The first sign is Reid's mother dying. It turns out to be arsenic poisoning, but by the time Reid flies to Vegas and sees the white spots of leukonychia striata on Diane's nails, her convulsions are so severe that death is just around the corner.

She dies on a sunny Tuesday morning with her beloved only son holding her hand.

The team takes the rest of the week off to be with Reid, who is more full of seething rage than grief. More concerned with finding who did this than with losing his mother. The sad thing is, they all know what that feeling.

Section Chief Cruz tells them to handle it as a backburner case and to come back to work. Their focus couldn't be on solving Diane's murder, no matter how much they want to. It's not serial or terrorist; it's an isolated incident. None of them agree with Cruz's directive, but they take on other cases. There's no deficit of fucked up crimes.

The second doesn't hit them all like Diane Reid's death, since no one but Rossi and Hotch knew Gideon's son Stephen. He dies in a drive-by shooting in an affluent neighborhood in Rhode Island. There are no reported robberies or other crimes in the prior or following weeks. The local police don't have the manpower or the means to investigate the crime to the extent that Stephen Gideon deserves, so Rossi and Hotch add that case to the pile on their desks to look at when they don't go home at night.

Agent Grant Anderson has never been a major part of the team, but he has been a constant and willing presence for any assignments handed to him. He is killed in a routine training exercise when he falls off the climbing wall and breaks his neck. No one knows why he was at the training course at 5:00 in the morning, but investigators chalk it up to wanting additional practice. The team attends his funeral, three too many.

It's less suspicious when Detective Will LaMontagne dies on the job, but it still devastates the team to the core. Will is one of their own. His death is the fourth surrounding their team in less than a month. JJ is too grief-stricken to realize the connection right away, but the team meets in the round table room the day after Will's funeral anyway. Garcia is charged with watching little Henry, since JJ can barely keep her eyes open and her legs standing.

"This isn't a coincidence," Hotch greets them, eyes hovering over JJ's cowering form tucked into Emily's side. He meets Emily's defiant eyes and summons the strength to continue. "Four in a month. It all seems too connected to us, and–."

"We all fucking know what it is, Hotch," JJ croaks and it's the first she's spoken since she let out the endless shriek over the phone when Will's police captain called and uttered the words killed in action. The sound coming from her mouth now almost doesn't seem human.

Emily brushes JJ's hair back from her face and adjusts her arm tighter around her. JJ's usually calm voice shakes and the team is shocked at her abnormally vulgar language. "Now how the fuck are we going to find that son of a bitch who took away my baby's father."

When they think about it later, it would be funny, almost, in a morbid sort of way, because Cruz comes in the room right at that moment and tries to call Morgan out of the room.

"If you have something to say to me," Morgan takes a breath and his hands tremble, because there's no way it can be happening to him, "you can say it to everyone."

Fran Morgan is shot and killed in what Chicago PD believe to be gang-related turf war. It is the South Side, after all. Morgan punches a hole in the wall before Rossi and Hotch throw him to the ground. No one can say with finality whose screams are loudest.

The entire situation is a nightmare and there is nothing they can do about it. For all their expertise and resources, they can't do shit because they don't even know where to start.

"We're taking personal time," Hotch tells Cruz. It's not a request; it's a demand, an order. Cruz makes to protest, but he's already thought through his reasoning. "Reid, JJ, and Morgan all have bereavement leave. Prentiss, Rossi, and I have more vacation days than we know what to do with. The other BAU teams can handle our cases. Besides, it's officially serial, and we are the only connecting link."

Cruz can't make a viable argument against that. "You know damn well that I can't authorize your team investigating this case."

Hotch has been playing this bureaucratic bullshit game for long enough to read between the lines. The team doesn't have a free pass, by any means, but they've been given just enough leeway to investigate this on their own.

"The team's vacation starts tomorrow," Hotch says, slowly, carefully, so Cruz knows that he knows what they're playing at.

"I think your tech analyst Penelope Garcia may deserve some time off as well," Cruz states solemnly. He cocks his head at Hotch's fiery glare. "I can't give you resources."

"I know. We have all we need for our vacation. The paperwork is being drafted as we speak."

"Well, you sure don't waste any time getting approval," Cruz snorts a half-chuckle. He may be the boss, but he knows what it feels like to be powerless against his enemies. "Stay safe. And stay under the radar."

"Yes, sir."


A/N: Title is Black by Kari Kimmel.