a/n: For those of you familiar with St. Augustine, you'll notice I changed the name of the college there and a few other things. I didn't want to bring bad mojo down onto them. Also, Elliot is kinda subbing in for Prentiss in certain ways, so apply the interactions between Reid and Emily in 2x17 to interactions between Reid and Jackson instead.

Anastasia State Park
St. Johns County, FL - Three Weeks Ago
He loved the park. It was like a second home to him. He loved it in winter, when the wind off the ocean cut straight to the bone and he had the place nearly to himself. He loved it in autumn, when the nights grew longer, cooler, and the sun began to lose its menace. He loved it in summer, when the heat was thick enough to cut and the sand adhered to his skin with a layer of sweat.

Most of all he loved it in spring. The weather warmed. The birds sang. And the people came back to the park. He watched them all: families, school groups, nature clubs, couples. Especially couples.

On this warm, sunny day, one pair in particular had caught his eye. They were young, early twenties, and attractive. She had dark skin, long, wavy black hair, and big, soft brown eyes. He wasn't very tall, but he was well-built and had matinee-idol good looks, like a young almost-Paul Newman.

He watched as they played. Kissed. Bickered. The boy glowered in frustration as the girl turned away from him, her laugh floating on the breeze like a flower petal. The man smiled in anticipation and turned off the trail to wait.

He loved the park. It was like a second home, and like home, he knew it intimately—far better than two young, feckless college kids hiking its back trails. His grin was the leer of a predator, and the happy, carefree couple never saw him coming.

Quantico, VA – Four Days Later
"I give it five minutes," Derek Morgan said, expressive brows drawn together over chocolate brown eyes.

"Cut him some slack, handsome; I say ten," Penelope Garcia said with a light swat to his middle.

"Not a chance. That kid is wound way too tight, and somehow Jack just twists the springs tighter."

The seemingly mismatched pair leaned against Morgan's desk observing Spencer Reid and Elliot Jackson, the BAU's youngest agents, as they stood together at the coffee bar. Reid was dumping sugar into his coffee, studiously ignoring his colleague, while Jackson waited patiently for him to hand over the dispenser.

He kept pouring, and the jar was nearly empty. They watched as Jackson made a comment, her face blooming into one of those bright, lovely smiles they knew so well. Garcia's expression turned into a protective frown, Morgan's into a narrow-eyed glare as Reid snapped something at Jackson and slammed the sugar shaker down onto the counter. She flinched back, her smile dying, and she opened her mouth to say something further, but he had already stalked off.

"He needs to take a breath," Morgan muttered.

"I didn't realize it had gotten that bad," Garcia said.

"I don't know what happened in Houston," he said in reference to a recent case, "but she's been extremely…polite to him, and he's barely even looked at her."

"Ouch."

"What are we looking at?" Jennifer "JJ" Jareau said as she joined them. Jackson had moved on by this time, so they were just staring at scattered sugar and lingering coffee stains.

"A tragedy," Garcia said.

"We're out of sugar," Morgan said before Garcia could share any of her half-baked theories about Reid and Jack with JJ.

"That's unfortunate," JJ said, "but we've got bigger things to worry about." She indicated the files in her arms. "Briefing in five. We've got a case."

Morgan waggled his brows at Garcia. "Gotta work, baby girl. See ya later."

They all gathered in the conference room, the atmosphere light and friendly as they settled in. Morgan said something teasing to Jackson, who rolled her eyes. Hotch and Gideon were talking baseball. JJ handed around folders from her stack.

The only one who stood apart from it was Reid. He sat alone at his end of the table and sipped his too-sweet coffee. Mornings were the hardest. Once he actually got his day started he could usually focus on work, blot out the cravings that controlled him, but in the morning….

He sipped. Enough sugar was sometimes an adequate substitute for the drug he lusted for so strongly. Adequate wasn't the right word, maybe. How about…sugar had to substitute, at least for the time being, because even though the Dilaudid in his bag called to him like a Siren, he still didn't quite have the balls to actually shoot up inside this building. Somehow, he thought, they'd know. They would all know, and they would all look at him the way Elliot did.

She couldn't know. Well, she could, though around her he thought only nonsense, random quotes by Plato or Aristotle, mathematical theorems that were beyond her comprehension, or he concentrated solely on their cases. But she could still know. They all could. They were all profilers, and his behavior had certainly altered since Hankel.

That was how he divided his life now: before and after, because the after Reid was nowhere near the same person as the before Reid.

"Reid," Hotch said, interrupting his thoughts, "care to join us? JJ was about to present the case."

