i taste blood
"ARE YOU FINDING THIS FUNNY?"
Jane raised a brow, not bothering to hide her grin as she watched the scene play out before her. "Are you asking if I find it funny that you go toe to toe with the bad guys almost every week, but you can't get your toddler to eat his dinner? Yes, Aaron, I am absolutely floored. This is the best thing to ever happen to me,"
Hotch glares weakly at her, sitting back in his seat at the dining table as Jack stubbornly ignores his bowl of chicken alfredo. "Last week, this was his favorite meal. This week, he wants nothing to do with it."
"Kids are great, really," Jane turns to look at Jack, making a silly face at him when he meets her gaze. The little boy laughs at her and she looks back to Aaron with a sigh as she digs into her own meal. "I gotta say, though, Jack, you're missing out. This chicken is really good. If you're not going to eat yours, I'll take it,"
Jack's face twists into something unhappy at the thought, and he grabs his bowl, pulling it away from Jane's outreaching hands.
Holding her hands up in surrender, Jane huffs. "I thought you didn't like chicken alfredo, Jack,"
"I do," He huffs, pouting at her as Hotch hides his smile. "It's mine, Jane,"
"Be nice to Jane," Hotch intones, shaking his head as his son digs into his meal finally. "She's just teasing you."
Jack still looks unhappy at the entire ordeal and Jane snorts as she twists some pasta around her fork and takes a pointed bite of it while looking at him.
"And don't antagonize him,"
She freezes at being caught, offering him an innocent shrug that isn't convincing in the slightest. "Just showing off how great of a chef you are,"
"I'm sure," Hotch huffs, taking a drink of his water. "How's the lab been?"
"I thought we didn't talk about work at the dinner table,"
"We don't talk about my work at the dinner table, because it's much less appetizing than yours," He corrects her quickly, smiling when she rolls her eyes.
"Technically, our work is the same now,"
He raises a brow, giving her a pointed look. "Technically, you're being a smartass right now,"
Jack gasps lightly, covering his ears in scandal. "Daddy said a bad word!"
Hotch gives his son an apologetic look, nodding. "I'm very sorry, Jack, I was just teasing Jane."
Jack, seemingly forgetting his own transgressions with Jane just moments before, lays a tiny hand on top of Jane's, frowning at Aaron. "Don't be mean to my sister, Dad,"
Jane snorts, covering her laugh with her free hand before offering comfort to the very concerned toddler. "It's okay, Jack. Dad's being nice to me, I swear."
He looks entirely too wary for his age and Hotch has to hold back his own laughter at the sight of his suspicious look, but eventually he seems happy enough with the truce and returns to his meal, and the tiny toy car he's been driving along the edge of the table.
Giving Jane a pointed, exasperated look, he gestures for her to return to their previous topic. "How is your intern doing without you there all the time?"
Jane runs her tongue along her teeth as she grabs her water, shrugging. "Ben's fine– still a nervous wreck– but fine. I get it, though. I second guessed everything I did when I first started– I'm doing it now, with the BAU," She gestures lazily, ignoring the concern that flashes in his gaze. "It's just an adjustment to change. Nothing to worry about."
Hotch nods in understanding, reaching for his own water. "But you're adjusting well, right? The cases you've been on have been... rough to start out with, but you're doing well. You fit in with the team."
"Well, I think all your cases are rough," She says, earning a nod of acquiesce from him. "And it's not like people are going to stop murd–" Jane cuts herself off quickly, eyeing Jack, who's obliviously eating his food. "People are not... going to stop... doing what they do that happens to keep us employed."
Aaron's brows raise with every word she speaks, and he can't stop the quiet laugh that leaves his lips as she drops her head into her hands defeatedly. "You alright over there?"
"No," She groaned softly, lifting her head again. "I've been trying to get my sleep schedule back on track since we have such crazy hours when we're on a case, but Calvin's been having friends over for dinner a lot and they're great, it's nice to have a life outside of work, but I am pretty much just running on fumes. I don't think I ever had that many friends when I was in college, let alone now, I don't know how he does it, and I– I sound so old, oh, my God, I'm old."
Hotch breathes out a laugh again, shaking his head at her rambling. "You realize that makes me feel ancient, right?"
"Yeah– sorry about that,"
"I don't think you're old," He sighs fondly, reaching for his water again. "You just had a much less social upbringing. It makes it harder to branch out as an adult, let alone be with someone so extroverted."
