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cloudlessly-light · 1 year

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Hello🤗 I have a request.

It's not smut (weird from me lmao)

So they are with an unsub, and this unsub is like "torturing" aaron. it could be something personal like foyet because hotch is like tied up end blah blah.

Emily comes and she is like "shoot me" or she puts a gun to her head to distract the unsub in order to save aaron. the team arrives and shoot the unsub and blah blah and hotch is like "you never point a gun at your head again to save me. i'd rather get shoot twenty times over than ever see you do that again".

It could be something like what happened in season 6 of grey's anatomy but him is awake and not in an OR lol.

I saw it on tiktok and i thought it could be really cool

A/N: I hope that you like this, it was definitely out of my comfort zone but fun to write!

Title: If the world would ever stop Rating: T Summary: "Shoot me." It wasn’t supposed to go down like this. They were supposed to catch a murderer and go home, it was supposed to be a fast case done in a couple of days. He had never been so wrong. Warnings: Violence, canon typical violence, guns, knifes, mentions of blood, swearing

Six days ago

“Alright my friends, you’re all going to Wisconsin.” Penelope turned the screen on as soon as the team had sat down around the table, all reaching for the files in the middle of it. “Green Bay have had five men shot once in the back of the head and disposed of in garbage bags…” She stops like she always does she when a particular detail filled her with horror. “Multiple garbage bags actually.”

“The ME concluded that the dismemberment was done postmortem.” Aaron continued for her. “The rate of the kills have escalated from a month apart between the first two victims, to just one week between victim four and five.” He looks around the team as they nod along, already getting ready to stand up.

“The locals are worried that they won’t catch him until another body drops.” Derek finishes and Aaron nods.

“They want us there as soon as possible, we’ll work on the profile on the plane.” He stands when the rest of his team does. He looks to his left at Emily and lets his hand move to the small of her back. “I’ll call Jessica.”

“Sounds good.” She moves away but not without grabbing his hand and squeezing it, a small gesture of affection before she leaves the room like everybody else.

Five days ago

They had hit the ground running, the profile given as early as the same day thanks to evidence and the police work already done but no one had any idea how to catch the unsub.

“I don’t know honey, something feels off. Like we’re missing something.” He sighs as he lets her into their hotel room.

“So you’ve said.” Emily turns to him as he comes to stand in front of him. “It’s been one day, in the morning things will seem clearer.” She reaches to push some hair that’s fallen over his forehead and he smiles at the gentle gesture.

“You’re right.” He kisses her, lingers against her as they finally give in to the urge of each other. He feels her hand stroke along his jaw, grabs at his suit to push it off his shoulder.

“How about we shower, I show you just how much I love you, and then we’ll try and get some sleep?” She mumbles with an arched eyebrow, her eyes playful as she continues to push at his jacket until it falls to the floor.

“I like the sound of that.”

Four days ago

“There’s no surveillance footage, there’s no car, there’s nothing to go by.” Penelope tells them and the sighs are heard throughout the conference room.

“There’s no pattern to the disposal sites either.” Spencer says as he puts red stickers on the map. “No witnesses, nothing.”

Emily leans on her hand as she looks around at her team, all of them tired, all of them trying to find anything to go by. She looks to Aaron who sits across from her, his eyebrows are furrowing, the lines on his face deeper than she’d seen them in months.

“We’ll catch him.” She says to no one in particular but his eyes find hers. “We always do.”

It was a lie and they all knew it, but it seemed to be enough for them to push through.

Three days ago

Aaron silently puts the takeaway cup of coffee in front of her. They were no closer to catching the unsub than they had been when they got there three days ago. They had a profile, they were sure of it, but it wasn’t enough to go on.

“Thank you.” Emily smiles and takes a sip of the coffee, not caring that it was too hot. “Any leads?”

“Nothing.” Dave says as he sits down beside her while Aaron remains standing.

“It’s like he’s a ghost.” JJ mutters as her forehead rests on the table in front of her.

“No killer is uncatchable.” Dave reassures them. “He will make a mistake.”

“And by the time he does, we’ll have another man dead.” Derek says, the morbid thought having already been on everybody’s mind.

Two days ago

“He clearly has a type, he kills white men between the ages 40 and 50. They must represent someone in his life.” Derek looks through the file for what could possibly be the twentieth time that day as he massages his temples.

“We know that, what we don’t know is why.” Emily feels just as frustrated, what had seemed like an easy case was taking longer than any of them thought. “He kills them execution style, it’s cold, detached even.”

“But then he chops them up and puts them in garbage bags all over the city.”

“That could just be a way to easier dispose of the bodies.” Spencer adds before taking a sip of his coffee.

“I don’t know…” Emily starts as she looks at the crime scene photos from the first scene. “There’s something more to it.”

“What are you thinking?” Aaron asks as he walk into the conference room they were in, Dave and JJ in tow. He sits beside her and immediately sees the tension in her body. He puts his hand on her knee and her leg stops bouncing as she gives him a grateful smile.

“I’m not sure, but I think if we figure that out, we’ll figure him out.”

Yesterday

It was late, almost midnight when the team finally decided to get some rest, all of them frustrated at the lack of progress. They had all gotten back to the hotel, exhaustion etched into all of them as they muttered good night before disappearing into their rooms.

“You’re right, something feels off.” Emily says through a yawn as she pulls her shirt over her head.

“I hate saying this, but if we do get another victim we’ll have more to go on.” He answers as he looks through his pockets. “I forgot my phone in the car.” He sighs heavily, his own enervation clear. “I’ll be right back.”

“Okay honey.” She stamps a quick kiss on his lips, already moving towards the bathroom.

He sighs again as he grabs the keycard and heads back out toward the deserted parking lot. It’s quiet outside, dark and cold from the fall weather and he shivers as he hurries towards the SUV. He’s quick to grab his phone and is about to turn around, wanting to get in the shower with his fiancé. He’s barely able to take two steps before he suddenly feels something hard in the back of the head, and then everything is black.

Emily gets out of the shower and wraps a towel around her body. She had expected Aaron to join her after grabbing his phone but she had seen his exhaustion, she felt it as well and didn’t fault him for going straight to bed. She expects to find him on their bed sound asleep, something that happens sometimes on cases. But then she opens the door and he isn’t there and she immediately knows something is wrong. She reaches for her phone and dials his number and it goes to voicemail, calls again and the same thing happens.

She rushes through getting her clothes back on and hurries out to where they had parked the car. When she reaches it she can feel the blood turn to ice in her veins. The door was open, Aaron’s phone on the ground next to a small puddle of blood.

It’s too familiar, felt too much like when she got to his apartment and Foyet had attacked him, the panic feels the same, the worry for the man she loved almost all consuming. She runs back inside the hotel and bangs on the door next to their room.

“Prentiss what the hell… what’s going on?” Derek asks, his irritation quickly turning to concern when he sees the panicked look on his friend’s face.

“It’s Aaron… he’s gone.”

Present day

When he wakes up the first thing he notices is the headache, a sharp pain that made his eyes unfocused. The next thing he realize is that he’s tied to a chair, arms secured behind his back and ancles tied to the legs of the chair with zip ties that cut painfully into his skin.

“He’s a fed that was not the plan.” He hears a voice, male and low, almost a whisper and Aaron looks around. He’s in a warehouse, empty and dirty but the smell of blood prominent, making him nauseous.

“I- I didn’t know.” Another voice sounded form somewhere behind him, this one shaking, scared.

Through the pounding in his head, Aaron realizes that this is what they’ve been missing. There was two of them, a team, and from the sound of it they seemed like a typical dominant submissive partnership. He hears a bang, followed by a whimper and he thinks the first man hit the second one.

“One more fuck up like this and I’m getting rid of you.” The voice is closer now and Aaron can hear the sound his steps coming at him. “Look who’s awake.”

Emily is pretty sure her heartrate won’t ever return to normal, at least not until she sees Aaron. If she ever sees him again, a voice in the back of her head sounds and she does her best to ignore it as they wait for Penelope to hack to the surveillance camera that covered the parking lot.

“Okay here it is!” Penelope pulls up the footage and all of them watch in horror as Aaron is attacked from behind and collapses on the ground. A man dressed in a black hoodie gets him up and pulls him into a car and drives off. It’s little to go on, but it’s something, she thinks as the license plate shimmers under the streetlight.

She feels JJ’s comforting hand on her shoulder and she fights every urge not to shrug it off. She didn’t want their pity of comfort, she wanted her fiancé back.

“Can you track the license plate?” Dave asks as they hear Penelope typing on the other side of the screen.

“Already on that.” She answers and not for the first time, Emily is thankful for the blonde always thinking one step ahead. “Okay the car belongs to a Stewart Smith, not much on him but he has an older brother Nathan Smith and let me tell you he’s a real piece of work…”

As Penelope starts telling them about the Smith brothers, Emily realizes that this was the break they needed to find them. A location to a house and to a warehouse quickly being found as Penelope dug deeper They had made a mistake, and now the team had an address. She just hoped it wasn’t too late.

Aaron groaned as a fist connected to his cheekbone, his head flying back with the force of it.

“They’ll kill you. My team, they’ll find you.” He spat at the floor, blood trailing from his split lip from a previous hit. His body was aching, his head was spinning but he refused to give in to them.

“Your team? Look around, you’re all alone.” Nathan cocked his head to the side. “We’ve gotten away with this for over a month, and we’ll get away with this as well. But we’re going to have some fun first.”

Aaron felt the feeling of the cold steel cutting into his shoulder and he flinched before looking to the other man. He was younger, avoided eye contact as he pulled the knife back to look at the blood covered blade.

“So this is what you do?” He looked to Nathan. “You shoot them and then have him cut up the remains?”

“Stewart here have always enjoyed the blood more.” He looked to his brother who still kept his eyes on his knife. “I enjoy the kill, he likes the cleanup.”

Aaron sucked in a breath as the knife dug itself into the flesh of his arm again, slowly and shallowly. Somewhere in the midst of the pain he realized that this was the first time Stewart had gotten to cut someone while they were still alive and as much as it hurt he knew that this gave his team more time to find him.

“You forget that you messed up tonight. That parking lot has cameras.” He smirks as Nathan’s eyes flashed to the younger mans before he gets out his gun and points it at Aaron.

“You talk too much.” He pulls off the safety. “No one knows we’re here.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Emily says as she comes out from the back where she had sneaked in. She held her gun up and aimed it at Nathan while her eyes moved frantically from the unsubs to Aaron. “You messed up taking him. Put the gun down.”

“I swear I’ll shoot his brains out right here.” He pressed the gun to Aaron’s temple and Emily fights everything in her not to shoot him. She knows it’s too big of a risk, that if she shot Nathan he could still pull the trigger or Stewart could use the knife. She looked to the younger man, he looked terrified as he looked between her and his brother.

“You don’t want to do that.” She doesn’t know how her voice doesn’t shake as she walks a few steps closer. “Then I’d shoot you and then Stewart, is that what you want?”

“No, we are getting out of here.” His voice gets louder as she gets closer. “Don’t think I won’t shoot, bitch.” He sees the way Aaron tenses out of the corner of his eye just as Emily lowers her gun.

“How about this, don’t shoot him. Shoot me.” She lets her gun hang loosely from her hand and Nathan raises an eyebrow in surprise.

“Emily don’t!” Aaron yells but she ignores him and keeps her eyes locked on Nathan.

“If you have to shoot anybody, shoot me.”

“Why would you do that?” He asks, gun still pressed to Aaron’s temple.

“Because I love him.” She says as she finally looks at Aaron, her eyes filling with tears as she once again raises her gun and points it at her own head.

Aaron starts fighting the restraints desperately but is stopped when a fist hits him in the stomach, knocking the air out of him.

“Let him go, shoot me.” Emily says again and she sees Nathan slowly lower his gun.

It’s the sound of a gun going off behind them that sets everything off. Derek and JJ are coming up behind Aaron, guns drawn as Derek hits Nathan while JJ keeps her gun on Stewart, the man dropping his knife the moment he sees his brother fall to the floor. He lets out a scream as he hurries to Nathan’s side, all of them knowing that Stewart wouldn’t last long without his older brother to guide him. Derek pulls his arms behind his back and forces them into cuffs while Emily rushes to Aaron.

“Are you okay?” She cuts the zip ties quickly and the moment he’s free he pulls her into his arms, holding her tighter than his body really allowed him to.

“I’m okay.” He whispers as her tears soak through his shirt and mixes with the blood already there.

Emily only pulls back when Derek clears his throat.

“Took you guys long enough.” She huffs and wipes her cheeks. They had entered from different points, figuring that distracting the unsubs would be their best bet and Emily refused not to be the one going in first.

“This place is like a maze.” JJ tells her and she sees the relief on the blonde. “Come on, the ambulance is waiting and I want to get out of here.”

“Give us a minute.” Aaron tells them as Derek starts to lead Stewart out with JJ following close behind. When he turns back to Emily she’s already looking him over for whatever damage they had done to him.

“I’ve never been more scared in my life.” She tells him and he hears the way her voices trembles, sees all the emotion she’s forcing herself to hold back until they’re home, safe behind closed doors.

“I need you to listen to me,” He gently cradles her face to make sure that she’s looking at him. "You will never point a gun at your head again to save me do you hear me? I’d rather get shoot twenty times over than ever see you do that again." Emily tries to shake her head as her eyelids close. “Emily you can’t do that again.”

She looks back at him and she sees the desperation in his eyes, the hurt of having to picture his life without her and she inhales slowly. It had been a distraction, but she knew that in that moment she would have shot herself if it meant saving him.

“I can’t promise that.” She whispers and he sighs. “And I know that’s not something you can promise me either.” Her hands comes to cover his on her cheeks and pulls them away to hold them in hers.

“Emily…”

“Are you saying that you won’t?”

“No, but I…” He stops and takes a breath, trying to calm the lingering anxiety from seeing her hold the gun to her head. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“And hopefully we won’t ever come to that until we’re old and gray sitting in wheelchairs.” She smiles and she sees the corner of his lip tug upwards. “But until then, all we can do is promise to try and keep each other safe.” When he nods she pulls him into a gentle kiss, foregoing the taste of blood in favor of feeling his lips against hers but still careful of his split lip. “Come one, the ambulance is waiting.” She takes his hand and pulls him with her.

“Emily I’m really fine…” He stops speaking when she turns to look at him with stern eyes. He knew there was no point of arguing with her and instead decided to follow along.

Three broken ribs, a concussion and a lot of bruises, that’s what the Smith brothers had done to him. Emily refuses to leave his side, sleeps besides him after forcing him to stay overnight at the hospital, sits next to him on the plane ride home.

“I love you.” She whispers against his ear quietly. The rest of the team asleep on the plane.

“I love you too.” He kisses her, a promise in his kiss as he holds her close.

“Let’s get married when we get home. I don’t want to wait.” She grips his hand tight with excitement.

“Yeah?” He smiles and gently nuzzles her nose. “This isn’t because I almost died?”

“Oh it most certainly is. But I want to be your wife, I want to marry you.” She kisses him, lingers against his lips until they hear someone coughing beside them.

“Did someone say wedding?” Dave asks, already holding the champagne he had hid in the jet months ago.

#hotchniss #hotchniss fanfiction #criminal minds fanfiction #aaron hotchner x emily prentiss smut #hotch x emily #emily prentiss #aaron hotchner

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bonniebird · 3 years

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Scott x McCall!Reader

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Part One

Part Two

Stiles nibbled at his fingers. Scott was sitting beside him, having burst into the sheriff’s office as soon as Stiles had gotten back. Scott had hoped that they’d managed to stop you and get you out of the strangers car. But that hadn’t happened.

Now nearly everyone was gathered around in the reception of the Sheriff's office as a plan was set into place. Stiles just wants to get up and move. It had been so long since you’d gone. Who had you been in the car with. What were you doing with them. Why had they even taken you in?

“Ok, listen up. We know what the car looks like. I’ve got the description over to Derek. He’s finding pictures of cars that might match. He’ll be bringing those to me and Stiles. Once we know what car to look for we check every security camera in town. They have (Y/N) and they drove right through town.” The Sheriff snapped. Melissa was sitting in his office with Lydia while Parrish refreshed the tip line website in front of him, in case anyone reported you.

It took Derek half an hour to put his list together. But it took Stiles less than two minutes to spot the right car. He stabbed his finger at the picture and looked up at Derek. “It’s a Chevrolet. I think an Impala it’s an old car so I’d have to double check with Peter. He wasn’t exactly helpful.” Derek muttered as he scribbled down the name of the car and started leaving.

“That’s it?” Stiles asked and Derek nodded.

“You have the picture of the car. That’s all you need for the security cameras right? If you want to actually find the car, you’re going to need more information about it.” Derek pointed out.

“That’s great. We’ll get started. If you get the information to Parrish he can put out an APB on the car.” The Sheriff said quickly. Derek nodded and hurried off.

“So now what?” Melissa asked.

“We gather all of the video camera footage and see if we can find that car, how (Y/N) got out of town and who she’s with.”

Melissa sighed as she nodded, looking up at her friend who had put as much work into finding her daughter as she imagined he would if it was Stiles.

“We should have tried better.” Melissa muttered to herself.

*****************************

An alert sound made Sam hurry to look at his phone. Then he fumbled around for his laptop. Dean glanced in the rearview mirror. You were still asleep. He glanced at his brother then back at the road when Sam let out a shaky sigh.

“You were right.” Sam muttered.

“About what?”

“Her. They finally filed a missing persons report. I got an alert.”

“You sure it’s her?” Dean asked as he glanced at you again. He’d tossed one of his spare jackets for you to use as a blanket and your head had slumped to the side, gently rattling against the Impala's window.

“Uhm… yeah. Picture looks like her. Maybe an old one? Her last name is McCall.” Sam said as he scrolled through.

“Anything in the family? How come they didn’t notice she was gone for this long?” Dean pressed. Sam started typing and they sat in silence for a while. The rain pattered gently on the windows and Dean started to hum to himself.

“The Mom is a nurse… the dad. Is split from the family and living somewhere else. He seems to be FBI.” Sam started and scrolled through. Another few minutes when by and Sam scoffed. “So get this. Her brother was flunking out of the Lacrosse team. Around the same time that there was a random series of wolf attacks, her brother improved, overnight according to his coach. Now he has several scholarships for college. Not only that. But there isn’t an updated picture for him, despite that fact that he’s captain of the team and won multiple seasons.”

“Well we know the kid isn’t a werewolf we checked. You think the brother is?” Dean asked.

“She said that his group doesn’t have time for him, they throw parties once a month and her Mom just forgets about her… I mean. What if the Mom knows about the werewolf thing.” Sam listed off and Dean tutted his tongue against his teeth.

“Think they’re putting all their time and effort into a pack of wolves and the kid what? Didn’t want to join?” Dean asked quickly.

“No. They wouldn’t let me help them. Or listen when I know what is going on. Or remember my birthday. As long as it’s to do with Scott. It’s the most important thing in the world.” You said sharply. You unbuckled yourself and opened the door beside you. Forcing Dean to break. You grabbed your bag and started walking.

“Hey! Kid. Hey!” Dean yelled as he sighed and hurried out of the car. “You can’t just walk off you don’t…”

“Don’t know what’s out here? Werewolves, vampires, witches. Hunters that annihilate whole peaceful supernaturals families for the challenge of it. I know what’s out here.” You assured him and kept walking.

“Hey look. I’m sorry that all that happened to you ok. It really sucks. But Bobby finds out that I let you walk off in a storm he’ll have my ass. You know how much he likes you.” Dean offered. You sighed and stopped. You liked Bobby. He’d met you twice. Once when Sam and Dean found you walking along the highway, when they tested you to see if you were anything but human. The second he’d found it you'd missed your birthday and had bought you an icecream cake and stuck some sad looking balloons to the front door. You’d loved it.

“So what, you’ll just make me go back.” You huffed as Sam hurried out in the rain to join the two of you.

“Well. No. Actually. We don’t have to send you back.”Sam pointed out. “Well legally. You can stay if you want and there isn’t much anyone can do to get you to go back. Also, from the hunting side of things. It’s not great if word gets out that we sent you home with a wendigo issue there, as well as three werewolf packs in one town. I know Ellen at least would kick your ass.”

“Yeah. Ellen and Jo would worry!” Dean added. Sam frowned at him and he shrugged.

“It really took them two weeks to put out a missing persons report.” You mumbled. Dean cleared his throat and moved to give you a hug. Sam chuckled when you objected but gave in.

“You know I think that urm, Garth is swinging by Bobby’s. We finished the case early so we could go?” Sam offered. Dean pulled a face as the three of you walked back to the car.

“Sure. I haven’t seen Garth for ages. Think Bobby is still mad at him for bringing me to him?” You asked and Dean grinned.

“Nah. Bobby wouldn’t be without you. Let’s get back. I’m pretty sure that part for your bike should be there by now.” Dean said cheerfully.

************************

“Wow.” Sam whispered when the two of you followed Dean inside. Dishes had piled up on the side. A wobbly piled of plastic containers from take out and microwave meals sat next to the overflowing bin.

“Hey Bobby!” Dean yelled gruffly. Bobby’s voice was coming from the back room where his desk and books were. You looked at Sam who raised his eyebrows and shrugged, following Dean through the house, dumping your bags on the way.

“Now you listen here officer. I don’t give a rats ass what you think. I found that girl with a busted up bike and not a dime in her pocket.” Bobby snapped as he moved through the house. He looked irritated and sounded more annoyed than you had ever heard him.

“Is Bobby… going to get arrested or something?” You asked and Sam frowned.

“You… chose to come here. We looked after you so. No, I don’t think so.” Sam answered quickly. You sat with Sam at the dining room table while Dean trailed after Bobby who was pacing the house.

“Well I don’t care much for Sheriff Stilnski.” Bobby said quickly.

“You’re not the first hunter to say that. Although you're the first, not evil hunter to say it.” You said, trying to raise the vibe of the room.

“So what’s going on.”

“Well they want to know where (Y/N) is and I told them that it isn’t up to me. It’s up to (Y/N). Which was when he lost his temper and threatened to say I’d kidnapped (Y/N).” Bobby explained gruffly. You shuffled uncomfortably in your seat. “Well. I told them I think it’s damn near neglectful to have a missing kid out here in a world with werewolves running loose and not report them missing for almost two months. If (Y/N) was mine I would have everybody looking, hell call up the devil and make a deal. Pointed out that you were lucky we found you and not some vamp or one of the nastier hunters. Shut him up real fast.” Bobby finished. You were gawking a little at Bobby and Dean leaned over to pop your mouth shut.

“You probably made them real mad Bobby.” You mumbled.

“And I care? Damn well cruel to have a favourite kid. These two idjits have been to hell and back, doesn't mean I get to play favourites.” Bobby said as he sipped his coffee, pulled a face as he realised it was cold and headed into the kitchen.

“You guys have been to hell?” You asked and they both nodded.

“So what’re you going to do?” Dean asked Bobby as he came back into the room.

“Well no doubt now they’re on Garth’s trail and they found me, they’ll be here at some point. You’re eighteen in less than ten months. Unless they’re breaking in here with some giant monster, you’re going where you want to go. And only there.” Bobby said firmly.

“Don’t knock it Bobby. Peter Hale is almost as big as Sam… kind of… when he’s the crazy giant wolf thing. I think.” You said and Sam laughed.

“Great observation skills, for a hunter.” He teased.

“Hey! You’re the one that got thrown at me by a ghost. How’d you miss that one?” You said back and started showing off the bump on your forehead from the moment the ghost had launched Sam at you.

“She’s got a point Sammy.” Dean said quickly, chuckling when Sam threw up his hands.

“You were yelling at me!”

“Because there was a ghost behind you! You could have squashed me, you’re huge.”

“I am not that big!” Sam objected.

“When you’re landing on my head you are!” You complained and laughed as Sam rolled his eyes while you pulled off the bandage that Dean had made from an old shirt. Bobby looked and played along, teasing Sam, even though it was a bruise that would be gone in a few days.

“Want to come with and get dinner? We could grab a movie.” Dean offered and you nodded.

“Sure but I’m picking the snacks, you’re total garbage at picking snacks.” You said as you grabbed at your bags, running them up to the spare room Bobby had cleared for you when you were there.

“Garbage! You weren’t saying that when we had marshmallow pizza yesterday.”

“Marshmallow pizza! Dean!” Sam said through a laugh, pulling a face at his brother.

“Look Sam, it’s not our fault you have bad taste.” You said as you rushed back down, shoving your jacket on as you rushed Dean along to the car. Bobby chuckled as he watched the two of you rush out.

“You know they’re just coming back with junk food?” Sam said as he declined the invitation to go with you both.

“Better than nothing. Think you could help me look through some books while they’re gone?”

“Yeah sure.” Sam asked as Bobby handed him an old journal. “Argent?”

“An old hunting buddy. Nasty piece of work. But his family had problems with some of the wolves that were living in (Y/N)’s hometown during the civil war. Figured it’d be a good idea to know what’s coming at us.” Bobby said quickly. Sam stared at the book for a moment before sighing and opening it.

#scott mccall #scott mccall x reader #bonniebird #teen wolf #supernatural

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selfignitingimagines · 3 years

Text

Stiles- If I Can’t Have You, No One Can (Obsessed Part 4)

A/N: When I was initally writing this series I had a set plan for where I wanted it to end and how. I was recently rewatching the last few episodes of season 2 and I got struck with some inspiration. Let me know down below if you guys want a part 5 so I can continue the series!

TRIGGER WARNING: Stalking, kidnapping

Here are the links for Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

“Right there!” Stiles cried, frantically gesturing toward the computer screen on his dad’s desk. “Stop! Stop! See? There he is again.”

They were scrolling through hours of security footage recorded at the hospital the night one of Matt’s victims was killed. So far, all they had managed to capture were shots of him with his back turned. This tape was no different.

“You mean there’s the back of his head again,” the Sheriff told him.

“Okay, but look. He’s talking to someone!”

Scott followed Stiles’ gaze. His eyes widened. “He’s talking to my mom.”

He hastily pulled out his phone out of his jeans and called his mom, hoping she would be able to confirm that it was Matt. Stiles tapped his foot nervously as they talked. His shoulders slumped in relief when he heard her say that Matt was the one she had seen.

“Alright,” the Sheriff said when she hung up. He picked up a manila evidence folder from his desk.

“We’ve got shoe prints alongside the tire tracks at the trailer site...”

“And if they match, that puts Matt at the scene of three murders,” Stiles said. “The trailer, the hospital, and the rave.”

“Actually four,” the Sheriff told him, flipping through the documents in the folder. “A credit card receipt for an oil change was signed by Matt a few hours before the murder.”

Stiles let out a sigh of relief. “Alright, Dad, if one’s an incident, two’s a coincidence, and three’s a pattern, what’s four?”

“Four’s enough for a warrant.”

Stiles curled his fist in triumph. “We can find Y/n.”

“Scott, call your mom back. See how quickly she can get here. If I can get an official ID, I can get a search warrant. Stiles, go to the front desk. Tell them to let Scott’s mom in when she gets here.”

“On it.” Stiles nodded hastily and turned down the hall.

His whole body was humming with adrenaline now. He had spent the whole night terrified, wondering what Matt was doing to you. Stiles knew you were probably betting on the fact that they would find you. After all, it was what he would have done in your situation.

You have saved each other plenty of times before, and now it was his turn again. He knew he could do it, he just wasn’t sure what Matt would do to you in the meantime.

Stiles had tried his best to protect you, but he knew it hadn’t been enough. He should have pushed harder when he suggested you go to the police the other night. He should have kept a closer eye on you at the party, but he had been too caught up in his own issues.

He tried to shake off those thoughts as he walked down the halls of the station, telling himself that he still had time to make up for it. He had told you the other night that everything he did was to keep you safe, and that was still true.

As he rounded the corner of the hall, Stiles realized that the officer on duty was no longer standing at the front desk.

“Hello?” he called, looking around for her.

That was when he noticed her black combat boot sticking out from behind the corner of the desk. He felt a shiver run down his spine, and he realized she was lying on the floor among a mess of fallen papers. Her eyes were wide open, but they weren’t moving, and her tan uniform was stained dark red with blood.

She was dead, but as Stiles took in the horrific sight, he also noticed another chilling detail. The holster on her hip was empty. Someone had taken her gun.

Stiles stumbled back, turning around, only to come face to face with you.“Y/n?”

Tears were slipping from your eyes, and your lip was trembling. You looked terrified, standing there in your disheveled dress. It was the same one you had been wearing at the party last night.

Matt was standing behind you, one hand one your shoulder as he pressed the dead officer’s gun into your back.

“If you make one move I’ll shoot her,” he told Stiles.

Stiles reluctantly held up his hands. “Okay. Okay, fine.”

“I’m sorry,” you mouthed, but he shook his head. You had to know this wasn’t your fault.

Matt kept the barrel of the gun pressed against your back as Stiles led you further into the station. He turned into his dad’s office, and you realized that the Sheriff and your brother were also there.

“Y/n!” Scott cried.

He started forward, but Matt ordered him to stop, waving the gun so he and the others could see it.

“Matt,” the Sheriff said slowly. He held up his hands.

“It’s Matt, right? Matt, whatever’s going on, I guarantee there’s a solution that doesn’t involve a gun.”

