Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The doorbell rings.

“Be there in a second!” you call. You blow on your nails as you walk, checking to make sure they’re dry. Lip gloss? Check. Mascara? Check. Clothes?

You slide the sleeve of your top a little lower.

Check.

You open the door.

“Oh my gosh,” you say, ebullient, beaming up at the vaguely startled faces of what appear to be FBI agents. That’s all right though, appearances aren’t everything. You chatter faster before they can open their mouths and usher them in through your doorway. You lock the door shut as soon as they step through, listening for the click of the latch slipping into strikeplate. “Jehovah’s witnesses? Come in! You'll have to excuse me, I’m not dressed for visitors right now, I’ll get the kettle started— oh, I’m sorry, I should ask first, huh?— do you prefer water? Coffee? Soda? I just bought this amazing tea— it’s called Ceylon, have you heard of it?"

They exchange is this girl for real? glances. It’s a very specific, clearly well-worn look. Poor bastards.

“FBI, actually,” the man says, folding away his sunglasses. He gracefully takes a seat at your little coffee table, and the woman follows soon after. “Agents Derek Morgan and Emily Prentiss with the BAU. Ma’am, we'd like to ask you a few questions.”

"Abso lute ly! It’s nice to meet you, Derek and Emily,” you say, not breaking your stride. You watch Morgan wince and make a mental note to never call him Derek again. “You don’t have to pretend to be FBI, you know. I’m always willing to help out another student! So, what’s the survey? Shopping? Politics? Oh, it’s not politics, is it? I never know what to say to pollsters.”

“Ma’am,” Der— Morgan— says again. He looks amused, so you don’t bother dialing it back. “We’re real, honest-to-god FBI. You can call to check, if you want.” He again presents you with the badge you'd so carefully ignored.

“Oooh, really?” you say, excitement just real enough that you don’t have to try very hard to look interested. You whip your phone out and call the local FBI office that you’ve set on speed dial as load of swine.

They look vaguely approving as they pretend to sip their iced tea and watch you verify that yes, there are, unfortunately, real FBI agents in your house.

Bummer.

“We believe that you may be in danger,” Agent Prentiss explains.

“Wow."

They blink at you.

Oops. “Wow!” you repeat, positively thrilled, hurriedly blinking stars into your eyes. “Really? Me? I’m Communications. At Arkansas. I never thought that would happen to someone like me!”

They look vaguely unnerved, which. Fair.

“We believe you may have a stalker,” Agent Morgan elaborates.

Your grin immediately falls flat.

Oh.

Oh shit.

“You probably know him,” Agent Morgan says, eyeing you.

You... nod.

“I want you to think— is there anybody that comes to mind that… stares at you for too long, maybe. Talks to you strangely, brushes up against you? Anybody that gives you a bad feeling?”

You squint. “Excuse me?”

“He’s killed people before,” Agent Prentiss cuts in, staring intently at you. “Specifically, people that look a whole lot like you, go to the same school as you, and study the same things as you. You’re one of the few left in the area, and all modifications made—” she cuts herself off. “The bodies are… made to look like you. He’s specific and fixated, and you’re the fixation. There’s no way he hasn’t made contact yet — strange contact.”

“Excuse me?” you repeat, because this isn't exactly a big city. You think you would have heard if that many people were getting murdered and then— you would have heard.

She looks at you with sympathy. “I’m sorry,” she says, and you have a terrible feeling that it’s completely heartfelt.

Fuck.

“So. Our unsub,” Hotch begins. “What do we know?”

“No signs of sexual assault, but the stabbing screams sexual sadism,” Prentiss says thoughtfully.

“He stalks them for about a week before attacking,” Rossi says. “Organized and specific.”

“Too specific,” Reid says, frowning. “Look at the facial features— they share the same postmortem modifications, to the point of obsession. He’s not just searching for a surrogate, he’s actively making them into someone he knows. If he's not in close contact with them, he'll be stalking them regularly.”

“And eventually, surrogates aren't going to be enough,” Morgan finishes. “We need to find the source.”

“Easier to say than do,” Garcia says. “But fortunately for you, both happen to be my areas of expertise. What am I looking for here?”

Reid looks back at the board. “Student, early twenties. Moved into town recently — no more than two months ago. Major in a natural science, intelligent, relatively quiet, glasses. Probably transferred in as a freshman as soon as school started. You'll know who it is. Just cross reference the face.”   

“Right,” she says. “I’ll get back to you on that. Garcia out.”

“I’m sorry about this,” you tell the most recent agent to come play bodyguard. You… don’t remember his name, to be honest. You’re kind of in a daze right now. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” the figure says. “It’s okay. You’re okay. Go to sleep.”

You do. It occurs to you belatedly that you should probably have offered him an air mattress or something.

“—had to dig into social media, ran the photos through facial recognition—” Garcia chatters, picture blipping on screen.

“Huh,” the chief says, raising an eyebrow.

“You know something?” Hotch asks. 

“Yeah,” the chief says, staring at the picture on the screen. “Met 'em once or twice. Kid's a regular in half the charity work going on around here."

His expression is a little off though. Reid has to go through his mental database of expressions to recognize it. Familiarity. Mild irritation. "She's only showing up for her resume?" Reid offers.

"No, no, she's a sweet kid," he says. "The crowd she's in, on the other hand... no clue what's gotten into them recently. That sorority of hers threw that... what was it? Car wash for communism? Bunch of students just looking for attention. Don't know what they think they're doing.”

"Communist organizations aren't uncommon in institutions of higher education," Reid offers, and stops when Prentiss gives him an exasperated look.

“Well, if anyone's interested,” Garcia says quickly. “Our mystery student used to live in Palo Alto up until just about a semester ago. I did a little digging, and there’s two unsolved murders from Palo Alto with the same eye and hair color, both stabbed. No signs of the... modifications.”

“That’s our unsub,” Prentiss says. “He moved with his target.”

“And progressed along the way,” Reid adds thoughtfully. “Eventually even similarities weren’t enough.”

“She's a good kid. She doesn’t deserve this,” the chief says.

“They never do,” Rossi shrugs. “Garcia, got an address?”

“She’s a good kid,” he repeats, an almost comically broken record. “A little airheaded, but a good kid.”

“Airheaded,” Reid echoes. He looks back at the board— victimology says intelligent, fairly reserved, background in the sciences, very specific eye color, jewelry, and hairstyle that match the picture on the screen to a T.

Intelligent.

The unsub has a very specific definition of what that means, and that's academic success in an academically rigorous field of study. There’s absolutely no reason for somebody who’s this specific to consistently get a core aspect of personality wrong. So that means— what, wish fulfillment? A surrogate of a surrogate? Something else?

“Whatcha thinking?” Morgan nudges him.

Reid startles. “What— oh. Nothing yet. I’d like to stay here a little while longer. Just… a hunch. Go on without me.”

You swipe on another coat of lip gloss.

“Where are you going?” the same agent from last night asks dubiously. 

You stare at him blankly before rebooting. “Coffee!” you beam. “Want me to get you one?”

“And where are you going to get your coffee?”

“Coco’s,” you say breezily, refusing to take the bait. You widen your eyes belatedly. “Oh, are you one of those Starbucks purists? I’m sorry, but I just don’t feel right not supporting our local businesses, you know? Give me your order, though, and I’ll pick it up for you on the way!”

He stares at you, unimpressed. “No you won't,” he says. “A full half of the victims were abducted from public spaces. We can’t put you in that much risk.”

“But if he’s such a stalker, he’ll know something’s up if I don’t go to Coco’s,” you say, puffing out your cheeks. “And then he’ll be tipped off! I've managed just fine this far, haven't I?”

“You don’t visit with enough regularity that he’ll notice,” he says, quirking a brow at you. “Nice try.” 

“He’ll notice,” you pout, almost to yourself. “He’ll notice and he’ll kill someone else just to prove he does.”

You don’t expect to be listened to. But he narrows his eyes at you and you think…

You may have a chance after all.

“What makes you say that?” he says, staring at you like you’re a puzzle he can’t make out. It’s not as uncomfortable as you thought it would be.

“I have a schedule,” you say, though the words feel like they’re being ripped from you. “I have… it’s… nevermind.”

You... don’t think your stalker’s picked up on your pattern. But enough to bank a life on it?

“Give me your phone,” he says, and you can see the gears whirring in his head. “You always visit before class?”

“Yes,” you say. You can admit that one freely. It’s the other one that breaks your heart as you swipe in your passcode and hand over your phone. He scrolls through, scanning the timestamps with unrealistic speed, so you aren't too worried, there's no way he can read fast enough to—

“You go on any date that’s written as a prime number?”

Fuck. That's so unbelievable it's almost unfair. The doubt written across his face would offend you if you weren't mirroring it on yours.

“...yes,” you say, because as much as you’re lying, you’ve never told a single falsehood yet, and you’re going to keep it that way. He stares at you a little more, and you roll your eyes. “Oh, relax, it’s not a compulsion or anything. It just started as a way for me to regulate my coffee intake — you know how many pounds I gained in my first month here because I went every day?”

He visibly restrains himself from answering.

“I practically survived on Coco’s affogato,” you chatter, like he hasn’t just mortally offended you in the funniest way possible. “I asked her a while back to make it with a double scoop of hazelnut praline and vanilla and it was heavenly. Can’t eat it all the time, though, praline's a total calorie bomb. So unfair because nuts are health foods and praline is just nuts, isn't it?”

“Right,” he says, still dubious about you, so you pull out the big guns.

“Sorry,” you say sheepishly, blinking your largest, most liquid-soft doe eyes up at him. “What was your name again…?”

His sputtering is music to your ears.

“Oh, her? Yeah, no, she doesn’t live here anymore,” the girl with bleach-straight hair says, acrylic nails clicking against her phone. “She asked to switch apartments a while back, said she hated the color of the linoleum in hers. I mean, don't tell her, but I'm pretty sure they're all the same? Bills are still under our old names, but we pay the difference in cash. For the better, if I’m being honest, she can barely even figure out how to Venmo. A total sweetheart, but dumb as bricks.”

Click. Click.

“And where is your apartment?” Morgan asks, resisting the urge to snap her nails off. 

The clicking speeds up. The girl narrows her eyes. “What’s this about? If you’re trying to hurt her—”

“We want to protect her,” Prentiss says earnestly. “Just tell us where she is, and we’ll keep her safe.”

The girl stares for a moment longer before nodding.

You like tutoring. You may not like children, but you like tutoring. There’s something simple and pure about teaching — and teaching things right, without stamping all the joy out of it, without the busywork...

And you need the volunteer hours.

“Who’s Maury?” Isabella interrupts your easy narration. You look down at her, where she’s cuddled up in your side to better see what you’re reading from.

“Benjamin,” you answer, not in the mood to make her wait through half the book to learn.

You return to the page, back to where you were interrupted—

“Who’s Benjamin?” Isabella asks, genuinely bewildered.

You smile dryly, showing your teeth. “Maury.”

Isabella lets out a frustrated huff, scowling. You laugh at her, wrapping an arm around her in cajoling apology. “Maury is Benjamin is Benjy,” you say, swaying her until she hugs you back. “Isabelle. Izzy. Bells. Bella. Ells’ Bells. C’monnnn”

Isabella sniffs.

“Izzyyyy,” you wheedle. “We need to speed up if we’re gonna finish this clusterfuck before summer’s over.”

“You said a bad word,” Isabella protests, one complaint tumbling over another. “Why are you calling it a clusterfuck? Why are we reading it if it’s a clusterfuck.”

“It’s a good clusterfuck,” you say, almost dying inside from the difficulty of not making the obvious orgy joke. “Hey, remind me about this moment when you’re older. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go make sure I don’t scar young and impressionable minds. Reread what we went through, and we’ll talk about it.”

With that, you calmly stand up, walk to the breakroom, and immediately begin cracking dirty jokes at your coworkers.

“What?” you say, head snapping up. “They— they’re really FBI? You… wait, you didn’t even check?”

You press your lips together, phone against your ear.

“Okay— no, no! It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” you say, bright. “No— I promise, nothing is up.”

You giggle a little, eyes narrowing as you consider the window leading out to the streetfront. “Oh, yeah, maybe they’re here because of Cameron,” you tease, checking the blinds. “Oh my gosh, don’t say that!” you say, scandalized, steadily scanning for the tell-tale car. “Oh my gosh, Charlotte!”

Her laughter rings through the phone as she starts telling you about some guy who got into a fight with the mascot at yesterday's game. A dusty blue pickup rolls by. You move a little further away from the window. Charlotte's commentary is getting increasingly raunchy with every sentence, and you're honestly still not sure whether she has the hots for the guy who decided to deck the mascot or the mascot who got decked.

In the street below you, the passenger door to a perfectly nondescript sedan clicks open. You roll your eyes, smiling. “Thank you for telling me! Yep— yeah, see you!” 

