"We are all broken, that's how the light gets in." —Ernest Hemingway.

Jasmine
(bellamysgirl)

Des Plaines, Illinois.

"He's drawn to high-stakes jobs by a need to prove his superiority to a world he perceives has undervalued him. And these shootings are the ultimate expression of that need. We believe he changes his jurisdictions intentionally and strikes within the first/second shift change, indicating an intimate knowledge of law enforcement."

Agent Hotchner spoke in front of the Police officers, giving the profile. He was just starting when Jasmine reached the doorway at the back of the somewhat small room. She waited there, listened in, and waited for him to finish—leaning a hip into the door frame with loosely crossed arms and a relaxed expression. "You're saying he's one of us," an officer spoke up.

Hotch answered, "We're saying he once was, or is now, a Police officer."

"Is he driving a white van, too?"

"Enough," Sergeant Weigart said, as chuckles steadily bubbled across the group of officers. "That'll be all for now." The officers slowly began to resume their work, moving about. Jasmine pushed off the wall, but not before Gideon spotted her, and approached her.

"It's good to see you," he said, walking up. "How you been? Good?"

Jasmine shrugged a little, spreading a small, closed-mouthed smile across her lips, "As good as I can be."

"You know I wouldn't have called if it wasn't urgent," Gideon reminded, tentatively.

"I know," she nodded. "Where do you need me?"

He made a motion as he turned, walking semi-quickly away. Jasmine didn't hesitate to follow. He lead the way through the small office, filling her in on the previous killings. Taking into account the profile that was given, Jasmine expected nothing less than something horrific. Gideon lead her to the Sergeant's office. They arrived just as Hotch and JJ were coming out. "My backup has arrived," Gideon said, mostly directed at Hotch.

Hotch's eyes immediately moved to Jasmine. He knew he'd seen her face before but he couldn't quite put a name to it. It was familiar to a point that was almost irritating how elusive it was. "Agent Black, this is Agent Hotchner and Agent Jareau," Gideon introduced. "She's going to be an extra pair of hands on this case."

Jasmine held out her hand to each agent as he named them, and they shook it each in turn. "Just call me Jasmine," she said. "'Agent Black' is a little too formal for me."

Hotch's interest peeked then, hearing her first name. "Gideon, can I have a word with you for a moment?"

"Sure," Gideon replied, neutrally.

The two stepped away, moving out of earshot, but Jasmine knew exactly what they were talking about. It was no secret that Jasmine Black had a gift. A gift of drawing faces. When word got out just how scarily accurate her sketches were, she was the busiest sketch artist in New York City. But the deeper she delved into the technicalities of law enforcement, the more she realized she was in the wrong profession.

JJ smiled at Jasmine politely, "You can call me JJ."

Jasmine smiled back. "It's nice to meet you. Gideon filled me in on some things, but I'm-"

"No. Way. Jasmine?"

She turned around at the sound of her name, the sound being voiced by a particularly familiar male voice. "Spencer?" Jasmine's smile widened upon seeing a tall, lanky brunette walking quickly her way. "It's so good to see you." She was a bit taken aback, caught off guard by his sudden gesture when approaching her—wrapping his arms around her in a small hug. Though it was understandable, considering they hadn't seen each other in a couple of years.

Before Jasmine could comprehend it enough to reciprocate it, he'd let go. "It's good to see you, too," he replied, taking a step back. "You're here to help with the case?"

Jasmine nodded, smiling through the bout of whiplash, "Yeah, but I have a feeling it won't be for long."

She turned her head, glancing at the conversation taking place between Hotch and Gideon many feet away. Reid slid his hands into his pants pockets, letting his shoulders relax, as his eyes landed on the two agents. "I see. Well, you're welcome to come look over the board, see if anything sticks out," he said, as she turned back to him. "Given your history with snipers-"

"Sure. Whatever I can do to help," she agreed, with a small nod. It was an obvious intervention to get him to stop talking, something the young Doctor was all too familiar with. He realized in a millisecond why he was being shushed, and instantly shut his mouth. He nodded in return, and showed her to the boards.

