" Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act, falls the shadow. "

— T.S. Elliot

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20.1 ; SEX, BIRTH, DEATH.

     CAROLINE MOVED THROUGH THE throng of the Metro crowd like a pinball, bumping and bouncing against the bodies of tightly packer communters. She kept her coffee tucked in to her chest, her grip firm against the paper cup. All it took was one wrong move and the fresh coffee she had waited ten minutes for would be all over her clothes.

     Only a few feet in front of her, she watched as Spencer easily navigated his way through the crowd. Unlike her, he didn't have to stand on his tip-toes to see over people's heads. She mentally cursed all six feet and one inch of Dr. Reid as she bumped into another commuter, causing her to stagger to the side.

     Most of the time, she doesn't mind being five foot four. She never had to duck her head when walking through a doorway and she always had enough leg room in the back of a car. However, on the metro, being below eye-level meant getting trampled.

     Spencer must have felt the tug on his coat as she stumbled (she had grabbed a fistful of the fabric before entering the station, unless she wanted to get tossed around like a human-sized basketball) because he paused to glance back at her. A small, amused smirk was on his face.

      "Spence, wipe that smile off your face," she said as she looped her arm through his, securing herself to him. "We can't all be over six feet tall."

     The young doctor said nothing as he carefully manuvered her in front of him, her back pressed against his chest. He kept a firm hand on her shoulder as he guided her forward. There was no more bumping of the shoulders or collisons into strangers. People only brushed by now, narrowly avoiding them.

     "Stupid tall people," Caroline grumbled into the lid of her coffee cup. She felt Spencer's chest vibrate from his laugh.

     Now that she wasn't slowing them down, Spencer was able to squeeze them into one of the stopped cars. The train car was packed with the morning commuters, but they were able to snag two seats beside each other in the back. They had just gotten settled into their seats when the train started to move again.

     Spencer tucked his brown leather messanger bag into his lap as he took a sip of his coffee, his eyes absentmindedly drifted over the over passengers. Caroline simply rested her back against the hard plastic of her chair as she nursed her own coffee.

     They had made this trip together so many times, there was no need to fill it with empty chatter. It was one of the things she loved about being around Spencer: she was always comfortable with the silence. It was something both of them had gotten used to about the other—the way they both retreated inside themselves as they thought.

     For a moment, Caroline listened to the click-clacking of metal on tracks before she dug out her phone from her bag. Pressing her coffee in between her legs, she held the small device in her hand, staring at it, but not daring to open it.

     She wondered if the longer she stared, the more likely she would be to actually dial the number—or, rather, numbers—she programmed into her phone a week ago. She doubted it, but it didn't stop her from doing it.

     She felt Spencer's knee bump against hers and she looked over at him automatically. His eyes were contemplative and patient as he nodded towards her cell.

     "Are you going to do it?"

     She bit the inside of her cheek as the grip on the device tightened imperceptively. She didn't even know why she had gotten it out, why she was still even thinking about it. The answer should be easy for her.

     She shouldn't be so scared of a simple phone call.

     And yet, she slipped her phone back into the pocket of her coat as she answered, "I don't know."

     Spencer nodded, accepting the same response she had given him for the past few days. There was no judgement in his eyes when he said, "It's your decision."

     They had been having varying degrees of this conversation for the past week ever since she had told him about what she had learned in Hotch's office. Should she or shouldn't she call? And if she were to call, what would she even say?

     It wasn't like she could say, "Hi, my name's Caroline Lucas and my mom was a CIA spy," without it raising some major red flags. As far as she understood, she wasn't even supposed to know about the double-life her mother had lived.

     But that was before she realized that there was a chance her mom knew her killer—that her killer knew her.

     Suddenly, the phone in her pocket felt a little bit heavier. She had the numbers of the two people in the world who could have the answers she needed, and she was just sitting on them. She wished Hotch had never gave them to her.

     "God, why does this have to be so hard?" Caroline asked, shaking her head. "I should be able to make a stupid phone call."

     He reached over and rested his hand on her knee, giving it a gentle squeeze. "Everything you know about your mother—your life—has been dramatically altered. It's perfectly normal to be scared of what you might learn."

     "Maybe."

     "What do you mean by 'maybe'?"

     Her fingers absentmindedly picked at the frayed end of her scarf as she said, "Finding out my mom worked for the CIA was unexpected, but...I wasn't surprised."

     And she truly hadn't been surprised. The news had shakened her, of course. Looking through that confidential file had felt like dunking her entire body in ice-cold water, shocking her and numbing her at the same time. After the shock wore off, she felt so many emotions—fear, anger, doubt. But never surprise.

     Perhaps it was because of all the little things over her childhood that didn't make sense before suddenly did. All the "business trips" her mother took where she'd be gone for days at a time. Certain mannerisms she had—never yelled or raised her voice. She could just give Caroline one of those cold, steely stares she rarely used and the thrill of fear that ran down her spine would stop her in her tracks.

     As a child, these things meant nothing. But as an adult? Caroline should've realized a long time ago. She blamed her ignorance on the memories that she clung to so desperately— the good ones like the way her mother smiled or how her voice sounded. The other stuff—the daunting, difficult stuff—had been packed away in the far reaches of her memory.

