#January 2006

[gryfflepuffinthetardis]

Poison

Season One Masterlist

What Fresh Hell?

Riding the Lightning

Summary: The apparent spiking of citizens of a town in New Jersey, puts the BAU on the trail of a poisoner who may not be done.

Warning: Serial poisoning, Implication of sexual assault,

“Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” — Buddha

January 15, 2006

On January thirteenth, a teacher, Jack Fisher and his son, Eric Fisher were driving at night from the movies when Jack got out to change the tire before going suddenly crazy and attacking Eric in a frenzy, nearly beating the boy the death with a tire iron. Eric was in a coma but Jack continuously insisted that he didn't hurt his son.

The team watched the recording of the interview the detective, Hanover did.

"State trooper took this before the paramedics showed up." Hanover said, showing Jack a picture of the state his son had been found in. "He's unconscious. Has four broken bones. He's going to be in the hospital for a month..."

Jack slammed his handcuffed hands on the metal table in frustration, "I didn't hurt my son!"

"Do you remember removing the tire iron from the trunk?" Hanover asked.

"No. No!" Jack said.

"What's the last thing you do remember?"

"I picked Eric up from school. Friday, for the weekend. What day is this?" Jack said.

JJ paused the video so Hotch could speak, "This happened two days ago in Beachwood, New Jersey. Mister Fisher had ingested LSD one afternoon and didn't come down until eighteen hours later."

"The hospital reported six other patients who ingested LSD in the last twenty-four hours." JJ said. "The hospital called the CDC. The CDC called us."

"So a bunch of people got spiked. What makes it a BAU case?"

"Am I reading this right? Have I finally cracked? Has my cyclothymia turned into Bipolar?" Zoe asked in her usual deadpan, "The average dose of LSD is twenty-five to one hundred and fifty micrograms. This is twenty times that. This is three thousand micrograms of LSD? That's three milligrams. That's enough to kill a small child."

"Or cause a grown man to kill him with a tire iron." Elle said.

"Of the seven victims, there was one death and one coma." JJ said, "This is from hospital security footage the same night Fisher lost it."

JJ pushed play on the remote, showing a video of a medical hospital this time. There seemed to be chaos, people on the screen were shouting and seemed to be panicked. One person was being pushed in a gurney, having a seizure.

"These people didn't get spiked. These people were poisoned." Gideon said.

———————————————————————————

Roman philosopher Lucretius wrote, "What is food to one, is to others bitter poison."

They were on the jet when JJ told them of the only death, handing them a photo. "Of the seven victims, Gail Norman was the only death. She was seventy-eight. Ran out in the middle of the road and was hit by a car. She was DOA."

Hotch placed down a picture of a young girl in a Christmas sweater, "The other potentially fatal case is nine-year-old Britney Cannon. She fell out of a tree house and fractured her skull. She's in a coma and the doctors don't know if she's going to come out of it."

"How do you want to handle the press?" Gideon asked.

"We still don't even know how these people got dosed. I think it would be irresponsible to issue a warning without specifics." JJ said, "It'll just cause panic. I did notify the local P.D., though, to be discreet."

"How is it possible that none of these people knew how they got poisoned?" Morgan asked.

"None of them remembers anything about the day it happened." Hotch replied.

"There could be another drug that was used that caused the memory loss that they just didn't scan for." Zoe suggested.

"And these people were so messed up it's made it difficult for local P.D. to retrace the victims' steps." JJ said.

"So we need to go on precedent." Gideon said. "We know there are four types of poisoners who target multiple victims."

"There's the True Believer—the political terrorists-slash-religious cult." Alexander listed the first.

"There's the Extortionist—a product tamperer who holds a business hostage in exchange for money." Morgan said.

"Or the Prankster. Usually a younger offender who doesn't mean any harm. And it's basically just a big practical joke." Elle said.

"And the Avenger—someone with a personal vendetta who chooses poison as their weapon." Hotch finished.

"So we need to find out as quickly as possible which type he is. Because with the exception of the prankster, all these types commonly test their poison on a small scale before carrying out a larger attack." Gideon explained.

"Let's hope this was just a prank." Morgan said.

"I would suggest we split up the victims and see if there's a pattern to the victimology." Gideon said.

"Most of them are still at the hospital. I'll call local P.D. to meet us there." Hotch said.

"I'll check the lab reports. Maybe there's a clue to the UnSub's motive in the specific nature of the poison he used." Spencer suggested.

"I can't imagine anybody could want this to happen."

———————————————————————————

Zoe, Gideon, Alexander, and Hotch stood outside Eric Fisher's hospital room where the mom sat by her son's side. Alexander could help but remember Zoe in her coma when she was twelve.

The detective who had spoken to Jack Fisher on the tape came up to them, shaking their hands. "Detective Hanover, Beachwood P.D."

"Agent Hotchner. This is Agent Gideon, Agent Noble, and Doctor Noble-Valdez." Hotch introduced.

"Thanks for coming down on such short notice." Hanover said and looked into the room where most of the agents were still looking. "Doctors said he may have permanent brain damage. I've never seen anything like this."

"Well, let's hope we can help." Hotch said.

"Have you had a chance to review the victim's files?" Hanover asked.

"We're especially interested in talking to the boy's father." Alexander said.

"We'd like to get a sense of why he turned violent." Hotch explained, "

"While the lab analyses the specific nature of the LSD he was dosed with, we'd like to get our own sense." Zoe explained, "Was it the drug itself or was it something else going on?"

"And hopefully that can give us a little bit of a window into the motive of the offender." Alexander added.

"Well, he's in the psych ward." Hanover said.

"Yeah, we'll keep it short." Zoe promised.

———————————————————————————

Zoe and Alexander entered Fisher's room, they had decided that the father-daughter nature would provide some insight on Fisher.

"Mister Fisher?"

"Shrink or cop?" Fisher sighed.

"Well, my daughter and I here are FBI profilers. So I guess, we're a little of each." Alexander said. "I'm Alexander Noble, this is Zoe Noble-Valdez."

Fisher just sighed.

"I can't imagine what you've been through." Alexander sympathized, "I understand you recently divorced your wife. Can you tell us why?"

"What do you want to know? Was I angry about the divorce? I mean was I... Was I so angry that I wanted to hurt my son to get back at her?" Fisher's voice was raw with emotion and tired from how many times he had gone over this. "Is that what you want to know?"

"Were you?" Alexander.

"Let me tell you something about my wife, okay? About what she did. In my house. In my bed. With the investment banker next door." Fisher said, his voice breaking occasionally, again from emotion, "But you want to know what the worst part is? My son, Eric, he's angry with me. She's the cheater. And he's angry at me. Me!"

"What did you do? Did you want to hurt her?"

"Of course." Fisher admitted.

"And the kid. I mean it's her kid, right? I mean, he takes her side. You want to crush him, too? You want to shut his obnoxious little mouth up for good?" Alexander said, not believing a word he said.

"No! No. He doesn't understand." Fisher insisted.

"Why?" Zoe asked, "He took her side. I'm sure it's not the first time he's done that, sir."

"No. Eric. Oh, oh, Eric. Why did this happen to you?" Fisher cried and he hit his head against the wall, "Why did this happen to you?" He started to do it more as he became more hysterical, "Why? Why? Why?"

Zoe jumped up, "Mister Fisher. Mister Fisher!" She used her hand to soften the blow to his head when he hit it as the male nurses came to restrain him.

Zoe and Alexander left and rejoined Hotch and Gideon, now joined by Spencer, Elle, and Morgan.

"He's raw, broken, and seriously pissed off." Alexander said.

"But he didn't hurt the son to get back at the mother." Hotch finished.

"Not consciously, no." Alexander said, "The rage was real, but understandable".

"And he never apologized. When he lost control, he didn't even say, 'Eric, I'm sorry.' He said, 'Eric, why'd this happen to you?' He never even confessed to hurting the kid."

"So the drugs tapped into the rage, but didn't cause it." Hotch theorized.

"That's my guess." Alexander said.

"That's consistent with information we just received from the lab tox screens. They didn't find any trace of PCP or any other drug indicating the UnSub was intentionally trying to make people violent, but they did find traces of Rohypnol in all the victims." Spencer explained.

"A central nervous system depressant. It's similar to Valium, only ten times more potent. It's commonly known as a roofie, or a date rape drug." Zoe explained, "And one of the side effect is amnesia which explains why none of the victims remember how they were poisoned."

"Exactly." Spencer nodded.

"We compared notes on the victims we talked to. So far, there doesn't seem to be any pattern as to who got hit." Morgan said. "Maybe the drugs themselves can explain what type of offender we're dealing with. A lot of kids are using LSD and Rohypnol these days. Fisher's a high school teacher.

"So it may be a prank after all." Gideon suggested.

"Yeah, one that went horribly wrong." Hotch commented.

"You know, I'm going to get a list of students from Fisher. See you later." Elle said and she left towards Fisher's room.

Hotch's phone rang, "Hotch. Okay, we'll be right there." He hung up and spoke to his team, "Cops may have figured out where everybody was dosed."

——————————————————————————

Hotch, JJ, and Gideon went to a restaurant that four out of seven of the victims had gone to the day they had reported the symptoms. It turned out that a busboy was a high school kid who had suddenly called in sick for his shift, Danny Wallace.

Zoe and Elle went to check the school but Danny wasn't there or at his house, so they were coming up to Danny's girlfriend's house.

They rang the doorbell, taking out their badges and a teenage girl opened the door.

"Samantha?"

"Yeah?" She asked.

"We're with the FBI. Can I talk to you for a minute?" Elle asked.

Samantha wordlessly opened the door for them, inviting them to come in.

Samantha sat on a couch, and Elle sat in a chair while Zoe stood.

"Where are your parents?" Zoe asked.

"Working." Samantha said. "What do you want?"

"Well, you didn't go to school today, Samantha." Zoe said.

"And neither did your boyfriend." Elle said.

"I'm sick." Samantha said.

Zoe's eyes fell to Samantha's collar shown by her sweater. A recent bruise and there were more along her neck.

Zoe moved across and sat next to Samantha, "Can I ask you something personal? I think that something might have happened to you. You wanna tell me about it?"

