DATE UNKNOWN | LOCATION UNKNOWN
In the crawling minutes and hours that had passed after they eased Spencer on his right side and left him, he spent them doleful, nauseated, sensitized, and—worst of all—yearning for their proximity again.

But now—many hours later—he was calmed, exhausted, and while the clarity had returned, he was unable to concentrate on anything for too long. Yet those words—Jason's words—echoed in full.

He cannot break you.

Jason had saved him before—many years ago—when there was only a seed of something forming between them. Although Jason never knew why or to what capacity, he was an incisive enough man that Spencer believed he might've had an inkling.

When it truly counted, Jason's advice was always sagacious. Spencer wouldn't deny this.

And so the words helped to demolish a wall that was forming within him. If he kept repeating them—he cannot break you, he cannot break you, he cannot break you—then he could continue to believe in them despite his fears: that they would break him.

He had to believe Jason. He had to.

So, he thought over what had occurred during these last few days, wading through the muck of the many things they were doing to make him break under their coercive methods.

He was consumed with shame.

He'd been emotionally manipulated to find his excessive punishment acceptable for the small infraction he'd committed.

He knew exactly what they were doing. Showing benevolence after such an extreme punishment, extending kindness after having been so harsh, giving affection after having doled out such aggression, reasoning with him on why such an excessiveness had been a necessity, professing to have hated going to such extremes to teach him a lesson—these were things that would cause his resolve to waver and make him more pliable. Whether it was intentional or not, it would work. It would eventually work.

The fact that their mastery at manipulation was well-practiced and well-honed shouldn't surprise to him at this point, but he kept finding himself in constant awe.

He wanted to continue his resistance, but at this point, any sane person would reason within themselves that they would prefer the good over the bad. A person in stressful conditions would rightfully avoid any pain, default to the easier route.

If he continued to receive these inordinate penalties for such small offences followed by the extraordinary care and tending, they would wear him down until he was in a place of complete compliance of their wishes, where his actions would manifest in a way that he showed a willingness to please them. He'd lost himself in the moment—in the span of four days—and he needed to remember himself.

That, and anyone, anyone looking in on what he had experienced after he was tortured—anyone seeing how he was handled in the tub afterwards—would have undeniably called out what he went through as what it was: sexual assault. What he had gone through were the acts of one covertly abusing another and masking it as something innocuous. This type of abuse was usually done to children, and he began to wonder what their son might have suffered or if—maybe—he had been spared these things.

Spencer hoped, for their son's sake, that they enacted these things on surrogates and not upon him. To break such a bond of trust was to ruin a child's innocence.

Am I being excessive? Could it just be that they were showing considerable care after such a harsh ordeal? Could this have been a manifestation of their guilt? It . . . must have been taxing on them both. If they did these things often enough with their previous victims, they risk developing tendonitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, or other injuries related to this kind of intense, bone- and muscle-deep kneading. Hands are . . . these are the only means of communication and—

He shook his head.

No. No. It was inappropriate. No excuses. It was highly inappropriate. It was.

Inappropriate, yes, yet unbearably good. The physicality of their touch, the peculiar but charming, constant vision he saw before him, the warmth, and the genuine affection for these two—it all left him nauseated with its intensity, and he fought it for many hours afterwards.

He feared how much this would escalate before he might be raped. Was it still an inevitability, or might he be able to avoid it altogether if he behaved? Every touch had—for nearly four weeks—four!—remained benign up until what happened in the tub hours ago.

But he shouldn't delude himself. The truth of the matter was that he was allowing these things, consenting to them by maintaining compliance, and they were pushing boundaries. No touch was benign because this was all against his will. To force him to use touch as the only means of communication was to further blur these lines.

He was filled with self-loathing in this moment. This wasn't the first or even second time he'd allowed such a thing to be done to him, a lowering of his inhibitions.

He half wished it would happen already—the deep first cut—so that he wouldn't have to remain in such dreadful anticipation of being raped.

Shaking his head again to dispel the irrational notion, he went back on the entire ordeal.

It had been humiliating, and he had predicted that they might punish him in this way. When he had tried to avoid his shame by throwing his own excrement away from him, they made sure to remind him of it—and made sure that he was aware of what he had done, of how disgusting and unclean the act was.

They neglected him—starved him, let him to urinate and defecate on himself. His face was forced into the malodorous fabrics after he'd removed them from the bed to further remind him of just how shameful he was. And then they beat him afterwards whipped him, disciplined him.

Removing his tooth was that reminder that he ought to watch his tongue, a weight heavier than the proverbial taste of soap in his mouth. That burning vinegar seared that discipline down to his bones. The latter wasn't an uncommon means of abuse from what he'd read.