     Spencer seemed to realize where her mind was drifting off to because he squeezed her knee again, only this time a little bit harder. She blinked a couple of times, shaking herself out of it, as she glanced over at him.

     "I just—" She let out a shaky breath. "I never really understood why she shot herself. She hadn't been harmed for two weeks and the first thing she did when I finally got to see her was—"

     "Do not do that to yourself. What happened was not your fault," he told her, his voice low and soothing near her ear. "Regardless of where your mom worked or what she did for a living, she was still your mother. She loved you and your siblings and your dad. In the end, I think she did what she did to protect all of you."

     "Protect us from what?" Her voice cracked a little. "Her job? JTTF-17? Or was it some other secret task force that I don't know about that put her in the path of a monster?"

     Because that had been the uninamious conclusion that she had come to that night a week ago; there was something in her mother's past with JTTF-17 that connected her with the man who murdered her parents and brother. It was why Hotch—while being as patient as he could be, given the circumstances—still asked her every day if she had made the calls yet. She was surprised he was giving her the time and space to work this out, to let it be her decision.

     For a moment, he was quiet, his thumb rubbing small circles on the inside of her knee. When he finally did decide to speak, it was in a hushed, soft voice.

     "Unfortunately, I think those are questions you're going to have to ask someone else. As much as I wish I did, I don't know the answers to them."

     Automatically, she chuckled under her breath, the sound breaking the somber mood hanging over them. "The great Doctor Spencer Reid doesn't know something? Quick, alert the media."

     He rolled his eyes. "You're very funny. Ha-ha."

     The loud electronic tolling inside the train alerted them to their station, the car rolling to a stop. The two rose from their seats without a word and filed out of the subway train with the small crowd that disembarked with them.

     Caroline had made it to the grimy stone stairs before she felt Spencer's hand latch onto her elbow, her foot resting on the first step. She glanced back at his earnest face and sincere brown eyes and melted a little.

     "I know this past week has been hard for you," he said, ingoring the annoyed glares shot their way for standing in the middle of a busy metro station. "I just want you to know that whatever you decide to do...I'm here. For all of it."

     A small ghost of smile appeared on her lips. "I know, Spence. Thank you."

     He returned her weak smile with one of his own—one so geniunely sweet with that slight brush of shyness that Spencer always exuded—and an unexpected warmth blossomed in the pit of her stomach. She wrapped her hand around his forearm, the muscles surprisingly stong under his coat, and she tugged him forward.

     "Come on," she said as he started to pull him up the stairs. "We're going to be late. If we don't get there before the morning meeting, Morgan's gonna have a field day."

     Spencer's answering laugh was light, but there was a slight tinge of awkwardness there. Caroline pressed her lips together in order to hide her smile. Morgan was always quick to make a sexual joke at the young doctor's expense, probably just to see him blush. Which he did—profusely.

     She could almost hear her co-workers voice now, asking them where they had been for the past hour and if they had enjoyed themselves.

     She had just started contemplating a retort for Morgan's impending joke in her head when she heard a small, timid voice say, "You're Doctor Reid."

     Both Caroline and Spencer stopped dead half-way up the stairs, the sun just starting to spill onto the steps. What little filtered through warmed her face. She glanced over to a young boy standing on the other side of the hand-rail, his thin fingers cluching the strap of his messenger bag.

     "I'm sorry," Spencer said with a small frown. "Do I know you?"

     The boy shook his head, his eyes as wide, like a deer caught in headlights. "I just know what you do—what both of you do," he corrected immediately before turning to Caroline. "You're Agent Lucas, right?"

     Now, it was her turn to frown. The boy standing in front of her had to be no older than sixteen. He had a mop of curly brown hair and big, doelike eyes. He was skinny and pale, almost sickly looking. It made her nervous the way his gaze kept darting around the metro, like he was preparing to make a break for it.

     "The one and only," she answered smoothly as she gave the boy a once over. "How do you know us again?"

     "I—I saw you two in Georgetown a few weeks ago," he explained quickly. "You gave a lecture of sexual sadism and how you helped catch the Mill Creek Killer in St. Louis."

     She remembered that lecture. It wasn't often that she got to give them, that had always been Spencer's expertise. But the young doctor had asked for her help and Hotch had given her the day off so she could go. They both had spent the day talking about sexual stressors and anger excitation, but it had been a nice change of pace from seeing mutilated corpses.

     "I—I'm not much of a, uh—public speaker," Spencer admitted, his frown morphing into a look of embarrassment.

     "I don't know," the boy said with a slight shrug of his shoulders. "I thought you seemed cool."

     At that, Spencer smiled a little. It wasn't every day that the word "cool" was used to describe the young doctor.

     "Careful. Anymore praise and it'll go straight to his big brain," Caroline said as she playfully nudged him in the rib. He  made a face at her as she turned her attention back to the boy, attempting polite conversation. "You look a little young to go to Georgetown."

     The boy's eyes shifted nervously to his left before returning her gaze. He seemed to have a hard time making eye-contact with her. "Um, I'm a junior at Northwest High School."

     "And you just go to lectures on anger excitation for fun?"

     "I don't have a lot of friends."

      Spencer nodded a little in sympathy. After all, he had grown up as a certifiable genuis in a public high school, which didn't make him many friends. "So you're interested in profiling?" he asked, his tone friendly.

