characters: Leighton Tanner (OC), Joe Hardwick (OC), Jordan Todd, Hotch, Rossi, Prentiss, Reid, Morgan
setting: before 4x07 - Masterpiece
disclaimer: fic•tion [fíksh'n]: literary works of imagination
SCARS REMIND US WHERE WE'VE BEEN;;
chapter one
date: November 14th-17th, 2008
place: Chesapeake, Virginia
(1)
The first precinct is located in the Great Bridge section of Chesapeake, just outside the city. It's a slow traffic day and they get from the airport to Albemarle Drive in less than twenty minutes. Jordan leads the way inside, searching the room for the lead detective on the case. She'd already spoken to him on the phone.
"Detective Hardwick?" she calls out. A tall springy man gets up from behind his desk and walks over to her. "I'm Agent Jordan Todd," she says, and shakes the man's hand. "These are agents Hotchner, Rossi and Prentiss. The rest of the team went to take a look at the crime scene."
"Joe Hardwick," the detective says. "I appreciate you all coming down here on such short notice. I've got a room set up for you at the back, and anything else you need you can run by me."
"That should do for now," Hotch says and follows Detective Hardwick to the other side of the room. "We'd like to talk to the families as soon as agents Reid and Morgan return."
Hotch and Rossi look up as the door to the restroom opens across the room, a familiar face emerging.
"Is that—" Hotch starts.
"SSA Leighton Tanner," Rossi fills in the name, surprised. He recognizes the slight brunette who walks over to the water cooler. They've met several times at his lectures and he knows Hotch and her have crossed paths before as well.
"Tanner?" Prentiss frowns and looks at Hotch. "The agent that—" Instead of saying it Emily makes a vertical hand gesture down her abdomen. They're all staring at her until Detective Hardwick turns; he seems to know her. There's just something in the way his eyes are now downcast. It's a sign of respect. He's sparing her the burden of FBI infamy.
"She's the one who suggested I call you," he says, and feels the focus shift to him again. Agent Todd is already inside the conference room pinning pictures up on the corkboards. "She's my sister-in-law," he explains. "She's been staying with us since—" He doesn't say it. He can't say it. It's been said enough times already.
"And you asked her to take a look at the case file?" Hotch asks. The last case Tanner worked almost got her killed; he doesn't know her well, but from what he'd gathered around the bureaucratic bullpen her return to the Bureau was doubtful. Some people simply aren't cut out for this job.
"She offered." Hardwick shrugs. He wasn't allowed to admit that he'd purposely left the file on the kitchen table for Leighton to find. His wife Natalie, Leighton's older sister, hated when he brought his work home with him. "Something like this has never happened here. I figured I could use all the help I could get."
"You did the right thing," Hotch says.
Leighton makes her way over to them. "Agent Tanner," Rossi says, and shakes her hand. He's never seen her with her hair down like this, a shoulder-length curly mess. She's wearing a denim shirt, sleeves bunched up at her elbows. Rossi notices that she's not carrying a gun or any credentials.
"Just Leighton, please," she says. "I'm not working this case."
"We're aware of your situation," Hotch says, and crosses his arms over his chest, "But we'd like to keep you around as a consultant."
Leighton's left hand twitches at her side. "Why?" she asks despite understanding the reasoning behind it, burying her hand in her pants pocket.
"Right now you know this case better than us," Hotch explains. Leighton casts down her eyes and stares at her feet. "Not to mention you have BAU experience," he adds, and Leighton looks up at him again. She's not sure how much her BAU training can help them. "Leighton, we need you."
She knows he's preying on a part inside her that's still vulnerable, but she also realizes it's working. Joe had been asking for her help as well, and it's like he said, they need all the help they can get. "Okay," she says, biting the inside of her lip.
.
(2)
"Reid, Morgan, we're in here," Hotch calls out from the back room.
When Reid enters the room, he recognizes Leighton from the news immediately. FBI Agent Injured In Hunt For Frisco Ripper, the headlines had read. The news had spread through the BAU like wildfire; when one of their own got hurt in the field it affected most of them, even if they didn't know the person.
"This is Agent Morgan," Hotch says, and Detective Hardwick shakes Morgan's hand. "And—"
"Dr Spencer Reid," Leighton interrupts. She doesn't shake any hands. "I know. I've read some of your articles."
"Really?" Reid asks, his voice high-pitched.
