PROLOGUE : devery caulfield vs. the entire fbi

( pre-season 1 )

trigger warnings:
talk about death, violence against women, references to violence against poc, native american stereotypes

————

" the beginning is always today "
— mary shelley

     SIX WOMEN.

     SIX WOMEN dead in as many days. Jackson PD had only apprehended Stephen Watts, the killer of five Native American women, two weeks ago and already another serial murderer has hit their streets.

And, what can Devery Caulfield do about it?

Absolutely nothing, that's what.

She gets to sit at her desk, moping around in her crisp blue shirt and black slacks, legs kicked up as she rocks back on her chair, teetering precariously on its back two legs. She doesn't even get a wheely chair, that's how pissed the department is. If she tips backwards right now, she'll probably crack her skull on the corner of Officer Edmond's desk, and Officer Edmond won't even notice because he's having one of his mid-morning naps. Emphasis on one of his naps. He sleeps about as often as Devery's eleven-month-old daughter does.

Devery is only half focused on trying not to accidentally kill herself. The other half of her attention is on the front doors to the precinct, where, any moment now, a team from the Federal Bureau of Investigation will be coming through. She has no idea what she's looking for, hoping they'll be visibly set apart from their other daily visitors.

It's just hit eleven o'clock, and Devery doesn't even have a clue what time the FBI hopped onto their private jet. The flight is just over two and a half hours, plus the fifteen-minute travel time from the tarmac to the precinct.

Behind her, Officer Edmond chokes on his saliva mid-snore, and Dev looks over her shoulder to make sure he's not about to die right in the middle of the office. He's fine, grumbling in a state of almost-awakeness before he conks right back out. Devery rolls her eyes with a sniff of a laugh.

In the time it takes her to look back at the door, four men have piled in and are waiting in the lobby to be greeted. Dev locks eyes with one of them — a tall dark-skinned man — and nods at him, acknowledging their presence. Next to him are two men who are visibly older than him — one dressed in a smart black suit, the other in a navy blue pullover — and one younger, dressed in a burgundy cardigan, his brown hair laid flat against his head.

The men linger in the entryway for a few beats too long before Dev finally realises that nobody aside from her is paying any attention to them. With a huff, she swings her legs off her desk, slamming the chair's front legs back onto the ground.

"You the FBI guys?" Dev asks once she gets close enough to them, eyes darting between each of the men until she determines which of them is the leader — the older guy in the sweater.

He nods once, extending his hand. "Yes, I'm Special Agent Jason Gideon, these are Special Agents Hotchner and Morgan, and Doctor Reid." He gestures to the other men in turn — the white guy in the suit, the dark-skinned man, and the younger guy, who can't be much older than Devery herself.

     Hotchner and Morgan also reach out to shake the girl's hand, but Doctor Reid just lifts his arm to offer an awkward wave.

The action gives Devery pause, raising an eyebrow and cocking her head to the side. "The amount of pathogens exchanged during a handshake is astounding," he says, punctuating the fact with a tight-lipped smile.

"Well, thanks for telling me that after I shook three people's hands," Devery deadpans.

     Reid's smile drops as he considers the statement. "Sorry."

     "Anyway," Dev says, clearing her throat a little. "You heard about our most recent vic?"

     Agent Gideon nods in affirmation. "Yes. Same MO?"

     Devery checks over her shoulder to see if anyone is coming to take over for her. Nobody is. Chief Halloran must be on a phone call to his wife, or outside having a smoke break. She beckons for the men to follow her to the conference room that the station has set aside for them. "Yes, strangled by some kind of wire, broad daylight, middle of a crowd, no witnesses to the act but many for the immediate aftermath."

     "And—"

     "And, we had the M.E. keep the wire on for you guys to take a look at, so you'll probably want someone to go down and see sooner rather than later."

     Gideon seems pleased by this. "Alright, thank you," he glances down at Devery's nametag, "Officer Caulfield."

     Devery gives him a nod and gestures to the conference room — a decent-sized room with a long table and a few whiteboards already wheeled inside — and hovers in the doorway. "You guys can set up in here. If you need anything, give me a holler. Otherwise, Chief Halloran should be around any minute now."

Not long after the men enter the room and Devery returns to her desk, Agent Morgan leaves. He gives the girl a nod as he makes for the front door, probably the lucky agent assigned to go look at Melissa Wier's body and confer with the medical examiner.