"I don't know. I don't remember." Samantha said.

"I understand." Zoe said, "I have some missing memories as well, so let's try a little bit at a time. What do you remember?"

"He took me someplace on his motorcycle. I-I remember... waking up. I w—I was naked, I was all beat up. And-and he was there, above me... hol-holding me down." She confessed.

"Who was?" Elle asked.

"Danny." Samantha said.

The home phone rang and Samantha reached for it, "I called the doctor earlier. It could be her. Hello?"

There was a faint voice that Zoe and Elle could hear over the phone, "Samantha, listen to me. Don't hang up." Samantha stiffened and made direct eye contact with Zoe, "Do you hear me?

"Keep him talking." Zoe whispered.

"Samantha?"

"What do you want?" Samantha asked.

"Someone's there. Who did you call?"

"Why do you think someone's here?" Samantha asked.

Zoe and Elle got up, looking out the window,

"Don't mess with me, Samantha. Don't do it. If you say anything..." Then the phone clicked.

"He hung up." Samantha said.

Zoe took her hands when Samantha put down the phone.

"Come with me." She took Samantha to the door where Elle already was, "You're going to call 911. And as soon as we leave you lock the door behind us. Okay?"

Elle got on her phone as they exited the house, hearing it lock behind them.

"Well, he's near his girlfriend's house. Hillcrest and Maple and... I can't see the other cross street. Yeah. Okay."

There was the sound of a motorcycle engine revving and Elle and Zoe took out their guns.

Zoe made a beeline to behind a white RV. Zoe stepped behind the van, pointing her gun at the back of a boy's head on his motorcycle.

"Danny Wallace. Stop! FBI!" She said and Elle joined her, pointing her gun at Danny as well. "You put your hands on top of your head. Off the bike."

Danny obeyed, getting off his bike as Elle approached, "On your head." She grabbed and pushed him roughly.

"Elle." Zoe warned. They had to keep in mind that Samantha may have been dosed as well, she had no memory of the incident.

Elle handcuffed Danny's hands behind his back. "This isn't what you had in mind when you skipped school today, is it, Danny?

———————————————————————————

Elle and Hanover sat across from Danny as Zoe stood with her arms crossed.

"You want to tell us about Saturday night, Danny?" Hanover asked.

"I didn't do anything." He insisted. "Samantha doesn't know what she's talking about."

"A lot of people saw you together at the cafe on Saturday night." Elle said, standing up with a judgemental tone in her voice. "What did you decide to do, Danny? Dose the common milk so that nobody would know that you just wanted to roofie your girlfriend?"

"That's not true." Danny protested.

"Sex was an issue in your relationship. She told me about it. She wasn't prepared to give it up so you decided to take it." Elle spat.

That wasn't exactly what Samantha had said.

"No." Danny scoffed.

"She had bruises all over her body, Danny. You hit her."

"Well, I didn't mean to. She was freaking out, punching me." Danny explained, "She was on something and I was just trying to help her. I was trying to hold her down."

"She was hitting you, but you still had sex with her?" Elle shouted.

"No." Danny scoffed again.

"Then what, Danny?" Hanover asked.

"Well, it was after! After we did it!" Danny exclaimed, "We fell asleep. But when she woke up she was seeing things."

"What things?" Elle asked.

"Look, she was on something. And if it was acid or whatever, I've taken that. You give that to someone without telling them, it doesn't exactly set the mood." Danny pointed out.

He had a point as Morgan pointed out behind the glass, "The kid is right about that. If he wanted to slip a girl a date-rape drug, why did he give her LSD, too?"

Danny seemed too scared to not be telling the truth.

They came to the conclusion that Danny working at the cafe was just a coincidence and Samantha was just an eighth victim. They deduced that the Rohypnol was used to make the victims forget how they got dosed which was much too organized for a high school prank which ruled out the Prankster profile.

There hadn't been any kind of ransom demand, which ruled out the Extortionist type. No invisible political group or cult in the area which ruled out True Believer. Which left them with the Avenger.

———————————————————————————

They gave the profile at the station.

We believe whoever poisoned these people was motivated by revenge." Hotch announced to the police officers,

"The randomness of the victimology. Average people in an average-sized town, all points to a local resident." Morgan said.

"We know that people who poison for the purposes of revenge primarily act alone." Elle said.

"However, he may have manipulated someone close to him to assist him." Hotch said

"The UnSub usually disposes of these accomplices when they are of no further use to him." Alexander said.

"The UnSub is likely a cautious, deliberate, and highly functioning male between the ages of thirty-five and fifty."

"He chose LSD for a reason. LSD is about altering perception." Zoe explained, "We think that this UnSub is striking out because he feels that he's been inaccurately perceived by the community or a subset of it. He feels that these attacks will affect and alter a reality that he is caught in that he perceives to be unjust."

"He's so self-centered he believes his victims will know the reason for the attack and who did it." Hotch said.

"This individual was savvy enough to use Rohypnol to obstruct our investigation, erasing the memories of the victims of how they were poisoned." Spencer explained.

"Hold on, if this guy believes that his victims know who he is, why is he covering his tracks?" Hanover asked.

"Because these victims aren't his primary targets." Gideon answered.

"We know from precedent that this kind of offender, the Avenger, tests his weapon first. This attack was a test run." Hotch explained.

"A test run for what?" Hanover asked.

"We don't know yet." Hotch said, "What we do know is this is not the first time he's aired his grievances. While it's not likely that he has a criminal record, it is possible that he has filed criminal charges or pursued a civil action against his perceived adversaries. And now to measure the results of his test, he's watching."

"And he wants to see the results of his test." Gideon said, "Once he has them, all those years of pent-up rage will be unleashed in the form of a larger attack. The profile indicates a lot of people could die."

JJ entered the room, going to Hotch, "We had a leak."

They put on the local news where a reporter named Suzanna Whang was speaking, "That's right, Steve, neighbors became aware something was wrong when a local Beachwood restaurant closed early. From inside sources, we learned that representatives of the CDC began testing food inside the restaurant this morning."

"If you're going to report the story, name the restaurant." Gideon hoped.

"Though unconfirmed, we were told that some of the food had apparently been tainted with hallucinogenic drugs."

"Name the restaurant."

"Before we do confirm all of this, we will not release the name of the restaurant," Gideon lowered his head and closed his eyes, "we'll only say it's a Beachwood area favorite." Who cares? "This is Suzanne Whang reporting live from Beachwood. Back to you, Steve."

JJ turned off the TV and sighed, "They didn't name the restaurant."

"What is it?" Hanover asked.

"Call the local hospital. Make sure they know what's coming." Gideon said and moved past JJ as she got on the phone, "Excuse me."

"Where do your 911 calls get routed?" Hotch asked.

"There's a county phone bank. They contact first responders, the fire department." Hanover asked, confused about this.

"Alert them, too. They're going to need additional personnel and any other backup you've got, auxiliary cops. You're going to have to call them."

"But why?"

"Because we're going to have a heck of a time just calming people down." Hotch replied. "And we really don't need the confusion to interfere with our investigation.

"Look, you want me to start making those calls?" An officer asked.

"No, no, no, no. Hey! Hey! Everybody please shut up for a minute!" Hanover shouter, sick of not having the straight answer. "Tell me what this is all about."

Then all the phones started to ring.

"Panic." Zoe said.

——————————————————————————

A little bit later, JJ got off the phone and came to them, "I just got off with the hospital. They're swamped with over fifty potential poisonings from local restaurants. But no hallucinations.

"Another poisoning?" Morgan asked.

"Or maybe more hysteria." Hotch said.

"We've looked into any civil or criminal complaints from employees, ex-employees, suppliers, regulars of the café. Not one good lead." Hanover said.

"There's got to be somebody connected to that café who'll pop as a suspect." Gideon said.

"Morgan, you want to go back there? See if we can find another angle?" Elle asked.

"Couldn't hurt."

"I should go to the hosptial and see if any of the new poisonings seem legit." Zoe said.

"Good idea. JJ, you and Reid go with her." Hotch agreed.

"JJ, you, Zoe, and Reid go to the hospital. See if any of the poisonings seem legit.

———————————————————————————

"I really can't talk right now. We just got hammered." A nurse told JJ, Zoe, and Spencer.

"Listen. Most of these food poisonings are probably psychogenic." Zoe said before she could shuffle off.

"What makes you think that?"

"A news broadcast just reported a local restaurant was poisoned. Now, it would be a huge coincidence if there was another poisoning right after that aired." Zoe explained.

"So what do you want me to do?

"Help us figure out which cases, if any, are real." Spencer said.

"People are coming in with all kinds of complaints." The nurse said, "But there's at least one case that isn't psychogenic. She's barely breathing."

"Can you take us to the doctor that's treating that patient?" Zoe asked.

"I'll call Hotch." JJ said and Zoe and Spencer were escorted to the doctor.

The doctor brought the young agents to the patient, Lynn Dempsy, explaining her situation, "When the patient got here. Couldn't remember anything about her day and her speech was so slurred I could barely understand her."

"Sounds like Rohypnol. Did you test her?" Zoe asked.

"She was positive for Rohypnol, negative for LSD." The doctor said as Lynn coughed into her oxygen mask, "But we're running more tests because Rohypnol alone doesn't explain her symptoms. She presented with nausea, difficulty swallowing, and labored breathing. She was also having trouble moving her legs."

"How long has she been sick?" Zoe asked.

"She didn't know. I could barely understand her when she first got here. Now she can't speak at all." The doctor said.

"Do you know of biological agents that have that similar symptom? Ricin, sarin gas." Spencer asked.

"Do you think this is a biological attack?"

"You can't rule anything out."

"Something makes Miss Demsey different than the other attacks." Zoe added.

"I'll order a few more tests." The doctor decided.

———————————————————————————

Zoe stayed in Lynn's room when Hotch came. JJ and Spencer went to the counter with him as he made phone calls. Zoe sat by Lynn's side, looking over her sheet when she saw something in the corner of her eye and saw Lynn looking at her.

"Spencer!" Zoe called, getting up, "I think she's trying to say something."