All because he refused to acknowledge that the woman was his mother.

It was pure tyranny. There was no other way to describe it. Terrorization.

He had feared this mere weeks ago. Now, he was beginning to understand the breadth and width of what Noah and the other victims suffered, and he was merely at the start, he knew.

He wanted to resist it all, but his cooperation and maintaining a calm temperament might be the only things to keep him safe. This punishment served as a reminder to himself that compliance would preserve his life. Lie. Behave and survive. Call her mother if necessary, because that simple act would prevent him from getting hurt.

God . . . he didn't want to be hurt in such a manner again or suffer such degradation.

So he had to keep reminding himself.

He knew who and what he was, he knew he must survive, he would remember who his friends and family were.

But.

He wondered if they were still looking for him. Did they think him dead? Were they even still a unit? Perhaps they didn't have the same imperative to find him as they had in the early stages of his abduction. If that were the case, he was as good as dead, trapped in this situation until his captors decided they were done with him.

He shouldn't think that way.

And yet.


THURSDAY, MAY 30, 2013–ONWARDS
The unit, still only consisting of Aaron, David, Jennifer, and Derek in the field, were currently en route to Glendale, Arizona, where they would be fielding a case of two women, both blonde, both low-risk, who were raped, shot in the heart, and left in a local park in a strange prayer pose post-mortem—all within a three-day span.

"So this prayer pose is somethin' else," David said in chagrin, swiping his finger over the tablet in his lap. He then sighed with a distinct disdain for the memories that were conjured. "Maybe it's religious. It looks like they're leaning on a cross. Maybe he made them beg for their lives, and after they died, their hands clenched up in that position in rigor mortis."

Jennifer blinked at David. "Do we think they're possibly praying to atone for their sins?"

"Well since there's a sexual component to this," Aaron began in answer, "maybe the unsub made them beg during the transgressive act or made them beg for their lives before killing them." He looked up at his three teammates. "It could be symbolic. Either way, he's getting off on the power."

Derek said it outright. "Both these women were left in parks. The dumpsites could be symbolic, too. A lot of religions are based in nature, celebrating the outdoors."

He, too, had been doing more research on this in the days that Spencer went missing. The potential significance given to the location of the previous victims' burials was now branded into his mind.

Jennifer considered it, nodding. "Right. And people often feel closer to God when they're out in nature."

A great quiet settled over the plane.

"I know where this might lead," Aaron began, "and I understand where your concern is, but shelve this for now so that we can concentrate on these victims and this unsub."

The two nodded, but Jennifer glanced at Derek with uninhibited concern and care.

It was David who spoke, bringing them back to task. "Maybe the unsub believes they're surrogates for a woman who cheated on him or rejected him. It's all high-risk behavior: he abducts and controls them, takes them to secluded locations, rapes them, and kills them within a twelve-hour span."

Derek closed his eyes and sucked in a quiet, calming breath. But upon opening his eyes again due to the quiet that settled upon the jet, it was obvious that he wasn't the only one who had such thoughts passing through his mind.

Jennifer's hand was tucked under her neck, and, again, she was unable to lift her eyes from the papers below her.

Derek's voice was tight. "We know he has a gun, the ability to abduct his victims, take them to . . . to a lair, and then discard them."

"So he probably has a van or SUV," David stated.

"And he's planned things out, too," Jennifer murmured softly. "He abducted one victim on her way to a theater, another one from her apartment."

The planning. The work.

"So he stalks them." Again, it was David who spoke, voice gritting out with the weight of understanding that the same thing had been done to Spencer.

Derek blinked something out of his eyes and his jaws clenched as he sat forward. "Yeah, I need a minute," he gritted out before getting up from his seat and going to the bathroom.

The three looked after him as he disappeared behind the door.

When it closed, Jennifer turned back to Aaron and David. "I'm sorry," she started. "I just can't shut it off, Hotch. Derek can't either, obviously."

"You don't need to apologize," Aaron responded.

"No, I do," Jennifer insisted. "You're trying to keep our heads together, Hotch, and keep our heads in the game. You're trying to keep us from falling apart. We're sorta at the end of our rope."

Aaron's throat tightened, grateful for her vocal appreciation. He had to lower his gaze for a moment from the rush of warmth that washed through him. When he raised his eyes again to meet hers, he was unable to keep his expression passive, breaking instead into a gentle smile as a heat built behind his eyes.

He had an encounter just days ago that he was still trying to wrap his mind around. With Jennifer's words, he was reminded of the whiplash of emotions he felt upon having that encounter. Now wasn't the time to discuss or dwell on it, but perhaps later—after this case.

When Derek sat back down, he gave his head a single shake. "Sorry about that."

