It was way too early for the Reids, and they had way too many things to do.
After dropping everyone off at their respective schools and places, Spencer and Liz went dashing through the lobby, bags and coffees in hand before harshly ending their run in an elevator.
"Did you give them fruit in their lunchbox?" She asked, the couple completely unaware of the other person in the tight space.
"Yes, yes. Did you sign Lyle's permission slip?"
"I did. Did you put Dee's extra book in her bag? She always forgets."
"Yeah. We're all good. We're good parents. Right?"
"I love our kids, but if you get me pregnant one more time I'll kill you."
"Absolutely."
"By the way, when's our 10 year anniversary?"
"Today, I think. Happy anniversary, sweetheart."
"Aw, babe, happy anniversary." She wrapped her arms around Spencer's midsection.
Kate Callahan couldn't help but stifle a giggle at the rushed interaction, which instantly snapped Liz back to her senses. "Oh, I'm sorry! Which floor?" She pressed the sixth button for herself and Spencer.
"6. Oh, you too."
-----
Kate Callahan was proving to be a real asset to the team over the next few months, instantly fitting right in.
It was a warm day, warm enough for the Reids to leave their house on a Saturday, heading to the park. Liz watched as her husband played with their 6 year old and 4 year old while she happily sat on a bench with two 10 month olds.
She felt an odd presence next to her, turning her head to find a figure she hadn't seen in 7 years. "Gideon. Oh my god. Should I get Spencer?"
"No, no. Don't tell him." He smiled at her, before turning his gaze over to the playground. "So this is what I missed out on?" He notably look at Spencer who was occupied with the two children.
"Yeah, I guess."
"You have a good life."
Liz shook her head with a light scoff. "Why did you leave, Gideon?"
"That job does things to you. It ruins you. I don't know how you both still do it, but I couldn't. Not after Frank." She nodded. "I'm proud of you both. Please, tell Spencer that one day."
He was gone before she could even say anything.
Later that night, Liz and Spencer had cuddled up to each other in a mess of limbs, praying that a loud cry wouldn't interrupt them. "You know, I thought I saw Gideon today." Spencer pondered.
"Really? Must've been a lookalike, then. I didn't see him."
-----
This morning had been nicer for Liz.
Spencer had insisted that he take the kids to school and care while she spent the morning with Rossi before coming in to work, which is how she ended up in a car with her father, hits from whatever ancient year blaring from the speakers.
Both of them had noticed the odd car behind them, following their route and they couldn't help but have a little fun when they got to the coffee shop and saw the same car parking with no person getting out. "I'm going to get our follower a coffee." Liz mused, ordering the three drinks.
Rossi laughed, taking two of the beverages before linking his arm with hers, stepping towards the car window. The lady nervously rolled her window down. Liz took the coffee from his hand, handing it to the unknown girl. "We thought you might need this."
"Yesterday when I saw that you were following me, I thought it had to be a coincidence, but by today, probably not."
She hesitantly took the cup. "It's a long story."
Liz smirked. "He's a writer, he hates the short ones. I'm guessing you're a PI, who do you work for?"
"I can't say, my client is very secretive."
"Well, you can't be with the IRS. My accountant would've called."
"Can't be the state department, a spy would know better than to leave her target's dossier on the front seat." The girl instantly hid the dossier after Liz's remark.
"I know you don't work for my cigar guy because he makes all of his deliveries straight to my door. So why don't you tell whoever it is that if they want to discuss something, they should get out of their sandbox and call me themselves."
"Got it."
"Now, most people would ask for the coffee back. But, being a gentleman, c'est la vie. Oh, and get yourself an earpiece. Those things will give you brain cancer."
Liz tugged on Rossi's arm. "Okay, dad, I think she's had enough."
A local case had popped up while Garcia did digging on the mystery lady on Rossi's ass, providing him with information over the phone as he walked into the bullpen with Liz beside him. "It's a psycho fan who thinks I'm Comic-Con. Joy Struthers."
"At least it's not an ex-wife trying to get money."
They were content until later on, when a certain Joy showed up to the office. The pair approached her, visibly on different levels of embarrassment. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"I can explain."
"You come to my office?"
"I need to talk to you."
"You're not a PI. You're a reporter trying to be a novelist. I think you should leave." Liz says, a lot calmer than David.
"No, I got a press pass to see you."
