It was both curious and blatantly concerning for the team to be gathered around the conference table at such an early time. Penelope was the last to arrive and, unsurprisingly, was the most anxious of the group.

"I didn't get a file sent to me," she said first instead of her usual morning greeting. "Aitana didn't call me either, I...did a case go directly to Hotch?"

"Don't know," Rossi said, "But he's in his office with Serrano right now."

"What!?" Penelope practically shrieked, startling the entire group.

"Probably just talking," Seaver said for her comfort. "A case, you know?"

Penelope couldn't see it as clearly as Seaver. "No, no, a meeting this early? When's the last time this happened?"

Not surprising either, it was Spencer who answered. "Three years, 8 months ago."

The others exchanged glances with similar confusion.

"And what happened?" Seaver was the brave one to ask.

"Gideon left." Spencer knew the weight of his words for the others. It was his first thought when he got Hotch's message and it did not fade when he saw Aitana in Hotch's office either. They both seemed very grim and the last time something like that happened, somebody left the team.

Aitana hadn't given anyone a clue about what she had decided in relation to her position at the BAU but they all knew that she finally had her evaluation with Hotch a couple days ago. Who's to say that this meeting wasn't to announce her departure from the team?

~ 0 ~

"You understand that I don't support this decision?" Hotch looked directly at Aitana across his desk. He had tried coming up with a kinder way to say what had been decided over his head but it didn't matter what he said, Aitana understood.

"I get it," she assured him twice before Hotch felt some kind of guilt-release. "I mean...this has already happened before, right?" Hotch nodded silently. "They did it to JJ and she was way more qualified than I was. What did I really expect?"

"If I can help to change the decision, I'll try. They don't fool me," Hotch shook his head. "This is a sugar-coated ultimatum. Either you go work for them or—"

"I have some higher-up breathing down my shoulder for staying with a half job posting I'm not qualified to do," Aitana nodded. "Yeah, I got that too."

"Like I said, I'll do my best to—"

"Please don't," Aitana cut Hotch off. "The last thing I want is for anyone to get into trouble because of me." She also knew that his intervention wouldn't really be much help. His efforts to get JJ back to the BAU had not exactly gone so well and even though he was still technically trying, the efforts had begun to wane.

Aitana saw no point in continuing the conversation. Beside the fact that it was awkward as hell, she needed time to process. "Can I...go to my office for a moment?"

"Of course," Hotch motioned her towards the door. "I'll be talking to the team about the changes."

"Okay, I'll be there in a bit." Aitana rose from her chair and walked out of the office in a slow, almost monotonous, manner. She had a lot to process indeed.

~0~

Hotch walked into the conference room going straight to the point. The team had to be making up dozens of assumptions over their early meeting so it was better to just cut straight to it. "The Director called a meeting last night to discuss budgets."

"They skipped over Strauss?" Rossi asked, taken by surprise.

"She's away. The Bureau is facing a lot of changes and this unit is no exception. Over the next few weeks, each of you is going to be asked if you'd like to stay with the unit."

Penelope's eyebrows raised, her response coming out in a tumble. "Why wouldn't we?" She wanted to ask so badly why Hotch was even starting without Aitana present. If she thought of it, then the others had to have already asked themselves the same thing.

"There are other options for you out there," Hotch answered her plain and simple. "And while I want the unit to stay together, I understand completely if you want to see what the alternatives are."

"Have some of us already decided to leave?" Seaver asked and Penelope dared to think that she had done it to help her out. She almost mouthed a 'thank you' to Seaver.

"I'm not at liberty to discuss," Hotch cleverly said to avoid actually saying something conclusive.

Spencer, however, saw through the actual meaning. "So there is a change." Hotch met his gaze for only a second but it was enough to double confirm Spencer's assumption. It took very little to figure out where that change was happening.

"Morgan, there's renewed interest in you from the New York office," Hotch said, but Morgan almost scoffed.

"Nobody's called me."

"They will."

Morgan's expression turned incredulous fast. "That doesn't mean I'm gonna go."

