So, this is quite obviously going to be a Criminal Minds story about Spencer Reid and my OC. I'm a fan of Greek names myself and subsequently have chosen one as my main character's first name. Oh well. And yes, her last name is in fact an allusion to the amazing super hero, the Green Lantern.
Anyways, this first chapter is really just a set up chapter for the main character. The story's most probably going to move slightly slowly in the progression of the relationship between Spencer and Alastrina but that's really how I want it to go.
Disclaimer: Criminal Minds belongs to The Mark Gordon Company, ABC Studios, and CBS Television Studios. I only own my OC and my plot.
Episode featured in this chapter: 5x13 "Risky Business"
January 20, 2010
Alastrina rushed to the BAU's bullpen having arrived five minutes after she was expected to be there. She didn't bother to look at the desks scattered around and speed walked towards Aaron Hotchner's office. Knocking on the door, she proceeded in after she heard his okay to come in.
"You wanted to see me sir?" She asked from the doorway.
"Yes, please take a seat." He gestured to the seat in front of him. "I take it that you received some information over at Cyber Division."
"Just the bare minimum sir, nothing extensive." Her hand drifted to her bracelet to start tinkering with it.
"Here're the case files, read them, you're coming on the case with us." Taking that as her cue to leave, she gathered the files and walked towards the door, before she opened it though she paused to look back over at Hotch.
"Sir, I know I might be out of line to tell you this but it's okay to miss her. If you didn't, I'd be worried." Smiling slightly in his direction, she walked out of the office and started to round the bullpen towards Penelope Garcia's office when she heard her name. Turning around, she grinned broadly at the oncoming agent.
"What are you doing here Miss Thing?" SSA Derek Morgan called out, raising an inquisitive eyebrow.
"What? I can't come by to say 'hey' to my friends?" He caught the sarcastic tone in her voice and smirked slightly.
"You have friends… since when?" He chuckled to himself but continued on. "Seriously though, what are you doing here?"
"I've been called in for the case and before you ask, no I don't know why. Now, seeing as how Rossi just walked in and I'd much rather not go through another lecture of how my spaghetti sauce needs more oregano I'm going to flee to Garcia. See ya Morgan." She blurted out quickly before turning and practically running into "the Batcave". Chuckling again, Derek walked back to his desk where he met Rossi.
"Was that Jordan?" At Derek's affirmative, he continued on, "She still has yet to take my advice about her spaghetti sauce, since when has oregano ever done anyone harm? She'll regret it one day." Satisfied with what he said, Rossi walked over to make himself a cup of coffee, still muttering about oregano and paying no mind to the amused look Emily and Derek shared.
"Sir, it's not that I'm not glad to be coming with you because I am, I just don't understand why." Penelope stammered out.
"One of the aspects of an equivocal death investigation when suicide is a probability is an indirect personality assessment. Our victims are all internet generation kids; there should be some valuable personal information on their computers that would aid the investigation." Hotch responded.
"If they committed suicide, evidence would be in their cyber world." Morgan added.
"So I'm going to snoop through dead kids' computers." Penelope stared at Morgan with wide eyes.
"You and Jordan." Reid amended from across Alastrina who rolled her eyes at him.
"This plane seldom makes pleasure trips." Rossi told Penelope.
"We've all been over the case, let's talk about victimology." It would have been an understood change of subject but Alastrina would've bet money on him attempting to shift the conversation just to make Penelope feel better. While the rest of the team talked about the victims, she re-read the case files trying to come up with any websites that the four kids probably visited.
"But the most common don't exist here," everyone including Alastrina looked up at JJ, "there's no prior attempts, no period of deep depression, no withdrawal from family members, no spontaneous proclamations of love."
"'Spontaneous proclamations of love'?" Prentiss echoed.
"Sometimes a suicidal person in the days leading up to the act will just blurt out 'I love you' to family, sort of like a goodbye." JJ glanced down while Reid and Alastrina exchanged a look.