"The en..." Lynn said through her mask as Zoe and JJ joined Zoe.

"The end?" JJ asked.

"She may be incoherent from lack of oxygen." Spencer said.

"No, both of you, shush. She's trying to speak." Zoe shushed them.

"It's the en..." Lynn tried again but then she started choking.

"Miss Demsey? Lynn?" Zoe asked, starting to sound worried. "Call the doctor."

While the doctors worked on Lynn, Spencer and JJ asked Zoe, the medical doctor, some questions. Zoe had ushered them away from Lynn and the doctors, Spencer noticed Zoe's body language was much different now, she was hunched with her arms crossed and she kept glancing back, anxiously at Lynn. Hotch joined them after a bit.

"Zoe, what are the chances that she's not poisoned? That maybe she just got some bad food?"

Zoe raised her eyebrows at her and said, "Highly improbable. Chances are basically zero."

"What is the rate of survival?"

"At this dose? Without antitoxin? Zero." Zoe said in a hushed voice.

"Zoe, what aren't you saying?" Hotch asked.

"I can't be sure without the tests but I suspect it's Botulism." Zoe revealed.

"Are you sure?" Spencer asked.

"Yeah, I've had it before. Multiple times." Zoe said, darkly, "I know the symptoms." She looked back, "But I always had the antitoxin. I'd guess, she had a small amount and now..."

"Doctor, her BP is dropping rapidly." A nurse said.

"It's sepsis." The doctor said, "Give another amp of epi.

"She's going into v-fib."

"She's crashing. Get the paddles."

"Charging to two hundred." The nurse said.

"Clear."

"Nothing. Charging to three hundred."

"Clear."

"Still nothing."

"The test run is over." Zoe said.

———————————————————————————

They went back to the station, "Lynn Dempsey was an executive assistant. She has no expertise with chemicals. She doesn't fit the profile of the UnSub." Gideon said, after reading her file.

"But the CDC found both LSD and Rohypnol in the candies she was replacing at the bank." Morgan said.

"She must have been an accomplice." Alexander said.

"And when the UnSub finished using her to further his attack, he killed her with botulism.

"So what does that tell us about the UnSub?" Gideon asked.

"That he's far more sophisticated than we realized." Spencer said.

"Why is that?" Elle asked.

"Botulinum toxin, also known as miracle poison, is one of the most poisonous biological substances known to man." Zoe said.

"It blocks acetylcholine receptors, paralyzing its victims until basically choking you to death." Spencer added.

“Its symptoms include fatigue, weakness, vertigo, abdominal swelling, double and/or blurred vision, slurred speech, difficulty swallowing, difficulty moving the eyes, difficulty breathing, then it leads to paralysis that can cause respiratory failure.” Zoe nodded, speaking with a slight cynical tone shift.

"Without an antitoxin, a lethal dose will kill you in thirty-six hours." Spencer explained.

"How many people have access to this stuff?" Elle asked and Zoe let out a dark ironic chuckle at that question.

"In New Jersey, quite a few. It's the pharmaceutical and chemical capital of the US The toxin can be ordered in the form of BOTOX through any chemical or biological lab or BOTOX clinic." Spencer explained. "It has to be purified, but any chemist or lab assistant has that capability."

"So we're looking for chemists and sophisticated lab assistants?" Elle asked.

"Basically."

"Okay, wait a minute. If the UnSub is a chemist with access to the toxin, what did he need Dempsey for?" Morgan asked.

"Well, we don't know, yet." Gideon said, "But she worked for a... She worked for a company called..." Gideon started going through the papers in Lynn's file, ""Where'd it go? Where'd it go?" He found it, "Hichcock Pharmaceuticals." He leaned back in his chair to address his team, "I think there's a good chance the UnSub worked there, too.

"Well, let's start with people who fit the profile who've had a recent stressor. Like anybody fired from Hichcock in the past six months." Morgan suggested.

They called Garcia (and by "they", I mean Morgan, of course,) and she said over the speakerphone, "Hichcock's a giant company, Sugar Shack. There were over a hundred people fired just this past year."

"And so far none of them fit the profile?" Morgan asked.

"No. But I do have thirty names of people who were downsized and shunted off to other lame companies with a cut in pay and benefits."

"All right, send us the names. We'll cross-reference them with civil and criminal complaints filed with local P.D." Morgan said, "But I want you to keep digging. And while you're at it, look for any connection to the First New Jersey Federal Bank.

"I'm on it, sugar." Garcia said and Morgan hung up.

"Our guy's acting like a workplace mass murderer. He'd stay close, seething, and he'd plan his revenge." Hotch said.

"Well, if he is a workplace killer, what else does that tell us about him?" Elle asked.

"Well, for one, they don't give themselves up." Alexander explained. "He's lost his empathy, his moral compass. He's capable of anything."

"All those innocent people at the bank." Elle mused.

"They meant nothing to him." Gideon said, "He'll take out anybody to forward his cause.

"Like Dempsey."

"Yeah, he subjected her to thirty-eight hours of suffocating." Zoe said. "But he won't even spare himself in pursuit of his goal."

"But not until he finishes taking out his primary targets though." Gideon said.

"We have no idea where he's going to strike next. For all we know, he could poison a local reservoir." Morgan said.

"Well, local cops haven't gotten any leads out of Dempsey. Why don't you go to Hitchcock, see if you have any luck." Hotch suggested.

———————————————————————————

Morgan and Gideon had been looking over admittedly brutal lay-offs when Garcia called. Lynn Dempsey had applied for a loan at the bank from before around he same time that a chemist who worked at a company that Hitchcock had bought had applied for a patent on as Garcia put it "this anti-aging technology thing" called PCO-99 but both were rejected because Hitchcock had already applied for the patent and it had gone through.

———————————————————————————

A SWAT team wearing gas masks had to go in first. The place was a sort of warehouse, ideal for vindictive chemists' evil lairs. Morgan had found the UnSub, Edward Hill.

Back at the station, the team looked at Hill from behind the glass.

"He let us take him. He didn't kill himself. That doesn't fit the profile of a workplace killer." Hotch pointed out.

"Sometimes we miss the mark." Alexander said.

"Let's be glad we did. He's our best chance at stopping the next attack." Gideon said,

"Hill's lab had traces of botulinum toxin, but no clues as to what he's up to next." Hanover said.

"Our only chance is to make him tell us." Hotch said.

"You think he will?" Hanover asked.

"Once caught, these types usually do." Spencer explained, "They want the whole world to know about their brilliant plan to destroy their enemies."

"In case he doesn't give it up, let's play every angle. We need to re-examine everything we know about this guy." Gideon said.

"I'll check witness reports, forensic evidence, anything that might be a clue to this guy's plan." Spencer decided.

"A lot of lives could be at stake." Gideon said.

They went in, Hotch and Gideon sat at the table while Zoe leaned against the wall with her arms crossed.

"You were romantically involved with Lynn Dempsey, Mister Hill." Hotch stated.

"Is that what she said?" Hill asked.

"You know she couldn't have told us that if she wanted to." Zoe said, "Botulinum toxin does that to you. Her sister told us that."

"What happened to her?" Hotch asked Hill.

"The fact is Lynn was already dead. That company killed her years ago." Hill said.

"They kill you, too?" Hotch asked.

"Well, they might as well have. They took everything from me. Fruits of my labor. Best years of my life. They took my family. And when there was nothing left to take, they took two-thirds of my salary and my health insurance."

"You have the opportunity to treat people with the mercy that they never showed you." Hotch said.

"I can't even tell you how little that means to me." Hill said.

"What would it mean to your children?" Hotch asked but Hill didn't have a reply to that.

"Listen. You worked hard. Played by the rules your whole life. You don't want to go out like this. You do, you stoop to their level." Gideon said, "There are things we can do for you. There's ways to help you if you'll let us.

"What can you do for me?" Hill asked.

"We're FBI. We have influence with Justice. If you have a legitimate claim, and I believe you do, we can see to it that you get fair compensation and credit. And that's all you wanted, right? A fair deal?" Hotch said.

"That's all I ever wanted." Hill repeated.

"Of course. You don't think the company knows they screwed you? You don't think everything they do, every move they make, isn't designed to screw people like you?" Gideon asked.

"You could really get me those things?" Hill asked.

"Yeah." Hotch said and took out a card from his wallet, "This is my ABA card. I'm a lawyer. And I'm offering to take your case. And if you accept I have to do what you say. This whole thing is being videotaped. I can't lie about that."

"I would like my sons to know... that their dad created something..." Hill said, clutching Hotch's card, "I created something good."

"Ed. Tell us. What did you do?" Gideon asked.

"There's a party this afternoon in the executive building. All the departments get together. There's a punch bowl."

———————————————————————————

Alexander had contacted Elle and Morgan to stop the party. JJ called to inform them that the punch had contained some botulinum toxin but everyone was given the anti-toxin.

Zoe stared at Hill from the other side of the glass with a scrunched nose.

"What is it?" Alexander asked.

"He's hiding something. Hotch is right. His current behavior doesn't fit. I've trained to understand poisoners, I've been poisoned by both UnSubs and myself to increase my tolerance to poisons. I've dealt with poisoners but... he knew we had him surrounded before Morgan found him. Why didn't he take his life? He didn't fight, he willingly told us his plan. But he showed no remorse for painfully killing Lynn, just saying she was already dead. He has the apathy of our profile but not the..."

Spencer entered the room, "Guys, I think we have a problem. I've been looking over the victim reports. One of the victims that was originally dosed was severely diabetic."

"And?"

"He wouldn't have taken candy from the candy bowl at the bank." Zoe said.

"Exactly." Spencer said, "All the victims were there. We know that, but how are they poisoned? I started looking at the security footage." He turned the tablet he was holding, showing the bank's footage. Zoe zeroed in on it at once. "We know Lynn Dempsey replaced some candy from the bowl. But look how close that jar is to the deposit envelopes. Now watch this." The camera footage zoomed in on Lynn's hand next to the candy bowl. "See that? Her hand is directly in the stack of envelopes."

Gideon chuckled without mirth.

"So you think the envelopes were poisoned as well as the candy?" Hotch asked.

