A/N: Chapter 3 (obviously). Please Review, they are much appreciated. Constructive criticism is welcome, please no flames. Oh, and I toyed around with Garcia and Morgan's past a bit, please don't kill me. I promise I didn't change anything too major. I don't think. (There may be a little MorganXGarcia later on too, because they're too cute together not to do anything with.) I suppose there is a bit of X-Men AU type stuff in this story, because I like to make people weird.
BRTxoxo
The coroner pulled the sheet back from the young girls head.
Her ears were stiff, her eyes closed, her skin pastel white.
Kate's eyes widened significantly. Hotch's and Reid's widened slightly, and Daniel covered his mouth with his hand. Grief flashed across his face.
He swallowed thickly and nodded, "That's Taryn." He took in her slit throat, the bruising around the cut, the edges of the incision from the coroner's knife, the way her hair fell so lifelessly around her shoulders, how deathly pale her skin looked, and how stiff her ears were.
"Do you think you could explain how this," the coroner pointed to her ears, "happened? I've never seen anything like this before."
"And hopefully you never will again." Daniel mumbled around his fingers before crossing both arms across his chest tightly. "She was born this way; her and her sister. Nobody knows how or why." He swallowed again. "My sister paid for everything they'd ever need so they wouldn't have to get jobs and reveal their… attributes. She didn't want them to be ridiculed. They were homeschooled, and took online college courses. Neither of them got drivers licenses. My sister, their father and I were the only ones to ever know." he breathed in deeply.
"May I?" Kate hesitantly reached out her hand towards the body.
Daniel nodded slowly.
Gently she stroked the ear nearest her. "I've never seen anything like it all."
"No one else has either. We intended to keep it that way." Daniel tightened his arms around his torso. "She has a dogs tail as well, bushy, like a husky's. Katrina however has cat ears and a cat tail. And nails like a cat too."
"Do you have a picture of her, one we could send out as missing posters?" Hotch nodded to the coroner before he turned to the neuropsychiatrist.
Daniel nodded again and they left the morgue, making their way back to the car.
"Doctor Pierce!" Reid hurried to catch up to Daniel, holding his satchel so it wasn't jostled. "Doctor Pierce I was wondering if I could talk to you. I heard that you're a paranoid schizophrenic, from your author bios."
"I am." Daniel nodded.
"Well, I was just… thinking, or wondering really if what happened in the car, if that was maybe an episode, if you had them. If you know, if you were off your medications. I mean, I'm just curious you don't have to respond or anything I just think it'd be really fascinating." The genius trailed off a bit, becoming a bit embarrassed.
"It wasn't an episode. I can control my hallucinations. Relatively. I have a schedule, a pattern that helps me stay on track. I have some hallucinations, but some of them are fairly regular and don't cause me any stress." Daniel took a deep breath as they approached the elevator.
Daniel and Reid gripped the handrails of the elevator once again, but this time Kate stood by Daniel's side.
Her small hand barely touched his large, warm one. She didn't know how she should feel, if she should be sorry for his loss, and what she should say. Ever since she'd started working with him on cases for the FBI, she'd craved more and more of his company. True, when she was younger in his class she had a crush on him but this was different. She was older now, had more experience, new more things. She wondered how he felt, if he felt any attraction whatsoever towards her, or if all he felt was platonic friendship. Somehow she felt safer around him even though she was the FBI agent and he was schizophrenic.
Daniel's hand itched to take Kate's. He was never comfortable in hospitals, but having someone he trusted, especially Kate, was comforting. He was slightly wary about Reid, and perhaps a bit uncomfortable talking about his diagnosis with him. But there was something about the young man that made him seem trustworthy enough.
Hotch watched Daniel and Kate, and wondered if their attraction was as painfully obvious to them as it was to him. At the moment he would have asked Reid, but the genius was too busy holding onto the hand rail as the lift took them to the parking garage.
