B for Beck

by Assbitch67

Beck has had her life planned for her whether she liked it or not... But for some reason it all just keeps going to shit. Maybe it has something to do with her ability to kill a full grown man with a paperclip and snipe a grape inside a shot glass from nearly 6 miles away. But, hey, the cute Doctor at the BAU that doesn't know how to carry his Revolver seems to tolerate her.

5. Belonging

Belonging

•••

"Some of us aren't meant to belong. Some of us have to turn the world upside down and shake the hell out of it until we make our own place in it." – Elizabeth Lowell, Remember Summer.

—

Spencer sat adjacent to the desk, his eyes analyzing every inch, every item. His foot tapped the ground repeatedly, his finger doing the same against his lips. His forehead was creased as he furrowed his eyebrows, staring...

Who was Rebecca Ryder?

He was trying to piece together the puzzle of Beck- had been since he first met her- but this time, he was attempting to do so by analyzing her desk and what was on it. You could tell quite a lot about someone based on the way they decorated their workspace. Garcia, for example, had a plethora of plushies, toys, bobble-heads, and figurines all lining every open free space around her various computer screens. Morgan had his desk neatly organized on the surface- files by dates then names- but, even he had a few photos of his passed father, his mom, his sisters, even a small Chicago Blackhawks bobble head Garcia had gifted him a year ago for his birthday. Emily's desk was a mess, save for a single photo of the Eiffel tower. And his desk was neatly organized- the only thing setting him apart from anyone else was the wall that separated his and Emily's desks was filled to the brim with sticky notes of small notes made, random facts, reminders, and various different maps.

Then there was Beck's desk.

It was... clear of any and all files. She must've kept them in the cabinets, then again she also hadn't been on many cases yet, she probably didn't have any.

On the far end of the desk, faced away so that only she could see it beside her computer, was a framed family photo- her adopted parents, older brother, younger sister, and baby brother all depicted with her smushed in the middle. The odd ball out- the only Asian in a family of Caucasian Americans- was a younger looking Beck, yet she seemed to fit in perfectly with them.

At the other end of her desk, the very edge for everyone to see- not hidden away like the picture frame- was a small Bonsai tree. Which was odd, Spencer hadn't taken Beck as someone who was in touch with Zen Buddhism, but he figured maybe she had it up on display to try and show everyone else that maybe she was trying to work on her patience, calmness of mind, and harmony. She was kind of jaded and angry all the time, despite cracking jokes every so often.

And finally, the last thing on her desk was her large plaque. 'REBECCA RYDER.' It was sitting just behind her Bonsai... Clearly she wasn't trying to show off what her name was as though she were a proud person. But Spencer wondered what she had to prove with the Bonsai...

Then he had to remember he was profiling a woman who used to work with a cut throat team in the CIA. Just recalling the way everyone there was so on edge with one another, their dynamic unlike anything the BAU had... It was competitive, hardcore, clearly none of them liked one another. With a work environment like that, it was no wonder Beck was cautious with the way she displayed herself here in a workspace full of profilers... she was scared to have a repeat of Bruno Hawks, Olivia Hopkins, and John Summers.

The frame was clearly put there to suffice some kind of notion that she was human, meant to prove that she wasn't heartless. That she was just like them. That she was normal. But she'd placed it where only she could see it because she was cautious with showing something as vulnerable as her family. She still had the CTU mindset that it could've been used against her.

The Bonsai was there because... well, maybe she just wanted a pop. A little quirk like the rest of them. It sure did stand out on her barren plot of wood.

And finally, the name plaque. Spencer had his just beside his keyboard. Not hidden, but not on display. It was nothing to be ashamed of, but he at least wanted people to know whose desk it was. Beck just seemed ashamed of her name. Maybe it was because she just hated the fact it didn't just say 'Beck.' He was still stuck on why she had such an aversion to her own full name.

"Hey, kid." Spencer was pulled from his train of thought when Morgan approached, hot coffee mug in hand. "Whatcha up to? I could practically smell the smoke from you over-working the gears in your head from all the way by the coffee pot," he grinned down at the doctor.

Spencer frowned, his foot kicking out to spin himself back around to his own desk. "Nothing that's leading anywhere," he answered vaguely.

Morgan probably already knew what he was looking at. He imagined he'd already tried to get a gauge on Beck's personality from her desk before he'd even arrived that morning. "Bonsai..." Spencer heard him mutter beneath his breath. When he peered over his shoulder, he noticed Morgan ripped a small leaf off. Poor Beck. She sat her Bonsai directly in the path of nosey and destructive Derek Morgan. If Spencer was a betting man, he'd put down good money that that little tree would be there a whole month before it withered away completely.

"Ten bucks says that thing doesn't last to Christmas." Spencer glanced to his left to find Emily had arrived. She smiled between the tree and Spencer, a knowing grin on her face. She was in a good mood this morning.

Spencer couldn't help but smirk. "Twenty that it doesn't last to the end of the month," he cheekily replied.

Emily raised an eyebrow. "You have that little faith in Ryder's ability to keep the plant alive?"

Spencer laughed. "No, I just know keeping a plant within close proximity to Morgan usually results in an untimely death for the plant."

Emily winced. Spencer could see the gears turning in her head now, clearly rethinking her decision of going in on that bet with him. Now they just had to wait and see.

"Speaking of Ryder-" Emily suddenly snapped out of her second thoughts. "-where is she?"

Spencer shrugged. "She's at least fifteen to twenty minutes late almost every day. So, she should be pulling up..." He checked his watch. 8:05. "Right about now."

—

"Slow ride! Take it easy!"

Beck bobbed her head as she pulled her Suzuki into the closest motorcycle parking spot, just a few spots away from the parking lot entrance. She kicked down the stand and then threw her leg over the side, Foghat still blasting in her earphones beneath her helmet. The helmet squeezing her head came off with a tug, she lugged it to her side, letting it dangle off two fingers as she walked towards the Quantico entrance.

The brunette agent walked in, her free hand coming up to yank out her second earphone. Security was stopping everyone, just like at the GBC. Only this time, she didn't have her badge to hand to the gangly security guards this time. So, she had to strut towards the end of all the security towards a small desk off to the side.

"Hi," she casually greeted the man behind the counter. "Agent Rebecca Ryder. I'm supposed to be getting my credentials this week, per Chief Strauss of the BAU."

The security guard nodded, his head turning to the side as he looked up at the computer screen in front of him. Beck watched as he hit a few keys and clicked a few buttons with his mouse. Eventually, he looked back to her. "Right- I got the confirmation right here. Let me go to the back to get those credentials for you, Agent Ryder."

Beck simply raised both eyebrows, watching him go as he left to the back to get her badge. When he returned and handed it to her, she flipped open the bulky black case to see her new official FBI credentials.

There they were... those glazed over black eyes staring at her that were her own. They had opted to keep the old photo from the CIA badge. The same steel, emotionless look she'd had for almost every photo taken after joining the CTU. Not revealing anything, not happy to be there... Just there to get shit done.

This was different.

It was different when Beck took those credentials and put them down in a tray along with her keys, phone, earphones, go-bag, helmet, gun, and knives. She stepped through the metal detector without a hitch and picked up her things on the other end. She'd just holstered her gun behind her back before she watched the security guard that had been looking through her things pick up her credentials.

"Agent Rebecca Ryder of the Behavioral Analysis Unit, huh?" He asked with a quirked up eyebrow. Hm, some things never changed.

"Yup," she replied as she held her hand out to take the badge back from him. "That's me." She grinned as she pocketed the last of her things and pushed her earphone back into place in her ear.

"Catch a lot of serial killers?" He asked.

She smirked. "Sure hope so," she winked at him before hooking her fingers into her helmet and strutting away. On her way to the elevator, she paused briefly at the vending machine. "Hm..." she hummed to herself as her fingers tapped her lips, her eyes scanning the rows of snacks and drinks inside. Aha! 4B and 8J. She punched in the digits then slipped in a five into the slot. She grew giddy as she watched the Snapple and the gummy bears fall down into the bottom compartment where she reached in to fish them out.

She could've skipped the rest of the way up to the BAU office with her snacks now being held inside her helmet. When the elevator closed, she smiled at the silver doors.

Some things never changed.

They did, however, get complicated.

"I wanted to apologize for putting you into uncomfortable positions this case."

"I had over a hundred and fifty-two reasons not to allow you into this office, into this team."

"I'm not Bruno Hawks."

Beck clenched her jaw. Hotchner made her job to try and dethrone him as the Unit Chief of the BAU just a little more difficult and a lot more complicated with the apology he had given her the week before following the case with Stan Howard. He'd also revealed a few other things. Number one being that he wasn't a complete douchebag, which complicated things in the sense that she might feel guilt when getting him fired. Number two being that he saw right through her and could very well know her little side job, so she had to be extra careful to control her behavior around him as well as the rest of the team. And finally... number three: a hundred and fifty-two.

A hundred and fifty-two.

Beck swallowed down hard at the realization that set in that he had seen her extensive background files. The same files she'd manually sealed from the government records. The same files she put into a box, buried the box, and threw away the key to. The same files that held every report to everything she did with the CTU. The same files that held every wicked detail, every gory recounting, every life she took in her six years in the CIA.

A hundred and fifty-two.

How had Hotchner gotten those files? She sealed them and if that badass Technical Analyst, Penelope Garcia, couldn't crack into them- how had he been able to get his hands on them? Maybe he'd already seen those files back when she was considered a mole within the CIA. Maybe Strauss had made copies before she had time to seal them. Either could've been an option, but... still. It made her blood go cold thinking about how the BAU team members would look at her if they knew what she'd done, read those reports she'd written herself of all the things she'd ever done, ever witnessed.

She could hardly blame Hotchner now for the way he looked at her every time she spoke now that she knew what he had read about her in those files.

And if that wasn't enough on her plate, she had Strauss on her ass.

Beck's phone rang just as she hit the seventh floor.

The agent glanced down at the cell in her hand.

Incoming Call: The Wicked Witch of the West

Beck rolled her eyes, snapping the phone shut and pocketing it once more. She didn't have the time or effort to deal with her right now, today, tomorrow, the day after, ever. But, she figured Strauss could wait another week for her reports. She'd already told her how the last case went because she electronically sent her the report, what more did she want from her?

Eventually, Beck had managed to make it to the office. It was already busy and bustling. No one paid her much mind as she sauntered in towards her desk near the center of the room. One thing that was different about the BAU office that set it apart from the CTU was just how open it was- even the barriers that separated each desk were low enough to see the other occupants of the desks around it. She hated that what used to be her escape at the CTU- her old desks with high walls and little to no contact with other desk occupants- was now so wide and open. She had been kind of forced to put an effort into decorations.

She'd never really bothered to decorate her old desk at the CTU. She'd hardly ever spend time there. But, she noticed how the other agents of the BAU had somewhat decorated theirs, made it their own. So, she did what Olivia Hopkins had done to her desk. A small picture frame of her family and a small Bonsai tree. Olivia had managed hers well, Beck always liked to admire it whenever she'd passed her desk... but now that she had one of her own, she realized now as she took a seat at her desk that it looked kind of stupid and out of place and- who tore a leaf off already?

Beck frowned as she dropped her go-bag to the ground and her helmet with snacks inside just beside her keyboard.

She dropped herself into her bouncing rolling chair, kicking her leg to spin slightly as she moved to set her bag beneath her desk and out of the way. But as it brushed the large bottom cabinet on the side of the desk, it came ajar and opened. Beck tried to push it back in, but something wouldn't click and it just slid right back out. The agent frowned and tried harder to push it back in this time, still to no avail. "Whatever," she muttered, leaving it be for now. She'd figure out what to do about that later.

For the time being, she'd just stick to her breakfast.

Beck tore open the small bag of gummy bears and popped the cap open on the Snapple bottle. As she took a sip, she flipped the plastic cap in her hand and read the bottom. "Hm," she hummed, just loud enough for Dr. Reid to hear from where he sat across the walkway from her. "Slugs have four noses... huh."

Dr. Reid spun around in his chair to face her. His eyebrows were furrowed, forehead creased as he asked, "They do?"

"According to the fact of the day on the cap," Beck replied, holding up the Snapple cap in her hand as she brought the bottle up to her lips for another sip. She smiled after having swallowed, "I thought you knew everything, Dr. Reid."

He blushed slightly, "Well... not exactly."

Beck chuckled. "Hm, Snapple outwits the Good Doctor. Color me impressed. Snapple- one, Doctor Spencer Reid- zero." She took another swig as she spun her chair back to face her computer.

As she turned, she spotted Prentiss approaching, steaming mug of coffee in her hand as she stopped between the pair's desks in the walkway. "Coffee?" She offered, holding up her mug.

Beck winced and shook her head. "I don't drink coffee. Too bitter," she explained, holding up her Snapple. "I'm good. Thanks, though."

Prentiss raised an eyebrow at her peculiar choice in drink before taking a seat at her own desk. "So, you drink fruit punch and eat gummy bears for breakfast?" She asked, no malice in her voice, just perplexion and mild humor.

Beck shrugged after popping a gummy bear into her mouth. "Whoever dictated the fact that I can't eat candy and drink fruit punch before eleven AM is clearly a bore," she remarked.

She'd been in the middle of taking another swig of her drink when Penelope Garcia approached. She beamed at her, having just heard her proclamation. "I think I like you," she told her simply. Beck couldn't help but return the smile with one of her own.

Just then, the little bubble of bliss was abruptly popped when JJ came barreling through the rows of desks, a stack of manila folders in her hand. The files were a telltale sign according to the rest of the agents around Beck that visibly deflated at the realization...

"New case?" Reid asked as she passed between their desks.

"Yup," JJ answered briskly as she passed, stopping just before she got to the stairs up to the Bull Pen. "Denver."

As she walked away, Beck turned back around to face the other team members. "That's our cue," she sighed, twisting the cap back onto her Snapple and setting it back onto her desk beside her helmet and now discarded bag of gummy bears.

She had just fallen into step with Reid while walking to the Bull Pin when she halted in her tracks. Dr. Reid glanced at her from over her shoulder, watching with amusement as she jogged back to her desk and snatched up the gummy bears from her desk. She had them in her hand when she managed to catch up to the group and waltzed into the conference room.

Everyone had already taken their seats, save for a spot saved between Prentiss and Dr. Reid that she fell into with a thud. As soon as she tossed her bag of snacks onto the table, JJ had already slid her a paper file identical to the ones set in front of the rest of the team.

"What are we working with?" Morgan prompted as he flipped open his own file.

Beck had just popped a gummy bear into her mouth when JJ turned to the screen behind her and projected the gruesome image of a male and female lying in pools of their own blood against a crimson-stained couch, chunks of their heads missing and smeared bodily fluids scattered across the room depicted in the picture.

The gummy bear fell from Beck's mouth that hung ajar at the sight. She'd seen worse, but her appetite was now long gone.

"The Halbert family," JJ continued as the images came more into view, depicting who Beck assumed to be the parents of said family. Tied up with white rope used to tie the hands of the father, his hands in his lap. The mother beside him, her hands bound behind her back and a gag made of white fabric stuffed in her mouth. Clearly, someone had unresolved mommy issues.

"They were murdered in their home last night in the Denver suburb of Cherry Creek," the blonde explained. "It's the third home invasion like this in the last month."

"Those are the parents," Beck gestured to the two limp adults on the couch. "You said family..."

Her unspoken question was answered when JJ frowned and pressed the button the remote over her shoulder, her eyes not glancing up on the screen that now projected two young boys lying limp on their collective beds... heads down, pressed against the sheets. Not bound, not bruised or sprawled out carelessly. They could've been sleeping had they not looked so stiff. Two very different M.O.'s from the parents, seeing from the lack of blood. There wasn't even a drop where the children were concerned.

"They kill everyone," Hotchner, who was seated at the table across from her, stated.

JJ nodded. "Parents, kids, pets if they have them," she listed off as images of the parents continued to project on the screen more. "Always families, nice neighborhoods."

Morgan, who had been staring at his file intently, finally spoke up. "What did they take?" He'd clearly caught onto the hint about the neighborhoods.

"Nothing they can't fit in their pockets- cash, jewelry."

Hotchner's eyes were boring into the file in front of him when he spoke, "Hundreds of ways to get cash and jewels without killing entire families." When he glanced up, so had Beck. Their eyes met and for a moment the number one hundred fifty-two was all that popped into her head and she quickly averted her gaze to the file in front of her.

"That's why home invasions are so hard to profile," Morgan continued on what the Unit Chief had stated. "Multiple motives."

"National statistics show an uptick in home invasions over the last few years," Dr. Reid remarked as he sat straighter in his seat beside her. "18 percent in Colorado."

Beck's eyes had trailed to around the sixth page of the file JJ had given her when she noticed the autopsy report hadn't been provided... It must not have been completed yet. She'd have to look into that herself, perhaps prove her theory about the overkill on the mother.

"You know it's bad if they're inviting us back," Hotchner's words brought her back to the discussion at the table around her.

"'Back?'" JJ repeated. Beck glanced up at Hotchner's statement, just as curious as JJ to hear his explanation on what he was referring to.

"Well, things went bad after the JonBenet Ramsey case when a couple of agents publicly criticized local detectives," he explained.

Beck scoffed beneath her breath at the reminder of the cold case when Morgan chimed in, "Well, they didn't need us to make them look bad." No they did not. From what Beck could recall from her nights during her years just before the CIA, she'd stay up late sometimes listening to the cold case file shows that always played on the TV stations after certain hours. The JonBenet Ramsey case had always caught her attention, especially the conspiracy theories surrounding it. There were so many open ends, all thanks to how lightly and carelessly the case was handled.

"And that was in Boulder," JJ pieced together.

"Yeah, but the statewide media ran with it, and it took on a life of it's own," Hotchner replied.

Beck flipped through yet another page in her file. "I still maintain that the parents were involved," she mused, not glanced up from the gruesome images of the dead Halbert children. Their parents definitely weren't involved, seeing as they were both dead in the other room. This wasn't about the kids... unless maybe it was... There seemed to be two very different M.O.'s which made things a bit harder to read- just as Morgan had said. Multiple motives.