"I never did like Wyoming, far too square in my opinion." Alastrina whispered to Penelope in an attempt to cheer her up a little bit. Garcia's lips twitched but that still wasn't enough.
"Actually, Wyoming isn't really a square the length of the borders are…" But before Reid got a chance to finish his sentence he was elbowed in the side. "Ally, what was that for?" The woman in question just rolled her eyes before giving him a playful nudge. They all sobered up as the car pulled into the lot. The sheriff informed the team about a reporter that was making paper out of trees and Reid told her about the dangers of sensationalizing the suicides.
"Where can we set up?" Alastrina stepped forward a bit, gesturing between her and Garcia.
"We don't have much of a command center." The sheriff informed them with a sheepish smile.
"Fret not, we have our own command center, we just need your juice." Garcia cut in with a reassuring smile and followed the sheriff to the area that was designated for them. The two began setting up the computers as Rossi put up the evidence board. Emily, Hotch, JJ, Morgan, and Reid had all gone to interview the victims' families. "Hey Ally, what do you guys do in the Cyber Division?" Rossi turned around to listen in as well.
"Well we for the most part look into white-collar crime, organized crime, and violent crime though we do have to branch out occasionally and look into public corruption and financial crime. Our biggest fish though, is any cyber crime related to counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal threats. It's basically like we're all super agents in a spy movie." Ally responded while opening the necessary programs on her computer. Rossi walked over to stand next to the two while watching them set up.
"Now, Jordan, how about that spaghetti sauce?" Alastrina groaned and swatted at Rossi to move over. "What? Do you not like my advice?"
"It's more like badgering." She shot back. Rolling his eyes, he turned to Garcia for some help.
"Don't look at me pops, I don't know the first thing about cooking." Garcia laughed at the face he made. Emily, JJ, and Hotch walked in not too long after with Trish Leake's computer. Emily handed it to Garcia and stood to the side of Alastrina, smiling down at the younger woman. When Garcia couldn't find anything on the directories, she let Ally do some of the work proud that her part time "protégé" could keep up.
"I thought you said it was empty?" Emily questioned as she watched Ally work.
"Not empty, just appears to be." Garcia responded with a cheeky grin, taking back the computer once Alastrina got the information open. "A basic Trojan Horse, hides the information but doesn't clean the directories. Oh my god. She was on a Choking Game website."
"A what?" Rossi asked incredulously.
"It's a game some kids play to get high." Ally responded, staring at the screen with mild disgust.
"They call it the 'good kid's high', you get light-headed and a sense of euphoria even though no actual drugs are involved. Something the kids in high school play." Reid added.
"Did Ryan have a computer?" Hotch asked.
"None in his room." Morgan replied, arms crossed.
"What about a gaming system?" Garcia asked looking up at the man.
"Here's the IP address." Reid unfolded a piece of paper and laid it out in front of the two women. Garcia typed it in as fast as she could while Ally moved over to her personal computer, opening it up to the website.
"Bingo, Ryan was on the same site on the same night."
"It wasn't suicide." Morgan stated, Ally caught the slightly relieved look on JJ's face but decided to stay quiet.
"Garcia, click the text-to-voice icon." Ally called out, sliding her chair back over to Garcia.
"Come on, try it, we all do. I dare you." The robotic voice called out.
"I dare you?" Sheriff Samuel calls out with a sneer on her face.
"Someone was orchestrating this, purposely getting the kids to choke themselves." Prentiss hunched over slightly.
"And that someone is Darksoul634." Ally muttered, glaring at the screen.
"There's a whole subculture around this game, they make names for it, play it at parties." Garcia informed the team.
"But someone's daring these kids in this area to play the game." Rossi commented.
"It's a competition." Ally could feel her anger and disgust raising the more and more she found the information.
