CHAPTER FOUR
——— living someone else's life
(season 5, episode 17: SOLITARY MAN)
RYNE BECKETT
Ryne's house is a ten minute drive away from Quantico. Small, isolated but still in a prominent neighbourhood, a place where nobody would expect a person who had faked their own death to end up. It was the perfect place because essentially, Ryne Beckett was living someone else is life. Ryne knew that never again would she live her own life — in that, the one before the crash and the lake, she was Katherine Berkeley, with a degree in biochemistry, aiming for a doctorate. Katherine Berkeley, working her way to the top with big plans and even bigger dreams. It was possible that Ryne Beckett had dreams just as big as the old version of herself, but most of those dreams were never going to come true. No longer were they career goals but small things — a hug from her father, a night spent watching nineties sitcoms with her best friend, meeting her goddaughter, a kiss from somebody who loved her, a hug from somebody who cared.
The feeling of comfort, of anything but loneliness.
None of that was possible anymore, not for Ryne. She had inadvertently made a choice a long time ago, and the consequences of her actions had begun to come to light years later when she stood in a lowly New York apartment a year ago, completely alone, nobody to speak to and no one to tell her it would be okay. Returning to DC, she though that maybe she'd feel better having Callahan and Lindsay around her, but all Ryne felt was empty. All the time. Like a piece of shrapnel had come and torn a piece of her heart out from the original flood, and it had never been built back into place properly — there was a gap, a hole, something unfixable.
She feels the same metaphorical hole in her heart pulsate with pain as she glances at the latest pictures of the victims for their newest case, eyes empty and body sprawled on the ground. It was as if their life hadn't mattered the way the unsub had disposed of them, boiled down to nothing but a list of names that had one end in common.
"Her name was Tanya Hill," JJ gestures to the screen as she speaks, voice confident. Beside her, Ryne can see Penelope shrink a little. She had learned that the gory stuff freaked the technical analyst out very much, and Garcia had covered what she had coined her own lair in a series of bobble heads, colour and furry pens, toys and decorations to make it feel homely and less murderous and empty, like most federal buildings felt more often than not. "She was twenty nine. A bartender, found two days ago in Edgewood, New Mexico. She's the fifth woman in over six months to be found dead in a ditch off the I-40 and I-25."
Ryne glances down at the file JJ had given her, looking through the other four victims' lives and how they'd ended up. Once again, boiled down to no more than a statistic — these women had goals probably, dreams, just like Ryne had for so long. Yet, they'd ended up in a ditch on the side of the road, all because another person could not value human life.
"All were manually strangled. None were sexually assaulted," Hotch notes. Despite it being early in the day, he's wearing a suit like always and there's a red tie wrapped around his neck. Ryne glances down at her much more casual dress shirt and pants, and pulls at the sleeves of her dark denim jacket, feeling a little underdressed next to Hotch.
Morgan raises an eyebrow, not looking up from his paper. "Well, maybe the act of strangulation is what gets him off."
"Where were they abducted from?"
"All over." JJ takes a seat next to Ryne, crossing her legs. Today, her bangs are pinned back so Ryne can see her face more clearly, and the ring on her finger she had cited as Henry's birthstone twinkles wildly underneath the dimly lit, trashy conference room lights.
"Well, they're not just crossing state lines. These cities are hundreds of miles apart," Morgan notes.
"Whoever's killing these women is mobile. It takes a lot to travel across states even in the timeline of six months without being noticed," Ryne squints her eyes at the images on the screen, looking for any specific things that could point to a place of victimology or a MO.
"That's a lot of bodies." Rossi states. "Why has it taken so long to be invited?"
"We haven't," Hotch states. His face reminds Ryne of a never moving windmill — pursed lips, dead eyes, almost as though this job had sucked the life out of him. He's intimidating and gives off the vibe that he's definitely not into small talk (or any talk at all) so Ryne leaves him alone most of the time in the past weeks, only speaking if need be to her boss. "We found this on the HSK database."
"Well," Morgan mutters. "A lot of police departments won't want this problem."
