"Damn it!" Arizona threw her scrub cap against the wall and leaned over the scrub trough, trying to gain her composure. She'd just lost a mother and her baby who were in a car accident.
"There was nothin' you could've done," Alex tried to soothe her "She was three quarters gone before we even got to her."
Arizona shook her head "It's not good enough," she stood up, facing him "We are supposed to save them, that is our job! And it's not good enough!"
Alex didn't respond, knowing there was nothing that he could say that would make her feel better right about now, so he watched her walk out the door and down the hall.
She walked fast, and everyone knew that meant to get the hell out of her way. She made it to the closest on-call room without breaking down, and after closing the door she rest her head against it - her eyes closed.
A single tear rolled down her cheek, and without opening her eyes she took a step back to find the bed. But then her feet halted incredibly fast and suddenly she was on her back, smacking the side of her head on the bunk. She groaned, her hand instinctively coming up to the cut on her hairline. She tried standing, but the floor was slippery, which gave her no traction what-so-ever.
Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she could just make out a figure lying on the ground, so she scrambled for the light switch. But when she turned it on, her eyes went wide, and she was swinging the door open to scream "I NEED SOME HELP IN HERE!"
"I know it's late so thanks for coming in," Hotch started as the team started to file in one by one onto the jet.
"Why are we meeting on here and not at the BAU?" Emily asked, clearly tired and not quite sure what was going on. Emily had never really been one for early starts.
"This one came straight to me," Hotch said "I got a call from the police department in Seattle, they believe they have a serial killer,"
"Good ol' Seattle," Emily quipped drearily.
"Approximately fifty percent of US serial killers originate in a 200 mile radius around Seattle - in fact-" Reid started to ramble, but Emily cut him off as she looked across at him.
"I haven't even had a coffee yet," she told him, making him pipe down and the others chuckled minutely.
That's when JJ placed two trays of coffees in front of them and Emily looked up at her in disbelief "You're an angel," she said in awe as she took a cup, making JJ shake her head with a smile and sat down on the couch across from the table.
"So what's the urgency?" Rossi asked Hotch as they all got their tablets out as Garcia popped up on screen.
"I'm here! I'm awake! I'm ready to boogie!" she said, clearly not really any of those things.
"Grey-Sloan Memorial Hospital," Hotch started after nodding to Garcia, acknowledging her "Three bodies in as many weeks," he continued "Teah Grayson, Michaela Sitwell and Leoni Poll, all white females in their thirties, all worked at Grey-Sloan, all found butchered to death,"
"That's a lot of rage," Luke said "Maybe they're surrogates for someone,"
"Maybe, but until we know more about the victims and the crime scenes, we won't know for sure," Emily piped up.
"So where do we start?" Tara asked looking at her watch "It's 3 a.m."
Hotch nodded "By the time we get to Seattle it will be morning, so we'll get started as soon as we land - Prentiss and Lewis, I want you to head to the hospital with me, I'll talk to the Chief of Surgery - Rossi and JJ, go talk to the families of the victims, find out anything and everything you can about these men. Reid and Alvez, I want you to go straight to the police station, work with the detectives and try and form a pattern."
The team nodded, taking in their assignments as Hotch spoke "Now get some sleep, we'll regroup when we land,"
They made it to the hospital by 8:30, weary but alert and ready. They had split off into three SUVs; Hotch, Emily and Tara in the first to the hospital, Reid and Luke to the Seattle Police Department, and Dave and JJ to the victims' families.
"I'm gonna head to the Chief's office, you two talk to whoever you can talk to - they're surgeons, which means we have to work around them," Hotch explained as they walked into the lobby of Grey-Sloan Memorial.
Tara and Emily shared a look, both of them knowing that this wasn't going to be easy, and they approached the front desk. Doctors in a mix of light blue and navy blue scrubs stood around with tablets, talking to each other as they hung around the nurses station.
Pagers were going off, phones were ringing, people were hustling. Just an average day in a hospital.
"Hi, may I help you?" asked the young nurse sitting down in front of her computer at the station. Her smile was there, but it didn't reach her eyes.
Emily supposed that's what happens when three of your coworkers die.
"Hi, I'm Supervisory Special Agent Hotchner," he said, pulling out his badge for him to show her "These are agents Prentiss and Lewis, do you have any idea where I can find the Chief of Surgery?"
The young nurse nodded, just as she was about to open her mouth, a voice to the left of them replied instead "Oh, I can take you, I'm headed there anyway,"
The agents turned to the face of a tall, Latina doctor in navy blue scrubs and a white lab coat, a stethoscope hanging around her neck.
"That would be great," Emily spoke up as she extended her hand to the doctor "Thank you, Dr..."
