A/N:) Just want to say that this is my first Criminal Minds multichapter, so please do tell me what you think of the plot and characterisation. Updates should be more or less daily, unless I die, or something of the like. ANyway, enjoy the story, and don't forget to review!

-Seven x x


Wheels up in Twenty

Agent Emily Prentiss was used to being woken in the middle of the night by the irksome ring on her phone. It was almost habit now to turn over, press all the buttons on the keypad and mumble something mostly incoherent and completely rude into the mouthpiece before rolling over and going straight back to sleep. However, it was now also habit for JJ to call twice.

So it was down to business, grab the go-bag, wheels up in twenty, and Agent Prentiss didn't even have time to eat breakfast.

"Christ Emily, is that your stomach?" Morgan asked, and his colleague glared at him for drawing attention to the loudness of her organs. "I thought that was the engines failing."

"Unless you have something edible to give me, can we please get on with the case?" She snarked, holding her nose in the air as her stomach once again protested its emptiness. Loudly. JJ laughed and Rossi smirked into the case file he was reading.

"Good morning," Hotch took the spare seat next to Prentiss, looking admittedly tired. "Case?" JJ handed out the files, a slightly disgusted look on her face.

"I have to brief you on the plane because this unsub moves fast. Four victims in under a month; no discernible pattern on when they were kidnapped or dumped." The team opened their files and immediately wished they hadn't. Even Rossi turned away, and Prentiss had to stifle a gasp. Hotch glanced sideways at her, making sure that she was okay, but she turned her face away from him, needing to regain her composure. JJ wasn't even looking at the crime scene photos.

"Victimology." Hotch ordered, knowing what he saw from reading the file, but needing additional input for any discernible conclusion.

"Four boys, all under the age of five, and at least three. No signs of sexual abuse." Hotch looked up in surprise, and Morgan traded confused looks with Prentiss. In a kill this violent, there was almost always signs of sexual abuse. "There was a total of ten stab wounds on one boy, with an unknown object, but he died of blunt force trauma. It was clear that some of the wounds were created post mortem." JJ continued, not needing a file to read off of. She may not have an eidetic memory, like Reid, but the details of this case were certainly sticking in her head.

"The sexual abuse aspect is unusual, but considering the violence of the killings, maybe it's best to assume that the unsub prefers to mutilate his victims, rather than assault them sexually." Hotch's words sounded strained. The picture of the third victim looked alarmingly like Jack, but he pushed that thought away to the back of his mind. "We'll need to see the dump and abduction sites to know for sure." His team nodded to show that they were all in agreement.

"What we really need is to know is if the victims knew each other, or if the victims' families knew each other." Rossi cut in, adding his input. Morgan and Reid squirmed in their seats, uncomfortable with the use of 'victim' talking about a defenceless child. It just felt wrong to them.

"Garcia?"

"Ahead of you, Hotch. She's checking more as we speak, but I doubt that she'll find anything. The thing about kids is that they're not really in the system yet, apart from where they were born, et cetera. She's checking the parents and close family members as well, but there might be no connection there." The rest of the team nodded in agreement with her conclusion.

"You really think that you've seen it all, then something like this comes along." Morgan commented, bitterly. "I've never seen a kid in this kind of condition. At least not one who hasn't borne marks of sexual assault." Hotch nodded, frowning. This was a sticking point in the profile, and although he had only been thinking about it for a grand total of ten minutes, the anomalous nature of the lack of sexual assault was really starting to irk him.

"Yes, it's strange. The act of the stabbing may be the sexual component." He voiced his concerns, and Rossi hmmed in agreement, his frown deepening as he stared at his file.

"If it's alright, Hotch, I'd like to go to the abduction site." Hotch nodded.

"Get a feel for the unsub." Rossi copied his earlier movement, and Hotch sighed, bringing his head up to talk to the rest of the team.

"Rossi and I will tell all of the parents. Morgan, you and Prentiss go to the dump scene, take notes. Reid, you and JJ will go to the local precinct and get set up. JJ, liase with local law enforcement, and Reid, we need a geographical profile. Caucausea is a small town. I wouldn't be surprised if the unsub is a local, who's lived there all his life, but it could be helpful to narrow the area down further." He looked at all of his subordinates as he spoke to them, to see their reaction. When everyone seemed fine with his decision, he returned to the file.

No one had to speak or even look at each other to know what everyone else was thinking. This one was not going to be a walk in the park.


The Deputy Sheriff met the BAU agents at the dump scene of all four of the victims. Politely, he shook Morgan's hand, and blushed slightly as Prentiss smiled in hello, as they introduced themselves. Morgan noticed how Prentiss focused on the young handsome man, but said nothing, surmising that it was none of his business.