"As Lynn Dempsey was dying she kept saying something like, 'The end. The end.'... she was saying 'the envelopes'." Zoe sighed.

"I mean, what was it that Hill was actually testing? The Rohypnol? The LSD?" Spencer asked.

"The delivery system." Zoe said.

"Exactly." Spencer said.

"Botulinum toxin and LSD are the only two substances in the world toxic enough to be effective in doses as small as one-thousandths of a gram. Small enough to fit on the glue strip of an envelope." Zoe said.

"But the CDC didn't find any evidence of poison on the envelopes." Hotch said.

"They wouldn't have. The envelopes were destroyed after the checks were deposited and processed." Spencer pointed out.

"So like the Rohypnol, Hill was using the candy to throw us off. To cover his tracks. To distract us from the fact that he was testing the envelopes."

"What I can't figure out is, why would he test the envelopes to poison the punch?" Spencer asked.

"Say reason he told us his 'master plan'." Zoe scoffed that she hadn't seen it. "Because the punch is a decoy just like the candy."

"He's not finished." Gideon said.

"Fuck!" Zoe cursed, suddenly and took off into the interrogation room.

Hill had his hands to his throat, choking on nothing. Zoe pulled him from his chair, putting him on the ground with his head back. With a rasp, he took his last breath with his eyes open.

"He's dead." She said when Gideon and Hotch entered. "He poisoned himself. He killed himself before we even got to him."

Morgan called Hotch and came to the same conclusion since the members of the party were lower-level employees, none of who had any hand in what happened to Hill. But the upper management were at a corporate retreat, including Dempsey’s boss. But they couldn’t contact them since it was one of those no cell phones kind of retreats. Zoe always knew that was a stupid idea. In this world, if you don’t have your phone, you could die.

"Is there a certain amount of time the victims need to get the antitoxin?" Hotch asked.

"As soon as possible is typically the recommended time. Depending on the amount, the symptoms can appear from four hours to eight days from the time they were poisoned." Zoe said, "It's not fun."

——————————————————————————

Zoe took her motorcycle while Hotch, Gideon, Alexander, and Spencer took the car and a helicopter looked above the park.

"BAU to Air One. Anything? Anything?" Gideon said in the headset in Zoe's motorcycle helmet.

"Negative."

"We checked the first three campsites. Nothing."

"How about the Park Service?"

"A couple of families on holiday. None saw the target. Wait a minute. I'm getting a radio from the Staties. They found something near the access road and trail exit 6.

"I'm near trail exit 6. I'll be there soon." Zoe said."Send medical help. I may not have enough."

"EMTs are en route."

Zoe got off her motorcycle, jumping over the stone wall.

A trooper came up to her and she showed her badge, "Doctor Xiomara Noble-Valdez, MD. I'm with the FBI's BAU. The rest of my team and the ambulance are on their way."

"These guys are in bad shape and getting worse by the minute."

"I have some antitoxin." She said, "Who's the sickest?"

"That one over there." The trooper told her and Zoe hurried to the man he indicated as he followed, "He's having trouble breathing. Hyperventilating, I think."

Zoe came up to the man who was sweating, his muscles were stiff, and breathing heavily. She recognized the early symptoms as she put on her medical gloves.

"Hi, I'm a Federal Agent and a doctor. You're going to be fine." She said as the ambulance and the others arrived, "I need to give you an injection, just right in the vein," She rolled up the sleeve of his jacket and used an alcohol wipe to sanitize the skin before she pushed the needle into his skin and into the vein. "Relax your breathing, please. That's it. You're going to be just fine." She heard some car doors close, she nodded over to them as they jumped over the stone wall—with Spencer doing it awkwardly and stumbling on the other side, "That's my team over there. We'll make sure everyone else is fine too." She pushed the needle in and she injected him with the antitoxin, "there we go." She felt the others arrive behind her, "Make sure everyone gets a dose."

The man's breathing became deeper and more controlled, and he wheezed out, "Thank you."

Zoe smiled, "No problem, sir."

Then she got up to help the next victim.

———————————————————————————

Confucius warned us, "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves."

Almost everyone was asleep on the plane. Elle was sleeping on the couch, Morgan had fallen asleep listening to his iPod, Spencer had fallen asleep and his legs had ended up over Zoe's lap until she moved them so he could get the two seats for himself across from Gideon who had fallen asleep reading a book with his glasses on until Zoe took them off for him as he had for her so many times in her youth, placing them on the file in front of him. She pulled a blanket over Alexander's body across the aisle from them and kissed her father's head before sitting across from JJ who was looking through a file.

"You two ought to sleep." Hotch said.

"How can I sleep?"

"Nightmares?"

"Worse. Memories." She said, casually.

"I'm just finishing my report." JJ sighed.

"Everything okay?" Hotch asked.

"There's always another file. This next one's pretty bad." JJ said.

“Yeah. You know, before you I had your job, unoffically. I created it and Garcia’s.”

"You did?" JJ asked.

"Yeah. It was always... chaotic and I told them they had to get someone to look through the files because the UnSubs get smarter just as we do. They stump us, nonetheless, the local police."

"Of all the departments, why'd you two choose the BAU?" JJ asked Zoe and Hotch.

Zoe knew what Hotch chose the BAU, he knew first-hand what it was like to grow up in a violent household that usually bred UnSubs, that had always stuck with him, a few different things and he could've been just like the people he now put away.

"You know, I had prosecuted dozens of murder cases and by the time they reached my desk, it always felt like it was too late. And I wanted to stop them before they got to my desk." Hotch explained. There was a brief silence. "That doesn't really answer your question.

"No, it doesn't." JJ agreed.

"I guess I'm still trying to figure it out." Hotch said.

“My mom and dad created this job. They met on this job. Did you that unborn babies can start forming memories after thirty weeks from conception? They can start hearing sounds outside the womb even before that. Because of that, I can remember her voice. Some memories come and go, but try to hold onto them. She was passionate about this job, everyone thought she wasn’t up for it but she worked as hard as she could to save lives as if she wasn’t pregnant, only working from the desk when she was nine months pregnant. She would talk to us about the UnSubs, because she knew we could be geniuses, and she made sure we understood that it’s always their fault. Sometimes people just break. She knew there would be a chance she wouldn’t be there to teach us that when we were born and she knew that empathy was the most important thing for us to understand even to those that a lot of people would deem undeserving of empathy. A lot of people don’t do that. And I guess, it always stuck with me. I made my first profile when I was three and I met with actual serial killers to interview them. When I was four, I was reading reports from police all over the country just like the ones you do. When I was five, I started writing down profiles, not exactly complete profiles because they did their best to keep me away from it while simultaneously making sure I never left Dad’s eyesight but they found that it was helpful, even with me having less information they did. I’ve always done this. I was born to do this job. I basically grew up in the halls of the BAU. I met Hotch his first day at the BAU when I was ten years old and I asked him if he was a statue come to life after I nearly ran full-speed into him. I always dreamed of having this job…” She trailed off, not finishing her sentence.

JJ recognized the heartache in Zoe's eyes. The loss of a sister and she knew the rest of that sentence. I just always imagined Zarah would be by my side,

*I changed Garcia's nickname to Morgan from "Angel" to "Sugar" because I think "Angel" should remain Alexander's nickname for his daughters.*

*Originally, I had Zoe be poisoned too. It would hit her when they got back to the BAU and she would kiss Spencer in this state but I changed my mind.*

*Edited October 22, 2024*

———————————————————————————

[rihanna-online]

rihanna x sos icons (2006)

[hilaryduffwardrobe]

WHERE: Walks With Joel

WHEN: January 17, 2006

Balenciaga City Bag in Black - Sold Out

[locusfandomtime]

got bored and decided to check the date created of each hermitcraft member’s channel and now have to deal with the horrifying information that some hermits have been on youtube for longer than I have been alive

[digitalfountains]

Rosanne by Viviane Sassen

- i-D Magazine, December 2006/January 2007

[cinnabarts]

as long as you don't derez me in the morning

[skitskatdacat63]

2005 | 2023

[boltedgarlic]

01/14/2006

[mochi-chan-2006]

Happy new years! 🍾🎆🎇🎊 (Lazy art! -w-)

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

𝔇𝔬𝔪𝔦𝔫𝔲𝔰 𝔓𝔯𝔞𝔢𝔩𝔦𝔦 - 𝔗𝔬 𝔙𝔦𝔫𝔩𝔞𝔫𝔡

[gryfflepuffinthetardis]

What Fresh Hell?

Season One Masterlist

Blood Hungry

Poison

Summary: The team learn an eleven-year-old girl was abducted twenty hours ago and statistics say that virtually all children her age die within twenty-four hours in these situations. Meanwhile this case reminds Zoe drastically of her past and childhood, more than she wants it to.

Warning: Statistics of missing preteen children, Zoe is traumatized by what happened to her 1998, Mention of a heart attack, Statistics on Metastatic cancer in the Lymph Nodes, PTSD, Pedophile UnSub, Mention/Implication of child pornography, Mention/Reference/Hint/Implication of child sexual abuse; Talk of Transposition of Great Arteries; Mention of youthful heart failure; Mention of Heart condition; Mention of surgery; Flashbacks; Description of faded scars, Zoe being violent and somehow not getting in trouble.

"The most dangerous strangers are the ones we thought we knew well."

January 7, 2006

"Missing child in Wilmington, Delaware. Eleven-year-old Billie Copeland was last seen on the playground at 4:30 yesterday afternoon." JJ told the team.

"That's twenty hours ago. Child Abduction Response Plan says we get notified immediately. What happened?" Hotch asked as Zoe stared down at the file in front of her with a distant look in her eyes.

"Well, there was reason to believe that she was with her father. Her cell phone shows a call to him at around the time of the disappearance." JJ explained.

"So, they've since ruled him out?" Gideon asked.

"He called the mother about an hour ago."

"That doesn't mean he isn't involved." Gideon said.

"He's on his way to the family home so you can talk to him there. But, the local police are now considering this a stranger abduction."

"Twenty hours late?" Morgan asked.

