AN: I'm going back and editing the fuck out of every chapter, cause oh my god do they have so many errors. My grammar was god awful and I left out some very important points that would have come back to bite me in the ass. I also decided to add a quote to the beginning of every chapter, cause I felt like it. If I don't state who it came from that means I tried to look it up and couldn't find the author (maybe I'm just a shit researcher, who knows), or it was listed as unknown. So this is the first official edited chapter.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything from Criminal Minds, although I wish I did. All that is mine would be Ariadne.

"I never had a chance to be soft.

I was always bloody knuckles and shards of glass.

I wanted people to be afraid of hurting me."

Chapter 1: Introduction

Serendipity: (n.) finding something good without looking for it.

Ariadne POV:

Where am I?

Confusion hits as I look around the empty field. Nostalgia clawed at the edge of my brain, but I pushed it aside. "Okay, I may have an occasional drink, but this shit is just plain ridiculous," I muttered under my breath. Sure there had been times where I needed to crash at Derek's place cause I was in no shape to drive myself home, but not once had I ever blacked out and woken up in a goddamn field.

"Help!"

My head snapped up in the direction of the sudden scream, briefly wondering who else woulda been out here, before I took off running towards the sound. I may not have had any clue as to what was going on, but I had taken an oath when I joined the FBI, one that required me to help those in need. Although it was strange, I didn't have the time to focus on the fact that I didn't have my gun or badge on me, which really should have been a warning because I never went anywhere without them.

My entire train of thought was blown from my mind when I went tumbling into a trench that came out of nowhere. Groaning, I sat up and put a hand to my now throbbing head. What the ever-loving fuck was that about? I took a chance and looked around, trying to see if there was anything I recognized, and as soon as my eyes locked onto the body lying a couple feet away, I wished I never had.

A cold sweat broke out across my skin and a detached sense of calm rushed over me like a wave. I forced myself to lean against the trench wall, eyes never leaving the empty gaze of my Maria.

I must be having another nightmare.

The urge to vomit rose in the back of my throat but I fought against it. Maria had been dead and gone for over a year now. She wasn't coming back.

I would've preferred actually blacking out drunk in a field if it meant I could stop reliving the worst day of my life every night in my dreams. But life was a bitch and it liked to constantly remind me of everything I lost.

There's nothing I could do but ride it out, sitting on the ground as I dug my fingernails into the mud beneath me. Doesn't seem to matter how my dreams start, I always ended up here; the one place where my life took its official turn for the worse.

Knowing I deserve this pain, I don't turn my eyes away, even though it kills me inside. So I sat and waited until my eyes flew open to reveal my brother peering down at me.

Derek POV:

I woke up to a phone ringing and it took me a couple seconds to fully realize where I am.

Right, crashed on my sister's couch once again.

My head decided that it was completely necessary to let me know just how much it disapproved of my choices last night. "Mmmmm," I can hear Ariadne groaning from out here. I let out a small chuckle, her head's probably delivering the same message right about now. Better grab the Advil now before this blows up into a full migraine.

On my way to the kitchen I grabbed my phone to see that we'd been called in. Great, yet another night were I only get around four hours of sleep. Now I really need that Advil. I put my phone down and continued my trek into the kitchen. As I passed by Ari's room and I could see her hand fisting the sheets beneath her as she kept groaning.

I knew my sister well enough to know when she was having a nightmare, but it still didn't make it any easier to see her go through this. I quickly walked into the room and leaned down to shake her awake. Since she had come to live in the same city as me, I had watched her have night terror after night terror, they never seemed to let up. They had gotten better throughout the year, she used to wake up screaming.

It broke my heart that there wasn't anything I could do about them.

"Ari, Ariadne… it's just a dream, it's okay, you're safe. Wake up now," I said quietly while brushing the hair away from her face. Next thing I knew her eyes snapped open and locked onto mine. I smiled down at her, "Hey there princess. Everything's all right now," I kept my voice no louder than a whisper.

We both knew everything wasn't okay, that her problems were slowly eating away at her. But as long as I was around, I would make damn sure she didn't break under the weight.

