Perfection Chapter 5: The Levine Family, a criminal minds fanfic

Perfection

Chapter Five: The Levine Family

By Ann Parker (TV)

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Alex Haley once said, "In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future."

If a pin had dropped in the conference room, everyone could have heard it. They were all stunned, remaining silent for a few minutes. Finally, Sarah let out a deep sigh and stood up. The team watched as she walked around the table and took the file from Emily.

"Sarah…" Gideon started.

"It's ingrained in my memory, Jason. Seeing the photos isn't going to make it much worse. Besides, they need to know whom we're dealing with," she countered. Gideon simply nodded. She opened the file. "Samuel Levine. 47 years old. Married Rosemary Stern on October 12, 1994. Rose had a ten-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, Sarah." She set down photos of her mother and stepfather in front of the team. "The couple had one child, Lucas, in March of 1997." She set down a photo of her brother and sighed. Reid, who had walked up behind her by this point, put a hand on her shoulder. She touched it softly before continuing.

"Samuel beat his wife and kids, although no one in the town of Middlebrook seemed to notice. In December of 2002, Rose and the kids were reported missing by the children's schools and Rose's workplace. The FBI was called in after it was discovered that Samuel hadn't shown up to work for a few days and their house appeared to have been ransacked. The lead agent on the case," she paused momentarily and looked at Gideon, "discovered an envelope in Sarah's bedroom that documented her attacks, as well as her mother's and brother's. She had been attempting to build a case against her stepfather for when she convinced her mother to finally leave him." She set a few of those photos on the table and she could hear the team bite back gasps.

"It was discovered that Sarah had succeeded in getting her mom to leave him, but Samuel found the three of them before they could get out of town. By the time they had figured out that he had taken them to his old hunting cabin in the mountains…" Reid noticed her legs almost give out and quickly grabbed a chair for her to sit down. She took a deep breath and continued. "He slit Rose's throat and stabbed her body ten times postmortem." She set down photos of the scene, hardly looking at them. "He then shook Lucas, who had been in Sarah's arms, and threw him to the ground to make him stop crying, cracking his skull in the process." Her fingers lightly grazed over Lucas' face in the photo before showing the rest. The tears she had been fighting back started to fall. "He…" her eyes landed on photos of herself. Gideon, who was also behind her, took the folder from her hands.

"That's good. I'll finish the rest," he stated. "He then chose to punish Sarah." He put several photos of Sarah's wounds on the table and gasps could be heard from the rest. Reid thought he was going to be sick; they were worse than she led on. "He beat, cut, and raped her, leaving her to bleed to death. I found her just before she would have. She needed four transfusions of blood and three hours of surgery, but she pulled through, always the fighter. We found Levine not far from the scene. He was convicted in March of 2003, sentenced to death. He was currently serving his time at Augusta Correctional Center until he escaped four days ago. It appears he wants to finish what he started." Gideon looked down at Sarah, as did everyone else. She was wiping her eyes, trying to pull herself back together. Reid thought he had noticed her wince in pain.

"I um…" Emily started and Sarah looked up at her.

"Go ahead," she replied.

"I was just…it's your last name," she finally spit out.

"After the trial I had it legally changed to Riverson, my mother's maiden name. Stern was my birth father's last name, but he died in a car crash when I was still in the womb, so I chose her name. Apparently, he doesn't know that detail," she replied. They were silent for another moment before Morgan suddenly grabbed all the photos and shoved them into the file.

"That's enough of looking at those. Let's go nail this son of a bitch," he stated, getting up from his chair.

"Right, I'll get the plane ready," added Hotch.

"It's ready," said Garcia through the intercom. She had been listening in horror the whole time, grateful she didn't see the photos. "I took the liberty of calling it in." The whole team slightly smiled.

"Thanks Penelope," answered Sarah.

"Anything for my baby girl," she replied. Sarah giggled ever so slightly and it helped everyone get moving past the fact that she was just in those photos.

"All right, let's go," ordered Hotch and they all started to head out the door until they heard Sarah call out in pain and sit back down. Reid was at her side in an instant.

"What's wrong?" he asked although he knew the answer. Her hand was on her side.

"I think my brain is trying to keep me from having a breakdown by just sending pain signals to my side," she stated as if reciting it from a psychology textbook. "Either that or my addicted part is trying to get me to down a bottle of Tylenol." She noticed all of them tense up slightly. "Relax, that's not going to happen, I'm just going to need a heating pad and some assistance to the plane." Without a word, Reid gently helped her up and wrapped her arm around his shoulders.

"Does this work or should I carry you?" he asked, a hint of humor in his voice. He knew she wouldn't tolerate the second option. She laughed slightly.

"Cute, not funny, but cute," she replied. "This is fine, let's go." They headed out the door, the others following, except for Hotch and Gideon. Hotch grabbed the two case files.

"Is she going to be able to handle this?" Hotch asked the older man once out of earshot from the rest. Gideon sighed.

"I think so. She's got a much larger support system this time around."

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