After Sydney heard her mother's voice, she froze as she didn't know what to do say. It would be a stupid question to ask if she is okay. As clearly, she isn't.

She never hung up so fast in her life. She didn't know what to say and or do. She felt like a deer in the headlights. She felt weak.

She can't do anything about it, but she wishes that her mother's execution date will come quickly. So, she can watch her mother die in front of her. She without thinking that her mother is out to get her.

Last that Sydney knew that her mother was still going through the trial of her crimes, as there is a lengthy list. Then again, she doesn't watch the news and or pays attention. In her defense, the news is boring, which it is if they keep talking about whatever every day.

There isn't a stupid question in the world, but for Sydney, there are a lot of stupid questions. So, even though she had tears welling up in her eyes, Derek knew not to ask those questions that Syd considers stupid. He knew that mentally that she was having a breakdown in her head and the second that he leaves, that's when she will cry.

He turned his head to where Spencer was sitting, as always, he was reading a book. "Kid." Derek calls, which got Spencer's attention as he put his book down and went where Derek and Sydney were.

When he looked at his daughter, he knew that something was wrong as she was having tears on her cheeks and her lip was quivering. He grabbed her hand, which slowly stopped her lip quivering. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

Spencer looked up at Derek, with slightly furrowed brows. "Her mom called her saying that she can't wait to see her." Derek tells the father of Sydney. This made Spencer confused mainly because her mother never had her phone number. He made sure to never let Catherine never had her phone number.

"How does Catherine have Syd's number? She only has mine." Spencer says, which only made Derek shrug his shoulders. Spencer was quiet for a couple of moments as he was thinking about a previous conversation that he had with Syd.

It was when he was in the hospital a while back as he ended up getting injured on the case. "A while ago, Syd said that her mother called her. I was in the hospital, and I got shot by the Unsub." Spencer says as Sydney was looking out the window of the jet. She let a tear fall down her cheek as Derek turned to look at the girl and saw the tear.

"Syd, can you look at me." Derek says, as he has his hands on the table with an empathic look on his face, already knowing what is going on in her head right now. She is scared, confused, and wants to run away from her problems, but she can't. That and also because they are on a jet.

After Syd, he didn't look at him as he could read her, just not nearly as good as her father can. He reached for her other hand, and she flinched and moved her hand underneath the table where he couldn't grab it.

"Please." He says to her as her glossy teary eyes locked with his eyes. "I know you are scared and confused, but trust me, it's going to be okay. She can't get to you. If she even remotely tries, she has to get through me and your dad. I will be damned if she lays a hand on you." He says to her as he sees that she opened her mouth, but no words come out.

He gave her one last look before he got up. Just as he was out of Syd's eyesight, he heard her voice. She looked at him as her dad gave her hand a reassuring squeeze to tell her it's okay. "If she touches me, I will kill her." Sydney says as her voice is hoarse from her silently crying. Derek turns to her, not expecting her to say anything, when he heard her say that he had a small smile before walking towards her.

"I know you will." He says as he gave her a lasting look before he turned around and walked towards the others.

When the team got back to Quantico. Sydney was attached to her dad, not letting him out of her sight. She is lost in her thoughts, as he is holding her hand.

A person came out of the elevator as it wasn't any of the workers at the BAU. Spencer stopped in his tracks at seeing the mystery person. It definitely wasn't Catherine, as she isn't a male.

Sydney tried walking but couldn't get anywhere as her dad stopped walking. She turned to him, wondering why he stopped walking. She saw that he was looking at someone, and she followed his gaze to where her father was. She furrowed her brows for a moment as she didn't recognize the person.

"Hi, Sydney." The person says as Sydney continued looking at the person. It took her a couple of moments to realize who it was. When she realized that it was Owen, her eyes widened a little.

"Owen?" Sydney asked, as the male looked at her with a small smile on his face. Sydney let go of her dad's hand and walked towards the male.

The last time that they saw each other was when Sydney was on the roof of the building as Diane Turner was trying to get Sydney to jump from the roof to supposedly commit suicide.

(In Zugzwang, when Maeve got captured by her stalker. It's also the chapter where Maeve survived from being killed and also when I swapped Maeve for Sydney. Which will be important later on, in the book).

