It drove me nuts, when I saw Erin Strauss on the show for the first time, to figure out why she was so familiar to me. Then I realized that Jayne Atkinson was the actress who had also played Annie Greenwood for the Free Willy movies which still remain near and dear to my heart. All of a sudden, an image of Strauss and Jesse in an interrogation room burst in my mind and wouldn't go away. And voila, I put this little crossover together. Read and enjoy.
There were few people who ever saw beyond the exterior of Erin Strauss, and she preferred it that way. You didn't get as far as a deputy director of the FBI as a woman when you allowed everyone to see anything other than competent and confident. To accomplish that, personal could never cross into professional and weakness was not to be hinted at, let alone acknowledged and displayed.
Erin became one of the women in her generation who put their male colleagues to shame. She was smarter, quicker, more ruthless, and stricter just to be considered as good as those men. And eventually it all paid off and she was even able to have a family in the mean time. If she wasn't exactly mother or wife of the year, at least she was superior in her work. If she was called names behind her back like Dragon Lady, Ice Queen, or just a bitch, she was well used to it at this point in her life.
One of the most important things that Erin kept close to the vest was her sister. Mostly for the fact that Erin and Annie had never really got along and the last thing Erin needed was for anyone she knew to have access to her childhood through her sister. But if ever there were two sisters as unalike as Erin and Annie, Erin had yet to meet them.
Erin was the first born with Annie less than a year younger. They were Irish twins, born ten months apart and consequently attended school at the same time. This had created a sense of competition in Erin's mind, though she knew her sweet sister had never seen it that way. That their mother had openly favored Annie hadn't helped.
In a way, Erin's success as an agent and a director was due to her upbringing. She kept her thoughts and feelings private, never let anyone see her as weak or indecisive, and watched everyone carefully. Annie, in contrast, was open and caring, wanting nothing more than a simple life and a family. So when Erin had gone to the Academy to escape their small town life, Annie had married her high school sweetheart.
It was being the older sister to a more emotional and sensitive one that made Erin so protective. Once committed to something or someone, Erin would fight a ruthless battle for its best interest. Of course, this had led to some prickly situations for her, but nothing that had ever thrown her too far off balance or target.
It had been ironically tragic when Annie had been unable to have children while Erin had no trouble. But where Erin would have remained stubbornly childless, Annie had gone on to foster and adopt. Erin had no problem with adoption or fostering, but of course her sister would take on a trouble case of a boy with a juvenile record at the age of nine. Erin did her best to keep her own children away from Annie's boys—having taken in the boy's brother without thought—and was thankful that their families lived on opposite sides of the country, literally.
But despite all the distance between them, literally and figuratively, Erin would still move heaven and earth for Annie. Which it seemed that she had to do now.
"Erin, Jesse is in the custody of the FBI, suspected of several murders. Please, help him."
She was pulling up the relevant file as she spoke with her sister over the phone, though Annie didn't know much. Erin cursed silently when she found the case. Five murders in Washington, being investigated by Hotchner's BAU team due to the prominence of the victims as well as the manner of death.
"Annie, I'm taking the first flight out," Erin assured her younger sister who was nearly frantic. "Don't go to the police station, I'll take care of it."
If there was one thing she didn't want was for anyone on Hotchner's team to recognize Annie as Erin's sister.
On the flight, Erin considered what she knew of the case and her nephew. Somehow, she wasn't surprised that he was a suspect, especially with what she read on the victims. But despite her personal distrust of the young man, she knew that anyone raised by her sister wasn't a murderer.
Arriving at the police station, the first agent Erin came across was the unit leader himself, Aaron Hotchner. If he was surprised to see her, he didn't let that show too much.
"Ma'am, may I ask why you're here?" he asked, polite and professional with her as always. Erin felt a flicker of regret, remembering that at one time she had thought him a threat to the bureau by what she had assumed was either incompetence or deliberate obliviousness to his team's problems. That she had been proven incorrect Erin would never admit, but she now kept watch in order to help him, not hinder. She was oddly thankful that of all teams to interrogate her nephew, it was his.
"Tell me about the case," Erin requested without answering Hotchner's question.
Though still confused as to why Erin was there in person when she could have gotten an update over the phone, Hotchner answered. "The BAU was called out after the fourth murder when a pattern was established. There has been two fishing captains found shot through with hand-held harpoons, a fish monger has been gutted with his own knife, and an amusement park owner who was drowned in one of the seawater tanks of his own park."
"And the fifth victim?" Erin asked, though she knew already.
Hotchner's face frowned, whether at her continued presence or at the thought of the latest victim, Erin didn't care to guess.