The boards filled with pictures of the victims, the sites of the attacks, witnesses, and other needed details of the case. Jasmine had only been looking at it a few short minutes when Gideon, spouting a string of words at her as he walked quickly past her position, walked behind her. "We're all good. I'm responsible for you," he said, in a rush.

Her brow creased, and she twisted to see him as he whizzed by. "What does that mean?"

"If you mess up, it's on me," Gideon responded, halfway out the proverbial door.

Jasmine sighed, turning back to the board, "I'm not so sure that's any better."

The next day, at the first/second shift change, the team and a handful of officers were at the park to reenact the first shooting. To keep an eye on her, Hotch put Jasmine by his side at the parking lot while the others were sent down onto the grass to take the place of the victims with video cameras. Though Hotch didn't actually say that was his reasoning, Jasmine had no trouble in figuring it out. It felt like she was some kind of bothersome insect. She was something he didn't want to deal with.

Given all she'd been through, she was a flight risk. She was a liability. That's all Hotch saw her as—it was obvious. But she took a deep breath and stood there like a good agent, watching the team move about through dark lenses, too determined to prove him wrong to flinch. After Elle adjusted her position, Gideon determined Middleton, one of the victims, could not have seen the shooter.

Reid's voice came over the walkie in Hotch's hands, and Jasmine instinctively tilted her head toward it an inch to listen. "I do have a clear view of the vehicle from here," he said. "Tim Reilly would have seen it if he'd looked down from the kite."

"Good. Have the UnSub pop the trunk, see if Reid can see it," Gideon said.

The officer in the trunk of the car popped open the door, setting up his sniper rifle on the bumper. "No, sorry, I can't," Reid responded.

"Okay, everybody, move to position two," Hotch instructed, speaking into the walkie.

The team members out on the grass moved to change positions. Jasmine reached up to tighten her ponytail, letting a breathy sigh escape. She couldn't tell if her presence was even helping this investigation. It was a bit of a waste of time, it seemed. Just then, like an angel from Heaven, Morgan's voice came over the radio. "Hey, Jas, can you come down here a sec?" he asked. Jasmine's eyes moved to Hotch's face.

It was a silent request for permission. He didn't move for a second, and Jasmine was sure he didn't even see her standing there. But then he moved. It was a small flicker of movement, a reluctant jut of his chin. Jasmine tried not to show just how relieved she was to get moving as she broke into a light jog across the grass. In a short moment, she reached Morgan's position. "You know, I don't think I gave you permission to call me 'Jas' when we met yesterday," she said, slowing to a stop a foot or two in front of him with a lofty smile.

Morgan smiled—that charming, alluring smile of his. "Yeah? Well, too late now. I already said it," Jasmine only gave a quick toss of her eyes before he continued. "Get over here and hold this a sec, will you? I need to make a call."

"Yeah, sure."

Jasmine took Morgan's place, holding the camera to act as the point of view of the victim. He stepped away as she mumbled under her breath, "It beats standing up there doing nothing." Though, no one heard it. But she didn't rather care at this point. "Hey, I didn't get the chance to ask," Reid's voice from the right caused her to glance that way momentarily. "How have you been?"

She chuckled a little at the question, but focused on her camera, adjusting her angle a bit. "As anyone that's lost someone."

"That's over a third of the world's population," Reid replied.

"And there it is. I missed that brain of yours," a smile curved the corners of Jasmine's lips. "Think of how sad I was, Reid. So alone. I mean, I had no one to tell me the square mileage of Montenegro."

"Five thousand, three hundred, thirty-two square miles—thirteen thousand, eight hundred, twelve kilometers. It's two hundred and eleven square miles smaller than Connecticut, actually."

Jasmine refocused her camera, biting her lower lip in concentration, "Beautiful." She noticed something in her lens. It was a white puff of smoke from the vehicle at the parking lot that was turning into quit the cloud. She lifted her head to see better, her eyebrows furrowing. "What the-?"

"Reid, Jasmine- get down!" Morgan's voice sounded a second before something hard hit Jasmine's right side. With an oof!, she was tackled to the ground by a flailing of limbs, two video cameras tumbling onto the grass. She fell onto her back, Reid—having been pushed into her—scrambling to remove himself from atop her front. He was anxiously mumbling apologies, clearing his throat, rolling off her as quickly as humanly possible.

