[3.20]

"i'll pick my bone with you tomorrow"

"Do you have a go-bag?"

Florence paused, having been in the middle of shoving an entire hash brown from McDonald's in her mouth. Morgan and Prentiss had appeared at her and Garcia's shared office, and the question came from Prentiss.

"A what bag?" she asked, though it came out very garbled as she didn't chew her breakfast.

Prentiss and Morgan shared a look, before turning back to her. "There's no time for you to go to your place and get one. We've got some FBI issued shirts and sweats in storage. I'll grab them and put them in a duffle bag. Morgan, hunt down Garcia and tell her we've got to go. Ren, follow me."

Florence, though confused, grabbed her phone and her backpack and swiftly followed Prentiss.

"Wait, what's happening?" she asked as Prentiss stopped at a closet and grabbed several different t-shirts with the FBI logo on them. Next were two pairs of sweatpants that looked a little big for Florence. They were both shoved into an FBI duffle bag.

"New York has a serial killer and Hotch wants you and Garcia with us there. We're being briefed on the plane," she explained before again hurrying off with Florence following her. "The hotel will have toiletries for you."

"B - but I'm just supposed to sit behind a computer screen," Florence stuttered out, taking the bag from Prentiss.

"And that's what you'll be doing there. It's not like Hotch is gonna hand you a badge and a gun and send you out in the field," Prentiss said, smiling. "It's just that there are some cases where it's more helpful to have you guys there and in New York's system."

Florence chewed her lip nervously, which Prentiss caught out of the corner of her eye.

"Hey," she said, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. "It's just like a school field trip. It'll be fun."

"Why am I having a hard time believing you?"

|||

Florence looked around the private jet in awe, having never seen it before. There were cushioned seats and a whole couch. She saw a coffee maker in the back and Garcia had even told her the plane had an internet connection so that they wouldn't miss any incoming information for their cases. Florence dropped her bag and threw her body across the couch.

"You guys get this and I can't even get a chair with better lumbar support?" she asked, closing her eyes and relaxing.

"How come I only get to travel with you guys like once every 2 years?"  Garcia asked, walking past Florence and smiling down at her.

"Trust me, mama, It can get old," Morgan said, taking her bag for her.

"Oh, right," she chuckled. "Like the way that spa treatments in five-star hotels can get old?"

"Remember the time we got on board and they hadn't chilled the Cristal?" Prentiss asked, chuckling.

"Ooh. I almost quit the BAU that day," Morgan joked.

"As you should've," Florence quipped. "The audacity."

"Ok, you know what? You guys can joke all you want, 'cause I am never leaving this plane," Garcia said, going over to the coffee maker.

Derek took a seat at the end of the couch, lifting Florence's legs and setting them back down in his lap as he did so. When Rossi and Hotch began to discuss the victims, Florence opened her eyes and paid attention — considering she was going with them, it was likely an important case.

"The victims?" Rossi asked.

"Each killed in a completely different neighborhood," Hotch explained. "Hell's Kitchen, Murray Hill, Lower East Side, Chinatown, East Harlem."

"It doesn't make any sense," Reid said. "There's no common Victimology, no sexual component, no robbery, no geographical connection. Do the police have any leads?"

"He's killing roughly every two days," Hotch replied. "The press is having a field day, and it sounds like the mood on the street's getting pretty edgy."

"It's a joint FBI-NYPD Taskforce?" Rossi asked.

"Kate Joyner heads up the New York field office. She's running point on the case and called me directly. JJ, would you tell them we're ready to go?" Once JJ got up to speak with the pilot, Hotch continued. "Kate's starting to butt heads with the lead detectives and wanted a fresh set of eyes."

"Joyner, I know her," Morgan said. "She's a Brit, right?"

"Well, dual citizenship. Her father's British. Her mother's American. She was a big deal at Scotland Yard before coming to the Bureau."

"I heard she can be a little bit of a pain in the ass," Morgan added.

"I didn't think so," Hotch defended her.

"You know her?" Prentiss asked.

"We liaised when she was still at Scotland Yard."

"And she's good?" Rossi asked.

"I think we're lucky to have her."

The pilot then announced for everyone to take their seats as it was time to take off.

"Well, that'll make for an interesting first trip to New York," Florence said, propping up on her elbows.

"You've never been?" Prentiss asked, surprised. "It's not that far from Quantico. This is only a one hour flight."

"Yeah, but I've only lived here for like a month. Seattle is on the other side of the country."

"I don't think you'll get much sightseeing in on this trip, Sunshine," Morgan said, patting her legs.

Florence shrugged and pulled out a Capri Sun from her backpack to sip on.

