It was early in the morning when the team got word of a new victim. Aitana was leaving her hotel room when she got another call from the one and only Penelope Garcia.
"Good morning, sprinkles!" Penelope's cheery greeting was quite loud.
"Sprinkles?" Aitana raised an eyebrow at the odd nickname.
"You know, because of your freckles?" Penelope made a gesture to her own face before realizing Aitana couldn't' see her. She did, however, laugh. "They're like cute little sprinkles on ice cream and donuts!"
"O-kay…"
"I hope your morning was good because it's about to change considering where I'm about to send you."
"Oh Lord, what is it?" Aitana came up to the elevator and pressed the 'down' button. "Or rather, who is it this time?"
"I just informed Hotch of another victim the police found and he wants you, Rossi and Reid to check the scene out."
"I don't mean to be ungrateful for the opportunity but why me, exactly?" Aitana stifled a yawn as she stepped inside the elevator.
"Your profiling skills need to be tested, my dear!"
"Right," Aitana sighed. She did, however, remember her plan she'd come up with last night and it appeared she would get to start it now. Maybe Hotch did give her a solid. "Hey, remember what you said about my file with all my information on it?"
Penelope barely covered her audible gulp. "Yeah…"
"Does everyone really have it?"
"Well, y-yeah. I'm, uh...I was nosy and I took a peek more than I should have. The others probably didn't do as much peeking as I did, honestly." They really didn't. Penelope cursed herself for not listening to Spencer and giving back that journal.
"But they did take a peek," Aitana concluded and knowingly left Penelope in a trap. She had to give a definite answer.
"...yes."
"Right," nodded Aitana. The elevator stopped and a moment later, the doors slid open. She spotted Rossi and Reid by the entrance doors of the hotel, probably waiting for her to come down. "Well I guess it'll be a good conversation starter, huh?" She added a light chuckle for Penelope's benefit.
"Aha," Penelope swallowed thickly. "Good luck, Sprinkles!"
Aitana hung up the phone and headed for the two agents. "Morning," she greeted them in a much calmer manner than Penelope had done with her.
"Morning," Rossi said first. "I assume Hotch filled you in?"
"Ah no, Penelope did. Also, does she normally greet people so loudly in the morning?"
"It wouldn't be Garcia if she didn't," said Spencer. "You get used to it."
"Shall we?" Rossi motioned her to walk first.
"Yeah," she nodded and took the lead. She rubbed a hand over her stomach. "I don't suppose either of you had breakfast delivered?"
"No," the two men chorused together.
"One of the guests was carrying a bag of what smelled like delicious strawberry strudel. I wish I had a strudel."
"You and me both," Rossi said, much to her amusement.
"Well not a strawberry one. I'm allergic to strawberries." Aitana took notice of their reactions to the disclosement. It was a simple revelation but a starter nonetheless.
"Fruit allergies aren't actually very common," said Spencer. Aitana could practically see the cogs of his mind turning as he continued to think about what he said. It was exactly what she wanted to see. "Only about 9% of adults are allergic to fruits. Most people are allergic to the common nuts and dairy."
"Hm, so Garcia does the cheery morning salutations and you give statistics in the mornings," Aitana covered up her intentions quite easily if she said so herself. "Good to know."
Rossi even unknowingly helped her by remarking, "Welcome to the team. Don't worry, I'm actually normal." Aitana laughed on their way out and missed Spencer's flat face reaction.
~ 0 ~
The only victim of the "crash" was an older male left in the passenger's seat...with his arm cut open as a dissection.
"He dissected the victim's arm postmortem," Agent Beeks informed the trio as they started down the small hill from the roadside. "I think it's our guy."
"Who is he?" asked Rossi. He had already eyed the victim's car for anything outstanding but it seemed like any other regular car.
"Louis Hannum. 41 years old, well-known local Reverend. He closed the church after a canned food drive at 6 P. M., told the other volunteers he was taking the donations to the Salvation Army 3 miles northeast on Route 6."
"Did he leave with anyone?"
"No, they said he left alone. We're still getting names of everyone who was there."
Aitana neared the passenger's seat and cocked her head to the side. Her eyes flickered from the victim to the driver's seat and then the dissection itself.