"Well, I talked to a Lieutenant Nellis," JJ continued. "Trust me- they want our help."

"They need it," Prentiss remarked as she dug through the file, similarly to the way Beck was beside her. "The first two invasions were 20 days apart. This last one was just nine days later," she pointed out.

"So they're killing in faster cycles," Morgan deduced. "Acquiring a taste." A taste for blood.

"And getting better at it every time," Hotchner added.

"And more vicious," Beck noted, speaking without thinking as her eyes were still trained on the photos of the parents. "I know we've already deduced that these victims are chosen at random due to their blatant differences and lack of any connection whatsoever, but it's as though the Unsub has some kind of grudge against the parents. More specifically the mother."

Dr. Reid furrowed his eyebrows, tilting his head as he asked, "What makes you say that?"

"Well, for one, she's tied and gagged," she remarked, gesturing to the images in front of her. "You're all profilers, you can read that sign clear as day. But there's more overkill on the mothers than the fathers. Mrs. Halbert is more bruised, bloodier, there's more marks on her. And the ME report hasn't been completed yet, but I'd bet good money that her death was probably caused by the large gaping wound on the upper left portion of her skull- and judging by the size, shape, and indention of the wound, it was caused by an iron golf club straight to the face. While Mr. Halbert's death was caused by a similar blow, only with less force shown in the lack of blood burst from the wound. He didn't hit the father as hard as he did the mother and from the amount of blood, it's clear that the Unsub wanted her to suffer more." When she glanced up from the photo, she saw the collective looks of both amazement and surprise.

Suddenly, she was reminded of CTU and how everyone there hardly took anything she said seriously, especially in her first years there. It was something she'd forgotten about briefly and wondered if this would be similar here at the BAU.

Then, Hotchner surprised her- yet again- when he cleared his throat and spoke up. "Why don't you take the lead on the forensic evidence? See what you find." Wow, this was definitely a 180 on what she had been so used to their first case together.

"Um... sure."

"Good. Wheel's up in thirty."

And with that, the team started to gather their belongings and files and head out the door of the Bull Pin to get ready to head to the jet- oh, God, the jet. Beck had nearly forgotten about that little perk of the job... Great, more flying.

She rolled her eyes as she popped another gummy bear into her mouth. She didn't really have an appetite after looking at so much blood, but she chewed viciously as she clenched her jaw and glared down at the file in front of her.

This job just got a little more difficult, and not just because she was being given newfound responsibility within the collective team, but because suddenly, being an enemy to Hotchner and an ally to Strauss was getting harder and harder every day.

Tap. Tap. Tap-hold. Tap. Pause. Tap. Tap. Tap-hold. Pause. Tap-hold. Tap. Tap-hold. Tap. Pause. Tap-hold. Tap. Tap-hold.

—

"Ryder?"

Nineteen year old Rebecca Ryder glanced up from where her eyes had been glued to the metal floor beneath her. Across the aisle of the enormous plane cabin was Olivia Hopkins.

She was clad in her all-black military armor, Beck was matching. They were on their way to what would be Beck's tenth away mission- she'd done mostly surveillance and intel gathering her first few months with the CTU and had now proven herself able to go on one of these trips. Beck was ecstatic, she'd been training for this her whole life... Her only issue was with the fact that all the away missions required her to fly there.

Beck thought she had her microexpressions controlled when the large plane shook or tilted to one side a bit too much, but apparently she hadn't, seeing as Olivia had caught onto her behavior.

The woman furrowed her eyebrows at the young girl. "You alright?"

The teen gripped the straps keeping her secured to her seat and nodded. "'M fine."

"You sure?" Olivia pressed. The plane shook once more and Beck clenched her jaw and threw her head back against the seat, willing herself to keep it together and not to think about that stupid little plane and that stupid field and the fire and the metal and the sweat and the tears- "You look a little white."

"I haven't been out a lot lately," Beck quipped through her teeth. "No sunlight kind of makes me lose my color."

"You're being a smart ass again." The way Olivia said it almost sounded as though she were scolding her like a child. Beck didn't think she liked Olivia pretending to take the place of a mother. She might've been the youngest person in the entirety of the Agency, but she didn't need to be mothered.

Beck rolled her eyes. "Then take the hint and leave me the hell alone."

Olivia's face fell slightly. Beck imagined that if she weren't so used to hearing such wicked and vile things from her ex-husband back in the states that she would've almost been hurt by the teenager's words. But she wasn't. She took the hint and went back to staring aimlessly at the metal walls inside the plane.

Beck hissed between her teeth as the jet shook once more, only instead of being a large military plane, she was back in the small BAU jet. When she opened her eyes and looked across the way from her, she wasn't met by the sullen image of Olivia Hopkins this time, but an apprehensive Emily Prentiss.

Everyone in the jet didn't seem to even notice the jumps and jolts in the plane as they continued to flip through the files JJ had distributed them back at the Bullpen. The thought of the Bullpen made Beck's stomach grumble after she was reminded of the discarded breakfast she'd left back at Quantico. She really should've just eaten what she could've while she had the chance, but her appetite still hadn't really come back since she'd taken closer looks at the Halbert's bloody images.

The plane jolted once more and Beck's hand shot out to grab the bottom of the leather chair she was seated in.

God, if someone didn't say something about this case to take her mind off of crashing, she was going to scream-

"Home invasions typically involve the elderly and single females." Beck wanted to hug Dr. Reid where he sat beside her to her left when his voice broke the tense silence. "The fact that entire families are being targeted suggests multiple Unsubs."

"Could mean gang related," Morgan chimed in from where he was perched on the armrest of the couch across the aisle. "Revenge motive, personal business."

"It could explain the clear rage and deep hatred portrayed in the killing of the parents, but I highly doubt Mrs. Potluck and her husband Mr. Home-By-Seven-Thirty are related to any kind of gang or criminal organization," Beck remarked, a small smirk playing at her lips as she added, "Unless they're adding something extra into the casserole on the down-low, it's highly unlikely this has anything to do with gang circles."

"Sewing circles, more like it," Prentiss chimed in from across from where she sat beside Hotchner. "Like Ryder said- PTA Moms, Gray Flannel Dads- these guys are killing the Cleavers."

"Strange," Dr. Reid mused from beside Beck.

"The pattern?" Hotchner asked, not looking up from his files.

"No, the Cleavers." Beck chuckled at his answer. "Of all the names for a 1950's idyllic TV family, I mean, it's rife with violent implication. Kind of makes you wonder how the writers really felt about suburbia, huh?"

"Probably the same way the Unsubs feel about it," Beck remarked... her fingers lightly trailing along the photo of the Halbert's house. Casual, normal, picture perfect, white picket fence, green grass, flower garden, open porch. "Like the most appealing prison."

There was an ominous implication around her words that sat in tense silence amongst the team.

Hotchner was quick to nip it in the bud. "Focus, please," he reprimanded. Beck glanced up at him from over her file and could see the look on his face as he gazed up at her. She felt as though she were being scolded, like a child.

She didn't lash out this time. Instead, she took his words and put her attention back to the case.

"Uh, okay," Prentiss stammered as she picked up on the dark note Beck had left the discussion on. "What about, um, class-based uprising? Helter-Skelter?"

"There's no graffiti," Morgan pointed out. "No messages- at least not visible ones. There's no rituals."

"Manson's aim was to start a race war," Reid chimed in. "There's no proof of any hate crime here."

"The real hate crime was the fact that Manson ruined a perfectly good Beatle's song," Beck muttered beneath her breath, just loud enough for Reid to hear. She heard him cover a laugh with a cough, but didn't bother to look up to see him try to smother his remaining smile.

"The parent murders are brutal, messy," Hotchner said, his eyes glued to the same images Beck had been analyzing for the past couple of hours. "The instruments vary. Uh, golf club, kitchen knife, iron."

Beck shrugged. "All things that can be found inside of every suburban home."

"All symbols of family," Morgan added.

"But the kids were different," JJ spoke up from where she sat sprawled out on the couch beside Morgan. "They died by injection. Pentobarbital."

"It's a barbiturate sometimes used as an anticonvulsant for epileptics, anxiety disorders, and state executions," Reid listed off.

"Someone would have to have serious experience to be able to hit the direct vein in order to inject the dosage properly," Beck remarked. "Not to mention, have the means to get a lethal dose of such a controlled substance. The Unsubs definitely have experience and connections."

"The invasions are well planned," Hotchner deduces. "Phone lines are cut. Ligature marks show the parents were bound and gagged."

"Looks like these guys not only had narcotics experience, but also some robbery experience," Morgan pointed out.

Across from her, Prentiss nodded, her eyes not leaving her file as she added, "And then found their true calling..."

With the end of their pre-landing briefing, Beck and the rest of the team were now left to remain in the silence within the jet cabin.

Hotchner had gotten up momentarily to allow Prentiss the chance to head to the back for some coffee, JJ on her tail. Morgan took the time to lay himself out on the sofa, but his eyes never closed. And Beck remained seated beside Dr. Reid, her eyes still glued to these photos she'd already had engrained into her head, but the more she looked at the bloody images, the less she thought about the shaking of the plane and the impending doom that was just a couple thousand feet below them if something went wrong.

"One hour, sixteen minutes, and forty-two seconds left," she heard Dr. Reid whisper beneath his breath. She turned to glance up at him and he clarified, "Until we land in Denver."

Beck pursed her lips before turning back to the file in her hand. She winced when the plane shook a bit more. She slowly set her hand on the edge of the table.

Tap-hold. Pause. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Pause. Tap. Tap-hold. Pause. Tap-hold. Tap. Pause. Tap-hold. Tap. Tap-hold. Pause. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Beside her, Dr. Reid smiled down at her fingers after her little coded message had finished.

Thanks.

—

The city of Denver was sunny and cool at the time of the team's arrival.

It definitely didn't match the mood at the morgue. In fact, Beck nearly felt offended at just how bright and breezy it was when her and Morgan arrived at the Medical Examiner's Office.

"Agents Morgan and Ryder?" The Medical Examiner- 'Lewis' was plastered on his name tag, greeted the pair after they'd made it through the front lobby to the back where the main part of the morgue was. It was cold, stale... dead, in the room. Polar opposite of how it was outside.

Morgan nodded, confirming to Lewis who they were, but Beck's eyes had already found their way to the bodies beneath the covers on four separate tables around her from the minute her and Morgan walked in.

"The police department told me you wanted to look at the Halbert Family," Lewis exclaimed. He was a squeamish man. Beck could hear it in the tone of his voice of how he addressed them and spoke of the corpses. He'd called them by their names and not as though they were just what they were labeled as from the tags around their ankles. "I've taken a look at them myself already when they came in this morning. Parents both died from blunt force to the heads. Kids from injection of-"

"Pentobarbital," Ryder swiftly cut him off, her fingers slowly trailing along the edge of the sheet that covered the edge of Mrs. Halbert's lifeless body. "We read your preliminary report already, Dr. Lewis."

"Oh," was his only response. "Well, then, I guess I'll let you handle this." With that, he turned on his heel and nearly dashed out of the morgue door. It had almost been as though he had been waiting for an excuse to leave, a dismissal.

Beck smirked as she watched the skinny doctor leave, but turned her attention right back to the wounds she was getting a closer look at on Mrs. Halbert's limbs.

The pictures she'd been shown in the file by JJ did Mrs. Halbert no justice... then again, neither did this lighting in the morgue. Her skin was pale- almost grey. The bruises all up and down her arms, legs, collarbone, and stomach were visible but had now turned a deep magenta color, only a bit yellow at the edges. Her hair was matted down to her skull by all the dried blood. And her skull had been busted open by such force that if Beck peered close enough to the gaping wound in her forehead, she could see just where the golf iron had hit the bone in her skull and made an indention that would've ultimately led to her death.

After analyzing Mrs. Halbert's body, she moved on to Mr. Halbert.

Similar to his wife, he was in a shitty condition.

Well, shittier than what an average corpse could look like, if there even was an ideal way a corpse should look.

His body was littered with bruises, scratches, and marks. Just like his wife, there was a large indention in the right side of his face. The different between his wife's wound and his was not only the placement- hers was in the center of her forehead and his was on the side of his temple- but also how much force was used against Mr. Halbert. Upon closer inspection, Beck could see where the golf iron had made an indention in Mr. Halbert's skull. But because it was so close to the temple, there was only a fraction of the force used on Mr. Halbert than on Mrs. Halbert.

Beck took a step back and started to count the differences on both bodies.

Seventeen scratches, twenty-three bruises, and four puncture wounds on Mr. Halbert.

Twenty-two scratches, forty-five bruises, and seven puncture wounds on Mrs. Halbert.

Oh, yeah... there was definitely some more residual anger directed towards the mother than the father in these cases. She imagined that if she were to examine the other parents, she'd pinpoint the exact same pattern there as well.

"Find anything?"

Beck glanced up to see that Morgan was still in the room, in fact, he'd been watching her intently as she had been working her forensic magic.

The agent scoffed and nodded. "Just your average dose of mommy issues."

Morgan tilted his head slightly. "The mother has overkill?"

"Oh, without a doubt," she replied. "It's impersonal... almost a compassionate kill for the children. This seems to be all about the parents, more specifically the mother. But... overall-"

"They're attacking the family unit," Morgan deduced. Beck let out a sigh as she nodded, her hands on her hips as she glanced between the four bodies. That was understatement. They were ripping apart the family units by their teeth and leaving the team to pick up what was left of the pieces. This was... messy.

"Hey, Dr. Lewis!" Beck shouted to the man still standing outside the door. He glanced in at the sound of his name being called. "I'm gonna need to see the other families."

—

"How were the bodies?"

Beck winced at the first question Hotchner asked both her and Morgan as they walked back into the station where JJ had already taken the liberty to get everything set up at the large table in the middle of the room where everyone else seemed to have reconvened.

"Mutilated," Morgan answered simply. "All of them."

"You looked at the other families?" Reid furrowed his eyebrows at the pair as Beck maneuvered herself around him to get to an empty chair between JJ and Prentiss.

"Yup," Beck chimed in as she threw her jacket over the back of the seat. "All kids killed with Pentobarbital. A single injection into the upper-right triceps. All parents brutally beaten or stabbed- overkill on all the mothers." With a heavy exhale, she turned to the coffee pot expertly placed on a cabinet behind her. She didn't bother asking if it was for them before she poured herself a mug full. She needed it after all the bodies she had just gone through.

"These guys don't lack confidence," Hotchner stated from where he stood at the far end of the table. "Targeting entire families is a high-risk endeavor." Beck rolled her eyes as she grabbed the cream to pour into her drink. These guys weren't just confident. They were smug with their kills. They thought they could get away with it which is why they continued to escalate.

"It's possible they're minimizing that risk by jamming cell phones inside the house. No one can call out," Beck listened to Reid explain as she slowly began to stir the creamer into her caffeine.

"High tech," a new voice piped up. Beck glanced over her shoulder to see, who she assumed to be the officer in charge, addressing the group. Hm, she hadn't seen him there earlier, but judging by how unruly his dirty blonde hair was sticking up and how his grey suit was partially unbuttoned without the tie, he was definitely not taking this case with stride. Then again, who was? "That narrows down the profile, right?"

Reid grimaced. "Not really."

"Oh, you can buy a hand-held jammer online for, what, 100 bucks?" JJ chimed in from where she sat just beside Beck.

Beck, still stirring her coffee, took this moment to turn to fully face the rest of the table. "75," she corrected the blonde seated beside her.

"You have one?" Prentiss raised an eyebrow at her.

"I use it for when the lady in the apartment next to me forgets that I exist at 2 a.m. when she calls her friends at the country club for hours on end," she answered simply, raising the mug to take a sip just as Morgan chuckled, his phone ringing shortly after her joke. Fucking Mrs. Stone, Beck thought to herself bitterly as the hot beverage stung going down her throat.

"Hey, girl," Morgan flipped open his phone to answer who Beck was assuming to be Penelope Garcia. "You're on speaker. Behave."

"Or what, you'll spank me?"

Beck choked on her sip of coffee.

Oh yeah, that was Garcia.

Morgan rolled his eyes, the new officer assigned to them suddenly looked extremely caught off guard. Beck had to cough some more to cover her laughs. She sobered instantly when she caught Hotchner staring at her from across the table.

"So," the Technical Analyst immediately got to the point, hoping to avoid confrontation on the awkward situation that just ensued. "I've been searching the area for unsolved robberies. I found four with similar elements- phone lines cut, small valuables only."

"Occupants tied up?" Morgan prompted.

"Yes, but no homicides." Everyone around the table collectively frowned.

"Okay. Thanks, Dollface." Beck's frown deepened at his odd nickname for her. "I'll call you back." And with that, he shut his cell. Beck couldn't help but stay stuck on the name... Dollface?

"Well, if this is our guys, something made them graduate to murder," Hotchner remarked as soon as the call had ended.

"I checked out the Laybournes- they're first homicide victims- and..." Beck trailed off as she carefully set her coffee down. She didn't want to drink and revisit the images in her brain that she couldn't wash away of the family of four, specifically the parents. "It was brutal. Even more so than the others. It was almost like it had been a split decision to just... kill them."

"But, why?" JJ asked softly from beside her.

"If we can figure out what that trigger was, it might tell us how they choose their victims," Prentiss stated.

"Well, that would help," Morgan chimed in. "I've been looking into victimology and so far, there's really nothing to connect the families. Different political affiliations, different careers, different school systems. And at this point, it simply appears the Unsubs are targeting their victims at random."

"Which makes them more volatile, unpredictable," Hotchner concluded. "We need to catch these guys fast. They may strike again soon as they continue to escalate."

"Escalate how?" Lieutenant Nellis- Beck was finally able to remember his name.

"If the relationship between the two Unsubs grows strained as the escalation continues where the submissive no longer wants to continue, like in most cases, the dominant Unsub could take complete control," Prentiss explained to him.

"In less complicated terms," Beck took a sip of her coffee. "They could start killing the kids the same way they do the parents- violently."