You hang up and let the curtain fall.

Showtime.

“Hotch? This girl is a Communications major.”

A telling silence from the other end of the line. “You’re sure?”

“She told us herself. Her friends don’t seem to think she’s all that bright, either,” Morgan says, studying the nearest conveniently placed photograph. It’s almost a Where’s Waldo to pick the you out of your crowd of friends. He pins you a little left of center, front row. Beaming smile, curled hair, several arms wrapped around your shoulders. “A social butterfly if I ever saw one.”

“You think the profile is wrong?” 

Morgan shakes his head instinctively. “No, there’s — the first address we went to belongs to a different girl. She told us that they switched apartments off record. There’s something else going on here, Hotch.”

“Why would a girl trade her nice apartment for a place like this?” Emily says. “Smaller and further from campus, but money isn’t the issue.”

“The chief did say she was pretty involved in local charities. Could be altruism.”

Emily shakes her head. “No. If it were pure altruism she would have invited her to room and share rent, not completely switch apartments. She wanted to live alone, in this apartment, and she wanted it off the books.”

There’s a sharp bang. “Sorry!” you call, muffled. “Ran into the wall.”

“Update me when you figure it out,” Hotch says, and he almost sounds amused.

“So,” you say, nursing your affogato, lipgloss printed in a semicircle around the rim. “FBI, huh?”

He shrugs.

“What I never got,” you continue, poking your double scoop of hazelnut (Coco’s an absolute gem, you’ll have to apologize to her sometime for massacring her expresso). “What I never got is— well. Why does the BAU go out at all? I mean,” you gesture your spoon at him lamely. “You’re… not exactly —”

“We’re effective,” he counters. He’s drinking his coffee with two sugars and cream, and you want to laugh at how normal it is. “Numbers don’t lie.”

“But statisticians do,” you say dryly. “Alright, hit me. How does the team of shrinks manage to survive in the field?”

“Because we’re able to address the root of the issue,” he says, and he’s serious about it, oh lord. “We’re able to attribute mental states — beliefs, intents, desires, emotions, knowledge — to unsubs. And ourselves. Well, Morgan's mostly the one doing that part.” He takes another drink of coffee. “We review crimes from both a behavioral and investigative perspective, and for profilers— that usually means interpreting offender behavior and interaction with the victim. It’s just… understanding psychologies that are different from our own.”

“Oooooh,” you say, eyes wide. “Very theory of mind. Much smart. Such scary.” 

A pause. 

“Sorry,” you say, abashed. “That was rude.”

He laughs, though, downing the last bit of his coffee like a shot. “No, no, you’re right. I told everyone that we should just say that, but they voted me down.”

“Glad I can be of use,” you say. “Now please tell them to change the pitch already.”

He makes a face at you. “Your filter doesn’t work in the mornings, does it.” You make a face back. But he’s right, and he gets a new coffee in smug silence.

“So,” you say, after a moment. “You’re bait, huh?”

He doesn’t ask how you know. “Yeah.”

You nod. “Cool.”

“Glad to see you’re so broken up about it,” he echoes, and you roll your eyes.

“Just don’t die, alright?” you say. “I don’t need more lives on my conscience.”

He doesn’t insult you by giving you a lecture on self blame, and you finish your coffee in comfortable silence. 

“Okay,” you say finally, sitting back. “Not to give off the impression that French is in any way a reasonable language, but that? Entr'acte.”

A pause. His smile spreads out across his face, slowly, like he’s seeing you for the first time. “We’ll call it a fluke.”

“It’s her,” Reid interrupts the ongoing discussion, sliding his messenger bag down on the table. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Got that from one conversation, huh?” Emily pokes, grinning broadly. “Not dumb after all?”

“Enough to realize I was bait,” he says. A pause. “And to call me out on the company line. She agrees with me, by the way.”

Morgan scoffs in the background.

“Does she know who it is?” Hotch asks frankly. 

Reid thinks, then shakes his head. “No,” he answers, and he knows it’s true. “She thinks lying outright is too easy. She’ll play games, but not with anything important. She’s scared, and she isn't going to risk an obstruction charge even if she does dislike us.”

“Okay,” Hotch accepts easily. “The plan hasn’t changed. You all know what to do.”

“Spaghetti or parm?” you call, fussing at your refrigerator. You may be under glorified house arrest, but at least that means you have time to make some bangin meals. 

“You’re not asking just because I’m Italian, are you?” Rossi asks, sounding nothing short of amused. You hear him poking around in your poor excuse for a living room.

“Sorry!" you say, poking your head back out from your kitchenette. "I’m bad at that kind of thing but, hey, I’m flexible, let me fix that — fake spaghetti or fake parm?”

“...Spaghetti,” Rossi tells you. You hear something crash and promptly decide that it’s not your problem. “Please and thank you.”

“Sure thing,” you say cheerfully. “One spaghetti with ketchup sauce, coming right up.”

You hear the rustling of paper and tense.

"Lehninger’s Principles of Biochemistry ,” Rossi reads off idly. “Interesting choice of reading material for Communications.”

You spitefully decide to not salt the pasta water.

Garcia is used to not getting her way. God she may be, but nobody gets very far in the hacking world if they throw a tantrum over every encounter with a person with half a bit of programming knowledge.

Not that there's many of them anyways.

But you — well. Garcia could break the (admittedly good for an amateur) encryption on your computer, she could dig into your records and see what's going on. But that's— dirty pool. So she doesn't go looking for anything an average person couldn't get from your social media, and she knows her team isn't going to either.

You're not hiding, after all.

Not from them, at any rate. That's, well, that's the game, isn't it? They know everything important that pertains to the case, and while that's all they really need...

It's been a while since they've been able to have a bit of harmless fun. This is going to be good for them.

"I am not skipping another lecture," you say, chin held high. “I missed one day already, and people are starting to ask questions.”

"If he sees you..." Rossi warns.

"I've lasted this long without provoking any irregularities in his pattern," you refute, mouth set in a line. "So it follows that any deviations that occur now are going to cause deviations— am I going to have to have this conversation with every single one of you each time you switch shifts? Just— let me go to class, okay?"

Rossi holds firm. "Us being here is a deviation. We can't react as though this—"

Surprisingly, it's Emily who interrupts, holding your gaze. "No, I think I've got an idea."

"I haven't attended an art history lecture since I was twelve," Reid says, perking up (Mom-UNLV-Renaissance-rocaille-cartouche-cartoccia). “I’d like the opportunity to audit another.”

"Great!" you cheer. "I literally love you, Emily— I can call you Emily, right?— Remind me to do something nice for you once we get back."

Emily grins. 

Reid doesn’t trust that look at all.

“Anybody who’s been to Palo Alto for a daytrip has a Stanford hoodie,” you say. “C’mon dude, you can do better than that.”

“Maybe,” he accedes, “but not one that’s shoved in the back of a closet. It has obvious patterns of wear, implying a frequency of use that should mark it as a staple of your closet, if not a favorite. And yet you’ve never worn it once so far.”

“...shut up,” you say eloquently.

His laugh is infuriating.

The walk to class is— you're tempted to say stressful, but it's not, really. There's an FBI agent at your side and pepper spray in your pocket. The real problem is the heat. After two months here, you're still not used to it. You're scanning the crowds around you when—

“Aw hell — Bells?” you say. “Hey, let’s go the other way.”

“What?” Reid says, but he doesn’t so much as pause before steering you in the opposite direction.

“Isabella Montgomery. Kid I tutored back in Washington,” you say, brow furrowed. “I forgot she had family here. As long as she doesn’t get a good look at my face it should be fine.”

He nods, raising his brows. “The perils of hiding your identity.”

“I prefer code switching,” you say, sniffing. “It’s not like other people don’t face the same problem, you know, even if they’re not as divided as I am. It’s a thing. How many people mix their friend groups? Nobody presents the same persona to every single person, that’s just inefficient.”

Reid makes a see-sawing motion.

"Okay, well— not everybody has the integrity to maintain an immutable public self image, Mister F-B-I ," you drawl, dragging out the syllables. "Some of us happen to actually mask once in a while."

A beat.

"That was a fluke," you say. "I plead the third."

"...you refuse to quarter troops in your home during peacetime?"

"I plead the fourth."

"That's unreasonable searches and seizures."

"...I hate you."

“He’s moved beyond just attempting to match your hair and eye color,” Reid tells you, sounding mildly fascinated. “He’s progressed. Blepharoplasty, brachioplasty— he’s even matched your antihelical folds. Complete facial reconstruction. From the waist up, they’re made to look exactly like you.”

“So what?” you laugh, the absurdity of the situation hitting you. “He’s a fucking — plastic surgeon? Here?”

“We believe he’s currently enrolled as a student in an unrelated major,” Reid tells you. You ignore how much it sounds like an accusation.

“Blepharo-what now?” Morgan says, staring at you with a look of faint disbelief on his face.

Aww, fuck. These FBI agents are really cramping your style.

Reid’s revolver sits awkwardly on his hip. Luckily, it's Arkansas, which means he can't possibly be the first person to conceal carry on campus. 

You’d ensured that you’d both arrive late to class, in anticipation of dodging any awkward questions from friends. You’d taken seats in the back (forty five people in the room ), where you’re currently doodling mindlessly in your notebook and occasionally jotting down a line of notes.

He’s acutely aware that he’s technically on guard duty. So he doesn’t let himself get distracted by the lecture, (currently somewhere in early post-colonial African art. The wall flickers, and displays a slideshow about Cheri Samba) no matter how much he wants to. 

You put your head down in your arms.

He’s about to poke you in the side, hiss, something— when he notices that your pen is still poised to write between your fingers. 

You’re scanning the room, same as him.

He pokes you anyway. “If you haven't noticed him before, you’re not going to now,” he murmurs (met before-cognitive-contextual-forty five people). “Just pay attention.”

“I am,” you protest, hushed. At his unimpressed look, you slide over your notebook and insist, “I am!”

He takes a quick glance. And then another. The idle swirl and loops are visually unbalanced, but well within the bounds of normality— that is, if he hadn’t seen your to-the-point-of-obsession aesthetically chosen… everything, honestly. So the visual errors are on purpose and ordered, which means… “You developed your own shorthand?”

“Ish,” you say, beaming. “Pretty, isn’t it? And a headache to decipher if you’re not me.” A pause. “Or you. If you weren’t me-or-you.” Another pause. "And before you say anything, consider this a preemptive shut up."

“You know,” he starts, “there’s an awful lot of mathematical constructs in your code for a communications major.”

“Shorthand, and it’s a coincidence,” you say blandly. “I happen to be widely read. Literacy’s the first step towards communication — hey, have you read Kerouac's On the Road? I've just finished, and I really recommend it, it’s just so meaningful, so romantic —”

He makes a face that looks exactly how you feel — like throwing up. You blink innocently, smile never wavering.

“Must you?” he asks, pained.

It takes a concentrated effort not to laugh. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Do you not like Kerouac? Well, it’s better in... the… original — awwww.”

The grin that takes over his face is almost delighted. “In the what,” he says. “In the original what?”

"Anyways,” you backpedal. “What do you think of my outfit today? Do you like my nails? Why don’t we go back to my shorthand again? Anything, for love of god, please.”

“No, no, let’s talk about it,” he says. “You think Kerouac is better in the original French?”

“Quebec! French!” you protest. “Is different!”

“Is it?”

“...My shorthand is code, okay, I admit it,” you say, slumping in defeat. “But it’s because — um… Wait, give me a second to come up with something, will you? I never planned to be caught out like this.”

“Oversight,” he says.

“You think ?” you say, running through your dwindling list of bullshit. “Okay, okay, um— it’s code, it’s really cool, isn’t it? So I was shopping and there was this convention near the mall a while back — Shakacon, weird name, huh? — and there was this one panel on cryptography, and, well, I guess I just happened to pick it up!”

“Uh-huh,” he says. “And your passcode to your phone just so happens to be 628318, and your pin just so happens to be 1618 and your laptop password just so happens to be—”

“Okay, hold up,” you say. “How do you know my passwords?”

He shrugs. “You aren’t very concerned about your privacy, are you? Your friends told us. Like two triangles and an arrow pointing northwest, they said— all of them, actually. Except you told them that, didn’t you? People don't come up with consistent comparisons like that on their own. You let people know your passwords. Why?”

You shrug weakly. “Not everything I do has some greater reason. Not everything I do is rational.”

He spares you an exasperated look. “Come on, you’re really going with that? I’m in the behavioral analysis unit, I analyze behavior. The irrational is often the most significant.”

You stick your tongue out at him in response like the mature adult you are.

Reid watches as you catch the arm of a girl with bleach blonde hair ( Diodorus Siculus-ammonia-diaminobenzene-diaminotoluene-electrophilic aromatic substitution ). He instinctively glances down for acrylic nails and a water bottle. 

