Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.
Hemlock
It is an established fact that Socrates had the chance to evade his death sentence. His friends had arranged his escape, but he insisted on staying in prison. Breaking the law, he explained, would defile everything he stood for and delegitimize all his teachings. So, for the sake of truthfulness, he died.
In Virginia it was four o'clock in the morning. In London it was already nine. Office hours. So why in the world should Superintendent Leighton not call and interrupt the uneasy sleep Detective Inspector Kapoor had obtained way past midnight? The superintendent was upset: MP Brown had pressurized him again. The politician wanted results, fast. Ishika Kapoor glanced over the crime scene photos, transcripts of witness statements and lab reports she had fallen asleep among. Actually she was making a hell of a progress – only she couldn't tell her superior. Therefore she was forced to listen to him repeating for what felt like the millionth time how much her further career depended on the outcome of this case.
"I think I've figured something out", she hissed as soon as Leighton had disconnected the line."But I can't prove a thing, so what am I supposed to do? Tell the MP I think I know who killed her son but can't arrest the perpetrator? Would that make anything better?" Angrily she rustled with the papers scattered on the sheets and around the bed. She had actually slept on the cursed shopping list which she had put together under great difficulties: An itemization of all the things George Brown had bought in the month prior to his death. Something about the list bugged her, but she couldn't establish what exactly. Ishika longed for a sympathetic ear but knew better than calling her probably soon to be ex-boyfriend. Two weeks ago he had asked her to get married. Instead of answering him she had taken up a case 3.500 miles away from home. "Kind of a statement in itself", she mused.
Still furious, she grabbed some documents and shoved them to the floor. Her personal life was a mess. No news there. But up to this point her professional life, her career at Scotland Yard, had always been a safe haven, a way to compensate for what was amiss on the home front. She wouldn't let a bunch of blooming profilers take that away from her. But how? These people were not only a team of extremely capable investigators, they were also deeply attached to each other, almost like a family. Ever since they had found out she was suspecting one of them, they had closed their lines and let her run into one wall after another. Rossi, that arrogant bastard, had played every dirty trick in the book on her.
Come to think of it this was actually one of the parts of the story she didn't fully understand. Ishika knew from first-hand experience how far loyalty could push people, but everything had its limits. She had seen the team's record, had studied the way they had handled cases in the past, especially the Elle Greenway incident. These BAU people were highly-trained professionals who had enforced the law at great personal cost on more than one occasion. Everything they did betrayed a deeply entrenched set of values they all followed. How could they decide to break with it now, even for Unit Chief Aaron Hotchner? She couldn't think of a lucid explanation. She just couldn't.
Outside, the sun rose. It was six in the morning now and a knock on the door interrupted her thoughts.