"Oof," Jennifer scrunched her face in mock-uneasiness, hissing as she gripped Derek's wrist. "Don't say that now. Hotch won't allow it."

"She's not wrong," Aaron quipped, quirking a brow. "She already tried. And I didn't accept because you don't need to apologize."

David hummed. "I've told Aaron before—I feel like I'm married to this team, more than I was to my three ex-wives."

"Ack. That doesn't bode well, then," Jennifer joked, endeavoring to lighten things.

"Ey, watch yourself, kiddo," David cracked, pointing a finger but smiling. And then he clasped his lips together, sighing out. "Your pain is valid. Both of yours. All of ours. We're a family. The grief will ebb and flow, and we're allowed to feel it."

Derek's bearing was shielded, but he gave a fleeting tick of his eyebrows, eyes averted to his tablet.

"We can't let this affect our productivity, though," David continued with the dip of his head. "So. Onward with this case."

"Onward with the case," Jennifer agreed softly.

"The disposals of the victims," Derek began, diving back in, "is that he wants them to be found so that whatever is going on with this prayer pose conveys a message. The parks should give us behavioral clues to help fill out the profile."

"We should split up when we hit the ground," Aaron asserted, looking back down at the files. "He's probably already chosen his next victim." He then looked back up at Derek and Jennifer.

Jennifer looked away uneasily, nodding.

Derek still hadn't looked up, and he shook his head in resignation.

They met at the precinct with Sergeant Johnson, a towering woman with a severe, no-nonsense intensity under her dark brows. "I've increased the manpower on the street," she said as she walked them through the bullpen to the conference room. "I was even thinking about doing a press conference."

"At this point," Aaron began in objection, "it'd be better if we could conduct our analysis without media interference."

Jennifer, nodding in agreement, then gave a sweeping glance through the bullpen. "We'll need a separate room to do interviews."

Sergeant Johnson—amenable to the suggestion—pointed beyond the two and mentioned they could use one across the bullpen. In that same moment, one of her officers approached and gave the door a couple of raps. "Sergeant?"

"Yeah?"

"Another vic, Emma Coleman, was found in Bonsall Park," the officer informed her.

The sergeant's face scrunched in distaste. "That's bold. It's only a mile from here."

"I'll reroute Morgan and Rossi to the scene," Aaron said as he pulled out his phone.

After Derek and David changed their route to make their way to the newest crime scene, and as they narrowed the comfort zone down to a three-mile radius, Derek parked the car and they stepped out. "Rossi, man, how are you holding up with all this? With Reid. It's just. You know you're"—he swiped his hand in front of his face without changing a flattened expression—"can't always read past the dry face. I know it's just your distinct Rossi thing but—"

"Do I sense you're profiling me, Morgan?" David quipped with a gentle quirk of his lip as he lifted the crime scene tape to let Derek walk through.

Derek puffed at a breath, giving a little smile. "C'mon, man. Inter-team profiling is sorta our thing."

David refrained from giving a bark of laughter, considering that they were nearing they dumpsite. "Lord—don't I know it. But. Day by day for me."

"I wish it was that easy for me, man. You're keepin' it together."

"Whoa, whoa." David put up a halting hand as he turned to his colleague and stopped walking. "This isn't easy for me, Morgan. Don't be fooled. I'm just trying not to let this get to my work. You need to realize something, Morgan."

"What's that?" Derek said as he turned and continued walking to the crime scene.

"You and I have led vastly different lives," David answered, walking shoulder to shoulder with Derek. "You have a personal connection with Reid's predicament, so this is affecting you on a more personal level."

Derek sucked in a breath. Leave it to David to just say things outright.

"You've barely had time to process the trauma that was dug up recently, you know? Seeing Buford again, confronting him after all this time—probably kicked up some buried feelings, yeah? On top of that, you and the kid are close. This is hurting you in a very different place. You're a classic protector."

All Derek could muster was a hum of agreement.

They came upon Emma's dead body and began to discuss the difference between her and the other two victims: she was a brunette and was married—by the abandoned wedding band a few feet away—whereas the other victims were single and blonde. She had also vomited a little further from where her body was.

Per Emma's husband, their relationship hadn't been doing well due to an extramarital affair, and they wondered if that might have extended to Sarah Beck and Jill Elks as well instead of Emma being the outlier. They set Penelope to work to dig up anything she could on Emma.

Within a few more hours Aaron stared upon the dead body of Emma in the morgue. According to the ME, she'd been raped repeatedly, with multiple lacerations to the genitalia, before she was shot in the same manner as the previous victims. When she found a tooth within Emma's stomach contents—even though it wasn't her own, Aaron's stomach had lurched into his throat, and he had to fight within himself to dispel Spencer's visage from beneath him on the slab and replace it with that of the current victim.

