Third Person's POV

Sydney was dead when she arrived at the round table. She was lucky that she hadn't fallen on her face while walking like she's drunk. Then again she can't walk straight if her life depended on it. The team had been called in for another case four days after Bethany died from her car accident. They had been listening in on a recording of a phone call from a father about his missing daughters.

Hotch paused the recording. "That call came in an hour ago." He tells them as Sydney yawns as she's doing the headnods.

"How does a single father lose his daughter's for 36 hours?" JJ questioned.

"He doesn't." Rossi tells.

"He loses them on Monday, but he calls on Wednesday? If anything, he sounds like the suspect." Sydney says despite her being in the current state she is in right now.

"His girls are gone. He doesn't blame anyone." JJ tells her.

"And he doesn't use any buzzwords first responders are trained to hear. He never says missing, abducted, runaway." Derek says.

"Maybe that'd what they did, though. Maybe they ran away." Penelope tells.

"There's no history of that." Rossi tells.

"The likelihood of a stranger abduction in a neighborhood like this is rare. I've counted 7 turns from the entrance to their driveway. No one just stumbled onto the house." Spencer explained as Sydney yawned once again.

"And where's the mother? Could this be a parental child abduction?" Sydney asks as she knows how that feels like too.

"Uh, doubtful." Hotch says. "Exactly one year ago today he made this call." He says as he plays yet another recording. "She's also been missing for two days before he contacted authorities, and she's never been found."

"This man is either the victim of a serial offender or he is one." Rossi says.

"Please tell me this guy's in custody." Morgan says.

"The Salisbury police are at his home and they've been there since the call came in." Hotch says.

"There are hard copies and tablet copies of both the case files on the plane." Penelope explained as Spencer handed Sydneya file and a map he used for the geographical area sk shed help out on that. "It's a short flight to the eastern shore. The be more when you land."

On the jet, the team bad been going over thr family mine and what occurred before the abductions. "Bruce and Judy Morrison were well liked and active in the community. All signs point to them living a quiet life." JJ explains as Spencer hands Sydney a coffee mug which she faintly smiled for as it had coffee with whipped cream and sprinkles.

She loves it.

She calls it a lattè.

"He's a writer and a professor, and it looks like she got to real estate a few years ago." Derek points out.

"'02, before the market crashed." Rossi says.

"Well, ten years ago Judy had an affair with a co-worker Jeff Godwin." JJ reads. "That was discovered in the investigation but never made it in the papers."

"Bruce Morrison was a prime suspect, but they never found any evidence and the affair wasn't deemed enough of a motive. The university's put him on sabbatical since then." Hotch explains.

"He's been writing forever, and he's been teaching since 1985. Transcript says he was grief-stricken and couldn't handle the pressure. Hm, wonder why?" Sydney says not caring if she has whipped cream on her lip.

Derek tries not to smile as he sees the whip cream on her lip.

"Not many people could. The odds of this event striking the same family on the same day must be a billion to one." Rossi says.

"Close enough." Spencer says shrugging.

"Judy inherited money from her family and it's in a trust for the girls." Sydney explains.

"Ah, jeez, please tell me he did not get rid of his wife for money." JJ sighs.

"Bank records indicate he hasn't touched the funds, despite the depleting supplemental income from the university." Spencer says.

"Yeah, but it could be a combo platter. Revenge and profit." Sydney told him.

"His wife cheated and he retaliated in anger." Derek says.

"It might not be a surprise, but that doesn't explain why he would harm his own children." Sydney reasons.

After they landed, the team bad been driving to the house. Sydney was in the backseat as Derek and Spencer were in the front.

"The oldest daughter Sera had a 4.0 GPA, but she didn't apply to a single college back East. She accepted a Stanford early admission. Maybe her father saw going that far away as a form of betrayal." Spencer assumes.

"Well, it'd be the second one in a year." Sydney tells him.

"First his wife of twenty-seven years fools around and then probably threatens to end the marriage. A year later, the daughter can't wait to leave." Rossi explains over the phone as Sydney had called him.

"Abandonment could be the common denominator." Sydney says as she shrugs.

"There is another possibility. Maybe Bruce Morrison didn't do it." Derek says.

"The family have enemies?" Rossi continues. "The only person that might fit that would be Jeff Godwin."

"Mm, looks like he had a pretty solid alibi the night Judy went missing. He was having wine and dining his own wife at a local restaurant." Sydney says.

"So the only viable suspect back then was the same one we have now." Derek says.

"All the answers are in that house." Rossi says.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

The team arrives at the house and Sydney had been in charge of going through Sera's and Katie's lives. JJ, and Spencer were scoping though Katie's while Derek and Sydney were tackling Sera.