"The geographic profile shows that only one of them has it," Reid squints his eyes at the map, darting them around. His hair is a mess, but tucked behind his ears, and Ryne's learned lately that he figures things out before anybody else, often unable to explain them at first because his brain works at such a rapid rate that most of the rest of them cannot catch up to. Ryne is slightly proud to admit that her brain easily understands almost everything Reid says, though she would never admit it or make it known to anybody — that would be just one more block to connect her straight back to Katherine Berkeley. "They just don't know it yet."
"How do you know that?"
"Because he has a comfort zone," Reid gets up, approaching the map. "Based on the direction he was heading when he dumped the bodies, all five cases point to our unsub heading to Edgewood, New Mexico."
Hotch doesn't falter, already getting up. "And now, so are we."
Ryne signs, following behind him. Callahan was right — the BAU boys were a big deal, and Ryne wasn't sure she could keep up with them, or even if she was enough to be apart of the team.
She had to be.
Ryne is surprised upon first glance of the BAU's own jet. She hadn't been on it, mostly because their last case had been that of set in Virginia, so they hadn't had to fly anywhere, and ever since then all the team had done was paperwork days. Of course, in their spare time each team member had gushed about the private jet, Rossi in particular — the only one who had yet to say a word about it (or anything outside of the workings of a serial killer's mind) was Hotch.
The jet was large, the seats plushy and white leather. Their was a couch lining one side, a row of two seats facing another two seats next to the window with a table in between, and two more seats facing each other behind that on either side of the plane, with tables made of oak between each one. In the back, there was a small snack and beverage area that Morgan had said was stocked up with chips, candy, and a whole lot of coffee, and in the corner there was a small sliding door to a bathroom.
Ryne was sitting near the end of the couch, her arm resting on the armrest lazily and the other flipping through the file on her lap. On one side of her on the couch, Morgan was sitting a small ways away, scrunching his eyebrows as he read, and on her right side, she was surprised to find Hotch had enough balance to lean against the wall of the jet, not worried about toppling over if they encountered turbulence. Across from Ryne in the four seats with the table between, Rossi, JJ, Emily and Reid sat, analyzing the same files Ryne had.
"Clearly this UnSub doesn't care about his victims being found," Morgan finally starts.
"Or he knows that he can't be linked to them," Hotch glances to Morgan, file in hand. His hair is flopping against his forehead even when it's cropped, as though it perpetually belongs there.
"The ME's report supports that," Emily adds on. "Matching DNA was found on all five victims."
"But not in any database."
"Right," Emily retaliates.
Reid is the next to speak. "It's also in keeping with the victimology and abduction sights."
"Which are what?"
"Target rich and offender friendly environments," Reid states.
"The time of death from the time of the abduction varies dramatically in each case," Ryne purses her lips as she listens to Hotch profile, smudging the lipstick further across her lips in a motion that makes it more comfortable. She wishes she had simply worn chapstick today, but she hadn't expected to suddenly haul ass towards New Mexico. The jet may have been cool with air, but Ryne was sure New Mexico would be sizzling with heat.
"Yeah. Some loved twelve hours, others twenty four before they were killed."
"So what's he doing with them?" JJ questions.
"Well, he's not having sex with them. There's no sign of torture or even restraints," Morgan analyzes.
"Then how is he keeping them subdued? He'd either have to be fit enough to do that on his own without the help or restraints, and to be able to manually strangle them, or he has something to help him that didn't show up in the ME's report," Ryne furrows her eyebrows, sifting through a few pages until she finds the report in question. She glances down the small list of drugs found in some of the systems, noting the name of each chemical into her mind.
"What was the matching DNA?" Hotch questions.
"Skin," Emily answers. Her hair is tucked behind her ears so Ryne can see the ruby red earrings in her piercings, matching her top. She reminds Ryne a little of Lily, with her bold personality and dark clothing, always neat and professional, the opposite of Ryne as a teenager. Ryne had always been the girl in ripped jeans and band shirts, hair messy and hand constantly running through it during a phase, while Lily had shown up in collared shirts and tiny skirts that she pulled down more often than not because they made her slightly uncomfortable. Ryne always knew her best friend would much rather be lying in bed in sweats with a tub of ice cream. "That and metal shaving were found under the fingernails of all the five victims. Tanya only had one nail left."
"One nail?"
"Yeah. It looks like whatever she was in, she tried to claw her way out."
