Chapter Text
“You’ve seen the reports, I assume.”
Strauss’s voice carried that all-too-familiar lilt, the ever-present air of knowing that this would happen. That you’d be there, sitting in her office, your back ramrod straight, ready for a scolding like a schoolchild.
“Yes, ma’am.” Polite. Collected. Still aching from the place where the bullet hit you, but refusing to let your posture’s pressure on the wound show. It made you tremble, holding that position, but willpower alone kept it from her eyes.
“So, you know why you’re here, then,” she continued, and you felt the headache that always came with Strauss settle in. You blinked. It was slow and deliberate, nothing more than an acknowledgement.
When your eyes opened, it was to meet her gaze, nod. To shift a little, thankful for the looser clothing you’d chosen. “I’m afraid, ma’am, that the only one who knows that is you, but if I had to infer,” you offered, crossing your legs, “it would be to explain my actions in those cases.”
There was no smirk from her, but there was a ghost of a smile, obviously pleased that you seemed to understand, perhaps even inferring something herself. She, after all, seemed to think that what those incident reports detailed out was something you could explain enough to satisfy her.
Of course, she was never satisfied.
“Can you, then? Explain?”
Your head shook. “No.”
“No.”
“There is nothing I can say on the matter, ma’am. They were my actions, and mine alone.”
She scoffed.
“Yours alone?”
That seemed to hit a nerve, one that had Strauss standing and slapping the file down in front of you. It was open, of course, and you scanned the words on the page, blinking as you saw Morgan’s name, Prentiss’s. Reid’s. Rossi’s. For a moment you felt like crying, before pushing the feeling away, locking it up and throwing away the key.
“The entire BAU is covering for your mistakes, agent,” she snapped. “And I would like you to explain why in the past three cases you have been erratic, sloppy, and have continued to disobey direct orders from your superiors, actions that have thus far been explained away by the team that is supposedly not involved. Please. Go on. Enlighten me as to why your unit is risking their careers for you.”
Your grip shifted, and you knew your hands were beginning to wring, a bad habit from childhood. Even with one arm in a sling, your hands came together, rubbing furiously together. But your eyes didn’t leave hers, and she didn’t stop. If anything, her voice seemed to fill the room. You seemed to shrink, and yet you still shook your head.
Her fingers slammed down on the words your eyes hadn’t stopped scanning. “Your actions have resulted in nothing short of dysfunction. Have caused local precincts and agencies to doubt the abilities of your entire unit. Your secrecy and hidden movements have resulted in suspicions of treason, of double-crossing from those around you. That is what I would like explained. But, if you refuse to, there are other courses of action I can take.”
There was a pause, pregnant with the weight of your decision. But you knew what you were going to say before you’d even walked into the room. You had no choice.
“What the rest of the BAU does is on them,” you finally said, and moved to stand, mirroring her. Your good arm shifted your hand to clench into a fist behind your back. “As for my actions… I take full responsibility.”
“Full responsibility? No defense?”
When you spoke again, your voice started to waver, but you refused to break your gaze from hers. “There is no defense. I understand that I put the team in danger. I understand that what I did resulting in the injury of another agent, and that I have acted in ways that directly contradicted orders from my unit chief, Agent Hotchner.”
You swallowed. Forced yourself to breathe. Closed your eyes, counted to two, and tried not to think of the way his eyes pleaded with you.
Don’t – don’t do this alone, he’d said. Begged you, as he gripped your hand.
You opened your eyes.
“And I understand that as a result of these actions… it’s possible you require my resignation.”
There was a silence that seemed to stretch for hours. Strauss, watching your face, eyes scanning for any other tells. You, staring straight ahead now, past her shoulder and at the bookshelf she organized by author to maintain a semblance of control in a world that had the potential to crumble around her.
Much like your world, as she nodded, eyes flicking to your gun belt. “Consider that possibility an absolute certainty,” she stated. She sat down, taking the file from where it sat and closing it. “Effective immediately.”