"Long-term stranger abductions of children Billie's age are rare. They represent only half of one percent of all missing cases per year. But they are usually more likely to be fatal. Of the children that are abducted and murdered, 44% die within the first hour. From that point forth, their odds of survival greatly decrease. 75% are gone after three hours. Virtually all of them are dead after twenty-four."  Spencer said.

Zoe's thirteen stab wounds all along her torso throbbed.

"Which means we have just under four hours to find her." Alexander said.

"Shall we go?" Gideon said.

They started to gather their stuff when Gideon came up to her.

"Zoe, you can stay behind if you want?"

"Why would I do that?" She asked, sharply as everyone else filed out of the room.

"Well, this case may be a bit sensitive for you." Gideon said.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." She lied, sharply and speed-walked out of the room.

———————————————————————————

The poet W. H. Auden wrote, "Evil is always unspectacular and always human. And shares our bed and eats at our table."

JJ, Alexander, Gideon, Elle, Spencer, and Zoe got out of the car once they were at Billie's house.

"She's been missing twenty-one hours." Spencer updated.

"We're going to go meet with the lead detective at the park where the girl was last seen." Hotch said

"We need to know everything that's being done." Gideon said.

"I'll find out what the press is running. See if I know any of them. We may need to manage what they put out." JJ said.

"Good. See what the uniforms know from the canvasses. Alexander, Elle, I need you two to be liaisons with the family."

"Liaisons?" Elle asked as Spencer parted to talk to the uniformed officers.

"In a child abduction, the parents are likely to break down, if we aren't careful. Alexander, you went through the same thing as Billie's mother is."

"Several times." He deadpanned.

"You'll be the best to get through to her. Zoe, you were a missing child..." Zoe glared at him with a clenched jaw and Alexander did the same. They had an unspoken agreement to never acknowledge that incident until they had to, only Zoe was never very obedient. "You see if you can find any signs in Billie's room."

"Remember, I was only abducted by strangers who came in contact with me on cases or becpause they became obsessed with me." Zoe said. "I was never able to be lured, they had to actively incapacitate me to kidnap me. No one saw Billie be taken so it could be possible that Billie was lured away."

Billie’s room was your standard eleven-year-old’s bedroom. Pink walls, pink curtains, unicorn stuffed animals, dolls. Aside from the abundance of pinkness, it reminded Zoe of Zarah. Zarah had been much girlier than Zoe was but she still had that Valdez fire and disliked the stereotypes associated with pink, preferring for more vibrant colors or other colors with the pink. She was more outdoorsy than Zoe and liked flowers and vines with her decorations. Her bedspread had been a fluffy blue and purple duvet cover. Her walls had actually been a pastel seafoam blue-green with fake vines along it like a garden with twinkle lights and light green sheer blackout curtains with vines and lights attached to it.

Zoe picked up a stuffed animal of a dog. She can perfectly recall the Alebrije wolf that Zarah had given her. Zarah had had it with her when they went missing. It was never found either. Zoe had an otter one in her go-bag.

"Zoe..." Gideon's voice sounded distant through no fault of his own. Zoe looked up, looking distant.

"I'm fine." She said, her voice sounded hollow.

———————————————————————————

Downstairs, Marilyn Copeland turned off the TV that had the lead detective, Detective Charlotte Russet announcing the information they had about the person who took Billie and the description of Billie.

"They've been running that over and over again for the past two hours. The press wants to talk to me, but I just... I don't think I can face it."

"Why don't you just tell me what happened?" Alexander asked.

"Umm... I was focused on practice. And Billie was... being a pain, as usual. She was giving me attitude. So, I told her to run it off. I sent her away."

A side of Alexander disapproved of her words towards her daughter. Zoe hadn't been an easy child, granted she had been deeply traumatized but he never told her to run off an attitude. He knew there was a reason for that attitude and wanted to talk it out. But the one she's had for nearly five years now wasn't the kind you could talk through, but he didn't voice it. But he understood blaming yourself for this.

"How long have you been divorced?" Elle asked.

"It's been final for six months, but we haven't lived together for over a year."

"You seeing anyone?" Elle asked as Zoe and Gideon came back

"Between work and Billie, when would I have the time?" Marilyn asked with a tearful chuckle at the thought.

"Not one date?" Elle asked, "Any men coming over to the house?"

"I-I had a few casual dates after work, but, they never came to the house." Marilyn said, "Billie still hopes that her father and I will get back together."

"How did Billie's dog die, Mrs. Copeland?" Gideon asked.

"He was hit by a car two weeks ago. How did you know that?"" Marilyn asked.

"The shrine in the room." Zoe said, "Helps her grieve?"

"Her father did that for her.

"They get along well?" Alexander said.

"Best of friends. She calls him every night. Tells him about her day, asks about his. He's a cancer survivor. So he takes time off from work, pulls her out of school for father/daughter field trips." Marilyn said.

Zoe smiled, sadly and Alexander ruffled her hair. He used to do that for Zoe and Zarah. When Zoe went back to school after her kidnapping as she and Zarah didn't want to skip grades and instead while doing their age-appropriate school and college classes and law enforcement training, she had requested they stop because she didn't want to do them without Zarah and she finished high school shortly after her sixteenth birthday, not wanting to go through it the slow way without Zarah."

"Says we all need to stop and enjoy life. But he forgets that he has responsibilities. That they both do. Which makes me the bad guy. And she blames me for the divorce. Blames me for everything. I should have just let her go with her father. I'm sorry." Marilyn got up and excused herself.

"She's pretty fragile." Gideon said.

"The last thing she did was fight with her daughter. Can you imagine what that feels like?"

"Some of us don't have to imagine." Alexander said, darkly.

Zoe looked out the window to see a truck approaching and the man Zoe recognized as Billie's father, William getting out and approaching the house. "Mister Copeland's here."

Marilyn started yelling at William the second he got through the door.

"I have been calling you all night."

"I'm sorry, Marilyn. I turned my phone off." He apologized.

"How could you turn your phone off? What if Billie got sick or..." She cut herself off and then hissed, "We needed you."

"I said I was sorry." William said.

Marilyn just gave up a look of disgust and went to storm away, slapping his hand away when he tried to grab her.

He looked at the four agents, "What's being done to find my daughter?

"We're assessing that right now."

"She's been missing since yesterday!" He shouted at them, "What the hell have you people been doing since then?"

"Where have you been, Mister Copeland?" Gideon asked.

"Me?"

"Where were you all day and all night?" Gideon pushed.

"I have a cabin in Brandywine Valley." William said, incredulously.

"Police tried you there." Gideon told him.

"Well, maybe I was out at the time."

"Billie tried your cell phone yesterday afternoon, around the time she was kidnapped." Zoe said. Usual child abductions of divorced or separated families are done by parents. Approximately two hundred thousand out of two-hundred-and-sixty thousand per year."

"Well, I shut it off sometimes. I like the solitude." William defended.

"You didn't fight your wife for custody of your daughter, but you, you like being in her life." Alexander observed.

"I want her to grow up in her home. With her friends around. This is the only place she's ever lived." He said.

"So, you love her very much." Alexander said.

"Yes."

"Why are you wasting the precious time we have left? You weren't at your cabin. You weren't at work or with friends. The police didn't call us until a little while ago because they thought your daughter might have been with you. That you might have taken your daughter. Until you can give us a satisfactory accounting of your whereabouts from the time your daughter went missing." Alexander paused and gestured to Zoe, "You see Doctor Zoe over, there, she's my daughter, my youngest. Five years ago, she and her sister went missing—kidnapped, and I literally had a heart attack over it. Eight months later, Zoe was found but my oldest, Zarah is still missing. I understand what you're going through, so why don't you help me understand why a devoted father who talks to his daughter every night suddenly turns his phone off and disappears for almost twenty-four hours"

"I was busy."

"Too busy for your only daughter. On the rare occasions, I let my daughters out of my sight voluntarily, I never spent more than twenty-four hours, rarely more than twelve hours without speaking to them." Alexander said, "It's 1:30. You called your wife at 11:30 and found out Billie was missing."

"So?

"Well, Brandywine Valley's fifteen minutes away. Where were you, Mister Copeland?

"I..." William said but trailed off.

"How long have you been sick?" Zoe asked suddenly.

William looked at her, taken aback. "How did you know?"

"Your hands are slightly discolored blue and swollen which most likely is due to slow blood flow. On your neck is a rash caused by incessant scratching. Your collar is hiding a lump on your neck and your neck is slightly swollen. And you have several bruises. Cancer again? I'm guessing in your Lymph Nodes?"

He nodded, "I was at Sloane Kettering Hospital in New York City. Doctor Baylan Mahal. He's the Head of Oncology. You can call him if you want."

"I will." Alexander said

William sat down, he hadn't told his family yet. Zoe sat down next to him.

"You had a relapse?" She asked, gently.

"Yeah... There's nothing more they can..."

"I'm sorry."  Zoe said.

Most cancer deaths are caused by metastatic cancer and the survival rate often falls once the cancer reaches the lymph nodes.

"Please find my daughter. Find my daughter." He pleaded and he started to sob into his hands.

——————————————————————————

Zoe and Gideon joined Russet, Hotch and Morgan.

"What do we know?" Gideon asked.

"We talked to a kid who had contact with the UnSub." Hotch said.

"He came back to the same street more than once." Morgan said.

"That tells us he's at ease in the neighborhood and comfortable talking to kids in plain view." Hotch said as JJ and Spencer joined them

"He lured Billie with a story about a lost dog." Morgan said.

"Yeah, she recently lost one of her own." Zoe said. "Just two weeks ago."

"That indicates previous knowledge of the victim." Spencer said.

"Yeah, but it doesn't mean she necessarily knew him personally, only that he's aware."  Hotch said.

"It's not uncommon for predators like these to know kids that live around his area." Spencer said.

"He's from the neighborhood."

"Then we go door-to-door and ask for voluntary searches." Russett said.

"The neighborhood's already crawling with uniforms. They're everywhere." Spencer said.

"Look, so far, you've followed the Child Abduction Response Plan to the letter?" Gideon asked Russet.

"For the past few hours. Yes."

"So now we need to move past the guidelines. Change tactics. If we don't, Billie isn't going to make it past the next twenty-four hours."