"Oh, you mean I wasn't the same as every other 18 year old who just spent six years in a psychiatric ward?" She huffs a sarcastic laugh at Hotch's concerned, but also somewhat scolding look. He never really took to her attempts at jokes. "No, I know. Most people haven't experienced life the way I did. But I feel bad sometimes, feeling like this about him because he shouldn't not have friends just because I get annoyed. I mean, how selfish is that?"
"It's not selfish," He speaks softly, deep voice a comfort to her after all these years spent in his presence, his paternal instinct prevalent long before he had Jack. "You're human. And you've had normality, or some degree of it, for years now. Your safety is no longer in question, so your body is slowly letting its survival instincts pull back. Everything you're feeling is normal, when it comes to adjusting to a long term partner, Jane."
Jane sighed, dropping her eyes to her nails as she scratched silently at the placemat beneath her bowl. "I don't like it when you profile me,"
"I know."
"And yet,"
He hums, smiling softly. "And yet."
Before either of them can say anything else, Hotch's phone starts to ring and Jane watches the look of exhaustion flutter over his features before he reaches for it, pressing it against his ear. "Hotchner."
His eyes fall shut briefly, and when he opens them, he looks at Jack longingly. "Yeah. Yeah, I'll be in soon. See you, JJ."
"I think we jinxed ourselves talking about work at the table," Jane sits back, watching him set his phone back down on the table with a heavy sigh. "I'll get him cleaned up, and call Jess."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, yeah, my go-bag is at the office already. Go get your stuff together." She waves him off and he nods, pushing away from the dining table to head to his room, leaving Jane and Jack alone.
Jane heaves a tired sounding sigh and turns to look at Jack with as genuine a smile as she can manage right now. "You wanna take a bath and wait for Aunt Jess to get here?"
Jack's noises of excitement echo through the apartment, and it's enough to lighten both of their ever-somber moods.
──────
"This is Captain Paul Collins. He's the third victim in two weeks in Providence, Rhode Island." JJ holds the picture of the victim up for the team to see, handing it off to Hotch to pass around.
"Captain?" Reid echoes, briefly eyeing the picture of the man.
"Yeah, he just returned home two weeks ago from his fourth tour in Iraq. He's a decorated war hero."
Derek looks at the picture, handing it off to Emily who leans closer to Jane beside her so she can see it. "Was he targeted because he's in the military?"
JJ shakes her head, frowning. "No. Just like the first two victims, he was targeted because he was convenient. He was killed at a church during an early service."
"Men in the military are shown to have higher penchants for domestic violence," Jane says. "Could it be a revenge situation?"
"His family is torn up. Said he was nothing short of a saint,"
"Neck was cut open, severed the carotid artery, he bled out in a matter of moments," Spencer notes. "There wouldn't be any point to that if it was revenge."
"Right in front of his daughter," JJ says, voice sympathetic.
"Murder in a church is highly symbolic," Prentiss observes, looking at JJ. "Is there a religious agenda involved?"
"The detective on the case, Jake Moreland, ruled that out because of the first two victims. The first victim, Mike O'Donnell, was found under a sink in the men's room at a restaurant."
Spencer's face furrowed inquisitively. "What kind of restaurant?"
The blonde shrugged lightly. "Local place, white tablecloths and jug wine. The second victim, Karen Lagrassa was killed at the laundromat. All three had their throats slashed."
Derek scans the files with a somewhat wild gleam of disbelief in his eyes. "Aside from M.O., victimology is all over the place. It's like this guy doesn't care who he's killing, just how."
"And he's doing it in public without compunction for who sees him," Rossi shakes his head, echoing Morgan's disbelief.
"Do we have a sketch?" Hotch asks.
"All anyone can agree on is that it's a white male between 25 and 40," JJ offers up an otherwise useless sketch to the table, earning a wry huff of a laugh from Jane and an echoing one from Emily.
"Well, that narrows it down to all of Providence,"
"Hard to fault the witnesses, given how bloody these murders must be."
"What bothers me is the cooling off period is getting shorter and shorter, with no attempt to hide who he is or what he's doing."
Jane nods in agreement with Morgan. "It reads like a spree killer. Like he's ramping up to more victims, more publicity, more... everything." She furrows her brows the longer she looks at the crime scene photos from the most recent kill of the military Captain.
Morgan dips his head in agreement. "An unsub this bold could be suffering from a major psychotic break."
"I already asked Detective Moreland to pull recent releases on prisons and mental hospitals,"
"We need to get to Providence ASAP," Hotch says. "Whether he's suffering from a psychotic break or not, Jane's right– this could be the start of a spree."
"And anyone is a potential target,"
──────
"Why is he using a knife?" Emily's projected question garners the attention of the team as she walks down the aisle of the jet, brows furrowed in thought as she takes her seat across from JJ again. "Guns assure the highest number of fatalities. If all he's interested in is quantity, he could be doing this more efficiently."
