"She didn't want love, she wanted to be love- and that was entirely different"
-Atticus-
"Maya, let me take you home" Derek urges as he kneels beside Maya who sits at her desk, multiple case files and papers flooding the desk to where you can barely see the color. "I told you, I want to stay" Maya states as she looks to Derek who shakes his head sadly.
"You can't let this take over you. You've been here for 2 days" Derek states and Maya rolls her eyes before looking back down at her papers she has spread out all of her desk.
"I can't leave" Maya says softly, starting to choke up on her words. "I can't leave you here alone" Derek argues while Maya depends he should. "My brother is out there somewhere and he's been watching me for months" Maya says as she looks to Derek who desperately wants her to come with him so he can take her home but Maya refuses. She refuses to let this case be tossed aside and thrown to the bottom of some pile.
"Hiding out in here isn't doing anyone any good" Derek declares and Maya scoffs before she slams one of the case files closed and walks over to the box, she got it from and puts it in its directed place.
"I'm not hiding. I'm doing what everyone else around won't and that's find my brother" Maya states before Derek grabs both of her hands and forces her to look at him. "I care about you, and I don't want to see this take over your life, Maya" Derek states, his eyebrows curling up with concern.
"Then don't" Maya says softly, a tear rolling down her cheer without her permission. "It's already taken over my life, so, if you don't want to stand here and watch, leave" Maya states before she slowly slips her hands away from Derek feeling a hole being ripped into her chest as she does so.
She hears Derek walk away and as the footsteps get farther away, Maya throws off the pen and pencils that were in a cup on her desk. She leans up against her desk, sobbing uncontrollably since nobody was around.
The crying died down and wiped her cheeks that were starting to turn red due to cry she let out. Maya bent down, picking up the pen and pencils before sitting back down at her desk and looking through all the information she has in front of her, trying desperately to forget her breakdown she had just a couple seconds ago.
"Wakey wakey" Rossi says as Maya jerks awake due to the sound of her voice. Maya looks out the large windows in the room and notices that it's still dark outside and she must've fell asleep while she was looking at information.
"It's like 2am" Maya states, rubbing her eyes. "I told you to go home 2 days ago, Agent Regan" Strauss says as she comes up beside Rossi, setting a cup of coffee down in front of Maya.
"Yeah, I didn't listen" Maya states honestly as she stretches her arms and stands to her feet before looking around at the office and seeing no one but Strauss and Rossi. "Where is everybody else?" Maya wonders.
"Well, since you're already here..." Rossi trails off as he starts to make his way towards the conference room, Maya slowly but surely following behind.
"Hotch is in New York and has a possible case" Rossi says as him and Strauss take a seat in front of the video call that has yet to start. "Maya, did you stay overnight again?" Garcia asks as she gets everything set up.
"Guilty" Maya mumbles before she, Strauss and Rossi take a seat in front of the screen before Hotch informs them on the new possible case about a suspicious OD happening to lots of people.
Apparently there have been five deaths already and the cops think it was bad MDMA, but the cause was actually such a high dose of the stuff that it caused their bodies to boil over. "And the ME reports showed 3 other victims bleeding out over the last week" Hotch adds.
The other ones have been in Harlem and in the village but all 5 of them have been categorized as ecstasy overdoses while one of the victims may have been drugged without her knowledge.
"Isn't ecstasy used as some kind of date rape drug?" Maya asks which Rossi nods his head in agreement. "Yes, but I've never seen it cause bleeding like this" Rossi says, sounding shocked. They compare it to the 'Tylenol Poisoning' of 1986, and suggest that this could be another case where someone is targeting a specific person, but poisoned a huge number of people to cover it up.
"So you're saying these death could just be the start" Strauss states, not asking since she already knows the answer. "Yes. I'd like the team to join me in New York as soon as possible" Hotch says and Maya immediately rubs her forehead stressfully because team equals Derek and seeing Derek equals really awkward interactions for the rest of the day.
Erin announces that she's going along on the case because the team seems to go rogue when loved ones are involved.
_____
On the plane, the team discusses the possible motives for mass murder on the plane, but then the focus in on the non-users who still wound-up dead. "The unsub has got to be getting the drug into their system a different way" Maya shrugs before she looks over at Derek who sits on the edge of a seat. They don't say anything to each other, and this is the first time they've looked at each other since the whole team was called to the case.
"Why kill in such a graphic manner?" Strauss wonders. "Well, he gets off on the spectacle. It's not just about the victims with this guy. It's about the witnesses and the fear he brings onto others" JJ answers, saying to a point where Strauss will understand where the unsub is coming from with these murders.
_____
Reid, Maya, JJ and Derek are over at the club, talking to the survivors. Apparently, the dead people were annoyed that the liquid MDMA they bought was taking too long to kick in, so they doubled their dosage, while a guy who took a single vial ended up fine.
The guy also claims that one of the dead people was the dealer. They call up Garcia to ask if there are records of slow-acting MDMA that kills people, and she turns up 'Doctor Death', or PMMA, a drug that's half meth, half MDMA. Apparently, people frequently overdose one it because it takes too long to kick in.
