Chapter One: To Stop the Dancing, Stop the Heart

A/N: I'd like to thank all those who reviewed my first chapter; this is my first fan fic in almost three years, and it's an absolute bitch to get back into it again sometimes. With final exams it's been hard to find time to write, but I finally arrived at a draft I like. A note on my original character: I really want to make sure that this girl doesn't turn out to be a Mary Sue, if anyone knows what that means. I'm visualizing her to look a bit like an actress by the name of Margo Harshman, if you'd like to look her up.

..

Derek Morgan knew it was wrong to take advantage of the innocent, but he couldn't help it. The green-haired punk girl who ran the espresso café on the corner had an enormous crush on him, and consequently none of the BAU team—save Hotch and Gideon, who insisted on grounds of chivalry—ever paid for their coffee. As he swallowed his latte, Morgan breathed a deep sigh of satisfaction; sometimes it was good to be loved. He tipped the girl excellently, flirted mildly, and voila—coffee for the team, free of charge, with compliments and extra vanilla flavour. Brilliant.

Morgan's eyes strayed to Reid's desk, where the kid was holding onto his Americano for dear life. The circles under Reid's eyes were darker now, even more than normal, and he had an extra sweater on despite the fact that the heat in the office was working fine. He stared at his computer like a man transfixed; Morgan had a feeling that Reid wasn't actually aware of what was on the screen, but it was something to stare at.

Poor guy.

Morgan had to look away for a moment, back to his coffee. Spencer Reid had an infuriating way of internalizing everything, and he was wilting fast. After his abduction by Tobias, he'd been rude and jumpy and the entire team had been convinced that he was having serious issues—but nobody could say anything, nobody could touch him, nobody could ask. Reid, the insatiable genius, just wanted his privacy; it was something that he had always made abundantly clear. He'd gotten better after they'd been to New Orleans, and for a month or so he seemed to be recovering, but in the past two weeks he'd gone silent again with no understandable reason. There were no more embarrassing over-explanations, no more random information tidbits—sometimes there wasn't anything anymore from their youngest team member. He was a skinny, sallow ghost. Almost totally silent unless asked a direct question. The kid was disintegrating before Morgan's eyes.

This was someone who had been through a nightmare more hellish than anything he could ever imagine in his dreams. He couldn't possibly handle it on his own, but he wasn't letting anyone in.

It was frustrating as hell.

"Reid."

Reid gripped his coffee a little tighter, but otherwise remained motionless; he didn't turn to face Morgan and was still watching his computer screen.

"Yeah?"

"Having nightmares again?"

"I didn't get much sleep last night."

Why doesn't he turn to look at me? Morgan twirled a pen absently. "You doing all right, though? You seem…quiet."

"I don't have anything to say, Morgan." The reply was soft, but had an air of finality to it.

Reid's phone rang then, a sound that seemed to pierce the hazy reality of the quiet office. Morgan watched as his friend picked up the receiver.

"Spencer Reid."

He was still for a moment, not more than a second, and then he hung up. There was no anger, no emotion: the action was almost robotic. Reid took a sip of his coffee, and then calmly reached around his desk and unplugged the phone from the wall.

Morgan had no time to even think of what to say before he felt Aaron Hotchner's hand on his shoulder.

"We've got a case," Hotch said. "We're in the boardroom."

"Be there in five," Morgan replied.

He wouldn't mention the unplugged phone. He couldn't quite find the words.

--

Although he was normally a serious sort of person at work, Hotch's face was exceedingly grim as the team settled into the conference room. It was nine-thirty on Monday morning, cold outside, and everyone was bleary-eyed from fighting the winter. Hotch had barely made it out of his garage; the automated door had frozen shut from the cold. The first frosts of winter were a damn awful time to have a difficult case for the team; it slowed them all down, made them sluggish until they got used to it.

Hotch's eye was quickly drawn to the case, to the stats and the pictures, and he took a sip of coffee; it was habit by this point, even though Haley had told him that he should stop, that it was bad for his health. He couldn't help it; coffee gave back some of the warmth that was taken away when he saw cases as horrifying as the one that sat right in front of him.

"What do we have?" Morgan wondered, flipping through the file folder in front of him. JJ had already set up the screen with the pictures she'd received, and was waiting with her remote. She sighed, clicking a button and pulling up a photo of a young woman's head, eyes frozen open in death.

"Maria Guimard, twenty-five years old, was found last night by a stagehand while he was cleaning the New York State Theatre in Manhattan. She was New York Ballet's newest Prima Ballerina, and last night she danced her first starring role of her American career. She disappeared shortly after the performance," she explained.

Another picture appeared on the screen, of the victim's legs, which messily ended at the ankle; Emily Prentiss went pale. "Where are her feet?"

JJ's remote clicked again and the photo changed to a pair of feet, still in ballet slippers, utterly drenched in blood. They were positioned so that the heel of the left foot was nestled against the toe of the right; the left foot pointed almost perpendicularly out, so that the feet formed an L shape.

