Accidental Confessionals
"It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one."
~George Washington.
Penelope Garcia's Apartment. Washington, D.C.
"Hotch is right—we don't have much," Penelope admitted, taking her seat in front of the at-home workstation in the corner of her living room. "But here's what we do have. We've got an email, sent from Reid's phone, to a reporter—"
"Who is also Maeve's sister," Emily gave a curt nod. Last night, Hotch had given her more details about the case as she was on her way over to Heathrow, but on the ride to Penelope's this morning, Rossi had refused to discuss the case, insisting that they all deserved a few more minutes of simply catching up on each other's lives. "So, where is a copy of this email?"
With an easy movement, Penelope pulled a printout from the corkboard positioned on the wall above her desk. Emily frowned slightly as she inspected it.
"And it's the real thing?"
"Unfortunately, my love, yes."
"What little bit I saw of Reid's interrogation, the investigative team hadn't proven the email's veracity yet," Hotch offered. "But it's safe to assume that they probably know as much as we do by now."
"And where is this reporter?" Emily looked back to Rossi, who was the most likely to know. She'd also been apprised of Jordan Strauss' involvement in the whole debacle, but she wasn't going to mention that aloud unless absolutely necessary. Rossi was most likely already mentally kicking himself over that particular development, there wasn't any need to rub salt in the wound, especially when it came to Dave.
He made a helpless gesture with his hands. "In the wind, apparently."
Hotch's cellphone interrupted the discussion. He frowned slightly at the caller ID before answering, "This is Agent Hotchner."
The room went silent, all eyes turned expectantly towards the BAU chief.
"Of course. And—I appreciate it, sir." He hung up. He looked as stoic as ever, but his words were tinged with surprise.
"Jack Dawson was calling to make sure I was attending the briefing," he announced.
"Well, you are," Morgan pointed out.
"But why call to make sure specifically?" Hotch asked quietly.
"To preserve an air of normalcy," Rossi guessed. "The press may be gone, but everyone at Quantico is still keeping tabs on who's where, doing what. It would be noticed if the BAU was suddenly uninvited to all the briefings."
"Easier to keep an eye on us, too," Morgan added. "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer."
"Enemies is a little…dramatic, don't we think?" Emily gave him a look of feigned concern.
"You know what I mean."
She merely grinned—she did know, she just wasn't missing a chance to goad her former partner. He grinned back (I'm on to you, lady).
Hotch's phone buzzed again. This time it was Kate Callahan, calling to let him know that she was downstairs. He excused himself, promising to let them know as soon as he had any new information.
Once he was gone, Derek turned to Emily, "So, was Hotch happy to see you?"
"Bit hard to tell. He's Hotch, Man of One Facial Expression," Emily returned easily. It was a joke that she and Morgan used to make privately. Mount Hotchmore, face of stone.
"And were you happy to see him?" Her friend wasn't so easily deterred.
"Of course I was—I'm happy to see all of you," she rolled her eyes. Then she stopped, as if struck by a sudden thought, "Is this some kind of weird competition between you two? You wanna see which one I've missed more? Because I've gotta tell ya, you both lose miserably to my boo thang over here."
She was, of course, talking about Penelope Garcia, who merely nodded in agreement, "Mm-hmm. She loves me enough to put voodoo hexes on me. You can't compete with that, sugar pie."
"I have no idea what that even means," Derek admitted easily. He spared a look between the two smiling, strange women. "And knowing you two, I probably don't need to know."
"Probably," Emily teased. "But you still want to. You know you can't resist the temptation. It's who you are, Derek Morgan."
He waved away the taunt, turning his attention back to Penelope, who was busy organizing her desk for the long day ahead.
Emily glanced back over at David Rossi, who was still nonchalantly positioned across the room.
What the hell did you tell them? Her brows furrowed downward in angry accusation.
He held up his hands slightly, his own eyebrows lifting in surprise. Nothing, gattina.