Matt’s lips curled into a sick grin. “You know it’s funny you say that, because I don’t think you’re aware of just how right you are.”

“I know you don’t wanna hurt people-”

“Actually, I wanna hurt a lot of people. You four weren’t on my list, but I could be persuaded...and one way is to try calling somebody on your cell phone like McCall is doing.”

Scott ripped his hand out of his pocket, looking between you and Stiles apologetically.

“That...that could definitely get someone hurt.”

“Everyone?” Matt gestured with the gun, and you knew he was telling them to give up their phones. “Now!”

“Come on,” the Sheriff told the boys calmly.

Stiles looked back at you.

“Pretty sure he tossed mine out the window last night,” you muttered.

Matt led the four of you to the tiny jail at the back of the station. There, he made Stiles handcuff his dad to a bench. You felt your stomach drop. Now the three of you were completely on your own with Matt.

He waved the three of you in front of him and forced you to walk up to the front of the station. As you passed by another hallway, you gasped.

Three other officers were lying in the hallway and all of them appeared to be dead. Their chests had been ripped open so forcefully that every wall around them was splattered with blood.

You looked away, fighting the urge to vomit.

“What, are you gonna kill everyone in here?” Scott demanded.

“No,” Matt said with a scoff. “That’s what Jackson’s for. I just think about killing them...and he does it.”

He forced you back into Stilinski’s office, where he made Stiles log into his dad’s computer. Matt had him delete every bit of evidence, including the video footage of him at the hospital. Scott was destroying the paper evidence in the shredder, including the shoe prints that would have matched Matt’s boots.

Stiles glared at Matt from behind the desk, wanting to rip him apart as he stroked his fingers down your hair. He had forced you to sit next to him on the couch, and you were currently staring intently at the tiled floor.

Stiles had already seen the bruises Matt had left on your throat. The only thing keeping him from jumping across that desk was the knowledge that Matt would have Jackson rip all of you to pieces at a moment’s notice.

“Deleted,” he told Matt bitterly, gesturing toward the computer. “And we’re done. So, Matt, since all the people you brutally murdered deserved it, because they killed you first-whatever that means-we’re good here, right? I’ll just get my dad and we’ll go. You know, you continue on the whole vengeance thing, enjoy the Kanima.”

Before he could respond, the glow of headlights swept through the windows. You could hear tires crunching on the gravel of the parking lot outside.

“Sounds like your mom’s here,” Matt told you and Scott.

“Matt, don’t do this,” you begged.

“When she comes to the door, we’ll just tell her to leave,” Scott added. “I’ll tell her we didn’t find anything! Please, Matt.”

The sound of the metal door creaking open echoed through the station, and Matt grinned. “If you don’t move now, I’m gonna kill Y/n first, and then your mom.”

He pressed the gun up against your back, and Scott glared at him. Matt pulled you up by the back of your dress and gestured for Scott and Stiles to go first.

“Open it,” he ordered Scott, when you had made your way back to the front lobby.

“Please,” Scott begged one more time.

“Open. The. Door,” Matt told him, enunciating each word carefully.

Scott reached out, shaking his head regretfully. When he turned the knob, the door slowly creaked open to reveal the person standing there. It wasn’t your mom, but Derek Hale.

“Oh thank god,” Scott breathed.

But Derek simply stared at him. Then, he pitched forward and slammed straight onto the floor below. Jackson was standing behind him, half transformed. He held up one scaly hand, still dripping with clear venom, and stalked into the lobby.

Matt walked over and knelt in front of Derek, flipping him on his back. He was now completely paralyzed.

“This is the one controlling him?” Derek asked from the floor. “This kid?”

“Well, Derek, not everyone’s lucky enough to be a big, bad werewolf.”

Matt straightened up, glancing between you, Scott, and Stiles. “That’s right! I’ve learned a few things lately. Werewolves, hunters, kanimas...it’s like a freakin’ halloween party every full moon.”

He smirked. “Except for you Stiles. What do you turn into?”

Stiles glared at him.

“Abominable snowman,” he snarked. “But it’s more of, like, a wintertime thing. You know...seasonal.”

Matt rolled his eyes, and in seconds, Jackson was swiping his claws across the back of Stiles neck.

“Hey!” you cried.

“Bitch,” Stiles swore at Matt, before his knees went out from under him. He crashed onto the ground, right on top of Derek’s chest.

“Get him off of me,” Derek growled.

Matt laughed. “Oh, I don’t know, Derek. I think you two make a pretty good pair. It must suck though, having all that power taken away from you with just a little cut to the back of the neck. I bet you’re not used to feeling this helpless.”

Derek glared up at him from the floor. “Still got some teeth. Scoot down here a little closer, huh? We’ll see how helpless I am.”

“Yeah, bitch.”

Stiles’ voice was muffled from being facedown against Derek’s chest, but you couldn’t help but smile.

For the second time that night, headlights flashed through the windows of the sheriff’s station. You could hear another car pulling to a stop outside.

“Is that your mom?” Matt asked. “Do what I tell you to, and I won’t hurt her. I won’t even let Jackson near her.

“Scott, don’t trust him,” Stiles mumbled into Derek’s shirt.

Scott remained frozen in front of the door, but Matt was impatient. He reached forward, snatching you by your hair and tugging you back against him. He wrapped his arm around your neck, squeezing against your windpipe and cutting off your breath.

“This work better for you?” he asked Scott.

You reached up, scratching at his arms, but he didn’t even flinch.

“Okay, stop, just stop,” your brother begged.

“Then do what I tell you to!” Matt spat.

“Okay, alright, stop!”

Matt finally let you go, right as you were on the verge of blacking out. You hit the floor on your hands and knees, gasping and dizzy from the lack of oxygen.

“You,” Matt said, gesturing to Jackson. “Take them in there. You two, with me.”

He yanked you up off the ground by your arm, and gestured for Scott to open the door as Jackson hauled Derek and Stiles out of the lobby.

When the door finally opened, Matt pulled you behind the corner of the hallway. You could hear the door squeaking open, and your mom asking “Scott?”

You were trembling as Matt held you back against his chest. What would he do to your mom?”

“You scared me,” you heard her say. “Where is everyone?”

That was when Matt shoved you out in front of him. Your mom gasped your name. As far as she had known, you were still missing.

When she saw Matt come out behind you and press the gun against your back, she froze.

“Mom,” Scott told her nervously. “Just do what he says. He promised he wouldn’t hurt you.”

“He’s right,” Matt agreed.

Then, he raised the gun, and shot Scott in the stomach. You and your mom both screamed, but as she rushed forward, Matt pointed the gun at you.

“But I didn’t say I wouldn’t hurt him.”

Scott was holding himself up using the wall, just barely managing to not fall to his knees. He had one hand pressed against his side, and blood was beginning to pool through his shirt. You knew he would heal from the gunshot wound, but your mom didn’t.

She tried to step forward, but Matt waved the gun.

“Back! Back!” he ordered.

“Mom,” Scott choked. “Mom, do it. Please mom.”

You could hear Stiles' dad from all the way at the back of the station. He had undoubtedly heard the gunshot.

“Matt! Matt, listen to me-!”

“Shut up!” Matt roared. “Shut up! Everybody shut the hell up!”

He gestured to Scott before training the gun back on you. “Get up, or I shoot your sister next.”

“Please,” your mom begged. Tears were running down her cheeks. “He needs to see a doctor.”

Matt tilted his head. “You think so?”

“It’s alright,” Scott insisted. “I’m okay.”

“No, sweetie, you’re not,” your mom insisted.

She began to babble about how he was just feeling the adrenaline, how he needed to get to the hospital. You looked over at your brother, and he met your eyes. There was no way he was going to be able to keep his secret after this, provided you all made it out alive.

“They have no idea, do they?” Matt asked you.

You didn’t answer him. Your mom was still trying to convince Matt to let her take Scott to the hospital.

“Lady, if you keep talking, I’m going to put the next bullet in her head.”

He raised the gun to your skull. Your breath caught in your throat when you felt the barrel of the gun against your skin.

Your mom took a deep breath, and held up her hands. Tears were streaming down her face, leaving wet lines of black mascara. “Okay...okay.”

Matt shoved you in front of him, pushing you down the hall. He paraded you back through the station, and locked your mom into the cell next to the bench Stilinski was cuffed to.

When Matt shut the cell door, your mom reached out through the bars, grasping your hand tightly. “You’re okay?”

You nodded, tears slipping from your own eyes. “I’m okay. Stiles and Scott made sure I was safe.”

“Back to the front McCall!” Matt barked. “Both of you!”

You glanced back at your mom reluctantly as Matt shoved you in front of him. He walked behind you and your brother as you headed out into the hallway. Then, he herded you into the station breakroom.

There were a few tables and some chairs, but even though you were exhausted, you were too afraid to sit down. Scott leaned against one of the tables, still grasping his bloody side. You guessed the wound wasn’t fully healed yet. If the bullet hadn’t exited, it wouldn’t be able to close unless someone pulled it out.

“The evidence is gone,” Scott told him. “Why don’t you just go?” Matt raised his eyebrows. “You really think the evidence mattered that much? No. No, I want the book.”

“What book?” Scott asked him,

“The bestiary!” Matt snarled. “And not just a few pages. I want the entire thing.”

“I don’t have it. It’s Gerard’s. You told him that, didn’t you?” He was looking at you now. You shrugged. “I tried.”

Scott glanced back over at Matt. “What do you need it for, anyway?”

“I need answers.”

“Answers to what?”

Frustrated, Matt yanked up the edge of his shirt, revealing his scale-covered side. “To this!”

Scott’s eyes went wide. If Matt was turning into another kanima, there was nothing stopping him from killing whoever he wanted. When you looked at your brother’s face, you had the sneaking suspicion that you two would be next on his list.

------

Stiles laid on the floor of the station, staring up at the ceiling. The tiled floor was cold against his back, which was a welcome relief considering sweat was dripping down his neck. He wasn’t sure whether it was just hot in the station, or if he was nervous. If he was being honest, it was both.

He and Derek had been lying there for what felt like hours, but Stiles knew it was probably only thirty minutes.

“Hey,” he said, breaking the silence. “Do you know what’s happening to Matt?”

“I know the book’s not gonna help him,” Derek said grimly. “You can’t just break the rules. Not like this.”

Stiles tried to look over at him from the corner of his eye.

“What do you mean?”

“The universe balances things out. It always does.”

“Is it because he’s using Jackson to kill people who don’t deserve it?”

“And killing people himself,” Derek added.

Stiles thought for a moment. “So if he breaks the rules of the Kanima, he becomes the Kanima?”

“Balance,” Derek agreed.

“Will he believe us if we tell him that?”

“Probably not.”

Stiles sighed. “Okay, he’s gonna kill all of us once he gets that book, isn’t he?”

“Yep...except for maybe Scott’s sister.”

Stiles gritted his teeth. “I’m gonna kick his ass the second I can move again.”

“That’s a great way to get her throat ripped out too.”

Stiles didn’t respond. He knew Derek was right, but a part of him wanted to go after Matt without thinking about the consequences. He knew he had left those bruises on your neck. He knew that the minute you shattered Matt’s fantasy, he would kill you too. He had to do something before that happened.

“I know you’re in love with her.”

Stiles swallowed at Derek’s words. “Maybe.”

“I can tell. I know you’d do anything to save her, but right now, we need to be smarter.”

“Alright,” Stiles relented. “So what do we do? Do we just sit here and wait to die?”

“Unless I can figure out a way to push the toxin out of my body faster, like triggering the healing process.”

“Wha-”

He glanced down, only to realize that Derek’s claws were now protruding from his fingers. They had grown into his jeans, right into his skin, where blood was beginning to ooze.

Stiles gagged. “Oh, gross.”

-----

Back in the breakroom of the station, Matt shook his head, letting his shirt fall back down. He glanced between you and Scott.

“You know, I feel sorry for you guys. Cause right now you’re probably thinking ‘How am I gonna explain this when it heals?’. And the sad part is, you don’t even realize how incredible it is that you are healing. Cause you know what happens to anyone else when they get shot? They die!”

You and Scott exchanged uneasy glances.

“Is that what happened to you?” your brother asked.

Matt was silent. He was staring at the ground, but he didn’t look as vicious as he had earlier. He actually seemed kind of tired. Scott seemed to notice this too, so he continued to press.

“You drowned, didn’t you?”

“He shouldn’t have let them drink,” Matt muttered, still staring at the floor.

“What?” you asked. “Who? Matt, what do you mean?”

“Lahey!” He suddenly exploded. “He shouldn’t have let them drink.”

You flinched back, closer to your brother.

“What?” Scott asked. “Who was drinking?”

“The swim team, you idiot! I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know they had just won State…”

You and Scott listened to Matt as he went on and on. He explained how, when he was in eighth grade, he had been heading over to Isaac’s to trade comics. Mr. Lahey was throwing a party for his swim team and letting them drink around the pool. All of Matt’s victims had been there. Tucker, Cara, Bennett, even Jessica and Shawn, the married couple.

They were joking around when Matt came into the backyard, tossing each other into the pool. Isaac’s brother Camden decided to throw Matt in too. They didn’t know he couldn’t swim.

“And the next thing I know, I’m lying by the pool,” Matt explained. “And Lahey’s standing over me, and he’s saying ‘You don’t know how to swim? What little bastard doesn’t know how to swim? You say nothing. You tell no one.’ And I didn’t.”

He let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “I would wake up every night, gasping for breath. My parents thought I was an asthamatic. They even got me and inhaler. They didn’t know that everytime I closed my eyes, I…I was drowning.”

He was silent for a few moments, and then he looked back at you and Scott. “And then came Kate Argent’s funeral.”

His lips began to curl into a smile as he explained how he had realized he and Jackson were bonded.

“I was taking some photos, and then, purely by accident, Lahey gets in one of them. I looked down at my camera, and I just had this unbelievable rage that filled up inside of me. I looked at him and I just...I wanted to see him dead.”

Matt let out a disbelieving laugh. “And the next day, he actually was! You know, Einstein was right. Imagination is more important than knowledge. It was like something out of Greek mythology, like...like the Furies coming down to punish Orestes.”

He looked over at Scott, who was staring at him, dumbfounded. Matt rolled his eyes. “You have no idea what I’m talking about do you?”

Scott swallowed. “Was that...was that the guy that stabbed out his eyes.”

“That’s Oedipus, you dumbass!” Matt barked.

His gaze snapped over at you. “You know what I’m talking about don’t you?”

You nodded carefully. “The furies were deities of vengeance, weren’t they?”

Matt nodded. “Their tears ran of blood and they had snakes for hair. If there was a crime that had gone unpunished, the Furies would do the punishing. Jackson is my Fury. You know, when I saw him the next night, I knew he had killed Lahey for me, and I knew he would do it again.”

Matt began to smile to himself again. “So I went to Tucker’s garage. I even paid for an oil change, and guess what? He didn’t even recognize me! So when he wasn’t looking, I took a shot of him with my camera...and in a few hours, he was dead. So I took more pictures. All I had to do was take their picture, and Jackson would take their life.”

You glanced over at Scott, who looked just as concerned as you were. Matt was giving no indication that he would stop the killings. You were pretty sure that he and Stiles were next on his list.

Scott opened his mouth, maybe to try and convince Matt to let you all go, but he never got the chance to speak. The thick, acrid smell of smoke filled the air, and suddenly the room was engulfed in a white cloud.

Sirens began to wail, echoing through the halls of the station. They let out a sharp, bleating sound that hurt your ears.

“What is this?!” Matt demanded. “What’s happening? What’s going on?!”

He suddenly reached out, snatching you by the arm.

“I don’t know!” Scott cried. “Y/n, where are you?”

“I’m right here!”

He reached out, trying to see if he could grab you, but Matt yanked you backward against him. He pressed his gun against your side and forced you out the nearest exit.

Bright yellow emergency lights began to flicker, illuminating the breakroom. Jackson passed you and Matt as you left the room. He was headed right toward Scott. You tried to pull out of his grasp, but he dug his nails into your arm.

“Scott!” you screamed.

“I’ll have Jackson rip your mom apart next,” he snarled.

He dragged you through the halls of the station, keeping the gun pressed tightly against your side. The smoke was starting to dissipate now, and the flashing lights ensured that Matt knew where he was going.

He shoved open a door and hauled you into a darkened garage. The long room was bordered by bay doors on one side. A few desks littered the room, but it was mostly filled with police squad cars or transport vans.

Matt dragged you past tool carts and spare tires, and you struggled not to trip.

“Please, Matt,” you begged. “Just let me go.”

“Shut up!” Matt snapped. He looked around frantically until he spotted a door with a glowing, red exit sign. He pushed you toward it and forced you outside.

Cool air hit your face as you stepped out into the night, but you didn’t have time to appreciate it. He broke into a run, keeping one hand on your arm as he pulled you further from the building. Panic began to build in your chest.

A couple hundred yards ahead, the clearing you and Matt were running through ended with a line of trees. There was a small creek running at the edge of it. Farther downstream, a bridge crossed over the water. Matt began to pull you in the opposite direction.

Suddenly, you stumbled, falling onto your knees in the grass. Matt reached down to haul you up, but when his guard was down, you knocked the gun out of his hand. It landed somewhere in the grass, and he was unable to see where it went in the dark.

You scrambled onto your feet as Matt felt for the gun in the grass, but when he realized you were running, he abandoned it.

“No!”

He tackled you to the ground before you could even make it five feet away, and the impact knocked the wind out of you.

You squirmed, but he quickly pinned you down into the grass.

“Get off me!” you gasped, but his hands were pressing your wrists into the grass.

He smiled down at you, but there was an empty look in his eyes. Your heart began to pound even harder against your chest.

“Do you remember when I said that I’m not the type of guy that’s gonna say something like ‘If I can’t have her, no one can.’?”

You writhed under him, but your exhaustion had caught up with you. He was much stronger, and now that he was turning into another kanima, you didn’t have a chance of fighting him off.

Matt didn’t wait for you to respond to him. He just kept talking and grinning down at you with that sick look in his eyes.

“See, that’s not entirely true,” he mused. “Because, Y/n, if I can’t have you. No one can.”

Then his hands were on your neck, squeezing. You fought him, gasping for air that wouldn’t come. He was going to kill you.

You reached up, scratching at his hands and wrists. You could feel his skin peeling away under your nails and the warm, wet blood you were drawing. Still, it wasn’t enough.

Your vision was beginning to cloud. Your attempts to fight him off were growing weaker by the second. All you could think of was Stiles.

The two of you always seemed to be saving each other in one way or another. This time, you had hoped he would be able to rescue you, but it looked like that wasn’t going to happen. You knew there was no use in hoping for anything else.

Instead, you tried to think about something good. As your mind wandered, you thought of Stiles’ honey brown eyes. You thought of the surprise and delight on his face when you said something funny that he hadn’t expected. You remembered the way he had kissed you the night at the rave, his hands warm on your cheeks.

Everything was beginning to go dark, but you were content. You swore you could hear Stiles’ voice, warm and soothing...and then it was gone.

You opened your eyes, taking one painful, gasping breath. Matt’s weight was no longer on top of you. You rolled over onto your side, desperately sucking in air as you struggled to lift yourself up into a sitting position in the grass.

You looked around, wondering what had happened. That was when you saw Matt being dragged down the hill by Gerard Argent, of all people. You didn’t understand what was happening at first, but then, Gerard threw him down into the bed of the creek.

Gerard waded out until he was knee-deep in the water. Then he grabbed Matt by his t-shirt and thrust his head under water. You watched, horrified, as he drowned him in the creek.

That was when you ran, occasionally glancing over your shoulder to make sure Gerard wouldn’t follow you. He didn’t even look up. Either he would come after you later, or he just didn’t care.

You sprinted past the bridge, only to have a pair of arms reach out and snatch you back. You opened your mouth to scream, but a hand clamped down over your lips, muffling the sound.

You were pushed up against the side of the bridge, the rough stone scraping against your back. When you saw who had grabbed you, your eyes went wide. It was Peter Hale.

It suddenly crossed your mind that maybe you hadn’t escaped Matt in the clearing. Maybe you were dead. Maybe that was why you were face to face with Peter, whose throat Derek had slashed open last month.

He held one finger to his lips as he stared down at you, and while you should have been terrified, you had the odd feeling that he wouldn’t hurt you.

“Watch,” he said quietly.

He grabbed you by the shoulders and spun you around, forcing you to look back at Matt and Gerard. You could see Matt’s motionless body floating in the water. Gerard was now standing up on the bank of the creek, his clothes still dripping wet. His lips were moving, but you couldn’t hear what he was saying. It didn’t seem to matter, because what you saw next told you everything you needed to know.

The Kanima was creeping out from the shadows, wandering toward Gerard on its hands and feet. Instead of running, Gerard lifted one arm and raised his palm. The Kanima moved closer, hesitantly. Then it lifted up one scaly, clawed hand, and touched its palm to Gerard’s.

He was now its master.

“Go,” Peter urged in your ear. “Tell your brother what you saw.”

You blinked up at him, confused. “Why?”

A smile played at the edge of Peter’s lips. “I have a feeling we’re all on the same team now.”

He let go of your shoulders and you slowly backed away from him, keeping your eyes trained on his shadowy form the entire time. When you were a few yards away, you turned your back and took off running toward the station.

Your chest was burning as you raced back toward Scott and the others. When you pushed open the doors of the station, several officers whirled around and trained their guns on you. You guessed Stiles’ dad had called for backup at some point.

As you threw up your hands, you were able to see the Sheriff, your mom, and Stiles all standing in the lobby.

“Y/n!” Stiles cried. “Oh thank god.”

The officers lowered their guns, and Stiles rushed over. He wrapped his arms around you, pulling you tightly against his chest. You froze in his arms, not quite sure how to handle his touch. The feeling of being caged against him made your skin crawl. Though you hated to admit it, it reminded you of Matt.

He pulled away suddenly, realizing you weren’t reciprocating.

“Hey...are-are you okay?”

You shook your head, suddenly feeling overwhelmed. The lights of the station were too bright, and the sound of the deputies’ boots thumping on the floor caused you to flinch. You didn’t even know where to start.

Stiles watched in shock as you suddenly burst into tears. He wanted to reach out and hold you, but by the way you had just reacted, he was afraid to touch you.

“Oh, uh…”

Before he could think of anything to say, your mom rushed over and put a hand on your back. “Let’s get you somewhere quiet, Sweetheart.”

She cast a sympathetic glance in Stiles’ direction and led you down the hall. The Sheriff followed after the two of you, no doubt planning to take your statement. Matt was nowhere to be found, and Stiles was willing to bet you knew what happened to him.

He wanted to follow, but he knew if he did, his dad would just kick him out of the room. You were a witness now, and they would need an official statement from you.

Scott came jogging down the hallway. Stiles realized he must have heard you come back.

By then, the door to the office you had disappeared into was shut.

Scott headed over to Stiles. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Stiles admitted. “But I don’t think your sister’s okay.”

#teen wolf #teen wolf imagines #selfignitingimagines #stiles stilinski #stiles stilinski imagines #@screamxqueenx94 #tw kidnapping #tw stalking

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anxiousstark · 4 years

Text

S2 10 | Fury

BIG MASTERLIST | TW REWRITE

Stiles Stilinski x Reader! Half-sibling!Mccall

Word count: 2848

Warnings: Mentions of guns, degrading names, injuries, blood, murder, swearing (always).

↪ PLEASE RESPECT MY WORK. DON’T COPY, TRANSLATE OR CLAIM THEM AS YOURS. NOT ON THIS WEBSITE OR ANOTHER. ALL RIGHTS ARE RESERVED.

"So this kid's the real killer?" Noah Stilisnki asked, his eyes moving from Scott and Stiles to me. We were in Stiles's bedroom, showing him a picture of Matt. We needed to end this, but Noah didn't seem convinced by what we were trying to explain.

"Yeah." Stiles rolled his eyes.

"No."

"Yes!"

"No."

"Dad, come on." He got up from his chair, standing in front of the man who had raised him. "Everybody knows that the police look for ways to connect victims in a murder, okay? So all he had to do is, like, look through their transcripts and figure out which class they all had in common."

"Yeah, except for the fact that the rave promoter Kara wasn't in Harris's class."

"All right, okay, you're right, sorry. Then I guess they dropped the charges against him?"

"No, you know what? They're not dropping the charges. But that doesn't prove anything." Stiles groaned, throwing his hands up.

"Scott, do you believe this?"

"It's really hard to explain how we know this, but you just gotta trust us. We know it's Matt." His calming voice reassured the Sheriff, but still, he seemed to have doubts. He glanced at me, and I nodded my head.

"Yeah, he took Harris's car, okay? Look, he knew that if a cop found tire tracks at one of the murders, and that if enough of the victims were in Harris's class, that they'd arrest him."

"All right, fine. I'll allow the remote possibility, but give me a motive." We looked at each other, sighing in relief. "I mean, why would this kid want most of the 2006 swim team and its coach dead?"

"Isn't it obvious?" We still didn't know why Matt was doing this, so no. "Our swim team sucks! They haven't won in, like, six years." He shouted before his voice lowered. "Okay, we don't have a motive yet. I mean, come on, does Harris?" Before Noah could answer back his son, I hit Stiles's arm. "Ouch, what was that for?" He rubbed the placed where I had hit him while glancing at me.

"I'm in the swim team, asshole." I pouted, but then I quickly connected another dot. "That's why he attacked me." Both boys looked at me confused, still trying to understand. "That could be another reason, guys. I'm in the swim team." However, there were other people in the swim team, so why didn't he attack them?

"Attacked you?" Mr. Stilisnki directed at me. He seemed mad. "Okay, what do you want me to do?"

We smiled, sighing in content. "We need to look at the evidence," Scott's voice sounded confident.

"Yeah, that would be in the station, where I no longer work."

"Trust me. They'll let you in."

Sheriff Stilisnki was perplexed due to his son's words. "Trust you?" His fingers pointed at him.

"T-trust Scott?" Sheriff still wasn't convinced. "Trust...Y/N?"

"Y/N I trust." I grinned, feeling better than the other two boys, which made both of them push me a little. Tsk, is that jealousy I smell?

"It's 2:00 in the morning." The Deputy behind the counter gave us a judging look. Sheriff Stilisnki took the three of us to the station in hopes of finding more information, which seemed complicated as he no longer worked there.

"Believe me, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't extremely important."

"We look at the hospital stuff first, okay?" The hazel-eyed boy whispered to Scott and me. "Because all the murders were committed by Jackson, except for one, you remember?" We nodded. The pregnant girl, Jessica.

"Yeah. Since Matt had to kill her himself, somebody from the hospital could've seen him."

The Deputy made a gesture with her head. "Thank you. Boys. Y/N." We entered the office, watching the recording from the cameras of the hospital. "I don't know, guys. I mean, look at this. There was a six-car pileup that night, the hospital was jammed."

"All right, just keep going. Look, he had to have passed one of the cameras on that floor to get to Jessica, okay? He's gotta be on the footage somewhere."

"Oh, hold on, stop! Did you see that? Scroll back." I hurriedly pointed to the camera.

"That's him! That's Matt!"

"All I see is the back of someone's head." Mr. Stilisnki glanced at us over his shoulder.

"Matt's head, yeah. I sit behind him in history. He's got a very distinct cranium, it's weird." A disgusting expression decorated his face. But it couldn't surpass Noah's face, realizing how weird his son was. "All right, fine, then look at his jacket, huh? How many people do you know who wear black leather jackets?"

"Millions, literally."

"Okay, can we scroll forward? There's gotta be a shot of him coming at one of the cameras."

"Right there! Stop, stop! See, there he is again."

"You mean there's the back of his head again."

"Okay, but look. He's talking to someone."

"He's talking to my mom." He took his phone out, calling Melissa who was working. After sending her a picture of Matt, she affirmed recognizing him. She had stopped him because he was tracking mud in the hall.

Noah rapidly grabbed some files. "We've got shoe prints alongside the tire tracks at the trailer site."

"And if they match, that puts Matt at the scene of three murders. The trailer, the hospital, and the rave." Stiles added.

"Actually, four. A credit card receipt for an oil change was signed by Matt at the garage where the mechanic was killed."

"When?"

"A couple hours before you got there."

"All right, dad, if one's an incident, two's a coincidence, and three's a pattern, what's four?"

"Four's enough for a warrant." We sighed in relief. "Scott, call your mom back, see how quick she can get here. If I can get an official ID, I can get a search warrant. Y/N, go to the front desk. Tell them to let Scott's mom in when she gets here."

"On it!" I quickly hurried. When I arrived at the front desk, there was nobody. "Hello?" I glance down. The Deputy was lying on the floor, wide eyes, blood covering all of her chest. Then, I noticed that her gun was missing. I heard a click, turning around. Matt was there, the gun pointing to the space between my eyes.

He turned my body around, now pointing the gun to the back of my head. "Walk." We both started walking towards Noah's office.

Stiles was the first one to notice me, his eyes shaking. He was going to take a step forward when his father stopped him. "Matt?" Noah showed him his empty unarmed hands. "It's Matt, right? Matt, whatever's going on, I guarantee you there's a solution that doesn't involve a gun."

"You know, it's funny you say that because I don't think you're aware of just how right you are." The barrel of the gun was pressed tighter against my head as he talked.

"I know you don't wanna hurt people."