"He could be training," The blonde suggests. "Spree killers often do dry runs before they start their rampage."
"Most spree killers have lost control by the time they begin," Hotch says, leaning against the curved cabin wall of the jet.
"They're always male," Morgan says. "And if they don't fall in the school shooter category, they're older. 40s and 50s, socially isolated. The stressor's usually the dissolution of their last social outlet."
"George Hennard was inspired by James Huberty," Spencer starts, taking on that particular tone of voice he got whenever he was reciting something from memory. "Between the two of them, they shot 43 people at fast food restaurants."
Emily nods slightly, brows raising. "Well, if he's practicing for his mass murder, he's definitely getting bolder about it."
"And bloodier," Morgan says, earning a slow, grim nod in accordance from Jane.
"Right now, the shock and awe of the bloodletting seems to be what he's going for. But soon, that won't be enough."
"That makes sense with regards to his fantasy life," Spencer says, shifting in the leather seat beside JJ. "If he is planning something big, he'll spend his day dreaming of it. Getting back at slights, both real and imagined."
Jane shakes her head slightly, looking confused. "Yeah, but like you said earlier, slitting their throats isn't very revenge-like. It's fast, it's messy, and he's not even there long enough for someone to get a good look at him. How is that going to satisfy any of his daydreams?"
Spencer shrugs a shoulder, looking ultimately as lost as she does. "He'll probably keep killing until it does. Or until he realizes it won't do anything."
There's a grim silence that lingers for a split second before Hotch disrupts it, unwilling to let them all wallow in the weird limbo that exists at the beginning of a case, before they have any sort of clue as to what it could all be about.
"Without a specific target victim, we need to concentrate on the crime scenes and see what they tell us. Prentiss, Jane, you take the laundromat, I'll have, uh, Detective Moreland meet you there."
"I'd like to take a look at the church if you don't mind," Rossi says, earning a short nod from Hotch.
"Good. JJ, you and Morgan interview Captain Collins' wife. She got the best look at the unsub, see what she remembers. Reid and I will run point from the police station."
──────
"I get the stuff out," Emily murmurs to herself, shutting the hatch to the dryer. "Alright, I'm folding, I don't hear you approaching,"
"You always... talk to yourself?"
Emily turns around quickly, laughing shortly at the sight of the detective. "Well, my partner is around here somewhere," She gestures vaguely, wondering where Jane had wandered off to, though it's short lived when she has a sudden observation. "If these machines were on, I definitely wouldn't hear you come up behind me."
She offers out a hand to shake, and the man does so firmly. "Jake Moreland, Providence P.D."
"Emily Prentiss." She smiles, eyes darting over the man's shoulder as Jane walks back into the laundromat. "This is Dr. Jane Donovan, she's with the BAU."
The detective turns around to face the other woman approaching, shaking her hand as well.
"Can you do that again?" Emily questions the man, gesturing to his earlier entrance. He gives her a slightly strange look, but quickly complies, leaving Jane to stand back, observing it.
"Okay," Emily turns her head, recalling the scene out loud. "You come in through the back door, slash my throat, walk out. There's no cameras inside or outside of the building, right, Jane?"
The woman nods. "Nothing on the backside but some dumpsters, and some other alleyways. He had to have been familiar with the area to make an easy getaway, not to mention he doesn't run. He just walks away, doesn't draw any extra attention. Doesn't make sense for a spree killer, they're like adrenaline junkies."
The detective agrees with her point, nodding. "The same is true for all of the crime scenes. No cameras, no running, no real witnesses."
"Which means you're smart enough to plan for that in your attacks," Emily says, earning another nod from Moreland.
"But, careless enough to drop a knife 10 feet after I cut you."
"But you didn't leave any fingerprints."
"No," Moreland cedes. "He did that at all three crime scenes."
Emily shakes her head, eyes drifting to the floor that's drenched with blood in the photos the detective has of the crime scene. "Mass murderers and spree killers, they often fetishize their weapons. But this guy discards his. Why?"
Detective Moreland shrugs slightly. "He can get a new knife anytime he wants," He holds up a picture, gesturing to the discarded murder weapon. "They carry these at army/navy stores."
Emily hums lowly, sharing a look with Jane. "Could be a scare tactic."
"How so?"
"Americans typically are more terrified by the presence of a knife than a gun. Most rape victims, for instance, they're more likely to scream out for help if they see a gun, whereas they'll comply if they see a blade. So, victimology and murder weapon aren't important to this guy. What does that leave? What is he attacking?"