Jasmine groaned, pulling off her sunglasses as she looked to find Morgan. He was on the ground on the other side of Reid. She glared daggers at him, and he gave an apologetic expression. "Sorry," he said, before shrugging. "Next time I'll let you get shot."

"Did you have to throw a man at me?" Jasmine whisper-yelled.

"Okay, I'll admit that part was a little overkill," Morgan nodded a little.

With a toss of her eyes, Jasmine dropped her head back down onto the grass. A shout caused her to roll onto her left side in order to see. Up at the parking lot, officers were handcuffing McCarty after dragging him out of the trunk of the vehicle. "Guys, come on, over here," Morgan said, motioning from behind the thick trunk of a tree adjacent to her and Reid, who were still on the grass.

Reid was the first to get up, into an odd crawling position, and he scurried behind the tree with Morgan. Jasmine inhaled as she pushed herself up to her knees. Her body ached from being body-slammed to the ground so her movements were a bit slow, but she managed to get up, and she hurried toward the tree. She made it to a few inches from the tree when a loud gunshot rang out, followed by incoherent shouting.

Instinctively, Morgan reached out and grabbed her, plucking her behind the safety of the tree in one swift motion. She was jolted to a lower crouching position, her back against Morgan's chest. This was the part of the job she did not miss. Gunfire, running for your life—why would anyone miss it?

The team filed into a side room at the precinct. Elle and Gideon took seats, Morgan and Hotch stood near the back wall, Detective Calvin and JJ were near the center, Reid moved to stand by the window, and Jasmine stayed close to the door. She leaned her butt into the wall, loosely crossing her arms. She'd picked grass out of her hair the entire drive back to the precinct. "How did McCarty end up playing the UnSub?" JJ asked the Detective.

"Weigart punished McCarty for mouthing off during the profile briefing by making him the UnSub and sticking him in the truck of the car all afternoon," Detective Calvin replied.

"Wait. Then how did the UnSub find out about the reenactment?" JJ questioned.

Morgan spoke up, "Come on—cops talk. Angry cops talk loud. At home, at the bars, at the gym—to anyone who'll listen."

"What do we know? Our UnSub went from wounding civilians, to executing a Police officer. So he's escalated. He's not staying on script," Gideon said.

"Sometimes it's what they don't do," Hotch added.

"He didn't pick McCarty at random," Reid quickly said.

"He didn't take the gut shot," Morgan pointed out.

Hotch asked, "Why?"

Jasmine exhaled, pushing off the wall. "He's sending us a message. I've seen it before. We were giving credit to McCarty and not to him—he wanted us to make sure we knew who the real hero was. His ego is too inflated to allow for anything less."

"Okay...but we still don't know why he wounds them," Elle commented. Morgan's cell phone began to ring. He answered it, excusing himself from the discussion. Having put too much out there already, and having been not shot down, Jasmine spoke again to answer Elle. "Because he needs contact with his victims," she blurted, in a bout of realization. "Where do injured people go after an incident?"

Morgan ended the call just then, coming back over to the group. "Garcia nailed down the geographic profile. The crime scenes are centered on two separate locations."

"The hospitals," Hotch said, knowingly. "Alright, let's get moving."

The team filed out of the room and headed for the parking lot. As they pushed through the exit, one by one, Gideon shouted over his shoulder, "Jasmine, with me," as he followed suit of Detective Calvin, getting into the Detective's passenger seat. Jasmine nodded, unwavering as she hurried to get into the passenger side of the back row seating. As she slid in, Reid opened the left side door and got in, shutting the door behind him.

The rest of the team climbed into their SUV and followed closely behind the Detective's car as she pulled out of the lot. They were driving for a solid few minutes before someone finally broke the silence. It was Reid, with a quiet voice, turning his head to see Jasmine to his right. "I'm- uh- really sorry-" he broke the sentence to clear his throat. "-I'm really sorry about what happened at the park back there-"

"It's fine, Spencer. Really. It's Morgan that shoved you into me," Jasmine assured, in a neutral tone.