Rossi sighed. "Look. If I catch you at my office again, or anywhere near my daughter, you'll be writing an opus from behind bars. Security! Please, escort her out!"
"I'm your daughter!" Both Liz and Rossi turned to face her, shock drawn on their faces, slowly paling as if they'd seen a ghost. "My mom is Hayden Montgomery. You married her in '84 in Paris. She was a diplomat, you were on temporary duty with the FBI."
"Hayden would have told me if she was pregnant."
"My stepdad told me about you when he was dying of cancer and it forced my mom to come clean."
Liz finally spoke up. "And why should he believe you? First you say you're a PI, and now this?"
"I was scared. You can even call my mom. She's still in Paris."
Thankfully, Kate had caught the agents' attention. "Rossi, Lizzy, we gotta go."
She sighed. "Leave your info at the front desk."
After Rossi had ran to Joy's terminal, begging to visit her and her family, Liz didn't know where she stood. She didn't know how she felt.
She wasn't jealous, per say. But she knew Rossi's affection for her would never be the same. He had a child now, a biological one. He didn't need her.
-----
It was almost two months after the incident was he asked her.
"Please? Just visit with me. You can get to know her, bring Reid and the kids. A big weekend fishing trip with my kids and grandkids."
She kept her eyes on the paperwork before her. "I'll think about it."
Liz didn't think about it, not one bit, until Spencer mentioned it at home during dinnertime. "What's going on with Rossi and your sister, Joy?" That's right. Everyone had began referring to Joy as her sister, and she'd be lying if she said it didn't make her the tiniest bit uncomfortable.
The kids had been curious about the new member of the family, but not too caring and pushy considering Joy lived quite a long way away. "Dad wants us to go with him for the weekend. Family fishing. Take the kids."
"Fishing? I didn't know grandpa fished." Diana pouted. Her expansive vocabulary was enough to make Liz grin.
"I told him we couldn't come, and that we had special plans."
Lyle gasped loudly. "Are we going to Disneyland?"
The parents looked at each other, aware of the hole that had been dug. Liz shrugged, going along with it. "If that's what you want, then sure."
Spencer only asked his wife again when they were preparing for bed. "Are you sure you don't want to go?"
"Yeah."
"Would it hurt to just meet her?"
Liz huffed, falling back onto the bed next to him. "I'm just not ready."
He nodded, pressing kisses to her hand, neck and temple. "Okay. When you are, we'll go."
Message from bella to dad:
Can't make it. Have plans with the kids and Spencer.
Message from dad to bella:
That's a shame. Maybe next time. I love you.
-----
The couple were apart when the news came through.
Liz with her sister and Spencer at home, but when they arrived at the same time, eyes meeting through the car windows, they knew. They got out of their cars, Liz's hand slipping into Spencer's as they took a second to process. To understand.
Entering the threshold, a wave of tears and emotions had greeted Liz. Spencer's grip on her grew tighter when they saw the white sheet covering something so awful, so unpredictable.
"Are we sure?" She stammered, feeling like an idiot.
Hotch looked up, pursing his lips. "It's Gideon."
Morning came quickly after that. Liz got back in her car with no intention of going anywhere, only to have her hands harshly hit the steering wheel over and over, ignoring the pain it inflicted as she yelled. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck this!" Her yells eventually turned into sobs, sobs weighing her down and chaining her to the floor. She could already feel Spencer, Hotch and Rossi eyeing her.
It only took a minute for her to clean up both physically and mentally, looking fresh when Stephen pulled up. She got out, silently scolding herself to pull herself together.
All the words she'd come up with, the condolences had disappeared from her mind when she saw his state. "Oh, Stephen." The man collapsed into her arms, a much needed embrace for both of them. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry, Stephen." She whispered.
A long silence accompanied by the warmth of an embrace occurred for minutes on end until they pulled away. "Who would want to kill my dad?"
"That's what we're trying to figure out. Did he say if anyone had contacted him recently?"
"After he left the BAU, he called to tell me about his list. He never said it was a bucket list, but that was the idea anyway. Reconnecting with me was one of his things. Which is ironic, because most of my life I felt like he was avoiding me. He was gone so much of the time, I figured he regretted even having me."
Her eyebrows knit together in sadness and confusion. "That's not true. He never avoided you and not once did he ever regret having you. He had trouble with so many things, apologising was one of them."
