Hey all, here is the next chapter for this fic. I'll be honest, this chapter isn't the most exciting, but it's necessary. I hope you enjoy and please remember to review. Happy reading. x

All rights go to the owners of Criminal Minds, except for my original character.


Not Like This

Chapter Seven: Angel's Guardian

"…and I swear, that was only after I fell face first in front of the whole school."

A smile.

Jamie had managed to gain a smile from the boy. When she saw this, she couldn't help but smile back, in satisfaction and also glee. This is what Jamie lived for; helping those who have walked through the flames of hell. By helping them, she felt that she was voluntarily committing to a service for the world around her.

The smile didn't last for long, but at least it gave away that the boy was listening to her.

Before Jamie could say another word, JJ began to enter the room again. She watched hesitantly as she walked through the door, grinning when she saw that Jamie had gotten the frightened boy to come out from hiding. Her arrival startled the him, as he started to crawl back under the table.

"Hey, hey, hey." Jamie spoke, not wanting her effort to be forgotten. She held out one hand for him to come back out into the open. "It's okay. Remember my friend? Her name is Jennifer. She's one of the good guys, I promise." Jamie held out her hand, waiting for the boy to trust that she was telling the truth and when he did, she felt major relief flood her. Jamie sat still in her spot on the hard floor and JJ sat behind her in a chair, cautiously.

"Did Garcia find anything?" Jamie asked, turning to JJ.

"She widened her search, but there's nothing that matches his description."

Jamie sighed and shook her head slightly. "Well, he has to be missing from somewhere." She looked back at JJ and grinned. "I got him to smile a little bit. I told him a really embarrassing story that usually gets people cracking jokes in my direction wherever I go, but-it's something, you know?"

"That's a start." JJ commented, a small grin on her face.

"Other than that, there hasn't been anything more."

"Did you ask for his name?"

Jamie nodded, combing back her hair with one hand. "Of course, I did."

"What about in Spanish?"

Jamie rose her eyebrow. "No, but the language won't matter if he doesn't want to talk to us, JJ." Jamie exhaled a long breath and sat up straighter. "I'll try again."

"You know Spanish?" JJ questioned.

"Enough to put it on a resume." Jamie quipped. Jamie set her eyes on the boy again, beginning to string together small sentences to start with. "Mi nombre es Jamie. Ésta es mi amiga Jennifer." She waited a moment, letting the words flow to the boy. "¿Cómo te llamas?"

The boy just stared at Jamie and JJ. They stayed in the silence for a minute, until he began to point on his back. He was tapping on the shoulder blades, over and over again.

"Your back?" JJ questioned. "Is your back hurting?"

The boy shook his head. He took his hands and hooked his thumbs together, waving the others simultaneously. Then, his hands moved back to his shoulders.

"A bird?" Jamie asked. "Wings?"

The boy nodded his head.

"Wings on your back…I don't-wait a minute." Jamie stopped, she looked at JJ quickly, smiling with a glimmer of water in her eyes. She looked back at the boy and smiled. "Is your name Angel?"

There it was, another grin from the boy-Angel.

Jamie huffed out a laugh and smiled brightly. "I'll take that as a yes." Her phone began to ring, making Angel jump a little bit. Jamie held out her hand, telling him was okay. She stood up from the floor and being to walk out the door when she got back down to ground level. "Is it okay if I step out for minute? Jennifer is happy to wait here with you."

Angel down casted his eyes and Jamie felt a tinge of guilt. "Hey, Angel, I promise you I'll be back okay? I'll be right outside that door, you can see me through the window."

Angel nodded in response.

Jamie pulled out her cellphone from her pocket, still ringing. "Garcia, please tell me you worked some magic here." she spoke, halfway out the door. Jamie shut the door softly behind her and peaked inside the window at JJ and Angel.

"I wish I could, but Jamie, there's not a single child in the tri-state area who's named Angel and has been reported missing. I even did a nationwide search and there's still nothing."

That baffled Jamie. "Why would nobody report him missing, though?"

"You tell me, Carter…"

Jamie tilted her head back and forth in though. "Well, there are undocumented workers in Arizona, no doubt about it."

"Already on that. I've pulled harvest schedules earlier."

"Okay, what about school registrations?"

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone. "Uh, I have a database match of over four-thousand Angels in the school districts."

"We can still work with that." Jamie reassured. "We think Angel's been held for a while. Go back to at least two-thousand-and-four and search for any child who dropped out in elementary school."

Typing noises could be heard over the line. "Angel Suarez, second grade."

Jamie perked up at the result. 'Do you have a picture?"

"Yes," Garcia confirmed. "and if I run the stimulation software to age the boy by eight years…"

"…Garcia?"

"It's him, Jamie. He's the boy with you and JJ."

Jamie sighed a dramatically. "Garcia, you are so amazing. Thank you, oh and can you-"

"Send his mother's contact information? Already done."

"Penelope Garcia, you are the best."

Jamie hung up her phone as the doctor made his way to her.

"Good news I assume?" he pondered.

Jamie nodded. "Yes, sir. I just need to call Angel's mother." She looked back to the window, seeing Angel still on the floor with JJ. "He's been responding. It took time, but we managed to get enough and it shouldn't be long before he starts talking."

The doctor nodded in acknowledgement. "You think it's time to try this again?"

"…just try to appear non-threatening."

"Of course." The doctor took one of the scrub nurses and walked towards Angel's room. Jamie entered first, eyes automatically going to Angel.

"Angel, the doctor is here again. He still needs to examine you, make sure you're-" Jamie stopped herself. She was about the say that the doctor needed to make sure that he was okay. Of course, the kid wasn't okay. He had endured years of physical, emotional, and mental abuse. Nobody in their right mind would be okay.

