Chapter 2

"The victims are both men and women," Morgan restated, going over the case in his mind as the plane took them swiftly, and hopefully sturdily across the country. Haley strained to focus on the conversation in order to keep her fear of flying on the backburner.

"A bi-sexual sadist?" Emily furrowed her brow. "I've never heard of one."

"I don't think it's a bi-sexual unsub," Haley said, her wide-set eyes flickering up to the group with her burst of insight.

"Why?" was the simple answer that came from Hotch. He was testing her, she could tell, to see if she could back theories.

Oh could she. "It goes back to Sigmund Freud and his theories of a child's sexual identity as a result of melancholia, when it realizes it cannot identify sexually with one of its parents, so grief of the loss of 'lust' toward that parent leads it to take on the sexual attributes of the lost parent in order to subconsciously understand why the parent rejected them. It's either one parent or the other, not both. Taking on the attributes of both is too much for the human mentality, which is why I don't believe that bi-sexuality exists."

"Then what is it?" Penelope, who had come due to the time-zone difference between Quantico and Aberdeen, inquired, interested.

"Confusion," Haley shrugged. "Indecisiveness. It could be a mixture of a lot of things. But as for true bi-sexuality, I don't think it's a viable excuse, the unsub's heterosexual."

"He gets off on his motive rather than the victim," Spencer pontificated. "Did you take some of your theory from Judith Butler?"

"Yeah, she and Freud are pretty close in their theories about human gender. However, Freud's dream theories? I don't think dreams are anything past a warped reflection of the day that's passed."

"I'd have to disagree with you there," her brother raised her eyebrows and went started to go off when he was interrupted.

"It's like watching ping pong," Emily smiled. "You can almost see the little white ball go back and forth."

Morgan beamed at that and clapped Spencer on the shoulder. "So we need to figure out this guy's drive, okay," he brought the conversation back to the real world.

"The only way we can do that is learn more about the victims," Rossi leaned back some more. "We don't have enough information with us right now."

JJ nodded and looked at Spencer nervously. Her husband was running his hand through his hair and wrinkling his brow as he debated with Haley. JJ wasn't sure if it pertained to the unsub or not, but it was starting to get heated. She knew that in a few minutes it would bubble over and the scientific pontifications would turn into personal attacks, they would then both laugh over it and continue with a more civilized discussion. She knew this process by heart because this is how it would be at the dinner table when Haley came over. Isabelle would start laughing at them and then it the conversation would shift from scientific things to how big the little girl's gotten.

JJ smiled at the combination of memories and held her slowly growing belly. She hadn't told Spencer yet, that she was expecting, that they were expecting. He had been too absorbed in work lately, she wasn't sure of his reaction. Of course, she assumed it would be a good one, but she felt that he didn't need the added stress yet. No one knew, Penelope might have guessed, but she wasn't letting JJ know if she had.

"You okay, JJ?" Haley furrowed her brow at her sister-in-law. Haley had just accepted the fact that the group conversation had completely shifted, partly due because they hadn't actually seen the real crime scenes or had a chance to investigate the victims fully, the other part due to trying to make the mood lighter.

Cases where there was a limited amount of time, as assumed by Haley due to the dwindling number of metal stakes in the ground, cases were difficult and straining. The jet was really the only place they could enjoy solace and actually have time to think. JJ took her time in responding.

"Jayj?"

"I'm just fine, Hales. Don't worry about me," with a sweet smile, she quickly went to her folder and started to shuffle through some papers, trying to look busy.

Emily caught Haley staring intently at JJ. "What?" she mouthed.

Haley shrugged in response, and began to go through her bag after they had concluded the first firing round. She looked around to make sure the conversation had officially ended before she lost herself in a book and night set itself around the flying vessel.

--

The sounds of my boots crunching on the slightest pebble against a smooth concrete floor.

The dim light of the stuffy storage pod provides an excellent palette to work with. With this dim light, everything seems darker, and I can't really tell where things start and end.

I look up, see the man bound, his eyes pleading for me to let him go. He even begins to whimper.

No.

I feel my knife, stolen from Spencer's kitchen and kept under my mattress just for nights like these. One more step forward.

He begins to cry. Bliss.

Then I raise the knife, knowing exactly where I'm going to cut first. I'm well versed in this; practice makes perfect.

"Hales!"

Haley jerked from her slumber and clenched onto her brother, who had just shaken her. Her breath was heavy, and her forehead glistened slightly in the half-light.

"Haley, you were dreaming; you're okay," Spencer whispered to her.

She leaned back into her chair, putting the book that she had fallen asleep reading underneath, and lifted her hand to her temple. "I'm sorry. Still get those sometimes," she smiled in a weak attempt to play the nightmare down.

"Tell me about it," Spencer said.

Haley gave him a strange look of reluctance. "Spence, you'll think I've regressed."

His look became even more serious. "Regressed?" he asked.

"It was about killing someone," she said quickly and quietly, looking around the plane to see who might have heard. The only one awake other than Haley and Spencer was Hotch, and he was focused completely on the case. "But it wasn't just… like… I don't know, a normal dream about killing someone, if one could call something like that normal. It was the way I did it when I… did that stuff." She spoke quietly and sharply, quickly trying to outline her experience to her brother while at the same time putting up a façade of relaxation.

She saw his face as he took in this new information and processed it, then his eyes flicked over her body language and processed that too.

"You're still scared," he said. "Of the first case. Why?"

"You said it before… nerves I guess."

"I… I don't believe you," he raised an eyebrow.

She looked him up and down for any sign that he might back down from this fight, and there didn't seem to be a crack in his wall. She took a deep breath. "I'm not afraid of the case itself… I mean, I've dealt with killers and dead bodies and being a victim and consoling people and figuring things out, the whole nine yards. I'm just afraid of what the case might do to me. Maybe my dream represented those fears?"

Another silence from Spencer, he cracked a smile.

"What?" she asked seriously, knitting her eyebrows.

"'A warped reflection of the day that's passed,' I believe you said," he stood up, paused, then knelt back down to whisper in Haley's ear. "We all have nightmares. We see things every day that no one ever wants to see. Freud may be right, you may be right, I don't know. What I do know is that dreams can speak louder than actions. I know you aren't going to regress simply because your dream reflects that worry to me. I'll prove that I was right when we leave Aberdeen, because you won't have started killing people again."

He stood up again and rubbed his hand on her shoulder as he walked past, adding, "I have some sleeping pills if you need them."

Haley looked after him and raised her eyebrows.

"Prescription," he handed the little bottle to her. "Don't worry."

"As long as you aren't," Haley said and dry swallowed a pill, "I won't be. Night."

"`Night," he said softly and went to sit next to JJ.

Haley fell asleep as the sound of the engines of the plane played a muted lullaby, dark gray forms of clouds covering and uncovering the bright full moon as the team was gently swept across the country.