TWENTY-SIX; HOME SWEET HOME
The extremely hungover BAU team sit around sleepily on the jet, trading coffee and Advil, Aurora had made them stop at a Coles earlier to pick up a pack of her favorite Monsters, so she sipped on her can, holding it so tight with both hands like it was her lifeline "ok now I know everyone is hungover, but we need to talk about what happens in three hours when we hit the ground." Hotch speaks up, earning the attention of the sleep deprived agents, they stand and take their seats surrounding Hotch, Garcia opens her laptop preparing. "Alright, so when we land, we're all going directly to the Station, we will deliver our profile to their officers and show them the sketch that Rory drew of our Unsub." Everyone nods at him, they flick through the case files, Spencer takes Aurora's off her, not wanting her to see the crime scene photos of her parents murder, he takes the photos out of her files and then hands it back to her, she rolls her eyes, "you don't have to protect me from those Spence, I was there remember" he tucks the images under his own file, "I know, but I don't think you should have to see those again" he takes her hand, giving it a comforting squeeze
"Ok so I'm just spit balling here, but I reckon he is probably targeting all of his victims, from what we've seen each victim is 3-4 months apart, so we should start with people who either moved to town three-four months prior to the crime, and/or left right after" Rossi pinched the bridge of his nose, his pounding head forcing his eyes shut. The team nods in unison, agreeing, Penelope taps away on her keyboard at the speed of light, "well, no-one moved in in the four months leading up to it, and so many people packed up and left after this, it was the first murder in 25 years, it scared people" Rossi sighs "well, it was worth a shot" Rory sinks into her seat, for a second she thought maybe it was a lead, "how many people are we talking Garcia" Hotch looks over at her, she types away, "ummm well sir of the two-thousand residents, eighty-two people moved away, like I said, people wanted to get out" Rory winces, knowing that her name would be on the list that undoubtable Penelope had gotten together. "I suppose you would have known everyone would you Rory, it was a small town" She nods, exasperated, "the town was so small, everyone knew everyone, I didn't have too many friends myself, but my parents were loved by everyone, more than half the town had been invited into our home at one point or another." Her voice cracks when she mentions her parents, Spencer's grip tightens on her hand protectively, she was so grateful he was there with her. "Ok, that makes sense, but when we have a pool of suspects you'll be able to help us get a better grip on them yeah?" Hotch looks over at her expectantly, she nods, hand unmoving. Hotch sinks into his seat, relieved.
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"We're landing ok?" JJ rubbed Rory's shoulder, waking the sleeping woman, she groans, "5 more minutes" Spencer chuckles from beside her, shaking his head at his grumpy girlfriend, she sits up and begrudgingly folds up her blanket, rubbing her eyes, the hangover slapping her in the face once again.
Walking off the plane onto the landing strip, the scent of her home town fills Aurora's nostrils, she sighs, the familiar comforting her, even though it brought back so many memories. Looking ahead she sees the man she had grown up with standing there at the end of the runway, "Chief Storrow?" she called out, dropping her bag, which spencer immediately picked up, The balding man smiles at her, "Hey kiddo" Rory grins at the man she had grown up with. The team walks up behind the two, tentatively, not wanting to interrupt their reunion. "Chief Storrow, this is my team, SSA's Hotchner, Prentiss, Jareau, Morgan and Rossi, Dr Reid, and our Technical Analyst; Penelope Garcia, guys this is Chief Storrow" Each member of the BAU team gave the older man a handshake and a smile, except of course the very germaphobe Spencer Reid, who gave him a tentative wave and an awkward smile.
The team split between two cars, much to their dismay, Aurora and Spencer were shuffled off into separate cars, unfortunately for Rory, she was in the car with JJ Em and Penelope, who stared at her expectantly, Aurora jumped in the front seat, with their bags piled up in the boot of the car. Penelope sat in the passenger seat, with Em and JJ in the back, "come on Rory you can't leave us hanging, what was going on between you and boy genius this morning?" Penelope spoke up, not wanting to waste unnecessary time on chit chat. Rory rolled her eyes, "am I not allowed to kiss my Boyfriend?" Emily smirks, "well forgive me if I'm mistaken but is that a turtleneck you have on today little miss Hearst?" JJ snorts and Aurora's face turns a dark shade of rose. "shut up" Rory mutters slowing down for a speed bump "oh do tell" JJ says the smug smile evident in her voice "he just got a little carried away that's all..." the flustered woman adjusts her turtleneck around the are in question, "well come on, show us the damage!" Emily says, leaning forward to get a good look.
Aurora knew that she was not going to get away with not showing the trio of FBI agents, she swallows her pride and while keeping her eyes on the road in front of her, she uses one hand to pull down the turtleneck, exposing the array of purple coloured bruises that littered her neck, their eyes widen substantially, jaws dropping, "damn Spence, he really went to town huh?" JJ says the shock in her voice is clear. Rory blushes before smirking and pulling the shirt back up. "he's the best boyfriend ever" she says softly, her three best friends swoon, 'awwww' was all the three could say, "we better be your bridesmaids at the wedding I swear to god" Penelope grins from ear to ear, so happy that her friends were happy, "I second that'' JJ chimes in, "me three!" Emily adds, Aurora laughs "ok ok relax, we've only been dating four months, but when w- I do get married, the three of you will most definitely be the bridesmaids'' A cheer erupts in the black SUV, and Aurora laughs, grateful to have such amazing friends in her life.