Bingo.

“Hey,” you say, reaching up for a hug. You exchange perfunctory kisses, strawberry lipgloss leaving glittery pink marks on her cheeks. “I— thank you.”

The girl gives you a wide grin. “Were those really FBI?”

Your eyes meet his before you shrug. “Ask ‘em yourself.”

The girl whirls. And then whistles. “Better be careful when walking back.”

You wince. “Oh no,” you say. “I totally forgot.”

He squints at you in silent question.

“Ana,” you say glumly. “We always bump into each other right around now— her next class starts in ten minutes, and it’s a little ways back.”

“And she’s totally into Cameron.”

He shifts his attention to your friend, and— “Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself,” he says diplomatically. “I’m D— I’m Spencer Reid, nice to meet you.”

“Charlotte,” she says, waiting a whole five seconds before retracting her outstretched hand ( sample mean decrease-Chebyshev's-variation ratio) . You make a face at her. She pokes you in the cheek before turning back to him. “She’s always been jealous of Cameron’s girlfriends— Ana, that is. She is absolutely willing to lie in order to try and break them up, and the worst part is that Cameron actually trusts her, the bitch—”

“Cameron’s my boyfriend,” you provide, dryly. “You know, just in case you want some context to go alongside all the exposition.”

“Girl, do… your FBI agents not know you have a boyfriend?” Charlotte says, visibly restraining herself from commenting further. It does not spare Reid from the judging glance she throws his way. “And — Ana’ll tell Cameron, and Cameron will probably try to get me to tell him where you are, and then he’ll make such a big deal out of it that everybody will know, and I think that that’s the exact opposite of what you want.”

“I always love it when people talk about me,” you counter, fluttering your eyelashes. “Don’t worry about it, Lottie.”

She looks unconvinced, but gets up anyways. “I’ve got to get to A ‘n P, but we’re not done yet!” she announces, pursing her lips. “We are talking later.”

“Yes ma’am,” you laugh, beaming up at her. “Now go!”

Reid turns to you, brow furrowed. “You can deal with the rumors on your own, correct?”

“Or,” you offer. “I take myself out of the running.”

He nods thoughtfully. “I hope you have a plan for that.”

“Oh, absolutely not,” you reassure him, wry smile twisting your mouth. “Well. Ten minutes to go.”

“You’re not planning on confronting her,” Reid says.

“Of course not,” you say, offended. “No, we’re going to hide from her and then run back before anybody can see us and tell Cameron. What do you take me for, somebody that can actually stand conflict?”

“You need to eat dinner, you know,” Reid says, lingering in the doorway. 

You glance up sharply. Nervous, twitchy, on edge. He can’t blame you.

You slump back down once you realize it’s him. “Ugh, it’s nine already? It’s fine, I’ll just eat a bigger breakfast tomorrow.”

“You don’t eat breakfast,” he says.

“Yes, thank you for that,” you say, wry. After a moment’s consideration, you close your tabs and pat the couch cushion next to you. “C’mon, movie night. It’s the least you can do while putting me under house arrest. I promise I’ll eat popcorn...”

“So long as I’m the one to make it?” he guesses dryly. “All right, twist my arm.”

He hears the start of what sounds to be an incredibly low budget documentary on ants over your cheers.

“What do you mean I can’t go out?”

“I mean you can’t go out,” Reid says. “Does that come as a surprise?”

“I— no--yes— I have a group project I need to work on!” you frown. “I have a party to attend! I have friends to harass! I can’t just stop going places.”

“We understand that,” Prentiss says, nodding. “But you will be in danger, and so will anybody you interact with— it’s safer here, alright?”

“Please,” you say. “He’s — saving me for last, right? I’m not gonna be murdered any time soon. Why can’t I just leave.”

“You have been leaving,” Reid points out. “But we can’t let you go out on nonessential trips. He could snap at any time — in fact, it’s probably better if you cut out all trips outside of this apartment at all.”

“What?” you say, smiling a little in disbelief. “You think I’m gonna listen to you and just... imprison myself in my apartment like some sort of — like some sort of kid who’s been grounded? Just uproot my entire social life?”

“Yes,” Reid says, studying you. “I think you will.”

You don’t deny it.

“Look who’s back,” Morgan greets. “How’s it going, pretty boy?”

“Predictably,” he answers honestly, because almost everything is, these days. That’s good, though. Unpredictable is bad. Unpredictable is what gets people killed. He spots you in the corner of the kitchen, bent over your laptop. 

You glance up long enough to spare him a quick beaming smile. “Back home from the war, I see.”

A great opening, but he’s not bored enough to be that easily distracted yet. “What did you have for breakfast?”

“En-ough,” you shrug, sliding the vowels around in your mouth.

Morgan rolls his eyes at you. “An egg. How you manage to live like this—”

Reid squints at you. "Un œuf?”

Your fit of giggles is answer enough.

“I thought you hated French,” he mutters, but you just keep on laughing.

“Morgan will be here around four,” he tells you. “So don’t be alarmed if you think someone’s breaking into your house.”

You still, light from your laptop limning your face. He watches the resigned look cross over your face as you say, “Odd hour for a shift change.”

Ah. You’re still keeping up pretenses, then.

“Odd hours are required to catch a stalker,” he shrugs. The music in the background swells absurdly. An ant lifts the corpse of its sister on its back.

You hum. He doesn’t think you even realize it, but you’re throwing together a countermelody as you formulate a response. “Good luck,” you settle. “When will you be back?”

He’s caught off guard. “I… don’t know,” he admits. “I’ll be in and out. Back at eight in the morning, maybe, but not for long. You’ll have Emily here, too.”

He feels a little— well. It can’t be great, having someone lord their coming-and-going in face of your confinement.

“Back for sure at night?” you press, teasing. “I’d hate to have to make Morgan my new chick flick buddy.”

“Braid each other’s hair, paint each other’s nails?” he finishes wryly. “Oh, don’t worry. He’d love that. Just be done before ten.”

“An all-day thing, then,” you whistle. “Okay. We’ll save some face masks for you.”

“Please don’t,” he says, and your laugh is lighter than he’s ever heard before. 

Morgan pokes at his lunch (pancakes, he’s going to have to get the recipe, because damn ), and watches as you mess around on your phone.

"Hey Charlotte, darling— yeah, yeah, I’m doing great! Listen, Lottie, honey-- I need you to cover me, okay? I’m saying I’m down with that bug that’s been going around, so if anybody tries to visit me with soup or notes or anything... yeah, that’d be great. Don’t tell anybody where I am, not even my asshole ex.”

You stare blankly at your nails, thoughtful face at odds with your bubbly tone.

"Hm? Yeah, we just broke up— Oh, could you? That would be— yeah, thank you! No, don’t worry about me, I’m fine, I promise. Just playing hooky, you know how it is. I’m thinking of taking a quick trip to Seville— oh, no, darling, I promise we’ll go to Paris sometime like we planned, don’t you worry….. Oh, remember to tell Professor Calloway that I’m going back to Washington for a family emergency….. What? Yes, my family lives in New York, but just do me this favor, okay? Yes, I am lucky you love me! I love you too!”

Morgan stares at you, pretending he can make you look up with the force of his gaze. Lying is one thing, but this is another. This is borderline social engineering and, well— at least you’re finally starting to fit the profile. 

You pour a criminal amount of syrup over your plate, uncaring of his internal monologue.

"The FBI agents? Don’t worry about them, they’re in my kitchen eating pancakes… What? FBI need food too... Oh, thank you, you’re the best! Remember— I’m sick, okay? Not out of town, not hiding— sick. Love you loads… Mhm, you too, chérie! ” A short pause, and then you laugh delightedly. “Okay… okay, yeah! Let’s do it! ”

You hang up. 

One down, two more to go.

You’re curled in in the corner of your couch, laptop set to a shitty documentary whose title you’ve forgotten. You offer to save him a face mask, he definitely needs some for those bags under his eyes.

“Please don’t,” Reid tells you.

You laugh, because you’re too tired to carry on the bit and because — this is nice. You...

You feel safe.

“Why’re you always on the night shift, anyways?” you ask, eyes fixed on the screen as it dramatically pans over an anthill.

You feel him shrug, a silhouette in your peripherals. “My sleeping schedule isn't the best in the first place. I’m… usually up anyways. It’s convenient.”

You make a soft noise of acknowledgement. 

The ant on screen dies a gruesome death.

“I’m sorry,” you say, abruptly. “For… arguing. About going out… I know you guys are — it’s just—” you break off. “I’m sorry.”

How do you explain the frustration? The gut-wrenching feeling of being stuck with nothing to do, of being trapped in this shitty apartment, of having to make up an excuse and lie to people you love? (people you’ve known for two months, but who’s counting?) 

Even if you could, it wouldn’t be anything he hasn’t heard before anyways.

“Don’t be,” he says. The ants skid around in a frothing, shiny carapaced fury. “We were getting worried there. It’s nice to see you act like a normal person.”

“As opposed to?” you ask, but only for the sake of continuing the conversation. You know full well—

“As opposed to one of the best social chameleons we’ve interacted with so far,” he says. “We thought you were just pretending, you know? But you actually switch your personality. Most of it, at any rate. It was a relief to see some managed to still slip through.” 

You hum. “It’s not exactly like I’m trying,” you say, not sure whether you’re offended or not.

“No,” he agrees. “Even with your two identities, you’re still more transparent than almost everybody else we deal with.”

You settle on being flattered. “I try,” you say. The ant clicks its mandibles.

He hums back. “So what do you study? Biochemistry?”

“I study communications,” you say, deadpan, but there’s a persistent smile tugging at your mouth. You relent a little. “In high school— when I tutored— Izzie was my only oddball Eng Lit nerd in a sea of STEM.”

You see recognition spark in his eyes. “And that’s where you met her?”

You nod, wistful. “Bella requested me almost every time. She— everybody always joked that she was my little sister.”

He stretches out his legs, quiet. And then, “It must be hard,” he says, and he’s not fishing. He’s saying it earnestly, and you feel a bit like crying.

So you change the subject. “And what did you study, Doctor? How many degrees do you have— like, twenty?”

He lets you, though he makes a face at the obvious lack of effort. “My first was applied mechanics, Caltech. Identifying non-obvious relationship factors using cluster weighted modeling and geographic regression.”

You blink, and then scrunch up your nose. “Relationship factors to what?”

He grins, delighted. “You know, you’re the first person to really ask me that.”

Um? 

“Um?” you say. “Not to be that person, but what was your committee doing? What was your supervisor doing? What were you doing?"

“Trying to get material for my next thesis,” he says blandly.

You take a moment as your opinion of him gets turned on its head. “You— wait… Wait, wait—”

Holy shit.

Pfft— the nerve...!

“Take your time,” he offers.

“Is your second degree in psychology?” you say, unwilling to process. “You— oh my god. Oh my god. You weren’t even questioned?”

“It’s impressive what you can get away with when you look like me,” he says. “Pretty damning evidence.”

“You and what representative sample?” you say, dealing with a minor existential crisis as an ant calmly eats a bit of leaf. “I— wow. I think I genuinely like you now.”

He makes a questioning face.

“Cops,” you explain.

“Ah."

An ant waves its antennae as it futilely tries to escape the pull of surface tension.

The credits roll on the screen, plunging the room into abrupt darkness. You sit in comfortable silence, illuminated by the soft blue glow of your laptop.

“Okay,” you say finally, reaching out to gently shut the screen. “That?”

“Entr’acte,” Reid grins. “Of course. I’m going to win this the right way.”

One down, two more to go.

“You do this often?” Morgan says mildly.

“No,” you say, eyes on the clock. You count out three taps of your fingers before you start ringing up your next call. “You gonna stay here the entire time?”

“Yeah.”

You have to struggle to keep your pleasant smile from dropping into a scowl. Morgan has no such compunctions. 

The other end picks up. Your smile finally grows a little strained. You bring your phone up to your mouth again, not breaking eye contact. "Hey, babe? Yeah, it’s me— mm, love you too, baby. No, yeah I’m fine— look, how do you feel about playing hooky? You and me, a nice hotel in Seville…"

Morgan stares at you again, but decides that you probably know what you’re doing.

"Oh, you’ve been to Seville already? Oh, of course, silly me— yes, of course you’ve told me before! And— oh. Oh no, food poisoning? Yes, of course it was the fault of those horrid waiters— you’re absolutely right, there’s no culture in Spain. We should go somewhere more civilized…. maybe Barcelona?"

Morgan coughs delicately. You break character long enough to roll your eyes at him in sympathy.

"Babe, I know you’re busy— Of course being a business major isn’t easy, I know that, but you work too hard, you know? I just thought…”

He must be frowning again, because you wave him off impatiently and turn in your seat. Morgan decides to eat another pancake.

