"Focal retrograde amnesia?" Hillenbrand hisses at him, seething and trying to keep it together. "Focal retrograde amnesia?"

"Cece, this doesn't change that he strangled those women," Aaron reminds the district attorney, calming her down. "This will change your prosecution, but it is not insurmountable."

"How do we even know that he's not faking this?" The lawyer grits, shoulders tense. "This could just be some defense he's cooking up to try and get out of his sentence."

Hotch pauses, thinking.

"You know," He starts, mind running. "I do know someone who can help with that."


Jane's phone rings, but considering she was in the middle of pulling the skin of Anderson's knuckle - a casualty of the recently damaged coffee machine - back together with a sterilized needle and thread, she can't answer it. Luckily, Reid just reaches over and plucks it from her satchel, putting it on speaker for her.

"Jane," Aaron's voice sounds out. "According to the doctors, Brian Matloff has focal retrograde amnesia."

"Sucks for him," Jane comments dryly, the beginnings of apprehension building in her gut. "Sucks for your lawyer friend too."

"We don't know the validity of it," Hotch presses forward, and Emily, shamelessly eavesdropping from her desk, begins to eye her intently as she no doubt starts to notice her tension at his words. "And the doctors can only confirm tissue damage, not the full validity of his loss of memory claim."

"So brain fingerprint him, Aaron." Jane deadpans.

"And we will," Hotch agrees, voice firm. "But that's not going to be enough and you know it."

"So what do you want from me?" Jane asks, knowing that her voice is going brittle and her coworkers and beginning to notice how disquieted she is. "Officially, all I'm here for is to look at your dead bodies. Got any of those, Hotchner?"

Over her head, she can feel Spinner and Emily exchanging glances, reading far too deeply - and most likely in all the right ways - into her responses. Sometimes she hates profilers.

"You are the most knowledgeable of our team when it comes to amnesia, Dr. Hart, and your assessment will be invaluable to our case," Hotch insists in his Boss-Man voice.

"Yet completely inadmissible in court," Jane dismisses. "As in: I refuse to testify, Hotchner."

"So tell me what you find: I speak for all of us, Jane," Hotch pressures. "I am your Unit Chief, Dr. Hart."

Jane grits her teeth, finishing off her final stitch. Anderson retracts his arm warily, retreating quickly after a muttered thanks.

"Fine. Come back once you finish scanning his head."

Then she reaches over and plucks the phone from Reid's loose grip, hanging up on him.


"The brain fingerprinting may have just killed any chance we have of putting Matloff away," Hotch confides in Rossi as they walk through the bullpen to the rest of the team.

"The DA isn't required to enter it into evidence," Rossi offers, even if they both know that there isn't much chance of that.

"No, but he can get it on discovery," Hotch counters grimmly, glancing at Rossi. "And you can bet he's gonna use it."

"And that's why I distrust all technology," Rossi tries for humor, but it lands dead when they come up on the rest of the team. Jane , who's sitting on the edge of Reid's desk with case file in hand, is wearing a miserable expression and Hotch knows that he's the only one who really understands what put it there. Namely him.

"What's up?" Rossi asks, concerned, and Hotch has to stifle the instinct to shush the older man. "Something about Matloff?"

Jane shrugs stiffly, eyes locked on the brain fingerprinting results in front of her. "That's the thing," She starts, looking as if she wanted to be anywhere else at that moment. "As much as we all believe that he's guilty, you can't beat brain fingerprinting by cheating."

"So how'd he get over?" Morgan asks, butting in. "You just said nobody could beat this test."

"The damage to his parietal lobe must have been more extensive than previously thought," Reid supplies. "The brain injury could have literally deleted his memories."

"Oh, he did the murders," Rossi shrugs, blunt. "And we'll prove it, what he remembers doesn't matter."

"Here's the thing," Jane buts in before Prentiss can start spinning philosophical hypotheticals again, snapping her case file shut. "There are four possibilities, but the numbers aren't being cut down fast enough."

"Possibilities?" Emily echoes. "Cut down?"

"Possibility one, he's guilty and he is lying about the amnesia." Jane starts to elaborate, eyes on the far wall. "The fingerprinting eliminated that one. Down to three."

"Two, he's guilty but has amnesia," Reid continues, seeing her thought pattern. "That's still on the table."