"JJ, have Garcia match victimology and abduction sights to HSK findings for the last year," Hotch demands from beside Ryne. He still looks unhappy, or angry, Ryne isn't sure which one. It's very hard to read him, she realizes. He always has the one same expression on his face.
"If he sticks to his timeline," Emily starts. "Edgewood is about to discover another body."
"Alright. When we get to New Mexico, Morgan and Prentiss, go to the ME's office and see what else you can find. JJ, you and I will go down to the Edgewood police station and start looking at victimology and motive. Dave, take Reid and Beckett and go down to the latest crime scene to see what you can find."
Ryne found herself wanting to salute him when he had finished speaking, but she held back out of fear of being fired (and because she was genuinely intimidated by Aaron Hotchner).
"So, kid, what'd you think?" Morgan's the one to bring Ryne out of her reverie, spreading his arms out around the jet. "Live up to your expectations?"
"I gotta say," Ryne starts, letting out a quiet laugh. She can feel her mouth turning up into a smile. "Rossi described this place to be some sort of castle, so he might have bought my expectations up just a little too high."
"What?" Rossi scoffs. "Look at this place — it is a castle."
"Rossi, you said it had golden stairs and a theatre room inside it," Ryne deadpans before pausing. "And that was the stuff I didn't believe. Don't get me started on the stuff that actually sounded believable."
"You know, speaking from a place of statistics, this plane is actually more likely to crash because of the fact that's it's a private jet. Logically, private jets have just about the same fatality as one of the leading causes of death in America—"
"Cars," Ryne finishes Reid's sentence quietly.
"Yes, actually! Cars are easily one of the largest causers of death among Americ—"
Reid didn't seem to notice the slight change in Ryne's demeanour as he mentioned the causation of death by car, going into the statistics of car crashes as Prentiss and JJ begged him to stop before he freaked them into never getting into a car again. Ryne caught Rossi's eye as she resettled herself — he watched her carefully, eyebrows furrowing. Ryne's breath hitches and she sends him a small smile before focusing back on the paperwork — she doesn't need to be profiled by anybody, David Rossi much less. It was harder to be around this team than Callahan's — they profiled people for a living, and Ryne wasn't exactly an expert at hiding her behaviour even after ten years.
The rest of the flight goes by in a haste, and when they reach the air landing strip in New Mexico, Hotch and the rest of the team split up one way towards the local police station, and Ryne gets into an SUV with Reid and Rossi, the latter driving them towards the latest crime scene where the victim was dumped.
The place itself is sweltering with heat when Ryne gets out of the car, and she grabs a hair tie out of her pocket and ties her hair back, letting a few strands fall loosely over her face that wouldn't go up because of their length. Ryne notices their colour and reminds herself that her hair needs to be dyed again, before it fades back into it's original colour from the roots. The heat hits against the back of her neck, causing a few beads of sweat to swelter along her collarbone, beneath her top, and the hairs on the back of her neck began to rise as they arrive at the crime scene, the freeway traffic in the distance behind a fence, the road covered in dirt and sand, Ryne's heels clacking against the pavement as she follows behind Rossi and Reid.
Reid is the first to speak up as they walk. "So, she was abducted 32.9 miles west of here, which means if they drove the speed limit, they got here in thirty minutes or less."
"That's a pretty long time for somewhere like Edgewood. Small towns like this one are usually like small, small — tight knit, gossip ridden, easy to get around with almost zero traffic," Ryne analyzes, furrowing her eyebrows as she thinks about the ride over from the air strip to the ditch. It hadn't taken long, maybe a total of fifteen minutes, and the air strip was right outside Edgewood.
"Maybe he stopped somewhere?" Reid suggests. Ryne shrugs, unknowing of what the UnSub had actually done, and unable to come up with any possibilities.
There's a pregnant pause, before Rossi looks between the two, glancing up and down at the two younger agents before his eyes land completely on Reid, smiling deviantly. "So, how long is it gonna take for you to get in that ditch?"
Reid looks flabbergasted. "Get in that ditch? I just got shot in the knee, remember?"
"You got shot in the knee?"
"Yeah, it was painful," Reid pauses to answer Ryne.
"He walked with a cane and everything for months on end," Rossi let's out a silent laugh, but behind it is the slightest bit of worry from the past.
