fuck, I hated working with profilers. HRT was
so much easier, they took whatever I said at face value and we all moved on. It was easy to
understand why the BAU was a family, because there was no way to hide your shit.

"You came back from Iraq, wheelchair bound—"

"How do you—"

"Reid talks." Fuck. I took a deep breath and refrained from getting angry. "The entire team
talks, actually. They all loved having you as part of the unit, so they told me everything about
you these last few days."

"Then why did you interrogate me before?" I asked, and he shook his head at me.

"Because I wanted to hear it from you." Right, so it was simply to prove myself once again.
Great. "So you came back from Iraq and couldn't walk. You could have done anything with
your life, and you chose to get back on your feet, work your ass off and get into SWAT where
you were—"

"Headhunted immediately for HRT. I know my work history, I don't need you to repeat it for
me." I leaned back in the seat and tied my hair back from my face. If he was going to
continue this interrogation, which I only allowed because it was temporarily distracting him
from his shit situation, then I needed to have my hair out the way.

"My point is, you specifically chose a job where you protected people. And now you're here,
protecting Savannah and I... why?" Why did everyone think they were entitled to know
everything about me? How could I keep my mysterious façade if they all knew? "You lost
someone, didn't you? Or more than one person..." fuck.

Okay, I could either deny it or tell him. What was the worst that could happen if I told him? I
would be leaving for Dallas in a few days and I wouldn't see anyone from the BAU ever
again...

"My mother was murdered when I was twelve, the killer's never been caught." If I gave just
the barest details then I wasn't revealing more than what a Google search would come up
with. "She was killed in our house, my brother and I were late home from school, and Dad
was at work so she'd been by herself. No one was there with her... it's the reason I wanted to
join the FBI. I still want to catch her killer. SWAT wasn't my first choice, but it got me into
the Bureau so it's what I went with."

"You lost someone else, too." God fucking damn it.

"Yeah, during the explosion that paralysed me. I lost most of my team, but I was real close
with someone and he..." I trailed off as I saw movement out the corner of my eye. When I
looked towards it I found Spencer in the doorway, staring directly at me.

"I need to speak with Morgan." He spoke a little too stiffly, but I nodded and stood up from
my seat anyway.

"No problem, I'll go and get a coffee." Why did it feel like I couldn't breathe? I turned
towards Morgan. "Would you like something?" His eyes had glazed over with the anger from
before. Maybe I didn't have all of the details to understand why he was so angry with his
entire team...

"No," he responded curtly.

"I'll be right back then," I said as I slipped past Spencer, and accidentally brushed his
shoulder. Fuck, I needed to move faster.

I got out of the situation before he had a chance to say anything else, and walked the halls
until I found the conference room the rest of the team was set up in.

"Hotch, can I talk to you for a second?" I asked, and he looked at the others before he nodded
and followed me into the hallway. "Why is Morgan so pissed at the team?" I asked quietly.

"I took him off the case." He what? Well, it seemed Morgan's anger was understandable then.

"Why would you do that? His wife and child—"

"Because when I was in a similar situation with a serial killer who was targeting my family, I
was kept on the case and it resulted in my son losing his mother." Oh shit. This was why I
needed to learn to keep my mouth shut.

"I'm sorry," I said quietly and he shook his head.

"It's okay. We just... we need you to help us. Morgan can hide his emotions well, and we as a
team can sometimes be clouded by our closeness to one another. We trust each other, and
because of that we might misread him." Oh God. No, I couldn't do this. I couldn't be a plant
trying to figure out what Morgan's true motives were. I'd already tried doing that back in Iraq
and failed spectacularly, so I didn't need this. "All I need you to do is read him without the
bias we have. Keep talking to him, and if you think he knows something that could help us or
you suspect that he'll do something dangerous, you immediately tell me."

"Just to clarify..." I trailed off and thought over what he was asking me to do. I wasn't sure if I
could do it, because if I were in Morgan's position I would do what he'd done and more. I
would manipulate the people around me to get all the information I could and then do what I
had to in order to keep my person safe. "You're not ordering me right now because I'm not a
part of your team anymore. If I don't do as you say, then it can't have any blowback... right?"

"No, it won't but..." Hotch took a deep breath. "If you don't communicate, and one of them
dies, that will be on you." Fucking fine.

"I know, I was just clarifying. You asked me to do this as a favour, and I said I would, so..." I
ran a hand over my face and let out a sigh. "I'll watch him, and the second something
happens, I'll let you know. Just don't expect me to be happy about it."
I stared at my phone screen and took a deep breath.

Ask Morgan if RED means something. He won't tell us.

Savannah was out of surgery and in a room, where I was standing inside of the door. Morgan
had started to cry as he sat in the chair next to her bed. I'd built his trust, just as I'd had to do
with my team back in Iraq, and now I had to use it against him... just as I'd done back then.
Fuck, I hated this.

"Morgan..." I trailed off, and he looked up at ne as I walked over to them. "RED..."

His eyes immediately hardened as if he now recognised me as someone standing in his way.
What did I have to do here to keep his trust? What would I...

"I'm here as a favour, not to do anything with the investigation. I won't tell them, not unless
you want me to," I said, and the words felt like acid on my tongue. "But I need you to be
honest, does it mean something to you?" The anger in his eyes eased away as he stood up
from his position next to Savannah and walked over to me.

"I'll need a head start." He began negotiations, so I nodded.

"How long?" I asked. His breath shook as he ran his hand over his head again.

"Thirty minutes." Oh hell no. While I had been kept out of the loop of what the fuck was
going on, I knew that much time was too much to let him come back alive.

"Five." I argued back.

"Twenty." God damn it, no.

"No," I responded. "As someone who's seen the shit that can happen in twenty minutes, that's
too long. I'll give you ten, absolute max. Either that or I go with you."

"No, I need you to stay with Savannah in case..." fair point. He looked back over his shoulder
to his wife for a moment, and then turned back to me. "Fine, ten minutes."

"Deal. Now tell me." I crossed my arms and waited.

"I renovate houses, fix them up and then rent them out. One of them..." he trailed off. "It has
a red door, so I think he's there."

"Okay. You're going to text me the address, and I'm going to give you ten minutes to get this
fucker. After that, I'm telling the team, so we can make sure you don't die, okay?" He nodded,
and immediately walked out of the room. I checked the time and thought over what I should
do...

I could either do as I'd promised to Morgan and wait the ten minutes or do what I'd promised
to Hotch and tell them straight away. With Savannah on the bed it was hard to make the
decision, because if it was me I would need the chance to catch whoever was going after my
family myself.
Maybe I could do something in between. Five minutes was what I was truly comfortable with
letting him have...

Okay. I'd break both promises, and tell the team in five minutes time.

Morgan better not fucking die.

 all attached and whatnot

°•°•°

Five minutes. It took longer than it should have to get to the end of the five fucking minutes,
and it felt even longer when Savannah woke up and had to be taken for an emergency C-
section. Everyone was looking for Morgan, but so far no one had asked me. It was for the
best, because I might have thrown up if they had.

I'd agreed to let him go, and now... now he might die and miss the birth of his child who
would then be fatherless.

"Thompson..." Hotch acknowledged me as I walked into the conference room.

"I know where he's gone," I said as I threw my unlocked phone onto the table. The address
was up on the screen, and I felt the weight of the entire team staring at me. "He asked me to
wait ten minutes in exchange for it, but I can't." Garcia picked up my phone and shot the
address to everyone else. "I'll stay here, and watch Savannah." I moved to walk out of the
room.

"Thompson," I looked back over my shoulder at Hotch as he spoke. Behind him was Spencer,
and the look on his face only made the nausea worse. "We'll need to talk about this when I get
back." I nodded and walked away before I made any part of the situation worse.

I'd made another mess, but this time it wasn't just my life it had impacted. As I walked back
to Savannah I did my best to school my breathing, but I couldn't get it to slow.

"Shit..." I whispered, as I stopped to lean against the wall. Being a part of the BAU, even
temporarily, was not easy. Four years I'd spent with HRT, and I managed to keep my distance.
I wasn't close with even one member of my previous team—getting close was what I wanted
to avoid at all costs.

But five and a half months with the BAU and now...

Now I was worried about each of them, even the one I hadn't worked with. I simply cared
about Morgan, Savannah and their baby through osmosis. This wasn't what I did. I promised
myself that I wouldn't do this again, because the last time I cared...

Not that I should have cared, that was against my orders. If I hadn't of been medically
discharged it would have been an honourable discharge. I'd fucked up by covering for my
team and getting myself taken, not that I could ever tell anyone why. Fucking CIA classified
bullshit.

And in my bid to distance myself from that CIA classified bullshit I'd apparently forgotten
what the fuck common sense was. Allowing Morgan to leave like he did was the single most
reckless thing I'd done so far in my life... well, it would be first if he died. It would be second
if he lived. This was battling against me giving Spencer that fucking blowjob in the bathroom
a few days ago. Both were fucking idiotic, but only one could result in a death.

God damn it.

This was going to end badly for me, I could just fucking tell.

"Thompson." Damn it. I'd hoped that in the aftermath of Morgan getting back safely, the baby
being born and announced and everyone getting to meet him, that I would be able to slip out
unnoticed.

I'd stayed for a little while, only because I needed to make sure everyone was safe. And I also
needed to be sure that the baby was alright, which he thankfully was. This was the end of my
final sweep of the hospital before I wanted to leave, because I couldn't risk anyone seeing me
like this... all attached and whatnot.

"Hotch," I replied as I turned to face him. I should have known better than to think I could get
away without him speaking to me, but what is life without hope?

"What you did was reckless and endangered Morgan's life," he said simply as he directed me
into an empty waiting room. "But it's also the reason we got to him so quickly and could get
him back in time for the birth of his son. Why did you wait to tell us?" He closed the door
behind us, which meant this conversation wouldn't be quick. Great.

"Because he asked me to." God I didn't want to do this. I had to get back home, get some
sleep and finish packing.

"He asked you to wait ten minutes, which he tells me is after you negotiated him down from
thirty." Why did they all have to be so fucking open with each other?

"I felt guilty..." I trailed off as I ran a hand over my face. If they were going to be open, I may
as well be too. "Your next question is going to be 'why do you feel like that?' so I'll just give
you the answer right now. You asked me to build his trust so I could steal you information,
that's what I do to suspects. The whole 'mind games' thing, I only do it to criminals, because
back in Iraq..." no. I couldn't tell him. If I told him and he spilled it then I would be so
beyond fucked...
"There was a leak in a Special Forces team based in Iraq, and you were planted in the team to
find it." How did he—

"How do you know that?" I asked, and he gave me a brief smile.

"I have contacts. Seeing completely blacked out field reports doesn't help me decide whether
to hire someone or not, so I had to get some of them... unblacked out. I don't know details,
what I said before is the extent of what I know, but I assume it's still classified because you
never found it and some members of your team are still alive." Fuck, I hated how much they
all knew about me. If he knew that then he also knew about Mum, which definitely wasn't
classified. And if he knew then the team probably did as well...

"You knew everything during my interview, didn't you?" I asked, and he nodded.

"You have a great talent for getting into people's heads, for getting them to trust you. If
anything, I assume that your team was targeted in Iraq because you were getting close to the
leak. You made them scared, so they reacted." That's what I thought too, which was why I'd
always felt so guilty about it. It was the reason I'd taken the fall for my team, because I
couldn't let the innocent ones be taken out due to my fuck up. Although I'd failed
spectacularly at that, too.

