When the Levee Breaks

I try to avoid looking backward and keep looking upward.

Charlotte Bronte

TEN

The corpse of Steven Carmichael had been the first they'd seen in days. It was unfortunate that they had failed to save him from the unsub, but it did mean they had new information to work with.

'Asphyxiation,' noted Morgan, gloved fingers brushing the bruised neck. 'Manual strangulation. It's unusual for a man to kill another man this way. Usually it's a man strangling a woman; size differences.'

The team had commuted from the police station to Steven Carmichael's apartment, where the body had been dumped by the unsub.

'It's a hell of a risk,' commented Emily, looking down the hallway. 'Thin walls, small apartments. Anyone could have heard something and came out to investigate.'

'This wasn't exactly Kitty Genovese,' countered Morgan. 'Carmichael was already dead when the body was dumped. Providing our unsub was strong enough to get him here without making too much noise, the only thing he had to worry about was people entering or leaving their apartments at three o'clock in the morning.' Two am had been the T.O.D as determined by the Medical Examiner, and they suspected that the unsub would have wanted to rid himself of the body as soon as possible.

'If it was the unsub,' said Emily, reminding Morgan of his previous doubts.

'If it was the unsub,' he agreed.

Hotch and Rossi were canvassing the entire building. If anyone had seen something, they needed to know. Rossi was going along Carmichael's floor, talking to those he had already established a simple rapport.

'Who is it?' a voice called through the door, just seconds after Rossi had rapped his knuckles against the hard wood.

'Agent Rossi, FBI.' It was the salutation with which he had introduced himself the previous day. She had insisted on calling him Dave, but he feared if he encouraged this behaviour, then he would start the conversation on a casual note.

'Dave?' The quiet, mousy-haired woman opened the door immediately at the sound of his voice. 'It's nice to see you again, Dave.' She smiled, revealing several missing teeth.

'Official business, I'm afraid, Gloria,' he greeted her, with a frown playing upon his lips.

'Is it Steven? Did you find him?' she asked fearfully. Though she didn't know Steven Carmichael well, a death close-by would bring the nightmares crashing back.

'I'm afraid Steven is dead.' Rossi confirmed her fears.

'Come in, have a brownie,' she invited him.

'I can't stay, Gloria. I just need to know if you saw anything.'

'You've got time for one brownie, surely?' Her eyes seemed to plead, and Rossi relented.

'One brownie,' he agreed.

When Rossi had taken the first bite of his brownie, Gloria started to speak. She had seen something this morning, it transpired, in between her bouts of booze-fuelled sleep. Her husband had left three weeks ago, she had explained the previous day, and a few shots of bourbon before bed was the only way she could guarantee sleep.

'It was maybe two-thirty in the morning. I'd gotten up to get a glass of water. The pills, they make me thirsty. I heard some bumping on the stairs, and then the footsteps of someone walking past my door. I opened it to have a look, but he'd already gone past. I kept it open, just a hair, and I saw him on his way back. He seemed...relieved.'

'Could you tell me what he looked like?' asked Rossi, writing notes in his pad.

'He was tall – very tall. Maybe six foot five. Heavily built. Light hair, youngish. I don't know, I only got a brief glimpse.'

Several minutes later, Rossi expressed his apologies, and bid farewell. Gloria seemed upset to see him go, but visibly brightened when he handed her his card, in case she remembered anything else.

As much as they pained to admit it, the BAU were running on very few solid leads. The death of Steven Carmichael had yielded a basic description from several witnesses. He was tall, muscular, around thirty-five. All things that they had already gleaned from the profile. There had been no more significant connections worthy of further investigation, and if they didn't find anything soon, then the local opinion of the FBI would surely be sullied. In spite of this, several members of the BAU had their minds occupied by topics that were hardly work related.

Emily joined Morgan outside, at the far end of the police station car park. They were at just the right angle to watch the sun set. At any other time, it might have been considered romantic, but such a notion was far removed from conscious thought.

'Hey,' she said, sitting beside him on the wire fence.

'Hey.' If he was surprised to see her there, he didn't show it.

She took a deep breath. 'I'm sorry I snapped at you last night. I know you only want to help me get through this, but the truth is...it's not going to be that easy. I thought I could have handled it myself, but maybe...' She didn't want to say the words "I was wrong".

'Never be too proud to ask for help,' Morgan said, putting an arm around her shoulder. They simply sat in silence for several minutes. The sun was almost below the horizon when she began to talk, telling him the same story she had told Rossi that morning.

He stayed silent throughout, though his hand gripped the fence so hard that he might have drawn blood. At the end of the tale, she said something else, something she hadn't even told Rossi.

'You know why there was no-one at the airport?' she didn't even wait for him to answer, before saying bitterly. 'She'd forgotten I was coming.' Suddenly, everything seemed so clear to Morgan – why she didn't trust anyone to take care of her, why she had placed the impossible burden upon herself.

'Everything's going to be okay,' he said, drawing her closer. He was still holding her when the sound of a gunshot pierced the air.

A/N: Ha. The first "real" cliff-hanger. Perhaps I'll be extra devious, and tell you that I'm not going to update until I get a certain amount of reviews. But I would never do that...or would I? Cheers, tfm.