There's a short silence, and Morgan snickers. "Try not to sound so surprised next time," he tells Reid, smacking his younger colleague in the chest. He catches himself thinking that Tanner looks older than twenty-six. The job does that to some people.
"Hotch," Emily interrupts, carrying a bowl filled with cookies inside with her. "Someone just dropped these off at the front desk for us."
"My wife," Detective Hardwick says, and takes over the bowl, placing it in the middle of the table. "Sorry about that. She stress-bakes."
Morgan and Reid both steal one of the chocolate chip cookies.
"Reid, T— Leighton," Hotch corrects himself, "you stay here and work on the geographical profile. You grew up here, so that should help," he tells Leighton. "Jordan, you talk to the press. The rest of us will talk to the families."
Reid and Leighton glance at each other briefly while the rest of the team makes its way out of the room, papers rustling and chairs creaking. "Play nice," Morgan says to Reid before leaving the room, and Reid frowns to himself as he stares after Morgan; when has he ever not played nice, whatever that's supposed to mean in the first place.
A silence settles in the room. Leighton grabs a map from the table and walks it over to the board. Reid walks over to her to help her unfold it and pin it up to the board. Leighton doesn't once look at him.
"Can I ask you something?" Reid asks after long moments have passed.
"Sure," Leighton says, and smoothes down the paper over the board.
"Nick Mumford," he says and sees Leighton's left hand twitch, making her drop the blue thumbtack she was about to press into the cork board. "How did you know?" he asks, while Leighton dives to the floor to pick up the tack. Leighton stands up, and pins the thumbtack to the board, holding up one corner of the map. It's only then that she looks at Reid. "You didn't chase any other suspects. It's like—like you knew."
Leighton casts down her eyes. Reid knows he touched a nerve. "I did my job." Leighton swallows hard, and gnaws at her lip. "I created a working profile. I followed my instincts." She knows she's saying two different things. It's more a lie than anything else.
"I read the case file," Reid says, and pins down the two left corners of the map. "It was very impressive. It reminded me of a profile Jason Gideon created for The Footpath Killer. There was a striking resemblance in detail—"
"I'm not—" Leighton shakes her head and closes her eyes. She takes a few steps back and puts her hands in her sides. "It was nothing like that. Gideon predicted a stutter, that's—" She shakes her head again. "Don't compare my profile to his, please."
Reid frowns; what did he say? Leighton's picking at her lips with her nails now, and then ruffles through her hair. "You were both right to the very last detail."
She looks at him, her whole body fidgety now. "Except my profile wasn't an official one," she says. "It's one I created independently of my team's input."
"But— you were right," Reid says carefully.
Leighton sighs. "Can we please focus on the case?" she asks.
Reid quirks his mouth, and nods.
.
(3)
Her hand stops shaking the moment she inhales a lung-full of nicotine. Between every pull Leighton picks at her lips, even though she knows it's yet another nervous tick she should get rid of. A few moments later Prentiss joins her outside the police precinct.
"Sorry," Leighton says, looking at Prentiss apologetically, but doesn't put out the cigarette. "I know it's a bad habit." She also realizes the irony of her smoking while there's a serial arsonist rampaging through the city.
"It's okay." Prentiss shakes her head, and sits down on the bench behind Leighton. "Your sister seems nice," Prentiss says, trying to make conversation. Leighton's mostly been distant during the past two days; her knowledge of the city has helped them narrow down the geographical profile, but she's made no attempt to talk to any of them when it wasn't necessary.
Leighton snickers. "Yeah, she is."
"You don't get along," Prentiss says. It's not a question.
Leighton hates how easy she's making it for other people to profile her. "We did, until the day I decided to be a cop," Leighton answers, and turns to look at Prentiss. She shrugs. "Shutting me out is her way of protecting herself." It's not the whole truth. Her brother-in-law was the reason she became a cop in the first place.
"From having to go through the pain of losing you. That's pretty extreme."
"Mine wasn't the first hospital bed she's had to visit."
"Joe—" Prentiss starts, but doesn't want to press too hard. She imagines there are plenty of things Leighton gets asked all the time.
"They used to live in DC," Leighton explains. "Joe took two to the chest at a shoot-out two years ago. My sister was pregnant with her second baby at the time. It nearly killed her too. Since then—" Since then most communication with her sister is either passive-aggressive or non-existent. "It doesn't bother me. She should focus on her own family."