"And there're rules. 'Come on Evans High, this is the big one. Garfield edged out Casper High last week, you gonna let them diss us?'" Garcia read off the screen.
"'Diss' sounds like a kid." Emily reasoned.
"Yeah, who else would pit schools against each other?" Hotch commented.
"Reckless teenage competition." Rossi looked around the group.
'"Gotta do it alone, record it on a webcam, and upload it to the site for it to count."' Garcia continued.
"Garcia shut the site down." Hotch commanded.
"Sir, I don't think we should do that, this is our only connection to the UnSub, without it we won't be able to track them down. If we cut into the feed now, he'll know that we're on to him and shut down the site only to bring it up with a simply change in code and in a more covert fashion. Besides, there's no telling how many servers are already connected to it." Ally cut in trying to make sense while also trying to bury her guilt.
"You're right, we're ready to give the profile." He directed the second part of the statement to Sheriff Samuels.
"My god, this guy's a genius; his protection is off the wall. Have you ever seen anything like this?" Garcia asked as Ally came to sit beside her, nursing a cup of coffee.
"Not from a kid, no. This is ridiculously sophisticated, how'd he get it?" She mused aloud trying to make sense of it in her head. The two look up when they hear a door close only to see Reid and Morgan walk out.
"Hope you've got a Plan B." Morgan called out to Hotch before following Reid. Thinking quickly, Hotch looked over at Garcia when a plan formed in his head.
"Garcia, I want you to go talk to him, he has a better chance connecting with you then with anyone else."
"But sir, I've never done anything like this before and what about the computer?" Garcia turned her frantic eyes to her boss.
"You'll be fine and Agent Jordan can take over while you're gone." Garcia looked over to the woman sitting beside her only to receive a smile and a thumbs-up. Sighing, she got up and walked over to the room.
"Do you think you can get it?" Reid asked as he walked over.
"Without a hint, probably not before something goes horribly wrong." Nodding, Reid slid into the chair next to her and handing over a granola bar. Time passed and Ally couldn't get anywhere in her attempts to hack the system. Reid had long since gone over to the evidence board and now the only one still by her side was JJ. Glancing over, she noticed the necklace JJ was wearing, slightly curious, as she hadn't seen it before. "Nice necklace."
Startled out of her thoughts, it took a minute for JJ to respond but when she did, it was only a quiet 'thank you'. Silence fell over the two again when JJ decided to speak again.
"My sister gave it to me when I was 11."
"That's sweet; the only thing my brother ever gave me was his dirty socks." She pulled a face causing JJ to chuckle slightly.
"His first name was William right?" JJ questioned, though she knew the answer.
"An unfortunate coincidence." Ally didn't hesitate in her response.
"You talk about him like he's still here." JJ observed, slightly surprised by her bluntness but was put at ease by Ally laughing lightly.
"Doesn't do me any good to act differently now that he's gone, he's always going to be my older brother and there's not a thing in this world that I'd be willing to do to change that." JJ smiled again at that, she had known Henry Jordan for less time than she had known Alastrina but they had still become good friends. The resemblance between the two siblings was uncanny; they both had the same dark hair and hazel eyes, the same nose, and the same ears. They even talked like each other at times, but that's what made everything fun. It was a four-year age difference and it was easy to tell, while Henry stood at a towering height of 6'2" Ally reached a self-proclaimed height of 5'4.5". The two had one of the best relationships she's seen among siblings but unfortunately Henry passed away two years ago in a car accident.
JJ was pulled out of her musings when Christopher's father came barging in, demanding that his son be let go of and that he wanted a lawyer. Hotch nodded and led the way to the interview room. Garcia came out of the interview room looking slightly out of it. Ally moved out of the way to let her slide into her chair and begin working again. More kids started to post up videos and the search for a way into Christopher's computer got more and more frantic.
"Catchman is the whole county so about 2,000 kids go to the school." Reid said in response to JJ's question, "Garcia, we really need to gain administrative access to this website. I've written down a number of things Christopher may have used as his password, I've already eliminated birthdays, holidays, pet names, and pop culture icons."