She spared him one last look, as if weighing his innocence and giving him a pass—for now.
In the black and blank surface of her currently-turned-off computer screen, Penelope Garcia saw Rossi's half of the exchange. And she wondered if the "little push" which she'd jokingly told Derek that Emily and Hotch needed had already been given—and if maybe, just maybe, it had been successful.
If so...oh, a miracle, indeed.
Sunny Side Up Café. Madison, Wisconsin.
"Alright, fess up."
Adelaide Macaraeg's eyes flew up from her breakfast plate to look up at Joan Macaraeg Beringer, her elder half-sister. They had different fathers, but they both took after their mother in looks—the same dark features, the same delicate wrists and high cheekbones and thin lips. Joan was a few inches taller, which made her look even leaner, and her deep chestnut hair was sliced into a chic bob that never seemed to have a hair out of place.
Currently those almost-identical features were watching Adelaide with searing scrutiny as she slowly sipped her coffee. As usual, Joan's fingernails were perfectly manicured and painted a blaring red-orange.
"Fess up to what?" Mac returned her attention to the table, skipping over her plate to swipe the celery from her Bloody Mary—she'd landed two hours ago, blew into her daughter's apartment to give her a bone-crushing hug and shower her with congratulations and adoration, after which Emma Macaraeg had to leave for the graduation pre-ceremony line-up. Mac and Joan had found a café down the street for some much-needed fortification for the hours ahead—alcohol for Mac, coffee for Joan.
"Ok, that innocent act might work on some, but I'm your sister, Addie." Joan settled back against her seat, crossing her arms over her chest. "Even as a kid, you could never keep a secret. Emma didn't notice, because she's got a lot going on today, but I can see it, written all over your face. You're glowing."
"Jesus, you make it sound like I'm pregnant," Mac deflected jokingly.
Joan gave a snort of wry amusement. "That ship has long sailed, for both of us. And you, my dear, are avoiding the question."
"Because I don't have an answer for you, Joanie. I can't control what you think you see."
"Oh, I don't think I see anything. I know." Joan leaned forward again, "It's a boy, isn't it?"
"Oh good lord, Joan. You're sixty-three years old, stop talking like we're still teenagers." Mac rolled her eyes, ignoring the daggers her sister shot her way at the mention of her age.
"Fine, a man. Which by the way, you haven't denied. There is a man involved, isn't there?"
"They make up 51% of the world population. There's generally one involved, somehow."
"That's as close to a confirmation as I'm going to get," Joan realized. She took another smug sip of her coffee. "And I'll take it."
With another roll of her eyes, Mac took a bite of her celery. Her elder sister studied her for a moment—growing up as half-sisters with a seven-year gap in their ages had meant not having much reason to compete with one another, and sibling rivalry had been nearly non-existent between them. Addie's father had adopted Joan and her younger brother as his own, and he'd never played favorites, even after his own child of flesh and blood was born. Addie had inherited a few things from him—his stubbornness, his sense of duty, and his rabbit teeth.
That had always amused Joan—her baby sister had bunny teeth and wolf eyes. A lupine lapin. There was something deeply poetic about it, when you considered it—having the eyes of a predator but the teeth of a prey. Some great metaphor could be constructed around her sister's choice of career, seeing as Addie had taught herself to see through the lens of some pretty sick tickets, but her own nature would never allow her to cross over into actually doing those horrible things, even though she could understand the motivations behind them.
Joan decided she needed to write that down. She'd put it in her next book, perhaps.
"Stop staring at me like you think I'm gonna crack and confess everything," her younger sister commanded, tossing the rest of her celery back into the almost-empty glass.