     The boy nodded. "Yeah. I mean, I read a lot, you know, true crime, like graphic novels, mostly. They're all about whether there's really such a thing as evil, like nature verus nurture, all that. So I figured it'd be smart to hear it from the experts, you know?" He paused, his gaze focusing on the silver hand-rail sperating them. "So you said a lot of 'em kill prostitutes?"

     "It's the number one serial killer target, actually," Spencer said in his usual matter-of-fact tone.

     "Well, is that for sex or because they think they're dirty and they need to be punished?"

      Caroline immediately felt the instinctual thrill of fear spike in her spine. She saw something flash in the boy's eyes as he spoke. It had been quick, but it was there. Excitement.

     "Were you waiting here for us?" She asked, her voice deadly calm.

     However, the young boy ignored her, his gaze solely on Spencer, as he asked, "What would it mean if somebody were stabbing them and cutting off their hair?"

     Spencer shook his head slowly, the movement causing a stand of hair to fall over his right eye. "I've never, uh—I've never heard of a case like that."

      The boy said nothing. He started teetering side-to-side, a kind of swaying motion like he was trying to soothe himself. Caroline watched with narrowed eyes as Spencer continued, "Do you wanna go to the BAU with us, maybe talk to some of my other tema members?"

      Wide-eyed fear flashed across his face as he jerked a nervous thumb towards the metro entrance. "I actually have to go to school."

     Then, as quickly as the boy appeared, he disappeared into the crowd desending into the station. Caroline spotted a mop of curly hair bobbing in between the crowd as she pushed her way through the commuters coming up the stairs. She could feel Spencer behind her, following her as he muttered quick apologies as they knocked people out of the way.

     But their efforts were of no use. She could no longer spot the boy. He had most likely hopped on the train that had already pulled out of the station. He was gone.

     Once the realization that she had lost the boy, Caroline turned on her heels as she grabbed Spencer's hand, tugging him up the stairwell. Her feet slammed hard onto the stone steps ass she ran up them, her hand still tightly gripping Spencer's.

Once they reached the top of the stairs and got onto the street, they both took off in a dead-sprint.

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     "We found her four days ago in an alley off K Street. Still no ID."

     Caroline said nothing as Detective Barnes, a graying man in his mid-fifties, pulled back the white sheet. The entire left side of her face was covered in deep purple and black bruises. Her dark blonde hair reached just past the bottom of her ears, the ends of the hair jagged and uneven. Whoever had cut her hair must have done it with the same knife he had stabbed her with—she could see specks of blood in her hair.

     Not whoever, she had to remind herself as she stared down at the victim. The boy, the one in the subway. He had known about this.

     Once Caroline and Spencer had made it to Quantico, she automatically requested JJ call her contact at the DC police to check for any murdered prostitues with their hair chopped off. Within minutes, the BAU had two cases in hand, both prostitues and both stabbed with hair missing.

     She had been face-to-face with a potiential serial killer and she let him get away. She couldn't help but wonder how many other women were going to end up like the one laying in front of her because of it.

     She didn't look up from the woman's bruised and beaten face when she heard Hotch's voice float into the morgue, "Hey. Just got your message."

     Standing at the feet of the victim, Gideon gestured to the unit chief. "Aaron Hotchner," he said as he turned to the DC detective. "Vic Barnes."

     He gave the detective a curt, polite nod before focusing on the body in front of him. "What do we got?"

     "This is the second victim," Caroline said softly, her voice echoing a little off the cool metal walls. "The first one was killed three months ago, both in the early morning."

     Hotch frowned. "Both had their hair chopped?"

     "Uniform didn't make the connection," Detective Barnes explained as he pulled the sheet down at her waist, "because he was fixated on this."

     Carved into her stomach with deep, long cuts was the word HELP. Memories—memories that caused a chill to go through her—flashed in her mind of another word carved into bodies. One word that encased her own personal nightmare, a word she had never understood until now.

     Caroline shuddered as her hand ghosted across her midsection. She could almost feel the phantom pains of the long slashes on her own stomach, feel the sharp pressure of the knife pressing onto her skin. She swallowed back the bile rising in her throat.

     "The first victim didn't have anything carved on her?" Gideon asked the detective as he glanced away from the body. Spencer stood beside him, his face as pale as a sheet as he looked down at the body.

     "Just a routine Jane Doe," Detective Barnes replied with a single disappointed shake of his head.

"Take a look. A lot are shallow." Gideon gestured over the blue, exposed skin. "They're hesitation marks. He's not certain he wants to be killing."

"Makes you think the message he carved is sincere," Spencer murmured, his face still pale as a sheet from the shock of seeing the body. "He's asking the police to help him stop."

     The sound of his voice caused her to glanced over at him. He hadn't spoken more than three words since they stepped foot in the morgue, so hearing him speak had sent a shock throughout her body.

     For a brief moment, their eyes met before SPencer quickly glanced away, busying himself with examining the body he most likely had already committed to memory. However, she didn't need to look at him long to see the guilt in his eyes. Even when he wasn't looking at her, she would still recognize it because she knew exactly how he felt. The same guilt weighed in her stomach like a stone thrown in a lake, sinking further and further the longer she thought about it.

