❝It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.❞
JOHN STEINBECK
✩
0.5 : i see you
IT'S BEEN ALMOST A MONTH SINCE FIN CAME BACK FROM GREECE, AND SHE ALREADY REGRETS LEAVING ATHENS. Not because Athens was so great–it wasn't–but because it feels as though she's living a half-life in Quantico. She can't be a stranger, because then people will suspect something's wrong, but she can't get as close as she was, because that gives Esther a way in. It's an awful paradox that could have been avoided if Fin had just said no.
But Fin will admit, she missed working. Working sleepless nights to catch serial criminals is far better than sitting in a bare apartment, waiting for that one phone call.
It's taking all her self-control to keep herself in check, though. To not call JJ. To fudge plans in order to get out of the BAU's annual New Year's Eve party. To keep her mind from straying to Spencer's hands, his eyes, his mouth, his dimples, his voice...
Fin blinks, refocusing on the papers in front of her. She checks her watch. Almost time to go home, maybe reheat that soup from last night. Maybe watch Seinfeld, fall asleep halfway through, like she always does.
Across the office, Emily's packing up her own things, and so is Morgan to her left, humming softly to himself. Spencer's still focused on his paperwork, tongue poking between his teeth as he scribbles hastily on what has to be the millionth form of the day.
Fin yawns, grabbing her coat from the back of her chair, and then her phone rings. She picks it up and answers without looking at the screen, shoving it between her shoulder and her ear as she grabs her purse and the empty coffee mug on her desk. "Hello?"
"Are you alone?" The cool, clipped voice of Ethan Chamberlain is quiet through the tiny speaker.
"Not at the moment, but I can be," Fin replies, waving goodbye at the others. Emily waves back, Morgan ignores her, and Spencer doesn't even look up from his paperwork. Oh well.
"Let me know when you're away from people," Ethan says.
"Why? Is it bad news?"
"I'll tell you when you're alone."
Fin sighs, pushing the heavy glass door open and heading toward the elevators. "Okay. I'm alone."
"I just got a call from Byrne in CID. They got a tip yesterday that a woman matching Esther's description was driving a gray Ford Ranger with expired plates, and that same Ford Ranger was just called in by a woman who says it's parked illegally in front of an empty building just outside of downtown Quantico. Byrne's sending a division now. "
Fin slams the DOWN button in the elevator and then punches the DOOR CLOSE button about twelve times, her heart thrumming in her throat.
"Fin, I can hear your heartbeat through the phone," Ethan says patiently. "Breathe for me. CID will clear the building. If she's there, they'll find her."
"Did they put out an APB on the truck?" Fin asks, attempting to mask her breathlessness.
"Of course they did."
"She's not there. She's too smart to stay there. She dumped the truck, too. It's too recognizable now. Dammit." Fin closes her eyes. Every time they get close, it seems like Esther's still four steps ahead.
"Regardless, she might have left something behind in a hurry."
"Esther's never in a hurry, Ethan, and she never leaves anything behind unless she means to." Fin takes a shaky breath as the elevator doors open with a soft ding. "She meant for me to find this place."
"Fin, don't–"
Fin hangs up. Ethan's going to try to stop her from going, but Criminal Investigative is in D.C., and she can get there in less than half the time they can. Besides, if Esther left a message, it's for her, not them.
Why shouldn't she go?
Fin starts her car, pulling her coat tighter around her and turning the heat up–early January in Virginia is a chilly ordeal–as the radio crackles and tunes straight to the alternative station she missed so much while in Greece. But they're playing "Teddy Picker", and after the first bar, Fin slams the mute button.
She doesn't need another reminder of the night she left.
The car ride is simultaneously the longest and shortest of her life, and once she pulls into downtown Quantico, it doesn't take long to spot the gray pickup truck parked half up on the curb in front of the building with a sign that reads FOR LEASE in faded letters. Esther parked in a hurry, at least.
Fin pauses, her foot on the brake, and assesses the building. Two stories, brick, at least thirty years old. Clearly it hasn't been used in several years, judging by the dust on the window; there are no neighboring buildings, meaning less nosy neighbors; and from here, she can see a back door down the alley that's swinging slightly.