"I believe it's a case of hero homicide," Gideon said, in response to something the Detective had said that the back seat missed. And just after the Detective finished getting out the words to ask what that was, Reid was leaning forward in his seat, spewing out a thousand words a minute. "The best-known case was hospital nurse Richard Angelo," he piped up. "He would inject toxins into his victims, then wait for them to crash so he could run to the rescue and save them. He killed twenty-five people, and that's just what we know of."

Jasmine's lips pulled up into a small smile. That was the one thing she did miss. "If he attacked 'em to save 'em, why'd he kill twenty-five people?" Detective Calvin questioned, perplexed.

"He wasn't very good at it," Gideon answered.

"Yeah, and hospitals don't keep records of people who almost died," Reid finished. They arrived at the hospital a short while later, after a last minute epiphany from Gideon. They pulled into the parking lot and parked along the front curb. Gideon was of the first to exit the vehicle, rounding and speaking as he passed the driver's side. "Call Weigart and tell him we need a discreet perimeter around this block," he said.

Hotch elected to go and exam the surgeon in question's, Landman's, car. The rest of the team filed inside. They set up in a conference room, the same one they'd been to before, but without Jasmine. To her, this place was new. She felt as if she were a fish out of water, but she sat in the seat to the right of Elle, acting as though she knew what she was doing, and did whatever Elle told her to do. Reid dropped into the chair to her right but she paid no mind. She was too focused.

Morgan had Garcia fax over a history for Landman, and he read it aloud. "Landman was Army, started out in M.P. school."

"Well, there's your law enforcement," Elle pointed out.

"He was smart. Got a degree on Uncle Sam, and ended up a doctor with Special Forces," Morgan said. "And bounced around from hospital to hospital since his discharge in...two thousand one." Gideon stood during the conversation, moving to stand by the window.

"Has Dr. Landman been under any unusual strain? Has he had a reprimand? Uh...has he had any kind of major blow to his ego?" Gideon asked, looking toward the hospital representative in the chair next to his position by the window.

"Last month he was passed over for Chief of Surgery," the woman confessed.

"Let's get a warrant for his house. Let's see if we find the weapon," Gideon instructed. Morgan agreed, standing and exiting the room. The representative asked what she could do, and Gideon turned toward her again. "You can tell me where he is right now." She gave his directions to an operating room not far from the conference room.

The team was up and moving, filing out of the room and down the hall. Jasmine trailed behind, even a step behind JJ at the back, just to make sure she kept an eye on everything. She still was not sure her presence was truly helping, but she stuck with it. As they reached the operating room, Gideon told everyone to stay put, and he went into the small room alone. Elle, Reid, JJ, and Jasmine waited just outside the window to the left of the door.

Elle was focused on the conversation inside the operating room, JJ intently watching right beside her. Jasmine, on the other hand, was hit with a thought. She leaned to the right, just enough for part of the shoulder of her jacket to brush Reid's, and she spoke with a quiet voice. "I know how you can make it up to me," she said, hushed.

Reid's eyebrows creased, eyes shifting left toward the portion of her face visible to him. "I thought you said it wasn't my fault?"

"We can get coffee, after the case is over," she continued, ignoring his comment. "You can catch me up on everything I missed."

"Does that mean you're returning to the FBI?" he inquired, a hint of youthful hope to his voice.

Suddenly Elle waved a hand, making a somewhat loud shushing sound, silencing both agents and startling an unsuspecting JJ standing right beside her. Just then, Hotch returned from the parking lot. "Did you get anything from his car?" Elle asked him, as he joined the group's side.

"It's a red, two-seat Maserati," Hotch answered. "If he's the shooter, he has another vehicle."

"I was in my office," Dr. Landman said, inside the operating room.

"Were you alone?" Gideon inquired.

"I was in my office with Dr. Hannah Pate," Landman replied. Then, rather loudly, he added, "I'm not the only one who thinks I'm a god! She's in the ER right now. Go on. Ask her."

