Chapter Seven

It was almost 2pm when the team boarded the jet, DC-bound, several hours ahead of what the pilot had been expecting. None of them had expected to be home for dinner; when they woke up this morning, they had no real tangible leads. When SSA Prentiss and Special Agent Kent brought Samuel Silverman into custody, however, it became glaringly obvious that they had their guy. Within minutes of being in interrogation, he cracked under Rossi and Reid's tag-team, rapid-fire questioning. He confessed to all four murders.

An obvious self-harmer, Samuel's depression had escalated under the shadow of his older brother. When Alicia, the object of his affections, admitted that she had slept with Richard, he snapped. The slashed wrists and ankles were an attempt to release himself from the pain he felt. Unfortunately, there was no escaping it.

When Patty and Christy confronted him three days later, he saw no choice but to eliminate the witnesses. Samuel was no longer in control of the urge to harm others. It was lucky they caught him as quickly as they did. Kelsey Blakely was undoubtedly the beginning of would eventually be considered a killing spree.

Hotch leaned back in his seat, resting his head and closing his eyes but for just a moment. He never slept well when they were on a case. His mind just wouldn't shut off. Now, he tried to stay focused on the positive; because they had caught the guy so quickly, he would be home early enough to spend some quality time with his son, Jack.

It rubbed him the wrong way, though, how their newest member had handled her first case with the BAU. He was nothing if not a stickler for the rules- that was how he climbed the ladder at the FBI, to his position as the leader of this team. Kristina Kent had been completely reckless when she and JJ entered Silverman's house the day prior. She had been on the team less than seven hours before she had to be taken to the hospital as a direct result of breaking protocol. No matter whose orders had gotten Kent on his team, he needed to be sure that he could trust her in the field.

Dave collapsed into the seat next to Aaron, as if reading his mind.

"Stop worrying, Aaron. The case is over, we got the guy."

"That's not what i'm worried about," he muttered under his breath, his eyes flickering over to the tall brunette agent whose sat across from Prentiss and was distracting herself with her cell phone. His disapproval did not go unnoticed.

"Hotch," Rossi lowered his voice, "just give her a chance."

"I don't have a choice," He snapped, a furrow in his brow.

"Her reassignment came from far beyond my level of influence."

This made Rossi pause.

"Really?"

"Yes, and the last time this happened..." Hotch drifted off, not needing to remind anyone of how Strauss had brought in none other than Emily Prentiss to spy on the team and bring him down. Of course, the loyal Special Agent had threatened to resign rather than rat him out... but somehow Hotch doubted that Kristina Kent would be willing to do the same.

Rossi frowned.

"Hotch, I know Kristina, and she would never-"

"You knew her seven years ago, Dave. A lot can happen in that time."

The older agent sighed, knowing there was very little that could change Aaron's mind. Still, he knew he had to do something to ease Hotch's worries.

"Look, Hotch, if it makes you feel better, I'll talk to her tomorrow. I'll make sure she knows you're the boss, and she needs to be more careful in the future."

"She shouldn't have to be told to follow the rules," he pointed out to his far too forgiving co-worker.

Dave sighed.

"Look, you and I both know she's been through a lot. She's not the first agent to try to carry the world on her shoulders."

Aaron had to concede on this point. Part of what made a good agent was the innate desire to cure the world of all its problems. Experience told him that there would always be someone out there, making the world a darker, more sinister place...but that didn't stop them from trying.


As the BAU stepped off the plane, Kristina scanned the small crowd of people for her ride; the team had carpooled to the airport and her car was still at Quantico. She quickly found him, a grin instantly spreading across her face.

"Frank!" she exclaimed, running ahead of the team and into a hug from the big, brawny ex-agent whom she was privileged to call her best friend. He took a major chance on her thirteen years ago, and she spent those years learning from the best in the Bureau. They were the perfect team; he was strong and steady, and she was fast and fierce. He let her test her own limits, always behind her to catch her if she fell.

Beyond his accomplishments in the field, Frank had proven himself to be a loyal, trustworthy confidant. Kristina trusted him with her life, and if she was being honest, he was the only person she could truly open up to. He always seemed to say the right thing, despite his inherent social awkwardness.

"Kricket!" He sighed happily, calling her by her childhood nickname- when she started with the Bureau, she had invited him over for dinner at her parent's house and all it took was one slip of the tongue from her mother for Frank to adopt the nickname from then on.

"Thanks for coming to pick me up," she smiled, separating from their hug as the rest of the team approached them.

Frank waved her off.

"You don't need to thank me. How are your hands?" he gently grabbed both of her hands and looked over the freshly-bandaged wounds.

"Honestly, Frank," Kristina chuckled, "I'm fine."

