"Alright, I know I shouldn't be scared of your mum at this point.. But I still am." Elijah sighed.

"Mama's not scary- Oh, you mean mom." Fleur chuckled.

"Yeah, she's bloody terrifying." Elijah pointed.

"She just has that look..But she can be really sweet." Fleur assured him.

"To you and Addy, maybe." Elijah nodded.

"She's protective."

"That's one word for it."

"Don't wor-" Fleur began to speak as the doorbell rang.

"I'm hiding in the kitchen." Elijah shook his head.

"No, no. You answer the door." Fleur smirked.

"..You're enjoying thus too much." Elijah pointed as he walked past her.

"Way too much." Fleur hummed.

Elijah sighed as he walked to the door, looking back at where Fleur was before he opened it.

"Elijah." Ruth smiled.

"Ruth, it's lovely seeing you again." Elijah told her.

"Elijah." Gail crossed her arms.

"Gail." Elijah blinked.

"Why are you here? Where's my daughter?'

"She's just in the kitchen- Here, come in." He held the door open.

"She's a little uptight. Didn't get breakfast." Ruth whispered to Elijah as Gail walked in.

"Well, I'm sure Flo will make sure she has something." Elijah nodded.

"She will." Ruth agreed.

"Mom." Fleur hummed and hugged Gail.

"Oh, sweetheart. It's so nice to be here with you again." Gail hugged back.

"Well, Morgan's at his other job and Addy's at school, so Elijah came over to keep me company." Fleur nodded.

"Of course he did." Gail looked over at Ruth and Elijah as they walked over.

"Darling, would you mind making something for your mother? She's how the kids say.. Hangry." Ruth chuckled.

"I am not 'hangry'." Gail pointed.

"Of course. I can whip something up." Fleur hummed.

Gail sighed," Thanks."

"How have you two been?"

"Oh darling, we have been great." Ruth told her.

"Missed me?" Fleur tilted her head.

"You know it." She nodded.

Fleur waited a minute before turning to Gail,"Brownie."

Gail took the brownie and took a bite,"Thanks again. You're getting better at these."

"I learned from the best." Fleur smiled.

"Aw, sweetheart." Ruth grinned.

"You two should let Elijah cook for you some time. He's great." Fleur pointed.

"I wouldn't say great." Elijah quickly shook his head.

"Sorry, incroyable." Fleur spoke in French.

"I think that would be a great idea." Ruth hummed.

"As long as you don't poison us." Gail shrugged.

"I would never." Elijah assured her.

"We'll see." Gail looked at him.

*********************************

"Hi, good evening." Garcia sighed as they entered the Conference Room,"Okay. University of Montana student Douglas Clark was found this afternoon next to his car, stabbed at least a dozen times, and the killer left a calling card."

"That's a distinctive signature. Have there been similar murders reported in the area?" Morgan asked.

"Thankfully, no." She shook her head.

"So then why are we being called in?" Kate wondered.

"Last month a local shopkeeper was killed in a hit-and-run. The driver was a student who's very rich and well-connected Daddy got him off with a slap on the wrist." Garcia explained.

"Which I imagine didn't sit well with the locals." Fleur sighed.

"Oh, you could say that. A random fraternity was firebombed in retaliation." She told them.

"And there's concern that the murder might escalte the friction between the student community and the permanent residents." Hotch added.

"Town versus gown. It happens." JJ nodded.

"All the way back to the Battle of Saint Scholastica Day.' Reid hummed.

Elijah sighed,"Okay, I'll take the bait. What is the.. Whatever it is you just said?"

"The Battle of Saint Scholastica Day? I'm glad you asked. Oxford University, 1335, citizens attacked students and professors with bows and arrows. Fighting went on for two days and nearly one hundred people were killed." Reid explained.

"You know, it's probably just my easygoing nature, but if I stabbed someone twelve times, it'd pretty much be out of my system. Why smash a car window?" Rossi asked.

"Well, a car killed the shopkeeper. Maybe it's a message." JJ suggested.

"Or just plain anger, and a lot of it." Kate shrugged.

"Whatever the reason, we have to assume there's more where that came from. Wheels up in thirty." Hotch walked out.

*********************************

"The coroner's report puts the time of death between 10pm and 2am the previous night." Reid looked up from the file.