"The crime scene itself," Rossi's voice startles the three of them and Jane snaps her head towards him, letting out a quiet, sharp breath as her pulse briefly rockets. "Did you see the sign outside when this place was established?"
Detective Moreland fills in the answer for them. "1967."
"The same as the restaurant," Rossi says. "Second generation Italian. Everyone in the neighborhood eats there."
The detective nods, face furrowed in thought. "St. Alvina's was built at the beginning of the last century. So, each location has a history in this community."
"So, he wants to destroy landmarks," Emily says, nodding grimly. "Pieces of Providence's history."
"That's why the random victims," Jane says, tucking her hands in her pockets.
"He's making a point," Rossi furthers the revelation.
"Probably a manifestation of a deep hatred for the city, he wants to scar the places everybody knows and goes to,"
"Not quite," Rossi tilts his head slightly, glancing at Jane. "Take a ride with me. We're gonna have a look at the other crime scenes."
"Why?" Detective Moreland asks.
"Indulge me."
They follow Rossi out to the black SUV, and Jane climbs into the backseat with Detective Moreland, leaving Rossi and Emily up front. It's a short drive to the church where Captain Collins was killed, and they come to a stop across the street, eyeing the scene of the small vigil gathered at his memorial, even in the rain.
"Attack an institution, everybody responds. Neighbors come out, the mayor assigns extra cops. A place of worship turns into a crime scene, you feel personally assaulted."
"That's what gets him off," The realization hits Emily the same time it does Jane. "The response. Public outcry. He wants the big show."
"You think he's revisiting the crime scene?" Detective Moreland questions, a hint of disbelief in his voice, less so targeted at Rossi and more at the sheer audacity of such a person.
Rossi shakes his head lightly. "Not just revisiting, reliving. He's found a way to keep the murders he's committed fresh, because they're always on the city's mind."
Jane hums lowly, watching the mourners gathered at the church with a hint of unease swirling in her stomach. "So he's a narcissist. And he's got an appetite for fear– for pity."
Rossi nods from the driver's seat. "Seems like it."
"We should get back to the station," Jane shifts, turning away from the vigil to look at Emily. "Tell the others about this."
──────
"We suggest that you think of this unsub not as a slasher, but as an arsonist. Because the gratification he's getting isn't from the physical act of murder, but from the public's reaction to it."
"Arsonists draw attention to themselves through the fires they set," Emily follows up quickly, looking at the police officers from beside her team as they deliver the profile. "The locations they choose are highly symbolic to them. While this unsub will never set an actual fire, he has the same psychosis as one who does."
"Our unsub fits that model," Spencer starts, hands twisting as he speaks, a subconscious gesture at the eyes on him. "His locations have been pillars of the community, the victims he picks aren't as important as the effect of killing them outside of your favorite restaurant or place of worship."
Derek nods, crossing his arms over his chest as he watches the other officers take notes. "By picking locales with the highest visibility, he's creating the highest level of fear in that neighborhood which reinforces his feeling of power."
"Yeah, but arsonists don't set out to hurt people. This guy clearly does," Detective Moreland pointed out, his glasses perched on his nose as visible stress wore wrinkles into his forehead.
"That's true," Derek nodded. "And this unsub definitely falls in the category of sociopath."
"His victims are there only to achieve his goal, he doesn't have the ability to empathize with them. To him, they're just tools for him to use, no different than a can of gasoline and a match."
Pushing her hair behind her ears, Jane sighed softly, seeing the hesitation and frustration building amongst the officers. "There's no revenge involved, there's no vendetta, he's not trying to send a message. He's inducing a widespread fear– public hysteria, because he can and he wants to. It's what he likes. But just because he doesn't seem to fall in one specific category of killer doesn't mean it makes any less sense."
"Even the way he kills tells us something," Rossi followed. "Slashing a throat is a messy, visual act. It's designed to create attention, just like a fire."
"Arsonists are often mission based," Spencer said, immediately lost in the path of a fact. "They need to make sure their first fire has burnt out before they set another one. They're also highly disciplined and focused. If conditions aren't right to set a fire, or in this case, slash a throat, they'll move on."
"In addition to his need to kill, he has self-control. He has a short cooling off period because he's enjoying what he's doing. This in turn feeds his ego, and keeps him covering his tracks."
"This makes him even more dangerous. If he gets frustrated, encounters too many obstacles, or suffers a blow to his narcissistic ego, he could go on an all-out rampage."
Detective Moreland's phone vibrates, but they ignore it for the most part as they finish the profile.