     But beyond the guilt in his eyes, she saw the shame there and wished she hadn't. Maybe it was because she knew him so well that she was able to see what the others couldn't, but it was there. It was there because she knew that Spencer blamed himself for a lot of things—even the things that were far beyond his realm of control.

     She desperately wished she could convince him that he had done nothing wrong, that what happened wasn't his fault—their fault, because after all, he hadn't been the only one in that metro station. But she knew he'd never listen.

     It doesn't mean she'd ever stop trying to convince him, though.

     "If both murders took place in the morning," Hotch said as he faced the DC detective, "how come there were no witnesses?"

     "The motels and alleys around the capital are notorious for prostitution. People go out of their way not to look."

     Caroline's eyes drifted back to the second victim on the table, careful to look over the angry, red word carved into the grey-tinged skin of her stomach. If it weren't for the bruises on her face and the smell of formaldehyde, she would almost think the woman was sleeping and not dead in a morgue.

     She was killed four days ago. With two victims under the killers belt, the unsub's confidence in the kill would be growing, even if he did want to stop. For him, killing is a compulsion, an addiction. And like an addict, he would need a fix soon.

     Which meant that if they didn't find him soon, it wouldn't be long before another woman would end up dead.

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   Caroline leaned her hip against the hard wood of the desk, careful not to disturb any of the colorful bobbles on Garcia's consol. Once they had returned from the M.E.'s office, she had made a bee-line to Garcia's office in hopes to help her narrow her search for the boy from the subway station. Unfortuanately, she hadn't found anything so far.

     "This is impossible!" Spencer declared as he glanced at the information displayed on the brightly-lit screens in front of him. 

     "Says you," Garcia quipped from her chair. Her fingers were still resting on her multi-colored keyboard, waiting for more information to plug into her program.

     "There's nothing in the juvenile offender records."

     "So then think like a high school kid."

     Spencer paused at her words, a small frown tugging at the corner of his lips. "I was twelve, and I hadn't been through puberty when I was in high school."

     Caroline smiled, amused, as she watched Garcia's face fall. The technical analyst shook her head as she said, "Okay, reset. I'll think like a high school kid." She gestured to Caroline and Spencer with a wave of her hand. "You lovebirds think like profilers."

     Spencer nodded, clearly more comfortable now that he had a role he could understand. Sometimes, she wondered if the young doctor had ever really been a child or if having an IQ of 187 caused him to automatically skip over the immature phase of his life.

     "He said he was a junior, right?" Garcia asked them. They both nodded in response. "The first rule of the teen years, when talking to an authority figure always lie and say you're older. He's probably a sophomore.

     Caroline frowned a little at that. She understood the line of reasoning—she did have a teenage sister, after all—but the age struck a chord in her. A sophomore. That would make him sixteen, at best. He was around Caitlin's age—he should be hanging out with friends and studying for his ACTs or SATs, not out murdering human beings. 

     "His coat was lamb's wool," Spencer recalled, rubbing the underside of his chin as he thought, "but it didn't look vintage. It fit like it had been tailored for him."

     "That means he has money," Caroline stated. "In D.C., money would mean private school."

     Garcia let out a low whistle. "Look at you two go."

     Spencer ignored her comment as he continued his train of thought, talking faster from excitement. "Even a lie has to be within the depth of your own experience, right?"

     Caroline nodded when he looked over at her. He paused for a moment, lost in thought, before he told Garcia, "Pull up the district that serves Northwest High and see how many private schools are within those boundries."

     She nodded eagerly as her fingers darted across the keyboard. "There's three."

     Caroline leaned over Garcia's shoulder. "Do any of them offer elective courses at Georgetown?" 

     The kid had to have some way of getting onto Georgetown's campus. He couldn't just waltz in and sit in on any class he wanted. He had actively searched them out. He had to be apart of the student body in some fashion to know what lestures were being offered.

     Another stroke across her keyboard before Garcia answered, "Yeah, one. The Morton School."

     "Pull up the junior class," Spencer said. Garcia let out a soft grunt. "Sorry. Uh, the sophomore class."

     Garcia grinned as her fingers flew acrosss the keyboard. Her voice grew thick and honeyed as she faked a Southern accent. "Well, if I do say so myself."

     She had barely made it half-way through the page before Caroline put a hand on her shoulder. The technical analyst automatically stopped scrolling through the page. Near the bottom of the screen, she recognized the curly brown hair and big, brown eyes. The boy was smiling, which made him look even younger.

     "Nathan Harris," she read aloud. Finally, a name to put with a face.

     Spencer hummed with a little satisfaction. "We got him."

     Caroline nodded a little. She wanted to feel good about finding their suspect, but she couldn't. Instead, she only felt a little sick. He was only fifteen-years-old. When she was fifteen, she dreamed of going to an Ivy League school. Nathan Harris dreamed of killing—maybe had already done it. 

     "Great job, guys," she said, trying to force some enthusiasm in her voice. She must have sounded too enthusiastic because Spencer gave her a worried look. "I'm going to let Hotch know what we found."

     Before either one of them could say anything, she ducked out of Garcia's office. She automatically felt  the sharp pang of guilt for rushing out of there so quickly, but she saw the way Spencer had looked at her. He had seen right through her, just as he always has and most likely always will. Any other day, she wouldn't have minded it, but today just wasn't a day she wanted to talk about her feelings.

