[Third Person's Point of View]

"Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie!" tone of displeasure marked Emily Prentiss' voice. The brunette switched her phone from her right ear to her left one as she took a sip from her cocktail glass, "I have been calling for seven times now. I cannot believe you missed Ricardo el Bombero Caliente!" Emily complained dramatically through the phone, her Spanish accent excellent. "I know, I kind of blackmailed you into coming. But, I mean, come on! Ricardo the Sexy Firefighter? What woman would say no to that show?" Emily giggled silently at JJ and Penelope whose grinning faces had turned slightly red from alcohol. "Be straight with me, Liz. Are you still a virgin? If you are, it's okay to tell us the truth, we won't judge. But know this, I don't appreciate being stood up, girl. I fought teeth and nail over those tickets for our girls'night. By the way, you still owe me $160 for that ticket. Call me back if you don't want me to charge you a hundred more for not showing," she threatened, but it was an empty threat.

After all, Prentiss had a lot of money, and she didn't actually mind spending them, especially on her close friends.

With that, she ended the call and the girls laughed to themselves. Penelope raised her cocktail glass, her voice slurred a bit, "To our teeny tiny baby bird, Lizzie," she proposed a toast, "May she grow the balls to see male stripper naked one day."

"Hear, hear!" JJ and Emily agreed, then the three girls laughed again.

*

Two days later, the team went back to work. There was no active cases so it was a slow, agonizing administration work for the BAU team members. Derek sighed at seeing the mounting paperwork on his desk.

The handsome agent toyed with the coin on his fingers in boredom. Before he realized it, his thoughts went back to Elizabeth. Again. He wondered what his favorite girl was doing right now. Maybe she was as bored as him; in that case she would've been munching on Cheetos, or she might be spinning in her chair as she sat on it while her mind flies a million miles away.

Derek began to imagine her innocent, adorable lost face she often had when she zoned out in her own world. So sweet. If he catches her doing that, he would stop the spinning of her chair, causing the red head to gasp in surprise. Then, just as she was recovering from her dizziness by the abrupt stop, he would wrap his arms around her from behind and gave her a kiss on top of her forehead. He would then turn her in her chair to face him, and he would see her smile and blush for him.

He caught himself smiling at the memory.

His thoughts of her brought him to his most recent memory of her. That night when she led a press conference to lure out their unsub, 'The Puppeteer', as the media had called him, Derek had been holding her close to him almost half the night before they were called back in.

He always loved holding and touching her; but that night was different. A threat towards her had been present then, and that had stirred his protective instinct to another level. He couldn't sleep. He could barely think of anything else. Hell, he almost followed her into the bathroom just to keep an eye on her. So that night, he came into her room and hung out with her, just the way they often did.

But nowadays, those hang outs had meant something more for Derek. He found himself needing to be with her. To touch and talk to her. When he was happy, he loved to celebrate with her. When he was having a bad day, he would seek her comfort. When he was alone, she would star in his daydream. Before long, he began to want to kiss her lips, curious to see if he could please her the way he pleased so many other woman that he slept with. Then, he wanted to make her his.

But Derek wasn't stupid. He knew a real friend was hard to come by, and he knew Elizabeth and the authentic friendship she was offering him. She was pure and innocent. He could seduce her into his bed–that he had no doubt. But, in his own surprise, Derek felt something fierce about her. More than sex, every time he looked at her sweet, mellow face, he wanted nothing but to be her protector and shelter her from any bad things in the world.

That also meant protecting her from someone like him, because he knew she was a good girl and he would have corrupted her.

He shouldn't have done it; she wasn't his, but that night he came again just to be close to her. Unaware that he wanted her, Elizabeth innocently melted into his arms, and he felt like he was the big, bad wolf in disguise while she was the little red riding hood, falling into the arms of a beast.

Driven by the sheer need to protect her, Derek stayed on top of the covers as he held her. Who knew what might happen if he felt the silhouette of her body under that hotel bathrobe? So he kept his eyes on the screen of the tv, wishing that the ice cream they snacked on would take his mind off of the warm apricot scent of her shampoo.

Derek sighed as he closed his eyes at the memory of Elizabeth signature scent. It was as if she was made to smell like that to entice him to her. Derek began considering going to her lair now just to see her again, but held himself back.

Hell, if he wasn't being careful, he might just fall for her. And then she would reject him, and he would lose her forever. At this point, the logical thing to do was to pull away and give her some space.

"Why the long face, my chocolate god?"

Penelope's voice pulled Derek from his thoughts. He shot his blonde best friend a grin to cover up his progressive sour mood.

"Hey, momma," he flirted. "Good morning, my goddess."