"The latest kill is a clear escalation. The victim was strangled, doused in oil and lit on fire. He has now been identified as an oil executive of a local company. We've been able to determine that all the victims have had some part in damaging the local environment through over-fishing, a notable oil spill some ten years ago, and specifically, damaging to the whale population. The amusement park owner was neglectful in the care for his animals and the fish monger was discovered to deal whale meat on the black market."
"Which led you to the local activist groups," Erin surmised, again, not surprised at the work of the agents, or her nephew's involvement.
"Yes," Hotchner agreed. "We eventually found a suspect and have brought him in for questioning. That was last night."
He looked at Erin as if wondering if that had been her impetus in coming across the country.
"What makes him a suspect?" Erin asked, still keeping her thoughts and motivations to herself.
Hotchner was still willing to let that go and continued. "Jesse Greenwood is an active participant in the local environmental causes, especially that for orca whales. He has been cited many times for unruly protests and picket lines, back to when he was a teenager. He has fines for trespassing on fishing boats and leaving buckets of fish guts on the doorsteps of oil companies that are later cited for not following all the proper safety procedures."
"What about his background?" This question was purely personal as she wanted to determine if any connection between her and Annie.
"His juvenile record states he was abandoned by his biological mother at the age of six. He was in and out of foster homes and on the streets for three years before going to Glen and Annie Greenwood. He was adopted a year later. There are indications that some of his previous foster homes were not ideal and he was sentenced for vandalism and trespassing right before his last placement. He did community service at the whale tank he had vandalized and seemed to turn his life around. We believe this is why he fights for whale rights. There is an incident when he was fourteen with an oil spill and some beached whales."
Erin was certain that if Hotchner knew Annie Greenwood was her sister, he would have said. He was too honorable to deliberately play a game with that information.
"Has he asked for legal representation?" Erin asked, though she thought she knew the answer anyway.
A shadow of a smile crossed Hotchner's face. "He says that he hates lawyers."
Erin suppressed her own smile as Jesse's abhorrence for lawyers and business executives was family legend.
"I would like to speak with him," Erin said, still not answering Hotchner's questioning gaze. To his credit, he merely nodded and led her down a hallway to an interview room.
"He's cooperated to a certain point," Hotchner offered. "He'll answer questions but still maintains his innocence. Also, his alibi is circumspect. He claims he was alone in the woods at the times of three of the murders and can't remember for the other two."
Erin walked into the room without hesitation, closing the door firmly behind her. Not that it mattered as she was counting on Hotchner and most of his team watching from the other side of the mirror.
She hadn't seen her nephew in several years. It was difficult for the families to get together all that often, but Jesse enjoyed taking his brother and cousins out on the ocean. Erin always disapproved, but her son and daughters would not be denied the adventure. Looking at Jesse, few would guess he was adopted as he did look enough like Annie to be her son with thick, curly blond hair and bright eyes.
Erin read the signs of exhaustion on Jesse's face, telling her he hadn't let his guard down to sleep. There were few people Jesse trusted enough to be unguarded and Erin had never been one of those to begin with.
"Mr. Greenwood, my name is Deputy Chief Erin Strauss," Erin stated as she took the opposite seat before Jesse could say anything first.
One thing Erin had always admired about Jesse was that he was smart and quick. He met her eyes and gave her a lopsided smile. "Calling in the big guns?"
Of course, Jesse meant that it was his mother calling in the big guns, not the FBI.
"Do you think you warrant such attention?" Erin asked, her own personal dig at the presumptuous young man.
"I think I should be let go," Jesse answered seriously. "So far, I still haven't heard any physical proof that I committed these murders."
"But you can understand why the police and FBI would think so," Erin commented. "With your background and present activities."
Here, Jesse frowned and leaned forward across the table from his previous casual slouch. "I don't hurt people," he said with quiet determination. "Yes, I wanted those men stopped from hurting the rest of us, but I would never do anything to directly harm them, let alone murder them."
"But you have no alibi for two of the murders and your alibi for the other three cannot be proved."
"I was in the woods," Jesse said. "Gathering roots and herbs for a medicine I was making."
Erin had almost forgotten Jesse's ties to the Haida Indians.
"What medicine?" she asked.
"My girlfriend hasn't been feeling well. She knows the stuff I make is sometimes better than prescription drugs, all natural, and free."
"That would be Nadine Clausen? She participates in the same groups as you do."
"One of the reasons Nadine and I get along is our passion for the environment," Jesse explained. "And before you start on her, she was visiting her godfather last week when two of the murders happened."
Jesse was protective of his friends and family, like Erin. But he was reckless with it.