Ariadne POV:

The relief I felt when I laid eyes on my brother was overwhelming. It was the kind of relief that washed over your soul and seeped into your bones. Unfortunately that didn't stop the jolt of guilt that ran through me as well.

There are two sides to every coin. On one hand, having Derek here helps against the onslaught of memories and keeps me grounded to reality. But on the other hand it means he had moments when he sees me at my weakest, and the knowledge that it hurts him to see that just kills me inside. Derek is a protector at his very core, but past demons aren't something that can protect me from.

I send him a reassuring smile that I hope conveys my gratitude, "I'm okay." I try to sit up and my head reminds me that despite the lucid nightmare, I am very much hungover. In a feeble attempt to dull the pain I hunch over, trying to bury my face into my knees. "The big guy upstairs must hate me," I mumble as I try to ignore the pounding in my head.

"God ain't got nothing to do with the fact that you're just a lightweight." I know it may not seem possible but I was sure that I could hear the grin in his voice.

Mock glaring at him through narrowed eyes, "If I'm a lightweight I don't even wanna know what you are. You look worse than me."

Derek scoffed, "I'll have you know that this," he brought a hand up to indicate his entire face, "is pure perfection sweetheart. It doesn't get any better than this."

All I could do was laugh. It wasn't like he was wrong. Derek and I may have only been half siblings but we did bear a striking resemblance to each other. Therefore if I called him ugly I was in effect calling myself the same, and that would've been the real lie.

I turned my head to stretch my neck when I saw the offensive red numbers on my alarm clock. Turning, I looked at my brother like he had lost his mind, "What the hell are we doing awake at four in the goddamn morning?"

"We got called in so time to get up, you know the drill." He smirked and patted my leg before walking out of my room. God was it too much to ask that maybe one of these days I actually get a full night of sleep? The hours for this job almost make it not worth it.

Almost.

No matter how bad my nightmares got, Derek never asked what they were about, something I was immensely grateful for. I hated lying to my brother, and typically I only did so when the truth would do far more damage. But as far as I was concerned, what happened to Maria and everything else that had occurred while I was overseas, was my damage alone, my burden to bear.

Derek would tear himself apart trying to put me back together.

I wasn't worth that.

After showering, getting dressed, and carefully applying makeup that made it so that I didn't look as exhausted as I felt, I was finally ready to go. Looking down at my outfit for the day I couldn't help but smirk.

Unlike almost all of my fellow coworkers, I don't dress professionally. Being an active field agent for the FBI can be a pretty demanding job, which means that sometimes we have to do a lot of moving around. Therefore I'm a pretty casual dresser. How Hotch managed to get around in those monkey suits was beyond me. The thought of being that restricted made my skin crawl.

I was wearing a fitted long-sleeved white lace shirt paired with black skinny jeans, and to top it all off, the cutest pair of pitch-black ankle boots.

Not exactly FBI approved attire.

Every time I chased an unsub in my ankle boots felt like a personal 'fuck you' to whoever said heels were impractical. I made that shit work.

Derek had gone back to his place not long after waking me up so that he could grab his go bag and feed the dog before heading back to pick me up. We always car pooled, figuring it was the sensible thing to do since we lived so close to one another. Not to mention the fact that we alternated between each other's places so often that we practically lived together anyway.

Double checking that I had everything I needed, I grabbed my bag before making my way outside, making sure to lock the door behind me. The team was real anal about that. I didn't have anything of significant value in my apartment and really didn't care if the place got broken into. Needless to say my response had not gone over very well with the rest of them.

I was the youngest out of everyone, clocking in at a whole twenty-one years. I had gotten used to Derek's overprotective nature throughout the years, but the others surprised me. Especially Spencer.

My lips curled into a small smile at the thought of my friend.

I'd been with the BAU for about a year now and it had only taken around a month for me to become somewhat comfortable with the people on the team. It was easier to drift towards Spencer though, seeing as how we were basically in the same age group. He was twenty-three, not much older than me. Although he looks like he's fresh off the playground with that baby face of his.

We had quickly bonded over our mutual annoyance at the loud assholes who complained we were too young to be in the FBI, much less the Behavioral Analysis Unit. A couple of well aimed glares promptly shut them up.