"Her feet were found backstage approximately six hours after finding her body, by the NYPD. They were in one of the warm-up rooms," Jason Gideon continued, sitting back in his chair.

"What's the cause of death?" Emily wanted to know.

"An air bubble injected into her heart," JJ answered, "But after he cut off her feet."

"A bubble in the heart?" Morgan cracked a knuckle. "That's pretty rare."

"It's a signature, same as the feet," Gideon replied. "It's not like a gunshot or a head wound, which would deform the body; it doesn't disturb her. She's positioned just so; everything is meticulously placed, and a lot of blood would mess up the unsub's fantasy. He wanted her to feel the pain, experience the ultimate horror; she felt everything before she died."

Reid's eyes narrowed in thought. "It's third position," he murmured, almost to himself, cradling his chin in the fingers of his right hand.

Gideon turned towards him. "Sorry?"

Reid's tired eyes flicked towards Gideon for a moment, and then he looked back at the photo of the feet. "Third position, in ballet; it's one of the first things a dancer learns. One of the five positions of the feet set down by Pierre Beauchamp in the 17th century. You do plies from it, pirouettes—it's a pretty clear message."

"Someone didn't want her to dance ever again," Emily guessed.

JJ turned to two more photos, each of a young woman's dead body, barefooted. "Maria's death has been connected to the deaths of two other ballerinas from the company, Andrea Monroe and Kelly Beale. When Andrea died two months ago the medical examiners assumed that it was accidental, since she was taking injections for painkillers due to an injury. Kelly was killed using the same method only four weeks ago, and her death was ruled as suspicious. Both were also found in the theatre."

"But both of them had their feet intact?" Emily asked. At JJ's nod she considered the two photos further. "The unsub's escalating. We'll have to find the stressor."

"I'll have Garcia check on the victims' backgrounds," JJ volunteered. "See if they had anything in their pasts that might have come back to haunt them."

"Good," Hotch replied. "Let's be on the plane in thirty minutes."

As everyone cleared the board room, Morgan clapped a hand on Reid's shoulder. "New York again, Reid," he said amiably. "Possibly you'll learn to use chopsticks this time, eh?"

Reid smiled, but his mouth was tight and close-lipped. "Funny."

Morgan sighed silently. Something was up, but he couldn't figure it out.

Damn it, Reid, talk to us. We're your friends, your family—we want to help you. Why can't you see it?

--

Stephanie Wilson, the director of the New York City Ballet Company, was waiting at the NYPD police station when the team arrived. She was wearing a blouse and skirt but had no coat, and didn't appear to feel the effects of the cold: she simply stood, waiting. Her hair was pulled into a perfect bun, which despite the wind did not appear to have moved at all. Gideon, upon introduction, held out his hand, which the director shook briefly; her fingernails were perfect ovals, ivory pale, and her fingers long and as thin as the rest of her.

The head of the NYPD, a recently appointed gruff man by the name of McCarty, led the team into headquarters; Stephanie fell into step with Gideon.

"Agent Gideon, I want this monster found quickly," she said. Her voice was clipped and tense, in keeping with the rest of her image. Gideon laid a hand on her shoulder as they walked.

"My team is the best, Ms. Wilson. We'll find him."

McCarty cleared his throat, getting Gideon's attention. "Agent, we have the guy who found the third victim waiting for you in an interrogation room."

Stephanie glared. "I don't see why you need to interrogate him!" she snapped. "The poor boy is terrified!"

"I'm sure he's done nothing wrong, but it's simply procedure," Hotch explained, his voice flowing smooth and—he hoped—relaxing the tense director. "The unsub seems to be an attention-seeking sadist; it's common with these types of killers that they pretend to find the body, be the innocent bystander, to kick-start media attention. We want to nip that potential in the bud, so to speak. We always speak to the one who finds the victims first, just to make sure."

Stephanie huffed. "He's innocent."

Gideon nodded. "I'm sure he is," he cast his gaze towards the rest of the team. "Hotch and I will talk to him. Morgan, Reid, Emily, you'll accompany Ms. Wilson to the theatre; check out the crime scenes, the dancers, everything; JJ, instruct all of the police officers to keep this strictly out of the press, and then join the others at the theatre. We'll regroup later."

With nods all around, Hotch and Gideon followed McCarty down a hallway and disappeared from sight.

Morgan's cell phone rang as he headed for the car; he picked up, signalling JJ to drive as he got into the passenger seat.

"Morgan."

"Sweetcheeks, I'm mightily pissed off," Garcia told him. "Wanna know why?"

Morgan grinned. "Tell me, darlin'."

Garcia sniffed dramatically. "The lovely JJ has finally managed to stump me, the clever witch."

Morgan raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean, Garcia?"

