akacinno's A/N: Here we continue! Thanks for the reviews! : )

dieselwriter's A/N: Now begins the part where we pick up from Habitual. Seriously, don't bother with this chapter if you haven't read our first story. Confusion will run abound!

Anything in italics this chapter represents a flashback.

Chapter One

Quantico, Virginia
April 23rd

Hotch yawned and blinked his eyes. He sat up and rolled his stiff neck and shoulders. With the flight reaching its end, some of the agents were stirring; Rossi's snoring had ceased and Hotch could see him staring out the jet window. Morgan's eyes were also opened. His headphones were still around his head as he sat up and collected his things.

When Hotch saw Agent Reid, he raised a dark eyebrow; Clarke was still asleep, her head resting on Reid's bony shoulder. Reid was wide awake, his extreme discomfort read clearly in his wide eyes and pursed lips as he sought out Morgan's aid without speaking.

Hotch smirked slightly but did nothing to aid the doctor.

The plane landed moments later, causing a very entertaining scene for Morgan when the wheels touched down and Clarke was jolted awake. A deep flush spread across her face when she looked up at Reid's tight sympathetic smile, realizing what she had done unconsciously. Her babbled apologizes mixed with Reid's almost overwhelming reassurances that he didn't mind.

Entering the BAU, Morgan was still teasing Clarke, who was approximately the same shade as a very ripe tomato. The team made their way to each of their desks to collect their things to head home. Nearly everyone was yawning and rubbing their sleepy eyes after a long, late flight home.

"I know we're all tired," Hotch said to his team, Morgan yawning widely to validate his announcement. "So I want you all to get home safely and take the day to rejuvenate. I'll see you Friday morning."

The group gave a tired cheer and each headed to their respective desk to gather their belongings.

Reid gave a small chuckle and Clarke looked up quickly.

"What's so funny?" she asked, still sensitive after her embarrassment, as she placed a few folders into her bag.

He shook his head slightly and shrugged.

"I haven't seen everyone this tired since-" he began.

The sound that interrupted Reid's thought alerted everyone's attention and replaced drowsiness with concern.

"Garcia," Morgan asked, alarmed at seeing her at work so early. "What's wrong?"

They waited as Penelope, who had arrived at the top of the stairs, looked down with wide eyes at the folder in her hands, and then to each of their faces.

Then her eyes settled on Hotchner's face, her mouth opening and closing slightly.

"He's back," she murmured faintly.

There was silence in the BAU at her announcement as everyone's expression turned to grimaces of horror. Clarke was the only exception as she looked around at her worried colleagues' faces uncertainly.

"When did this happen?" Hotch asked in a low voice.

"Around one o'clock this morning," Garcia's canary yellow nails dug into the folder before she handed it off to Hotch. "Officer Alexander Boyd, D.C. cop just getting off the night shift. One shot to the head, credentials stolen."

"One casualty?" Hotch asked and Garcia nodded. "From long distance?"

"Yes sir," she confirmed with another nod.

Garcia could see the dilemma in Hotch's face as he looked down at the file and then he slowly turned to look at everyone's faces.

He pursed his lips and then looked up at Garcia once again.

"Right now, I need everyone to go home and get rest. We're all exhausted and nothing will be accomplished in this state."

He nodded his thanks to Garcia and she stepped out of the way as he passed her. Rossi followed him up the steps and headed toward his office, his expression distant.

"We leave at noon, so don't be late," Hotch said, now all business as he neared his office and held it open for Rossi.

They nodded their understanding and watched as Hotch shut the door of his office with a bit of unnecessary force.

Morgan bent over, placing his hands on his desk, and hung his head, letting out an angry growl. Clarke did not overlook his fingers clenched in a tight fist.

Reid's mouth was slightly agape, his eyes worried.

"What's going on?" Clarke asked, a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.

They both looked over at her, their expressions not changing. Without answering, Morgan broke their eye contact and picked up his bag. Clarke and Reid watched as he swung it over his shoulder and left without so much as a goodbye.

As the door shut behind him, Clarke glanced back at Reid impatiently.

"Well? What am I missing?" she asked.

Reid's mouth twitched down in a frown.

"Maybe it's best to discuss this after we get some sleep," he advised, standing.

Clarke nodded and sighed.

She felt the familiar presence of the dark secret the team had kept hidden from her. She knew eventually it would resurface, but now that it had, she wished she could keep the ignorance.

Because whatever it was they were hiding, it had briefly shown itself, and along with it surfaced a foreign rage in every agent's demeanor.

Her intuition whispered in her ear that not only did the secret have to do with her and the agent she had been sent to replace, but that it had also been hidden for a very good reason.

Rossi's flinch was a heavy blink when Hotch slammed the door shut and strode to his desk, opening the file to scan the images of Officer Boyd's crime scene.