If I was old enough to go overseas and put my life on the line for my country than I sure as shit was old enough to hold a badge and a gun.

Be that as it may, the situation wasn't that simple.

Spencer earned his place in this division by being a certified genius. He's the guy with an eidetic memory, the kid who graduated high school at the age of twelve, someone who had already collected three PhD's and two BA's in his short lifetime. He deserved his spot in the BAU.

I'm the complete opposite of everything he is. Never really had great grades, graduated at the ripe old age of eighteen, and would rather run a marathon than read a book. I'm not anything spectacular.

Well, maybe that's a lie.

I'm a pretty spectacular bullshitter.

Kind of have to be in my situation.

I was born into a broken home in the bad part of Chicago. My father, Hank Morgan, had an affair with my mother, Valeria Costa. Derek's my half-brother who's eleven years my senior. I had very little memories of my father, he didn't come visit all that often and when he would, he never really stayed all that long. My mom tried her best to raise me, but I knew that every time she looked at me all she could see was a reflection of the rejection she faced at my father's hand. I've never asked whether or not she knew he was married when they got together and I wasn't sure it was actually something I wanted to know.

Although he had never really been a staple figure in our home, Hank Morgan's death crashed through it like a hurricane. Mom, for reasons beyond me, couldn't cope and decided to turn to pills. She popped whatever she could get her hands on, and with that came the new boyfriend, the one who could get ahold of whatever she needed for her daily fix.

Joey was an abusive bastard who didn't know the meaning of respect, although he had no problem demanding it from everyone else. When he first put hands on my mother, I didn't understand what was happening, I was far too young to know what domestic violence was. But I sure as hell knew that it wasn't right when he put hands on me.

It didn't happen frequently, but it happened enough that my mother should've known that it was time to walk away.

I guess the high the pills gave her was worth more than me.

Seven years old and I'd been to the emergency room for a broken wrist twice and a mild concussion. Saying you fell down the stairs only worked so many times. Some nights Joey would yell so loud that the neighbors finally gave up and just called the cops, while other nights they would turn up the radio and pretend they didn't know what was going on in the house across the street.

And so the cycle began. The police would turn up at our door, threaten to call CPS unless my mom got her shit together, and would haul Joey off after taking one good look at the bruises that lined my mom's arms and legs.

Mom swore up and down that she'd get sober for me, the threat of having me taken from her would bring back glimpses of the woman I once knew and looked up to.

But of course withdrawals were a bitch and she could never push herself to get passed them. Charges against Joey were always dropped and he would inevitably find his way back to our front porch.

I think the thing that hurt the most, more than Joey's fists or his unwanted advances, were the empty promises my mom loved to make.

I'm going to get better baby, I promise.

I won't let anything hurt you, I promise.

Joey's gone for good this time, I promise.

I love you more than anything in the world, I promise.

At eleven years old, I'd had enough. Derek was twenty-two at that point and would always come pick me up to spend weekends with him and my two elder sisters. It was getting harder to lie to them about the bruises or why I never wanted them anywhere near my house or my mother. Derek had seen Joey a few times, only when I wasn't ready to go fast enough.

His big brother radar must have been off the fucking charts, because after taking one look at him Derek promptly told me that he didn't like him. I believe something along the lines of 'he looks like a fucked up rat' were his exact words. But to his knowledge there was nothing wrong with Joey besides the gut feeling he had, so he was forced to leave it alone and we continued on with our day. Derek had followed in our father's footsteps and had become a cop, so his idea of a good sibling outing was teaching me how to shoot a gun.

Which if I thought about it, wasn't really a bad idea considering we lived in the heart of the hood in Chicago.

It was because of those lessons that I was able to finally do what my mother had failed to all those years. I got rid of Joey the drug dealer, the one who thought it was perfectly acceptable to beat on a woman and her kid.

I had been lying in bed, half listening to another one of Joey's long winded rants about his woes from the other room when my mother suddenly cried out in pain. There was always a sharp jolt of agony that ran through me when that sound filled our house.

Sneaking out of my room, I had just peaked around the hallway when I saw something that made me see red.