"Good morning, Agent Prentiss."

"You can call me Emily." Morgan raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. She had never even asked him to call her Emily. The Deputy smiled abashedly.

"In that case, you can call me John." He looked ever so slightly nervous when he sensed Morgan staring at him, squaring his shoulders. Morgan may not be Emily's brother in blood or race, but she was definitely his sister. Whether they both liked it or not. "The body of the fourth victim, Kyle Beauchamp, was found last night at around ten when a couple was walking by. These woods are known for... they're a romantic place for the teenagers, if you know what I mean." Prentiss and Morgan traded glances.

"Yeah, we know what you mean." Morgan voiced, and they came to a stop, at a sheet lying on the ground. It looked too big for the lump underneath it, and Prentiss felt like tucking the sides in, out of respect. "Hey, Raines. This place doesn't look like it's easy to get around."

"It's not. The killer must be local." He surmised on his own, and Morgan looked pleasantly surprised. Raines laughed.

"We're not all dumb in the country, Agent Morgan." Morgan just smiled, warming slightly to the Sheriff. "If you weren't born and bred here, you wouldn't be able to find this place twice." He sighed. "But unfortunately almost everyone who lives in the area was born and bred here, so that doesn't narrow things down much." Looking grim, he motioned through the trees, where they could see the yellow of the crime scene tape.

"Are those the other bodies?" Emily asked, and Raines nodded, visibly shaken by the thought.

"When me and my men arrived, we looked around for evidence, and trails and suchlike. Instead, we found three more bodies." Raines shook his head and although Morgan and Prentiss began to walk through the shrubbery to reach the tape, he was obviously hesitant.

"Deputy?" Morgan inquired.

"Listen, I've seen murder victims and dead bodies before, but this just really hit home with me. I have a nephew his age, and I don't get how... they're just kids. They're so young." Prentiss nodded, showing that she understood his fragmented explanation.

"It's sickening." She acknowledged, still nodding. "You can stay here, and we'll yell if there's anything that we need. We want time to discuss anyway." Raines nodded, looking slightly relieved, though also very green, as he stepped away, past Kyle Beauchamp's body.

"Oh, Emily?" She turned back at the sound of her given name. "We left the bodies exactly where we found them." Raines handed Morgan, who was closer, a couple of files. "These are the preliminary files on how the boys died, from what the ME could see at the scene. Since we only found them late last night, we haven't had the chance to move them." Prentiss nodded, and the agents went on their way, through the woods. Morgan was silent as they walked through the vegetation, until they were out of earshot of the Deputy.

"You can call me Emily." He mocked in a high, girly voice which Prentiss knew was meant to be hers.

"I just want to be on good terms with local law enforcement. We need cooperation, Derek." She insisted, though her cheeks were flushing in such a way that showed that she was embarrassed.

"Emily, trust me. Now he's gonna give you full access." Morgan said, stepping into another clearing, like the one that Kyle had been found in. Prentiss rolled her eyes, muttering something indiscriminate beneath her breath as her colleague smiled as he came to crouch beside her. That friendly smirk faded as soon as she lifted the blanket, to reveal the body of the second victim - she recognised him from the crime scene photos. Morgan wordlessly opened the file.

"ME estimated time of death to be less than a week ago. Kyle only died about a day ago, but as the victims go further back, there are larger gaps between their estimated times of death and their kidnappings." Morgan informed Prentiss, and she sighed.

"That means he's escalating. He might have chosen another victim already." She said, and frowned at the victim in front of her. Not able to even learn his name because she knew that it would hurt her, she thought of him as victim #2. "The times do not overlap though. He takes one boy, then always kills him before another one is taken."

"Which means that these boys fulfil something in the time that they are held hostage." Morgan pondered out loud. "But what?" Emily hummed, still staring at the body, and taking the crime scene photographs from Morgan and staring at them, hard.

"You have that face, Em. Tell me what's going through that pretty head of yours." Morgan prompted. He would compare his thoughts against hers, and hope that they got some overlap.

"Look at the way that they're laid out." Morgan did, first at the body before them, then secondly at the crime scene photos of the other three victims. "Their hands are laid on their stomachs, and they are always laid on their backs, feet straight out. What does it look like to you?"

"A body laid out in an open casket." He realised. "The unsub feels remorse and guilt for what he's done to the boys." Both agents frowned, and Emily dropped the white sheet over the body again, swallowing hard at how small it looked.

"That doesn't make much sense though." She voiced both of their thoughts. "The killing MO was the same in all of the victims, if anything escalating in violence. But, there is no difference between how the bodies are lain out. And it's respectable, not impulsive. It would have taken time to lay them out like this, and to drive them all to the same place, revisiting the scene. This is like the unsub's graveyard." Morgan nodded in agreement.

