"I became a virtuoso of deceit. It wasn't pleasure I was after, it was knowledge. I consulted the strictest moralists to learn how to appear, philosophers to find out what to think and novelists to see what I could get away with. And, in the end, I distilled everything down to one wonderfully simple principle: win or die."
Christopher Hampton.
February seventh.
Next day.
Monday.
06.34.
Spencer Reid rubbed his sore and dry eyes with his hand, holding onto the coffee in his other. Tired and lethargic, he sighed, sipping on the caffeine as he let the scenery pass him by. The past few months had been a rollercoaster for him. He had gone over it in his mind over and over again, not being able to make sense of anything. He had created anchor points, mentally, that provided him with a certain structure as to how this all had happened, how it evolved while he desperately sought for answers. He remembered so vividly in his mind the first time they had met.
June 18th.
BAU department, F.B.I. Office, Quantico.
08.00
He was one of the first that spotted her, most likely because when he laid his eyes down upon her face, he was one of the few in the room that actually recognised her. Abby Scott, marching down the BAU headquarters, her dark hair in sharp contrast with her pale face and a backpack slung over her shoulders. He had seen her before, several times, when he had gone to lectures regarding criminal and psychological profiling. Though relatively unknown still, Abby Scott was one of the best in her field of expertise: violent crimes, human behaviour and interrogation, hence Reid tried to visit lectures she attended as often as he could. The bonus was that Abby worked a lot with profiling legends or other experts in their category, which meant that Reid would also deal with some of the best as he absorbed the words he was hearing.
He wondered what she was doing here as Abby approached Morgan's desk. In her thick and posh English accent, she asked him where she could find Hotch. Her grey-green eyes followed Morgan's directions and she headed towards the stairs after thanking him. She never laid her eyes upon the young genius, who figured she must have been here on business, instead of a social call. Then again, he noticed the way her eyes went over the bull pens, how she briefly glanced at the people in the room, eyeing them up and down as if investigating them.
She reappeared from Hotch' office a few minutes later. Her expression still seemed somewhat stiff and cold, but her bright eyes seemed more curious now than when she had walked through the doors of the BAU. As Reid stood in a circle with his fellow colleagues, discussing her presence, he suddenly interlaced his eyes with hers and felt exposed. She stared him down, her hawk-like eyes penetrating his mind with a certain determination and Reid finally understood why she had a way of making suspects talk. He smiled weakly and her gaze seemed to soften as her eyes went up and down his figure. She lost interest when she was introduced to JJ and quickly after, followed Rossi into the round table room.
Almost impatiently, he awaited his turn to be introduced to her by Hotch. Too quickly for his liking, he extended his hand when he heard his name. Her eyes held the same hardness, but lit up with the minute. Reid figured she must have been watching the way the cats jumped as she observed her new colleagues secretly and from a distance. However, once she laid his eyes on him for the second time that day, he was met by a warming smile as she shook his hand. She remembered, he thought, she remembered me. He felt happy that she did, and in a way privileged. It had been four years since they had worked together on a seminar concerning Robert Charles Browne, but not intensively and never stayed in touch. Even though he looked up to the woman of his age and probably of the same level of intelligence, he did catch himself feeling joyful as she sent him the only genuine smile till that point.
Reid smiled inwardly as he witnessed Abby picking a fight on her first day. She hadn't even been with the team for 10 minutes, but already challenged the alpha male in the room. She was mentally telling Morgan that she was the smartest person in the room and her eyes held a different emotion this time; pride and arrogance. As Reid studiously looked at her, he quickly discovered that Abby Scott was the type of person that could make you believe anything. She could control her muscles, even her facial muscles, to the extreme and almost deform her looks in order to deceive. But he knew right away that there was always something in her eyes. Her eyes just always seemed to tell the truth.