"Now, would you like to tell me what this is all about?" Jesse demanded and Erin could see that she was pushing it with their charade. Soon, Jesse would believe she had designed this entire case just to arrest him. Normally, that wouldn't bother Erin one bit, except for Annie who loved this boy like he were her own son.
"The FBI is concerned that a member of your activist groups is responsible for these murders," Erin explained. "I assume the agents who spoke to you shared who was murdered and the manner in which they were killed."
"Yes," Jesse said shortly, revealing how disturbed he was. For all he had seen in his life, which was a great deal more than an average person, the images and murders were still disturbing.
"Can you think of anyone that you believe capable of these murders?" Erin asked.
Jesse sighed and shook his head. "I don't know everyone in the area, it's not like we exchange personal biographies with each other before handing out the picket signs. I can tell you it's no one from the Haida village and no one that I know well. They're not capable of that."
Erin let out her own sigh. Annie would never forgive her for this.
"Would you be willing to help us find the murderer?"
Jesse met her eyes in a way that few people could, another thing Erin had always resented. She could make grown men tremble where they stood, but this one had never let her intimidate him, and she had tried.
"Yes."
Erin left him before either of them slipped in what they said, grateful that he hadn't played on their relationship but unsurprised. Jesse was proud in his own way, rarely asking for help from those he did trust.
Hotchner was waiting for her in the hallway. Some of the tension had left his body.
"You never really believed he was the one," Erin surmised.
The man shook his head. "On paper, he fits the profile, but during our interview with him and his friends, his behavior doesn't fit."
"Who did you interview?" Erin asked.
"We arrested him in the presence of his brother and girlfriend. Agents Rossi and Prentiss remained to speak with them while Agent Morgan and I took Greenwood into custody. Both of them were adamant that he wasn't our unsub. Earlier this morning, a man named John Randolph also came in to vouch for Greenwood's character. Randolph is some sort of mentor to him."
Erin nodded, again unsurprised at these actions. She had never met Nadine or Randolph though her children had. Jesse's brother, Elvis, was more of a nuisance in her opinion than Jesse had ever managed.
"You never believed he was our unsub from when you arrived," Hotchner commented mildly. "Would you care to tell me what you're really doing here and why you seem to know more about this case than we do?"
"I was called in as a favor," Erin explained, hoping that the man would assume political connections rather than familial.
Jesse wore a wire and went to several meetings of activist groups with a description of their unsub to ferret the man out. That had earned Erin another phone call from Annie.
"I asked you to help him, not put him in harm's way!" Annie had protested.
"He's vital to closing this case," Erin replied calmly. "And we are sending an agent in undercover with him."
Erin did not share that the back up agent was Dr. Spencer Reid. That had not been her choice, but Hotchner had made a good point that Dr. Reid was the only one capable of passing as another activist and looking the part as well.
In the end, Jesse and Reid found their unsub and managed to get a taped confession from him by pretending to want to help the crusade. Erin stood by Jesse as the man was led away in cuffs at the police station.
"He thought he was doing the right thing," Jesse said.
"I know," Erin answered.
He shook his head in frustration. "That's not what we're about."
Erin said nothing to this.
"Come with me, I want to show you something."
Erin found herself on board the Natselane with both her nephews at dawn the next day, traveling out into the ocean. At a certain point, Jesse anchored the boat and took her out on a dingy about fifty meters away.
"I've been broadcasting my signal since we left the harbor," Jesse explained. "He should be here soon."
"Who?" Erin asked.
Jesse smiled, but didn't answer. They waited long enough for Erin to become agitated, though hiding it, and she hadn't been that patient to begin with. She couldn't stop herself from jumping out of her skin when a large force bumped their boat and a blast of wet air soaked Erin from head to toe.
Jesse laughed and reached over the side of the boat, placing his hand on the frighteningly massive black and white whale that was nudging their boat.
"Hey, boy, how's it going?" Jesse asked, his voice altering into gentle tones. Jesse turned to Erin, still smiling. "This is Willy, my first friend."
Of course. Annie had mentioned there was a certain whale at the amusement park of Jesse's first summer with them that he had bonded with. Now Erin remembered that it was Willy again during that oil spill Hotchner had mentioned.
"This is what I fight for," Jesse explained. "This is what I'm about."
By now, there were other whales coming up around them; Jesse introduced them all as Willy's family: mate, sister, brother, offspring, even mother.
"Whales live in pods, mostly made up of family members," Jesse continued. "Some stay with the same pod their whole lives, very strong family ties."
It wasn't hard for Erin to read the subtext in Jesse's words.
"They teach together, hunt together, sing together, protect each other."
"As family members should," Erin agreed.
For the first time, Erin wondered if perhaps Annie had done things the right way after all. Then she reached out and rubbed Willy's nose, marveling at the feeling and sensation.