"The actual murder doesn't fit in with the dumping of the bodies." He surmised, because speaking out loud helped him think. "Intermittent delusions would account for the change in behaviour, and the lack of pattern." He offered, and Prentiss sighed, looking up through the trees at the bleak grey sky.

"Could be, but somehow I doubt it. There would probably be more variation in victimology, and the unsub wouldn't have had the resolve to watch the victims, to see that they all looked the same." She shrugged. "I mean, we'll go over it back at the station, but I have a much more likely scenario." One which neither of them liked. Morgan stripped off his white gloves and they exited the clearing, leaving the small, fragile body under its sheet.

"Yeah, that's a good idea." He said, and Prentiss followed him out of the clearing. "Plus, you'll be able to see Deputy loverboy again."

"Shuttup Derek."


"Ma'am, we're from the FBI. May we come in?" Rossi and Morgan had barely been able to flash their identification badges before Kyle Beauchamp's mother broke, realising that her worst nightmare had just come true. That her baby boy was dead.

Since the police department in Caucausea, Idaho, was small and understaffed, they had waited for the FBI to arrive, so they could talk to the parents. This was the fourth house Rossi and Hotch had been into, and they'd used the same line at the other three doors. What really broke Hotch's heart wide open though, was that the same line was received at every door with the same exact reaction.

There were pictures of Kyle throughout the house. Rossi patrolled the living room, analysing the Beauchamp family by the way they arranged their furniture, and the way that they folded their laundry. Meanwhile, Hotch talked to the parents, in the kitchen.

It broke him to see these people, mourning for something to young pure, and wishing foir a miracle which was long past happening and cursing God for taking Kyle instead of them. 'A son should never die before his father', Mr. Beauchamp told Hotch, and Hotch thought of Jack and he silently agreed.

Rossi saw in Kyle's room the same things that he had seem in the other boys' rooms.

"The unsub came in through the window." Rossi commentated, speaking to himself as he wandered over to the open window, and looked out of it. He imagined watching this window for days, just waiting for the right moment. Having finished with talking to the parents, Hotch watched his mentor and his friend from his place leaning against the doorframe. Rossi approached the empty bed, where the sheets were still slightly ruffled. "Then he comes to the bed, and takes Kyle."

"ME report said that there were abrasions on Kyle's wrists and around his mouth." Hotch interjected, from the door. Rossi was unsurprised by his presence; he was used to Hotch sneaking up on people. Everyone else on the team always jumped, but Rossi could always sense when he was there. They had known each other for far too long to be surprised about anything that the other did.

"No signs of a struggle. The gag and restraints would have been for the ride to the unknown location." Rossi corrected, not even turning around. "Kyle left willingly with the unsub. Which means he was very, very scared, the unsub is very, very persuasive..." He looked to Hotch to finish his sentence.

"Or the victim knew the unsub." Rossi nodded, and Hotch shot him one of his rare smiles. "I'm not your newbie anymore, Dave. You don't have to quiz me." Rossi chuckled. "In fact, you're technically the newbie on this team."

"Aaron, you're always going to be the newbie to me." He said fondly, throwing an amused glance at his friend, who sighed.

"Okay." Hotch uncrossed his arms and wandered across the room, observing and analysing the evidence. He stood beside his former mentor. "So we're looking at someone inconspicuous, who's good with kids, most likely knows the parents, and has no logged connection with them" He surmised, clearly thinking hard.

"What did the parents say?"

"Nothing of consequence." Rossi caught the tone of Hotch's voice, but did not confront him about it. He knew immediately that he was thinking about Jack, and the serious expression which always misled the team was transparent. He had known Aaron far too long to be fooled by Agent Hotchner's stoic appearance.

"Something doesn't add up." Rossi strolled around the bed, staring about the room. "The actual murder. It's so violent, compared to the abductions. And people who had such violent tendencies or outbursts stick out in a community as close knit as Caucausea's."

"And they're not usually good with kids." Hotch added. "If we look at the killings, there's a whole different profile to if we look at the actual abduction." He stared out of the window, out into the Beauchamps' front garden. The vibrant roses beneath Kyle's window were trampled.

"Come on Aaron. Let's meet with the others and work everything up." Rossi said softly, and clamped a hand firmly but briefly on Hotch's shoulder before exiting, pulling off his blue crime scene gloves as he went.

Hotch took one last look at the room. There were toys and trinkets and scribbled pictures - everything that you would expect in a little boy's room. Except for the boy. Sighing again, and pushing Jack once more from the forefront of his mind, Hotch bent down and pressed the small elephant nightlight off on his way out.