"Don't underestimate me. I know more than I say, think more than I speak, and notice more than you realize."
-Author Unknown
The commuter bus pulled away, leaving in its wake a young child.
Drastically young.
Frighteningly young.
Shouldn't-be-riding-a-bus-by-herself-and definitely not-to-this-place young.
At first, the guard thought he was imagining things. But after a shake of his head a split-second interaction with an agent going to park their car, the little girl with the yellow blanket and tiny stuffed...bunny rabbit?...was still there. She seemed confused - which made sense - and troubled by her thoughts. Perhaps she got lost? It was more likely than the alternative, which was that she deliberately came to Quantico by herself, in her pajamas, at 7 in the morning on a school day. Having noticed that an authority figure was watching her, she made her way to the guard, making sure to check the street multiple times before and whilst crossing.
The guard exited his station - knowing very well that it might have been a bad idea - and knelt down as the little girl approached. Up close, he could gather more details. She was no more 5 or 6 years old, she had a tendency to suck on the corners of her blanket (as she was doing now), and something in her world was very, very wrong.
"What's wrong, sweetheart?" He asked when she stopped in front of him. His friends always teased him for being so threatening that he could frighten federal agents, so he tried his damnedest to be unintimidating. This girl didn't need to be anymore scared than she already was.
She briefly removed her blanket-covered thumb from her mouth.
"I need to see Mr. Reid, please." She said politely. The desperation in her eyes told him that she was putting on a front, trying to maintain what little composure she had left. The guard thought for a moment on who "Mr. Reid" could be. There were two males working at Quantico with the last name "Reid," though they each spelt it differently. He considered inquiring about the spelling, but figured that she may very well not know that. He took a different approach.
"Do you know what Mr. Reid looks like, sweetheart?"
The girl, possibly sensing trouble, closed her blanket around herself before mumbling an answer.
"He's tall, with curly hair. He likes to wear vests and pretty colored shirts. Mommy likes his shirts. Says not many boys feel comfortable in colors."
The guard immediately recognized the description, and briefly wondered when the doctor had a kid. He wiped the thought away, though. The girl didn't call him "Daddy," but "Mr. Reid." She knew him well enough to describe the types of clothes he regularly wears, but not well enough to drop the distancing respect of a prefix. Maybe she knew him through her mom? Where was her mom, anyway? Judging by the girl's distress and the time of day, the answer probably wasn't good.
He slowly stood up and offered a hand to the girl.
"Come on, sweetheart," He said, nodding towards the booth's open door, "Let's go call Mr. Reid."
A flash of fear crossed her face and jolted through her tiny body as she took a small step backward.
"Mommy says 'No'." She stated firmly, though a quiver of apprehension was noticeable. Her eyes were fixed on the booth's door, as though it were a dangerous monster that needed to be kept in its place, and she was determined to see that it was.
Makes sense, he figured. Her mom had probably warned her not to go anywhere with strangers, and the girl took "anywhere" to also mean small, enclosed spaces with little-to-no vantage points. It was for the best, really. The girl knew what danger looked like, at least.
"Alright," he complied softly, "but you stay right here in view of the doorway, where I can see you. I'll call the front desk and have they send someone down who can take you to Mr. Reid, okay?"
The girl nodded begrudgingly, still glaring at the door as though it were made of venomous snakes. The guard slipping into the booth and picked up the phone. "What's your name, sweetheart?" he asked as he dialed the front desk.
"Olivia," She spoke, just loud enough to be heard. Maybe she was scared that loud sounds would startle the door. He was about to ask for her last name, as well, when the front desk picked up.
"Yeah, I got a little girl down here in Garage A," He told them, "Says her name is 'Olivia' and that she needs to Dr. Reid... No, she's completely alone; she came on the commuter bus..." He lowered his voice as he answered their next question, "Nothing noticeable, no. Judging by the time of day and the fact that she's alone, I'm gonna say she's either a victim or witness. Alright, she'll be here with me."
He turned to Olivia as he hung up the phone.
"Alright, sweetheart, someone will be down shortly to take you to Mr. Reid. If I promise to keep the door open, will you wait with me in the booth?"