Beck watched Lieutenant Nellis's eyes widen at her words. "I'll have all my units on high alert, searching high-end neighborhoods for any sort of patchy spots where their signal is jammed."

"That's a good start," Hotchner nodded in approval. "The rest of us will stay here, figure out what else we can find that can help us piece together the group profile so we can get started on the individual ones." With that, Hotchner and Nellis had wandered off to start setting up whatever patrol the Lieutenant had talked about.

After a few minutes, JJ had peeled away from the group as well. "I've gotta give statements to distant family members asking for an update," she explained, a deep frown on her face. She was probably going to need a drink after that conversation, Beck could already tell.

"Good luck," was all she offered her before the blonde left the table.

A few hours passed, mostly silence between the team members save for the occasional bouncing of ideas. Everyone had kind of separated amongst themselves at the table. Morgan had a series of files and photos set in front of him, his eyes still scanning to try and find a connection he might've missed between the families. Dr. Reid was standing before three whiteboards as he marked down the locations and attempted to make what he could from the geographical profile. Prentiss was juggling between the four previous robberies, trying to pinpoint what triggered them to upgrade to homicide. And Beck sat isolated at the edge of the table trying to piece all the clues she had.

Her notepad was set out for her as she jotted down what she could.

Two Unsubs- a dominant and submissive.

Started with robbery.

Tied and gagged every time, including the homicide.

Control over the parents

Made kids watch

Brutal, bloody for the parents

Peaceful for the kids. Mercy kill?

Pentobarbital- who else uses it?

Mommy issues.

Abuse in their own home?

Attacking the family unit.

Hatred for suburbia.

Are the Unsubs related? Just similar past? How did they meet? How did they build this solid trust and twisted relationship?

Beck let out a heavy exhale. Too many details, too many possible motives.

The brunette grabbed her mug of coffee she'd been milking for the past couple of hours, only to find it empty... Great. And she still felt exhausted, wasn't the shit supposed to wake her up?

"You alright?"

Beck glanced up to find Dr. Reid had taken a seat beside her. Apparently he wasn't having much like either, seeing as he hadn't spoken to anyone in hours same as her. They'd both been in their own little worlds that just got too overwhelming.

She dragged a hand through her hair as she nodded. "Yeah... Yeah. Just, uh, kinda hitting a wall here, is all."

"Yeah, me too," he muttered, his eyes trailing to the other side of the room.

Beck followed his far-away gaze to peer over at the two boards across the table. Three different maps were splayed out before them, individual pictures of houses, red Sharpie marks that Reid had made, question marks, words decipherable only if you narrowed your eyes slightly. To the average person none of this would've made sense, and frankly, Beck didn't have it in her to turn on that part of her brain to even try to understand his geographical profile. No wonder he looked almost as worn out as she did.

There was a beat of silence between the pair and it was at that time that Beck had noticed Prentiss and Morgan had gone.

"Hey, where did Prentiss and Morgan go?" She wondered aloud.

Reid shrugged. "Morgan said something about grabbing take-out from a hole-in-the-wall two blocks West about an hour ago. Prentiss went with him. You were halfway through the newly released ME's report when they'd left," he explained.

Beck peered at the doctor beside her. "Do you do that often?"

"Do what?" His eyes caught hers as he turned to face her directly again.

"Watch people?"

"Isn't that our job?" He prompted her. "Watch? Analyze? Understand?" His eyes went back to the map across the room again. The words hidden in the lines between his questions didn't go unnoticed to Beck.

She tilted her head to the side, smirking slightly as she asked. "And what is it you're trying to understand about me, Dr. Reid?"

"The Bonsai," he answered truthfully.

Beck frowned. "Paris?"

Reid frowned. "You named your Bonsai?"

"...yes..."

"After Paris? The city?"

"No- of Troy," she corrected him with a smirk.

Reid cracked a smile. "You named your Bonsai tree... after a Greek prince?"

"A gullible Greek prince that was driven by beautiful women to do stupid things," she grinned. She expected him to argue, but after slight deliberation, she watched him shrug in acceptance at her over-simplification.

"An odd name for a tree meant to bring harmony and Zen to your workspace," he remarked. "Why name it after a... gullible Greek prince?"

He almost groaned in aggravation when he watched her shrug nonchalantly. "Liked the name."

"It has to have some kind of meaning to you that out of all the things you decided to name a tree, you choose to name it after Paris-"

"Have you ever stopped to think that not everything I do has a specific reason behind it?" Reid glanced over to her, looking completely shell-shocked by her words. Apparently he hadn't considered it. "Now," she slowly turned her chair to face him. "What's this really about?"

Reid pursed his lips. "You."

"What about me?"

"You're... a riddle. A frustrating riddle that gets more complicated every time more clues are revealed." Beck raised her eyebrows slightly. Hm, when she got on the jet today she definitely hadn't expected the usually quiet and timid doctor to compare her to a complicated riddle- of all things.

That's when he glanced up at her with a searing look that made her smirk vanish momentarily. She held her breath, almost as though she feared what his next question was. A question she didn't want to answer. A question she couldn't answer.

"Why do you go by 'Beck'?"

Beck blinked.

"S-" she coughed. "Seriously? You're worried about my name?"

"Well, yeah, it's something that's been bothering me since we first met," he explained. "You said it was preference, but Hawks never referred to you as Beck-" he noted her jaw clenched at the name, but continued. "-based on how little you discuss your family, I imagine you hardly visit which means you couldn't have picked up the nickname from them-" she looked away that time. "-and Gideon transitioned between calling you by your last name and your nickname, almost as though he wasn't accustomed to it."

At the mention of Gideon she had to hide her blanch.

"Reid-"

"By the way, what's your relationship with him?"

"Reid-"

"He never mentioned you, but he spoke about you and to you as if you'd been long time acquaintances."

"Dr. Reid-"

"He trusted you," he stated firmly. "Why?"

Beck's fingers flexed on the arm rests of her chair. She had pushed herself back into her seat, wishing it would swallow her whole so she could get out of this rabbit hole of a conversation. If she was a riddle, he was a rabbit hole.

"What's your history with Gideon?"

There it was. A question she couldn't answer.

"I..." She opened her mouth... then clamped it shut again.

What was she supposed to say? 'Sorry, I can't tell you about my past- and very brief- relationship I had with your previous boss because it involves discussing the fact that he was the one that found and rescued me from almost dying in a Vietnam jungle after running away from my past of being a child soldier for a guerilla war group for most of my childhood'? Right, that was a hell of an icebreaker.

"Hey, guys."

Thank God for Emily Prentiss.

Beck and Reid glanced up to see Prentiss and Morgan had finally returned with their take-out. Almost immediately, they seemed to pick up on the tense air in the room.

Morgan glanced between the two. "Everything alright?"

Beck turned back to the Doctor seated in front of her. She noticed just how close their chairs had been pushed (or pulled?) together and took the time to push herself away about a foot from him. "Fine," she replied, adjusting her seat once more to face the two other agents, her eyes falling to the bags of food in their hands. "What'd you bring us?"

Morgan and Prentiss shared a loaded look, but ultimately made the wise decision of dropping the questions she knew were just bouncing off the walls inside their skulls.

"Well," Prentiss sighed as she set her bags down. "I know you like gummy bears. How do you feel about Pad Thai, Agent Ryder?"

Beck grinned.

—

Bzzzzz Bzzzzz

"Urgh."

Beck's hand slowly reached out from beneath the hotel sheets to grab hold of her phone still ringing on the nightstand a few feet away.

She brought it up to her ear and flipped it open, her eyes still closed. "What?"

"Hi... uh, it's JJ."

Beck ran a hand down her face. "The Unsubs strike again?"

"No-" Beck momentarily pondered the thought of just hanging up on the Liaison seeing as it was only- holy shit, 5 AM- but then she'd be labeled as the Team Bitch, which was the last thing she wanted. Ending up like Gina Sanchez. God, she'd rather off herself. "Actually, we were all going to go grab breakfast before we head back to the station and I wanted to ask you if you wanted to come along?"

Well, this was... new. And odd.

Was this a test?

Was it going to be an interrogation like she had the day before with Reid?

Mmm, pass.

"I, uh. I'm not really a morning person," Beck muttered halfway into her pillow. "Raincheck for coffee at a more reasonable time, maybe? I had a long night." That... totally sounded bitchy coming out of her mouth, but it was completely true. She hadn't left the precinct until midnight, didn't hit the bed until 1, and couldn't sleep because all she was thinking about was whether or not the Unsubs were out there slaughtering another family while she got to sleep peacefully. And when she had eventually fallen asleep, it was only two hours before this call she was having right now.

Thankfully, JJ was a very understanding woman. "It's no problem. How do you like your coffee?"

Beck inwardly groaned. God, why'd she agree to coffee?

"Uh... as a chai tea latte with almond milk?"

"Oh. Got it. I'll see you when you come in then."

"Sure thing," Beck replied, stifling a yawn. "Thanks, Agent Jareau- JJ." She corrected herself with a cough. It felt weird calling a coworker by their nickname. No one at CTU did it for her, same way she never addressed anyone their by their first name. She wasn't even sure if any of them had nicknames. Califax, Adams, Sanchez, Spence, Summers, Hopkins, Hawks... Only Hawks called her Becca.

"No problem, Beck."

The line went dead and the brunette set her phone back on the nightstand.

Her alarm may have been set for another half hour, but Beck still went to sleep that night with a small smirk on her lips.

—

Beck was correct in assuming she was going to wake up severely sleep deprived and exhausted.

She was also correct in assuming that the Unsubs were going to strike again that night.

Beck had made it into the station fairly early at around 7:30. She'd taken a little longer than she wanted because she'd gotten caught up in how nice the water pressure was at the hotel, but when she eventually made it to the precinct, everyone was already back from their freakishly early breakfast and had already begun delivering the profile to the rest of the precinct.

"Shit," the agent muttered as she walked in through the side, looking out over the sea of cops, she spotted Hotchner and Dr. Reid up at the front of the presentation standing in front of the board of images of the mutilated bodies she'd seen for herself at the morgue yesterday.

Hotchner caught her sneaking in as she made her way along the side until she eventually made it to where Prentiss was standing. Beck was shocked when Hotchner didn't glare at her, his facial expression was unreadable (as per usual) but something about the way his lips drew into a slight frown almost made her perceive this look as... disappointed?

"Traffic?" Beck glanced up and away from Hotchner to find Prentiss holding out a plastic cup with a cap on it towards her. Right, her chai.

Beck took it and threw back a hot sip. Ooh, that was some good chai. "Something like that," she replied, chugging down a bit more of her drink in hopes that the sizzling burn of the liquid slithering down her throat would help wake her up.

As Hotchner continued to explain what profiling was to these cops spread out around the room, Beck took the time to place where the rest of the team was. Morgan was on the opposite side of the room, across from Hotcher. But... Beck immediately noticed a blonde head of hair was missing from the room.

"Where's JJ?" Beck whispered to Prentiss who shrugged back in response.

"Ran out of here earlier, something about a phone call."

"Hm," was all Beck replied, but didn't push it because Hotchner had finally gotten to the good part of the meeting.

"We're looking for two men, probably white, given the neighborhoods that they hit," he explained. "Mid to late twenties, intelligent, and organized."

"These are career criminals," Morgan picked up where he left off. "One or both has done hard time, but neither presents as a convict. They would appear clean-shaven, well-dressed-"

"Neighborly," Prentiss chimed in from where she stood beside Beck, still milking her chai for all it was worth. "This helps them talk their way into the homes. They may also be using a ruse."

"What kind of ruse?" Lieutenant Nellis called out. Good question.

Hotchner answered. "Given that the invasions have taken place in the evening, it could be anything. Could be door-to-door sales-" Beck frowned, those don't usually occur at night. "-person in distress-" More likely. "-car trouble-" Less likely.

"Uh, Derrick Todd Lee used a tape of a baby crying to get women to open their doors in Baton Rouge. Never underestimate their creativity," Dr. Reid exclaimed. Beck spared a small smirk at his example. It was like he was a walking Wikipedia of all things serial killers. She'd noted his use of an example with Gary Taylor last case they'd worked on. Maybe that was his thing. Serial killers... Well, he did have this job. Which, she thought was curious as well.

Three phD's at the age of twenty-six, he mentioned having one of the highest IQ's on the team (probably in the entirety of the District of Colombia), he was extremely philosophical and had a thing for puzzles (or... riddles, as he put it). With all of these traits, one would figure he'd go into something scientific like trying to cure cancer or some meaningful shtick like that. But instead, he was here hunting serial killers. Dr. Reid had called Beck a riddle, but he was an enigma.

Beck was here because it was all she had ever known. Why was Dr. Reid here?

"These men share a very tight bond and a mutual compulsion to kill," Prentiss continued, snapping Beck back to the present. "But their signatures reveal two very distinct personalities." Ah, now this was where she could chime in.

Beck opened her mouth to explain what types of personalities they were dealing with when Hotchner cut her off.

"One brutalizes the parents. This is the dominant one- sadistic, remorseless, extremely volatile." Beck wanted to glare at him, but all she could do was tilt her head in confusion as she watched him turn to her, as if giving her permission to speak now. She almost debated chucking what was left of her chai at him then, but she didn't.

Instead she opted for being equally as frustrating as he was being and clamped her lips shut like a child. She wasn't going to speak when instructed to like a good little soldier. If this was a test of some sort, he was going to deal with the repercussions of trying to play mind games with her. Especially this fucking early into the day.

Prentiss was glancing back and forth between Hotchner and Beck before just picking up where the Unit Chief had left off. "The other prefers a needle. His injections are consistent with an angel of death." Mercy kills, that was a way to put it. Honestly, Beck wished she had some Pentobarbital to use on herself after whatever that silent altercation was right there. "He's more withdrawn, sensitive, and he has a warped sense of mercy."

Beck heard shuffling off to the side and saw Morgan passing out fliers to the officers. "Agent Morgan is passing out a list of places where he might have access to the drug he uses," Hotchner explained to the group. Ah, so Garcia had gotten back to him about that already. "It's long, but-"

"Hotch."

Everyone glanced to the area behind Beck and Emily to see JJ had finally made an appearance. A very urgent one apparently. The Unsubs. "There's been another one, and they're sending an ambulance."

"Ambulance?" Both Prentiss and Beck furrowed their eyebrows in concern. That meant that...

"There's a survivor?" Hotchner asked. JJ nodded.

Shit...

Beck tossed what was remaining of her chai into the garbage as the precinct turned into an all-out frenzy of police officers being dismissed and called out to the scene with Lieutenant Nellis barking orders, telling them where to go. In a calmer manner, Hotchner called for his team to gather at the front of the room with him and Reid. They obliged.

"Who's the survivor?" Dr. Reid asked JJ as soon as everyone was gathered.

"Carrie Ortiz, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ortiz," JJ replied. "She was wandering the neighborhood streets covered in blood when neighbors found her and went to check the house and found..." she trailed off, her eyes falling to the floor. Beck's chest tightened at the thought of what they might've found if these Unsubs were getting more brutal.

"Alright," Hotchner exhaled. "JJ, Prentiss, go talk to Carrie, see what she knows or if she's even willing to talk about what happened." Prentiss nodded before letting JJ lead her out of the precinct. "Reid, Morgan, Ryder, with me at the crime scene."

Reid and Morgan started out to the door, Beck was right on their tail when she heard Hotchner call out, "Ryder." She turned to glance at him from over the shoulder and saw his apprehensive look. Great, they were going to discuss this now. "A word."

Beck let out a sigh before making her way back to the Unit Chief. "I'm sorry about being late. I forgot about my alarm and-"

"Ryder," he cut her off swiftly. "This isn't about the tardiness and you know it." God, she really wanted to strangle him with her belt sometimes. Maybe she should've thrown her chai at him earlier.

Beck took a deep breath, shifting the weight on her feet as she crossed her arms and tilted her head up at him. "Alright, then what is this about?"

She saw a vein pop out in his temple slightly as his frustration with her grew. Good, now he was feeling the way it felt working with him. "If this about what I told you after Portland, I'd suggest you speak to me directly about it instead of acting out."

The brunette guffawed. "Acting- acting out? Me? I'm acting out?" She sputtered in outrage. "You've been throwing me these little looks for weeks as if you're expecting something from me and the moment I try to pitch in today during the profile, you cut me off like you did on the Portland case and then act as though you were giving me a chance to speak after the fact? What the hell are you playing at?"

"You're late almost every day-"

"Traffic-"

"I read your previous work log from the CIA. You'd never been late even once despite the fact that you lived in a completely different city. You took the initiative and put in the effort to make sure you were on time every day," Hotchner stated.

Beck blinked, unsure of how to even respond to any of that. One thing she did know was that she was sick of finding out he was looking into her. If he was digging up these small details, how long was it until he dug up the bigger details? He already knew about a hundred and fifty-two big details he shouldn't have known about.

"So... this is about my tardiness?"

"No." Oh my God, she was going to punch him. "This is about the fact that you're holding this job- this team- at arm's length and pretending to be a subpar agent in an attempt to deter the rest of the team away from you, myself included. You're putting up walls with your actions and the only thing you're accomplishing is distracting the team."

"Distracting the team? How? I'm isolating myself, remember?"

"The more you push them away, the more they're going to wonder why. The more they wonder why, the more they're going to profile you and the less focused they'll be on these cases," he explained. Beck's mind went to how frustrated Dr. Reid had been when he was asking her a hundred questions the day before and wondered just how long these questions had been plaguing him and if he had been distracted during the case by just how much those questions were bothering him. He was just one team member, though. Were the others the same way?

Shit... Hotchner made a point she hadn't thought of.

"Ryder." She glanced back up at him. "I understand you keep secrets, and a few are for good reason." She was sure the number a hundred and fifty-two was flashing in his mind right now, but the only thing that was jumping around her brain right now was 'Strauss.' "But this isn't the CTU. The less the team knows about you, the more inclined they are to dig to find out. It's not because they want to use what they know about you against you, but because they just want to know you're someone they can trust."

Am I? She wanted to prompt.