He flushed; swallowed. "Yes, sir. Sorry, sir, my mind was elsewhere." As he turned his attention back to the team and the meeting, his eyes met Jack's intense green ones. Though he knew she wouldn't read him without his permission, his knee-jerk reaction was to start reciting Star Trek scripts in his head. He started with "The Cage," and he'd barely completed the first scene when she dropped his gaze and turned away. Relieved, he leaned back in his chair and tried to focus on JJ and the case she presented.

"We have four victims so far," she said, projecting images onto the screen as she spoke. "Emily Watson, Michael St. James, Elizabeth Woods, and John Richter. Four victims: two couples, all students at Colben College in St. Augustine, Florida."

"Couples?" Gideon said. His brow furrowed as he studied the file.

"Yes," JJ said. "Both couples were discovered in shallow graves in Anastasia State Park, just outside of St. Augustine." More pictures flashed up. "In the case of Emily and Michael, he was shot, while her cause of death was asphyxiation."

"More specifically," Morgan said with a shudder of horror, "the ME says she was buried alive. There was sand found in her nose and mouth."

"But the causes of death are reversed with Elizabeth and John," Jackson said. "She was shot and he was asphyxiated. Weird."

"How long were they missing before the bodies were discovered?" Gideon said.

"With Emily and Michael, three days. Over a week with Elizabeth and John," JJ told him. "By the ME's estimation they were killed only hours before they were found."

"He's making no real effort to hide the bodies. The graves are shallow, near well-traveled trails. He wanted them to be found quickly," Hotch said.

"Possibly he's sending some sort of message," Morgan said.

"About what?" said Jackson. "The perils of young love?"

"Something like that, maybe," Gideon said. "A relationship ended badly for him, and now he's taking it out on these victims."

JJ cleared her throat and they turned their attention back to her. "Another couple has gone missing: Michelle Gonzalez and Tony Donaldson. They were last seen four days ago."

"No sign of torture or sexual assault with any of the victims," Reid said as he read the autopsy reports and examined the pictures, "and they cover a variety races—white, black, Hispanic. There's no real rhyme or reason to this victimology besides just couples."

"The UNSUB only killed one of them," Gideon said, looking around the table over his reading glasses. "Emily shot Michael, and the UNSUB buried her alive. Vice versa with the second couple."

"Patient son of a bitch," Morgan said. "The first one only took three days, but the second almost twice as long. Most killers would've given up and just shot them both."

Reid shook his head. "Not this guy. It's the waiting he likes."

"He's keeping them for as long as it takes," Jackson said. "He's watching to see which one cracks first."

"Kill your lover and I'll let you go," Gideon said, his tone grim. "Then, of course, he doesn't. Because he never intended to."

A small silence fell as the team considered.

"And I doubt Emily and Michael were his first. No way an UNSUB develops an MO like this overnight," Gideon continued.

"Okay, everyone, wheels up in an hour," Hotch said. "We need to get down there before the next couple turns up dead."

St. Johns County, FL
As it turned out, they were too late. By the time the jet landed, Michelle Gonzalez and Tony Donaldson had been found in their own grave in Anastasia State Park. The team went straight there, minus JJ, who headed to the police station to start working on a press release.

"It's not a very big park," Reid said as they made their way down one of the trails to the dumpsite. "It's about four square miles, including the beach, tidal marsh, hiking trails, campgrounds, and an historic rock quarry."

"Lots of people around, too," Morgan said. "This time of year, getting warmer…he chose a really exposed area to dump these bodies, like Hotch said. He's bold for sure."

A local detective waved as the team approached. "You the folks from the FBI?" he called, hurrying across the sand toward them. He was tall and good looking, with the high cheekbones and dark brown eyes that marked his Hispanic heritage; at the moment his normally tan face looked pale.

"Yes," Hotch said, offering his hand. "I'm Agent Hotchner, and these are Agents Morgan and Gideon, and Dr. Reid and Dr. Jackson."

"Simon Rodriguez, St. Augustine PD," he said. "I'm glad you made it so quickly. We've got six dead kids now, and parents are getting really antsy."

"Michelle and Tony were students at Colben, too?" Jackson said.

"Yep," he said. "They went missing four days ago. They came out to the park to hike for the day, and they never came back. Michelle's roommate reported her missing the next night, and when we started looking into that we realized Tony was gone, too."

"Were all the victims abducted from the park?" Reid said.

"So far," Rodriguez said.

"Our UNSUB obviously knows this area well," Hotch said, scanning the hammock forest through his dark sunglasses. "Detective, if you could point Dr. Reid and me toward the witnesses, we'll start talking to them. I'd like Agents Gideon and Morgan and Dr. Jackson to take a look at the grave."