"Actually, I wanna hurt a lot of people. You three weren't on my list," The gun he was holding hit the back of my scalp, making me hiss. "She was, Y/N McCall. If it wasn't for her, everything would have gone perfectly. But she HAD to be there, at the video store, fucking everything up." He sighed, pushing me forward. Stiles grabbed me, checking my face quickly, touching the back of my head to make sure that I didn't have any wound. "But I could be persuaded. And one way is to try dialling somebody on your cell phone like McCall is doing. T-that could definitely get someone hurt. Everyone. Now!"

Matt made Stiles handcuff his father, then he took us with him. On the corridor, three officers were on the ground, lifeless. "What, are you gonna kill everyone in here?" Scott asked.

"No, that's what Jackson's for. I just think about killing them, and he does it." He smirked.

Now, we were destroying all the files that conducted to him being a murderer. "Deleted. And we're done. All right, so, Matt, since all the people you brutally murdered deserved it because they killed you first, whatever that means, I think we're good here, right? So I'll just get my dad, and we'll go, you know? You continue on the whole vengeance thing. Enjoy the Kanima."

We saw a light, followed by the sound of a car. "Sounds like your mom's here, McCall."

"Matt, don't do this. When she comes to the door, I'll just tell her to leave. I'll tell her we didn't find anything. Please, Matt."

"If you don't move now. I'm gonna kill Stiles first, and then your mom. And then," He smirked. "I'm going to kill her. Because thanks to Y/N the Kanima isn't as strong as it could be. That night, if Jackson would have been the only one getting scratched, all of this wouldn't have happened. You guys would probably be dead." His rage was directed towards me. "But this bitch had to go inside the video store, and fuck everything up."

"And I will fuck everything up again if you touch anyo-" Stiles gripped my arm, begging me to calm down.

To our surprise, it wasn't Melissa. It was Derek. But he was paralyzed as soon as he came inside, falling to the floor, and letting us see Jackson behind him. "This is the one controlling him? This kid?" I tried not to chuckle.

"Well, Derek, not everyone's lucky enough to be a big, bad werewolf. Oh, yeah, that's right. I've learned a few things lately. Werewolves, hunters, kanimas. It's like a fucking Halloween party every full moon. Except for you, Stiles. What do you turn into?"

"Abominable snowman," I whispered his name, trying to let him know that it wasn't the time to be sarcastic. "But, uh, it's more of, like, a wintertime thing, you know, seasonal."

Matt didn't like Stiles's comment. Jackson scratched his neck, paralyzing him. His body fell on top of Derek. "You bitch."

"Get him off of me."

"Oh, I don't know, Derek. I think you two make a pretty good pair. It must kinda suck, though, to have all that power taken away from you with just a little cut to the back of the neck. I bet you're not used to feeling this helpless."

"Still got some teeth. Why don't you get down here a little closer, huh? We'll see how helpless I am."

Again, we heard a car. This time, it was Melissa. Scott went out with Matt, the next thing we knew, we heard a gunshot. I stayed on the floor, next to Stiles and Derek. Jackson's eyes fixed on me, smirking. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to end all of this.

A couple of minutes later, Matt came back to the room. My eyes focused on Scott, seeing the blood on his shirt. I walked up to him, examining his face for any type of signal that would let me know that he was healing. He just side-hugged me, keeping me away from his injury. "Is Melissa okay?" I whispered.

He nodded, glaring at Matt. "The evidence is gone. Why don't you just go?"

"Y-you think the evidence mattered that much, huh? No, no, I-I want the book." We both were confused. Matt groaned, getting madder. "The bestiary. Not just a few pages, I want the entire thing."

"I don't have it. It's Gerard's. What do you want it for, anyway?"

"I need answers." He used the back of his mouth to clean the visible sweat around his mouth.

"Answers to what?"

"To this." He lifted his shirt. His right side was the same colour as the Kanima, scales all over it, and it seemed to palpitate. It looked like that thing had its own life. "I'm tired of this," He grabbed Scott's shirt roughly. "Come with me. Jackson, keep an eye on those two," His glare went to me. "And her."

I sat down again, next to both boys while Jackson kept guard of the room so nobody would go inside or outside.

"Hey. You know what's happening to Matt?" Stiles whispered.

"I know the book's not gonna help him. You can't just break the rules, not like this."

"What do you mean?" I asked, keeping my eyes on Jackson.

"Universe balances things out. Always does." He panted. "He is using Jackson to kill people, and killing people himself." I stared at Derek, waiting for him to continue. "Balance."

"Wait," Stiles intervened. "So he becomes the Kanima? Derek nodded. We needed to stop him. We needed to tell him. I glance around the room, seeing my backpack on the floor. "Oh no," I heard Stilinski muttering. "What are you thinking of, McCall?" He tried to move his head to glance at me. "Don't do anything stupid, please. You are the one who told me that when I confronted Peter Hale."

"Did you listen to me, Stiles?" I asked in a hushed voice, crawling to my bag, rummaging through it until I grabbed the object that I was searching for. Pepper spray.

He groaned. "No, I didn't." I slowly got up from the ground, without making any sound. "You aren't going to listen, right?"

"Hey, Jackson," His head snapped to me, eyes shining. "Beautiful eyes." I rapidly used pepper spray. Jackson groaned, kneeling on the ground, and aggressively rubbing his eyes. I threw the spray back to the boys. "He will come to get me. I need to help Scott. Use the spray if you need it!" And even though Derek Hale told me not to do anything absurd, I continued running.

However, the power in the entire station turned off. "Fuck," I muttered. The sound of guns being shot scared the shit out of me, but I had to find Scott. I crawled on the floor, hands covering my head as the windows were being broken by the bullets. Then, when the shots seemed to stop, I got up and ran.

"Shit," My heart almost came out of my chest when I saw Allison. I felt fear because something bad could happen to her, then I felt relieved because we were worried about her as we hadn't seen her at the end of the party. And again, I felt terrified when I saw her face. A numb expression decorating her features while she had a hard grip on her crossbow. "What are you doing here?"

"Where's Derek? She avoided my question, answering with her own. "Where's Derek?!" Her eyes were teary.

"An answer for an answer," I replied. "What the heck are you doing here? You need to get the hell out of here." I looked around, deciding to whisper. "Allison, this is dangerous."

"I'm going to kill Derek Hale because he killed my mom." She spat. "And I will kill anyone who gets on my way."

"Bitch," I mumbled. "Derek Hale saved our asses a million times. Yeah, he probably isn't the best at communication, but when I say our asses, I also mean yours." I scowled. "Your mom," I smirked. "A huge bitch she is. Well, she was." Allison threw a punch at me, but I surprisingly dodged it, something you would only expect in films or books. "She deserves all that she got. She went to the hospital to get information from Mellisa." She glanced at the ground while I continued. "She deserved all that she got. Do you know why? Because she tried to kill Scott." She was in denial, but she knew because her family was deranged. "She tried to kill your boyfriend, Allison. She tried to kill my brother." I firmly stated.

"Shut up!" Next thing I knew, there was an arrow piercing my stomach. The arrow was exactly in the middle. I stared at it, and the blood coming out, although no words were coming out of my mouth as I stared at her. "Oh my, I-I didn't mean to-" I fell to the ground, thankfully on my back so the arrow wouldn't get more stuck in my abdomen. Allison was also interrupted when the Kanima appeared, paralyzing her. Then, it was Matt's turn to make an appearance.

"You should've given me a chance. Because remember how I said I'm not the kind of guy who would say something like: 'well if I can't have her, no one can.' It's not totally true because, Allison, if I can't have you, no one can!" He screamed. "Thank you for finding this slut," He kneeled next to me, brushing my hair. "Pepper spray, uh?"

"If I could," I gasped for air. "I would fucking k-kill you right now."

"Yeah," He laughed hysterically. "But I think you are dying first. Should we show momma McCall, Scott, and Stiles how stunningly beautiful you look as the blood leaves your body?" This dude was sick, utterly sick. "Yeah, let's show them." The hand that was caressing my hair clutched it forcefully, dragging me by my hair through all the rooms in the station. I lost consciousness.

TAGLIST: @og-baby-ob14 - @savemypostcards - @cas-loves-pizza - @used-avocado - @mvrylee - @bilesxbilinskixlahey - @honeydoll-stark - @arieltheworldisamess - @softpeteparker - @kit-kat-katie99 - @thatsuperherosidekick - @bexbetterxthanxwords - @big-galaxy-chaos - @littlemiss-forgotten - @enchantedcruelsummer - @coldfreakeggsexpert - @merla123 - @sammypotato67 - @weirdowithnobeardo - @maggiesblogsblog - @itskindyl - @bobo-bush - @moongoddesskiana - @multifandxm353 - @irwxnhugsx - @xoprincessmel - @iclosetgeek - @andreagf956 - @niawoods - @anerroroccurrrrred - @perrytheplatypus11 - @trustfundparker - @nmriia - @steve-harringtonnn - @trustfundparker - @brithedemonspawn - @weirdowithnobeardo - @my-soul-is-the-moon - @azayamari - @poguestyle17 - @bibliophilewednesday -

People in bold means it doesn’t let me tag them.

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homoose · 4 years

Text

Winning is a Habit

Hi y’all! Okay sooooooooo this is my first time writing fic??????? Like omg please be nice lmao. I don’t have a beta reader, so if you catch any mistakes pls lmk! I saw this challenge and the world is total garbage, so why not write our own realities????? Ok here goes!!!!!!!!!! Written for @veraiconcos fic challenge

Summary: The BAU gets called to investigate two high-profile murders in a college town, only to find that they are part of a much bigger, more complicated picture. No real pairings, although you could make it happen if you want lol ;) This is an idea I’ve seen floating around the fandom for a little while now, and I really wanted to see it fleshed out. Set around season 4 or 5.

Category: some angst, sort of fluff? I wouldn’t say it necessarily qualifies as an AU, but it’s outside of canon.

Warnings/Includes: some brief descriptions of violence/CM type stuff; mentions of rape (no details)

Word count: 6.1k

———

“Stillwater, Oklahoma,” JJ said, navigating the map off screen and pulling up the crime scene photos. “Two college seniors— Tyler Allen and Leon Williams, star football players for Oklahoma State University— both found dead the day before the playoff qualifier.”

“Do we know the cause of death?” Spencer asked, thumbing through the case file.

“The ME report concluded that both boys died of acute alcohol poisoning,” JJ informed them.

Emily looked up from the file. “And the locals don’t think this could just be a case of college kids having a little too much fun?”

“Before a major playoff game? I doubt it.” Derek leaned back in his chair. “Especially considering OSU’s having a record-breaking season. I’d guess the coach had players on a pretty strict lockdown.” He raised his hands and joined them in a steeple over his chest. “Showing up to a game hung-over— particularly one as important as this— would be a major conduct issue.”

“That, and there was a pretty specific message left on both victims,” JJ added, arms crossed and eyebrows lifting into her hairline.

“On them?” Rossi questioned.

JJ motioned with her hand back to the screen. Six sets of eyes moved over the photo; the words “U LOSE” scrawled in ink across the foreheads of the two men.

“Resorting to murder to win a football game?” Emily asked, eyes narrowed.

“And why use the forensic countermeasure of staged alcohol poisoning, only to backtrack and assert it as a murder?” Spencer pondered, pursing his lips.

“Whatever the reason, we’ve got two dead college students and a definite signature. Wheels up in 30,” Hotch told them, closing his case file.

⧭⧭⧭

“No sign of forced entry.” Derek walked through the entry hallway and into the living space. “Doesn’t look like there was any struggle, either.”

Rossi thumbed through the mail on the kitchen counter and peered around the small space. “Everything you’d expect in a boys’ college dorm room: dishes in the sink, generic decor, general mess. Nothing that stands out.”

“Agents, thank you so much for coming.” A tall man in a dark suit stepped across the threshold of the apartment. He stuck out his hand for Rossi to shake. “Steven Barrett, Dean of Students.”

“I’m Supervisory Special Agent David Rossi. This is SSA Derek Morgan.” Derek nodded from his place in the living room.

“I apologize for not meeting you when you arrived. We’re dealing with a grieving campus,” Barrett said, running a hand over his face. “I’m actually on my way to speak to the Board, but I wanted to check in with you before. I’m not sure I can be of much help, but I can try to answer any questions you might have.”

“These boys were seniors, but they still lived on campus. Is that typical?” Rossi asked, gesturing around the apartment.

“Uh, yes, it is for student athletes,” Barrett confirmed with a nod. “OSU teams have demanding, sometimes grueling practice schedules. Being on campus simplifies things, allows students to get to classes and practices, as well as utilize the dining halls.”

“Does this building have security cameras?” Derek raised an eyebrow.

“Yes. All of our buildings do. I’ll let Campus PD know you’ll need access to the footage.” Barrett’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He reached for it and punched the button to answer the call. “Yes. Yes, I—I’m finishing up with the FBI now. I understand. I’m on my way.” He ended the call and pocketed the phone. “I’m sorry to leave you, gentlemen. Our top priority right now is supporting our students and community through this tragedy. Part of that healing process is finding out who did this to Tyler and Leon. So anything else you need, anything at all, please don’t hesitate to let me know.” He turned on his heel and disappeared down the hall.

Derek shook his head. “I’m glad I don’t have to do that job right about now.”

Rossi gave another glance around the nondescript apartment and sighed. “Call Garcia and ask her if she’s found any other cases that could be related. And let’s hope there’s something useful on that security footage.”

⧭⧭⧭

“Based on lividity and rigor mortis, I was able to put the time of death between 8:00 and 10:00pm on Wednesday evening. The blood alcohol content for both boys was over five times the legal limit. I’ve never seen anything like it,” the medical examiner mused.

Emily looked over the bodies, her arms crossed. “Dr. Saraj, about how much would they have to drink for the level to be that high?”

“When drinking, the level of alcohol in our blood reaches a peak before it drops off after the last drink ingested,” Spencer supplied. “In a typical night of drinking, spread over the course of several hours, the average man can have 8-12 drinks without ever reaching lethal levels. But considering each victim weighed around 230 pounds, they’d have had to ingest approximately 180 ounces of beer or 18.75 ounces of liquor to reach a lethal blood alcohol content.”

Dr. Saraj glanced at Spencer before adding, “Look, this is a college town. Kids drink. But... to have had this much alcohol still detectable in their system post-mortem indicates that these boys drank at least the equivalent of a 30 rack, by themselves, in less than an hour.” She flipped up the first page of the report in her hands, eyes scanning the second. “And the toxicology screen also found trace amounts of ketamine.”

Spencer bent over the examining table and adjusted the wrist of one of the boys with a gloved hand. “Doctor, are these ligature marks?”

“Oh, yes,” Dr. Saraj agreed, nodding. “They’re relatively faint, so I almost missed them. But I found similar marks on both boys on the wrists and ankles.”

“So,” Emily said, gesturing with her hands, “the unsub doses them with ketamine to gain control, ties them up, forces them to drink lethal amounts of alcohol, and then— what?” She looked to Spencer. “Waits for them to pass out before removing the restraints and leaving the message?”

Spencer examined the marker scrawls. “Were you able to determine what the message was written with and if it was left pre- or post-mortem?”

“My guess would be it was written with some type of permanent marker, but I can’t say for sure,” Dr. Saraj said. “We’re analyzing the residue now, and I can send the report your way as soon as I have it. As for when it was written, I couldn't tell you.” She shook her head. “The one simple mercy is that these boys would have been out cold for a while before they died.”

⧭⧭⧭

“I’m so sorry. I know how difficult this is. Anything that you can tell us will be helpful in finding the person who did this,” JJ encouraged softly. “Anyone that Tyler might have had an argument with recently or who he mentioned having problems with?”

“No, no. He was—he was just your typical boy,” Mrs. Allen sniffled. “Playing football and hanging out with his friends,” she said, voice hitching. “Oh my god.” She dropped her head into her hands.

“He didn’t have time to have problems,” Mr. Allen asserted. “He spent all his free time on the field. Coach had them out there for two-a-days until classes started. He’s the quarterback. He was leading that team to the first national title since 1945.” He stood to his feet, hands clenched at his sides. “Some lunatic murdered my boy and you’re sitting around talking to us while they’re out there, walking free.”

“Sir, I promise you that we have some of the best agents in the country working on your son’s case,” JJ assured. “But in order to help them do their job, we need to know as much as we can about who Tyler was.”

Across the bullpen, Hotch sat across from Mr. and Mrs. Williams. “Leon was a good boy. Football was his life. He loved being a part of this team. It was the season of a lifetime,” Mr. Williams said.

“We taught him better than to be drinking and carrying on,” Mrs. Williams added.

“Can you think of anything or anyone he might have mentioned recently that was out of the ordinary? Anything that was bothering him or causing him distress?” Hotch questioned.

“He was feeling pressure about the season, but he’s been handling that kind of thing since he was twelve years old.” Mr. Williams shared an almost indiscernible look with his wife. “He got into—into the same kinds of trouble any college kid gets in. Nothing that could have gotten him murdered.”

⧭⧭⧭

“Yeah, baby girl, what d’ya got for me?” Derek held the phone out so that Rossi could listen in as they waited in the OSU security office.

“Well, my handsome knight, I wish I could tell you more but so far, I’m coming up empty with similar cases,” Penelope sighed. “Nothing that matches our alcohol poisoning M.O. or the signature. I just expanded the search to surrounding states, and I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

“Anything on our two victims?” Rossi asked.

“Now that’s where it gets interesting,” Penelope mused, tapping the fluffy end of her pen into the palm of her hand. “There’s nothing. Zilch, nada.”

Rossi narrowed his eyes. “And that’s interesting because...?”

“Come on, sir,” Penelope scoffed. “Two young, athletic, good-looking college football stars and there’s nothing at all? Nothing scandalous on social media. No run-ins with campus PD. Not even a write up from an RA.”

Derek tilted his head in thought. “Hotch and JJ said their conversations with the parents told a similar story.”

“Okay, but no one is this squeaky clean, particularly not at a Big 12 college. Everyone has some dirt,” Penelope insisted. “I haven’t found it yet, but there’s gotta be something out there. When I have it, you’ll know it!”

“Thanks, Garcia,” Derek drawled.

“Over and out!” Penelope jabbed the button to end the call.

The OSU officer waved them over with his hand. “I’ve got it queued up to 6:24pm. You can see the boys here,” he pointed on the screen at the two victims, “entering the north entrance of the dining hall.”

Derek leaned toward the monitor. “So they leave practice, come through the dining hall for dinner. When do they leave?”

The footage sped up on the screen, then stopped. “Here. 7:01.”

“Rossi, you seeing this?” Derek slid his eyes over.

Rossi nodded. “Is there any way to enhance these frames?”

The officer shrugged his shoulders. “Not on this system. Honestly, the camera quality isn’t great. I’ve been trying to get them to invest in an upgraded OS, but you know—budget woes. Your analyst might be able to do more.”

“It’s not going to matter.” Derek sighed and straightened up. “She’s careful of her angles.”

“I couldn’t find them on any grounds cameras, but they pop back up entering the dorm. Here, at 7:12.”

“All three of them,” Rossi noted. He looked at Derek. “And like you said, she’s discreet.”

“They all go upstairs to the apartment,” the officer continued, “but only the girl leaves. At 8:43.”

⧭⧭⧭

“We have a witness from the cafeteria that confirms that the boys ate with a dark-haired young woman in a red coat,” Hotch said, arms crossed. “But other than those two details, the witness couldn’t recall anything else and said they’d never seen her before.”

“So we’ve got the two victims entering their apartment with an unknown woman. They’re upstairs for an hour and a half before she leaves,” Emily recounted.

Derek stood with his hands on his hips. “And in that time, she manages to dose and gain control of two boys that are more than double her size and funnel a lethal amount of alcohol into them. Now the question is why?”

As the team converged around the conference room table, a uniformed officer entered into the doorway. “Agent Jareau? There’s a possible witness—says she might have some new information.”

JJ nodded to the team and moved to the doorway. A petite young woman stood in the center of the bullpen, wringing her hands. When her eyes landed on JJ, she let her arms fall to her side. As JJ approached, she motioned with her hand for the girl to sit at the closest desk. “Hi, I’m Jennifer. I heard you wanted to speak to someone about this case. Can I have your name?”

The girl nodded. “Um, I’m Cassie. I saw the announcement you made. About the woman in the red coat. I heard you say that she had brown hair. Is that true?”

JJ cocked her head slightly. “Yeah, the witness and security footage we have shows a woman with dark hair walking with Tyler and Leon. Why do you ask?”

Cassie’s eyes darted around the bullpen, and she drew her arms tightly over her chest. “I just— um—well, I—”

“Would it help if we moved somewhere a little quieter?” JJ suggested. When Cassie nodded and stood, JJ placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and directed her toward an empty interview room. Cassie sat in the chair farthest from the door, and JJ sat opposite her. “Is there something you wanted to tell me about the woman? Or is it something else that’s on your mind?”

Cassie let out a long breath. “When I heard that they were dead, I— I was relieved. That sounds awful, but it’s true.”

JJ tread lightly over her next question. “You felt relieved. Why was that?”

Cassie looked directly at JJ. “I’ve been looking over my shoulder everywhere I go for the last seven months. I won’t have to do that anymore.”

“Can you tell me more about what you mean?”

Cassie took a breath and closed her eyes for a long second, before opening them and continuing. “There was a huge party in the spring. I mean, there were, like, hundreds of people there.” Cassie’s eyes went wide. “I never go to parties like that. But it was the end of the year, and my friend—well, I went with my friend. She got invited.”

“Were Tyler and Leon at this party?” JJ asked.

“Everybody was. I mean, everybody who’s somebody at OSU was there. We saw them right away. The whole team was there, but people treated those two like kings.” Cassie looked down at her hands. “We were drinking... a lot. At some point, Laney and I got separated. I tried calling her phone a bunch of times, but the party was really loud. I—I didn’t want to leave without her, but I was getting really messed up. I had a guy friend from one of my classes walk me home.” She swiped at her eye with the back of her hand. “Laney didn’t get back until the morning. Her clothes were all torn up, her hair had... blood in it, and she—she had a bruise under her eye.” She looked up at JJ, eyes shining with tears. “They raped her. I left her behind, and they raped her,” she whispered.

JJ reached across the table for Cassie’s hand. “Cassie, I’m so sorry. What happened to Laney was not your fault, or hers. Do you understand me?” JJ paused before continuing. Cassie looked down. “Do you know if she reported it?”

Cassie nodded. “I’m the one who went with her to the infirmary. They did a kit and confirmed it. When we went to Campus PD, they did nothing. Said Laney was wasted, and there was no one that could back up her story.”

JJ squeezed her hand. “So there was no official report filed?”

Cassie laughed coldly. “Oh, they wrote a report. I think if we ask them to, they have to. But they wouldn’t name Tyler or Leon in it. Said they didn’t want to ‘give legs to any gossip.’”

JJ’s mouth stretched into a thin line. “Where’s Laney now?”

“I don’t know.” Cassie shook her head. “She didn’t come back to OSU this fall. I haven’t really talked to her since—” She looked at JJ. “I can’t get the image of her out of my head. How she looked when she came through the door that morning. What they did to her… I’m not sorry that they’re dead.” Her eyes were shining with rage. “People knew what happened… and no one did anything. And those two were still the kings of campus.”

⧭⧭⧭

The team absorbed the new information quietly. “So Garcia was right. They did have something to hide.” Derek’s phone buzzed. “Speaking of. Hey mama, you’re on speaker.”

“I hope you’re all sitting down,” Penelope warned. “I expanded the parameters of my original VICAP search to include the surrounding states. No hits on suspicious deaths by alcohol poisoning. However, the U LOSE signature? Seven hits across Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas.”

“So our unsub’s been traveling across the South—” Emily started.

“Oh, I’m not done,” Penelope continued. “Just to double check, I expanded the search area to the continental US. Our unsub has been busy. Over 30 murders with this signature, all across the country, dating back to March 2007. All different M.O.s: gunshot, stabbing, strangulation, you name it. But all with U LOSE scrawled across their forehead in—get this—liquid eyeliner.”

“Anything tying the victims together, Garcia?” Hotch asked.

“All men, mostly white, but all across different ages, occupations, and marital statuses. At first glance, there’s no real connection,” Penelope answered.

“What about on second glance?” Hotch prompted.

“Way ahead of you, sir. I did a little digging.” Penelope shrugged. “Okay, a lot of digging—most of it legal. Every single one of these victims had at least one sexual assault allegation. Some are official police reports, some are HR complaints, some are sealed court records. But in every case, the victim’s cause of death is directly related to the details of the assault records. Women that were held at knifepoint, their attacker was stabbed to death. If they were choked, he was strangled. If they were held at gunpoint, he died of a gunshot wound. Et cetera, et cetera.” Penelope twirled her pen. “The differing M.O.s combined with the fact that the unsub kept crossing state lines kept local PDs and field offices from making the connection.”

“Garcia, can you search OSU PD records for an incident report?” JJ asked.

Garcia tapped rapidly across her keyboard. “Absolutely, sugar, when would it have been filed?”

“It would’ve been this year, sometime at the end of April or beginning of May,” JJ answered. “The victim would be named as Laney Collins.”

After a few moments, Garcia peered through her green cat-eye glasses at the report. “Mmm, I’ve got one incident report, filed on May 7th. And woof, this report is not much to go on. The responding officer wrote a whopping three sentences. According to him, Laney was incapacitated and thus was not a credible witness.” Garcia twirled her pen. “The alleged attackers, who are not named, denied Laney’s account of what happened. Because there were no other witnesses, Officer Thorough deemed that no further action was necessary.” She jabbed her pen in the direction of the screen. “And this, my friends, is why women don’t bother reporting.”

“Good work, Garcia,” said Hotch.

“There’s one more interesting detail from the report,” Garcia continued. “The dean of students signed off on it.”

“So Barrett knew about this the whole time,” Derek fumed.

“And again, people wonder why women don’t report,” Garcia repeated, ending the call.

“So our unsub is seeking justice for women she believes have been failed by the system. We’re looking for a vigilante, carrying out revenge killings,” Rossi concluded.

Derek nodded. “And she’s organized and efficient; she finished with Tyler and Leon in less than two hours.”

“She’s smart and she blends in, doesn’t draw too much attention to herself,” JJ added.

“She’s meticulous and has at least some knowledge of forensic countermeasures, considering there’s no physical evidence tying her to any of the scenes,” Spencer remarked.

“And she knew enough to keep her face off the security footage,” Emily finished.

“Rossi, Emily, and I will stay here and deliver the profile,” Hotch directed. “JJ, I’d like you to speak to the families again, see if they knew about the rape. Reid, Morgan, talk to Barrett and see what else he might be trying to keep quiet.”

⧭⧭⧭

“Makes you wonder just how many people knew what happened,” Derek considered, closing the car door.

“It’s estimated that twenty percent of student victims of sexual assault report it to their university, but less than one percent of assailants receive any type of disciplinary action,” Spencer cited, making his way toward the sidewalk.

Derek shook his head. “And so the victims don’t see the point in reporting it. Your attacker gets to walk around like nothing even happened. Cassie told JJ that she felt like she had a target on her back once they reported Laney’s assault.”

As they walked up the blacktop driveway to the entrance of Barrett’s home, Spencer slowed his steps as he noticed the front door. “Morgan.” He nodded at the door, slightly ajar.

Derek drew his gun and moved ahead of Spencer. He pushed the door slowly open and called out, “Mr. Barrett?” In the foyer were the remnants of a broken vase and a small trail of blood. “Call Hotch, let him know we’ve got trouble here.”

Derek and Spencer worked to quietly clear the rooms, one by one. Derek stopped at the bottom of the stairs and motioned to Spencer. As they started up the stairs, a woman’s voice called out, “Shut up! You had nothing to say before. So now, you’re just going to listen.”

Derek reached the top of the stairs and started down the hallway. He reached the open door where a woman stood, her back to the door. Behind her, Derek could see Barrett, sitting on the floor, blood dripping from a gash on his head. His hands were raised in front of his chest, palms facing out. Derek stopped, his gun trained on the woman, and murmured, “Laney?”

The woman pivoted her body, her short blonde hair whipping around. Derek saw tears in her eyes and a revolver in her hand. “Don’t,” she warned.

“Laney, my name is Derek. I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to talk. I need you to put the gun down.”

“No!” Laney screamed. “You don’t know what he’s done.” She shook the gun in Barrett’s direction, and Barrett closed his eyes.

Derek spoke softly. “I do, Laney. I do know. I know what happened to you. I know that he kept Tyler and Leon’s names off the report. I know that he didn’t help you when you needed it most. I know that he let them get away with--”

“Rape. He let them get away with rape. Because he cares more about reputation and football than what happens to women on his campus. They ruined my life.” Laney turned away from Derek and put both hands on the gun. “They ruined my life, and you did nothing. And then they walked around campus like they were invincible, because you taught them they were.”

Derek moved further into the room, into Laney’s eyesight. Spencer moved into the doorway, covering Derek. “Laney, look at me. I’m putting my gun away.” Derek held his hands up and then moved to holster his gun. “Doing this won’t make the pain go away.”

“How many others? How many other women did he do this to?” Laney let out a painful sob. “If I don’t stop him, it never ends.”

“Listen to me.” Derek took a step closer to her. “Killing him won’t change what happened, Laney. It won’t. Believe me. I know how you feel.”

