I'm so glad to see that there are some of you that are actually interested in this! I know it's different than my norm but I'm rather proud of it. I've really tried to put some effort into it. I'm just...not that great at writing the team, or case fics, and so this was my effort to sort of teach myself and to grow a little. I can only hope I do okay.

Now, to warn you guys, this story really isn't that long. Not at all. If this story goes over well, the sequel (which I'm already preparing to plot and outline) will be much longer. It's in the sequel that we'll meet the other X-Men and in which Remy and Spencer will meet. This story, however, as I said, is just CM.

I hope you all continue to enjoy this, my lovelies, and thank you so much for your encouraging reviews!


Once more the team was gathered in the conference room. This time, though, none of them seemed to know quite what to say. They were all staring at the ledgers that were open on the table in front of them, as well as the phone that rested there. Each one of them had already looked at both of them. On the phone they'd found numbers that Penelope was still trying to trace. So far, three of the six numbers there had traced back to other prepaid phones, giving them absolutely nothing. Nothing except more questions. Those questions grew even more when they looked at the ledgers. What was written in them was obviously written in code. Nothing in them made sense. Then again, Spencer was their expert at codes. How could they have any hope of cracking a code that he'd most likely made himself?

None of this made any sense. Stuff like this, it was what people did when they were involved in shady things. Drugs, gambling, and other, darker things. But there was no way that their Spencer could be involved in anything like that…could he?

JJ broke the silence that fell over them. "There's got to be an explanation for this."

"There are lots of explanations." Dave pointed out.

"But none of them fit." Emily argued. She looked around the table at the rest of the team. "Come on, guys, you can't seriously believe that Reid could be involved in something shady?"

Of course no one wanted to believe it. The evidence, however… "What other explanation is there?" Aaron asked. He hated having to say it; hated, even, having to think it. It didn't fit with the person that all of them knew. Or, the person they'd thought they'd known. Aaron pulled one of the ledgers over and ran his eyes down the page once more. "It seems like there's a lot that we don't know about Reid. We have to entertain the fact that there might be parts of Reid's life we just don't know about. None of us want to think it, but evidence doesn't lie."

"Evidence lies all the time." Derek argued. "How do we know someone didn't plant these there? There's no proof that they're Reid's at all."

It was a weak argument and they all knew it. There was no reason that Spencer would keep a set of coded ledgers hidden away if they were from someone else. Besides, even JJ, who wanted more than anything to think that her friend wasn't involved in anything bad, even she could tell that the handwriting was his. No one else had that messy sort of scrawl. "You know they're his, Morgan. That messy writing is unmistakable." She pointed out softly.

The argument was broken before it could really get going. Penelope's arrival in the room cut off any conversation. All eyes turned to her while she made her way over to them, laptop in hand. Her eyes darted briefly to the table top, almost like she couldn't resist. Then her spine firmed and she lifted her chin, her gaze turning to Aaron. There was absolutely no doubt about what she felt. Ledgers, strange phones, none of that mattered to her. What mattered to her was Spencer. The rest would be worried about later.

Aaron straightened up when she got close. "What do you have, Garcia?"

"I got nothing else off the prepaid phone. All the numbers on there just led to more prepaid phones. Nothing traced back to anywhere. But some of the numbers from the prepaid phone did show up on the records for Reid's home phone in the past six months." She held her laptop in one arm and tapped her other hand across the keys, pulling up the information she had there. She drew in a breath and a look of discomfort crossed her face. They all knew how she felt about digging into the lives of her friends this way. To do it to others was one thing; to dig around in the life of someone she cared about always left her feeling just a little bit dirty. She pushed it down, though, and moved on to the next thing. "I looked into his bank records the way you asked. There's nothing suspicious in there. A few random purchases here and there, typical stuff, and then he has auto payments set up for phone, electricity, things like that."

That broke the tension just enough to make a few of them smile. Everyone on the team had nagged at Spencer to set up auto payments at one point or another. More than once over the years Spencer had come home to an apartment with no electricity because he'd forgotten to make his payment. He always told them that, with their job, he just forgot little details like paying his power bill sometimes. The only bill that had always been paid on time was his cell phone and that was because it was for work and he knew better than to be without his work phone.