"Look, is this all you brought me in here for? If it is, then I would like to leave. I have bags
—"

"Morgan's leaving the BAU, permanently, so he can be with his family." My heart sat in my
throat as I looked up at Hotch. "He's understanding of why you did what you did, and he's
impressed that he didn't really pick up on it. Like I tried to tell you three months ago before
the conversation was cut short by a bomb trying to kill us, you've beyond proven yourself.
You also don't give yourself enough credit for what you do. You're the only agent who has
managed to hand in eighty-percent of their paperwork on time, your profiles have lead to the
highest conviction rate in the unit, and you do it all with a usually cool head. You're good at
reading scenes, tactical planning, understanding the politics behind what we do..." if I wasn't
sure he and Cait were secretly dating, I might have made the mistake of thinking he was
flirting with me.

"You deserve the promotion you've been offered, I don't want you to think I believe
otherwise. But..." he looked out the waiting room window for a brief second. "If you want to
pass up the promotion, there's still an empty desk next to Reid's. And while I can't make any
guarantees for what will happen in the future, I won't be around forever so someone will
eventually need to take over as Unit Chief from me. Dave is allergic to paperwork, and the
rest of the team... they don't quite understand the politics."

"Are you saying that if I stay with the BAU, that you'll line me up to be Unit Chief at some
point?" I asked, and he nodded once again. I... shit. This was all I'd ever wanted—fuck,
maybe more than what I'd ever wanted. All I'd hoped for was to be a part of the BAU, not
have the chance to one day run it.

"Well, I can't make any promises because it relies on other people agreeing to it when the
time comes. But if you get your paperwork in on time up to ninety-percent, then I might be
able to give you some extra responsibility. To be honest, I could use the help." Holy shit. Oh
my God. This could not be happening. "Now, I understand it's a big decision to make, so I
want you to take tonight to—"

"I want to stay." I cut him off, because I didn't need to think about my options. "If you're
offering me a permanent position on the BAU, I'll take it." He took a slow breath and nodded.

"I'll get the paperwork sorted first thing tomorrow. I've scheduled the team for a half day, so I
want to see you in the office at one." He pulled out his phone as he went to walk away.

"Thank you," I replied and he nodded in response. "Wait, I just ask one thing in return..."

"Name it." Wow, was he really that desperate to keep me on the team?

"Don't ever ask me to do that shit to a team mate again. I won't care if it's insubordination, I
won't do it." I argued and he took a sharp breath.

"What if I only ever ask you as a completely final resort?" He negotiated, and it was
something I couldn't argue with.

"Fine, but only when it means life or death." That was my final offer, and he took it.

"Okay, life or death it is."

"And another quick question, that entire speech before about how I'm good at my job and
stuff, that wasn't for me was it? That was to get on Cait's good side." I smiled as I spoke, and
watched carefully as he took in a purposeful breath. Oh he was covering something up, which
meant my assumption was right.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said with a straight face before he walked out of
the room to prevent me questioning him any further.

Once he was gone the reality of my decision hit me in the chest.

I was going to be a permanent part of the BAU.

Hotch would give me extra responsibility and put in a good word for me to be unit chief in
the future.

I'd keep my old desk right next to—fuck.

Spencer.

Oh, this was a bad idea. This was the third reckless decision within the space of a week...
maybe I should talk to my doctor about going back on Adderall.

Okay, the whole Spencer thing, on a scale of one to ten... how bad had I fucked up? One
being a minor inconvenience and ten being... I don't know, fucking Hiroshima maybe? To me
it was a six, it's not like we actually slept together. All I did was get a little carried away with
what was meant to be a quick little hand-job that turned into me giving him his first—oh
fuck. Maybe I needed to change my fuck-up score to a seven. Or an eight.

Or maybe I just needed to talk to Spencer and find out if he would be comfortable working
with me or not. If he wasn’t then... God, I don't know what I'd do. This was my career, but I
also didn't want to cause any harm. Shit. What the fuck was I—

Spencer walked past the waiting room, heading for the hospital exit. Well, I guess now is a
good a time as any. I raced out of the room to follow him, but I would need to wait until we
were outside to have this discussion. It would be best if no one else heard what had happened
between us, for the sake of the Bureau 'rules against fraternisation' thing if nothing else.

Once the doors closed behind me I ran a few steps in an attempt to catch up to him, but he
sped up too. Damn it, he probably knew it was me... but I just needed him to stop. If he could
look at me then he could see that I was sorry. I just had to get him to fucking—

"Spencer!"
 she wasn't forgettable
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

°•°•°

"Spencer!"

My entire body froze as her voice carried from behind me. Could she not see that I was trying
to run away in peace? I wasn't sure I could look at her, not after what had happened only a
few nights ago.

"Spencer, we need to talk." Apparently I'd frozen long enough for her to catch up to me.

"No, we don't." I smiled at her briefly before I tried walking again, but I couldn't, not when
she'd grabbed my fucking arm. "Koraline—"

"Whoa, you have never called me that before." She cut me off, a smile on her face. Was she
happy right now? What the hell? "And we do need to talk."

"No, we don't."

"We do."

I shook my arm from her grasp and clenched my hands together. Of all the shit I'd gone
through, this was... top ten? Top nine?

I started to walk away again. "No, we—"

"Morgan's leaving the BAU..." she cut me off, so I turned to look back at her. Okay, that look
on her face... it made this entire situation top seven.

"What?"

"Hotch asked me to fill Morgan's position permanently, and I agreed." Shit. Top five. This
was definitely top fucking five.

"But your promotion..." I whispered and she shook her head.

"I'll be calling to turn it down first thing tomorrow, while Hotch gets my paperwork sorted
out." She smiled again, but I couldn't reciprocate the expression.
"Kory—"

"Back to calling me Kory, huh?" Her smile faltered as I rubbed my forehead. "Look, I..." she
rubbed her forearm as she let out a slow breath. Where was she even going with this? "Look,
I don't know how to do this. All I know is that, we can't—"

"Can't what? Be in a relationship?" I asked, and she tilted her head to the side. "You're the
one who crossed the line that you fucking made. You're the one who..." I pinched the bridge
of my nose in hopes to relieve some of the pressure in my skull, but it didn't work. The only
reason I'd managed to stop thinking about what had happened between us was because
Savannah was shot... what did that say about me?

"I know, I—"

"You used me," I said as I moved to walk away. This conversation... I couldn't do it right
now. It had been a big fucking night and I just couldn't.

"Used you?" She asked, which made me freeze again. The way her voice had immediately
turned to confusion and hinted at anger... "I used you? I'm the one who went down on you,
not the other way around."

I turned to face her, and made sure none of the team were outside with us before I continued.
"And I've been trying to figure out why you did that, and the only thing that makes sense is
you getting leverage or something over me." She was far too pretty to choose me, and that
meant she had a reason behind it. Pretty girls didn't choose me.

"Spencer..." the softness of her voice made my anger lapse for a moment. It was a moment
longer than I should have let happen, but I couldn't take it back. "What leverage?" She asked.

"I don't know, but it has to be something. Why else would you... do that for me and not let
me..." it wasn't something I could get myself to say out loud. How could I say that I wanted
to taste every part of her? That I wanted to learn how she liked to be touched? That I needed
to hear what she sounded like when she—

"You know it wasn't a transaction, right? You're aware that you don't owe me anything?" She
asked, and I shook my head. "I didn't expect anything back from you, and I didn't do it so I
could hold something over you. What benefit would that have given me anyway? I was
leaving for Dallas, I thought I'd never see you again..."

"I..." if it wasn't leverage she was after then what the hell was it? "This doesn't make sense.
One minute we're supposed to be friends, the next you're giving me a blowjob in a bathroom,
and then you're gone and then you're back and now—"

"I know, and I'm sorry." She stepped towards me, just close enough for me to see the few
strands of gold in her green eyes. "I just need to know if you can survive working with me or
not, because if you can't then..."

"What will you do if I say that I can't?" I asked, and her shoulders visibly slumped.
"I..." she broke eye contact with me and looked to her tattooed hands. "Look, this clearly isn't
going to work so I'll just go and tell Hotch that something came up and I can't take the
position." She took a step away from me as she shoved her hands into the pockets of her
black jeans. "I just... you need to know that I never intended to make you feel used. All I
wanted to do was make sure you wouldn't forget me, because I won't ever be able to forget
you. I figured the best way to do that was to..." did she honestly think I'd be capable of
forgetting her? Forgoing my eidetic memory, she wasn't forgettable; not in the slightest.

"If I thought you didn't want me to do any of what I did, I never would have done it. After
everything I've been through the thought of making you feel that way makes me want to
fucking throw up." Shit. What she'd told us months ago—of what had happened to her in Iraq
—it couldn't be the full story. She retreated another step. "I'm sorry, I should've known this
was a bad fucking idea so... good night, Dr Reid." She turned and walked towards the
hospital again.

"Wait." I surprised myself as the word slipped from my mouth. Kory froze, but didn't turn
around.

"If you're going to yell at me, could you make it fast? I have shit I need to pack." Why was
her voice so quiet and strained? She sounded so unsure of herself, and that didn't fit her right.
Kory was meant to be confident, and strong, not... not whatever this was.

"I'm not going to yell at you," I said, but it wasn't enough to get her to turn around. At first I
assumed it was because she was still prepared for me to attack her, but then I saw her raise a
hand to her face. She was wiping tears from her eyes. "I can work with you, it's just... we
need clear lines that we can't cross again."

"You're sure?" She asked as she whipped herself around. It was a move made out of pure
excitement, one that cancelled out her need to hide her tears. God, her bloodshot eyes made
the green of her irises even brighter, even under the light of only the moon and stars. "We
don't need to be friends again, I would totally understand if you didn't want to be. We don't
even need to carpool together. I just needed to make sure we could be civil and—"

"Civil?" I asked, and she flinched. Fuck, I didn't mean to make her flinch. Damn it I'd said
that single word with far too much accidental venom. "We can't just be civil, Kory, or they're
going to know that something's wrong and then we'll both be interrogated and I don't want
them to know what happened. If they know then they're going to make a big deal out of it,
and they won't leave us alone because everyone cares way too much about my love life. If we
start turning up separately then they're..." I could almost hear them now, asking me what
happened between me and Kory that could make us act so distant.

"What are you saying?" She asked. I looked to the stars for some form of guidance, but didn't
receive any—as expected.

"You're going to want to draw the line at friends, right?" I asked, with my heart in my throat.
She hesitated, and that split second was enough to send my hopes into overdrive.

"Yes." The word left her mouth quickly, almost too quickly. I didn't read too far into it,
because there wasn't any point. I'd heard the last thing she'd said to Morgan, that she'd lost
someone she was close to over in Iraq. That had to be her 'bad experience' of dating a co-
worker, but if that was the case then saying it was a 'bad experience' was more than an
understatement.

While I could be angry at the situation, I don't think I could blame her for it. As much as I
wanted to, I couldn't. If I had gone through the same thing, I would probably draw the same
line... just like how I couldn't do another long distance relationship.

"If we don't want them to know, we're going to have to act normal. Be friends again." I pit my
hands in my pockets as she nodded.

"Can you do that? Or will that be too much for you?" Why was she so concerned about me?