Reid turns back to Rossi, frowning. "My doctor says I'm not allowed to do any climbing." There's another pause as Rossi gestures to the large cave in the ground.
"It's a ditch."
Reid sighs, glancing down at what Ryne had already noticed a few moments before. "New boots, huh? Italian leather?" He pauses, pursing his lips as he looks at Ryne. "Red soles? How much did those cost you?"
"It's not polite to ask a woman how much she spent on shoes, Reid," Ryne made a tsk noise with her tongue, smirking lightly, her blonde hair splaying in it's ponytail as she did so. "C'mon, did Morgan teach you nothing, doc?"
Reid begins to climb down into the ditch, slowly and very carefully, still frowning. Rossi nudges Ryne lightly. "Louis Vuitton?"
"Custom made Italian leather?" Ryne raises an eyebrow, looking impressed. "Let me guess, definitely not sold at any regular Italian leather store?"
Rossi shrugs, smirking. "I've got a guy," He states. He then looks around at his surrounding as Reid reaches the bottom of the ditch. "So, from here, I can be seen by any passing vehicle."
"And I can't," Reid amends, looking back up and almost screaming at the two agents near the top of the ditch.
"So she was dumped at night?"
"Must have. He drives up, dumps the body. Job done. He leaves," Rossi makes hand gestures as he speaks, animated in telling what he thinks may be the story.
"I don't think so," Reid's face is all scrunched up from the sun glaring in his eyes as he glances back.
"What?"
"All five victims were found posed in the fetal position with their right arm palm up. Left arm palm down."
"Remorse?"
"Or staging," Reid mutters.
Ryne furrows her eyebrows as she glances around the crime scene, taking in what Reid was talking about and thinking back to what she had read in the ME's report. "How'd you figure that out?"
Reid shrugs. "The position isn't natural, if he had just dumped the body from a moving truck. It's too much of a coincidence. He would have had to purposely leave the vehicle, come down and put them in this exact pose."
"It's not statistically possible that the UnSub dumped each body in a different ditch and they all landed the same way," Ryne clarified to herself, still new to the way that the BAU profiles their killers. This was so much more different than what she was used to, and Ryne wasn't sure whether she loved it or hated it yet. "So it's staged, but for what reason?"
"Or to look like what?" Rossi mutters, looking down at where Reid is standing in the ditch.
"Like they're asleep..."
"Do you have any ideas why?" Rossi raises an eyebrow.
"No," Reid shakes his head after a moment of thought, something surprising from him because the genius seems to know everything. Then again, Ryne thought she knew everything, and then she had been plunged into a Tacoma lake. Ever since then, it had just been one bad decision after the next, and a series of extremely terrible days that turned into one more than fucked up decade.
Rossi seems to be surprised as well. "Well, I guess there is a first time for everything." He says as Reid bends down to look at something in the ditch.
"Hey...Rossi!" Rossi begins to walk away as Ryne glances back at him, crossing her arms. He's already almost at the car, and Reid is basically screaming. "I'm gonna need a little bit of help getting out of this ditch...Rossi! Rossi!"
To no avail, because the man seems to be waiting in the car for Reid and Ryne. Ryne chuckles, extending her hands towards Reid. "Grab on!"
"It's too...far..." Reid starts to haul himself towards Ryne.
"Look kid, these cost half my pay check. Grab on, and we're just gonna—" She pauses as Reid grabs onto her hand. "—Stop pulling me down, Reid!"
"I'm not!"
"Yes you are!"
"No," Reid seems undignified. "I swear, I'm not." Ryne begins to pull at his hand, before Reid pulls too hard and she tumbles down beside him, landing gracefully on her feet just barely halfway into the ditch. She purses her lips and glances at the dirt on her shoes, before crossing her arms and glaring at Reid.
"I hope you know you're paying for my shoes to be cleaned."
Later at the Edgewood police station, after Prentiss and Morgan end up checking out another site where another body's been dumped and a woman has now been taken, leaving behind a teenage daughter as a witness sits in a chair between a standing Reid and Rossi, sipping a cup of coffee as her eyes stray along the evidence board, looking for anything to connect the victims or analyze the UnSub's behaviour.
"Nancy Campbell's abduction hit the news."