"Focus on men in between jobs. Instead of working consistently, he is hunting at his next location,"
Just as Emily finishes speaking, a ringer goes off, and they all look around at the multiple calls coming in.
"And he's revisiting his old scenes. We recommend you–"
Another phone goes off, this time it's Hotch's, and the man turns his head as he answers. "Yeah?"
There's a split second before he turns to look at the team. "He's killed again."
"Yeah," Moreland says, drawing the attention his way as he scribbles down something, his own phone pressed to his ear. "Farmer's market at Third and Shelby."
"The press are already on their way," Hotch says, relaying JJ's words.
"We can use that," Rossi says. "It could feed his ego. He'll wanna stay and watch."
Hotch turns, looking to the room at large. "Ladies and gentlemen, when you get to the crime scene, we need you to canvass the crowd. Pay particular attention to onlookers who might be more interested in the scene itself than the victim. And, uh, get photographs of everyone. Excuse me,"
He ducks out of the bullpen as the team and the police officers begin to move, hurrying to their vehicles so they can hopefully get to the crime scene before the press gets there.
"JJ, I need you there,"
"No, Hotch, I– I can't leave."
"JJ, you're there to control the media," Hotch says carefully. "They've left to cover the crime scene, which may distract the unsub. We can catch him, but I need you on top of the press making sure that they're focused on our goals, and not the unsub's."
There's clear hesitation and Hotch hears another refusal sparking even in the silence. "JJ."
"Yeah," She says quickly, voice giving away her upset at the fact that Hotch is right, and she's no real help staying away from the scene. "I'm on my way."
──────
Jane stands amongst a few of the police officers at one edge of the crowd, her and Spencer eyeing the people still there, lingering and observing. Shifting on her tired feet, Jane tilts her head back to look up at Reid. "Do you really think the unsub's still here?"
He looks as surprised as ever that she's addressing him directly, but she's gotten used to the fact that it's his default state. He never seems to accept the fact that people want to talk to him, though she isn't a good enough profiler to determine if it's because of his self-esteem, or because he just doesn't like when people talk to him.
He recovers quickly, though, nodding as he drops his gaze down to his shoes, eyeing the splattered raindrops on them. "It would make sense. He's already revisiting the crime scenes– with how fast we responded to this one, there wouldn't be any reason to leave in the first place."
Jane hums in agreement, running a finger lightly along the yellow caution tape wrapped around the entire market. Watching it ripple beneath her feather-like touch. "Have you ever had to shoot someone?"
Spencer looks shocked at the abrupt change of subject, and then it develops into shock at the question. "Uh– I–"
"Sorry," She shakes her head, grimacing as she looks at him again. "That was really crass, you absolutely don't have to answer that. I just– it's a lot easier to shoot someone than it is to slit their throats. I guess I'm just a little baffled that this is his M.O. It takes a lot of strength to cut someone's throat deep enough to hit their carotid– and I mean that literally. It's protected by layers of tissue and muscle, so it takes an unexpected amount of strength to do something like that."
Spencer nods quietly, observing her, no doubt profiling her. Living with Hotch for as long as she did made it hard to miss the second someone was categorizing your words and behavior, drawing connections where you didn't want them to. With how intelligent Reid was, she's sure he has plenty of bullet points under the category 'Jane', even in the short time they've known each other.
Swallowing roughly, Jane taps the toe of her shoe against the ground, splashing a small puddle against the hem of her trousers. "Did you know that most people who try to commit suicide by cutting their throats fail because of how hard it is to do? If they can get past the unbearable pain, they still can't reach any arteries that would make it fatal, so the most they do is just mutilate themselves."
"Jane,"
"Copy that," One of the officers beside them hooks his radio back onto his uniform, turning to look at them, effectively cutting off the macabre conversation Jane had struck up with her colleague. "Your guys want a perimeter set up. No one in, no one out. Separate men from women."
The two FBI agents nod accordingly, and Jane looks to Spencer as the officer dips under the caution tape, shining his flashlight into the dark lot the market had been set up in. "Ultimately a victim pool and a suspect pool."
Spencer gestures to the crowd a few feet in front of them. "I'll start from the left,"
"I'll go from the right," Just as Jane begins to walk towards the opposite end of the crowd, she turns, brows furrowing when she looks out into the parking lot, searching for the officer that had wandered off.
She ducks under the tape, squinting as her eyes adjust to the shadows cast by the bright lights still shining on the market behind her. "Officer Liddy?"
Her shoes crunch against the gravel packed onto the lot and she brings a hand up over her eyes, trying to see into the darkness just in front of her. "Officer Liddy, are you out here?"