"Well, it still feels uneven between us, but..." I sighed as my stomach twisted in knots. It felt
more than uneven between us, but if I admitted that then I had to admit that kissing her had
felt like coming home. That would only complicate things further. "Yeah, I can do it. Can
you?"

She smiled. "Yeah, I can do that."

"They're still going to try and push us together, you know that, right?" I questioned and she
let out a quiet laugh.

"I know, and maybe one day down the line things could change." Why did my heart skip a
beat at those words? "But we're not tied to each other, we can explore other options and... if I
ever feel comfortable enough to move past my rule, I'll let you know but if you don't want us
at that point then I'll get over it. It'll be my fault anyway." Her voice was quiet again, and it
took far too much of my focus to make sure I didn't say anything that would make me sound
desperate.

The only things that would have come out of my mouth were words like 'I'll be waiting' or
'I'll always want you'. I could never say any of that, because we'd only known each other for
six months. It would be too much too fast, and she doesn't seem like the clingy type.

"Anyway," she rubbed the front of her black jumper and looked up at me. "Shall I pick you
up for work tomorrow? Hotch said we'll have a half day, so..."

I took a deep breath and ran my hand over my face. The car rides were going to be awkward,
at least for a while. God, maybe this was all a bad idea.

"Yeah, that sounds good."

She nodded and took her keys out of her pocket.

"Did you drive here or take the train?" She asked.

"I, uh... I actually got a cab because it was faster to drive but I couldn't focus and so I didn't
trust myself to be behind the steering wheel." I answered. Kory spun her keys around her
finger and took a second before she replied.
 "Would you like a ride? Or is it too soon for you?" She asked, and I thought over my options.
Maybe it would be a good idea to get the first awkward ride out of the way. We were both
tired from the stress of the last few hours and the silence could be blamed on exhaustion
rather than our history.

"How much will it cost me?" I asked, and the smile on her face eased most of the pain in my
head and chest. This couldn’t be a bad idea, not when she smiled like that.

"This one's on the house, Agent Doctor," she replied.

"How could I say no to that?"

°•°•°

"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned so as to have the life that is waiting
for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come." - Joseph Campbell

END PART I: TEMPORARY

Chapter End Notes

Hello lovelies,

Since we have finally reached the end of Part 1 I just wanted to give ya'll a quick lil
update on what's going on (since I now have this thing fully planned and now know
what's going on to be able to tell you).

So, Proxy is going to be split into five parts. Part 1 has just concluded and so the next
update will be the first chapter of Part 2. In Part 2 we're getting some more backstory for
Kory, a little extra trauma for Spencer (Prison Reid era inbound) and of course more
tension and pining and all that good stuff (I'm mostly excited for Kory to tear Cat to
shreds because good God she won't be holding back). The prison Reid storyline will also
go a little differently because Kory would never let Spence be in prison for three months
and also other reasons, but I don't want to give any spoilers so just get keen for it.

As for expected word count... I originally thought 200k was going to be it but... as I
keep writing she just keeps getting longer. At this point I'm expecting more than 300k.

I'll let you take that in for a second.

I want to let you know it will be worth it. The entire final part is just them being happily
together while working (during seasons 14/15 so we'll get to see Kory shred Cat again)
so... the reward will come.

As for the schedule, I'm planning to get to three chapters a week in the new year. My
main concern is having enough chapters ready to go for you even if I'm unable to write
on this for a while (I'm getting close to my goal number of prepped chapters, but just
need a little more time). I'm drafting the sequel to one of my self-published books at the
moment, so my writing schedule is a bit of a mess lol. But trust me when I say that ya'll
have plenty of content waiting for you, so don't be worried about whether I'm going to
drop off the face of the planet or not.

Anyways, that's all from me for now.

Thanks for sticking with me this far,

Beck

P.S. I might have a drawing of Kory and Spence to kick off Part 2. It's not great because
I'm not the best artist but it's something so there's that.

P.P.S. here's a little link to get you to the Pinterest board I have for this as a lil treat:
[Link]

P.P.P.S I was going to wait until the end of Part 2 to give you guys the playlist but what
the hell, here's the link to the Spotify playlist too:
[Link]
(if that link doesn't work just find me on Spotify under [Link] and have a look
through my playlists - it's called 'kory'). Please excuse the amount of Sleep Token on
this playlist because I am a Sleep Token girly and they have taken over my life.
 context of 'spice', please

PART 2: INDICTABLE

"Starting over is an acceptance of a past we can't change, an unrelenting conviction that the
future can be different, and the stubborn wisdom to use the past to make the future what the
past was not." - Craig D. Lounsbrough

°•°•°

°•°•°

"What are you reading?" I asked as I jumped into Kory's car. We'd been back for a week, and
the awkwardness was only just starting to fade.

"A book I forgot I had to read," she answered as she turned off the Kindle and put it into her
satchel.

"What book might that be?" This had to be the first conversation we'd had that didn't regard
work since she joined the BAU permanently.

"It's for book club, and our get together is this weekend and I am not even halfway through
the damned book yet." She rubbed her eyes as she put her bag in the footwell next to my feet.

"Did you not sleep well?" I asked next, and she shook her head.

"I woke up at one this morning and remembered about the book and then I proceeded to stay
up until four in the morning reading and..." she sighed before she started to drive. "Whoever
said that reading is supposed to be a relaxing past time, clearly hasn't read a damned book in
their life." I handed her the coffee I'd bought for her already, and she took it in hand so she
could start drinking it immediately. She apparently didn't mind the fact that it was still
scalding hot.

"You did that for a book club? Why?" I asked, and she smiled as she put her coffee in the
cupholder.

"It's me and the other girls on the team. Garcia got us all together and convinced us to do it
when I was just a fill in. That way we had an excuse to get together once a month and get
drunk on wine." She laughed quietly. "Last meeting, JJ had entire bottle to herself. It was...
fun."
"What kind of books do you—"

"Oh, you do not want to open that can of worms, Agent Doctor." At least she never stopped
calling me that... or the other list of names she had a tendency to cycle through.

"What kind of books?" I pressed, and she shook her head.

"I'll tell you that they're not intellectual, but they are educational." How could something be
educational but not intellectual? That didn't make sense. Maybe it was my furrowed brow
that told her I was confused, or maybe it was the kind of silence I emitted. She could always
read them perfectly, so it could be either or. "We choose an independently published romance
book to read each month."

"Specifically independently published?" Why did that make a difference? I mean, I

understood that it helped with their sales, but why specifically only choose independent
authors?

"Two reasons. We want to support indie authors and the spice tends to be better." Spice?
What did spices have to do with anything?

"Context of spice, please." I watched as her smile became a little larger.

"Sex scenes, String Bean." Damn it, this conversation was going too many directions at once
because I could not leave either of those things behind.

"You guys choose books that specifically have sex scenes?" I questioned. "And could you not
call me that, please?"

"Yes we do, because they're fun to read and learn from." Learn from? Why had that thought
never occurred to me? "And it's fine if you don't want me to call you that, but what would
you like me to call you instead?"

"Learn?" I questioned, and she tilted her head to the side. "And I would rather you call me
literally anything else. That name is from a serial killer, in case you forgot."

"Well, they provide a safe space to explore what you might like. If you don't like reading it
then you don't do it in real life, but if you do enjoy reading it then you can try it with
someone. Opens up a world of possibilities." Oh, that is a good point. There wasn't any risk
of trying something with someone and them not listening to your concerns, you were just
reading. If you didn't like it, then you closed the book... or shut off your Kindle like Kory.
"And alright, Pretty Boy. I won't call you String Bean anymore, I promise."

"How long have you been reading this spice for?" I questioned. "And thank you, I appreciate
that."

"I've been reading it for years now. It was a struggle to get back into reading, but I guess it
was a positive of being temporarily paralysed. I read a lot because there wasn't much else I
could muster the energy to do... between the exercises and my studies and my depression,
reading was just easy to do and entertaining. I used to read all the time in high school,
although I mostly read fan-fiction back then." She looked at me for a moment as she realised
she was handing me information about herself. Something in her told her to keep going, and I
wouldn't argue against it. "I actually still read quite a lot of it. A whole bunch of the books on
my shelves, I made them by hand because I wanted physical copies of my favourite fan-fics."

"You hand-bind books?" Didn't that take hours of work to do? And how had I not been able
to tell which ones on her shelves were hand-made and which ones were bought?

"Well, I hand-bind fan-fiction, and only the ones I really like because that shit takes a long
time to do and I will stop a project halfway if I lose interest." She ran a hand through her hair
as we came to a stop at a red light.

"They're still books, the content doesn't matter." I replied, and she looked over to me with a
strange smile on her face. "I'm just confused over which ones on your shelves are the ones
you made. I didn't even pick up on it when I saw them."

"Well, maybe next time you come over I can show you one." Her voice was quiet, too quiet.
Almost like she thought I wouldn't want to go into her home again. I guess we hadn't
discussed any of that yet, how close of friends we would be. "If you ever want to come over
again, that is."

"Well..." I took a deep breath as I thought over my options. Only one of them kept Kory
around in my life in a greater capacity than just a co-worker, which meant there was only one
that I could really choose. "How else am I meant to see Kody again?"

She shook her head and laughed. "It's good to know where I stand on the scale of things."

"Everyone, conference room," Hotch said as he walked out of his office, a file in hand and a
look on his face that told us we had a case. While the others immediately stood up and began
walking, I had to tap Kory's shoulder since she was wearing her headphones.

"Hmm?" She hummed, and I pointed to the round table room. "Right." We both grabbed our
things and walked up side by side. As we did so I looked back at the mini chessboard I'd had
on my desk for the last week.

Someone had been moving the black pieces whenever I left my desk, which meant I was
playing an anonymous opponent. I had every suspicion that it was Kory, even though she'd
never mentioned playing chess before. The only reason I thought that was because the person
was an aggressive player, while still being calculated. Judging from everything I knew about
her, it seemed to suit her personality.

But she'd denied it every time I'd asked, and whenever I questioned if she'd seen who it was
she told me she didn't realise I'd even left my desk. It seemed like lies to me, but without
evidence it was hard to prove.
"We have a case," Hotch stated the obvious as we all took our seats.

"I don't like that look on your face..." Kory trailed off, and Hotch shook his head.

"Appalachian Trail," he replied. That was enough to know that this wasn't going to be simple.
"A group of hikers found the remains of four victims when their dog ran off. The bodies are
too decomposed to have a cause of death yet, and the closest town to the burial site don't have
the resources to handle this alone."

"How small is the town?" Rossi questioned.

"Less than 1000, including an estimate of those who live in the mountains." Garcia answered.
Okay, that was not much to work with.

"Because of how remote it is, Garcia will be coming with us so she can set up a link to
civilisation. Cait will be running point from back here if we need her." So, Hotch called Cait
by her nickname again... I caught Kory's smirk as she picked up her file. Maybe this case
would be the one the bet would finally come to an end on. "Kory and Dave, I want you two at
the burial site when we arrive. Reid and JJ to the morgue, the coroner will probably need help
determining cause of death so be patient with him, he's never dealt with murders before. Tara,
Garcia and I will head to the station and get set up there. Any questions?"

No one said a word.

"Wheels up in twenty."