"Sure. One of my guys can take you to them. They're pretty shook up; a couple of old ladies out here bird-watching." He gestured for a nearby officer to help Hotch, and then nodded toward the other three. "Agents, Dr. Jackson, this way."

They followed Rodriguez off the trail and under a stretch of yellow crime scene tape. The bodies had already been removed, but the shallow depression where they'd lain together was clearly visible. Morgan knelt to study the pitiful grave through dark, narrowed eyes obscured by expensive sunglasses. "Really close to the path," he observed after a moment.

"Risky and bold, like you said," Gideon said.

He glanced over at Jackson, eyebrows raised, but she only shook her head. She couldn't share her impressions with Rodriguez standing right there, so Gideon would just have to wait.

She stared down at the divot in the sand a moment before turning to look back at the trail only a few steps away. "It must have been dark. All the dumpsites were so close to main areas of the park?" she said to Rodriguez.

"This is the closest one yet. The first couple was found by some kayakers over at Salt Run, the tidal marsh. It was low tide, or they wouldn't've seen 'em. The, uh, crabs had been at them pretty good." He grimaced. "The second couple was near the quarry, more out in the open, but not like this."

"He's tired of laboring in obscurity," Gideon said. "He's moving them closer and closer to populated areas, accelerating how quickly they're discovered."

Jackson wrinkled her slightly crooked nose. "Can you check missing persons for couples?" she said.

"If anyone can figure out a way, Garcia can. He obviously wasn't abducting such high-profile victims before this. It's an escalation," Morgan said.

"You think Emily and Michael weren't his first victims?" Rodriguez said.

"No, absolutely not," Gideon told him. "It's not easy abducting a couple. He abducts them, holds them only as long as he needs to, and then he dumps them in relatively public areas. He's had time to get this just right."

"The park closes at sunset," Rodriguez said. "If he dumped them at night, it would've been just campers around, not hikers or day-trippers."

"He had to've come in with a vehicle," Morgan said. "Could he have brought them in before dark, then waited until after the park closed to dump the bodies?"

"It's possible. They don't kick people out, really. But this location is still pretty far from the areas where vehicles are allowed."

"Carried them, you think?" Jackson said. "One at a time, along the trail?"

Rodriguez shrugged. "None of the dumpsites have been particularly close to parking areas. Maybe that's why they're so exposed: he couldn't carry them any further into the woods."

"Clearly we're dealing with a big man, someone physically fit. Morgan, grab Hotch. I want you two at the autopsy. Tell the ME to look for needle marks."

"Needle marks?" Morgan said. "You think he drugged them?"

"He's not overpowering them physically; there're no signs of any physical damage on any of the victims. He has to be subduing them somehow.

"Jack, go with Reid back to the station. Start looking at victimology; we need to know anything that connects these kids, besides just the college."

She looked briefly uncomfortable, but after a moment she nodded. "It would be nice to know if he's choosing victims ahead of time, or if he just picks likely-looking couples from the crowds at the park."

"Exactly." He jerked his head to the side, indicating she should join him away from the others. "A moment before you go."

They stepped away, closer to the edge of the forest and all the bird and insect sounds there. "Well?" he said.

"I don't know." She crossed her arms over her stomach and glanced back toward the grave. "It was…strange. Quiet."

"Quiet? What do you mean, quiet? A girl was buried alive."

"I know. That's what's so strange. That type of fear…it should be all over that spot, clear as blood splatter. But it's not." She chewed the inside of her lip a moment. "I also don't really see him."

"The UNSUB?"

She nodded. "If burying them alive is part of his signature, wouldn't he stay to watch? Enjoy her struggle and suffering?"

"That would be part of it for him. Hm. Something's off here. Maybe the autopsy will tell us more. Go find Hotch. I'll meet you back at the station in an hour." He turned back to the scene, his attention instantly absorbed as though he were alone on the sparse stretch of sandy ground.

Morgan and Jackson set off across the scrub, and Morgan cast a side-long glance in her direction. He had noticed her reaction when Gideon instructed her to pair off with Reid. "Don't let the kid get to you," he said.

She looked up with a little frown. "It's fine. I mean, it's not, but I can handle it."

"Okay," he said in a deceptively mild voice. "Reid, Hotch!" he called as they approached. "We got some new marching orders."

Hotch turned, brow raised. "You and I should head to the morgue," he said. "Reid and EJ need to start working on victimology."

"Which one of us is the mind reader around here?" Jackson muttered.

Hotch's mouth lifted in a brief smile, a near-instant flash of dimples. "Gideon radioed. Let's head out."

when I first wrote this fic I had just spent some time in St. Augustine and was really familiar with the area, but now I'm...not so much. oh well, different perspective on the fic I guess! lemme know what y'all think.