Criminal Minds belongs to whoever created it. This particular plot, the made-up characters, and myself, belong to me.

"I'm home!" Natasha Daniels closed her front door carefully, hefting three heavy paper bags onto the living room table before glancing around. "Britney? Are you here?"

That was strange; there didn't seem to be any sign of them anywhere. She had hired Britney to watch her two kids, and specifically asked to keep them inside today.

"Anyone here!" she called, starting to feel nervous as she crept down the hall, the groceries forgotten.

"Britney… OH MY GOD!" she shrieked when she reached the kitchen. Britney glanced over her shoulder at Natasha. It was clear that she had been crying.

"It's terrible, Mrs. Daniels," she sobbed, burying her face into her hands, "I'm so sorry."

Natasha couldn't do anything other than stare in horror at the mess on the floor. Who could be so cruel as to do such a thing!

The police chief hung up the phone, a solemn look in his eyes.

"That's the third one this week, you know what that means."

"We have a crazy one, sir."

"Call in the BAU."

"You know, TV shows must really over-dramatize crime," Gina was spinning in her chair, wishing the BAU hadn't blocked Facebook from her work computer, "I came here expecting to go on raids and find serial killers, not fill out paperwork."

Well, she couldn't have expected much; it was hard to top battling giant, alien robots and taking down foreign crime rings. Still, she had joined the team hoping to keep a level of excitement in her life. She wasn't impressed.

"That makes the actual crime-fighting much more exciting," Prentiss remarked off-handedly, "You would get bored with raiding houses if you were always raiding houses."

"Would I? It'd be a lot more exciting, that's for sure. It'd beat signing papers all day."

Morgan, coming from the break room, placed a cup of hot cocoa on Gina's desk before sitting down at his own, reclining in his chair with his own cup of coffee in hand. "Things will pick up eventually," he reassured the newbie, acknowledging her grateful grin, "When it does, you'll wish you only had to fill out paperwork. In the meantime, use the free time to enjoy yourself. There's a bar we all like to go to. You should come."

"Too late for that," the agents glanced up to see JJ walking into the room, a grim expression on her face, "We've got a case. And it's a bad one."

That was how Gina found herself sitting in the conference room with the rest of the team. It was strangely quiet as JJ entered, passing the case file to Hotch, the nearest person.

"Three families have been hit so far," she explained. Gina observed the expressions of her cohorts as they each looked through the information. Judging from the looks on their faces, it really was a bad one. As Morgan handed her the file, she excitedly wondered what kind of gore she's see…
"… what the hell," her voice was blunt, "You can't be serious right now."

"This is a very serious situation," Hotch spoke up, still looking unnerved by what he had seen; "We have never dealt with anything like this. It's very clear this unsub isn't going to stop until they're caught."

Gideon was the first to stand. "It's a race against time folks. Get you gear. The plane's gonna leave in ten minutes."

Gina sputtered on the hot chocolate that she had only begun taking a sip from. "Ten minutes? We won't even have time to pack!"

"If we were doing this my way, we'd be leaving in 30 seconds," Gideon's voice was steely as he left the room, the rest of the group sans Gina following. She could only stare after them in shock.

"THE AIRPORT'S FIFTEEN MINUTES AWAY!"

A/N: I rewrote this because when I re-read the first chapter, I realized it didn't come out like I intended. I think this is a better start. NICE reviews (even if they're critical; I love writing tips) are appreciated.