"I just hope I'm right. You deserve some happiness in your life." Joan lost her teasing air. She personally had always been someone who needed other people around her, and she'd always found it hard to understand Addie's preference for solitude. Granted, the last two decades of her life, Addie had a pretty solid excuse to stay out of the dating world, citing that she wanted to focus on raising Emma. And Joan hadn't harassed her (too much) about that decision—after all, she knew that Mac had seen some horrible things in her line of work, things sometimes done to young kids by their mothers' boyfriends or new husbands. The fear was understandable, especially when you were given heartbreakingly-frequent examples of it.
"If this line of conversation is going to continue, then I deserve another drink," Mac intoned flatly, glancing around for the waiter.
Joan grinned, holding her hands up in surrender. "Fine, no more questions about your love life—if such a thing even does exist."
However, she became serious as she quietly added, "Please just tell me that it isn't someone from work."
Those wolf eyes flicked up to meet her own, but the expression was entirely rabbit—scared rabbit, caught in a snare of truth.
"Oh, god," Joan exhaled slowly, sinking back into her seat. "Addie, no—"
"It's not like last time—"
"I certainly hope not—because last time you ended up pregnant and alone and exiled to Albany—"
"I remember. I was there," Mac's voice cut like a knife, and her eyes were just as sharp, silencing any comments that her sister may have had left. "Remember? It was my life that got up-ended in all that shit—and in case you've forgotten, it's still my life."
"I'm sorry," Joan ducked her head slightly. She'd hit harder than she'd intended, striking a chord that she knew shouldn't have ever been struck. "I just worry—and no, I'm not saying that as an excuse for my words. Just..."
Her words trailed off, her hand floating in a gesture of general helplessness. Joanie was a wordsmith, an excellent communicator—she only lost her ability to string the proper syllables together when she was truly upset. She wasn't lazy, just lost.
"I know," Mac quietly forgave her. "I understand."
Joan simply nodded again, taking a sudden and particular interest in her coffee.
"And I wasn't exiled," her younger sister reminded her, after a beat. "I was the one who chose to transfer."
"Because you had no other choice," Joan returned gently.
"I had other choices. I chose to go to Albany." Adelaide shifted slightly, glancing around the café. With a light sigh, she admitted, "And for what it's worth, this guy isn't a guy from work—not technically. He's an agent, but he's not in the same office. And it's not serious. It's not anything at all."
"If it wasn't anything at all, we wouldn't be talking about it right now."
Mac's cellphone rang out, and she breathed a sigh of relief, murmuring a prayer of, "Please, dear God, let it be another national emergency."
Joan gave a snort of amusement at the orison—truly, that'd been the only thing that could save her from her elder sister's questions.
"SSA Macaraeg," she answered.
"Mac, it's Jeff. We've got something."
FBI Academy. Quantico, Virginia.
"So, what else have you got?"
SSA Jessalyn Keller looked up from her coffee, slightly surprised by Spencer Reid's sudden question. He'd been quiet all morning, though she could tell that his mind was still running a million miles a minute. He'd only made two requests all morning—first, that he be allowed to speak to his team and second, that he could have a good strong cup of coffee and maybe some breakfast. So she'd regretfully refused his first request and honored his second by escorting him down to the mess hall, which was still open to serve the agents who were on the case, since the Cadets had all been sent home temporarily.
"I'm sorry?"
Spencer shifted slightly, waving back towards the interrogation rooms. "Last night, Dawson showed me the email and the note, and told me about Fuller's journals. What other evidence do you have against me?"
He said it so nonchalantly. As if they were discussing the weather, instead of a compilation of things that could have him tried and found guilty of domestic terrorism. Keller had to give him some respect for that.
"I don't know," she answered too slowly, too guardedly—she was lying, and they both knew it. Not that he blamed her. He knew that she was still trying to read him, to measure him up.
"Is this even legal?" He was obviously referring to his detainment.
Jess offered a small smile, "I don't think there's really any rules for this kind of stuff. Terrorism's its own creature, you know."
He did. The general rules of arrest and imprisonment and questioning didn't apply to suspects of terrorism. In terms of regulation and legislation, the treatment of suspected terrorists was still the Wild West of the law enforcement world.