As he got to know her more and better and as he watched her interact with the team more and more, Reid had begun to realise that not everybody could see that little piece of truth in her eyes. He could, however, and at first he figured he must have been wrong. His desire to become friends with her must have outgrown his perception of reality. But as she started to grow darker and more disclosed, and as their friendship grew stronger, he was learning that he could in fact, see that something in her eyes, something only he could see. However, he was unsure if he could see it because he wanted to, because he was actually looking at her, or because she allowed him to see it. After the events in Atlanta, he realised that he could see it simply because he could. If he could have seen it because she wanted him to, then he would have stopped seeing the truth in her eyes a long time ago.
December 26th.
Wednesday.
Fulton Police Department.
00.04.
Pills. Self-medicating with pills. Reid had never thought that Abby would be one to do such a thing. But she had. With only minutes to spare before leaving for Quantico, Garcia discovered where the last phone call Louisa Delgado received before her death originated. A phone booth near the hotel they'd been staying at. The only good thing about the discovery was that they learnt about after proving Abby's innocence. If they had found out before, they would have realised that Abby in fact had been able to sneak out of the hotel without being seen by the security cameras. Reid had always found it odd that Abby mentioned the near impossibility of doing so in one of her first interviews with Hotch. A security camera on the other side of the block had managed to capture her. It was only vaguely and for the split of a second, but they recognised her. Abby had called Louisa. Hotch connected the dots before anybody else could. Perhaps because he was already in the right mind set. Perhaps because he already knew that Abby Scott had slipped right through his fingers and was heading down towards a massive crash. An addiction only seemed fitting. And as Reid was watching her from behind the one-way glass, how she failed to reject and fight the accusation, he understood that Hotch had been right.
Reid had been addicted to a specific medication himself. Abby knew that for he had told her. So when he imagined Abby going down the rabbit hole, he wondered why she had never come to him. That wonder vaporised when he saw the look in her eyes after Hotch left. She watched the open door for a moment, unable to move or portray any kind of emotions. But then she looked up and stared at herself in the mirror. She didn't think anyone was standing behind it, or even if someone had, she must have figured they had left because the look she shared with herself was one of honesty. And Reid could see her change right then and there. The greyness in her eyes seemed to take over as he witnessed her grow cold. Cold, stark and emotionless. The Abby he knew, Reid thought, died in front of him that day.
Or at least that's how it felt to him as he came to terms with the fact that he could no longer see the truth in her eyes. He could no longer see that light.
Reid looked at the file in his hand. He was unsure of his intentions to bring it along. He knew he had questions for her. The file was more than incomplete and only contained some basic details. Three murdered women. Reid couldn't understand why Abby would keep that under the radar, why she would refuse to put the case in the system, if only for the sake of it being there, so that if she failed, someone else might pick it up. He told himself that he was sure Abby held a copy of the complete file, the original file, on her own computer. But that was just because his profile of her said that. It wasn't because he actually believed it himself. No. He figured Abby was more of the 'secret basement' kind of type, where she could keep hardcopies of whatever files she had hid. Us geniuses, he thought, we like to have things in our hands when looking at it. Still, despite his head constantly overruling his heart, he knew his gut was right when he figured that it had to be some kind of lead. He knew her too well for that – if Abby hadn't wanted anyone figuring out about the case, or about her working on it, she wouldn't have kept a file where they could find it in the first place. It would be in that secret bunker, or stuffed underneath the passenger's seat in a car that she had registered under someone else's name so that they wouldn't find it.
She was leaving him breadcrumbs and he was finally realising that she did that because she knew Reid could look into her eyes and see that something. Perhaps that was the reason why she was trying so hard to keep him at bay. As he finished his coffee, he looked at the man in front of him. Morgan had his hand rested on top of the steering wheel as he followed the other black SUV over the country road, the sun peering through the trees. Suddenly, he could feel Morgan looking at him from behind his shades. When Reid kept looking at the reflection in the rear view mirror, Morgan took off his glasses and looked back at him. He look was questioning and worrisome.