The tooth, though, wasn't Emma's, and Aaron latched on to that uncanny bit of information to file for this unsub.

The next morning began with yet a fourth victim—another brunette. Without a doubt, the victim pool was expanding.

Jennifer and Aaron were at the crime scene, and while Jennifer was speaking with Emma's friend, Aaron peered at the body after the scene was processed.

"So she vomited here, too, Sergeant," he murmured, waving a pointing finger around a flagged spot on the ground.

"Hey, so, I talked to Emma's best friend," Jennifer began as she reengaged with the two. "She knew the lover's name." She sighed. "Turns out he was outta town for all the kills and his alibi checks out."

Aaron sighed but kept on with what he was doing as something caught his interest in this victim's mouth.

"What's going on there, Hotch?"

"I'm . . . not sure." His fingers prodded at her lips. "It looks like she may have choked on something, though. Perhaps when she was vomiting." He was finally able to press his fingers in gave a little tug, and—

"Oh god," Jennifer gasped out. "Please don't tell me that's . . . is that tongue hers?"

With another tuck at her mouth and after pulling the tongue out and holding it in his blue glove, Aaron shook his head. "It's not. Still from the head region, though."

"But who's the source?" Sergeant Johnson wondered, nose wrinkling in distaste.

"Well, he either has a job working with dead bodies," Jennifer reasoned, crossing her arms, "or that"—she swallowed—"that tongue is from his first victim who we haven't found yet."

"If we stick with the religious theory, it could be some sort of communion," Aaron suggested, still holding the tongue in his gloved hand. The idea of . . . body of Christ or something along those lines." He spread his hand. "I'll just give this to the guys back there, see if they can get DNA so that we can identify this victim to lead us to the unsub."

"Mm," the Sergeant hummed.

Aaron sighed. "I think we're ready to give the profile. This signature is disturbing and significant to his own fulfillment."

The ME confirmed that the previous victims, Sarah and Jill, also had skull fragments and human remains in their systems. It was a projected cannibalism, which indicated that they were dealing with a sadistic perpetrator.

It was heinous and pointed to a severely delusional person who saw himself as a judge, jury, and executioner with a supercilious, overdeveloped sense of morality. Shooting the victim in the heart suggested that the unsub had been hurt by a woman and he was focusing his rage on other women by extension. Although each criminal was his or her own individual—with individual circumstances and issues—they always seemed to come from the same general mold.

And while they thought that there was some misguided sense of morality, the wondered how much the religious aspect truly played into the profile. Penelope continued to run background searches in this vein, but since there were facets of this train of thinking that didn't quite click with their theorizing, and they elected not to force such a theory to fruition if it wasn't holding much water.

Many hours later, the DNA results came back, confirming that all the cannibalized body parts were from the same person, specifically from the head.

They had Penelope work up a list of missing people in the area. When the results came back with nothing viable, they had her expand her search to see about others who had connections to Glendale.

They found someone—Heather Clarke—from Phoenix. She'd been missing for two weeks, and six days prior to her going missing, it was announced that she was engaged. It might have triggered the unsub. She had a DNA sample, and it matched that of the body parts being fed to the other women. So they dug into her life, and found that her parents had filed a restraining order when she was sixteen after breaking up with a like-aged young boy named Wallace Hines.

He'd become unhinged afterwards and ended up being institutionalized for over a decade off and on, suffering from acute delusional disorder. He lived right in the comfort zone, having moved there recently after leaving his mother's home. The signs pointed so very clearly to this man being their unsub, and they were confident in pursing his arrest.

They split up, going to his home and his mother's home. Finding him at neither of the locations, they tried his workplace.

Before they arrived, his delusion had gone so far that he began feeding the head of Heather Clarke to a party of patrons where he worked, terrorized them, threatened to kill one of them with a meat cleaver, and shot a security guard.

Aaron and David pursued him through the mall. An APB was put out for him, a local officer spotted him driving in a black vehicle, and Derek and Jennifer—who were traveling by car—were not far to pursue him, weaving in and out of traffic to catch up to him. Derek crashed his vehicle into Wallace's to put an end to the chase.

They arrested Wallace without incident, packed up, and it was now the early evening with them on the jet, not long before dawn would set in.

Another successful case solved without Alex and Spencer.

Derek and Jennifer seemed troubled, though.

Derek said it himself. "I don't like how this case ended."

Jennifer shook her head. "I don't either. Something's off."

Aaron regarded his unsettled colleagues and was pulled back into his contemplation when they first started working this case. Earlier, Jennifer had mentioned that they were barely keeping themselves together, that she felt that—collectively—they were at the end of their rope. They were being too hard on themselves, and he continued to be of the mind that all of this reflected on him.