"Why are you guarding me personally?" Spencer switched gears, keeping his eyes focused on her.
"What do you mean?" Again, she was obviously lying. She was blonde, but she sucked at playing the dumb card.
"Last night, Agent Shostakovich was at my door. Then I heard him switch out with Agent Eden early in the morning. And then this morning, you're stationed outside. Why is it so important that one of the Flying Js keeps an eye on me?"
"Because," Jess hesitated, then decided to tell the truth. "Because we can't trust anyone else."
"What? You think I have another conspirator in the Bureau, just waiting to spring me out?" Spencer couldn't hide the incredulous snark from his tone.
She blinked, as if she couldn't understand how daft he was being. "Don't you get it? We're trying to protect you, Dr. Reid."
"Protect me? What is that supposed to mean?" He leaned forward slightly, his face filled in a mixture of incredulity and confusion.
Jessalyn's grey-green eyes flicked away, to the side, for the briefest of flashes. She was avoiding him, avoiding the question. Inwardly, she was berating herself for such a stupid, juvie slip-up. She was tired, more so than she would've been if she'd been merely physically fatigued—her depression had begun to settle into her bones with a familiar and never-welcome certainty, she could almost feel it, as if someone had placed sandbags all over her skin. She was getting slower and she was slipping up more easily, and no amount of self-anger could change it.
And nothing could change the fact that Spencer Reid was now aware of the true game afoot.
"Nothing, I just—" She paused, sucked air through her teeth in a gesture of frustration, then gave a small shake of her head. She looked down at her coffee, her voice low, clinical, and quick, "Dr. Reid, please understand that right now, there are aspects of this case that I cannot share with you. At least not yet. Just know that we are doing our best, and that hopefully very, very soon, we will be able to tell you everything. I know that's not much to go on, and I also realize that I'm asking a lot of you, by asking you to wait and to trust us. You have no reason to do either of those things, but I'm asking you, please do."
Now she looked up at him again, and he could see that Agent Keller was mentally straining against her own words, as if she really wanted nothing more than to tell him everything, to assure him that it was all going to be alright—and for some reason, that was comforting enough for him, in that moment.
She believed him. She knew he was innocent. He could feel it, could read it in her face and her tone and the set of her shoulders.
So now he returned the favor. He simply nodded, quietly intoning, "I believe you."
Fairfax Medical Center. Washington, D.C.
"So, you have no clue which ambulance brought in Agent Jareau?" Eden clarified with a slight arch of her brow, hoping against all hope that she'd misunderstood.
However, the ER intake clerk's expression dashed what little hope might have remained, giving a slow shake of her head. "We had buses coming and going—trying to get the injured out as fast as possible and then shooting back to pick up more. And we had multiple ambulance services coming in to help deal with the overflow. It could've been any ambulance service in this city."
"Well, thank you for your time," Shostakovich stepped in with a slight smile, although it didn't reach his eyes. He hadn't expected much, but he still felt a wave of frustration at the outcome, even if he'd predicted it. Then he had an idea, "You wouldn't happen to have a lost and found, would you?"
The clerk nodded, directing them to the desk that housed the lost and found box for the emergency room.
There were two cellphones in the bin, but neither one matched the make and model of Spencer Reid's device—again, an outcome to be expected, but frustrating nonetheless.
"We're chasing zebras," Jude muttered, looking around in helpless exasperation.
"I agree. But unfortunately, we really, really need to find ourselves a zebra."
They both understood that finding the elusive cellphone was the only way of definitively proving whether or not it had been hacked by a remote access program, and yet the probability of finding it was extremely unlikely.
"What is it about this case?" Jude continued her venting, keeping her voice quiet so that no one else could overhear her dismay. "Every piece of evidence that we need—truly need—isn't there at all. Everything that is there is circumstantial at best, and counterfeit at worst."