There was Joey, standing over my cowering mother, as he threw a beer bottle at the wall right above her head. The glass rained down upon her, cutting the side of her cheek.

You good for nothing whore! Can't even get me the right kind of beer.

He had screamed at her shaking figure below him, seemingly enjoying watching her flinch every time he took a step towards her.

Now my mom had never been the best mother, but she was still my mother.

I was so angry. So goddamn tired of going through this shit, of watching the woman who gave birth to me, become nothing more than some asshole's medicated punching bag.

I'd never understood blind rage episodes before, never understood how someone could get so angry that they were willing to take another person's life. But in that moment I did. I finally understood that all it took was pressing the right buttons and suddenly you're there.

My family happened just happened to be those buttons.

Joey was strong, but he was also stupid. He had left his gun sitting on the kitchen counter, close enough that a couple steps forward was all I needed before the gun was in my hands, the weight of it providing a sense of comfortable familiarity.

The first, and only, warning shot went off near his feet. Joey and my mom were both shocked shitless by the image of me aiming a gun at him, but I didn't care. I wanted him out and I would settle for nothing less. Bastard tried to coax it away from me before realizing just how serious I was.

C'mon sweetheart, put the gun down. Little girl like you don't even know what to do with something like that.

Are you willing to take that chance?

Kid-

Get the fuck away from my mom and out of my house before the next bullet I unload ends up lodged between your eyes.

My mom wasn't strong enough to cut ties with Joey.

So I did it for her.

Joey never did come back once he slinked off our porch that night. Now it may have been because he believed me, or maybe he just figured my mom wasn't worth all the trouble. I don't know and I don't care.

But even though he left, the damage he caused never faded. I'd never forget the bruises he painted across my skin, or the engraved scars he'd left on my mother. I'd never be able to ignore the fact that she willingly let him into our lives over and over again despite the constant abuse.

And I'd never forgive her for letting herself overdose on our bathroom floor not even a week later.

I guess the stress of losing her own personal drug dealer proved to be too much for her. But I had called an ambulance and she had gotten to ride out the withdrawal process under the very watchful eyes of multiple doctors. I had called Derek to tell him that Mom was gonna let me spend a week with him, I conveniently left out the part where she would be spending that time detoxing in the hospital. Another one of the many lies I was forced to tell my brother.

There was no doubt in my mind that Derek, or even Fran herself, would have fought my mom for custody if they knew what had really happened under our roof. And although I had known that a healthy home environment would have been the best thing for me, and that Derek's mom would have given me everything I needed, there was still that little girl inside me that was terrified at being taken away from her mom.

So I stayed, because I could never abandon her the way my dad did with me.

Life then did what life does best; it kept moving. The next year was easier for me, Mom actually managed to stay sober after her hospital visit, Derek continued to take me for the weekends, and I no longer had to worry about getting thrown around in my own home.

I pretty much kept to myself in school. I was the angry girl who had daddy issues, so making friends was a little low on my to-do list. But that changed in seventh grade, in spite of my great hesitance.

Maria Santis was damn near the sassiest twelve year old that I had ever met. Her adoptive parents had adopted her a couple years back and had just made the move from Italy. She had been stopped in the middle of the hallway at school while looking down at her schedule, mumbling some Italian curse under her breath. I didn't typically engage people, but I also wasn't rude. So naturally I stopped to make sure that she could find her next class okay.

It might have gone better if the first thing I said to her wasn't also in Italian.

My mother was a beautiful woman who had migrated from Italy as soon as she hit eighteen, which made me a glorious half breed. Before Dad died and Joey had come into the picture, our house was bilingually rich. Mom never wanted me to forget our heritage, so Italian came to me like second nature.

As soon as she realized we could speak the same language, that was it. Maria never left me alone after that. I on the other hand always did my best to rebuff her efforts. It wasn't that I didn't want friends, it was more like my life was so fucked up that I figured as soon as someone realized just how bad it was, they'd leave me too.

Turns out she was just as damaged as me. Her life before her adopted parents came into it, mirrored mine in certain aspects and try as I might, I couldn't stop her from getting under my skin.