When Sydney got close enough to Owen, the two hugged each other, finally coming in physical contact with each other. Owen is the person that Sydney had been messaging since her and Owen had slowly become friends. She was shocked at seeing Owen at the bureau, as he never mentioned anything about coming to the bureau, at least the last time that Sydney had messaged him.

Spencer watched the two hugging each other, hugging each other. Then again, he never met the guy as Sydney had kept Owen a secret, obviously until now because they were hugging each other.

Owen looked up and saw Spencer looking at him, along with Sydney. He pulled from the hug and locked eyes with the father of Sydney. Owen walked from Sydney as the girl turned around as Owen had walked towards her father.

"I am Owen, I am friends with Sydney." Owen says with a small smile as Sydney walks towards the two.

"Word of advice, Dad is weird and doesn't like people shaking his hand. He has a germ thing." Sydney says as Owen retracted his hand after Sydney said that.

"We um, met when she got captured by Diane Turner. The man posing as my father was Logan Bentley." Owen says as the name sounded familiar to Reid as he nodded his head.

"Yeah, I know who he is." Reid says to the boy. Owen gave the genius a small smile.

Sydney stood there watching as she was trying to read her father's face, but outside of the small smile, he returned to the Lewis boy. There was nothing that she could get. She has a small smile as so far, so good, this is going well. That's a good thing.

She knows that when they get home that Spencer would ask her about Owen as this is the first time that the Lewis boy and Spencer are meeting each other. She expects that to happen. Owen turns to Sydney with a small smile as he grabs his bag and dug in his bag, and he pulls out something. He showed Sydney the rolled paper.

It was his high school diploma.

Sydney has a small smile on her face at seeing the diploma. She stared at it before looking at Owen with a small smile. "I'm so happy for you." She hands him his diploma back as she gives him a small hug, which he returned.

"Who do we have here?" Was a voice that made Sydney jump and immediately let go of Owen. She turned and saw that it was Derek followed by Penelope, who was next to him.

"Uh, this is Owen Lewis. He is a friend and only a friend." She says as she points her finger at Derek, who holds his hands up in slight defense.

"Hi, I am Penelope Garcia, and this is Derek Morgan." Penelope greets Owen with a bright smile on her face at the boy.

Owen nods his head at Penelope. "Yeah, I kinda figured as Syd talks about him all the time. He's her best friend." Owen says, which made Sydney have a slight blush on her cheeks at what he said. He isn't wrong as Derek is, Sydney's best friend and partner in crime.

"Aw, Sydster talks about me. That's cute." Derek says as the teenage girl groans at what he said. She put her fingers on the bridge of her nose as she muttered words in Spanish under her breath.

"Will you please stop. He's right there." Sydney whispers to Derek as he didn't waste any time shaking his head with a goofy smile on his face, which made Sydney roll her eyes.

"Nope, it's my job as your best friend to embarrass you."

"That's my dad's job, not yours." Sydney says with a glare in Derek's direction as he continues having his goofy smile on his face.

To say that Sydney didn't expect her dad to say something was an understatement. "Glad Sydney found someone to appreciate her quirks. Trust me, there are plenty." Sydney turned her head to her father with a blank look as the genius didn't bother to hide his smile.

"Yeah, I'm leaving. Bye." Sydney says to her as she walks away, as she didn't get too far because her dad has the car keys.

"It was nice meeting you, all." Owen says as Penelope brightly smiles at the boy. After that Owen smiled a little and then went after Sydney. Once he had spotted the girl the two smiled at each other. "They seem nice."

"Yeah, wait until they start bugging you, then come and talk to me." Sydney joked which made Owen laugh a little.

"Your Dad seems cool." Owen says as Sydney shrugged her shoulders at what he said.

"Yeah, until he starts talking about Star Trek." Sydney says to Owen.

"What if I like Star Trek?" Owen asks her with a smile on his face, which makes Sydney look down for a moment before looking up at him.

"I thought you said you didn't?" Sydney says as she couldn't help but laugh a little, as little did, she nor Owen know is that her dad, Derek and Penelope are watching her.