With a sigh of agreement, Jonas Shostakovich turned to let his gaze sweep across the crowded waiting room—a long-ingrained habit of teaching himself not to miss something obvious.
Another ambulance was pulling away from the loading bay. The sun hit its chrome-plated runners, causing a brief flash of light that reflected off the glass doors and the huge rounded mirror at the corner of the portico, which allowed ambulance drivers to see traffic coming around the corner.
And that's when he saw it—the security camera, just above the mirror. He stepped closer to the entrance, turning to see a corresponding camera in the opposite corner—this one aimed directly at where the ambulance's back doors would be, when they opened to admit a new arrival.
"Jude," he looked back at her, feeling both a small frisson of hope and an immediate desire not to invest too much into it. "Let's go see if we can look at the footage from the security cameras. Maybe…maybe we can find something."
She gave a slight shrug of acquiescence. When on a wild goose chase, one might as well check every pond.
FBI Academy. Quantico, Virginia.
Adelaide Macaraeg should be here, doing the briefing, Scott O'Donnell thought. Not that SSA Lewis was doing a bad job—in fact, she was quite competent. However, it took a lot more willpower to concentrate on what she was actually saying.
Mainly because Rowena Lewis was a very entrancing woman. To sound like one of those old-time film directors, she had it. Whatever it was, the dark haired woman definitely possessed it in spades. She had broad shoulders and voice lined with the lower-register gravitas that commanded listen to me, and a set of hazel eyes that seemed to slice you open and steal your soul in a single glance. What man could be immune to such a combination of charms?
The answer certainly wasn't Scott O'Donnell.
However, he was still a professional, and he tried to remain as such. He furrowed his brows, nodding along as she continued her section of the briefing, trying not to get distracted by the feathery flitterings of her long, thin fingers or the wonderful juxtaposition that her eyes could be shy yet her smile teasing.
Luckily, what she had to say was just as interesting as how she said it—and perhaps a tad more crucial to the current case.
"We decided," she gave a slight nod to SSA Masterson, who'd joined her for the briefing as well, apparently only as moral support, because he had yet to say a word. "That the best course of action was to tackle the smaller tasks first, before diving headlong into the journals. That way we could get as much variation in evidence as possible, and perhaps gain a better, more rounded understanding of Mr. Fuller."
She didn't refer to him by his Bureau title, Kate Callahan noted. And the reasoning was understood—Benjamin Fuller might have been an agent at one point, but his final actions had denied him the right to be called that anymore. He wasn't one of them. He was exiled from the tribe, voted off the island.
"So we tackled the stack of newspapers first." Now Lewis glanced over at Jack Dawson—in some of her final instructions before leaving, Mac had mentioned that Agent Eden had been particularly keen on the newspapers. Agents Eden and Shostakovich were not present, since they were still in the field (though Dawson had been noticeably tight-lipped about why they were out and what they were doing). Roe had to admit, given all the hullaballoo over the BAU's obvious connections to the case, she was surprised to see Hotchner and Callahan in the room, though she took it as a good sign. For Reid's sake, she certainly hoped it was. She continued, "At first, it was hard to tell exactly what the focus of the collection was—the oldest was from September 12, 2001—the day after 9/11. And several subsequent papers were close behind that date. However, as we got further into the collection, we were able to distinguish a line of focus."
She took a beat to glance back to Jeff, as if making sure that she was still on the right path. As a rule, Rowena Lewis hated giving presentations. After a lifetime of being the girl who was always noticed for her looks, she actively avoided any situation that would put her in the spotlight. It had been one of the strongest reasons for going into evidence recovery—big, bulky jumpsuits to hide her figure, masks and hoods to obscure her features, entire days spent in the back of some forensics lab without seeing another single living soul. In truth, she loved her work, but she also understood that she'd landed here in a continuation of her step-father's legacy (hadn't he taught her that, all those years ago—taught her shame and hiding and avoidance, taught her that all the bad things heaped upon her head were due to her own nature, her own internal glitch?), and in some ways, she was letting the bastard win and control her life long after she'd finally escaped his physical clutches. The last time she'd seen the man was when she was eighteen years old. Three decades later, his mark on her life was still as deep and self-evident as it had always been. It wasn't fair. But then again, Rowena Lewis had learned a very, very long time ago not to expect fairness out of life.