“People love to say that when they’re trying to shut you up. How could you possibly know how I feel?” Laney spit out.

“Someone hurt me, just like they hurt you. And nobody was there to help me. No one was there to listen.” Laney froze, eyes shifting to meet Derek’s. “I wanted to hurt him, Laney. Wanted to make him feel the same pain I felt. I wanted him to suffer.” He moved another step closer. “I know that those men hurt you, and I know that he let them get away with it. And I am so, so sorry. But you’re stronger than anyone knows, Laney. You are the only person who has the power to help others who didn’t get justice. I have a friend who’s spent her whole life helping survivors, and I know she��d love to talk with you.” He took another step. “You are the only person who can stop it from happening to someone else. You can make sure he’s held accountable for what he’s done. But if you pull that trigger, you can never go back,” Derek warned.

Laney looked at Derek, his hand outstretched, wordlessly asking her to give him the gun. She looked at Barrett, crying and silently begging her to show him the mercy she never got. “I wish I’d been the one to kill them,” she whispered.

The gun dropped out of her hand as Derek stepped forward to catch her. He kicked the gun into the doorway, and Spencer recovered it. “I’ve got you,” Derek said, helping Laney out of the room. “Shh, it’s ok, I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

Spencer moved to lift Barrett off the ground and helped him into a chair by the window. Out of the corner of his eye, Spencer caught a flash of red below the window. He stumbled over Barrett, nose almost pressed to the glass as he stared out. The woman froze, eyes locked on Spencer’s. His mouth opened slightly as he stared at her, bewildered. By the time his brain caught up, she had already disappeared from view.

Spencer turned and raced down the stairs, clinging to the railing as he nearly missed a step. He burst out the front door into the driveway, sprinting around the side of the house. He heard Derek call his name, saw the other SUVs pulling up, but he kept running. He skidded to a stop at the edge of the backyard, and then spun in a full circle, eyes frantically scanning the perimeter.

Hotch approached from the side of the house, gun drawn. “Reid! Are you all right?”

Spencer took a last look, scanned from east to west. “Yeah, yeah. I just—I thought I saw—I thought I saw something.” He shook his head. “Barrett’s inside. He’s got a head laceration, but he’ll be fine.”

Hotch lowered his gun and nodded. “And Laney’s not our unsub. So we’re back to the beginning.”

⧭⧭⧭

“Strauss is asking us to head back to Quantico.” Hotch pocketed his phone and looked at the team. “We’ll move the cases to our watch list and flag the signature for hits in VICAP. From what we know about the unsub’s behavior, we know she’s no longer in the area.” He gestured to the evidence board. “Our best course of action is to keep the profile in our periphery for now. We can do that from the BAU. It’s late. Go to the hotel, get some rest. We’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

“I’m absolutely starving.” Emily slipped into her jacket and headed for the door. “Anybody want to hit up that 24 hour diner?”

Derek and JJ quickly agreed, following Emily from the conference room. JJ turned back, eyeing Spencer. “You coming, Spence?”

“I’m just really tired.” His voice lilted up, almost a question. “Next time, though.”

JJ gave him a look but didn’t press him. “Have a good night, Spence.”

“Yeah, thanks.” He gathered up the case files, not quite ready to put them away.

⧭⧭⧭

Spencer’s eyelids felt heavy as he walked through the lobby of the hotel. He really was tired. He blamed the exhaustion for what he thought he saw through the window at Barrett’s. His fatigued mind was seeing things that weren’t there. He practically floated into the elevator and up to his room. Sliding the room key through the slot, the door beeped open and Spencer stepped inside. He flicked on the light and dropped his bag on the floor, loosening his tie as he walked toward one of the sling back chairs sat by the window. He paused just before he reached the chair, his gaze lingering over something on the desk. A note hastily scrawled on hotel stationary.

623.

Spencer lifted the note with two careful fingers. “623?” He turned it over, looking for the rest of the message, but the paper was blank other than the number. He lowered the note, and his eyes landed on a small plastic card where the paper had rested on the table. Not just a card. A room key.

⧭⧭⧭

Spencer stared at the door of the room. Room 623. He turned his head and slowly looked up and then down the hallway. He took a breath and raised his hand to the door. He knocked in the familiar rhythm: five knocks, pause, two knocks. He pressed his ear close to the door, listening for any movement inside. When he heard nothing, he knocked again; the same pattern, but a little louder. He listened again. Nothing. Spencer felt a bead of sweat creep down the nape of his neck. He thought about turning around, about walking back down the two flights of stairs to his room and getting into bed.

Instead, he pulled the keycard from his pocket. As he lifted the card with one hand, he used his other to raise the strap on his holster. He held his breath as he swiped the card through the slot and heard the beep of the lock. Drawing his gun from the holster, Spencer slowly turned the handle of the door.

The room was mostly dark. Only the yellow glow of one of the bedside lamps illuminated the space. Spencer stepped into the room and quietly closed the door behind him. Again, his mind said to turn around. Yet his feet carried him further into the room. He could see now that the sling backs were facing toward the window. There were two glasses from the mini bar on the table between them.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” a familiar voice mused.

Spencer startled and then swallowed audibly, a cartoon character realizing he’s in serious trouble. He opened his mouth but nothing came out.

“You can put the gun away,” she continued. “Really. Come sit down, Reid.”

Hearing her say his name sucked all the air out of his lungs. He closed the remaining distance between them, staring dumbly at her perched in the armchair. She gave him a small smile, warm despite the nervous energy in the air. “Hey, Reid.”

“Elle.” Spencer sunk into the chair across from her. “I—I thought I was seeing things. Earlier. At Barrett’s.”

She studied him quietly. “This hair is a good look for you.”

“Thanks,” Spencer blushed, smoothing down the hair at the nape of his neck. He quickly dropped his hand. “It was you then.”

“What was me?” Elle asked innocuously.

“You were at Steven Barrett’s house today. In the yard.” Spencer folded his hands to keep from wringing them. “You were wearing a red coat.”

Elle lifted one of the glasses to her lips, taking a sip of the clear liquor, ice cubes rattling. She swallowed and gestured to the other glass. “Have a drink.”

“I, um, I don’t drink anymore.” Elle raised an eyebrow. “A lot has happened since… the last time I saw you.” Spencer smoothed his hands down the tops of his thighs. “You were there today. Elle, did you—are you…” He wasn’t even sure what question to ask.

Elle ran her fingertip around the rim of her glass. She was quiet for a long time. Spencer fidgeted in his seat, but stayed quiet, waiting. Elle set the glass down.

“Do you remember that night in Dayton? In the hotel room?” Spencer looked at her pointedly. Elle let out a laugh. “Sorry, I forgot who I’m talking to; of course you remember.” Their eyes met. Spencer felt she was looking right through him. “You told me that I’d won. That because Garner was dead, and I was alive, I won.”

“Elle—” Spencer started.

“You asked, Reid. This is my answer.” She screwed the cap off the bottle of gin. Pouring the remainder of the bottle into her glass, she continued, “It took time, but I started to feel safe in my own home again. I could close my eyes without seeing his face. I could take a shower without bringing my gun.” She downed the rest of her glass. “When I killed Lee, I gave that same freedom back to the women he’d raped. They could exist in the world knowing that he would never hurt them, ever again.” She smiled ruefully. “And it felt… good. It felt right. And after years of having watched people be destroyed by monsters… I don’t know. It was just something I had to do. To bring that freedom and that safety back to other women who had been hurt and broken and alone. To destroy their monsters.” Elle looked at him then, eyes shining with unshed tears. “I don’t expect you to understand or approve. But the answer to your question is yes.”

Spencer took a breath and asked, “Why’d you put the key in my room? You could have just… disappeared.”

Elle shook her head. “I chose this. I knew what I was doing and what it would mean. Most of the time, I’m fine, great even. Because being able to give these women justice is the greatest gift. But with this work, you can’t really keep anybody close. No holidays or birthdays. No dates or girls nights.” She shrugged. “I guess I just wanted to see what would happen. What the boy genius would do.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Spencer admitted.

“Well, that’s a first.” Elle smiled, but Spencer could see apprehension in the rigidness of her shoulders, in the slight bouncing of her leg.

“I should probably arrest you,” he considered.

Her leg stopped. “You probably should.”

Spencer looked down at his hands. He ran his fingers up to the crook of his elbow, ghosting over the scars there. His mind raced from memory to memory: Elle on the train car; Tobias Hankle standing over him; Elle in the hospital bed; the needle in his arm; Elle in the hotel in Dayton; the click of an empty chamber.

“Elle, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for telling you that you’d won.” She was motionless, staring at him. He continued, “I didn’t know. I didn’t know what it was like. To be consumed and overcome by a memory.” Now it was Spencer’s eyes that shone with tears. “I didn’t know that the trauma could… fester in your brain like an infection that you can’t get rid of. I don’t know if winning is even possible after something like that.” He rubbed his hand under his eye and cleared his throat. “It was an awful thing to say. And I’m sorry.”

Elle tipped her head back, trying to keep the tears from spilling over. “All’s forgiven.”

Spencer reached out and gently grabbed Elle’s hand. “I’ve been so tired recently. I thought I saw something through the window at Steven Barrett’s house. But when I did a perimeter check, I didn’t find anything.” Elle dropped her head back down and turned to look at him. “We’re headed back to Quantico in the morning. We’ll, um, be keeping tabs on VICAP hits on the signature.” Spencer gave her hand one soft squeeze before standing. He let a small, bittersweet smile move over his face.

He made it to the door before he heard her voice again.

“If I asked you to stay, would you say yes?”

Spencer swiveled back to look at her, the door just barely open. Elle’s arms were crossed over her chest. Her eyes were dark and wide and full of storms. “Just for a little while longer?”

Spencer turned and moved his eyes up the length of the doorway, considering. He heard Elle let out a breath. His own breath stuttered. He closed the door softly. He put his hands in his pockets and turned back to her. “I’ve got a little while.”

#vicficwriterchallenge #criminal minds #tw rape #criminal minds fanfiction #aaron hotchner #david rossi #derek morgan #spencer reid #jennifer jareau #emily prentiss #penelope garcia #elle greenaway #homoose writes

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mrvltwimagines · 4 years

Text

Hidden Love

EMILY PRENTISS X READER

SUMMARY: You were relatively good at hiding your feelings, until the one you were hiding your feelings from gets in a sticky situation.

WARNINGS: Season 3, Episode 2 spoilers, but nothing triggering!

WORD COUNT: 3.4k

PROMPT: Can I get a Prentiss x reader where Prentiss is in danger and reader like pushes her out of the way or something without thinking and gets hurt and then angst ensues ending with a feelings reveal and fluff I guess?

The team was growing desperate during this case. The unsub had managed to already kill four women, and we knew as much that he already had a new victim. Your brains wracked trying to figure out the connection between the victims, seeing if you could figure out where he’s grabbing them from. A policeman walked into the room we were in, letting us know that another lady had been taken.

“What do we know?” Derek asks him.

“Her name was Claire Thompson. Her husband tried to reach her on the cell phone, and when she didn’t pick up, he drove to the department store. Her car’s in the parking lot, but she’s not inside,” The policeman filled you all in, letting us know that the husband was in the other room. Spencer grabbed J.J. and the two of them left the room, going to talk with the husband to see if they can figure anything out with what he knows.

“I had the department store uplink the security footage to you analyst in Quantico,” He finished. Hotch nodded at him, dismissing him before we all turned to each other, knowing we’re one step closer to figuring things out. Derek quickly called up Garcia, hoping she had found something on the tape that would be useful.

“Hey baby girl, tell me something I want to hear,” he speaks, getting a small chuckle out of me and a weird look from the chief of police we were working with. She clearly said something flirty back by Derek’s reaction, before he got a bit more serious.

“Did you locate the missing girl on the security footage?” he asks. Within seconds, footage was pulled up on the computer in front of us. We all studied what was going on within it, looking for any minor things that would help us get closer to finding the unsub.

“She doesn’t seem to be on anyone’s radar,” Spencer inputs.

“Look,” Derek speaks up, “Who’s the kid?” We watch as a kid approaches her, concluding that the lady only has a two-year-old daughter and not what looks to be a ten-year-old boy. The boy looked to be lost and asking her for help.

“Garcia, this all you got?” Derek asks into the speaker phone.

“That’s it, and then they turned down a hallway without any security cameras and we lose them.”

While the chief of police thought maybe the kid was genuinely a missing kid, Hotch was quick to jump in saying he believed that the kid was not a missing child, and instead a kid that’s doing whatever necessary to please his father.

“All the abductions and disposals have been timed around school. I thought the unsub might work in the system, but what if this guy is actually using his own son to lure his victims?” he questioned. We were all silent after that, letting the information sit in. It would make sense and with the physical footage of it happening, it sort of put the pieces together.

After figuring out the abduction and dumping grounds, on top of what kind of vehicle the unsub might be driving, the team set out different ways to try and catch this guy. You’d noticed Emily hadn’t been too vocal throughout any of this, and all you wanted to do was ask if she was alright but you knew now wasn’t the time.

“Alright, tell me if I’m in the wrong here, but we’re not getting anywhere focusing on the unsub, maybe we should try focusing on the son?” J.J. inputted, “If he really is using his son, wouldn’t the trauma manifest more clearly on the boy?”

You were quick to call up Garcia after bringing up to the team that you may need a list of all the children in area that we’re targeting.

“Talk dirty to me,” she answers, and for some reason you couldn’t help the flush that ran through your face. Emily smirked at your red exterior, everyone else finding it just as funny.

“Garcia, I need a list of every grade school in the third ward and Wauwatosa,” you requested. You could hear her typing in the background while telling you all that the third ward has one public grade school, but four private schools that draw from that area. In Wauwatosa, there were nine public schools and 3,200 students.

“Can you also get me a list of every guidance counselor that deals directly with the student body in that area?” She agreed, saying she would send it over as soon as possible, both of you hanging up your phones, “We need to present these counselors with the profile of the troubled kid,” you determined. You all split up after that. Hotch and Derek went with each other, J.J and Spencer went with each other, leaving you and Emily to be partners in literal crime.

“You know you’re really cute when you blush,” she compliments you out of nowhere as you walked from your car to the current elementary school that you were at. You couldn’t help but blush again at the compliment, making her laugh a bit as she held the door open for you to walk in. You thanked her, not knowing whether you were thanking her for the compliment or for holding the door open.

You both quickly made your way to the guidance counselors office, flashing your badges at her and quickly beginning the question process.

As soon as you got back to the police station, it was made aware to everyone that there was a lot more work to do, considering the amount of kids that fit our profile. As much as your mind wanted to be fully on the case, it was also running wild at how closely you and Emily were sitting to each other. You’ve been trying to harbor a crush for her that formed just a few months into beginning to work with the BAU which was just over a year ago. You’d done well, not making any noticeable efforts or moves that would throw suspicion to anyone on the team that you were growing more and more in love with her. It was hard, to say the least. Every time she got hurt or would need to miss a case due to her own issues, you wanted to bail and only focus on her, but you couldn’t. Relationships were deeply frowned upon between coworkers, for obvious reasons. Almost like she could feel your constant gaze flashing between her and the case files in front of you, she turned her head and looked you in the eyes, sending you a questioning gaze.

“Are you alright?” she whispered out, leaning even closer to you to try and keep your conversation private. You nodded quickly, your cheeks burning at have been caught, insisting that you were just thinking.

“Claire Thompson has been found dead,” a policeman announced while peaking his head into the conference room we were in. All of your shoulders fell, feeling a bit defeated that you hadn’t figured the unsub out before he was able to kill her. He dumped her in an abandoned alley surrounded by trash and overgrown weeds, her heart carved out like the rest of the victims.

“This is a different area than the dumpsites of the other victims, isn’t it?” Emily questioned.

“He’s getting smart. He knows where all our manpower will be so he’s changing locations.” Spencer offers up.

“Well how long before he changes when and where he abducts them?” Morgan comments, obviously asking a rhetorical question that none of you would be able to answer.

You all quickly made your way back to the station as Spencer began to map out all the abductions and dumpsites. It was determined that where the bodies had ended up, the unsub needed to know the area pretty well, because they sure as hell didn’t end up where they did by accident.

“So we go back to the schools, we eliminate the third ward, and we target problem kids whose fathers have held blue-collar jobs over the last ten years,” Hotch spoke up. Spencer was quick to cut in, letting you know what he was thinking.

“What if it’s not a problem child? Sometimes when a parent is unstable, especially if the other ones out of the picture, you’ll do anything to be the perfect child.”

“Like help your father abduct women?” Emily asked with a frown on her face.

“They’re never late for school. Even with the abductions, the disposals of the bodies, it’s always timed perfectly so the kid will be on time to school. I don’t think the killer would care, I think the kid would.” You thought about what he was saying. It was true that someone as out of control as our unsub was, he wouldn’t care about schedules, but if the kid was trying to please his parent in any way, he sure as hell would care. You instinctually looked at Emily to see what she was thinking, just to find her already looking your way. You nodded at each other, understanding that you were thinking the same thing.

Before you knew it, you and Emily were at one of the Elementary schools that the unsubs child could be attending, and you were back sitting in the counselor’s office.

“He’s a kid that’s a model student,” You start off the profile to the lady.

“Not just straight A’s, though. It’s someone who tries to please in a way that teachers have probably talked about.” Emily offered up.

After a bit more profile description you were given one name, David Smith. A kid with just his dad in the picture due to his mom leaving after the dad was diagnosed with a terminal illness. It explained the anger the father might hold, and the need for David to feel he needs to prove himself to please his dad. You both quickly thanked her, calling the team and filling them in before calling Garcia and asking for an address. You were close to their house already, and didn’t hesitate to make your way over there. The team were, if anything, only ten to fifteen minutes away from you so back up was on its way.

“We need to go in right away. You stay back and I’ll go in, okay?” Emily ordered off. You stumbled on your words, hating her plan. She was willingly going to go in the house by herself when you both know just how angry and temperamental the dad is?

“Are you crazy, Em? I’m not letting you go in there by yourself.” You bark back. You couldn’t help but hold your breath at the feeling of one of her hands caressing your face, thrown off a bit at the feeling of her skin on yours.

“I’ll be fine, I have a plan, and we know he already has a victim so he’ll be distracted. Please trust me on this.” You nodded, not even thinking about what you just agreed to, only being able to focus on the feeling of her hand on your face and the coldness that swept over your cheek once it was gone.

“I’ll give you a signal the second I have probable cause for you and the rest of the team to enter the house, but until then I need you to just keep the perimeter secured,” she ordered. The feeling in your gut made a wave of nausea float throughout your body, but you hid it and simply nodded, “I’ll be fine, y/n.”

Before you knew it, Emily was knocking on the unsubs front door and you saw the boy in the security footage answer it. You both knew that the father and his current victim were most likely in a secluded room where none of the neighbors would be able to hear any screaming or calls out. Your heart rate sped up as the door closed behind Emily, and you couldn’t help yourself from getting closer to the house to look through the windows, keeping an eye on her no matter what.

The team still wasn’t here and your nerves were going crazy. The second you lost sight of her as she walked down a different hallway, you couldn’t stand it anymore. You quietly made it to the front door, opening it and closing it behind you. You saw the boy sitting in one of the living room chairs, watching tv. You snuck behind him and followed the hallway that you last saw Emily walking down. There was only one door slightly open, and peeking through you could see her sneaking down the staircase. You could also see the wide eyes of the victim as she shook her head no at Emily, like she knew something neither of you did. You quickly stormed in behind her, just in time to see the unsub leap at her. Without thinking, you threw yourself on him, both of you toppling onto the concrete. The feeling knocked the wind out of you, and he gained control, able to land a hard hit to your face. Emily quickly got control of the situation before anything more could happen, and your unsub was in handcuffs with a shot to the foot quicker than you had time to fully gain your breath back. With Emily’s focus being on the unsub, you finally gained the strength to stand up and begin to untie the victim. You still felt a bit dizzy, but knowing you had saved Emily from a harsh attack made you feel better.

The rest of the team barged through the door just then, relieved to see both you and Emily were fine, grabbing the unsub and pulling him outside. You let yourself fully grasp the situation that just happened as Spencer consoled the victim and lead her outside too.

“y/n, what the fuck was that?” Emily asked, clearly distraught, “You were supposed to stay outside and wait for backup!”

“Em, he was about to attack you!” you exclaimed, upset that she was mad at you, “what would have happened then if I hadn’t have come inside? You would’ve been on your own and hurt with a distraught murderer!” just the thought made you wince. Things could’ve turned out way worse than they did. Instead of Emily being harshly attacked, you were just left with a bruise on your cheek and a small backache.

“I hate that you did that. I hate that you didn’t follow my instructions,” she expressed, coming up to you and gently tracing the redness on your cheek from the punch.

“I couldn’t stand the thought of you getting hurt, Em,” you whispered out, “I’ve already had to watch for close to a year, a fair share of times where you’ve gotten hurt and every single time it’s like a chunk of my soul chips away. I hate seeing you hurt, especially if there’s something I could’ve done to prevent it,” you admitted. By the look on her face, you could tell she was still upset, but taking your words to heart. Before you knew what you were doing, you leaned forward a bit, kissing her quickly before backing away and instantly regretting your actions. She was surprised to say the least, but your heart was beating out of your chest. Why did you do that? It was almost like your body fully acted out without consoling your mind. It was truly a heart over mind situation.

“Fuck, I’m sorry Em,” you whispered, quickly backing away and heading back out to the SUV you both came in. The team had tried to ask you questions, but you couldn’t fathom talking to anyone at the moment. By the look on your face and your ability to walk past them without acknowledging your questions, they could obviously tell something was wrong. You looked back towards the front door of the house just in time from Emily to walk out, her face staying neutral as she answered all the questions that you were probably asked to begin with.

Your heart ached thinking about how she looked after you kissed her. She didn’t necessarily look upset, but more surprised and distraught. Have you ruined everything now? Is she mad at you? Is this going to make things awkward now? It was ten minutes later when the drivers’ door opened, and you fully expected it to be one of the other team members, but sucked in a breath at the sight of her settling into the seat and closing the door.

“Are we going to talk about what happened?” she asked, not even a tremor in her voice.

“I’m sorry, Em. My emotions just got ahold of me and I acted without thinking,” you admitted, your eyes filling up with tears as you thought of the repercussions you could face. You jumped a bit at the feeling of her hand on your thigh, getting your attention to turn back to her as she looked at you with soft eyes.

“I like you, y/n. Believe me when I say that. I have liked you for months now, and I’m nowhere near upset that you kissed me, I was just surprised,” she said. Your eyes grew wide at the confession, your heart doing a happy skip as you took in her words.

“Really?” you asked, still unable to believe that any of this was actually happening. A small smile crossed her face as she took the lead this time, leaning in and kissing you, but with more intention this time. You separated and could feel the blood rush to your face for the thousandth time today, a small smile gracing both of your faces.

“So what does this mean?” you asked, the worry growing a bit when you thought of the grand plan of how your relationship would work.

“I may have had to tell the team what happened due to them seeing you as distraught as you were,” she whispered, still gently holding your face in place so you wouldn’t look away. You scrunched your face up at the sound of that, “Hotch said it took us long enough to realize we both liked each other.”

Your eyes grew wide as a laugh escaped her mouth. They had known? You thought you did such a good job at hiding your feelings!

“I say we can talk about details later, maybe over dinner?” she asks. This time you couldn’t hold the large smile from forming on your face as you frantically nodded your head.

“I’d love that,” you whispered out. You regretted wasting all the months not telling her how you felt, but now that you know it’s mutual and there’s a large potential of being in the relationship that you’ve wanted so badly, you’re thankful that you hadn’t listened to Emily’s orders earlier or you wouldn’t have all of this. You were finally able to express your feelings and having her express hers back was a surreal thing. Your mind settled, along with your body as you both buckled up and she began to drive back to the station so you could grab your things and head back to the jet to get home. You smiled the whole way, excited for what was about to happen. You were finally going on a long-awaited date with the woman you loved, and you couldn’t be any happier.

#emily prentiss x reader #emily prentiss imagine #emily prentiss x reader angst #emily prentiss x reader fluff #emily prentiss angst #emily prentiss fluff #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds angst #criminal minds fluff

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lils-writes-stuff · 4 years

Text

I Remember

Best years Part 3 | part two | part one

spencer reid x reader

summary: as time moves forward, the readers past begins to creep its way back into her thoughts.

warnings: normal criminal minds things

A/N: based on season 7 episode 13 (this one may be my favorite i’ve written so far)

The white sweater on Y/N’s body warmed her as she walked to the kitchen in her apartment. The hard-wood floor was cold against her bare feet as she poured the hot coffee into her mug, along with her cream and sugar. She felt tired that morning, legs feeling heavier than usual as she dragged herself to the bar inside her kitchen. She sat down, opening up her notebook that laid there and began to write.

Her mind trailed off as she wrote to the note she had gotten a couple of weeks back. The bird on the page mocked her as she thought of the enemy she had made all those years back. Her thoughts trailed back to when the woman made her sit and watch as she tormented people she cared for. The sounds of slapping and skin-on-skin contact making her cringe. The smell of water and fire filled her nose as she felt like she was back where she was almost ten years ago.

Buzz. Buzz.

The sound of her phone brought her back into the kitchen and she looked over to see who was calling her. The time read 7:30 A.M., Saturday, but that’s not what had her attention. Spencer’s name lit up the screen telling her it was him who was calling.

She set her pen down before picking up her phone. “Hey, Spence,” she said answering the phone.

“Hey, did you get Hotch’s message?” He asked, the sound of an elevator ding being heard through the speaker of the phone.

“No, I just woke up, why is something wrong?” She closed her notebook standing up and heading towards her room.

“We’ve got a case, Hotch said to get here as soon as possible,” The elevator ding was heard again.

“I’m assuming you’re already at the office,” she said while placing some clothes together in her go-bag before she got ready.

“Yeah, I was up anyway, couldn’t sleep,” he explained to her.

“Oh, that sucks, well I’ll be there in ten,” she said before saying bye.

“See ya,” was his response before hanging up.

She buttoned up a blue shirt and grabbed the white sweater she wore to bed, layering it over the shirt. Black pants and boots followed as she put on makeup quickly and headed out the door to the BAU office.

Spencer smiled at her as he saw her enter the door of the office. She smiled back with radiance.

“Beautiful,” Spencer whispered to himself, or what he thought was himself.

“What was that Pretty Boy?” Derek questioned from behind Spencer, a smug smirk on his face.

Spencer flushed looking back at Derek, “I-I didn’t say anything.” He lied, and it was evident, not only because Derek heard him, but because it was a bad lie.

“You know Reid, I think girl wonder over there has feeling for you too,” the broad man said pointing the woman across the room who was talking to Emily.

“I never said I had feelings for her,” Spencer said defending his bottled up emotion for the woman he had truly been crushing on since she arrived at the BAU.

Derek rolled his eyes, “Kid, you may be a genius or whatever, but it doesn’t take a profiler to notice you like her. All the small glances and longing looks, come on when are you going to tell her?”

“Is it that obvious?” Spencer asked looking at his friend.

“Painstakingly,” was Derek’s response before he walked away towards the round table room.

Spencer turned back around looking at Y/N as she laughed at something Emily had said to her before they themselves made their way to the room.

He watched as Y/N smiled and tucked a piece of her hair behind her hair, eyes sparkling as she smiled at Derek who said something to her.

You’re gonna do it, Spencer, he thought, You’re going to ask her out.

----------

“It looks like a robbery gone bad,” Emily said as they inspected the latest case coming through. “Why was the BAU called in?”

Hotch clicked a button on the remote pulling up the next photo which was of the crime scene.

“Eight one-dollar bills surrounding an eight card,” Spencer said as he looked closely at the victim on the screen. “That’s highly ritualistic.”

“And because Savino has ties to organized crime, agents in New Jersey are worried about things escalating,” Hotch explained.

“Well, it doesn’t take much to ignite a mob war,” Derek said looking at the photo on the screen again.

“And collateral damage means nothing to these guys,” Y/N added to what Derek was saying.

“If we don’t get a handle on this soon, innocent people are gonna die,” Rossi said.

“And we don’t want that, wheels up in 20,” Hotch said dismissing the team to get ready to leave.

Everyone grabbed their things and headed out the door, leaving Y/N and Penelope the last.

“Hey, Penelope,” Y/N said turning to her right before she walked out the door.

Penelope jumped, startled by Y/N’s voice before looking at her ready for her question.

“Can you look someone up for me, after this case, of course, I need to know where they are,” Y/N explained to her.

“Sure, yeah, who is it,” Penelope said grabbing out a small notepad and pen from her bag.

“Uh, her name is Caroline Roberts,” she told the woman in front of her. “And can this stay between us, I don’t want anyone to worry,” Y/N explained to her.

“Oh, sure, should I be worried,” Penelope asked concerned for her friend.

“I’m not sure yet, but I’ll let you know,” She spoke and turned around exiting the room.

----------

“No question. ‘God Father II,’ hands down,” Emily said in response to the question on what her favorite gangster flick was.

“No, no, gotta be ‘Scarface’,” responded Derek contouring Emily’s choice in the movie.

“For me, ‘The Untouchables’, ” JJ said the turning to look at Spencer and Y/N who sat on the couch beside each other. “Y/N? Spence?”

