Essential Listening: A Quarter Past Midnight, by Bastille

0o0

He was sitting on one of the bales of hay that had been cleared by forensics already, watching the scene with an air of separateness. As soon as the circus had descended, Sergeant Hightower had decided he was more or less surplus to requirements. He seemed to have accepted that there was a lot that he couldn't do here, and a lot he might jeopardise.

Grace suspected that the knowledge that this was something no officer or agent in the vicinity would ever let go of, that the awful things done to his sister and all the kids would not go forgotten or unpunished. From the start, he had more or less accepted that his sister was dead, but suspecting that and being confronted with the reality of it were very different things.

It was probably too public a place, but this was the kind of thing that had to be done before the news crews cottoned on and broke the news to him in a less sensitive fashion. There was presently a lull in organisation requirements, so she had Hotch and Bedwell sign off on the evidence release and sought the soldier out.

He hadn't flinched from getting the case noticed; she wouldn't flinch from delivering the truth, no matter how unpleasant it was.

"William," she said, walking over.

He looked up, gauging her blank expression. "Did something happen? Have you found something?"

"Yes," she said quietly, holding out her hand. "And I am sorry."

He stared at her for a moment, and then allowed her to drop the dog tags he had given his sister to wear into the palm of his hand.

He didn't even look at them, never breaking eye contact with her. "She asked me for them," he said, with immense emotion. "Before I went back over there, before I lost my…"

"I'm sorry, William," she said again, trusting him to know that the words they used as an institutional shield for the relaying of terrible news were not just that. "This whole thing is shitty."

"She didn't want me to go back."

Grace simply let him speak. Let him get out what he needed to.

"It was like she knew something was gonna happen." His eyes shifted to a place only he could see. The memory of his sister's face, perhaps. "I should have listened to her."

"This won't be a thing you can properly hear right now," she said gently. "But none of this is anyone's fault, but the person who did it to her. It's not Lee's fault, and it's not yours."

He broke eye contact as he began to weep, and Grace sat beside him on the hay bale, prepared to stay quiet and present until he no longer needed it.

0o0

Aaron watched Morgan lurking in the background, observing the exchange between Pearce and the heartbroken Sergeant Hightower, a dark look on his face. He wasn't overly surprised when the younger agent sought him out a few minutes later.

"Hotch, I gotta get out of here," he said, abruptly, and Aaron read the restlessness of horror induced near-panic from the lines around his friend's eyes.

The tension had been particularly pronounced around Detective Benning, and he suspected he was feeling the fury of a cop who had spotted another one who had dropped the ball. And here, a hell of a lot of people had suffered because of it.

"Where?" he asked, tilting his head to one side.

"I'm gonna hook up with Prentiss on the search party." He shook his head, looking increasingly pained. "I – I can't stand around here."

Aaron nodded. If he'd already decided where he could be more useful, Aaron wasn't about to stop him.

"Okay, keep in touch," he said, glad that Morgan had learned to trust him enough to admit when he needed to take a step back and put some distance between himself and the farm.

He cast one last look at Pearce and Hightower, another at the tarp full of shoes and fled. Aaron didn't blame him. Staying here as the point of stillness around which everything orbited was particularly unpleasant, especially on a case like this. Morgan was a doer, and not doing must be driving him mad. It was very easy to feel the helplessness creeping up and consuming you.

Making an effort to squash his own unhelpful feelings (rage, revulsion, distress), he stalked over to check in with JJ, who was on the edge of being overwhelmed, but was as usual dealing excellently with it. She was too busy to talk, so he made eye contact to let her know he was there if she needed him, and then went to find Reid.

Several forensic technicians later, he was directed towards the second, larger barn, which seemed peaceful and quiet compared to the rest of the farm.

"Reid?" he called.

"Hey," he responded, and Aaron followed the sound to a ladder at the back of the barn, leading to the hayloft. The younger agent came to lean over the railing. "I found out where he sleeps."

"So Mason was lying?"

"I find it hard to believe he didn't know his brother was living in the barn," Reid remarked.

"Anything up there that's gonna help us find him?"

"No, nothing yet. I will say this, though – I doubt that he's psychotic."

That made him prick up his ears. "Why is that?"

"There's a collection of drawings up here," Reid explained, waving one over the railing. "They suggest autism or moderate mental retardation. Now, retardation and psychosis in the exact same subject is exceedingly rare. It's more likely he doesn't fully understand the acts that he's committed."

Aaron considered this. It didn't look good for Mason's assertion that he was innocent and Lucas was evil.

"Anything to suggest a violent nature?"

"Nothing in the drawings," Reid replied, gazing at the one in his hands. "They do suggest someone's been watching him. He's very childlike." He paused and Aaron saw the same weariness on the young man's face as he had on Morgan's. "I think that when we find him, he's gonna be scared and probably confused."