"I lied." Reid said.
Morgan only frowned and Hotch, who sat in the passenger's seat, turned around.
"I did talk to her. Once. It was the day before she disconnected her phone. She told me that I needed to stop harassing her and that she would get me my money back soon."
"Abby owes you money?" Morgan asked.
Reid shook his head. "No, that's the strangest part. She doesn't. She was always paying so if anybody owed anyone any money, I owed her."
"Then why would she tell you that she would get you your money?" Hotch questioned him.
"I don't know. All I know is that the next day, I wanted to call her again and she had her phone disconnected. I tried to email her, but her email account was disbanded. If she had a faxing machine, she would have disconnected it too. It doesn't make sense."
Hotch sighed and looked at his young genius almost apologetic, a look he had been giving Reid too many times now. "I don't know Reid."
"You think she's still alive?"
Again, Hotch looked at him and replied. "I don't know."
February 7th.
Same day.
Monday.
05.46.
"I found her."
Garcia's comment was drenched in disbelieve. Her big eyes stared at her laptop and she didn't move. It was almost as if she was too afraid to move, as if that would make the discovery on her laptop somehow vanish. Miles on the other hand, he wasn't afraid to move as he pushed his chair to look at the screen.
Just after midnight, Garcia had found a way into Abby's laptop, but quickly ended the celebrations; entry to Abby's full system was still denied and protected with massive cyber walls, and that little piece of access Garcia had been granted only left her with a pop up screen that requested a username and password. Since there was no limit to the amount of false passwords entered, Garcia and Miles entered whatever they could think of and added the team's suggestions afterwards. But nothing worked and they came up empty handed. They tried to hack into the system for another hour when they decided to give up and try to get some sleep. It was then that a small symbol on Garcia's screen caught Miles' eye.
Without saying a word, he clicked on it and instantly, the computer granted them access to the other side of the security protection, as if the screen was flipped around. The username was suddenly filled in, only leaving the password. However, the username gave them plenty of direction as Garcia read it out loud.
"Hotchner, A."
Hotch immediately gave Garcia directions to insert his password of the FBI. Garcia sighed as the laptop refused her further access. They continued to try; birthdays, special events, names, numbers, anything that meant anything to Hotch. Miles even went through the national database to find other Hotchner, A's but no matter what they tried, they came up empty.
"There has got to be something that we're missing." Morgan told himself, his face still as handsome as always, despite the lack of sleep. He was staring at the screen, sitting next to his beloved Garcia, who gave him the cup of coffee JJ handed her. The team spun around when they heard a tap on the glass doors and Felisha Trace, leader of SCU Team Two, appeared through the opening.
"Boss." She addressed McCallister. "We think we've got something, you may wanna take a look."
McCallister got up from his chair, surprisingly fast considering it was half past 4 and they had yet to catch some sleep. He left the room without another word, leaving the BAU team behind. If it was a real, solid lead, SSA Trace would have either told them on the spot, or at least motioned for Hotch to come as well. No, it was just 'something' that they had. Nothing specific. Nothing special.
"Miles." Hotch said to the second brilliant computer technician. "Is there anything you can think of, any sort of habit of Abby's, a particular kind of way she would write something down like cop short hand, anything?"
Miles made a sound as he pressed his head against his hands. "I'm thinking, I'm thinking."
"How long have you known her?" Rossi suddenly asked him.
He clearly didn't understand where the question was coming from as he raised his head again and briefly looked at Rossi. "Uhm, since we were 16. We graduated together."
"So that was after the time she was using drugs and partied too hard." Prentiss concluded, remembering from Abby's original profile that she had dropped out of school at the age of 15 and went back a year later. She had stated to Morgan and Reid months before that she has had a period of 'too much fun'.
"Not exactly." Miles replied after he snorted at her comment. "We'd still do drugs and go to parties. Fuck, I still can't remember what shit we pulled on our Graduation night."
