Lots of original characters in this. I suspect my first epic. I'm very excited. Please, sit back, relax, and enjoy. (I own nothing, or else Rossi would be shirtless in every episode.)

-CriminallyCecy

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Annabeth

"Hey, Ann…" Clarence Jessup stood awkwardly to his colleague's side, watching her eyes focus and unfocus on something in the park, off in the bushes. "Annie!"

The slight and short brunette stirred from her reverie and looked at Clarence as though she'd only just noticed he was there for the first time.

"What are you shouting about?" She asked calmly, her dark brown eyes squinting against the bright Chicago spring sunlight. It was still cold, the harsh winter leaving slowly and clearly with regret. She tightened the pea-coat around her neck to block out the cutting wind. Clarence gave a miniscule shake of his head, not at all shocked at her distant demeanor, but mostly lost in his own amused thoughts at her hair being whipped about her face, those dark troubled eyes that saw more than any human he'd ever met, always with this adorable pout around her full lips.

"I was going to ask you what you were thinking… Either you have quite a theory going or there is something you like for the murder off in those tree's." Clarence removed his gloves, and added, "The cops will be here soon. Jack sent in an anonymous tip, a jogger on the trail found her." He added with emphasis on the lie.

"Yea." She answered distractedly, looking down at the lifeless body of a barely adult young woman, with the same color hair as her, eyes staring wildly upwards into nothingness. "Take some more pictures, I have enough samples." She stalked off the in the direction of their parked Cadillac station wagon, tresses still

Annabeth balled her fists in the pockets of her jacket, aware the gesture needed to be hidden as strong anger unfurled in her stomach. She pictured the dead girls face, streaked with blood, arms sprawled about. Then she clearly pictured the Jane Doe's expression: absolute terror on her face, the last picture of what she saw etched in the rigor around her mouth and eyes as if a silent screaming as to who the sick bastard was. Any detective could deduce she'd died horribly, torture evident after an ME's report – but Annabeth could tell after she'd gently lifted the skirt. She alone knew exactly what that girl had endured, and for what approximate amount of time before she was defiled again, post-mortem. Again, Jane Doe's face. Annabeth shuddered under the realization that seemed to be washing over her again and again, She looks just like her…

"I could use a bite." Clarence hopped into the driver's seat with some new energy, quite unaffected by the body still laying lifeless and abandoned in the park in this early morning spring.

"The sun is almost full-up, if the PD doesn't get here soon, someone will contaminate the scene…" She mumbled, still staring in the direction of the body, her whole self rigid in the seat. She hadn't heard about her colleagues hunger, she didn't hear much of what he said most of the time anyways.

"We got what we needed, we got what we came for. Let the local leeches do their job." Clarence put the car into gear heavily, with a grin.

Anna turned her head to observe the muscles which had procured that last line, and a hint of a grin lifted at her lips too. It wasn't the first time she'd heard the dripping disdain, the intense animosity, of a man who hated no one more than tax-paid heroes.

"You never told me about not making the force. How old were you?" She tested, watching his eyebrows and mouth and the artery in his neck all at once. As if on cue, a nerve jumped along his jaw line, at the same time his bit his lower lip. Eureka. She thought, wanting to laugh.

"What are you talking about?" Stalling, she regarded somewhat irritably.

"Why you even try to lie to me is just beyond aggravating, it's actually quite offensive Cherie. " she used his favorite pet name, to balm over his pride. It worked, she saw the slight dip of his head the left, the slight relaxation in his mouth, as he rolled the car easily up to a stop light, the sting of pride easily replaced by annoyance as he began to tap his index finger on the top of the wheel. God, how he hated when she read him.

"I made the force, I didn't make detective." He said gruffly, checking his mirror and looking side to side. It did no good, there was no one to see his gestures but her. And she was interpreting them as they happened. Disengaging. She registered, averting her eyes to the street as well, not wanting to upset him any further. A bread delivery truck passed too close for her comfort, in the opposite lane, the grizzly middle-eastern man glaring down into their vehicle at Clarence. Genuine disgust, She thought lamely to herself, indifferent to the racism. If there was one thing she knew for certain, color didn't matter as it related to facial expressions, they were the same in all shades of the rainbow.

Reading people, she could not help it. Since she was a child, it had been her savior and her curse. She could tell when her parents and later, foster parents, were getting beyond the point of angry with her, and the pain was coming. She learned early what the adults faces did right before they acted, and later, she would learn there was a science to her natural ability, thought it taught her nothing she didn't already know except hundreds of confusing definitions. Once she realized that none of it interested her, she spent years shadowing the greatest minds of deductive logic she could find. Annabeth had little idea how she'd come to this point in her life, other than she was hell-bent on eradicating the abusers of this world. Eventually she'd turn her unique skill set on the hand that fed her. She smiled openly at the thought.

"What's so funny?" Clarence had been watching her through the corner of his eyes, fearful that she might press him for details about his jacket.

"Larry is. Ever noticed? He has this…" She started to chuckle and snort as she pictured it. "This vein, this vein right here," She poked an index finger on the left corner of her temple, "It throbs purple when he's pissed!" She doubled over now, to the shock of Clarence, who couldn't ever remember the serious Annabeth ever laughing, and held her stomach. "I… I look forward to seeing it." She wiped a tear from her eyes. "It is the hardest thing not to laugh at, you know?" She leaned her elbow on the window seal of the car, it's hand propped under her chin as she shook her head. "Larry is hysterical."

Clarence looked almost frightened, she noticed. Clarence feared no one, save Larry. Annabeth doubted very much he'd ever found Larry hysterical. "If by hysterical you mean unbalanced, sociopathic and blood-thirsty, then yea, I'd agree…" he answered, the lie so evident in his voice she need not look at his face to find it.

"You worry too much, Cherie. Larry is a peach." She looked at Clarence with something as close to manic as he'd ever seen, a smile so sweet and wicked at once he decided right then and there that he feared Annabeth as well.

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Thank you for reading! Reviews welcome, CM characters to enter the story shortly. =)