°•°•°

As promised from the previous chapter, an exquisitely average drawing of Kory and Spence.
You're welcome.
 someone, please shoot me

°•°•°

"Alright, you know the drill by now," David said as we reached the burial site. I did a slow
spin to take in the area and looked down at the shallow grave the four bodies had been found
in.

"It would not have been easy to drag the bodies here," I pointed out. We were on an incline,
the trail was above us by about seventy yards and between us and the path there were rocks
and trees and shrubs. "There's no clear point from the trail to here, and it was a long walk to
get to this point of the trail in the first place."

"Thirty minutes, which might have been faster for you if you weren't stuck with an old man
like me," David agreed.

"Much faster, I like to go hiking once a week when possible." I did another spin.

"Gathered that from the getup." I looked down at what I was wearing, my leggings, shirt,
jacket and hiking boots. Mostly black, of course, all except for the jacket which was a deep
green to match the foliage around us.

"Yeah, well, all the get up in the world wouldn't help the unsub get down here, not with all
the literal dead weight he'd be carrying." I knelt down next to the grave and looked at what
had been left behind after the bodies were removed. "Where are the crime scene techs—"

"Apparently gone to lunch. I asked while you were surveying the land from the trail." Well,
that was super handy. I lifted my tablet and looked at the pictures that had been sent through.
Without any reception I couldn't get the information from the coroner over possible
identification, but I could make do. Judging from the hip bones and skulls...

"Four bodies, two women and two men," I said as I stood up again, zooming in on the
skeletal remains and taking in what little tissue there was left on the bones. "All at the same
stage of decomposition, which means they've all been here for roughly the same amount of
time."

"God, you're like the kid, aren't you?" I looked over my shoulder at David, who stared at me
with an expectant look on his face.

"No—well, maybe a little. I just hid it very well over the last six months." I smiled as I
zoomed out on the photo once more to look at the crime scene before it had been touched. It
was pretty much exactly the same, so I furrowed my brow as I looked up at the trees around
us. Something wasn't right.

"So you're another genius?"

"Oh... no. Well, technically yes but 132 doesn't really come close to 187." After a few
seconds of silence I looked at David once more, who's jaw had gone slack. "I wouldn't call
myself a genius, but apparently I'm in the gifted percentile." He still didn't say anything.
"What is it?"

"Just can't believe that you and Reid haven't gone on a date yet." Oh for the love of God.

"And we won't." Probably, anyway. "How many times will I have to say 'I don't date co-
workers' before it gets through everyone's skulls?"

"Defensive, more than normal..." David pointed to me as I looked over to him out the corner
of my eye. "Tense shoulders and jaw—"

"You better not be profiling me right now, Rossi." Deflection was not going to help me right
now, but it was worth a shot.

"Rossi instead of Dave, might be normal for everyone else but not you. You've always called
me Dave because—when I introduced myself to you—I said that's my preference." Oh fuck.
Maybe if I walked another hundred yards I could throw myself off a cliff before he asked
anymore fucking questions. "All of this is pointing towards the fact that you might have
already gone on a date with our resident Boy Genius." If only that was all that had fucking
happened.

"You couldn't be more wrong, Dave." And there wasn't enough time for me not to say
anything else, because if he had the opportunity he would keep pressing me for information.
"And if you actually focused on our cases instead of what's going on between me and
Spencer, we might actually solve our cases faster."

"Harsh," he replied but nodded his head anyway. "Tell me what else you see."

"The surrounding trees and shrubs, they're all pruned. I thought it might have happened after
this place was found to make it easier to investigate the site, but the pictures look the same.
See, this here..." I lifted the tablet and lined it up with the south corner of the grave. "This
area has been kept tidy by someone, but this area isn't even close to the trail, which means it
wasn't a park ranger. This was the unsub."

"He's coming back to visit the burial site." David put his hands on his hips and looked
around. "But why is it placed here? It's not easy to get to, and if he's coming back then it
should be easy for him to access."

"A twenty minute walk in the grand scheme of things isn't too long to visit a hidden grave
site. But it is quite far to drag a body, especially when you can come across hikers at any
point in time. And to drag four consecutively..." I flicked through more of the pictures and
tried to figure out what else was sitting wrong with me about this site. If I could just put my
finger on it...

"So how would you counteract that?"

I tapped the back of my tablet and let out a slow breath. "I wouldn't drag corpses through this
terrain, I'd kill the victims here," I answered, and David nodded.

"So he forces his victims to the grave by foot, kills them here and covers the bodies. Why? Of
all the places to do this, why here? Of all the methods to kill somebody, why that?" He asked,
I looked back at the pictures.

"This is a shallow mass grave. You do this to hide bodies that you can't burn. Setting a fire
here could cause the entire forest to go up in flames, and burning the evidence would also
mean they couldn't revisit the site or the bodies." I ran a hand over my face as I finally
realised what sat wrong about this place. "But this is still an inconvenient space to take your
victims, if I were forcing someone through the forest to kill them I would have done it up
there where the ground is flatter and there's less obstacles." I pointed to the clearing we'd
walked past, which was also well-kept. "The only reason I wouldn't use a more convenient
space is if I've already used it."

"So, we might have more victims..." David said as he looked up towards the path too.

I took a deep breath as I looked through the trees and saw another small clearing a little
further down. God, there were definitely more fucking victims.

"We need cadaver dogs, and we need them now."

"Please tell me you know what cause of death is..." I trailed off as I spoke into the satellite
phone.

"A single gunshot wound to the back of the head, it's the only sign of trauma on each of the
four victims." Spencer answered for me, and I let out a sigh. That didn't help clear up
anything at all. "How many sites have you found?"

I knelt down next to the fourth burial site with a glove on my left hand and gently moved the
skull to the side. Gunshot wound. Fuck.

"We're up to six. I'm about to look at the next two once CSI are done with photos," I replied.
"These victims are also killed by a gunshot to the back of the head. The skull shows it
without a doubt."

"Victimology?" He questioned. CSI had uncovered four bodies in each of the graves so far,
and the other two had been the same as the first. Two men, two women. After a quick check
of each of the remains I came to the same conclusion again.
"Two men, two women." I stood up and moved towards the next burial site.

"It has to mean something, but what?" Spencer asked, as if I had any clue.

"Hey, I'm currently just reading the crime scenes. You were supposed to look at the victims,
but I'm doing that job for you as well. Why don't you try and pick up some of the slack here?"
I joked, but he didn't laugh.

"I'm actually on my way to the burial site now. I spoke to Hotch and said I wanted to see the
bodies before they were disturbed." Okay...

"You don't trust me?" I asked, looking to David who was following my every step through
the shrubs.

"I do, I just... something doesn't feel right about all of this." I agreed with that feeling.

"Ditto," I whispered as we came across the next site. "I also assume you want to be here
because the coroner is useless."

"He's elected, so yes. I need to see what I can find out before he gets his hands on the
remains and destroys even more evidence." What?

"What evidence?" I froze, and David stopped beside me.

"He cleaned the remains without taking any fucking samples. How can we determine how
long they've been in the ground for without any of the—"

"Take a breath, Spence." I ignored the look that David gave me out the corner of his eye.
"How far out are you?"

"Another thirty minutes." Okay, that's fine.

"Alright, I'll talk to the people we have here and make sure they don't touch anything aside
from getting samples. I'll meet you where the cars are and walk you down, sound good?" I
asked.

"Uh, yeah."

"Anyone else with you?"

"Just me. They figured that three of us at the scene was more than enough." Valid point.
There were other things that needed to be done.

"Uh..." I pulled the phone away from my ear and covered the microphone. "Dave, did you
want to head back? Spencer and I can take care of the scenes for now."

"Are you offering me a ticket back to civilisation?" He checked, and I nodded. "Count me
in."
I put the phone back to my ear. "Alright, Dave and I will meet you and he'll head back to
town to help there. We'll see you soon." I hung up and turned to David. God, I did not like the
look on his face. "What?"

"Spence?"

"Drop it, please." My patience was running more than thin, but at least it only had to last an
extra thirty minutes.

"No, I don't think I will."

Someone, please shoot me.

 far too excited

°•°•°

Why did Kory look like she was ready to throw Rossi off the mountainside? The look was
enough to leave the fact she was wearing some colour untouched for now.

"Everything okay?" I asked, my eyes clearly on her, but she wasn't the one who answered.

"Everything's great," Rossi replied. "Now I get to go back to the warm inside while you two
stay in the cold outside. We'll keep you posted if we find anything."

"Likewise," I responded as he took the keys from my hand. He immediately jumped into the
SUV before driving away. "Seriously, is everything okay?" I turned towards Kory again,
who's shoulders had relaxed slightly.

"Yeah, everything’s fine." That seemed... believable.

"Okay. Did you find anything out about these other graves?" I asked, and she immediately
perked up.

"Same victimology for all of them, same MO as far as we can tell. It has to be the same
unsub, but there's just nothing else yet." She started walking, and that was when I noticed she
was wearing leggings... and that it was difficult to look at anything other than her ass in them.

"You said the sites are maintained..." I tried to keep her talking, because if she was talking
then I could focus on her voice and force myself to look at her face as I followed behind her.

"Each one has the shrubs and trees pruned back for better viewing of the entirety of the grave.
We're trying to get someone who might be able to tell when they were last pruned, but I think
our best bet is getting time of death for the last victims... if we ever reach an end." Well, that
was enough to get me to stop watching her ass.

"Anything else?" I questioned. She sighed.

"I'm no expert, but from what we can tell each grave has four people killed at the same time.
The ones closest to the trail are the oldest, the further down we go the newer they are. The
one the dog found was the second from the top." Kory lead me along the trail, and I regretted
not packing some form of better shoes for the situation at hand.
Kory seemed to be completely prepared. I don't know how she managed to fit all the clothes
she did into her go bag, but it seemed like she had an entire wardrobe in it. It was probably
from her time in the Army, now I think on it. I wonder if I opened her bag, how everything
would be set out. Shoes on one end, just one or two pairs stacked neatly and efficiently.
Rolled clothes in the middle, a small bag of toiletries in the other end. Or maybe it was
something completely different.

"My best guess is that they're six to twelve months apart, but this isn't my area of expertise."

"No?" I asked with a smile, she looked over her shoulder at me.

"No." Kory tucked her hands into her green jacket pockets. This was the first time I'd seen
her wearing any kind of colour—not including the red shirt incident that had yet to be
repeated even though I secretly wished for it to happen.

"Are you going to tell me why you looked like you wanted to kill Rossi?" I asked, and she
hissed.

"It wasn't that bad, was it?" She asked, and I shrugged my shoulders with a wince. "Damn it.
He, um... he thinks we went on a date because I got defensive when he said he was surprised
we hadn't gone on one yet."

"And you—"

"I didn't tell him anything. All I did was say that we haven't gone on a date, they don't need to
know anything else. You don't want them to know anything else." She sighed and I looked
away from her. How could I keep looking at her when she'd brought this up? "I'm just
worried the rest of the team have a betting situation going on like we do for Hotch and Cait."

"Difference is that we're not dating, and Hotch and Cait definitely are," I replied and she
smiled back at me.

"All five of you guys are wrong about how we're going to find out about it though." She
rubbed her hands together. "JJ and Tara are naïve to think that Hotch will tell us willingly.
You, Garcia and Rossi are all far too confident that he'll screw up at work. But me? I know
I'm going to be right."