Strauss checks with the DEA, and they say that this is the first time PMMA has been seen in America. The team then talks about how it's lucky that Hotch's brother was involved, because if he hadn't alerted Hotch, they might never have noticed the connection.
Maya unlocks the door to the integration room where Hotch's brother, Sean, who will soon be questioned more. "You enjoy doing this? interrogating good looking innocent guys" Sean asks as he takes a seat on the other side of the metal table that's placed in the middle of the room.
"Well, I just got back from looking at dead people whose eyes were bleeding so, you, Sean Hotchner, are not a bad sight to see" Maya says, going along with the playfulness.
"I didn't even know Hotch had a brother" Maya says as she stands by the door, looking to Sean who shrugs his shoulders. "Not many people do. He doesn't talk about me a lot. He became the successful one and I'm not the brother who jumps from couch to couch" Sean states, not feeling included in his family.
"Well, if you are as innocent as you say then maybe you can go back to the couch you're sleeping on" Maya jokes. "Let's hope it's yours" Sean says flirtatiously making Maya slightly blush as she exited the room before Rossi went in to talk to him due to Hotch asking him too.
Rossi badgers Sean until he admits that he and his girlfriend broke up over his MDMA use. But he didn't mention it because he claimed he quit, and they were getting back together which is something that definitely needed to be mentioned earlier.
Hotch then bursts in the room to yell at his brother about how he shouldn't be doing drugs. Sean reveals that he gets his drugs from his boss, and it only makes Hotch angrier because he could possibly be a connection to the killer.
_____
That night, another murder has happened. It was a husband and wife. They were having dinner with their daughter and suddenly their eyes started bleeding and the daughter had to call the police on her own while her parents were already dead in the dining area.
When Rossi and Reid arrive at the scene, they notice the half-finished wine and have Garcia track the bottle the parents were drinking and finds out the bottles were in a shipment going to the bar where Sean works.
So obviously that's at the center of all this, as the team has realized. Reid and Rossi then question why the killer would use two completely different M.O.s spiked wine and liquid MDMA.
Could someone at the bar have been buying the PMMA and using it to kill people, while the rest of them are just actual overdoses?
The team assigns Garcia to figure out how the wine bottles got from the bar into private hands.
"So, we have 5 overdoses" Maya says as she sits a room with JJ and Alex. "We can connect directly to the Edinburgh, a club that condones drug use" JJ declares as she walks over to the board, adding more crime scene photos to it.
"There answers are at the club. The club where Hotch's brother seems to work at" JJ states as her and Maya looking out the window of the room to the room across the building where Sean continues to sit in interrogation.
"He may be attractive, but I have a hard time believing that he knows nothing about this case" Maya states, crossing her arms over her chest while her and JJ tilt their heads at the same time analyzing Sean's body language from a distance.
_____
Murder is the only possible motive here. Sean offers to wear a wire to get info about where the bar owner gets his drugs. He goes in and starts talking to his boss and the business partner who is the partner who's in charge of drug dealing at the bar.
Sean tells them that the cops know about the tainted wine, and both guys look extremely surprised but also concerned. Also, one of the waitresses looks over significantly when she overhears them talking about dumping the wine just in case.
The boss asks Sean to help him dump the wine, and while they head out the waitress comes over to ask the business partner how much Sean knows but things start to get complicated.
The Boss starts panicking when he discovers that a case of the white wine is missing. Sean asks why he's freaking out, because he's the one who poisoned the wine. He thought it was just MDMA, and he was going to play a merry prank on the bar goers.
Meanwhile, in the van, Maya tightens her vest around her chest but she can't seem to reach one of the straps on the side. "Here" Derek calls out before he leans over, helping Maya secure the strap and for a moment, they look to each other and all the bad blood and complications they had with each other slowly but surely went away all because of a look.
"You never went home, did you?" Derek asks, placing his gun in his holster while Maya scoffs jokingly.
"No, Rossi woke me up because I fell asleep" Maya answers as she tightens her ponytail that rests at the top of her head and looks to Derek who doesn't genuinely laugh at the joke. It was like he laughed because he felt he had to.
In the bar, after finding out that his boss murdered his girlfriend, Sean was put into a murderous rage, and he attacks the guy, which, naturally, leads to his wire being exposed.
Maya hears fighting going on through the headphones and her, Derek and Hotch jump out the back of the van, pulling their guns out. Hotch orders Maya to go through the back while him and Derek go through the front.
Maya does as she's told and goes through the back and makes her way into the storage room, seeing the boss, also known as Thane, holding a piece of broken glass, ready to stab Sean.
"Drop it!" Maya orders as she notices Sean sneaking a bottle that's off to his side. He raises his hand and Maya rushes towards Sean, spinning around once before she kicked Sean on the side of his head, knocking him to ground.
She then turned to the boos, Thane, with her gun pointed right at his head. "Drop the glass" Maya demands and Thane breathes heavily out of fear before he drops the glass on the ground at the same time as Hotch and Derek enter the storage area.
