"Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble." - Samuel Johnson
Not a lot of things bothered you—or at least, that's what you liked to tell yourself. It's hard living your life with the things you could do. Not many people you knew would be able to keep up with you. In all your life, you've never met anyone else who could do the thing you could, and for some weird reason, you were grateful for that. It came off as no surprise, but you were already emotional as it is, so having this ability made it much worse. There wasn't a day that went by that you didn't cry, and you could remember growing up how your parents tried helping you with that.
Your mom was better at making you feel better than your dad, but there were times he outdid her. He liked to have weekly dates with you that involved shooting some cans in the woods behind your house, boxing in the garage as he taught you self-defense, or working on his beloved car that he claimed was going to be yours one day. He never sat down with you and talked about your feelings—that was reserved for your mother. He was more hard core, but there was one time he talked to you about your feelings—it was the only time he did that.
"But that kid is missing, daddy. We need to help his parents find him," you complained on your way back to the house.
You two had just gotten done shooting in the woods when you ran into law enforcement claiming there was a young boy who went missing. That alone brought tears to your eyes as you thought about where he might be and what he might be going through. Your dad knew you could see and feel things that most people couldn't, and it was in your nature to want to help out.
"Listen to me pumpkin," he said, crouching by your side to get to your eye level. "There's going to be times when you can't help people. I know you feel like you want to, but we can't. That boy was taken from his family and it's a terrible thing, but if you didn't see it happen, then there isn't anything you can do to help."
"The police are doing that and they didn't see anything."
"Honey, police are just there to make people feel better, not to save others. Sure, it may seem like it, but if a bad man doesn't leave anything behind, then the police won't catch him. Then what will they do? What will they tell the parents?"
"Maybe I can be a police officer. I have my gift," you whispered with a smile.
"Princess, you don't want to be a police officer. You could do so much more with your life than be in law enforcement. Promise me you won't. You don't want to make Daddy upset, do you?"
"No Daddy," you shook your head.
"Honey, I love you so very much. What happened to that boy was a tragedy, and whoever took him was a monster, but there isn't anything we can do."
"Okay."
"That's my girl," he grinned.
That was ever the only time he actually came close to talking about what you can do and how you felt. After that, he took you shooting and boxing to get your feelings out that way. It seemed fair at the time, but when you look at your life now, you can't help but feel like you betrayed him. He doesn't even know you are in the FBI much less law enforcement. As soon as you left home to be on your own, he hasn't kept in touch often. Sure, he'll call you on your birthday and around Christmas, but calls from him we're scarce.
He made you promise to call every week, but those calls thinned over time. Maybe you should tell him what you were doing. Maybe he had gotten over his ridiculous notion that you should stay away from law enforcement. Or maybe he would scream and yell at you. Or maybe he would cut off communication from you altogether. He could be harsh at times, and he was kind of overprotective, but he loved you very much and you knew that.
Your phone was in your hands, and you fumbled with it nervously. There was something in your body telling you not to call him even if your mind wanted you to.
"Are you okay?" Spencer asked when he passed by your desk to get to his.
Looking away from your phone, you placed it on the desk and leaned back in your chair.
"I don't know. I mean, I'm pondering if I should call my dad or not."
"Why wouldn't you?"
"He doesn't know where I work and what I do, and I know he'd hate it because he told me never to take a job in law enforcement."
"Why would he tell you that?"
"I don't actually know. He told me growing up that being a police officer didn't do any real work. He knew I loved helping people, and so he told me that police officers don't make a real difference because if a criminal doesn't leave any evidence behind, then they're useless. If only he could look at me now," you chuckled.
"How do you think he would react?"
"Probably disown me or something. He barely calls as it is. I don't know, it was just something I was just thinking about," you sighed.
Spencer opened his mouth to say something when Hotch announced everyone to the briefing room. Shrugging off your current situation, you pocketed your phone and headed into the conference room with the rest of the team. There is a new case on the table which was a bombing case. Someone packaged a bomb and delivered it to a man's address only to have him blow up in the process of retrieving it. There are photos out of the bomb fragments on the table so that you could see what kind of bomb it was and if it was homemade or factory made.
"Pipe bombs. Packed in cardboard boxes. Package bombs," Derek noted as he looked at the photos.
"Sent through the mail?" you asked.
"No. The other picture in your hand is of the switch that ATF found. Same mechanism for both bombs and are mercury activated."
"What does that mean?" Elle asked.
"There are contacts to a detonator on either end of a bent tube full of mercury," Spencer observed.
"What it means is all you have to do is to tilt the package to detonate it," Derek explained.
"So, they couldn't have been sent through the mail. The bomber had to deliver them himself."
"Exactly."
"Strange way to commit an act of terrorism. Why go to all this trouble to kill just a few people?" Elle wondered.
"Let's recommend not raising the terror alert level for now. No reason to spread panic," Gideon shrugged calmly.
"We got news," JJ announced as she walked into the room. She turned on the flat screen to a news channel covering the incident. "This is just a local channel, but the coverage is everywhere now—CNN, FOX, MSNBC, Al-Jazeera—you name it."
"So much for not spreading panic," you scoffed.
JJ turned up the volume so that everyone could see and watch what was happening on screen.