Becoming friends with Maria was one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life. It wasn't long until we became absolutely inseparable. Turns out that shared trauma is a hell of a thing to bond over. Through the years she became a sister to me, my other half so to speak.

She also got along great with Derek, often joining us for our weekend sibling time. It meant the world to me that not only did she accept me, scars and all, but she also accepted the most important person in my life.

Of course when you are that close to someone, you develop a dependency on them. It was us against the world.

So when I realized during our senior year what I was going to do with my life, it kind of complicated things between us. I didn't have any concrete future plans, wasn't good at school so college was out, and the idea of sitting at some desk for the rest of my life made my skin crawl.

I wanted my life to be worth something, to actually have a purpose. So I waited till the day of graduation to tell her that I had enlisted in the army.

Maria had dreams, she was gonna do something with art at the local college. I didn't have the heart to tell her she'd have to follow those dreams without me, until I literally ran out of time. It happened to be three weeks before I'd have to leave for basic when I finally got around to it.

As expected, it didn't go very well at all. She cried and yelled at me for about a good half hour once I finally fessed up.

What exactly was your plan Ari? To just leave me the way my mom left me? Do exactly what your dad did to you? What the hell were you thinking?

So yeah, that was a fun conversation to have.

Once she had calmed down enough to hear me out all I could do was apologize for being such a coward about telling her, and assure her that it was never my intention to abandon her in any way. Perhaps I was trying to prove to myself that I wasn't worthless, or maybe I just wanted a way to get out of the town where everything innocent about me had gone up in flames.

It took her a couple days but finally Mari came around and forgave me. Which honestly should have been a warning sign because I figured I'd be in the doghouse for at least another week and a half. What I didn't know was that my choice became the spark of my worst nightmare.

Because I found Maria waiting for me once I got to basic.

The little shit had decided to follow me.

The last thing I wanted was to drag Maria down the dark road that was my future, but that's not how she saw it. She was willing to throw everything away for me, all those big plans and dreams went down the drain the moment she decided to enlist. However I couldn't deny that having her there made me less reckless. I'd have to take care of myself and make sure I survived so that I could keep her alive. A part of me thought that she might have known the same thing.

About six months into training every one of us all got called in for questioning. It was kind of like an interview, except we weren't told what it was for. It was a little nerve wracking, not knowing the exact reasoning behind all the questions, or the significance behind them. We were told that there were no wrong answers, that they were simply conducting a new study.

Maybe if I had known they were testing us I would have answered differently.

Placing them in order from greatest importance to least, explain which order you would place duty, family, and honor in. Please be specific as to the reasoning behind your choice.

While all three are undeniably important, I would have to say family, duty, then honor. To me sir, family is the most important thing there is. As far as I'm concerned our first duty will always be to them, to support them and keep them safe from harm. And sometimes there is no honor in how we accomplish that.

Whatever I said had impressed them enough that instead of releasing me back to the bunks, I was placed in a room with Maria and three other women. After a few minutes of speaking and introductions, it became clear that none of us knew what we had been pulled aside for. We didn't have to wait long before our Lieutenant Colonel Frank Willis and Major Jason Cole entered the room and explained that the five of us had been selected to form a new special force unit.

We had to sign a vast array of non-disclosure statements before they even told us what we would be training for. Although all of us were wary once they finished explaining, we were told that the benefit to our country would far outweigh the consequences. So we agreed and trained hard for another three months before I was told I was going to be named Captain and we were placed in the field.

First Lieutenants Tara Woods, Lilly Porter, and Darcie Wilson made up the rest of Maria and I's team. And the five of us were great. We spent so much time together that we all developed a bond, we became our own little rag-tag family. Despite the things we had to do, we were happy.

But good things never last forever, especially not in my life, and a year and a half later it all went to shit. Everything came to a head the day I was forced to cradle Maria's lifeless body in my arms. I had been correct when I said that sometimes there was no honor in how we chose to protect our family. What I didn't know back then was that it could be found within the revenge we took in their name.

My actions weren't necessarily approved of, but Lieutenant Colonel Willis understood why I took them and I was given an honorable discharge in spite of them.

I went home being the sole survivor out of my team of five.