     She didn't want to talk about the heavy sadness she felt when she looked at Nathan Harris' photo on the computer screen. She just wanted to do something about it.

     Caroline had just pushed through the glass doors of the bullpen when she saw a woman exiting Hotch's office. She recognized her almost immediately as Congresswoman Steyer from the recent news broadcasts. The local news was buzzing from her latest crime epidemic bill. She was supposed to give an update on the decrease in crime on Capital Hill four days from now. Why was she here and why had she been in Hotch's office?

     Behind the Congresswoman, she spotted Hotch in the doorway. It all clicked together once she saw the hard, frustrated look on his face—the look he had when politics got involved. It didn't take a genius to realize that she was here bout the murders.

     It wouldn't look too good for her new bill if there were reports of a serial killer on the streets of D.C.

     Caroline watched as Congresswoman Steyer walked down the stairs into the bullpen and, instead of heading to the door, she went straight to Prentiss, who had been sitting at her desk. The two women embraced. A hard lump formed in her throat.

     She should have known that Emily Prentiss was too good to be true.

     She glanced one more time towards Emily's desk, her shoulders feeling heavier than they had moments ago, before she turned and walked out the door.

 ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

     "Nathan, if you didn't do it, how'd you know the details of the murder?"

     Caroline watched with careful eyes as the fifteen-year-old boy squirmed at Morgan's question across the table. "'Cause I saw the body," he replied, his voice breathy and weak from the adrenaline of being in an interrogation room. "It was early—before school. She—she was dressed in red. She's been stabbed a lot, and her hair was all chopped off."

     "And where was that?" Even to her, Morgan's voice sounded hard, unforgiving. In a lot of ways, she admired her co-workers simplistic view of their job; to him, an unsub was just an unsub. He didn't care that Nathan was a child.

     "In an alley off of K Street. They take men down there for sex. I see 'em do it all the time."

     Caroline couldn't help but frown at the boy sitting across from her. He had barely touched the bottle of water sitting in front of him. He had refused the presense of a lawyer despite his mother's insistence when they picked him up at his apartment. She hadn't went to get him, but Morgan had told her that he had read some of the writing on his computer. All of it was graphic, detailed stories about killing prostitues.

     Nathan claimed it was text for a graphic novel based off Jack the Ripper, but the fact the writing existed at all painted a clear picture of his fantasy. It also didn't help that the longer he talked to them, the more and more he began to fit their profile. 

     "What were you doing down there?" Spencer asked Nathan, his brows drawn together  in confusion like he couldn't process what he was hearing. Deep down, she was relieved that she wasn't the only one who found their current situation a little hard to swallow.

     He shrugged, a slight movement of his shoulders causing a lock of brown hair to fall over his face. "I don't know. I just sort of...end up there sometime, you know? I—I stay out all night, and I just come back in the morning, and if my mom's at work, I don't even bother coming home."

     "Why didn't you call the police?" Caroline asked as she leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest.

     "I don't know."

     Morgan's hands gripped the end of the table as he towered over him, his mouth a hard line. "Nathan, the prostitutes I talked to say you watch them."

     "I've never touched them."

     "You fantasize about having sex with them?"

     "No, I told you, I think about killing them," Nathan said, his voice surprisingly calm despite the words coming out of his mouth. He turned to Spencer and Caroline sitting across from him. "Look, after the lecture, I saw you guys at the metro stop a few times, and I thought maybe you could help me."

     she couldn't even begin to imagine how to help someone like Nathan—her job was to catch people like him, not give psychological treatment—but it didn't stop Spencer from asking, "How?"

     Nathan just shook his head, forlorned. "I don't know. I saw that body, and I felt...excited...and that really scared me."

     "Is it possible that you actually killed those prostitutes, but you just don't want to admit it to yourself?" Morgan asked.

     "No!" Nathan exclaimed, his face paling from the accusation. 

     Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. He seemed pretty convinced, but psychopaths were the best liars in the world. They couldn't trust anything he said without some kind of proof.

     "Then why'd you run away from us?" Caroline countered.

     ""Cause...I dunno," Nathan let out a small sigh. "I—I thought you'd say I was crazy and there was no way to stop it."  

     His eyes met hers for the first time since Nathan had gotten to Quantico and she saw the genuine panic there. He was scared, not a cold-blooded serial killer.

     She glanced over at Morgan and Spencer—the former looking nowhere near convinced and the latter just staring at Nathan with sympathy. Morgan caught her gaze, then paused when he saw the look on her face. He sighed and shook his head.

     "You guys go check with Gideon and Ms. Harris." He gave a sharp nod of his head towards Nathan, watching them with frightened eyes. "I'll stay with him until the juvenile authorities pick him up."

     Spencer opened his mouth to protest, but Caroline rested a hand on his arm. He looked over at her and she shook her head in response. It was clear that they were going to get nothing out of Nathan right now. The only thing they could do at this point was inform Nathan's mom of what was happening next.

     Almost like the young doctor had read her mind, he let out a resigned sigh as he stood from his chair. Caroline followed his lead, the chair scrapping against the floor. She was right behind him when he paused in the doorway, glancing behind his shoulder to give Nathan one last look before walking out the door.