"Three, he's innocent and has amnesia," Jane continues. "Four, he's innocent and doesn't have amnesia."

"Why would he lie about the amnesia if he was innocent?" JJ asks, confused. "He could plead not guilty and plead his innocence through the trial."

But Jane is shaking her head, frowning. "If it wasn't for the amnesia as a hiccup that everyone is focusing on, it would be a far more clean cut case, even with the dead witness," Jane explains, eyes going up to Hotch. "So clear cut that we could speed it on through the circuit without time for an innocent man to get his side out, and Option Number Four Matloff would know that. So he throws amnesia in as a roadblock, and builds a defense that won't get him convicted."

"That also would apply for him being guilty without amnesia," Morgan protests. "Number One."

"But the fingerprinting disproved that," Reid objects.

"What are you saying, Jane?" Hotch cuts through, eyes locked with the doctor.

"I'm saying I'll do it."

The team turns fully to watch the staring match between their Unit Chief and Doctor, thrown off guard.

"Oh?" Hotch comments lightly, carefully not playing his cards too soon.
"Oh don't play coy, Aaron." Jane complains bitterly, snarling lightly. "It doesn't suit you. This all -" she gestures at the group "- has been to push me to play the game your way, because no matter how sure you are of that profile, part of you still wants to be certain. So you want me to cut down one more possibility."

"What are you talking about?" JJ interjects warily, confused by the out of character animosity. "Jane? Hotch?"

"Oh, Hotchner here just wants to make sure that our Matloff isn't lovely, stupid Number Four," Jane replies with false chipper. "Who's up for a road trip? It's been a while since I've been to a prison."


Jane removes her satchel, shoving it roughly into the provided locker alongside her gun, doing her best to ignore her teammates as they do the same. She may slam the door shut and yank the key out with more force than strictly necessary, but she's pissed at Aaron so it's okay.

"Doc, you still haven't told us why we're here." Morgan probes tentatively, prudently aware of how much she's an angry wasp nest at the moment.

She ignores him, focused on signing in and following the gestured directions of a guard. A distant part of her is impressed with the self control of Morgan not to ask again, but the rest is too focused on not blowing her top.

"Jane, calm down," Rossi tries to reason with her, placing a hand on her shoulder and slowing her down. "Just because you're angry with Hotch doesn't mean that you should resent him for asking you to do your job."

Jane's calm shell finally cracks as she throws off his hand glaring at the older man. "I'm not angry with Aaron because he asked me to do my job, Dave." She corrects sourly. "I'm pissed with him because he's asking me to go beyond my contract. This isn't what I signed up for, and he fucking knows it!"

They've come upon the holding cell Matloff was being held in, and she finally turns to face them. "Let me be clear," She captures their attention, voice icy. "Little known fact: when it comes to the active status of my BAU agents, Aaron doesn't argue with me - Aaron can't argue with me." She narrows her eyes dangerously, "If either of you walk into this holding cell before my interview of Matloff is finished, I'll pull you both off the active duty roster for a month before the door can even swing fully open."

She pushes her way into the interrogation room, leaving two stunned agents behind her.


"Who are you?" Matloff asks tiredly. "I already talked to lawyers and doctors and police. What do you want now?"

Morgan walks up to the one-way mirror as Jane walks up behind the empty chair, her posture almost bored. Derek can't help but wonder again what they are doing here. What Hotch wanted Jane to do that made her so angry at him for asking.

"My attorney told me not to talk to anyone. Not to say anything." Matloff continues once his initial question went unanswered, wary.

"I'm not really here to ask questions," Jane says tiredly, hands gripping the chair's metal back. "In fact, I don't even want to be here. But I was asked to come all the same, even though it isn't my job."

"What is your job, then?" Matloff asks curiously, and Morgan and Rossi exchange glances. This Unsub had barely said anything since waking up, and he's engaging with Jane within minutes. "Why are you here?"

"Right now, my job is to tell a story," Jane hedges.

Matloff and the agents both are left blinking in confusion at that, but like always Jane plows through before anyone can get their feet under them.

"There once was a girl," Jane starts, her posture curling over as she locks her eyes on her hands. "She had no name. She had no face. She had no memories, no past - nothing."

Morgan watches at Matloff shifts, uncomfortable.