“Hmm, Does ‘Pulp Fiction’ count? If so then that,” Y/N responded.

“Mm, Probably ‘Le Cercle Rouge,’ the 1970s french classic,” Spencer answered looking up from the book he was reading. “But ‘Den Tredje Vaagan’ is definitely a close second.”

“Yeah, that was my runner-up, too,” Emily said with a smile, making the others laugh.

“What about you, Rossi?” JJ said to the man walking down the aisle.

“Yeah, best ever gangster flick,” Y/N said turning towards him.

“I’ve had too much of the real thing to be a fan of mob movies,” Rossi replied sitting in the chair next to him.

The others chuckled at his words before turning to Hotch.

“Garcia, did we get the crime scene surveillance video yet?” Hotch asked looking at the woman on the screen in front of him.

“No, Sir, because there wasn’t any,” replied Penelope through the screen. Her face showed guilt that wasn’t even hers to have.

“That’s not possible,” Spencer said with shock. “Every inch of the casino is surveilled, every minute of every day.”

“Yeah, apparently the footage was tampered with, so…,” Penelope’s voice trailed off.

“All right, Reid and Y/L/N, go to the crime scene,” Hotch said to the two sitting on the couch. “Dave, you and JJ find out if Savino was involved in anything the local authorities don’t know about. Morgan, Prentiss, and I will contact the local FBI office and arrange a ceasefire with the families.”

Everyone nodded and went back to their previous conversation. Y/N looked over at Spencer who had a book in his hand, reading with his finger trailing down the page to follow the words. For a second she was mesmerized by how he looked, but she soon looked away at the thought of being caught and listened to the conversation between the other four at the table.

-----------

Spencer and Y/N walked down the hallway towards the room of the crime scene, the guard sliding the card the lock opening it.

“Electric strike lock, impressive,” Y/N spoke walking into the room, taking into count how it looked.

“And hard to bypass. If this was a robbery, the unsub must have slipped in right behind him,” Spencer said, looking at the room around him.

“Well, Savino could have known the killer,” Y/N said as she looked at the scene on the ground. “Could have let him in himself, and probably wasn’t expecting this to turn into a brawl, let alone a murder.”

“Maybe the unsub wasn’t either,” Spencer said looking at Y/N. “If this was premeditated, you’d think he would have brought a knife or a gun with him,” he walked closer to the scene on the floor bending over to look at it closer. “The bowling trophy looks more like a weapon of opportunity.”

“Is this the only camera?” Y/N asked pointing up towards the camera in the corner.

“Yes, Ma’am, but the disk was removed,” replied the guard who let them in.

“But casinos have a central terminal that backs up and stores all surveillance footage, right?” Spencer asked turning around to the guard.

“Mr. Savino didn’t want that in his office,” the guard replied.

Y/N rolled her eyes, “Of course not.” The words were muttered under her breath, barely even audible.

“He put in a personal camera,” the guard continued.

“So the victim bypassed a security system that would have revealed his own killer,” Spencer said the tone in his voice going up at the end.

“What didn’t he want anyone to see?” Y/N asked walking over towards the camera on the wall. “Whatever it was he wanted everything kept secret.”

Spencer nodded his head in agreement, the two thanked the guard and walked out of the room. The walk down the hall was silent as the two made their way towards the elevator.

“I hate casinos,” Y/N stated as they entered the elevator.

“Why’s that?” Spencer asked as he pressed the button labeled ‘Lobby’.

“I think it’s the smell, alcohol, and cigarettes, it just gives me a headache,” she said with disgust at the thought of it. “Don’t get me wrong though, I love a good game of poker, but I’d rather do it with some friends and some pretzels as chips.”

Spencer laughed at her statement, “Are you good?” Spencer asked her as they exited the elevator and headed towards the doors.

“At poker? I mean I guess, I have a decent bluff face, but I prefer gin,” she opened the door for them. The brisk air hitting her skin as she wrapped her jacket around her torso as they headed towards the car.

------------

Y/N and Spencer entered the small conference room behind Agent Gossling who had met them at the door.

“Agent Gossling,” Hotch said greeting her.

“Any luck with our mob bosses?” asked Gossling as she walked into the room.

“Well, I think we bought some time,” replied Derek.

Y/N and Spencer sat down at the table along with everyone else.

“What about the crime scene?” Emily asked.

“Savino purposely bypassed the standard casino security,” Y/N explained, her arms folding over herself as she leaned forward on the table.

“I think we know why,” stated Rossi as he entered the room, JJ following closely behind him.

“Danny Savino supplemented his income by loaning money to casino patrons,” JJ explained, relaying the information she and Rossi had learned.

“Explains why he changed the camera in his office,” Spencer said, shifting in his seat. “He didn’t want his bosses to know he was freelancing.”

“So we’re looking for a gambler,” Hotch said looking at those around him.

“A gambler in Atlantic City,” Emily said.

“Ah, yes because that narrows the field,” Y/N said with light sarcasm in her voice. A few around her chuckled.

They sat in the room for a few more hours, discussing what could be going down. Y/N’s phone rang, she pulled it out of her pocket, the name ‘Penelope’ on the screen.

“Excuse me,” She said standing up, walking out of the room. “Hey Pen, what’s up,” she said when she was out of ears-reach from those in the room.

“So that Caroline Roberts you asked me to look into, she was a lot harder to find then I thought,” She spoke through the phone.

“Oh, you found her already,” Y/N whispered, not expecting her to find her, or even look for her, this fast. But who was Y/N kidding, she was asking Penelope Garcia to find her someone, she should have expected this.

“Yeah, so this girl was in prison about two years ago for assault, which is unusual seeing how violent it was considering she is a woman,” Penelope spoke confusion evident in her voice.

“She is a very unusual person,” Y/N agreed as more memories of the woman from her past filled her mind.

“Uh-huh, no kidding, anyway she was let out for parole not too long ago and she has been working for an insurance company ever since,” Penelope explained.

“And there’s been no suspicious behavior since she was let out?” Y/N was nervous about her answer.

“Nope. None,” she replied. “So are you going to tell me what this is about?”

Y/N was about to respond, but Hotch approached behind her causing the conversation to be cut short. “I got to go,” she pulled the phone from her ear and hanging up turning around to Hotch.

“Everything alright,” He asked her, brows furrowed in his normal serious manner.

“Yeah, yeah, all good,” she said reassuring him. His eyebrows raised, but he didn’t push it anymore.

“There’s been another victim, we’re heading to the scene now,” he told her. “I want you to stay here, help the other build the profile we’ll be back.”

Y/N nodded her head. As he turned and walked away, she let out a heavy sigh and headed back to the small conference room.

------------

“We’re looking for a man who’s killing those who appear to prey upon or take advantage of gamblers,” Hotch said beginning to explain the profile. It was the next morning and the office was filled with people ready to hear the profile and catch the man who was doing this. “Loan Sharks and call girls so far.”

“The killings may have been triggered by recent gambling losses,” Derek explained further into the profile.

“Our unsub is physically fit,” Y/N added.

“He was able to overpower Danny Savino and Patty Riolo was killed with extreme violence,” Emily explained more.

“It’s doubtful this man has a criminal record, he moves without fear of being recognized,” Derek said looking over the sea of people in front of them.

“In one of the most surveilled locales on the planet,” Y/N continued explaining why that was important.

“He wouldn’t have elements of domestic life,” JJ began. “Like children, that would only moderate or stabilize his compulsive behavior.”

“Pathological gambling is the most common type of impulse control disorder in the world,” Spencer explained.

“And there is no more superstitious creature on Earth than a gambler,” Rossi said pushing himself off the desk he was leaning on. “The number eight is the ritual aspect of our unsub’s signature.”

“It’s a compulsion, it could signify a birthday or an important time in his life,” Y/N explained more into the skepticism type.

“Not only is this unsub a killer, but he’s also an addict,” Hotch added. “He’s killed twice in the last two days, and he may not be able to stop.”

Hotch then dismissed the group in front of them and the team went back to the small conference room.

Y/N’s phone buzzed. She pulled it out of her pocket reading the text from Penelope;

Can you tell me what it’s about now??

Y/N shook her head, knowing that the woman wasn’t going to give up till she told her or gave her a promising answer.

I will when we get back

The text was enough for Penelope to reply with a simple ‘okay’ and leave her alone until she got back.

--------

“This doesn’t make sense,” Rossi exclaimed looking at the board. “Danny Savino was a bottom-feeder, handing out nickel-and-dime to small-time gamblers. But Patti Riolo was exclusively about high-rollers.”

“The unsub wouldn’t have crossed naturally into both worlds, he would have been in one or the other,” Emily said, agreeing with Rossi that it didn’t make sense.

“Unless his fortunes changed drastically between murdering Savino and meeting up with Patti Riolo,” Hotch shed some light onto the conversation.

“Maybe he flashed the money he stole from Savino in front of her, you know pretending to be rich,” Y/N said looking at the other three hoping she helped.

“Or he gambled with it and won big,” Rossi said turning back towards the board.

“Let’s say Dave is right, he was in financial trouble, and immediately after murdering Savino, his luck changed,” Hotch said giving his theory.

“In his mind, he could’ve connected the two,” Y/N connected her own thoughts as she pieced the story together.

“Every compulsive gambler believes in a system, no matter how illogical,” Rossi added.

“And he’d figure the past part of his system he was missing was murder,” Hotch connected the last of the dots forming the story together.

---------

Y/N walked up to Spencer and squatted down next to him. The victim leaned up against a wall in a back alley, multiple gunshot wounds were shot in his back.

“Eighty-eight dollars, the unsub’s getting generous,” Spencer said holding the money in his gloved covered hands.

“There’s less rage than the others,” Y/N noticed as she looked at the victim. “And undoing. There’s major evidence of remorse, shot in the back so he wouldn’t have to face his victim.”

“No robbery this time either, the wallet’s intact, except for anything to I.D. him,” Spencer said holding up the wallet to Y/N, Hotch and Agent Gossling also who had approached beside her.

“Is this even the same killer?” Agent Gossling asked looking at Spencer.

“The ritual’s too similar to discount it,” Hotch explained looking over at the three beside him. The sound of Agent Gossling’s phone ringing pulled her away from the three and off to the side to answer it.

“Well, the change in M.O. makes sense if the unsub is still refining his system,” Y/N said head-turning to Hotch beside her. “Maybe the killing of the gas station clerk didn’t work, so now he’s back to the drawing board.”

“Two eights instead of one could be significant,” Spencer said diverting the attention over to him. “I know in China the number 8 symbolizes prosperity. The more eights, the better. As a matter of fact, in Chengdu, a telephone number consisting of all eights recently sold for over a quarter-million dollars.”

“Wow,” Y/N said. “So, wait, why would he be doubling his luck out here, away from all the casinos?” She wondered while looking between the two.

“There’s been another killing,” Agent Gossling said approaching the three after hanging up her phone. “A guest in his room at the Sapphire Lady.”

“Same ritual?” Hotch asked as he looked over at the agent.

“No, his neck was broken, and he was robbed of 50,000,” Agent Gossling explained what she was told over the phone. “The strange thing is, the killer left nearly 20,000 behind with the body.”

Hotch opened his phone, pressing Penelope’s name.

“Garcia is there a casino in the neighborhood of Penrose and Morningside avenue?” Hotch asked after hearing the beep of Penelope answering.

“Uh...no casino per se, but there’s a private gambling establishment right around the corner,” Penelope explained.

“Is it legal?” Spencer asked, his voice speaking louder so he could be heard over the phone.

“Yeah, but it’s ultra-exclusive, they have a monthly high-stakes poker tournament-” she paused, “today being that day for that day of the month, coincidentally enough.”

“Or no coincidence at all,” Y/N said with a huff.

“What’s the buy-in?” Hotch asked.

“Yikies, 50,000 dollars,” Penelope said confirming what everyone was thinking. “But it’s a million-dollar guarantee if you win,” she continued.

“What time does it start?” Hotch asked her.

“Later this afternoon,” she replied.

“Thanks,” Hotch said hanging up his phone before turning and walking to the cars.

---------

“Forensics got a match on the last victim,” Agent Gossling said as she walked into the small conference room, taking a seat next to Rossi. “Eddie Langdon, we’re looking into him now.”

“Hey, any luck?” JJ said turning to Hotch as he stepped into the room.

“No, they don’t want to allocate emergency funds for the buy-in,” Hotch replied looking at his phone. They were trying to find a way to get into the tournament so that they could hopefully catch the unsub. “I’m still working on it.”

“Well, I can’t imagine why not, we’re only asking for 50,000 bucks of taxpayer money, so that FBI agents can play Texas Hold ‘em,” Rossi said with humor.

Y/N paused for a second,“Hey, what about you?” She asked looking at Rossi across from her.

“What about me what?” He retorted back with eyebrows raised.

“You could stake us the buy-in?” Y/N proposed.

“Yeah, you’re a best-selling author,” Spencer said as he sat down next to Y/N.

“No,” Rossi said, he had that tone that said why would you even say such a thing.

“Why not?” Emily asked him.

“One, it’s against regulations, and I’d like to hold on to this job for a little while longer,” Rossi said looking at the four in front of him.

“It’s a minor administrative violation,” JJ said, a smirk on her face.

“And two, I prefer to spend my money on actual things. Like single-malt scotch, a fine cigar, beautiful artwork-”

“Poker chips are things!” Emily interrupted quickly.

“They are,” Y/N agreed, nodding her head while she looked at Rossi.

“Maybe just think of it as like a new experience,” Spencer began. “I mean at your age how often does that happen.”

“Oh no,” Y/N whispered after Spencer’s statement.

“At my what?” Rossi questioned with daggers as he looked at Spencer. Spencer than looked away, avoiding eye contact.

“Rossi, this may be our only chance to get this guy,” JJ explained, voice coming off as slightly pleading.

“Alright fine,” Rossi said finally caving. “I’m a decent poker player, but I can’t promise that I can stay in the game long enough to-”

“You know what, I bet you’re a great poker player,” Y/N said cutting Rossi off. “But what if we send in Spencer?” She posed the idea of the boy wonder going in.

“I am banned from casinos in Las Vegas, Laughlin, and Pahrump for my card counting ability,” Spencer said as he looked at those around the table.

Y/N held her hand up as if saying, my point exactly.

“Look, I know I’m not a genius like the boy wonder here,” he said hand gesturing to Spencer next to him. “But poker is not blackjack, it’s about bluffing, reading human nature, head games, Y/N would be a better bet because she’s really good at hiding stuff and playing mind games.”

“I slightly resent that statement,” Y/N said, humor clearly evident in her voice.

“All I am saying is, It’s not math,” Rossi finished.

“That’s not entirely accurate,” Spencer said standing up, grabbing a marker and walking towards the board. “There actually is a mathematical equation for knowing when to raise and when to fold. If P represents the size of the pot at the time of play, then P times N minus one, with N representing the estimated number of players, in the final round of betting--”

“Okay, fine, I surrender,” Rossi cut Spencer off not wanting to hear any more of the math lesson he was giving. “Just try not to lose all of my money.”

Spencer snapped his fingers giving Rossi a thumbs up with a tight-lipped smile.

“Dear God, I hope this works,” Y/N said while she placed her head on her folded arms that rested on the table.

“You know, maybe we should send Y/N in also, you know like as a call girl or something, have two sets of eyes to cover all the tables,” Rossi said looking at Y/N.

“Ha, that’s a good one Rossi,” She said laughing while looking up at his serious face. “Oh, you’re serious.”

“It would work well, two eyes being able to see everything,” Emily said looking at Y/N.

She looked at her friend in disbelief that she was agreeing to this, but she let out a huff and said, “Fine, but if I’m going to do this you better get me some makeup and a outfit because I don’t think this attire will pull off what you want me to do,” Y/N caved knowing there would be no way of getting out of this.

“I think we can get that worked out,” Agent Gossling said standing up and getting what they needed.

----------

Y/N looked around the large room full of tables from the bar, not really sure what to do. “Guys, I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to be doing here, I also feel very exposed,” she whispered into her wire that was placed on her, tugging on the top of the low-cut black jumpsuit she was wearing. She was given a wire to be safe in case something happened while Spencer was given an alert pen.

“Go over to some tables and flirt with someone, come on Pretty girl, you got this,” Derek spoke to her through the clear ear-piece in her ear. So that’s what she did, wandering from table to table flirting lightly with men, and looking to see if they had any items of eight tat would link them as the unsub. She watched as some men made the worst decisions in poker and others who took it way to seriously.

While she was paying attention to what she was doing, she couldn’t help but notice Spencer’s glances as he looked at her to make sure she was okay. The reason she knew that was why he was looking at her was that it was the same reason she would glance at him.

“Get anything yet, Y/N?” Emily asked in her ear-piece.

Y/N pulled herself away from the table she was just at so she could answer. “Negative,” she answered switching the clutch from her left hand to her right. She looked up for a second and saw Spencer make eye contact with her, then eyes diverting to the man sitting beside him. “Hold on, Reid might have something, wait for his signal though.”

“I am in, and I raise,” Y/N caught the end of Spencer’s call as she made her way over to the table.

“That’s too rich for my blood,” the man beside the one glaring at Spencer spoke. The two sat there, eyeing each other, no wards exchange.

She began lightly flirting with some of the men at the table, pretending to be dumb about poker. She carefully watched Spencer and then man eyeing each other.

“Are you in, sir?” The dealer asked the man eyeing Spencer.

“I’ll call,” He said placing some chips in front of him.

“Call,” the dealer spoke.

“Straight,” Spencer said as he flipped his cards over, eyes never leaving the man.

The man scoffed in defeat.

“A gutshot straight draw? Are you kidding me?” The man that Y/N was flirting with said looking at Spencer in disbelief. “That is just-- that is just nuts.”

“No kidding,” Y/N whispered to herself at the hand Spencer had. He looked up at her making eye contact signaling her that he believed the one he had been eyeing was the unsub. Y/N nodded and waited for his move.

“Do you mind if I take a look at this?” Spencer asked reaching for the eight ball key-chain that sat in front of the man.

The man’s hand gripped Spencer’s wrist as he had a hold on his lucky item. Spencer’s theory confirmed that this was the unsub.

“Hey, what’s the problem, sir?” A guard asked walking over to Spencer and the unsub.

“He-He’s reaching for my chips!” The unsub proclaimed to the guard.

“I was simply admiring--” Spencer was cut off by the guard yanking him out of his seat.

“Shit,” Y/N whispered as she calmly approached, but stopped realizing that wasn’t smart and kept her distance.

“Sir you need to come with me,” The guard said yanking Spencer again. Y/N becoming slightly angry at how the guard was treating Spencer.

“Y/N what is it?” Hotch asked through her earpiece, she didn’t respond.

“I’ll cooperate, don’t manhandle me,” Spencer said shoving the guard off of him slightly. “Thanks.” He looked at Y/N nodding towards the man before sounding the alarm in his hand.

Y/N watched Spencer get pulled away and when she turned back the unsub, who was now taking poker chips and shoving them in his pockets. She knew she couldn’t go after him, she didn’t have her gun or a vest so she waited for backup.

“Y/N did you see where he went?” Hotch asked as he approached her, Emily tossing her a vest.

“Yeah, he went this way come on,” She said placing the vest over her head and grabbing her gun from Emily.

“Morgan, he’s a white male baseball cap, he’s headed for the back door,” Emily spoke into her watch as she, Hotch, and Y/N continued to move forward towards the back.

They entered a room and saw the head of a man lying on the ground, “He’s on the move.” Y/N said to her wire as her and the other two ran out the back.

The three came to a halt as they were met with the cold air, realizing the unsub had gotten away.

----------

The cool air ran over Y/N’s bare arms as the stood outside of the building. They had started to discuss victimology again before Hotch called Penelope to find out if Eddie Langdon had a partner in his plumbing business. His partner was Curtiss Banks whose father was also a compulsive gambler.

“Do you have an address?” Hotch asked Penelope over the phone. She responded with his home address and than Hotch hung up.

“Y/L/N, go with Reid and Morgan and head to Banks’ house, he may head back there,” Hotch ordered to Y/N who began to walk towards where Spencer and Derek were.

“Hey, Hotch wants us to go to Banks’ house, Garcia just sent the address,” Y/N said as she approached the two men by the stakeout van.

“Alright, let’s go,” Derek said pushing himself off of the van and heading towards the SUV in the parking lot.

“Here, I grabbed this out of the van,” Spencer said, handing Y/N an FBI bomber jacket.

“Thank you, I’m freezing,” she said taking the jacket from Spencer, hand slightly brushing his.

While Y/N put the jacket on her body, Derek looked at Spencer as they approached the vehicle and wiggled his eyebrows. Spencer responded with an exaggerated eye roll and hopped into the passenger seat.

The three arrived at the house and looked around to see if anyone was there, but the house was quiet and dark. Derek pulled his phone out and dialed Hotch’s number.

“Yeah Hotch,” Derek said when Hotch answered the phone. “There’s nobody here. There’s a foreclosure sign on the front lawn.”

The three got back into the car as Hotch told them to stay in case he came back. Y/N let out a sigh as she placed her head on her hand on the armrest.

“You okay back there Y/N?” Derek asked turning in his chair to look at the young woman.

“Yep,” she said popping the ‘p’ at the end of the word. “I don’t like sitting and waiting.”

“Me neither,” Derek agreed. “What about you pretty boy?”

Spencer turned to look at Derek beside him, his eye previously trained on the house outside the window. “I don’t mind it, it gives me some time to relax and think.”

The three sat in silence and waited for some instruction. Y/N closed her eyes for a second and began to drift off. She was quickly brought back to reality as Derek’s phone ringing woke her up.

“Hey, Hotch,” he said answering the phone. Y/N and Spencer looked over as he talked on the phone. “Alright, we’ll head back now, that was Hotch they got him at his sister-in-law’s house.”

“Oh good, does this mean we get to go home now and sleep?” Y/N asked, hope in her voice.

“Yes, sleepyhead, we do,” Derek said, starting the car and driving back towards the office. Y/N laughed and shook her head before just leaning back in her chair.

The next morning the team made their way home and returned back to the office and began their day there.

Y/N sat at her desk looking over a report in her hand. She looked up at the post-it note on her desk, the sketch of a bird taunting her as she looked at it. Ripping it off her desk she crumpled it and threw it away and went back to the report.

“Hey Y/N,” Spencer said walking up to Y/N at her desk.

She looked up from her report and looked at Spencer, “Hey Spence, what’s up?” She asked him.

“Um, I was wondering, if you know you wanted to maybe, possibly, wanted to,” He stumbled over his words out of nervousness.

She raised an eyebrow at him waiting for the climax of the question. “Spencer, take a breath.”

He did just that, taking in a deep breath, letting his shoulders drop in the process.

“Sometime, would you maybe want to, get some coffee?” His voice was quiet at the end and if it wasn’t for Y/N’s hyper-aware hearing she may have not caught it.

“Spencer Reid, are you asking me out?” She said, a smile forming on her face.

“Only-only if you want me to be, if not then it can just be as friends, or we could-”

“Spence,” she cut him off. “I would really like that.”

“Really?” He asked smiling at the woman in front of him. “How-how about tomorrow?” He asked her.

“That sounds great,” she said and smiled. He went back to his desk with a pep in his step and sat down with a smile.

“He did it,” Emily said to Penelope as she walked up beside her.

“Who did it?” Penelope asked the dark-headed woman.

“Spencer, he asked Y/N out, only took him a year and a half,” she laughed.

“Oh my god, the day has finally happened!”

---------

Y/N walked into her apartment, sighing happily as she took her shoes off of her aching feet. She looked down and saw an envelope on the ground. Cautiously she picked it up and flipped it over, the flap being tapped down by wax. The imprint of a bird on it.

She opened it carefully, pulling out a note similar to the ones she had gotten weeks prior.

Remember those nights you would sit scared in your room? I do, I remember and I miss them, start feeling that again. ~ C.R.

Y/N dropped the letter on the ground, she turned in locked her door shut before she slide down it. Grabbing her phone, she quickly went to Penelope’s contact and called her.

“Hey Pen, I think I’m ready to tell you who Caroline Roberts is.”

tag list (let me know if you want to be added!!):

@throughparisallthroughrome

#spencer reid #spencer reid imagine #criminal minds #criminal minds imagine #aaron hotchner #aaron hotch hotchner #derek morgan #derek morgan imagine #criminal minds meme #Penelope Garcia #Emily Printiss

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imagineaworlds · 3 years

Text

I Love You (Part Forty-Seven) -- Aaron Hotchner

Written By: @desperately-bisexual

Request: None.

Warnings: Cursing. Mentions of PTSD, Dom/sub relationship, death, etc-- everything Criminal Minds.. I think that’s it???

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Greenaway!Reader

Word Count: 12575

Timeline: Season 7 Episode 01. Three months after part forty-six.

For the past three months, the team had worked dozens of different cases across the country, but none of them mattered except for the one that Morgan, Garcia, and I had been working on privately. Since I came back to work and was deemed the temporary unit chief, I decided to reopen the Ian Doyle case. At first, it was just me. When I wasn’t at work, I was at home, hiding in the upstairs office, working on trying to piece all of the evidence together to figure out where the hell Doyle could have possibly gone. But then it was just too hard to keep doing it on my own, and all of my resources were wasted. There was only one person who had access to more information than I did. Garcia. So, I asked if she would be willing to help me, but it was impossible for her to keep a secret, so we invited Morgan to help us. From there, we managed to find Declan, but we didn’t tell anyone about it outside of our small group of three.

Finding Declan was an interesting process. I had hit a wall with it, hence why I acquired Garcia’s help, but she managed to find him almost immediately after she told Derek what was going on and he helped profile Emily in order to profile Declan. He figured that she had been the one to move him considering how she died protecting his identity and location. Before joining the team, apparently she lived in Reston, Virginia, something I didn’t know about her, but he managed to know. From there, we decided that it was probably to be close to Declan. So, we started narrowing it down. We knew that she liked cul-de-sacs, so as Garcia was going through the school system to find kids that looked like Declan, she compared if their guardian looked like Louise, his nanny, and if they lived in a cul-de-sac. Then, bam. We found them.

Morgan had been the one to offer up the idea of looking for Declan before Ian because if we found Declan, then so would his father eventually, which made our job easier. After that, it was just a waiting game. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much we could do beyond searching all of the footage to see if Ian ever showed up, which he never did. When Morgan and I were away on cases, Penelope kept an eye on him; and when we were in town but not working on anything, Morgan was driving baby Emily out there and taking her on walks around Declan’s neighborhood to scout the place. I think it was also just an excuse for him to have Emily more.

On our way to work one morning, Morgan and I stopped to get sandwiches for lunch, as well as some donuts from Leonard’s for the office since we were feeling generous, I suppose. At work, we split off so that he could sit in the bullpen while I dragged my feet up to my office. I didn’t understand how Hotch did it. Being away from the team all day, every day was so… isolating and exhausting. There was no joking with Morgan, teasing Reid, or… well, when Emily was around, there was no more chatting with her and gossiping about Hotch. I missed the way she used to slide in veiled threats into the conversation about how she would hurt him if he ever hurt me. So, then again, maybe it was a good thing that I wasn’t down in the bullpen anymore. Sitting at my old desk would have just given me a reason to sit there and stare at her desk all day, reflecting on what it was like to have her around, wishing that I could bring her back.

By lunch time, Morgan rescued our sandwiches from the fridge and brought them up to my office. He closed the door behind him and sat down across from me. I caught my sandwich as he threw it at me, then tossed him a water bottle from Hotch’s secret stash in his bookshelf behind the desk. I hadn’t really changed anything. For the most part, the office was still exactly how he left it. From the artwork to the family photos, to the stacks of case files that he practically left for me on his desk to work through, to his computer wallpaper of us, it was all still Hotch. The only difference was that I was finding all of his secrets now, like the water bottles, and totally taking advantage of them.

Morgan kicked his feet up on the desk, something Hotch would’ve never let him do in a thousand years, and dug into his lunch. I picked at mine for a moment while thinking. I was doing too much of that nowadays. Without my “other half” (or some cliché shit like that) around, I didn’t really know who to talk to 24/7 about what I was thinking and feeling. Sure, I could’ve talked to Morgan, but it was different. When I talked to Morgan, it was like we were brainstorming for a solution; but with Hotch, it was just like he was there to listen, and I could go on and on for hours, and he would hear me out, and he would only offer up a solution if he felt it were necessary. Sometimes I just liked ranting my thoughts to him. I liked watching how he would slowly get lost in the details of my face as I would be talking, and how he it looked like he was falling in love with me over and over again with every minute that passed. Skype and calling on the phone every day didn’t do that look justice anymore.

“Oh, my god—Oh, my god—Oh, my god!” Garcia came running into the office with a laptop balancing on one of her arms. Morgan and I turned to face her. “It’s him! It’s him!” She quickly set her laptop down on my desk and pressed play on a video. Morgan and I both leaned forward in our seats to watch the security footage from Declan’s house. “It’s Doyle—” She paused and pointed to a driver in a car passing by. It was kind of hard to see, but when she zoomed the image in and enhanced it, it was undeniably Ian Doyle.

“When was this?” I asked, jumping into action by standing from my seat and started collecting everything we had on this case thus far.

“Two hours ago.”