"So, what? You want me to spill my guts to everyone during circle-time on the jet?" She asked, quick-witted.

He scowled at her slightly as if her were silently scolding her.

She fought the urge to roll her eyes at him. "Fine. I'll be less... me, if it appeases the court," she said, throwing her hands up in defeat. "But don't expect me to tell them anything about..."

A hundred and fifty-two.

Hotchner frowned. "They're going to find out eventually."

Beck narrowed her eyes at him. "How did you?"

"Like I told you before, it was my job to profile you before you joined this team," he replied simply, leaving her with many more questions. Like how the hell she was going to get through being apart of this team without holding her secrets close to her chest.

She already understood these people didn't operate solely on working towards a common goal, like at the CTU. The BAU wasn't the CTU, they operated on trust and working towards a common goal. That was their team dynamic: family. But Ryder wasn't here to be a family, she was just here to stop killers. It was why she worked so well within the CTU because it wasn't about family, it was just about the job. It didn't matter who you were, what you did before, what your secrets were, what mattered was how well you did your job in the present.

Maybe it should've mattered about what your secrets were...

A voice inside Beck's head that sounded alarmingly like John Summers said.

She took a deep breath in.

This team wasn't the CTU and Hotchner wasn't Bruno Hawks... or maybe she was being too much like Hawks in this equation here now.

But Hotchner was right, she had valid reasons to keep things from people. Here in the BAU and in the CTU. Her past before the CIA was what drove her to keeping secrets with the CTU, now here at the BAU it was her past before the CIA, her past with the CIA, and now her present secondary assignment with Strauss.

"Fuck," Beck muttered beneath her breath as she followed after Hotchner through the precinct. This job just got a hell of a lot more complicated.

—

Morgan, Reid, and Lieutenant Nellis had taken a separate car and due to her and Hotchner's little meeting, they'd gotten to the crime scene ten minutes before they had.

The car ride over was silent, stiff, but when they arrived on the scene, the tension between them had been put on a back burner as all their attention was put onto the suburban house surrounded by dozens of officers and yellow tape.

As Beck climbed out of the SUV, she heard Hotchner's phone ring. He answered as they approached, but as he spoke to whoever was on the other line, Beck paid more attention to the scene they were walking into. Quiet, calm, but bustling all at the same time. Clearly, no one was inside the house, most of the forensics team was on the lawn, Beck could see Dr. Reid and Lieutenant Nellis talking to neighbors about what they saw off to the side. But the house itself... it was filled with this ominous presence just oozing out from each window, wall, and perfectly pristine drop of paint. It was tainted, just like the Unsubs wanted it to be.

The agent hadn't realized she'd been standing at the base of the porch steps for so long before she heard Hotchner approach. He was pocketing his phone when she quickly snapped out of it and fell into step with him up into the entrance of the house.

Morgan was waiting for them inside, frozen and unmoving as he glanced towards the open living room. It wasn't until Beck turned to see what it was he was looking at that the smell hit her.

She didn't flinch at the smell, though. She winced at the death in front of her. She'd seen quite a lot of death in her time, but she couldn't help but show some disdain for each dead body she saw.

Here, there were only two lying lifelessly before her now. Mrs. Ortiz, on her side, limp, laying in a pull of her own blood on the couch. And Mr. Ortiz, lying face-first on the floor a few feet away. There was blood everywhere, and for the splotches Beck couldn't immediately point out, there were large yellow number stands that pointed out just how much there was. Beck counted 58.

"Kid's in his room down the hall," Morgan answered the unspoken question neither Beck or Hotchner dared to pose.

"How old?" Hotchner asked dejectedly.

"Seven."

Beck glanced down and saw the red firetruck toy lying on it's side just beside Mr. Ortiz's body. Seven...

"You alright?" Morgan prompted the both of them.

Beck scoffed, but didn't answer.

Hotchner shook his head. "'Least they left the flowers alive, right?" Sure enough, off to the side of the living room was a clear vase full of blooming indigo irises.

"Was the crime scene touched at all since the daughter was found?" Beck quickly changed the subject. She noted that the father wasn't on the couch in front of the two chairs like the other fathers had been.

"No, they were found this way, but it looks like they were moved postmortem sometime before she was picked up," Morgan stated.

Hotchner turned away from the scene to glance at the agent to his right. "The daughter had blood on her when they found her?"

"She must have woken up, come out here, and found them."

Beck moved her way to the otherside of the chairs to glance back down at Mr. Ortiz, more specifically the blood splatters around him, Hotchner's words barely computing as he spoke with his back turned to her. "You answer your door, and the next thing you know, everyone you care about is gone."

She heard retreating footsteps as she lowered herself down at the edge of the white carpet. Faintly, she could see the slight bloodstains that matched those of bloody hand marks on and around Mr. Ortiz. Carrie Ortiz...

"If it was me, I'd wanna be gone, too," Beck turned to see Morgan frown down at the scene still. She wondered if this was one of those moments shared between teammates, but she was too focused on the scene to really take into account what Hotchner had said earlier about isolating herself.

Beck stood back up. "You said the kid was in his room?" Of course he had, but she just wanted to make conversation before walking off after what he'd just said.

"Yeah," Morgan answered, his voice losing that dejected monotone to make him sound less like he'd just been having a moment there and more like he was invested in this scene like she was. "Down the hall to the right, last door straight ahead."

She nodded to him, not bothering to spend another second brooding as she made her way down the hall.

There was no blood anywhere outside the living room, which Beck found less than unnerving because she knew that just because there was no blood, doesn't mean there was no death.

When she opened the door, she clenched her jaw at the sight of the young Daniel Ortiz lying face-first into his pillow. She had only been in the room for a minute or so when the forensics team came in with their gurney to take him away. She stood off to the side, letting them do their job, watching as they carefully picked Daniel's petite body and place him gently onto the gurney. The forensics team was just about to cover him with the white sheet when Beck exclaimed, "Wait."

They paused and she stepped forward. Without asking, she stole a pair of gloves off one of the officers and put them on. Carefully, she took his upper arm in her hands and traced her eyes along his skin. It hadn't lost it's color just yet, but he was still as cold as ice. He must've been dead since late last night.

Finally, after a few more moments of searching, she found the mark from where the needle's point of entry was. The exact same spot as every other child's that she'd examined back at the morgue. Exact. Same. Spot... So how had he missed with Carrie?

Beck backed away from the body once more and let the forensics team pull the sheet over and leave the room with the boy. She let out a heavy exhale as she peeled off the gloves and crumpled them into her hand.

"Find anything?"

The agent turned to see Hotchner had reentered the house and was now standing in the doorway of Daniel's room, his eyes on the gloves now crumpled in her hand.

"Nothing new," she replied as she turned back towards the bed that Daniel's body had just been lying on moments ago. She frowned.

"But something's still bothering you?"

Beck crossed her arms, her eyes not trailing away from the small indention in the middle of the bed. It was decorated with coral and didn't match the rest of the room plastered with baseballs, rocket ships, and cars. The only thing that matched the bed set were the many framed photos of fish on the wall on the opposite wall. Beck imagined if his life hadn't ended in this bed, Daniel Ortiz probably would've loved to see the ocean. She wondered if the seven-year-old ever got to from where he lived all the way in Colorado.

"This guy doesn't miss," Beck muttered. "His point of entry for the needle is in the same spot of the arm every time. Like he's done it hundreds of times before." She turned to glance at Hotchner. "He missed the vein on Carrie on purpose. She means something to the second Unsub or at least represents something or someone that Daniel and the rest of the younger victims didn't. If she didn't, she'd be dead."

Hotchner frowned and glanced down at the bed in a similar fashion that she had. Beck came to recognize this look as equal confusion.

"Hey, Hotch!"

Hotchner peeled his gaze away from the bed and made his way down the hall back to where Morgan was in the living room, Beck trailing after him, but not before throwing a final glance over her shoulder at Daniel Ortiz's room. As she made her way down the hall, she even dared to spare a glance at Carrie Ortiz's room. She really wondered what that girl was going through right about now back at the hospital. Nothing good, she almost wondered if her fate would've been better off if the second Unsub hadn't missed.

"They only take things with monetary value, right? Jewelry, cash, no souvenirs?" Beck heard Morgan ask from where he stood in front of the fire place as she walked into the room right behind Hotchner.

"Far as we know," Hotchner replied, Beck imagined he was as perplexed as she was to see where Morgan was going with this.

Morgan then took the time to point up onto the wall where a multitude of family photos sat. Images of younger Carrie and Daniel Ortiz, a wedding photo, a family photo... and a singular hook where a photo was missing. "One of them just broke pattern," Morgan remarked.

Hotchner turned to glance over his shoulder at Beck who met his gaze. "He missed for a reason," she reiterated to the Unit Chief. Something told her that if they were to ask Carrie, the photo that was missing from the wall would be one of her... She meant something to him. But what?

—

Carrie Ortiz

Beck jotted down in her notepad back at the precinct.

She'd been seated at the table once again trying to piece together a puzzle that just didn't seem to be making any sense. It was like she had all the pieces laid out and the borders were finalized, but then there was just a jumble in the middle that she couldn't quite get to. And the longer it took her to piece it together, the more people would fall victim to the center of that puzzle.

"Hey."

Beck glanced up from her notepad and saw Dr. Reid approaching the table. Most everyone else had split off, Morgan went for some more coffee, Prentiss and JJ still hadn't gotten back yet, and Hotchner disappeared to make some kind of announcement to the police about media coverage and keeping Carrie a secret from the press in case the Unsubs decided to come back and finish the job. So that meant, her and Reid were left alone once more like they had the day before.

"Hi," she greeted in response, a little hesitant for the onslaught of off-topic questions he would ask her about herself and her past and Gideon.

She was ready to make an excuse to dismiss herself from the table when she remembered what Hotchner had told her; that the less she gave them, the more they'd dig and look for themselves.

She took a deep breath as Reid grew closer and decided against faking the need to pee and hiding out in the bathroom until Prentiss and JJ got back from the hospital. She was adult (kind of) she could handle a brief conversation with the Good Doctor that may or may not lead to an all-out interrogation.

"Whatcha got there?" she asked, turning the subject to the handful of snacks he was carrying.

Reid glanced down at what she was referring to then back up to her. "Oh. I, uh, found the break room downstairs and kind of stole a couple of goodies for us," he explained with a sheepish grin. Beck watched as he dropped a couple bags of cookies, pretzels, fruit snacks and gummy bears onto the table between them. "You like gummy things, so I figured I'd grab some for you too," he said, taking a seat in the chair across from her.

She spared him a smile as she discarded her notepad and grabbed the bag of gummy bears. "Thanks," she replied. It wasn't lost on her that this was probably a bribe to get her to answer his questions from before, but she took the offering nonetheless.

An awkward beat of silence passed between them as Beck popped open her bag of snacks and Reid sat at the edge of her chair watching her in anticipation as if expecting her to pick up on their last conversation.

Eventually, he broke the silence. "I, uh, I actually got them to say I'm sorry about yesterday." Beck froze mid-chew. Hm, she wasn't sure what she was expected, but it definitely wasn't that. "I know you're not really used to being so... open with people because keeping secrets comes with the circumstances of your old job and bombarding you with questions probably wasn't the best way to approach that."

Beck bit back her reply of 'ya think?'

"And considering the environment of your last job and the clear trust issues from what happened with Bruno Hawks-" Beck visibly winced, but he continued. "I understand that being transparent doesn't come to you as naturally as it does for most people and I should do a better job at respecting the pace that you're willing to go to trusting us."

Beck sat there speechless for a while, processing everything he'd just said in rush of words.

He thought she had trouble trusting them... Wow. She let that one sit for a second. Suddenly, all the anxiousness in her body had dissolved and was being replaced by guilt. He was apologizing... to her... for being too curious... And he had these beady puppy eyes he was brandishing and, Jesus Christ, she suddenly felt like the biggest asshole in the entire state of Colorado right now.

"Dr. Reid, I-" Beck had begun, only to be cut off by the rest of the team walking in, JJ and Prentiss included.

"Ooh, don't mind if I do," Morgan was quick to snatch the bag of cookies from between Beck and Reid.

Beck threw Reid an apologetic look before setting down her gummy bears and turning towards the team members that had just entered the room, Lieutenant Nellis trailing along as well. "So... anything Carrie could tell you that we didn't already know about the Unsubs?"

"Yeah," Prentiss replied. "They're ruse."

"Oh?" Reid raised an eyebrow, back to his less kicked-puppy self as he popped open his bag of pretzels.

"Witness says these Unsubs are using cats," Hotchner stated. Beck noted the way he glanced at her then to Reid and back to her.

She shifted in her seat, popping a gummy bear into her mouth to try and distract herself from what he'd said about keeping people at arms length. "What? Like luring kids out with their pet cats?"

"No. Like... pretending that they hit a neighborhood cat then asking for a bag and talking their way into the house," JJ explained. Beck winced. Gross. Dead cats.

But... she had to ask. "Do they just... keep reusing the same cat?"

"It's unlikely that they are, so we should find out where they might be getting them," Hotchner exclaimed.

"There's plenty of strays out there," Morgan stated. "Nobody would notice if a few went missing."

"Or," Prentiss chimed in as she rounded the table, a cup of fresh coffee in her hands. "They could work someplace where they had access to animals."

Beck furrowed her eyebrows slightly. "Dr. Reid," the Doctor's hair flopped slightly as he turned his head to his name being called. "What did you say were the uses of Pentobarbital?"

"Anticonvulsant for epileptics, anxiety disorders, state executions, research labs, veterinary hospitals..." He listed off, the same lightbulb that had flicked on in her brain was now flickering to life inside of his as they came to the same conclusion. "Could overlap."

"I'll get Garcia to make up a list," Morgan said before wandering off to make the call. Beck wished she could hear the way she answered. She was curious about Garcia and Morgan's dynamic, they seemed to be the closest on the team.

"Carrie said that they referred to each other as brothers," JJ remarked from behind where Beck was seated.

"Would explain the trust they have in one another enough to kill together," Beck commented. "You'd have to be pretty close to someone to trust them with your dirtiest and despicable secrets." Beck had only glanced up through her bangs to catch the look Hotchner was sending her from across the table.

"It's not uncommon for duos to be related," Dr. Reid chimed in, and, as if on cue, turned to his trusty serial killer facts stored away in his brain. "The Hillside Stranglers were cousins. The Carr brothers perpetrated the Wichita Massacre." Beck chuckled slightly as she bit into another gummy bear. Nerd.

"Yeah, but these two are of different races," Prentiss explained. "And Carrie said the Hispanic one did not speak Spanish, which makes me think-"

"Raised in a White household," Hotchner finished her sentence. "Maybe they're half-brothers."

"Or adopted," Beck piped up. All eyes were on her and in a split momentary decision, Beck did something she'd never done before... share personal details about herself without being forced to. "I'm... Vietnamese and I learned the language from Rosetta Stone, not my adopted parents." Beck glanced around the room and noticed Hotchner had given her a slight nod. Yeah, be happy, you bastard. It wasn't like I had to choke that one out or anything, she thought with disdain.

"Adopted," Reid mused from beside her. "That would explain a lot seeing that family destruction plays a role in the crimes. It could be a reflection of their own broken home."

Hotchner nodded once more. "This guy expressed affection for Carrie. We know he took her photograph. We can use that."

Beck narrowed her eyes, leaning back in her chair as she bit off the head of a gummy bear. "How?"

Reid answered, "If we release news of her survival, it might draw him out."

"Not comfortable with that?" Beck glanced around Reid to see Hotchner posing the question to Prentiss who clearly looked very uncomfortable with that idea.

"Okay..." she relented. "But I would be more comfortable if we doubled her security."

Beck sat straighter in her chair. "Wait, what about other families?" She prompted. "If the first Unsub, the one that beats and brutalizes the parents, finds out that the second Unsub spared a victim, he could break away out of rage and go decimate an entire family on his own. This time, without someone holding him back to take out the kids in a much less painful way."

"You think we should keep Carrie's survival a secret and wait for our Unsubs to kill again tonight for us to get another clue?" Hotchner asked.

"No. I think this press release is a bad idea because it means they're going to get worse when they find out we're closing in on them," Beck retorted. "I don't know about you, but frankly, I'd rather have two more dead kids killed by injection than have their heads bashed in like their parents."

She could hear the gasp from JJ behind her.

Okay, her choice of words might've been a bit harsh, but...

Hotchner's gaze hardened at what she said. "That's not your decision to make," was all he said in response before turning to Lieutenant Nellis. "Double Carrie's security."

"I'll have my guys do twice as many rounds in the hospital," Nellis stated.

"Thank you," JJ told the Lieutenant as he left to carry out his orders. "I'm going back to the house. Carrie's getting released today and is gonna need more clothes aside from her hospital gown."

"I'll come with you," Prentiss immediately jumped at the opportunity to get back to Carrie... or maybe just away from Beck after what she'd said.

"Reid, Ryder," both turned to Hotchner. Reid, expectantly. Beck, reluctantly. "See what you can find out from their past victims. We know they came from broken households, but something must've happened in their specific home that made them snap. Something that they see repeated in these families that they target. Find out what that is and we could find out who they are."

Beck clenched her jaw and begrudgingly nodded in agreement, not bothering to meet his eyes, her eyes boring into the bag of gummy bears in front of her.

Trust people... right. What a fucking joke.

Beck glared at Hotchner's back as he left, following JJ and Prentiss's lead. With the team gone, Reid was left alone with her again and she imagined that after her outburst that he probably wished to be anywhere but paired with her. So, she decided to make this as painless as possible. "Let's get to work," she muttered dejectedly, pulling herself from her chair to make her way to the boards of morgue and crime scene photos off to the side, making it a point to throw away her only partially eaten bag of gummy bears.

—

"So, first robbery victims... the Matthises. Suburban neighborhood, all tied up, children taken to another room while they steal jewelry, gaming systems, electronics, money, and anything else with monetary value... Second robbery victims, the Hendersons... same case," Beck listed off, her eyes slowly trailing over to the photos of the first brutalized family. "The Laybournes..."

