Sex, Birth, Death- 2:11

Harita's POV

You know, I'm not the type of person to ride the subway to work. Mostly I skateboard wherever I go because I get my exercise that way, and it's fun. This is why I don't ride the subway to work.:

Spencer and I were walking up the stairs from the subway platform, holding our cups of coffee, just talking about math, our usual topic. That was until a kid stopped us.

"You're Dr. Reid and Dr. Harita." A random kid pointed out. He had a bony structure and curly hair.

"I'm sorry. Do we know you?" Spencer asked.

"I just know what you do." The kid answered. I looked at Spencer and we shared a look of confused and weirdness.

"Ok…" We were about to leave, cause the kid was getting a bit creepy, but he spoke again.

"I saw you in Georgetown a few weeks ago. You two gave a lecture on sexual sadism and how you helped catch the Mill Creek Killer in St. Louis. Well, mainly Dr. Harita." The kid explained. I remembered that time. A few weeks ago, Spencer and I signed up to give the lecture, cause why not.

"I- I'm not much of a, uh- a public speaker." Spencer stuttered.

"I don't know. I thought you seemed cool." The kid admitted and Spencer smiled. I smiled too, starting to like this kid, but I was a bit suspicious.

"You look kind of young to go to Georgetown." I said.

"Um, I'm a junior at Northwest High School." The kid answered.

"And you just go to lectures on anger excitation for fun?" Spencer asked.

"I don't have a lot of friends."

"So you're interested in profiling?"

"Yeah. I mean, I read a lot, you know, true crime, like graphic novels, mostly. They're all about whether there's really such a thing as evil, like nature versus nurture, all that, so I figured it'd be smart to hear it from an expert, you know? So you said a lot of 'em kill prostitutes?"

"It's the number one serial killer target."

"Well, is that for sex or because they think they're dirty and they need to be punished?" The kid asked. That got dark pretty fast. Spencer and I looked at eachother with concerned looks.

"Were you waiting here for us?" I asked.

"What would it mean if somebody were stabbing them and cutting off their hair?" The kid questioned, ignoring my question.

"I've never, uh- I've never heard of a case like that. Do you wanna go to the BAU with us, maybe talk to some of our other team members?" I asked.

"I actually have to go to school." The kid turned around.

"Give us your name and your number, and I'll call you-" Before Spencer could finish his sentence, the kid left. Ran away.

"We have to look this kid up." I said to Spencer

"And see if he was right about the murders." The two of us ran up the stairs.

...

"Hey, Spence and Harita." JJ greeted us once we walked out of the elevator leading us to the BAU floor.

"JJ, who's your contact at the DC Police?" Spencer asked as we rushed inside.

"Uh, Victor Barnes. Why? You need me to call him?" JJ asked, but we ignored her. I ran to the closest phone and dialed the number.

"Hi. Detective Barnes, please." I said into the phone.

"What's wrong?" Gideon asked once he came over to us.

"Need to get that to everyone as soon as possible." Spencer handed him a sketch of the kid we saw. He drew it earlier, quickly. It wasn't the best, but good for now.

"Hi Detective Barnes, this is Special Agent Dr. Harita at the Behavioral Analysis Unit at Quantico. Have you had any recent murders involving prostitutes, perhaps some Jane Does? They would have been stabbed to death, and their hair would've been cut off by the killer." I asked into the phone.

"Yeah, actually, it's an active case." Detective Barnes replied.

"Okay, when was the most recent victim?" I questioned.

"Four days ago actually. May I ask why you want to know this information."

"I'll explain when I see you. I'll meet you in a half-hour." I said, hanging up the phone.

"What's going on?" Gideon asked.

"DC May have a serial killer. I think we just let him get away." Reid confessed.

…

*CUE INTRO*

(For one of the 'pictures' in the intro, imagine Harita fidgeting with a pen, looking at a map with her left eyebrow raised.)

…

"T.S. Eliot wrote, 'Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act, falls the shadow.'" - SSA Dr. Spencer Reid

…

"We found her 4 days ago in an alley off 'K Street.' Still no ID." Detective Barnes said, as he revealed the victim.

"Hey. Just got your message." Hotch said, as he walked into the room. It was Gideon, Spencer, Hotch, and I seeing the victim.

"Aaron Hotchner, VIC Barnes." Gideon introduced the two.

"What have we got?" Hotch asked.

"This is the second victim. The first one was killed 3 months ago, both in the early morning." Spencer explained.

"Both had their hair chopped?" Hotch asked.

"Uniform didn't make the connection, because he was fixated on this." Detective Barnes pulled the sheet back to reveal that the victim had the word 'HELP' carved into her stomach.

"The first victim didn't have anything carved on her?" I asked.