"Wait a minute, the drugs and the raves, that continued after she went back to school?" Morgan pressed.
"Yeah. Worst thing was, even though she did like two or three years in a year and a half, she was smart enough that she could ace all her tests and party just as hard."
"Then why did she drop out? We assumed that she had dropped out of school because of her drug problems." Morgan thought out loud.
"What'd she say to you?" Hotch wanted to know from Abby's best friend.
Miles shrugged. "I didn't know about it until we joined the FBI together, which was seven years after we had met. She threw me a mysterious smile, cracked a joke, said she'd tell me one day when she was drunk enough and I forgot about it." He looked around the room. "Look, there's something about Frankie… She's mysterious. Always has been. If you think you know her, then you're fucked because that means that you don't know her at all and that she's tried her best to make it that way. She has secrets. I don't know everything about her, just like she doesn't know everything about me. We accepted that, because we served together." He looked at Rossi, knowing fully well that Rossi had served as well. "Some things you don't want to share. And that's fine. So when she didn't want to tell me, I dropped it and forgot about it. I knew that if it was important, she would have told me."
"Okay. So you applied to the FBI Academy together?" Rossi continued.
"Yeah. Our ways parted there, for a while at least. Frankie was heading into the field. CIRG handpicked her right out of the Academy. I worked for several FBI departments as a technical analyst before I landed a job here. Frankie quickly followed. Harrison had noticed her work and wanted her in. So. Laurel and Hardy were reunited."
"And you stayed in touch?"
"We had lived together all that time. Well," Miles corrected himself. "I moved in with Franks. Into the loft."
"She didn't speak much about her work here. She must have really loved it." Rossi said.
"Oh, she did. This place was everything to her. She loved it. She had her research here, her cold cases, she knew the area, she knew the people, she had the action and trained her brain on a daily basis. She was meant to-" He stopped abruptly. They could see his mind working through his eyes. "Try 06072012." He told Garcia, who put in the password.
"That's the day before Abby started at the BAU." Reid commented softly, looking at Hotch as Garcia pressed enter.
She was granted access.
But their treasure was much less than what they had expected.
"All roads lead to Rome, but make sure they don't lead back home." JJ read out loud after Garcia had opened the single file she had now access to.
Prentiss glanced at Miles, who shrugged. "Frankie did always like her riddles."
"Any special connection to Rome?" The brunette asked.
"I went to Rome with Louis a few years back. I don't think Frankie's ever been there. We don't know anybody from there, or anybody going there apart from on a holiday. I'm afraid we're down to facts and statistics again." He said as he looked at Reid.
"What's the importance of June seventh and me?" Hotch suddenly questioned.
The young and only living member of SCU Team One sighed and ran his hand over his face. "It's the day that she found out she was being transferred. She'd been in Mac's office for an hour, the two of them yelling at each other, screaming their fucking heads off. Eventually, things settled down and she promised Mac that she'd go but only under one condition."
"That she'd be transferred to the BAU." JJ guessed with a small voice.
"Yeah. She told me first, in private. We stood outside, smoked a dozen cigarettes and just.. Talked. She was pretty upset about leaving, I mean, she loved this place. This was her home. And then she said 'The only good thing that will come out of this, is that I'll get to work with Aaron Hotchner'." He looked at the man with a look on his face that told Hotch so many things, yet he knew he was missing that one thing Miles' expression was trying to tell him. And still, despite the fact that his gut told him he was missing something, Hotch felt a little tug at his heart.
"If she would have enjoyed working with Hotch so much, with the BAU, then why did she lie to us?" Morgan asked.