Jeff Masterson gave a slight nod, so small that only she could see it, and she loved him for his subtlety. He was the one who should be doing the briefing, with his commanding air and clear headedness. But she'd made the discovery, and he'd told her that she deserved to be the one to share it. And here he was, supporting her without letting anyone else see just how much—because he never wanted to make her look weak or dependent.
She had to remind herself not to be in love with him.
"Apparently, in the wake of 9/11, Mr. Fuller's focus shifted slightly," she glanced around the room again, making sure that the others—Cruz, O'Donnell, Hotchner, Callahan, Dawson, and Keller—were still following. "It's safe to say that about seventy-five percent of those newspapers held articles specifically related to the Amerithrax case."
"You've gotta be kidding me," O'Donnell exhaled. For those not as familiar with the Replicator case, he clarified, "That's the case that John Curtis believed robbed him of his shining star status. The case that got Erin Strauss killed."
Kate Callahan watched the rest of the reactions around the room, her eyes wide as she tried to take in every detail, every expression all at once. She felt Hotch shift closer to her, and she looked up at her unit chief.
He leaned further in, keeping his voice low so that only she could hear. "We need to talk to Alex Blake."
November 2002. Fuller House. Southbridge, VA.
"After a thirteen-month long investigation, the FBI has released an official statement on the Amerithrax case. Lead investigators say—"
Eighteen-year-old Benjamin Fuller was glued to the television screen, his mind latching onto every word as his eyes took in the shots of the now-infamous anthrax-laced letters, interspersed with photos of the victims and the potential suspects. The anthrax attacks had happened so soon after 9/11, sending fresh waves of terror through a nation still in the grips of the previous assault. He'd followed the case closely, anxious to see it end with the bad guy behind bars for life, desperate to have some kind of closure in a world that seemed without it.
However, if the news reports were to be believed, it wasn't going to end the way he'd hoped.
The reporter droned on, "The team of FBI agents assigned to the case is being disassembled and returned to their previous posts—just last week, the case suffered yet another blow to credibility when their prime suspect was proven innocent, an action that now seems a recurring theme in a case filled with twists, turns, and dead-ends. A statement was issued…."
This wasn't the first time that the investigation had named a suspect, only to later find proof of that man's innocence. It was part of the process, Ben knew, but he also could see how embarrassing it was, to keep slipping up on national news. Still, was that really grounds for halting the entire investigation?
Now the screen was filled with footage of the FBI team, exiting the Jacob K. Javits Federal Office Building, home to the FBI field office in New York City. The metal on the doors flashed briefly in the sunlight as they opened and shut, producing a small stream of drained and dour-faced individuals. The dark glass behind them rippled like a lightning storm as dozens of cameras tried to capture the moment.
And that's when he saw her.
She was pretty enough, pretty in a way that was sharp and quiet, all at once. Like the others, she kept her head ducked downward, as if trying to avoid the bombardment of questions from the reporters. Something was shouted at her, obviously, something that took her off guard, snapped her out of her docile and defeated state. She looked up, almost directly at the news camera, the flash from another photographer searing her image, setting her eyes and hair aflame like a burning angel.
Benjamin Fuller lost his breath.
Her eyes. They were the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. He'd never forget those eyes, as long as he lived.
He'd never forget her, as long as he lived.
"Their eyes met. It had begun. They had begun."
~Alexandra Potter.
*Author's Note: References to Rowena's backstory are covered more in-depth in Out of Africa (Ch 16, most notably).*