"Babe ,” you say, adding a little tremble in your voice. “ It’s just… our two month anniversary… I thought—”

You blatantly tune out of your boyfriend’s explanations and eat a strawberry.

"Oh… ” you say, somehow managing to make your voice appropriately pathetic through your mouthful of syrup. "Okay, yeah... it was just an idea— yeah, you know I always love dinner at Vivace! But—” 

You visibly have to fight down the glee in your voice as you say, “Are you sure this isn’t about Lola?”

Morgan pauses, fork stabbed in pancake. 

"Oh, don’t tell me you have retrograde amnesia, babe,” and it only works because you sound very, very sincere and very, very concerned. "You know, Lola? Barcelona, three weeks ago? Tall, green eyes, perfect hair? ”

You eat another pancake. Morgan follows a moment later. Definitely not stupid.

"Of course I know about Lola,” you say, indignant. “She’s a sweetheart— oh, no, you’re not excused. You had your chance to come clean… Yes, a threesome would’ve been hot.”  Morgan chokes, for real this time. You’re holding back a giggle yourself. “ …. No, you still should have said something…. What? You’re Poly? Babe, I hate to break it to you, but I’m pretty sure it's called Razorbacks.”

Morgan catches your eye again, but this time you… mean it. 

Oh, christ. You are this stupid, aren’t you? He sees the exact moment where you realize, face scrunching, and make the decision to run with it. 

“What? Polly? I mean, I support you, but being trans isn’t a reason for cheating... What? Yeah, I heard you the first time, and I’m telling you that…. Hm? P-O-L-Y? Um…? Oh! Okay, I still support you, but that's no excuse…. Yes, we probably would have. No, you definitely should have told me sooner. Actually, I think this would be a great time to break up!”  

You poke at a stray strawberry. "Mm, yeah, no. Don’t call me again. Either of us. Bye! ”

Morgan thumps his chest. You look up. “What?”

“Nothing,” Morgan says, clearing his throat. “Nothing at all.”

“Awww,” you coo, hand on your cheek. “Is this a good time to talk about victorian slang?”

Emily lets out a low whistle. “Oh man am I jealous. You could break someone’s foot with those shoes.

“My only goal in life,” you solemnly swear, watching her try in vain to fit them back on the shoe rack. “Oh, don’t worry about that, I’ll deal with them later.”

You nudge your shoes against the side of the doorway, pretending like they aren’t going to stay there for the rest of the year.

“Awww,” you coo. “Is this a good time to talk about victorian slang?”

He stares at you, unimpressed.

You grin. You punch in the numbers to dial this time. “ Hey, Lola— yeah, hi! Remember what I said— you do? Yeah, he’s confirmed it…. I know, cheating on you and me? God, you’re right... Hey, don’t say that, his puta madre’s a wonderful person! ...Yeah, I guess he’s a pinche gilipollas too— hijueputa’s a little unoriginal, don’t you think? Well, yes, you could do that to his culo, but why not a tomar por culo instead? ..... Well I thought it was funny …. No— no, girl, don’t cry, he doesn’t deserve it. We’re gonna stay hot, and he’s not gonna ruin our nights, ‘kay?”

Morgan does the calculations in his head. Spain is… what, seven hours ahead? It is night there, and the fact that you didn’t even pause to think is telling. He stares at his plate and listens a little harder and he catches snatches of rapid-fire Catalan (Castilian? He never remembers the difference between the two) from the speaker.

You grin into the phone. “ Oh my god, I would pay money for you to say that to his face….. Yeah, he might call you— Atta girl! Don’t pick up, okay? He made a mistake and he is not gonna get the chance to ask for forgiveness….. Yeah— mmm, yeah, I’ll give you a call if I ever go to Barcelona. Same here, okay? If you ever want to visit this dump… Of course, darling. Don’t be a stranger, ‘kay? Awww, you too! Buh-bye!”

“Garcia sends her compliments,” Morgan says, leaning against your doorframe. 

You glance back at him, brow raised in silent question before you remember to smooth it over. “Tell her I said thanks!” you say, smile almost blinding. “Who is she and what’s she complimenting?”

“Our tech analyst and your computer setup,” Morgan says, eyebrow raised in faint mockery of yours.

Oh shit.

“Oh gosh ,” you chirp, hand over your heart. Your eyes practically have sparkles in them. “She said that? Really? Tell her she’s so sweet , oh my gosh, does she like my monitor? I added the sequins myself!”

“She can’t see your monitor,” he squints, issue dropped for now. “But I can guarantee that she will adore it.”

“Let me guess,” you offer, hanging upside down off the side of your bed. “Cat person. Goth. Gets hit on by way too many men at the worst times and in the worst places.”

A surprised laugh. “To be fair, the goth thing was years ago.”

You grin back at her, playful. “Sureeee.”

She gives you a pitying look. “If you think this is goth…”

“Is that an offer to show me high school photos?” you press.

She pauses. “Did Reid put you up to this?”

“No,” you say truthfully, because you’d needed absolutely no urging to do this. At best he’d dropped a few hints he knew would be acted upon. “Not at all, why do you ask?”

“Uh-huh,” Emily says, laughing. “Still no chance.”

You pout for a comedically appropriate beat before saying, “Hey, Emily.”

Emily glances down. “...Yes?”

“Look at what I can do,” you say very seriously. “Are you watching?”

She nods, playing along.

“Okay, okay,” you say, squaring your shoulders dramatically. “Watch this.”

“I’m watching,” she says, and you stop giggling long enough to compose yourself, straightening out your face. And then you shoot her the most soulful pair of puppy eyes you can muster.

“Oh, damn it,” she says, falling back in your chair. “You’ve got me, I’m defeated.”

“Heck yeah I have and heck yeah you are!” you say, letting yourself flop onto the ground. “Now photos.”

Her phone’s halfway out of her pocket before she catches herself. “I don’t know how we keep falling for that,” she grumbles. “We know you’re faking.”

“The great thing about cognitive biases is that they don’t just stop once you learn they exist,” you say. “Now go make some kettle corn, please?”

“You know,” Morgan says, picking through your nail polish. “That can’t be easy.”

You’re spiteful enough to make him work for it. “Thanks!” you say, waving your hands so the fumes blow straight into his face. You smile prettily at his look of aggravation. “I guess I’ve just done it so much that it’s just muscle memory now! Even on my right hand— I’m not outside the lines at all ! It really helps if you just push your cuticle back a little, you should try it sometime, it helps the polish last longer.”

He gives you a look. “You know what I mean.”

“....My nails,” you repeat slowly, sweetly. “Now do you want pink or green?”

He plucks the pink from your hands as he says, “Breaking up with your boyfriend just because it was the only way to stay in hiding.”

“Because it was the easiest way to stay in hiding,” you correct. “No need to sugarcoat it.” You spitefully take the pink back from him and set it back on your shelf before picking out a topcoat.

“Alright, because it was the easiest and least dramatic way to stay in hiding,” he concedes, rolling the bottle of green polish around in his hands. “Like I said. Can’t be easy.”

“Your point?” you say, tense, because while it is fair game it’s also pretty shitty to take advantage of your compromised emotional state to win.

But hey, he started it, you’re not going to back out.

“My point being that you don’t seem very broken up about it,” he says.

“People process grief differently,” you say blandly. “For shame, Morgan. There’s not one linear path—”

“There’s sometimes a speedrun with twenty glitches that let you shortcut the track,” he cuts in. At the look on your face, he grins. "Yeah I saw the Mario Kart.”

“Well, I mean, now that you brought it up,” you say, fluttering your lashes. “Wanna go a round?”

He ignores you. “And Lola? How long have you been holding on to that little gem? How long were you going to keep it to yourself, just to have an escape plan ready?”

Your grin threatens to turn brittle. Your teeth are already bared, eyes fixed on your even strokes (you weren’t lying, you are very good). “If you’re going to try and manipulate me,” you say, tone light and easy but unable to keep the hard edge of anger from biting at your words. “Either be overt or surreptitious.”

“As opposed to?”

“Covert,” Reid offers. “If we’re going by lockpicking forensics.”

You jump, brush running jagged over your fingers.  You curse silently. “How did you get in? When— why did I not hear?”

“You were pretty focused on being mad at your nails,” Morgan offers.

“Man,” you say, trying not to smile, because you are mad. “Man, just shut up.”

“Make me,” Morgan says, so you smack a strawberry-chapstick covered kiss over his head.

He makes outraged squawks like the five year olds you used to babysit, sputtering and wiping his head and beating you away, and Reid and Emily are cackling in the background and— you think you’re gonna be okay.

“Are you okay?” Reid says. You look okay, and according to Morgan you were okay, but, well. It’s always better to ask about these things, isn’t it?

“Wha-?” you say, puzzled. It takes a good moment or two for the cloud of confusion to clear from your face. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, I’m fine. I—”

You glance up at him. “I… don’t actually care about him,” you confess, eyes bent unseeingly towards the book in your lap (A Rose for Emily-Faulkner-Falkner-Nobel 1949- Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique). “I don’t think I ever did, to be honest. I just—”

He stays silent.

You let out a small laugh. “I dunno, it was just the normal obligatory relationship,” you say. “Like, sure, he’s a decent human being. Might as well, you know?” (conformity bias-nuclear family-descriptive-injunctive norms)

He stays silent.

Your face crumples a little. “That’s… what I like to think,” you say. “That’s a little part of the narrative that’s true. It's easy to blame things on comphet, isn't it?”

“And the rest?” he asks, refusing to engage.

“Cameron’s… he’s acrasial on his good days,” you shrug. “Morgan's completely right. Cameron— he was mostly there for… hm. The comfort? He was the one constant I could really depend on, I think. The one thing I knew how to deal with. He's— oh god, this sounds terrible, but I know how he thinks. I know what to say and what to do to get what I want. Point A to point B— it's so easy. Say you like sports, but not to much. Say you like Kerouac and Wagner and Backstreet Boys, but not too much. Say that you like guns and go with him to the firing range once in a while, and you can even shoot better than him if you want to, but not too much. And— just— he’s who he is, an all-American boy in the middle of Arkansas, and that kind of protection— you can’t go out and buy that, you know?— I was scared,” you say, almost pleading for him to understand. “I wasn’t— it’s human nature, to find a pack, I wasn’t —”

“I know,” he says, and he does.

“You know the joke,” you begin. “Where people call Superman or Spiderman or Batman— they call them Mr. Man?”

“I think joke is a little generous,” Reid says. 

“Haha, very funny,” you say. You’re in your Stanford hoodie— you’ve obviously decided that there’s no point in hiding it anymore. “I was going somewhere with this. Something about calling you Mr. FBI-man. It was hilarious, I promise.”

“I believe you,” Reid says, straight faced. “Now go to sleep.”

“Yessir, Mr. Man,” you mumble, giggling quietly to yourself as you curl up in your corner of the couch. “G’night.”

“...Goodnight,” Reid says softly, but you’re already out.

You pace back towards the wall. 

“Cabin fever?” Emily asks, amused. 

You shrug, some stray jolt of undefinable emotion itching at you spine. “I—” you cut yourself off, frustrated. “Yeah.”

Rossi sets his fork down (he’d appropriated your plate of pimento cheese and crackers, the thief— why is he using a fork?) “Why?”

You make yourself calm down, taking a breath. 

“Okay, so,” you say after taking a moment to collect your thoughts. You bite a cracker. “I don’t want details— but you guys aren’t running an operation to get evidence aren’t you? You’re just wandering around in the dark, waiting for the unsub to slip up.”

“I mean,” Emily starts, and then admits, “Okay, yeah.”

“It’s just— sitting here. Waiting and hoping. Waiting for other people,” you say. “You think he’ll get sloppy, but there’s no guarantee, is there? What happens when you get called away, if he hasn’t made a mistake by then? He would— I’d—” you cut yourself off, abruptly.

You take a breath. “I’m sorry,” you say, genuine. “I got — carried away. I didn’t mean to stress you guys out more like that, I know you’re already— I... sorry.”

Emily softens, wrapping an arm around your shoulders and giving you a soft squeeze. “That won’t happen,” she says, and it’s sure , a bone-deep certainty that you can’t help but believe. “It’s not going to happen.”

You wake up, eyes snapping open in the darkness. You check your phone. Three A.M.

You get up, swinging your legs off the couch.

You tug your hoodie strings.

You fumble your way to the kitchen, knowing instinctively who’s going to be there.

“Did I wake you?” Reid asks, sitting at your shitty kitchen table with a very empty coffee pot.

You shrug, collapsing opposite him. “No,” you admit. “Just couldn’t sleep.” You tactfully don’t mention the bags under his eyes.

He pauses, considers, and then offers, “Coffee?”

You laugh. “Oooh, a gentleman,” you tease, poking at the box of Nilla wafers he’d bought for you on a grocery run. “No, but thank you.”