Doctor Reid also pokes his head out, waving his hand to get Devery's attention. "Do you have a coffee machine?" he asks. Devery gestures over her shoulder to the station's kitchenette and the young doctor scurries off to it. As she cracks her knuckles, ready to return to the arduous task of doing nothing, she spots Chief Halloran on his way back to his office and beckons him over.

"FBI guys are in the conference room," she tells him. He thanks her and disappears to speak with Gideon and Hotchner. After a few minutes, which she spends dreading returning to her paperwork, Devery looks back at the kitchen, where Doctor Reid is waiting by his brewing coffee, twiddling with his thumbs whilst glancing around the space. She jumps up, eager to do anything that isn't just sitting there. "You're pretty young to be a doctor, huh?"

Reid considers the statement for a second. "Well, I'm not a medical doctor, they're PhDs," he says.

Devery nods, admittedly impressed. "I'm going for my doctorate, actually."

This catches Reid's attention. He turns fully toward her, tilting his head to the side in what looks like genuine interest. "What in?" he asks.

"Psychology. So, mark my words, in six years, I'll be Doctor Devery last-name." Reid furrows his brows, confused. "Well, I don't know if I'll be married by then, I might not be Doctor Caulfield, y'know?" She pauses, thinking. "You said PhDs? Multiple?" Reid nods, reaching over the countertop to grab the jar of sugar. "God, how old are you?"

He cracks a smile, breathing out a small laugh. "Twenty-three."

Devery huffs a little. "Damn, me too. I'm falling behind." She's the same age as this guy and all she has to show for it are three bachelor's degrees. Still impressive, given that she graduated from her final degree at twenty-one, but not impressive enough now.

"No, I graduated high school early."

She nods along, slowly. "So did I. I was fourteen."

Reid pauses for a moment, mid-stir. "I was twelve."

Goddammit.

It's fine. It's fine. There's more to Devery's intellect than just the age she graduated high school. "I speak eight languages," she says, not taking her eyes away from him.

She doesn't miss the look on Reid's face and for a brief moment, she thinks she's won the competition. Then a little smile grows on Reid's lips. "I have an IQ of 187."

"I went to UPenn." That one, she doesn't even have to think about. It's an Ivy League school, and she got accepted when she was seventeen, fresh out of Mississippi College, already with a bachelor's degree to her name.

The look on Reid's face doesn't change. "I went to CalTech."

Damn. How is she meant to beat that one?

Before she has a chance to even attempt a rebuttal, Chief Halloran calls her name, prompting her to turn away from the other young genius in the room. "Hey, either get a coffee or do your work."

He's been harder on her since the whole 'nearly-getting-herself-killed-by-a-serial-killer' thing. God, you nearly get stuffed into one car's trunk.

"On it, boss."

She's only a few steps away when she hears Reid's voice again. "Saved by the bell," he says. She refuses to turn around to look at him, but she can hear his attempt to bite back a smile.

Officer Edmond, now roused from his nap, raises his brows at Devery, a smug little grin plastered on his face. He'd listened to their entire conversation. "Not the smartest person in the room anymore, huh, Devvy?

"Shut up."

————

     "What have you got for us, Morgan?" Agent Hotchner asks. He speaks into his phone, which he pulls away from his ear the moment he's finished talking to put it on speaker, allowing Morgan to converse with Gideon and Reid as well.

     His voice crackles a little through the receiver. "For lack of better words, Hotch, it looks like this wire worked the same way as a zip tie."

     Hotch's brow furrows. Although, Hotch's brow is always kind of furrowed. "How so?"

     "Once it was tightened, there was no way to loosen it again. Looks like it claws into itself and won't let go."

     Reid leans forward in his seat, resting his forearms on the wooden table in front of him. "That's interesting. And, would I be right to assume that, once the wire was tightened, it could still be pulled tighter?"

There's a beat of silence as Morgan looks over the body once again. "Yeah, Reid. Looks like, as the victims struggled, they ended up pulling it tighter themselves."

That matches up with their case files. All six victims have bloody scratch marks around their throat and the backs of their necks, and clumps of their own skin under their fingernails.

"So, this guy's getting off on making these women struggle, knowing there's nothing they can do to save themselves," Gideon says quietly.

     Reid nods in agreement. "But, how is he doing it without any witnesses? Wrapping wire around someone's neck without anyone noticing would be hard enough, but to feed it through something like the head and pawl of a zip tie? You'd have to be incredibly fast and precise to do something like that."