He had met with Mr and Mrs Donovan a few days ago following the initial botched call. Their bearings had been aloof. Mrs Donovan had been composed, taking the sealed evidence envelope without looking at its contents, puffing out a long and loud nasal breath.

Despite their bearings, Mrs Donovan had apologized to Aaron for the brisk comment she had made.

'Your job comes with casualties,' she had said. 'We've—I've been . . . I've done some research on your team. Successes and failures. What you've done to help victims, and how, at times, there were tragedies that you weren't able to avoid.' With a dry swallow, she had continued, 'We just wish that the latter hadn't been the case for us. But. Per one famous man's words, Life is a kind of Labyrinth, with all its twists and turns, its straight paths and . . . and its occasional dead ends.'

Her eyes had glistened, at that final statement, and Aaron had taken her hand and again expressed his apologies as she moaned, pressing her face into her husband's chest.

Just before she had left, though, Mary had then swallowed again, her voice but a whisper. 'We've dug a lot. We've caught things. Recent things. On the news. Through various media. We know that you were all in New Jersey. We've seen speculation about the missing law official.' She cleared her throat. 'Whatever . . . complications that Dr Reid is being met with, we'—she had then swallowed again with some difficulty—'we sincerely hope the best outcome for him. You don't need to ask for our discretion. You already have it.'

Those words had validated Aaron, for in the days following the initial phone call with Mrs Donovan, her frank, stinging comment had percolated in his mind.

He was beginning to question every failure since he had become the unit chief years ago. There were far too many—from his failed marriage to his murdered wife; from the personal attack on Jason to his departure; and far too many more things since; and still there was an ever-looming worry about The Replicator. It was all wearing on him.

So Mrs Donovan's last remark to him—acknowledging the difficulties of the job—was encouraging, and it gave him a small pep he needed.

They were good people.

By extension, knowing Spencer, Aaron knew that Maeve, too, was a good person, and it made the hurt in him manifest deeper for Spencer's loss.

This, however, didn't diminish Aaron's desire to get ahead of things. Erin Strauss wasn't wrong. This team wasn't conventional and continued to skirt around the rules. It wouldn't be tolerated forever. So he was trying to navigate a path, chart a course for the future What-ifs in case his position was jeopardized or if the positions of members of this team was jeopardized—find alternative options that would prevent a break-up or bring in an outsider who would question every move that this team might make. In truth, he loved their symbiosis.

Naturally, he reached out to erstwhile friends and gauged where they might fit into this planning and formulating . Some just wouldn't pan out. But he was determined to make things work out with this team. That started, internally, by keeping up their morale. None of this self-doubt lark.

If Mrs Donovan—an outsider—had boosted his mood, he wouldn't withhold extending appreciation to those under his purview.

"You all did a great job with this case," Aaron acknowledged, looking out at them.

The heads turned to Aaron.

"I want to let you know that," Aaron affirmed. "And I want you to know that anytime you need to decompress, please don't hesitate. This is a judgement-free zone."

"The same should go for you, man," Derek said. "What's your take on all of this, Hotch?"

Aaron tipped his head. "It isn't easy," he said honestly. "I worked closely with training Reid once he graduated from the Academy and he was a training agent. You remember this, Derek."

Derek laughed fondly. "Ah, yeah."

After Spencer had graduated from the FBI Academy, the Bureau felt that while he was promising, he was still too young and too fresh at the cusp of 22 to be out in the field, especially with no experience whatsoever.

Jason agreed. Spencer's intellect wasn't in question—it was deficits in other areas. Specifically, his lack of tact dealing with people—potential victims or other members in law enforcement. For example, he was confident in being most qualified for the job of breaking bad news to someone, as he could divorce himself emotionally from the situation. Jason had to guide him away from this reasoning and have him understand the need for empathy—towards the victims, law enforcement, and towards the unsubs. And felt he needed more tutelage. Field experience would come in time.

So, as a matter of course, Spencer was put on desk duty at the NCAVC—per Jason's advice—as an unofficial-but-publicly-official new member of the unit. There, he was to hone skills that wouldn't necessarily be needed directly in the field or when confronting suspects yet—geographical profiling, graphology, statistics, forensic linguistics, and further delve into kinesthetic communication, looking at these things in varying angles of victimology and then within the realms of the offender profile.

'Not everything's about statistics, Reid,' Jason had chided him. 'People are people. Victims are people. Even unsubs are people. They're not data points, they aren't quantifiable. Humans are ever shifting. You're ever shifting. Find out why such-and-such is so important to so-and-so. Understand why.'