"This doesn't feel like payback for the hit-and-run driver. Clark was stabbed twelve times. That's personal." Morgan pointed.

"He was quiet, kept to himself. No problems with the locals." Rossi added.

"Clark did come from the same privileged gene pool as the other kid. Money, education, influence." Fleur listed.

"There's not much blood on the scene given the extent of the injuries." JJ commented.

"Clark must have been killed somewhere else and then dragged into the woods and abandoned." Morgan sighed.

"Okay, thing one, a search on Douglas Clark's cell phone turned up a cache of pornography. The non-heterosexual kind." Garcia told them as she appeared on screen.

"Well, that changed the equation. If the victim was gay, we could be looking at a hate crime." Reid mentioned.

"And I wouldn't have said 'Thing one' if there wasn't a thing two. A new body was just discovered a mile away from the first victim. No details yet." She informed them.

"So much for a cooling off period." JJ sighed.

"Alright, when we land, Dave, you, Deans and Reid go directly to the new crime scene. Morgan, Howards and JJ, talk to the M.E, and Kate and I will coordinate with local law enforcement and find out what we can about Douglas Clark." Hotch instructed.

*********************************

Elijah, Reid and Rossi exited their SUV as they arrived at the most recent crime scene,

"Five thirty in the morning, east coast time. You don't seem tired at all." Reid looked at Rossi.

"What can I tell you? I'm a night person." Rossi shrugged.

"Speaking of that, you might want to consider revamping your circadian clock to a more traditional chronotype." Reid mentioned.

"Yeah, I'll put that on my to-do list." He nodded slowly.

"Seriously. I've started doing it with Elijah too, plus studies have found that night owls show reduced integrity of white matter in their brain compared to early risers." Reid told him.

"While I appreciate the concern, I'm very happy with my brain, just like it is." Rossi hummed.

"There's a lot more damage to this car. Look, the tires are punctured and all the windows are broken." Reid pointed out.

"Our killer's getting bolder. The car is in plain sight." Elijah added,"Given the proximity to the earlier crime scene, he had to know there'd be a police presence in this area."

Rossi bent down picking up the phone in the victims mouth, "Oh, bite marks. Douglas Clarks cell didn't have that."

"The phone was put into Clark's mouth postmortem. This victim must have been still alive." Reid shook his head.

"Well, let's see if this baby holds any surprises." Rossi placed it into the evidence bag.

*********************************

"Have you determined a COD yet?" Morgan asked the M.E.

"Sometimes what you see is what you get. Both victims died from behing stabbed a lot. Mr Clark's was pretty savage, actually. Lots of defensive wounds." The M.E replied.

"Knife?" JJ raised a brow

"More like a two-bladed instrument. Heavy duty scissors, gardening shears. Flesh tears were Jagged and deep. Messy." He sighed.

"What about Brubaker?' Fleur tilted her head.

"The same murder weapon, but a couple significant differences. The lacerations were deliberate and precise, ligature marks on the wrists and ankles, and no defensive wounds at all." The M.E told them.

"Like he'd been held down and tortured." Fleur nodded.

"Yes, except the bindings were mild in terms of severity of force and duration of application." He shook his head.

"Not enough to seriously restrain the victim." JJ understood.

"Exactly."

"So how did the UnSub control Brubaker if he was still alive?" Fleur asked.

"Well, there's no drugs in his tox screen. Gun, maybe?" Morgan suggested.

"Some of the stab wounds could maybe have come from earlier, weakening him." JJ nodded.

"There was one anomaly consistent with both victims." The M.E pointed to two marks on the victims' bodies.

"Puncture wounds." Morgan looked down.

"Wide at the surface, tapering down to a narrow point deep in the tissue." The M.E informed them.

"Any idea what it could be?" Fleur asked.

"No, Ma'am." He shook his head,"Frankly, I've never seen a wound like it before."

*********************************

Everyone stood in front of the officers, after finding another body.

"The UnSub we're looking for is a woman we refer to as a female annihilator, a black widow who lures men in most likely with the promise of sex and then kills them." Hotch began the profile.

"We don't yet know what triggered these murders, but it's most likely connected to a specific person or event." Morgan continued,"The trauma is profound."