     She stayed silent as she walked beside Spencer through the hall, picking up her pace to keep up with his long legs. Most of the time, he walked a little slower or shortened his strides to match her pace, but she could tell he was too preocupied to notice how she had to fast-walk in order to not get left behind.

     She couldn't blame him for feeling a little uneasy. She wasn't thrilled about Nathan's situation either, but there wasn't much she could do. 

     Being in that interogation room and seeing how desperate and scared Nathan was made her feel so helpless. How could she say that she was good at her job if she couldn't find a way to help a frightened kid?

     Her chest tightened when she pushed open the glass doors of the bullpen and saw Gideon and Nathan's mother standing by the doorway. Nathan's mother carried herself with easy confidence (the kind obtained through years of practice), even surrounded by a roomful of agents in what most likely was one of the most terrifying moments of her life. She stood tall, her face not wavering as they approached her. 

     "Ma'am," she said in greeting, grasping her hand. The woman grabbed onto it with an iron-like grip, squeezing hard, before letting go. "We'd like to let the juvenile authorities hold him overnight so we can do a psychological evaluation."

     Nathan's mother blinked at her in disbelief. "I—I can't believe this is real."

     "Well, right now it's just an evaluation," Gideon reassured her. "I'd encourage Nathan to have a lawyer present."

     She shook her head, her shoulder-length blonde hair trembling. "I don't know what he's going through, but the Nathan I know is a sweet boy."

     Her gaze swept across the three agents. Caroline kept her calm and collected demenor as she locked eyes with her. She saw the fear there—and the worry, too. No parent wanted to hear that their child wasn't normal, wasn't going to have it easy in life.

     She debated on saying something—anything—that could put the woman's mind at ease, but she couldn't find the words. It was Spencer who spoke to her first, his voice soft and quiet.

     "I believe you."

     Her gaze lingered on the young doctor for a moment, contemplating, as Gideon asked, "Do we have your permission?"

     Nathan mother paused for a moment, breaking away her gaze from Spencer. Finally, after a long moment, she nodded.

     Spencer gave her a small, encouraging smile. "I'll show you where to sign the paperwork."

     The woman said nothing else as she followed Spencer further into the bullpen, her arms wrapped tightly around herself as if she were attempting to hold herself together. Her whole world had come crashing down around her in only a couple hours. Caroline was mildly surprised she was able to keep composed right now.

     Caroline said nothing to Gideon as she slinked over to her desk and uncerimonously plopped herself in her chair. She put her head in her hands, rubbing her temples in slow, circular motions. Desperate to focus on anything else, she turned to the stack of files about a foot tall on her desk. Most were from other cases across the country, but she just needed to do something to distract herself from the empty silence in her head.

     She had just finished reading through a case with three dead men, one missing, when Spencer returned from processing paperwork with Ms. Harris. He slumped against the side of her desk, not bothering with any kind of greeting.

     She took one look at his face and said, "Long day, huh?"

     He let out a breathless laugh. "You could say that."

     "Yeah," she sighed, closing the file in her hands. "Me too."

     "Dr. Reid?"

     Both of them glanced up and saw Nathan approaching them, shoulders meekly hunched over and his fingers tightly interlocked in front of him. A police officer stood by the door, keeping an eagle eye on the young boy.

     Caroline stood from her chair as Nathan said, "I know I, um, don't deserve any favors, but...whatever my psych eval says, you promise you'll tell me the truth?"

     His darted between the two of them, gauging their reaction. Spencer nodded, his eyes sympathetic, while all Caroline could manage was a small smile. She didn't need to see a psych eval to know that Nathan needed some serious help.

     "Um, my mom says a promise doesn't count unless you say it out loud."

     For the first time since she met him, Nathan was smiling, small and restrained, but still a smile nonetheless. He looked so much younger when he smiled, almost like a normal kid. He almost looked a little relieved, despite the fact he was being taken into police custody. 

     She felt like someone had reached into her chest and squeezed her heart, leaving her a little breathless. He really was just a scared kid, desperate to know what was happening to him.

     "We promise," Spencer vowed. 

     She glanced over at him for a brief moment, but he avoided her gaze. She wanted to be irritated that he had made the promise for her, for making her partly responsible for something she might not have any control over, but the irritation never came. 

     "Okay," Nathan murmured, his faint smile growing a little more pronounced. "Thank you."

     Once he had gotten what he came for, Nathan walked back over the officer by the door, allowing himself to be lead to the elevators. Once the boy disappeared behind the sleek, silver elevator doors, Caroline turned to Spencer. 

     "You know," she began, her voice careful, soft, "he might have killed two women. It's not our job to hold his hand through this."

     And as much as she hated to admit it, there it was. In reality, they didn't have an obligation to help Nathan, regardless of how much they may want to. There wouldn't be much they could do to help him if he was the one who killed those women.

     "It's like with my mom," he told her, his eyes trained on his feet. "I used to think that if I could just understand absolutely everything there is to know about schizophrenia, then I'd somehow be able to fix it."

     Spencer's voice trembled, fracturing from the small, vulnerable piece of himself that he just shared with her. Her heart ached when she saw the helplessness in his eyes, her arms longing to wrap themselves around him tightly and to never let go. 

     Instead, she kept her arms firm at her side as she murmured, "I don't think it works like that, Spence. I wish it did. I'm...I'm sorry."