He pops a cookie in his mouth philosophically. Your loss. “Did you eat lunch yesterday? Besides pancakes, I mean.”

“Did you ?” you counter.

“I didn’t eat pancakes at all,” he says.

You laugh against your will. “You’re not funny,” you tell him, putting the box of cookies away. “Okay, okay, we’ve already established that we’re both garbage bins, let’s make some actual food.”

“Such as?”

You blank. “I. That is. A very good question… that I don’t know the answer to,” you pause, blinking fuzzily at the lights. You remember, gears grinding in your overworked and sleep deprived brain, “What about you, Mister Eidetic? You have the perfect recall, name me a food.”

He’s too busy trying not to laugh at you.

“Look, I’m not very smart at three in the morning,” you begin, but then catch yourself— “or any time!” you tack on hastily. “That! Was not a confession!”

“You think so little of me?” he says, miffed. “Of course it wasn’t. Any victory that easy isn’t worth it.”

“I just established that I didn’t think,” you scowl, tugging on your sleeves. “Cut me some slack here.”

He concedes that one.

“C’mon,” you say, valiantly changing the subject while hiding your utter humiliation behind your flopping sleeves. “Name a food. Can you cook?”

“I can make eggs,” he says, straight faced. “What kind do you want?”

You shrug. “I don’t know. What kinds are there?”

He shrugs back. “You want the full list?”

“Why would I have asked if I didn’t?” you say, just as bewildered. You both stare at each other in mutual midnight-dumbed confusion.

“Pålegg,” you say finally, lips quirking up in a grin.

“Very funny,” he says, scrunching his nose. “But do you mean egg and toast or everything-egg?”

“Pff,” you say, drunk off your tiredness and the absurdity of the situation. “Pålegg like everything on bread, except everything bagel— get it? Because when you flip it and anagram it a little you get baggle like how New Yorkers say it—  and the New York everything bagel— and world egg—” You dissolve into giggles before you can finish.

He stares at you a little longer. “And people say I’m not funny.”

“Hey!”

“That’s the plan?” you squawk, trying very hard not to be angry. “You— I was exaggerating when I said you were going to go gallivanting around blindly to draw my stalker out. I was kidding!”

“You’re very perceptive?” Emily offers, smiling.

You hide your face behind your hands, speedrunning the stages of grief. “I— okay, give me a second, I’ll be able to find this funny eventually.”

“I admire your efficiency,” Hotch says, and holy shit, was that a joke? Was that a compliment? Was that a joke and a compliment?

“Oh my god,” you whisper, hand over heart. “Okay, yeah, I’m over it. It’s hilarious, official judgement.”

“Came to terms with waiting for other people while trapped in your apartment, then?” Rossi asks.

“ Elle pisse et fait caca,” you offer. “But at least it’ll be entertaining.”

Reid is the only person to laugh.

“C’mon,” you say. “Really? Him? Only him ? I can’t be that bad.”

“Hey!”

“I assume there’s some greater joke in all here besides playground humor,” Rossi says, patiently.

“οὐκ ἔλαβον πόλιν· άλλα γὰρ ἐλπὶς ἔφη κακά,” Reid elaborates. “Commonly attributed to Xenophon of Athens, known as the Attic Muse, though it’s highly doubtful — the Greek itself is barely tolerable. Most are familiar with it through James Joyce's Finnegans Wake — "

“Sitting and waiting around and hoping is how you fail,” you translate. “C’mon, no need to milk it... Get it? Because—”

“Because Pauline the milkmaid, yes, we get it.” Reid says. 

"Who is we?" Morgan says. He goes ignored.

“You know, victims of stalking often move to obscure places in an effort to escape their pursuer,” Reid says, conversational, like he’s talking about the weather. 

You squint. “O...kay?”

He raises an eyebrow at you.

You flutter your lashes back.

“Your idea of obscure was Arkansas University.”

Chapter Text

It’s the end of the year, and you’re scared.

You don’t know why, exactly. At first you’d thought it was finals anxiety, then homesickness, then an early-life crisis, but—

But you’re scared, and you don’t know why. It’s not like you’re scared scared. Jumpy, mostly. Enough to make you buy mace and a taser and start regularly taking self defense classes.

You know, the average life of a girl in the city.

It’s been a month, two months— you’re not too sure. It’s almost a constant presence, except it does go away, replaced with horror-movie anticipation and unnerving dread. You’d considered anxiety, then. Paranoid personality disorder, OCD, the works. Except you really don’t fit the criteria and, well. You’re scared, but the one time you went out with your friends on a spontaneous road trip...

You’d finally went a day without feeling that fucking weight on the back of your mind, for the first time in fucking forever. And it felt good. You’d almost forgotten how the absence of fear felt.

So you sit, back against the wall, and make a decision.

It doesn’t seem very drastic to you in the moment, but it does seem right.

You decide to get the hell out of Stanford.

Reid is quick, but not quick enough to tug down his sleeves when he reaches past you for the kettle.

You keep your eyes carefully vapid.

He decides to answer your unspoken question anyways. "Dilaudid," he says. "Bad case."

And you...

Your façade breaks, just that bit. Because he'd been honest with you, even when he didn't have to, and not being honest back would be— rude. "Just the case?"

He laughs, short, bitter, and you're suddenly very glad that you're still in school. "No. No— for... a few months? A year?"

His arm is still out, faint track marks clear on his skin. Your fingers reach out and rest next to them without your permission. He lets you. "Can I ask why?"

He still doesn't move his arm, humming instead at your question. "It's like..."

You stay quiet, fingertips on skin.

"It’s like,” he says, haltingly. “I didn’t have to— worry, anymore. I wasn’t in control. And it made it feel like not being in control was okay, that it was good.”

And you think that's one of the scariest things you've ever heard.

You don’t tell anybody where you’re going. You tell your parents not to contact you unless it’s online, through the encrypted channel you’d set up on a lark all those years ago. You tell your friends that you’re taking a year to “really find myself or something, I’ll get back in touch next August,” but only if they ask. 

You don’t know what you’re running from, and you’re not even sure if you are running. You just decide to move, and it’s almost alarmingly easy.

You go through your old emails, look at the schools that offered you a full ride, or at least enough that you could pay the tuition by working. You cut out anybody with an on campus population of less than two thousand people, and then pull some out of a hat.

Well. You write a quick script to pull some out of the hat for you, but the effect is the same. Just to be safe, you take your handful of schools, write them down on spare scraps of paper, and roll your lucky die.

And then you burn 'em.

You pack only what you need, and write a letter to your friends telling them to look after your things, set on a delay to send in forty two hours. You buy a ticket and leave the next morning, slipping out the back door of the library and taking enough detours that you’re confident you’ve lost any potential tails.

And then you’re free.

And it feels fucking great.

Lola (you know, Barcelona, your boyfriend, the side chick?) calls you pretty often. You let her. You think you're both a little lonely.

"So I'm stuck inside because I'm trying not to get a respectable GPA," you say, tracing the edge of your laptop with a fingernail. "But what's up with you? You can't expect me to believe that I'm the best company you can get, babe."

Lola says something that you don't quite catch because you're busy sticking your tongue out at Reid, but you do manage to hear her call you a pretty-girl fresa. You can’t help it, you laugh a little. “You haven’t even seen me.”

“He visto tus fotos,” she says, and she's laughing too. “Fre-sa.”

“Shut up— no, not you, you're not even saying anything. I mean— yes, you. Aren’t you from Spain? Isn’t fresa Mexican slang?”

She changes the subject real quick after that. You don't mind, it's just mindless chatter at this point, something to take the edge off of your boredom. Reid indulges you in a quick game of chopsticks, phone tucked in your shoulder. You're starting on some atrocious inverse-operation version you'd wordlessly agreed upon when Lola clicks her tongue in the middle of your idle chit-chat about your Cameron-free dating lives to say—  “Te vi ligando con aquel chaval."

You pause, fingers coming up to rest over your mouth. "What?"

"Te. Vi. Ligando—"

"When? How?"

She says something about you laughing at all his jokes. You sit up, making an indignant noise of outrage. "I was not flirting with—!"

With the genius polyglot sitting right across from you, listening to your conversation with a raised eyebrow and vague amusement. You make a high pitched whine like a slowly deflating balloon, covering your face which you’re sure is very red. “Shut uuppp.”

Both of them inform you, neither of them with English, that they hadn't been speaking at all.

You make the very emotionally mature decision to turn your back on Reid and pretend he's not there. You decidedly do not hear a soft laugh that makes you smile like a loon because you are, like the good friend you are, concentrating on what Lola is saying.

It's still humiliating, but at least it's not him.

"So," you cough. "Um. How's the weather over there?"

A pause. "En Barcelona?"

"Yes," you say, nodding. "In Barcelona. You know. It's just so... changeable."

"En Barcelona."

"You never know, I heard that it rained there once before. About two hundred years ago. It could be happening again."

You have to stare at the corner of your apartment as you listen to her tell you between laughs, in excruciating detail, just how bad you've got it. You get the message, thank you very much. You risk a quick glance backwards.

Nope.

The corner's looking pretty good, now that you think about it. Hell, you love corners. They're so... so... so... 

Oh, god, is that a fucking spider?

You very calmly stand up, march over to where Reid's sitting, and motion to swap spots. At Lola's inquiring noise, you say, "Ariana grande."

"Araña grande."

You shrug. "Close enough."

"What?" Reid says, halfway out of his seat.

"Nothing," you say, smiling sweetly. "Just Ariana Grande. Have you heard her new album yet?"

He slowly sits back down, narrowing his eyes at you. Jeez, fine. You walk into the kitchen instead to toast yourself some poptarts after your harrowing ordeal. Lola's still laughing at you, except now she's tossing in words like vaina and fiaca.

You squint. “Are you just throwing random vocabulary words at me to improve my Spanish like I'm a five year old watching Dora?”

“Como? Noooooo,” she says. “Claro que no. Wey.”

You huff out a laugh. “Okay, wey. Thanks for thinking of me, but if you don't mind, I'd like to have this conversation again approximately never. Please. Never."

She calls you a spoilsport, but blows a raspberry and acquiesces. "Bien, bien. Te prometo que dejaré de burlarme de ti. Chau!”

You grin. “Ciao.” You hang up before she can make frustrated noises at you for being a stuck up fresa.

You're still new to Arkansas, still just a new kid in a sea of other students— nursing, education, and fellow communications. You all decide, in between hushed giggles and nearly-genuine compliments to go to that party, you know, that one? 

And you think, what the hell.

You go to the party.

"So, good news and bad news," Reid tells you brightly. "Good news, we think we've narrowed it down to a suspect."

You sip your hot chocolate. "And?"

"Bad news, we've got no evidence to go off of except for a profile and a gut feeling."

You blink down at your cup, and down the rest of it in one go. "They sent you to be the messenger because you're only up too early in the morning for me to be angry, didn't they."

He waves a hand. "They were less concerned about anger and more about... woeful despair? heartbroken grief and suffering and utter desolation?"

"Right, those too," you say. "Any other news you wanna tell me while I'm still unable to think coherently?"

“It's Turner."

You blink. "Timmy?"

"What?" he says. "What — no. Ivan Turner, former plastic surgeon in Stanford, California."

You suck in a breath through your teeth. "Oh."

He's watching your reaction carefully, and whatever he sees doesn't seem to leave him surprised. "Yeah."

First it's a party, then it's another, and then jumping between frat houses and dorm rooms and gentrified bars almost becomes your new normal. You almost even find yourself with a reference for rush before you realize what's happening.

You start to stick with small-time clubbing after that. You find that you really like strawberry daiquiris, kind of like mojitos, and absolutely despise martinis.

Granted, your insistence on making everything virgin could've affected that last one.

You'd... never really... gotten into this stuff, before. There'd always been another exam, another project or job or internship that you couldn't miss, sports and extracurriculars and who knows what else. But... you like it. A lot.

You'd like it better without sleazy men harassing you at every turn, but well. It's not like those aren't universal.

It's on one of those nights that you meet Cameron. You zero in on him as soon as you see him tip the waitstaff and back off from girls who turn him down. You figure that he's the best you're going to get on such a short notice, so you drag your girlfriends into the bathroom, fix your hair, then make your move.

"One strawberry daiquiri, please," you tell the bartender, tracking the slow movement towards you catching in your peripherals. You flutter your fingers over your mouth as you add, quietly, "Non-alcoholic."

Bless their heart, they don't so much as blink. Someone else catches your attention before Cameron gets there, and you feel your heart drop.

"Whiskey, neat," they say, turning an indulgent eye on your very pink slushie. "Hey, do I know you?"

They do. God, they do, what the hell is he doing here in Arkansas? You make yourself calm down, because jeez, you're not this paranoid are you? You've seen him once before, standing in line during lunch rush in front of Panda Express. The only reason you remember him is because a: you have a very good memory, and b: his nose had whistled the entire time.