“He could have Declan by now. Fuck.” I looked at the two of them to say, “Okay, I think it’s time. I’m going to call Hotch to let him know, meanwhile, I need you guys to get the team together and start explaining everything. I want Reid and Rossi to go retrieve Declan and Louise after they’re briefed.” I grabbed my phone from my desk. “Go.” Just as they were leaving, I dialed Hotch’s satellite phone out in the Middle East.

Hotch and I had still been calling each other every day and Skyping as often as we could. The longer he was there, however, the busier he and I got with our two different jobs, which made it increasingly complicated to keep up with each other. But we made the effort. We knew that if at least one day passed where we wouldn’t talk, one day would inevitably turn into two, then three, and so on. I didn’t want to stop talking to him. As boring as the conversations could get at times, at least I got to see him. He was growing out a beard that I happened to love, but Jack hated. He claimed that it made his dad look old. When we could talk in private a little bit later, I told Hotch that I thought it was hot, and that I couldn’t wait to pull at it while he towered over me. He disliked when I teased him like that, though.

When I called, he picked up almost immediately.

“You’re calling awfully early,” Hotch said over the phone, “are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Do you have a minute?”

“For you? I have all the time in the world.”

I blushed to myself and looked down to watch the toes of my shoe dig into the ground over and over again. “There’s something you need to know, baby, and you have to promise to not get mad.” He didn’t say anything. “Morgan, Garcia, and I have been looking for Doyle while you’ve been gone.” Still, nothing. “We found Declan.”

“What?!”

“Hotch—”

“Why didn’t you tell me about this, Y/N? Do you know how stupid that was? Your whole career could—”

“I don’t care about that, Hotch. I really don’t. I knew that finding Declan was the best way of finding Ian, so I asked Garcia to help; and you know her, she couldn’t keep it to herself, so she told Morgan, and he insisted that he help us. He’s basically the one who found Declan. Without the two of them, I wouldn’t have any leads.”

Hotch sighed quietly. “Is Declan safe?”

“Yes.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Morgan’s still surveilling him—But, Hotch, listen, we were right. By watching Declan all this time, we got eyes on Ian.”

He hesitated for a moment. “You’re sure?” He sounded more scared than angry now. I hummed a “yes” in response. “Baby, listen to me right now.”

I bit my lip. “I’m listening, Sir.”

He chuckled slightly. “If you get eyes on Doyle, you need to take the shot. Got it? Don’t let him get away again.” He sounded out of breath now like he was running around. “I’m coming back to help.”

I felt my heart skip a beat and the air leave my lungs with one shocked gasp. He was coming back. After three months, I was finally going to get to hold him in my arms again, and I was going to get to kiss his lips again. Holy shit. He was coming home. My husband was coming back to me. I almost wanted to dance and cheer, scream from the top of my lungs how happy I was and that I couldn’t wait to see him; but I had to show a modicum of respect still, so I buried that feeling until I would get to see him again.

“You can do that?” I questioned cautiously. As happy as I was, could he really just abandon his post to come back like that? It sounded almost too good to be true.

“I put in the request to transfer back to Quantico about two weeks ago.” And he didn’t tell me? “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to get your hopes up on anything; but they don’t need me here anymore, so it’s not a big deal if they find a replacement.” I hopped slightly with joy and giggled. Hotch chuckled at me. “I can’t wait to see you, baby.”

Even considering the circumstances, I couldn’t wait to see him either. “Call me when you’re landing.”

“I will. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

----

By the time Garcia followed traffic camera footage across the state just to see where Doyle was hiding out, we had a SWAT team with snipers on call, and the team was ready to head out there. Just as I had ordered, Rossi and Reid headed to get Declan, but the drive was pretty far, so I didn’t expect to hear from them for a while, especially while we were in the early stages of staking out Doyle’s place. Morgan, JJ, and I were trapped in a van across the street from his apartment while SWAT was just down the road, and they had two snipers up on separate roofs. All of it was my call, though. The second we had reasonable cause to believe that it was actually Ian Doyle up there, I would be the one to dictate if the snipers or Morgan would be taking the shot, like Hotch said.

“That’s all Hotch said? ‘Take the shot’?” JJ questioned warily. I nodded and shrugged. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. Why?”

She shook her head. “Nothing…”

I eyed her suspiciously for a moment, taking into account how her gaze wasn’t resting on one thing, but instead a thousand different things, like she was too anxious to focus. It was odd, but I shrugged it off with the excuse that finding Doyle was a big deal. Since he killed Prentiss, we had all been itching to find him and avenge her. Out of everyone, I knew that JJ would want to know that Doyle was dead because of us. She wanted that justice. I couldn’t exactly tell why, but she had always been like that, especially since getting promoted to being a profiler.

And then my phone started ringing with a call from Spencer who had just arrived at Declan’s house. I figured it was just an update. I mean, him and Rossi were there to simply pick up Declan and Louise, that was it. But then something worrying happened when I picked up the call: Reid sounded concerned.

“Reid?”

“Declan’s missing,” he answered quickly.

“What?”

“We just searched the house, and he’s gone, so we called the school to see if he even made it home, and they told us that his mom picked him up early.”

“Louise?” I speculated.

“I doubt it.” He sounded annoyed now. “She’s dead.”

“Fuck,” I cursed under my breath, then looked up at Morgan and JJ to tell them what was going on. They also cursed, and he hit the side of the car. “Okay. Reid, you and Rossi should meet us here in case we end up seeing—” The sound of a police car’s siren flew past our van, catching our attention. It was just a squad car. No, no, no, no. Fuck. That was going to scare Doyle off. Fuck.

“He’s inside!” Morgan exclaimed. We all turned to face the window to see the drape in Doyle’s apartment window shaking like it had just been disturbed. “I saw him!” Morgan was already fiddling with the door handle and pushing his way out of the car.

“Shit…” This wasn’t at all how I imagined this going down. We were supposed to just monitor the situation, get legitimate confirmation that Doyle was in there, not just Morgan claiming he saw him— But what choice did we have now? “Go, go, go,” I made the call, following Morgan out of the van and hanging up the call with Reid.

JJ, Morgan, and I raced inside first, the SWAT van pulling up behind us and the team moving in, too. When we reached the apartment number, JJ and I stood our ground in the hallway with our weapons raised, and I gave Morgan the signal to kick the door down, which he did without hesitating, and then he dashed inside. The three of us took turned towards different sides of the apartment in order to clear it. Morgan went straight into the living room/bedroom, JJ went into the bathroom on the left, and I stepped into the tiny kitchen on the right. He wasn’t there. Neither was Declan. Reid said that they couldn’t find Declan, so I only assumed that Doyle got to him first. Fuck! How the fuck did he—

“I’ve got something!” Morgan called out. I hurried into the living room/bedroom to see him peeking up at the ceiling inside of the closet. I cocked a brow and carefully approached. “He’s climbing to the roof.” There was a hole in the ceiling for some kind of secret tunnel that led upwards.

“Follow him,” I ordered. “I’ll take the steps. JJ, watch the door downstairs to make sure he doesn’t get out, and coordinate with SWAT to make sure that the block is locked down just in case. Get a crime scene team here to see if Declan was ever here.”

Morgan holstered his weapon then quickly pulled himself up into the tunnel to follow Doyle, meanwhile I hurried out into the hallway to start sprinting up the rest of the stairs, and JJ ran down them. How the fuck did this happen? How did we lose Declan like this, and how was Doyle actually planning on getting out of this?

And then I burst out onto the roof to see Morgan chasing after Doyle who was running for the fire escape on the side of the building. Morgan aimed his weapon, but didn’t shoot. Instead, he tried commanding Doyle to stop. Like that would help.

“I’ve got the shot,” one of the snipers said over the comms.

“Don’t shoot!” I exclaimed. “Don’t!” I knew what Hotch said about taking the shot if given the chance, but things were different now that we couldn’t find Declan in the apartment. Our only way of getting him back now was by keeping his father alive. Asshole. “Hold your fire!” When nothing came, Morgan tackled Doyle and spun him onto his stomach so that he could be handcuffed. “You got it?” I asked him. He nodded while slapping the cuffs on Doyle. “I’ll have JJ take him back to the office while we start going through everything downstairs.”

Morgan groaned as he yanked Doyle up onto his feet. “You’re not gonna let me take a crack at him?”

“Not yet.”

Doyle chuckled. I squinted at him while searching his eyes for a reason that he could have possibly found this funny. He noticed my curiosity. “Lauren was right about you.”

Morgan tugged on Doyle’s restraints to make them hurt. “Shut up.”

Doyle kept laughing as Morgan pushed him towards the stairwell so that JJ could take him to the office like I had ordered. My only question, however, was, what the hell did he mean by that? Lauren was right about me? Right about what? The question lingered in my head as I sighed and moved to walk downstairs, too.

Afterwards, hours passed while we were combing through Doyle’s apartment, trying to find clues about where he must have taken Declan, as well as compiling evidence connecting him to Valhalla and Prentiss’s death. For someone in hiding, there was a lot he had with him. Usually, people in his situation would stay minimalist and wouldn’t have all of their condemning evidence in one spot, but Doyle was so cocky that he wouldn’t get caught that he didn’t bother to keep any of his current business elsewhere. There were so many guns in that one apartment that we could have started another small army. I couldn’t understand how on Earth someone would need all of that. Then again, Doyle already had a small army, and the reason they needed to smuggle all of those weapons out of the state was so that he could maintain power in Europe while he was underground. Well, looked like all of that was worthless now.

I sighed as I stepped outside of that tiny, dirty, smelly, cramped apartment for the first time in over ten hours. It really took that long. Doyle had been sitting at the office the entire time, brewing in his own thoughts, which was our strategy to break him. If he was left in darkness and silence long enough, he would open up. Hopefully. At least, Morgan and I would give it a shot when we would head back to the office. For now, we were down tearing the entire apartment to shreds. The bastard even had papers hiding behind the wallpaper.

When my phone started buzzing in my pocket, I sighed again and dug it out. “Hotchner,” I answered.

“Mmm… I could get used to that,” Hotch’s voice echoed over the phone, making me melt.

I perked up within an instant while looking down at my watch, spotting the time and how long it had been since he last called me, and how he promised he would call when he was close to landing in Virginia. Finally, I thought. “How close are you?”

“Ten, fifteen minutes.”

It was almost morning already. He was probably going to be landing just as the sun would start to peek over the tall buildings of Quantico. “I’m coming to pick you up.”

“Y/N, you should stay—”

“Nope,” I interrupted adamantly.

Hotch chuckled. “You’re really going to be a brat about this right now?”

“Mhm. You can scold me for it when you see me.”

“God, I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Hey, sunshine,” Morgan said, sneaking up behind me, “you ready to go?”

“I’ll see you in a few minutes, baby,” I told Hotch. Before he could say anything in return, though, I hung up on him. I hid my grin as I buried my phone in my back pocket, then turned to face Morgan. “Can you handle the interrogation for a bit while I head to the airport?”

“He’s back already?”

“Yeah.”

Morgan nodded. “Go get him.” We smiled at each other. “No detours, though, sunshine. There and back.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I responded half-heartedly while already walking away from him. “Just remember, when this is over with, you and Clooney are going home!”

----

To say I was nervous would have been a drastic understatement. I had gone four months without seeing him. Four months without his touch, his kiss, his hold, his love. A lot could change in four months. People could grow apart in four months. I was absolutely terrified that even though we called each other every day, we might not have been the same Hotchners who said goodbye to each other at the airport a few months ago. I knew that I still loved him endlessly— maybe even more now that I had been starved of him for so long. But I didn’t know what happened to him out there. I didn’t know what new experiences he had that could have possibly changed him. For all I knew, he could walk off that plane in a few minutes and walk right past me without a care. I just prayed that he was still Aaron. That the man I fell in love with would walk off that plane and know exactly how to hold me again. It was like I could already feel his touch, even though the plane’s engines hadn’t died out yet. He was so far, but he was so damn close. This was the closest we had been in four fucking months, and I was just so ready to see him already.

The plane came to a slow and steady stop on the runway. With every second that passed, I felt a growing need to throw up everywhere. He was probably sitting in there, watching me through the window, grinning ear to ear because I looked so nervous and sick. He could likely see me, yet I couldn’t see anything but the sun in my eyes. He was always an asshole, but he even had to beat me to the first look. Asshole x2.

The door of the jet popped open, and it started slowly falling down towards the concrete, the stairs on the inside making a slow appearance. I thought about what was going to happen. How was I going to react? How was he going to react? Was it better to stay where I was or was it better to meet him at the bottom of the steps? I felt like even if I wanted to move towards the plane, I wouldn’t have been able to. I was frozen in place as my mind raced with questions and endless possibilities. But there was one thing that was consistent: I was going to hold my husband in my arms, and I was going to tell him that I loved him over and over again until I passed out.

The second I saw a foot step out of the jet, I started sprinting as fast as I could without stopping to think. The rest of him emerged, and Hotch looked around for me. After spotting me from the top of the stairs, Hotch jumped down the steps, dropped his bag on the runway, and started running towards me, too. He held his arms out, an invitation for me to jump and hold him tight, so that was exactly what I did. Our bodies clashed, but he still managed to catch me, even though the force sent him stumbling back a few unwanted steps. My arms flew around his shoulders, my legs wrapped around his hips, my face buried in the crook of his neck. It didn’t matter that he smelled like sweat, sand, and cheap deodorant, because he was finally home with me and that was all that mattered. Hell, I even enjoyed the smell since it just meant that I had him in my arms again.

I squeezed him tight with my arms and legs after he nuzzled his face— beard, sunglasses, and all— into the crook of my neck. The aching in my chest, my broken heart that had been falling apart during every second that he was away from me, slowly started to mend with every breath we took together. I couldn’t tell if I wanted to cry, scream, cheer, laugh, or all of the above. Every single emotion imaginable was flooding my body and the only way I could cope with it was by nearly squeezing the life out of him while repeating: “I love you, I love you, I love you” over and over in his ear. I never wanted to stop saying it. I prayed that he would never let me go again and that we could say those three words until there was no more breath in our lungs.

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” we kept whispering like we were records stuck on repeat. Fuck, I missed the way he said it to me. I missed the way he said my name and the way he called me “baby”. Nothing felt more right than how he spoke to me and how he kissed my neck in between words.

When his beard started tickling my neck, I finally paused to let out a giggle. I leaned back, his arms still around my torso to hold me for support, and I got a good look at him for the first time in months. There was no screen between us, no shitty computer cameras, no god awful Skype buffer, no speakers that cut out every other word. He looked so different than how I remembered him. His face was slimmed behind the scratchy beard he had grown, and his eyes were more sunken with exhaustion— if that were even possible. Aaron Hotchner always had dark circles under his eyes, that was no secret. Between work, the kids, and wrangling me, Hotch never had time to sleep; but Pakistan kicked his ass, and I could see it in every little detail about him.

He watched me with the brightest smile I had ever seen on his face as I brought my left hand up to his face and scratched my nails gently down his beard. “This is even hotter in person,” I smirked.

“It has to go the second I get an electric shaver,” he laughed.

My smirk fell and I pouted, “Are you sure?” He nodded. “But I have literally never wanted to fuck you harder in my entire life.”

He paused and gulped. “Okay, so maybe it can stay for a few days.”

I perked up again at my little victory and scratched it again. “Please don’t ever leave me again. Please.”

“I’d rather die than go away again.”

“Don’t be hyperbolic, Agent Hotchner.” I hit his shoulder playfully. He grinned before tightening his arms around me again to make me lean in for a kiss. I grabbed his face, the hairs on his cheeks tickling my palms as I did so, and I moaned into his mouth. “I love you so much.”

His eyes screwed shut as he slid his tongue into the kiss and claimed dominance. I missed that feeling so much. I missed how he tasted, how he smelled, how he felt, how he had to dominate me every second of every day. I missed getting lost in his eyes and staring at his lips all day until I could finally kiss them until our lips were chapped. If there weren’t a million and one things going on outside of that airport, I would have begged him to take me inside and fuck me in the bathroom. It should have been impossible to need him that much considering everything that was going on with Ian Doyle, yet there I was, only thinking about showing Aaron Hotchner how much I loved him.

Hotch pulled away from my lips, but he kept his nose pressed to mine. “Emily?”

“At home with Jessica.”

“Jack?”

“At school.”

“You?”

“The most relieved I have ever been in my life.” I leaned in and kissed him again. I thought to myself: “Please, never let this end. Let us stay trapped in each other’s arms forever. Never let us get tired of kissing each other, of holding each other, of saying ‘I love you’. Never let the desperation for passion die. Never let me miss him ever again. Keep him by my side until we die of old age. Please.”

And just like he could read my mind, Hotch loosened his hold on me ever so slightly, making me drop down to my feet, and he said, “We should get back to the office.”

I shook my head. “Just… One more minute… Please.”

“One more minute will turn into an hour at least, you know that.”

“Is that so bad?”

“No, it isn’t.” Hotch cupped my cheeks and kissed me as hard as he could. After a short minute of him kissing me like he had been starved of it for years, Hotch pushed me away. Our hands fell to our sides and I bit my lip while I tried to focus on not jumping on him again. “We have to go.”

I tried to catch my breath, my chest rising and falling at a dramatic pace. It took every ounce of strength and self-restraint I had stored away to not jump back on him and kiss him again. I felt like I was going to cry because he wasn’t in my arms again. I felt like screaming and kicking— throwing a tantrum like Jack would. I felt like at any moment, the two of us would break, and I would tackle him to the ground before showering him in kisses and pinning him down so that he couldn’t leave me again.

Hotch stumbled away from me to grab his go-bag from where he dropped it because he had the same look I had, and I knew that he was sharing the same thoughts. When he came back, he took my hand, and we walked towards the car. I started catching him up on everything we knew about the case thus far. Ian and Declan, all of Ian’s business papers that he had in his apartment. I realized then just how little we actually knew. Hopefully by the time we got back to the office, Morgan would have something out of Doyle that would help.

I drove the whole way to Quantico because he was too tired from the flight and the time zones. He had one of my hands trapped in his instead of on the steering wheel, and he kept kissing my knuckles again and again. He wasn’t listening to me. Not that I blamed him. If he wanted to just talk shop and I was sitting there, not distracted by driving, I would’ve been antsy to shower him in love, too. But Morgan said no detours. As much as it pained me, he was right that there really wasn’t any time to drive home, or even pull to the side of the road to fuck Hotch. I really, really wanted to, though; so, I figured the longer I distracted myself with work, the better off we would be. After this, though… Once this was all resolved… I wasn’t letting him go.

At the office, Hotch and I headed up to the sixth floor, somehow managing to go that entire time without touching each other. I wanted to kiss him again. I wanted to hold him again. While we were standing in the elevator, I stared at him and thought about pushing him against the wall, but it wasn’t worth it right now. I hated this inner battle I was having to fight between wanting him all to myself in that very moment and just focusing wholeheartedly on the case. The worst thought hit me suddenly… Maybe it would have been better if he didn’t come back so soon… I mean, he was just so distracting, I felt like I couldn’t celebrate this win as much as I should’ve been.

And then we stepped onto the floor.

“Hey.” Hotch grabbed my hand, tugging me back a few steps towards him. “You trust me, right?”

I furrowed my brows as I turned to face him. Of course I trusted him. Why wouldn’t I? He was my husband, and we made a promise to each other a long time ago to not keep any secrets from one another. I had no reason to doubt him. I wouldn’t have met him at the airport like that if I didn’t trust and love him wholeheartedly.

“You know that I do everything for a reason?”

What was he on about? Was there something I missed between meeting him at the airport and walking into the building with him? Why was he suddenly acting so weird?

I put my hands on his biceps. “Listen. I know that you told me you were in an all guys unit. If there’s something you want to say about it, I’m all ears. And I’m going to support you no matter what.” I bit back a smile.

Hotch cracked a smile. “No,” he shook his head, “that’s not what I mean.”

“Phew.” I rolled my eyes playfully. “I thought I was going to have to give you the birds and the bees talk, and how love is love—”

“Shut up.” He laughed before kissing me.

I pushed him back gently. “I’m just saying, if you’re going to cheat on me, it should at least be with a guy so that you get to experiment a bit.” I patted his chest.

He was still laughing quietly. “What am I going to do with you, Agent Hotchner?”

“I don’t know, Agent Hotchner,” I responded as I let him pull me back in for another kiss. “I’m sure you’ll think of something before we get home after this case, though.” I pecked his lips again, then escaped into the board room.

Everyone was standing behind the round table, huddled together as they discussed something about the case. It seemed as though Morgan had just finished his first attempt at getting information out of Doyle, to no avail. They were discussing how he was going to approach the second try, but no one’s ideas seemed to stick since Morgan had an excuse for why none of it would work. It was like we had hit a dead end, even though Doyle was the end, technically. He was the one who took Declan, and he was the one who took our sister from us. Prentiss was dead because of him, and we weren’t going to let him get away this time.

When Hotch walked into the room, everyone fell silent and turned to get a look at him. Hotch really didn’t seem to care about our no PDA at work rule now, because as everyone’s eyes lingered on him and his beard, Hotch came over to me, took my hand in his, and kissed my cheek. A lot changed for him in the Middle East, I guess. He missed me and he didn’t care what rules we had. He wanted to just have me around all the time, and I couldn’t blame him. But, technically, I was still the unit chief until Hotch could officially come back, and I couldn’t let us break the rules. Now I understood why Hotch was always so adamant about me behaving while at work. It was excruciatingly painful to not touch and kiss him just because I was the boss and had to set an example.

I moved away from Hotch, taking my seat at the round table. Everyone followed my lead warily, their eyes still trained on Hotch. Him and JJ didn’t sit, though. They were the only ones who stayed on their feet at the front of the room. Hotch had his arms crossed, a frown hiding under his facial hair, his eyes wandering around the room as he thought nervously about something. This had to do with him asking about my trust, but I didn’t understand how. Him worrying about something and not telling me almost immediately was only making me worry, too. He needed to spit it out fast or I would go insane.

“Everything alright, Hotch?” Morgan asked, also taking notice of Hotch’s clear unease.

Hotch didn’t nod or give any kind of reassurance that everything was alright. Instead, he shifted his weight on the balls of his feet— a silent tell that something was definitely wrong. He kept his head down now, only glancing up through his lashes occasionally to look at me. A thought struck me that maybe my joke wasn’t really a joke in the hallway. Four months was a long time to go without me, and it probably didn’t help that all he got was shitty phone sex. Maybe he really did change out there in the desert. Maybe he was showering me in love because he was going to drop a huge ass bomb that said: “I’m leaving you” or “I’m quitting the BAU and running away forever” or “I’m taking the kids and you’ll never see them again.” Every shit scenario possible was racing through my head. Like I said, if he wasn’t going to spit it out soon, I was going to start screaming for answers.

“Nine months ago,” Hotch began, “I made a decision that affected this team. As you all know, Prentiss lost a lot of blood after her fight with Doyle. We told you that she succumbed to her wounds…” He hesitated a beat. “That’s not really the case.”

Shock filled the room as it dawned on each of us what Hotch was really saying. I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions because I really, really didn’t want to get my hopes up… but it sounded like he was telling us that Prentiss was alive. That over the past seven months, we have been led to believe that she died in that hospital.

“The truth is, the doctors were able to stabilize her, and she was airlifted to Bethesda under a covert exfiltration.”

My shoulders fell. So, it was true. Emily Prentiss was alive. The woman we mourned the loss of for seven months was… still around all along? That was why Hotch asked if I trusted him. That was why he was being so handsy. He knew that I hated it when he kept things from me. He knew that I hated it when he would betray my trust like this. I yelled at him for weeks the last time he did it— which was our suspension over two years ago. He was asking about trust and touching me as often as he could because he didn’t know if this admission of the truth was going to break us apart. This wasn’t like him lying and going to ask for a transfer out of the BAU. This wasn’t like him lying to me about his health. This was Emily Prentiss. This was our sister we lost in the field. We buried her. Why did Hotch… What… I— My thoughts were too scrambled to form another cohesive thought other than: “How could he do this to us?”

“After she got better, she was reassigned to Paris, where she was given multiple fake identities so that she could be safe,” Hotch continued.

“She’s alive?” Spencer finally asked the clarifying question we were all dying to know the answer to.

Hotch nodded shortly, keeping his eyes lowered. He wasn’t even looking at me now because of the shame and guilt he likely felt.

“But we buried her,” Spencer croaked.

Hotch nodded again. “If anyone has any issues with the executive decision that I made, then they can take it up with me.”

“Issues?” Morgan asked angrily. “Issues, Hotch? Yeah, I’ve got a few issues, but why don’t you start with the fact that you let your own wife believe that Emily was dead and let them name your daughter after her because of it, hmm? Don’t you think that you owe Y/N an explanation?”

“Morgan,” I hissed quietly. It was neither the time nor the place to discuss my daughter. I had a few choice words for Hotch running through my head, but I fully intended on keeping them to myself until Hotch and I could speak privately.

“Emily’s alive, Y/N. How are you going to explain that to your daughter as she grows up?”

“Stop it,” I demanded more harshly.

There wasn’t anything Morgan could say to me that I didn’t already know. Hotch had betrayed everything we believed in and promised each other. He had told me countless times since meeting me that he would never lie to me, and every time he ended up breaking that promise, he would tell me that it wouldn’t happen again. But there we were. Another promise broken. Even worse, though, was the fact that he made a vow to me on our wedding day that he would always be honest with me. Always. And yet he kept this a secret from me. Did he not trust that I could have kept it a secret? Morgan was right, I was owed an explanation. Hotch kept this from me, his wife for nine months. What else was he hiding? How was I ever supposed to trust him again?

I stood from my seat and turned for the door. No one said anything as I took a step but came to a sudden halt when I discovered that my path was blocked by someone in my way. I felt like I was going to pass out. There was she was: Emily Prentiss… standing right in front of me. Back from the dead.

She let out a sigh of regret, but also relief, when our eyes met. She looked sorry about how all of this happened. And she should have been. Morgan sat on our couch for months, crying because he missed her so much. I named my daughter after her because I missed her so much and I wanted her memory to be remembered. What was it all for, though, now that was standing there? What was the point now? Morgan was right to be vocally angry because he knew that I couldn’t. But as mad as I was at Hotch, I felt an overwhelming need to hug her. I crashed into her. I didn’t hesitate. Nine months without her. Nine fucking months.

Emily caught me as I embraced her as tightly as I could. She rubbed small circles on my back as she held me close. “I am so sorry, Y/N.”

I sniffled into her shoulder while I hugged her tighter. She was there. Like, really there. I wasn’t dreaming or hoping anymore. It was her. Our family was back. And I was just so relieved. I couldn’t even be mad at her. But I could tell as I pulled away from Emily and turned to look at the room with her that Morgan was pissed beyond compare. Everyone was crying because they were so grateful for the fact that she was still alive. However, Morgan wasn’t. He was standing there, pouting with disbelief, his hands curled into shaky fists that were holding in all of his anger.

She carefully let go of me and approached Morgan. “Derek, you have to believe me when I tell you that not a day went by where I didn’t think about you guys and how sorry I am that things turned out this way. You didn’t deserve that.”

“I didn’t deserve to know that you were alive?” he questioned through gritted teeth.

“You didn’t deserve to hold a dying friend in your arms.” Prentiss extended her arms for another hug, a silent offer for him, which he took slowly, as if he were afraid that he would fall right through her like she was some kind of ghost. When they embraced, however, I saw Morgan’s anger wash away. Now, he was just broken. “I’m so sorry.” He squeezed her waist as tight as he could for as long as he could before she tapped out and parted from him. She turned to face me again. “I want to meet baby Emily, if you’ll let me, once this is all over.”

I nodded, still too hesitant to say anything.

She smiled. “Okay… For now, I just want to focus on finding Declan and bringing him home safe. What do you guys know so far?”

Reid immediately jumped to his feet like this was his moment to shine, and he started asking her questions about Declan, Ian, and Louise, but I couldn’t hear anything. Everything seemed so washed out and distant. The only thing that was clear to me was the shame on my husband’s face as I stood there, staring at him, silently letting him know just how badly he had fucked up this time around. He could hardly look me in the eyes.

“Can I see you in my office?” he asked.

Everyone watched us silently, wondering if I would correct him on the fact that it was my office now. Or maybe they were waiting with anticipation to see if I was going to blow him off considering I had been glaring at him the entire time since I found out that Prentiss was alive this whole time—and he knew! But that was exactly why I indulged him. I didn’t correct him, I didn’t argue with him, I didn’t embarrass him. I simply followed him to his office.

I sat in my chair at my desk, which all used to be his before he left. He sat down across from me in one of the seats I would sit in whenever I was called to meet with him in his office. He seemed so out of his element in that chair, and, honestly, I was glad. I wanted him to be uncomfortable. I wanted him to be physically and emotionally uneasy because that was how I felt every day while he was away, and that was how I felt since finding out that our daughter’s namesake was actually alive and well.

“Were you ever going to tell me?” I inquired, reclining back. He shook his head. “You were going to just let me think that she was dead in order to, what, make me feel better about naming our daughter after her? Why didn’t you try to stop me—”

“I did try. I asked you if there were really no other names you could think of, but you were so adamant about it and I couldn’t tell you the truth; so, I just had to let it happen.”

“Is that why you left?”