Miles stood up from his chair, pocketed his hands, sighed again and rested against the glass wall. When he looked at the dark man, his eyes were at their most honest. "She has known about her stalker for over three years, which is about the same amount of time we think that he's been following her. Do you know what it means to Abby that there's been someone, some stranger that has been invading her privacy, diminishing everything she did, for three fucking years? She's Abby Franklin Scott. You know her. She's arrogant in the sense that she knows precisely what she's capable of and doesn't mind showing it. She's the SCU's pride, she's the best agent and person that I will ever work with, in my entire life and that's saying something, because I've worked with both Trevor Harrison and David McCallister. For over three years, someone's been trying to crawl underneath her skin and she is unable to catch him. Do you have any idea what that does to Frankie?" Though he spoke out of love and respect for his friend, his words were harsh. "Thing is, Frankie's one of the most amazing people I know, because she's so fucking easy. She's simple. If she doesn't like you, she doesn't like you. If she wants beer and pizza for breakfast, she'll have beer and pizza for breakfast. If she doesn't want to talk, she won't talk and if she doesn't want you to know, then you won't know. There is some crazy ass stalker after her, that's killing people and she can't catch him. That's not simple and it's driving her mad."
"Did her stalker kill Louisa?" Reid blurted out.
"I'm pretty sure he did, yeah. Why?" Miles replied sharply.
"All the girls Frankie's stalker has killed were blondes. Louisa wasn't a blonde. So the stalker not only kills those that he feels will get in the way of him getting to Frankie, he also kills for fun. Almost as if he's leaving these gifts for Frankie."
"But he killed those girls after we had left the city." Prentiss remarked. "As if he left behind a calling card." She realised. "Which means that those girls were business. Louisa was personal."
"That means that Louis' murder could be crucial to the investigation." Miles concluded, nodding as he did.
"So how does Rome fit in the picture?" Garcia questioned, glancing around as if she was the stupid one in the room and had missed something essential.
As the room grew silent, she had her answer. Prentiss glanced at her watch before looking around. She locked her eyes with Hotch. "Another coffee run?"
"I'll go." He said. "I could use the walk."
The trouble with the matte glass windows of the SCU's special and most precious Glass Room, is that you can't see what's happening outside. The whole point of the room was to prevent people from knowing what was going on on the inside, but those inside were ignorant to what happened outside as well. So when McCallister came bursting into the room, holding a map of the Atlanta area with SSA Trace right behind, startling the team as they jumped or let out a gasp. However, they quickly left any comments aside.
"We've got something." Mac said and from the tone of his voice, everyone knew that this time it was a good, solid lead. They hurried around the front of the table, where McCallister had laid out the map. There were lines drawn around the area, things scribbled down and half-finished notes placed on the side. "Trace, she's all yours."
Felisha Trace, a 38 year old black woman, originally from Los Angeles, and an expert in tracking and terrorism, decided to skip the small talk and immediately placed her finger on the Johns Mountain Wildlife Management Area. She placed another finger on the other side of Atlanta. "Two days ago, Athens police found the body of a young girl, eighteen, blonde, dismembered. Her head was missing."
"That's Abby's stalker." Hotch immediately said.
Trace nodded. "That's what we thought. So we got in touch with Athens police and asked them if he had received a call or met someone that was interested in the case. He said he had. He told us that a woman had called him, identifying herself as special agent Jennifer Jareau and wanted to know about the case." The dark woman shortly looked at JJ, who looked surprised. "The detective kindly informed her and answered any of her questions. It wasn't until he hung up, that he noticed something strange – whoever had called him, called from a public payphone. We traced the call back to Calhoun. As good as she is, she let something slip. There's a jewellery store across the street from that payphone, probably because of a series of break-ins. She's on it. Frankie made that call from Calhoun."
"I found her."
Garcia's comment was drenched in disbelieve. Her big eyes stared at her laptop and she didn't move. It was almost as if she was too afraid to move, as if that would make the discovery on her laptop somehow vanish. Miles on the other hand, he wasn't afraid to move as he pushed his chair to sit next to Garcia and he looked at the screen.
"How? Where is she?" Hotch immediately demanded to know.