You took a moment to blink again, and your fingers seemed to move without your say. Your gun was unloaded sloppily, the lack of both hands keeping you from the usual motions. The magazine and empty husk placed on her desk. Your FBI badge, clipped onto you, pulled away and placed next to your gun. Both weights, once so assuring, taken without preamble. You could barely breathe, too stunned to cry, too heartbroken not to.
When she looked back down to her papers, you realized she’d said something, but you didn’t need it repeated. You got the gist.
“You’re dismissed, Y/L/N.”
-
When cases ended, often the team ended up flying back to an empty office. Desks around the bullpen were empty, dirty mugs lacking coffee and computer monitors off. When you stepped off the elevator, it was no different, save a few familiar faces bent over their desks on the floor. The offices above had doors ajar, with lights inside to show they were occupied. You thanked God, for a moment, that Garcia and JJ were nowhere to be found, hopefully blissfully unaware.
The ding alerted them, and when they all lifted their heads in unison you couldn’t help but stumble off of the elevator. Emily, Derek, Spencer, eyes wide as they took in the sight of you. Not a hair out of place, but your hands still wringing. Your belt, bare. Your eyes, still frantically blinking. You made your way across the floor, finally making it to your desk where the members of your team watched you begin pulling together your belongings with the hand not restrained by the sling.
“No.” Derek’s voice was the first one you heard, and you watched as he stood from the desk he’d been using, fingers still holding the pen he was writing with. His face was open, brows furrowed, mouth slightly agape, eyes wide. It was like he’d been struck. “No, no, they can’t – Strauss can’t be serious.”
“Derek,” you whispered, but there was no force behind it, just aching.
“She took your gun away,” Emily hissed, and there was something like horror in her gaze. You couldn’t meet it.
“And your badge,” Spencer whispered. His own hands seemed to want to copy your usual movement, interlocking, tugging. “She fired you?”
Your head shook. “I took responsibility for my actions and gave her my resignation,” you tried to amend, but you knew there wasn’t a soul there who believed it. They thought they knew you, after all.
“All because of what? A few hurt feelings?” Derek snapped back, and his voice seemed to alert the bosses up the stairs. Rossi poked his head out first, and his slow scan of your body made you want to wither. Your eyes met across the way, and he slowly began making his way down, as if he could tell you were close to falling apart and wanted to stop it with a hand on your shoulder. “What the hell is Strauss thinking? She can’t…”
Hotch – you couldn’t even look at him, but you knew he was doing the same slow scan, with eyes that made you want to wither. He cared for you, and this was how you repaid him? His gentle voice seemed to ring in your ears, and when you spoke again it was after composing yourself as best you could, trying not to remember how he looked leaning over your motionless body.
“I put all of you in danger,” you started, and raised a hand when Derek opened his mouth again. Felt your eyes go to Emily and Reid without your say so. There was a pang when you realized it meant you met their eyes, felt the guilt. “Don’t pretend I didn’t almost get you killed. That I didn’t lie, to all of you, and go behind your backs. Strauss did what she needed to do, and this… this is what I need to do.”
“Go behind our backs?” Derek asked, just as Emily stepped forward to cut off your progress, taking a framed photo of the team from your hands.
“Y/N, you have to fight this,” Emily pleaded, and when you felt her hands on your shoulders you winced, making her pull back. When she touched you again, it was one hand, on your arm. “Let us fight for you. You’re on this team for a reason, we can’t –“
Your laugh was almost cruel, a scoff. “What? Go on? Keep working?” When you turned to the room you realized that they were all gathered around you, now. Hotch, Rossi, Spencer, Emily, Derek, forming a semi-circle around your desk. “No. If I stayed, we’d be shut down, or… or worse. The BAU couldn’t continue to exist. You can’t cover for me. I’m – I’m doing this so you can keep working, Emily. I’ll – I’ll find something else, maybe south, or the… the 469…” You had trailed off, purposefully, hoping that the conversation would be over.