"Now this girl was abandoned and lost." Jane looks up at Matloff, "Abandoned by the people who took her identity, lost by the people that wanted to give it back to her. She was left alone and forgotten by everyone in the world."

"Why?" He asks.

"Because she lost everything she used to be," Jane answers, sardonic humor dripping from her voice like acid. "Because no one wants a radio that won't play, or a book that has no words, or a knife that won't cut..."

"She wasn't who she used to be," Matloff finished, eyes on his hands. "Who they said she should be."

"She was lost for a long time, this girl," Jane continues, eyes somewhere beyond him, as if Matloff had never spoken. "But like all lost things, she was eventually found. They picked her up and dusted her off, like doll found on the sidewalk after the neighborhood kids go in for dinner. They asked her questions, who she was and where she came from, but she didn't know.

"She didn't have the answers They wanted. She didn't have any answers at all." Jane pushes off the chair, arms loose as she began to walk aimlessly and slow, studying the room. "Didn't know the right things to say, the right person to be. So They built her from the ground up, choosing for her - how she cut her hair, how she dressed, how she walked. Everything she didn't know, They made up answers for her, making the choices for her; crafting her into the image that They wanted - expected."

Jane sounded bitter. Morgan was unsettled, worry mounting.

"She didn't even know how old she was, so They gave her an age, too," Jane laughs, crossing her arms, and Derek feels the tired sound bounce around his head. "And then They found out that she knew things, things about the world - about people and how they ticked - that They could use. She was told by Them, 'We found you. We took you in and helped you. Now you must help us.'

"So They put her in classes, told her what to read and what to learn. What to ask and what to answer. She was the perfect little robot; all you had to do was wind her up and she'd do whatever you asked." Jane smiled wanly. "Even go through medical school, of all things."

Rossi's shoes creak as she shifts, and Morgan can't tear his eyes away from Jane to check on him.

"This girl," Matloff, in the brief pause, begins tentatively. "Is she real?"

"I have no reason to lie," Jane points out dryly. "Would you rather me not finish?"

"No -" Matloff objects, almost desperately, before he collects himself. "I … You can finish."

Jane smiles, and it breaks Derek's heart how exhausted she looks.

"She made it through all the classes They wanted, speeding through too fast because she knew too much," Jane picks up again. "Until she finally finished her schooling years earlier than They thought she would, and They were so proud -" venom drips from the word "- that for her graduation, They decided that she could have a gift."

Jane leans back against the wall, a hand coming up to tug at a lock of hair.

"After years and years of choices being made for her, for who she was and how she lived, They told her: 'To be a doctor, you must have a name. You may pick your own.'"

Jane laughs humorlessly, and Matloff looks on with sympathy, totally engrossed in her story.

"You may pick your own," Jane repeats. "Years and years and years of not fighting, of being the little cookie cutter girl who did what she was told and didn't ask questions, didn't object, and she finally been given the gift of picking her own name."

"Didn't they call her something, for all those years?" Matloff asks, disbelieving and confused. "They had to, didn't they?"

"They called her what people always call people with no name." Jane snorted, "They called her Jane Doe."

"Like John Doe."

Morgan feels Rossi stiften beside him, even more if possible, and let out a low and indescribable sound. When Morgan glances over at him, the older profiler is turning ashen in the low light.

"Just like," She agrees. "But she said to Them, 'I'll keep my name. Why do I need a different one when I've used the same for years?'"

Jane's lip twitch as she continues, eyes dead and voice bitter, "But They laughed at her, all teeth and condescension, and said 'You can't be Jane Doe. You'll have patients come in after accidents and they'll be Jane Doe. You can't take that name.'"

"But that's the name she chose." Matloff protested, brows furrowed. "They said it was her choice. It was her choice."

"No, it wasn't," Jane shoots down. "It never had been and never would be."

Morgan takes a moment to glance over at Rossi, the older profiler standing coiled with a hand clamped over his lips as if nauseous. But Jane starts to talk again before he can ask his friend if he was okay.

"The girl knew that if she didn't fight against them now, she never would. She'd be a pawn on a chess board until the day she died," Jane continued, eyes distant. "She wasn't brave. Wasn't strong. Wasn't anything at all, because she was too busy pretending to be the perfect little girl, the puddy in everyone's hands, that she never learned who she really was. If she had bravery, she didn't know it. If she had strength, she'd never used it."