     "I was actually thinking that myself," Devery says suddenly appearing in the doorway to the conference room. The M.E. had sent through her report not minutes earlier, and Dev prides herself on being an incredibly fast reader. It almost makes up for her near inability to spell anything without mulling over the words for minutes at a time. "And, I did have a thought."

     The FBI guys look puzzled. Puzzled that a desk cop had an idea before the Doctor Reid. Nevertheless, Gideon gestures for her to continue.

     "Have you heard of permanent jewellery?" The men shake their heads. Fair enough. "Well, it's exactly as it sounds — jewellery made to stay on permanently. You'd have to cut them off to remove them. There are soldered bracelets, there's waist beads in some African cultures which can be used to track weight gain or loss. My point is — what if our suspect knew our victims? What if he..."

     She thinks she's lost them, judging by the looks on their faces, until Reid nods. "He might have given them the wire as... a necklace?"

     Devery claps once, excited that someone has finally caught onto her out-of-left-field ideas, drawing a few looks from her coworkers. "Exactly! They might have already been wearing their murder weapons. All he would've had to do was tighten them when the time came."

     "This sounds like a stretch..." Hotch murmurs, despite turning to the whiteboard and writing down 'necklace? permanent jewellery?'

     Reid looks at the older man. "No, Hotch, it makes perfect sense. These women wouldn't be worried that they couldn't remove their necklace if they thought it was meant to stay on permanently. And if it had some wiggle room before he tightened them—"

     "It would just seem like a nice, thoughtful gift from... I dunno, a boyfriend? A friend?" Dev finishes.

"Thank you, Caulfield." Hotch dismisses her without a glance back at her.

Devery steps backwards over the threshold of the room, suddenly feeling a little trodden on. She goes to bid the men farewell but chooses not to, instead just turning on her heel to return to her desk. Gideon gives her a seemingly-apologetic raise of his eyebrows, while Reid offers a small smile. Neither dulls the frustration simmering in Devery's gut. She's used to other officers, the men, in particular, ignoring her, and thinking less of her. It doesn't make it any less annoying when it happens, though.

Back at her desk, she begins rereading the files. Over and over. Hoping that, maybe this time she'll find the magic clue that solves the case, just like that. That the killer slipped up somehow and only she will be able to see it.

The coroner's office isn't that far away from the station, as proven by Morgan sauntering back into the precinct at that very moment. He gives Devery a small wave, which she returns, before going back to reading the report on Tina Lawrence's murder. She'd been victim three, murdered outside of Tres Leches, a café that Dev and her brother, Brandon, enjoyed visiting while he still lived in Jackson. He's moved to D.C. to live with his boyfriend. Though, if anyone else asks, especially the CIA assholes that Sean works with, they're just best friends and roommates. In a one-bedroom apartment. With only one bed.

And then it clicks.

Victim three. Tres Leches. It's so stupid and yet, it's right there.

She flips to other pages in the report, scanning over the relevant details. She sits bolt upright, eyes wide.

Behind her, Officer Edmond snickers. "What? Lose your ability to read, too?" God, will he ever get over Dev's trouble spelling?

"Fuck off," she murmurs, wiggling her computer mouse to bring her monitor back to life. One quick Google search later and she's on her feet again, hightailing it to the conference room. Hotch takes one look at her in the doorway and visibly has to stop himself from rolling his eyes. Okay, asshole, who pissed in your cornflakes this morning? "Look, I know I'm being a pain, or whatever, but I think I may have figured out the pattern."

While Hotch simply averts his gaze, Gideon gestures for her to continue. Morgan and Reid watch her open-mindedly. Devery goes for the whiteboard, where a map has been stuck up with magnets. Six dots have been drawn on where each victim had been found, with a bunch of curved lines connecting some and radiating out from others.

She points at the marker representing their first victim. "Victim one, Ellen Hardesty, was dumped outside of Precinct 1." She's the only one of their victims to have been moved postmortem. She'd been killed elsewhere and placed there shortly after for her body to be discovered. If their killer wanted her to be found exactly in front of the precinct, he knew it was too risky to kill her there.

"Victim two, Pauline Sanchez, was killed on the corner of Magnolia and Second," Devery says, pointing at the second marker. "Victim three, Tina Lawrence, was killed outside of a café named Tres Leches."

Number three is where Reid perks up. He's caught on. "The location of each body correlates with the order of the victims' deaths."

Devery nods, pointing at the last three markers in succession. "Four, five, six."