There was a slap of paper hitting the table behind Beck from where Reid had laid out the manile file containing any information on the Laybourne's individual case file. "Middle-class family, general amount of income for the area, two-story house, two cars, private education for the kids. Stolen items were about the same as the first two robberies," Reid listed off.

"But there had to be something that set them apart from these first to families that triggered the rest of the killings. Something distinct," Beck remarked, her fingers tracing the bloody images of Mrs. Laybourne's lifeless and mutilated body plastered on the board. "What was it?"

"Well, Mrs. Laybourne worked as a secretary at a Law Firm, worked long hours at the office, rarely home... could be that the Unsubs felt she was neglecting her family," Reid proposed.

Beck turned away from the board. Shaking her head, she replied, "No. It has to be something more than that... What did Mr. Laybourne do?"

"I thought you said the Unsub had more anger towards the mothers?" Reid prompted, glanced up from the files to her.

She nodded. "Yeah- I know what I said, but just... humor me."

Reid obliged and went back to the file laid out in front of him. "Uh, Mr. Laybourne was a team manager at a privatized construction company. Flexible hours, but strenuous and stressful work."

"History of DUIs? DWIs? Any skeletons in his closet that might've been caused by the stress of his job?"

"No... but..." Beck could tell he had just picked up on something from the way his forehead creased as his eyebrows furrowed.

"What? What is it?"

"Hand me that file," he gestured to the secondary file on her side of the table.

She pulled it towards her so she could read the title before sliding it over to him. "The autopsies? What are you looking for?"

She watched as Reid caught the file underneath his hand and flipped it open a few pages back. Once he found what he was looking for, he spun the file around and slid it across the table back to her. "This."

Beck leaned forward, her eyes narrowed as she read the page he was showing her. Elizabeth Laybourne's autopsy. Their daughter. Beck's eyes trailed down to the cause of death; Pentobarbital. Okay, that's not what he was showing her.

Reid must've picked up on her confusion, because it was then that he made his way around the table to her side so he could point to the lower part of the report. "Here. The coroner noted bruises on Elizabeth's stomach and torso."

"That's... odd," Beck muttered. "The Unsubs don't usually harm the kids."

"Unless it wasn't our Unsubs." Beck turned her head slightly to meet Reid's gaze, she was piecing together what he was just now. "The coroner made a note that these bruises were days old."

Beck glanced back down at the file, the pictures of Elizabeth's injuries plastered underneath the report. Oh, yeah, those bruises were not caused by a club, or an iron, or even a baseball bat... Those were from a balled up fist. "We need to look at the Laybournes' history. More specifically, Elizabeth's. If these bruises were days ago-"

"There must be reports of abuse dating back years," Reid concluded as he turned to a passing officer. "Hey, can we get everything you have on the Laybourne family? Domestic disturbance calls, school reports, anything you have from their history."

The officer in question threw his hands up. "What do I look like? A records officer?"

Beck rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. "You look like an officer that's about to be put back on the beat shifts if you don't do as we ask. In case you haven't noticed, you have a serial killer in your city, so you can either decide to contribute in the miniscule way in which we're asking you to, or I can take my happy ass straight to Lieutenant Nellis and ask him where a dutiful police officer that can get me everything on the Laybourne family can be found if you're not up for the job, Officer... Brown," Beck gave him a beaming smile, following her verbal beat down and watched as the smugness slowly melted away into urgency. "So, what's it gonna be?"

Officer Brown frowned slightly. "I'll go get those files for you," he muttered before scurrying off towards where she assumed Records was.

Beck smirked momentarily before turning back to her work at hand. She hadn't noticed Dr. Reid staring at her so intensely until she realized he hadn't made a remark about the case and had been quiet for a solid minute. "What?" She asked immediately upon seeing how closely he'd been examining her while she wasn't looking.

"Where were you for all the other cases?"

Beck couldn't help but laugh at the implication that he'd always been so used to altercations like the one she'd just dispelled. "The Middle-East?" She jokingly replied.

"It's always so easy for you to get people to do what you ask," Reid muttered almost bitterly as she made her way back around the table to take a seat in front of the board once more.

She scoffed. "Yeah, but not everyone does what I ask, do they?" Beck bit her tongue when she realized how bitchy that sounded coming out of her mouth, especially when said bitchiness was being directed at the wrong person. She turned to see Reid staring at her, the discomfort clearly written in how stiff he got at the implication. "Sorry," she apologized. "Off-topic."

Reid didn't say anything after that. Not until Officer Brown came back with the Laybourne reports.

"I didn't think there would be this much," the officer explained as he set down the small stack of manila folders he'd brought. "Most of them are documented domestic disturbance calls, others are from CPS and DSS, medical reports on the kids... These guys were pretty fucked up. Who are they, the suspects?"

"No, the victims," Reid answered truthfully as he dove straight into the medical reports.

"Oh," was all Officer Brown responded. He didn't show any signs of leaving until Beck sent him a withering glare from over the file she had set in front of her. He didn't stick around long after that.

Beck was barely on the second medical report when Reid threw down the seventh file in his hands. "Here, Elizabeth Laybourne's file," he explained. "She'd been to the hospital two years ago for cracked ribs, but no investigation or legal action was taken because she claimed she had just fallen in the bathtub. Then last year, she was admitted to the emergency room for a fractured wrist that the doctors had described as having been 'twisted at an inhuman angle to the point where it had almost been a clean break across the bone.'"

"How'd they lie their way out of that one?" Beck wondered aloud.

"Mrs. Laybourne claimed it was a sports accident. Elizabeth Laybourne isn't in any kind of sport, the school doesn't offer them."

Beck scoffed. "Please tell me someone got involved."

"They did," Reid assured her. "CPS and DPS both had active cases on the family."

"But the Unsubs couldn't have known that, so if the abuse was what triggered the killings, how could they have known about it?" Beck asked.

"Maybe the first Unsub was abused himself and recognized the signs. Saw his own abusers in the Laybournes and then continued to see it in the rest of the parents that they killed," Reid deduced.

With his realization, Beck turned to glance up at him. "I think we just found our trigger."

"I'll call Hotch."

It wasn't long before the team convened back at the conference table. JJ was still out and Prentiss was on a call following a lead to do with some flowers delivered to Carrie. Now that the press, and quite possibly the Unsubs, found out about her surviving, someone had delivered a bouquet of those same indigo irises Hotchner had noted in the Ortiz's living room.

Morgan was the first to get back with Lieutenant Nellis, Hotchner entering the conference room not long after that. "What have you got for us?"

Beck and Reid stood at the front of the meeting area, stiff like two middle-schoolers about to give a very badly produced presentation on the amoeba. They glanced to the side at one another, a silent question passed between them about who would start first.

There was a pause before Beck ultimately took the lead. "Well, we went back through the families to take a closer look at what might've been the trigger, and we think we might've found out what it was."

Reid shuffled to the side as he turned to the photos he'd displayed on the clear board behind them, Beck narrowly moving to avoid him bumping into her. "This is the Laybourne house where we believe our Unsubs graduated from robbery to murder."

"What was so different about them that set the Unsubs off?" Morgan prompted.

"Not until we looked at the daughter's autopsy reports," Reid replied, turning back to the board again to point at the photos once more, more specifically the photos of Elizabeth Laybourne. "Uh, check out the bruises on her torso."

Hotchner's eyebrow raised slightly. "She was beaten." It wasn't a question, but Beck caught onto the unspoken question: by who.

"Not by the Unsubs," she stated. "Autopsy report said that the ME concluded that these bruises had been several days old. A closer look into Laybourne family history proves what we suspected."

"It turns out she'd been to the emergency room three times in less than two years," Reid picked up where she left off. "The DSS had even been notified."

"So the Laybournes were abusing their daughter," Hotchner sounded almost bored as he came to the conclusion they'd drawn up for him. "Where's this going?"

Beck fought the urge to roll her eyes. "She was abused. One of the Unsubs viciously mutilates the parents... what are the odds he himself was abused?" She saw Hotchner raise his head up slightly. "Catch where this is going yet?"

He looked like he wanted to punch her, but restrained himself enough to respond. "So, you're saying the Unsub recognized the signs of abuse, flew into a rage, and killed the parents?"

"And hasn't looked back since."

Beside her, Reid bobbed his head in agreement. "Anger displacement. He's getting revenge for his own childhood abuse."

"So..." the low vibrato of Lieutenant Nellis caught Reid and Beck's attention from where he stood off in the corner. "You think, what, the victims were beating their kids?"

"No," Beck answered as Reid stammered out a more reasonable explanation, "Uh, the Laybourne case was just the trigger, but now they see all the parents the same."

Liuetenant Nellis still hadn't quite caught on as the furrow in his forehead only got deeper. "That doesn't explain the kids."

Beck was ready to go on a spiel when, thankfully, Morgan chimed in. "Maybe it does. Think of the family annihilators John List and, uh, Mark Barton." Beck raised an eyebrow. Yet another serial killer nerd on the team. "They thought they were saving their kids by killin' 'em."

"But what is he savin' them from?" Nellis prompted.

"Life without their parents, without love," Morgan replied. "Life like his." His. The second Unsub.

But... people adopted wouldn't consider themselves to be without parents. Unless...

"They're orphans." Beck turned to her right at the sound of Reid's words coinciding with hers. Once again, they'd tapped into the same wavelength and had come out with the same answers.

Beck let Reid have this one, seeing as Hotchner was now standing in front of the board on his side. Reid turned to the Unit Chief, "What if they both grew up in a third-party household?"

"What? Like a foster home?" Nellis asked. God, Beck was going to bash his face into the wall if he asked another stupid question. Made her wonder how he even got the title of Lieutenant and made her regret not ever keeping her title of Doctor.

Nellis's question went unanswered when Hotchner added his own question to the mix. "Didn't Carrie describe an aversion to eye contact?"

Beck leaned forward to glance at Hotchner from around Reid. "Oppositional Defiant Disorder," both her and the Good Doctor answered simultaneously once more. Neither of them acknowledged the unison this time.

"Often seen in kids who grew up in foster homes," Hotchner deduced.

"They met in the foster home, were both abused, grew an attachment and profound hate that bonded them and are now killing entire families to deal with what they went through as children," Beck concluded as she glanced back at the board behind her. "Targeting entire families because you never had one... taking away kids' parents then their lives and pretending that it's mercy," the word slid off Beck's tongue as though it were acid.

Beck's eyes fell onto all the victims and their wounds, every splotch of blood, every purple bruise, every red mark from the beatings. Every photo depicted death. Cruel, vicious, unforgiving, unrelenting, and unfeeling death. The last thing there was even a speck of mercy. These Unsubs were killing to satiate whatever wicked thing that had been bred in that foster home that resided in them now.

Bastards.

"Guys," the room collectively turned to the sound of Prentiss entering the room, a piece of paper held up in her hand. "I think we may have found our girl's secret admirer."

"Garcia traced the flowers?" Morgan asked.

"Yep." Of course she did. "Paid for by phone with a credit card under the name Robert Serrano."

Beck pursed her lips, not needing much more of an incentive to fasten the holster of her gun placed discreetly behind her back. Locked and loaded. "You got an address?" Beck eyed the paper in her hand.

—

Beck and Morgan were asked to take the lead when they got to the Serrano house. Hotchner and Reid were right behind the pair, Lieutenant Nellis and his squadron not too far behind.

With her gun held out in front of her, Beck stood ready to go in, watching as Morgan carefully jiggled the front door handle... He turned to glance back at her, nodding. It was unlocked.

Without a second thought, Morgan pushed the door open and Beck swiftly moved in. The minute her boots crossed the threshold into the house, her gun was up as well as her guard. Her senses were on high alert as her eyes scanned her surroundings and her ears were open to the other noises inside that weren't the sounds of boots following after her. But she didn't have to go far before everything came to a stand still.

Lying on the ground in the middle of the Serrano house living room was whom she assumed to be Robert Serrano himself. Limp, bloody, beaten... dead.

Beck leaned around the couch to try and find where Mrs. Serrano was. She turned her head down the hallway and sure enough, she spotted a pair of legs tied at the ankles lying midway through a door, blood splattered from the legs. She was a long way from the living room and immediately Beck recognized the signs of deterioration. That first Unsub she'd warned Hotchner would get frisky, just got even more pissed off after hearing that news story about Carrie surviving.

Then Beck remembered what she'd said earlier that day... The kids.

Disregarding the two bodies in the living room, the agent speed-walked down the opposite hall, her gun still clutched in her hand. She was vaguely aware of the smell exuding from the house itself, but as soon as she pushed open the door to what she assumed to be the children's room, she had to hold her breath.

Lying sprawled out on the bed, no longer with their face pressed against the pillow, were two young boys... Dead. Their throats slashed.

Beck closed her eyes for a second, willing herself to walk away without punching the wall or do something stupid like go back into the living room and shoot Hotchner in the knee not listening to her.

Instead, she gathered herself, turned away from the horrendous sight in the kids' room, and walked right back into the living room. Hotchner, Morgan, and Reid all turned to look at her expectantly as she stormed out. She imagined the look on her face was one that could kill because Morgan moved out of the way real fast the moment he saw who her withering glare was targeted at.

Beck paused momentarily in front of Hotchner. He was about a good few foot or two taller than her, but she still looked threatening with the way she glared up at him and said, "They're in the bedroom." A flash of guilt flickered across his facial expression when he realized what her anger meant. "Go ahead... Take a look."

And with that, she brushed past him to get outside. Away from that scene. Away from that house. And away from that team.

—

Ervin Robles.

They got a name off of a list Morgan had called Garcia about, had Carrie identify the Unsub that had spared her. Hispanic, heavy build, from a foster home, and worked at the Denver City Pound where he got his supply of Pentobarbital.

Beck was itching to get back out there, throw herself into the case to finish it up so she could get the hell out of there and away from Aaron Hotchner. Then write up that detailed report she'd been dying to type up since she first sat down in the Bullpen. But she should've seen it coming when he benched her for the better half of the day, even going as far as sending her home for the night.

She barely slept at the hotel that night. Took an hour long snooze and went out on a jog until coming back to the hotel for a shower at around 5 AM. It was around 7 that she got the call that she'd be accompanying Hotchner to interview the foster parents from the house Ervin Robles came from, more specifically the foster mother he and the other Unsub seemed to have issues with.

Just her and Agent Hotchner... this was going to be a trip.

Beck didn't bother to stop at the precinct, instead opting to shoot Hotchner a text that she'd meet him at the address JJ had given her over the phone that morning. She'd reached the residence nearly ten minutes earlier than they'd discusses, and what she arrived to was exactly as she would've imagined it as.

The Manwaring house was... normal. It was large, two stories, pillars over the freshly white painted porch, spotless open windows, a tree in the wide open lawn, a wide drive way, trimmed bushes along the side. But there was something off about it... It almost felt as though those wide open windows were hiding something darker inside. Of course it was, Beck had to remind herself. This house had bred two serial killers, there was no doubt that this place was haunted with the living wicked, but the outside appearance made it seem as though it was the opposite.

The most appealing prison.

The low hum of a car engine approaching down the street had the agent peering over her shoulder just in time to see a black SUV pull up into the driveway of the house. Hotchner stepped out.

"How was the Pound?" She called to him from where she stood waiting at the edge of the front porch.

Hotchner looked surprised at how little anger was in her tone of voice, but didn't press it. He probably figured most of it had worn out after he had given her the night off. He'd be mistaken. She was just good at masking it.

"He wasn't there," Hotchner answered the unspoken question.

"Figures," she retorted, watching as he approached. "That's why we're here isn't it? Place of employment doesn't know where he is, his apartment's been abandoned, still no idea which foster brother might've been our first Unsub, so you drag me out here... The source of the shit show." She gestured to the house.

Hotchner peered down at her having climbed his way up onto the porch, regaining his height advantage over her once more. Yeah, the anger was still there.

"Foster mom know we're coming?" Beck asked, changing the subject.

"No," was all the Unit Chief replied.

Beck straightened out as Hotchner led them to the front door. He knocked three times against the large wooden door. "Good."

Hotchner peered down at her, but before he could make a comment about what she'd said, the door opened. Standing in the entrance was a frail older woman. Sharp cheekbones, slender neck, large hands, intense frown lines on her forehead, and a perpetual scowl on her face.

"Can I help you?" Her tone was laced with both suspicion and annoyance.

Beck had never introduced herself of to a civilian while out in the field while she was with the CIA, and she certainly never produced her credentials. In the CTU, with their line of work, that kind of thing would almost immediately be what signed your death warrant. But, in this case, Beck was almost too pleased to whip out her credentials for the first time, flashing the badge in a similar fashion as Hotchner did beside her. "I'm Agent Hotchner, this is Agent Ryder. We're with the FBI." Beck watched as the scowl immediately slid away from her features, replaced with a wide-eyed doe like. "We wanted to ask you a few questions regarding a series of murders in the area."

"Oh- of course," she stammered as she pulled the door open wider. "Please, come in."

Hotchner moved slightly, allowing Beck to go in first. She could feel him close behind as they entered, both of them gauging their surroundings. Inside the house was almost as horrifyingly normal as the outside, but the first thing Beck noticed was the smell. Well, more like lack of smell.

Something she always associated with home was how it smelt. Every home had that distinct smell. For example, the CTU always smelt like freshly printed paper from just how much they worked. Beck's childhood home always smelt like charred firewood and that one caramel apple candle her mother always burnt. And Beck's apartment didn't smell like hardly anything because she was hardly ever there unless it was to sleep, not to particularly live there. This house smelt like nothing.

She imagined no one was actually living here, just occupying it.

"Mind me, I was just doing some house chores while Hal watches the game," Mrs. Manwaring swatted her hand up in the air, just in front of Beck's face, as she passed, leading Beck and Hotchner into the kitchen area.

The pair walked in and- God. Beck winced at the sight. She'd never seen such an empty kitchen. Every wall and counter was bare, save for a few appliances, a clock, and a calendar on the wall, but no theme or decorations. It was dead in this room.