Aaron was selected to be Spencer's training agent. For months, Aaron, Jason, and Derek watched over Spencer closely, consulted with him, assisted him further in physical or arms training.

Months later, things went down with the Boston Bombing incident, and among the six that were killed was one of their own from their team. Derek had luckily been visiting his mother and sisters during that case. They were down an agent, and Jason went on a six-month sabbatical during his major depressive episode. Themselves at a deficit, they felt that after those many months, Spencer might be ready to take his official place in the BAU. So, after six months on desk duty, SA Spencer Reid officially became a field agent of the BAU.

'I feel inadequate without a gun,' Spencer had told Aaron and Derek huffily on their first assignment with him, that of The Blue Ridge Strangler. 'People won't take me seriously. Morgan can't stop calling me kid. I know he's not demeaning me, but the others . . .'

It was upon that statement that Aaron made sure that he introduced Spencer with the title of Doctor, curtailing anyone's desire to want to belittle him—much.

"I lead this team," Aaron continued, "so anything that happens is on me. It's been nine and a half years that I've known Reid." He smiled. "I've seen him grow from this awkward, mousy giant into a slightly less awkward, ratty giant." He chuckled, and everyone barked in laughter. His smile sobered, though. "I feel responsible for him."

David rolled his eyes long-sufferingly. "Oy, don't start this up again, with that ego."

"You can't always think like that, man," Derek agreed. "Like you always say, some things have their own momentum. We couldn't have possibly anticipated what happened to Blake and Reid."

"It's not just that," Aaron said, eyes gliding down. "There's what happened to Maeve, too. I gave him my word that we would help him end it."

They were silent. They had all, essentially, given him their word. They always put their best foot forward for each other. But some things were unavoidable.

Aaron sucked in a breath and sat back. "About a week and a half ago, the Donovans got into contact with me."

"They contacted you?" Jennifer parroted in disbelief.

"M'yeah. They wanted to pick up the last of the evidence from the DC Field Office Evidence Unit," Aaron confirmed.

"Ah. The letter," David said.

"Yes. And they wanted to get into contact with Reid."

Jennifer's brows lifted. "Why?"

Aaron shook his head. "I couldn't possibly know, but . . . each person needs closure in different ways. Dave was with me the evening I told them that Maeve had been murdered."

"Mm. Yep," David said. "Took them a little while to calm, but they were adamant to know about the series of events. So we told 'em. Maybe they wanna get more insight from Spencer himself. They knew that he'd offered himself to Diane for Maeve's life."

"And he knew her for almost a year," Derek murmured. "So they knew that Reid and Maeve were close."

"What did you tell them?" Jennifer asked.

"I told Mrs Donovan that, uh, due to a complication, Reid wasn't currently at his post and wouldn't be available to speak with them."

"Oofa." David winced. "A complication."

Aaron shook his head. "I know," he said self-deprecatingly. "A poor choice of words."

"What?" Derek asked, brows furrowing. "That was the most neutral answer you could have given her without giving anything away."

"Mm, no," Aaron rebutted. "When I told them that Maeve had been murdered, I prefaced it by telling them that there was a complication."

Jennifer tipped her head, clenching her teeth and hissing uneasily "Ah. She caught onto it."

"She did." Aaron nodded.

"It didn't go well," Jennifer postulated.

"It did not. I think she may have thought the worst upon that statement, but this past Monday we met so that I could get the evidence over to her. Basically, she knows. She's put two and two together because she's been following the news and keeping tabs on us."

"Ugh, damn." Derek shook his head.

"Mm." Aaron startled when his phone rang. He picked it up. "Hotchner." He paused, listening. "Yes."

A grim shadow came over his face.

The three thought the worst. They found him. They found Spencer.

He was dead.

"I'm sorry?" Aaron began to sit forward and get up from the seat. "Thank you."

"Hotch," Jennifer's voice was weak and shook with the singular word.

Aaron licked his lips. "We got the wrong guy."

"What?" the three asked in unison.

"The fingerprints at the restaurant don't match."

The plane turned around after Aaron went to the cockpit to inform their pilot.

Twins. Identical twins. They hadn't expected it at all.

Jesse Gentry, the identical twin brother of Wallace Hines, was the wrongful arrestee. Mark Anderson, Jesse's lawyer, spoke before the news media outlet with a strong and sensational castigation against the police department and the Federal Bureau of Investigations:

"Let me say it again for the cheap seats. My client is innocent of these charges. He's been wrongfully arrested for crimes he did not commit. This is a case of the Glendale Police Department, and especially the FBI, jumping the gun. Why? Because profiling doesn't work, people. Racial profiling, behavioral profiling—whatever. When you rely on a set of assumptions instead of facts, you arrest the wrong people."