"Throwing off the UnSub's game could help but if you put too much pressure, he may be tempted to get rid of the only thing tying him to his crime—Billie." Zoe said.

Gideon then gestured over Zoe's head to the press. "I want you to corral these clowns. We're going to need them. All of them."

———————————————————————————

They were at the police station to give the profile.

"Billie Copeland has been missing twenty-two hours. It is vital that we locate her in the first twenty-four." Gideon said.

"The unknown subject in this case is most likely a resident of one of the subdivisions around the park. We have canceled the AMBER Alert. We need to coordinate with all your officers to pull everyone off the street immediately." Hotch instructed.

"That's crazy." An officer exclaimed.

"Just hear me out."

"But it goes against CARP procedures. You guys wrote the damn thing."

"CARP is just a guideline for immediate response to child abduction." Spencer explained, "Believe it or not, we're already late in the game and we do know enough about this UnSub to know that if he feels like we are closing in on him at all, he will kill Billie to avoid detection. If anything, we need to lessen the pressure on him."

"Billie is the only thing tying him to his crime and he may not care about her at all. She may just be an object in his mind." Zoe said.

"The man fits in 'cause nobody knows what he is. Can we really know our neighbors?"

"Ted Bundy was regarded to be a rather charming guy and he ended up killing thirty confirmed kills but possibly even more than one hundred. Dennis Rader was married to his wife for thirty-four years with two kids before she discovered that he turned out to be one of the world's most sadistic serial killers. She didn't have a clue. H.H. Holmes, America's first known serial killer was a pharmacist by day, and he even had a medical degree. He once admitted to killing twenty-seven people but it has been estimated his body count is up to two hundred. Albert Fish had six kids, and he ended up raping, killing, and eating hundreds of kids. Despite what movies say, these people can be charming, they can be anyone." Zoe explained

"He walks his dog. Does yard work. Solitary activities appeal to him. But if you watch closely, you'll see that he pays a little too much attention to the neighborhood kids. This largely goes unnoticed because he isn't perceived as a threat." Gideon said.

"He's a white male, in his late twenties to thirties. He has a menial or temporary job. Socially marginalized and frustrated, he relates better to kids than he does to adults." Hotch said.

"This is not his first offense against children, but it is his first abduction." Elle said.

"How do you know that?"

"Well, first timers hunt close to home. Experienced predators don't."

"And he's had a recent stressor, a job loss or other setback. Unable to maintain a normal relationship, he'll have extensive pornographic materials in his home and on his computer. And while they won't all involve children, some of them definitely will." Hotch said.

"Since he used a missing dog ruse and we believe him to be a regular fixture of the neighborhood, it's quite possible that he truly does own or did at one point own a dog named Candy." Spencer explained. "We'd recommend crosschecking any veterinary records with residents in the neighborhood."

"He will not inject himself into this investigation." Hotch stated.

"Don't these guys like to know what the cops know?" Russet asked.

"No, not this type of UnSub. He's hiding. He doesn't know what anyone saw. He doesn't know if there's any information about him out there. He's not likely to walk in and ask us, 'Can I help you?' But I can guarantee you he will be watching the news. So how we handle them is very important."

"Essentially, he's a coward." Zoe said, bluntly.

"Check your canvass records. One of you may have had contact with him in the early stages." Hotch advised.

"What about registered sex offenders?" Russet asked.

"We've got somebody working on that right now." Hotch replied.

"Okay, ladies and gentlemen. Everyone clear on that?”

———————————————————————————

Zoe, Alexander, and Elle went back to the Copeland house.

Zoe brought William a water to help down his medication as he asked, frustratedly, "You took all the police off the street?"

"We believe your daughter was abducted by someone in the area and that she's probably still nearby." Zoe explained.

"Then shouldn't you be flooding the area with cops?" He questioned as Marilyn's face fell when she saw the pills, realizing what he hadn't told them. "Knocking on doors?"

"It's not that simple." Zoe said.

"Yes, it is." He grumbled, childishly.

"Just take your medication." Zoe said and he put the pill in his mouth and washed it down with some water.

"You're taking the meds again." Marilyn said.

William looked at Zoe and Elle, "Look, what exactly are you people doing to help get my daughter back?"

"You're sick again, aren't you?"

"I know this is difficult for you two, but we want you to meet with the press. Both of you." Zoe said.

"A press conference? That's what you have?" William asked, doubtful, "You just said you're already taking the press that's running off the air."

"I know but this will be different. Trust us, Mister Copeland." Zoe reassured him.

The doorbell rang and William got up to get it and turned to Zoe, "Just tell Marilyn what you need us to do." And he walked to the door.

"That was his second remission." Marilyn said.

"I'm sorry." Zoe said.

"Billie won't even talk to me anymore. How am I going to tell her that her father's sick again?" Marilyn said

"One thing at a time, Mrs. Copeland." Elle advised. "Once we find your daughter, you'll figure it out."

Zoe walked towards the front door when she heard William speaking.

"Can I help you?"

Mister Copeland. I'm Helen Godfrey from a few blocks away. I have printouts on all sex offenders in the area." Zoe saw a woman handing William a piece of paper, "I mean, I think it would be... Look at any of these..." William suddenly took off with the paper in hand.

"What the hell?" She muttered and ran out the door. "Mister Copeland? Mister Copeland!" William had reached his truck, started the engine and drove off as Elle and Alexander emerged from the house.

"There are sex offenders in the area. I thought he should know." The woman said.

"Stupid." Zoe scoffed, giving the woman a 'are you stupid' look, she called Hotch to warn him.

———————————————————————————

While Hotch and Morgan chased William down, Zoe joined Spencer, Gideon, and Russet in the car.

Zoe opened the door and entered, sitting next to Spencer, sighing.

"I can't deal with the parents anymore. The dad ran off to beat up some sex offender, he doesn't realize there's multiple crimes that can get you registered as one. Morgan and Hotch got him."

“No more uniforms in the neighborhood. Are you sure this is the way to go?" Russet asked.

"I hope it is." Gideon said.

"You're taking a hell of a chance, aren't you?" Russet asked.

"All we can do is respond to what's in front of us." Gideon said.

"What if you're wrong?"

Do you know what program did the most harm to this country in terms of crimes like this? Child abduction?" Gideon asked

"No."

"Stranger Danger." Zoe and Spencer said.

"Flooded the schools with it."

"I remember them coming to my classroom. It was Officer Friendly with 'Stranger Danger' coloring books." Spencer said.

"I remember when Rossi picked me and Zarah up from school and Zarah cheerfully told him about it. He looked more horrified than when I finished my first crossword puzzle before him in pen when I was three." Zoe said.

"Taught a whole generation about a scary man in a trench coat hiding behind a tree. Then we learned that strangers are only a fraction of the offenders out there. Most are people you see every day. Your family, your neighbors, your schoolteachers. You know the rest." Gideon said. "Prepared our children for one percent of the danger and made them more vulnerable to ninety-nine percent. So, we've been wrong before. All we can do is learn from it and hopefully be better next time."

"Unit five-three-nine." A voice said over the radio.

Russet picked up the microphone, "Nine."

"Nine, we have a marked unit calling for your presence at the river off Route Six."

"What's this in reference to?" Russet asked.

"They've located a body. Female."

———————————————————————————

The police officer who called for backup led the four to the body, they trekked through thin trees, a sort of swampy area.

"The call was anonymous. Said there was a body in the water."

"Brown hair, brown eyes. About 4'10, 4'11?" Russet asked.

"Yeah."

"I should have started this search earlier." Russet sighed, regretfully.

"I'm sure you just did what you thought was right, Detective." Spencer reassured her.

They ducked under some police tape and when Russet caught a glimpse of the coroners fetching the body, she stopped and looked away.

"I can't, I can't. If it's her I..." She breathed.

"It's all right." Gideon told her.

The three agents went ahead, most of the body was obscured by the grown men fetching it. Zoe watched as they pulled the body out and on land, unable to stop imagining that any day it could be Zarah.

She felt Spencer take her hand, her fingers intertwining.

Spencer's touch seemed to ground her because she looked at him, her eyes meeting his and she shook her head. She moved in, fetching her badge to show the cops.

"Hey, uh, Doctor Zoe Noble-Valdez, FBI."

———————————————————————————

Zoe helped the coroners examine the body. She quickly discovered that this body couldn't possibly be Billie based off the color of skin and the fact it was starting to bloat, which meant this person had died before Billie was even taken. There were signs of track marks, and the body wasn't in the shape that Billie's would be.

Zoe, Gideon, and Spencer walked back to the main room in the station.

"Did you find Billie? Is my daughter dead?" Marylin cried.

"A body was discovered."

"It's not Billie." Zoe said.

"Are you sure?" William asked.

"Yes, I examined the body myself. The body has been dead for several days, not less than a day. They were much older and had track marks. It seemed to have been from an overdose." Zoe said.

"It's not your daughter." Gideon reassured her.

"My God, I can't, I can't..." Marilyn started to break down.

"Please, just come with me right now." Elle said and she took the parents away.

"What the hell was that about?" Gideon asked.

"A reporter asked them about the body." Morgan asked.

"Probably heard it on a scanner." Hotch said.

"I should have prepared them for that." JJ said.

"We didn't have anything to tell them yet." Gideon said.

"What kind of asshole asks that?" Zoe asked.

"Billie's running out of time, guys." Spencer said.

"So are the parents." Hotch said.

"Oh, come on. A little hope, huh?" Gideon waved off.

———————————————————————————

Zoe's phone kept buzzing with texts from a friend concerned for her, knowing what happened seven years ago but Zoe decided to text her back later. Yet with each beep and vibrate of her phone, her scars throbbed. The

"How's it going?" Hotch asked, when he approached Morgan, Spencer, and Zoe going through papers of the canvass.

"The UnSub's in here somewhere. I got to bet that the police talked to him in their initial canvass." Morgan said.

"Maybe not." Spencer mused, "Remember what Zoe said earlier, this guy's a coward. Our UnSub is a solitary individual. He isn't the type of guy to insert himself into an investigation. I mean, wouldn't it make more sense that he wouldn't have answered the door during the initial canvass?"