"What are you thinking, Aaron?" Rossi approached him, tapping his knuckles lightly on the desktop.

"Erin," he answered sincerely, not taking his eyes off the pictures. "She's not going to want us to have this one. We have too much personal investment."

The two FBI agents glanced at each other, sharing a painful memory in the brief seconds of eye contact.

The thickness of the door is probably what saved his life. It is also what crushed his ribs and made him feel like he was inhaling fire instead of precious air.

He wasn't sure how long he had been in this position, but couldn't recall having lost consciousness, so he didn't think it had been too long. He couldn't see much of anything except the heavy wood of the door lying on top of him. Everything around him seemed muffled and distant, like he was secluded from the rest of the world. The only thing around him that felt real was the big heavy door squashing him and the image of Emily Prentiss slamming the door in his face.

Soon that vision would be the only reality he would know.

"On three: one, two, three!"

The sharp jolt of pain in his ears made itself known and his lungs inflated terribly as the door was lifted off him, and the swimming images of Derek Morgan and David Rossi appeared before him, both with alarmed expressions.

"—hear me?"

Hotch blinked, willing himself to pay attention to what was happening now, rather than the ingrained picture of Prentiss saving his life.

It looked as if he had been blasted off his feet and through the wall of the hotel room across the UnSub's room. Through the large hole in the wall he had helped to create he could make out Rossi picking through the remains of rooms 331, 333, and 335.

Morgan remained at his side, agitation and concern warring on his face.

"I'm all right," he said, but it sounded distinctly lacking in authority to his smarting ears. "Get Prentiss—"

"Rossi's on it," Morgan nodded, checking him over. "And medics are on the way. I gotta dig Reid out; you okay?"

He couldn't get Emily out of his mind, and he was wholly fearful of what Rossi would turn up of her. But Morgan was watching him anxiously, obviously torn over his alliances to his injured boss and other fallen colleague in unknown condition.

"I'm okay, get Reid," he gave his permission but made little effort to get up and follow. Moving his head made his mind feel foggy and his body heavy; he was certain he had hit his head pretty hard on landing.

Morgan didn't need telling twice, however; he picked his way through the rubble quickly but carefully on his way to the area next to Rossi. Hotch watched, his ears ringing and a terrible ache in his heart.

Rossi shrugged the thoughts away, laying both his hands flat on the desk.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Hotch didn't say anything else; he merely turned the page to read the report. Rossi leaned over to cast a shadow on the pages.

"You really think it's him?"

Hotch looked up at him with stern eyes.

"Long distance headshot, targeting his victims after work, stealing their credentials…it all reads the same," Hotch spread out the file's contents on the desk for Rossi to skim. "It has to be him."

"Because the evidence supports it or because we want it to be him?" Rossi pointed to the back of Alexander Boyd's skull, which was a mess of blood and gore. "This one doesn't seem to care if the victim's facing his death or not."

"It's too much of a coincidence."

The Unit Chief turned his thoughts inward once again as he studied the crime scene through the photos below him.

"A patrol officer doesn't rank too high," Rossi broke the silence offhandedly, as if determined to poke holes in Hotch's reasoning in as aloof a manner as possible.

"An LDSK—"

"Technically he's not a serial killer. Yet," Rossi amended at the mutinous look. "But you have to admit that four months is quite a cooling off period."

"He might have needed time to train," Hotch replied in a low voice.

"Himself?"

Hotch looked him straight in the eye, his poker face present.

"A new protégé."

Rossi gave a heavy sigh and scrubbed at his stubbled face.

"Another kid."

It wasn't a question and Hotch didn't respond as he slowly but methodically piled the papers back in order and into the folder.

"Go home and get some rest, Dave," he rose and clapped the elder agent on the shoulder briefly. "You're going to need it."

"You know, it's funny;" Rossi threw the offhanded remark over his shoulder as he headed for the exit. "It seems the more I hear that phrase the less I'm actually able to sleep."

Derek Morgan would be the first to admit that perhaps he wasn't the safest driver. He had a tendency to roll stop signs and would balk at the idea of getting a ticket for speeding five miles per hour over the designated limit; he even derived some reckless amusement at consistently speeding up when a light turned yellow to the point the stop light was an orange blur when he passed under it.

Reid complained about it when prodded. Clarke ribbed him on it. Hotch remained tight-lipped about it. Rossi downright hated it, but since he never offered to drive instead his irritability was easy to overlook.

Prentiss had been the only one unbothered by it. Most likely because she was much the same way.

He was certain even Emily would have spoken up over his driving skills as he sped and made dangerous turns on his way home.

Morgan might have physically been in the car, but his mind was far, far away, back to that fateful day, to the dusty smoke, primal fear, and digging through rubble. He still had a sizable scar on his hand as a souvenir. As if he needed it; with the early morning murder, the case was open for his vengeance once again.