"South East of Calhoun is a place called Rome." Garcia explained as she looked up. "I didn't think of it at first, but when I looked up Calhoun, I saw it and I remembered because when I heard it for the first time, years ago, I thought it was funny. Then I looked up property owners in and around and I cross checked the owners with our names." Her big eyes found Morgan's and she swallowed. "Apparently you bought a small house just outside of Rome a few weeks ago, on a side-road of Sand Springs Road. I've just send the coordinates to your phones."
"Let's go." Hotch barked and his team sprang into action. "Mac, Miles, we could use you guys there."
McCallister looked at Miles, who sent him a meaningful look. "Yeah, I'd like to see you try and stop him." The tall, dark haired man joked as he pointed at Miles with his thumb. Miles, in his turn, patted his boss on his shoulder once. "Last one in the car is buying coffee for the rest of the week."
February 7th.
Next day.
Monday.
06.34.
And so this is how Spencer Reid found himself in the back of the car, as Morgan took a right on Sand Springs Road onto a dirt road that didn't even have a name. He looked at the file in his lap. When he opened it, he read the message again. 'All roads lead to Rome, but make sure they don't lead back home'.
"It's another message." Reid mumbled to himself.
"We checked the cars, their clean. There are no bugs, no tracing devices. We're clean, Reid." Morgan commented from the driver's seat.
"It's not that." The genius replied, again in a mumbling sort of way.
"Then what is it?" Hotch asked.
"I think she's telling you to stay out of Atlanta, Hotch."
"What makes you think that?"
"The message was left for you. She didn't just pick any of our names, she chose yours specifically. 'All roads lead to Rome' is the part where she's directing you to this place. 'But make sure they don't lead back home' is where she is telling you to don't go back. Atlanta is her home, so she's telling you not to go back to Atlanta." He explained.
"Could this be just another diversion?" Morgan suddenly wondered.
"It could very well be. If Reid's right and she wants me out of Atlanta, then this is certainly a way to draw me away from the city. She may even have left enough clues in the house to keep me busy. Good thing is that we know now, so if she isn't there, I'm going back." Hotch answered truthfully.
"So far, he's killed wherever Frankie's been. The fact that he killed four other women in the same area means that he knows it's important to Frankie. It could very well be where they will eventually collide, which means that she may feel like it isn't safe." Reid paused and looked at his boss. "She wants you to be safe, Hotch."
The older man looked over his shoulder and looked at Reid. He sighed before he spoke again. "Yeah, but why? Considering I got nowhere with her during the interviews in Atlanta, I don't think she sees me as a threat."
"Perhaps that's because you're not." Reid stated matter-of-factly and somewhat snappy. He opened the file and partially hid behind it to avoid Hotch' gaze. "Perhaps she cares for you. Just like she cares for JJ and Morgan."
"Reid..." Morgan started.
"No, think about it." He interrupted Morgan. "She buys a property in your name, knowing fully well that we would find her once we found the note. Sure, with Trace's help we found her a lot quicker, but we would have eventually found a place called 'Rome' near Atlanta. That's a message for you. I'm just not sure if it means 'get out of Atlanta' or 'go home'. Then she calls Athens PD, thinking her stalker may have struck there, using JJ's name. She's covering her tracks, but at the same time she's leaving really big traces behind because she's using you guys as aliases."
"She's reaching out." Hotch responded determined. "Something's going on with her and she wants us to know about it."
"And just because she hasn't used you as an alias yet, doesn't mean she doesn't care about you." Morgan told the man in the back.
"I know." Reid replied, but felt his heart sink as he heard the words that had been echoing inside his head out loud. Only he knew they weren't true.
An hour and a half after leaving SCU Headquarters, Morgan saw a small house on his right appear from behind the rows of trees they had been seeing for the past 40 minutes. The one story home was in the middle of an open field, with a front porch and small drive way up to the house. He spotted a red pick-up parked out front and all the white café curtains were closed, making it hard to look inside, but easier to look outside unseen. As both SUV's and McCallister's work car drove up the drive way and eventually parked, Reid looked around and noticed that he wasn't able to see any other houses, or properties for that matter. Secluded, alone; perfect hiding place, he thought.