"No, there was something," she hesitated, "pathetic about him, not criminal. When he was leaving he said he misses his mom. What's his mom's name?"
"Cynthia Summers." Garcia quickly typed the name into the computer and was relieved when she got access to everything.
"Log in as an administrator and shut down the main source." Reid advised.
"Already on it my friend." She sighed deeply, "Kids are still posting up videos through independent servers."
"Pull up the website history; see if you can find anything through historical posts." Reid advised again.
"Wait, look at this." Ally spoke up. "It's the same handle but different writing styles."
"A writer can disguise his own writing style to make himself seem younger or uneducated."
"But it's nearly impossible to make yourself seem older or more educated than you actually are." Ally finished for him.
"One writing style of a teenager, one writing style of an adult, one handle. Christopher was being manipulated by someone older." Reid announced just in time for Hotch, Emily, and Rossi to hear.
The team quickly deduced everything that had happened in Christopher's life. From the slow poisoning of his mother to his father choking and resuscitating him, the majority of the team left to go find the two at their house leaving behind JJ, Garcia, and Ally. When the team got there, however, there was no sign of either Summers in the house. It didn't take them long to figure out that Christopher was looking to suicide as his only way out, but where? Where would his father take him and that's when it all clicked in her head.
"The mother." She stated, continuing at the confused looks sent towards her "Everything thus far has been about the mother, so where else to go other than where she was buried?"
"For Christopher a cemetery would be a place of refuge, but for the father…" Morgan called out over the phone.
"He's revisiting a body disposal site." Hotch finished for him.
"Oaklawn Cemetery, halfway between here and Glenrock." Garcia shouted out.
"The father would still need electricity though." Ally was trying to work it all out in her head, but where would he go if not the cemetery?
"There's a chapel. They use it for burials." Sheriff Samuels offered.
"Let's go." The team immediately left for the cemetery, hoping to catch Mr. Summers before he killed Christopher. The trio at the police station waited for what seemed like an eternity but finally they got a hit.
"Sir, Mr. Summers logged onto the phishing site." Garcia told Hotch when he answered his phone.
"Is he downloading the videos?"
"He's trying to, but all he's going to get is snow." The line was disconnected and they all hoped everything would be alright. Once they got the green light from Hotch, JJ left to the cemetery and the two technical analysts were left to pack everything up.
"Do you ever think about joining the BAU? I know you have your training to be a profiler."
"Sometimes I think about it, I mean you guys are practically family but I don't think I could benefit you guys at all. I mean, you guys work together so seamlessly and I'm just there." Alastrina was being completely honest Penelope, she loves the BAU, she truly does but she doesn't belong there.
"But you've worked so many cases with us, I mean, would Hotch call you here if he didn't think you'd work for the team?" Garcia paused in her actions to stare incredulously at Alastrina.
"Look, Pen…"
"Nuh-uh Super Girl, don't you dare go pulling any crap about how you're not good enough for the team. We love you, you love us. We're made for each other."
"Penny, there's something you need to know." Alastrina tried again.
"I mean come on! You're best friends with everyone here! Rossi even lets you into his kitchen! His kitchen for Pete's sake!" She continued, completely ignoring what the other woman was saying.
"Penelope!" Finally getting her attention, she continued. "I'm going to be leaving the country in a couple of months for a job."
"…What?"
"I'm leaving early April, I probably won't be back until August."
"So you're just leaving?"
"No, it's part of an operation that we're doing. I promise I'll explain everything after I get back."
"But that's months from now! What if you don't make it?"
"I promise you I'll make it, it's nothing to worry about, just a slight sting operation."
"Does anyone else know?"
"Just Hotch, you have to swear you won't tell anyone."
"But what if when you're gone…"
"Cross your heart."
