BLUE.
chapter one —— the tapping of the clock
THERE IS A GREAT MANY THINGS WRONG with any single thing at any given moment in time. Take the bureau of investigations, give a rundown of the proceedings to any sane person and they would say 'fine' and 'whatever', but to someone with an eye for details, it is clear to see that the problem lies within the bureau's interrogation techniques. And if someone had to pinpoint a single flaw in the system, it would have to be that it clearly lacked any pazazz, lacked any finesse, there is simply no overwhelming gasp moment.
Honestly, it's so routine and basic and overwhelmingly boring that Jude can not help herself but yawn, which she knows she shouldn't be doing because whoever is standing behind the two-way glass is probably (most definitely) over psycho-analysing her right this very second.
Actually it isn't a matter of if someone was studying her every facial twitch, every hand flinch, every blink, she knew they were, and that they would continue to do so for the next three minutes and fifty seven six-five-four seconds, and then they would leave, convene for a total of eight minutes and separate to either hers or Atlas' cosy quarters.
She knows because she has done this before, she has been in their shoes (metaphorically, of course, she wouldn't walk around in anything she didn't deme 'fashionable') and in a few months, she would be in those same shoes again, most likely helping to convict the very people she is now protecting.
These agents wouldn't know her name, they would know Ella Silvera, and if they were good at what they did then they would find that she had three other aliases' (none being Jude Levy of course) and perhaps they would realise that she isn't a real blonde! Okay now she was teasing them in her own mind, what had her life been brought to.
There's around a minute until an agent would bust through the door, Jude notes as she glances at the white-rimmed circular clock on the wall, and she can't help but be reminded of the clocks back at her high school, god she hated high school.
To be annoying, and to throw the agents off of their game she began tapping the table with her middle finger, she would do three taps then two, five then one and stop and glance at the clock, hell to mix it up a bit she even tapped the name of her first pet bird in morse code (it was Felix and she had zero say in the name)
She can practically feel the confusion oozing off of the agents in waves, they would be all like 'is she trying to signal us something?', 'whose Felix?' , 'what did we miss?', 'why does she keep glancing at the clock?'. And she would answer negative three of their questions, instead, she would pile more questions into of their already problematic folder of 'what the actual fuck do we do with this' and she would do so with a smile.
The door creaks open and Jude shifts her eyes from the annoying old clock to the agent that has just entered the room, holding a thick file in her hands.
"So Ella Silvera" and all Jude can think is 'may the games begin'
INTERMISSION.
EMILY PRENTISS COULD FEEL EYES attached to the back of her skull as she walked into the interrogation room, she was used to this, used to feeling the pressure of obtaining all of the necessary answers. But it felt different this time, and it didn't normally feel different.
There were instances where the unsub would act as though they had absolutely nothing to do with the matter at hand, and during their plea of innocence they would do something small, say something irrelevant that would be an answer on a golden platter. Then there were the unsubs who were over obnoxious, had either too much to say, or they wouldn't say enough. Finally, there were the select few who when interrogated, would act perfectly calm, again, these people were difficult to work with because they were more than willing to give any information that they believed would lure the police or in this case the BAU in an alternative direction.
This is what type of unsub her team had profiled Ella Silvera to be, someone confident, caught up in their own little world that they would let something slip. Hotch had Reid and JJ study the woman for twenty-three minutes and in the duration of that time the only thing they had gathered was that her confidence seemed to shake every minute that passed by.
Profiling in itself was a game of 'if the shoe fits', the shoe in this metaphor being who the team decided to send in to talk to the girl, and the result conclusive was sending in Prentiss. She found it odd, they never spoke much to female unsubs in the first place, but when they did it was a 'send in someone who was going to make them feel comfortable', and this is exactly how they would proceed.
It had taken two days for Garcia to find the name, Ella Silvera, it had been expertly hidden under three different identities, however, what had confused the tech wiz, was that each assumed alias had checked out. Georgia Whitehall apparently ran a small bookstore in the centre of New Orleans, the only thing that had been off with Miss Georgia was that according to credit receipts, those accounts hadn't been touched in five years.
Then there was Ada Marshal, a realtor in sunny Houston who had sold a total of three houses in her first five weeks there, and when Garcia had called those families who had bought the houses they had all confirmed that one Ada Marshal had sold them their dream homes.
The last name was Lyra Bell, the only information that had been gathered on this alias was that it had been used in Romania a few weeks ago.
