The ABCs of Criminal Minds

Rating: as of now, T for mentioned violence. It could probably be less, but I would rather be safe. It may change in the future.

Disclaimer: There has been no money made and no infringement is intended. Any similarities to other posted stories is unintended as well.

Notes: Please be aware that while I do have a history writing fanfiction, I have never written Criminal Minds before (and in fact have never even seen CM in its entirety.)

I cannot promise that any of these will be perfect. They are unbeta'd, but they are spell/grammar checked.

Any reviews and constructive criticism are welcome. As I said, it's been a while! And besides, if anyone actually likes these...maybe it'll inspire me to continue to the end.

A – Abandoned

The motel room was dark, a chill in the air from not only the over-working air-conditioning but also the complete isolation. It wasn't that Elle Greenaway, Special Supervisory Agent to the Behavioral Analysis Unit, had actually been left alone. She knew very well that she could easily step out into the dimly lit hallway, take five steps in either direction on the scratchy stained carpet and knock on a door to see one of her fellow team-mates. It was something else, something else entirely that froze even the possibilities of doing that. She felt... abandoned. Adrift. Lost in the quagmire that was their work, drawn down into the muck that their work left sluggishly floating through her brain.

Intellectually, she knew that she hadn't been. A member of her team had been right beside her as she had been processed, optimistic that she would be released extremely quickly. And she had been, in what seemed like the blink of an eye.

There was still the investigation at the FBI to go through, but that was a worry for another day. A formality, one of her co-workers had told her. It was the look in Hotch's blue eyes that burned through the smoke in her mind, opened her walls up to let him see inside her, see what she thought, what she had wanted to do.

She definitely wasn't planning on looking him in the eyes again anytime soon.

A small part of her, a part shoved ruthlessly away from the conscious part of her mind, was fully aware that she was dissociating. It was the part that was screaming for her to go knock on doors, to go see one of the people who could see her problem, help her break free from the quicksand.

The larger part seized her body, her mind, her control. This part said that none of them could possibly understand what she had done, why she had done did she did. Not a single one of them. Not the oh-so-righteous Derek Morgan, the stone-cold Aaron Hotchner, the sink-or-swim Jason Gideon. Definitely not the bumbling Spencer Reid or too-innocent-for-the-job Jennifer Jereau.

Everyone said she wasn't ready for the job and she had proved everybody wrong. On every case, she had been ready and willing to do whatever it took to catch the Unsub and save the day. She had proven herself time and time again. And on this case, she had shattered what had been built up.

She was alone in this, in everything. She had known that months ago, as she lay on the floor of her apartment bleeding. As the man who shot her put his hands inside her, inside the wounds he had created, and took her blood. Stealing her own blood to write a message out on her wall for her team.

It was then, drifting in and out of consciousness, that she realized that her boss, her friends, had been the ones to send her into that hell. The Fisher King was merely the Ferryman.

It wasn't fair, she knew. It wasn't fair to assume that they knew that there was danger when she herself hadn't.

That didn't stop the feelings, though.

The betrayal that screamed through her blood. The fear that stole her breath every time she opened a door into an empty room. The hand clawing at her throat when she woke up at the slightly sound in or out of her apartment, ready to leap and defend as soon as the person showed themselves. The shame she felt when she over-reacted to a child screaming in the grocery store and almost drew her gun.

They were why she had come back to work early, hoping that surrounding herself with the people she had made her family would stave off the circling sharks. Was she ready for it? She could admit only to herself that she probably wasn't... but she was a lot less ready to be on her own, which was funny since she had deliberately distanced herself from the team during her recovery. They had been smothering while she had been in the hospital, once they had caught The Fisher King and rescued the girl, of course. Even while reveling in the attention, the closeness and the feeling of family, she had wondered why they hadn't rescued her in time. What made her so much less worthy than any of the other potential victims they fought for?

Elle knew that she was being unfair, that they had come as soon as possible. She had looked at the reports herself, even while people had tried to keep her away from them. She had seen the response times, known that Agent Anderson had returned quickly, probably under orders. She knew the efforts that her team put into catching the Unsubs. She also knew that they had most likely doubled those efforts once it became personal and she was hurt.

None of it mattered. It didn't change the fact that she was there, injured and alone. There was no light to protect her from the fog that began to cloud her mind.

It was after she was released that she began to pull away, little bits at a time as her strength returned and she became more self-reliant.

It was then that the voices started. Oh, not literal voices, like the voices the Unsubs they caught claimed to hear. No, these were all definitely her own, voices from the past rising up and creeping over her defenses. The eight-year-old girl whose Daddy had gone to work and never come home. The rebellious fifteen year old who had paid the ultimate price for disobeying her mother. The police officer who saw guilty men was free because the women they raped were too afraid to stand up for themselves. The BAU agent who strolled into town after lives had been shattered and tried her best to pick up the pieces and stop it from happening again, happening to another family. Because they were her own voice, because there were no voices beyond her own feeble protests, they had been able to overwhelm her, poison her against... everything.

They had been able to numb her against the family she had turned away from ever so briefly.

She had moved, unable to deal with the place that reminded her so much of hopelessness and failure. Not just their failure to help her, but her own failure to help herself. Both left a bitter taste in the back of her throat that she couldn't wash away no matter how many times she tried.

Ever since she had come back, every time one of them had opened their mouth, all Elle could do was try to find the hidden message in there. Look for the lies, the untruths, the angle. None of them accepted that she didn't need help, that she was self-reliant, that she could take care of herself. None of them even tried to be there for her as what she needed, not that she really needed anything – or them.

None of them could accept that what she had experienced had changed her. That lying on the operating table while they went out and played hero could have fundamentally changed the woman that Elle was. No one had even asked.

And this? Letting a man that they all knew was guilty go free because of lack of evidence was the last straw.

They had abandoned her long ago.

She was only returning the favor.

Again, reviews are welcome.