"According to doctors, he's badly injured, but in stable condition in the I.C.U. Now, neighbors say that they heard a blast at about 10:30 this morning, and police arrived—"
"If DHS doesn't raise the terror alert now, they'll look weak," Gideon spoke over the announcer.
"Make sure Homeland Security knows that this is everywhere," Hotch announced.
The announcer continued to talk, and everyone seemed to go back to the file at hand when a big explosion happened on camera in front of millions of viewers. Audibly gasping, you covered your mouth as you watched the events unfold.
"I just felt that! Are you alright? Is everyone alright?" the news reporter asked the people within her vicinity.
"Looks like we're going to Palm Beach. Let's meet at the airstrip in twenty," Hotch said, gathering the files and headed out of the room.
Morgan followed him, but you stayed in the room to gather yourself. Seeing that video made you prepare yourself mentally for what you were going to face.
"You okay?" Spencer asked.
He seemed to be the only one on the team who really cared about you enough to ask how you were doing. Maybe he felt bad or something, but you liked it.
"Yeah, just preparing myself, or trying to."
"You'll do great out there, I'm sure," he chuckled, brushing past you to leave the room.
Okay, this has got to stop. The more you spent with Spencer, the more your feelings for him developed. There was a reason why relationships in the workforce were prohibited, but that rule was just begging to be broken.
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"Bombings occurred within three miles of each other. First victim was a seventy-five-year-old widow, Barbara Keller. Two hours after that, Gil Clurman got hit in his driveway, and 45 minutes later, well, we all saw that," Hotch announced, passing out pictures of the victims as he talked about the case. "Jill Swenson, housewife, who lived across the street from Clurman. Of the 3, only Clurman survived."
"Was there any connection between the victims?" you asked.
"One. Clurman was a partner in a $10-million condo development deal in which Keller was an investor, and a few weeks ago, the whole deal went bust."
"Went bust how?" Elle wondered.
"Geologists discovered that the land was on methane, the condos never got built, the land became worthless, and Clurman lost a lot of people and a lot of money because of it."
"So maybe one of them was mad enough to take aim at Clurman," Spencer thought.
"No, let's not get ahead of ourselves. It's a little too early to theorize about motive," Gideon shrugged.
"Then where do we start?"
"From the beginning. What do we know about bombers?"
"Mostly male, loners, and have a history of criminal activity. About 50% of all bombings are actually a product of vandalism," Spencer spit out.
"More often than not, bombers end up accidentally blowing themselves up, so the first suspects you always look for in the bombing case are the victims," you noted, looking at the charred car that got damaged in the third bombing.
"Clurman was the only male. Losing a large business deal like that could be a powerful stressor," Elle sighed.
"Well, then there's the crime scene. Clurman was the only victim who didn't get hit at his door. Why? What was different about this one?" Gideon asked, looking at the same photo as you.
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As soon as you got to the crime scene, the air thickened with remorse and overkill. There were onlookers from all over the place, but you blocked out them in order to focus and do your job right. Snapping on the blue latex gloves, you ran your hand over the charred car, trying to get a feel for what happened before, during, and after the event.
"Before Clurman passed out, all he told cops at the time was that he saw the package sitting on the stoop outside his kitchen door," Hotch said.
"Why didn't he take it in? Why didn't it go off until he got to his car? It's like 50 feet away," Spencer said softly, looking over at you. "Y/N, you get anything?"
"Shush," you snapped, holding your ungloved hand up to silence him. H
e shut his mouth and turned to the older agent who just shrugged. As if right on cue, the spirit of Clurman began walking to his front door from the driveway. He was still alive, but the energy he left behind was enough to give you a picture of what was going on during the events. He noticed a package sitting by his door, so he picked it up and headed to his car. There, someone was waiting for him, who you presumed to be Joe Reese.
The two men got into an argument, but you couldn't hear what they were saying. From the looks on their faces, you knew the conversation wasn't going too well. The package was placed on top of the car, and you walked closer to it as if it would tell you the answers on how it was made. As soon as Clurman picked up the package, it went off, and you visibly jumped back even though the vision wouldn't hurt you.
"Come on, who put it there?" you whispered to yourself, rewinding the events to even before Clurman got to his house.
There wasn't anyone suspicious in the area, but you did see a silhouette of a man walking to the house and placing the package at the doorstep. When Clurman picked up the package, you turned away from the incident to see if you could spot the unsub if he was lurking around and waiting for this to happen. Some bombers want to watch the panic and terror that he inflicts and will do so from a distance. However, everything was a blur past the point of the neighbor's home, so you didn't know if anyone was watching.
"Sorry, Spencer," you apologized once the visions were over. "I needed to focus for a second."
"What did you see?"
"Well, Gil Clurman was receiving it. I saw a man drop it off, but I couldn't see his face. He's a white male, about average build, and he was wearing a suit that wasn't too fancy which suggests a job that pays well enough to go buy a knock-off version of a designer brand. That's all I got so far, I'm sorry I couldn't get more."
"You helped a lot, actually. What would be better for you? The Clurman's house or Clurman?"
"Him. If the hospital still has his clothes, I might be able to get more off that than anything else," you answered.
"I'll go with Y/N and Reid. In the meantime, let's get a warrant to search his house," Gideon announced.
"Nice job," Spencer whispered as you two followed the superior Agent to the car.
"Thanks," you blushed, biting the inside of your cheek to keep yourself from smiling too much.