Prentiss stares at Leighton's back for a while. She wonders if it's a lie Leighton tells herself or if she really means it; she seems to have pretty strong family ties despite this declared distance from them. "Life's too short, hu?"
"Something like that, yeah," Leighton says.
.
(4)
Leighton's been staring at the board for five minutes straight when Morgan finally decides to join her. "How did you know?" Morgan asks. His question has nothing to do with the case, but with something Reid told him earlier.
"Know what?" Leighton frowns, her hand resting against her chin, eyes still fixed on the board.
"Nick Mumford." Morgan sees Leighton's hand twitch against her chin, and she flexes her fingers before putting her hand in her pants pocket. He knows it's a minor sign of PTSD, like the fidgeting and gnawing at her lips.
Leighton sighs, and avoids looking at Morgan. But she knows she won't get away with keeping silent. "Like I told Reid," she says. "I did the job. I created a profile and followed the evidence." Lies lies lies, she thinks to herself, and takes a deep breath to slow down her heartbeat.
"Come on," Morgan insists. She turns to him, and he stands directly in front of her. "Profiler to profiler."
There's something in the way he asks her, his voice soft and caring, like he really just wants to make sure she gets it off her chest. Sometimes talking about it helps. "Profiler to profiler?" Leighton asks, and shakes her hair from her eyes. "I was young and reckless and stupid," she says. Morgan remains silent. "My team shot down my profile and I was too proud to admit defeat. So I went down there to prove a point." Her eyes glaze over as she goes back to that day, walking up to the front door, ringing the doorbell— Leighton shakes her head. "I got lucky."
"Lucky?" Morgan frowns. She has a strange definition of lucky. "The guy almost killed you."
She avoids Morgan's eyes again. "My profile was based on gut feeling and conjecture."
"It also saved Sylvia Burke's life," Morgan stresses. "You got her back home to her family. Your profile turned out to be dead on."
Leighton becomes more restless, her eyes pinning Morgan down. "Because I wrote it after meeting Mumford." Does she need to spell it out? Her pride got in the way of doing her job properly. "There was something off about the guy and I based everything on that," she says, and feels tears stinging her eyes. She wills them back down. "It went against everything I was ever taught about profiling."
"You caught a serial killer who'd already killed five women, and wouldn't have stopped," Morgan says. For some reason, he was the last person she'd expected to encourage what she did. Maybe they had something in common. "Training or not, you should feel proud."
Leighton sniggers to herself. "I went down there knowing that I'd be facing a killer," she says, looking straight at him. "And I went alone? What does that tell you about me?"
"You made a mistake." Morgan shrugs. "We all do."
.
(5)
They close the case in a matter of days; the character and geographical profile narrow things down to such a degree that they catch the UnSub before he manages to destroy another home, another family.
"My wife has invited you all to dinner," Detective Hardwick says, looking around the room while the whole team packs up their things. His in-laws and his wife run a small B&B not too far from here; Natalie had insisted they come over after the case was closed.
"Oh no, we couldn't possibly impose," Prentiss says, but he sees Joe and Leighton exchanging amused glances. "What?"
"She's also seven months pregnant," Leighton says.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Morgan asks.
"It means you should know better than to argue," Hotch answers. Rossi, Morgan, and Prentiss are looking at him in question, while Jordan and Reid are taking down all the pictures and maps from the evidence boards. "I suppose we could all use a decent meal." Hotch nods. "We'll take the first car," he tells Prentiss and Morgan. "Dave, you, Jordan and Reid can take the other."
Half of the team follows behind Leighton and Joe – Jordan pulls Rossi aside in the conference room. "Can I ask—" Jordan starts, and stares after Leighton. Reid looks up from the box he's packing. "What happened to her?" Jordan asks carefully, and before answering, Rossi makes sure Leighton is well out of hearing range.
Reid walks over to the board and starts taking down the pictures Jordan has neglected. He listens intently, even though he knows the case file by heart.
"She worked The Frisco Ripper case six months ago," Rossi says, hands in his pockets. "You might have read about it in the papers. Guy tortured women for weeks. Cut them, then cleaned their wounds so they could heal only to cut them up again."
"Oh God." Jordan's lip curls in disgust.
