A/N: In case people were confused by previous chapter: Alsie has dissociative identity disorder, and as seen in the previous chapter, 'Ana' is the name of (one of) Alsie's alters.

My Life Had Stood

Chapter 26:

Spencer, his messenger bag draped over his shoulder, entered the BAU. His eyes quickly noted that his team wasn't in the bullpen and that the door to the conference room was shut. He briefly wondered if he should enter as he was still on medical leave for another day and his team obviously had a case.

He didn't have to wonder long as the door to the conference room soon opened. He watched as each of his team exited the room. He noticed each of them had a bit of a dour expression, which brightened when they noticed him waiting quietly.

"Reid! It's so great to see you!" Garcia hurried up to Spencer and gave him a hug before he could respond.

"Hey now, pretty boy. We weren't expecting you back for another day." Morgan greeted.

"Yeah, well I just thought I'd check in." Spencer replied, glancing at Rossi. His thoughts filled with whether to tell the older agent himself about what Alsie said. Though Alsie had agreed that they should tell Rossi about her and James, she had requested to wait a few days. "...How's the investigation been going?"

The looks and sighs shared between the other members if his team were answer enough to his question. His eyebrows rose and he chewed his lip in thought.

"Not good?" He asked, his tone tentative. Spencer's eyes followed Rossi as the man excused himself and headed to his office. After greeting Spencer Hotch followed after Rossi.

"...so far, we found a potential twenty-six other children switched and sold by Tobias Connell. Going back to the mid to late seventies." JJ replied, her lips pulled taut in frustration as she thought about the children.

"That many?" Spencer frowned, his eyebrows raised. He listened as JJ, Lewis, and Morgan filled him in on what they'd discovered about the families so far. As well as about the fates of the children. He grimaced upon hearing that most had been abused, and a few possibly killed by the families who'd bought them. "That's horrible."

"Horrible is an understatement. Tobias Connell seemed to have specifically chosen abusive families as buyers for the babies he stole." JJ shook her head, her arms crossed.

"What's more distressing is that we're sure there are more victims we haven't found." Lewis added.

"What makes you sure there are more?" Spencer asked, placing both his coffee and messenger bag down on his desk.

"Because none of the victims we uncovered have been twins." Morgan replied, continuing before Spencer could do more than knit his brow in curiosity. "Rossi questioned James this morning, and apparently Somerfield had had an argument with Tobias Connell about taking or using twins. That it was too dangerous to continue doing."

"That would be riskier. Falsifying the deaths of two newborns from the same parents would be more likely to raise suspicions. If Connell did that, he would've likely been found out years ago and arrested."

"That was our thought as well. So we looked into the possibility of Connell taking one twin and leaving the other with its birth family." Lewis spoke.

"That would make it safer for Connell. Twin births have a higher infant mortality rate than single births, so the death of a twin newborn would be less likely to draw suspicion." Spencer replied, grimacing the next moment as he pondered things. "Actually, as long as Connell refrained from taking identical twins, it would be less risky to falsify a death in a multiple birth than a single birth pregnancy. Assuming the pregnancies were full term."

"Most of the twenty-six were preterm or had low birth weights despite being full-term." JJ mentioned, arms still crossed. Next to her, Lewis handed Spencer a folder containing the information they'd complied so far.

"That's strange. Connell's choosing newborns that had a greater risk of infant mortality shows he took precautions to hide his scheme, so one would assume he would've taken a twin or triplet at some point. But the twenty-six were all single births?" Spencer asked, his brow knitting after reading the file.

"Maybe Connell or Somerfield thought the risk of accidentally choosing from a pair of identical twins was too great to attempt?"

Spencer shook his head. "They'd just have to choose from twins with opposite genders since the chances of such twins having identical DNA is statistically low."

"Wouldn't having the same DNA be impossible then? Such twins would be fraternal rather than identical, right?"

"Actually, there are certain conditions, typically resulting from errors in the duplication of the x or y chromosomes when the zygote splits, where twins can be born with identical DNA but be of opposing genders." Spencer interrupted Morgan, correcting the other agent's assumption. "There are also conditions where one can present as the gender opposite of what their DNA reflects, which is typically the result of being immune to one of the hormones that are involved in developing said gender..."

"...okay, okay, I stand corrected." Morgan stopped Spencer from continuing in his spiel of interesting but not quite relevant factoids. "But it's still strange why we haven't found evidence of Connell selling a twin despite what Rossi found out from James."

"James could've been lying to Rossi..." JJ brought up, side-glancing toward Rossi's office door. He and Hotch appeared to be discussing something.

"Or maybe Connell did take twins but didn't sell them." Spencer said, an idea occurring to him. "If the motive behind Somerfield's sensory deprivation on James was scientific experimentation, then Somerfield likely experimented similarly on other children. And using twins would actually be more useful because of the similar or possibly identical DNA. And it'd be especially true if he kept tabs on the twin left with the birth parents. He could compare the two and measure the effects of his experiments."

"Seriously?" Morgan gaped, his expression reflected on the other two agents' faces.

"It would be illegal human experimentation, but historically there have been documented cases of experiments done on twins, especially over the past century." Spencer paused for a moment, thinking. "Somerfield may have been influenced by such documented cases."

"We've profiled Connell's primary motivation being money. So if he and Somerfield were partners, he may have given Somerfield any twins he took as payment for Somerfield's help or silence." Lewis replied.

