Made up agent: Lila Jennings
Lila scrambled out of the interrogation room, leaving Morgan alone with the suspect. Blowing past Rossi, JJ, Prentiss, and dodging Hotch's glare of contention, Lila Jennings made her way outside of the bustling police station. Her mind was a messy jumble of panic as she ran her hand through her hair and tried to even her breaths, but to no avail. New flashbacks kept popping into her head, each one hitting harder than the last. A few hot tears dripped down her cheeks. Lila started fumbling around with the things in her pocket until her shaky hands managed to grasp the keys to the SUV.
They layout of the town was already familiar, too familiar. She knew exactly where she wanted to go. Lila had done all she could in order to try to escape this city, her hometown. Just driving past certain buildings, hearing certain things and smelling the well-known scent of the air had set her on edge, bringing up unwelcomed memories. Seeing some places she used to hide out caused her to clench the steering wheel harder as she drove, her knuckles turning white. Lila drew nearer and nearer to her safety spot, the one she used to waste away the hours at as a kid.
Jennings pulled the car over and stepped out, sunglasses covering her watery, red eyes. She headed through the grassy fields to the park that surprisingly few people knew about. That was one of the things that appealed to her. The isolation. It was the one place she could avoid her father's rage in tranquility.
She slumped down on a lone bench that stood just a couple feet away from a pond. The golden skies reflected off of the water and onto her sunglasses. She had no control over the flashbacks at this point. She just let them wash over her, each one tearing away a part of her. Fighting was hard, and she didn't have much strength left.
Suddenly, she was back in the past yet again. She was riding her bike as fast as she could down the twisting roads, making her way to that very bench she sat on in the present. The little 10 year old Lila could barely see through the tears clouding her eyes, but still she still peddled harder and harder. It was a mere couple of minutes until she reached the bench near the pond and threw her bike down in the tall grass. Young Lila sat in front of the bench, pulling her knees up to her chest and pushing her face into her arms.
Her back still stung from her dad's decision to hit her with the handle of a broom. She still didn't fully understand what for.
For hours, young Lila sat there by the pond, wishing for some guardian angel to fly down and rescue her. None ever came. No one came. Lila Jennings had to put up with it until she was 18, until she could move out. Since then, she had done everything she could to cut her father and this town out of her life.
She had changed her last name and her phone number, even dyed her hair so that her dad wouldn't be able to recognize her. She had avoided her hometown, the one that had inflicted so much pain on her, since she moved out. That is, until a case brought them to Albuquerque.
Two men and one woman had been shot and left near small government buildings throughout the town, such as post offices and libraries.
With the assistance of a well-built profile, Garcia had narrowed down the suspect list to two middle aged, unemployed men who used to work for the government, had no families, and were terminated as a result of a failure on their part.
One of those two had been in a car crash three years back that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Since he couldn't have dumped the bodies and nothing indicated that the killings were the work of a team, Seril Wilchester was eliminated, leaving Zachary Paul as the primary suspect.
When they brought him in for questioning, there wasn't a lot of doubt that he was guilty. The man didn't have a high IQ, so his mind games were minimal and his body language indicated underlying guilt for his actions.
After about half an hour of Lila and Morgan interrogating Mr. Paul, a confession was received. But then, something came from that confession that the BAU hadn't seen much of.
Zachary Paul wanted to explain why he did it. Not that there was any explanation or reasoning that could validate his actions.
The BAU needed all the information they could get from serial killers in order to better understand them and catch them quicker. Being the opportunist that he was, Hotch ok'd the request from Paul.
Lila and Morgan sat in there as the unkempt man described to them in great detail what he did to each one of the victims. Once he was done with his disturbing and gruesome prologue, Zach continued onto the reason behind his acts.
Although none of the victims had ever been accused of abusing their kids, Paul insisted that they reminded him of his highly abusive mother. He yet again went into detail while recounting the horrible acts done onto him by his mother. Hearing Paul's experiences brought up memories from Lila's past, and new memories she didn't even know she had kept popping up. This continued until she couldn't take it, and thus lead to her arriving at this park bench on the side of the pond, gasping for air as panic took hold of her lungs and heart.