"Okay." Aaron looked down at the ledgers and phone once more and then back up to Penelope. "Look into those prepaid numbers for me and see if you can get anything at all off of them. Anything, Garcia. Even just a location where they were most used. Any information we can get right now helps us build our profile."

"Yes, sir."

"The rest of us are going to get started on pulling up old case files. We can't discount the fact that this could be someone from a past case trying to get revenge." It wouldn't be the first time.

"That's a hell of a stack to go through." Dave pointed out.

The man had no idea. Aaron knew that Spencer had consulted in other departments, helped out on other cases, and those needed to be added to the pile, too. But they had absolutely nothing else to go on right now. This was one of their best hopes. "I'll put the coffee on."


One of their best hopes was looking to be a big bust. Thirty three hours. That was how long that Spencer had been gone. Almost a day and a half and they still had no real leads. Oh, there were stacks of potential cases that they'd discovered. The team had worked all through the night, taking turns here and there to nap, and they'd gone through tons of cases and pulled aside the ones that they thought might be working looking at more in depth, but each one that they dug deeper in proved useless. They just weren't finding any leads. Nothing in them matched what they were seeing now. None of the people that might have a grudge against Spencer were coming up as likely suspects. Some were dead, some were incarcerated, some were free, but a check by Penelope showed none of them having made a trip to DC.

Penelope had been working as hard, if not harder, than all of them. She was running so many different searches on her computer. She'd called in Kevin for the extra help and the two were doing everything they could to weed through the names that they were being given. At the same time, she was digging through Spencer's work email—the only email he had—and she was trying to find out if there was anything near his apartment building that might have a security feed she could look at to see if they had a view of Spencer's building.

That was the one that was getting to everyone the most. With no one having seen Spencer and whoever took him leaving the building, they had to wonder just what happened. There was no doubt in their minds that a mutant had been in the apartment. It was easy to decide that the mutant had some power that helped them get out of there. But that didn't really help them at all. Knowing that a mutant used powers to get him out of there didn't give them anything to work with. It didn't help in any way. If anything, it made it all just a little worse. That meant that there'd be no trail to follow and most likely no sightings. So they sat here with their case files and hoped against hope that something would turn up or at least give them a small clue as to which direction to even begin to look in.

The quiet of the room was suddenly broken by the loud sound of a file hitting the table. Everyone looked up and over to their Unit Chief, the one that had tossed the file down. "Okay, let's set things down for a minute. We need to clear our minds." Aaron suggested. He leaned back in his chair, his expression just as tight as the others around him. To those that knew how to look, his worry was written plainly in the lines on his face and the tension in his body. But by far, out of them all, Derek was taking it the hardest. He couldn't help but feel as if he'd failed the kid he'd swore he'd protect. Time and time again Spencer had been hurt on the job and Derek had made a promise each time to try and protect him better the next time around. Yet time and time again he failed in that promise. If they didn't find Spencer, Aaron wasn't sure what it would do to Derek. To any of them, really.

Emily put her hands over her eyes for a moment to rub the sleep out of them. "Maybe we're looking at this in the wrong direction." She suggested. As much as she didn't want to say this next bit, she knew they had to at least address it. "Is there any chance that this was a mutant attack?"

The lines on Aaron's face deepened ever so slightly and his eyes hardened. "Some of the more radical groups have come after agents to take them and make some kind of statement with them later, like prisoners of war." Though he tried to cover it, there was a biting quality to his words that earned him a few sideways looks. But everyone was too focused on finding Spencer to worry about their Unit Chief's opinion on mutants. Now wasn't the time for that.

"I don't know. I don't think it fits." JJ protested. "They would've left some message at his apartment, or they would've sent something to us by now. For something like that, the message is what's important and Spence would just be a means to an end. There's no point in doing something like this if you don't claim it." She was tapping a pen on her leg, her eyes closed as she tipped her head back for a moment of rest. "We just need to find a new angle to look at. We're missing something here."

