"It's late," Hotch mumbled, as the team around the table fell silent. JJ was really beginning to be jealous of Garcia. Garcia was probably taking a nap in her tech cave with nobody supervising her, or asking her questions when her brain clearly needed a break.

"It's early." Rossi smirked, pointing to the draggy wall clock. "Eight in the morning. The normal agents will probably get here soon, Aaron."

"You're right. Everyone's dismissed. Go take a nap or two. I'll see you all back here at ten... Uh, make that ten-thirty." Hotch nodded.

Sluggishly, the haggard agents made their way to their respective cubicles and offices. In fact, Hotch had petitioned for a room to be pardoned for agents' rest. It was the first right down the hall, away from the bustle of the bullpen, and then some, until one would reach a quiet corner of the building. The door of the room was labelled 'rest area', but for somnolent agents like them, it was more of a slice of heaven than anything else.

JJ's phone rang, as she dragged her feet down the stairs. "Jennifer Jareau," she answered, barely having the energy to be bothered with the caller ID.

"Hi there, Jen, it's Jessica."

"Anything the matter, Jessica?" JJ rubbed her sore eyes.

"Is Henry sick today?"

"No, not that I know of. Why? What's wrong?" JJ frowned, making her way to her desk.

"So- is there any reason Henry wouldn't be in school today?" Jessica asked politely.

"He isn't in school?" JJ sighed.

"No," Jessica replied. JJ could hear a commotion on the other line from the other children. "Would Will happen to be taking him here instead? Maybe it's traffic, you know, there's this jam around North Capitol because of some police work- but there's no rush or anything, we're just going through art class with the colour wheels and whatnot."

"Yeah, could be," JJ shook her head. "You know what- I'll call you back as soon as I can."

"Sure thing." Jessica replied. "Just take care, okay? You sound tired."

"Hmph, I will. You too."

JJ, hands akimbo to her waist, made her way quickly back up to Hotch's office. Completely forgetting her manners, she burst through the door, wanting to tell him before she'd call Will. "Hotch," JJ panted slightly.

"JJ-" He looked up from his desk, cluttered with notes and paperwork. "What's wrong?"

"I just got a call from Jessica- I mean, well, what if the dresses are fitted to the colour wheel? It makes sense, if you piece all the colours we have so far. They're all within each of the colour triads."

Hotch nodded, quickly scribbling it down on a notepad. "Nice job," he mumbled, his pen scratching furiously on the piece of yellow paper. "Is everything all right?" He looked up at her again.

"Yeah- no, it's just some family stuff."

"Do you need the day off?" Hotch's brows furrowed.

"No, no, I'll get going." JJ stuttered, shutting the door behind her as she scurried to the corner of the catwalk. Frantically, she checked her phone for voicemails and texts from Will- all turning up naught. Dialling his number, the only one besides Hotch's that was burned in her mind, she waited for the stagnant beeping to end with bated breath.

"Detective Lamontagne." Will answered almost mechanically.

"Will!" She heaved a sigh. "Oh my God, Will!"

"Jen, what's wrong?" He asked, almost not recognising her distinct voice.

"Is Henry at school now, or are you taking him there? Jessica called me, and I was worried sick that something happened!" JJ ran her fingers through her hair, realising how mad she must have looked.

"Yeah, we're fine. I forgot it was Thursday, but I'm taking him there right now, Jen." He mumbled. "I'm so sorry, I just didn't want to stress you out or anythin', you know- I mean, I just forgot for a moment."

"Yeah, nice tactic, Detective Lamontagne. I wasn't stressed at all." She shook her head in disbelief.

"I said I was sorry, babe." Will sighed.

"Yeah, okay, fine." She replied, her free hand covering her mouth. "Just- stay safe, and be careful, would you?"

"Yeah, I will. See you later." Will nodded, his head down. The traffic jam was bad, indeed. He only had two concerns then: getting Henry to school, and his appointment with Susan.

"Daddy, are you catching bad guys today?" Henry asked from the rear seat in his toddler chair. He was playing with the teddy bear he always liked.

"Yeah, buddy, I am." Will replied with a smile. The car was not moving, and neither were the ones in front of his.

"Why aren't you wearing your super suit?" Henry asked innocently. Will hadn't donned his uniform, neither his badge.

"I'll do it when I get to my headquarters. I'm undercover, remember? Hush-hush stuff." Will joked.

"Right!" Henry replied with a broad smile, and a finger on his lip. "Shhh…"

Will lied.


"Hey, Emily, do you want some breakfast or something?" Reid asked, his eyes barely looking at her.