Maybe it was his promise, or the promise of another person arriving soon, that quelled her fears, but the little girl Olivia made her way in the booth. She kept an extra-wide berth of the door, though.
~0~
"Dr. Reid," The agent answered as he picked up his desk phone.
"Dr. Reid, we have a young girl named 'Olivia' here to see you," The voice on the other end informed him, "An agent is bringing retrieving her now. Do you know Olivia?"
"Yes, I do," He answered, a mild panic flavoring his tone, "Is she here alone?"
"Yes," The voice, probably an agent –in-training, confirmed, "The security officer that called her in witnessed her exiting a commuter bus in front of Garage A. No one was with her."
Though he tried desperately to remain calm, Reid's once mild panic was growing more and more severe. It was 7:32 in the morning on a Thursday in October. Rebecca and Olivia should be eating breakfast. So why was Olivia here and where was Rebecca?
The voice started again, interrupting his nearly frantic train of thought. "Agent Clarke has confirmed pick up. They're on their way to you now."
A dull "thank you" stumbled out of Reid's mouth. Okay, he had to get it together. Olivia was here and she was probably frightened. Whatever happened, she came to him for help. She trusted him to be able to handle this, so he would.
Across the way, Dr. Lewis noticed his discomfort.
"Reid?" She called softly, "You okay?"
Tara Lewis watched as the younger doctor's eyebrows scrunched and his lower lip disappeared beneath teeth in the way that usually happened when he couldn't get his head straight.
"Uuuuh…no?" He answered, though it sounded more like a question. Perhaps he, himself, didn't know if he was okay. Or perhaps he wasn't sure whether or not to answer her sincerely, and was waiting to gauge her response.
Before she had the opportunity to figure it out, the elevator doors dinged.
Reid shot up out of his chair and fervently paced across the bullpen to the currently-open glass doors. Across the hall, a little girl, accompanied by an agent, exited the elevator. When she saw Reid, her tense body language relaxed, but only slightly. Her hunched shoulders fell back, but not fully. Her knuckles, once white with the forced being used to grip her blanket, regained color. And her eyes, once darting around and trying to observe as much as possible as quickly as possible, were now trained solely on Reid.
The little girl hastened up to him, and he bent down to pick her up. She snuggled slightly into his arms, but her body language was still on alert. Before Reid could greet her, the little girl opened her mouth with severe gravity.
"Somebody took Mommy."
Reid froze, his brown eyes staring into Olivia's, looking for any sign of deceit. The little girl was dead-calm, and she was dead-serious.
Tara, who had at some point apparently joined them, and Agent Clarke obviously heard the young girl's statement and immediately went into action.
"What's your mommy's full name, kiddo?" Agent Clarke asked, ready to make note of her answer in his phone.
"Rebecca Griffith," Olivia answered in a detached, rehearsed tone. She proceeded to list off her home address, her home phone number, her mother's cell phone number, and two in-case-of-emergency contacts. Reid recognized the name of Rebecca's best friend and Rebecca's mother as the contacts.
"Where was your mom taken from, sweetie, do you know?" Lewis asked in a delicate tone.
Olivia's calm and alert demeanor was slowly dissolving as she began to remember whatever it was that she witnessed.
"From her room," She said, a small whine breaking through her once docile voice, "She didn't want to go, I don't think. They didn't ask. Just kinda took her."
"I'll get the local police to the house immediately," Agent Clarke stated placing his phone to his ear and returning to the elevator. Reid and Lewis hardly paid him any mind.
"How many of them were there?" Lewis asked next, noting from the barely restrained terror on Reid's face that it was probably best for her to take the lead at the moment.
Olivia took a second to consider before saying, "Two, I think. I saw one real well, but the other guy was in the shadows too much."
"They were both men?" Tara continued as Morgan and Garcia walked over.
"What's going on?" Derek asked, his eyebrows knotted and his shoulders braced. He had seen the situation from down the hall and immediately classified it as "not good". And if Reid's tense jaw and dear-in-headlights eyes were anything to go on, he was right.
"Two men took Olivia's mom." Tara answered, figuring that new arrivals could easily deduce who 'Olivia' was.