After offering her condolences once again, she entered the cabin and was met with Rossi and Morgan. "This is crazy. Gideon and I used to walk around scenes like this all the time. He'd always say to me "Liz, I'm the unsub. How did I do it? Well, first I shoot my target from a distance, wounding him. Then I move in for the kill. Gideon has the strength to shoot a few rounds into the door. But he misses. Because I've weakened his dominant hand. Gideon didn't have the strength to hold his gun steady. So, I stand over, get off on this. My face will be the last thing he sees, then I finish him."
"Alright, most of the gunfire was from here to the door, right? So then why did Gideon shoot way over here to this wall? It looks like this was done on purpose. Shot's gotta mean something."
The trio focused on the stray gunshot on the wall, Rossi picking up the painting that was once on it. "The devil is in the detail."
Morgan muttered something about needing to find Hotch, leaving the pair alone as Rossi mentioned needing to check something. "Take Spencer with you. Just for a drive, let him talk. I'll follow you guys in the car behind." Liz practically begged, slightly relieved when the older man agreed.
After a long drive, Spencer and Rossi had already arrived at the old office when Liz opened the door, startling the doctor.
"We're back where it all started. We were the behavioral science unit back then. They called us the BS unit. We were pretty organized." The oldest spoke, smiling at the familiarity of the place as he searched through file cabinets. "Alright, I think this is it. Salem, Virginia, Roanoke County, 1978. Gideon was the lead on this one."
"Did you catch him?"
"No, there was never a fourth body."
"So he wasn't obsessed with the seasonal killing. Maybe you forced him into hiding."
Rossi shook his head. "He was to fixated to stop cold turkey. We thought maybe he was locked up or moved away. We never saw that signature again. But Gideon must have seen something to make him leave Florida early and drive directly to Roanoke." He got Hotch on the phone, instructing everyone to listen. "The last thing Gideon did was to shoot a bird painting. I think he was trying to tell us that his killer is the same one from a case we worked on in 1978."
"So it was someone he locked up."
"No, those murders went unsolved."
"So if this wasn't about revenge on Gideon if he didn't lock the guy up, then what was this? "
"Maybe he went after Gideon because he was back on the case again. The unsub was strangling 20-something brunettes. Garcia, were there any female bodies found in Roanoke County in the past few days?"
"Let me check the crystal web ball. Yes. An unidentified woman in her 50s was found in a shallow grave just outside of Salem."
"Was she strangled?"
"That's the mystery. There's no foul play."
"Was there a dead bird in her hand?"
"What? Ew. None of that foul play either."
"Those little brown birds were the unsub's obsession."
"So how did Gideon get back on the case?"
"He saw the story in a national paper and it obviously piqued his interest. What are the chances that the same woods and the same ritual make headlines again? He went to Roanoke because the signature was missing. He needed to make sure it wasn't just a coincidence. And this woman would have been in her 20s back then. Age-wise, that's his type. If she was a victim, then she was held captive for 37 years. Who knows what he did to her in all that time? What if he stopped killing because he found the victim he really wanted and held on to her? Her recent death could have sent the unsub into a tailspin. He's probably gonna want to find someone new."
-----
Everyone except for JJ and Garcia had driven to Roanoke, and Liz had a moment alone with Aaron in the SUV on the way to a crime scene.
"I need to tell someone, because if I don't, it's going to eat me up inside and I'm going to kill myself." She croaked, fingers playing with the necklace he'd gotten her almost two years ago. She hadn't taken it off ever since.
Aaron's eyebrows furrowed in confusion, placing a hand on hers for comfort. "What is it? What's going to eat you up?"
"I saw Gideon. He talked to me."
"When?"
"In November."
He sighed, not knowing what to do. "Elizabeth, it's February now. Did he say anything?"
"No, he just said he was proud of Spencer and I."
They'd caught their unsub, Donnie Mallick, and had returned back home.
Liz and Spencer entered their home, the quiet hitting them like bricks when they remembered their children would be at school and daycare. She placed her hands on her husbands shoulders, their eyes meeting. "He was proud of us, you know?" Spencer nodded. "How about we pick up the kids from school a few hours early? We can play a few games, have a nice day at home." She suggested, although they'd only been at school for about an hour.
"Yeah, okay. Let's do that." He whispered, a small smile on his face as he helped Liz pull her jacket back on.