"That would mean that any twin that was reported to have died while Connell was working in obstetrics at the same hospital was possibly given to Somerfield." Morgan grimaced, sickened anew by Connell and Somerfield's scheme. It meant they had a potentially longer list of infants to look into, without a clear view of where each ended up.

"...you mentioned Rossi talked to James," Spencer spoke after a few moments of silent thought. "Did he find out any more information about James' life?" Spencer was about to specify 'over the past five or ten years', but decided not to. He had promised Alsie to wait a few days before telling his team about her and James.

JJ, Morgan, and Lewis shared an uncomfortable look before replying to Spencer's question. The latter's eyes widened at the revelation of the other experiments done on James as well as the team's discovery of other women possibly victimized by James.

"Do you think it's possible that James murdered them?" Spencer asked his team after hearing about the victims being killed years after the rapes.

"We don't know. It's possible, but he went through a lot of effort to keep them alive when he raped and enucleated them. To kill them years after the initial assault doesn't make sense. Even as a forensic countermeasure, since no DNA or fingerprints were found after the rapes."

"Further, Rossi and Hotch both think James would've kept his victims alive as a form of torture rather than kill them and alleviate their suffering." Lewis continued after Morgan left off, the latter distracted by Rossi's office door opening.

"That's consistent with what he did in western New York." Spencer spoke, facing away from Rossi's office so he didn't notice the door open nor Rossi and Hotch heading toward the bullpen. "The only victim that died did so because she fell into the river. James..."

"Spence." JJ interrupted, and prompted Spencer to turn around and notice Rossi's approach.

"Oh!" Spencer's eyes widened as he saw Rossi, the older man having been close enough to overhear him. He knew Rossi would understand that discussing James was part of the job, but that didn't make it any less uncomfortable. "Rossi..."

"It's all right." Rossi said after a moment, though it was clear his concentration was elsewhere. Before anyone could ask what was up, Hotch spoke.

"While Rossi and I were talking, the director called. We've been ordered off the Somerfield and Connell case." The protests started immediately after Hotch finished speaking.

"Why? We've just uncovered most of Connell's victims. And it's possible there are more out there."

"They can't just take us off the case..."

"I understand. It's just there are cases piling up, and the director wants our focus on them. Other agents are being sent to question the families that bought children from Connell." Hotch paused. "I've been assured that once Somerfield is located, we'll be allowed to bring him in and question him."

"But Hotch..."

"I understand. We put a lot into this case and we uncovered a lot of victims of Connell's and Somerfield's scheme. And I know none of us wants to leave this case unfinished. But until Somerfield resurfaces or uncover a clue to his whereabouts, the only thing we can do is question the families involved. Both those who bought the children and those the children were taken from." Hotch paused, glancing at his team. "The higher ups believe that is something that can be left to other agents."

"So we're just gonna drop the case? Hotch, that's..."

Rossi stepped forward, interrupting Morgan's protest. "Trust me, there's nothing I want more than to find Somerfield. But questioning over fifty families - both those who bought children and those whose children were taken - will take a lot of time and travel. At least two of the victimized families live abroad, the rest are scattered across the country."

"So we just wait and work on other cases in the meantime?"

"Until we get some new information, or Somerfield is located, there's not much we can do."

0

Nursing her drink, her blond hair styled so that the locks had a slight bounce, Shelly glanced across the bar room. It was still in the early stages of the evening, with the sky outside a reddish orange as the sun sunk in the horizon. She had text Alsie earlier about perhaps making tonight a girls night out, but Alsie had declined.

That didn't stop Shelly from deciding to go out herself.

Her eyes roamed over the filling bar room, and lingered on a sandy-haired man in a business suit. It didn't take long for her to catch the man's eye, smiling at him the moment his eyes met hers.

Picking up on her body language the man approached the bar and ordered her another drink.

"I haven't seen you here before." The man said, a hunger in his gaze as he studied her. He sat down on the bar stool next to her, watching as she sipped at the rest of her drink.

"That's cuz I don't usually drink. Tonight's a special occasion." Shelly replied, starting on the drink the man had ordered for her.

"Oh? What sort of special occasion?" The man asked, ordering a drink for himself. His hungry eyes still locked on Shelly's face.

"Once it reaches midnight, it'll be my cousin's birthday. We were like sisters." Shelly mumbled, and stared down at her drink. The gleam in her eyes enigmatic.

"Were?" The man asked, catching onto the tinge of sadness in Shelly's voice. He asked if Shelly's cousin had died.

"Depends on who you ask." She mumbled while taking another drink from her glass. She watched the man pick up his own glass out of the corner of her eye. He paused however, briefly confused. She smiled. "You see, her parents died when we were ten, so she went to live with her paternal grandmother. We didn't meet again until we were adults. By that time she was a different person."

"That must've sucked. But people change, and you have to find new friends." The man leaned closer to Shelly, who shook her head.

"You don't get it." She mumbled, but didn't elaborate. Instead she finished her drink and smiled at the man. "How about we go somewhere and you help me forget about such things?" She crooned, her eyes and body language enticing the man into complying.

Chapter End:

A/N: I rewrote this chapter quite a bit, and I still don't know if I like it 100 percent. I hope it's all right. It's getting more difficult to write this story to lead to the plot I wanted for Alsie.