Jane ducks her face, lips twisting at her boots, before leaning to rest her head against the wall, boneless. "But she did have the wealth of knowledge she remembered, the only thing that was left to her when the world left her to rust." Jane continues through heavy lidded eyes. "So she searched in her head, desperately scrambling for any scrap of rebellion she could use."

"What did she do?" Matloff asks, voce sotto.

"Do you know how many words there are for a deer?" Jane asks rhetorically, posture straightening as she pushed off the wall, eyes on Matloff properly for the first time since she walked in. "There are does, which are the female deer; fawns, which are the baby deer; and then there are bucks, which are the males. Not only, but there are French and German and Old English words for all of them, like cerf or hirsch or Hart …"

Morgan feels his eyes widen, everything suddenly falling into place …

The cryptic remarks, not talking about the past. Tobias Hankel and how she mocked him. How she talked to him in Chicago -

The same way she always named herself.

"I never introduced myself, did I?" Jane asks as she drops into the chair, extending a hand to the Blue Ridge Strangler. "Dr. Jane Hart, but They call me Jane."


Brian Matloff takes her hand hesitantly, as the rest of what this woman was saying caught up to him.

"You're her," He mutters faintly, eyes wide. "You're …"

'Like me.'

"My boss sent me here because he knows that there's a chance you could be faking the amnesia." Dr. Hart states bluntly, and Brian can feel the familiar tension building in his gut. "But he also knows that I can read people, I know when they lie to me about their health, their condition. Comes with the medical degree, I suppose," her lips twitch.

Dr. Hart - Jane - who might be the only person who truly understands, if her story was true, locks eyes with him. "You are the first person I have ever told that story," She tells him, and his breath catches. "A dead girl walking, a stranger in a strange land, an obedient doctor ... I don't know who I am, never have. I don't know who you are, either, not really. No one does."

"But I do know that look in your eye, Brian," She insists, voice thick. "I saw that look every day for four long years. It's the look where you wonder who you were, who you really were. Where all you want is to know if you take your coffee black, or if you prefer tea. If you mother would sing to you as a kid, or if your dad would tuck you in at night. If you got good grades, or only just managed to get by."

She crosses her hands on the metal table top, leaning forward.

"But most of all," Her voice drops. "You want to know how you got each and every mark on your body. If the patch on your knee is from you falling off your bike or tripping over a toy car. If you scraped your knuckles on asphalt or if you bruised them as a schoolyard bully. If the scars are from defending yourself, or being defended against. Your hands, you know they're covered in blood - you can feel it. But is the blood is yours? Or someone else's?"

Brian swallows, unable to tear his eyes away from her. Helpless in the onslaught of her words. How far they resonate within him.

"You want to know if you're the monster under the bed children that makes children call for their mommies and daddies."

He swallows dryly. Her eyes bore into him, looking into his soul, examining him like a bug under a microscope … or a body under her knife.

"So tell me," Jane presses. "Look me in the eyes and tell me that you don't remember the man you used to be, the phantom that people tell you you were. Tell me that I'm not the only one drowning in a bloody past they fear more than anything to come."

His mouth is a desert, and it takes a moment to work up the spit to wet it.

"I don't remember," he whispers, voice cracking.

She looks at him. Nods once.

And she gets up, straightens her jacket, and walks out.


Jane is thankful that Morgan and Rossi are silent when she walks out of the room. She doesn't look at them. Can't.

They remain in a thick silence until they've recovered their things and are approaching their SUV. Jane pulls out her phone, hitting speed dial and placing it against her ear. Hotch picks up on the first ring.

"He's not faking the amnesia," she states flatly, and then immediately hangs up.

Jane just takes a moment, her fist curled around the phone and pressed against her forehead, to just close her eyes and breathe. Because she knew that talking would hurt. That letting it all out, even to someone who might even understand, would be putting salt on a raw, weeping, open wound. But it was so much worse than she could've even imagined.

She flinches when Morgan puts his hand on her shoulder, stiff as he pulls her to his chest and wraps his arms around her shoulders, holding her close. Her fingers curl around his bicep automatically, and even through the sleeve of his shirt and the cloth of her gloves she can feel his warmth. His fingers card through the hair at the base of her neck, gentle but firm, and she allows herself to relax into it.