"Ahh" Sean groans as he touches the top of his head that now has a little scratch due to Maya kicking him.
Derek puts Thane in handcuffs while Maya holsters her gun and bends down to help Sean. "Sorry, but I wasn't going to let you regret something" Maya states as she helps Sean to his feet, looking at the blood that slowly trickles down the side of his forehead.
"Oh, no. All is forgiven" Sean groans as he looks at the blood left on his fingers from touching his head.
"You're pretty bad ass" Sean states as him and Maya look down at their hands still touching. Hotch then walks over and suspiciously looks between them before Maya slid her hand away from his and walked away, letting Hotch speak to his brother alone.
While the team arrests everyone who works at the club, Sean pulls a disappearing act, leaving his wire and recording device in the van.
_____
Later that night, the team arrives at another crime scene which was a car crash, the victim being Peters, a partner of Thanes. This kill seemed rushed and not planned out at all. Turns out, the crash didn't even kill the victim. It was PMMA that was poured down his nose and throat. Brutal.
"The drug aside, this is a completely different MO. He's no longer contented to sit back and watch, but why?" Reid wonders.
"It obvious this was an overkill and pretty personal so whoever did this had a definite grudge against Peters" Maya states, crossing her arms over her chest. Hotch then informs that Sean may have something to do with this because he left the bar for a reason.
"You can't actually think that he did this?" Derek questions.
"Did it? I don't think he has that in him. Being apart of the drug business? I can see that" Maya voices before Reid suggest the team look at this another way like that the cook, annoyed that someone used his killer drugs to poison wine, is getting revenge on the people responsible for doing so.
Later, Garcia jumps in through a vidscreen with news. It seems that the drug isn't local at all! It was smuggled from Canada on a plane, then brought into the city by a courier.
For some reason, only the shipment going to Sean's bar wound up with PMMA instead of the MDMA they were expecting. Hotch then sends Derek and Maya to speak with then bodega owner.
Maya gets out of the car and puts her sunglasses on as the sun shines bright today. Derek meets her on the sidewalk, and they start walking towards the bodega where it looks like they're about to open 20 minutes late.
"Kind of hard to stay in business when you don't open on time" Maya declares as the bodega owner turns around in confusion.
"I got a hangover. What is it to you?" He questions before Maya and Derek pull out their badges and reveal they want to talk to him about his inventory. The owner explains that people often bring him stuff they steal from their businesses, which he then sells in his store.
He also mentions that the guy who brought the wine over a few weeks early came back the previous night and bought the rest of it at full price. So, it's Sean's fault that those random people died, and that's where he ran off to.
_____
Over at the station, Garcia has more clues to offer. A baggage handler at the airport where the drugs come in died a month ago, but he's continued making cash deposits into his bank account.
Sean then calls Hotch to confess about the wine, but Hotch says he already knows, and asks him to come in, since he's definitely the killer's next target but Sean refuses and hangs up the phone only leaving Hotch and the team with limited options.
The team gathers around to try and figure out what's going on with the baggage handler's regular deposits. Obviously his customers still think he's alive, which means the drops are still being made, and the new courier is the killer. So obviously it had to be someone who worked with or knew the courier, because how else would he know about the drug shipments.
Garcia finds that another handler had a daughter recently die from a MDMA overdoes, and surmise that he must be their guy.
And it turns out it was the other bar that the guy owned. His plan was to attack Peter's other business, so the killings wouldn't be traced back to him.
They have Morgan and Maya drive the three hours out to arrest Larry Feretich. They arrest him without incident, and during his confession he confirms that yes, he did just want to kill the partner, and had no plans to go after anyone else.
Case closed, sort of.
JUST A FEW HOURS LATER
The dim glow of Garcia's computer screen illuminated the darkened room, casting an eerie ambiance as she sifted through the files. Suddenly, a message flashed across the monitor, chilling in its simplicity: "Zugzwang."
"I hacked it, let's move," Thomas declared, his voice low and determined as he and a woman clad in black hoods emerged from the shadows. The air crackled with tension as they slipped out of the car, their identities concealed in secrecy.
Cut to a nondescript hotel hallway, the sound of muffled footsteps echoing against the sterile walls. Thomas and the woman, their movements precise and calculated, donned gloves as they approached a particular room. With a deft swipe of a keycard, the door clicked open, revealing the sleeping figure of Erin Strauss, the team's respected leader.
Thomas exchanged a silent glance with the woman beside him, a sense of anticipation hanging in the air like a heavy fog. She lowered her mask, revealing features that would initially appear unfamiliar, yet held a potent significance that would send shockwaves through the team.
Her short brown hair framed her face, and her piercing brown eyes held a hidden depth, hinting at a story untold. As her name reverberated in the silence, a name that carried weight and secrets, the scene morphed into a tapestry of intrigue and danger. The stage was set for revelations that would leave minds reeling and alliances shattered.
"They say it's real if it comes back, but what if it's real because it never left"
-Unknown-