Hotch froze for a moment while searching my eyes, and before he even began nodding, I knew the answer. He sighed. “It was hard to keep lying to everyone, but it felt impossible to keep lying to you specifically, especially since you took Emily’s death so hard… So, I just… I ran.”

“So, you would have stayed if I knew the truth?”

“Yes.”

I scoffed and let out an exasperated chuckle.

“Baby, I am so sorry, you have to believe me. I wish things hadn’t happened the way they did.”

“Yeah, well, you had a choice in that, didn’t you?”

“Y/N, that’s not fair. I was just trying to protect her—"

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door, proceeded by Garcia cautiously stepping into the office. “Sorry, ma’am, but I found something.”

I nodded her over, holding my hand out for the file of information she put together. Hotch eyed me. Usually, it was him sitting in my current seat, ignoring me in his seat as he accepted another file from Garcia who had addressed him in the first place. Everything felt so backwards. But, then again, maybe that was what he deserved now that I knew that he had been lying to me this entire time.

“I was narrowing down a list of Doyle’s top ten enemies from what we know and what Morgan’s getting out of him. The only one who’s been in the states recently is Mr. Richard Gerace. He’s been here for the past two weeks with a work visa.”

“Is there any way to connect him to this?” I asked while flipping through the file.

“The guy who cut off the camera feed at Declan’s house had a scar on his neck...” She turned the next page for me and pointed to a mugshot of Gerace. He had the same exact scar on his neck, meaning it was definitely him who took Declan.

“Get me everything you can on him, please, Penelope,” I said while closing the file and setting it down on my desk. She hesitated. “What is it?”

“That’s everything I have.”

I sighed. “Can you call Prentiss in, please?”

“Sure…”

“Thank you.”

When she left, I sighed and looked at Hotch again. Neither of us said anything as we stared at each other uncomfortably, a barrier of trust broken between us now. I didn’t like it when he lied to me. Every time I told him not to lie to me, he promised he wouldn’t, and then he would, and I would be mad for a few days before forgiving him and moving on. How much longer was I supposed to put up with it? I couldn’t even count how many times he lied to me on my fingers anymore. Meanwhile, I could count the number of times I lied to him on one hand. At some point, enough was going to be enough, and if he wasn’t careful, it was going to be soon. As much as I loved him, I couldn’t keep living with the lies. What was more important to him? Me or protecting his secrets? If the answer wasn’t immediately me, then there was an entirely different conversation we needed to have at some point that included what our future was going to look like.

“We’re going to talk later,” I finally told him.

As we were coming back to the office together, Hotch stopped to ask if I trusted him, and at the time, of course I did… But now? I wasn’t so sure. Then again, I’d said that a dozen times before when he pulled this shit. The worst part was, that I knew that I was going to end up crawling back to him, and it was going to be an excuse for him to lie to me all over again.

Hotch nodded. “Yeah…”

There was another knock at the door, this time from Prentiss, who seemed too shy to invite herself in, even though I had requested her presence. I waved her in.

“Gerace,” I said, holding the file out for her. She slowly walked over and accepted it. “Garcia thinks that he’s the one who took Declan.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” she insisted before even looking at the file. I waited for her to explain why she thought that. “Gerace gave up on Doyle a long time ago, and he’s too much of a coward to pull something like this off. Not to mention how meticulous the abduction was. Gerace doesn’t have that level of patience and organization.”

I scoffed and wiped my palms over my face. “He was our only suspect and lead.”

“I mean…” She flipped through the file. “That’s definitely Gerace’s scar… So, I suppose he had something to do with it, but I wouldn’t say he’s solely responsible. If he’s working with a partner, he’s definitely the submissive.” She flipped another page. “Hold on—” I looked up at her. “Look at this.” She turned the file to show me one of the shots from the security footage of Gerace turning the cameras off. “Look in the background.” There was a woman standing there, watching Gerace while cocking a gun at her side. Prentiss’s jaw dropped as a realization dawned on her. “This might have something to do with Declan’s birth mother, considering the overkill towards Louise, who was Declan’s mother figure throughout his entire life.”

“Do you know who she is?”

She shook her head. “No. Doyle never told me.”

“Would you be willing to go in and get the information out of him now?”

She looked between me and Hotch, almost as if she were waiting for permission from him, but then she recalled that I was calling the shots right now until Hotch could be reinstated into the unit by Strauss and Cody. She finally gave in. “I don’t mind giving it a shot.”

Since Prentiss was still just a visitor, she couldn’t technically be allowed to wander the floor on her own. Even though she knew exactly where the interrogation room was and how to get there the fastest, I still had to usher her there. So, without saying anything to Hotch, I started walking out. Prentiss watched him silently for a moment before deciding to follow me.

“You know,” she said while catching up to me on the ramp outside of my office, “unit chief suits you.”

“It won’t last long. It’s just until Hotch can come back.”

We continued on towards the interrogation room in silence. When we stepped into the mirror room, I saw that Morgan and JJ were there, watching Doyle who was sitting on his own, staring at the wall while he silently thought and worried about his missing son. With others around to “officially” watch Prentiss, I took my leave almost immediately, heading back to my office so that I could sit down, catch my breath, and have a moment to think.

When I got there, Hotch was already gone. I glanced across the bullpen to see that he was in the boardroom with Rossi, Reid, and Garcia, all of them working on finding who Declan’s mother was in case that was the next fresh lead we would get from Doyle. They were fine on their own. For just a few minutes, I could disappear, and no one would notice. So, I closed the door, spun the dial of the blinds until they were shut tight, and I immediately broke down. I didn’t even make it to my chair or the couch. I just fell right then and there.

I started crying with my face hiding in my hands. Getting Hotch back should have been the best thing in the world, and yet it felt so shitty. I hated that he lied to me again. I hated that things went down like that. I hated that our daughter was mixed up in the drama of it all now just because of her name. I hated that I was mad at the love of my life after just getting him back, because instead of wanting to hold him close until our last breath, I wanted to kick his ankles until my anger was gone—If my anger would ever go away.

And then there was a knock at the door.

I tried catching my breath and calming down enough to wipe my tears away, but the door opened before I could collect myself entirely. I hid my face in the shadows. It didn’t matter who it was because I was just hoping that they would leave me alone now that they saw me collapsed on the floor and hiding my face while sniffling.

“Sunshine?”

I let out a choked sob when I realized that it was Morgan who had followed me from the mirror room to my office. “What?”

He knelt beside me and put a hand on my shoulder. “Come here…” He turned me slightly until I was facing him, and we immediately pulled each other in for a tight hug. I hid my face in his shirt, letting my tears soak the fabric without care. “It’s okay. I promise. Just breathe.” He rubbed circles on my back to help me calm down slowly.

I started to catch my breath by sucking in deep breaths and letting out short ones. “You shouldn’t have brought up Emily earlier,” I whispered.

He had been completely out of line when he brought up my daughter in the context of Prentiss still being alive. That was a conversation for me and my husband to have at a later time when we could talk privately. It didn’t give him permission to put our predicament on blast. I was sure that everyone had been thinking it, too. I mean, they were all probably wondering the same thing I was, which was what the hell were Hotch and I going to do now that Prentiss, our daughter’s namesake was back? But, honestly, it was none of their business. Yes, Morgan was her godfather, but he wasn’t her father, therefore, he had no say. He would be the first to know when a decision would be made, of course, but not before then.

I slid out of his arms and fell back against the wall carefully to just sit there and stare into the darkness. “It wasn’t fair,” I continued.

“I’m sorry, cupcake…” He slid down the wall to sit beside me, then took one of my cold hands in his. “My emotions have just been all over the place, and I snapped when I didn’t mean to. I know that’s not an excuse, but…” He sighed.

“I get it.” I rested my head on his shoulder. Of all people, I understood the most how Morgan felt.

“Did you talk to him?”

“Kind of…”

“Are you going to forgive him?”

“Unfortunately.”

Morgan swung his arm around me so that he could hug me close to his side. “Do you ever just miss the old days when things were so simple? Gideon and Elle were still on the team. Pretty boy was still dorky and quiet all the time. Hotch actually talked to us and trusted us.”

“You mean talked to you and trusted you.” I chuckled. “He didn’t talk to me when I first joined the team.”

“Yeah, because he had a schoolgirl crush on you. That doesn’t mean he didn’t trust you. But wasn’t it so much easier back then when you two weren’t together, and everything was just about putting the back guys away, and nothing was ever personal…” He sighed. “I think we just haven’t been the same ever since the Fisher King.”

He was right. That was the first case where we were all effected personally, and an Unsub got under our skin, and tore our family apart. I mean, I assumed that it was because of Randall Garner that my sister left the BAU. If we had never gotten mixed up in that case, maybe she and Gideon would still be around. But then again, if that were the case, then we wouldn’t’ve had Rossi or Emily on the team, and I was genuinely happy that I knew them and that they were apart of our family now. Rossi was Hotch’s best friend who liked to help me pick on him from time to time. Emily was one of my closest friends… At least before she left. I didn’t know where we stood now. That was what Morgan meant by things being easier back in the day, though, I supposed. Things weren’t so messy.

“I think you’re right,” I agreed quietly.

----

Not even an hour later, Prentiss had already convinced Doyle to tell us who the mother of his child was and how to find her. With Garcia’s help, we managed to track her down. Her name was Chloe Donaghy, and she was a notorious crime lord who ran a human trafficking and prostitution ring. She and Ian had met about eight years before Prentiss met him. When she found out that she was pregnant with Declan, she tried to kill herself to make sure that his son would never be born, but Doyle stopped her before she could even swallow a single pill, and from that point on during the pregnancy, she was his prisoner. He kept her locked away. She was chained to a bed in a locked room in his heavily guarded home for seven months straight. She was given a healthy diet for herself and the baby, and Doyle had a doctor go to check on her every other week or so to make sure that they were still okay. Once she had the baby, however, she left. She wanted nothing to do with Declan, and everyone knew it, so Doyle practically paid her to stay away and to never tell a soul about their son.

However, once she found out that Ian was a wanted man and was in hiding, she decided that she wanted a piece of him in the name of revenge. So, she got the same idea as us. Knowing that Ian would try to find Declan, she waited until someone found him first—which happened to be us—and once she knew where her son was, she jumped at the opportunity to take him when everyone was too distracted to notice. We managed to track her down to Baltimore. It looked like she and Gerace took Declan down there, and they were planning on selling him to another one of Doyle’s enemies, a man by the name of Lachlan. That wasn’t good. If Declan left U.S. soil, there was nothing we could do. It would be left up to the CIA or another agency similar to them, but they wouldn’t care. So, I made a call.

I decided that the best way to ensure that little boy would never die at the hands of a revenge driven monster like Lachlan was to have our team pursue this. I knew the risks involved with the choice. I knew that my career was on the line, and that I would inevitably be demoted as unit chief—if I were lucky. Worst case scenario, actually, was that I would be fired. But I didn’t care in the moment, because all I could think about was the fact that there was a little boy out there, wondering why his own mother was doing this, and why he was facing danger again. And then I thought about Jack. Declan was around Jack’s age. I couldn’t bear to think that it could have been Jack in Declan’s shoes, and that if that were the case, I would want someone to fight for him until he was safe at home.

So, I made the call to use Doyle as a pawn in our game. We loaded Doyle into an SUV with myself, Hotch, and Morgan, and we drove down to the airstrip where Garcia found out that Chloe and Lachlan were catching a flight at together. Emily was against the idea. She was concerned that Doyle was going to get away, or that Chloe was going to get Declan and Ian, and all of this was for nothing. I wasn’t going to let that happen. We were going to get Declan back, and we weren’t going to let Doyle get away. After everything that happened over the past few months, I was going to die before fucking this up.

“You wanna do it, or should I?” Hotch asked as we pulled up to the jet on the runway. I gestured that he could go for it, but I didn’t look at him or say anything in response. I still wasn’t ready to do that much. “Okay.” Morgan handed him the megaphone, and Hotch stepped out of the car to announce, “Lachlan McDermott and Cloe Donaghy, this is the FBI. We know that you have Declan Doyle. To ensure his safety, we would like to make a trade. Declan for Ian Doyle.”

That was our cue to show off Doyle to the world, so Morgan and I pulled him out of the car, making sure that our grip on him was strong enough that he couldn’t wiggle out. And then we heard a gunshot, and I saw a muzzle flash from within the jet. No. No, no, no. There was no way they just killed Declan. I refused to believe it, but just in case it was true, we kept Doyle close to the car so that we could stuff him back in and drive off if we had to.

Suddenly, the door of the jet started falling open, revealing the steps that Lachlan started storming down with Declan in front of him. I let out a quiet sigh of relief at the same time as Ian. It didn’t last long, however, since Lachlan immediately put a gun to Declan’s head.

“Bring him here!” Lachlan demanded, referencing Doyle.

Hotch looked over at me. “You’re still the unit chief. It’s your call.”

I sighed quietly while trying to quickly weigh the pros and cons. It certainly wasn’t ideal to put Doyle in Lachlan’s line of fire, but if it was the only way to get Declan…

“Now!” Lachlan yelled.

Within an instant, I was pushing forward, Morgan following lead by helping me move Doyle towards Lachlan. When we were close enough, we pushed him onto his knees and waited for something to happen. Lachlan smiled wickedly. He said something to Doyle, but I wasn’t listening while my attention was trained on Declan and trying to figure out how I was going to grab him on time while Morgan made sure he still had a grip on Doyle. I just had to trust the process, I supposed.

When I heard movement from the jet again, I looked up to see Chloe limping out, holding her stomach from the shot she took from Lachlan. They must have argued about taking our deal. Before I could tell her to stay back, though, I saw how she was raising her arm and aiming at me, Ian, and Morgan.

“Gun!” Morgan shouted, tackling me out of the way just as the sound of a gunshot rang through the air. I groaned as the wind was knocked out of me. Morgan rolled off me to check to see if I was okay. “Are you hit?” I shook my head. “Doyle—” He spun around on his knees to see Ian falling to the ground while holding his bleeding neck. “Shit.”

Another gunshot fired, this time from Chloe aiming directly at Lachlan, instantly killing him. In retaliation, Hotch, Reid, Prentiss, and JJ all shot down Chloe as fast as they could. Hotch ran over to me, putting his hands on my cheeks while scanning my body with my eyes to make sure that I was alright, the same way Morgan had. I inhaled sharply as I caught my breath. I got that Morgan was just trying to protect me, but did he have to go all high school footballer on me? Fucking hell. We were on concrete. The tackle was worse than getting shot, in my opinion.

“Next time, I make the call. And it won’t be this one,” Hotch whispered to me, brushing my hair out of my face.

“Ha. Ha,” I responded sarcastically. “Help me up.” We clasped our hands together, and he pulled me to my feet, letting me stumble into his chest somewhat before I caught my balance. “Thanks.” I patted his chest. “This is why you’re the unit chief.”

He kissed my forehead. “You thought you were doing the right thing, and that’s all we can ever do.”

I glanced over to Doyle who was reaching out for his son, knowing that it would be the last time. A part of me broke somewhat. As much as I despised Doyle, I had nothing against his son, and seeing a bond between a father and his son, even though they hardly knew each other at all, made me think about Hotch and Jack. It could have been Hotch instead of Haley who died in our house two years ago. We were beyond lucky that he was still with us. That I had a husband who loved me, that our daughter had a father who wanted nothing more than to raise her away from all of this chaos, that our son still had a father who would protect him no matter the cost. We were, by some definition, “lucky” that it wasn’t Hotch and Jack there instead of Ian and Declan.

----

By the time we cleaned up the mess at the airstrip, I had called Jessica and asked if she could bring Emily to the office to surprise Hotch, but also because Prentiss asked if she could meet her, and I felt like after the long day we had, we all deserved that. I mean, she was our little sunshine. If anyone could change the mood entirely, it was her.

So, when we all returned to Quantico, I told security to keep an out for Jessica and the baby—to which they all cheered about how excited they were to see her. The team went up to the boardroom to start tearing down all of the photos and evidence on the walls. Another chapter of our lives closed. Over months, we had been working on a case where we only had a fraction of the pieces. The only person who knew every part of it and could end this once and for all had left, but when she came back, it ended, and now we could just breathe again. We had our family back. That had to count for something.

When I saw Jessica arrive in the elevator, I met her there so that I could still surprise Hotch and Prentiss. “Thank you for bringing her,” I said while crouching down in front of the stroller to see my lil’ bug. She was half awake, but just lucid enough to play with my finger as I wiggled it in her face. “I owe you.”

“It’s no big deal, I swear. I was on my way to pick up Jack from a playdate, and this was on the way, anyhow.”

I glanced up at Jessica. “We can pick him up later. You don’t have to race around for us like this.”

Jessica smiled lightly. “What else am I going to do?”

I stopped to think about that for a moment, considering how we were her only family around now that Haley was gone, and Roy was… Well, Roy didn’t like having Jessica around because she was a very hands-on and task-oriented person when it came to family, and he didn’t like how overbearing and protective she was of him. So, we were the only ones that were around and in need of help. I just felt bad sometimes because it felt like she was our nanny or something. Then again, every time this conversation came up where I would tell her that all of this was unnecessary and that I felt bad, she would always argue that she loved doing it and that it was no big deal. If it really were a problem, she would have ditched us months ago.

“Okay,” I gave in. “We’ll see you at home, then.” I stood to hug her.

“See you at home.”

When we parted, she leaned over to say goodbye to baby Emily quickly, then waved to me as she walked towards the elevator. I waved back shortly before pushing the stroller up the ramp towards the boardroom. Inside, I could see and hear everyone chatting and catching up with one another. Rossi was hogging Aaron. He was so happy to have his buddy back after all this time, but he was still trying to convince him to shave the beard. Over my dead body. I loved that beard, and after everything that man put me through today, I was going to get the chance to scratch my fingers through it as he fucked me. Come hell or high water, I was going to make that happen.

I pushed the stroller into the room, and everyone fell silent. This was the first time Hotch had seen her in… months, and this was the first time Prentiss was going to meet her. Everyone wanted to be witness to it, and no one wanted to disrupt the moment. So, when I spun the stroller around, everyone held their breaths. I tried to ignore them as I pulled the top of stroller back to reveal Emily.

“May I hold her?” Prentiss asked, looking up at me with the brightest smile I had ever seen from her before. I nodded. Prentiss reached into the stroller, buried her hands under Emily, and lifted her up. “Hi, there, baby girl…” Prentiss cooed. Emily kicked and fussed in Prentiss’s arms.

As I watched Prentiss rock Emily side to side in her arms, I felt someone’s arms snake around my waist and pull me backwards into a hug. I smiled and rested my head on Hotch’s shoulder. His beard scratched my cheek slightly as he pressed a gentle kiss against it. I giggled and nuzzled into his touch as much as I could while thinking about how I missed this feeling so bad every single second he was away from me. All those rules we had for so long before he left didn't matter anymore. Not when he had been away and all we wanted was to hold each other and love each other.

“She has your eyes, Hotch,” Prentiss said while Emily giggled. “Yes, you do,” Prentiss teased with the same kind of baby-talk voice everyone used around kids. “You are just too darn cute.”

“I missed you so much,” he whispered in my ear before kissing me.

“I’m still mad at you, Aaron,” I whispered only for him to hear. He loosened his grip on me somewhat. “And I don’t know when I’ll stop being mad.” He hid his face in the crook of my neck to hide his disappointment from everyone else. “But I know that I love you, and that, with time, I’ll learn to forgive and forget about this. Until then, I just need you to bear with me while I navigate rebuilding what trust I had given you, and asking you to give me answers, or asking that you give me some space—whatever it is, I just need you to understand. Can you do that?”

He nodded against me.

“We’re going to be okay,” I sighed, almost like I was trying to convince myself, too. “We’re going to be okay…”

-----

criminal minds family: @peggy1999 @gorgeousdarkangel @alex--awesome--22 @oceaneblu @brithedemonspawn @absolutemarveltrash @bshelley322 @rousethemouse @sunshinepower17 @weexinling @pettttyyyc @Braty-angel

#Criminal Minds #criminal minds fanfic #Criminal Minds Fanfiction #criminal minds smut #criminal minds imagine #aaron hotchner #Aaron Hotch Hotchner #aaron hotchner fanfic #aaron hotchner fanfiction #aaron hotchner imagine

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jazy3 · 4 years

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Thoughts on Grey’s Anatomy: 17X1 & 17X2

MAJOR SPOILERS!!!

My mind is blown! I am shook! Never in a million years did I ever expect that we would see McDreamy again! Or that Meredith and Derek would be reunited like this. Oh my god. I literally can’t even. I think this might be the best season opener Grey’s Anatomy has ever done. Hands down. They came to play and they did not mess around. I thought something was off when they showed the opening sequence with Meredith on the beach because the pier walkway was way too long, but I never expected the surprise to be what it was.

The implication at the end of the episode is that Meredith has contracted COVID-19, is currently unresponsive, and will be battling this for the foreseeable future. I’m interested to see if that is in fact the case or if it’s something else. I did not believe that she was going to be the character that got it so I am super shocked and surprised. As some eagle eyed fans noticed over the summer the IMDB page for Grey’s Anatomy was updated recently with the appearance dates of many of the original cast members being updated to 2020.

I have to admit when I first saw that I didn’t think much of it because Season 16 overlapped between the years 2019 and 2020 and since they mentioned and used archival footage of past characters during seasons 15 and 16 my initial thought was that the actor’s profiles were updated to reflect this for contract reasons. But now that the McDreamy Derek Shephard himself has reappeared anything is possible my friends!

Literally anything and I am so glad. It looks like there are more dream sequences and possible afterlife sequences to come. My guess is that more of Meredith’s deceased loved ones will appear on that beach. I’d love to see George, Mark, Lexie, Ellis Grey, Doc the dog the list goes on. I’d also love to see Cristina, Alex, Izzie, Callie, Arizona, and April all make appearances either through dream sequences or over Zoom.

I’m also wondering if they’re going to have Meredith code and then do a reprise of the elevator hallway sequence where the elevator doors open and Meredith’s dead loved ones and important people in her life greet her and tell her it’s only temporary and she’ll back in the land of the living soon. Oh gosh. What if they have Ellis tell her she’s extraordinary?!?! Now I’m crying! She so deserves to hear that! Oh my gosh. The possibilities are endless.

The Station 19 episode wasn’t much of a cross over to be honest and I’m okay with that. My best friend and I watched it for context, but you could have totally gotten everything you needed to know just by watching Grey’s and those are the cross overs I prefer. In the Station 19 episode we got some additional Bailey and Ben content (always nice) and we learned how the kids who wound up with third degree burns became injured. That’s it really.

Richard had some snaps in this episode! He had all the best lines in my opinion! He was hilarious. His exchanges with Bailey and Catherine were hilarious. It’s great to see him back on his feet and throwing zingers. Bailey was a boss ass bitch in this episode. I loved it! She laid down the law and I thought they did a really good job of showing subtly how the COVID situation is impacting her because of her OCD. I really liked that they wrapped up DeLuca’s storyline because as long time readers will know I was not a fan of his mental health storyline and the last two seasons have really made me hate his character.

I thought they did a good job wrapping that up giving the confines of COVID, both real and fictional, and that we got closure there. At this point they’ve wrapped up his storyline to the point that DeLuca is back to being a side character and just another doctor who works in the hospital and for that I am glad. A fun little aside, when DeLuca asks Meredith if there is a specific patient she wants him to check on she tells him to check on the patient in room 1702 which is the episode number.

I was a bit disappointed that we didn’t get as many Meredith and Hayes scenes as I would have liked. Hayes wasn’t in the first half of the premiere at all and his scenes with Meredith in the second half were briefer than I would have liked. However, that might be because they weren’t able to film scenes with the actor before COVID shut everything down so I am hoping that we will see more scenes between him and Meredith, especially him at her bedside, going forward now that both actors are full time regular cast members.

I really loved the scenes that we did get. They felt authentic and natural. That natural comradery that the actors have was there in full force. We got to learn more about both characters quarantine situations with regards to their kids and we got to learn a bit more about Hayes’ past and their developing relationship which was nice. Also I really want to hear that story he alluded to about hoping an electric fence as a teenager to see his girlfriend. I loved the aside where Meredith commented that his mask was falling apart and he told her that he gave his new one to a nurse who needed it more than he did. He’s so caring and compassionate and kind I just want to reach through the screen and hug him.

Meredith deserves someone in her life who is kind like that and who thinks of others the way she does. Who puts the job and her patients and her kids first over everything else. Who gets it and thinks nothing of showing that kind of compassion. She’s never really been with anyone like that before. No one who was a doctor anyway. I also thought it was very significant that Hayes invited Meredith to have a drink with him in his office after work and then was the one that found her in the parking lot at the end of the episode.

This appears to be a call back to the fact that he asked her out for a drink at the end of last season and she accepted, but asked that they do a rain check because she was so exhausted and the fact that they are growing closer and he wanted to check in with her and see how she was doing. The fact that he was the one to discover her I think is also very significant because at the end there I felt liked he looked towards her car to see if she was there to talk to her or to see if she’d gone home and I love that he was looking out for her in that way.

Also, the fact that he was the one to find her and call for help and that led into a dream sequence where she was reunited with Derek the love of her life feels very significant. The fact that Hayes calls out to Meredith and tells her to stay with him, in the present and in the land of the living, and then that transitions into the dream sequence where Derek is calling out to her on the beach feels significant to me.

My best friend that I watch with commented that she could see them doing a scene where Derek tells Meredith it’s okay to move on and fall in love again the way Abigail did with Cormac in the flashbacks we saw in the Conference episode last season. And that based on that Meredith makes the decision to formally move on and actively pursue something with Hayes now that she knows she has Derek’s blessing and that her ex DeLuca is doing okay and is back to work.

I think both of those things could free her to truly give Hayes a chance and build a life with him. He’s really the only post-Derek love interest for me who really checks all the boxes and who I could see her building a life with in a way that would respectfully honour what her and Derek had. It also just occurred to me that because they established that both Meredith and Hayes are quarantining at hotels because of their COVID work and are away from their kids there’s a potential storyline there in that once Meredith is better they could quarantine together and spend some sexy time alone without breaking any of the necessary restrictions. I’d love to see them quarantine together.

Something else that I realized after watching is that the episode establishes that Amelia and Link are quarantining at Meredith’s house with Scout, Zola, Bailey, and Ellis and that Maggie has been coming by to watch and visit with the kids from a safe distance while Meredith has been quarantining at a hotel because she’s working COVID command. The fact that they set this up early on in the episode becomes important later when you realize that something is wrong with Meredith and she’ll be hospitalized for a while and could die so it sets it up that her kids are okay because they’ve got Amelia, Link, and Maggie, people that Meredith trusts, looking after them.

Also we find out that Meredith’s house has a backyard for the first time! So that’s neat. Maggie and Winston are officially the cutest! I love them! I’m calling it now they’re endgame. They’re soulmates. I thought at first the long distance thing was going to be super boring and dull, but they found a way to make it really sexy and fun and I love that! We finally found out what Amelia and Link named their baby! As many had predicted they named the baby Scout! His full name is Scout Derek Shepherd Lincoln! My heart! Derek would be so so proud of Amelia. She’s come so far. I loved the scene with Meredith, Amelia, Link, and Scout. I really felt like that was missing from the Season 16 finale so I’m glad we got to see it in flashback.

About the only thing we didn’t get to see in this episode that I would have liked to have seen is a scene with Richard and Meredith catching up and either operating or treating a patient together. They haven’t had as much time together recently and I’ve missed that. Although considering that Meredith is about to hospitalized I’m guessing were about to see a whole lot of that. We did get to see Jackson spending lots of quality time with Richard and we got to see Maggie stand up for him with Catherine this episode so that was nice. This episode changed my mind about Catherine and Richard.

At the end of last season I really wanted them to separate and go their separate ways because I felt like they were bringing out the worse in each other and that was the only way they could find peace. But this episode we saw Catherine apologize really apologize and she made Richard Chief of Chiefs to make up for what she did and I thought there reconciliation was really quite sweet. Teddy and Owen wowza. Teddy was god awful and a terrible human being this episode. I was completely on her side last season, but this episode changed that for me. I hate Owen as a character most of the time, but damn if this episode didn’t make me feel for him. Oh boy. Teddy lied straight to his face multiple times when given the opportunity to tell the truth.

I don’t think there’s any way that they can come back from that personally. Which is a shame because for the first time in the show’s run Owen is single and is not hung up on someone else. Cristina is in Switzerland living her best life. She’s happy. That’s long over. Amelia is with Link. They have a child together. Her and Owen are happily co-parenting Leo and there’s no way that Owen, horrible as he can be, would do anything at this point to split Amelia and Link up or come between them because that would mean separating Scout from his father and having lost his Dad at a young age Owen would never knowingly do that to someone else’s child. At least I don’t think he would.

Plus, he got what he wanted in that he did get to parent Betty and Leo with Amelia and they still share in the parenting of Leo. I also thought there was a good call back there to when Owen cheated on Cristina. I hated that plot, but it’s nice to see them acknowledge his relationship with Cristina because it was so instrumental to the show in those early seasons. I’m glad that we got a reference to Amelia and Owen co-parenting Leo because I feel like that’s been missing lately. I get that Teddy is scared of being happy, but the way she treated Owen was just horrible. She was so awful to him in this episode I actually felt sorry for the guy and that is truly a miraculous feat because I rarely do because of how horribly he treats all of the women in his life.

