I'm trying to make a more distinct plan for this story, because I generally know how it's going to play out but a lot of the little details get lost and I end up writing something I wasn't planning in the first place. Sorry for taking so long to get these chapters out, but I haven't exactly been in the writing mood lately. Though don't worry, I don't plan on abandoning this story.

Second Chances

Reid was nervous, his leg bounced up and down and his fingers rapidly drummed against the table as he observed the geographical profile. Hotch had barely spoken to him other than to give orders ever since they landed. He had been limited to work not involving other people. While everyone else on the team had a chance to go out into the field, or interview families, Reid was subject to work alone in the police station. He wanted to take more dilaudid, but he prevented himself in the fear that Hotch would catch him in the act and have his suspicions confirmed. He felt like he was being held loosely over an open flame, there was always the chance he could get burned at any moment.

He circled the kill ranges and arranged them into steady circles that overlapped. He highlighted each overlapping region and made a note about the area. There were two corresponding sections that managed to grab his attention- one was a typical lower-middle class working area with plenty of those subject to dull repetitive work in their daily lives. The other was a well off neighborhood with plenty of white collar workers and professional office space. They so heavily clashed with one another that Reid had stopped bouncing his leg for a moment and made a note 'possible living areas'. He supposed that it made sense- the dominant personality would live in the white collar district and the submissive would be in the lower-middle class.

The possibility of the submissive unsub having a dull repetitive job made sense...It was just another facet of his life that could possibly attribute to his sense of failure and insecurity. Sexually assaulting the woman is just another means to feel power where he is powerless in most of his life. The dominant unsub in comparison lives a comfortable, successful life and has learned how to be organized and less impulsive when it comes to the kills. The question is why the dominant feels the need to kill in the first place- there's a definite reason for the submissive unsub (insecurity), but the dominant's motivations are less clear. Perhaps he's just a narcissist? Maybe it was his idea to send out the binder of information- as a sort of taunt, bragging almost.

"Making any progress, Reid?" Hotch's voice startled Reid out of his analysis and he began to bounce his leg again.

"Uh- yeah." He nodded at the table and avoided facing Hotch, "I think I narrowed down where each unsub might live." He hastily gestured to the two brightly highlighted areas. "The dominant probably lives in this white collar district-" He gestured to the section of the map. "And the submissive probably lives in this lower-middle class area." His finger drifted to that section and he tapped it several times. "I made a lot of notes about it."

Hotch's eyes focused on the notes that Reid wrote. They were written in a quick, barely legible scrawl. Hotchner furrowed his brows. "Under recent suspicions...I've scheduled you for a drug test in five days."

Reid eyes blurred briefly and a string of information entered his mind:

"Dilaudid remains in urine up to 3-4 days after one dose, 12 hours in blood, 90 days in hair."

"What kind." Reid knew the typical procedures were done through urinalysis, but there was the latent possibility they could test his hair.

"Urine test."

Reid let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. A sudden feeling of overwhelming guilt and deep sadness engulfed him- he had to restrain himself from collapsing. It was like his blood pressure had dropped. Reid realized that Hotch could have scheduled a drug test right away, he could have even put in a specific request for testing his hair. "Thank you."

"After that test you'll have to take one every other day for a month. I'm attributing the frequent tests to heightened stress in the workplace, if each one turns out negative for drugs the records of any tests will be expunged off your file." Hotchner paused, "It's completely your choice to tell me anything you need to in confidence...and as long as whatever you reveal doesn't warrant immediate action, I won't disclose any information. You're also free to do the same with anyone else on the team- I'm sure they've known you long enough to grant the same courtesy."

"Why are you..." Spencer's voice drifted off the unspoken question, Why are you giving me a second chance?

"You're strong Reid, as much as you may not see it- you're not only a valuable asset to this team because of your mind, but because of your will to overcome challenges. Don't let one mistake tear you down."

Reid turned slowly from the map and finally let himself look Hotch in the eyes, if only for a brief moment he let himself search for any doubts or uncertainty in Hotch's psyche. He found none. Reid gave a short nod as a silent reminder of his gratefulness.

Hotchner returned the nod and let himself straighten his back and change his demeanor, "The rest of the team should be done with their responsibilities by now. I told them to meet up in the conference room so we could all go over the information we have. Gather your thoughts and come over soon." Hotch then moved towards the door and casually walked out of the room.