"You think he'll fight?" Aaron asked, wondering whether to risk changing the caution advice for the search party.

"Uh, yeah, I don't know. Maybe."

He'd have to talk it over with Dave, he decided. He was a few paces from the barn door when Reid called him back.

"Hey, Hotch?"

Aaron met his gaze for a moment, and briefly he saw the young, shy, impossibly clever kid who Gideon had insisted on bringing onto the team, years before – but now there was a stillness to him. A centre. Even here, in the midst of one of the worst cases any of them had seen, he had a shield of tranquillity that had not been there before. An acceptance that much of the world was beyond his control, but that was alright because he was at home with himself.

Aaron wondered how long he had had it – and how long it would last.

"Do you ever get the feeling that a case isn't going to end well?"

He looked away, finding he couldn't answer. He thought of another young agent, who always seemed to know when things were about to go nastily pear-shaped. What would she say? What could he?

He felt Reid's eyes on him all the way out of the barn.

0o0

Emily had taken Morgan's appearance with some surprise, since he was supposed to be coordinating things back at the farm, but mostly equanimity. Another body on the search team would help, and one look at her friend's face told her this one was really getting to him.

They had been pacing the perimeter of the woods in companionable silence for about twenty minutes when he finally spoke.

"You've been with this team, what, two years, right? It's seven for me."

"Almost three already," she replied, thinking of the teams she had been a part of before.

"I mean, that's all I've been thinking about all day," he continued, as they breached the first of the trees, "is the entire time I've been with the BAU, working almost nonstop, having no real life, these brothers have been out here killing eighty-nine people and we didn't even know about it."

"Well, we know now," said Emily, gauging the depth at which he was presently feeling that he had personally failed these victims, instead of the several systems that had collapsed around them and kept them vulnerable enough to look like prey. "And we'll make them pay."

"But how many others are still out there, Prentiss, hmm? Huntin' and killin'." He scowled at the trees. "I mean, the thing is, no matter how hard we work, no matter how good we are at what we do, this is never gonna end."

Emily watched his profile for a moment. He was right, of course, but that was the nature of the beast. The trick was knowing that there would always be an endless stream of evil, but that the work you did at least prevented some of that evil reaching more victims. That was the best you could do.

Whoever saves one life saves the world entire, she thought, but forbore from speaking aloud. Derek didn't want counsel just now; he wanted someone to listen.

She was saved from working out how to navigate a response by one of the members of the local search and rescue team, who used his rifle to indicate an area off to her left. "Got some markings up ahead there."

Emily followed his gaze as the rest of the team peeled off to investigate. She and Morgan jogged after them, quickly encountering a mound and ditch. The dogs splashed into the stream on the far side of it, lapping up the air.

"Oh, he must have gone in the water," Emily complained*.

Morgan crouched beside the water, trying to see if any footprints were visible, away from where the team had passed through. "If the dogs lose that scent, it's gonna be nothing but a needle in a big old haystack.

"Maybe we should split up, take either side of the stream," Emily suggested to the search team leader, Andre. "He might have come back out somewhere up there."

"As long as I don't have to hang out at that damn pig farm, I'm good," Morgan growled.

0o0

Eventually, Penelope had given in the urge to turn the kitchen table around so she didn't have her back to the creeper in the next room. Somehow, knowing he had engineered the murder of so many people without lifting a finger was worse than him having done it all himself.

Still, murder was an equal opportunities hobby, she supposed.

She felt a lot more comfortable this way round – and with her hands on her own keyboard.

"Okay, defence system, let's see what you're made of," she declared, and launched her assault. Seconds later, she was in. "Bang! Like Berlin, another wall falls, the world opens up! There you are, inner core. Change password…" She thought for a moment. "Let's go with 'Oz'. Oh, I'm feeling so Dorothy Gale today. Auntie Em would be so proud…"

Her triumphant prattle trailed off into a horrified silence as she caught the title of the first group of files. It continued as she read their contents and intensified in those few minutes where all she could do to keep from screaming was to grip the table.

Eventually, the urge to climb out of the window, start running and never look back subsided. God, this job was hard enough without the sick son of a bitch being in the next room over.

Instead, steeling herself, but still feeling rather faint, she walked slowly across the floor. She saw Rossi first, and he practically leapt out of the chair, reading the horror she was sure was etched into her features. She was aware that she was on the verge of tears, and she oughtn't give Turner the satisfaction, but she couldn't help but turn her gaze upon the man lying in the bed. The man who had commanded and orchestrated it all.

"Garcia?" Rossi asked.

"They were doing experiments," she said, in a small voice.

"Experiments?" he asked, his tone shifting downwards.

He was more used to this kind of horror than she was. He had probably half-guessed already that this case had nothing to do with sexual sadism in the strictest sense.