"Just a routine Jane Doe."

"Take a look. A lot are shallow. They're hesitation marks. He's not certain he wants to be killing." Gideon pointed.

"Makes you think the message he carved is sincere. He's asking the police to help him stop." Spencer profiled.

"Fits with your kid seeking you out. Part of him wants to get caught." Gideon matched.

"I let him go."

"We let him go." I corrected Spencer. "And we're sorry."

"We'll find him." Gideon replied.

"If both murders took place in the morning, how come there were no witnesses?" Hotch asked.

"The motels and alleys around the Capitol are notorious. People go out of their way not to look." Detective Barnes said.

…

"This is impossible." Reid sighed.

"Says you." Garcia argued.

"Come on Spencer, brighten up!" I cheered.

"How can I? There's nothing in the juvenile offender records." Spencer defended.

"So you think like a high school kid." Garcia advised. We were trying to use Garcia's database to locate the kid we met.

"I was 12, and I hadn't been through puberty when I was in high school."

"Idiot, that's why I'm here." I said.

"But you were 13 when you entered high school." Spencer argued.

"And? I was way cooler than you." I defended.

"Exactly!" Garcia exclaimed. "Harita thinks like a high school student. You think like a profiler. He said he was a junior, right?" Reid nodded.

"Well, the first rule of the teen years, when talking to an authority figure, always lie and say you're older. So, following that rule, he's probably a sophomore."

"Ok." Garica typed the information into her database.

"His coat was lamb's wool, but it didn't look vintage. It fit like it had been tailored for him. That means money. In DC, Money would mean private school." Spencer profiled.

"Look at you go!" Garica cheered.

"Even a lie has to be within the depth of your own experience, right?"

"Fair enough, fair enough."

"Pull up the district that serves northwest high. Are there any private schools within those boundaries?"

"Uh, 3." Garcia answered.

"Do any of them offer elective courses at Georgetown?" I asked.

"One. The Morton School."

"Pull up the sophomore class." I ordered.

"Ah, if I do say so myself." Garcia was scrolling through all of the student's portraits when I saw something that caught my eye.

"Wait, wait. Stop." I told her. She stopped on a picture that looked a lot like the kid.

"Nathan Harris." Reid read.

"Great name." I mumbled.

"We got him." Reid cheered.

…

"I'm Jason Gideon with the FBI. Dr. Reid, Dr. Harita, and Agent Morgan. We're looking for your son Nathan." Gideon introduced to the woman who opened the door to Nathan's home.

"Why?" The women asked.

"We just wanna ask him some questions." I explained.

"Well, not until you explain what's going on."

"Uh, your son came to talk to us this morning about a murder case." Reid pointed to me and him.

"Why would Nathan know anything about a murd-"

"No, mom, it's true." Nathan came into the view. "I- I did talk to them. Do you mind if I speak to them alone?"

"We'll stay out here, ma'am." Gideon said, walking into the house.

"Ok." Gideon and Morgan stayed with the moon while Reid and I followed Nathan inside to his room.

"I knew if you were really good, you'd find me." Nathan said, as I turned off his blaring music, as much as I loved it, now wasn't the time.

"Is that why you were waiting for us? You wanted to get caught?" Reid asked.

"What do you mean, 'get caught'?" Nathan asked. Spencer dove straight for his computer, which was opened, and on a document filled with words.

"Oh-" Nathan tried to beat Spencer, but I stopped him.

"Hey. Stay right there and keep your hands where I can see them."

"It's just the text for a graphic novel." Nathan defend.

"About killing prostitutes?" Spencer asked, as he finished reading it.

"Yeah, Jack the Ripper. It's a famous case."

"This isn't a game, child." I warned.

"I know."

"You knew specific details about a murder that hasn't been publicized." Spencer argued.

"But I didn't kill her. I just really wanted to." Nathan stated.

…

We decided to move Nathan, and bring him to the BAU, and put him in an interrogation room.

"Nathan, if you didn't do it, how'd you know the details of the murder?" I asked.

"Cause I saw the body. It was early. It was before school. She- she was dressed in red. She'd been stabbed a lot, and her hair was all chopped off."

"Where was that?"

"In an alley off of 'K Street'. They take men down there for sex. I see them do it all the time."

"What were you doing down there?" Spencer asked.

"I don't know. I just sort of end up there sometimes, you know? I- I stay out all night, and I just come back in the morning, and if my mom's at work, I don't even bother coming home."

"Why didn't you call the police?"

"I don't know."

"Nathan, the prostitutes my colleagues talked to say you watch them." I said, recalling the time Morgan and Emily told me about that.