She knew she would be reprimanded for bursting out of an interrogation like that, but that didn't matter to Lila. At least not for now. She needed to find a way to block out the vivid memories that were resurfacing ever so abruptly after all these years. Jennings dug around in her purse until she found her phone and her earbuds. She quickly untangled the nots in the cord and soon, she was lost in the blaring music that was being pumped into her ears. She closed her eyes and let the sounds take her away, taking her up and off this Earth. Away from all the pain and worries of the day, taking her to peace.
Minutes, hours even, went by and Lila still sat there at the pond nodding her head to the melodies. The stars now shined upon the water below. The unobstructed midnight blue sky flowed as steadily as the stream that trickled into the pond. All of it was so calming and provided a distraction from the chaos going inside and all around her.
Lila jumped up at the feeling of someone's hand on her shoulder, her heart pace picking up even more. She whipped around to see a familiar face shining down at her, a looked of concern plastered on his face and a slight frown tugging at his mouth.
"Morgan! Oh my God. You scared me." Lila said as she pulled the earbuds out and wrapped the cord around her phone, placing it back in her bag. Derek walked around the front of the bench and took a seat next to her.
"You wanna tell me what's going on?" He asked, his voice serious.
Lila paused. She didn't know how to explain it.
"I don't know where to start." She whispered.
"Start from the beginning." Morgan answered. Lila took a deep breath.
"I- I don't know if you know, but I grew up here. My mom left when I was just a baby and I was left with my dad." She looked up at Morgan. She had taken the sunglasses off a while ago, and now her teary eyes were visible. "He used to beat me. I've done everything to try and escape him and the memories, but- hearing Paul, it just brought back so many memories I didn't even know I had and-" Lila put her face in her hands as her voice cracked. New tears began to swell up, and now Morgan was here to witness it.
"Hey, hey, hey… it's okay. He can't touch you now. Even if he was here, he'd have to get through me." Derek smiled sympathetically as he took her hands away from her face and placed them in his.
"This is all just so stupid," Lila scoffed and tried to blink away the tears. "It happened so long ago, and I've been having all these flashbacks and new memories keep popping up. I'm sorry. This is dumb, I know." She finished. Morgan sighed.
"No, I get it. It's not dumb and it's not stupid. These things- they stick with us for life, whether we like it or not. I am so, so sorry for what that man has done to you. But you're safe now." He scooted closer to Lila, letting go of her hands and wrapping her in his arms. The scent of his cologne enveloped her. He could feel her shaking, he could hear the racing of her heart.
"It's ok. Take a breath." Derek whispered.
"I need to get away from here." Lila nodded towards their surroundings. It brought back too many painful memories.
Morgan hopped to his feet, extending a hand towards Jennings. She took it, grateful that she had someone with her.
The car ride back to the hotel was spent in near silence, the only sound filling the SUV was the quiet hum of the radio.
The two walked, arm in arm, towards Lila's room in the hotel the team had been staying in.
"Thank you, Derek." Lila smiled briefly as she walked into the room, Morgan shutting the door behind him. "You don't have to stay," She tried to tell him.
"Nuh uh, I'm gonna stay with you as long as you need." He smirked before plopping down on the double bed and grabbing the remote for the small TV that stood in front of where he lay.
"The Nightmare Before Christmas! I love this movie." He chuckled. Lila slipped off her coat and sat down next to Morgan. They were just in time.
"This Is Halloween" began to play as Morgan leaned back on the bed. Lila did the same, and Morgan put an arm around her and drew her closer.
For the rest of the movie, and the couple of movies that followed after that, the two spent their time in each other's embrace. A joke was cracked once in a while and the room would be filled with Lila's giggle and Derek's low, deep chuckle.
The fourth movie drew to an end, a song playing and the credits rolling. The lights were off and the TV glowed onto the happy couple, Lila still wrapped in Derek's arm. They had dozed off about a half hour back, and they spent the rest of the night sleeping in each other's company.