"Hey, can I get one of those?" Morgan asked, knowing that she came to work every day with several of them in her bag.

"For five bucks," she said flatly.

Everyone but Morgan couldn't help but smile. Morgan scoffed and stared her down as if she were a criminal. "C'mon. How many do you have in there? Five? Six?"

"Perhaps, but I didn't know I was gonna have to come today. Sure, if I had a go-bag, I'd have plenty, but now I've gotta ration these bad boys out for however long this case lasts."

"Ren, New York does in fact have stores that sell cherry Capri Suns," JJ said in an amused tone.

"Fine, but if we end up being too busy trying to catch this guy to buy some more and I run out, I'll never let it go," Florence complained while grabbing a Capri Sun and roughly tossing it to a grinning Morgan.

"Can I get one too?" Reid asked, smiling slightly.

"The both of you are on thin ice."

|||

Florence stuck by Garcia's side as they entered the New York precinct. When they stepped off the elevator, Hotch led them towards a pretty blonde woman, who Florence could only assume was the Kate Joyner he had mentioned on the plane.

"Is it just me, or does she look exactly like Haley?" JJ whispered to Garcia.

"She looks like a hotter version of her," Florence couldn't help but speak up. She received amused looks from both JJ and Garcia, which only made her shrug. "What? I saw a picture of her in his office."

Hotch greeted her with a barely-there smile, which was a lot considering he never smiled. "Kate."

"Aaron," she greeted. "How have you been?"

"Well, thank you. This is my team. Kate Joyner, this is David Rossi, Emily Prentiss, Jennifer Jareau, Penelope Garcia, Derek Morgan, Spencer Reid, and Florence Sabin."

Florence smiled and waved at Joyner when her name was called. If Joyner was surprised to see someone her age on the team, she kept it to herself and smiled back at her politely.

"Thanks for being here. Anything that you need, just tell me. Please don't stand on protocol."

"What can you tell Florence and me about the city's surveillance system?" Garcia asked her.

"Um, it's run by the NYPD. It's still in the infant stages. It's been rather controversial — American privacy laws. Um, but they've had some success.

"And we'll legally have complete access?" Florence asked, raising an eyebrow. The team knew she was good enough by now to get full access whether it was permitted or not.

"They're already expecting you. Shelly?"

Garcia grabbed Florence's wrist and pulled her after Shelly, who led them to the surveillance room. They were taken to a small room a few floors down. There was a woman waiting for them there, who jumped up to greet them.

"You must be FBI. Lisa Bartleby."

"Penelope Garcia and this is Florence Sabin," Garcia introduced. "May I?"

Bartleby let Garcia take the chair in front of the keyboard while Florence grabbed an extra chair and pulled it beside her. There were only a few monitors set up — Joyner was right when she said it was in the infant stages.

"I hardly ever get visitors," Bartleby told them.

"You'll hardly know we're here," Garcia said, pulling out her laptop from her bag. "What's your operating system?"

"Um, Linux OS with 6 gigs of RAM."

"And a dual quad-core 3- gigahertz processor with a Geforce 8800 ultra-extreme vid card and a Cisco ASA 5500 firewall."

"Yeah," Bartleby confirmed, impressed by Garcia.

"Bitchin'. How many cameras?"

"Uh, 4,468 not including the ones that only run in the housing projects."

"And all the footage is stored?"

"Catalogued and digitized."

"Beautiful, cause my Boss Man wants me to send him a file so he can run facial recognition software on each of the crime scenes," Garcia said, already finding each of the files she needed.

"Um, I've already enhanced all of the photos as much as I can," Bartleby said, glancing over at one of the monitors where she had the videos of the shootings pulled up.

"No, I'm talking about using it on the crowd immediately after the shootings. This is icky, but these creeps, they sometimes like to come back and watch the police deal with their handiwork," Garcia explained before sending the files. "And voila."

"What do you need me to do?" Florence asked, not sure where to go from there.

"I need you, Baby Girl, to wiggle into the security cameras of all the stores and restaurants that surround the crime scenes," Garcia instructed. "While you comb through that, Lisa and I will look over the street cameras."

"You can just get into other people's surveillance footage like that?" Bartleby asked as Florence pulled out her own laptop.

"Totally, and since that Joyner lady said protocol doesn't matter, Hotch can't lecture me about how it's unethical to hack into someone's personal camera without their consent," Florence said, already working her magic.

Given that it was New York, there were over a hundred restaurants and stores to check, which would take some time. Florence knew what to look for — any sign of the hooded unsub. It went on for a while, and just like Bartleby and Garcia, as well as everyone else on the team, she came up empty-handed. She took a momentary break to sip on a Capri Sun and check Garcia's screen. They had watched the latest murder on a loop, trying to spot anything that could help.