"I'd never touch them, I just think about killing them. Look, after the lecture, I saw you at the metro stop a few times, and I thought maybe you could help me. And when Dr. Harita came along with you earlier today, I thought 'Now's my chance'." Nathan explained.

"How do you think we could help you?" Spencer questioned.

"I don't know. I saw that body, and I felt excited, and that really scared me."

"Why'd you run away from us?"

"Because I don't know, but I thought you'd say I was crazy and there was no way to stop it."

…

We got permission for Nathan to be held by the juvenile authorities overnight by his mom. Of course, she was hesitant and defensive at first, but soon she let in.

"Dr. Reid, Dr. Harita." Nathan said, as he walked up to us just before as he was about to leave. "I know I, um, don't deserve any favors, but whatever my psych eval says, you promise you'll tell me the truth?" Spencer and I nodded. "Um, my mom says a promise doesn't count unless you say it out loud."

"I promise." Reid chuckled.

"I promise too." I said, smiling.

"Ok. Thank you." Nathan left with the officers.

"Guys. I need everybody in the conference room. If Nathan Harris isn't our unsub, we need a working profile." Hotch said, as we followed him to the room. I sat down in my seat next to Spencer. "DC Police sent us these photos of the first victim. This was the unsub's first kill." The first victim was very bloody. "He held his urges in check for 3 months, and when he couldn't control them any more, he sent this message to the cops. We know the 'HELP' carving and the hesitation marks mean he was ambivalent about the kill. What we don't know is why he chopped the hair."

"He didn't take it with him. We know it's not a trophy." Morgan pointed.

"It's probably a way to minimize some of their power, robs them of their femininity." Gideon suggested.

"That fits with him killing during the early morning. It's the time when prostitutes have the least power sexually, as opposed to at night, when he might see them as being on the prowl." Reid added.

"Hey, I know we're just spitballing this here, but this profile points to Nathan Harris." Emily said.

"I don't wanna talk about Nathan Harris." Hotch argued.

"Hotch, she is right. He reached out for help. This is an adolescent kid. He's probably intimidated sexually. I don't care how many times he says he didn't do it. He knew about the last victim, and he admitted to getting off on seeing her dead." Morgan defended.

"We've got Nathan Harris. It doesn't do us any good to talk about him now. I just wanna make sure that if it's not him, we stay on top of things before it takes on a life of its own."

"All right, all right, all right. We know our unsub is a sexual sadist." Gideon started.

"The symbolism of stabbing them probably means he's impotent. And the only way he can get off is by killing." I added.

"Considering that cutting their hair and killing during the early morning both stem from feeling powerless, there's a chance his pathology's more than sexual." Reid stated.

"What do you mean?" JJ asked.

"This is DC, power's the most important commodity. Maybe this guy feels impotent in his professional life as well." Reid explained.

"But why these particular women?" Morgan asked.

"Simplest answer is the access he has." I answered.

"Well, Northwest DC has 3 major hubs of prostitution- near Florida Avenue, off Logan Circle, and McPherson Square, where the victims were found." JJ stated.

"Probably works in or around Capitol Hill." Gideon suspected.

"Well, I'll go back out on the street in the morning and see if any of these women know someone who fits that description." Emily said.

"Good. It's late. Let's go home." Hotch dismissed.

...

The next morning, there was another dead prostitute. While Gideon was giving Nathan a psych eval, the rest of us went to check out the crime scene. It was just like the last one, but instead of 'HELP' written on her stomach, it was 'FAILURE', and she was thrown into a pile of trash. Yet there was nothing we could do until we got something new. Or in this case, a new body;

Nathan went missing, so Reid, Morgan, and I hopped into one of the SUVs and went searching for him. That was until there was a new body reported. It was late at night, so this was a new MO. Also the fact that there was no message, no chopped hair, and the kill was fast, just one slash to the abs. Also this was near the Capitol Building, so that was new.

"I'd say he's getting bolder." Morgan pointed out.

"If it's the same unsub." I added.

"Think it could've been Nathan?" Reid asked.

"This kill was fast and messy. There's no cut hair, no message carved. Not to mention killing at night. None of it's our unsub's signature." Morgan pointed.

"Excuse me, Agents." An officer called out. "They found the boy you're looking for."

…

Morgan and Reid went to where Nathan was, and it was at a church. They cuffed him and brought him back to the BAU, just because he was a potential suspect. I knew he wasn't the unsub, but I also knew that it was just for a precaution. We all met up back in the conference room to go over the profile once again, cause things weren't adding up.

"First victim, he gets a taste for killing. Second, he asks the police to help stop him. By the third, he feels like they've failed him. He's already devolving. The fourth, no ritual, no message, just a brutal murder." Hotch projected each of the pictures of the victims on the TV.