Reid's nervousness had faded into tense insecurity. He was of course grateful for Hotch, and the fact that he wouldn't be fired as long as he kept clean- but he couldn't help imagining how painful everything would continue to be. He took the dilaudid for a reason, it wasn't just meant as an escape it was meant to keep his powers at bay- but without that? What would he do? He'd already subject himself to seclusion in the room he was working in, even then he could clearly feel the emotions of people who were probably several yards away.

He'd put nagging thoughts and feelings at the back of his mind, and the only reason he was able to do that was because the dilaudid hadn't wore off fully yet. How much stronger had his powers gotten in the timeframe he had been preventing himself from feeling them? They couldn't have gotten that much stronger over the course of a few days...but the crisp emotions he felt currently begged to differ.

How would he keep the other empath off his path? He had come to the conclusion previously that the other empath had most probably found an interest in his powers and used the killings of young girls to grab his attention. After he began to take the dilaudid and his powers faded he had assumed that the other empath had lost interest- gone off into a hiding of sorts. Now that he had found his powers again...would the empath kill more?

His thoughts went back to the dream he had on the plane...There was a disembodied voice that had scolded him for ignoring the signs. Ignoring what signs? What had he been ignoring? The voice even went as far to call itself his "better half". Was this the other empath? It most certainly was...the dilaudid had probably just faded enough to let one message in from the empath. Now that he had received it he couldn't even figure out what it meant. He knew what kind of personality the empath had- the lily gave him all the information and now all he needed to do was find those personality traits. He recalled the traits...

Stubborn. Impatient. Impulsive. Organized. Jealous. Obsessive. Hopeful. Manipulative. Brilliant. Hateful.

Now all he needed to do was be aware of them. He took a deep breath and got up from the table, everybody was probably waiting for him in the conference room. He let himself ponder over the many problems he had faced these past few days and tried his best to ignore the influx of emotions that tightly packed the police station. By the time he made it to the conference room everybody had casually been sitting around drinking coffee and eating bagels. Prentiss, Morgan, and Rossi all sat at different chairs around the conference table while Hotch stood towards the front of the room.

"I stopped for some food on the way back from the crime scenes." Morgan said as he picked up a lone cup of coffee, "I got you a large cafe americano with eight shots of espresso and extra sugar. Just how you like it.

"Thanks, Morgan." Reid took the cup from him and smiled. He really was happy for that- he needed some more caffeine right now.

"I also got a big bag of bagels so you can go ahead and have one of those too." Morgan smiled, "You might want to grab one now before they all disappear."

Prentiss and Rossi both gave pointed looks to Morgan as they stuffed their faces with bagel.

"I didn't eat on the plane Morgan and a woman needs her food." Prentiss took another bite of the bagel in her hands.

"Same goes for Italian men." Rossi added, "Carbohydrates make up about fifty percent of my diet."

Reid smiled and sat down at the conference table everyone was sitting at. He took a bagel and began to eat.

Hotchner called attention by beginning to speak, "So let's start building a profile for the police."

Everybody sat up and focused. Rossi was the first to speak, "Just like the police- we couldn't get much out of the escorts interviewed. Though we were able to figure out that most escorts were from varying services and that the services are pretty active on the internet."

"We figure that the unsub uses the internet to book appointments with these girls and they ambush them once they get there." Prentiss added.

"So we need to call Garcia and get a list of all the people who visited and booked appointments on these websites over the days before the murders." Hotchner concluded.

Morgan nodded and spoke, "The kill areas didn't give me much information...they were all very nondescript and there didn't seem to be any witnesses at the scenes."

Reid swallowed a bite of bagel, "I managed to discern where the unsubs probably live. There's a white collar area and lower-middle class subset of city that overlap with the radius of the crime scenes."

"So you're thinking that the dominant lives in the white collar district and the submissive lives in the lower middle class." Rossi confirmed.

"Yeah." Reid answered, "It would be most likely."

"Do you think it's a possibility that the submissive worked under the dominant? Maybe one is the employer and the other is the employee?" Prentiss commented. "It would only further support our profile."

Hotchner nodded and looked towards Morgan. "Morgan, get Garcia on the phone we want to see if anybody aligns with our profile."

"Already on it." Morgan had his phone out and put it on speaker, it rang once before Garcia picked up.

"Welcome to the house of all knowledge, Goddess Garcia speaking."

"Hey girl, you're on speaker. We want you to do some digging for us."

"And what, may I ask, are you looking for dear profilers?"

Hotchner spoke, "Do a double search: one for white men in their mid-thirties who live in the white-collar area of San Francisco and another for white men in their mid-thirties who live in the lower middle-class district."

"Okay... that's an extremely long list. Give me more info, please."

"Cross check them for employer-employee status, so just align the bosses with the workers." Prentiss added.