     He didn't say anything to her. He simply nodded slowly as the words sunk into his brain, processing them. Even for a genius who could read 20,000 words per minute, understanding and processing things he didn't want to hear could be a hard pill to swallow.

     She opened her mouth to say something else. She wasn't sure what she was going to say, but she had to say something. Anything, if only to wipe away the dejected, sad expression on his face.  

     However, before she speak, Hotch saddled up beside them. Her mouth autmoatcially snapped shut when she was the determined, focused look in the unit chief's eyes.

     "I need everybody in the confrence room," Hotch instructed. "If Nathan Harris isn't our unsub, we need a working profile."

     Without any futrther explanation, their boss disappeared into the bullpen, most likely to gether the rest of the team. Caroline's eyes shifted to Spencer, and her chest tightened when his gaze stared back at her. 

     He seemed more composed now, but she could still see the sadness behind the mask he sometimes wore. The longer she looked at him, the more she could feel a kind of sadness of her own blooming in her chest, suffocating her. She wished—more than anything—that she could take away his pain, even if she had to shoulder it for him, with him. She was tempted to reach out and hold him; except this time, she wanted to hold him so tightly that it could squeeze all the sadness out of him.

     However, she knew that was not the way the world worked, no matter how desperately she wanted it to. 

     Instead, she stood on her tip-toes, balancing carefully in front of him as she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his cheek. The moment her lips touched his warm, soft skin, a shot of electricity pulsed through her, rooting her to the floor. Despite the heat flooding in the pit of her stomach, she pulled away and gave him a careful look, just to make sure what she had done was okay.

     Her lips still tingling from the sudden contact, she stared into Spencer's warm brown eyes and he stared back, wide-eyed, his face a soft shade of pink. The sadness she had seen only moments ago had vanished and been replaced by surprise—and a little bit of glee, too. He gave her her favorite lopsided smile and her heart fluttered.

     "C'mon," she said, her own cheeks warm as she playfully tugged on the sleeve of his sweater. "Hotch will start without us if we're not there."

     Spencer didn't say anything, but he still had a big smile on his face as he followed her to the confrence room. She could feel the corners of her lips twitching as she tried to repress a smile of her own.

     However, the moment she stepped into the confrence room, five pairs of eyes zeroed in on her, the smile was wiped from her face almost immediately. Thanks to Spencer, she had forgotten about Nathan and the dead prostitutes, but seeing the pictures of dead, bloody bodies on screen had the memories rushing right back to her.

     "D.C. police sent us these photos of the first victim," JJ started once both of the profilers had settled into the room. Her eyes shifted to the screen and, instead of focusing of the stab wounds, she noticed the dark locks of hair scattered around the victim's head, uncerimoniously discarded as if they were pieces of garbage. 

     "This was the unsub's first kill," Hotch declared as he nodded to the gruesome photos on screen. "He held his urges in check for three months, and when he couldn't control them anymore, he sent this"—a picture of the second victim appeared, her red dress torn at her mid-scetion to expose the word HELP carved in her stomach—"message to the cops. We know the 'help' and the hesitation marks mean he was ambivalent about the kill. What we don't know is why he chopped the hair."

     "He didn't take it with him, so probably not a trophy," Caroline observed. "Maybe it's his way of minimizing some of their power, robbing them of their femininity."

     Spencer nodded in agreement. "That fits with him killing during the early morning. It's the time when prostitutes have the least power sexually, as opposed to at night, when he might see them as being on the prowl."

     "Hey, I know we're just spitballing this here," Prentiss said as she waved the pen in her hand towards the screen, "but this profile points to Nathan Harris."

     "I don't want to talk about Nathan Harris," Hotch asserted, his voice hard and sharp, like a cobra strike. Prentiss flinched a little.

     "Hotch, she is right," Morgan confessed. "He reached out for help. This is an adolescent kid. He's probably intimidated sexually." He shook his head as he sat up in his chair. "I don't care how many times he says he didn't do it. He knew about the last victim, and he admitted to getting off on seeing her dead."

     The unit chief's reply was swift, but final. "We've got Nathan Harris. It doesn't do us any good to talk about him now. I just want to make sure that if it's not him, we stay on top of things before it takes on a life of its own."

     "All right, all right," Gideon said from the back of the room, stepping into the conversation with one hand raised in a placating gesture. "We know our unsub is a sexual sadist."

     "The symbolism of stabbing them probably means he's impotent," Prentiss explained.

     Caroline didn't achknowledge her, not even glancing her way, as she added, "The only way he can get off is by killing."

     "Considering that cutting their hair and killing during the early morning both stem from feeling powerless," Spencer said quickly, his hand rubbing the bottom of his jaw, "there's a chance his pathology's more than sexual."

     JJ glanced up at him from her chair, frowning. "What do you mean?"

     "This is D.C. Power's the most important commodity. Maybe this guy feels impotent in his professional life as well."

     "But why these particular women?" Morgan asked as he nodded his head towards the dead bodies on screen.

    "The simplest answer is that he had access," the young doctor answered. She could tell he wasn't confident in his answer by the sudden high pitch of his voice, like he was asking a question.