Spencer’s voice was so quiet you almost didn’t hear him. When you turned to him you realized he was looking at his dirty Converse, not meeting anyone’s eye. “But… what will we do without you?”
And that, the sight of all of them, of five broken hearts, two more still yet to come. That’s what broke you. That’s what made the pain in your chest sing the loudest, made those tears finally come spilling out, ugly and messy.
“Promise me you’ll… you’ll all be okay?” you said. “Keep each other safe, and keep each other alive, and… think of me every so often?”
“Every day,” Rossi intoned, and it was like an oath, one that all of them nodded along to. All of them except Hotch, whose eyes didn’t once seem to waver from your face, whose hands were clenched into fists at his side. “As long as you promise to do the same.”
“I’ll be fine,” you promised him, promised all of them. “I’ll survive. And so will all of you, okay? So. So let me do this. Let me protect you.”
“Protect us? From… from what?” you heard from behind you, and when you turned Penelope was there, eyes wide. She was already crying. Next to her was JJ, jaw clenched, anger written all over her features. It was too much, too much pain, too much sorrow, and your guilt turned your eyes from them.
“Y/N…” JJ whispered.
“I love you all,” you managed, and before anyone could argue the go bag was over your shoulder, the effects on the desk forgotten. You’d walked as quickly as you could manage, shoving your pain down as much as you could so your real tears could come when the elevator doors closed.
There was silence for the next few minutes. Everyone seemed to be struggling to think, let alone speak. There were too many questions unanswered, too many coincidences that began to fight their way to the surface.
And when the shock finally fell away, and eyes met all across the room, there was a silent agreement to answer the question Penelope couldn’t help but wonder.
Protect them all.
Derek’s voice rang out through the empty bullpen. “What the hell is going on?”
-
Three weeks, two days left.
It was hard to think sometimes, knowing that at the BAU whatever you ended up saying would often end up filtering into the ears of cops. Your mind could be going a million miles an hour, and you could be spitballing ideas, and then, with a sentence, you’d be informing the whole department what kind of unsub to look for, what kind of traps to set. It was intimidating, especially at first.
But soon you realized that you’d have to get used to it. After all, the rest of them did. And after three years, you finally managed to realized you were good at your job (a little less than three years after everyone else on the team did).
“This unsub isn’t going to come and insert himself into the investigation willingly,” you said, pushing yourself off the desk you were leaning on so you could walk toward the police captain. “What he’s doing, he’s doing for himself. He doesn’t need our attention, or want it.”
“What he does want is Melody. We know these victims have been surrogates for her, so if she reaches out to him, asks for help herself –“ Derek started, but he was cut off with the captain’s hand.
“No. No. I’m not going to take the chance of him kidnapping my daughter.”
“He’s not going to have that chance,” Hotch assured him, and when you turned to look at your unit chief he wasn’t look at anyone but the girl in the other room. Emily was there with her, talking her through what she’d be doing. “She’ll be right next to at least one of my agents the whole time, and we’ll get a trap and trace on the phone here. Once he sees her on the television, his compulsion won’t give him a choice but to reach out to her, and that’s when we’ll have him.”
You could see his wheels turning, watched him work through the options, the assurance from Hotch. When the captain spoke again, it was pained. “So what do I do, just let my daughter get slaughtered by the press?”
“You let Agent Jareau and I do our jobs,” you offered, and when you stepped forward it was to place a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll be right there next to her, and Emily will be scanning the crowd consistently. We know who we’re looking for, and we’ll protect her with all of the resources and knowledge we have to offer. She’ll be safe.”
You knew your team had their eyes on you, that you were putting yourself in the line of fire by being this officer’s lifeline. But when he acquiesced with a nod, it was well worth it.
It took some more convincing, some more countermeasures, but soon the plan was in place. Melody, one of the bravest girls you’d ever seen, stood before thousands and said what she needed to. And then, it was just a waiting game. Assurance from the profile balanced with realization that human nature always aired on the side of unpredictable.