It wasn't very good. And the lawyer continued, lambasting the unit:

"They've done such a bang-up job of profiling that less than a month ago, a law official went missing on their watch during one of their cases, that of The Linen Assassin or The Stokes State Slayer—whatever people are calling the perpetrator or perpetrators—and is thought to have been abducted by their unsub, or whatever they prefer to call perpetrators. That happened under their purview. And that law official is apparently still missing.

"If they relied on more tangible things—facts—other than just profiling, then they might not have experienced such a casualty. During that case, they detained the wrong perpetrator due to their expert profiling, and the case has since gone cold. This same unit has now just arrested the wrong man again—my client. Again, people, profiling is a bunch of conjecture."

The light that shone on the team—and by extension, the FBI—was unfavorable.

Erin wasn't pleased.

The director wasn't pleased.

This was turning out to be another terrible debacle, and far too soon after what happened in New Jersey. Anderson threatened them with lawsuits for any defamation against his client.

Erin Strauss did just as she professed she would do the next time something like this happened. "This is your problem. Fix this. Immediately," she groused into the phone.

In the next couple of days, though, the case took far too many strange turns, some predictable, some far beyond what they thought would occur:

After Jesse was released from custody, it seemed that he sought out his twin brother, since surveillance lost eyes on him. They had expected this on the off chance that he might have some type of amoral disposition or inclination. Later, however, he murdered a woman who had a twin of her own. It moved the team to speculate that Jesse didn't have pure motives for his own twin—that the woman he'd murdered was a surrogate—a preparation for his intended target.

But in short timing, the two brothers abducted, raped, then shot another woman.

And then the mother, Carla Hines, came back into the picture. She seemed to have set up a ploy with Jesse to take Wallace out of the picture because she felt cheated out of being the perfect mother and having a perfect life. Mark Anderson, Jesse's lawyer, had known that Carla and Jesse were colluding with each other, though he hadn't quite known the extent of that nefarious collusion.

It was a lot to soak in, like something taken out of a badly-written crime novel. With the father an unstable, mentally ill man, they had to work with what they had.

The case ended poorly, in the very same church where Jesse had been adopted. The arrived too late. Behind closed doors and not fully knowing the extent of the events, Carla was murdered by one of the two, and then they turned on each other—one with a bullet to the chest, and the other with a cleaver stuck between his throat and clavicle that nearly severed his head. It was an ironic end for the two.

Fortunately, the light turned back in favor of the BAU in the public's eyes—two sadistic rapists and killers were no longer in the picture (although it would have been better had they been arrested), and a scheming mother who had planned to kill her own son was, too. And in the end, their profile had been right.

It didn't matter though. Now the New Jersey case touched Phoenix, Arizona, where its uncontained publicity spread. They in the west seemed to favor the latter epithet of The Stokes State Slayers.

And back on the jet the team sat, flying to their hub.

All of them were taking a drink to calm themselves after the case.

David walked toward Aaron with two Old-Fashions in his hands. He extended one to his colleague. "Pretty impressive."

"Mm." Aaron, taking the drink, couldn't hide his relief as he ticked his eyebrows upward in agreement.

"A case that could have ended with egg on our face turns out to be one of those Did you hear about this? stories on the internet."

Jennifer grimaced. "Yeah, but unfortunately, now everyone's attention is back on the case in Jersey. We're trending on twitter again, as are those hashtags, and that video from the night Spence was taken."

Derek shook his head. "That's gonna be troublesome."

"They'll get tangential and die off again. They always do," Aaron assured them. "Let's take our victories where we can. Either way, Erin, the director, and even the Attorney General are pleased with this overall outcome," Aaron said. "That works in our favor."

"Oof." Jennifer tipped her head into her fist, arm propped on her bent knee. "What a relief. This could have gone so badly. We need as many favors as we can get"

"Twins, though." Derek, shook his head, exasperated. "What are the odds?"

"I'm sure that the kid would be able to tell you the exact answer," David said fondly.

"Wouldn't he, though?" Jennifer agreed. She puffed out a soft laugh. He would give them the odds, the statistics, lay bare the fascinating psychology of it all. A memory pushed forward in her mind. "Oh my god. And?" she started, grinning. "In this case, it was evil twin, eviler twin."

"Oh, damn." Derek—everyone—laughed, warmly recalling the memory.

Jennifer was in throes of laughter until there were tears in her eyes, and until her laughter turned into a single, wracking sob, and she covered her face with her hands.

Derek's hand braced her neck as she doubled over, thumb tapping gently. He couldn't bear to look at her and leaned his head back, but he kept his hand there.

