Rossi rapped his knuckles across the door, stepping back so that he was in full view of the peephole. He waited patiently as there was scuffling on the other side, intimately familiar himself about the routines a vetran needed to go through to feel safe. He wasn't going to begrudge anyone that.
"Dave," Robert greeted him when he opened the door, smiling in a tired greeting. "Didn' expect you today."
"Well, I was facing an empty weekend slaving away over an unfinished book," Dave responded dryly. "And as much as I enjoy writing, I wasn't feeling it. So I thought I'd stop by and see the new place."
Rob stepped back, pulling the door open wider for him to step inside.
The apartment was small but nice, not fancy but well taken care of. Between the various knick knacks and the shelves of books and walls full of plaques, every bit of space was taken over by the fruits of Leon's life. It was times like this, when Rossi really got to really see Rob, that he marveled at Jane's subconscious.
They really were alike, in more ways than one.
"How is she?" Rob's first question was – always was – and Dave buried the smile that surfaced at the affection and worry for their little doctor.
"She's great," Rossi smiled at him, reassuring. "She's doing fine."
He went for his pocket, pulling out his phone to pull up a video that JJ had taken for this exact purpose. "Here, look."
The video was taken before their last case, when Emily and JJ had conspired to get Jane to remember a bit more. They'd dragged her off to the park – nabbing Jack, Henry, and Will on their way out – and forced her into some roller blades, a favorite pastime from when Mari was a kid.
"She's still got the muscle memory," Dave narrated as Rob took the phone, leaning over the older man's shoulder. "Was going circles around the rest of them."
Rob cracked a smile as Emily and Will both took a tumble, Jane laughing behind them as she did her best to get away from the fallout zone.
"And … Jane," Rob stressed the name, eyes still on the phone. "She's remembering more?"
"She's familiarizing with more," Dave corrected gently, taking the phone back and shutting it off. "Remember, we're not trying to get her to remember –"
"Just trying to get her to accept," Rob finished for him. "I know. And I don't want her to remember all of those horrible things …"
"But you want her to remember you," Dave clasped his hand on Rob's shoulder. "And there's nothing wrong or selfish about that, Rob. Nothing at all."
Rob nodded, and opened his mouth to say something more –
But the sound of Dave's phone going off cut through the foyer.
Frowning, he checked the ID.
"JJ," He greeted, sending Rob an apologetic look. "We were supposed to have this weekend off."
"Sorry, Rossi," The Liaison apologized. "But we have a case. Grab your bag, we're headed to Florida."
"You piece of SHIT!"
Jane cackled as Vine chased after her, bolting down the stairs – belining for Vine's discarded pack.
"So help me, Doe, if you even think about –!"
"Think about calling your little boy toy?" Jane asked innocently, holding up Vine's phone in victory. "Oh, you think that your little threats and insults are gonna stop me? You need to go on a date, Vine."
"Like hell I do," Vine growled, trying in vain to get her mobile back – forcing Jane back against her kitchen's island. "And what do you mean, go on a date? I get laid plenty."
"But you don't go on dates," Jane countered, teeth shining and smile wide. "You two just dance around each other. Just call him."
"I've known him since I was a kid," Vine protested, managing to snag the phone from her with her freakish height and long arms. "It's weird."
"So?" Jane pulled a face, relaxing back against her counter. "Anyway, I think that you –"
Her thought was cut off by the sound of her phone going off, and she's answered it before she realized that etiquette dictates that she excuse herself first.
Well, too late now.
"We've got a case," Hotch is speaking as soon as the phone is to her ear. "An apparent serial abductor and killer who called in his own suicide."
"Damn," Jane blinks, batting away Vine as she tries to get close enough to listen in on the call. "Damn. What makes it our kind of case?"
"A girl is still missing, and he's completely covered in tattoos of his victims."
Jane freezes, locking eyes with Vine.
"Tattoos, you say?" Jane repeated, watching as Vine's eyes widened and the other woman began to profusely shake her head. "Rin, any chance I can bring along a consultant?"
There was a woman on the jet that Morgan had never seen before.
She was tall, probably close to his own height, and coiled aggressively. She was a shade or two darker than he was, with close cropped twists, and was so wiry it bordered on skeletal. The edge of ink poked out from each sleeve of her leather jacket, and he could see more in the holes in her jeans.
"The hell you looking at?" She snapped, aggressive and clearly uncomfortable and lashing out. "Back off, Fed."
And then suddenly Jane was there, smacking the stranger across the back of her head.