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The team arrives at the station, Aurora doesn't know how to handle herself, she saw people she hadn't seen in years, the people who were mean to her in highschool were now the new police officers, and were clearly unhappy about having to take order from her, seeing she outranks everyone there by miles and miles, the thought that she probably outranked everyone in that tiny town, but she shook the thought from her mind, she had to focus on the case, but she couldn't lie, there would be so much enjoyment in presenting the profile to them, giving them orders, if only she could tell her twelve year old self, exactly what their faces looked like when she was telling them what to do, the satisfaction was absolutely amazing.
"Ok so, we are looking for a Man, he is, as of now, in his mid to late 50s but when you all knew him he would've been in his mid to late thirties'' One of the officers, who Aurora knew as Randy Summerhill, the memory of him flushing her hat down the toilet so that she couldn't play outside way back in grade 4, momentarily crossing her mind, Rory shakes the memory out of her head and listens to him, "so you're saying we all knew him, not to be disrespectful Sir, but I think we would have noticed if some psychopath lived in our town!" nods of agreement are littered through the pool of officers, Aurora steps forward, "This man wouldn't have seemed to be out of place, he faded into the background, he would not have come across as creepy, he wouldn't openly start a conversation with you, but would speak kindly when you started one, this man lived in our town and no-one had any idea what he was capable of. He would have left town, immediately after my parents Death, but you wouldn't have noticed he was gone, you wouldn't have noticed until well after, because he left silently, no-one even knew he was leaving until you went to a place he would usually be and he wouldn't have been there. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
Her eyes scan the crowd that were frantically writing down notes, a hand rose from the crowd, Rory's face hardens, it was Matt Jenkins, he had tortured her all through highschool, the vivid memory of being gaffer taped to the basketball pole in year 11, the seventeen year old had gathered all his friends to come watch her cry, they had left her there all day, even when her parents came to the school, they had refused to do anything. Snapping out of it she gives him a curt nod, "um, Agent H-Hearst, how do you know for sure that he was from here?" She shot him a small glare before correcting him, "its Dr Hearst." The man's eyes widen and he looks entirely confused, "you, got a PHD... you?" Aurora scowls at the man she had hated for so many years, the urge to slap him right across the face strengthened, as she glared at him, about to give him a piece of her mind she opens her mouth, but the edgy voice of her boyfriend interrupts her, "actually, she had two PHDs now please show her a little respect and let us do our jobs." The rest of the team's shocked faces turn to him, Spencer Reid never raised his voice, "Spen- uh I mean Dr Reid is correct, I have in fact earned two PHDs, as well as my Supervisory Special Agent status at the bureau. Now back to your original question, we know he lived here prior to the first murders, as a serial killer almost always begins killing in a place they have lived in for a long long time, usually their hometown." The humiliated man nods and shrinks down into his seat the shock, that the little girl who went to his highschool, was an FBI profiler with two PHDs, still fresh on his face, Aurora smirked and shot Spencer a grateful look, Hotch, especially hungover Hotch, would not have been happy is she had torn strips out of one of the police officers we were meant to be working with. "Ok that will be more for now, please come to us with any other questions, we'll be around, Thankyou" Hotch concludes the profile briefing and the team makes their way into the small conference room they had been given to work in. "That son of a bitch, I want to slap that look off his face so bad" Aurora violently stabbed her pen into her notebook, having controlled her anger so well in there, she needed to let it out somehow, or she was going to explode, "woah Rory, u good?" Emily asks cautiously, nervous about angering her further, "that sexist, racist, homophobic son of a bitch's name is Matt Jenkins, he was in my grade all through highschool, but of course when he was 17, I was only 11, that motherfucker gaffer taped me to the basketball pole and left me there for a full day, they sat there eating recess while I cried, then went to class, then they came back to eat lunch, while I was still stuck there gaffer taped to a fucking pole!" She viciously stabs her notepad with a pen.
Spencer Reid filled with rage, how could someone do that to her, to his Aurora, his hands clenched up into fists and he took a deep breath, knowing that it wasn't worth getting worked up over, and that he was far far better off spending his energy on making sure she was ok, so he sat down next to her and grabbed her had, softly rubbing circles on the are between her thumb and her pointer figure, she calms down slightly and drops the pen which had caused a few small holes in the notepad she had been writing on, but the fire still raged in her eyes, he was grateful that he had been able to help her, even if it was just a little bit.
A knock on the conference room door interrupted the team, their head turn and Hotch calls out for whoever it was to come in, a man that Aurora very vaguely recognized entered the room, "um I think I've found something, I had a look at the sketch Dr Hearst drew and um, I think it might be the old head of Cleaning at the highschool, I remember him because I would always have to stay back after school and help him clean the sports equipment. I think it was his family's business that had been cleaning the school for decades. It was like Dr Hearst said, I didn't realise he had left until I got detention again and the person I was cleaning with wasn't Tom'' Aurora drops Spencer's hand and the team stands up urgently, Garcia had her laptop open ready to search the second the man gave them a last name, "do you remember his last name?" Emily spoke, the sense of urgency in her voice was unmistakable. He screwed up his face trying to remember, Aurora urged him to just spit it out, this was their first lead, "um, I- I think it was Alders, yeah it was Alders cleaning that worked there, and Tom was the owner." Garcia frantically started typing and Hotch thanked the man before he left, closing the door. The BAU team surrounded Garcia as she typed as fast as her hands could carry her.
They had a lead.