"She was the junior member on another BAU team at the time. She'd been out canvassing with local PD, and came across a photographer named Nick Mumford, the UnSub. In her report she said there was something fishy about the guy from the moment she met him. When she confronted her team about it, they told her he didn't fit the profile."
"They didn't listen to her?" Jordan frowns. She realizes all too well that Leighton is young, but she'd been out in the field for almost a year before the Ripper case. She might still have a lot to learn, but her team not listening to her seems strange.
"She built her own profile, and went back to Mumford's studio to ask him some more questions. Without back-up. The guy let her in, she snooped around while he made them tea, and found Sylvia Burke's wedding ring in a drawer. He drew a knife on her before she had the chance to pull her gun. He gutted her ribs to hipbone, and left her bleeding on the floor."
Jordan takes a deep breath and crosses her arms over her chest. She thinks there must be more to the story; she knows they caught the Ripper. "But she made it."
Rossi nods. "Local PD knew where she was. When her team noticed she was gone for too long they went looking for her. They found Sylvia Burke alive in the basement, and Tanner unconscious in the living room."
"So she was right," Jordan says, because she's heard that word being thrown around all day between her colleagues, but never once had she heard the story straight. It must be hard for Leighton to be known by people only because of what happened to her; it's not the way people want to be remembered.
"She went against every protocol in the book. She was reckless," Rossi says, and shrugs. "But yeah, she was right."
Reid suddenly understands why Leighton was so distant yesterday. She didn't want the praise, because she truly felt she didn't deserve it. He realizes he knows exactly how she feels. Sylvia Burke wasn't Nick Mumford's last victim like Pam and Mike Hayes weren't Tobias Hankel's last victims. They were.
.
(6)
The B&B isn't a very big place; it can only house about six families at a time, but it seemed like a great place to grow up. After dinner, Reid finds Leighton outside in the yard. "Hey," he says once he's reached her. She's staring up at the sky, looking at the stars.
Leighton doesn't move or look at him. "Hi."
"Hey, I'm sorry about yesterday?" he says, and frowns, putting his hands in his pockets. "I shouldn't have—"
"Don't worry about it," Leighton interrupts, and turns her head to look at him. "Mumford's a touchy subject, that's all." She uncrosses her arms, and stares at her left hand, shaking. Reid stares at her hand too, but looks back up at Leighton when he feels her eyes on him. He waits for her to say it. "It's my gun hand. It tremors every time I think about—"
Reid takes a step closer to her, and takes hold of her hand without hesitation. Leighton stares at him, both fascinated and amused, while he examines her hand. He spreads her fingers out, turns her hand over a few times; it's twitching the whole time. "Clearly physiological. Probably stress-related," he mutters to himself. And then he realizes exactly what he's doing. He lets go of Leighton's hand, and digs his own back into his pockets, taking a step back. "How long have you had it?" he clears his throat, and frowns.
Leighton balls her hand into a fist, but smiles to herself. "A few weeks," she answers. "Since I've been thinking about going back to work." She doesn't feel qualified for the job anymore, so her brain is giving her the excuse to quit. No one can shoot a gun with a hand tremor.
"You should talk to someone about it," Reid says. "The Bureau's got great counselors."
"You know that from experience?" Leighton asks. She knows about his brush with death at the hands of Tobias Hankel, but Reid doesn't seem particularly interested in talking about that. She thinks that makes him just a tiny bit of a hypocrite.
"I don't really like therapists?" He makes it a question, pushing his hair back behind his ear. Leighton takes out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. "But you might—" His voice trails off when he hears the rest of the team making their way to the yard, ready to take off.
"Six minutes," he says instead, right when Leighton opens the lighter.
Leighton blinks. "What?"
"That's what I used to tell my mom when she—" he frowns, because Morgan is shaking his head at him behind Leighton's back. He thinks that maybe Morgan is trying to communicate that he shouldn't talk about his mother in front of Leighton, but he doesn't understand why. "A cigarette takes six minutes off your life," he corrects nonetheless. "Actually, did you know that five out of ten times smoking actually worsens symptoms of PTSD?"
Leighton picks the cigarette from between her lips. "It does?"
"Yeah, the nicotine fools your brain into thinking you're feeling better, while you're only growing more dependent on it." Reid nods. "In turn, you'll always need bigger doses of it to achieve the same result."
Leighton blinks again, but smiles. "So—I should probably quit while I'm ahead."
"Y—Yeah," he nods.
.
.
to be continued
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