"Nothing in the past year since her mom disappeared." Sydney says as she goes through a notebook of Sera. "It looks like she kept it all bottled up." Derek looks through her computer.

"Except when she was here assigned to write. There a lot of papers in here from her creative writing class." Derek says.

"Her dad's a writer and English professor. Maybe she was trying to get his attention." Sydney assumes as Derek looks around the room as Sydney notices the look on his face. "What?"

"Are most high school seniors this neat?" Derek asks as Sydney furrows her eyebrows and notices the cleanliness of the room. "Trash empty, beds perfectly made."

"She probably wouldn't have cleaned, not willingly. Unless she decided to before she and her sister disappeared." Sydney tells him.

"So, is that what he did for two days, clean the house?" Derek questions, talking about the father and Sydney looks around.

After Penelope had received the phone and checked the phone logs, as she was going through the messages and who they were messaging. Sydney. JJ and Spencer had looked through the basement and couldn't find much.

They decided to go and question the neighbors to see if they knew aanything. On Monday night, Bruce had an argument with his daughter's, and it was discovered that Katie's body had been found in a river but Sera was still missing.

There bad been gun residue on the sheets they found and knew they had to get Bruce to the station.

Sydney had stayed at the house with JJ when she had gotten a phone call from Penelope and she put her on speaker to share the news. "I think I may have found something creepy. There's a bunch of text messages between Sera and a number that I have traved back to Jeff Godwin."

"Why would your missing mother's ex-lover stay in touch?" JJ asks as she scans through Seras phone. "More than a little inappropriate."

"And here's a text from Jeff." Sydney says as she looked over at JJ.

"Please tell me there was nothing strange going on between him and the daughter." Penelope says.

"It seems more paternal than anything." JJ says. "Listen to this. It's gonna be okay. You, just have to stay strong."

"Is he encouraging her to leave?" Sydney asked.

"Or for her to face her father in some way?" JJ asks.

"Well, what about the texts on Monday?" Penelope asks.

"There aren't any. The latest were from Sunday night." Sydney tells.

"No, no, no, yes they are. I'm looking at the phone records. There's texts between them on Monday between 5:23 and 5:56 pm." Penelope tells her as JJ and Sydney give each other a look.

"So she deleted them." Sydney assumes.

"Weird." JJ comments. "Very."

Sydney had decided to call up Derek, who was at the station. "Hey, Syd." He greeted.

"Derek. We need you to find Jeff Godwin." Sydney says.

"Uh, he just walked in." Derek informs her.

"He did?" Sydney asks confused.

"Says he heard we found Katie and he's worried about Sera." Derek says.

"He also texted Sera the night she went missing and then deleted the texts." Sydney tells him.

"It's like they texted a lot." JJ adds.

"Really?" Derek asks.

"Si senor." Sydney says.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

After Derek has a conversation with Jeff Godwin, he seemed clean. Everyone had made it back to the station and Penelope had discovered a recording from Katie's cell phone to a local abuse hotline.

After showing the phone call to Bruce, he'd had a meltdown and completely changed his personality and talked like he wasn't even Bruce anymore.

Hotch and Rossi had come back and the team discussed what had just occurred. "So Bruce said Katie baked cookies Monday night. We found them in the kitchen so that's true." JJ tells him.

"And two of Sera's friends confirmed she never made it to her study group." Sydney says.

"That's because Jeff Godwin was in the parking lot with her from 8:15 to 9:30." Jj adds.

"And the girls called the hotline at 9:58." Spencer added on.

"Detective, have your officers found either gun?" Hotch asked.

"No, but we've increased the search, given where Katie's body was found." The Detective answered.

"We've got residue, but we don't know which gun or where it is now." Derek says.

"Look, whoever that was on there said he wanted to scare them, hurt them." JJ says.

"Katie was beaten over the head in the middle of nowhere." Sydney debunks questioning if this guy was telling the truth.

"You're right. The alter could have lost his temper, or it could have just been a horrible accident." JJ tells.

"But getting the girls our of thr house was planned." Rossi says. "He said he wanted to scare them and had a gun to do it." He adds.

"And then be drove them somewhere." Morgan tells.

"Bruce's car had the same mud on the driver's side floor that he had on his boots, but there wasn't any in the backseat."

"So three people drove somewhere, but he only came back." Sydney says.

"And the DNA coming back from Katie's nails will tell us what we already know. That Bruce Morrison did this. So can I arrest him now?" The Detective questions as Sydney understands the frustration but she could tell that he just wanted this to get over and done with.

"Detective, you have sufficient evidence to make the arrest. But we still don't have Sera. Give us an hour and maybe he'll tell us where she is. Its your call, but he could still help us." Hotch explains as the Detective finally have I'm and took a breath. "Okay, one hour."