When was the last time someone hugged her? Even Garcia hadn't … Penny was still too wary, too unsure of where they stood. Had she ever been hugged? Could she really never remember the feeling of someone else's arms around her?

She'd already cried all of her tears. She cried her tears 12 years ago when she woke up scared and alone without even her name. She cried 8 years ago when she broke away and finally started to figure out who she was. She cried them all, till there was nothing left.

But if she hadn't, she was sure she would be crying them now.

"When I came to see you, in Boston." Rossi's murmurs nearby - voice soft as if he was talking to a skittish deer, his footsteps tapping against the concrete. "You had just gotten away from 'Them', hadn't you? Moved to Boston, so you could make your own choices?"

Jane nods against Morgan's chest, the knot in her chest loosening as Morgan rubs circles against her back.

"That black book, the one that Hotch writes in - that Gideon used to write in?" Morgan starts hesitantly, the sound rumbling in his chest. "They write down things that you remember, don't they?"

She forces herself to push off of him, pulling away from the comfort, and tucks her phone into a back pocket and as she scrubs at her face. "Yeah," she confirmed, straightening up. "Sometimes things slip out, but I don't realize that they do. Aaron keeps track for me."

"Do you want to know?" Rossi asks, head tilted. "Who you are?"

"I don't," She shakes her head. "I don't want the memories back, I don't want the life of a whole different person. I just … I just want a name."

"Okay," Morgan agrees, voice soft yet determined. "We'll get you that name."

Something in his face rings alarm bells in her head, and she can feel her panic rising. "Wait! Don't -" Jane chokes out, grabbing Morgan desperately.

"Don't what?" Dave asks, voice level.

"Don't force it," Jane pleads, scrambling for words. "I don't want to know because- because you picked me apart and I don't -"

"You don't want to lose what you have now," Dave finishes for her, stepping forward to peel her fingers off of Morgan's wrist gently. "And we won't. We'll put things we notice in the book, just like Aaron's been doing."

"And one day, once you're ready," Morgan takes her hand gently, squeezing lightly. "We will all sit down with my Baby Girl and get you that name, okay?"

Jane swallows. "Okay," She says, collecting herself. "Okay."

"Then let's head back, that okay?" Rossi asks gently. "You up for more of Morgan's terribly driving ability?"

She nods, a small smile on her lips as tension bleeds from her, and they all clamber into the car.


Rossi waits until Jane's office door is closed behind her before he beckons for Morgan to join him in his office, closing his own door firmly behind them. Morgan pulls out his phone, finding the desired contact and putting it on speakerphone as it rings. The artificial tone sounds three times before it's picked up.

"I presume this is about Jane," Hotch's voice filters through the speaker, sounding resigned. "Or more accurately, why no one ever told the team."

"We can't help her if we don't know what to look for, Aaron," Rossi criticizes. "Who knows how far we would've gotten if you'd told us."

"And pick her apart? Or treat her like she's made of glass, or maybe a piece of meat?" Hotch bites back, "Because that is exactly what she never wants to happen. She's fought so hard to figure out who she is. We can't destroy all of that progress, not for a name."

"So what, we profile our friend on the side?" Morgan bites scathingly. "In between serial killers and arsonists we catalogue everything she does - behind her back - so that she can maintain some illusion of normalcy? Does she even like being called 'Jane'?"

"No," Hotch admits, and Morgan cradles his face in his palm in frustration. "But she refuses to use any other name until she either remembers or finds out her own. That's the one thing she has absolute control over, and we can't take that away from her."

"Speaking of her 'lack of control'," Rossi buts in, voice as smooth and dangerous as a Mafia Don. "Who is this 'They'. I think I'd like to meet them."

"Get in line," Hotch growls low and dark, and Morgan snorts in agreement. "But I don't know, not in detail. Best I can tell - and from what Gideon and I have pieced together - she woke up with no memories twelve years ago on the outskirts of, or nearby, some town, a small one in the rural South. She gets taken in by the town - the Church specifically, as Gideon thought - and they press so many expectations and standards on her that all she can do is play along and do what they say, because they - intentionally or not - manipulate her into thinking that she has nowhere else to go."