"I don't think he'd let himself slip up at your house, Kory. He's quite intelligent and—"

"And he's still a man. At one point or another, he's going to want to be around Cait so badly
that he'll forget that she lives with me and I'll stumble into them in the aftermath of sex or
something. You can try and tell me I'm wrong, but I'll prove to you that I'm right, Spencer."
Spencer. Not Spence like she'd let slip on the phone to calm me down. Spencer. Maybe I
could have asked if that meant something, but I figured it was best to leave it be.

"Well, only time will tell." I argued, and she shook her head.

"The only thing it will tell you is that I'm right, as per normal."
"My God, you are not built for the outside world," Kory said as we arrived at the only
accommodation in the small town. And by arrived, I meant she had pulled into a park,
hopped out of the car without a problem and I proceeded to stumble out with aching legs.

"We were on our feet for hours, walked back and forth up and down the side of a mountain..."

"You're being a little dramatic, Agent Doctor." She pulled her bag out of the car and tucked it
over her shoulder. "I think the problem lies with your chicken legs more than what we did
today."

"Chicken legs?" I looked over my shoulder at her and saw her head tilt to the side. "I don't
have chicken legs."

"I can prove that you do." Impossible. I didn't have chicken legs, so—

She pushed my shoulder, and my Jello legs almost gave out underneath me. Almost. I
managed to save it only by grabbing onto her arm in hopes her self-preservation would
outweigh her possible enjoyment of seeing me fall over. Luckily, I was right.

Her laughter died down only once she stabilised the both of us and we were standing too
close for what we were meant to be. Even then, it still wasn't close enough for the part of me
that wanted a repeat of goodbye drinks. It definitely wasn't close enough for the part that
wanted more than goodbye drinks.

"See, you have chicken legs, Pretty Boy." She whispered, an all too large smile on her face as
she looked up at me. God, we were so close...

"I think I'd like to blame the shoes," I responded as I pulled away from her.

"They probably didn't help, but it's your legs. You should go hiking a little more often, build
up a little muscle." She said as we walked towards the door to the bed and breakfast. "Hey,
you should come with me. Kody and I go once a week, it would be good for you to go
outside."

"Uh..." Hiking? Did she not realise I wasn't really an active person? Or an outside person?
The inside world was safe and controlled. The outside world...

"Or you could just continue embarrassing yourself whenever we have cases out in the middle
of nowhere. Up to you." That was a valid point. Having my legs turn to Jello whenever we
had to walk a trail... I know it didn't happen very often, but it would be nice not to have to
worry about where I'd be assigned during the case.

"I can give it a try," I replied and she smiled at me as she pushed the door open.

"You're going to love it, I promise." She let me in first and then followed right behind me.
The bed and breakfast was a huge log cabin, with God knows how many bedrooms in it. All I
knew was that we weren't the only ones staying here, and the team had already allocated the
rooms we'd booked between them. We were the last to arrive, which I assumed would mean
we'd be handed the worst rooms out of the lot.

Hotch caught us in the communal living room just inside the entrance. "You finally made it."
Well, I didn't completely enjoy that tone of voice. He seemed far too excited...

"A bit hard to find in the dark, but we got here." Kory adjusted her grip on her bag.

"Understandable. Now, the room situation here... there were only three rooms left. Now Rossi
and I are sharing, Tara, JJ and Garcia are all sharing a room with one of them sleeping on a
couch... it leaves you two." Oh, that's why he sounded excited before. This was another
attempt and setting me up with Kory. "Will you be alright with sharing a room?" Well, it's not
like we had much of a choice, did we?

"Oh, um..." Kory turned to look at me for confirmation.

What would happen if I said no? Everyone would have to change rooms again. It would
likely be Rossi, Hotch and I in the room with the couch and I don't know if I could actually
share with them. From what I've heard through thin hotel walls before, I'm fairly certain
Rossi snores, and I did not want to be trying to sleep with that in the same room. And
knowing them I would get shoved onto the couch and that didn't sound like it would be
comfortable for me and my height...

"Yeah, we'll be alright. Won't we?" I asked, and Kory nodded. Besides, if I were to say I
wasn't comfortable with it, then they would all know that something was wrong and... Rossi
already suspected, it was best to not push it any further than that right now.

"Good, dinner will be ready in the dining room through there in twenty minutes. Here is your
key..." he handed me the bedroom key. "We'll catch up everyone about everything over food.
It's been a long day."

"Yes it has..." Kory whispered. Hotch smiled before he walked off. He smiled. Why did he
smile? "Will they ever stop trying to set us up?" She asked as we walked up the stairs to find
our room.

"No," I answered simply. She let out a sigh and shook her head.

"I had a feeling that would be the case."

 do you want it to mean something?
Chapter Notes

CONTENT WARNING FOR THIS CHAPTER

*trauma and implications of sexual assault and torture*

I know we were all excited for the one bed trope, but you should have known it wouldn't
be that easy. We're going to have the nightmare/comfort trope coming up and we have
the first part of that this chapter. So, pretty much in the second scene (so AFTER the
scene break) we're going to be stuck in one of Kory's nightmares which is a memory of
her time in Iraq—specifically straight after she's been taken hostage.

So that's going to be a little... intense. While nothing of note happens on page, there is
lead up and implications of things. Please don't read it if it makes you uncomfortable or
could be a trigger for you, it's only been included to show the moment she began to lose
her faith and so we can understand a little of her past.

°•°•°

Sharing a room. Sharing a fucking room. Cait had put Hotch up to this, I could just fucking
tell. They were sleeping together, and now she had sway over him and that was affecting me.

Too far.

This had all just gone too fucking far.

Not that I would find a way out of this if I didn't have to.

Dinner had been useless for sharing information. None of us had anything to work with—not
yet at least. Tonight we were just going to get some rest and see if we could come up with
anything to work with tomorrow. Between not knowing how to solve this case and sharing a
room with Spencer, I assumed I wouldn't get much sleep tonight. Especially since Hotch had
failed to mention that there was only a double bed in the room.

It was something I'd avoided looking at. Instead I'd opted to shower and get ready to get into
bed and start reading. I still had that damned book to finish before this weekend.
"Are you sure you want to share the bed?" Spencer asked as he came out of the bathroom,
freshly showered and in his pyjamas. I was tucked beneath the covers, my Kindle in hand as
I'd decided that reading while he couldn't peer over my shoulder was a good idea.

"What? Scared I'll give you cooties?" I asked with a smile as I turned the Kindle off and put it
down on top of the wooden bedside table. It sat next to the lamp, which was one of two lights
on in the room, the other being the other bedside lamp for Spencer's side of the bed.

"I think we've moved past that possibility..." he replied with a smile.

"Was that a joke? Are you joking around with me?" I asked, and he ran a hand over his wet
curls.

"It was an attempt to, at least." Attempt or not, it was a good thing. I don't know what I would
have done if he didn't want to be friends any more.

While I was sure he was simply doing it to keep the others off his back, I would take every
action of friendship at face value. Every smile, every joke and every kind word... I'd pretend
it was real. Just like he was awkward right now as one would be when they had to share a bed
with a friend they were attracted to—that's if he was still attracted to me. It wouldn't surprise
me if he wasn't anymore. I know if someone had done to me what I'd done to him I'd ghost
them.

Although, if it had been Spencer...

"Well, joke or not, I won't bite. Or do anything else. Two people can share a bed and have it
not mean anything," I told him. It was easy to pick up on the miniscule way his eyebrow
furrowed. God, maybe he was still attracted to me.

"Not mean anything?" He asked, too quietly.

"Well..." I rubbed my forearm. "Do you want it to mean something?"

Silence encased the room for a few moments, so I forced myself to look away from him. If he
wanted it to mean something then I... I couldn't give that to him. If he wanted this to mean
something then I should probably change rooms. I could switch with JJ or something and
neither of us would have to panic or worry about what could happen.

God, I was physically clingy. What if we woke up and I was hugging him in our sleep? Shit.

"I should swap with JJ—"

"No!" Okay. I stared at him and waited for context and reasoning. This wasn't a small
decision to make, and he had to have logic behind it, especially when paired with such a
visceral reaction. "You do that and they'll know something's wrong. We're grown adults, we
can manage sharing a bed."

"Are you sure?" I asked, and while he nodded I could see the hesitation on his face. "I get
nightmares, and I don't want to wake you up. I can swap with—"
"Really, it's okay." He sounded mostly believable then...

"Alright," I whispered. There wasn't any point arguing anymore. If he said he was okay with
it then I would trust his words. "But the second you get uncomfortable we can arrange
something else. And if you'd like we could put some pillows between us so there's no
touching."

"That... that might be a good idea." It both disappointed me and didn't that he wanted that
distance between us. I understood it, and I wanted that distance too, but some other part of
me wished he'd opted against it.

This situation was not looking good for me.

I moved the extra pillows to the middle of the bed as he walked over to the other side.

"How's the book going?" He asked as he pulled himself beneath the sheets.

God, even with the wall of duck down between us, he was still too close to think straight.
This was a bad idea, but bad ideas were what fuelled my body to keep moving forward.

"Kind of average. I've read better but definitely read worse." I laid down and stared at the
ceiling. Maybe we should have been talking about the case, but I couldn't find the energy to
do so.

While my body hadn't given out on me like Spencer's from the extraneous climbing and
walking today, I was still tired... and my back had started to ache.

Sleep was the only thing I could think about, aside from my proximity to Spencer. "If I do
end up having a nightmare, you can just kick me awake, alright? Kody would normally lay
on my legs to prevent me from thrashing around but—"

"I'm not going to kick you." I turned to look at him as he shuffled to lay down as well, after
turning his lamp off.

"You say that now, but I have a feeling that view will change after I get my first unconscious
attack in." It would not be a gentle one either, knowing me.

"It's fine," he said as he rolled onto his side to look back at me. "You can kick me as much as
you need to, but I'll just wake you up gently if you have a nightmare." Well, I'm sure that was
subject to change.

My smile faltered when a thought crossed my mind, one that I wanted to ignore with every
fibre of my being, but I couldn't. It had been eating away at me for the past week, but I hadn't
wanted to ask it before. It was too risky to question it, but now...

"How are you okay with this?" I asked.

"With sharing a room with you?" Okay. He wanted clarification. I could give that to him.
"Yes and no... just... how can you stand being around me?" I rolled to face him properly too.
"After what I did—"

"I think I understand why you did it." Impossible. He couldn't. "I overheard you talking with
Morgan at the hospital, when you told him you were close to someone in Iraq who was killed
in the IED blast." Oh. Maybe he could understand. "I don't want you to talk about it if you're
not comfortable yet, but I... I acknowledge why you drew that line."

He did? God, why did he have to be so fucking understanding? Why couldn't he just be angry
at me? It would make this so much easier.

"You..." I trailed off as I attempted to piece together what I wanted to say. "Thank you."
Maybe that was all I could say, because what else was there? The only options I had left were
to tell him everything I could or to push him away even further.

I didn't want to do either of those things.

We stayed there for a few moments, just staring at each other in the dim lamplight from my
bedside table.

"You know... you called me Spence earlier today." Of all the topic changes to choose...

"I know." I tucked my hands under my head. "Was sort of hoping you hadn't noticed."

"Well, I did." Yeah, no kidding.

"So did Rossi." I pointed out, and something clicked in his head.

