CHAPTER 1

Alex Blake's House, 29th September, Boston

It was Thursday in the afternoon and Alex Blake was finally sorting out the rest of her belongings. Luck was finally on her side as the next three days would be not spent at her work but at home so she wanted to finish with this as quickly as possible. Therefore, for roughly 3 hours she has been going through a few remaining boxes. It was really needed as they have been sitting here for the past 5 months. The reason of this wasn't that she was lazy or disorganized but faculty meetings and midterms at Harvard have been in full swing leaving her with minimum of spare time. Besides that she started again to consult and sometimes helping in person with some cases for FBI as an agent in inactive duty and that was worth to her all the lost free time and sleep more than anybody could imagine.

Moving her attention to another box and trying to see better the things stored in it Alex reflected that it was one of the major problems in her marriage. James didn't understand that it has always been part of who she is. She wasn't just Dr. Alex Blake but also FBI Agent Blake. She exhaled loudly and blew her long, dark brown hair out of her face.

Probably this was shock to him, when they tried to live properly together as other couples after he left Doctors Without Borders, she thought.

As she dug deeper into the box her unbound hair fell into her eyes for what felt like the thousand times in the last hour. Annoyed with them getting in the way and distracting her she tied them into low ponytail. Looked around Alex was thinking about how much things can change in relatively short period of time.

Just one more box was left to her left. Alex sighed contentedly and started making her way through it while loosing herself again in her reflection of the past 2 years.

Both, she and James, decided to compromise on their careers to make their marriage work but when they started properly living together everything felt forced from cooking of dinners to reading in the bed in the evenings. With the previous distance missing they were at odds almost right away from the week she resigned at BAU two years ago and they moved to Boston. So in the end it came naturally that one year later after arriving here they started to live separately. When looking back at how she felt, if she will be honest with herself, somewhere she always knew that she were keenly missing the feeling of satisfaction, which came from profiling and later catching the unsub during this first year of living as 'normal married couple'. Therefore, dissolving their marriage and moving to another place was easier than she initially thought. Although living by herself was certain change, the divorce has been a good call. Nine months ago, when the papers were signed off and everything was official both of them visibly relaxed. They've ended as friends and that's all she could wish for. Still it sometimes got to her that her marriage didn't lasted while others make it work.

During these musings Alex slowly finished her unpacking.

So after folding the last carton box with intention to throw it out tomorrow, she took yesterday leftovers from the fridge and sat down on the couch to finally relax with some new book from her collection. However, her brain had other ideas and it already started going through the last case, where she consulted as FBI linguistic expert. It was an interesting case. Three victims were killed in the same way and found in Rochester during the past 3 weeks. Due to the frequency and raising body count local authorities asked FBI for help with investigation.

The killer has a very specific MO, which includes leaving pieces of papers with 2 or 3 sentences written on them pinned to the victim's clothing. Her curiosity was particularly raised by sources of these messages. Because based on the used words and syntax they came from various books with similar background, linguistics. More specifically they described some hard to understand terms or they were various phrases used in different languages. She was quite familiar with most of them. Some were even used as examples in her lectures. As this collected evidence was containing linguistic problem, FBI has contacted her right away.

However, her current idea of unsub's profile was still incomplete even after spending almost a week trying to narrow down all information and create the profile for the FBI agents. Alex tried to even get a different point of view, when last week she indirectly discussed some of her ideas regarding this case with Spencer during their monthly call. But this didn't help her. She was stuck and in meantime the killer was evolving as number of victims was raised two days ago to current 3. Not even the information obtained from the last crime scene helped her to create accurate profile.

Still there was something that was bothering her about this case. The MO and messages were stirring her memory but so far nothing specific came to her mind. Call it a hunch but she couldn't get rid off this feeling. While she was processing all of this the sun set down and so Alex decided to get at least one night of proper sleep.

Dismissing her thoughts regarding the case she got up from her sofa and took the dishes to the kitchen. As she started washing them in the sink unconsciously song came to her mind. Quietly she started humming a melody. It was one, which Derek regularly listened to in the car while driving.

Alex smiled slightly.

From all the songs this comes to my mind, she thought a little sadly.

And so her mind turned to the former colleagues at BAU. She was wondering what they are doing nowadays as Spencer wasn't exactly one to share information or go into detail about others during their calls. Although she stayed in touch with them, it was usually only in form of short messages or calls usually during birthdays or Christmas.

It took her a while after moving to Boston until she finally admitted to herself that she has been missing JJ's caring side, Penelope's and Derek's banter, David Rossi's sense of humour, Spencer's brilliant academic insights and Hotch's steady presence and support or Aaron's steady presence and support as he insisted on her calling him last time they spoke to each other. She almost snorted recalling when his offer to be on first name basis came.

Few months back he unexpectedly called her asking for advice regarding Spencer. For a moment she thought that something awful happened as Aaron was not a person to call her for trivial matters. He confided in her that Reid has been behaving strangely and keeping to himself more and more. His behaviour was similar to the one, when Maeve died. So everyone was starting to get worried.

Basically Aaron wanted her to try to make Spencer opened up to her or help him to do it by himself. So there were in regular contact during that time thinking about ways how to help him. Thanks to this they've become a good friends in short time. Alex smiled to herself while drying the dishes. What they've found out in the end was really funny and sweet. Dr. Spencer Reid got a girlfriend, who he greatly admired. He was scared, or terrified in his words, of what steps he will need to go through to make successful relationship as practical part in his opinion usually didn't live up to the theory. Alex started chuckling. Only Spencer would think that...

'CRASH!' sound of window shattering in the guest room rang through the air.

Alex stiffened and stilled her hands. Then she slowly lowered the cloth onto the counter next to the sink and started making her way quickly and quietly around the kitchen island towards the hallway with only one destination in mind, bedroom. As that was the place, where her service gun was hidden in the nightstand drawer. Straining her ears and eyes nothing looked amiss in the hallway. So she entered the dark corridor while hastily moving towards the second door on the left. And that's when she heard a carefully placed steps from the guest room, which was situated further down the hallway on the right near the main door.

Alex resolve to get into the bedroom and grab her weapon to defend herself hardened. Quietly opening the door and quickly entering her bedroom she hurried to the right side of the bed and opened the drawer. After taking her service gun out and disabling its safety mechanism Alex straightened and focused her gaze on the bedroom doorway. Slowly she started to inch back towards the door with gun raised in front of her. Stopping just before she entered the hallway Alex carefully listening for any sounds, however, the house was completely quiet.

Calming her breathing she slowly walked forward firstly swiftly checking the direction of kitchen and living room as the rooms were still illuminated by the lights. Deciding that whoever was in the house would not get past the bedroom door without her noticing she turned around and started inching her way past the bedroom along the hallway.

Nearing the guest room door with gun ready, Alex prepared herself for their quick opening to hopefully surprise her visitor. Taking stable stance her hand reached for the door handle, when small creak of wooden floor sounded behind her. Before she managed to turn around throbbing pain registered on the back of her head and everything went black.