A/N: See? I told you it wouldn't be long until I wrote a new story! Okay this is only a month after what transpired in Hold Me Close. Reid's leg is still in a cast and he was to wear crutches. Haley has moved to Natchez, Mississippi to do some work on the Emerald Mound, the largest mound structure in the continental USA, that a professor has recently had a lot of good luck with.

One

Amos Bronson Alcott said, "Civilization degrades the many to worship the few."

"I think that this was really a better opportunity for you, Haley," Professor Strauss said as she and her pupil began the trudge up the 35 foot tall Emerald Mound. They had already walked around the 2410 foot perimeter once, and Haley was in awe of the sheer mass of the structure.

"Well, thank you for allowing me to transfer over here, I hope I can be the help that you wanted," Haley smiled, wiping some sweat from her brow and taking a deep breath. The hot humidity of the air in the southern United States was a striking contrast to the cool, rainy atmosphere of Wessex.

"Allowing you?" Strauss laughed. "I was begging for you to come with me in the first place! You can get your doctorate here faster anyways," she smiled. Professor Strauss was a petite woman, about half a foot shorter than Haley with feathery red hair and rimless glasses. Her high cheek bones gave her face a look of constant youthfulness, though the Professor was on the verge of fifty. "I have the highest respect for Professor Woodrow, but Stonehenge? You'll have better luck here."

Haley smiled; the professors were always at each others' throats over whose research was more logical and beneficial. So far, neither of them has won.

"But again, thank you," Haley asserted. She hated to be seen as someone who couldn't stick to a certain criteria of work. "What is it that you'd like me to look at in particular?"

"Well, we've found this… we've found a pot, and the inscriptions and pictures on it that completely conflict with most of the information that has been gathered about these peoples. It can change the history of the continent!"

Strauss' words excited Haley and she grew quiet with the feeling welling up in her stomach. Changing the course of history…

She froze as they reached the top of the mound. "Oh my-"

Professor Strauss screamed at the sight before them.

--

"Natchez Police Department," said a bored voice over the phone. Haley had remained calm, shaken on the inside, but with a calm exterior.

"I need to report a murder," Haley said authoritatively. "At the National Park on the Emerald Mound."

"Let me hook you up to the Chief of Police," the secretary said in a slightly less bored voice than the one she used previously.

Strauss watched Haley fill the Police Department in on the details of the grisly scene at the top of the mound. She couldn't believe it, hadn't she had a student keep a look out on the top. However, the only reason she hadn't fainted at the scene was the fact that the team had stored the pot in the green tent at the base of the mound. They were there now, with the pot on the table that Haley was leaning against. She hung up the phone with a white face.

"They're bringing in the FBI in, apparently this sort of scene has been found all over town lately," Haley sighed, rubbing her nose.

"The FBI?" Strauss asked.

"The Behavioral Analysis Unit, rather. They only sent the application for the case today. It should be accepted at some point tomorrow if they take it seriously," Haley nodded.

"How do you know?"

"My brother's in the BAU," she smiled.

"Will they take it seriously?"

Haley felt odd to be the one answering a Professor's doubtful questions. But if there's one thing you learn in the field is that everyone is a person, everyone has a core of humanity, even professor. "I hope they will. I have no idea how they select these things," Haley answered as best she could.

She looked Strauss up and down. The woman was shaken by the gruesome scene, she sat there nearly trembling with the cup of coffee in her hands. She was nervous, looking in every corner of the tent. She'd never seen a real mutilated body before.

Haley nearly laughed at her own thought. Well, most people haven't seen their fair share of mutilated corpses. "Wanna talk about this pot of yours?" she asked, beginning to lure Strauss back into her protection bubble.

--

The next day, JJ sat at her desk and began to sift through the new case files that had been expressed shipped to the BAU. She really didn't take anything that had been sent through no special system seriously, it was like the people that sent them didn't care. Most of the time, they weren't even completely filled out.

She now had a decent pile going. Feeling more accomplished than she did when she first walked into the office, she opened a case file from Natchez, Mississippi.

Haley was the first thought that blipped through her mind as she turned through the gory images of men and women alike in the middle of a circle of blood with strange symbols around it. Ears were missing; the right leg was broken in the same three places on all of the victims. There had been four of these killings.

Then she saw Haley's name on the police report of the fourth murder. "What?" she wrinkled her brow and held the paper closer, as though that would erase the name from the paper. She looked up at the column it was in: Reporter. Haley was clean, that was good. Why did that child always have to get involved in this kind of stuff? Why didn't they just go ahead and make her a Special Agent so that they wouldn't have any more paperwork to do that explains why there's a twenty year old girl at most of their crime scenes.

Actually, JJ was exaggerating, Haley had only been connected directly with two different crimes that the BAU was involved in. She closed the case file and walked into Hotch's office, waving it. He sighed and rallied the troops into the briefing room for JJ's case presentation.

--

Spencer was a nervous wreck. Haley in Natchez, Mississippi with a psychopath on the loose. Of course. Of freaking course!

He took out his phone just before they got on the jet and for the umpteenth time, Morgan told him he was overreacting. Reid was about to tell him that he didn't have a sister that happened to be a serial killer magnet, but decided against it as he lifted the phone to his ear, listening to Haley's ringback tone.

The song had reached the bridge before she picked up. "Hello?"

"Haley!"

"Hey, Spencer, what's going on?"

"We're on our way to Natchez."

"Oh. Okay then, I'll see you when you get here. You'll be stopping by the Emerald Mound, right?"

"Yes," Reid answered almost without a pause between the question and response.

"Then I'll see you here. Just… just be careful! This structure is over a century old and if you mess it up in some way, don't think that Yale won't sue the living-"

"Haley, we won't destroy the mound, okay? We're just looking at the crime scene," Reid rolled his eyes, now eager to get away from the conversation. "All right, well, I've got to go. See you in a couple of hours."

"See you then," Haley said. He could hear her smile over the phone.