Ryne glances up as JJ rushes in, her hair flying behind her in pieces and a folder in her hand. She looks stressed, and it reminds Ryne of Lily whenever school got to her — the girl's eyebrows would scrunch, her lips would purse and she'd walk with a new tenacity and force, determination running through her, just as JJ does.
"Let's hope he doesn't see it," Rossi exclaims, turning to JJ. Hotch comes in behind JJ, his arms at his side and the suit still on him, completely pristine despite hours at the station — for a moment, Ryne doesn't understand how he doesn't get tired of the suit and the tie every single day. Ryne would feel like she was getting choked the fourth minute after wearing a tie, or even a collared shirt for that matter. When she was younger and a part of model UN, she'd have to wear collared shirts as a part of the costume for the club, and she'd always end up with one or two buttons open on the top of the shirt because she'd feel like she was suffocating. With the quick dive into the lake years prior, Ryne now felt like she was suffocating all the time, and she stuck to plain shirts and blazers over collared shirts and turtlenecks nowadays.
"He could panic," Rossi continues. "And then he'll dump her faster than the last one."
"Why has he dumped one victim and taken another within the hour?" Hotch questions, crossing his arms over his chest.
Ryne runs through the possibilities in her mind. "Maybe he got wind that we're in Edgewood. It's a small town, he doesn't need the media to know that the feds are around. Maybe he got thrown off, began to spiral?" She theorizes.
Hotch glances at her, furrowing his eyebrows, and for a moment she thinks maybe she said something wrong, and her stomach because to shift as insects claw at it with nervousness. Then, he nods as if it's a possibility just as his phone rings and he picks it up. "What've you got, Garcia?"
"A bloody and busy trucker," Garcia's fairy like voice floats through the connection. "I have been on the HSK myself, I've connected four more victims to this guy. I'm sending their names to you now."
"That brings his count to ten."
"We need to get photos of the victims Garcia identified up on the board," Hotch demands. "If we figure out why he's choosing these women, we find him."
Ryne is the sun, and right now, the sun isn't doing all that well. As a kid, Ryne had been the most adventurous in the world — she supposed being slightly sheltered had a big role to play in that. Now however, Ryne had faced the world, and if there was anything she could say, it was that the world was a cruel, cruel place to be.
"Alright, she's on her way up. Prentiss, go get her," Hotch demands as he shuts off his phone. Before he does, Ryne catches a glimpse of his wallpaper and sees a picture of a small boy, maybe around five or six, with dirty blonde hair and a wide smile, crystalline blue eyes twinkling brightly even through the lens of the camera and the phone screen. She comes to the conclusion that it's probably the infamous son of Hotch's who she's heard of once or twice lately, though she didn't know his name.
The BAU had ended up at the home of the foster mother of Jodie Hatchett, after Garcia had managed to track down the UnSub, Wade Hatchett. Hatchett was Jodie's father, and he had been triggered into beginning his killing spree after Jodie's mother had died and Jodie had been removed from him and put into foster care because he couldn't adequately care for her while on the road. In retaliation, Hatchett had begun killing women and eventually landed on killing Jodie's foster mother, who had led them to Jodie.
Ryne watches from a slight as Emily goes outside and manages to get Jodie to follow her inside quickly. The small girl is tiny, wearing a large backpack with long brown hair and an adorable, scrunched up nose. She comes inside slowly, Emily glancing behind the door before she closes it and locks it. Ryne adjusts her vest, approaching Jodie with Hotch and Rossi.
"Jodie?" Hotch asks, to Ryne's surprise, much more softly than his voice normally is.
Despite the calmness, Jodie is scared and sounds slightly like she's about to cry as she questions what they're all doing here. "What's going on?"
"We're helping the police," Hotch explains slowly. "And we're trying to find your dad. Do you know where he is."
"No," Jodie mutters quietly.
There's static through Ryne's earpiece before Morgan's voice floats in, telling Hotch that Hatchett's truck's coming up the road. Ryne kneels down beside the little girl, smiling at her quietly, trying to get her to calm down when she looks as though she might start crying at that very second. "Jodie...I'm Ryne. Do you think maybe you could show me some of your toys?"
"Sure. It's right there."