"And, now we're up to seven."

"That's the kicker. There's a nightclub having a grand opening tonight. It's called Seven," Devery says. She'd seen a flyer for the event on her way into the office today. Thank God, she'd remembered it.

Hotch pulls his lips into a thin line. "You're sure about this?"

Dev nods, confidently. She sets her jaw and rolls her shoulders back, emulating the men she's had to work so hard to live up to. "I've never been more sure of anything in my life."

————

     She's shuffled out of the room again while the FBI boys work on their profile. There'll be a lot of people around at the opening, and it's way too risky to go in with no idea who they're looking for.

     Of course, Dev being Dev, she's already got an idea. She's picturing a conventionally attractive guy, maybe more on the average side, someone who wouldn't have trouble getting with women but not someone with a unique look about him. No noticeable scars or birthmarks. He's been able to disappear into the crowd multiple times, you can't do that when you look different, right? People always remember someone different. That also leads her to believe he's white, probably in his twenties given the location of each kill ( lots of those trendy places that the youth, like Dev, frequent, outside of the first two kills ), natural coloured hair, no tattoos or piercings. He's bold but not necessarily confident. And, whoever it is, he'll be up close to his lady friend the entire time.

     Unfortunately, their victimology is all over the place. All of their previous victims are of varying races, hair colours, and body types. Pauline Sanchez was a skinny, dark-haired, Mexican woman, while Melissa Wier was redheaded, white, and plump. These women aren't surrogates, that's for sure. And he clearly doesn't have one specific type. That means they have no other way to narrow it down from there.

It's about half an hour later, a mere two hours until Seven's opening, that the BAU boys have the officers gathered around to listen to their profile.

And, it's then, that Devery's heart drops past her gut and straight to the floor.

Because what the hell are they doing suggesting that their unsub is some model-gorgeous guy in his thirties who can charm a woman into his bed with just a look? This guy is no Derek Morgan ( well, if Devery's impression of Derek Morgan is an accurate one ), he's the evil version of Officer Travis Haas, the reserved pretty boy that the department had hired not long after Dev returned from her maternity leave. He'd asked her out once, and she would've said yes if not for the infant she needed to take care of back at home.

Devery volunteers to be one of the many, many officers patrolling the opening. Not just because she needs an excuse, any excuse to get back into the field and out of the stuffy air-conditioned precinct, but because it's up to her, once again, to save the day. She'd considered going back to the conference room to tell the men that they'd made a mistake, it's fine, they don't know the Jackson young-adult scene as well as Dev does, but the thought of that look on Hotchner's face froze her in her tracks. One more interruption and she might be the next woman on the chopping block.

After stopping off at home to pick up a dress to wear to slip undercover, Devery arrives at their designated meeting place — a real estate office that was closed for the day and graciously opened their doors to act as their unit base.

There, she gets changed in the bathroom, fixing her makeup in the mirror to be more club and less business. She thickens her eyeliner, adds some lipstick, and throws on some more mascara.

When Dev steps out of the bathroom, she instinctively pulls her coat across her body, shielding herself from the judgemental eyes of her coworkers. They already don't take her seriously and now, here she is, in pumps and a short teal dress, standing amongst a bunch of men in suits or tops and a smart pair of slacks. Devery considers herself a confident woman, but not when she's being looked at like a piece of meat.

It's fine. You're safe here.

Doctor Reid catches her eye and makes an instant note of the worry on her face. He makes a beeline for her, weaving through the hordes of men between them. "Hey, uh, you alright?" he asks.

Dev looks up from her feet. "Yeah," she says. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Reid stammers for a moment. "You just, I dunno, look nervous."

She considers this. She could tell him the real reason for her concern, or she could tell him what would soon be the cause because at least this guy wouldn't bite her head off the way Hotch might. Fuck it. "Don't kill me, but I think your profile is wrong and it's going to get someone murdered tonight."

Reid freezes, eyeing her. "You think so, too?"

Devery can't hide the shock that registers on her face.

"I thought the profile sounded off the second they started spitballing but nothing I was saying was changing their minds," Reid says.

Across the room, Chief Halloran and Special Agent Gideon are calling the officers and agents to attention. "Well, you and I are going to have to keep our eyes peeled then, huh?" Devery says. As the men-in-charge talk and assign partners, Devery whispers her own profile to Reid. He agrees with every word.

She knew she was the smart one.