"That's why you looked like you wanted to kill him, on top of him thinking we've gone on a
date." Well, he wasn't wrong, just not entirely right either.

"It was a whole bunch of little things that added up to getting on my nerves, it wasn't just
that." I smiled and took a slow breath. "Why did you bring it up?"

"I was wondering why you did it." Oh.

"I wanted to calm you down, figured I could channel some of JJ through the nickname she
calls you." That was it. No other reason.

"You don't have to channel JJ to do that." What was that supposed to mean? "Look, if you
would like to call me Spence... I wouldn't be adverse to it."

"Is that you saying that you'd like me to call you that on occasion?" I questioned, and he
nodded his head slowly. "Okay, I guess I could swap out String Bean for Spence. Should be
easy. They both begin with an s." Before he could say anything else I rolled onto my back
again. "Anyway, we should probably get some sleep before tomorrow. We have to magically
pull a profile from a whole lot of nothing."

"Alright, goodnight Kory." I ignored the way my heart skipped a beat at hearing him say such
simple and domestic words. Before he could see the way my brain was working overtime, I
flicked the light off.

But maybe I could return the favour.

"Goodnight, Spence."

I didn't have any nightmares that night, but it turned out the night after was the one I had to
worry about.

I couldn't see anything.

But I could feel everything.

The blindfold on my face, tied so tight that it hurt my eyes, prevented me from seeing anything
other than a deep muddy black. It was a simple way to keep me docile, especially since I
couldn't remove it with my hands tied behind my back. I steadied my breathing, and tried to
listen for anyone else's.

Nothing.

Did that mean I was alone? Was it safe to try and get out of these restraints? I wiggled my
wrists to feel what they had tied me with. Zip ties. Thick ones. I could hear the plastic
rubbing against each other as I moved. My ankles were also restrained, likely with zip ties
too.

What else did I notice?

What could I feel, hear and smell? Smell... it was dirty in this room, and damp. Hear... all I
could hear was my breath echoing off the walls, which meant they were likely concrete or
stone. Feel... I felt cold. A cold that touched every inch of my skin. What I didn't feel was my
uniform, or...

Oh God.

The only thing I could feel was my necklace, the one that belonged to my mother. It was a
simple silver cross, and it was supposed to show my mother was watching over me, God too.
But if God was watching over me, why had they taken me? Why had they stripped me down to
nothing?

I didn't make a noise because I couldn't calculate the repercussions of doing so. And moving
too early without knowing my surroundings...

A door opened, the hinges needed oil. Footsteps echoed into the room, but it was impossible
to tell how many. My body shook from the cold as I heard them speaking. Four voices, all
men. All speaking Arabic.
"What are we meant to do with her?"

"She's the one who was supposed to find the leak?"

"She's just a useless bitch—"

"A useless bitch who's killed over sixty of your little buddies." Okay, that was a bad idea to
say but it was too late now. Why did I never think these fucking things through? I heard one
of the men walk over to me, and even though I was completely vulnerable, I didn't feel afraid.
How could I? If they hurt me it was a reflection of them, not me. "If you thought I was a
useless bitch, you wouldn't have me bound and blindfolded." Or naked.

This was something that I had always prepared for—the possibility of capture. I always knew
what they would do if I was in their grasp and here I was. God, I was an idiot.

"Do they not teach you respect over in America?"

"No, they don't." I heard him move closer, but it was impossible to figure out where he was
and where his other friends were. They were still in the room, I could sense that much. "What
they did teach me was that I'm my own person, and they taught me how strong I am. You
can't break me. It's probably better for you to just kill me now and save yourself the time and
trouble."

"Unbreakable? No one is unbreakable. At some point, you will shatter and spill everything
you know to us. Only after that will we offer you the mercy of death."

I heard material moving, brushing against other material. What was going on?

"It will just take some carefully placed cuts, some whipping, some blows to your feet. You'll
break." He was close enough that I felt his breath on my skin, felt the warmth of another body
in proximity with mine. "But we can start easy, with something that won't leave a mark. We'll
build up to the rest of it."

His hands grabbed my arms and rolled me onto my stomach. His fingers pulled on my hair,
hard enough to make my eyes water, and I felt the zip ties at my ankles fall away. He'd cut
them. There was only one reason he would cut them.

Fuck, I really should have known to keep my mouth shut, even if I was sure he would have
done this anyway.

"Maybe we'll be able to fuck some respect into you."

I squeezed my eyes shut as tight as possible and took a slow breath. This had always been a
possibility, and there had always been a response I would use. They wouldn't break me, no
matter how hard they tried. I was stronger than them, and I would survive this.

"I doubt it." I replied, focusing on the feeling of my necklace on my skin and nothing else.

Then I braced myself for what I knew would come.

 was that too eager?

°•°•°

Kory whispered in her sleep. Her hastened breaths and sharp movements had woken me up,
but she wasn't thrashing around... so maybe it wasn't too bad. I turned the lamp on and sat up.

"No..." she whispered, her eyebrows drawn together as her eyes squeezed shut. She flinched
again, and her legs kicked against the pillow wall between us.

"Kory..." I whispered to try and wake her.

"Get your hands..." she flinched again, her breathing harder. She was in pain, or at least stuck
in the memory of it. "Stop touching..."

"Kory." I said her name a little louder as her kicks became harder. She was struggling against
something, or someone, but was losing the fight.

Her hands never moved, like they were stuck and useless to her. If her nightmares were
recurring memories of what had happened to her in Iraq then her hands had probably been
tied together. If that was the case though, why did she have full access of her legs? Surely
they would have tied her ankles together as well, because if she could move them then she
could fight back.

"Get off..." Kory whispered, and that was when I saw the tear roll down her freckled cheek.

The only reason they wouldn't have bound her ankles together was if they wanted her to be
able to move them. It only made sense that they'd want to... oh, fuck.

"Kory, wake up." I nudged her shoulder. Nothing.

"Please, get off..." her whispers were more urgent, but her voice never raised. She wasn't
shouting in her nightmare or she would have been in her sleep. The whispers... she likely
hadn't said anything back then. This was her internal thoughts—what she had wanted to say
but couldn't so she didn't appear weak.

"Kory, please, wake up." I nudged her shoulder again, but it just made her kick harder. Shit.
What was I meant to do here?

"It hurts..."
My heart sat in my throat, and I was at a complete loss for what to do. I know she'd said to
kick her if she ever had a nightmare, but I couldn't do that, obviously. Well, Kody lays on her
legs to stop her from hurting herself, and he likely barks to wake her up. While I couldn't do
either of those things, I could hold her legs still and increase my volume until she responded.

"Kory, you need to wake up." I moved to gently restrain her legs. It wasn't enough to stop her
from moving entirely, but it was enough to know she couldn't hurt me or herself. "Kory." My
eyes stung as I looked down her face that had twisted in pain.

The nightmare likely wouldn't come to an easy end, nor a soon one. She'd been stuck with an
Al-Qaeda cell for three weeks, so there were more than enough memories to sustain the
horrific flashbacks of her past. She would be stuck, unless I woke her up. But this wasn't
working either.

I had to try something else. Something gentle but noticeable. An action of compassion rather
than what she was going through.

"Please..." she plead in her sleep, and I felt a tear hit my own cheek as something broke in
my chest.

"Kory." I let go of her legs and threw away the pillows between us. They were just in the
way, and I couldn't...

I held her face in my hands and ran my thumbs over her cheeks. It was calm, and gentle, and
I didn't care about the fact she was kicking me without the protection of the pillows. What
mattered was her comfort. Not even the sharp sting of her feet meeting my shins could deter
me from my path.

"Kory..." I whispered, and she let out a sound that broke my heart, and the kicking stopped.
"Kory, baby, I need you to wake up."

Baby? What the fuck did I just say?

There was no chance to question my choice of words, not when her bright eyes opened, wild
and terrified. Immediately, she pushed her body away from me and forced my hands away
from her face.

"Don't touch me!" She shouted.

Even though she was awake, her mind was still stuck in that nightmare. That much was
obvious from the way her eyes looked at me without a single flash of recognition.

"Kory, it's me!" I shouted back as she tore herself out of the bed and took a few steps away.
Her eyebrows furrowed as she looked at me. "It's me, it's just me." Her heavy, rushed
breathing slowed and tears immediately filled her eyes.

"Spencer..." she whispered, and her eyes widened again as she moved her hands an inch
towards me. It was a subtle movement, but I could pick up on it. It meant I also picked up on
the way her fingers curled into themselves, to restrain herself from reaching for the bed. Or
for me. "Did I hurt you?" Jesus, why was she worried about me?

"No," I answered simply and she nodded. It didn't matter that it was a lie, it's what she needed
to hear.

"Good, um..." she clasped her hands together. "I'm sorry."

"Why are you—"

"I woke you up." Why was she so concerned with how her nightmare affected me?

"It's okay." Judging from her expression, she didn't believe me. "Kory, it's fine. You warned
me this might happen, I already knew you got nightmares, it's okay." I pulled back the covers
and got out of the bed so I could walk over to her. I didn't touch her, instead I just stood a few
inches away so she knew I was there for her. "I'm more concerned over you, and if you're
okay."

She looked up at me, her braids falling out and looking like a mess around her. I didn't mind,
and I wouldn't point it out. If anything, it was humbling to know she didn't care about her
appearance around me.

From what I could piece together, she was always so careful with what she looked like
because it gave her a sense of control. Seeing her like this, completely dishevelled and
vulnerable... it felt like she had let me in, even though I knew she hadn't. Or maybe it felt like
she would eventually let me in—that this was just the first step of many in doing so.

"I'm okay, it's just... I knew they were going to be bad this month. It's the anniversary of my
hell." I nodded and placed a hand on her upper arm for support. I made sure it was a gentle
touch, one that couldn't be mistaken for anything other than a friendly reminder that she
wasn't alone.

"It's been eight years, right?" I knew I was right, but I thought it might be good to let her lead
the conversation. If she thought I was taking control she might close up and I... I wanted her
to stay open.

"Yeah, eight years..." She looked away from me and towards the bed. "I just assumed I would
be by myself in a hotel room, not sharing a bed with one of the few people I trust." I let go of
her arm and took a step away. "I've never gone through this with someone before. Even when
I was still in a wheelchair I was living by myself by the time the first anniversary came
around. I don't know how to proceed with someone else next to me..."

"You trust me?" I whispered, allowing the faintest of smiles to make it's way to my face. I
couldn't help it, because her trust seemed hard earned.

"I... yes." She pulled on the sleeves of her long-sleeved pyjama shirt.

"Well, if you want to talk about it—"

"You know, don't you?"

"Know what?" It was a broad question, and I needed to know what answer she was looking
for.

"Did I talk in my sleep?" Oh. That.

"Yes," I said quietly and she nodded.

"So you know." She tucked her hands under her armpits and took a deep breath.

"Well, I have an idea. I don't know exactly what happened—"

"And I don't want to talk about it. I've only known you for six months, and while I might trust
you, I don't know who you are yet." How could she not know me?

"Basis?" I asked, and her eyebrows furrowed.

"Basis for what?"

I let out sigh and shrugged my shoulders. "For the theory that you don't know me. I can make
counterpoints, but I need to know what I'm arguing against." She licked her lip and tilted her
head to the side.

"I haven't... you've seen me at my most vulnerable, more than once. I haven't seen you like
that. Or at your worst. You can't truly know someone until you see them at their lowest
point." A valid point.