Still peacefully calm, Hotch agreed. "Oh, I know."

"Are you staying here?"

"It's my intention," Hotch said, almost promising. "All I ask is if you are contacted by another division that you let me know."

There was a pause when Aitana stepped into the room. She could feel burning eyes with questions being thrown her way so she focused entirely on Hotch. "I just got a call. Virginia State police believe they've uncovered a serial killer. They need us at Zacha Road and Route 7 as soon as possible."

Hotch thanked her for the notice. "Morgan, you and Dave get out there."

"What about this?" Penelope quickly asked when the pair of agents started getting up to leave. This conversation wasn't even remotely close to being finished.

"We can talk about it later," Hotch said, getting up as well.

"I'm going to make a few calls," Aitana announced as she was already turning to walk out. Clear avoidance tactic,

Penelope was left to cross gazes with Spencer and Seaver because Hotch had gotten out of there quickly as well. She was helpless and possibly frightened. "What's happening?"

Neither agent had an answer for her.

~0~

Paige Hawley

Jake.

The case would turn out to go deeper than it being a lone serial killer. Aitana knew that the moment she spotted a familiar face walking into the bullpen. She had secluded herself in her office while she worked through the pending paperwork on her desk. There wasn't much the team could do until Rossi and Morgan examined the crime scene. Aitana expected Penelope to pop into the office soon enough and she had yet to come up with a good explanation for the questions Penelope would no doubt ask her.

When Penelope eventually did peek her head inside the office, it wasn't to ask her questions. "Hotch wants us in the conference room."

A life saver, thought Aitana. It would buy her a bit more time. "Okay, let's go." She got up from her seat, dumping a folder over her paperwork.

"Well hey," Penelope grabbed hold of Aitana's arm. "Is there something you need to tell us?"

Poor thing was full of concern that it made Aitana feel terrible. It's not your fault, she had to remind herself.

Aitana put on a small smile for her friend. "Nothing yet." She gingerly removed Penelope's hand from her arm and led the way out of the office.

Yet. Penelope held onto the word tightly. It was a warning that something was already coming.

SSA Andi Swan,the head of the Domestic Trafficking Task Force, was waiting for the BAU to gather in the conference room. She'd been notified of the corpses the team had found and as such, she was certain that it was one of her guys responsible.

"Do you know who did this?" Seaver asked her. Even a small guess could help them move faster.

Unfortunately, Andi shook her head. "I've been 2 steps behind an organization that abducts college kids throughout the U. S."

"How long have you been tracking them?"

"Three years." The weariness in Andi's tone was palpable. "But this is the first time there's been an identifiable body."

"So you think this is their work?" asked Spencer.

"It's definitely their type. Stressed-out, vulnerable kids. They're all from good families, making them low-risk for abduction. Young innocents are worth more money. And they're harder to lure, so they hold on to them for a longer period of time."

All the information was more repulsive to hear rather than when she would just read about it. Aitana couldn't remember ever doing a job so close to human trafficking. "How many victims are they holding at once?"

"That's hard to say. But from what I can tell, there's a lot of turnover. Customers don't want to see the same faces twice. We don't think they travel with more than a handful of victims at one time. They hunt all over the country. All they need is a car. They might be low-tech, but they're organized. And profitable. The rumor is that they hold events for 2 days in metropolitan areas and then they disappear."

Penelope dreaded to ask knowing what the answer would probably be, but her curiosity got the best of her. "What kind of events?"

"Where top-paying customers can do things like this—" Andi made a gesture to their evidence boards holding the photographs of their two victims, "—and worse to the victims. It seems impossible to trace. We study their behavior. They're not a good breed, but they're still human. They make a few mistakes. We've also recently established an undercover unit."

"Wait, how can you infiltrate them?" Seaver paused to think. "Wouldn't your agents have to commit a crime to be accepted as a customer?"

Andi nodded. "Exactly. That's why we can't pose as buyers. The entire system is set up to protect the customers, but there's no way we can trace them from that end."