Devery is paired up with Derek Morgan and the two find each other, standing on opposite sides of the room. They're sent out together ten minutes before the event is to start, to make their way down the street together pretending to be a couple on their way to a night out on the town. Derek slips his arm around Dev's waist, hovering his hand a centimetre, not making direct contact until Devery gives him the go-ahead. She appreciates the thought, leaning her head against Derek's muscular bicep.

Derek dips his head down a little. "Caulfield, you're Indian, right?" he asks.

Kind of a weird question, but whatever, she'll bite. "Native American," she corrects him. The term Indian has always got on her nerves. Indians are from India, she's from the Americas. "Since the last time I checked, yeah."

"Right. Don't you guys grow your hair out long?" he asks. "I don't think I've ever seen an— a Native American with short hair."

Well, that's some kind of effort, she supposes. Devery'd had to get her hair cut in a blunt bob ending at her chin ever since that encounter with Stephen Watts left her with a disgusting hack job. That's what happens when you cut hair that's tied in a braid — a million strands at a million different lengths. She decides that instead of giving him a straight answer, she'll toy with him a little. Can't hurt. "We cut it when we're in mourning," she deadpans, turning her head to look him in the eyes.

Derek reels back. "Oh," he stammers. "Sorry, I—"

"Or, in my case, when a serial killer tries to make you victim number six and takes a pair of scissors to it."

"Oh," Derek says.

It takes everything in Devery not to crack up immediately. She fingers the ends of her hair, the memory of it being cut still raw in her soul. Her family is a mixed bag of races, cultures, and traditions — she's the only Native American in the household — so her parents had done everything they could to integrate her into her culture, including not cutting her hair unless the family was in mourning. The last time Devery cut it was when she was thirteen and Halmeoni died. She'd been growing it for ten years before Stephen came along with his scissors.

"I lived in case you were wondering," Dev says to break the silence.

Derek nods. "Oh, thank God. I was on the edge of my seat."

"What can I say? I'm a master storyteller. My kid loves it."

They're nearly at the entrance to the club so the pair get their IDs out. Derek probably looks old enough to get in without his, but you can never be too careful. Devery's been mistaken for her late teens a few times. She considers it a compliment. "You have a kid?" Derek asks as he and Dev flash their IDs to the bouncer. He lets them in without issue.

"Mhmm, a little girl — Dorothea. Light of my life," Dev says, unable to fight back the smile that appears at the thought of her daughter.

"Beautiful name," Derek replies. He sounds sincere. "Is the dad around?"

Dev's mood sours. "Nope. Prison. Waiting for the needle."

Derek's brow furrows, shock painting his features. "Wow," he murmurs. "What'd he do?"

"You don't wanna know."

Derek can tell that Devery's done talking about him, so he stops talking. Devery straightens her spine to see better through the crowd. She's already pretty tall, standing at a solid five foot eight, and her heels give her an extra few inches, so she has a relatively clear shot at most of the action. Derek has an extra inch or two on her even while she's in her heels.

In her peripherals, Dev spots Reid entering with Officer Haas, playing the part of best buds come to get wasted together. She turns her head and catches his eye. He gives her a tiny, subdued nod. Devery may have declared the pair of them rivals but right now, they're each other's only allies.

She turns back to Derek. "Let's go to the dance floor," she says. "Get closer to the crowd."

Derek agrees and takes Devery's hand, leading her to the floor even though no music is playing. The owner is up on the stage by the DJ booth, giving his big commencement speech to the crowd who couldn't care less, they're just here to get drunk and party, maybe hook up with someone. Not listen to some dude drone on about his vision. The pair shuffle their way into an empty spot near the middle of the crowd, where they both start scanning the area, though for completely different people.

It hits Dev that finding an average-looking lady-killer in this crowd is like trying to find spilled sugar on the beach. Every damn guy in here is average looking and has a pretty girl on his arm. Reid comes up on the other side of Devery and she leans over to him. "We're not looking for the guy, we're looking for the girl."

"We tried that. There's no commonality in victimology."

She sighs, rolling her eyes. "The necklace, Reid. Look for the necklace, then look for the guy she's with."

"Oh." Reid squeezes his eyes shut.

She shoos him off. "Just go!"

Ten minutes pass and nothing has happened but nearly the entire police department has arrived and is mulling about. Nobody is allowed to drink, being on duty and all, so they're all forced to listen to the blaring techno music with no buffer. Dev could do with a drink right about now but she refrains. She needs to keep her senses keen to catch the right guy.