But you got him. Got his call, got his location, got his victims. The long days profiling, retracing, and investigating this case were done.
“Good work, Y/L/N,” Hotch told you as the team finished their goodbyes, continued packing up laptops and tablets and threw away old coffee. You were helping him reorganize the files the group of you (mainly Reid) had scattered across the conference table you’d been working. “Your voice of reason helped us get through to the detectives multiple times this case.”
“I did what anyone else would’ve done to protect a girl and save the other victims.”
“You’ve… got a way with the police,” he offered, and you shrugged, glancing back toward the captain and his daughter, watching the two of them hug, talk, and then hug some more.
“You know my history, sir. I saw my dad come home from the beat more often than not with those same haunted eyes, same weary look.” Your voice was soft, quiet, between the two of you, so the officers lingering around wouldn’t overhear.
The files were stacked, and you and Hotch carried them back to the storage area, placing them in fresh boxes and nodding at the cop who took them from you. As you walked back to the front, you realized that Hotch was glancing over at you, watching you walk. “So is that why you got into this job?” he asked, and you realized that he was fixing you a cup of coffee the way you liked, one cream, one sugar – something for the drive back to the airport, where the jet waited.
“My father?” The question startled you, but you forced yourself to school your features into something neutral. If only the answer was that simple. “No. He wasn’t my inspiration. He died in hospice after killing his liver, so.” You shrugged, smirking when you glanced at him and took the offered coffee. “I guess my inspiration was fame and fortune.”
That got you the barest hint of a smile in return, even a little huff of air through his nose. Who knew that Aaron Hotchner liked wit?
After a moment though, you realized that he was lifting the creamer, pulling the coffee pot out and peeking inside. When you raised a brow at him, he shrugged. “You mind telling me where the fame and fortune are?” he shot back, and that made you laugh out loud, shaking your head at the antics before glancing back over to the captain, his daughter…
And there, rushing towards them, his son. Moving to his sister, hugging her as tightly as a elementary school student could. The mother, not far behind, kissing her husband. One big happy family. But your eyes stayed on the boy, and you felt something cold trickle down the back of your neck, something that couldn’t be warmed up even with the semi-fresh coffee.
“Y/N?” you heard, and when you came back to yourself Hotch had a brow raised, eyes scanning your face. You offered another smile.
“Yeah, sorry. I – I’m just drained. From this case. I’ll drink up, sleep on the jet.”
“All right. Tell the team we’re ready to head out.” He didn’t seem too convinced you were all right, but you lifted the cup of coffee to him, smiling. Taking a sip, trying not to raise your brows when you realized it was exactly how you liked it.
“You got it, boss. I’ll rally the troops.”
He gave a nod, turning back to the files, beginning to carry a couple of boxes away towards storage, with the rest of the closed case. You watched him leave, grateful that Penelope wasn’t there to notice and give you a horrifying wink in public.
Bzzzzzt. Bzzzzzt. Bzzzzzt.
It was your work phone. Against your leg and against the table you had leaned on so your eyes could follow your unit lead. It made your cheeks blush, when you realized, and you hurried to pick up the phone to distract yourself. You didn’t even glance at the number, just held it up to your ear.
“Y/L/N.”
Silence. Complete and utter silence, almost heavy in your ear. You pulled your phone back, frowning at the screen and the number before it was once again close enough for you to hear.
“Hello?”
Once again, no response, and you shrugged, hanging up before you could think anymore of it, going back to reorganizing files and avoiding papercuts.
The flight back was uneventful. You and Derek were on the side couches, watching the screen play a muted Bears game. Emily and JJ chatted with Rossi at one of the tables, trading notes about some recipe that Emily had tried to replicate for a date she’d had. Spencer was reading something, and Hotch, well. Hotch was on his own, going over whatever paperwork he could get his hands on.