The small girl nods slowly, and Ryne holds out her hand for her to hold, the child leading Ryne towards her room, Emily and JJ behind them. She tries to comfort the kid as much as she can, knowing outside her father is holding a woman hostage right now, possibly about to kill her, so she makes sure when Jodie comes in, she closes the shades to the window.
Jodie Hatcher's room is a bright blue, with drawings all over the walls of different artworks. There's a few paintings and the bed has bright pink bedding on it. It's extremely clean, but there are a few toys scattered here and there on the bedside table, along with a couple of small books. Ryne takes a seat on the bed, trying to stay at Jodie's height level so she's not as scared — Ryne finds that as a kid, adults height is what used to scare her the most. It seemed like the taller they were, the scarier they were.
"Did you paint all of these yourself?" Emily questions, glancing around at the different paintings. Jodie hums, smiling widely, and Ryne can see the two teeth on her bottom row that she's recently lost, and even the one that wiggles against her lip as she speaks.
"It looks like they're sleeping," JJ notes.
"Yeah," Jodie nods. "The king tucks them in just like my daddy does for me."
"Is this your mom here in this one?" Emily points to one of the drawings.
Jodie shakes her head, hair splaying side to side. "No. My mommy's gone. Daddy says she's in a better place now," Jodie's eyes twinkle. "Do you think she's in a better place?"
Ryne wrings her fingers, staring at Jodie sadly. "Yeah...You know, my mom's in the same place, and I imagine there's stars and fireworks and clouds and flowers, and lots and lots of doves, because she loved doves. I think you're mom's in the best place now." If Ryne feels JJ's eyes on her, she says nothing. Usually, she would never mention a word of her parents or her life out in the field (or at any time, really) but Jodie looked like she needed some assurance that she wasn't alone in this.
"Good. I like doves, they're pretty," Jodie nods, looking a bit more comforted. Then, she pointed at the drawing they had been looking at. "That's not my mommy though, that's the queen."
"Who's that?"
"She's the one that the king tried to take home to the castle," A sense of horror daunts on Ryne as Jodie continues to speak calmly, obviously not knowing the origin behind each of the stories she's drawn. "...but, she didn't make it."
"...What happened to her?"
"Her carriage broke down, and he had to leave her behind to save the princess," Jodie approaches the drawing, and Ryne follows behind, the three women kneeling in front of the drawings on the wall and looking at them.
"There's a lot of queens here," JJ starts.
"Do they have names...the queens? How do you tell them apart?" Ryne questions, smiling softly at Jodie as comfortingly as she possibly can. If everybody had once described Ryne as sunshine, then for once in her life Ryne hoped to pass a little bit of sunshine onto Jodie Hatchett, because it looked like she was about to need all the sunshine she could get.
"They all look different," JJ notes again when Jodie shakes her head.
"They are," Jodie says.
Emily points to one of the first drawings. "What happened to this one here?"
"She was dirty. The king said, 'how do you expect to give my daughter a bath if you can't even take one yourself?' I liked that story."
Emily and JJ both glance at Ryne, sharing a look with her. "...Do you make up all these stories?"
"No. My daddy does. I like painting them." Ryne watches as Emily questions Jodie about what she was recently painting, and she tells them the story wasn't over yet. Emily pauses for a moment, before staring at Jodie.
"Hey...would you like to meet a queen?"
Ryne thinks this is a bad idea — terrible, as a matter of a fact. Hotch can think it's a good idea all he wants, because he's the boss at the end of the day, but Ryne gets to have an opinion, and in her opinion, this is a terrible idea. She's kneeling beside Jodie in the house is living room, her arms against her knees as she watches the little girl cling to the radio they've given her, and Ryne's ready to pick her up and lock her somewhere that her father can't get to her, because by god, this is an absolutely terrible idea.
Don't get her wrong, Ryne's seen a lot of pretty terrible ideas be executed and go off without a hitch, but this is by far one of those ideas that Ryne sees going exactly the opposite of how they planned. There's no way Ryne thinks this can work smoothly, and even if she hasn't verbally voiced it, she has a feeling Hotch knows with the way she's sticking close to Jodie. Kids had always been the type of people Ryne felt the worst for, because if anything, she had been a kid when she had 'died' and 'come back to life'. She still had her whole life ahead of her, as Ryne Beckett, that was.