With all of those names leading to a more than dead, dead-end, Penelope had focused her talents on finding the man that was going to be brought into an interrogation as well. Yet all of her searches ran dead, any input for the cancellation of names would run them all down, anything extra to search was met with an 'access denied'
"You were a hard one to pin down" the agent mumbles as she slams the file against the desk, see Jude supposes it is supposed to scare her, to trick her into telling them something they want to know, but while Jude doesn't know what they're using the file for she knows it's full of crap, because months worth of work went into hiding both hers and Atlas' identities from everyone, even other bureau divisions.
"I know" she muses, but she doesn't sound cocky, just that she knew the truth.
Emily hadn't been expecting the woman's' voice to sound so sugary, so sweet, but mainly she hadn't been expecting a retort — a cocky smirk, raised eyebrows, nervous tapping, these had been expected, but not a retort.
"You know your husbands in the other room"
"That's nice" the room turns silent, Jude thinks that this agent is not exactly the 'best' at her job, however, what she has noticed is the small twitchings in the agent's left ear, and how strained her face is, almost like she is trying to force herself not to look at the glass. Perhaps that was the goal, to make Jude feel comfortable enough with the female agent that she slipped, that she told them something they wanted to know. but regardless of how pretty the agent in front of her was, it would be slightly difficult to give a clue to something she knew nothing about.
"I'm terribly sorry to break the silence, but can you please tell me why my husband and I are here?" God she hates that word; husband, it doesn't sound right to her, again might have something to do with her parents forcing marriage down her throat but still, husband, so possessive, so cliche, so...boring. Which is why these agents will believe it, but Jude's careful not to say 'agent' specifically, because they haven't introduced themselves and she won't have them thinking she knows more than what they do.
"You don't know?"
"I do not" she bats her eyelashes slowly so the agent doesn't realise what she's doing. Jude's used to getting what she wants (within reason of course), and right now she wants to know what she's being held for.
"So it was not you and your partner running a human trafficking ring out of Constanța"
well that was a fucking shock. Jude wouldn't hide it now, she won't hide how her eyes widen or how her jaw drops the slightest amount, to the point where everyone can see that the woman in front of them is indeed shocked to say the very least. She wonders if Atlas had the same reaction, if he had opened his eyes wide and innocent, or if he had crossed his right foot over his left like he did when he was confused. But because Jude knows Atlas better than she knows her own mind, she knows he would have gulped, furrowed his brows and shaken his head, asking for the question to be repeated.
Judes more pissed than she is shocked (she lied get over it) because while she does indeed have nothing to do with the human trafficking in Romania (she's not evil), these agents, who have absolutely no idea what they are looking for have gotten the location right. and where the location is names follow, and those names could jeopardise everything Atlas and Jude have been working for.
"She doesn't know," Spencer Reid announces, his eyes refusing to leaving the face of the woman in the interrogation room, every facial tweak she made was another mental note in his brain
"Spence we profiled her to be good at her job, naturally she would be acting confused" JJ re-assures the man, it was only the two of them there, Hotch was with Morgan and Rossi, the three of them going to try and extract information from the male that they had brought in. The team wouldn't normally deal with this sort of case, other divisions across the board had been created for the sole purpose of stopping these sort of ordeals, but when the Lincoln police had gotten wind of two American citizens who were suspects in a high end Romanian Human Trafficking Ring entering their county, well the BAU had been on the jet and heading to Lincoln, Montana within three hours.
"She's been tapping her fingers against the table a few times every minute, and that started when she first looked at the clock...at first I thought she was counting down to something, but what if she was just trying to throw us off" He reasons.
"What exactly were you saying about the tapping?"
"The most common reasons for people to tap their fingers are boredom, excitement, nervousness and in some cases even lying. See we already knew that she wouldn't tell us anything, therefore no lying, and she doesn't seem like the type of person who gets nervous. So that leaves boredom or excitement, which both contradict each other, and due to her constant glancing at the clock I am assuming it's boredom. What confuses me is that if she is so focused on tapping her fingers in a routine pattern to get her mind off of the clock, then why, now that Emily had said what she's being held for, is her leg moving in a time that does not correlate with any finger-tapping pattern that would calm someone down" Spencer doesn't look away from the glass as he explains his concerns. The blonde had just stared at him, the majority of what he said flying in one ear and out the other because of the speed he had explained at.
"So what you're saying is?"
"She knows something, just not about this"
BLUE.
note — when i first started watching cm
i told myself 'briana you will not write a
fic about this.' and i said yes, like the liar
i am. anyway, this is my attempt at giving
emily (and spencer, dont say i never do
anything for ya) a relationship, like SHE
(and he) FUCKING DESERVES.
so i've planned this (in my head) until season
13, and there will be some time launches, ie.
from season 7 to season 11, but 'fingers crossed'
it'll be worth it.