You found yourself glancing over the group more often than you actually watched the game. Watched the way the work fell away, and something like friendship remained. Watched Rossi’s head shake and JJ and Emily chuckle quietly, so that Derek, who’d started snoozing, wouldn’t wake. Watched Spencer cruise through one book at a leisurely three pages a minute, before finishing the title and going over it once more in his head. Watched the way Hotch glanced up from his paperwork to offer a nod to you, one you returned before settling back against the couch yourself.
When you’d moved to Virginia, went to the Academy, you’d been hoping for an escape. Pushed yourself so that you could prove you were more than the family you were born into. And when you weren’t looking, you ended up stumbling into another family of your own, one that made your resting face curl into a smile before you began to doze off.
Disembarking the plane and the subsequent ride to Quantico always felt like the longest part. The group of you loaded into the same old black SUVs, aching for your beds. What was not more than a few minutes seemed to stretch for a lifetime. A lifetime of looking out windows to the buildings close by, watching bright lights pass and the airport vanish in the rearview.
You were about to get into your ride when you felt the buzzing again. When you picked up the phone, and glanced at the number, you recognized it was the same, but answered it again.
“Hello? Is someone there?”
Nothing. Not even a whimper. Just silence, that made you hurry to pull your phone away from your cheek, hanging up before it could do something worse than silence.
“Hey, Y/N. You all right?” Derek asked you, moving to the driver’s side of his own ride.
His voice didn’t startle you, but it did pull your gaze away from its locked position on your phone, giving him a smile before nodding.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine, someone must’ve just misdialed. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”
His furrowed brow didn’t fade completely, but he did smile, nodding before pausing his slide into the driver’s seat.
“Just, text me when you get home.”
You couldn’t help your little coo, teasing and bright. “Aw, Derek. Someone would think you cared about me.”
The man cackled, and Emily smiled at the two of you as she passed to get into the passenger side. “Yeah, well, my heart’s my biggest burden,” he called out, making you snort.
“I thought that was your ego!”
With a wave, he was in and beginning to drive off, pulling out of the lot and beginning the journey back to Quantico. You slid into your own seat, contented with the fact that you and your thoughts might be alone for a while when you realized who was driving.
Some peace and quiet for a few minutes, you thought, when he first began to pull away from the jet, and you leaned back against your seat with a sigh.
“Something on your mind?”
When you glanced toward the driver, you realized that Hotch had asked you a question. It was only the two of you in the car, Rossi deciding to head straight home and the rest of the group in the other car. It wasn’t the first time this had happened, and often you’d sit in companionable silence, ready for nothing more than home.
Not this time, though, and you took a moment to blink at the question before shrugging.
“Just thinking, I suppose. About the team.”
That earned a nod. “What about the team?”
You paused, thinking about it, you realized that he was glancing over at you. Trying to read you, studying your expressions. Perhaps taking a moment to profile, confirm a suspicion or something. It made your face feel warm, that amount of scrutiny, and you turned your gaze straight forward, and then toward the window.
“I suppose that there’s something incredibly… unique about what we have at the BAU,” you finally answered. “The camaraderie.”
“We all work well together,” Hotch offered, but you found yourself shaking your head, frowning.
“I thought I’d be… not neglected, but not exactly embraced when I first came on,” you admitted. You faced forward again, and out of the corner of your eye you noticed a brow raise. “The reputation outside of the bullpen isn’t one of dislike, but everyone knows how competitive it is here. How hard it is to break in.”
When you took another breath, you used it to face Hotch, watching his microexpressions as you pushed on. “I thought I’d have to work my way up with kicking and screaming. But I got here, and the group of you, you… let me in. It took some convincing, sure, but… you let me take on these cases feet first, and. I don’t know. I guess I’m just thinking about that feeling.”
There was a short period where you felt like you’d overshared. That Hotch would just nod and accept it, and the rest of the drive would be silent. But when you really looked, you realized that Hotch was almost smiling, and his posture was relaxed. Open. Honest. “You weren’t hard to respect, Y/L/N. You came to the BAU without a need to prove yourself, just a passion for the job. You were professional, capable. And your talent, well. It made it easy to understand that we needed you. This team is unique, but so are you.”