"Your agents go in as targets," said Hotch. "Do you have anybody under now?"

"Locally a few. They're still establishing the backstories. They might be able to help. I'll call." Andi excused herself to go do that. In a matter of minutes she would come to find out that one of her U.C.s had disappeared, prompting an emergency check in from her and Hotch.

The remaining agents were to go through the missing people cases until Morgan and Rossi returned from the morgue.

Penelope came into the room with a fresh new load of files in her arms. "Here are the missing coeds since 2009." She let them drop unceremoniously on the table beside Seaver's spot, making her flinch.

"Wow…" Her eyes widened at the big pile. She looked over to Spencer for some help.

"Yeah, uh, we still need to narrow this down…" He moved over to grab the first file and give it a quick skim. "Let's look at last-known locations. Maybe there's an overlap."

"They're from all over the place," Penelope informed rather tersely.

Seaver grabbed the next file to give a skim as well. "These guys hunt in target-rich environments. Clubs, malls, that kind of thing."

"What are Morgan and Rossi finding?" Spencer asked Penelope. He noticed her staring a bit too hard at the table. He could only wonder how many things were running through her mind at the moment.

"Uh…" She had to rack her brain to remember what Morgan had told her earlier. "A lot of mud on the car and the victims."

"Mud? Did it rain here?"

"No, not here. South. Morgan has a theory that based on the gas mileage, they must have filled up within 70 miles of the accident."

"Gotcha. How many gas stations you find?"

"42."

"How'd you narrow that down?"

Penelope frowned. "I didn't."

Spencer paused to give her a look. Now that was concerning. "Why not?"

"I didn't have any more parameters."

Even more concerning.

Seaver thought the same thing. "That never stopped you before."

Penelope seemed to get the gist of their hints and straightened herself up. "I'll be right back..." She bumped into Aitana at the doorway and while Aitana tried to greet her, Penelope moved right around her and kept going.

Aitana blinked and looked after her for a second. "She's upset with me, isn't she?" She sighed. She should have seen that coming.

"Don't take it personal," Spencer said, "She really doesn't like change."

Aitana turned around and shot him a smile. "Running theme amongst you guys, huh?"

Spencer dove his attention back to the file in his hands. Yes, yes it was.

"Is there something we should know about?" Seaver cautiously asked Aitana. She had seen practically everyone bite their lip to keep themselves from asking the scary question. She couldn't do it.

With a sigh, Aitana nodded. "You guys are going to figure it out anyways. I just don't really know how to tell Penelope. Or...everyone actually."

"You're leaving," Spencer said, trying to be as casual as he could about it. Like stated, he did not like change either.

Aitana sighed again, deeper. "It looks that way, yeah."

"It looks?" Seaver repeated, her expression twisting with confusion. "What do you mean?"

Even Spencer looked up from his file, actually lowering it to study Aitana. She seemed more upset than anyone else and that wasn't the behavior of someone who wanted to transfer. He felt a twinge of something in his heart. "What's happening?"

Aitana teeth dug deep into her bottom lip. "They want to move me," she said. It was difficult talking about it knowing it was already in the works. "It's like Hotch said, the directors are looking to make cuts in units. They're looking at everyone's records including mine. They saw my history and they think I would be better suited in the Human Resources department." She was sure that she had the same stare of shock as Spencer and Seaver on her face when Hotch told her the news earlier in the morning. "I'm one of the few FBI agents who managed to come back from WPP and, apparently, successfully reintegrate enough to continue working in the same field." A success story is what she was reduced to.

"What? So they...they just want to move you like that?" Seaver asked. That was all well reasoned by the directors but what would be the point?

Aitana nodded. "They want me to work with the FBI academy. The new agents coming in should have someone with firsthand experience of the hardships of the job." Essentially, they wanted her to weed out the agents who wouldn't be cut out for the FBI. "I'm meeting with the head tomorrow."