"Unsuccessful ones," Turner remarked, and Penelope stared at him.

He actually sounded chagrined.

"He tried to fix himself," she said, aware she shouldn't engage with the murderer and that if she did she would ruin the case by screaming at him or launching herself at his chest and ripping out his breathing tube.

"Would it be better if it was all for nothing?" Turner asked, as Rossi stared at him in horror.

Penelope snapped her teeth shut, trying to get control of herself. Violence was not her jam, and she wouldn't let this sick bastard get under her skin and make her do it.

"They were human beings," Rossi said, and Penelope clung to the sound of his voice.

She tore her eyes away from their not-so-unknown subject and watched the senior agent's face instead.

"They were transients and drug users and prostitutes," Turner spat, voice full of disdain. "They were useless to society. I gave them the chance to be part of the cure. To be of use."

Penelope felt the tears course unimpeded down her cheeks, but she didn't move, just kept her eyes on Rossi. An island of safety in this storm.

"That's…"

Disgusting. Inhuman. Abhorrent.

"That's science," he said and she felt his eyes on her, enjoying her discomfort.

She swallowed.

Rossi shook his head. "No, it isn't."

"So you got some information off my laptop," Turner sneered. "So what? What' jury's gonna believe I had the power to kill anyone?"

She saw the flicker of worry – the little muscle tick beneath the eye – on Rossi's face.

He is not going to get away with this, she thought fervently.

Penelope turned on her heel, vowing to take his files apart until there would be no doubt in the jurors' minds exactly who was responsible for these peoples' deaths.

"I haven't been able to move from the neck down for seven years," he went on, and even in the next room, Penelope was unable to tune him out. "Even if you could convict me of something, what punishment could be worse than the life I already lead? Find my idiot brother. Exact your pound of flesh and leave me the hell alone."

0o0

It was bright – dazzlingly so – outside the barn, so Spencer couldn't immediately tell from Rossi's face how bad whatever news he had was going to be until he spoke.

"They were performing experiments," Rossi said heavily, when he reached them.

Spencer's eyebrows shot skywards. "Spinal regeneration?" he guessed, given Mason Turner's condition.

"Probably. He was definitely trying to fix himself."

"Stem cell harvesting?" Spencer remarked, thinking of the array of sharp things and hammers Grace and the forensics team had earmarked as probably having contact with human remains. "The equipment's far too unsophisticated. There's no way it would ever have worked."

Which means either he's operating under a delusion that it would, or he knew on some level it wouldn't and this was just his way of processing the rage he felt at losing his mobility, dignity and freedom. Making his brother take it out on everyone else.

"You were a prosecutor, Hotch," said Rossi, shoving his hands in his pockets as if they had personally offended him. "Could you convict this guy?"

Spencer's frown deepened. Rossi was angry. He suspected they all were. He knew he was. They had all been operating largely separately, and not just because they had to. None of them wanted to touch base and examine just how furious they were, because then they would have to deal with it. The whole team was existing in a series of bubbles of their own making, all that distress shoved to one side.

"A quadriplegic who clearly never touched any of the victims?" Rossi continued.

"I don't know," said Hotch, and Spencer squinted at him. It was unusual to hear him lie so clearly. "We need to concentrate on Kelly. We can't worry about the other stuff right now."

And maybe record everything Mason Turner says, Spencer thought. If the jurors heard that level of arrogance and contempt for others, and his continuous attempts at manipulation, we might have a better shot at a conviction.

Hotch hurried away to intercept Grace, who had emerged from another outbuilding looking harried. Rossi turned to Spencer.

"He might get away with this."

Spencer swallowed, wondering whether this was why both he and Grace had such a bad feeling about the whole thing. He couldn't help but glance at William Hightower, who was disconsolately haunting the farm, clutching the dog tags he had given his sister.

"Garcia's in the next room to Turner, right?" he said aloud, thinking that Gideon would not have approved of how flexible his view of the rules had become.

But then, he had sometimes been quite flexible, too, if it meant they could put an end to a reign of terror.

"Yeah, why?"

"Maybe she can document her process – uh… with a dictation programme," he said, trying and failing to make it sound less like he was suggesting recording the unsub without his knowledge.

Rossi narrowed his eyes for a moment, and Spencer half expected a dressing-down. This all had to be by the book, no matter what that meant in the long run. Then the older man clapped his arm and stalked back to the farmhouse.

0o0

*Emily ought to watch more Mythbusters. It's a common film, book and TV mistake to assume that the scent fades if the quarry crosses water. It actually gets stronger!

And on that note… I did not expect to be writing this coda when I got this ficisode down, but… The nerd-world will not be the same without Grant Imahara in it. May his afterlife be a place of experiments and building things.