They made it to the parking garage safely, much to Daniel and Reid's satisfaction and pleasure, and made their way to the car silently, Kate's arm brushing against Daniel's side with every step.
And yet, though Hotch knew that three of them carried at least one gun, he felt eyes on him, angry scathing eyes, and he assumed from the way that Reid gripped his bag with both hands in a near white knuckled grip, he felt it too.
. . .
Penelope Garcia sat slouched in her office chair, her perfectly painted fingers were pressed together and her perfectly painted lips were pursed. Her glasses were lying haphazardly on her desk of organized clutter, and she blinked back the mist in her hazel eyes. The headset was still on her head, but the mouth piece was away from her mouth.
She knew she should be looking up some information about the victims or the unsub but she couldn't bring herself to do so.
JJ, Elle, and Gideon had gone to the latest crime scene. Hotch and Reid had gone to the morgue with Kate Morretti and Daniel Pierce.
Daniel Pierce.
That had been about an hour and a half ago or so, and she had done absolutely nothing in the time. Her normally bubbly demeanor was sullen, and she was strangely quiet. Even the room with its bright decorations on her computer screens were dull. It was as if a cloud had fallen over the enclosed technical room.
"Garcia? Baby girl you okay?" Derek Morgan came into the room. His mocha skin prickled with goose-bumps from the chill in the air. Her room was usually warm and welcoming, but now it felt a little less than welcoming.
"Hmm? Yeah, I'm fine." The arrival of Garcia's best friend broke her musing mood. She sat up straight, pulled up to her desk, set her glasses on her nose, and blinked her eyes rapidly, clearing the tears from her eyes before Morgan could see.
"Uh-huh." The agent spun her chair around and knelt in front of her, gently taking her hands in his. "See I would believe that if your cozy little lair wasn't lifeless. Even your hair seems dull. What's up buttercup?"
Garcia sighed heavily. "This case… this case is different from the rest."
"I know what you mean. It's not every day you see a victim, let alone random passerby with animal ears and a tail."
"No it's not that love." She shut her eyes and breathed out slowly, collecting her composure into a fragile pile. When she opened her eyes, she took in Morgan's confused chocolate eyes and imploring facial expression. "My real father's name is David Powers."
"Okay." Morgan shrugged his muscle toned shoulders. "What does that have to do with the case? Lots of people have the same last name."
"He had a brother Luke Powers that married a woman Lisa Pierce." She could almost see the pieces slowly falling together in her friends mind. "She had a brother, Daniel Pierce, who, around the time she had twin daughters, started to become estranged to her. Her daughters are my cousins."
"So…"
"Yeah. I was never especially close to Taryn, a little closer to Kat. She's a few years younger than me, about three I think. I haven't seen them in years, ever since my parents died. I didn't even know that they were living here in Virginia." Garcia slouched back again and closed her eyes against the uncharacteristic tears that pricked her hazel eyes. She bit her bottom lip.
Morgan had never seen her like this. He'd never seen his best friend this upset in all the years he'd known her, and he'd known her for the better part of two decades. They'd gone to school together in middle school and high school, and stayed in contact when she'd disappeared off the map and started hacking. They'd studied the same things, been like siblings-almost twins themselves-for all those years, even gotten their jobs at the BAU around the same time. She'd never talked about her birth father's family, he didn't even know she'd had cousins from that side.
And yet through all that, he'd never seen her like this. He'd seen her heartbroken; he'd been the one to bring her ice cream and chocolate and stay up all night watching horror movies with her. He'd seen her when her parents got divorced in high school; he'd been the only one she'd told her true feelings to. But she'd never been this down trodden and melancholy. He'd been there when her parents had been killed by a drunk driver and her step father had been the only one to survive.
He didn't say anything now. He didn't say anything as her glasses fogged up. He didn't say anything when the first few tears slipped out through her perfect eyelashes and trailed her makeup down her pale cheeks. He just pulled her up as he stood and wrapped her up in his strong arms and let her cry and stain his grey t-shirt.