"They're not giving you a choice," Spencer said, speaking from the unfortunate experience at the beginning of the year. They had done the same to JJ and now they were going after Aitana too.

"Technically they are," Aitana swallowed hard. This is the part she feared would gain her the disdain of the team, especially Penelope based on how she was already acting.

Spencer was curious. "What do you mean?"

"The BAU needs more profilers and since I technically have seniority than you," she made a quick point to Seaver, "They were willing to consider my switch of positions within the BAU as a full time profiler. Hotch had already asked me if I wanted the job but I wasn't sure back then. I am now. I don't know what possessed JJ to ask me to take over her job but now I'm glad that she did because I love it. What used to be hard for me is now one of the things I like to do. I like being closer to the families and you know what?" A laugh slipped out of her. "I love putting reporters in their places."

At that, both Spencer and Seaver would agree with her. She didn't earn her nickname for nothing.

"But if I became a full-time profiler, I would lose that connection. I can't be that close to a job I want while I work with something else. It would just be too much." She thought about it over she's over since the morning. Hotch told her she could still agree to be a profiler but the more thought, the less she wanted to do it. She was finally back to a point in her life where she was confident that she knew how to do her job and that she wanted to do it. She didn't have to work a job that was handed to her with a cautious hand because she might snap from her WPP days. She was more healed now than she had been at the beginning of the year.

"At least in the human resources department, I can talk to people kind of how I do here." She had to console herself somehow and this was the nicest thing she could see in the midst of all the gray. "They want me to weed out the 'weak ones' but there are no weak people. I can give them the tools that I didn't have when I first started."

"That's a really nice way of thinking," Seaver said. "You would've definitely helped me out." Role models were desperately needed within the academy. She had Rossi but he was hardly there. Someone needed to be looking out for the new students and she knew Aitana had the caring gene packed down.

"Thanks," Aitana said. "I just feel terrible that I...I have to go."

"It's not your fault," Spencer said. "Penelope will see that. I see it."

"So you guys aren't mad that I chose to leave?" Aitana looked between the pair with anxious eyes. "They gave me the option…"

"You stood your ground, that's the most important part," Seaver offered her a friendly smile.

"Yeah, I'm just so sorry they're doing this again," Spencer added. He couldn't possibly guess how much his input relieved Aitana. Even though they'd worked through their problems, she feared that he might be like Penelope in the end.

"You sure?" She had to ask just to fully get rid of her doubt.

Spencer nodded. "Of course. You felt like you needed to do the right thing."

"Yeah," Aitana exhaled. She leaned her hands on the top of a chair, gripping it so tight her knuckles were turning white. "I just hope it turns out okay." It was all she could do at this point.

~ 0 ~

"Using the club Renée went to as a template, there are potentially 63 others who were taken by the same offenders." Spencer was happy to give the files back to Penelope. It was tough to go through those files knowing they would only save a potential few of the missing people.

Seaver unknowingly shared the same sentiment. She handed back her share of files with a heavy sigh. "There's no way to know which ones are still alive."

Aitana quietly slid her share back as well. There were just no comments to coherently describe what she felt with this case. She could only hope they found a lot of victims still alive.

"Andi Swan," Morgan looked at the woman coming into the room with Hotch. "How you been?"

Andi could only bob her head. "Better. Thanks for helping out."

"Nice to see you again, Andi," Rossi shook hands with her next.

"What'd you find?" Hotch asked the pair.

"We tracked the driver to a gas station outside Culpepper," Morgan said. "He used a pay phone to call another one in the same town."

"So they're close. And careful."

Morgan nodded then glanced over to Andi. "What's their budget on location?"

"Not much. They pay cash, no questions asked. Security's top priority."

Aitana was sure that every time they asked Andi a question, things were worse than the previous answer. "So this guy's found a place to hold let's say a dozen victims? That means we're looking for a secluded spot in rural Virginia." A sour smile crossed her face. "That shouldn't be hard to find."

"I thought traffickers concentrated in port cities," said Rossi after a moment's thought over the rural locations.