"How long have you been doing this?" Garcia asked after noticing the upset look on Bartleby's face after watching someone get shot so many times.

"Uh, about six months."

"I wish I could tell you it gets easier."

"Yeah, well, I'm used to pulling footage up for muggings. Maybe robberies. Watching someone get shot in the head..." Bartleby trailed off, shaking her head.

"You know what helps me?" Garcia said, grabbing her purse. She then pulled out some of her little knick-knacks. "You make it your own. You know? You separate yourself from what you see on the screen."

"This isn't exactly, uh, regulation," Bartleby said, eying the toys that now adorned her desk.

"Well, then thank god it's only us in here," Garcia said, and then she smirked. "Do you want to see a super fox? What camera's on the last crime scene?"

Florence giggled, knowing exactly who would be the subject of said camera. She would definitely be telling Morgan about it once everything calmed down.

"Derek Morgan. Lisa Bartleby. Lisa Bartleby, Derek Morgan."

|||

Eventually, Garcia managed to catch a difference in the crime scenes. She was able to deduce that it was more than one unsub based on their heights in the videos. Florence wasn't sure if that made the team's job easier or harder now that they were looking for two or more suspects.

After they reported Garcia's findings to the team, they made adjustments to the profile and called it a night. Florence was glad to go to the hotel, as she was almost asleep on her feet. Reid had to keep a hand on her shoulder when they got out of the cab and guide her through the lobby. Garcia and Morgan were off who knows where.

"Look at this." Florence turned her head and saw Prentiss pick up a newspaper that was sitting near the door. She was sure that it said something about the unsub — maybe it even gave him a nickname. She didn't care enough to check and instead went back to leaning on Reid. "Late Edition doesn't miss a beat."

"JJ," Reid said, nodding behind her. Florence again fluttered her eyes open and was surprised to see JJ's boyfriend, Will, waiting in the lobby. She also noted that he was much cuter than he looked in the pictures she had been shown.

"Will." JJ was clearly surprised to see him, meaning he hadn't been invited.

Will got out of his chair and joined them, smiling at JJ. "Took a shot and flew to D.C., but that didn't work out. I figured a train ride to New York was only a few more hours."

"Detective," Hotch greeted, shaking his hand.

"I'm sorry for showing up like this. I know you're working. But, um," Will paused, staring deeply at JJ. "I can't stand you being on this case and me not being there. Not with what's going on."

"Is there a problem?" Hotch asked.

JJ stared at Will for a moment before slowly turning to face them. "I'm pregnant."

Florence certainly didn't have a problem keeping her eyes open after that announcement. She couldn't help but immediately stare at JJ's stomach, which was still very flat. "Shut up," she murmured.

"Oh, my god, JJ! Congratulations!" Prentiss exclaimed, hugging her.

"I've asked JJ to marry me," Will revealed to them.

"Will," JJ said, cutting her eyes to him sharply.

"We're working out some kinks," he said. Clearly, that was a delicate subject for the couple. Personally, Florence didn't think being pregnant was a good enough reason to get married.

"We'll, uh, give you both some privacy," Hotch told them. He walked toward the elevator and JJ quickly went after him.

"Congrats, Will," Reid said, shaking his hand.

"I hope you guys have a boy," Florence said. She was tired but still happy for JJ.

Will smiled brightly. "I think it's a girl. A mini JJ."

"Twenty bucks says it's a boy," she said, yawning.

"You're on," Will said, chuckling. "You're Florence, right? JJ has had nothing but good things to say about you. It's nice to meet you."

"You too. Really, congrats on the kid," Florence said.

After saying their goodbyes to Will and JJ, they headed for the elevator. Once they got on, Hotch handed out keycards, except he didn't have one for Florence.

"Where's mine?"

Hotch scoffed. "Yeah, like I'm trusting you alone in a hotel room in New York. Prentiss so kindly offered to share with you."

"I'm too sleepy to argue about how you've wounded my honor and pride," she mumbled. "I'll pick my bone with you tomorrow."

"I look forward to it," Hotch replied in his regular flat tone while Prentiss and Reid laughed.

Once the elevator reached their floor, Prentiss took Florence from Reid and led them to her room. Once inside, Florence immediately flopped face down on one of the queen-sized beds.

"You're not even gonna shower or change?" Prentiss asked, amused by her actions.

"I'll do it in the morning," she mumbled. "Not like I got sweaty sitting at a desk all day in that well-air-conditioned room."

"Okay, Kiddo. I'm gonna wake you up thirty minutes before we leave in the morning. Sound good?"