Emily's vengeance, he reminded himself. He, after all, had escaped with nothing more than an elevated, inch-long line of lightened flesh right by his thumb. The small scar stood out to him every time he took aim with his weapon, a consummate reminder of what he had lost that day. What Emily had lost.

Needless to say, he made it home in record time.

Clooney, as expected, was curled up by the couch when he entered and took several seconds to find his feet to greet his master.

"Don't bother getting up," Morgan replied, knowing what he said wouldn't matter. Hip dysplasia or not, Clooney loved three things: the couch, his owner, and anything relating to bacon. It saddened Morgan to know he would never surpass the golden retriever's love of pork products.

"Didja miss me, big guy?" some of the worry lines seemed to melt away as he scratched behind the dog's ears, making his tail whip around enthusiastically. "I wish I didn't have to go so often."

Clooney led the way back over to the couch and took pained steps to settle down once again. Morgan frowned sympathetically as he himself flopped onto the couch before continuing to pet the animal.

"After I catch this guy, Clooney, I swear we'll take a break. We'll go out to the beach, just the two of us."

Clooney's tail thumped a merry beat against the couch and Morgan settled deep into the pillows, closing his eyes.

Trying to discern the rooms apart was nearly impossible; all walls and ceiling had been blown apart, allowing the fading light of day to shine meekly through the clouds of dust and smoke.

He quickly realized, looking at the endless debris surrounding him, that when he told Hotch he would find Reid, he had been optimistic.

Finding anything in this mess would be difficult. Finding Spencer Reid alive seemed downright impossible.

Wasting no time, Morgan ran to the closest human-sized lump of rubble and dug both hands as deep as he could into the mess. He could hear distant sirens in the background as he frantically pushed heavy stone and dusty, dirty pillows out of the way to search underneath.

Finding nothing human-like in the pile, he jumped to the next one. Rossi's scavenging seemed to be equally unproductive, as Morgan could hear his grunts of exertion and foul cursing from across the battle zone.

"Come on, Reid, you gotta help me out here," he muttered, swearing furiously as a piece of glass cut his hand. He ignored the pain as he dug back in, but froze just as quickly when he uncovered a charred and clearly broken arm.

"Oh God," he whispered, working at inestimable speed to uncover the rest of the body.

He felt completely sick when he realized there was no body to find; the arm was the only human part in the entire pile.

"No way in hell," Morgan's hands were shaking as he worked at a nearby mound to unearth the body's remaining pieces. He knew immediately this pile, however, was different than the last: something dark, wet, and sticky now clung to his hands.

He knew he had found the right pile, and it scared him to death.

"Don't be him, don't be him," was the agent's mantra as he ignored the blood and entrails, searching indiscriminately for a discernable piece of body that would tell him this wasn't what remained of his friend. "God, please, don't be him…"

Derek Morgan sighed with relief but turned away in disgust when he found the head of a stranger, the UnSub.

"Reid!" he left the parts of the perpetrator far behind to search in an entirely different direction. "Reid, give me something to work with here—"

The ever-recognizable revolver, covered with ash, somehow, miraculously, caught his eye a few yards away. He was so used to seeing it settled on Reid's ridiculously thin waist that finding it on the ground, cold and alone, felt downright wrong. It sent an icy chill racing down his spine.

"Hold on, Reid, I'm right here," Morgan's hands, caked with foreign and familiar blood, did not hesitate to reach into the very large mound closest to the weapon. "Let me hear ya, kid, tell me where you are."

Where he had been brutally swift before at overturning the debris, he felt the need to be gentle at moving every stone and brick with this newest mound. He efficiently and systematically threw the largest pieces within arm's reach to his sides, fearful that each was hiding a piece of his good friend.

A thrill raced through him when he overturned a large rock and discovered a dirty Converse.

"I gotcha, Reid, I gotcha," Morgan shifted the wreckage around the shoe but frowned at not finding an accompanying foot or leg. "Dammit!"

He swiped at the perspiration on his brow before crawling further along the monstrous pile to continue his deliberately delicate pace.

A lump caught in his throat, making him momentarily speechless, when he found tufts of gray-dusted, blood-coated, short, brown hair.

Morgan's eyes flew open, chasing away the vision of a charred arm without an owner and the ghosts of his maimed colleague as the alarm on his cell phone alerted him of the eleven o'clock hour. He blinked in rapid succession, trying to calm his racing heart, fearful of the echoes of the painful memory.

Don't be him. Don't be him. God, please, don't be him.

Clooney remained at his side, unfazed.

akacinno's A/N: Updates every Monday! Don't worry, things will become clearer! ; ) Put Infamy on your Alerts if you're enjoying it!

dieselwriter's A/N: Such a fun chapter to write. More flashbacks and more crimes to solve next Monday, so stay tuned! Hope you're enjoying the ride so far!