"Vine," The Doc scolded, frowning deeply. "If you're gonna be here at all, you need to play nice."
"Don't like government types," The woman – Vine, apparently – grumbled, sitting down heavily on the couch. "Why am I here, Doe?"
"You coulda said 'no,' you know," Jane rolled her eyes, more amused than fed up. It looked more like banter than argument, to him.
"Agent Morgan," Derek tried to cut through some of the tension, extending his hand to Vine. "You know Jane?"
"Yeah, I know her," Vine didn't take his hand. "Know her too well, if knowing her means I get dragged along to crime scenes."
"Puh-lease," Jane rolled her eyes, and scientifically it was fascinating to see Jane around friends outside of the team. And also bewildering. "You've been to plenty of crime scenes, Ms. I-Only-Date-Drug-Dealers."
"Oh, you better –" Vine tried to dig into Jane again, but was cut off by the pointed clearing of Hotch's throat.
"Vine, I presume," Hotch said in his Cut-The-Bullshit Voice. "Thank you for agreeing to consult on this case."
"Don't mention it," Vine sighed heavily. "So you're Boss Man, then? Rin, right?"
All eyes turned to an embarrassed looking Jane, scratching the back of her neck.
"Yes, I am," Hotch takes it in stride. "But please, call me Hotch."
"Right," Vine grins mischievously, shoving her hands into the pockets of the maroon hoodie she was wearing under her jacket. "Wait, lemme guess."
She turned to face the rest of the team, which was awkwardly huddled behind Hotch and Morgan. Automatically, the two of them stepped out of the way.
"LeFay," Vine jabbed a finger at Morgan, and he nodded automatically. She paused to think, rolling her shoulders. "Blondie's JJ, and the old guy's Rossi. Which means that Sexy over there is Prentiss and Skinny is Spinner."
"Sexy?" Emily raised an eyebrow, and Morgan noticed that Jane was beginning to look very much like she was regretting bringing Vine along.
"O-kay!" Jane cut off that thread of conversation. "You got it right! Everyone, this is Vine. She's a pain in the ass, but please restrain yourself from punching her. Or shooting her."
"Forgive me … Vine, was it?" Rossi stepped forward as the team filed in. "What manner of consultation will you be doing for us."
"I'm a tattoo artist," Vine cocked her hip, as if daring him to judge her. "And I'm damn good at what I do. So Doe brought me along for the ride, considering your dead creeper was inked like nobody's business."
Morgan had heard it before, but hadn't properly processed it. Vine had called Jane 'Doe' – which meant that odds were, she knew about Jane and her amnesia.
And by the way that Hotch's eyes sharpened, he had realized too.
"Ugh, it smells like how I pictured the first season of Breaking Bad."
Rossi chuckled as Vine gagged, shoving a long maroon sleeve over her mouth and nose. At least when the woman complained – none too rarely – she was entertaining about it.
Barton coughed apologetically into the air, looking uncomfortable himself, and settled for handing her a pair of gloves.
"The chair was turned like that?" Hotch clarified. "This is exactly the way you found him?"
Barton gave a quiet affirmation, and Dave kept half an ear on the conversation as he drifted closer to where Jane and her friend were looking over the body.
"Damn," Vine sighs, shaking her head. "Dead bodies suck. How do you do this every day?"
"Not every day," Jane snarks back. "Maybe every other. One in three."
"Ass," Vine shoots at her, then turns back to the body, frowning.
"What is it?" Rossi asks her, coming around to meet her perspective.
"It's just …" Vine frowns some more. "Damn, this person is good."
"How do you mean?" Hotch breaks from taking to Barton to ask.
"These are free handed portraits," Vine emphasizes, pulling on her gloves. "And damn good ones too."
"Free handed is the most difficult style to do," Jane nods her understanding. "And portraits are the most difficult subject."
Rossi shot her an amused look. Jane stuck her tongue out in response.
"Damn right they are," Vine begins to poke at the body, only wincing slightly at the blood. "See the gradient on the edge here? The fade? These tattoos are all different ages — except for these."
Vine gestured to the unsub's lower torso. "See, cuz these were bam, bam, bam. He got a bunch done all at once."
"The faces?" Reid asked, squinting.
"No, the tree," Vine's lips twisted. "Damn, if whoever did these wasn't aware of exactly what these all represented … they would've have to be the most ignorant and idiotic person actually ever."
"You think it would have been that obvious?" Hotch asked.