"Now," Mrs. Manwaring stopping at the edge of the counter and turned back to face them. "What is this about the murders? Is it someone I may know?" If it was, Beck doubted she'd be too broken up about it.

"We believe the suspect we're looking for is one of your former foster children by the name of Ervin Robles," Hotchner explained to her.

As suspected, she blanced, "My God. Ervin? Well..." she let out a heavy sigh as though she wasn't at all surprised. "I mean, he had behavior problems. They all do-" Beck had to bite her tongue. "But nothing we couldn't handle."

"And he hasn't been acting alone, Mrs. Manwaring. He's got a partner," Hotchner added.

"He referred to him as his brother, which has led us to believe that you not only raised one serial killer, but two," Beck chimed in. She heard Hotchner take in a sharp intake of air from beside her, but the agent didn't care as she watched a flicker of something that resembled embarassment flash across Mrs. Manwaring's features. She was pretty sure it was the physical embodiment of something withering up inside of her and dying. Good, maybe she'd feel just a fraction of the way a few of these families probably felt just before being killed at the hands of her creations.

Just then, a young boy entered the room. He hadn't seemed to notice them in the kitchen until Mrs. Manwaring spoke up. "Tyler," he turned to her. "The adults are talking here."

The kid looked to her and back to the fridge, a hesitant look in his eyes as his fingers played with the knob of the fridge, but he didn't open it. "I just want some milk," he explained simply. "Can you open the fridge?" What?

Beck turned back to Mrs. Manwaring as she scolded him, "You know the rules." That's when Beck saw it; just below the small cross around her neck, there was a darker necklace beneath it, dangling at the end of it was a large key... Oh, you've got to be kidding me.

When Beck glanced back at the kid, he looked just about ready to strangle her himself as he walked away back the way he came. "Ugh," Mrs. Manwaring huffed. "They''ll eat you out of house and home if you let them."

"For every child you foster, the state gives you a check in order to maintain their well-being," Beck retorted. "You get paid to allow them to 'eat you out of house and home,' as you put it. So is there a reason you're policing the way these children eat or is that you're just greedy with the money the state provides you for what you doing?"

Mrs. Manwaring blinked once, her eyes trailing to Hotchner as if to ask him for help before turning back to Beck. "I'm not sure what you're insinuating-"

"I'm not insinuating anything. I'm asking whether or not all you see are pay checks when you foster these kids."

Mrs. Manwaring blanched. "Excuse me?"

Hotchner took that opportunity to move in swiftly. "Is there anyone Ervin was especially close to while in your care? Someone he would have looked up to? Somebody who protected him?"

The question must've meant something to her, because Mrs. Manwaring dropped her retort to Beck's remark quite quickly. Her eyes widened and she nodded, a single name left her mouth, "Gary."

Mrs. Manwaring abruptly turned on her heel, Hotchner and Beck following until they reached the living room, just in front of the fire place. Unlike the kitchen, this fireplace was filled with candles, wreathes, and dozens of photos. Photos of young children, teenagers, older kids. By themselves, with someone else, at events, with the family, at the house. They were all smiling, though, which somehow made it worse the longer Beck stared at this wall.

As Mrs. Manwaring picked up a picture to show them, Beck realized what this wall was for as she pointed to the photo inside the frame she'd picked up. On it were two boys; a Hispanic boy with a dead gaze, and a White blonde boy with his head tilted up, standing in a cocky manner while the boy beside him was seated. Ervin and Gary.

"We tried with him, but... he tested us."

This entire wall of framed photos was nothing but a fucking show and a way for them to keep track of who all went through their house.

"Have you kept in touch with him?"

Unsurprisingly, she answered, "Oh, God, no. Gary left the day he turned 18, never looked back."

Beck had opened her mouth to reply 'wonder why,' but clamped it back shut when she saw the pointed glare Hotchner was sending her way while Mrs. Manwaring was turned away.

"Ervin was a mess when he got here," Mrs. Manwaring continued her explanation as she put the photograph back onto the fireplace. "Got separated from a younger sister."

"Where did she go?" Beck prompted. Maybe if Ervin knew where the sister was, he'd go to her.

Manwaring shrugged. "Nobody told me. Siblings get separated all the time. But," she turned to glance up at her wall of all the kids up above. "They find new ones here." Somehow, Beck doubted that.

"Like Ervin found Gary," Hotchner muttered, a frown playing on his lips.

The cell in his pocket disrupted the conflicting thoughts he was having just then. He answered, "Hotchner.. yeah, just leaving." And with that the call was over. Beck tilted her head, silently questioning. He turned to her, "Ervin returned the call. He's on his way to work."

Beck's jaw clenched, she moved swiftly around Mrs. Manwaring, not bothering to acknowledge her even after Hotchner extended his thanks as they left out the front door of that desolate house.

—

While Hotchner went back to the precinct, Beck headed straight to the Denver City Pound to intercept Ervin with Morgan and the squadron Nellis had pulled together for them.

The minute Beck pulled up, she was met by Morgan. She parked in an empty parking lot across the street from the back Pound entrance. She got out and approached where he stood with the rest of the squadron gearing up behind empty trashcans so not to set off any alarms for when Ervin arrived.

"How was the foster home?" Morgan greeted her as he held out a vest.

Beck scowled as she took it. She shed her jacket before carefully slipping into the hefty bulletproof vest. "Two serial killers were raised under the same roof and started attacking families to deal with how shitty theirs was," she muttered, her hands coming around her sides to tighten the straps on herself. "How do you think it was?"

"Horrible," he answered truthfully. "Hotch tear into her?"

She scoffed. "Nope... but I got a few jabs in. Don't think he was very happy with it."

Morgan chuckled, pushing up off the front of his SUV grill to hand her the gun she'd set on the hood in order to pull on the vest. "Well, hopefully you can get a few jabs in with this one, too."

Beck peered up at the small smile playing at his lips, the gun in his hand still extended to her. She realized that this was almost like a peace offering. A way of him saying 'yeah, our boss can be a hardass, but you've got allies.' And this time, she actually accepted it. Both the gun and his offering. "Hopefully," she agreed, holstering the gun at the back of her waist once more.

"Hey," both Morgan and Beck turned to find one of Nellis's guys calling them. "We've got a car matching the description of the subject's approaching from the West side of the street. We're getting into positions."

The pair turned back to one another and exchanged a brief nod of agreement. The officer turned to lead the way towards the Pound entrances where the large squadron would be ambushing Ervin, Beck and Morgan followed.

"You've got my back?"

Beck turned at Morgan's question. "Well, I'm not going to hold you at gunpoint again, if that's what you're asking."

Morgan couldn't help but laugh. "Good to know, either way." As they grew closer to the Pound, Morgan paused. "Alright. These is where we part. See you on the otherside, Ryder."

Beck nodded to him. "Stay sharp."

Morgan smiled. "Get in a few good hits for me, if you can."

Beck smirked before trudging off to her hiding place in the parking lot. Four other officers were scattered on her end of the parking lot as well, Morgan was up with the second half of the squadron near the back entry way where Ervin would be heading when they'd cut him off. And it wasn't long until he eventually parked and started his walk up to the entrance.

"Subject approaching on foot from North Alley."

That was their cue. Beck turned the corner from the trash can carefully moved in. She spotted that bastard, a few yards ahead going towards where Morgan was. She was getting closer, but was quiet to the point where not even she was able to hear herself moving.

She was just a few feet away at that point when she moved off to the side as he turned in. At that point, Morgan came out from his hiding place, gun raised and directed at the Unsub. "Ervin Robles, right there! Get your ass down on the ground right now- Ervin!"

As suspected, he turned on his heel to try to make a run for it. But, thankfully, the group had planned ahead.

The minute he'd turned, Beck was there. She swung her arm out and upwards, hitting him square in the face and knocking him down on his ass with a 'hmph!' Before he fell, Beck thought she had heard a crunch when her arm made contact with his nose. She smirked when the hand that had covered his nose after the fall moved slightly, revealing his bloody nose. Broken, no doubt.

Beck glowered at him as she holstered her weapon. "Nice try. Unlike those little kids though, I'm not someone you can just shoot with a needle and be done with," she muttered as she yanked his arm up and shoved him down by his face into the asphalt, turning him over on his stomach. As she pulled both his arms back to cuff him, she leaned forward to hiss into his ear, "But by the time we're finished with you, you're going to wish you could die as painlessly."

He moaned and whimpered as she yanked him back up onto his feet. "She broke my nose!" He cried out as Morgan and the rest of the officers approached.

"She should've done a lot more than just that," Morgan retorted, taking him by the arm and handing him off to the two armored officers beside him. Beck watched him go. "Did you actually break his nose?" Morgan asked her after Ervin had been shoved into the back of a cop car nearby, the blood from his nose now drenching the front of his white Henley.

Beck shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe."

The precinct was quite as Morgan and Beck came through, Ervin Robles in tow... Well, more like barely managing to move his legs fast enough to keep pace with how fast Morgan was dragging him to the interview room. She imagined the stares were both from the fact that this man had been partly responsible for the murder of all those families and also that his bloody nose had only gotten worse since the arrest.

She imagined most people probably appreciated her exaggerated use of force against the guy... but Hotchner wasn't most people.

Morgan had already taken Ervin in when Beck had gone to take off her heavy vest in the other room. She was on her way back in when she was stopped by Hotchner holding a hand out in front of her, halting her in her tracks.

She glanced up at the towering Unit Chief, a look on her face portraying that of irritation. This was getting old. "What?"

"You broke his nose?"

Irritation morphed into disbelief. "He killed those kids-"

"You're letting your anger get to you," he told her simply.

"As far as I'm concerned, he's lucky he's able to open his mouth enough to even complain about his nose," she retorted. "He murdered six children- almost seven- and you want to talk about my anger issues? Maybe you aren't angry enough."

Hotchner stared down at her, his jaw tight and his facial expressions unreadable. After a beat of silence, he finally said something. But it wasn't anything Beck wanted to hear. "I'm not permitting you to speak with him. You can spectate, but letting you go in there after what you did isn't going to help anything."

"He's already scared of me! I can use that to make him talk!"

"How? More violence? Are you going to break any of his other bones? Because the only thing you'd be succeeding at is breaking the law," he stated. "Ervin isn't going to respond to violence."

The agent raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Oh? How's he responding to mind tricks right now?" She saw his jaw clench slightly. Not too good, it seemed.

"We're also profilers, Ryder, we don't torture people for information. We use our knowledge about their psychological profile to get them to speak to us willingly."

Beck let out a humorless scoff. A lesson on violence, the law, and profiling. She felt like a student all over again.

"We're bringing in Carrie to speak with him," Hotchner explained, changing the subject so as to diffuse the discussion and get back to the case. "You were right, he spared her for a reason and it's more than likely that he sees her as the little sister he lost. We think she can get him to talk."

Beck couldn't meet his eyes as she asked, "And if it doesn't work?"

There was silence for a minute.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," he eventually answered. "Until then, you can spectate." She didn't acknowledge him as he left back into the spectator room, she didn't even follow him at first. She just looked up at the ceiling and focused on anything but the image of her hands around his throat.

Breathe, she reminded herself, just breathe.

And with that, she let out that exhale and stepped inside. Just in time, too, seeing as when she walked into the spectator room, Prentiss was just now walking in with Carrie. Ervin, who still had dried blood all down the front of his shirt, perked up at the sight of Carrie.

"Hey, you're here," she heard Ervin greet Carrie from where he sat at the metal table. He was ecstatic, perking up the minute his eyes sought her out.

Carrie, however, looked less than enthusiastic about this reunion as she took a seat across from him. She threw a nervous glance over her shoulder at Prentiss while doing so.

"Is she okay with this?" Beck asked the other spectators in the room that consisted of Hotchner, Morgan, JJ and Lieutenant Nellis.

JJ huffed slightly as she crossed her arms over her chest. "She said she was..."

"Doesn't look like it," Morgan remarked.

"She's having a one-on-one with one of the bastards responsible for killing her entire family and sparing her, I'd imagined the last thing she is right now is okay," Beck muttered, turning her attenion back to the room.

"Did you get, uh... Did you get the flowers that I sent?" Ervin stammered out to Carrie, his eyes darting back and forth between her and his lap.

Carrie nodded. "Y-yeah..." Ervin smiled. "Pretty."

"They were to say that, uh," the smile on his face vanished, replaced with a look of guilt. "That I'm sorry."

Carrie rocked slightly in her chair. Beck watched as she turned to the right of her, looking to Prentiss for where to take that. Luckily, Prentiss was able to do what she was there to do: help.

"Flowers aren't enough, Ervin," she told him. "We need Gary."

Immediately, his eyes fell back down to his lap. "That won't make it up, though."

"It's a start," Prentiss persisted.

"No!" Ervin protested, his eyes coming back up as he addressed Carrie now. "They're gonna send you away now. Don't you say that? That's what they do with all the strays- they send them away... That's why I make them go to sleep, so that they don't have to suffer." He was probably fed this bullshit by Gary, Beck thought to herself. Gary wanted to kill as a substitute for their foster family, but Ervin showed hesitance so he spun this stupid lie comparing orphaned kids to stray pets abandoned by their owners to get Ervin to kill with him.

Sick fucks.

"Ervin," Prentiss cut in, pulling his attention away from Carrie again. "More people are going to suffer if we can't find Gary."

"So when you killed my brother-" Carrie suddenly cut in. "You were doing him a favor?"

"It's true!" Ervin exclaimed.

"And what about me?" Beck's eyes widened slightly. This just got interesting.

"Wait," Prentiss tried to cut back in. "Let's just address one thing at a time-"

"'Cause I just wanted to see you again," Ervin said, tears welling in his eyes as he shook his head. "You look so much like Lucy. I just... I couldn't- I- I know it's selfish, but-"

"Selfish?" Carrie shouted. "It's insane." Oh, this girl had no plans of letting this man reason with what he did, and Beck couldn't help but respect her for that. The respect only grew more when Prentiss attempted to get Carrie to take a break, setting a hand on her arm that Carrie shook off. She turned right back onto Ervin and went in once more. "What happened to you that was so bad?" She demanded to know.

Ervin's eyes fell into his lap, only this time, it wasn't because he was averting eye contact... it was because he was recalling his memories.

"She used to make it... go dark." Beck inferred who that 'she' was almost immediately. Mrs. Manwaring. "I mean, that's what we used to call it. She would... put me in the bath to pray... And then she'd hold my head down... under the water," Ervin's voice cracked as the tears welled in his eyes. Eyes that were slowly coming up to meet with Carrie's once more as he continued. "Sometimes I could stay awake for like a minute... and sometimes a little more... And then it would all go dark..."

Inside the spectator room, Morgan turned to Hotchner. "They've still got kids in that house."

"Another kid, another welfare check," Lieutenant Nellis reiterated Beck's point she had made to Mrs. Manwaring back at the house.

Hotchner caught their point. "Let's call DSS and see if we can get them out of there."

"DSS, right..." Beck muttered, her eyes still facing forward through the glass. "Look how helpful they were when it came to Elizabeth Laybourne." The silence grew tense inside the room after her remark, so Beck just turned her focus back to the interview room where Carrie abruptly reached across the table to take set her hand atop Ervin's fists.

"What is she doing?" JJ craned her neck to try and see if what they were all seeing was correct.

Prentiss jolted, as if she were going to make the move to pull her back, but Carrie didn't know any better. Even if she had, it didn't seem like she cared. It looked as though all she cared about was getting answers, even if it meant giving up her comfort to get them.

"She's getting answers," Beck replied.

"They can't hurt you anymore, Ervin," Carrie reassured him in a soft whisper.

Ervin broke then. "I wanted to stop, but Gary, he- he went through it way, way worse when we were kids, and he... he never got the chance to fight back."

"So he fought those other families," Prentiss concluded in a voice that portrayed just how disgusted she was of Ervin's reasoning behind Gary's motives.

Ervin nodded. "Only because I wouldn't go back."

"Back?" Prentiss asked the question everyone in the spectator room was asking silently to themselves. "Gary's going to your foster home... isn't he?"

Hesitantly, Ervin's head bobbed up and down ever so slightly in confirmation. The minute he gave up the answer, Carrie withdrew her hand as though it had been burning her to touch him this whole time. When both her and Prentiss turned their heads back to the glass, Beck could tell that all of the things she'd been repressing towards the murderer sitting across from her were boiling up to the surface now that she was finished, that she had gotten her answers.

"Get him out of there," Hotchner instructed immediately to the two officers that had been waiting near the door for his signal. They didn't hesitate to obey orders.

Beck watched. Ervin was escorted away, his eyes still glued to Carrie and all he could see was his sister and not what he had done wrong. Carrie, who was keeping her head bowed as he left, was stiff as a board up until the door shut behind Ervin and the officers after they'd left the room. And like a rope that had been pulled apart, thread by thread, Carrie finally snapped.

The sobs echoed into the spectator room as the young girl cried into Prentiss's shoulder, unrelenting and with no resolve. She just cried and shook and sniffled, letting every emotion she'd probably been holding in since she'd been picked up from her neighborhood finally be let out.

"She's strong," Beck remarked.

"She shouldn't have to be," JJ replied.

—

Within the hour, Hotcher had assembled a squadron of police to head to the foster home. Beck was mildly shocked when he'd asked her to come along.

The SUV pulled into the large drive thru, parked in between to squad cars. Beck so hoped she'd be able to see Mrs. Manwaring be shoved into the back of one of them.

The minute the SUV came to a stop, Beck was climbing out of the passenger's side seat. Dr. Reid, who'd also been tasked with coming along, followed her lead while the rest of the squadron made their way towards the back to canvas the rest of the house, make sure Gary wasn't hiding out or on his way in to kill her just yet.

As if on cue, Mrs. Manwaring came stumbling out of her house, that scowl still painted on her face as she took in the scene in her front lawn. "What is all this?" She demanded as Beck, Hotchner, Reid, and Lieutenant Nellis all made their way up the porch towards her.

"We have reason to believe that Gary may be on his way here to hurt you," Hotchner explained.