"They ship her off to med school so she can 'pay back her keep' once they realize her intelligence," Rossi infers, crossing his arms in thought. "She realizes what the rest of the world has to offer, and resents the town. She plays along, goes the specialization that would be of the least use to them - the criminal and forensic route - and then pays them back as quickly as possible before breaking all ties."

"She gets out," Morgan continues. "Travels, doing odd jobs, and then lands in Boston."

"And then Gideon finds her," Hotch finishes.

"Jason said that he found Jane at a crime scene of a murder that the locals thought was connected to another two. She was trying to get to her apartment, and she was arguing with a detective insisting that there were no connections between that crime scene and the last two, rattling off a list of reasons that the MOs might've been the same, but the scenes were completely different." Rossi snorted, "She just wanted to get to bed after a long shift at the clinic, but some greenhorn was flaunting the serial killer angle to try and impress her."

"From the way Gideon told it," Aaron buts in, amused. "Jane, exhausted and grumpy, broke down the entire crime scene and tore apart their entire argument for the connection by citing newspaper articles, what she saw in front of her, and the yarn that the newbie was spinning at her. She turned out to be right, and Gideon managed to point the PD in the right direction before they caught both murderers."

"Did Gideon know?" Morgan asked, cupping his chin in one hand. "That she's an amnesiac? When he tried to recruit her."

"No, but he figured it out," Hotch admits. "He confronted her about a year after she joined, but she never actually explained anything. Jane insisted that she was never asked, so she never lied, and that it was none of our business. When Gideon pushed, Jane impressed that all she wants is her name, and Gideon and I begin to record her oddities so she could finally have one of her own."

"But you're not just going to stop at her name, are you?" Morgan asks, disbelieving. "She made it sound like her past had a lot of messed up shit."

"She doesn't want to be told," Hotch lays down reasonably. "But she hasn't told us not to look."

"That's what she is afraid of," Rossi realizes.

"What?" Hotch asks.

"Jane's been on edge, this entire case." Rossi explains, hands waving. "At first I thought it was because the two of you were fighting, and then I thought it was because she had to talk about her lack of a past, or that the case involved amnesia - but it's none of that."

"What are you getting at?" Morgan asks, brows furrowing.

"She said something, at the prison," Rossi continues. "Something about marks on skin on blood on hands - she's afraid that she's a bad person, a criminal. That her past was like Matloff's, a series of horrible crimes that she doesn't remember committing."

"But that's not possible," Morgan protests. "It's Jane. She might not be some Mother Teresa, but she's incredibly kind. She loosens up when she's around friends, around us."

"But Matloff is a perfectly normal, completely average person in his own mind." Hotch points out grimmly. "He can't believe that he's the Blue Ridge Strangler. He doesn't see himself as someone able to commit those crimes."

"Hotch," Morgan protests, disbelieving. "You can't be saying -"

"I'm not saying anything, Morgan." The Unit Chief cuts him off, voice grim. "But just like Matloff, we can't bend the law based of memory."

"But she hasn't done anything," Morgan insists. "And even if she has, most statutes of limitations have passed by now."

"I believe that the woman who uses the name Doctor Jane Hart is one of the kindest people to have ever walked this Earth," Hotch insists. "But even the kindest people can be pushed far beyond their morals."

Silence reigns, and Morgan can't look at Rossi - or even the phone.

"I should go," Hotch signs off. "Call me if you find anything new."


"Dr. Hart," Jane answers on the first ring, and Hotch sends out a silent thanks to any deity out there that she did.

"I need you to come down to the Parkway, now." Hotch orders, eyes on the road ahead of him. "Matloff is recovering his memories and assaulted an officer. He's on the run with a gun and a car and you've established a neutral position with him."

"I'll be there in fifteen minutes," Jane declares grimmly.

Hotch hangs up, sharing a momentary glance with Morgan. There was no predicting how this would go down.


"That's him," Hotch calls out, and Jane follows his gaze to where Matloff is kneeling in the grass, someone in his arms.

"He's got someone with him," Jane grimaces. "She's not moving."

"All right," One of the LEOs rushes. "Let's move in."

"No, wait." Hotch halts him, an arm out to stop him in his tracks. "If we rush him, he might try to kill her and himself."

"Send me in," Jane insists. "He knows me, and if the floodgates in his head are open then he needs a trusting face right now."