"Each of these faces would be a four, five hour ordeal," Vine tilted her head. "The tree longer – much longer. This is all one person, subjecting this guy to pain for hours on end. When you're in pain, the worst of you comes out. And if after all this time you don't realize what the person on the other end of your gun is capable of …"
"Then you're an idiot," Jane finishes for her, face grim. "Or you're in on it."
The team split up, pairs taking on different parts of the case, but Hotch decided to stick close to Jane and her 'consultant.'
"Oh, that's different," Vine suddenly spoke up, having turned over the unsub's arm. "Someone was hiding some old ink, creepy bastard."
"What is it?" Hotch came behind where Jane was crouching to see the forearm.
"A coverup," Vine's teeth went between her tongue. "And a shitty one at that. Shoulda stuck with portraits."
"Coverup?" Jane leaned forward, fingers running over the oddly placed rose. "Oh, I see it."
Hotch did not see it.
"Gosh, Rin, use your hawk eyes for something," Vine teased him with a mischievous grin. "See that shadow right there? Under the stem of the rose?"
Hotch blinked, and then like an optical illusion it suddenly slotted into place.
"Is that a cross?"
"Yup," Vine nodded, unceremoniously dropping the arm. "And looks prison to me. Don't you have a database for that shit?"
Jane pulled off her gloves, pulling at her collar and grimacing at the heat. God, Boston never got this hot. Virginia usually never got this hot.
Oh, how she hated this goddamn heat.
"Oh for fucks sake," Vine sidled up to her, batting at her hand. "Just take it off!"
"What?" She blinked, then balked at the idea. "No, are you crazy?"
"Your pretty claw marks are out full force," Vine nodded to her cheek. "And you're going to boil alive. Everyone whose opinion matters here already knows, so just take off your damn jacket before I evaporate just looking at you."
Well, she was about three seconds from melting …
Jane sighed, giving in, and figured that if the stares got bad she could just throw her jacket back on. She passed Vine her satchel, and stripped off her jacket, peeling off her long undershirt – leaving her in just a black tanktop and her gloves.
Immediately Jane felt the eyes on her, but she forced herself not to think about them and instead focused on putting up her hair – trying to forget the way that putting her arms up stretched the scar tissue along her shoulders.
"Finally reached your boiling point?" Rossi commented, stepping over to join them. He'd been hovering around her and Vine the whole case, but she didn't have it in her to get mad at him about it. He hated secrets and mysteries with a passion, despite being a man who kept so many.
"Sure did," She sent a grimacing grin his way. "But don't worry, I won't pull a Wicked Witch and melt into a puddle of steaming goo."
"That would be something," Rossi batted back lightly.
"So what do you say I coordinate with the morgue and get this body moved before it completely decomposes?" She offered him, scanning the warehouse for Hotch. "If his tattoo is a full suit, then someone can get some pictures and go to some local artists and see if his style matches anyone known."
"Sounds like a plan, I'll grab Prentiss." Rossi nods, jerking his head towards the front as he pulls his phone out – probably to call Garcia. "Better check in with Hotch, though, lest he get mad at you for running off again."
"That was one time," She called over her shoulder, headed for the door with Vine close behind. "One time!"
Jane picked up the phone, barely glancing at the ID as she stood over the Unsub's dead body.
"Spinner," She greets him.
"In his journals, the Unsub refers to a blank space – singular," His voice filters through, and Jane rapidly puts him on speaker so Vine can hear. "But that doesn't make sense. There's the spot on his chest where we assume Rebecca's portrait to go, but there's also that gap on his back."
Vine frowns, pulling off her gloves and nodding for Jane and the ME to flip the body. They do, and immediately she's running her fingers over the space – a look of intense concentration on her face.
"You got a blacklight?" Vine asks, and Jane dives into her bag for one.
"What do you see?"
"Looks like the artist was using invisible ink," Jane narrated, and as the ME shut the lights off –
Oh. Oh.
"The partner's a woman."
"How do you know?"
"Because I'm looking at the image of a fetus on our dead body's back," Jane answered grimmly. "The partner's a woman, and she's pregnant."
"Vine," Jane was calling into her phone, clearly agitated. "Vine. For fucks sake – Vine!"
"Everything all right?" Hotch asked, glancing at her before returning his attention to the road.
"That son of a bitch," Jane hung up, shoving her phone into her satchel. "Swear to god that woman's as flighty as a flipping sprite. She just leaves me a message saying 'nice to meet your team, I'll make my own way back' and then shuts off her phone."
"She do that often?" Hotch glances her way again, taking note of the dry amusement on her face.