"International ones do," Andi clarified. "Unfortunately, domestic traffickers abduct all over the country. It doesn't seem like they stay in one location long after an abduction. They move quickly and efficiently. My guess was in a nondescript car, and until this morning that was just a theory."

"Well they've lost their driver now, so they're in jeopardy," Penelope said, hoping that would spark some hope that they would be able to catch them on a mistake.

"They'll move out tonight," Andi said with all the certainty in the world.

Morgan was a bit more reluctant to fully believe it. "But they've got customers and victims lined up. They don't want to lose the money."

"And technically, their location hasn't been compromised yet," Aitana added, unknowingly following Penelope's hope path. "If they don't move tonight, we have a window of opportunity."

"She's right," Hotch said, eyes shifting to Andi. "You said Renee went to the local clubs, do you know which ones?"

Andi nodded. "She'd report back if anyone suspicious approached her. We followed the leads, nothing panned out."

"What was the last club?" Penelope asked, fingers wiggling over her keyboard.

"Scotty's in Georgetown." Andi held her breath while Penelope searched for the club. Too many things were running in her mind but the main one managed to slip through her lips. "If they find out she's an agent, she's dead."

"Penelope's incredibly fast at searching, she'll have something for us to narrow the search down," Aitana said, offering the blonde analyst a kind smile.

Penelope paused for a brief second to meet Aitana's gaze. Whatever frustration she held for Aitana dissipated with her kind words. It was almost frustrating how those big eyes of hers were just too sweet to be angry with.

"Let's discuss the leader," Hotch switched them while Penelope did her search. Their window of opportunity wouldn't last all night. "We need to look at this from the leader's point of view. A group like this requires a strong leader."

"Yeah, this guy's in charge of some unstable personalities," Morgan remarked. "Do you have any theories?"

Andi nodded. She had thousands of them but she narrowed them down to fit the situation. "I have always thought he led through fear. This guy can blackmail his whole team. Look at the progression of this network. They started abducting victims for sex and then adapted to killing."

"Because he saw the growth potential in his assets," Spencer said, a logical reason. "Instead of just disposing of them, he made it into a show."

"And that's why the victims are so young," Andi said. "The customers will pay top dollar to see them tortured."

"But the average guy doesn't have that kind of money laying around," Seaver said out of sheer common sense. Oftentimes, that was all they needed to get to the next point. "So they're successful. And incredibly deviant. That's their big secret. If it was revealed, they'd be ruined."

"But they still have criminally prove themselves to join the club," Aitana said, her expression scrunching with confusion. "How can they be upstanding citizens and still prove themselves to these people?"

There was a moment of silence while everyone considered the options.

"It could be a white-collar crime, like money laundering," Morgan thought first.

Hotch went with it and added: "That's often done through real estate. Garcia, who owned the clubs where the victims went missing?"

Penelope quickly opened a new tab to turn her search around. "Um, Bruce Harmon owns the club in Arizona."

"And in Ohio?"

"Bob Moore."

"And Scotty's in Georgetown?"

"Bob Moore is a partner in that."

There was the beginning of something.

"Do any of them own property in Virginia?" asked Hotch.

Penelope nodded fairly quickly. "Moore also is a partner in the development of a private facility."

"What happened to it?"

"It...looks like bad guys go through hardship, too," Penelope rolled her eyes. "Financiers pulled all the money out in 2009, so it's not anything."

Another something.

"What was it?" asked Rossi.

"It was supposed to be a tough-love rehab center, but now-" Penelope stopped when seh saw a photograph of the property, "Now it's just an abandoned factory in the middle of nowhere. With a lot of acreage and mud."

"How close to the gas station?" Morgan asked.

"Eight miles west of it."

They had the something.

"Let's go," Hotch ordered the group, though Andi was already on her way out.

"I'll gather the other divisions," Aitana said, feeling bittersweet once she realized this was the last time she would be doing any such thing for them. It actually hurt.