Beck thought it was funny at how surprised she sounded when she gasped, "Me? I don't understand-"

"These murders are rehearsals of what he wants to do to you," Dr. Reid cut her off swiftly, the tone in his voice suggesting that he was about as pissed with her as Beck was herself. She noticed that Hotchner didn't reprimand him the way he did with her as he sauntered past Mrs. Manwaring on the porch towards the front door.

"Because of what you did to him in this house," Hotchner remarked, not bothering to sugarcoat his disdain for her like he had the last time he and Beck were here.

"I don't know what you're talking about-!" Mrs. Manwaring shouted at Hotchner as she followed after him.

"You don't know what we're talking about?" Beck cut her off, her hand coming out to snap the key still tied around her neck. Mrs. Manwaring gasped, her eyes wide as Beck came toe to toe with her, dangling the necklace in front of her. "Ervin said you used to make them pray in the bathtub. Make it 'go dark.' You wear the key to the food supply around your neck. And after all of what I've heard so far, I doubt it gets any better." Mrs. Manwaring's eyes looked as though they were going to pop out from how wide they were after what she'd been told. "Still don't know what we're talking about?"

"Ma'am," Beck didn't take her glare off of Mrs. Manwaring as she turned at the sound of Hotchner's voice. "We don't have time to debate this. The fact is, you and your husband are in danger."

"I-I have to pick up the children at school," she stammered. Beck rolled her eyes, Reid glancing down at his feet in sync.

"We'll send someone to pick them up," Hotchner replied. Literal translation: yeah, you're not going anywhere near them. "The only way we can protect you is if you go back inside."

As if testing, Mrs. Manwaring turned from Hotchner back to Beck and Reid where they stood blocking her exit from off the porch. Reid raised his eyebrows at her, and Beck tilted her head slightly to the side. "Unless you'd rather the back of the squad car and in the inside of a containment cell, I'd suggest you do as he says," she snapped at the older woman.

Mrs. Manwaring stumbled backwards, almost missed her door handle as she made her way back inside. But just before she was completely gone.

"Oh," Mrs. Manwaring halted at the entrance. "Don't forget this." Beck tossed the key chain up at her. She flinched slightly before catching it and shutting the door, the same wide-eyed look on her face.

As soon as she was out of earshot, Hotchner turned to Lieutenant Nellis who was now approaching the porch behind Reid and Beck. "Did you find anything?"

Nellis shook his head. "The perimeter's clear. He's not here."

"Then he's headed for the kids," Reid concluded.

"Ryder," Beck turned to Hotchner at the sound of her name. "Go with Reid to help with the perimeter around the school. Prentiss and Morgan will meet you there," Beck managed to catch the SUV keys he threw to her with ease. "He couldn't have gotten far if he already has them."

Beck nodded, going without argument. Reid was trailing close behind her as they made their way from the porch to the SUV. Beck immediately ran to the driver's door, sparing a small smile to Reid as she passed across the hood to taunt him.

When they climbed in, however, Beck realized something...

"You wouldn't be looking for these, would you?"

Beck turned to her right and found Reid sitting there with a mischevious grin playing at his lips, his hand raised with the SUV keys dangling from off his index finger... taunting her.

Beck's mouth fell ajar, her hands patting her pockets where she had sworn she'd taken put the keys after taking them from Hotchner earlier. "How did you...?" She didn't even bother finishing the question before snatching the keys from his hand and starting up the car. Reid still chuckling as she began to reverse, only to have to slam on the brakes a few moments later when she realized... "Shit."

There was still a squad car parked behind her blocking the way out.

Reid glanced back, seeing the problem as well. "Maybe we could take the squad car instead," he offered just as Beck was turning back to face the front and spotted none other than Mrs. Manwaring peering at them through her window. Oh... that's when a brilliant idea hit her.

"Like hell," she replied before hitting the gear into drive.

"What-" Reid whipped back around to face the front the moment she did. "What are you-" His question died out in his throat the minute his back forcefully hit his chair, Beck having hit the gas and turned the wheel harshly to the right. "Jesus Christ!" Reid shouted as the SUV swerved into the large expanse of the Manwaring yard, Beck turning to the right to get around the tree just so she could send a smug smile towards Hotchner, who was still standing on the porch a few yards away watching the scene play out.

Eventually, Beck was able to manuever the SUV around the tree in the middle of the yard and made it towards the sidewalk. She thought she'd done enough damage, but then she spotted the mail box...

"Hold on," Beck grinned as she flipped on the sirens and lights on the SUVs, her foot slamming into the gas and the wheel turning to the left ever so slightly going in the direction of the mail box. Beck swerved at the last second, but the jolt of of the SUV going off the curb of the sidewalk caused the car to hit the object just enough to knock it at an odd angle. "Sorry..." Beck pretended to grimace as she turned onto the street and sped forward, a wicked grin replacing the grimace as she imagined what Mrs. Manwaring's face looked like right about now.

Then she turned and got a look at Dr. Reid's.

He looked petrified, his hands clutching the seatbelt over his chest as if it was going to keep him place through all of that. His hair was whipped from all the movement and swerving, so not only did he look terrified, but he also looked like he had just gone through a tornados.

Beck couldn't help but laugh.

—

When they arrived at the school, Prentiss and Morgan had already locked it down and were waiting at the front. Beck maneuvered the SUV to stop just in front of where Prentiss stood on the sidewalk.

"Anything?" Reid called out of his rolled down window, Beck leaning forward to see around him.

Prentiss shook her head, "He's not here."

"The kids?" Beck called back.

"They're not here either," Morgan shouted back. "We're checking with witnesses. From what we've gathered Gary picked them up just outside. He was in a late-eighties Oldsmobile... left fifteen minutes ago."

"He couldn't have gotten far," Dr. Reid remarked.

An idea struck Beck. "You did the geographical profile, you know this city inside and out by now, right?" She asked the Doctor. Reid nodded. Beck turned back to the road, hitting drive on the gear and taking off back down the street, leaving Prentiss and Morgan to finish up at the school. "I'm gonna need you to direct me to the nearest main road with the most shops."

"You really think he'd stop somewhere?"

"He knows he can't go back to that house, not without Ervin... it's why he's been so insistent for Ervin to go with him," Beck explained. "So he's going to try and bring that house to him, best place to do that is somewhere crowded with people where he has leverage and can negotiate for what he wants."

"Mrs. Manwaring," Reid deduced. Beck nodded. "Alright, stay on this street then take a left in a quarter mile, you should reach the main road in this part of town from there."

Beck hit the gas.

They'd been driving around the main road for about five minutes before Reid sat up straight in his seat, his hand pointing out the window towards something she couldn't see. "There- right there! The gray-ish car parked at the donut shop up ahead." Beck craned her neck and sure enough, there the car was. Beck turned into the pawn shop parking area across the street and stopped where they were close enough to see inside the donut shop, but far enough to not draw attention to themselves so Gary wouldn't see them and get twitchy.

Reid didn't waste a second, pulling out some binoculars from the compartment in the middle of their seats. Beck leaned back to give him a view of the coffee shop to their left across the street. "See anything?"

Reid paused, looking through the binoculars then lowering them from his eyes. "He's in there. I'll call Hotch."

Beck took the binoculars from Reid to see what he saw, and sure enough, seated near the end of the shop was an older version of the boy she saw from the Manwaring's photo with Erving across the table from Tyler...

Reid was still dialing Hotchner when Beck lowered the binoculars from her face. "Mrs. Manwaring said she had to pick up the kids from school- plural, right?"

"Yeah. Sara and Tyler."

"It's only Tyler in there with him..."

Reid's eyebrows furrowed, but before he could form a coherent reply, his attention was pulled away by Hotchner answering his phone. "Hotch... We got him. He's at a donut shop two miles from the school. Beck and I spotted it while on perimeter." There was a pause. "Uh... we got a visual on Gary and the boy, but I don't see the girl."

Knock, knock, knock.

As if on cue, a little girl appeared on Reid's side of the car just outside of his window. He rolled it down enough for her to speak to them.

"Are you the police?" She asked... she looked mildly terrified, if not just a bit confused.

"Yes," Beck answered her.

"He told me to give this to you." The girl produced a small crumpled piece of paper, handing it to Reid for him to read... he he.

Beck tried to peer over his shoulder to read it, then her blood went cold.

If You Come in I'll Kill him.

"We might have a problem, Hotch."

—

The parking lot outside the donut shop was swarming with SWAT within the hour.

Beck had ushered little Sara Manwaring into the back of the SUV while her and Reid pulled their vests on. She didn't seem to keen to be alone while all of these police officers started to crowd the parking lot, so Beck kept her door open while she tightened the straps on her Kevlar.

"Are you a police officer?" Sara asked her.

Beck peered up her through her bangs and offered her a smile. "Even better. I'm an FBI agent."

Sara's eyes twinkled. "Girls can be in the FBI?"

"Sure can," she replied. "Did someone tell you differently?"

The little girl frowned. "My mom."

"Your foster mom?" Beck prompted.

Sara nodded. "She said a woman's place is at home serving the Lord while the men bring home the bread. I told her I wanted to be a firefighter and then she..." She trailed off, her eyes dropping to her lap, similar in the way Ervin's had back in the interview room.

"And then she what, Sara?" She remained silent, almost as if she were terrified to say anything. Her bottom lip trembled, her eyes welling with tears. Beck wasn't really sure what to do, she's never had to deal with kids that she wasn't related to. She turned back to Reid for help, but he just looked back to Sara as if telling her to comfort her as if she had a clue how.

Eventually, Beck gave in and tried her best.

She took a step forward so she could lean down to her level. She took a note out of Carrie's book and gently set her hand on Sara's in her lap. "Did she make it go dark, Sara?" The tears were falling full-fledged when the little girl glanced up at her and nodded slightly. "Sara, you have to know... what the Manwarings did to you is not your fault. They're bad people who deserve to go to jail."

Sara sniffled. "Is Gary going to kill them?"

Beck blinked in surprise. Not a question she'd been expecting. "No. No, Sara, Gary's going to jail... and hopefully, so will the Manwarings."

"Is Gary going to kill Tyler?"

Beck was kind of speechless on how to answer that until Reid came to the rescue. "We're going to make sure that doesn't happen. But until then, we're going to need you to stay here and be reallly quiet until we get Tyler out of there, alright? Can you do that, Sara?" He asked her. Beck could feel him standing right behind her.

Sara nodded. "Okay."

"Good. Good," he smiled. "Agent Ryder and I are going to get him and bring him back here now, okay? We'll be right back." And with that, Beck stood up and away from the door. Reid closing it on Sara, who's eyes were now glued to the front window towards the donut shop where Gary and her brother were. "You did good," Reid remarked as they started their trek away from the SUV towards the front lines where Hotchner was just arriving with Prentiss and Morgan, but Beck was just focused on the little boy she could just make out inside the shop.

"That girl's gone through enough shit in her life," Beck turned to meet his eyes. "I don't want her to be traumatized even more by losing that kid."

"Hotch is going to try and speak to Gary, negotiate with him to try and let Tyler go," Reid tried to reassure her. "Hotch's good at negotiation, you've just gotta trust him." Beck wanted to scoff. Right... Trust Aaron Hotchner. What a joke.

"Guys," Hotchner stated as he came rushing over, his vest barely tightened on as he approached. "Guys, fall back, I don't want him feeling boxed in."

"I got sharp shooters lining up," Lieutenant Nellis stated as Hotchner gestured towards Ried who wordlessly handed him the note Sara had given them from Gary.

Hotchner frowned when he read the same words they had. "Tell them to keep their safeties on, I want to talk to him first."

Beck shook her head from on the other side of Reid, who handed Hotchner his binoculars to peer through the donut shop windows. She silently prayed that Strauss was wrong and that he was good at his job... if he wasn't, it might've benefited her, but for the time being the last thing she wanted to see him do was fail, especially when the life of a little boy was in his hands and the emotional fate of a little girl was on the line.

"Hotch," JJ approached, phone in hand. "Got the clerk."

Hotchner dropped the binoculars onto the squad car hood as he took the phone from her and immediately put it to his ear. "The guy sitting at the table, I'd like to speak to him, please."

Beck snatched up the binoculars from where Hotchner left them and peered up at the shop. She watched as Gary gestured for Tyler to get up, the pair of them walking across the shop until they were standing just beside the counter. Gary grabbing the phone from the clerk and meticulously placing Tyler in front of him almost as though he were a human shield... Fucking coward.

Beck watched as Gary put the phone to his ear. He must've asked the generic 'who's this?' question, because without missing a beat, Hotchner responded, "I'm the only thing standing between you and a bullet." There was a pause before Hotchner continued, "...And never see Ervin again? He told us what the Manwarings did to you in that house... They're the objects of your anger Gary, not that little boy in there."

A part of Beck silently hoped this would be the moment they would trade Mrs. Manwaring for Tyler and give Gary what he wanted, but, of course, Hotchner had morals and persisted with just trying to talk Gary down with little to no leverage except for him seeing Ervin again- which, she doubted would happen even if he surrendered.

"No, it's not- it's not, Gary," Hotchner insisted to whatever Gary was saying on the other line. "And deep down, I think you know that he still has a chance. He doesn't have to be you..." There was a long pregnant pause. Beck could see through the binoculars that Gary had said something before putting the phone down. She held her breath, waiting for the gun to come out or for him to just shoot Tyler because for some reason whatever Hotchner said pissed him off... but that gunshot never came.

"What is it? What'd he say?" Nellis asked. No one answered.

Because coming out of the front door of the donut shop- unharmed- was Tyler.

Beck stood straighter, anxiously watching as Morgan rushed forward and yanked him away, ushering him over to where Prentiss stood off to the side with a set of armored SWAT officers.

"Ryder," Hotchner grabbed her attention. "Go. Don't break this one's nose." Beck almost glared at the quip, but decided she had better things to do as she unholstered her pistol and started jogging over to the side of the donut shop entrance, waiting for Gary's next move. He let his leverage go, it was only a matter of time before he tried to shoot his way out.

But once again, those gunshots never came.

Instead, a few minutes after letting Tyler free, Gary came walking out of the donut shop... unarmed.

"Gary!" Morgan shouted as he moved in, gun raised. Beck followed his lead from the opposite side. "Put your hands up where I can see them. Don't move!"

"Get down!" Beck shouted at him, her gun unwavering as she aimed it directly towards his head. If he even dared to get out of line, she wouldn't break his nose... she'd put a bullet through it. Gary seemed to sense her lack of worry for using force to get what she wanted, because he did as he was told and got down, hands raised. "On your knees!" She instructed. He listened.

An armored SWAT officer came up behind him. "Interlace your fingers behind your head!" He shouted at Gary as more people moved in. Once again, Gary did as instructed without even a trace of smugness. Maybe this was it... This was him giving up. But Beck didn't let up, her glare boring into his skull as the officer patted him down, turning him inside out to make sure he wasn't armed. Beck was shocked when the officer didn't find anything. "Give me this hand." Swiftly, the officer pulled his wrists behind his back to zip-tie his wrists. "Get on your feet," he instructed. Gary did so, his eyes finding Hotchner's as he approached from behind Beck.

It didn't take long before his eyes met hers in the process. Her glare darkened. "Walk," she instructed, gestured her gun to where the two officers were trying to push him towards. He relented and did as told with not even so much as a scoff or a glare or even a spared glance over his shoulder. He just looked limp and worn out as he was led away...

Damn, Ried was right. Hotchner was good at negotiation.

Lieutenant Nellis was thinking the same thing as he turned to Hotchner and said, "I don't know what you did, but nice work."

Hotchner hesitated. "Thanks." He didn't sound too enthusiastic.

Beck glanced at him as she put her pistol away behind her back to find him staring after Gary being taken away, his eyebrows furrowed deeper than usual. He was as suspicious as she was, it seemed. Something happened on the phone call, though, Beck knew that for sure. She just wondered if it would come back to bite them in the ass.

After the police cleared out, SWAT didn't waste time getting Gary out of there. Hotchner and Nellis following the squad car he was in not long after they'd left back to the precinct. And a few minutes after that, the Press arrived. JJ didn't waste a second moving in to try and set the record straight about what happened and deliver her statement on behalf of the team. Reid was overviewing witness recounts around the shop, and Beck was still standing in the parking lot, staring up at the donut shop, stunned at how quickly that hostage situation dissipated. She'd worked hostage negotiation before, granted, the CTU never really cared about casualties if it meant capturing the assailant so there wasn't too much on the line, but in all her time, she'd never seen it go by so fast... Why was Gary so willing to give up? What was his angle?

Beck eventually gave up trying to piece it together from the parking lot and tried her luck with Prentiss and Morgan who were in charge of getting Tyler and Sara somewhere safe. But as Beck approached, she could see the frowns on both agents' faces.

"What is it?" She immediately asked as she approached, she could see Tyler and Sara in the SUV's backseat. "You taking them to social services?"

"No," Morgan huffed. "They won't even intervene until they hold a full investigation."

"You're kidding," Beck scoffed.

Prentiss shook her head. "I wish we were. There's nothing we can do now."

"Arrest the Manwarings based on our own findings," Beck offered. "Say they're accessories to murder. That could work."

"It wouldn't..." Morgan replied. "That's not how it works, kid."

"Wha-" she cut herself off. "You can't seriously take them back there. After all we've heard about what they've gone through- what they continue to go through! Social services didn't give a damn about Elizabeth Laybourne and they sure as hell aren't going to give a damn about them!"

Morgan turned to fully face her, his hands coming up in defense. "It's out of our hands," he told her, his voice laced with both exasperation and reluctance. "I'm sorry, but there's nothing we can do."

No. Beck wasn't buying it.

"I'm taking this to Hotchner." She swiftly turned on her heel, away from Morgan and Prentiss. She was headed towards the SUV her and Reid had come in when she felt into her pockets and realized the keys weren't there... Reid...

She found him headed toward the donut shop and jogged over. "Reid," she called to him. "I need the keys."

He attempted to play dumb, scrunching his face up in an exaggerated frown, feigning confusion as he asked, "Keys? What keys?"