"Yeah, she never could stay put long," Jane smiled at him. "Though I expected her to at least make it to the end of the case. But that's not important. Let's get to Juliet Monroe's, and hopefully before she can kill Rebecca Daniels."
"Holy shit – Jane!"
Jane tears through the house, practically skidding into the room where Rebecca was being held. She's barely glimpsed the huddled form of Rebecca being comforted by Barton before –
"Holy shit," She echoes Morgan's oath. "Shit."
She's diving for her satchel, ordering for water and more light, and Juliet Monroe – the partner – is crying out in pain at the contractions of her labor.
Her labor that is going very badly.
She barely has gloves on before she's between the woman's legs, bandages pressed to stem the flow of the blood, watching as the baby begins to crest.
"Push, Juliet," Jane orders, and sees that Morgan has taken Juliet's hand. "Push."
The delivery is messy and rough and Juliet will be hard pressed to survive, but the baby is finally out and his cry is loud and he's beautiful.
He's beautiful.
Hotch ushers her away with the kid to let the paramedics who arrived treat Juliet, and Jane doesn't protest the man handling or how his arms were cradling her because the baby is beautiful and she's too busy sacrificing her longsleeve to swaddle him.
"That was pretty impressive," Hotch smiles down at her. "When'd you learn to do that?"
"You do realize I actually went to med school, right?" She quips, making her way through the house to the ambulance outside. "And JJ was pregnant. What did you expect me to do?"
"Fair enough," He smiles, casting an inscrutable look at the body of Juliet Monroe being wheeled away.
And Jane watched too.
Odd irony, she thought, as the scar across her abdomen throbbed in time with the baby's breath.
Odd. And sad.
But she doesn't do sad, and doesn't do remembering, so she passes the baby off to the EMTs and pretends she doesn't miss the warmth in her arms.
"One last stop I need to make before we head out," Rossi tells Hotch, mindful of Jane sorting through her satchel nearby. "I'll just need a couple hours. And Emily."
Hotch nods his understanding, clearly knowing what they were up to and planning on grilling them later. Rossi nodded to Prentiss, and the two of them peeled off to one of the cars the field office had provided them.
Just before they left, he overheard a snippet of conversation.
"Where are they headed?" Jane asked Hotch.
"Just had an errand to run," Hotch dismissed. "Nothing to worry about."
It was a testament to their circumstances that Hotch was becoming such a good liar. Especially to his friends.
The tattoo artist – who Emily had honestly forgotten the name of, if she had even known it to begin with – grinned at them when they walked back into his shop.
"No, you still cannot see the body," Rossi cut him off before he could ask, his I Am Unimpressed face full blast. "We're here about a different matter."
"Another dead body?" He asked excitedly, the coils of his hair swaying as he looked between them.
"No," Emily shook her head. "We've a seperate, ongoing investigation that we thought you might be able to help out on."
"Sure, anything."
Rossi reached into the file he always kept in his bag, removing a stack of photos and placing them out on the counter, as they had only the day before. Pictures of Jane.
"Whoa," The artist picked up one. "Whoa."
Emily and Rossi exchanged glances.
"What?" Emily pried, glancing at the photo – it was a blown up image of Jane's lotus flower. "What's so interesting about it?"
"Man, this person is messed up," He grinned at her and Rossi. "I mean, seriously."
"Which person?" Rossi pressed, laying out more photos. "The artist or the canvas?"
"The canvas, maybe, but definitely the artist," The tattoo artist – god, Emily really wished she remembered his name – clarified. "Or, well, at least one of them. The guy who did the scaring."
"Oh?" Rossi tilted his head, and Emily's fists curled at how close they were. "More than one?"
"Three, I'd bet."
"How can you tell?" Emily asked, eyes flaring wide. "Is it that obvious?"
"Yeah, I mean, kinda. Whoever did the flower was amazing. I'm talking art school and years and years of work. That's your master," He pushed aside a few of the photos, pulling out a shot of some of the ivy and the red IV. "But see here? The line work is sloppier, and the color less saturated. Still good, no doubt about it, but not the same caliber."
"What about the scarring?" Emily squinted at the layered scars across the pictures – across Jane's back. "How are you sure it's not the same person? One of the other artists doing scarring too?"
"Well, the work is good but it wasn't done at the same time," He shook his head, running his fingers across the hatching. "And the scarring wasn't incorporated well into any other part of the piece. And it doesn't lend to the flow."
"Lend to the flow?" Emily echoed quietly.
"Yeah. If I had to guess, I'd say that whoever scarred her up was trying to … dunno, add to the tattoos.' He cleared his throat, parsing through the photos. "Dunno why. The work may be a bit amature at points, but it's a great piece."