Penelope gave him a tight smile in return. Derek knew his best friend. On normal days, she would respond with a 'I'll show you a good morning, hot stuff' with a seductive smirk that often got them in quite a situation where they had trouble explaining that it was nothing but harmless inside jokes between them–with Kevin, with Strauss. Even with random ladies at a hospital lobby. But today, something was bothering her.

"What's the matter, baby girl?"

"Liz doesn't come to work today. Last night she stood us up and missed the fact that I had slipped a hundred dollars drunkenly into a hot male stripper's speedo," Penelope ranted. Derek lifted an eyebrow at that, not really keen on imagining Elizabeth doing that to any man in a skimpy speedo. "I'm just worried; it's not like her. I asked Hotch, apparently she texted him that she's out of town to tend to a sick relative in Atlanta. I just... That's off that she didn't tell me or you– from the look on your face. I want to go to her apartment and just check, you know," she shrugged. Then a thought occurred to the blonde, her face fell. "…Do you think she's…?"

Drinking. Fell off the wagon.

The unsaid words and the worry on Penelope's expression got Derek.

"That doesn't sound like her," agreed Derek. He got up, too happy to procrastinate on his administrative work for now, "I'll come with you."

*

Derek had a bad feeling the moment he parked right next to Elizabeth' red, Buick Verano sedan. He could tell that Penelope was feeling the same thing, but in the light of hoping for the best, Derek reassured her. "It is likely that she went out of town in a hurry and called Uber to get to the airport."

Penelope nodded before exiting his car. The woman genius produced a key from her bag. Derek knew it was the spare key to Liz's apartment as both girls had exchanged theirs years ago.

After giving the courtesy to knock and having no one answered the door, Penelope used the key and let themselves in. Elizabeth's tiny, two bedrooms apartment was clean and tidy as per usual.

"Welp, I guess she really is out of town," mumbled Penelope. "Why didn't she say anything to us? At least leave a text or something." Penelope plopped down in Liz's couch. "I wonder if she's okay."

Despite the tidiness of her apartment, the way Elizabeth left her kitchen counter bugged Derek. There were two boxes of unopened cereal and a bag of new coffee beans sitting on top of the surface. She would have put those in the cabinet overhead, and she would definitely transfer the coffee beans into a designated air tight glass jar to keep the beans fresh.

Derek opened Liz's bedroom and looked around. Her luggage was missing. Apart from that, nothing else looked out of place, but he wasn't entirely sure. So he checked the bathroom, and that was when he noticed something out of place at her corner shelves.

While his red head friend never really seem to care about make up and clothes like most girls do, she was fond of other skin products such as toiletries and skin care. Elizabeth always organized the top corner shelf of the bathroom with face wash products, then the second level with hair products, and the bottom with body wash products. Yet at the top shelf, Derek found both shampoo and shower gel bottle where only face wash products should be.

His stomach sunk as he felt the shower gel bottle in his hands. Then the shampoo–they was still full. Unopened and new. It was odd.

Staged, even.

"Garcia–" he called, then got out to find his other best friend sat stiffly on the couch.

Penelope turned her head to look at him. Her face blanched. With a shaking hand, the woman lift a black, leather notebook that belonged to Elizabeth.

"It's her notebook. I found it under the couch," she said with trembling lips, "She's obsessed with this book. She never let a soul even a glance. She would never leave this here, unless…"

Fear crept at his spine. Derek shook his head, almost in denial as he went to the part of the apartment that he hadn't checked yet. He opened the door to the fire escape–finding the evidence of a forced entry; one that would never be found had he wasn't looking for it.

Derek's heart pounded in his chest.

Garcia appeared next to him, and upon noticing the chipped wood on the lock that Derek was too stunned to voice, she clamped her mouth with her hand, her eyes welling up with fearful tears.

"Someone took her."

"I know that we have made an agreement not to profile each other. But this time I need us to break that promise," Hotch began, his expression tight, just as the rest of BAU team. All eyes were fixed forward as the Unit Chief clicked on the remote, and Elizabeth's face appeared on the presentation screen.

Derek clenched his jaw, worry twisted his stomach at seeing Elizabeth's mellow hazel eyes on the screen. It was the picture of her FBI credential. Reluctantly he pried his eyes away from Elizabeth to look at Hotch as he continued on.

"Based on the timeline we have built, Dawson was taken from her apartment on January 13th between 5 and 9 p.m. There was a sign of forced entry, but no sign of struggle, indicating that our unsub might be using blitz attack or a use of anesthetic substances to subdue her."