"Oh! Torres!" she replied, shaking her hand with a wide smile "Callie. Nice to meet you," she said and turned to the other two agents, shaking their hands as well "Uh, just follow me and I'll take you to the Chief,"
The four started up the staircase and Callie was the first one to speak "So, you're here about the...deaths?"
"Yeah," Tara replied "Did you know them?"
"Teah was an Ortho nurse, I worked with her a lot - the other two I knew of but not in person," Callie replied "I didn't know that much about her private life, but she was an excellent nurse, and when you're a surgeon you rely on them a lot - they do a lot of the work,"
"What department are you in?" Hotch asked as they reached the second floor and headed towards the elevator.
"I'm the head of Orthopedics," she replied with a smile, clearly in love with her job "People like to say that it's carpentry, but man, when you see a guy with polio walk after 20 years," she shook her head at the memory as they got in the elevator "It reminds you of why you get out of bed in the morning,"
"You must get a lot of broken bones this time of year," Emily stated.
"Oh, you have no idea," Callie chuckled to herself "Christmas is the best, everyone's falling off ladders trying to put up Christmas decorations and getting electrocuted so hard that they shatter both wrists," The three feds looked at her "I mean, it's horrible," she backtracked "Horrible accidents, don't get me wrong, but if you're gonna be a dumbass, what do you expect?"
"Can't argue with that," Emily smirked as they reached their floor and stepped out.
"Says the woman who gets injured on a regular basis," Hotch retorted.
"Doing my job," she defended herself.
"Mhm," was all he replied with, giving her a sideways glance as they walked along the boardwalk, making her roll her eyes at him.
"Dr Torres!" a young woman in light blue scrubs came running towards them.
"Wilson," Callie greeted.
"Is it true you're building a entire spine from titanium?" she asked excitedly.
"That depends, have you declared a specialty yet?" Callie asked her, not looking at her as they all continued to walk.
"I'm only a fourth year," Jo replied.
"The only person who has ever waited until their fifth year to declare a specialty was Meredith Grey, and she had her own reasons for that - so what's your excuse?"
"Dr. Torres I don't-"
"Wilson, I don't take the time to teach just anyone, and when I do, it better be worthwhile," they all finally stopped in front of an office door, and Callie finally looked at the young resident "You have the hands and the talent for Ortho, you know it and I know it - come find me when you accept it,"
Wilson sighed and nodded before backing off and walking away.
The three agents looked at each other, not really sure what just happened, as Callie knocked on the door of the office, not bothering for a reply before she walked in, the agents following close behind "Bailey,"
"What is it, Torres?" a small African American woman sat behind the large desk, her head buried in her tablet.
"Suits are here for you," she replied and Bailey looked up from the gadget in front of her, standing up and walking around the desk to greet them.
"Chief Bailey, I'm Aaron Hotchner, this is Emily Prentiss and Tara Lewis, FBI," he said, shaking her hand.
"You gonna find out who's killin' my people?" she asked, straight up, clearly not in the mood for pleasantries.
"We're certainly gonna try," he responded, which seemed to do the trick for the time being.
Before anyone else could say anything, Callie's pager went off and she pulled out out of her lap coat to look at it.
"SHIT!"
That's when she took off running out of the office and the agents could see her running back across the boardwalk, people making room for her as she barreled towards them.
Briefing Chief Bailey on what the FBI planned to do didn't take very long. She was a no-nonsense kind of woman, so they got right to the point.
"We'd like to talk to the witnesses who found the victims," Emily piped up, and upon seeing the woman's hesitance, she elaborated "We need to know everything they saw and when they saw it,"
"They've been over all of it with the cops," Bailey responded, clearly not comfortable with putting her staff through it again.
"We're not cops," Tara reasoned "We see things that they don't, that's why we're here,"
Bailey stared them all down for a moment before nodding "Fine, they'll come to you," she looked at her watch "You might be here a while if you want to talk to all three of them - I'll have them come up when they're free,"
"We appreciate that," Hotch nodded as they all stood "Thank you for your time,"
Bailey nodded to him and they shook hands "Just find the bastard,"
"You hear the FBI's in the hospital?" April asked Arizona as she approached her at the nurses station in the ER, but Arizona wasn't listening "Hello? Arizona?"
"Huh? Yeah, sure,"
April followed the line of sight the Pediatric surgeon was holding without waver, and sighed when she saw a certain brunette in the trauma room "This needs to stop,"
That snapped Arizona out of it, and back into reality as she turned to face her friend "What? What needs to stop? The FBI's here?"
"You have been staring at her ever since she got back from New York, but then you avoid her like the plague when she comes close to you," April said "You need to talk to her,"
"And say what?" Arizona asked, slightly exasperated "Callie and I don't work,"
April didn't argue, knowing full-well that there was no point. She'd tried to ignore the staring, and at first, April thought it was out of anger. But then she had caught her smiling, staring at her from a distance, and then getting flustered anytime the brunette got near.