"Is that your thinking face?" Spencer startled her from the other side of the car. "Everyone has one."
"You tell me, you're the experienced profiler." Aitana peered as much as she could over the open window on her side. "Although I thought I was doing a good job being neutral."
"The idea of there being a completely 'neutral expression' isn't quite true. There was a study where a computer program designed to read expressions ultimately revealed that 3% of expressions aren't really neutral."
Aitana lifted an eyebrow at him. She waited a couple seconds to make sure he was done with the story and, when he was, she drew in a breath. "So...okay, I guess from now on I can't say I have a neutral face."
"Sorry," Spencer shook his head.
Aitana laughed, giving a different reaction than what someone — a stranger — would typically give to an uncalled informative story. "So then if my face gave 3% of expressed emotion, what did you pick up on?"
"Familiarity." It was strange for Spencer to decide that's the expression Aitana gave but there was no other word to go with. He was simply confused why she would portray that expression above all.
"Yeah I guess it was," Aitana sighed heavily. "The scene here — the moving of the corpse to the passenger's seat speaks to curiosity that I've seen before. I have two older brothers and I can't tell you the amount of times we caught them in the car trying to take things apart because they were curious. They once nearly took the radio out — my Dad was beyond angry."
"So you think the Unsub was curious about the car?" Spencer took a quick inspection of the wheel and the radio but it all seemed intact.
"Maybe just the driving," Aitana said when she saw everything intact as well. "And the dissection, obviously." She wrinkled her nose at the amount of spilled blood on the victim's arm. "God, when I was little I tried to figure out what kind of blood type I was by pricking my skin. I thought that O- would look different because it's such a rare type."
"So you're AB," Spencer remarked, raising his eyebrows in the process. Aitana watched him intently. "Less than 1% of the population in the U.S. have that type, you know."
"I didn't, actually…" Aitana stepped back from the car, purposely looking away to hide her expression.
Two mistakes.
"What do we have so far?" Rossi approached the pair.
"It looks like the Unsub stabbed the Reverend while he was driving and then the truck crashed down here, he pushed him over, tried to drive away, but the truck was stuck." Aitana turned back to see Spencer making his way around the truck. "His rage was so blinding, he takes out the driver while in motion."
"Well then he's lucky he didn't crash into oncoming traffic," Rossi remarked. "But then he immediately calms down and dissects the victim's arm?"
"Yeah, he definitely sounds childish now," Aitana folded her arms over her chest. "Tries to drive a truck clearly out of his skillset, dissects for no reason — doesn't he sound like a kid to you?" The more she thought about it, the more sense it made. And it seemed like the others were too.
"Young adults are inherently nonthreatening," Spencer said in the midst of his own thoughts.
"Parents would allow him to be alone with their children because he's the same age," Rossi nodded.
"If he's prepubescent, it would also explain why there's no sexual experimentation on the victims…"
Aitana couldn't help her beam. "So you think I'm right?"
Rossi was already nodding at her, even giving her an agreeing point in her direction. "Good thinking, kid." He started on his way back to the SUV.
"Great! Wait t—" Her face fell for a second, "—why'd he call me 'kid'? I'm not a kid. I'm 27."
"You get used to it," Spencer said out of sheer and honest experience.
However, Aitana saw right through him. "Have you?"
"...no," he mumbled and headed right after Rossi.
"Aha," Aitana shook his head at him and followed.
~0~
With the realization that the Unsub was more than likely a teenager, the team set out to go through files of potential suspects.
"So what happens here when a child is abandoned?" Morgan asked Agent Beeks once the team had all the files of suspects in front of them. The table was covered with files.
"The hospital contacts social services. The act of abandonment immediately labels the parents unfit and the child becomes a ward of the state."
"So he goes into foster care," Hotch concluded much like the others did.
"Ideally, but most parents won't take older children. In which case, he'd be sent to a juvenile facility."
Emily's nose crinkled at the thought. "The same one that houses delinquents?"
"That's right."
"Did Northern Omaha Medical register an adolescent boy as a ward of the state on that day?" asked Spencer but Hotch shook his head.
"Garcia said no, but she's still looking."