Rossi added with a thoughtful voice. "The crime scene was staged to make it seem that nothing was amiss. Groceries put in the fridge, on the counter, new toiletries products in the bathroom. He didn't leave a mess in her house. He even went as far as packing her clothing into her luggage. There seem to be a certain care put into work by our unsub."

Hotch nodded. "We're looking for a distraught ex-lover or an admirer, someone from her past. Possibly male in his mid thirties or early forties," Hotch turned his eyes to Penelope. "Does Liz ever mentioned any man? Someone that she was romantically involved with?"

"No. Never," Penelope replied, her face still pale with shock at Liz's disappearance. "She's not comfortable with males other than the ones present here."

Reid nodded. "It took her years to warm up to us. She's meek, guarded, prefers to stay at the background, being invisible. I think she may had traumatic experience with men, such as physically abusive lover or father figures."

"…or sexual abuse," muttered Derek, his fist clenched with a simmering anger.

There was collective silence in the room. JJ placed a hand on Derek's shoulder and gave him a comforting squeeze, but it did nothing to soothe the storm that was raging in his heart.

"Garcia?" Hotch gave her a nod. The genius woman got the cue and stood on her high heels, making her way next to the screen. She inhaled and exhaled deeply in order to gather some semblance of calm. "Okay. So I did some background check on Lizzie. Thirty-one years old, born and raised in Chicago, an only child and an orphan, parents died in 2007 in a car crash. She's a loner, as far as social circle she only had us," Garcia said with a broken note at the end. The team knew that both Garcia and Elizabeth shared a similar backgrounds which made it easy for the two girls to relate to each other. The blonde cleared her throat. "She had no criminal record, not even a parking ticket. Graduated top of the class in college, her career started as a 9-1-1 Dispatcher in Chicago, then she joined the Chicago PD as Tech Support for a few years where she received recommendation from Chief of Police for helping thwart major damage in a case of cyberwarfare against the state that crippled the city of Chicago for almost a couple days, before joining us here in DC at the BAU."

"She's clean," JJ commented, her brow furrowed.

Derek shifted in his seat uncomfortably. Being an excellent profiler, Hotch noticed the disturbance in his agent's behavior. "Anything you want to share with the class, Morgan?"

Revealing his beloved friend's secret, even to the team, felt like an act of betrayal. But he wanted her back to him, so was Garcia. The blonde gave him a nod of encouragement, and it was all he needed to push down the guilt and went with it. "Elizabeth is a recovering alcoholic. Last year she fell off the wagon briefly after being three years sober. I just wonder how that is not implied at all in her background check."

"You said she started drinking again last year," JJ pointed out, "It might give us more insight about her from why she gave in after three years of sobriety."

"Laurel Cassidy," Penelope jumped in.

"Our arsonist unsub," Rossi nodded in recollection.

Morgan nodded. "She took Laurel Cassidy's death harder than our other victims."

Hotch nodded. "It might benefit us to go back to that case and see what could be significant about the case to Elizabeth. See if it helps us build a profile on her."

Emily butted in. "There's something bugging me about her background check, though. She's too clean. Not just because there is nothing explicitly written about her alcoholism," she rubbed her chin in deep thought, "We all know each of us come with our own baggage that we don't necessarily share with the bureau or even with our teammates. But if I didn't know any better, looking at this… neat background, I would have thought…" the brunette gestured to the screen, her voice trailed.

"What?" Derek pushed.

Emily sighed. "…It just looks like the kind of cover identity that a sleeper agent often have."

Derek scoffed, shaking his head. "Prentiss, I don't mean this in a bad way whatsoever, but she's the opposite of you. There is no way the girl had something to do with MI6 or some other intelligence agency that sends people to infiltrate an international terrorist inner circle. She hates guns. Terrible at any kind of self defense. The girl won't even hurt a bug."

Emily sighed. "I know, I know. I'm not saying that she is an international sleeper agent. But think about this, Morgan. What do I and Elizabeth have in common?"

"You are both reserved. You both seem like you can't stop running from something," Morgan said wistfully, remembering the time in which Prentiss almost got killed by someone from her past. "Each of you have secrets; you with Ian Doyle. Elizabeth with that little black notebook of hers."

"Yeah, what's in there anyway?" Rossi asked. All eyes are at Penelope now.

"I haven't gotten the chance to open it," she said reluctantly, "It feels…wrong."

"I understand. Normally we won't have to do this." Hotch stretched an arm towards her, asking for the book silently. Reluctantly, Penelope gave him the book, and everyone waited as he sifted through the pages.

"These are list of names related to the cases we encountered throughout the years," Hotch informed as he gave the book to Reid for further analysis.