"Can you tell about how old the scarring is?" Rossi questioned. "Compared to the tattoo?"
"I'd guess a year," He shrugged. "A year after they got inked up like this, those scars were added."
"And do you recognize the style?" Emily asked. "Anything about the piece that might indicate who would've done it? Or where?"
He shook his head. Emily's heart sank.
"My advice?" He leaned back, his hair swaying with him. "You'd be better off asking the canvas, rather than poking around the whole country looking for this guy."
"Well that's going to be a problem," Rossi glanced meaningfully at Emily. She looked back at him grimmly.
The tattoo guy, on the other hand, was ecstatic.
"Wait, is this guy dead, too?"
Emily walked away proudly from where she left Reid with a sweeping defeat at Poker and Morgan with a healthy dose of bewilderment.
Jane was sitting alone, filling out one of her millions of forms.
She couldn't help but think about what that tattoo guy had said. That whoever gave her those tattoos, they weren't the ones who scarred her up.
It wasn't as if she had expected that, not really. But it implied that between the time that Marisole Ryden escaped the Massacre, and when she ended up in the hands of whoever cut into her and … and took her baby, that someone had cared about her.
She had the money to buy a large, no doubt expensive tattoo. She had two people that worked on her, an amatuer, even. She was safe enough, felt safe enough that she willingly exposed herself to two people with no connection to the Rydens or the Colemyers and she had tattooed on her body her middle name and the nickname that her father gave her.
"Hey," She smiled, sitting down. "Vine scamper off somewhere?"
"She was never one for goodbyes," Jane smiled at her, twisting her wrist under the silver c-bracelet that Robert had given her. "I wasn't surprised."
"How long have you known her?" Emily asked, curious. "You're very much at ease with her."
"... years, I suppose," Jane tugged at her ear. "I mean, over a decade."
"That's a long time," She raised her eyebrows, settling back in the jet's seat. "Did you meet her in medical school, then?"
"Nah," She shook her head, eyes going distant. "I met her There."
Emily blinked, shocked. Jane had only ever alluded to 'There.' And definitely had never talked about someone from There.
"She was the one who convinced me to get out, you know," Jane smiled, ducking her head. "She told me: 'Doe, you got no business rotting away in a place like this. You came from somewhere where people loved you, even if they're not with you anymore. What makes you think you don't got people who wanna love you now?'"
Jane laughed, twisting her pen. "And I said no way in hell. And then a month later, I left."
"She sounds like a good friend," Emily smiled, warmed. "I'm glad you have her."
"Yeah, I am too," Jane smiled. "I am too."
"Something's bothering you."
Hotch continued to pull files from his bag, not looking Rossi's way. They both knew he was right.
"What is it, Aaron?" Dave pressed, stepping further into his office.
"Emily just told me what Jane said about Vine," He picks his words carefully. "And …"
"It suddenly seems very coincidental that the tattoo artist who knows Jane, knows about her amnesia, has never given the same breakdown of her ink that Vine gave us for Burke?" Rossi offers.
"And that she left," Hotch turned to him, frustrated. "She came along because she wanted to help Jane, but the moment that she couldn't give any more she left."
"And the timing just happened to be that we couldn't stop her," Rossi nods thoughtfully. "Couldn't talk to her."
"Something isn't adding up there," Hotch sighs, rubbing his eyes. "But for now, there's nothing we can do."
"There's always something we can do," Dave countered, turning halfway to leave. "We can trust Jane, if only just for now. She's got a good head on her shoulder, she knows how to pick her company."
Vine sat back in the bus seat, pulling out her computer. She hadn't planned on meeting Boss Man and The Team, but now she had to make sure that she didn't get busted because of it. She began to scrub, pulling data fragments and expunging more in-depth databases. She went slowly, carefully. She couldn't afford to be sloppy.
She's two hours into the bus ride when she gets the call.
"Hey," She answers, not bothering with more of a greeting than that.
"How is she?" He asks her, worried like always. Always the same question, too.
"She's fine, old man," She grimaced. "The Team's good for her."
"Good, I'm glad," He sounds the slightest bit relieved. "Rossi dropped by, before this case."
"C'mon, Robert," Vine cocked an eyebrow she was sure he could hear. "Gotta give me more than that."
"Well, he says that she's not … not remembering," He explained. "Just refamiliarizing. That's all."
"That's good," She assured him bluntly. "We don't need her to remember. We just need her to play along."
And she hung up.