JJ caught this and spoke up for Jamie. "Do you want us to be here with you?"

Angel shook his head, which gave Jamie and JJ a hint of hope that he was warming more to people around him.


Jamie couldn't pass a thought she was constantly having throughout the day. "Do you think Angel blames himself for what happened to him?"

JJ looked at Jamie, a tinge of sympathy filling her features. "It's always possible." she admitted. "Trauma survivors often believe that they brought it upon themselves. The reality of it is hard to grasp I'm sure.

Jamie nodded, looking ahead at the traffic of nurses that was coming and going. "Maybe we shouldn't have called his mom as quickly as we-or I did." She motioned her head towards the room, walking back to Angel.

"Why would you wait?"

"Seeing her for the first time since he was a kid, after what he's been through, it might not go so well."

"Okay, I agree with that. And his mother is going to need to understand that Angel might not want to see her for a while."

"Exactly and I'm sure there's some sort of shame he-Angel! No!" Jamie yelled as she and JJ entered the room. She jumped forwards toward the boy, who was cutting his wrist with a blade. Where he got it, she didn't know. Holding Angel back by his arms as he was struggling to keep harming himself, his hands were still going wild and the blade reached far enough to cut Jamie on her arm. "God, JJ grab that!"

JJ grabbed the sharp blade, pressing the call button for the nurses as she did. She took some towels from the bed-table and pressed them down on Angel's cuts, the blood soaking through quickly.

Jamie sat on the bed with Angel, holding him close as he was still panicking, but he was calming down nonetheless. "You are safe, Angel. It's going to be alright…I promise you that." Her eyes were focused on the wall in front of her, her mind elsewhere than the sensation of warm blood trickling down her forearm.

There had been a lot of promise on Jamie's part to the boy. Promises that she would be next to him, promises that everything would be okay, even if she knew that it might not be. Her goal was to comfort the boy, to let him know that he was safe where he was. She thought she had succeeded in that, but walking in and seeing Angel cutting his own skin…it sent a rush of terror though her body. If she was honest with herself and even honest with Angel, she would tell him that she couldn't even begin to imagine what he's going through. She could use her words to make him feel better for a moment, but that hurt of what he endured would always be with him.


The cut wasn't too deep, but it was deep enough to where blood was continuously dripping from the wound. Jamie felt numb to the pain, especially since she told herself that she didn't deserve to feel sorry for herself. Sitting on the exam table, Jamie was silent as a nurse patched put her arm and cleaned the blood that had dried there. Angel had been given a shot to sedate him and so the doctor and nurses could exam his arms as well. The young agent felt a tinge of guilt for leaving him alone in the room. If she had stayed there, maybe he wouldn't have tried to hurt himself. Now, that didn't matter, because what's was done, is done.

Jamie sighed in relief and mild frustration as the nurse gave her the okay to get back to work. She left the exam room, walking down the spick-and-span hallway back to Angel. When she arrived, she was stopped in her tracks. There was an older woman there with JJ, who was evidently very emotional. JJ was trying her best to calm down the woman and explain to her the current situation. Jamie cleared her throat and tried to compose herself of any emotion she was feeling.

"Mrs. Suarez?" Jamie asked softly, approaching the woman.

"Yes?"

"I'm Agent Carter. I was the one who called you about your son, Angel." Jamie responded, holding out her hand to greet Angel's mother.

"I have to see him." Mrs. Suarez cried. She was trying to make her way past the agents, into her son's room. "I thought he was…gone. Don't you understand? I need to see him!"

Jamie rushed around the woman, gently placing her hands on the woman's arms. "Okay, Mrs. Suarez, please listen to us." Jamie exchanged looks with JJ, giving the okay to explain.

"Your son hasn't been held in a very long time. There were things that he went through that…" JJ trailed off, not knowing how to finish the sentence; and Jamie didn't blame her for that.

"Angel-he's going to have a rough time at first. He might not respond the way you want him to and that's to be expected." Jamie clarified.

"Mrs. Suarez, why don't you come with me and we can talk for a little while about how to approach this?" JJ asked the woman. Angel's mother complied with JJ as she walked away with the woman.

Jamie watched them disappear around the corner. Her heart was heavy with sorrow for the boy and his mother. Before starting in the BAU, Jamie was warned of the gruesome nature of the job. She insisted that she was strong enough to leave it where it belonged, not to get emotionally invested in the victims; but this one hit her where the sun never shined. Walking to Angel's room, Jamie popped her head around the door frame, seeing Angel still sleeping from the sedative. She took that as a que to go in and sit down at his bedside.

It wasn't hard for her to find herself wondering how he survived, how he overcame such trauma. He was strong in her eyes, to endure what he did and come out the other side; even if it would take a while for things to look up, he made it out. Jamie reached for his hand, holding it lightly in her own. The tears were coming to the surface even though she didn't want them to. Taking a deep, shaky breath, Jamie spoke to him.

"I can't…being to imagine the things you've seen, the things you've been through in the past eight years. And I know you're scared and I know that you don't understand. Neither do I, but I can tell you, without a doubt, that this is not going to happen to you-or to anyone else. We are going to get the bastard that's responsible for this…"

She wiped her fallen tears with her free hand. Her hand rested in the boy's for a moment longer, until she decided to go clean herself up. Getting up from the seat, Jamie felt a tug on her hand when she tried to remove it from its position. Her eyes went to Angel, who's eyes were still closed. Then, Jamie knew that he had heard her.

"Okay, I won't go anywhere." she whispered.


Thanks for reading and please remember to review. I would really appreciate it.

If you like Supernatural, check out my other work(s): The Unforeseeable Life of Alexandra Winchester & Alexandra Winchester: One-Shots