"The neighborhood was crawling with cops, canine units, Search and Rescues." Hotch recalled. "Make him nervous and jumpy. He'd want to avoid them at all costs."

"So, then he couldn't allow anyone into his home to ask routine questions even if the girl was bound or gagged because it'd be too risky." Morgan said.

"It is next to impossible to control breathing, speech patterns, body language when the body's under extreme duress. Especially without training, of course." Zoe said.

"Maybe if we compare hotline tips with anyone who wasn't at home during the initial canvass." Spencer said.

"Or didn't answer the door." Morgan added.

"We'll find our UnSub." Zoe said.

"Let's go to it." Hotch said.

———————————————————————————

In the other room, Elle and Alexander sat with the near grieving parents.

"Oh, my God, Billie." The mother cried.

"I know it seems impossible, but you have to be strong now." Alexander said.

Gideon entered the room, "How we doing?"

Alexander looked at him, both knowing he had been a wreck when it was him. He had literally had a heart attack at thirty-three.

"All her life, when my little girl needed help, she came to me. And now when she needs me most, there's nothing." William said. Alexander related to that sentiment so much that it hurt.

William got up and left and Alexander went after him. William took his pills and he turned to Alexander, "I just... I can't just sit around here helpless."

"Well, when you were first diagnosed with cancer, you could have given up but you didn't." Alexander said.

"But there was an enemy. Something to fight.

"Yeah, but it was a ghost enemy. It sneaks in, ravages you before you even know it's there. And by the time you do know, you're already losing. And you took on that one. Whatever will you summoned to fight that battle, find it again. For Billie. Don't give up, sir."

"But it didn't matter. I fought and it came back. The cancer won."

"Zoe's mom had died before she was born, murdered. So Zoe's birth was a complicated situation and I'll never forget that moment when I realized she wasn't breathing when they pulled her out. She was a technical stillborn but they resuscitated her and she was soon diagnosed with a congenital heart disease. Her skin was blue, and she was having trouble breathing. The tubes to her heart were reversed. If she never got surgery, she would have died within the year. So, I saw my baby girl, seven days old being cut open to save her life, in the hands of strangers. When you're in this line of work, you're reluctant to trust your kids with strangers. She's only had a few incidents since then, her heart failed when she was four... my father's fault. Every year or so, she goes to the hospital to drain the fluid that could cause it, it's not supposed to cause major problems until she's thirty but... it's terrifying. But she fought it like a champ every time."

"I'm sorry. Must be tough... but why are you telling me?" William sympathized.

"Because even though something could go wrong, I got more time with her. She was missing for five days, then eight months, then six months but she always came back to me, and I got my time with her. She told me about the pictures of you and Billie in her room. Pictures of you fishing. Being there for her when her dog died. Building a shrine to her pet. Do you think that extra time didn't matter?"

"Are you going to find her?" William asked.

"The men and women I work with are the best in the world. They won't rest until they do. You have my word on that."

"They didn't find your daughter."

"Zoe was the main target. Zarah was just collateral, but I believe my daughter is still alive because Zoe does."

——————————————————————————���

"Yeah, it was worth a try. That's right. You have a nice day." Zoe smiled and hung up the phone. "I hate talking to people."

"Yeah, we know. You hate people." Morgan drawled.

"I don't hate people. I just hate talking to, socializing, or being near them." Zoe insisted.

A smile tugged at Spencer's lips at Zoe's words.

Zoe's phone beeped and buzzed again.

"Who keeps texting you?"

"A friend." Zoe said, "She's worried about me."

"You have friends?" Morgan asked, sarcastically as Zoe narrowed her eyes at him as she texted her friend back.

An officer popped their head in, "Agent Morgan?"

"Yeah?"

"Is this the kind of thing you're looking for?" He asked, beckoning him over.

"Reid. Zoe." Morgan said and they got up and followed the officer, “A Mister Lomax has a neighbor with a green SUV, but he hasn't seen him all day. Says that's unusual. Thought he might've just been out of town, but now he sees some lights on over there." The officer handed them a piece of paper.

"1106 Springfield. Where's our canvass sheets?" Morgan asked and Spencer fetched them from nearby. 1106."

Spencer read over the addresses. "1100 block. 1106... No answer."

"Let's go to talk with Mister Lomax." Zoe said.

———————————————————————————

Zoe, Spencer, and Morgan walked up to Lomax's yard.

"Mister Lomax? Agent Morgan.

Agent Reid. Agent Noble-Valdez. FBI.

"Doctor Reid and Doctor Noble-Valdez." Zoe corrected as she showed her badge, and Morgan gave her a look.

"Holy smokes, that was fast." Lomax commented.

"Well, we're trying to do all we can, sir." Zoe said.

"Did you call in a tip about your neighbor, Don Curtis?" Spencer asked as he moved the gun at his hip awkwardly and he brought his foot up on Lomax's low fence.

"Lives down the street. I saw the news thing, you know? I was thinkin... Don drives a dark green Explorer and he's at the park all the time. I figured, like they said on the television, maybe he knows something, but doesn't know that he knows it. Know what I mean?"

"Where's his Explorer now?" Morgan asked.

"It's usually in the driveway, but I haven't seen it today. Haven't seen Don either, which is kind of weird. We're always out front talking about the lawns. He never has any crabgrass. I don't know how he does it."

"Um, do you know if he has a dog?" Zoe asked.

"Used to. A big golden retriever. Her name was Candy. I think she died like six months ago."

Thank you, Mister Lomax." Morgan said, turning to take out his phone.

"Have a nice day." Zoe smiled to avoid suspicion as Spencer awkwardly waved.

"Yeah, Hotch? It's Morgan. You better get over here right now."

———————————————————————————

Russet met the three agents first before Gideon, Alexander, and Hotch made it down to them.

"Third house down on the right. We knocked on the door, but nobody's answering." Morgan gestured.

"His neighbor said he's definitely in there." Spencer said.

"He's got a green Ford Explorer in the garage.

“Break down the door.” Gideon said.

"No. We don't have probable cause." Russet reasoned.

“He's got a green SUV. He had a dog that died recently. He spends time in the park.” Morgan pointed out.

“He's pretending he's not home.” Hotch added.

“None of which are illegal. No judge is going to sign a warrant based on that information.” Russet pointed out.

Zoe glared at the house as she was filled with a rage that never ended well, her vision started to gain a red tint as she started to have flashbacks to her traumas from her childhood that only fueled her rage, overwhelming voices from her past came back to her as her temple started to throb with an anger-triggered migraine but she didn’t show any sign that anything was wrong.

“You're weighing the life of a child against the price of a door?” Alexander argued, his patience wearing thin but not as thin as Zoe's.

“I'm weighing the law against the price of a door.” Russet corrected.

“The girl's in the house right now. The longer we stand here and wait, the longer he has to finish her off.” Gideon argued, his just about out, he paced back and forth anxiously while Zoe, stayed completely still, memories still flashing behind her eyes.

“I’ll call a judge.” Russet said and started to dial, “if we go in there without a warrant all that evidence will get thrown…”

“We’re aware of the rules of evidence. What do you propose we do?”

“We tow his car, we impound it, and we search it.” Russet said.

"Great. While you be useless, I'm doing something to save that eleven-year-old girl." Zoe spat and she broke into a sprint at full speed towards the house, her vision was tinted red as voices echoed in her ears. His voice. As he taunted her. Taunted her dad.

"Zoe! Zoe!" Morgan shouted, running after her.

"Angel!" Alexander yelled.

She never slowed down, even as she approached the door and she kicked the door, and the memory of an ear-splitting rageful scream sounded in her ears, but it didn't break off its hinges but she had kicked the doorknob through the door and she pushed it open, yanking it so hard that the damaged top hinges broke.

"Curtis! I've come for Billie!" She shouted and stormed inside, taking her gun out, ignoring the distant sound of screams in her head.

There was a real scream that was most likely Curtis at the intrusion of his home and then there was Zoe screaming expletives in another language even Spencer didn’t know.

It sounded like things were falling as Zoe continued to scream the only words they could understand were when she referred to “Billie”.

Then a loud thud as Zoe knocked Curtis on the floor.

"WHERE IS SHE!?"

"HELP, SHE'S CRAZY!" Curtis screamed for help.

They found Zoe with her foot on Curtis' chest and her gun pointed at his head with a vicious look on her face and psychotic killing rage in her eyes that almost made her look like someone else. Someone with no empathy, someone with no mercy.

"Get her off me!" Curtis pleaded, his nose broken and oozing blood. “Please!”

“Zoe, stand down.” Hotch ordered but she didn’t move.

Morgan and Alexander had to pull her off of him.

"Where is she?" Gideon demanded.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Curtis said.

"Where's Billie Copeland?"

"I'm hurt!"

Gideon grabbed Curtis and threw him closer to Morgan, "Get him out of here. Tear the place apart!"

———————————————————————————

Zoe entered the living room later, still seething but controlled, "Just as we expected, he has an extensive collection of deviant photos and cartoon downloads." Spencer said, standing at Curtis' computer.

"Neatly partitioned? All in separate folders?" Gideon asked.

"Mmm-hmm." Spencer hummed.

"Access the Internet history. Identify any pornographic sites, shut them down." Gideon advised.

"I'm uploading to Garcia as we speak.

Zoe had gone to the shelf and pulled some books off the shelf, "What is this? Is it all porn?"

"It's a lot of home movies with a bunch of kids in it. But this one, you guys need to see it."

Morgan put in one and a horrifying image came on the screen. A young boy...

"Shh. Remember what I'll do if you tell." Curtis said on the tape.

Zoe's memory flashed back long before she was twelve and lost her first memory... a memory she wished she could forget... when she was four and her heart stopped because her ribs were broken... far from accidentally... Cain had said those same words to her when she was in the hospital. She was brought back to the present when she felt her nails digging into her palms.

"Gideon, we searched the entire house. Upstairs, downstairs, everywhere. There's no sign of the girl or that she's even been here. It is possible that he moved her. Polly Klaas was found twenty-five miles from home. Danielle Van Dam, thirty, Samantha Runnion, fifty-two, but, keep in mind, we were twenty hours late getting involved." Spencer said.