"I haven't seen you at your lowest." I rubbed my hands together. "But I feel like I know you,
and that you know me. After just one day of knowing each other you knew I liked coffee
more than tea, even though I drink more of the latter. You knew I worked better in the
afternoon than the morning and that my favourite colour is purple." I pointed out, and she
shook her head.

"It's not the same as—"

"You also know things about me that I haven't told anyone else." My mouth went dry as I
remembered that night, when she'd called me after her nightmare and I had been way too
eager to see her. How badly was I already down after two months to drive to her place at half
past four in the morning? All because she'd called me to comfort her after a nightmare?

But I also remembered that damned kiss that had shifted near everything between us. I'd
thought about it every hour of every day since then... it was impossible to erase it from my
memory. I'm sure it would be stuck in my head even without the eidetic memory.

"Right... bi-buddies."

I smiled and nodded my head. "Bi-buddies." The words came out as a whisper, because it
was still something I wasn't used to saying aloud. Bi. I like women and men, and only the
people I've dated and Kory knew that. But there was a fine line between counting Kory as
one of those people, considering the fact that she'd... oh, I could use that. "You saw me very
vulnerable too, just a couple of weeks ago."
Her cheeks flushed a pretty hue of pink as she rubbed her neck.

"Look, I'm not trying to convince you to tell me what happened. All I'm saying is that you
don't have to find an excuse. If you don't want to then that's all the reason I need," I said. She
nodded at me and looked back at the bed.

"You lied before when you said I didn't hurt you..." she whispered. At the mention of it my
shin began to throb. "I kicked you, didn't I?"

"Barely..." another lie.

"Spencer, my foot hurts. It was definitely more than just barely."

"It's not like you did it on purpose. It's okay. I don't want you blaming yourself or..." her eyes
softened as I spoke. "What is it?"

"You make it very difficult to distance myself from you." And she made it difficult for me to
keep my distance from her too. Never mind the fact that we'd been trapped in this room
together...

"I do?" I questioned, and she nodded.

"You're far too understanding and empathetic... look, next time we share a bed after this case,
we do it when Kody can stop me from kicking you, okay?" What was the implication behind
that? Was I breaking down her walls after only one week?

"Are you saying there'll be a next time?" I asked and she rolled her eyes.

"No, I just..." she shook her head and let out a sigh. Had I tripped her up? "I was trying to
make it sound like it's not always hell sleeping next to me."

"I never even came close to thinking that," I said with a smile.

"You didn't? Even while I was attacking you in my sleep?" Her crossed arms unravelled as I
shook my head.

"You stopped attacking me once I held your face and whispered your name. I think that was
enough to show your subconscious that it was me, that you were actually safe and not stuck
back in Iraq." I told her.

Her lips parted slightly as she looked at me. Shit. Had she been half-awake by that point?
Had she heard me when I called her baby? I didn't even know why I'd done that in the first
place. It would be best she didn't know about that until I figured out what it had meant.

"In that case, I would recommend we do away with the pillow wall so that I can feel you next
to me. But you're probably not—"

"We can, if that's what you want." If I could pretend that the reason for wanting those pillows
gone was to help her, then I would take it. There was absolutely no other reason at all that I
would want them gone. None.
"No, I wouldn't want to have us wake up with me latched onto you. I tend to be a bit
physically clingy, especially in my sleep." Did that mean I could wake up with her in my
arms? Or me in hers? All under the guise that it was to help prevent more nightmares?

"That's fine, as long as you think it could help." Was that too eager? I couldn't tell.

"Are you sure?" She asked with a raised eyebrow, so I nodded. "Okay, but you can change
your mind if I make you uncomfortable, okay?" That would not happen, but if she needed the
assurance...

"Okay."

We got back into the bed and threw away the extra pillows. Without them the bed felt twice
as big, but the realisation there was nothing between Kory and I hit me like a bullet. I would
survive this, even if it would hurt me in the long run.

"Goodnight, Kory." I switched the lamp off and settled with my back turned to her. If I could
start the night like this then it would give me the best chance of staying away from her in my
sleep.

"Goodnight, Spence."

And there it was again. Her saying my nickname like it was nothing. It made sleep hard to
reach, but I found it eventually.

I woke up at some point during the night, to feel Kory spooning me, her arm wrapped around
my chest to hold me against her. To my surprise, that night was the best I'd slept in years.
 your new love of romance books
Chapter Notes

Merry Christmas everyone!

As a little gift from me you guys are going to get a double update.

I hope everyone has a great holiday season!

°•°•°

Kory sat at the table, spinning a pen around her fingers. I was definitely watching the display
far too intently, but no one else seemed to notice that fact. There was something intrinsically
hypnotising about watching her nimble fingers move, and it could have something to do with
the fact I knew what those fingers felt like on my body....

Or maybe it didn't.

"So we decided a geographical profile was relatively useless..." Kory trailed off, and I looked
away from her fingers to her face.

Now that I'd seen her without makeup again, I could spot the light freckles underneath a thin
layer of foundation. They dusted her nose and cheeks, a sign of how often she was outside as
a kid. What did she do for all those hours? Did she play with friends? Had she played sport?
Maybe she was right last night—we didn't know each other...

"Well, if the unsub is willing to walk live hostages that far then travel isn't an issue for him," I
replied.

Since the team hadn't been able to come up with anything useful yesterday, we'd switched
what we were doing. Hotch and Rossi were at the trail, seeing if they could find anything that
Kory and I might have missed. Tara and JJ were going over the remains, and—now with a list
of IDs—probably speaking to families where they could. It left Kory and I back at the station,
attempting to pull together a profile from what little information we had.

"Hmm..." She spun the pen around her fingertips once more before she dropped it onto the
table. "So what do we have so far? Run me through it again." She closed her eyes and placed
her hands on the back of her neck.

"An unsub who kills in groups of four every six to twelve months, and buries them in the
same area in a mass grave. The cause of death is a single gunshot wound to the back of the
head." She nodded, her eyes still closed as I spoke. "From what we can piece together he kills
them at the burial site, which means he has to control the victims for a period of time."

"Garcia is working on dental records now that she finally has this place set up to
communicate with the modern world. Cait has already fished through missing persons and
has a list of potential victims for us..." she added, shaking her head. "If we had a better
coroner we might be able to find more information about time of death and all that, but until
we can get one down here it's just what you and I can figure out."

"We're doing pretty well, all things considered," I pointed out and she opened her eyes as she
smiled.

"I guess so, but I might feel better about it if I thought people weren't still in danger." She
looked down at her paper.

"What makes you think that?" I asked, and I ignored the way her eyebrow raised at me.
Maybe I had to give a little more context to my question. "What I mean is what makes you
sure he's still active?"

"I don't know..." she trailed off. "I have this gut feeling that we're missing something obvious
and that it's important." She picked up one of the pictures of the remains, and furrowed her
eyebrows.

"We're clearly missing something, we don't even have enough to build a base profile for this
guy." I dropped my pen onto the table and spun around on the swivel chair I'd claimed as
mine for today. It usually helped me think, mindless movement or a different sitting position.
Spinning around stopped me from looking at one thing for too long, it made me have to use
my memory to see the important bits. That would be easier if I wasn't contemplating Kory's
freckles at the same time.

"Well, this takes patience and knowledge. The unsub wouldn't be young, and this isn't a
simple M.O. to come up with off the top of your head straight away." I stopped spinning the
chair as Kory spoke, her eyes wide as she stared at me. "That's what we're missing—they
would have worked their way up to this, which means there's more victims we haven't even
looked for yet."

"And because they would be a part of him working his M.O. out, they could be important to
finding out more about this guy." I agreed as Garcia walked into the room, a laptop tucked
under one arm.

"Cait and I have found some more IDs for our victims..." she said as she walked over to the
board and put the corresponding faces to the sticky note listing gender and victim number.
"She's working on the remaining ones at the moment, but so far there's nothing that stands out
about them. The only thing similar between them was the fact they were all hiking the trail
from start to finish. No one realised they were missing because they were supposed to be off
the grid for a few months."

Once Garcia stuck up the photos she turned to look at Kory and I, and immediately her eyes
widened. "You guys figured something out, didn't you?" She questioned as she rushed to sit
at the table with us and set up her laptop.

"We think he's killed before..." I trailed off.

"You mean he's killed more than the ones we've already found?" She adjusted her glasses as I
nodded. "That is absolutely..." she let out a short sigh and readied her hands over the
keyboard. "Hit me."

"Looking for the same cause of death, a single shot at the base of the skull. It's not a usual
place for an execution style shot, so that will help narrow it down," I said to start us off.

"Going to need a little more to work with here." Right. Of course.

"Bodies were probably found on or around the Appalachian Trail." Kory added to our theory,
spinning the pen around her distracting fingers again. "This is their comfort zone, even it's a
huge one. That wouldn't change."

"Okay, I've got twelve unsolved murders involving that exact cause of death on or around the
Appalachian trail." Twelve. Four multiplied by three.

"Were they buried in groups of four?" I asked, and she shook her head.

"The oldest seems to have been buried by themselves, the next few were buried in pairs and
the last three victims were buried together." So he worked up to killing four at once... that
number meant something to him, it had to. But what? "Oh..."

"What is it?" Kory asked, and Garcia looked up from her screen.

"The murders... they work southward down the trail to the current burial sites." Shit. Okay.

"So the M.O. is important, and so is this location. They..." Kory trailed off as her phone rang.
She immediately answered and put it on speaker. "You've got Spencer, Garcia and me."

"We've just located an eighth and ninth burial site half a mile from the original seven." Hotch
explained, and I ran a hand over my face.

"Four victims in each?" I asked.

"Yes, two women and two men." God, we really weren't getting anywhere. "But these ones are
definitely the most recent. At the ninth site the victims aren't decomposed yet." That meant it
was very recent.

"It could only be days old then..." I trailed off, and Kory nodded in agreement. "We missed
him by a few days."
"And now he's spooked," she added. "If his comfort zone is the mountains, we won't..." find
him. We won't find him.

"Kory, I want you here with Rossi and I. Being Ranger qualified is going to be more use to us
out here with the new burial site. Reid and Garcia, work on profiling our unsub with what
little we have. Tara and JJ will help once they get back from visiting one of the families."
Hotch was changing the instructions already? I mean, it did make sense but that meant Kory
and I would be separated again and with her nightmares...

"No problem. Send me the coordinates and I'll be there within the hour." Kory hung up the
phone and stood up from the table. "You two have fun cooped up here." She picked up her
bag.

"Inside is where I prefer to be..." I trailed off.

"Same, there's way too many bugs out there. Not to mention the stories about the—"

"Okay, I'd rather take my chances out there with any monsters than be stuck in this room any
longer. I'll see you in a few hours." Kory left and I turned to Garcia. Well, I guess now that I
was alone with Garcia...

"Kory mentioned that you, um..." I trailed off. How was I supposed to phrase this without it
sounding wrong? "She mentioned that you and the other girls on the team have a book club."
That was indeed a coherent sentence, which was a good start.

Garcia closed her laptop and turned to me with a smile on her face. It was one that made me
regret bringing the topic up. "Yes we do, little Cherub. Why are you bringing it up? Would
you like to join? I always knew you had a naughty side that you've been—" oh God no. If
Garcia thought this was for any other purpose than research she was going to tell the others
and I would be so entirely screwed.