"Not yet, you don't," you say, winking with the eye that isn't focused on the approaching blur in the corner of your vision. "Wanna change that?"

What little interest he'd shown in you disappears at your fluttering eyelashes, and you breathe a quiet sigh of relief, and it's over. Ivan Turner goes home with the girl who's nursing a glass of water that never does this kind of thing, and you're whisked away in your high heels and tiny dress by Cameron, your soon-to-be-boyfriend.

And that's that.

"That makes eight,” Reid observes. 

You blink, almost laughing at the incongruity. “Seriously? Eight?  Serial killers… named Turner ?”

“From the cases I've been personally involved in alone,” he confirms.

“Oh.” You consider. “Isn’t that a bit… much?”

“Definitely,” he says. “The chance of being an unsub on one of our cases is almost five percent higher if one of your names is Turner. Specifically, your chance of being a fairly typical spree killer.”

“And you think there’s causation?” you say, unwilling to believe, but not ready to disbelieve it when he looks like that.

“Wouldn’t you?” he counters. "Every year, we get at least one unsub named Turner. Every year we get a disproportionate number of cases involving children. Eighty percent of our cases have at least one white victim, and JJ knows enough about racial biases to make educated decisions.”

You still, fingers coming to a rest from where they were playing with your hair. You stare intently at the table top, almost afraid to look at him. Futile, as if the lack of eye contact would make you any safer.

And that’s the thing, isn’t it? That improbable things occur with such regularity, in a neat little timeline of your life. 

“So…”

“So…” he hesitates, because you know it’s killing him to say something so ridiculous and unsubstantiated, but numbers don’t lie, and cold hard stats always take precedent. “Just be careful.”

"You always do this to us, you always go off on your own stupid little ideas, never thinking about anything, because you don't care about your future, you don't care about me or your dad or--"

You turn your speakers off. 

There's no room for bad vibes in your new life.

You pause, staring at Rossi, who, for some reason, has one foot out your absurdly tiny bathroom window.

"I'm not even going to ask," you sigh, and shut the door.

This time, you're back at an on-campus party and you're not wearing a full face of makeup that makes you borderline unrecognizable.

You hear him before you see him. Does the man need a kleenex or something? The shrill whistle of his breathing pauses in the middle of a particularly quivery note. "Hey, do I know you?" Turner asks, and this time, he seems that much more interested.

God, does he use this exact pickup line every time?

You titter, making sure to pitch your voice higher and more rounded. "Because I look like your next girlfriend?"

"I don't know," he says, and even though he's leaning in to your space you can see his attention wander off you again. "Let me buy you a drink and we'll take it from there, hm?"

"Um," you say, unable to disguise your disgust, and that's when you know you fucked up.

He turns back to you, and you see the lightbulb go off over his head. "I remember now! I do know you, strawberry daiquiri, right?"

"Oh my gosh, you remembered!" you say, giggling into your hand. "So? How was my Southern accent? I really nailed the vowels, didn't I?"

"You did," he says, and the unnecessary condescension in his voice makes your teeth grind. "But I think your diphthongs could use a little more work, they're more prominent in Southern dialects." He then blinks, like he's forgotten himself, laughs, and says, "Sorry, sorry, it slips out sometimes."

"What are you, like, a speech therapist or something?"

"No, no, nothing of the sort," he demurs, which tracks. "Just an amateur, really, but accents are something of a hobby. Hey, if you're interested, how about I get you another one of those?"

You suck in a sharp breath, still polite. "Ooooh, about that..."

"Hey babe, what's going on here?"

"Nothing," you smile, and this is why you love Cameron. "He was just leaving."

"Reid thinks we've got him down at the station," Prentiss tells you shortly, motions quick and efficient as she preps to go out. "I'm leaving, but Hotch will stay here with you. Don't move."

You offer her a lazy salute. "No worries there. Stay safe!"

Her movements don't deviate even slightly from their steady rhythm, she's far too competent for something so dramatic. But your words do surprise her, which is so unbearably sad you decide to turn back to your laptop to avidly think about absolutely nothing.

It's barely five minutes before you hear the door open and shut again. 

You're absorbed in a riveting documentary about crocodiles, though, so you dismiss it and instead focus on what the narrator is saying about salt glands.

They know what they're doing. You're just going to keep sitting here and staying safe.

This one is less of a party and more nearing a full fledged orgy a someone or another managed to cobble together in one of the abandoned greenhouses, but since it's too early for anyone to have gotten properly drunk you think you can ignore that part.

"Hey, hey!" someone waves, and--

"Turner!" you say, surprised but not really. "Hey, never expected to see you here."

"I could say the same thing about you," he says, and directs a significant look to the throng of people on the couch.

"I don't even know what's happening," you say, following his gaze and slowly crumpling up your posture, like you're horrified at the debauchery. "I just, one second we were having drinks, and then--"

He tuts, condescending and patronizing but not predatory, not yet, so you force yourself to stay wide eyed and complacent. "Oh, sweetheart," he says, and just like that, the subject of why you're even here gets dropped. "Here, have this, it'll calm you down."

You look down in the cup, and you're surprised to see a red slushy. " Is this...?"

He almost looks sheepish. "I might've been hoping to run into you for a while now. I've been trying your daiquiris out, just to see, but it seems I've come around to them."

"What, fell in love with me or something?" you tease, and hand him back his cup when he smiles at you instead of answering. "I have a boyfriend."

"Relax, relax, I just want to be friends," he says, conciliatory, like you're overreacting. "You have friends, don't you?"

"You're right," you say, after a pause. "Sorry, I know you're not trying to come on to me or anything, it's-- sorry. I'm a sad drunk, and I've had one too many, I guess. Nothing personal."

You're lying, which is why you can see how his eyes sharpen with interest. Pig. "Oh, one more couldn't hurt."

"No, thank you," you demur, "I'm really no fun once I'm past my limit, last week I ended up blacking out two feet away from a pool."

"But this time I'm here," he says, and you don't know why he's being so persistent when you've made sure you're not his type this time, except, well, you do. "Come on, I got this just for you. You're really not going to drink it?"

"If you insist," you concede, then stop, gasping, cup half raised to your lips. "Abbie!"

Turner watches as you catch the very drunk girl that slumps on to you.

"Abs, Abbie, what happened?" you say, brows furrowed as you help her upright.

"My dad is gonna kill me," she whines, resting her head against yours. "The Fayetteville anniversary weekend starts tomorrow and he said he wanted me to be there, but, like, I don't even get why! It's not like I'm the mayor, me missing a dusty old breakfast isn't going to kill anyone."

"Awww, don't say that, he can't be that bad."

Abbie just lets out a defeated sob. 

"Here," you say sympathetically, nudging the solo cup in her direction with only one regretful look at the untouched drink. "You need this more than I do right now."

"Wait," Turner coughs, suddenly plucking the cup from your hands. You look at him curiously, but he just smiles and says, "You sound like you need something a whole lot stronger. Let me see if I can't find some vodka."

"Oh my god, I love you," Abbie tells him, very seriously. "Who is this? I want him. We should keep him."

"You can have him," you say, watching as Turner deftly slips the cup into the trash and replaces it with a new one. If you weren't looking you wouldn't even have noticed. "Call it my thank you present."

"...you're weird," Abbie decides, scrunching up her nose. "But you're welcome?"

Thank god for mayors' daughters.

You don't know how you managed to rope Reid into watching a shitty amateur romcom with you, but hey, you're not complaining.

Well. You're kind of complaining. The sentimentality makes you want to throw up.

"Happy families, am I right?" you say as you grin over at him, lazily. "What would it even be like to have supportive parents and live the suburban dream?"

"I mean, I wouldn't know, my father left when I was ten," he says.

"I thought your father left you when you were four,” you squint.

“It varies,” he says, straight faced. "Popcorn?'

"That's my popcorn, you thief," you say, scowling at the bowl that's somehow managed to teleport its way into his hands. "But yes, please."

Your phone rings.

It’s been ringing for the past three minutes. You’re mildly annoyed. Who hasn’t gotten the message that you’re sick and or out of town yet? 

For the first time in three minutes, your phone beeps out a message. “Stop! What are you—”

You freeze as you hear Ella’s tinned scream. 

Where the hell is Hotch?

Because-- and your big stupid brain answers your questions almost as soon as they crop up-- Prentiss left, probably on a false lead, confident in Hotch's ability to keep you safe until backup arrived. Hotch left on another false lead --how did Turner get this good at tech?-- confident that Rossi was still in the bathroom, except that-- somehow, Turner'd managed to block whatever message the team sent to coordinate the maneuver-- he didn't know that Rossi had left too, which means...

You're alone.

“I knew it was you,” a familiar voice tells you, full of slimy satisfaction, and oh god, you think you’re about to throw up because that’s Turner and you don’t know what’s happening but—

Reid was right.

Just not about where.

You grab a pen and scribble down what he’s saying. You jot down the phone number too, but if he’s willing to leave a message it’s probably disposable but at least you’re doing something but you should probably be doing something else but you don’t know what— 

“Don’t even think of calling anyone,” he adds, and oh god, oh god— “I swear I will kill her if you call your little FBI friends. I know you’re there, and you will do as I say unless you want the girl to die. The tree you sit under sometimes, near the student store. Five minutes. Chop chop!”

The message ends.

Oh god, it’ll take you six minutes to get there if you run. You don’t have time to grab anybody, and he—

He’s killed people before.

Your thoughts are a mess, running crystal sharp and fast but so messy, threads crossing each other and picking back up, refracting and reflecting bits of your jumbled ideas together, and your heart is thumping in your ears as you waste precious seconds to shove your feet into the nearest pair of shoes sitting by the doorway, snatch your phone, and barrel out your door.

You flip the phone open in your pocket, remembering— they can track phones, can’t they? If they’re on? So you keep your phone on and you think and you run and you hear your panicked breaths and your heels hitting into the ground and someone’s phone beeps as you shove past them and Turner’s stupid message and his stupid nose breathing and Ella’s scream—

You pivot a corner, low to the ground, foot pushing against the ground as you slingshot in a such a neat, sharp turn any self respecting track and field runner would weep, except your eyes are wide and you would be screaming if you had any air to scream with and you’re counting the seconds in your heartbeats and the five minutes are almost up and you need to be faster be better be more

You don’t have time but you remember— why are you remembering you should be focusing on Ella— but your mind is running a high octane supercomputer of a parallel mass of malfunctioning threads so you remember— Reid sitting across from you Reid lit in the blue-white lights of your computer screen Reid making such a stupid nerdy joke you have to laugh Reid listening to you talk about books and plants and stupid puns Reid telling you about medieval english literature and psychology and space time— 

You shouldn't need a literal genius to remind you that there are two ways to meet a time limit, a literal genius to remind you that shortcuts exist but that’s the way your mind is working and it’s so fast but so inefficient and you need to be fast—  

You turn, almost flip, running back. You’re going so fast and you need to be faster —think three dimensional— so you wrench yourself over the wall and back down and thank god you know this campus like the back of your hand thank god you managed to find a shortcut you’re almost at the park but time’s almost up and the wind rushing past your ears screams like Ella and—

And— 

Turner didn’t know where you lived you should have just gone to your neighbors and asked to borrow their phone god you’re stupid, you’re so fucking stupid but you’re almost at the tree now and you just walked into a trap that you had five minutes to think yourself out of and you’re so fucking stupid.

Your phone rings again.

“I see you made it,” Turner says conversationally. “Thank you for picking up this time. Now, you’re going to calmly sit at that bench for exactly two minutes, tell anybody who asks that you’re working on your sprinting sets, and then walk to Greenhouse Five. No parkour this time, okay?”

“Wait,” you rasp before he can hang up, anger bubbling under your snarl. “Ella. Put her on.”

“Don’t believe me?” Turner sighs, but he doesn’t sound surprised. “Fine.” A fumble against the mic. And then a little distantly, to someone else—  “Talk.”

“Help,” Ella sobs, and you have to stop yourself from screaming. The bastard isn’t smart enough to hack into the campus cameras, so who’d he pay off? ...If you’d just hacked back into them, if you’d just borrowed somebody’s bike or hotwired somebody’s car, if you’d stopped to think without all this stupid adrenaline crossing the wires in your head... “Help me.”

“Ellie,” you say, desperately. “Ellie, I’m coming, so sit tight, okay? I love you, just hang in there--”

“Touching,” he says idly. “Remember, stick to the plan, and your little girl doesn’t get hurt.”

The call ends, and you’re left trembling in helpless rage.

You know greenhouse five. You'd known it ever since that stupid party. You know that it's empty, that it's not growing season, and that nobody has any reason to go anywhere near it.

You also know think that this is it.

This is where you die.

You slide open the doors.

And you see Isabella.

"Phone," Turner says, as soon as he sees you, grin wide on his face.