She's been pulling Derek around with her to different parts of the dance floor to get better angles of the crowd. They've been dancing together but both are preoccupied trying to find their mystery man. Derek's still looking for the model-gorgeous guy from the profile, while Devery's looking for her average-looking charmer next to the girl with the necklace. It's all she has to go from.

     And then, in light beams refracting off the mirrorball up above, a flat silver necklace winks at her.

     The woman wearing it, a beautiful young lady with dark brown skin and curly blonde hair, dances not too far from where Devery and Derek stand. Her dance partner is exactly as Devery had predicted — just a little prettier than your average Joe, a mop of brown hair covering his face, a sharp jaw but soft cheekbones, dressed in ill-fitting jeans and a black hoodie with the hood lowered. And his hands are inching up closer and closer to the woman's throat.

     Devery grabs Derek's arm, pointing him in the direction of the couple. Discretion is no longer necessary. They have the guy right there. Devery doesn't have her gun on her, she'd had nowhere to hide it unless she planned to strap an entire handgun to her inner thigh. Derek has his though, hidden beneath the waistband of his trousers. He reaches for it, using his other hand to clear a path to the pair, wanting all potential collateral damage out of the way.

     "Hey! Freeze!" Derek shouts over the music, aiming the gun at the unsub, who's already grabbed the dangling end of the necklace between his fingers. One wrong move and this poor woman goes down.

     Devery inches closer, prepared to tackle the unsub if she has to, but she finds it unnecessary. The unsub drops the necklace and raises his hands in surrender, just like that.

     They hadn't profiled him as a coward. He'd been brazen enough to leave his first kill in front of a building swarming with police officers. So, this isn't cowardice, it's self-preservation.

     Derek comes around to the back of the unsub, pulling his hands behind him to cuff together, while the woman stumbles forward into Devery. She holds the woman by her elbows, comfortingly rubbing her thumb along her skin. "You're alright," she assures her. "You're okay."

————

     "Reid tells us that you knew our profile was wrong."

     Gideon stands in front of Devery's desk, hands tucked into his pockets. Devery looks away from her computer, setting aside the task of trying to figure out if the I or E comes first in the word 'received.' "I had a hunch."

     He nods. "A correct one." He pauses a second. "I asked around. Halloran says that you're always like this?"

     "I grind a lot of gears around here," Devery says. "But, hey, I just like catching the bad guys."

     Gideon nods along again. "Listen," he says. Devery raises her eyebrows, listening. He takes another beat. "How'd you like to catch more bad guys with us?"

     She almost thinks she's misheard.

     "You like, the FBI?" she asks.

     "You'd fit right in."

     Devery gapes. "I don't have any of the training for it, though, and I live here, I'd have to uproot my entire life—"

     "If you're interested, you wouldn't start right away. You'd have time to move, get settled in, go through the four months of training. What I'm offering is a position in the BAU should you complete the training at the Academy."

     Behind her, Officer Edmond chokes on his saliva in the middle of one of his mid-morning naps, his first of the new day. This is a chance, a real chance, to work in a place where she can continue to help people and not be looked down on by the likes of Edmond and his buddies — all because she's a woman with a child. She and Derek had grown friendly over the past night's mission, so she'd be able to spend more time with him. She'd get to find more ways that she's smarter than Reid. She'd get to figure out what it is about her that makes Hotchner so irritated.

     She'd get out of the town where she'd nearly died three times over.

     So, she extends a hand to Gideon for him to shake, not waiting for him to initiate it. She's got to take charge one way or another.

     "I'm in."

" every sunset is an opportunity to reset. every sunrise begins with new eyes "
— richie norton

————

a/n:
don't mind me, just out here capitalising on the season 17 hype.

i'm being so serious, i was on the verge of passing out while writing the club scene but it's fine. we persevered.

for reference, within the timeline, this chapter takes place just over six months before the pilot, 'extreme aggressor', approximately two weeks before the bombing that kills six fbi agents and puts gideon on medical leave.

guys you don't understand how much i adore devery. a lot of my ocs are based a tiny bit on myself, but one huge part of dev's story, which we will steadily learn more and more about as the fic progresses, comes from my real life. i feel like writing the healing journey will help with mine, if that makes sense.

also! if i missed any trigger warnings you feel i should've included, please feel free to point them out! i'm happy to add more in should i need to!

date published: june 12, 2024
word count: 5.5k