A choked off noise follows her words and she drops her hand, heart immediately racing in her chest. She clenches her hands at her sides, taking a few steps forward. "This is Jane Donovan with the FBI," She starts, willing her voice not to shake. "Come out of the shadows, please."
She steps forward warily, a gasp leaving her lips as she comes upon the figure strewn messily on the ground before her. She drops to her knees, kneeling over the officer's body. "Officer Liddy, can you hear me?" She brings her hands to his neck, feeling the gush of blood slip through her fingers as she clamps his throat tightly.
Fighting the heat welling up behind her eyes, she turns to look over her shoulder, back at the crowd just feet away. "Spencer!"
Her voice carries, the shrill, panicked call to it immediately getting his attention, and the man snaps his head over in her direction, eyes widening at the fear drawn on her face.
"I need help," She calls out, voice shaking as Spencer runs towards her. "Officer down! I repeat, there's an officer down!"
──────
"Those gotta be on the board, too?"
Spencer turns to look at the officer sitting at the table everyone's gathered at, though he quickly shifts his stare to Jane, who's sitting quiet and subdued beside Hotch at the conference table. Looking at her hands where they rested limply on the table.
"What's the next great bit of advice from the FBI, huh?"
"Take it easy, Gardella, this ain't the time or the place." Detective Moreland quickly shuts his officer down, though there's a hint of exhaustion in his voice that wasn't there before. It wasn't lost on any of the BAU that there was a new level of personal connection to this case, outside of neighborhood landmarks being scarred.
Any case they'd lost an officer on was hard to see through, because the rest of the officers were suddenly grieving a family member. Despite understanding the gravity of their loss, it didn't make the officers any more understanding of the BAU's work, though.
"If we hadn't listened to them, Liddy and I would be having our morning cup of coffee."
"We profiled that he was mission oriented, and this kill doesn't fit that pattern."
"The murder of Officer Liddy is a significant departure, even for someone as unpredictable as this unsub," Spencer says to the room, sitting on the other side of Jane.
"Based on Jane's eyewitness testimony, and the overall circumstances of the night, it's clear that this was a murder of self-preservation. Just to get away," Emily says, her eyes falling sympathetically to the woman in question.
Rossi shakes his head, looking at the stubborn-faced police officer. "This location is not his M.O., secluded with no audience, stabbing, not cutting. He didn't stick around to see Jane, or anyone react."
"So?"
"So," Rossi echoes. "He's out prowling the streets right now, looking for another victim so the city will pay attention to him."
"You've been handed a list of locations that we think might be of particular interest to the unsub. We're asking you to double, and even triple your surveillance in these areas."
Detective Moreland nods, turning to look at his officers. "Keep your wits about you, guys,"
"Detective, we'd like to speak to you,"
"Sure," The gray-haired man nods, lifting his hand in a dismissive gesture. "That's it, fellas, thank you."
Hotch doesn't waste any time before continuing on. "Detective, the story has become about Officer Liddy. We need to get the attention back on the unsub, or we're afraid that he may lash out."
"Up till now, the unsub has been disciplined enough to avoid killing if the circumstances weren't right. Like an arsonist who won't set a fire if there's someone there to see him leaving while smoke is billowing out the windows."
"What if we say that one of the buildings didn't burn? How would the unsub react to that?"
Spencer shrugged a shoulder at Rossi's question. "He'd be compelled to come back and finish the job."
"Then we pick one of the previous locations, show that the community has rallied around it, that they're not afraid of him."
"So, we need to find a location with the greatest symbolism up to this point," Prentiss says.
"That's easy," Rossi pulls a picture of the church where Captain Collins was murdered out of the case file. "And we use the city's fallen hero as inspiration."
JJ narrows her eyes slightly at the picture of the Captain that Rossi holds up. "Should we get the Chief of Police, or the Mayor to make a statement? It could help with inspiring people."
"We've got something better," Rossi shakes his head. "Captain Collins' widow."
JJ blinks in shock, sitting back. "I– I cannot ask her to do that."
"She's highly visible, and she's someone with whom the entire city can sympathize." Hotch says, observing JJ's hesitance once again regarding the woman.
"When she tells the city not to be afraid to come back to church, the unsub can't ignore that."
"And what happens if this draws the unsub to Meg?"
The team shares a brief look, noting JJ's obviously personal feelings regarding the situation. Quick to assuage her nerves, Rossi nods reassuringly. "We keep her with us. We'll take the bastard down."
──────
They go with Rossi's plan. They have to– a mother was murdered in front of her young son. It puts them in a rougher position than killing Officer Liddy did.