"When was she this happy? Like genuinely happy?" Penelope says as our is bittersweet for Spencer, because as this is the Sydney that he loves so much. This is also the Sydney that she'd most likely be if Cat Adams wasn't her mother.

Spencer didn't even glance at Penelope when she had asked that question. He was too busy watching his daughter. "Not for a long time." Spencer says to Garcia.

"Just don't go profiling the kid either." Derek says with a smirk on his face, knowing that Spencer was eventually going to be doing that to the poor kid. Just probably sooner versus later. Depends on which one comes first.

───※ ·❆· ※───

The father and daughter were walking out of the BAU, as no surprise Sydney has her earbuds in. Her phone vibrated as she looked at it. It was Annie. She picked up her phone faster than she had before. "Annie? You okay, I've been trying to call you."

What Sydney wouldn't expect is her mother on the other line. The blood in Sydney's face went cold when she heard her mother. "Hey, baby."

Sydney had to stop herself from scowling, at her mother. She breathed through her nose to try to keep herself calm as she could. Mostly keep calm so that her dad doesn't get suspicious. "What's up? What do you want?"

"I've missed you baby. I wanna see you." Sydney heard her mother say as she rolled her eyes. She moved her phone away from her ear momentarily so that she can add Derek into the phone call. "I wanna hug you baby."

"Yeah, I miss you too. Where are you?" Sydney asked her mother as she is trying not to sound suspicious as her dad thinks that she is taking to Annie, but in reality, it is her mother.

"At your friend's house, and make sure your daddy doesn't come in. I wanna see you baby." Sydney sighed at what age heard her mother say.

"Okay, yeah I'll be there in a bit." Sydney says to her mother before she hung up her phone and put it back into her back pocket. She took out her earbuds, as that's when her dad looked at her.

"You okay, baby?" Hs asked her as she nodded her head. He didn't know what was being heard.

"Yeah, can we stop by Annie's?" She asked as he nodded his head.

"Yeah." He says as he drove in that direction. Sydney used that time to text Derek.

sydster: mom has annie.

der-bear: yeah, i know syd. i'm on my way. i called swat also.

sydster: okay, thanks.

der-bear: we will get her back, syd. i can tell you're scared and worried, but everything will be okay. promise.

sydster: how'd you know i was gonna say, i was scared?

der-bear: i have known you long enough syd. i told swat to park out of your mom's eyes. so that she can't see where they are.

sydster: thanks. at first i thought it was annie, because we haven't talked in a while. but when i heard mom on the other line, that is when i added you in the call.

der-bear: you did a good job at doing that.

sydster: yeah, i know.

der-bear: i mean it, kiddo. i'm proud of you.

sydster: see you soon.

der-bear: see you.

After her little conversation with Derek, Spencer glanced at his daughter and saw that her jaw clenched. He knew that something had happened when she was on the phone with Annie. He also knew how it wasn't Annie on the phone with Sydney. "That wasn't Annie. wasn't it?"

Sydney turned her head at her dad as she was lost in her thoughts of what could possibly happen when they get to Annie's place. She shook her head at what he said. "It was mom." As soon as those three words left Sydney's mouth that was when something switched in Spencer. That was when Spencer picked up the speed of the car. "She -- she has Annie. She -- she told me to go in. Only me. I texted Derek and he and SWAT are either on their way or already there."

"How does Derek know?" Spencer asked Sydney as she turned her head to her dad with a look. "Of course."

"I added him in the call without Mom knowing." Sydney says to her dad who had a small smile on his face.

"Look at that, my baby is smart."

"Fine, no cuddles for you tonight."

"Hey! Hey, no need to get feisty."

"I'm your child, so it comes with being the daughter of a genius."

Then that's when Sydney's phone rang which made the joking banter between the father and daughter. There was thick tension as the phone rang, but before it hung up, Sydney accepted the call. She put the phone to her ear, as she let out a shaky breath. She knew it was her mother on the other end of the phone, as the caller ID said 'UNKNOWN'.

"I want you alone. No weapons, no father, no one."

That was when she heard a gunshot, and she felt her blood ran cold.

The phone went dead.

───※ ·❆· ※───

hannah speaks!

see you in the next chapter!

<3