"No, it's just..." what Kory had said about the books they read, it made sense to me. "Kory
said they're safe spaces to explore and I figured that if you guys were all reading them then
they mustn't be too bad." There was a silence that followed as Garcia's smile softened. Why
was that worse than the low level of insanity she displayed before?

"The book we're currently reading might be a bit much off the bat, but I'll get one of our
previous reads for you and you can give that a try instead. Does that sound okay?" A bit
much? What were they reading for it to be too much for me?

"That sounds good, thank you. Just tell me how much it is and I'll—"

"This one will be free, my fine friend. It will be a gift that you cherish as the gateway to your
new love of romance books." That seemed like an over the top assumption to make, but it
was Garcia... and she was usually right about these things.

"Thanks, Garcia."
 seventy-six hours

°•°•°

We'd spent a week out in this town, uncovering bodies that ran along the length of the trail
and finding no evidence to help us. Our profile was minimalistic, at best. All we could piece
together was that the killer was resourceful and likely lived off the supplies from the people
he killed, but that was only an educated guess since we couldn't find any of their missing
supplies anywhere. It was just as possible that he came across as a normal citizen of this
town, and simply got rid of any and all evidence that tied him to his victims.

It took that whole week to get a proper medical examiner down, one who could actually tell
us what had happened to the bodies. We even managed to get a forensic anthropologist too,
for the bodies that were nothing more than skeletons with minimal decomposed tissue left.
They told us what we already knew, that they'd been killed with a single shot at the base of
the skull... but we now had extra information that could help us. All the women had been
pregnant close to their deaths.

Extremely close.

"We've dealt with killers who wanted kids before," Spencer said as we all sat around the table
in the small conference room. Luckily I'd been assigned to be out in the field rather than
stuck in here. It was easier to think when I was surrounded by greenery rather than this dated
room.

"But this is... it's a lot of kids," Tara pointed out the obvious and I had to agree. So far we'd
managed to find one more burial site, and from the multiple times I'd walked the section of
the trail we thought the killer had restricted themselves to, I doubted we'd find more.

"So if he's not keeping them, what is he doing with them?" JJ asked the question that no one
wanted to answer. The obvious choice was killing them, but that was a lot of babies to
murder. Especially when there was no connection of the children to the burial sites. This
killer had a very specific and ritualised method of killing, and he wouldn't just change it for
the children of the people he'd killed.

But there was a second option that might make a little more sense.

"Selling them," I said as I picked up the piece of paper I'd been scratching my theory down
onto. "Hear me out."
I walked over to the case board and pointed to the only group of four we knew all the
identities of.

"We assumed that the groups of people were doing the trail together, but once we interviewed
the families of these victims there was no connection at all. Even Garcia couldn't find
anything that ties them together aside from hiking the Appalachian trail." I circled the entire
board, making sure to hit each cluster of four victims. "Each group of four is killed twelve
months apart, which has been confirmed by the ME and the anthropologist. Twelve months is
a specific time period, but it's also enough time to have a baby conceived, have it be born and
taken care of until you know it's going to be fine."

"The men were killed before the women..." Rossi pointed out, but I wasn't sure if that was to
help my theory or make me prove it.

"The men don't need to be around to take care of the children like the women do. And all of
his first victims, the pairs when he started doing this, they were mostly male. I think, and you
can absolutely tell me if I'm wrong, but... the men have all been missing for a significantly
shorter time period than the women. So..." I grabbed a whiteboard marker and moved to our
whiteboard that had what little we knew about the unsub on it. This was more important than
the few words that Spencer would have memorised.

This timeline could help us.

"So the unsub takes two men and two women. Judging from the information we have, the
men were missing for a month or two before they were killed, and the women for a year give
or take some months." I drew a line from top to bottom on the whiteboard. "This is the point
in time where all four are taken," I said as I wrote TAKEN at the top of the line. "I think that
he..." I drew a line about a quarter of the way down the board. "I think he forced them to
conceive children, and once he had what he needed from the men he got rid of them."

Spencer nodded. "And he kept the women until they gave birth."

"Exactly." I pointed at him for a second. "Now, this is where it gets a little tricky. I think he
buries the current year's men with the previous year's women." I drew some more lines and
wrote in new points of time that was necessary to know, and even brought in another colour
to show the overlap of the timelines.

"But that would mean there's overlap..." Tara made a good point, but one I could counter
easily.

"Yeah, overlap with the women. The one's he's had for a year would be easily controlled,
because they all have new-born babies. Either that or they're still heavily pregnant and he
kills them the second they're no longer of use to him. And there's always the option that he
has an accomplice." I looked to JJ. "Could you have fought someone when you were about to
give birth? Or immediately after?" I asked, and she shook her head.

"No. I had a watermelon inside of me that needed to get out and then I was dealing with the
aftermath of getting it out. Fighting was out of the question, and if cooperating meant that I
could keep myself and my baby alive I would take that option instead." And my point was
proven.

"The men are the dangerous factor in this, to him at least." I watched as Spencer walked over
to me and picked up another marker. Instead of drawing a line, or writing a word, he just
drew a circle, just below the kill line. Why did he—oh.

"A few days ago you said you thought people were still in danger," he said as he looked
down at me. I remembered saying those words, and I should have figured this out before him
since it was my theory here.

All I could do was stare back at him. "I was right."

"Okay, could you two maybe catch up all the non-geniuses in the room?" Rossi questioned,
and I looked over my shoulder to him.

"You and Hotch found a fresh burial site which held victims that were killed just over a week
ago." Spencer reminded everyone in the room.

I pointed to the circle. "If my theory's right, this asshole is holding two pregnant women
hostage right now."

How was I meant to sleep? Because after everything we'd managed to piece together and
build upon my theory, we still came up short.

The unsub was meticulous, careful and experienced. Murder was simply a means to an end
for him, a way to dispose of people he no longer had use for. Selling the children was the
only thing that made sense, and as much as I hoped it was just to families who wanted a child
of their own, I had a gut feeling that told me there were a few sold under more nefarious
means.

"Get some sleep." Spencer whispered as I stared at the ceiling in the dark. One week we'd
shared this bed for, and now it was something I was becoming used to. "You won't be of any
use to anyone tomorrow if you don't rest."

Although him being able to tell I was awake even though he couldn't see me wasn't okay.

"You're not sleeping." If I put it back on him then he couldn't tell me what to do.

"Because I know you aren't going to. You sleep on your side, so the fact you're still lying on
your back implies you don't even plan on sleeping." Asshole.

I let out a sigh. "He's just... out there. He's ruined the lives of so many, and we can't get him."
It wasn't the only thought running around my head, but it was one of the few that mattered at
the moment. "Do you think my theory is right? Are we focusing on the right idea?"
"Past experience of working with you..." he rolled over to face me, so I did the same. "Your
theories tend to be right, or extremely close to it. If you think he's selling these babies, then
you're probably right. We just have to figure out how that will help us catch him."

"Mmm," I hummed.

In any other workplace, being right was something to be happy about. But if I was right then
I was trying to sleep while two women were being held against their will and also being
pregnant against their will.

I couldn't be happy about that. Not in the fucking slightest.

"You know that we're doing everything we can, right?" In the bleak light I could see his eyes
as they focused on me. I nodded, but he clearly saw straight through me. "If you don't sleep,
then you won't be able to focus tomorrow. We never know when we might get a break in the
case, or whether we'll need you to take a sniper shot..."

"I don't need sleep to be able to make a shot, Spence." That was the fucking truth. Sleep
wasn't a necessary thing when you had to wait on a target for days on end. "In Afghanistan, I
had a target I needed to hit... I had to watch for the opportune shot."

Spencer nodded slowly. "Snipers train to watch a target for up to seventy-two hours." All I
could do was smile as he realised the mistake of what he'd done, but I didn't mind. I was
beginning to get used to the fact that he didn't tell me facts because he thought I didn't know
them, it was a reflection of him. He wanted to prove that he knew these things, and it couldn't
hurt to let him do it. "And you knew that." His small smile faded, and I shook my head.

"Yeah, I did," I replied, but instead of letting him overthink it, I reached out and touched his
shoulder. "Do you know that because you got interested in snipers after you met me, or
because of something else?"

"We've had a couple of cases involving LDSKs, and one was sniper trained. He hesitated
when he finally got his shot, so we worked on the theory that his fantasy was based around
him and the woman he was supposed to kill. We think he got reality and fantasy confused for
just a moment, but it was long enough for Hotch to get the first shot in." Right. Hotch was
sniper trained as well. I think I might continue to consistently forget that one.

"Fantasy Integration, it's effective unless you choose the wrong thing to focus on." I smiled as
I removed my hand from his shoulder. I touched him for too long, far too fucking long.
Fucking fantasy integration. "For my target I imagined rebuilding a car, like I did with Pop
when I was younger. We built a 1950s Cadillac, and when the time came to pull myself out of
the fantasy I imagined he smashed the windscreen. Made me angry enough to pull the
trigger." He smiled at me, and I smiled back.

"How long were you awake for?" Now that was the fun part that he might or might not
believe.

"Seventy-six hours." It was a rough few days, but I managed to get through. "I could not let
that fucker go." I heard Spencer laugh quietly.
"Did you get him?" He asked next, and I scoffed in response. Had he really asked me that
question? Of all the things to ask, it had to be that?

"Obviously," I clarified just in case my non-verbal response wasn't enough. "I'm offended that
you thought I would've let him go."

"It's not that I thought you would have let him go, I just... I wanted to be sure that you did
what you set out to do."

I rolled my eyes. "I always do what I set out to do." He smiled at me, and it made me realise
what the purpose of this slightly off-topic conversation had been. "You were reminding me of
that fact, weren't you?"

"We came here to catch this killer. You came here to catch this killer. You always do what you
set out to do. We'll get him, but for now we don't need Fantasy Integration or all nighters. We
need to rest so we can give our best to this case and save the women he's holding hostage,"
Spencer said. "If you can fight off hallucinations from a lack of sleep after being awake for
seventy-six hours to still make a shot, you can rest now and use your full ability to catch this
guy tomorrow."

I nodded and furrowed my brow for just a second. This man should not care as much as he
did, or be as thoughtful as he was. I know he said he understood why I pushed him away, but
I don't think he quite understood it. I thought I'd managed to save myself from what we could
be, but maybe I'd been too late...

"What is it?" He asked.

"What's what?"

"You furrowed your brow, it means you're thinking." God, he should not be able to read me
this easily. "What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing." Before he could interrogate me further I rolled to face away from him.
"Goodnight, Spence. Thanks for the pep talk."

"It's alright. Goodnight, Kory."

Yeah.

It was definitely too late to save myself.

 two miles
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

°•°•°

We never know when we might get a break in the case.

That's what Spencer told me last night in order to get me to sleep. If only we'd known then
how much it would affect us today.

If you'd asked me twelve hours ago if I thought we'd have a suspect today, I would have
laughed in your face and called you insane... and yet here we were.

Cait had gone over the list of people we'd compiled that owned properties large enough to
keep two women hostage on for a year without anyone finding out. She'd stayed up all night
going over bank statements and online purchases until she found a man who consistently
bought baby formula, nappies and baby wipes once a year.

Richard Kipling.

He'd been in his current residence for ten years, and had lived within