So they're given their instructions, and Jane is told to be a doctor.
She used to like playing doctor when she was younger. And then, after she grew up and became one, she realized that it's a lot more fun playing doctor when you've never tasted blood in your mouth, or felt a human die in your hands. It's why she liked her lab– her safe lab, where no one but FBI personnel could enter without her permission. Her lab where she got to wear gloves, and a white lab coat, and a stiff, plastic apron over her lab coat, to keep her from getting too dirty.
There's a reason she didn't stick with the alive side of medicine.
Jane doesn't like blood. Hotch knows this. But something he'd said to her weeks ago, after that very first case that was, in all actuality, tame compared to others they've dealt with since, that she was going to have to adjust. She was going to see blood, and a lot of it, and she was going to have to accept that sooner rather than later. He hadn't been rude about it, just factual.
And it's not the sight of blood that does her in, she can handle that. Hell, she can handle it in any capacity, until the second it touches her hands. Because the second it touches the pale skin of her palms, she can taste it. Copper swells in her throat, and she fights back gags, tries to distract herself from the slippery, hot liquid. Too thin to tell herself it's just water. Too bloody to be anything else.
She knows Rossi's plan will work. He's a smart man, he's been in this line of work longer than she's been alive. So, she knows she'll be once again helping catch a killer. It does, unfortunately, make her feel somewhat good about herself.
But she's got to play doctor in order to do so. She doesn't like doing that anymore. At least, not without gloves, and a lab coat, and a plastic apron, and sometimes safety goggles, just in case she needs them.
Her heart's already racing by the time they pull up to the crime scene. She can still taste blood on her, despite having showered and scrubbed her body raw after having her clothes taken as evidence for Officer Liddy's murder. She's brushed her teeth, and drank enough water throughout the day to have her bladder screaming at her, but it lingers in the back of her throat like a strong smell as she hops out of the SUV after Hotch, following him past the commotion of the press and the police officers into the library where the woman's long-dead body awaits her hopefully passable acting skills.
"Officer!" Rossi calls out, immediately gaining not only the attention of the police officers there, but the crowd looking on. "Move this crowd to that corner, and pin them behind the police barricades."
"We've got a female about 30, her throat's been slashed, she's hanging on," Hotch says, voice carrying over the panicked crowd, audible to the news reporter standing just a few feet away from them, reporting live. "There's a vascular surgeon standing by at the hospital, and we've brought a doctor to keep her alive until we get her there. Can we– can we make some room, please?"
Hotch projects his voice, watching as Jane comes rushing back out of the library alongside the paramedics, hands wrapped around the woman's throat, as if she's still somehow hanging on to any shred of life.
"Right this way guys," Hotch directs them to the path they'd cleared, heading for the ambulance. "How's she doing, guys?"
"EMTs have her on an IV already, we think her pulse is holding steady," Jane answers, her blue eyes gleaming with a sadness that's unrecognizable to anyone but Hotch. She clenches her hands around the woman's throat, stifling her grimace as the way her fingers are unable to gain any sort of traction against the mess she's shielding from the cameras and innocent bystanders.
Rossi and the rest of the team echo sentiments of feigned positivity, making sure their voices can be heard to all that are necessary.
"We've got her with a tube already," Jane says, eyes darting to the news cameras briefly before she meets Hotch's reassuring gaze. "Making sure she's still breathing."
"Officers, I want a 5 car escort for the ambulance to the hospital," Hotch calls out, holding up a hand as they wheel the woman's body to the wagon.
As they get the stretcher out of the line of sight from the news cameras, Jane pulls her hands away from the corpse, letting out a quiet, whimper of a breath as she holds her hands away from her body, already mourning the loss of another suit jacket stained with blood, and a little bit more of her steadily dwindling sanity.
Hotch hurries over to her, shielding her face from the cameras any further as he guides her to a squad car. "Go back to the station, get cleaned up. You're done, alright?"
She looks up at him from beneath her lashes, eyes brimming with emotion. "I'm done?"
He nods, trying to offer as much comfort to her as possible before opening the passenger door to the police car. "You're done. You did good, Jane."
She mirrors his nod before ducking down into the passenger seat, making sure to keep her hands from dragging along the interior of the car as he shuts the door for her. The officer in the driver's seat immediately pulls off, and she bites her tongue to keep from making any sort of indication to the swelling anxiety crawling up through her chest.
She tastes blood in her mouth, but she can't tell if it's her own, or the victim's.
──────
Spencer finds Jane in the bathroom of the police station with her suit jacket stuffed haphazardly in the trash can, and her hands resting unflinchingly beneath a constant stream of steaming hot water.