Your face felt warm again, but it didn’t deter you.
“I’m unique, huh?” you immediately shot back, and that pulled a laugh out of him, a low chuckle that made you smile.
“You are. This whole team is. Coming together to form a… group of people made to work with each other.”
“I don’t know. Am I really made to work with Derek?”
But when he just responded with another little laugh, barely audible… that’s when you grinned. When the warm feeling in your gut, the feeling of acceptance, of family, met something else. Something still unnamed, but something that was there nonetheless. He turned to look at you, and you looked right back, unapologetically beaming.
When you realized that Hotch’s eyes hadn’t returned to the road, you realized you hadn’t stopped smiling.
You broke the staring contest, if only to ensure that there wouldn’t be a car wreck. Hotch’s features smoothed out into a steady focus again, and your own were schooled into a pleasant neutral. However, your hands began to wring, your thumbs working over your palms.
“There’s something else,” he stated, and you took a moment to put the pieces together, to build a profile in your mind of the not-too-distant leader. Thinking about your earlier conversation, about the appreciation Hotch seemed to be full of recently.
Well. There was something else, but. It was just a phone call. Nothing of note. You shoved it aside, furiously looking for something to offer. Your mind wandered back to earlier that day, to the way your fingers had glanced off each other on the cup exchange. His small smiles…
“How’d you know how I like my coffee?” you finally asked, when you realized that you’d been too quiet for too long, long enough that you could have watched the lights play off of Hotch’s eyes to see how many different shades of brown they could be.
That certainly caught him off guard. It made his thumb begin rubbing against the steering wheel, and you were hypnotized by it until he cleared his throat. “You’re… a part of my team, Y/N. You’re important… to me.” he said. Not meeting your eyes, not even as the car slowed to a stop, not even when the engine died. Only when he pushed his door open, glancing back for a brief moment to offer a small smile. “And I know how to make coffee.”
It was that thought that lingered, the thought of Hotch’s smirk. Of the rest of your family on that plane – the pump of Derek’s fist as the Bears managed to score, of Emily’s laugh and Garcia’s voice, those moments followed you back to your apartment that the so-called fame and fortune gave you. A humble abode, one big room for a studio essentially, but nothing to sneeze at, and you found yourself settling into your normal post-case routine with a light step.
Shower first. Often grime from the case and from the travel seemed to settle with you, so a warm spray often got you comfortable, helped your mind to stop racing with doubts and fears. Then you dressed for bed, pulling your hair out from the shower cap and into a messy bun before unpacking your go-bag, filling it with fresh clothes and replacement toiletries. Your badge on your bedside table, your gun close by but safely stored. And of course, the last follow-up on the front door, locked and secured.
That’s when you saw it.
A blank white envelope. Innocent, on the kitchen table. On top of some bills, no return address, just your name written in block letters with a cheap blue ballpoint pen. Your eyes widened at the sight, at the familiar scrawl that still haunted your dreams, at the realization that he knew where you lived.
It was with shaking hands you lifted the envelope, opened it without thinking of what could be inside as nausea rolled through you. But there was no anthrax, no toxin – that wasn’t his MO after all. Just something worse.
Photos. Hotch. Derek. Emily. JJ. Spencer. Rossi. Garcia. You. Your whole team, in full color, surveillance photos from cases across the country. After all, in each, the police department you had been partnered with was the background, your team the subject.
And on the back of each one, a single word.
Your fingers starting working, rearranging the sentence until it made a sick kind of sense. Your worst nightmare, come to life. The silent phone calls, from unknown numbers. The feeling of eyes, on you. It was a riddle that you knew the answer to, a puzzle where the last piece finally fell into place.
And when it was all put together, you rushed toward your kitchen sink, retching into the drain.
Don’t forget which family you really came from.