"The man doesn't take chances. He wouldn't drive around with the girl in the car. He took her and got her off of the street as quickly as possible." Zoe told him in rapid succession, her eyes were wild yet glazed and Spencer got the feeling she wasn't really seeing him when she looked at him.

"Just keep looking." Gideon said.

———————————————————————————

Zoe sat on a couch, bent slightly, her nails digging into her skin as flashbacks came back to her. Those golden eyes through the mask. She couldn't remember what happened when he stabbed her but she knew he looked into her eyes the whole time. She had a vague memory of being placed down as she bled out, but other than the memory of it happening it was blank. Then the vague memory of being found, the cop who had found her, still smelling of cigarette smoke as she shouted her name which had sounded faint and distant.

"Curtis lawyered up." Hotch said, bringing Zoe back to the present.

"Of course, he did." Gideon said in the chair next to the couch as Alexander sat next to Zoe, rubbing her back, comfortingly. "That's the first smart thing he's done."

“We broke into his house and Zoe assaulted him.”

“I did not!” Zoe exclaimed, “He tried to run away and then he fell. He resisted!” Then she got up and walked off, her jaw clenched.

"Without Billie, we don't have the exigent circumstances we need to make this stick. We may have to let him go." Hotch said.

"I told you we should have waited." Russet sighed.

"Yes, I know. We made a call." Hotch said. "And if there are any recriminations, we will take full responsibility."

"Hotch, he's the man." Gideon said.

"Jason, I agree, but we may have been overly hasty."

"Hasty? You know as well as I do, unless we actually find Billie in this house, any evidence we find, is fruit of the poison tree." Russet said.

Zoe was pacing when she suddenly stopped. She had seen something. A broom with white fuzz.

Her memory flashed back when she was younger, and Maze was teaching her tricks on finding hidden things.

"This is called insulation. It's the material used in a building to reduce the flow of thermal energy. It can also help to soundproof a room. The typical materials involve fiberglass, cellulose, mineral wool, foam, and aerogel. They can be charged with static electricity just makes it cling to things, including the scumbag. If you see this in the house, there just may be a secret room. That's where the evidence you need are."

"INSULATION!" Zoe just about screamed.

"What?"

Zoe came barreling in the room with a manic look in her eyes, holding the broomstick. "Look, insulation. When I came in, he had insulation on him! There's somewhere in this house, we haven't checked yet!" She threw the broomstick to Alexander who caught it, and she spun around and marched into the hall and then she spotted it—a vent with the same white fuzz clinging to it.

"There it is." She muttered and spoke up, "I can fit up there. Chair, I need a chair."

Alexander handed her a chair and Zoe dragged it under the vent and she stepped up. She unscrewed the screws which were loose, having been recently used. The vent fell open. She took off her leather jacket and let it fall, hitting the floor with a heavy clunk, most likely from the secrets she had infused into it.

"Help her up." Gideon said.

Zoe felt her dad pushing on her legs, but she kicked her legs and easily pulled herself up She spotted her at once.

An eleven-year-old girl with brown hair in her soccer uniform, bound and gagged, crying and whimpering.

Zoe pulled herself through completely, her manic nature instantly gone, replaced with a kind one.

"Billie. Hey, hi. We're with the FBI. We're here to take you home. My name's Doctor Zoe." She undid Billie's gag. "Your mommy and daddy have been very worried about you."

"I wanna go home." Billie cried. "I wanna go home."

"Let's go see mommy and daddy." She said and picked up Billie, carrying her to vent. "Incoming."

She eased Billie out of the air vent and into the arms of the agents and when she let go, she leaned back, sighing. She may not have found Zarah yet but she stopped this girl from experiencing any of the pain she did, or at least most of it.

———————————————————————————

"Measure not the work until the day's out and the labor done." — Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Morgan, JJ, Hotch, and Spencer were playing poker

"I got absolutely nothing." Morgan said.

"Aw, nothing." JJ groaned.

"Two pair of aces." Spencer said, placing his cards down.

"Oh. Shut up." JJ teased.

"Oh, get out of town. See, why you always winning?" Morgan complained

"Because he cheats." JJ accused, gesturing to Spencer like there could be someone else she was talking about.

"Poker, it's mathematics, it's statistics." Spencer reasoned

Morgan made a talking gesture with his hand as JJ groaned.

"He's from Vegas. Blame it on that." Zoe said from a little ways away while on her phone.

"House rules!" Morgan joked.

"There's that too." Spencer admitted and he turned to Zoe and asked, "Who are you talking to?"

"Billie. I gave her my number to help cope. She needs someone who's been through what she's been through." She walked on the other side of the plane and Spencer turned to Alexander, "Hey, did she ever tell you what happened to her during those eight months."

"No. But I think I know." Alexander said. "She thinks I don’t, but I do. She's strong but she doesn't like that she has to be weak sometimes."

"Hey, Hotch." Gideon said, suddenly as Spencer looked past Gideon to Zoe near the coffee machine.

"Yeah?"

"Did you send flowers to that tech room girl, Garcia, and say they were from me?" Gideon asked.

"Yeah." Hotch admitted.

"Why?"

"Jason, people need to know that they're important, and sometimes you forget that." Hotch explained.

"Well, I already sent her a gift. An MP3 player. They last longer unless you drop them or the battery dies, whichever comes first.

"So, she got two gifts."

"What if she thinks I'm sweet on her?" Gideon asked, sarcastically. Elle made a face and Morgan laughed. Elle then sat across from Gideon. "Maybe not, huh?"

"I think the Copelands are going to stay together." Elle said.

"Well, good." Gideon said.

"He's dying."

"He's having a difficult time." Gideon said as Alexander turned to them, glancing at his daughter.

"You know, Billie's kind of used to him not being there. So, maybe it would be better if they stayed apart." Elle said.

"No, it wouldn't." Alexander said.

"How do you know?" Elle asked.

"I know. Just know.

Spencer was looking over his cards at Zoe as he thought of Alexander's words. "She's strong but she doesn't like that she has to be weak sometimes."

Weak wasn't a word he'd think to describe Zoe but maybe that was the problem.

She's spent so long convincing herself that she had to be strong.

——————————————————————————-

When Zoe got home, she sighed, heavily. She walked to her bedroom, passing the series of Alebrije otter stuffed animals. She dropped her case, laptop bag, and satchel on the couch and walked towards the closet. There was a full-length mirror in there that was currently covered in a black cloth to hide her reflection—the reminder of Zarah. She pulled it down and recoiled when she made eye contact with her reflection. She pulled her leather jacket off, followed by her shirt. She had a lot of scars. The most recent being from the gunshot from Dowd. Some from the torture in 2001, some from the torture of those terrorists. There was a thin pale line just below the in-between of her collar bones that ran down before disappearing between her breasts. From the heart surgery she had when she was a week old. But the ones that stood out were just as surgical but hadn't been to help her. The largest was down the middle of her torso, picking up below her surgery scar, stopping just an inch above her belly button. One scar ran over her collarbone and intersected with near the top of the surgery scar. Some scars peppered along her breasts and her shoulders, along her arms. Another ran along her ribcage.

———————————————————————————

*Note: I looked up spirit animals, in Mexican culture—according to a Google search—people beleive that everyone has a spirit animal or a oná, that is assigned to them based on their birthday. The toná is a guiding spirit that can appear in dreams or describe a person's character traits and abilities.

I think Zoe is very wolf-like. She is very noble, loyal, compassionate, and powerful. She is strong, determined, courageous, adaptive, resilent, wise, intelligent, and observant. She values freedom, loyalty, independence, togetherness. She is a protector. She has a heightened sense and can capable of detecting this the others cannot. She is very intuitive and can sense things that are not obvious to others.

Zarah was actually a bit harder because her personality isn't as fleshed out at the moment, despite I've planned this up to season fifteen even though I've only watch a few episodes of it... I am not watching the finale until Reid comes back to Criminal Minds in Evolution. But I've decided on an otter. The otter spirit animal is cheerful, kind, sensible, dynamic, and happy.*

*Edited October 22, 2024*

———————————————————————————

[theolsentimes]

W Magazine, January 2006

Mary-Kate Olsen Is Ready for a Fresh Start, After a Very Public Breakup and Dropping Out of College by Marshall Heyman (December 31, 2005) 📸 Ph: David Sims

...the move back to Los Angeles has improved both her health and her self-esteem. “Now I can walk outside in the morning and have a cup of coffee and actually breathe, and, you know, every once in a while I just need to take a break, you know?” Olsen says. Her conversation, like that of so many other girls her age, is peppered with “like,” “kind of” and “you know,” and her declarative sentences are often phrased as questions. (“I don’t actually look at a lot of fashion magazines?” she says at one point, when asked what inspires her style.) “You know, [college] is easier for my sister and that’s great, you know? I’m happy that I kind of realized that, okay, I just need to take care of myself right now,” she says. “I need to be able to go to yoga and work out and just read scripts and go on auditions, because that’s what makes me happy. You know? Like, papers don’t really make me happy.”

[hilaryduffwardrobe]

WHERE: Walks With Joel

WHEN: January 17, 2006

UGG Classic Tall Boots in Chestnut - Sold Out

[moviehealthcommunity]

Grandma’s Boy (2006)

This is a Movie Health Community evaluation. It is intended to inform people of potential health hazards in movies and does not reflect the quality of the film itself. The information presented here has not been reviewed by any medical professionals.

Grandma’s Boy has a few brief shots of video game screens with very mild strobing.

All of the camera work in this film is either stationary or very smooth.

Flashing Lights: 2/10. Motion Sickness: 0/10.

TRIGGER WARNING: There is some cultural caricaturing.

NOTE: Our evaluation of No Hard Feelings is now available on our Patreon page at Patreon.com/MovieHealth, and will be available on this page on Tuesday, June 27.

Image ID: A promotional poster for Grandma’s Boy

[digitalfountains]

Rosanne by Viviane Sassen

- i-D Magazine, December 2006/January 2007

[essektheylyss]

getting bullied in the Badge Quest game for knowing the exact month High School Musical came out offhand