"She'd only be able to find something if it was officially done," Aitana remarked as she mindlessly flipped through a file. "The first victim, Monica, worked by the law of protocols as a nurse but what if she felt sorry for the kid and she wanted to keep him out of a facility? She could've just taken him home in the meantime."
"But she could have documented it in some way so as to not complicate the situation later on," Rossi said.
Hotch nodded at both of them. It seemed like a very good chance. "Let's find out. Reid and Rossi, go to the Archer house and see if you can figure out what her plan was."
When the two agents were gone, the remainder started flipping through the files they still had just in case they missed something.
"Is it terrible to say that my eyes are already so tired?" Aitana sheepishly glanced at Emily. 'Sorry, this is probably not the most professional thing to say when I'm brand new to the job."
"Don't worry about it," Emily reached over to pat Aitana's arm. "I was there too. It's just part of getting used to the job."
Aitana thanked her for the words and grabbed another file. "Bet you guys didn't see anything about this on my file, huh?"
"What?" Emily went back to her own file as well.
"That I'm not quite up-to-speed on things anymore. It's a...process."
Emily raised her head to meet Aitana's gaze. "Aitana, nobody here expects you to get everything on the first try, much less on your first case. We get that you're still trying to move past Witness Protection. Don't worry what your file says — none of us look at those things anyways. Well…" Most teams didn't have Penelope Garcia. "I won't lie, Penelope probably vetted you. Not for bad reasons, though. She just likes knowing who's working with us."
Aitana raised an eyebrow at what she'd heard. "So...no one saw my file, then?"
"Pretty sure of it," Emily nodded her head.
Interesting. Aitana genuinely felt a pit of irritation start in her stomach. As well as disappointment. Big disappointment.
~ 0 ~
By the time they caught up with Nancy and her family, the unsub had already done his job (though halfway). Nancy was nowhere to be seen but her children, left tied up, explained to the team how "Jeremy" had tied them up in the middle of the night. Their mother had managed to take Jeremy out of the house by "taking him home".
With Emily and Morgan on the chase for the mother, the others tried pinpointing who "Jeremy" was and where his home was.
"Monica Archer called a friend at the Northern Omaha children's hospital about an abandoned 13-year-old boy," Penelope informed them once she'd gotten some decent information. "Monica was going to bring him in the next day."
"We need to talk to that friend," Hotch said but Penelope beat him to it.
"Oh, no, I already did that. Apparently the children's hospital and child services have a strong rapport."
"Did she get a name?"
"Yeah. She said the child's name was Niko Bellic, and his hometown was Newton, Iowa."
Everyone in the conference room paused to exchange looks.
"Say that again- Niko Bellic?" Rossi asked.
"The thing about that is that—"
"Nico Bellic is the name of a main character in "Grand Theft Auto IV'," Rossi finished and earned himself the same strange looks.
"What? I know things!"
Spencer had taken care of the geographic map in the room and once he had the last bit of information, he was able to reach a conclusion. "Guys, he's headed due East on route 6. It passes right through Newton."
"He probably didn't expect the question and gave away his real hometown," remarked Aitana. She had kept herself on the other side of the table. It was a bit intimidating being left with all the men (experienced men) of the team but it was also to put some distance before she said something she didn't want to at that moment.
"Garcia, call the Iowa State Police, tell them to be on the lookout for a minivan headed East towards route 6," instructed Hotch.
"Will do!" Penelope hung up only to return the call again half an hour later. Her search for Jeremy wasn't leading to anything concrete. "2, 200 families in Newton have kids under the age of 18. In other words, a lot."
"He would have acted out long before now. He's got a juvie record, he's well known to truant officers, and he's probably been kicked out of school, maybe several," said Spencer.
"We thought he was running away, but he's heading home," added Hotch.
Rossi agreed. "He's got a plan. Taking his rage out on surrogate mothers isn't doing it for him anymore. Now he's ready for the real thing."
"Which means we have to warn that poor woman and fast," Aitana shuddered at the idea of what possible thoughts were going through that young kid's head right now. To want to hurt your own mother? "Garcia, we need to I. D. this kid so we can find his mom and warn her."
"I know and I'm on it!" Penelope promised before hanging up.