She turned around to the rest of the team, and quickly introduced her ex-partner to them. Fifteen minutes later, they were in Frank's black SUV-old habits die hard-with AC/DC playing in the background as Frank quizzed her on the case like a parent would to a kid on their way home from school.

"So, how are you liking the team? Have you made any friends?" He chuckled to himself as the younger agent lightly bobbed her head to the rhythm of "Highway To Hell", almost missing his question altogether.

"It's fine...I haven't really had time to get to know anyone, since we were on a case," she emphasized the last word, reminding him that she was not here to make friends. She was here to do her job.

Frank, however, was relentless.

"If you plan on being here for a while, you're going to have to interact with these people," he pointed out with a smile creeping on his face. She chuckled again.

"Well, I don't think Jennifer wants anything to do with me."

Frank paused.

"Kristina, what did you do?"

The brunette sighed.

"I didn't do anything...we're just too alike," she explained.

"So she's stubborn and pigheaded and difficult?" he teased.

"Pertinacious," Kristina shot back, trying not to smile.

"Million dollar word of the day..." Frank muttered under his breath, shaking his head at the unwavering agent in his passenger seat.

"So I found a few apartments for us to look at for you," He changed the subject as the song ended and a commercial began.

"Aww, Frank, is this your way of telling me I'm no longer welcome at your apartment?" Kristina teased playfully.

He shook his head.

"No, of course not. I was just thinking, you need a place, and I have all this time to find you the perfect place. I found a few good ones, one has a killer view of the Mall, in downtown DC. Super fancy. We can go apartment shopping this weekend, if you want."

As the brunette's stomach rumbled beneath her seatbelt, she chuckled.

"Can we stop somewhere and get a quick dinner? I haven't eaten at all today." she admitted. Frank gasped in mock horror.

"See, this is why you need me: because you'd never eat if I wasn't paying."

"That's not even true, you big brute," she retorted, slapping him lightly on the shoulder, "I was just busy catching bad guys."

Frank turned on Wisconsin Avenue after catching a Z Burger out of the corner of his eye.

"Story of our lives, Kricket."

He pulled up to the drive-thru, ordered her a cheeseburger and fries before she could even open her mouth, then turned back to his best friend, thankful to have her back, it seemed, for the first time in months. She had been beating herself up over things out of her control for as long as he could remember, but it had only gotten worse in the months before he blew out his knee. Everything seemed to pile on them at once; it was a miracle they survived what happened in Nashville.

Agent Kent had passed the mandatory post-traumatic therapy sessions with flying colors, of course, because she absolutely wouldn't let anyone see the broken side of herself. That was reserved for only those lucky enough to really know Kristina. Over the years, she had learned to fake it. He considered it his job to protect her from the crippling self-doubt, to be a ray of sunshine in her undoubtedly dark and dreary lifestyle.

As he handed the drive-thru attendant a $20 bill, he turned back to the tall brunette, who was caught between pouting over his insistence on paying for her food, and just happy to have her big brother back.

He cracked a grin.

"So, tell me about the rest of the team...How about that Emily Prentiss?"


Spencer arrived home around 7:30, and quickly popped a Tupperware with Dave's leftover spaghetti into the microwave for dinner. The kind senior agent was a master in the kitchen, and from time to time would send the condemned bachelor decent, home-cooked meals to break up the monotony of take-out every night.

As the spaghetti warmed up, he pulled up his computer and checked his inbox-Garcia had found Special Agent Kent's abnormal psychology thesis and sent him an email with the PDF file. He double clicked the link and was momentarily stunned by the title: "Psychological Processing of Emotional and Self-Referential Information in Schizophrenia".

The microwave beeped, telling the young genius that his dinner was ready. Suddenly, his hunger disappeared as Spencer Reid found himself preoccupied with something else entirely.

The possibility of genetically inheriting his mother's paranoid schizophrenia was something that often weighed heavily on his mind. As a student of psychology, the doctor knew that the odds were not in his favor. He'd avoided the subject, burying himself in his work, in helping other people where he couldn't help himself. It seemed useless to fret over something out of his control.

Still, he worried. He couldn't help it. The piercing headaches he experienced were very possibly linked to the disease, a daily reminder of his eventual fate. But now, with Kristina Kent, he saw a small glimmer of hope. As he quickly read the dissertation, he realized that the newest member of the team knew more about the cause and effects of schizophrenia than anyone else he knew-including himself. It was as if the universe had sent her to the BAU to help him.

He wanted to call her immediately, to invite her over to discuss the things he had learned from her dissertation. He wanted to thank her, for giving him a sense of hope that he hadn't felt in a very, very long time. Even if he never plucked up the courage to talk to her, there was a strange comfort that came with learning this about the new agent.

Realizing that his dinner was going to get cold if he left it in the microwave for much longer, he retrieved it and picked at it with a fork as he contemplated how he was going to strike up a conversation with Agent Kent tomorrow.