Florence simply put a thumbs up in the air and then she was out like a light.

|||

The next morning, Florence had no problem waking up. She had slept like a log, unlike Prentiss, who learned rather quickly that Florence snored like a bear.

They met the rest of the team on the first floor. Everyone had grabbed breakfast from the complimentary buffet set up and got it to go. Florence grabbed two blueberry muffins and a bottle of milk. Once she had her food, she turned to the others and noticed that Morgan was staring at her and trying not to laugh.

"What?" she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Nothing," he said, chuckling. "You just look like you stepped out of the FBI gift shop."

It was true, much to Florence's annoyance. After showering, she had no choice but to throw on the clothes that Prentiss had packed in her last-minute go-bag. She was wearing a navy colored shirt with "FBI" printed on the back and grey sweatpants with "Federal Bureau of Investigation" down the side of the left leg. Both garments were also way too big for her, and not in the fashionably oversized way. Prentiss had taken a safety pin and tightened the waistband of the pants for her, which ended up giving her a duck-tail effect. While she looked ridiculous, Florence couldn't help but admit that the outfit was quite cozy.

"I feel like it's missing something," JJ said, smirking. "Maybe an FBI issued baseball cap. I'm sure I could hunt one down for you."

"How does it feel to bully a child?" Florence asked, shoving half the muffin in her mouth. "JJ, you're about to be a mother. Would you want grown-ups making fun of your sweet son?"

JJ chuckled and rolled her eyes. "I see you can dish it out but can't take it. Also, it's way too soon to know what I'm having."

"It better be a boy. I don't have twenty bucks to give Will if it's a girl," she mumbled as they all made their way to the cars outside.

"Ren, you make significantly more money than most eighteen-year-olds," Reid pointed out. "And rent costs for housing on the base in Quantico are fairly low. I'm sure you'll have twenty dollars to spare when the baby comes."

"Doesn't matter cause it's gonna be a boy," Florence declared, climbing into the back of the SUV.

|||

It was another day of sitting in the surveillance room in the precinct with Bartleby and Garcia. This time, Florence joined them in just watching the cameras and keeping an eye on the undercover officers in the streets. It was boring work, but Florence did her best to pay attention.

"How many undercovers do we have?" Garcia asked, sipping on her coffee.

"Over eighty, but it barely makes a blip," Bartleby said. "Surveillance cameras aren't designed to prevent crime. They're supposed to help us catch the perp after the fact." Then she glanced at one of the cameras and sat up straighter. "I got one."

Florence rolled her chair over to see the screen. There was a figure dressed in all black with a hood pulled up. She got a very bad feeling in her stomach.

"Is there anyone nearby?" Garcia asked.

"Negative." Bartleby grabbed the phone to call it in. "This is the surveillance command center. We have a possible murder suspect at the subway platform on 59th and Lex."

Garcia also called Hotch to let them know. Florence kept her eyes glued to the screen, not listening as Derek argued with Hotch over the phone. Instead, she focused on the unsub as he walked past a lady, shooting her and quickly leaving the scene. The police were nowhere in sight.

"She's dead," Florence mumbled, sinking back in her chair. The unsub fled the scene and Garcia followed him with the street view cameras. "He's getting away."

"Garcia, can you get eyes on him aboveground?" Rossi asked, not knowing she was already doing that.

"He's heading west on 59th street."

"If he makes it to the park, we've lost him," Joyner said.

As if the unsub had heard her, he ducked around the corner and out of their sight. "We've lost the visual," Bartleby told them, frowning.

"Are the police On the scene?"

"Negative," Garcia said, feeling horrible as she stared at the lone body in the subway.

So far, Florence's first case in the field wasn't going well at all.

|||

The next day, Joyner and Hotch took Morgan's idea to get everyone out on the streets. Alone with Garcia and Bartleby, she would be communicating with everyone and watching through the cameras. Reid and Rossi were the only two out in the field. After everyone was checked in, Florence kept her eyes on Prentiss and Detective Cooper, wanting to keep an eye on everyone. After a few minutes, she would switch to JJ and Morgan.

The phone rang and Garcia answered immediately. "Talk."

"Garcia, do you have eyes on everyone on the team?" Reid asked.

"I've got Florence rotating them, but will get them all at once," she replied, glancing at Florence.

She nodded and pulled up all the cameras to see everyone at once. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, but she kept her eyes peeled. If Reid had a bad feeling, then Florence knew better than to doubt it.

"Ok, this is not good," Bartleby said. Florence didn't turn from the cameras but listened in.

"What's going on?" Garcia asked.