     "Well, northwest D.C. has three major hubs of prostitution—" JJ said as she clicked a button on the remote in her hand. A blown up map of D.C. appeared on screen with three red blinking dots. "Near Florida Avenue; off Logan Circle; and McPherson Square, where the victims were found."

     "Probably works in or around Capitol Hill," Gideon surmised.

     "Well, I'll go back out on the street in the morning and see if any of these women know someone who fits the description," Prentiss said as she finished scribbling down her notes.

     Hotch didn't look at her as he said, "Good." He paused and looked at his watch. "It's late. Let's go home."

     Automatically, everyone except Caroline and JJ began packing up their things. Usually, she would be right behind Morgan, who was always the first to leave, but the idea of sleeping while a potiental killer was out stalking women felt so wrong.

     "Um, sir." JJ stood from her chair as she looked over at Hotch, who was half-way out the door. "Shouldn't we get word out to the papers?"

     "Not yet."

     "Well, it's not too late to make the morning edition."

     "I said no."

     JJ blinked at the unit chief, shock plastered over her face. Caroline watched as he left the room and headed straight to his office, slamming the door shut behind him. Her eyebrows scrunched together as she frowned at the spot he once stood.

     She would bet her entire salary that Hotch's sudden foul behavior had something to do with Congresswoman Steyer's visit this afternoon. Her eyes flickered to Prentiss packing her bag across the table and her jaw clenched.

     She would give anything to know what she had said to the congresswoman this afternoon. Agent Prentiss had seemed pretty cozy with her. She could have divulged details about the case or told her about Nathan. The very thought of that made her blood boil. Nathan had his own issues to deal with right now without having a political agenda against him.

     Or, even worse, she had told the congresswoman about the team—about how she was recently hired because her predecessor had shot and killed a man in cold blood. Or told her that their technical analyst had accidently hacked the CIA database. Or that Caroline had the numbers of two CIA agents, whose locations are unknown, and still hadn't used them yet. There were so many things to pick from, things she could've gleaned from their personal lives that she didn't know what was worse.

     Caroline swore to herself if that Prentiss had said anything, anything at all, about Hotch or the team to Congresswoman Steyer, she was going to—

     Suddenly, a pale hand waved in front of her face. "Hello? Earth to Caroline."

     She blinked, drawing back from Prentiss standing in front of her, a small smile on her face. "You were really zoned out there," she told her, her tone conversational. "Even Dr. Reid couldn't get you to snap out of it. What's up?"

     Caroline stared at her, her gaze hard. Just the sound of her voice, so light and friendly, caused her head to found, her vision turning a dark shade of red. Prentiss blinked at the look on her face, her smile turning into a frown. 

     "You don't have to talk about it," she said quickly, backtracking. "I was just...leaving. Yeah. Leaving. So, uh, I'm going to go do that now. Bye."

     She didn't say anything to her as Prentiss shuffled out of the room, her head down. Once she had cleared the doorway, Caroline pulled out a chair and carefully sat down, realizing she was alone in the room. She propped her elbows up on the table and rested her head in her hands.

     She wanted to feel bad for being so harsh to Emily because, after all, she may not have done anything, despite how it looked this afternoon. She debated about getting out of her chair and catching her before she got on the elevator to apologize, blaming her attitude over a headache or a bad day. However, she didn't. She was too tired to move, much less attempt civil conversation right now.

     Without thinking, Caroline reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out her cellphone. She rested the device on the table in front of her, staring at it. It stared back.

     What's the worst thing that could happen? 

     She had asked herself that question about a hundred times since last week. Automatically, dozens of responses popped into her head, all of them scary and daunting in their own right.

     She had to decide now what she was going to do—to call or not to call— because living in the limbo-like state that she was now wasn't working for her. She was constantly stressed and on-edge, always glancing over her shoulder. And it seemed like the longer she waited, the worse it got.

     If she didn't call, she could always let Hotch do it. He would have no problem doing it either, she knew that for a fact. He could call and let her know what he found out, if there even was anything. Simple. Easy.

     But, for some reason, it didn't sit well with her. She didn't want to hear about the double-life her mother lived through Hotch. She wanted answers and she wanted it from the source.

     And just like that, her mind was settled. A wave of relief crashed over her. She had done this to herself since she was a teenager, tossing and mulling decisions longer than needed. She never had a problem sticking to a decision; the hardest part for her was always making it.

     But now that she has made her decision, all she had to do was follow through. Pick-up the phone. Call.

     Her hand trembled a little as it wrapped around her phone and started scrolling through her contact list. Her heart stopped when the name Maria Chase became hightlighted on the screen.

     She pressed the button before she could back out, bringing the phone up to her ear. She listened to the other side ringing, waiting. It rang once, twice, then three times. 

     After the sixth ring, a female's even-keeled voice said, "The person you are trying to reach does not have a voicemail box set up yet. After the tone, please leave a message after the beep or try your call again later."

     Caroline frowned as she started to pick at the table. She hadn't thought of this as a possibility. Maybe Garcia got the number wrong. She debated on hanging up and trying again when a high-pitched tone sounded in her ear.

     She froze, listening to the soft static in the background. She should have written down what she was going to say, or at least, rehearsed something. 

     She leaned forward, taking a deep breath, before saying, "Agent Chase, my name is Caroline Lucas. You probably don't know me, but..."

     She sighed. "But I think you knew my mother."