But being home was rough. Maria was gone, my relationship with my mother was more strained than ever, and Derek had left to go work for the FBI while I was overseas. I was only twenty years old yet utterly lost. I would wake up screaming on the good nights and I would punch holes into the walls until my fists were covered in blood on the bad ones.

Derek called every day and Sarah and Desiree would come by and try to get me out of the house whenever they could. I loved my sisters, but I wasn't ready to get better, I didn't want to heal if Maria couldn't do it with me. I guess my sisters had been updating Derek on my worsening condition because he took some time off work to come and pull my head from my ass.

If you think for one second that Maria would want you to torture yourself over what happened, then clearly you didn't know her at all.

After a very long talk, which included a lot of yelling, Derek somehow managed to convince me to come back to Virginia with him. He knew I wasn't good alone, and I knew that he was the only one I would actually make an effort to live for.

It was strange at first, trying to become one with society again, so I pushed all I had into training. That was the one thing that came easily to me. Shooting a gun had become second nature. Of course my previous training and field experience gave me somewhat of an advantage over my fellow trainees, but it was still nice to distract myself from the horrors I had witnessed by getting lost in the rhythm of something familiar. It also helped that my big brother was always within arms reach if I needed him.

After a couple months, I ended up being pulled into a private meeting with the director.

All your trainers have said you've been made the most progress out of anyone in your class. Our next step was making contact with your old Lieutenant Colonel to get a better understanding of the nature of your service. I doubt you'll be too surprised to know he informed us that such information was highly classified. However he was able to tell us enough about your character to conclude that there is nothing you would not do for those under your care.

Apparently it didn't matter which supervisor he placed with Derek's team, they were never trusted with any vital information. It had gotten to the point where the director himself was concerned over the future of the BAU. Some of the greatest minds could be found on that team and they just so happened to be extremely reckless on multiple occasions. Running low on options, he presented me with an opportunity I couldn't refuse.

I could work side by side with my brother and his team, providing them with the protection they denied themselves. The catch was that I couldn't tell anyone that I was to report on their actions. Apparently they also didn't like playing by the book, so I was to act as a glorified bodyguard.

The idea of being able to protect Derek, the one person I couldn't survive losing, out in the field appealed to my overprotectiveness. Sure I couldn't tell him the truth about why I would be working with him, but I'd had plenty of experience lying to him throughout my life.

The only minor problem was that I didn't want to be a profiler.

Despite my personal preference, I accepted the offer. Perhaps I was trying to prove that my life could still mean something. I had stopped living for myself a long time ago, I would gladly walk into hell if it kept Derek alive and well.

My brother was of course ecstatic that I had chosen to follow in his footsteps, and I simply lacked the ability to insinuate anything else. He had been all too eager to introduce me to everyone as their new junior profiler. I tried to take it in stride but I couldn't help but compare them to my old team, no matter how much it broke my heart to do so.

I could see the crazy way Darcie could always find the positive in any situation buried in the eccentric colors that Penelope Garcia donned.

Tara would have appreciated Aaron Hotchner's professional demeanor and firm handshake. And it was easy to tell that Jason Gideon took on the role of the kind uncle you see over the holidays, something Tara would have easily gotten behind seeing as how she had three kids of her own and liked to smother the rest of us with her motherly attitude.

The way Lilly's pale blonde hair seemed to sparkle if the sun hit it just right, would have outshone Jennifer Jareau's golden locks any day.

The innocence in Maria's eyes was reflected in the splash of pink that painted Spencer Reid's cheeks. The shy up tilt of his lips threatened to send me back in time to the days when a very similar smile greeted me in the halls of a crowded middle school.

I despised the small voice in the back of my mind that accused me of replacing my old team with these people. Those four women would always hold a special place in my heart, one that others could never hope to breach. I didn't want to become attached to any more people, knowing all too well that life had the ability to steal them away without a moment's notice, but unfortunately for me that's not what happened.

I was scared every damn day, absolutely terrified that history would repeat itself. I'm not the kind of person who gets a happy ending, I don't deserve it.

After everything I've done I can safely say that if hell is a real place, I'm well on my way.

I often wondered if any truth could be found in me, or if my body was nothing more than a web of lies that I convinced myself were necessary.