"Well, pal, except for the fact that Kelly Beale, Andrea Monroe and Maria Guimard are all dead and were all dancers at the company, there's pretty much nothing that connects them," Garcia explained. "They're different ages, came from different places, and they don't even look alike. Maria was the only Prima Ballerina; Andrea had been with the company for five years when she was killed, and Kelly was a high school intern. The only obvious connection was that they performed on the day that they were killed, but in different performances, different roles—there doesn't seem to be a pattern here."

Morgan sighed.

"Thanks for trying, Garcia. We're about to head over to the theatre now, and we'll see if we can find anything else."

"Hey, Morgan—can you ask those dancers how they get so freaky-cool flexible?"

Morgan chuckled. "I'll ask. Thanks, Garcia."

"Ciao."

As Morgan hung up, he relayed Garcia's information to the rest of the team, who shared his puzzled look. Emily, in the backseat, was the first person to vocalize what they were all thinking:

"This doesn't make any sense. The victims seem to be randomly selected, but…the attack itself is not disorganized. It's totally planned. It's contradictory."

"We're missing something really big," Morgan agreed. "Now, let's go find it."

--

McCarty led Hotch and Gideon to a small interrogation room where a young man in overalls sat, virtually shaking in his seat.

"Mark Hall?" Gideon sat down in front of the kid, who nodded at the sound of his name. "I'm Agent Gideon, this is Agent Hotchner; we're with the FBI. Can you tell us what happened?" He placed the pictures of Maria's body and feet on the table.

Hall leaned back, his hands clasped together as if in prayer, looking away from the table and towards Hotch, who stood by the door. "I…I was cleaning the wings like I always do, and I stepped outside…for a smoke, you know? And I saw her…in the snow bank. I thought that she was a china doll, she was so white…but it was t-too big to be a doll, and…and…"

He burst into tears, his hands covering his face, his back shaking. Hotch and Gideon exchanged a look for a long moment.

"Mr. Hall…do you know anything else?"

Hall sniffed, looking up for a brief moment. "…she d-didn't deserve t-to d-d-die," he said softly. "She didn't."

"Thank you, Mr. Hall. You can go," Gideon finally said, gathering up the photos. Without another word the two agents left, finding McCarty in the hallway again.

"That was fast," McCarty observed; Gideon shrugged at this, turning the corner into the main office.

"Hall isn't our man," he replied simply. "He couldn't look at the pictures and he couldn't talk about what happened; the unsub wouldn't be able to take his eyes off of the photos. He'd be mesmerized by them."

Hotch sighed. "It's never that easy, anyway."

McCarty raised a bushy eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Let's get a car and meet up with the others at the theatre."

--

Stephanie led the agents inside the theatre, where about two dozen men and women were sitting in the lobby, chatting amongst themselves.

"I've cancelled today's matinee performance," Stephanie explained to Morgan's raised eyebrow. "All of the dancers who were here last night are waiting to be interviewed."

Morgan thanked her; Stephanie nodded and shook his hand.

"I need to attend to some matters of angry ticket holders, if you don't mind," she said. "I'll be in my office if you should need me." She left, walking briskly out of sight. The dancers in the lobby were now watching the team warily.

Reid sighed softly. "That's a lot of witnesses."

Morgan clapped him on the back. "Well, genius, you don't have to worry about interviewing the guys in tights; we'll go look at the crime scene," he looked up at JJ and Emily. "That is, of course, if the ladies don't mind?"

The women shook their heads; JJ actually looked mildly excited, casting small glances at the muscular young men in the lobby. "Go right ahead, guys. We'll handle the people; backup officers are on their way anyhow, and they'll help."

As Morgan and Reid disappeared into the crowd of dancers in the lobby, heading for the theatre itself, someone tapped JJ cautiously on the shoulder; she and Emily turned to face a thin, pretty woman of about twenty-three or twenty-four, wearing jeans, a well-worn black sweater, and a pair of ballet shoes.

"I'm sorry to bother you, but are you with the FBI?"

JJ nodded, showing her ID. "We're with the Behavioural Analysis Unit, yes. Why do you ask?"

The young woman pulled her long black hair back behind one ear. "Is…who's the guy with the brown shoulder bag, and glasses?"

Emily raised an eyebrow. "Who wants to know?"

A blush of colour appeared on the girl's cheeks; she smiled sheepishly, embarrassed. "I'm sorry. My name's Kate Utterson, and I don't mean to impose, but…if that's Spencer Reid with you, than I'd love to know."

"Why?"

"Well, I know him," the young woman replied, the tiniest bit of excitement rising in her voice. "I knew him about six years ago, in Las Vegas. Tell me, is that him?"

She didn't have to get an answer from JJ, whose eyes rose from the girl to something behind her. JJ and Prentiss watched her turn to face Reid, who had obviously caught the sound of his name and turned back. His eyes widened behind his glasses.

"Kate?"

She smiled—no, beamed, wide, thrilled. "Spencer Reid," took his hand in both of hers. "It's about time I saw you again."

And for the first time in weeks, Reid grinned.