The boy genius scanned through the list faster than anyone else could and gave the team a summary of his finding. "More specifically these are the names of the victims the BAU managed to save from certain deaths in which Elizabeth had a hand in helping. She had…" he peeked at the page of the book, "…sixty seven names so far."

"So it's her process in dealing with the stress that the job comes with. By remembering the names she helped save," Rossi remarked.

"Could be," Hotch nodded, before turning to Penelope. "Do you think you can dig a little deeper on Elizabeth's background? Search her computer or other devices, social networking, digital footprints. Who knows there's something more we're missing."

"Yes, sir. I also did trace Elizabeth's number. I came up empty. The unsub must have turned off the phone as soon as he sent the fake text to you."

Hotch nodded. "Of course. But keep tabs on it. If he wants to play a long game, which means better chance of survival for Elizabeth, he might turn the phone on again to make up more excuses for her," he instructed before addressing the whole team. "Meanwhile, we have the advantage that the unsub hasn't find out yet that we know she is missing. Let's keep it that way. I want a forensic unit sent to her place, but none in uniforms. We do this quietly, in case the unsub is still watching her apartment. Garcia, dig deeper. If there are ever a closed record about Elizabeth, I want to know all about it. JJ and Rossi, talk to the neighbors, see if they noticed anything different on January 13th but don't alarm them. Reid and I will oversee the forensic team. Morgan," he turned his high focus eyes on him, "You and Garcia both knew Elizabeth intimately. While I need Garcia here to do her work, I need you to pay a visit to some of the places you think she might have frequented," he said, pushing a clear bag of evidence containing a grocery receipt on the desk towards Morgan, "Starting with this one."

"…came up empty," sighed Morgan in frustration as he reported his findings to Hotch. "No one knew her. No one saw or noticed her. It's almost as if she was walking around invisible."

Hotch turned the screen in his office on and sifted through some jpeg files. "Remember you once said she hates her picture taken? You thought it's a vanity thing."

Morgan frowned. "What about it?"

"I asked Garcia to compile these." Hotch got to a folder, opening it. It all contained dozens of pictures of the team together on numerous occasions. Birthday celebrations, barbecues, Christmas. Thanksgiving. Casual hangouts at the team's favorite bar. "Look at Elizabeth in these pictures."

Both Morgan and Reid who were present, leaned closer to look at the pictures.

"None of her pictures were clear," realized Reid. "Some of them are either blurred because she moved or she had her hand covering half of her face."

"Deep down, I think we know that Elizabeth was trying to hide from something, or someone," concluded Hotch, "I guess it worked, up until recently."

Derek's stomach sunk. "The press conference of our last case," he breathed with shock. He gripped on the seat in front of him and moved to sit himself down before the weight of his guilt trampled him. "I was the one who pushed her into going live to catch our unsub."

There was a pause before Reid muttered, "I'll make a call. Make sure our unsub is still in prison."

Morgan knew that it was unlikely that The Puppeteer could escape a max prison.

"Hotch… What if we caught the wrong guy?" Derek asked in distress. If his morbid theory was true, it meant Elizabeth only have about a couple days to live before the whole team finds her dead, posed as pretty little woman in a white dress and eyes sow open; doll-like. "God–I'm going to be sick."

At this point, everyone present began to toy with the idea that their unsub, The Puppeteer as the media named him, was doing this to their friend. After all, Elizabeth was exactly his type.

Penelope Garcia's high heels clicked as she made her way to Aaron Hotchner's office. She knocked three times, almost impatiently, before entering.

"Sir, you're right," she said with a stupefied look on her face, "Elizabeth did have a closed file on her. I also made inquiries regarding Liz with Chicago Clerk's Office. There were about tens of dozens of people with the exact name Elizabeth Dawson in the past two decades within their record, but none matches her person. It's like…" Garcia swallowed thickly, "Our Elizabeth Dawson never existed."

"What?" Reid asked in disbelief, voicing the other's bafflement. "Have you tried parents' name or–"

"I did. I pulled on the record of her parents' death. But get this, they had three sons, but not a daughter, especially not one named Elizabeth Dawson."

Silence filled the room, as if everyone tried to make sense of it all. Cold that had nothing to do with the wintry weather outside slithered down Derek's spine. The team was exchanging confused look at one another, except Aaron Hotchner.

The Unit Chief of BAU was staring in deep thoughts at the screen, to the picture of a shy, sweet woman they all knew to have a gentle personality about her. Now, Hotch doubted that they even remotely knew who she was. He asked audibly to himself:

"Who are you, Elizabeth Dawson?"

*

[Author's Note: So, any theories on what happened to Elizabeth? Leave a comment, kudos, like and vote if you enjoy (or hate lol) this story. Your comments give me strength. Thanks for reading!]