"But what?" Derek asked.

Dave leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. "What about that girl you talked with before? Why don't we bring her in? You said you felt like she was hiding something from you. That something might be important."

"It's worth a try." Aaron agreed. It was the only thing they had to do.

A quick phone call and they had things set up for Tanya to come in within the hour. It only took her forty five minutes to arrive there. The team was waiting for her, watching from the round table room as the doors to the bullpen opened and Anderson led the woman inside. They'd sent him down for her deliberately, allowing the rest of them to watch her without her knowing right away that she was being watched. They were surprised when they noticed that she'd brought someone in with her. There was no doubt the man at her side was with her; he wasn't touching her, but he was angled protectively at her side. The man was tanned as if he spent plenty of time out in the sun. He dressed simply in combat boots, black jeans, and a black A-shirt. Short black hair was just long enough to be spiky. His head turned towards them and they saw a thin shaven goatee around a mouth that was frowning up at them. From this distance they couldn't see his eyes, but they could all clearly see the look he wore was just as worried as her.

"Boyfriend?" JJ suggested curiously.

"Maybe." Dave murmured. He tipped his head, studying the man's face for a moment. "Judging by the worry, though, I'd guess he's another friend of Reid's."

A low, disgusted sounding snort came from Derek. "How many secret friends does this kid have?"

That had JJ looking up at him sharply. "Spence has a right to have friends and to have his privacy too, Morgan."

Her words didn't seem to have any effect. Derek stared out the window for a moment longer before turning to head out of the room. Emily gave JJ a look that clearly said 'Men are idiots'. Then she turned and followed Derek out of the room. JJ watched and waited while the two agents went out and intercepted the woman halfway into the bullpen. A few minutes later, they were leading her off in the direction of the interview rooms, and the guy with her was being led by Anderson over to the table near the coffee pot. JJ watched how the man sat down, arms resting on his thighs and hands dangling between his knees, head slightly bowed, and she said "You know, I think I'll go and talk to this friend of hers."

"Good idea." Aaron approved.

She smiled to herself as she turned and left the room, leaving Aaron and Dave alone.

The two senior profilers stayed in quiet for a bit as they watched JJ make her way down to the visitor. Aaron watched her bring coffee over to the man and he nodding approvingly as she took up a nonthreatening posture in the chair by him. She was damn good at what she did. Victims and families responded to her in ways they didn't with others. She just had that calming effect on people.

"She's good." Dave said, echoing Aaron's thoughts.

"She is."

Dave turned away from the window and he fixed Aaron with one of those serious, probing looks that he was known for. "You all right, Aaron? You seem a little, tense."

Surprise had Aaron's eyebrows going up. He cast Dave an incredulous look. "One of my agents is missing. Of course I'm tense, Dave."

"No, it's more than that." Turning a little more, Dave leaned against the wall and fixed his attention more fully on his friend. "We're all tense about that. There's something else that's bugging you here. What is it, Aaron?"

At first it didn't seem like Aaron was going to answer. His whole body was tense and his sharp eyes stayed staring out the window. He didn't even turn and look at his friend. Opening up to people was not something that Aaron had ever been known for and that trait had become more pronounced as the years went by. Too many horrible things had happened to him over the years for him to find it easy to open up to others. The latest trouble with Emily and Doyle and her subsequent 'death' had only made it harder for the stern Unit Chief to talk to others. He'd been carrying that secret around, knowing just how upset it would make others, and he'd had only JJ to share it with. That secrecy had inadvertently bled into other areas of his life. To keep that secret, he'd shut down in other ways. Now that Emily was back among them and that secret was no longer there, he was finding it difficult to open himself back up once more. But he knew that, if he was going to, there was no one better than Dave. They'd been friends for quite a few years now, even before the team.

Some of Aaron's tension faded as he let out a low sigh. "There's a lot about this I don't like. Everything clearly points to a mutant being the one to take Reid."

"I never pictured you the type to have a prejudice, Aaron."