"I'm doing what you asked. I'm looking at the footage to see if I see the same person coming back to the crime scene in the days after the shootings," she explained. "So, I find the camera with the widest angle on the scene."

"So you don't have to sift through hundreds."

"Exactly, but—"

"Someone's hacked in," Garcia realized as Bartleby showed her the screen.

Florence looked over to see which camera they were referring to and looked back at her screen. "That's closest to Prentiss and Cooper. Want me to tell them to check it out?"

"Oh no," Bartleby muttered.

Florence looked back at her computer just in time to see the unsub shoot a woman at an ATM.

"Garcia," Prentiss said, immediately identifying the gunshot.

"He's running East on 16th," Florence told her, having already checked. "Towards you guys."

They watched as Cooper and Prentiss pursued the unsub. He went down an alley, but instead of continuing to run, he stopped and turned around with his gun held out. Before Florence could even process it, Cooper rounded the corner and was met by the unsub's bullets. Prentiss quickly took him down before checking on Cooper.

"Garcia! We've got an officer down," Prentiss frantically said. Garcia was already calling for an ambulance. "16th west of Union Square."

Florence shut her eyes for a moment, frustrated with how this case was going, before beginning to contact everyone. She got on the phone with Reid and Rossi first.

"There was another attack," she told them as soon as Reid picked up.

"Where?" Rossi asked, getting ready to go to the scene.

"16th and Broadway," she told them. "But Prentiss and Detective Cooper ran after them. Cooper is down at 16th street, west of Union Square."

"Is Prentiss okay?" Reid asked, worried about her.

"Yeah, but I'm not sure about Cooper. Not to kick the NYPD while they're down, but their emergency response time is a joke," she muttered so that Bartleby wouldn't hear her badmouth her district.

"Seems so," Reid mumbled more to himself.

|||

Florence had a sneaking suspicion that more than one camera had been hacked into. After thoroughly checking that theory, they discovered that the number was in the thousands. It definitely supported Rossi and Reid's terrorism theory. Once they made it through each camera, Garcia called Morgan to fill them in.

"Talk to us, Garcia."

"We got a problem," she said. "We went through and checked All 4,468 cameras. They hacked into the surveillance system. They've got footage of every crime scene. They've been watching since the beginning."

"How could we not have caught that?" Hotch asked.

"They were smart," Florence replied, sighing. "It wasn't system-wide and we weren't looking for it. We had to check each camera individually."

"And this is from every crime scene?" Prentiss asked.

"I'm afraid so," Garcia said. "They hacked into one camera at every scene."

"I have however worked some of my magic," Florence said, cracking her knuckles. "Of course, I can't undo the damage that's been done, but I managed to embed the cameras with a virus. When anyone not going through the CCTV and NYPD systems try to hack in, it'll take down their entire computer and wipe their hard drives. They'll lose all the previous footage of the attacks."

"Good work, Kid," Rossi told her.

"Thanks, Garcia, Florence," Morgan said.

"So much for theory," Rossi said.

"We need to hit the ground running," Joyner said.

"I'm gonna head to the hospital," Prentiss said. "I'll check on Cooper and brief Detective Brustin."

"Good. Dave, will you go talk to the commissioner, and Morgan, you brief Homeland Security," Hotch ordered.

"JJ and I will talk to the Port Authority police," Reid said.

"Kate and I will go talk to the Mayor, and we'll meet back here as soon as possible," Hotch said. "Garcia, how long to put all the footage from the crime scenes and response times on a drive and get it to me?"

"Fifteen minutes," she replied, already getting to work. "I'll send Florence with it."

She hung up and they quickly worked on transferring the files. Fifteen minutes later, she handed the password-protected flash drive off to Florence. While she took it downstairs, Garcia and Bartleby went to get some coffee a few floors down, knowing it would be a long night.

Hotch was a little bit impatient about waiting for the flash drive, but he knew that the Mayor would need to be fully briefed and he would need the documentation. He and Joyner were waiting in the lobby of the building, ready to leave, as they were the last of the team still in the building.

Exactly fifteen minutes after the order, Florence sprinted into the lobby, holding out the flash drive.

"Sorry for the wait," she said, handing it off to him. He and Joyner started walking towards their car and she followed. "Garcia put a password on it. It's derek273549 with a lowercase d."

"That'll be fun to explain to the Mayor," Hotch said, rolling his eyes. Kate was a little ahead of him and heading towards the black SUV. "Thank you, Florence. Stay in the building and we'll call you or Garcia as soon as we need anything."

Florence saluted him and started walking backwards to head back inside. "Good luck and stay safe, Hip Hotch."

Florence turned her back to him and as soon as she did, everything went to shit.