Fin parks her car across the street and hops out, sliding her gun from its holster and creeping around the front of the car. Aside from the Academy and the various military bases around, Quantico's an extremely small town and after five p.m., becomes somewhat of a sleepy ghost town. No one's likely to see her, especially since the sun has set and the sky is turning from orange to violet tinged with gold behind the roofs of the buildings.
Looking both ways hastily, she crosses the street, gun held at her side, and presses her back against the wall next to the back door, pausing to listen. There's no sound from inside, but then again, Fin knew Esther wouldn't be here. She's far too smart for that.
The truck was intentional. On purpose.
She wanted someone to see it, to report it.
And she knew Fin would be first on the scene.
Fin's breath hitches at the sudden realization that this could be a trap.
Her brain leaps into overdrive at the possibilities: a trip wire, attached to a gun on a high shelf; a pressure plate, connected to a bomb; an accomplice, waiting to stab her as soon as she steps through the door.
But then Fin remembers she's a profiler. Esther is a psychopath who revels in causing the most emotional pain she can, and she's also delusional, thinking that she still somehow has a relationship with her daughters, playing the part of a protective mother by murdering anyone they get close to.
And Esther has an endgame. A trap would be too impersonal. If she plans to kill Fin, it'll be up close, intimate, and right as Fin least expects it.
Fin knows, deep in her gut, that Esther's long gone from here.
So she inhales, exhales.
And kicks the door in.
Dust flies everywhere, and there's a skittering noise on the floor that makes Fin think cockroaches or possibly mice, but it's abundantly clear that Esther never used this place to hide out in. The floor is dirty, there's still a padlock on the front door, and the one chair in the center of the room looks ancient and as if it hasn't been moved since at least the late '80s.
But the door that leads to the stairs is slightly ajar.
Heart hovering in her throat, Fin moves toward it, gun held high in front of her. The floor creaks slightly beneath her boots and she can see her own breath rising in a chilly cloud in front of her nose.
She notes that the hinges are rusty as she pushes the door open with her shoulder, moving into the doorway. The stairs are narrow, barely wide enough for one person, and the carpet that covers them is dated and stained.
Fin moves slowly up the stairs to the doorway that leads onto the second floor, to what would have been an office in a fully functioning store. This door, too, is open, and all at once, a sickening feeling of dread begins to blossom in Fin's stomach. She's questioning her firm belief that Esther's not here.
What if she guessed what Fin would be thinking? What if she knew that Fin would assume she left? What if she's waiting upstairs to kill her, in that personal, up-close way?
Fin's hands are shaking around the grip of her gun and she wills them to steady, turning the corner, finger inching toward the trigger–
But the upstairs room is just as empty.
Wait.
It's not empty.
There's something fluttering on the back wall.
But as Fin moves slowly into the room, as the fading light from the single window illuminates the far wall, everything she suspected suddenly becomes frighteningly clear.
This place was never a safe house or a hideout.
It's a message.
Hundreds of photos plastered to the far wall. Photos of Fin, walking from her apartment to her car. Photos of Lars and Nick at the bus stop. Of Fin at the grocery store, walking past a Chinese place, handing a homeless man a twenty-dollar bill.
But that's not what makes Fin's stomach churn.
There are also photos of Spencer. Outside his apartment, talking on the phone. Photos of Penelope, buying lemonade at a child's stand. Morgan, chatting up a dark-headed woman outside an Italian restaurant. Hotch, pushing Jack on a swing set. Emily, sitting outside a café and reading. Rossi, walking into a barber shop. JJ, pushing a stroller out of which Henry's blond head pokes.
I see you, Esther says. And I see your friends, too.
Your friends and their families.
No one is safe.
Esther wasn't dormant during those eight months.
She was collecting insurance.
There's no oxygen in the room. Fin can't breathe.
She yanks the window open, gasping for air, and vomits into the alley.
~
esther can go throw herself off a cliff as far as i'm concerned. stop hurting fin ;-;
but for plot purposes she will not be deleting herself, sadly.