"I hope we get to tell him." Her voice was muffled behind her hands. "I hope we get to tell him one day." She gasped. "Oh, Spence."

No one could speak.

"I need to hear him laugh. Talk. Anything. He needs to be okay. I hope we get to tell him."

The silence stretched before David broke it. "We will, kid," he said with conviction as he, too, braced his hand on her back. "We will."

Aaron looked at the three, and David's eyes fell onto his. His vision of them all blurred as his face heated.


WASHINGTON, DC
True to James' word, he didn't pressure Alex for a decision regarding the position at Harvard. Not once did he mention it.

It was now two weeks since the very conversation. Alex was grateful for the time to think it over. The evening that they'd had the conversation, she didn't even have to think about it. She didn't. Spencer needed her, and her decision had been made before she'd even hit her pillow that night that her husband returned. Despite this, she liked to let things percolate and stew a little, weigh all options with a clear mind and not with emotional decisions.

But as the days passed and as she spent more time with her husband, who assisted her in her recovery and therapy, who comforted her during the day and warmed her in the evenings, the decision she had made began to falter. She liked being with her husband. She liked the nonsense. She liked their effortless discussions. Hell, she liked the monotony.

She didn't want the gnawing worry to continue clawing at her. She didn't want to feel a rage at what was done to her and Spencer. Yet, guilt that she might find solace in something—enough solace to distract her—also gnawed at her. The push-pull was tiring, and she sought to escape it.

It wasn't until this morning that her focus realigned, and it had been the simplest thing that realigned it. She and James were doing the crossword puzzle together.

"Eleven letters; anxiety synonym," James said.

"Eleven letters; anxiety synonym," Alex repeated in a drawl. She pursed her lips and ticked off her fingers for a moment. "Nervousness."

"Nope."

"Disturbance."

"Mm-no. Try again."

"Con . . . cernment?"

"Want a hint?"

"Absolutely not. Give me a second." Alex racked her brain quickly, going through a trove of words. "Is this going down or across?"

"Wouldn't that be a hint?"

"Ugh, yes, it would. Don't tell me." Her fingers ticked away as she sought to solve it. And then it came to her. The Q in there gave it away. "Ah. Obvious. Disquie—"

"—tude, yep. Atta girl."

Alex's mind took her back.

'How do I say disquietude?'

'I just feel . . . disrupted. I feel like my life has been disrupted? I'm not not able to . . . 'I'm not able to traverse this.'

"Hey, lady, you alright?" James gave her a soft, playful rap on the head with the newspaper.

Alex blinked. The words rushed out; the crossword puzzle was forgotten. "We can go visit Harvard together, James."

He perked in the seat and the crow's feet at the corner of his eyes crinkled with his excitement. "You're gonna come, then? To teach at Harvard?"

Alex gave him a warm smile. "On holidays. And weekends. But I'm needed here now."

"Alex . . ." he began to object.

"You have me for a few months yet, James. And when you get there, Boston will be much closer than South Sandistan."

A medley of emotions flitted across his face and landed on impassivity. He licked his lips, swallowed, and then his voice came out strained. "What happened to our veto power?"

"I know you want to be a normal couple again, James. I know that you're scared that something worse could have happened to me, that you could have lost me. And trust me, I want us to be a couple as well. But."

James tilted his head.

"I need this job, James. I need to put people away; people like the ones who hurt me. Who took Spencer. I can't stand for what's been done to us and what he might be going through. And one of the things I love very dearly about you, James, is that you understood that about me, and we took on this marriage and didn't let it tie us to something." Her voice then faltered. "This isn't an easy decision, James, and—"

"Hey hey hey. Nope." James stopped her. "You're prattling. Give me your hand, babe."

Alex conceded, blinking out the blurriness from her eyes. His left hand took her right hand, and she looked at the scuffed gold band on it.

"Look at me, Alex."

She did.

"I took you . . . for better or worse," he began, squeezing her hand. His voice came out strained as he continued. "And we've gone through a lot worse together."

Alex nodded, eyes hot as her thoughts flashed to their son.

"Nothing is ever gonna change that, right?" he finished.

Her tears fell, and he folded his arms around her.

"Right, okay, yes."

After a few moments like this, they pulled away from each other. James cuffed his wife affectionately on the chin.

"So we gotta get you back in the field after some more therapy, lady. Don't want ya gettin' rusty on me."


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Some of the events of this chapter follow the events of Criminal Minds episode 9x1 and 9x2 with many a spin of my own. Some events inspired by the briefest snippet from 4x13 Memoriam, wherein we see an article that William Reid has saved of Spencer.

As an additional note: I've received your reviews, thank you! I will address them on my Tumblr ASAP since these are guest reviews. Either way, I thank you kindly.