"It's not that." Aaron defended himself instantly. He shifted his focus away from the window and finally looked at his friend. "What hope do we have at catching this Unsub if he's a mutant? He got Reid out of an apartment building full of people who were watching intently and not a one of them saw him. Even if we do find Reid, how are we supposed to save him? Our Unsub could just vanish again and we'd never even know it." It was a worry that had been plaguing him ever since they'd first discovered that Spencer and his attacker had apparently vanished into thin air.

"We have to try." Dave said softly.

"I know that. I'm not suggesting we give up, Dave. I just worry. We're not equipped to handle threats like this. It takes crime to a whole new level when you have people who can make themselves invisible, or who can vanish into thin air. How are you supposed to catch something like that?"

Dave caught the subtle twist to Aaron's words there. Something, not someone. He added that in to the other things that he'd seen or heard from Aaron since this whole thing had started and he had a startling picture. He'd been being honest before when he'd said that he'd never pictured Aaron the type to have a prejudice. Yet the way he spoke of mutants clearly said that he did. That was surprising.

"Aaron," Dave stepped forward towards his friend, rapidly going through options to address this and dismissing them one by one, finally deciding to go with blunt honesty. That had always worked best with Aaron. "What's going on? Where's all this coming from? You look almost disgusted just talking about mutants. This isn't like you."

Aaron looked to his friend, assessing him, reading the look on his face, and he could see that he'd given away far more with his words than he'd intended to. Instead of alleviating Dave's worry, he'd only made it worse. He knew the other man wouldn't let it go. Not now that he was sure there was something wrong. That left Aaron only one choice; he gathered himself and tried to figure out how to word this, how to make the man understand. "My father," He faltered, looking away from Dave's compassionate gaze. He had to swallow hard before he could start again. "When I was young, he caught me playing with a friend from school. The kid was sweet, but he was shy, and he was badly bullied until I stepped in and stopped it. The only thing he was guilty of was being a mutant. With a scarf, he could pass for normal, but without it you could see what looked like old scars on either side of his neck, under his ears. Looking back, I'd guess they were gills of some sort. I don't know."

Pausing, he cleared his throat, the old memories washing over him, bringing back the same pain/rage mixture that they always did. He kept watching out the window, watching JJ talk with the man at the table. It was easier to focus down there instead of looking over at Dave. "My father found out and he whipped me for it that night, screaming at me about how untrustworthy mutants were. How they don't' care about anyone but themselves. All they want is to hurt people, normal people." He spat the words out, just a hint of an accent showing through in his voice for the first time in years. Clenching his fists, he battled back that anger and modulated his voice until once more he was in control. "I didn't believe him at first. But the next day, I went to go talk to Simon at lunch and he ignored me, right there in the middle of the cafeteria, and he then he walked away like I wasn't even there. He didn't even care what I'd gone through for him. All he'd wanted was someone to save him and once that was done, he didn't have any more use for me."

"Aaron…" Dave's voice was softer, just slightly pained. "You were just kids."

Aaron didn't even hear him. He kept going, his eyes gone distant with the memories. "I'd put all that away, forgotten about it, until Foyet." He said flatly. To keep from showing too much emotion, his voice turned colder, harder. "He brought it all back in bright Technicolor."

"Foyet?"

"He was a mutant. Some kind of telepath." Aaron spat the word out like it was something filthy. "When he was bent over me, stabbing me, he dug down into my mind and pulled up the worst nightmares from my past and subjected me to them over and over again. He forced me to live them and laughed at my pain. How do we protect ourselves from things like that, Dave? How can we have any hope in finding something that made a federal agent disappear from his apartment?" Aaron turned back to Dave and for once his usual stoic façade had cracked slightly, showing his fear, his dread.

"Mutant or not, the Unsub is still human, still has patterns we can define and follow, habits which we can categorize." Dave pointed out, watching Aaron carefully, wishing he knew the words to make this okay for him. Wishing he knew a way to make this right. "We're profilers, Aaron. We do our job. Reid's trusting us to do our job. In the end, that's all we can do."

Aaron sighed and looked back out to the bullpen. Inside, he prayed that it would be enough.