"Polo," you respond, brightly, before pursing your lips and blinking wide-eyed at Izzie. "Bells?"

"Your phone," Turner repeats, twitching a little as he attempts to hold his smile. "Hand it over."

"What?" you say, holding it protectively against your chest. "No! I'm not giving you my phone, Lottie's telling us about Jason's brother's niece's sister in law's rich uncle who totally hit on her the other day and I need updates. I mean, he's not really all that cute, but--"

He stops smiling. "Your phone," he says, hand outstretched.

You hand it over.

"Fine, okay!" you say, puffing out your cheeks. "Geez, Ivan, what's up with you?"

"Stop," he snaps, looming over you like an angry chicken. "You're not fooling anyone, got it? Shut up."

"Ivan?" you say, brow wrinkling delicately. Carefully... carefully... And then, as if you're just realizing, "Are you feeling okay? ...Hey, why did you wanna meet up here anyways?"

You hadn’t hidden it, not really. You haven't really hidden anything from them, and that’s the game. You’re under no delusions—  if she’d wanted to, Garcia alone could have dug up your entire history before you managed to so much as flip open your laptop.

So you haven’t hidden it. You've made a point of having nothing to hide. You have one journal, one that you forced yourself to write-- patterns, observations, bits of blackmail. Nothing concrete or provable, of course, you're not going to eggs in a basket people's lives.

You’ve given everybody free reign to nose around, that one’s fine, so you're not surprised, exactly, when they do find it.

“Is it in code?” Morgan asks, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m terrible at cryptography,” you reply truthfully, a non-answer. “I don’t have the patience to cipher and decipher.”

He nods. “And—”

“Is this Russian IPA?” Reid interrupts, leafing through the sheets. 

“A little.”

He nods. “Good work.”

“Thank you,” you say. “Though I’m guessing it doesn’t work on somebody widely read with an eidetic memory.”

“No, not really,” he agrees, tapping a finger on the page. “But it does slow me down. Too much recall is more inconvenience than anything, especially since I don’t have a good framework to base your most likely references on.”

You grin. “The encryption theory of humor. It’s not just books, it’s the cumulation of all my life experiences. Which you don’t know about.”

He makes a see-sawing motion.

“What?”

He looks up long enough to spare you a smug look. “I have known you long enough to get a grasp on your sense of humor,” he points out.

“Yeah, because it’s a less shitty version of yours.”

He doesn’t argue. “And I saw your African Art History notes, remember? You altered it well, but the base is still there. A veritable Rosetta stone to your journal.”

Aw shit.

“Noooooo,” you whine, high, tragic, but Reid must be able to hear the lack of any true desperation in your voice because he finally stops reading and turns all his focus on you.

"What is it?" he squints suspiciously. 

"You mean you can't tell?" you say, and you realize that you're excited to show off a little to him. "Come on, don't tell me you can't read it by now."

"I can," he says slowly.

"But?"

"But it's gibberish," he admits. "As of now."

"As of always," you say, satisfied. “It doesn’t matter if you can understand it if I never write it down. This isn’t for other people, it’s for me. And I just need enough to aid recall.”

"So you can remember what you mean by "Harry Potter 374 appleTpie Weasley," six dots, and a question mark." Morgan says, but it's less disbelieving than it is amused.

"That's actually one of the more self evident strings," Reid answers for you. "It's one of the most recent entries, so Harry Potter functions as a stock character corresponding to either Isabella or Turner, and since 374 is used so far as a marker for friends, that makes Harry Potter Isabella. Apple-tea-pie is a bastardization of acute-T-pie, which modifies Weasley to Arthur Weasley, or Art, which means that this was the African Art History lecture. The six dots could be a six pack meaning alcohol, or more probably the six-face of a die, which represents games or game theory, and with the question mark translates to a possible compromise. Isabella-Art History-possible compromise."

"Compromise--? Oh, you used the other meaning," Morgan says. "Very clever."

"Thank you," you and Reid say at the same time, like you don't hear the edge of sarcasm in his words. Reid continues, though-- "I'm missing something."

"Oh?"

"You wouldn't add a whole bit just as a modifier. Apple-tea-pie means something else."

They stare expectantly at you.

"It's a secret," you wink. "Where's the fun in just telling you?" A pause. "I think Morgan's got it, though."

Morgan raises his hands as Reid turns on him. "I swear, I've got no idea what's going on." He glares at you. "Very funny."

"I'm not lying," you say innocently, examining your nails. You reach out and take your journal back. "Find out yourself. When you've got it, you'll know."

Turner makes you drink something that leaves a chemical taste in the back of your throat. You'd known what it was while you were drinking it, but the name is slipping out of your mind now, hazy and unimportant.

Wait, no. It was important. Something about polydrug toxicity.

What was that again?

Turner's monologuing now, nose whistling out a high note with every breath. You start giggling. He's talking about that club you've been going to, how you've consistently refused strange drinks at every party he's seen you at--oh, that's a lot, ever since Cameron?-- but, like, duh. His speech just turns to white noise turns to Snidely Whiplash, and all you can hear is a cartoonish curses! foiled again! You get the idea after the first two seconds, which leaves you with too much time alone with the little voice in your head giving you a perfunctory rundown of symptoms: euphoria, disinhibition, nausea, dizziness, drowsiness, agitation, visual disturbances, depressed breathing, amnesia, unconsciousness in the world's most depressing informational audio loop.

"GHB?" you snicker, and oh, right, that's the name. "Please, that's the first one you thought of? What are you, like, sixteen? It's like you want me to throw up on you."

You're not exactly looking, but you do hear him mutter a curse, and then feel him stuffing you like a ragdoll in a padlocked cage. Since when did the greenhouse have a cage? Master Lock, says that shiny silver metal of the padlock. It's really quite a pretty cage.

You hear Turner stomp away, and you're left in the silence of the greenhouse.

Wait.

Who's crying?

There's no reason to cry, you attempt to explain, but you're really tired, and talking seems like a lot of work.

"Don't go to sleep!" a shrill voice says. Oh. They were crying. "Please, god, look at me."

....Izzy?

You touch the wet spot on the ground next to you.

Right, Turner. He'd made you drink a strawberry daiquiri, like you always get. You'd managed to spit a good bit of it out, pretending to puke. There'd been something you needed to do after that.

"Your pockets," Izzy says, and her eyes are really big. "You'd pointed, for me, when he was—"

You pat your pockets down, good-naturedly, and find a packet of Oreos.

Looks like Turner hadn't bothered to search you.

You carefully tear into the bag and extract the Oreos for safekeeping, because now that you have something to focus on you know what you have to do. You stick your fingers down your throat, remember that GHB dulls gag reflexes, and then punch yourself in the stomach and hold the empty bag to your mouth as you retch as silently as you can.

Step one, done. You nudge the now puke-filled container out of your cage, blending in with the rest of the junk.

Step two, eat the Oreos. This is the fun part.

Step three... well. Turner should be back in about four hours, maybe, since he wants you dead before anything else happens.

Oh shit, Turner wants you dead. 

But you're really tired, and if the alcohol and GHB you drank is going to kill you, there's not a whole lot else you can do to stop it. It just comes down to how stingy Turner is with the good kush. "Wake me up in two hours," you murmur to Izzy, curling up for a nap. "And try finding some metal in the meantime, will you? Long and thin should work, think soda cans."

"What?" she says, and the panic in her voice makes you feel a little guilty for yawning. "What do you—?"

But you're asleep.

I'm not going to be a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer or whatever, you say, pursing your lips. The flower and the tiger make no reply

I'm! Not gonna! you repeat, and feel yourself losing braincells. You know what? Nevermind, I'm communications anyways, it doesn't matter.

The tiger dies.

What the hell, man, you say, mostly annoyed at the lack of subtlety your consciousness apparently defaults to. Really? It's not wasting my talents, I don't have some burden to society to try to do something smart or valuable or real. I'm a good person, and I'm a good citizen, and that's all that matters.

The almost comically video-game level visuals of the meat start bleeding. The flower starts bleeding too. They both stare at you eyelessly, but no less judgmental for it.

Your hair is terrible, the flower sniffs. Pull yourself together— and what are those shoes? Block heels? So last season. You're a total mess.

Thanks, you say, and somehow find yourself staunching the bleeding on two separate cuts of sirloin steak that you know with dream-certainty are tiger, even though they look undeniably like beef. Oh, come on, really?

It's the spirit of Halloween, the flower says. Killjoy. Hey, who invited you anyways? Do you even know anybody here?

Oh my god, you say. Please, please just let me wake up.

What's Chaucer's favorite book? the dismembered tiger steaks ask you.

What?  you say. How is that relevant? What? I don't know, it's not like Canterbury Tales has a foreword thanking Mom, Dad, and Pennywise.

Interesting you bring that up, says the flower, which somehow has a notepad in hand. Why would you default to a horror novel about adulthood and facades?

Maybe because you're a talking bleeding flower out of a horror movie? you offer.

Mmmm, no, that's not it, the flower decides. Anyways, you're really bad at manipulating people, you know.

I take offense to that.

Sure, sure, the flower says, and you feel oddly snubbed. Get better at it, it shouldn't be this hard to fool yourself. It's not this nearly this difficult to maneuver the people in the movies into confessing their feelings.

My what? you yelp. Hey, wait, before that, even -- is now really the best time to be failing the Bechdel test? Hello? This cannot be feminist. And that's when you wake up. 

Your head is clearer now, just a bit. You snag a broken soda can that should work. You're still trying to shape out a shim when Izzy speaks up again.

Looks like she'd managed to get some sleep in too. Good, she needs it.

"We're alive," she says, and the relief in her tone makes you instinctively check for jinxes.

"For now," you agree, and man, you hate being the downer but no matter how you look at it your situation is still pretty bleak.

"I thought—" she says, and then swallows. "I really thought that you were..."

"Gonna die?" you shrug. "If I'd actually ingested all of it, yeah. I mean, I didn't even vomit except when I made myself, I probably barely got any in my system in the first place. It's just the alcohol now."

You can guess what happened. You're the first person he's drugged, probably-- Reid hadn't mentioned it with any of his other victims, at least. So the plastic surgeon got his hands on some GHB, but not enough to so much as to be able to kill a cat-- because really, who trusts a plastic surgeon with Burberry coats and shiny loafers? So he'd gone for quantity on the alcohol instead to even out the difference. 

So really, you're just kind of tipsy, which wouldn't be an issue if this wasn't the first time you've ever been.

Izzy nods at your words, shaking, and man, you're really doing a bad job at reassuring her, huh?

"Cheer up," you say, waving around the aluminum that you're halfway through to ripping. "We'll be out of here soon, I promise."

She perks up a bit, scooting herself closer to watch. Her expression falls as she sees the strip you're working at. "Lockpicks? But it's a combination lock."

"A combination Master Lock," you emphasize, finally twisting the corner free. "And just lockpick, singular. Watch and learn, Bells."

You drag yourself over to the padlock, make a quick prayer, and worm the shim up and in between a codewheel.

The lock pops open, easy as that.

"What?" Izzy says, blinking.

"Master Lock," you laugh, breathlessly. "It's faster to break into one than it is to unlock."

You carefully twist the lock up and out...

And then you're free.

Thing is, standing doesn't seem to be something you're capable of at the moment. Izzy watches you nervously as you crawl towards her, then shuffles to meet you halfway. You hate to make her be the one to do this, but this is better, isn't it? You can't move, but Izzy can, and really, Turner wants you. He'll be distracted long enough by you to not bother going after her, or at least, you hope.

"I'm going to need you to run for me," you say conversationally. "I can't really move right now, so this is going to be on you. The nearest phone is the next greenhouse over, but Turner's probably going to be waiting there. Go out the back, hide behind that wheelbarrow, and book it to the Student Center. Turner has someone on cameras, so you're going to have to move exactly as I say, okay?"

"Okay," Izzy says, and she's nothing but determined. "Go ahead."

You tell her the route as she turns around, handcuffs stretched out for you to see. You consider them, thinking. Police regulation, huh? A bobby pin would do, but that seems like a lot of work that your hands aren't steady enough for. Your shim should be fine. You slide it in between the ratchet, wince as the teeth catch, and then...

The cuffs clack neatly on the floor as Izzy shakes her wrists out. She hesitates, looking between you and the door.

"Go," you hiss, "Just go."

She does.

And she bumps into Turner.

Fuck.

The next few moments are too fast, like you're stuck under a pool watching people rush past your lane, vision and awareness blurring in and out of focus in sped-up-slowed-down pulses-- you emerge in time to see a flash of something silver and sharp, hear the sounds of a struggle, a gun clicking in a suitably gun-like way, somebody laughing and somebody crying.

“Kill me, go on,” Turner grins. “Too scared? That’s okay, it’s easier from a distance. Look, I’m backing up!”

How did you even get here?

He takes a step back, and then another. You see Isabella shaking, gun almost falling from her fingers.

