Hope you liked Theo's introduction. Now let me introduce another member of the team, Jackie.

I do not own Criminal Minds or its characters, including Theo.

Chapter 2: Jackie Shepherd

Jackie grinned at Theo sitting next to her. Guess he got too distracted by his little conversation with the professor to have noticed that she had sat near his usual seat.

She had been trying to make a close relationship with this guy ever since he returned. It had been a whole shock to everyone that he had faked his own death a few years back. He fooled them all thinking that he had been killed in an automobile accident. Some of the students even set up a small memorial for him.

Then suddenly he was back. Some members of the FBI explained that it was for his own protection that everyone thought that he was dead. But the rest of the story was kept a secret.

She was desperate to solve the mystery of his whole back from the dead situation. After all, the FBI had been involved with it. So it had to be important.

That was why she tried to get as close as possible to him. Of course, he seemed very annoyed by her presence. She didn't know why that was so. All she did was ask questions about his absence, talked a little about herself and tend to make sarcastic comments.

"So, what were you and Professor Gorgeous talking about?" she asked him.

He didn't look at her. "Just about last week's homework."

"False. He never gave out homework last week."

He gazed at her in annoyance. "Like you care about homework."

He did have a point. If there was anything she hated, it was homework. And Professor Reid was known to give out stacks of homework. If there wasn't homework, it was paper assignments that had to be an inch thick. Such a waste of good paper and ink.

Besides, she knew all that was needed to be a FBI profiler. You had to think like a bad guy and anticipate their next move. She could so do that. She had been playing cops and robbers ever since she was a kid, and she mostly played the robber. She could so put herself in other bad guy shoes, so long as they fit her size.

As they sat, the rest of the class walked in. Most of them were girls who only took the class because the attractive professor. Truth be told, that was the reason why she attended this class in the first place.

Even though she was majoring in criminal justice, despite her family's disapproval, she only wanted to be in professor Reid's sessions because he was good looking.

Course, she got more than what she bargained for when this professor began showing them past cases that him and the BAU worked on. It was pretty interesting stuff. They tracked down serial killers, child abductors and even terrorists. Now that was something a regular police officer doesn't see every day.

The fact that him and his team did so much more and made an even bigger impact, sparked something inside her. This could be her calling. A position at the BAU is exactly what she needed. Especially if it meant that she could prove to her family wrong about her decisions.

Both of her parents were veterans and her two older siblings were also in the military. Justin was doing his duty in Afghanistan, while Jessie was home temporarily from naval duty. They were all disappointed that she chose to study criminal justice instead of applying in the military. They all wanted her to make an impact on the world and thought that following in their footsteps would do that.

But she never was interesting in fighting wars in foreign places. She wanted to get the bad guys on her own turf. At first, she thought that police could do it. But professor Reid's classes made her think differently.

It was the FBI who handled the most important work and put the most dangerous criminals behind bars. That was something she had to be a part of.

That was when she took noticed of the sheet of paper that Theo was looking over. It was a resume. As she looked closer at it, she saw that there was a section on it about why he wanted to be part of the BAU. You didn't have to be a specialist to figure out what him and professor were really talking about.

"So, no wanted signs at the BAU?" she asked.

Theo quickly put the resume back in his backpack. "None of your business."

"Come on. You think that you're the only person in class who wants a position in that department."

"It's not a department. Being an FBI agent is a privilege. The BAU is where I feel that I need to be a part of." He sighed. "I just thought that if I showed my resume to professor Reid, he might help me."

"But he turned you down?"

"Said that I wasn't ready." He dipped his head.

Feeling sorry for him, Jackie tried to cheer him up. "Hardly anyone gets their dream job after college. See, everyone says that you have to wait around until your opportunity presents itself. Now, here's what I've learned. You have to find it on your own."

Theo looked at her.

She went on. "Do you think I'm where I am now because something found me? I made the decision to walk down this path. I'm here because I listened to my gut. It told me to step away from my family's legacy and make one of my own. Despite everything I lost, it was worth it."

"What did you lose?" Theo asked.

She didn't answer him. She wasn't ready for anyone to find out about the costs she had when she decided to go into criminal justice.

"Shepherd" professor Reid suddenly called out. She then realized that she was so busy talking to Theo that neither of them noticed that class had started. "Perhaps you can answer this question" professor Reid added. "What is the different between male serial killers vs. female serial killers?"

Jackie gulped. She did not know the answer. She should have seen this coming. Professor Reid loved to pull up sudden questions that they didn't often talk about in class. All she could do was think of what the answer could be, as the rest of the class stared at her.

That was when someone behind her shouted, "I know the answer."