Side note: His line where he told his Mom to tell Leo that the broccoli and carrots needed to be reunited in his stomach was both hilarious and horrifying! I loved Owen’s lines and how he kind of played Teddy while giving her opportunities to tell him the truth. I thought that was hilarious in a funny not funny kind of way. I’m curious to see what Teddy, Owen, and Tom’s storylines will be going forward. We didn’t see a lot of Tom in this episode and at the end he was fired and demoted to being a Neurosurgeon. There’s no indication of him and Teddy getting back together so I’m curious to see what they do with him.

Owen seems 100% done with Teddy and her nonsense and at this point I can’t blame him. I would be too. I’m interested to see where this goes. Will Owen end up with someone else? Will he stay single and continue on as a single parent? What will happen to Teddy? I’m starting to really like Levi as a character I have to say. Nico not so much. He treats Levi horribly and the guy deserves so much better. I loved seeing the intern from Pac North who called Bailey an icon last season checking temperatures. Amazing.

Richard’s idea on how to sanitize the masks with the purple light was really cool. I loved the moments between him and Bailey. I get why she’s worried about him, but as Richard says Grey Sloan is his life. It’s his longest and most successful relationship and as he says he will find no peace without it. Bailey and Ben have my whole heart. They are so cute. They’re the best. I loved the small moment that they had at the beginning of the episode where Ben did the “going through the motions” count with her because he knows it helps her. It was also a great call back to Jo teaching that to Bailey after she got out of treatment.

Also oh my god Jo and Jackson! Wow! I have to say when I saw fans speculating about that online before the show came back I thought it was the dumbest idea ever. One, because those two characters rarely have scenes together and aren’t that close. And two, Jackson has Harriet and is a single parent. Jo has been decidedly luke warm on the idea of having kids. She only considered it because of her relationship with Alex. That being said, after this episode I could go for it. I liked the twist that she went to Jackson and asked him for a favour and they were going to hook up and have a one night stand and then Jo got drunk on the way over and wound up crying because she wasn’t ready.

I have a feeling that they’re going to have them go back to being friends for the time being and then pick that storyline up later when Jo’s had a chance to heal possibly in the second half of the season. I also like that they wrapped up the storyline between Jackson and Vic and that we got to see Harriet for the first time in forever! Yeah! Vic isn’t ready or wiling to be a step parent and I liked that they established that Jackson needs to be with someone long term that is. Jo isn’t at that stage yet, but at least she’s open to the idea and has been married and had a successful adult relationship with someone in the past. Jackson’s been married, divorced, lost a child, and is raising a child.

With time and proper communication I think they could actually be a great pairing. Never thought I’d say that. Not wanting to be a parent is part of what broke Jackson and Vic up in the first place. They never addressed the issue with Maggie, but in retrospect that was never going to work out because Maggie is so involved with Meredith’s kids. They’re her main focus kid wise. We should have known that they weren’t going to work out when they failed to address that.

With April what broke them up was her devote faith and his complete lack of belief coupled with the different ways they dealt with the death of Samuel. While I did like April and Jackson as a couple I was happy with April’s write off in the sense that she got to be with someone who shares her faith and dealt with the trauma of losing someone close to them in a similar way. Her and Jackson never had that. Jackson found God in the wake of almost losing April, but by that point it was too late.

The damage was down. There was nothing either of them could do to repair what had been broken. With Jo he has the opportunity to start anew and lay all of that out on the table and vice versa. Although I imagine that the conversation Meredith would have with Alex about that would be pretty weird. I thought they did a really good job of showing the realities of COVID in hospitals right now. What the disease does, how deadly it can be, and how hard it is on all the health care workers and first responders.

I have family members and friends who work in health care and it’s a scary time. Levi’s comment that they had lost 100 people in one day and that he’d had to tell 100 people’s family members that their loved one had died was chilling. It’s also real. This is not something they are sensationalizing for the sake of television. This is really happening to real people everywhere and it is heartbreaking.

In this episode we saw Meredith have her first breakdown in quite some time. The last one I can remember was after Derek died and that was a while ago. She was upset that so many of her patients had died and I’m sure that reality is something that a lot of healthcare workers are going through right now. This episode felt raw in a lot of ways because of that and I’m glad that a show that has worked so hard to reflect the realities of our time is taking the time to honour and showcase that.

Also I think having Meredith Grey the show’s titular character and star for over 16 seasons potentially contract COVID and collapse from working too hard and not taking her own advice is the ultimate example of it can happen to anyone and anyone can get it. The show did not have to go as hard as it did, but they did and they delivered and I respect the hell out of that. The tagline for this season is “Sometimes we all need saving.” Apparently they were being literal about that as that includes Meredith freaking Grey. What a twist!

I honestly believe that this will be the show’s last season. Because when I look at the storylines and the ways in which they’ve set up the characters starting with last season I can see where they could go with it and how they would wrap everyone’s storylines up in a satisfactory way. Plus I don’t think they’ll ever be able to top this season and it’s opener. Also we’ve got main cast members coming back because those actors are normally so busy they’ll probably never get another opportunity like this to bring them back and they’d be foolish not to take it.

The promo for next week teases more scenes with McDreamy (!!!), Meredith battling COVID literally, and Hayes visiting her in her hospital room. I’m excited!

Until next time!

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crazy-loca-blog · 3 years

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Personal thoughts on… 2020 releases (Part I)

Note: As the title says, these are just personal opinions on Choices books and chapters. Of course, you may agree or disagree with them, I only use this platform to express my thoughts on what I read every week.

So, I did this in 2019 and I had a blast doing it (you can see Part I, Part II, Part III and the Seasonal Books reviews), so I thought about repeating the experience because… why not? Of course, I had planned to post this during the holidays but my job barely let me some free time to eat and sleep. Better later than never, I guess.

In 2019, we read over 30 books and it was the busiest year for Pixelberry in terms of releases so far. During 2020, things changed A LOT. We didn’t have as many releases and the stories seemed to have a new focus, especially the romance ones. We said “goodbye” to the wedding books and welcomed some 30 diamond scenes that were at a whole new level. We also had many hiatuses and some books were so long that it seemed like we spent the whole year reading them.

This will be a three-part post and I will include current releases and books that were released during 2019 but were finished in 2020. The list is organized in alphabetical order, and it doesn’t include the VIP Books (as I’ll talk about them in a fourth post). The only books I will be skipping will be Desire & Decorum: First Winter and Bloodbound: Dark Solstice, as they’re seasonal books that I fully covered in the 2019 review.

America's Most Eligible: Wedding Edition (September 18, 2019 - January 22, 2020): As a person who really enjoyed the first AME book, I already thought it was unnecessary to have a second book. I mean… reality shows are repetitive, so why would we have two books that were exactly the same? Little did I know this series was so popular that we ended up having a third book with a wedding after dating our LI for like two months (because we did need another one last wedding book, right?). There were too many things that didn’t make sense to me. My MC never had a good relationship with Slater, so having him as part of my wedding party was annoying, I would have preferred to have Teagan on my side. Also, despite the fact that we finally got to know Ivy’s background and why she was so evil throughout the series, competing against her (and Vince) all over again was exhausting… I would have definitely preferred a normal wedding diary show or something like that. And last but not least, the fact that Jen was working on the show while being a competitor was so… I don’t think this is actually possible in a real TV show. But the award to the weirdest moment goes to what happened to those people who left their LI’s at the altar and married Bianca or Slater instead. Yeah, because after that super heartbreaking moment, Jen takes the MC, Adam, Derek and Mackenzie to the producer's room to watch some “never seen before” footage about their friendship throughout the series…. because of course… there is nothing weird about seeing your ex there, right after dumping them in the middle of the wedding. This series was good enough to deserve a way more decent ending. Baby Bump, Book 1 (December 9, 2019 - March 16, 2020): My overall impression about this book is “meh”. Even though a lot of people complained about how the pregnancy was shown, I think the writers did a pretty decent job. The experience is different for every woman, so I think that criticizing the focus the writers decided to give to our MC’s experience is just pointless and saying “it’s not realistic” is a little unfair. The same thing applies to the baby. A lot of people complained saying that the baby was “too big”. Guess what guys… that isn’t the actual baby, that’s just the cover of the book… if you buy the “baby basket”, you’ll get the right baby size throughout the story. As a personal opinion, I think the story has some good things (I really like the fact that it shows how hard is for pregnant women to get and to keep a job, even though the fact that the MC hid her pregnancy is very unprofessional, to say the least) but there are some things that make me feel uncomfortable. First of all… our gang. I like the characters as individuals, but when I look at them as a gang, the only thing that Luisa, Myles and Clint have in common is the MC… I don’t know what they’d talk about if they were in a room without her. There is also this very personal POV on dating Myles… I mean… maybe it’s just me, but it is kind of uncomfortable to see Myles dating a pregnant woman who actually got pregnant after a one night stand with the other guy in our gang (or with the only guy in the gang, if your Myles is a female). Baby Bump, Book 2 (November 20, 2020 - present): Well, if you collected every single piece of the blanket in Baby Bump Book 1, you already had little glimpses about this book. Our very pregnant woman not only discovered that she’s having twins, but she also has some new duties at the city hall. And even though there are some things about this book that still don’t convince me, I can see the efforts to make some improvements in the story. The fact that the plot is not only focused on the MC and her pregnancy, but also on Clint’s family issues, Myles’ reelection and the park not only are introducing us to new characters, but they’re also giving us plenty of material to make the story more dynamic and not only focused on one topic. I also like how the writers have been managing Cassandra’s arc of redemption. Despite her being the antagonist in the first book, you can tell she’s grown a lot as a character, to the point that she is willing to help our MC not because of her reputation, but because she genuinely seems to care. I don’t know if I expect a big plot twist coming in the next few chapters (and if it does, I guess it will be related to the MC’s health and the babies delivered earlier than expected) but even if it doesn’t, I can already tell this book is better than the first one. Blades Of Light And Shadow, Book 1 (January 29, 2020 - June 3, 2020): There is no doubt (at least not for me) that this was the best new release of 2020. We had been waiting for a new adventure book for a really long time, and PB delivered. Not only we had this super wide range of MCs to choose from, we had a book where our choices actually mattered. Because yes, you can buy every single diamond scene in this story and still, if you don’t make the right choices at the right moments, you won’t get all the skills at the end of it. And that’s probably what seduces me the most about this book. The characters in our gang are also very well written. Each one of them has a very different personality, they all have these very different backgrounds and burdens, but they still complement each other perfectly when it comes to work as a team. Now if I have to be completely honest about the plot, it took me a while to get into it, but I want to think it’s because I’m not very familiar with this type of stories, because it’s very clear that there aren’t any writing problems in it. However, if I have to criticize one thing, it has to be some people’s reaction: because yes, it seems like some people didn’t get the memo that this wasn’t a romance book and I must admit it disappointed me a little to see that most of the discussions were focused in the romance part instead of talking about the adventure itself. Bloodbound, Book 3 (November 9, 2019 - March 28, 2020): Last year, I already mentioned how happy I was with this book, especially because most of the times, the third book in a series is not as popular as the previous ones. We sometimes have that problem of writers dragging plots because they have nothing new to add and us, the readers, struggling to finish the story (because of course, after reading 2 books, no one gives up on reading the third one). Well, I still think this book is nothing but impressive. As a person who’s not into vampires at all, I can safely say this is the book that I enjoyed the most in the series. Even though I didn’t feel huge changes in our LIs, I loved the evolution of our MC when compared to the first book (her character development itself deserves a whole post) and even though there were some things that seemed predictable, there were some others that were completely unexpected. If I had to change something, I’d say we deserved two endings, the one that we had and a darker one, I think PB truly missed an opportunity there. But overall, I think the story came full circle. This is definitely one of my favorite releases in 2020. Distant Shores (April 3, 2020 - July 17, 2020): This book gives me all the “Nighbound” vibes. That is, it is a good story, it is well written, the plot is attractive and overall it was well received by the fandom; however, that’s not enough for it to get a second book (or in PB’s words, “it’s not as popular and profitable as we think”). I personally enjoyed the story, but I didn’t fall in love with it. My biggest complaint is that I kept constantly waiting for some HUGE plot twist, I did need that “I didn’t see that coming” moment to blow our minds… but that never happened and I ended up feeling that PB wasted a story that could have shown us one adventure after another and turned it into something “plain”. Also, even though we had a badass MC, three awesome LIs and an amazing crew, by the time I pressed the “End book” button, I felt I had more questions than answers… and I absolutely hate it when that happens. We never got a chance to know anything about Robert’s story, his background and how he managed to survive and go back and forth between the past and the present. Or we never knew what made him and our MC so special and why the compass helped them to time travel. I can definitely see the potential for a second (and even a third) book, it’s sad to know it won’t be happening.

#playchoices #choices stories you play #americas most eligible #americas most eligible 3 #americas most eligible 2 #ame #baby bump #baby bump 2 #babu #blades of light and shadow #blades #bolas #BloodBound #bloodbound 3 #Distant Shores

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Text

Season 2; Episode 10: Fury

Hello all! Once again there is unfortunately no Isaac in this chapter, but he is mentioned. This chapter is very important for (y/n) so I hope you enjoy! As always constructive criticism is appreciated.

Season 2; Episode 10: Fury

Pairings: Scott McCall x Twin Sister, Lydia Martin x Best Friend, Isaac Lahey x Reader

Warnings: Mention of death, near death, violence

Word Count: 3,240

Season 2 Masterlist

Stiles, Scott, and I are sitting with Sheriff Stilinski - or I guess it's just Mr. Stilinski until he gets his badge back. We have a yearbook open, explaining to him that Matt is the killer he's looking for.

"Matthew Daehler?" Mr. Stilinski asks.

"Yes." Stiles confirms.

"This kid's the real killer?"

"Yes."

"No." Mr. Stilinski says, not believing his son.

"Yes."

"No."

"Dad, everyone knows the police look for ways to connect victims in a murder. All he had to do was go through their transcripts and find out which class they all attended."

"Except for the rave promoter, Kara. She wasn't in Harris's class."

"Oh yeah, that's right. So I guess they're dropping the charges against him?"

The two Stilinski's glare at each other before Mr. Stilinski replies, "No, they're not dropping the charges. Which doesn't prove anything. Scott, (Y/N), do you believe this?"

"It's not easy to explain how we know, but if you can just trust us. We know it's Matt." Scott says.

"Plus if you can't get him for murder, I think I have something else you can get him for." I hesitantly speak up.

All three heads turn to me with confusion. "I saw his camera." I pause taking a breath. "He has a lot of pictures of me. Pictures I don't know how he even took. I'm pretty sure he's stalking me."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Scott asks, eyes wide.

I shrug, "I thought I could handle it. But either way, can we go back to the murder thing? Since that's what we really want to get him arrested for. I mean murder is worse then stalking."

Mr. Stilinski looks like he wants to ask me more about the stalking but before he can Stiles speaks up, "Right, the murders. Matt took Harris's car. He knew if the cops found tire tracks at one of the murders and that if enough of the victims were in Harris's class, he'd be arrested."

"Fine. I'll allow the remote possibility. But give me a motive. Why would this kid want most of the 2006 swim team and its coach dead? And (Y/N), I want to talk to you about the stalking after."

I nod then Stiles speaks trying to give his dad a motive, "Isn't it obvious? Our swim team sucks! They haven't won in years." We all turn to Stiles with questioning looks, "Okay, we don't exactly have a motive yet. But then again, does Harris?"

The two boys and I watch Mr. Stilinski struggle over the question. Finally, he sighs, "What do you want me to do?"

"We need to look at the rest of the evidence."

"That's all back at the station. Where I no longer work."

"Trust me, they'll let you in."

"Trust you?"

"Trust... (Y/N)? I mean she actually has some sort of proof that Matt is a whack job."

Mr. Stilinski nods and points at me, "(Y/N) I trust."

*_*_*_*_*_*

When we get to the station it's two in the morning. Mr. Stilinski walks up to the front desk to speak with the officer as Stiles, Scott and I stay behind.

"We look at the hospital stuff first, okay?" Stiles whispers to us.

"Why?" Scott asks.

"Because all of the murders were committed by Jackson except for one, remember?"

"The pregnant girl. Jessica."

"Since Matt had to kill her himself, someone at the hospital could have seen him."

"Kids." Mr. Stilinski's voice breaks us from the whispered conversation. He waves us over as the officer buzzes us in.

Once in the office Mr. Stilinski brings up the security footage from the hospital. As he's clicking through it Stiles, Scott, and I stand behind him looking over his shoulder.

"I don't know, guys. Look at this. There was a six car pile-up that night. The hospital was jammed." Mr. Stilinski speaks, uncertain that we will find anything.

"Just keep going. He'd have to pass one of the cameras on that floor to get to Jessica. He's got to be on the footage somewhere--" Stiles encourages his dad.

Scott cuts him off though, "Hold on, stop. Did you see that? Scroll back."

Mr. Stilinski does as Scott says. He pauses on the image of a young man walking down the corridor.

"That's Matt." I say.

"All I see is the back of someone's head." Mr. Stilinski says.

Stiles agrees with me, "Matt's head. I sit behind him in History. He has a very distinct cranium."

I furrow my eyebrows as Mr. Stilinski asks his son, "Are you crazy?"

"Fine, then look at his jacket. How many people wear black leather jackets?"

"Millions. Literally."

"Can you scroll forward?" Scott asks, stopping an argument, "There has to be a shot of him coming at one of the cameras, right?"

So Mr. Stilinski presses a button to watch more of the video. "Stop! There he is again." I exclaim, pointing him out on the screen.

"You mean there's the back of his head again." Mr. Stilinski sighs.

"But look. He's talking to someone." Stiles says. We all lean slightly closer to try and get a better view.

"He's talking to our mom." Scott says.

*_*_*_*_*_*

Scott takes out his phone to call our mom at the hospital. He's asking her about Matt, but she doesn't seem to recall if she spoke to him. We decide to send her a picture of him to see if it jogs her memory.

"Did you get it?" Scott asks. There's a pause before Scott asks another question, "You recognize him? Did you see him?"

Scott pulls the phone slightly away from his ear, bringing his attention to me, Stiles and Mr. Stilinski. "He was tracking mud through the hospital."

Mr. Stilinski replies, "We have shoe prints alongside the tire tracks at the trailer site."

Stiles then excitedly says, "If they match that puts Matt at the scene of three murders. The trailer, the hospital and the rave."

Mr. Stilinski then looked up from the computer, "Actually, four. A credit card receipt for an oil change was signed by Matt at the garage where the mechanic was killed."

"When?"

"A few hours before you two got there." Mr. Stilinski says looking between his son and me.

"Dad, if one's an incident, two's a coincidence, three's a pattern, what's four?"

"Enough to get a warrant. Scott, ask your mom how fast she can get here."

"Now?" My brother asks, eyebrows raised.

"Right now. An official ID will get me a search warrant. Stiles, tell the front desk to let their mom in when she gets here."

Scott brings the phone to his ear again as Stiles moves to the door.

*_*_*_*_*_*

Mr. Stilinski and I are still behind his desk as we watch the door. Stiles walks in, behind him Matt has a gun pressed to the boys back. "She's on her way here. Sheriff? (Y/N)?" Scott says, not noticing his best friend and Matt.

He finally turns to face the door, seeing what caught our attention.

Breaking the silence, Mr. Stilinski speaks calmly, "Matt, whatever's going on, I guarantee there's a solution that doesn't involve a gun."

"Funny you say that. Because I don't think you're aware of just how right you are." Matt answers.

"I know you don't want to hurt people."

"Actually, I want to hurt a lot of people. You four weren't on my list, especially you, (Y/N), but I could be persuaded. One way is to try calling someone with your phone in your pocket like McCall's doing. That could definitely get someone hurt."

Matt stares at Scott, waiting for him to set his phone down on the desk. "Everyone." He encourages the rest of us to do the same.

We all remove our phones, placing them on the desk beside Scott's.

Matt takes the four of us into the cell block, making Stiles handcuff his dad to the wall outside of the holding cells. "Tighter." Matt snaps.

Stiles glares but his dad speaks up, trying to diffuse the situation, "Do what he says."

Reluctantly, Stiles listens and tightens the cuffs around him. Matt then motions for us to follow him once more. We make our way to the front of the station, Scott and Stiles in front and the gun trained on them. Matt has a tight grip on my right arm.

Heavy breathing stops us from continuing. We glance down the adjacent hallway locking eyes with a paralyzed deputy being dragged into a room by a clawed hand. "Are you going to kill everyone in here?" Scott asks.

"No. That's what Jackson's for. All I have to do is think about killing them. He does the rest." Matt casually answers.

*_*_*_*_*_*

Back at the office Matt forces Scott and Stiles to shred all of the evidence we have against him. Finally Scott raises the empty folders to show him that there are no more papers left.

At the same time Stiles starts speaking, "And we're done. So, Matt, since all the people you brutally murdered deserved it because they killed you first - whatever that means - I think we're pretty much good here. Right? I'll get my dad and we'll go. You continue with the vengeance thing. Enjoy the Kanima."

The sound of an engine can be heard from outside. Matt holds still, listening to the sound, "Sounds like your mom's here." He says looking over at me and Scott.

"Please don't do anything to her, Matt." I beg.

"Matt, don't do this. When she comes to the door, I'll just tell her to leave, okay? I'll say we didn't find anything. Please." Scott says right after.

Matt shakes his head, waving us over to the door. Scott hesitates, making Matt say, "If you don't move right now, I'm going to kill Stiles first. Then your mom."

We step outside the office and make our way through the building to the front desk. "Open it."

"Matt, please." Scott tries once more.

Matt responds by pressing the gun to the back of Stiles' head, "Open the door."

Scott turns the door knob, slowly opening the door. But instead of seeing our mom like we expected, Derek Hale is standing there. "Oh, thank God." Scott sighs.

But before we can get too thankful Derek sinks to his knees, paralyzed. Jackson is right behind him.

*_*_*_*_*_*

Jackson drags a paralyzed Derek into the Sheriff's office. Scott, Stiles and I following closely behind with Matt still keeping the gun on us. "This is the one in control? This kid?" Derek asks, laying on his back looking up at us.

"Well, Derek, not everyone's lucky enough to be a big bad werewolf." Matt then turns to the rest of us, "Yeah, that's right. I've learned a few things lately. Werewolves, hunters, Kanimas. It's like a fricken' Halloween party every full moon. Except for Stiles. What the hell do you turn into?"

"Abominable snowman. But it's mostly a winter time thing. Seasonal." I snap my head in Stiles direction, glaring. Usually I find his sarcastic remarks funny but now is really not the time.

Matt, clearly not amused, nods at Jackson. Not having a chance to protest, Jackson cuts Stiles neck. Stiles staggers, limbs going stiff and falls on top of Derek, "Bitch." Stiles mutters out.

"Get him off me." Derek speaks through clenched teeth.

Matt kneels beside Derek's head as Derek once again spits out, "Get him off me."

"I don't know, Derek. I think you two make a pretty good pair. It must kind of suck, though, to have all that power taken away with one little cut to the back of your neck? I bet you're not used to feeling this helpless." Matt smugly says to the Alpha.

"I've still got teeth. Why don't you come a little closer and we find out how helpless I am."

Before Matt can respond, headlights fill the room. "Is that her?" He asks looking towards Scott.

Scott looks outside, his look of despair confirms that it is in fact our mom. "Do what I say and I won't hurt her. I won't even let Jackson near her."

"Don't trust him." Stiles says.

With a look of rage that I have never seen, Matt brutally kicks Stiles off of Derek. He then places his foot on Stiles' throat. "This work better for you?" He questions.

"Stop! Matt just stop!" I scream out, tears threatening to spill.

He stops applying pressure but doesn't move his foot. He looks at me with a look I couldn't quite place. "You know, (Y/N). We could make one hell of a power couple but I noticed you have something going on with Isaac."

This statement causes Scott to look at me with raised eyebrows. I lick my lips, not taking my eyes off of Matt. "I told you before that I wasn't the guy who would say something like if I can't have her, no one can? Well, it wasn't totally true. Because, (Y/N), if I can't have you, no one can."

Before giving Scott the chance to react he raises the gun and shoots. A gasp leaves my mouth as I stumble back in shock. My hands raise to my abdomen, blood gushing through my fingertips. The minute the gun fires I can hear Mr. Stilinski yelling from the other room.

"(Y/N)!" Scott screams, trying to rush to me. Matt stops him, gun raising to level with Stiles head.

"She's not dead yet and if you don't do what I say, I'll kill your mom and Stiles too."

"Go, I'll be fine." I say through clenched teeth. Matt and Scott move out of the room. Jackson stays guarding me, Derek, and Stiles.

With my adrenaline pumping, I slowly move to the desk chair to sit down. One hand clutches the gunshot wound while the other uses the wall and desk as support, blood smearing wherever my hand was placed. Once I'm sat down I take off my jacket, applying pressure to the wound.

*_*_*_*_*_*

I gasp out in pain as I apply pressure to the wound, "(Y/N)! Are you okay? Please talk to me." Stiles speaks from the floor, voice trembling slightly.

"I'm fine, it's not like I'm bleeding out or anything."

"Do you have anything to try and stop the bleeding?"

I pause taking a breath, "I'm one step ahead of you. I'm using my jacket."

"Good. Whatever you do, don't close your eyes or fall asleep."

"Damn, really? I thought now would be a great time for a nap."

"I'm going to ignore those sarcastic remarks solely because it means that you're alright."

"Yeah well, I hate to burst your optimistic bubble but I don't know how long I'm going to last without medical attention."

Rather than answering Stiles asks Derek, "You know what's happening to Matt?" Referring to the scales that are appearing on Matt's side, which he showed us a few minutes beforehand.

"I know the book isn't going to help him. You can't just break the rules. Not like this." Derek answers.

"What do you mean?"

"The universe balances things out. It always does."

"Because he's using Jackson to kill people who don't deserve it?"

"And killing people himself."

I keep trying to focus on the conversation but I can tell my breathing is becoming shakier, "So if Matt breaks the rules of the Kanima, he becomes the Kanima?" Stiles asks the Alpha.

"Balance." Derek confirms.

"You think he'd believe us if we told him?"

"Not likely. You still alright (Y/N)?"

"Peachy." I shakily reply.

"(Y/N/N)? Your breathing is getting heavier. You have to stay awake. Keep talking." Stiles says, panic evident in his voice.

I reply, though my voice is now breathy and quieter, "I'm fine. I'll be fine. I-I don't know... I don't know how long I'll be okay though. If the paralysis wears off, your first goal has to be to help Scott and my mom."

There's silence, "Please, you both have to promise me. You'll help Scott and my mom as soon as you can." Tears start to fall down my face at the thought of Scott and my mom being hurt because the two people who could possibly help are too focused on me.

"(Y/N) we can't make that promise." Stiles chokes out.

"You have to. Remember your dad is out there too."

"If we don't help you first, you'll die." Derek bluntly states.

"Then so be it." I gasp, "The only way I'll survive is if I make it to a hospital. By the time you guys will be able to move it will be too late for me anyway. So don't waste your time."

"I can give you the bite. You'll heal and be fine."

"No. I don't want to be a werewolf. Just-just leave me and help the others." I pause for a minute, coughing, “Please.”

At this point my eyes keep flickering shut. My breathing is raspy and I can't focus on the things around me, though I know Derek and Stiles are talking. Suddenly all around me goes dark.

At first, I think I finally slipped into unconsciousness, but when I blink I realize that the power at the station has gone out.

I can hear multiple gunshots but it sounds muffled. Slowly I let my eyes shut, the hands that were once pressing tightly to the gunshot wound, now lay gently across my stomach.

*_*_*_*_*_*

Third Person P.O.V

At the same time the gunfire stops, Derek and Stiles can feel the paralysis finally start to wear off. They both shakily get to their feet, with the Alpha helping the human. They make their way to (Y/N), ignoring her earlier protests.

Derek uses his hearing to see if she is still alive, "She was right. She's not going to make it to a hospital."

"Then bite her." Stiles glares.

"She said no, or do you not remember that?"

"I don't care what she said, we're running out of time. Bite her. Scott and Melissa can't lose her." Stiles eyes glisten with tears as he looks down at the unconscious girl.

Derek looks at Stiles then glances at the teenager in front of him. Reluctantly Derek twists his head, now in his werewolf form he reaches down grabbing a hold of the girls arm. He bites down, leaving a bleeding bite mark.

"Get her out of here. Take her to Deaton. I'll cover you." Derek says as he reaches down picking the girl up and passing her to Stiles.

Stiles nods, his shirt now coated in Scarlett's warm blood.

Making it out of the station and quickly placing the unconscious girl in the passenger seat. He drives as fast as he can to the vet clinic in search of Deaton.

"What happened to her?" Deaton asks once he sees (Y/N) in the boy's arms.

"She got shot. Derek had to bite her for her to survive."

Deaton nods, removing (Y/N)’s jean jacket and slightly moving her black crop top to clean and stitch the wound. "This will help the healing process go faster. She's going to need a lot of rest."

Stiles nods, "Scott doesn't know that Derek bit her. And Mrs. McCall doesn't even know that she was shot."

"She'll be alright. It looks like the wound may already be healing."

#sister mccall imagine #isaac lahey imagine #lydia martin imagine #teen wolf imagine #series rewrite

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