"Fine." Garcia gave in, hoping she would see her friend again.
Alastrina was currently in the onboard kitchenette watching JJ make coffee and listening to Prentiss tell her story to Reid.
"There was this young prince who wanted to win the heart of the fairest maiden in the land so he climbed to the top of the tallest tower in the kingdom and he caught a falling star for her, unfortunately he was so excited that he dropped it and it smashed into all of these pieces, so he frantically put it back together again to prove his undying love for her and he succeeded and they lived happily ever after."
"That doesn't make any sense." Reid scrunched his face in thought.
"What do you mean?" Emily asked through narrowed eyes.
"You can't catch a falling star; it would burn up in the atmosphere." Alastrina chuckled a bit at that.
"Yeah, but it's not literal Reid, it's just a fable."
"But there's no moral, uh fable's have morals."
"Okay, so it's just a romantic little story, the point is it's basically impossible to do because you have to take all of those pieces and fit them together exactly…" she trailed off once Reid put the completed puzzle on the table in front of him. "There's a lot to hate about you Dr. Reid." Morgan laughed at that.
"Play poker with him sometime." Rossi suggested sarcastically.
"Try playing chess with him." Morgan added before putting on his headphones.
"Or Go." Garcia quipped from her chair. Hotch got up from his seat and proceeded into the kitchenette as well.
"I just wanted to say thank you, if you hadn't pushed it we would never have gone." Hotch informed the blonde, nodding to the brunette.
"Hotch…" JJ sighed but before she could say anything else, Hotch cut in.
"JJ, you don't have to." She nodded at that.
"Uh, I should probably get going." Alastrina couldn't help but feel awkward in the situation but JJ grabbed her arm before she could make any progress.
"Ally, I want you to hear this too." She took a deep breath before starting. "My sister gave this to me when I was eleven. She just came in to my bedroom one afternoon and told me that no matter what happened, she loved me. This was her favorite necklace." She smiled softly. "So I told her I couldn't take it but she insisted. I, of course, was secretly very happy because I always wanted one just like hers. That's the last time I… ever…" Alastrina reached out and grabbed her hand, squeezing it once she had a firm grasp.
"I'm sorry." Hotch whispered, looking straight at JJ.
"I think about her every day. It does get better Hotch. Losing someone is never easy," she looked over at Alastrina when she said that, "but one day, you'll remember her and you won't hurt. You'll be happy." She smiled up at him before letting go of Alastrina's hand.
"Thank you, thank you for everything." He responded after a moment. JJ nodded and left the area.
"She's right sir. It might not be any time soon but the day will come when you can be happy again. Happy without feeling any guilt about being happy. That much I can promise." She left soon after that, clapping him on the shoulder. On her way to her seat, she mussed up Reid's hair and laughed lightly at his angered 'hey!'. She shared a quick low-five with Emily and sat in the seat adjacent the three of them. Wadding up a paper ball, she threw it at Morgan who picked it up and threw it back at her. She looked over at Rossi and made eye contact but quickly realized the mistake she had made.
"So Jordan, have you given any thought to the oregano for your sauce?" Rossi inquired dryly.
"You know what, Rossi? If it'll make you happy I'll put some oregano in my spaghetti sauce but only if you put chives in yours." She countered.
"Chives? Chives in my spaghetti sauce? I think you've gone and lost your mind. My cooking needs no assistance, you could only hope to get as good at it as I am." Rossi practically yelled in mock outrage.
"And a bit of salt too. I find your sauce to be a bit….bland." She cackled wildly after that and exchanged a high-five with Garcia as Rossi started ranting about how no-one appreciated good cooking anymore.
Hotch watched over the interactions the entire time and couldn't help but to think that she would make an excellent addition to the team. He just hoped her espionage mission went well and she was able to return home. God knows he's had enough death in his life for now.
One chapter has come and gone. The next one will either take place five months in the future or sometime during her espionage mission.