"It's true that he's devolving, but this last victim definitely had a message. You don't dump a body across from the capitol building by accident." Gideon pointed.

"Especially not when a congresswoman is about to proclaim success against the crime epidemic." Emily added.

"Exactly."

"Guys, that press conference wasn't announced yet. Only someone with inside information would know that." JJ stated.

"We profiled that the unsub felt limited in his job. What's more powerless than being a bit player on the Washington show?" I explained.

"You know, if he felt like he did his part to clear the prostitutes off the street, but was never heard, he might have felt so personally betrayed that he literally had to carve his frustration out on those women." Morgan clarified.

"So the profile was right. We were just wrong about who the message was for." Reid exclaimed.

"We need to get a list of anyone who advocated on behalf of that bill." Gideon ordered.

"Prentiss, when you went back to talk to the prostitutes, did a profile ring a bell with any of them?" Hotch asked.

"A few of them described what sounded like the same man, but when I showed them mugshots, it came up empty." Emily responded.

"Let's go back to them. We're gonna need their help."

"What are you thinking about, Hotch?" Morgan asked.

"I need to get a message to Congresswoman Steyer. How quickly can we put together a press conference?" Hotch asked JJ.

"How fast do you need it?" JJ smirked.

…

And we got that press conference pretty fast, and it was a success. We also got the man. And fortunately, wasn't Nathan Harris. Ronald Weems is his name, so we went over to his house.

"We're looking for Ronald Weems." Hotch said to the woman who opened the door.

"I- I'm sorry. You just missed him. Why don't you come back in a couple hours?" The woman stuttered.

"Don't you wanna know why we're here?" Gideon asked.

"Of course. Yes. I'm sorry."

"We're investigating the murders of local prostitutes." I answered.

"I- I'm glad that Ronald is helping you with that, but I'm afraid I don't know anything about it."

"We'd just like to take a look in your husband's office. Please?" Morgan pleaded.

"Ronald doesn't allow anyone in there. I'm sorry. You really should come back." The woman insisted.

"In the last 6 months did your husband start asking you to play out sexual fantasies?" Gideon asked.

"Excuse me?"

"Possibly even berated you if you played along?" I profiled

"I don't think that's appropriate."

"When it finally stopped about a month ago, you were relieved." Hotch added.

"Ma'am, you're afraid to ask us why we're here. Now, in your heart, you know we're not here because Ronald's helping us with this investigation." Morgan sympathized.

"Good night." The woman slammed the door shut.

"You've been glad to have him leave the house at odd hours, because he's been angry and frustrated. When he comes home, he feels like the man you married again." Gideon yelled through the door. We were about to leave when she opened the door back open. "His office. Please." The wife led us to his office, and we began looking around.

"'Why won't they clean them off the street? The blood is on their hands. I see a world set free of vice and vermin, cleansed of the blood of the whores who walk the street.'" Morgan read from a paper found in Mr. Weems' drawer.

"Do you know where your husband went?" I asked Mrs. Weems.

"He said he had work to do." Mrs. Weems responded.

…

I was partnered with Emily to ask all the prostitutes if they have seen Ronald. Few walked away, others didn't even look, but in all, no one had seen him. We were about to give up when we heard someone scream down the alley. Prentiss and I looked at eachother and ran. And there we found him. Ronald Weems, all dressed in black. Reid and Hotch were pointing their guns at him. Morgan was about to arrest him when a woman came and maced Ronald. I gotta say, girls got guts. Morgan went to grab the woman and drag her out of the scene.

"She maced me." Weems yelled.

"Yeah, she did." Emily replied.

"Plus you deserved it." I added.

"They said they'd clean 'em off the streets. They lied. What was I supposed to do?" Weems yelled as he was being dragged into the police car.

…

"TS Eliot wrote between the desire and the spasm, 'Between the potency and the existence, between the essence and the descent, falls the shadow. This is the way the world ends.'"- SSA Dr. Spencer Reid

…

The juvenile authorities let Nathan go, and Reid and I went to have a talk with him. Nothing too big he just wanted to thank us for helping him. All was good, all was good. Except for the fact that Nathan tried hooking up with a prostitute, tried killing himself after. The prostitute called me, after he placed mine and Reid's cards on the table near the bed. I called the paramedics and Reid, and we arrived at the scene. Luckily, we saved his life, or that is what Gideon told me.

"But how many lives did I just kill now?" I asked Gideon.

"Profiles can be wrong, and people change Harita." Gideon consoled.

"But what if it's not. What if we're right?" I questioned, letting my pessimistic side get out.

"Then we catch him." Gideon smirked, trying to lighten up the mood. "Come on, let's go for a drive."