"No, but- thanks, Reid." She knew he was angry. It didn't take a profiler to sniff it out.

"Common courtesy." He replied coldly, gathering his bag and slinging it over a shoulder.

"Reid," she said, stepping in front. She stretched out her hand, just enough for her fingertips to graze his upper arm. He stopped his tracks, tilting his chin just enough for her to see how much anger he had. "Do you need to talk about something?" She asked, although she knew the answer.

"No, not really, but I think you should start talking about things too." He gave her a perfunctory smile before trudging out of the bullpen. He didn't even bother turning around. Emily was left speechless.


"JJ pointed out something crucial this morning," Hotch spoke; glancing at JJ, whose eyes never left her file. "JJ?" He sought her attention. "Would you like to share?"

"Oh, yeah," she nodded, snapping out of her trance. "So, I was thinking, what if the dresses were done in the colours of the colour wheel? I mean, we all learnt it in school, and the first three Vics had dresses ranging from light green, to purple, then dark red. It matches one of the triad patterns."

"Could mean that something happened in his childhood. They still teach that in schools, right?" Rossi remarked. No matter how tired, Rossi always managed to look fresh without a strand of hair out of place, JJ thought, as she nodded.

"Or it could symbolise a rainbow, or happiness." Morgan added nonchalantly. "But how does that fit into our Unsub's MO? I mean- up to now, we've categorised our Unsub as a mission-orientated, young, white male. If he didn't have daddy issues, or issues with a paternal figure, then the fault has to be on the maternal one."

"Assume his mother was a prostitute, Garcia, how difficult would that be to find?" Reid asked, his arms across his chest.

"Oh, my dear sweet genius, if our Unsub is young, I'd assume we're looking at the eighties or even the seventies, and well, people back the didn't have the luxury of internet sites to blog about their habits- so it would be very difficult indeed." Garcia replied.

"Factoring in the dump site locations? She would most likely have worked there, or went to church there." Reid continued.

"Again, people didn't really have Facebook back then, and I would highly doubt that they'd list employment information on their tax brackets as 'prostitute on 14th Street' now, would they?" Garcia cringed.

"Worth a shot." Reid muttered under his breath, only to find Emily looking at him. Her look wasn't half as cold as his.

"How about the origin of the dresses? Have the CSIs come back about it yet?" Hotch asked.

"Yeah, and apparently the fabric is pretty commonplace." Garcia sighed.

"How about carbon dating?" Reid asked.

"Yeah, they tried that too, and it seems to be about thirty years old, and if you want to be super duper exact- it dates back to 1981."

"Any specific location?"

"No, not that we could find, although CSI Gregg kindly left us some notes," Garcia slid a file across the table to Reid. "And by 'us', I kind of mean you, boy wonder."

Reid flipped intently through the messy sheets of notes that Gregg left down, which were mostly out of page order. His eyes scanned the pages, leaving notes burned in his amygdala at an alarmingly fast rate. Finally, he found himself on the page on the dresses, where hidden in the mess of carbon numbers were, 'high residues of CO, NO2, and benzoapyrene'.

"Benzoapyrene," Reid mumbled, as the whole room stared on. He was in his own world again. "Of course- our Unsub is from Louisiana!" He remarked, louder than before. He was very certain.

"And why do you say that, Spence?" JJ cringed.

"Right, so- in the early 80's, a huge oil bust hit all secondary oil towns, including Louisiana, which caused the price of oil to drop from forty-eight a barrel to almost twelve. Basically, economics took over. Supply and demand became so skewed that Louisiana's unemployment rate hit thirteen-point-two percent, one of the nation's highest in-"

"Reid." Hotch interrupted.

"Sorry." Reid paused. "So uh- naturally, as unemployment skyrocketed, so did the habit of smoking within the society, which made Louisiana's adult-smoker society one of the most prevalent in America, with some of the highest percentages ever recorded. These levels of nitrogen oxide, benzoapyrene and carbon monoxide matches concur with those figures exactly, if you do the math, of course." Reid took a deep breath. He was rambling again. "These dresses are from Louisiana."

"And if the dresses are from Louisiana, chances are, our Unsub is too. This guy is way too sentimental to break his MO, and I doubt he'd break tradition for this too." Emily added. Reid couldn't avoid staring at Emily. She was right.


Author's Note: School, yes, school. I'm into my first year as an IB student, and life has literally been winding twice as fast as it used to. That said, I hope you guys forgive my absence, and I will try my very best to post regularly. Thank you for the new follows and reviews! The story's just getting good…