"She's probably in her early twenties and attractive, which is how she's able to draw in her preferred targets of affluent, handsome, young men." Fleur added.

"But she herself may live humbly, without much money. One of her victims characterized her as a townie impressed by his luxury vehicle." Rossi told them.

"The killer inserts a cell phone or a wristwatch into her victims mouths, sets the alarm for midnight. It's her way of saying 'times up', or 'a new day dawns but not for you'." Kate continued.

"Putting objects in mouths is also a symbolic way to silence or gag victims. This could also indicate that the Unsub feels her own voice has not been heard." Reid explained.

"If the triggering event was an assault suffered by the UnSub herself, she might feel that she was denied the Justice that she deserved." Morgan sighed.

"So she's appointed herself judge, jury and executioner, killing surrogates for her own attacker." Elijah crossed his arms.

"Look closely at recent victims of sexual assault where charges weren't filed because the accused was either wealthy or connected." Fleur pointed.

"With the most recent victim, for the first time, we found ash residue in the car and on the body." Rossi told them.

"This ritual aspect could symbolise the UnSubs rebirth, like the Phoenix rising from it's ashes to live again." Reid added.

"And with this sense of resurrection she experiences with each of the kills, we expect her to become more emboldened and more dangerous. Thank you." Hotch finished.

*********************************

"The price tags were still on the dress. Maybe the UnSub stole it." JJ suggested.

"I'll have Garcia look into local vintage and secondhand shops." Reid nodded,"Maybe an employee or customer fits our profile?"

"Also have her check police records for young women recently arrested for shoplifting." Hotch added.

"What if the stealing of clothes isn't about finances, just part of her overall psychosis?" Reid asked.

"A kleptomaniac?" Fleur tilted her head.

"Maybe. It's an impulse control disorder three times more prominent in women than men. Researchers believe that compulsive thefts could be a response to early childhood trauma. They're trying to symbolically repossess what was lost in childhood." Reid explained.

"But a true kleptomaniac doesn't steal for financial gain or personal use, and she's wearing what she's stealing." Hotch sighed.

JJ scoffed, looking up at the board.

"What is it, Jennifer?" Reid asked.

"Young, handsome men with money and status. A high-heeled shoe one might wear to a dance. Luxury transportation that at the strike of midnight reverts to junk, and what's another name for soot?" JJ looked around at them.

"Cinders." Fleur realised,"It's a fairy tale gone horribly wrong."

"Fairytales? You mean like.." Detective Carpenter raised a brow.

"Our UnSub sees herself as an avenging Cinderella." Fleur nodded, before calling Garcia and explaining the situation to her.

"Cinderella? Where do I even start?" Garcia questioned.

"Our UnSub obviously feels her life mirrors that of Cinderella, so start there." JJ suggested.

"Alright, go back fifteen years, see if law enforcement or child services were called in to deal with a step-parent/step-child situation." Htoch instructed.

"You know what, Garcia? Also check the foster care system, paticularly instances where girls were put into homes where favored biological daughters were already in place." Reid added.

"Per usual, your suggestions have made the impossibleness of this endeavor seem possible. I will hit you up when I have more info." Garcia hung up.

"So if she's Cinderella, who are the victims?" Carpenter asked.

"Prince Charmings who didn't live up to her fantasy. JJ told her.

*********************************

Reid and Elijah walked in, hot drinks for everyone in their hands.

"Garcia came up empty handed. No one working at a clothing store fits our profile. Same thing with arrest records for female shoplifters." Reid mentioned.

"Alright. Let's back up and look at the changing MO sequentially." Hotch shook his head,"Douglas Clark had defensive wounds, no ligature marks, the kills was sloppy and probably not planned."

"But the next two victims felt premeditated. Both Brubaker and Colin Baylor were tied up willingly and killed with minimal resistance." JJ pointed out.

"It was as if the Unsub anticipated the possibility of murder and was prepared. She assumed the role of the black widow." Reid hummed.

"Except the latest victim didn't fit the pattern. With John Franklin, the rock was a weapon of opportunity." Fleur shook her head.

"Exactly. The kill was spontaneous like Douglas Clark. Probably not planned." Hotch sighed.