"I'm serious, Reid," Beck insisted. "I need to get back to the precinct to talk to Hotch."

"About the case?" he prompted as he reached into his back pocket to produce the keys.

"Something like that." She made a move to reach for the keys in his hand, but he yanked them away out of her reach. She eyed him.

"Wait, what am I supposed to do? You were my ride here," he exclaimed.

"I don't know, Reid. Catch a ride with JJ. Grab a donut while you're at it- just give me the keys," she groaned.

Reid's frown morphed into a beaming smile, the keys still dangling from his fingers. "Say the magic word."

Beck made a face that showed him just how unamused she was by his antics. "I'm gonna drop kick you. Dr. Reid, give me the keys..." He raised an expectant eyebrow at her, jingling the keys in his hand once more until she gave in with a sigh. "...please."

Reid beamed at her expense, lowering his hand just enough so she could quickly snatch the keys away before he tried anything else. She glared at him, but his smile only grew as she turned her back and started off towards the SUV.

"No 'thank you'?" She heard him shout after her.

She raised her arm, dangling the keys around the middle finger as she walked away.

—

When she got to the precinct, Beck noticed just how light everyone was. Like they were no longer plagued by two serial killers and everything was back to normal. Officers were chatting on the edges of desks, laughing at the coffee pots, cracking jokes near the printers. Beck couldn't help but be jealous. They got to forget like everyone else would eventually, but she'd be plagued with those images in her brain forever... she always was.

She pushed that anger aside and focused on her other form of anger... because she was approaching Hotchner and Nellis and needed an output to direct her newfound anger towards.

"Hotchner."

He turned to her. "Ryder," he greeted in return.

"The Manwarings- we can't arrest them?" Beck asked.

Hotchner dropped his gaze to the floor. "I know you're upset-"

"You've got to be kidding me," she cut him off, throwing her head back, already knowing what he was going to tell her. "Do not tell me there's nothing we can do to keep those kids from going back into that house. You know what they've done. We can't just let the Manwarings get away with this!"

"There will be a full investigation by the DSS-"

"What are they going to do, huh? Ignore them just like they did Elizabeth Laybourne's case? Look how that turned out."

Hotchner tilted his head slightly as if she'd just told him something of importance. Maybe she had and she just hadn't realized it yet. Or... he was profiling her and got something from her anger.

Sure enough... "What's this about?"

"What do you mean 'what's this about'? This is about the fact that Mr and Mrs. Manwaring belong behind prison bars, not with welfare checks bouncing into their banking account while they abuse those kids. She needs to pay!"

"You're taking your anger out on her... just like Ervin and Gary-"

"Do not-!" She cut herself off. Seething, she glared up at him, pointing her finger into his chest as she whispered beneath her breath, "Do not compare me to them. I'm not the killer here. Hell, I'm not even the one who pushed Gary to slit those kids' throats."

There it was.

Hotchner paused momentarily as he put the pieces together in his head and came to his conclusion. "This is about the Press release."

"This is about you being a hypocrite," she bit back. "Telling me to trust people then completely disregarding my real concerns just to get you your single clue."

"Look where that clue got us, Ryder. More kids would've died had we not released what we knew to the Press."

"You could have waited," Beck persisted. "I understand the balance between needs of the many outweighing needs of the few and all that bullshit, but there's a difference between dying blood and dying painlessly. Those kids-"

"Those kids were dead either way."

It felt like the breath was knocked out of her lungs at just his single sentence. They were dead either way... he didn't care how, he just cared enough to catch the Unsub. That was his job, catching the bad guys... Her job was saving people... that was always her job. It was why she did any of this shit. She saved lives and killed people in the process. Not catch bad guys and get people killed in the process... That was what Bruno Hawks did.

Beck gasped.

That was what Bruno Hawks did...

She was snapped from her thoughts when Hotchner's phone suddenly rang. He answered. "Yeah, Reid?" There was a pause and Beck hadn't really been paying attention to what the call was about until Hotchner's eyebrows furrowed deeper. "You sure?" This sounded urgent and not it had her attention.

"What?" She prompted.

Hotchner glanced at her before hitting the speaker button on his phone and holding it between them. "The clerk said Gary had a gun," he explained to her.

"We turned him inside out, we found nothing," Beck insisted.

"I guess it's probably here somewhere," Reid figured, but he sounded unsure. "A gun doesn't just walk away..."

Beck looked up just as Hotchner did, their eyes met and immediately their thoughts went to one place...

"But kids do," Beck remarked. "What did Gary say to you on that call?" She prompted Hotchner.

He didn't answer her.

"Call Morgan and Prentiss, tell them to check Tyler's belongings for the weapon," he instructed her before walking off.

Beck didn't bother to argue with him as she pulled out her phone to dial Morgan's number. He answered on the second ring.

"Ryder, what's up?"

"Did you already drop off Tyler and Sara at the Manwarings?" she asked.

There was a heavy sigh on the other line that gave her about as much information that she needed to know. "We just dropped them off. We're leavin'."

"Before they left- did you check their belongings- their backpacks? Their pockets? Anything?"

"The backpacks?" He asked, confused. Beck almost groaned. Shit. Tyler definitely had the gun... The gun Gary gave to him to finish what he couldn't. "No. Why? Why would we search the back-"

BANG BANG BANG

Beck winced, pushing the phone from her ear as the gunshots caught her off guard in the background of the call.

"Morgan?" She called back into the receiver. "Morgan?! Prentiss?!" No response. Beck shut her phone and started jogging in the direction Hotchner had left to. "Shit!"

—

When Beck and Hotchner arrived to the Manwaring house, it was surrounded by police. Just like the donut shop had been.

Beck rushed towards the porch, her boots trekking over the tire marks she'd driven through her lawn earlier in the day as she made her way through the bushes and jumped onto the porch rather than bother with the stairs. Officers were filing in and out, bags of evidence in their hands as they went.

No one had filled Beck or Hotchner in on what had happened following the shots. All she knew was that shots had been fired and there wasn't an ambulance outside, which only painted a picture that she was scared to see the final results of.

She wasn't sure what she was walking into when she reached the threshold of the house, but she stepped through either way. Inside was a mess, but the room with the most traffic and the most yellow evidence markers was the one to the right of her... the chimney with all the pictures on it Mrs. Manwaring had led them to.

It had been untouched and pristine last time she'd seen it. But now, it was riddled with bullets... but no blood.

"Hey," Beck called to Lieutenant Nellis as he passed by with a group of officers still gathering photos of the scene. He turned to her expectantly. "Where are the kids?"

"They're outside in the squad cars. Your guys were just getting ready to send them off to social services while we process the parents," he explained.

Beck raised her eyebrows. "Both of them?" They were alive?

Nellis nodded. "Yeah. I bet if you make it outside, you could still catch them before they're put into the squad cars."

Beck nearly sprinted back out to the porch. Her eyes scanned the area for what she was looking for, and sure enough, being escorted across the lawn with the perpetual scowl on her face and a nice pair of handcuffs to match, was Mrs. Manwaring being escorted to the police car. Beck grinned, watching her head nearly missing the top of the car as she was shoved into the back. Her eyes met hers for a split second before the door shut on her face and Beck felt at peace knowing the scowl would spend the rest of it's meaningless life in prison.

Off to the side, Beck finally noticed Tyler, Sara and a few other kids she'd seen in the photos being taken towards other cars. Most of them looked ecstatic, but Beck noticed the look on Tyler's face... scared... shaken. She realized now he was the one to fire off those shots, but she was shocked to piece it together that he hadn't chosen to hurt Mrs. Manwaring with the gun Gary gave him, like Gary had intended him to. Instead, he just shot at all those happy photos of them. Because he wasn't Gary... or Ervin.

Sure, he'd grown up in this house and had been abused, just like they had been, but Gary and Ervin were two remorseless killers who just needed the right tragic backstory and twisted reasoning to justify what they did and who they were. But Tyler's choice just went to prove that just because of what other people put you through, it does not determine who you are as a person. Tyler was good... something Gary and Ervin never were.

The kid was strong. But, like JJ had said to her about Carrie, he shouldn't have to be.

Beck sometimes wished she didn't have to be.

—

After wrapping up that loose end, the team headed back to DC.

Beck slept through the plane ride once again and hadn't really talked much to anyone else after what had happened at the precinct. When the plane landed, she spared a few waves and 'meet you back at the office' prior to her speeding off on her bike.

She got to the BAU at a record time and once again, the place was pretty barren, seeing as it was coming up on ten at night. Beck was all too happy to find her place at the desk she'd been assigned and drop her go-bag down at her feet, flopping into the spinning chair haphazardly knowing she was in for a night seeing as she hadn't gotten the chance to even think up what she was going to put in her report to either Hotchner nor her one for Strauss either.

Speaking of Strauss...

Beck checked her phone... eight missed calls in the past week.

She was just going to keep going straight to voicemail because the last thing Beck wanted to do was deal with her while she was dealing with Hotchner. Two of them at the same time... God, her patience wouldn't be able to handle it, so she'd just stick to one. Hotchner was enough on her hands.

Which was why after she'd finished up her report for him on the case, she sat at her desk staring at the blank document entry on her computer... Maybe Strauss would accept just a sentence long explanation of his behavior as 'dickheaded.' ...Thinking about it now, she'd probably get shit for it and the last thing she needed was another headache, so she just kept staring at the blank document, unsure of where to even start.

Last time she'd finished a case, Hotchner had said he wanted to take her on as member of the team, but revealed his knowledge of her past with that lucky number a hundred and fifty-two... then he told her trust others while simultaneously betraying that trust by releasing details to the Press and causing the slaughter of two children...

"Those kids were dead either way."

Those were his words.

Words that reminded her of someone else...

"I'm not Bruno Hawks..."

Hotchner had reiterated to her after their first official case together, but... then she had to draw those parallels and that's when she finally started to understand why Strauss wanted him gone. That Press release. It may have been minor to the rest of the team because it got them closer to their goal, but all Beck thought of when she thought of what that Press release did was the image of two children with their throats slashed lying lifeless in a pool of their own blood... an image that would never leave her mind no matter how hard she would try. And in her mind, Hotchner did that... to get himself closer to the Unsubs.

Hawks did that once too. When he'd order her to go through people... entire families... for the sake of a mission. She told Hotchner a painless death was better than a painful one because that's what she'd used to do with the CTU... she'd use Arsenic, inject it into the veins of children, women, mothers, fathers, elderly... Anyone Hawks considered a threat, he ordered her to take them out. Quickly, efficiently. And only she could do it, because if it wasn't her Sanchez, Summers, Spence, or Hopkins would shoot them point blank, snap their neck, or... or slit their throats. But Beck was the only one with knowledge of human anatomy and how to properly dose people in order to make it painless. She was their Angel of Death, just like Ervin was Gary's...

And Hawks exploited that the way Gary did Ervin...

A hundred and fifty-two...

That had been how many children Beck had killed in her time with the CTU. Ages ranging from two to nineteen. She'd even killed someone around her age within her first year of field work. And each time, the image of their lifeless bodies was engrained in her head and she'd still never forget them. She couldn't.

Suddenly, she was nineteen year old girl again... her head hanging as she sit on all fours above a pile of her own vomit.. whatever she'd had for breakfast now regurgitated and lying between her two splayed out hands on the asphalt in front of her.

Beck was coughing and spluttering, gasping for air as she tried to hear her own sobs through the ringing in her ears.

"Ryder... Ryder!"

Beck peered through the wet strands of her hair. There was so much welled up tears in her eyes, it was hard to make out the image of the person beside her. She panicked and shoved them away, forcefully backing herself up into the brick wall behind her. She winced when her head hit the surface, blinking away enough tears to see it was just Olivia Hopkins.

"It's just me," she said in a soft voice, her hands raised as she knelt down to her level. "It's just me... Are you alright?"

"'M fine," Beck muttered, wiping remaining vomit from the side of her mouth with the back of her hand.

Olivia didn't look like she believed her, but was smart enough not to push her on it after what they'd both just gone through on Beck's first away mission. "The plane's leaving soon... Hawks wouldn't want us to be late.

She almost told her that Hawks could go fuck himself if he thought she was getting back on that plane after what he had just had her do, but she bit her tongue. And it was a good thing too, because as if on cue, Hawks came walking into the alleyway behind their temporary Base of Operations for that mission.

He turned to Olivia. "The others are prepping to leave. You should go with them, Hopkins," he told her, his voice cold and unfeeling.

"But, sir, I can't leave her like this-" she attempted to argue, only for him to cut her off. "That wasn't a question, Agent."

Olivia spared a glance back to Beck who only clenched her jaw and dropped her eyes down to her lap in response. "Yes, sir..." And with that, Olivia left Beck and Hawks alone.

Hawks approached her still crumpled on the floor. He glanced to the side of her and spotted why she was there... the vomit. "First kill jitters, huh?" He asked. She almost blanched at how nonchalant he said it. "Happens to the best of us, kiddo. Come on- up." He reached down to offer her a hand. She took it and let him hoist her to her feet. "You're fine." He told her, not in a reassuring tone, but almost as if he were telling her what she felt.

"They..." Beck's voice broke. "They were just kids..."

"You're still worried about those street kids, huh?" He asked, slapping a hand onto her shoulder as if they were discussing baseball, boxing, golfing, hunting- literally anything other than murder. "Becca, honey, those kids would've grown up to be just as bad as the rest of the terrorists in their village. You did them and your country a favor by taking them out-" Beck cringed at his wording.

"Come on, kid. You're strong. You've always been strong," he smiled at her as he turned her body to face him, both hands on her shoulders as he brought her chin up to look him in the face. "This is the job. This is how we do it... You've got heart, kiddo. You've just gotta put it to the side and focus on one goal."

"What's that?"

"Protecting your country."

Back in the present, Beck shook away that dark memory from her first field mission. Her eyes refocusing on the blinking line beckoning her to fucking hurry up and type something before the team got back. And for the first time, she actually had something to say.

"This is the job. This is how we do it... Focus on one goal"

"What's that?"

"Protecting your country."

Hawks.

"He saw something in you that was worth having here. I think I know what that is... Determination. You just need a goal to reach."

"And what goal might that be?"

"Helping catch people like Bruno Hawks."

Hotchner.

Beck drew in a deep breath and started to type.

Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner.

In my second case with the Behavioral Analysis Unit, Agent Hotchner displayed a very unique way of handling situations in which the lives of the many outweigh the lives of the few. He displayed this flaw in his morals and decision making when he willingly chose to release the details of an attempted murder victim's survival in hopes of getting the Unsubs to reveal themselves or give the team a clue in order to find them. They were correct in assuming that the Unsubs would not only strike again, but also left a clue that led to these new victims but did not lead to a clue that was able to help. Not only did Hotchner's choice to release details to the Press cost the lives of another innocent family, but it also pushed one of the Unsubs to going as far as slitting the throats of two young children in their homes because of the anger of their failure to kill the previous victim the news had notified them of thanks to Agent Hotchner. I had previously voiced my concern only to be ignored and disregarded. Hotchner's morals are skewed towards one common goal: catching Unsubs, when in reality, it should be saving potential victims. This flaw is not only inhibiting but potentially dangerous to more people in the future.

Entry date- 10/20/07

Agent Rebecca Ryder.

Beck sat back in her chair, staring at the long entry she'd just typed up... Not to bad for someone who had always hated writing during her studying.

Carefully, she saved the entry and tucked it into a file in the crevices of her hard drive that she quickly unplugged from her computer before anyone else could see it and get curious... As if being a double agent in a team full of psychological profilers wasn't hard enough.

After unplugging the drive, she stared down at in her hand. The initials of 'AH' staring back at her and for a split second she considered plugging it back in and deleting everything to just revise it to 'He was a dick, as usual,' but then... she had to remember her real concerns with both Hotchner and Hawks. They were too similar to ignore and the last thing Beck wanted was for the unspilled blood of more kids to be on her hands. A hundred and fifty-two was enough for one lifetime, she didn't need to raise that number any higher.

"I'm not Bruno Hawks."

On the contrary, Aaron Hotchner. You're exactly like Bruno Hawks...

Beck clutched the drive in her hand and slipped it into her pocket. She'd taken her written report from the first case and slung her go-bag over her shoulder, ready to head out before stopping momentarily in the space between her and Dr. Reid's desk. She noticed how neat it was, save for the cluster of sticky-notes, maps, charts, and solved crossword puzzles there were taped to the border between he and Prentiss's desks. His entire personality was on display on his desk... he was so open with it, so transparent. She couldn't but think back to their conversation from before and how frustrated he was when it come to how closed off she was and how little he knew about her.

Hotchner's voice replayed in her head once again, "The less the team knows about you, the more inclined they are to dig to find out. It's not because they want to use what they know about you against you, but because they just want to know you're someone they can trust."

Trust... Beck trusted Olivia Hopkins even when Hawks was being a dick... maybe Dr. Spencer Reid she could trust... but, not with everything of course.

She paused momentarily at his desk, ripping a blue sticky-note and a red pen, jotting something down and sticking it onto the little border in a section unoccupied by only yellow and pink sticky-notes she noticed that were only reserved for quotes by dead philosophers and math equations she couldn't even begin to try and figure out. To anyone else, it would just look like another note on the wall, but she knew he'd find it plastered there either when he got back in a little bit or when he came to his desk in the morning.

Paris the Bonsai: my Dad had a plane he had named Hermes. After the crash, I developed an obsession with Greek mythology to try and process my fears and emotions... I named the tree Paris because my bike's already named Hades.

- Beck.

—

A/N: As I am writing this, the word count for this chapter lies at 31,863 words... Safe to say that I'm pretty sure these things are just going to get longer and longer as we go. But I'd rather keep each case within each chapter just because I feel like if I broke them up, we'd miss important information within each one. Like this one for example... a lot of parallels, a lot of important moments. PLEASE TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK SO I FEEL VALIDATED BECAUSE THIS TOOK SO MUCH TIME AND EFFORT PLEASE AND THANK YOU.

But I'd like to know... would you want a song for each chapter? Or multiple songs for each chapter? Lmk.

- Ally.