So Arizona started running away. And April couldn't ignore it any longer. But no one can force Arizona Robbins to do anything she didn't want to do, and once her mind was made up - that was it.
So April decided to leave it, and take her mind off of it instead "Anyway, the FBI got here a few hours ago, apparently they think there's a serial killer in the hospital,"
Arizona's eyebrows rose to her hairline "In the hospital? Like working with us?"
April shrugged "I don't know, I mean it's just gossip right? There wouldn't actually be a serial killer in the hospital, would there?"
"There's a serial killer in the hospital?" the voice of Meredith Grey made both surgeons jump out of their skin.
Meredith joined them at the desk, updating her chart on the tablet "I wouldn't be surprised," Arizona piped up, making Meredith snort.
"Tell me about it," she replied.
"You guys aren't worried?" asked April and then lowered her voice and leaned in "They could be watching us like prey right now,"
Meredith laughed at the trauma surgeon "April, you are way too paranoid,"
"Is that why three people have been killed in the last month?" April pointed out, crossing her arms over her chest defensively.
"Three?" Meredith asked "I thought it was two,"
"Sitwell from Peds," April replied.
"Can we not talk about this, please?" Arizona piped up, clearly frustrated with the line of conversation "I tripped over in Michaela's blood, so can we not?"
And with that, she walked away, her gaze following Callie in the trauma room as she walked past.
"Meredith, any one of us could be next," April whispered once Arizona was out of earshot, making Meredith roll her eyes with a smirk and put her hand on her shoulder.
"April. You worry too much."
"Thank you for talking with us," Emily said as she and Tara sat across from the young nurse on Chief Bailey's couch "I know it must be difficult,"
The woman was already crying, and no one had said anything yet. They'd only just learnt her name between sobs.
"Marie, did you know Leoni very well?" asked Tara as she held a box of tissues out for her, the nurse took two before answering.
"No," she replied "I've seen her around, you know, and I think she was nice - at least that's what I heard,"
Emily and Tara shared a look, she wasn't going to be much help to them. If she was this emotional before she even introduced herself, it was going to be a very long interview. Hotch had gone back to the Seattle Police Department to help with the profile, and left the women to the witness interviews, knowing it might take the entire day to get through the interviews.
"Why don't you start from the beginning?" Emily pressed "What were you doing just before you found her?"
"Have you got anything for us?"
Emily sighed as she and Tara stepped out of the office, deciding to go for a walk around to see if they could find anyone who would talk to them "Unfortunately, no," she replied, the phone on loudspeaker as they walked across the boardwalk "The first nurse was too emotional, I don't even think half the facts were real, I think it's in her head,"
"Are you doubting she actually saw anything?"
"Not anything we can use, you and I both know that if she says something that doesn't fit, her entire story goes out the window," Emily shook her head "I just don't think she's a solid witness, Hotch."
"What about the second one?"
"The second one was better - he was a little shaken up, but he was consistent and clear," Tara said "He's a nurse on the Orthopedics floor so he knew our first victim, Teah Grayson. It turns out, she and her girlfriend were looking at buying a house together. The girlfriend's a firefighter with Firehouse 21,"
"What about the other two? Michaela Sitwell and Leoni Poll?"
"Leoni Poll was a radiologist, other than that we didn't really get anything out of the witness," Emily replied "Like I said, not a solid witness,"
"We're still waiting to speak with the third witness," Tara explained "We're gonna go and find out who knew our victims, see if we can get a better read on them,"
"Good, let me know how you go,"
"Will do, Hotch," Emily replied before they hung up as they reached the elevators "Both of these women seemed well-liked, they seemed good at their jobs...really all that's connecting them is the hospital in general,"
"They weren't in the same fields, they were in completely different roles," Tara shook her head "All we've got to go on is that they're all women in their thirties who work in this hospital,"
Emily sighed "It's not much,"
"Well, we've worked with less, right?" Tara responded as they rode the elevator down.
Emily nodded and thought for a second "Okay, how about you go to the Orthopedics floor, and I'll go to the radiology department?"
Tara nodded "Cut the time in half," she agreed and the elevator stopped on the Ortho floor "I'll call you if I get anything,"
Emily nodded and sighed as she leaned back against the back of the elevator, but stood up straight when she felt it stop again. As she walked towards radiology, she landed at the desk, greeting the nurse with a smile.
"Hi," she said "I'm Emily Prentiss with the FBI, I was just wondering if you knew anyone-"
"Emily?"
The voice was familiar. A voice she'd recognize anywhere. When she turned around, there she was.
"Arizona..."
Okay! So Callie came back from New York and there's no specifics yet but there will be in the future. Also, no Penny anymore if you haven't caught on.
I love, love, love Emily as Unit Chief but I love Hotchniss more and I couldn't pass it up, so there's that.
R&R!