"It's like she circled back to her mindset prior to the first murder." Reid handed Elijah his coffee.

"The profile is slightly off." Elijah nodded as he took the drink,"She's not a black widow luring men in. Her delusion is hopeful and optimistic."

"You're right. Despite the blood and guts, she's still hoping for a happily ever after ending." Fleur sighed.

*********************************

"Hey, Hotch, what do you have?" JJ asked over the phone.

"We think Claire Dunbar is at Cypress Memorial Cemetery." Hotch spoke.

"That's out near Bonner Mountain." Carpenter told them.

"You're closer to the location than we are." He informed them.

"Alright, we're on our way." JJ nodded.

"Wait, Elijah. There's something I want you to take with you." Hotch sighed.

After grabbing what Hotch asked him to, Elijah, Reid and JJ hurried to the cemetery where Claire was, finding her on top of John.

"Excuse me. May I approach?" Elijah called to her.

"Who are you? Go away!" Claire shouted.

"Please, just give me the chance to speak. I've looked for so long." Elijah told her as he stepped closer.

"What? What are you talking about?" She asked.

"I've searched this entire city trying to find the right person. Are you the right person. The dance, the other evening. Do you remember?" Elijah tilted his head.

Claire slowly stood up, dropping the pliers in her hand,"The dance?"

"I met the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my life. We danced the whole night, and then she was gone.. But she left this behind." Elijah pulled out the glass slipper from the evidence bag,"May I?"

Claire walked closer, fixing her hair out of her face. Elijah knelt down and placed the shoe on her foot. It was a perfect fit. He then gently took Claire's hand, kissing it.

"I brought the carriage." He looked up at her.

"You did?" She smiled.

"It's waiting for us." Elijah nodded.

Claire hummed, taking Elijah's arm as the two of them walked towards the cop car, with Elijah carefully helping her inside.

*********************************

Elijah was humming to himself as he finished adding cheese to his pasta. He didn't know how he let Fleur convince him this was a good idea.

"So that is how the case went." Fleur finished telling the story to her mothers.

"So.. She thought she was Cinderella?" Gail furrowed her brow.

"Genuinely." Fleur nodded.

"I know she hurt a lot of people, but the poor girl." Ruth sighed.

"She's not even one of the bad cases we get." Fleur shook her head.

"I don't think I want to hear about those." Ruth told her.

"Trust me, you won't. Oh Prince Charming?" Fleur hummed, looking through to the kitchen.

"It was one time." Elijah sighed as he walked through with the plates.

"One time which I will make sure never leaves my memory." Fleur winked.

"You never let me forget anything anyway." Elijah shook his head, setting the plates down,"But your dinner, is served."

"It smells delicious, Elijah." Ruth smiled,"Don't wait for us, sit down, eat your own food."

"You're the guests here." Elijah told her,"You start eating, I'll go get mine."

"Don't be silly." Gail spoke.

"Here- You take mine. Flo, darling, grab me another plate, hm?" Ruth hummed.

"Oh, uh, thank you." Elijah blinked, slowly sitting down

"..Kid, I won't lie.. This is pretty damn good." Gail nodded while Fleur walked back with a plate for her and Ruth.

"I did say I wouldn't poison you." Elijah reminded her.

"Who taught you to cook like that?" Ruth asked.

"My grandmother." He answered,"And more recently, my dad."

"Rossi." Fleur told her mothers.

"I never knew Rossi had children." Gail tilted her head.

"I'm just full of surprises." Elijah shrugged.

"Well, they need a medal." Ruth pointed.

"I'm sure that could be arranged." He hummed.

"I'll keep some for Morgan when he gets back." Fleur nodded.

"Oh, that's a good idea. He'll love it just as much as us." Ruth smiled.

"He should eat before he comes home." Gail shrugged,"I might actually eat this all."

"Feel free to, I can make Morgan more if he asks." Elijah told her.

"I think you're warming up to Eli, mom." Fleur hummed.

"You think so?" Gail raised a brow.

"I know so."

"Hm.. Well, I guess he isn't that bad."

"Hear that, Charming? You aren't so bad." Fleur nudged Elijah.

"Is this real?" Elijah raised a brow.

"Don't make me regret it." Gail warned.

"I won't, Ma'am." Elijah assured her.