It would be an agonizing wait to see if Morgan and Emily would reach Jeremy's mother before he did. Aitana would enlarge that distance in the hours to come. She had felt her phone buzz a couple times with incoming calls and texts but it was only now that she had courage to look through them.
Mateo, Angel, Elia.
She held her breath in for that last one. It had been the one to repeat itself the most. Aitana went through the voicemails and the texts but nothing helped her ease herself into a conversation with Elia. It was terrible because if she had been speaking to Elia, she would've been the one to confide in about what Aitana had realized. The invasion of her privacy was something she could only tell her best friend. Elia would definitely know what to do.
At least when they were able to find Jeremy, just in time too, she was able to at least breathe a little easier. One thing had resolved itself and she should be grateful that it was extremely good.
"Nancy Riverton got out of surgery," Spencer had announced to them later in the evening on the plane back home. The texts had just come in. "She's gonna make it."
"She's lucky," Rossi said and had the agreeing nods of everyone else. "She managed to control him long enough to save her children."
"She's impressive," Hotch said.
"Mrs. Sayer asked that she and her daughter be notified if and when Jeremy is released," Spencer continued with the text he'd received. No one was surprised with it, as well with his last remark, "BAU should keep his file handy, too."
Jeremy was a psychopath who shouldn't be underestimated—they certainly learned that.
"Excuse me," Hotch said as he got up from his seat to speak privately with Morgan who had, for some reason unknown to the others, decided to sit on his own in the back of the plane.
"So, how do you think your first case went?" Emily soon called upon Aitana who had also opted to sit on her own, but unlike Morgan she'd simply taken the seats opposite of the others. But, like Morgan, she'd been just as quiet and pensive.
Aitana glanced over to her to see Spencer and Rossi also waiting for the answer. "Umm, okay I suppose. The job's very different from the things I did in the past. Plus...having to speak with officials as a liaison and just completely new to me. I don't know what I'll do when I actually have to talk to victims' families."
"Take it easy, that's all you can do," Rossi said.
Aitana pursed her lips together. "I guess so. I wish I could've had JJ for at least a case or two to see how she did things."
"It's actually better that it didn't happen that way, as much as we all would've loved to have JJ around for more time," Spencer shrugged. "You would've tried to be like her. It's better for you to start fresh."
Aitana took his good intending advice with a mere nod. "Right," she agreed quietly. She'd been thinking — planning — how to go about getting a private conversation with him without letting the others find out. It was hard to do when she was the newbie and everyone else had inseparable bonds, but she wouldn't give up. And luckily for her, she found the perfect opportunity when the plane landed.
"I just thought since you're JJ's best friend, you would like to be the one to deliver the things she left behind in the office," she explained to him on their way down the bullpen.
"Yeah, it's no problem," Spencer shrugged. He saw nothing out of the ordinary.
"Aitana," called Emily by her desk, stopping Aitana for a second while Spencer took a lead for the office. "Penelope and I...we usually do this girl's night every week or so...when we plan something, would you like to come?"
"Umm…" Aitana brought a hand to her curls, slightly tugging on it. Emily noted it as a nervous quirk. "I...I gotta be honest, I'm not exactly the best girl to go out with anymore."
Emily seemed to have expected an answer like that. "I know you think that which is why I asked you. It gives you time to consider it and think about it so that when it actually happens, you're not caught off guard."
Aitana smiled lightly at that. "Thanks. I...I really appreciate how you — some of you — are really invested in helping me out."
Emily cocked her head to the side, eyebrows furrowing for a second. "Some of us? What do you mean?"
Aitana shook her head. "Don't worry about it. Have a good night, Emily, and thanks." With that, she turned around and headed for her office.
By that time, Spencer had already searched for the box that Aitana talked about on the plane. He didn't see anything — in fact, everything in the office still seemed relatively the same as JJ had left it. It was a neutral office for anyone to take up. "Did you put the box some where else?" he asked when Aitana came in.
"Oh, right—" she sarcastically snapped her fingers after closing the door, "—I lied."
Spencer was quick to react at the admission. "What? Why?"
"Because you lied!" Aitana wanted to project as much anger as she should rightfully be. Her face, though, didn't seem to be on the same page because all that Spencer saw was a woman close to tears.