~ 0 ~

They were in stealth mode when they arrived at the building. There were no visible guards outside which just spoke volumes of the group's confidence in their solidarity. They divided themselves up into three different teams to take the various entry ways into the building.

Hotch would lead a handful of the S.W.A.T. team directly from the main entry of the building. Rossi and Morgan would lead through the back and Aitana and Seaver followed Andi through the maze of hallways from the side of the building. They had the true element of surprise in the situation and they would use it until they couldn't anymore.

Morgan would be the first to break the element of surprise but with Rossi's help, they were able to keep it under wraps. One by one, they all took down the guards without startling their predecessors.

Aitana came across a set of double-sliding doors. A big chain protected it so she stepped back and motioned one of the S.W.A.T. to break it down. As soon as they did, the others rushed inside. Cages lined either side of them and each one was filled with victims.

"Oh my God," Seaver was outright horrified. She froze in the middle of the aisle while the rest of the team swarmed past them to free the victims.

Aitana couldn't remember another moment that had caused Seaver such a deep emotion, and that was saying something considering everything they saw each day. "C'mon," she tugged the woman by the arm. "We got the victims, you can get the bastards paying for this crap."

Seaver nodded her head though her body seemed to shake. It was unnatural of her usual composure. She turned around and headed back in the direction they'd come in through.

Aitana would make a note to check up on her afterwards but right now her main priority were the victims. She was sure they would all need some type of medical attention. By the time she oversaw the victims' transfer from the building into either ambulances or cars, the others had gotten all the "customers" in handcuffs and packed into the backs of cars.

Hotch and Andi were together when Aitana stopped by. They had just witnessed Renee Matlin being taken in an ambulance. She was beaten but she would make it.

"Please tell me we got everyone?" she asked the pair.

As if to answer her question, Seaver walked by with one last handcuffed man. "This is the last one," she told them.

"How many arrests?" asked Hotch.

"Eighteen."

"And 7 victims rescued," Aitana added, meeting Seaver's gaze. It was a win tonight.

They heard loud screech of tires and in the next moment, a car burst from the building.

"Hey, stop that vehicle!" Hotch yelled hte order, prompting a series of gunfire to take shots at the fleeing car.

They managed to stop the car not too far from them. A swarm of them ran to arrest whoever was behind the wheel. However, they found the driver dead from one of their bullets and one more girl in the backseat.

Rossi helped her out of the car. She was in tears and seemed rattled by everything.

"She needs medical attention," Rossi called, already making way for them with the girl.

Seaver made a hurry to inspect the rest of the car for any other victims the unsub might have taken with him. Aitana came around the back to see Seaver opening the trunk. There was no one. No one else was in the car.

"Hey Hotch?" Aitana called, leading Hotch and Andi to come over. "I may be off here but...that guy behind the wheel...he only took one girl?"

That was beyond weird. These people didn't typically care for victims if they crossed into being a hassle.

"Seven victims," Seaver said, eyebrows knitting together. "Left in the cages while the customers made a run for it."

"No, no, these guys don't…" Andi shook her head, "They just move on, they don't…"

Hotch realized it first." Renee was last seen with a brunette. It's her. DAVE!" He yelled seconds before they heard a gunshot.

Rossi stood in his spot, completely stunned to see the dead girl on the ground. Morgan lowered his gun and walked over to Rossi. The quickness was sometimes...just too quick.

~ 0 ~

When the group returned, Spencer and Penelope were still in the conference room putting away their evidence into boxes. Spencer noticed the way Morgan was walking in with his right arm held a bit too close to himself.

"What happened to you?"

"That guy was huge," Morgan muttered.

"Seriously. You should start working out." Spencer cracked a smile at Morgan's reaction, the latter wasn't very amused.

"Oh, you got jokes now?"

"Mhm!"

"Boys," Penelope scolded the pair, or at least tried to. She failed with her overwhelming concern for everyone who'd gone out.

"What is it, kid?" Rossi had noticed Seaver staring a bit too contemplating at the files on the table that had yet to be put away.