"Reid, let's take a walk to the ER," Hotch said, sighing a bit as he turned to walk away. Reid followed closely behind, and Jasmine exhaled, sliding her hands in her pockets. It didn't take long for Gideon to come out of the operating room. He exhaled heavily, leaning into the wall beside the door. "He has the worst Narcissistic Personality Disorder I've ever seen," he said. "But he's not our guy."

"So what does that leave us with?" JJ asked, not to anyone in particular.

"Other hospital staff maybe?" Gideon supposed. "Nurses-"

Suddenly, and very loudly, alarms began to blare in the hall, but it was coming from somewhere else. The ER. Gideon, Jasmine, Elle, and JJ all sprinted through the hall. They reached the ER in a matter of minutes. The waiting room was open but the rest was closed off. S.W.A.T. members arrived shortly after a call from Gideon. There was only one explanation, only one conclusion. This was a hostage situation. With the knowledge that both Hotch and Reid were in the ER with the shooter, Jasmine's chest felt heavy.

She was not prepared for this part. None of them were expecting it. Morgan didn't take long to get back to the hospital and they filled him in on what he missed while S.W.A.T. was suiting up. Then he told them what new information he'd learned. "He joined the Army at eighteen, went to Ranger school, did six years before being dishonorably discharged in ninety-five for conduct unbecoming," he explained. "Obviously, he lied about it and joined the Arlington PD."

"You were right. He was a cop," JJ spoke up.

Jasmine was quiet, sitting on a chair next to the group that was standing. She was sat back with her arms folded loosely. It was the only way she could not appear nervous. Though, in front of a group of highly skilled profilers, that was next to impossible. "For nine months. When they found out about the discharge, they kicked him out," Elle added. "Soon thereafter, Dowd got his nursing license. He's been bouncing from hospital to hospital ever since."

Gideon went to Weigart then, across the room, leaving the group suddenly and without word. The rest of the team stayed put, waiting. Morgan's eyes drifted down then, stopped on Jasmine, and narrowed at her posture. "You alright down there?" he asked her, leaning around JJ a little.

Jasmine nodded, sitting up, "Yeah. I'm fine."

"You don't look fine," Morgan disagreed.

"Guys, can you give us a minute?" Elle asked, looking to JJ and Morgan. They nodded and made their way to the other side of the room. Elle took a deep breath and sat down in the chair to the left of Jasmine. Jasmine leaned forward, resting her forearms on her knees. Elle sat back a little. "What's going on?" she asked, gently. "Talk to me."

"I don't know Hotchner very well, but I've known Reid for a while—over two years," Jasmine explained, a bit hesitantly. She huffed a sigh, sitting up, scrubbing her face with her hands. "The last time someone I cared about was being held at gunpoint, I gambled, and I lost. I got there just in time to see my fiance slaughtered, laying in a pool of his own blood on my kitchen floor."

Elle sat up a little straighter at those words. She'd read Jasmine's file, but that part wasn't in it. At least, not in the version she read. "Jasmine...I can't imagine what that was like for you. But Reid's going to come out of this alive. I mean, come on, you know how smart he is," Elle said, using her best positive voice. "They're both going to be just fine."

"They've got three minutes," Gideon announced, as we walk back over to the chairs.

Those words only made the anxiety in Jasmine's chest worse. It made her almost start hyperventilating. She wanted to scream. She wanted to let it out. But she kept it all in, every last ounce of it, standing beside the team as Weigart called time on the three minute delay. The S.W.A.T. team moved into position. Jasmine reached out her hand, and Elle grabbed hold, giving her a reassuring squeeze. A kind of anchor to hold onto.

Something to ground her during this incredibly anxious, adrenaline, worry-fueled moment. They counted down from five. But they only reached three before a loud gunshot rang out. A voice from inside yelled out, "Federal agent! Federal agent!" Hotch opened the door a second later. "We're all clear." The team was moving in an instant. Jasmine's shock almost kept her still, but Elle's hold on her pried her feet from the floor.

Then she was walking, walking faster, Jogging, breaking away from Elle. Before she knew it, she was running down the short hallway to the ER door. Reid was just being peeled off the floor with Hotch's help. Even in the yellow-orange light, she could see the purple to the skin of his face, near his left eye. "Spencer," she called out, gaining the attention of both agents. She hurried forward toward them.