You don't think she'd been wearing a red shirt before.

Just one more…

He steps back again, and you’re on him, jabbing and kicking through the sluggish water you're still half trapped in— he falls, and you manage to pin him long enough to put him in a stranglehold-- he goes limp, but you hold another five seconds anyways before hitting his solar plexus.

You turn back to take care of Izzy, and then— 

And he gets back up .

You sweep around again, aiming straight towards his knees. He collapses, laughing and wheezing.

“Why don’t you shoot me?” he says again, and thank god he’s face down, you don’t have to look at him smile. “Look at what I’ve done to you. Look at what I’ve done to all those women. Look at what I’ve done to the girl. Why don’t you kill me and end it all?”

“Shut up,” you snarl, mouth thick and strange around the words, echo ringing around your ears shut up shut up shutup back to pinning him in a chokehold. “You don’t get to do that to her or me. You don’t get to put your blood on our hands. You’ve taken so much and you want to take more -- Izzy, throw that gun away and keep your head straight and keep breathing.”

“...”

Isabella shuts her eyes and slides the gun towards the wall.

“You know,” he says conversationally. “She’ll die before anybody gets here. You’re not strong enough to cut off my airway. And you’re not going to kill me. So this is it? You’re gonna keep me hostage until someone comes to rescue you? Pin me here while the girl bleeds out next to you? ”

“No,” you say, throat tight. You press a little harder, and he goes limp— a blood choke, not a real air choke. You have maybe ten seconds before he gets back up again.

And Izzy is honest-to-god dying and you need him incapacitated. You don’t have rope, you don’t have tape or chains or even a hammer, oh god --

It’s not a fight.

You— you’re under no delusions, you wouldn’t last a second in a fight, not with someone like Turner, especially not with your head still lapsing into drug-induced stupor.

But this isn’t a fight. It’s a slaughter, a butcher standing over the laughing lamb, trying to figure out how to make it stop . It’s easy to beat someone who isn’t fighting back. And he knows that, and that’s what he’s getting off on.

Breaking you. Forcing you to do what he’s done.

You hear Emily’s vaguely impressed whistle. You could break someone’s foot with those shoes.

You drive your blocky heel down hard on his Achilles tendon, and you hear a snap.

God, you never wanted to be a doctor…

He’s definitely awake now, and he doesn’t even cry, just goes on breathing his wheezy little surprised breaths, like he's waking up to a pleasant morning while regaining his bearings.

You stomp again, on the other foot, and you feel his leg give way.

And he’s then he's laughing and crawling towards her, eyes wide, crawling on his elbows and knees and reaching out—

You stomp again, breaking his knees, and then again across his shoulders, angry— so fucking angry and frenzied but you have to stay calm, stay accurate—

The shoes are heavy, you'd cursed yourself for it while running with them, but now... You break his shoulders, and he curls on the ground, limp, still laughing and breathing wheezy, nose whistling breaths and still staring at Izzy and oh god —

You scramble as far away from him as you can, over to Isabella. “Izzy,” you whisper, shoving that ugly feeling inside you deep down, under lock and key. You tear off your shirt and press it against her slashed throat. No arteries cut, you think, you haven’t seen any arterial spray, but you can't be sure, your vision is still so blurry… pressure, right, you just need to control the bleeding. “Bells, baby, talk to me. Can you breathe?”

“Y--yes,” she whispers, eyes filling with tears. 

“Okay,” you say, calm as you can manage, which isn’t very calm at all because even though you’re the adult in this situation you’re just a kid and— “Okay. Can you feel blood in your lungs?”

“No,” she says.

Your hands are covered in her blood now, so you switch to pinning the sides of her neck down with your knees. “Okay, honey— I’m going to scream. Don’t panic, okay? The important thing is not to panic, and tell me if you ever can’t breathe or feel anything weird, okay? Can you do that for me?”

“I think—” she whispers, and you hear burbling and oh fuck —

Because blood in her airway means that something is very, very wrong.

“It’s okay, I’m gonna scream now,” you tell her, and you’re not a fucking doctor , but you know how to scream and you know that you’re going to be found soon and if you can speed that up—

"Help ,” you scream, high and trilling and as loud as you can make it. You pull down the shirt a little in the middle so you can see her trachea. "We need an ambulance— Fire!”

And then you stop, because you see it— the tiny slash in her airway. 

“Ellie,” you spare the moment to whisper, irrationally. “Bells?”

She’s not breathing. 

You hope to god that it’s just her tongue in the way as you place your bloody hands on her face and thrust, blowing a breath into her mouth.

(Her blood slides against your lips and you can taste it, coppery and thick—)

You hear more burbling, and your heart sinks. You press your fingers against the cut, blood soaked skin sliding against blood soaked flesh and god you never wanted to be a doctor, and here you are with your hands inside Ella’s neck —

You switch to an ear-piercing whistle as you rummage in your pockets, because you have your reusable straw somewhere—

You yank the straw with your teeth, fumbling for her wrist with your free hand. You’re not a doctor, and you don’t think you’ve ever seen an emergency intubation in real life, but her airway is blocked and her neck is cut and she isn’t breathing and there’s a goddamn hole in her throat —

You breathe out again, and listen with frustrated tears in your eyes as blood once again bubbles against your fingers. Your hysterical sobs are threatening to leak out, held back only by the faint thumping of her heart underneath your fingers.

And then you hear the sirens. "Help,” you scream again, "Her throat’s cut! Paramedics! We need a goddamn medic!”

It’s not working, Ella still isn’t breathing and there’s still blood in her airway so you—

You stick the straw down her throat and pray to god that you aren’t fucking this up.

You’re dimly aware of Morgan and Reid bursting into the room. 

“Medics are almost here,” Reid tells you, before you can ask. “What can I do?”

You… don’t know.

Oh gods.

“Keep her pulse,” you rasp, hunched over, shaking, knees applying pressure and ear bent towards her neck. “I… you know any first aid?”

“You’re doing good,” he promises, Ellie’s wrist in hand. Reid immediately starts applying pressure to the gaping hole on her leg, and oh, that’s probably a good idea, why hadn’t you thought of that? If there’d been an artery hit it would’ve been there and god you’re stupid-- “You’re doing good. Hear those sirens? Medics are going to be here at any second, you’re doing great, just keep on breathing with me, keep on counting—”

You cling on, listening to his voice and breathing and— 

“Move,” somebody orders, and thank fuck, you almost sob as they take over from you.

You collapse back on the floor, shaking like a leaf, hands bloody and knees bloody and your shoes are bloody and your hair and face are bloody and — You watch, numbly, as Morgan figures out how to arrest Ivan when he’s— you crippled him— And he’s still staring at you, nose still whistling as he breaths, smile etched on his face.

Oh god, you need to get away.

You shudder, scramble back, and shut your eyes, huddling yourself in the corner you’d found Ella cowering in. You press your back against the wall, shivering as her blood dries tacky on your skin. You hear Reid approaching, and you tense, but he stops several feet away.

“It’s okay,” he says, and you feel very much like you’re being treated like some sort of wild animal. “He’s gone. Ella’s on her way to the hospital. It’s okay.”

You start shaking a little harder, but it’s more out of relief than anything else. Maybe a little from the cold.

“It’s okay,” he repeats, softer. “Let it out.”

You shake your head, because you know you should probably get to a hospital— or the station— wash this blood off you— let Ella’s family know— give your statement— change your clothes— check on Ella— blood is so difficult to wash out— you need to know if Ella is okay— you’ll have to throw out these clothes if you let the blood dry, which is shame, you'd really liked this skirt…

“Let it out,” he repeats, settling down cross-legged in front of you. “We can stay here as long as you like, okay? You don’t need to do anything else. It’s okay.”

So you finally let yourself cry.

You huddle against the walls in your corner, side against the table, Reid standing (sitting) guard in front of you. 

The door bursts open again, and you flinch—

And then Reid is talking, quickly, telling them to leave you be. You sob a little harder.

He settles back down, just far enough that you don’t feel boxed in and he says, “I’ll keep them away.”

“Thank you,” you say quietly, barely a whisper.

His eyes soften. “Do you want me to go?”

You shake your head, almost surprising yourself with how genuine the sentiment is.

“Then I’ll stay,” he says, reaching out a hand before jerking back, abrupt— and you think it’s because you’re covered in blood, but then you look at him, and he’s covered in blood too.. “For as long as you need.”

“You can…” you say, suddenly realizing what he was doing. “You can come closer, if you want. It’s okay, if it’s you.”

He pauses, and then scoots over, tentative, like he’s intruding on something sacred. “Are you sure?”

And you think… maybe— 

maybe he wants this just as much as you do, and you glance up at him and even though you’re quivering like a leaf, he’s still looking at you like you’re the strongest thing he’s seen--

You wrap your arms around his waist and cling, hands crossed at the wrists, face pressed against his back.  His hands flit around your upper arms before he settles firmly on your hands, gently intertwining his fingers with yours.

You suddenly become aware of the fact that you are very, very tired. You feel yourself slipping into the numb blackness and... it’s mostly sheer relief— because you did okay, everything’s okay— the tide washes over you, welcoming, pulling you under...

But all of the sudden, the blood isn’t just an abstract concept anymore. It’s sticky and it’s heavy, and it’s drying thick in your eyelashes and your knees and you can taste it at the corner of your mouth—

“Get it off,” you plead, words half slurred with exhaustion, squeezing his hands in yours, “Get it off me.”

So there, in your pretend fortress, holding hands and face pressed into his lap, you fall asleep.

"How'd she get out?" Morgan says, studying the cage, more to himself than anyone. Reid stares him down anyways, because you'd just fallen asleep and-- whoops. Not anymore. He feels his stare turn into a glare.

You start laughing. "It was," you say, and then have to stop to giggle. "It was a master lock."

Yeah, that'd do it.

"She’s a smart kid,” Rossi says.

“Yeah,” Spencer agrees.

He focuses on cleaning the blood from your face. You’d seemed bothered by that part the most.

Your clothes probably aren't salvageable at this point. He doesn’t think you’d keep them, even if they were. He’s halfway through removing your blood-soaked tights before the rest of his brain (the small part that isn’t stressed over your immediate wellbeing) kicks in.

He stops, blinks, and then realizes that he should probably get Emily in here to do this instead.

Rossi is definitely grinning, but he at least has enough tact to continue the conversation instead of straight up laughing at him. “Isabella’s going to recover. She wouldn’t have survived long enough for the paramedics if she hadn’t done what she did.”

“You should be telling this to her,” Reid says finally, looking up.

“I think she’d rather hear it from you,” Rossi says. He stands up, turning towards the door. “I’ll tell Emily to step in.”

“...thanks,” Spencer says. He goes back to rubbing away the bloodstain at the corner of your mouth. Evidence of what you’d done to keep Isabella alive.  

“...Reid?” you murmur slowly, blinking.

“That’s my name,” he says, cotton pad resting against the side of your face. “How are you feeling?”

“Good,” you say, eyes hazy and unfocused, but determined. “Where…?”

“Greenhouse five,” Reid says, watching you closely.

You blink rapidly, trying to get a grip through the fog. “What’s...?”

“Turner’s in custody, we’re going to take you to the hospital, get you checked over,” Reid says, biting the inside of his cheek. “Okay?”

Your eyes snap to his, instantly clear and alert. “And—”

“Alive and stable,” he says. “You saved her life. Paramedics said they wouldn’t have done anything different.”

“Good,” you say, falling back, and this time he hears the relief in your voice. “I’m glad.”

He squeezes your hand.

“Let’s get you to the car,” Emily says. 

You both start.

Prentiss suppresses a smile. “But first I’m guessing you want out of those clothes, huh? Reid—”

“Stays,” you say. “Please.”

To her credit, Emily doesn’t even blink. “Of course. Reid, catch.”

He snatches the fabric out of the air before it hits the ground. He recognizes it. It’s his. He has a terrible suspicion that he knows exactly whose jacket Prentiss has tucked under her arms too. “Emily—”

You tug at his elbow before he can finish. He hands over the shirt without a fight.

“How did you even get my clothes?” he says, hyper aware of the shuffling of fabric behind his back as you get changed. This feels insensitive, but, well, maybe the normalcy will get your mind off of everything.

“What?” Emily razzes. “Don’t want to share?”

You laugh, so maybe Emily's approach really does work. Okay then, he can commit to a bit. Maybe they all need a little bit of a break anyways. They'd gotten too close this case.

"No!!" he protests, "Not! That!! But how--"

His words die in his throat as he sees you. You do a little twirl, jacket almost hilariously large on you. 

“How do I look, Mr. FBI-man?” you tease, a silly little grin on your face. You almost smack yourself in the face as the shades slip down your nose. How on earth did Emily get his shades? “You may not like it, but this is what peak fashion looks like.”

He really hates how online you are.