"Got it."

"Okay now separate everyone who visited the escorts websites and booked appointments."

"Alrighty, that's gonna take a little longer, but I can do it." There was rapid typing at the end of the line until Garcia spoke again. "Okay I have only one name left. He's an executive for an architecture company and he visited all the escort services on his work computer. He fits the profile, white, thirty-five years old, and he's also had a history of violence- just a few assault charges during his high-school years, but they were all dropped. He has one wife named Isabella and looks to be pretty powerful."

"That's probably the dominant we're looking for..." Hotchner nodded, "Do you have any information about his employees? We're looking for someone their mid-thirties and white like him, probably has a lot more assault charges- might have even served time."

"Yeah that's a surprisingly long list of people. There are exactly sixty-seven individuals that fit your description that work under him."

"Looks like we'll be having a much harder time finding the submissive..." Morgan said.

Hotchner nodded in agreement, "Alright Garcia, send us the name and address of our main suspect- and the names of all sixty-seven people, that's all we need for now."

"Always at your service." Then there was a click as Garcia hung up.

Everyone's phone buzzed at once, and Reid assumed it was the information that Hotch had asked for. He didn't bother to reach for his phone. Instead he waited until Hotchner began to give orders.

"I'm going to give our profile to the station and alert them of our suspect, Reid and Morgan you go to the address and bring him in for questioning. Prentiss and Rossi, go through the names of the other sixty-seven people and try your best to narrow down the number of people."

Everyone began to disband, and Reid was eternally grateful for Hotch giving him an assignment where he actually got to do something out in the field. As he picked up his satchel he thought about how much Hotch must trust him, even after what he had done...

"Alright Reid, let's head over to the address and get-" Morgan glanced at his phone, "Mr. House." Reid nodded and followed Morgan. Morgan continued, "So why was Hotch angry with you?"

Reid figured that the team would notice, in what situation would an elite group of profilers not notice? "I made a mistake, but we worked it out." Reid was becoming a better master at half-truths. Since his ability to lie was surprisingly stunted whenever he spoke to the team he did his best to be as honest as he could.

"What kind of mistake?" Morgan prodded even though he knew that Reid didn't want to answer. Reid let himself detect Morgan's emotions, there was only intrigue and curiosity- no hint of suspicion. Although it made Reid feel good that Morgan didn't suspect him of anything bad, it also hurt Reid to know how much his team members trusted him...and how often he managed to betray that trust.

"I- I don't feel at liberty to say." Reid struggled to keep a straight face now that they were walking through the station. They would make it out to the parking lot soon, but even then the amount of emotions that invaded his mind were painful.

"You know we're all pretty worried about you." Morgan admitted, "Considering how close you were to the last case it must have taken a toll on you."

"It did." Reid agreed with Morgan, "But I'm not letting it get to me now. I didn't even know Josh that much anyway...he was a bully- why would I care about him?"

"But Reid you and I both know that facing bullies is harder than facing friends. You had to interview him...and he went crazy. It's completely understandable that you'd feel stress over that. In fact, I'd be even more worried about it if you didn't feel anything."

Well I do feel everything. Reid felt like saying, but he restrained himself. He stayed silent until they made it out into the parking lot and to the car. As they both got in he replied to Morgan, "I'm doing fine Morgan." He was anything but fine, but when it came to supernatural abilities he couldn't exactly share his troubles with anyone. "Let's just get to the address quickly and solve this case before anyone else gets hurt."

Morgan reluctantly nodded and got into the driver's seat. The feelings he resonated were coming off him in waves. Reid felt pain and almost felt like telling Morgan to stop feeling so damn much. "Hey Reid." Morgan said while looking at him.

"What?"

"You're getting a nosebleed."

Reid felt up to his face and looked at his hand- bright red blood adorned his fingers. He groaned, he just kept getting nosebleeds...he reached into his satchel and brought out tissues. "I've been getting them recently...it's just because of the recent low humidity I'm prone to them. I have dry skin."

Morgan still remained concerned, "Just get it checked out."

"I'll be fine Morgan as many as 60 million people in the United States have nosebleeds each year it's a very common condition."

Morgan grudgingly accepted it and began to drive, he looked at the address and name again.

Connor House, Morgan mouthed to himself.

Reid didn't notice.

Ta-dah! So do you guys recognize that name? I figure a lot of you have already predicted a lot of this. I've finished another chapter and I know exactly how I'm going to continue the next one. So look forward to a new chapter coming up sometime next week.

Thanks,

~Moriarty-Mastermind