"I'm alright, really, I'm ju-" Reid tried, but was cut off. She threw her arms around his neck, holding on tightly, eliciting an audible wince from the slight pinch in his abdomen. Jasmine quickly pulled back upon hearing him, realizing what she'd done. "Oh! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she quickly apologized, her hands gripping his arms.

"It's okay," Reid shook his head, exhaling through it. "Jasmine- I'm fine."

Her eyes fixed on the bruise to his face with a sharp inhalation of breath. It looked worse close up. She put her hand on his cheek, turning his head ever so slightly to further examine it. "Spencer! Your face," she was agape, in shock. "What happened to your face?"

"Uh- Dowd hit me with his- his gun," Reid cleared his throat, casually pulling back enough to escape the hand on his face.

Jasmine knew how silly she must have seemed. But, to be completely honest, she didn't care. She stepped back enough to let go of him completely, though rather reluctant. "You should get that checked out," she nodded as she spoke, swallowing hard. Mostly to keep herself from falling apart. But he could see it. Reid knew she was not alright. She was miles away from it.

How could she be, after what had happened? He was in New York with Gideon when it happened, working on the case with her. When Jasmine's fiance, Evan, was found dead in Jasmine's apartment a few blocks from the precinct. It was a hard day for everyone involved, but especially for her. Especially when they never caught the killer.

"Jas- Jasmine," he tried, stuttering a little in his anxious—and awkward sounding—attempt at sympathy. Before he could finish his sentence—or even get another word out—she shook her head, excused herself, and his shoulders slumped. She managed to slip passed the S.W.A.T. members and freed hostages without alerting the team to her exit. Jasmine locked the door behind her in the unisex bathroom just down the hall from the ER.

Her palms pressed into the porcelain sink that was separated from the wall, rocking on her heels as she stared herself down in the mirror. Something she'd blocked from her mind, something she'd learned to live without—the blood, the adrenaline, the thrill of the chase—it was now coming in with a taste for revenge. She felt like an addict that got clean, changed their life around, then suddenly shot up two years later.

Jasmine let her eyes fall closed as she breathed in, then exhaled, and repeated. He's not Evan. She spoke those words in her mind like a mantra. Over and over, until they were coming from her lips in a whisper. It took her a short moment, but she calmed down enough to stand up, open her eyes. This was something she would have to fight to get over. She could tell that right then, looking at herself in the mirror. She thought that she'd moved on, gotten past what happened.

But that could not be farther from the truth. The question she needed to answer was, was this worth it? Was it worth coming back to the job should she be offered a chance to stay? She couldn't quite tell, though she was leaning toward no. Finally, she calmed herself down enough to exit the bathroom. After asking a S.W.A.T. member in the lobby, she found that the team was outside. It was dark overhead, the stars shining, as she stepped out through the hospital doors.

Her eyes scanned the parking lot. A couple of ambulances were parked out by the front and, at the back of one, Reid sat on the bumper, talking to Hotch. Jasmine took a deep breath and started walking in that direction. Hotch glanced up then, noticing her approach. Knowingly, he excused himself, leaving behind a confused Dr. Reid. But then Jasmine walked into his immediate line of sight, and he understood.

Jasmine's expression was a mixture of things. Apologetic, sympathetic, embarrassment—all swirled together on her features. She exhaled. "You look worse in brighter light," she broke the silence, mildly sarcastic in tone.

"Thank you, I needed to hear that," Reid smiled a little.

"Well, if you can't trust your friends to tell you the truth, who can you?" Jasmine inhaled, the corners of her lips edging upward a bit. "I'm sorry about wigging out on you in there. This...this is all really new and I needed a second to catch my breath."

Reid quickly shook his head, "It's okay, you don't need to apologize. I completely understand."

"I don't," Jasmine admitted, semi-quietly.

She turned her head right, looking elsewhere a moment. Reid took that moment to look at her. Really look at her. She hadn't changed much since he last saw her. Her hair was still pin straight, blowing in her face from the ponytail at the back of her head and the shorter hairs loose by her temples. No matter how many years passed, she was still breathtaking. When her eyes suddenly shifted back toward him, he cleared his throat, eyes becoming downcast in an instant.