Katherine Berkeley was dead, in the ground, nothing but a wisp of a memory.
"Daddy? Daddy are you there?"
"Hi, baby."
Wade Hatchett's southern twang can be heard through the radio as it floats through the connection, and Ryne can vaguely hear the woman he has hostage breathing deeply beside him, as if gasping for breath slightly.
The smile on Jodie's face doesn't falter as she clutches the radio close to her, but Ryne has a feeling despite that, she knows there's something going on — that something not right beyond what they've told Jodie. "You need to tell me the rest of the story."
"Well...the lonely king and the queen are at the castle—"
"To pick up the princess?" Jodie scrunches up her face.
"Well, the guards are in the way," Ryne breathes deeply as Hatchett says that. Emily leans in towards Jodie, whispering something in her ear to instruct her on what to say. Ryne's surprised when Jodie glances her way, eyes glimmering as if to ask if that's what she should do — Ryne nods comfortingly again, urging Jodie to continue speaking with her father.
"Will you let the queen talk to them?" Jodie questions.
"They won't listen."
"But I wanna see her," Jodie whines tiredly, her lip trembling. She's beginning to become scared. "Will you let her go so she can hold me? You said that she's perfect. That she's the one. She wants to live in the big castle with me."
"I need to see you."
Ryne freezes, glancing at Hotch, knowing this would go sideways at some point. He seems to be contemplating his options, glancing between the window they can see Hatchett out of, and then towards Jodie. Finally, he nods, as if to signal that Jodie come towards the window — Ryne feels herself dishearten a little, as though she knows this will go sideways sooner or later yet again.
"Okay..." Emily mutters, sighing.
"Hey...Jodie," Ryne kneels down next to the girl and smiles lightly, holding out her hand. "Wanna go see you're dad and the queen?"
Jodie nods enthusiastically, and grabs onto Ryne's hand, following her and Emily. Ryne brushes past Hotch with Jodie on her tail, before reaching the window. Slowly, as much as she can out of line of sight, she moves the curtain slowly and lifts Jodie up so she can see Hatchett in the truck, Emily beside them. Jodie clings onto her, holding the radio in one hand as she smiles widely and waves at Hatchett. "Hi, daddy!"
"Hi, princess," Something feels off about this to Ryne. Her stomach flutters with insects clawing at her, trying to escape, and she gets ready to pull Jodie away if she has to. Rossi is beside them, and she can feel Hotch's eyes on the back of her neck, burning a hole into her skin. Slowly, he allows the woman he's holding captative to get out, and she does, walking slowly towards the house.
"She's so pretty, daddy!"
Ryne watches as SWAT and Morgan slowly run and get the woman away from Hatchett, inching in towards the truck.
"Now the king won't be lonely anymore," Jodie says.
"No...and they can live happily ever after."
"Why aren't you coming too, daddy?" Jodie isn't ready to let go of the radio. "Are you going to a better place?"
"What?" Emily's eyes snap to Jodie, and Ryne grips onto her tighter, lifting her up and ready to pull her away from the window. She glances at Hotch, eyes wide, and he shakes his head, as if to tell her to wait and see how this plays out.
"Yeah...we're both going to a better place, princess. Close your little eyes, sweet pea."
Ryne can hear Morgan yell out Hatchett's name from outside as she lifts Jodie up off the table she was balanced on, hugging her tightly and letting the small girl bury her head into Ryne's shoulder. Hotch comes forward, pushing the both of them back and peering through the window as he watches the debacle before them take place. Ryne can see Morgan running, screaming, hand in the air and the other on his weapon, and then a scream, a snap, and the sound of something that sounds awfully like a car backfiring.
Then, all that's left is silence.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
ok yes, there was yet another change in face claim. im kinda at a loss with this but after watching single parents and then rewatching the og gossip girl, angie d'amato's style and blair waldorf's energy just fit ryne so well, so like, here we are. on another note, in the future jodie will be important to ryne's storyline again, but like...ryne has a super soft spot for kids i guess, bc they're just super innocent and adorable and doesn't want them to get hurt i guess. anyways, next chapter should focus on a thousand words, and then we finally get to exit wounds, which is my fav episode ever. there's lots of hotch/ryne content in the next chapter, so yay!