MID90s ━ aaron hotchner

two: WHERE THERE'S SMOKE, THERE'S FIRE.

"Sir," Morgan starts. "Aimee was taken at high risk by whoever took her."

"It means it was organized, meticulous, highly planned and likely more than one person," Spencer continues softly, trying to explain to Frank Lynch what the unsub's wanted with his daughter.

"They managed to create a ruse, and they were smooth in their execution of said ruse, which suggests they practiced this more than once," Ryne takes off from where Spencer left his sentence, continuing on his thought. Despite telling Callahan she would hate the BAU boys club, she finds herself liking the way both Morgan and Reid think, a stark contrast already to the way her colleagues in Sex Crimes would approach cases — they bounce ideas off of her, instead of ordering her on what to do.

"And this suggest they intend on keeping her," Morgan finishes the explanation.

"Keeping her?" Mrs Lynch approaches, letting out an appalled breath as she looks to her husband. "For what? Frank?"

Frank Lynch glances at his wife, a thought already in mind before he shares a look with Morgan. Ryne places a comforting hand on Mrs Lynch's shoulder, stabilizing her as she seems to be falling over slightly in worry.

There's a pregnant pause before Spencer speaks up. "Keeping her means that she's alive, and I think that's all you really need to focus on right now."

"Are you leaving?"

Mrs Lynch's voice can only be described in the word of desperation as she clings to the last hope of the agents looking for her child, that they might stay and keep the safety bubble around her that ensures her that Aimee will be found safe and sound, but the three agents, admittedly despite not wanting to, have to leave. When they do, Mrs Lynch's safety bubble will be broken for the first time since Aimee's abduction several hours before.

"Ma'am," Morgan is the one to slowly speak to her, as comfortingly as he can while still remaining firm. Ryne understands while he is a natural leader, charismatic but not undermining. "Our profile remains, as do hundreds of officers and many agents looking for your daughter. Now, if there's any information pertaining to Aimee, then we'll be back."

There's a pause, a silence, one in which the reality of the situation begins to set itself upon the Lynch family, and one feeling that Ryne had become all too familiar with long ago — the feeling of guilt that sits on her shoulders, wishing she herself could do something to make this better, more than she was capable of doing. It's the same feeling that sits on Morgan and Reid's shoulders. Ryne wonders if this is what her father felt like, the way the Lynch parents feel, when she had supposedly drowned in that lane. As the Washington State police scavenged to rescue her body in that lake, only to presume her dead, had this been what her father had dealt with? She may have been twenty one at the time, but she was still his only child. The feeling of Ryne's guilt intensified as she thought of what she'd put her father through, and she knew if she ever got past being Ryne Beckett again, then she would apologize profusely to her father, but no apology could ever derail what she had done to him when she died.

Then, through the pause as each person digests, Reid speaks up, reminding Ryne that despite knowing him for a total of an hour now, he is quite possibly one of the most soft hearted members of the BAU. "Mr. Lynch, I think you should know that nothing could have stopped these people from taking your daughter."

"Yeah?" Frank Lynch did not look as reassured as Ryne thinks Reid hoped he would be. He sends a sideway glance at his wife. "Well, I would never let go of her hand."