Jasmine pretended not to notice but, despite her efforts, she still found herself with a small smiling smirk on her lips. Just then, her eyebrows lowered, her eyes narrowing as she noticed the crinkled and ruffled look to his shirt collar. She took an absentminded step forward and her fingers instinctively tugged and smoothed out the fabric against his neck. At her proximity, Reid's head shot up, his heart leaping into his throat.

"Spencer Reid with an unkempt collar just doesn't look right," Jasmine explained, a hint of apologetic to her tone. His eyes were looking down at her hands for a second, but then they found a place to rest on her face. Once she finished, she took a half-step back. "There. That looks much better."

Reid pushed off the bumper of the ambulance then, standing to his full height, towering over her a bit. "Hey- um, do you still want to...do you still want to get a coffee?" He was practically tripping over himself to get the words out before he changed his own mind. Jasmine was a little surprised by his sudden deceleration of interest, but she smiled—a warm, soft smile that was genuine—and she nodded. "Yeah," she agreed. "That'd be nice."

It wasn't a coffee shop, but the jet ride home served as the perfect place for a cup of coffee. Jasmine was hitching a ride with them back to headquarters anyway. At least, this way, she was killing two birds with one stone. Reid told her about the cases they'd been over so far since he and Gideon rejoined the team in Quantico while she sipped a steaming mug gingerly, sitting in the seat across from him, a short table in between.

The rest of the team did things to keep themselves busy for a little while, but most fell asleep after they ran out of tasks. Gideon, however, was still awake. He walked down the aisle, stopping only to drop into the chair next to Jasmine. "How are you doing, Reid?" he asked, exhaling as he relaxed his weight against the cushion.

"I'm okay. I was actually just telling Jasmine about what you said, that you don't need a gun to kill someone?" Reid replied, before nodding a little. "You were right."

"No, you don't," Gideon agreed.

"But it helps," Reid huffed a small, light chuckle.

Gideon nodded slowly, "Yes. It does."

Reid sat forward in his chair a little, clearing his throat as he readjusted his position. "I- I know I should feel bad about...what happened. I mean...I killed a man. You know, I- I should feel something," he said. Then he shook his head, "But I don't."

"Not knowing what you feel...that's not the same as not feeling anything. This is gonna hit you...and when it does...there's only three facts you need to know-"

Jasmine spoke up, her eyes fixed on the table in front of her, "You did what you had to do and a lot of good people are alive because of what you did."

Gideon, a bit surprised, turned to look at her as his eyebrows rose on his forehead. Jasmine glanced up at him with a slightly mopey, closed-mouthed smile. And he remembered it then, when he'd spoken those words before—or words similar. The day after Evan was murdered. He exhaled, turning foreword again in his seat. There was no need for explanation, no need for words of any kind.

Reid, eyebrows pinched in curiosity, piped up, "What's the third?"

"I'm proud of you," Gideon answered.

The young Doctor couldn't fight the boyish smile that came to his face as he sat back in his chair. Gideon turned his head, looking to Jasmine yet again. She was in mid-sip, but broke it off early to return his glance, one eyebrow risen questioningly. "I, uh...I have an offer for you," he said, not totally sure in how to phrase his question. "I think you could be an asset to this team, what we're doing. I pulled a lot of strings to get you official for this one but, if you agree, I can get you a spot. It'll be a glorified internship for a while—a few weeks, max—but after that...you'll be apart of the team."

Jasmine didn't know how to respond to that. Reid perked up in his seat, though, too interested in the words she would utter next not to. But she didn't speak. Instead, her teeth clamped on her lower lip as she turned to see the window. "I'll work on cases with you guys?" she asked, turning back to Gideon. He nodded through his answer, but she wasn't quite listening. Her eyes shifted to meet Reid's across the table. They were a silent question—yes or no?

Reid bobbed his head, a smile coming to his lips that tugged up one side of Jasmine's, as he urged her to accept. She turned her head to look at Gideon once more, inhaling, "I'm in."