"Okay," Hotch agrees warily, eyes on his friend. "Okay. But you have your gun trained on him the whole time."

She nods, drawing her glock, and he turns to give orders to the rest of the LEOs as she approaches Matloff cautiously.

"Brian?" Jane calls out, voice level. "Brain, I need to see your hands."

"Stop!" Matloff calls out desperately, turning enough that Jane can see the decaying corpse in his arms. "Stop right there, please!"

"Brian, who is she?" She asks gently, lowering her aim and continuing to approach slowly.

"She -" Brain chokes, tears thick. "She was my first. The minute my feet hit the ground, I knew right where to find her."

Matloff looks up at her, desperate and distraught and a thousand other things. Jane swallows thickly.

"I killed them." He confessed, "Oh god …"

"You remember," Jane asks rhetorically, grimm and understanding. "You remember."

"Everything," Matloff chokes. "I don't want to. I hope you never do."

Jane flinches, and she can feel Hotch's eyes on her from across the field, debating whether to come help. "I don't want to either, Brian." Jane confesses, "All I want is my name. I'm too afraid of what else I would find."

"Every moment," The Blue Ridge Strangler exhales shakily. "Every … tiny detail. I remember. But … it's still not real. It's like … the memories belong to someone else."

"Maybe they do, Brian." Jane smiles sadly. "But you still have to pay. Just like we all have to pay."

"Wouldn't you run?" He asks, desperately locking eyes with her. "If you were me? If you remembered something like this?"

"What good would that do?" Jane asks brutally, ripping off the bandaid. "Running away is useless, Brian. Running toward something is better."

"What do I have to run toward?" He asks, hand clenching around the grip of the stolen gun. "I've got nothing. I'm just going to be put to death."

"You've got a mother who loves you," Jane reminds him. "And courts who may be merciful. You've got memories of birthdays and holidays and summer vacations to keep you living. What else do you need?"

"I don't want to be the same man," He confesses, hands shaking and eyes on the dead girl in his arms. "I don't."

"You aren't," Jane assures him. "So prove it by putting the gun down and doing the right thing."

The gun falls numbly from his hands, and the LEOs fall in as Jane tears away her gaze. She holsters her gun, locking eyes with Hotch before turning toward the path and walking away.

At least she isn't running.


"Alcohol," Jane groans as they pack up the case, preparing to clear out of Hillenbrand's office space. "I need alcohol. I need so much alcohol."

Hotch raises an eyebrow, shuffling the case files in his hands, but doesn't respond. Spinner, on the other hand, looks over at her bemusedly. "Are you sure that's a good idea, Jane? We do have work tomorrow."

"I am a grown ass woman with a liver of steel," Jane declares. "And I am also so not above blackmail, so you both are coming."

"Jane …" Hotch starts, lips twisting sourly.

"Nope," Jane shuts him up, shoving the last of her files into her satchel. "Nopeity nope nope. I have maxed out on emotional crap today and doubly maxed maturity. I need alcohol, and this damn job makes a girl paranoid about drinking alone."

"One drink," Hotch relents, and Reid sends him a knowing grin. "And you are not driving."

"Fine by me, Aaron." Jane grins, victorious. "Fine. By. Me."


"Yes, my Chocolate Adonis?" Garcia answers, and Morgan grins. "I'll have you know I'm currently off the clock."

"Heya, Baby Girl," He greets. "I need a favor."

"Oooooh, my favorite," Garcia jokes. "But are you sure you wouldn't rather warm my bed for me?"

"Careful, you'll get me in trouble," He laughs, shaking his head as he levels his gaze over the emptying bullpen to the door of Jane's office. "I just need a personal file of a member of the team, but I want you to keep it quiet for me."
"Okay …?" She agrees uncertainty. "Is everyone okay."

"Oh, yeah, everyone's fine," He hurries to assure her. "Just wanted to check up on something, but I don't want to worry her."

"Her?" Garcia repeats. "Who do you want the file of?"

"Can you get me everything you can find on Jane?" Morgan asks, mouth tasting foul. "Don't dig too much. I'd just like everything you already have."

"Ummm … okay, sure," Garcia agrees warily.

Ending the call quickly after that, saying goodnight and exchanging flirting taunts by reflex. He pockets his phone, surveying the empty room.

He hoped that he wouldn't regret doing this.