A startled 'oh' escaped Garcia's lips as her eyes focused on the little tiny girl in Spencer Reid's arms. She snuggled closer into the man's embrace, clearly uncomfortable with the situation. Or maybe it was just Penelope's staring. She looked away.
"When did they take her?" Morgan asked, the question directed at no one in particular, though Olivia was the only one who knew the answer.
"Early," she mumbled into her blanket-cover fist, "Before the sun came up."
Something in her response must have snapped Reid back into the land of living, as the next question came from him.
"Olivia, baby," He started, using the pet name that her mother usually used, "Why didn't you call the police? That's what you're supposed to do in emergencies, not hop on a bus to Quantico."
The girl's eyes snapped to Reid's, and he was – as always- taken aback but how much she resembled her mother, both physically and behaviorally.
"Because the police wouldn't trust me," The child growled seriously, "You know just like I do that people judge each other in a one-size-fits-all kinda way. I saw them take my momma. I saw one super good – good enough to draw you a picture. I can tell you how tall they were, how big they were, how they moved, how they talked. But the police wouldn't care. They would only see me as a scared little girl because that's the size they think should fit. You know better than that. You know that I can help, and I expect you to let me."
The four adults surrounding her stood in contemplative, and impressed, on Garcia's part, silence for a few moments. This wasn't their jurisdiction, but the girl was right. They knew what an asset she could be, especially if she was serious about how well she saw one of the UNSUBs. Still, there was credence to be given to the idea that she was scared little girl who just witnessed the kidnapping of her mother. Pushing her to relieve it as many times as they would need to could very easily do even more damage. Not to mention the fact that Hotch probably already had other cases in mind for them to work on.
Olivia, seemingly sensing their apprehension, wriggled out of Spencer's arms and stormed over to one of the desks in the bullpen. She addressed the person working there – Agent Anderson – and requested used of a pen and the legal pad sitting off to the side. Anderson nodded and handed the angry girl a blue pen.
The others stalked over as she began fervently sketching a detailed profile of a man with a strong jawline and a dark ski cap. When she was finished, she turned to the four adults looming over her and held up the rough sketch of the man she saw.
"His hair was red," she stated firmly, a bite of frustrated annoyance to her tone, "Not like a red crayon, but like an orange crayon. His skin was pale, but not super pale. Not like the Jeremy from down the street. He had a few freckles all over his face and his nose was crooked, but slim. He was about an inch taller than the other guy, but the other guy had broader shoulders, which he tossed my mom over before crawling out the window," she finished a few octaves higher than when she began. Once done, she slammed the legal pad back on Anderson's desk and took turns glaring at each of the four other adults, willing them to challenge her.
"What's going on here?" She heard from behind. She briefly considered looking to see who asked, but decided against it. She wasn't done glaring yet.
Dr. Lewis looked towards her towards Hotch and Rossi, who were currently standing on the other of the desk of a very uncomfortable Agent Anderson, and gave them a slight shrug.
"I think we just got a case."
First chapter of my story Ill-Intentioned People. The story is projected to follow the stories of original characters Rebecca and Olivia Griffith.
Rebecca Griffith is an unmarried 32 year old mother of one, who works from home by producing educational articles and videos about current events around the world. She has a Masters degree in Mass Media Communication, a Bachelors in International Relations, and recently received her PhD in Transregional History from Georgetown. She occasionally guest lectures at universities up and down the East Coast, often taking Olivia with her on her travels.
Olivia Griffith is the 5 year old daughter of Rebecca Griffith. She's very well-spoken on most days, but loses herself when tired, anxious, or otherwise inhibited. She is a prodigy in traditional art, though her handwriting is lackluster, and has a knack for science. Her pediatrician thinks she might be on the autistic spectrum, but isn't sure. She has recommended against testing, as the scale for autism is extremely unbalanced and won't provide any solid answers. As of now, Olivia simply lives her life. She attends Feynman School for gifted children.
I currently have no concept for how long this story will go, seeing as it's more of a biographical profile than a single-plot piece. If this story interests you, feel free to strap in and enjoy the ride.
If you noticed any errors in spelling, grammar, or continuity, please let me know.
Sincerely,
Cut Into Dreams