"How do you want to handle this?" Morgan asked his boss.
"She might feel overwhelmed or cornered if we're all walking up to her, so just hang back and I'll talk to McCallister on what he wants to do. The last thing we need is Abby running away again." He replied. The three men stepped out of the car and were immediately approached by Rossi, JJ and Prentiss, who had driven the car in front of them. McCallister and Miles joined as well after exiting their vehicle.
"What's the plan here?" Rossi wanted to know.
Hotch looked at McCallister as a sign that he would be the lead. But before they could actually come up with a strategy, they heard a door open and close again. As they looked at the house, Abby Scott stood on the porch, her arms crossed, her expression cold as stark and fierce eyes looked at them from under her brows.
"Guys, why don't you just hang back here." McCallister said as he addressed the group. Then he shortly placed his hand on Hotch' elbow, signalling that he should follow. Reid watched Hotch and McCallister walk up to the house as Abby's expression changed. Her eyes lost their hardness, opened up and she dropped both arms, revealing the gun she was holding. She holstered it as she slowly stepped down the stairs and met the two men halfway. He could see her gaze shifting between Hotch and McCallister, once locking with Miles' sorrowful eyes, before she settled on the SCU unit chief.
Reid could see McCallister's chest go up, his shoulders extending as he took a breath. However, he had yet to see the reaction on Abby's face. When her head snapped towards Hotch, Reid understood that Hotch was going to do the talking. Miles suddenly shifted his weight and turned himself away from the scenery before walking away. His head was bowed, his hand covering his mouth. When Reid looked back at his once best friend, he could read the confusion off her face. Abby glanced at McCallister, probably wanting him to deny the news she just got, before blankly staring at Hotch. She took a step back. And then another. She didn't blink, she didn't cover her mouth, she didn't move her arms nor did she make a sound.
Then she pivoted on her feet and walked back into the house. Uncertainty washed over the group that had been observing and they all shared a look with each other. Hotch looked over his shoulder, McCallister had his head down and his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. Reid jumped when he heard a loud crash coming from the house, followed by another loud noise. The sound of things being broken by an unnatural force followed each other one after the other and occasionally, they saw something flying around the house as Abby Scott raged on and destroyed whatever she could get her hands on.
A few minutes passed and the sounds died down. The group was unsure of what to do and questioningly looked at their supervisors as they returned. "What do you want to do?" Rossi asked kindly, and gently, as he looked at Hotch.
"We need to give her some space." Mac answered for him, but avoided any eye contact as he kept looking at the ground.
"You sure that's a good idea?" Morgan questioned, his voice too, soft and soothing.
"She needs some time." Was the return. "Give her some time and some space."
Miles suddenly turned around again, his black and worn All Stars already covered in dust from the sandy land, and headed towards the house with confident steps. He brushed passed Hotch and McCallister, ignoring their calls, marching up the porch and disappeared as he closed the door.
From the distance, they could see him walk around the house, looking at something and yell before marching right out again.
"She's gone." He said. "She's gone! Fucking idiot!"
Hotch' head immediately turned to McCallister, who finally looked up. "You let her go?" He asked in disbelieve. Morgan and Prentiss sprang into action and ran towards the house, possibly to check if it was real, another part of them wanting to chase her.
McCallister looked at Hotch with an expression Reid couldn't place. Was it, guilt? Sorrow? Sadness? Or did he know something they didn't?
"She needs time." McCallister repeated his earlier words before he turned and walked back towards his car.
"We don't have a lot of time." Reid commented to McCallister's back. The man stopped, looked at the genius, who in his turn looked back, and continued his way.
"Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free."
Jim Morrison.