The young agent shrugged her shoulders. "We only rescued 7 victims today." She picked up the decent size of piles. "What about the rest of these?" She didn't understand why this was hitting her more than the other cases she dealt with. Seeing the files, holding them, just irked her. Why was the pile so heavy? Why couldn't it be smaller? Thinner?

"It's a never ending cycle," Aitana said as if she'd been reading Seaver's mind.

"I'm not sure I like it," Seaver said, surprising herself and the others. She carefully set the pile back on the table, her eyes lingering on them with another thought.

"Good work, everybody," Hotch said upon coming in. "Go home and get some rest. Nobody needs to come in till 9:00." He turned to leave but paused to amend his timing, "...:30."

"We were supposed to talk about the meeting!" Penelope exclaimed, stopping Hotch for a second.

He didn't say anything, merely glanced at Aitana. 'It's your call' he was basically saying.

Aitana inwardly sighed. Yes, yes it was and she had already made the decision. She had to go through with it now. "I got it," she assured him. "I'll...handle it." He nodded and continued his way out.

"Handle what?" Penelope asked, her lips close to forming a pout.

Aitana turned back to face them. "Um, I'll be transferring to the Human Resources department." Before Penelope could anything, Aitana quickly added: "I didn't ask to be transferred but it's happening."

"They're doing it again?" frowned Morgan.

"It's different," Aitana promised him. "I know what happened to JJ and she didn't have a choice but I technically did. They want profilers and I've recently reached the conclusion that I like being a liaison. I like being both and the directors don't want that from me."

"But they want you for something," Rossi caught onto her choice of words. She should've known better than to try to be subtle.

She had to nod. "I'm a success story to them right now. I came back from the WPP and I'm still working as an FBI agent. I'm the person they want to use to call new agents into the academy. They also want me to pick the ones I see with potential."

"So it's not because you didn't want to be a profiler—the directors want to use your story," Morgan was disgusted. Plain and entirely disgusted.

"Can't we...can't we fight? Do something?" Penelope's stomach churned as her recent behavior came back to gnaw at her head. Oh, she'd been terrible!

"Yeah, maybe we can reverse their decision," Seaver said. She herself wasn't supposed to be at the BAU after graduation and yet they hadn't touched her.

Aitana shrugged her shoulders. Her teeth chewed deep into her bottom lip. "I would want nothing more than that but I think right now there's nothing I can do. I don't want to be just a profiler and I know it's stupid, possibly childish that I'm leaving rather than taking what they offered—"

"It's not," Spencer said, giving her a sharp look. She had to remember why she'd made the decision in the first place. "You can't be something you don't want to be. I think we can all understand that…?" He looked around the room to make sure they were all agreeing with him.

They were.

"Doesn't mean I won't try to get you back," Penelope warned, "They already took JJ from us, I am not letting them take away my sweet Sprinkles!" She hurried over to encase Aitana in a big hug.

The brunette chuckled. "Does this mean you're not upset with me anymore?"

"Oh honey, I am so sorry!" Penelope broke into a fit of apologies and how she would never let Aitana get distant from them. It was too sweet and very Penelope.

"Hey, is anyone hungry?" Spencer asked the group.

Seaver was quick to answer with a hand on her stomach. "Starving!"

"There's this super good Indian restaurant. It's a little ways away, but it's open 24 hours and they have amazing chicken tandoori."

"Ooh, that sounds good," Aitana said, eyes flickering to Penelope still holding her in a massive hug. "Since we're still attached, you wanna go?"

The blonde nodded. "Yup!"

"Okay, then let's start turning. I gotta go to the office first."

"Okay!" Penelope started turning them for the door and produced an awkward hobble with Aitana that had the others shaking their heads with laughter.

"Looks like you've been replaced in the favorites department," Rossi said to Morgan.

"Yeah. A noble loss," Morgan agreed.

A/N:

P.S. As always, I have an AO3/Wattpad account under "noblecrescent" and a tumblr account under "saiilorstars" if you'd like to follow!