He fights the urge to yank her away from the undoubtedly too-hot water, ignores the way his heart races as his brain replays the way she'd yelled his name the night before, screaming for help. Ignores the way his stomach had dropped the second it shot to his ears.
He can see the tear tracks on her cheeks, though they're drying up so she's already collected herself to some degree. It soothes him just enough for him to clear his throat, and make his presence known.
"Jane," He says her name carefully, but it seems like it still startles her as she snaps her head towards him, eyes widening as she seemingly realizes what he's caught her doing.
Flushing pink, she rips her hands out from the water stream and grabs a hefty amount of paper towels, scrunching them between her hands. "Sorry. Lost track of time."
He doesn't offer any words of comfort because he knows it's otherwise useless. Instead he just tells her the news. "They got him,"
Her brows quirk, raising slightly before she schools them back down into a relaxed state. "Good. That's good. Hopefully he didn't cause any more trouble."
Spencer shakes his head, pursing his lips slightly. "Morgan said it was fairly painless."
She chucks the paper towels into the trash on top of her suit jacket, seemingly resigned to the fact that there's still bits of blood on the cuffs of her white button up.
"Are you okay?"
He kind of regrets asking, because he's horrible at comfort, truly, but also because he doesn't want to push her too far with any prodding. He's worried he'll push her away before he ever really gets her back.
She purses her lips, biting the inside of her cheek if the twitch in her jaw is anything to go by. He can see her contemplating if she's going to answer him or not.
"I ran out of clothes." She says finally, making his face twist in confusion. Of all things, he wasn't really expecting her to say that. He mostly just expected a polite dismissal.
"Oh," He says dumbly.
"I've gotten covered in blood a bit more than I expected on this trip," She says, gesturing widely to herself. "I've learned my lesson, I guess. Don't pack light."
He recovers from his momentary speechlessness, but continues to not think before he speaks again. "I have a sweater."
He feels his face get hot instantly before he even gives her a second to respond, and he winces, swiping a hand through the air. "I– I just mean, I have something you can wear. If you want to change. I... I understand. Not exactly a comfortable flight home when you're still wearing the crime scene."
Jane eyes him for a moment, brows furrowed beneath her bangs as she takes in his offer, and he feels cartoonish, the way he feels like he's going to start dripping sweat the longer they look at each other.
Mercifully, she nods, offering him the smallest of smiles that eases his concern just enough for him to move. "Thanks, Spencer. Means a lot."
He offers her an awkward, dimpled smile back. "Of course."
──────
The conversation peters off eventually, and the team eventually follows in Jane's steps and rests their eyes. Spencer finds himself awake, sitting across from Jane and Hotch, the latter of which is scribbling along paperwork beside his adoptive daughter, who's got her knees tucked up to her chest, and her arms wrapped tightly around herself, draped in his too-large sweater.
Spencer's face threatens to contort into an emotion he's not even sure he's expressed before, so he drops his attention back down to the book he's been pretending to read for the past 30 minutes.
And, for all his genius, he's still a bit of an idiot sometimes. He should've known his boss would notice his more than above average reading speed suddenly dropping to levels that of a first grader.
"Thank you," Hotch breaks the silence, but he keeps his voice at a gentle murmur. Spencer wonders if it's something he learned to do as a father; be so gentle, but no less commanding.
Spencer looks up, glancing around the jet for a moment before realizing that Hotch was indeed talking to him. "For what?"
Hotch tilts his head in a nod towards Jane's sleeping form beside him. Spencer's face flushes.
"She doesn't like blood," Hotch tells him, making Reid's eyebrows raise in surprise. Not only at the unprompted offer of information about the girl, but at the information itself. "She would've gone into cardiac arrest, sitting here with it on her clothes."
Spencer makes a small noise of recognition, dropping his eyes to the table between them. "We help each other out. We're a team."
Hotch nods slowly in agreement, but he lingers on the conversation, obviously watching Spencer closely. "She's a very private person. She doesn't let anyone in very easily,"
"Yeah," Spencer nods, looking at Jane's peaceful form from beneath his lashes. "I know."
"But she trusts you."
His gaze snaps up to Hotch's, surprise sewn into every line.
He wants to ask a million questions.
"Trust me, Reid," Hotch says, the two of them sharing a thousand words with a lingering look. Answering all of those questions without saying a thing. "It's a good thing."
He knows he's right. It doesn't make it any less terrifying.
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author's note; i skipped ep14 because it's boring and i didn't want to write it so here's this pining to make up for it, and also me traumatizing jane more because why not
edited and published; 11.18.23.
- liz