"I didn't...I didn't mean to," he said quietly. He had no idea what she was talking about but she seemed fairly certain she was telling the truth.
"Really? That's your excuse?"
"Well, to be quite honest, I'm not sure where this is coming from…"
Aitana raised an eyebrow at him. "When I mentioned that I was allergic to strawberries—which I'm not, by the way—you didn't react surprised. You started telling me facts about it instead. My blood type? You had no idea and that was an honest reaction too. Those things are for sure on my file but you didn't know that!" And looking at the way he had stiffened was practically screaming she was on the right path. "But the thing is, Penelope knew things that couldn't possibly be on my file. My favorite beach? My affinity for cats? You see why I'm upset, right?"
Spencer rocked back and forth on his feet. "Um, yeah, sort of…" He was actually beginning to get very nervous and suddenly his big ole brain couldn't pick something decent to say to her.
"It took me a day to figure out how Penelope would know those things. I should've known — I never did get my journal back."
That stopped Spencer mid-rocking. "I...you never got it back?"
"No, thank you," Elia smiled at Spencer and Emily, but more specifically at Spencer. "Like I said in the beginning, I know that FBI agents don't make visits like these. You guys are different. I promise that I'll give this back to her if she ever comes back."
Spencer was utterly confused. Had Elia not kept her promise? With all the emotion on Aitana's face, he knew that she hadn't gotten the journal back. That didn't make any sense!
"How could I? I left it in San Diego!" Aitana snapped. "But you—" she flashed a finger in his direction, "—had to have read it in order for Penelope to know about it! No one else would have bothered to read that — it was in the middle of the journal, for God's sake."
"Aitana, you have things very mixed up here. Have you talked to Elia?"
"Excuse me?" Aitana humorlessly laughed. "Figures you'd know about Elia too. God, I didn't think you were the type to read personal things like that. I thought — I liked you when we first met in San Diego, you know," she spoke quieter. She moved across the office to go around the desk. "I thought you were good, fun—no one ever really cares to do a puzzle with me."
"I thought the same thing of you!" Spencer exclaimed, hoping to cut her off to give him the opportunity to explain things, although what he would say was still unclear to him. "I liked meeting you too, Aitana. I-I like doing puzzles, believe me!"
Aitana scoffed. "Yeah, and you also like reading personal journals."
"I didn't read anything—"
"So then Penelope just happened to know those details about me?"
Spencer opened his mouth to answer when it struck him that he only had two options: either agree and let poor Penelope take the complete fall or allow Aitana to finally develop real friendships again with people she already liked. He was no longer on that list, why would he pull Penelope down with him? She hadn't meant to read the journal, and she shouldn't have, but she already started off so nicely with Aitana. They clicked. Right now, Aitana needed to be able to trust in people and it was better for her to trust Penelope rather than distrust him and Penelope. Besides, Penelope was just so much better at being friends with others.
With a sigh, he shook his head. His gaze lowered to the floor. "I read the journal."
Aitana hated being right. She had a sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe, he would tell her that she was wrong. Someone like him just went around reading personal journals like that? I guess so. "Why?"
Spencer shrugged. "I...was curious. I didn't think I'd ever see you again."
"And then you just told Penelope about it?"
"I talk a lot. Things slip." That was pretty convincing considering who he was. He raised his gaze to see the hurt flashing across Aitana's eyes. That was doing something to him. "Aitana—"
"Get out," she whispered her order. She was failing miserably to be angry. She struggled to make new relationships with people and just when she had finally joined a team that she liked, she finds out that not everyone is as good as she believed.
"If we could just talk about it—"
"Why bother? You already read it in my journal! Get out!" she commanded, although it began to sound more like a beg instead. She was offended and hurt.
Spencer decided to give her some time. He had a feeling that no matter what he said, she wouldn't be listening and if he was being honest with himself, he could use the extra time to come up with the right thing to say to her. "I'm sorry," he said before turning away and walking out.
P.S. As always, I have a tumblr account dedicated to my fanfic works! It's a place where anyone can comment about a story or even just talk to me! I often drop aesthetic work belonging to my stories too! Feel free to check it out, my URL is "saiilorstars"