All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.

- Winston Churchill

Chapter 1

Phillips Academic Building
George Washington University
Washington DC

Kat

My name is Katherine Reid. My friends call me Kat. I am twenty five years old. I am a sophomore at George Washington University. I am married to Dr. Spencer Reid. He works for the FBI. Only my husband knows my real name.

Kat Reid took a deep breath, let it out, and repeated her mantra to herself again, adding more facts to it as she thought of them. Then she tried it again. Then she tried a third time.

It wasn't helping.

As the lights in the lecture hall went down she realized she could not stay. She couldn't do it. She gathered her notes in one arm, her bag in the other, slid out of her seat and headed up the stairs, barely managing not to run as she very nearly panicked. She made it out of the building and as far as a picnic table where she dropped everything and stopped to try to calm her racing heart.

Great, she thought, just great. Now how the hell am I going to do this? And now I feel like I'm being watched again. Yes, I know there are security cameras everywhere, but they are not specifically looking at me. But it feels like everyone is watching me. Damn it.

She pulled her phone out, as always amazed that she could tolerate owning the thing, and dialed the first and most important number in there. It rang twice then clicked and rang over again. "Hey sweetie, what's going on?" sang out a perpetually cheery female voice.

Oh crap, "Hey Penelope. They're not…"

"They're giving the profile, sweetie, he can't come to the phone unless it's really urgent. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I am. I mean…" She looked around. The academic terrace wasn't as busy as it would be in another twenty minutes when classes let out, but it wasn't completely empty either. And the sky was a lovely blue and the air soft with spring and everything was really just as all right as life in a city could be. "…I'm safe. I'm not in any danger. I'm fine."

"They why do you sound so upset?"

"I was just…I was in history and we were talking about World War Two and I didn't realize that what she had on the syllabus and I just…I just lost it. I freaked. And I don't…I'm looking at the syllabus and it's going to happen at every lecture now until the end of the semester and I need this class and I don't know how I'm going to get through this and…"

"Hey! Hey, hey, hey honey, just stop, okay. Stop and breathe, in and out. You have time. You don't have to figure this out right now, okay. Right now you just need to get home and safe and then when your hubby comes home you can figure it out from there; all right?"

Kat had been breathing through this entire speech. Little by little she felt her heart starting to slow and her nerves starting to relax, "All right. Just get home. I can do that."

"Are you going to be able to take the train?"

"No, but that's okay." It was three and a half miles. That was nothing. She started packing up her backpack.

"Oh, you are not going to walk it."

"Yeah, I think I am. I'll call when I get home." Kat sighed. Maybe she only had a family of two now, but she had the most amazing friends. "Thank you, Penelope."

"Oh, you're welcome sweetie, anytime. I'll let him know to call you when he can, okay?"

"Yeah, thanks."

Kat started up 22nd street, heading for home. But she only made it about a mile before a dark car pulled up to the curb in front of her. A blond male head stuck out the window. "Hey chère, you need a ride?"

"Will?" Kat headed over that way. "Did Penelope call you?"

"Yeah, get in." Kat obediently slid into the back seat. The car was plain and dirty in the back and smelled like gun oil and anger to her. "Kat, have you ever met my partner Laura Nye? Laura, this here is Kat Reid, she's my son's godfather's wife."

The two women exchanged murmured greeting. "You didn't have to do this." Kat told him. "I really am fine."

"Yeah, and if you went to not fine on that walk home I'd never hear the end of it. Besides, it was on the way."

"More like two miles out of your way." Kat had to grin at the transparent lie.

Will looked back at her with an even bigger grin. "Now how do you know that?"

"You forget who I married."

"Oh, that's true." He turned back to his partner. "Reid's a map nut. He hung a framed DC street map in their stairway. Hey, did Garcia say what they were doing?"

"Giving the profile. "

"Oh good, that means they should be home in a day or so."

They listened to the dispatch radio for the rest of the short ride home. Kat sighed when they turned onto the quiet, tree lined street. "Thank you again. I just…"

"Don't worry chère. You just take care of yourself."

"I will. You too." She turned and headed up the walk to home.

.

Note: This is a sequel to my cross-over story They Come in Grief. It's cannon to Season 7 of Criminal Minds and all three books of The Hunger Games trilogy, with spoilers for all of the above. Call CM characters are copyright CBS, Jeff Davis and whoever else created them, all THG characters are copyright to Suzanne Collins and Scholastic, Inc. It's rated M primarily for language and descriptions of violence. And yes, it's Spencer Reid/Katniss Everdeen, also another paring, but I won't give that away now.

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