Musings after Miasma
(S13E14 episode tag)
A CM fanfic/whatif. Just my take on what's going on with this assistant director
Rated PG, (Reid, Rossi, Prentiss)
Senior Special Agent David Rossi ushered Dr. Spencer Reid and suspended Supervisory Agent Emily Prentiss into his office. All three placed their cell phones in his secure box. After Rossi shut the door and drew the shades, the three of them sat down on his sofa.
Reid sighed, releasing a deep, long breath. Rossi muttered something uncomplimentary about Assistant FBI Director Linda Barnes under his breath and Prentiss pursed her lips angrily.
"She's out to get you," Reid complained.
"She's got it in for the unit, Spencer, not just Emily," Rossi noted, his experience making him more perceptive. "Think about it. She's got her eyes on the directorship. If she can save the Bureau some money and cut down on personnel, she'd earn some points towards replacing the current director. He's due to retire within the year."
He saw the sudden uncomfortable look on Prentiss' face.
"Emily?"
She sighed and confided, "Dave's right. She wanted me to throw you two under the bus. Song and dance about you retiring," she indicated Rossi and then looked to Reid, "and you." Her tone mocked that of Barnes as she said, "A man of your intellect would be better suited in academia."
Reid's eyebrows rose along with his ire. "That bitch!"
"You're not wrong," Rossi said glibly before turning serious once again. "She's definitely angling for something."
The uncomfortable look on Prentiss' face suddenly became clear and determined, "Or she's afraid of something. Hiding something."
Rossi and Reid looked at each other and then back at Prentiss. She waggled a finger in the air as she spoke.
"Our meeting," she mused. "She was all about how the team was skirting rules and going rogue. Flimsy crap like what happened in Roswell last month. Like their faulty equipment was somehow our fault. And me erasing the cognitive I did with Spencer in Mexico."
"He was under the influence at the time. It would never have stood up in court anyway."
"And the whole thing became a moot point when Spencer remembered Lindsey," Prentiss pointed out.
"So what is this really about?" Rossi wondered aloud.
Reid, who had been sitting quietly deep in thought suddenly burst out, "The mole."
"What?" Rossi and Prentiss said in unison.
"You said there was a mole in the FBI. Somehow, Cat Adams got information from my personnel file. She managed to get me put in gen pop and we all know law enforcement officers, especially ones that haven't even been tried yet, are always held in protective custody."
"Not to mention someone who hasn't even been convicted yet wouldn't be held in a federal prison, in the first place," Rossi groused. "Even if there is overcrowding." He added dismissively.
"So, she's trying to find the mole?" Prentiss asked.
"Or she knows we are," Reid supplied.
"And she'd want to get to that person first. Take all the credit," Prentiss deduced.
Rossi was eyeing Reid, and after a long moment of silence, Prentiss became aware of it. They both watched as the young genius wordlessly deliberated over information.
"He's figuring out something," Rossi told Prentiss in a low voice.
Reid's eyebrows furrowed for several moments and then a look of clarity crossed his face.
"What is it, Genius?" Rossi asked.
"I need all the files, Emily. Everything that has to do with Scratch, Mexico, my arrest, Cat Adams, Lindsey Vaughn. All of it, everything that Barnes was ever cc'd on. And transcripts of your meetings with her too."
"You've got a theory," Prentiss realised, as she reached for the phone on Rossi's desk.
Reid nodded but wouldn't disclose what he was thinking.
Minutes later, Garcia entered Rossi's office with the files Reid had requested. Immediately he began reading through them, separating them into two piles as he read. Rossi and Prentiss watched, transfixed.
"What are you looking for, Reid?" Prentiss asked.
"Proof," he replied in a clipped tone. In a few minutes, he'd completed reading them and now began the process of rereading the ones in the smaller of two piles he'd sorted, weeding through them for the information he sought.
Rossi whispered to Prentiss and left them in the office. He headed to the unit's small kitchenette and quickly poured three mugs of coffee, set them on a tray and returned to the others.
"Here," he offered the tray to Prentiss who gratefully accepted the drink. Rossi set a second mug on the table in front of Reid and told him, "There's six sugars and double cream in it."
"Thank you," Reid responded without even looking up from his reading. Seconds later, he stood up, "Here it is!"
"Proof?" Emily asked him.
He nodded and excitedly handed her the file. "We've got her. She's the mole!"
"What?!" Rossi was astounded.
"She was cc'd on all the reports. So she knew about the vials and the tox screens. The cognitive, the extradition, the bail denial, all of it."
Rossi and Prentiss nodded.
"She also knew that eventually we knew that Wilkins was the eyes on me in the prison and he was reporting back to Cat. Someone supplied Cat with my personnel files; Wilkins couldn't have done that. But Barnes could have."
"Where's the proof, Spencer?" Prentiss asked.
He slapped a hand on one of the files. "Morgan's son."
Rossi and Prentiss looked at him expectantly.
"Nowhere in the files is Hank Spencer named. He's just listed as 'Morgan's baby' or 'Morgan's son.'"
"I'm not following you."
"Nowhere, Emily. Nowhere in the BAU files or in my personnel files is he listed as Hank Spencer Morgan. Confidentiality reasons, right?" He shuffled through a file and pulled up another report. "But in this file, a paper dated in June, way after I was exonerated, Barnes is writing a report to the director about the case. And she refers to Morgan's baby as Bobby."
Prentiss and Rossi waited for him to explain.
"We never called him by name in the reports, Emily. Even in the report about the visit with Cat in the women's prison, both you and I referred to him as 'Morgan's baby'. The only other person who knew I referred to him as Bobby that day was Cat Adams."
Prentiss restrained herself from hugging him as she looked from Reid to Rossi and said, "Let's nail that bitch."
-fin-