As Hotch spoke to him, the team began to try and uncover the man's life. They'd discovered that Bruce's wife had been taking a medical prescription.

"Disulfiram. Am I saying that right?" Penelope asked.

"It's for chronic alcoholism. She had a 90-day supply delivered 4 times a year for as long as I can tell. And it stopped coming a few months ago."

"It makes you feel nauseous if you drink alcohol." Sydney says as she said that with no hesitation.

"But she isn't the one who had a drinking problem." Derek says. "He is."

"Penelope, who canceled it?" Sydney asked.

"Hold on sweetcakes while I dig." Penelope says.

"Could that be the trigger?" Sydney asked.

"He goes after his daughter's now thatbhes off his meds?" JJ added.

"I know someone like that exactly." Sydney said even if it's not relevant to the situation.

"Who?" JJ asked.

"Annie's dad, her friends moms ex-husband." Spencer says as JJ nods her head.

"That instability could work for us." JJ tells as she looks over at Sydney who looked deep in thought. "Syd?" She asked as Sydney nods her head.

"Let me do the talking, last time you did. The guy tried jumping you." Sydney says as she bad a small smile on her face. "What I'm motivated".

The two had gotten Hotch's okay with this and the two plus Derek had gotten Jeff Godwin to go into Bruce's interrogation room and Jeff tensed up as he entered the room. "Hey, I--I didn't--Hey, I didn't agree to do this."

"Too bad." Sydney seethed at him which made him jump. JJ stood off in the corner as Sydney began to speak. "Well, we're looking for Sera, and your the last ones to see her alive." She says as Jeff looks towards Derek.

"Look, like I told your guy here, I had nothing to do with this. And Sera's afraid of him."

"Do you want to tell us about your relationship with Sera?" Sydney asked.

"I don't have one." Jeff says as this was angering Sydney, but she's keeping her cool.

"Well, that's strange. Why do you text her all the time, then. Explain that?" Sydney asked as she crosses her arms over her chest.

Sydney watches as Bruce's behavior stiffens as his personality was beginning to shift. "Jeff, it's not that big of a leap. You couldn't have Judy anymore , so you, thought...why not? Sera looks just like her mom."

That's when Bruce pounced up and started to go after Jeff but Derek held him back. "Stop! Back up! Back up!" Derek yells.

"I'm gonna kill that son of a bitch!" Bruce yells.

"Get him out! Get him out now!" Derek tells the officer in the room. "Easy!"

Derek took his hands off of him and left the room and the personality fully shifted when Bruce said. "Judy was gonna leave my boy for that scumbag."

Sydney and JJ looked at each other and they're prepared for the interrogation. "What's your name?" JJ asked.

"What's my name?" Mr. Personality asked confused.

"I'm Jennifer." JJ introduced as the man looked towards Sydney. "Sydney." She blatantly said. "Your turn." JJ adds.

"My name is Johnny and I need a cigarette, Jennifer and Sydney." He says.

"Well, I might be able to help you out there. I'm sure your stressed." JJ tells. "Oh, I'm not. I just want a smoke." He says.

"Johnny, come in. I know these teenage girls stress you out, no matter what you say." JJ says. "I mean, how do you deal with it? All they do is bitch and moan, right? I'm guessing you like to...shoot things when you get mad?" Sydney followed JJ's lead.

The man shrugs. "Sometimes, but I don't get much chance to do that." As Sydney continues. "Oh, I thought you did have a chance recently. I think you did." The man laughed as Sydney continued. "Oh, you definitely did."

"Now, you know, I'm just--I'm just curious and then I'll go get you that cigarette." JJ tells him.

"I like you two." He says as Sydney's nose scrunched at hearing that. She wanted to gag at hearing that.

"So...you took the girls somewhere to scare them." JJ assumes.

"Maybe somewhere quiet and isolated...near the water?" Sydney asked as she crosses her arms and keeping her head held high.

"I didn't do anything but scare 'em." He says.

"Of course not." JJ says as she shakes her head.

"Do you have a place by the river?" Sydney asked.

"Pretty and smart, the two of you." The man says which was making Sydney a little uncomfortable but she's keeping it together.

"She's a minor, so that would be a little illegal." JJ says to him.

"It's not my place. It's not anybody place anymore. I've taken them out there before, but this time. I got their attention." He says.

Both Sydney and JJ exchanged a look as they finally gotten the location of where he took them. They'd done a whole search party and successfully found Sera with a rifle in her hand. She was now in the hospital and she was scared. Sydney had taken the liberty to go and talk to her, hoping that she can get something out of her.

"Sera, I know you don't feel like talking, but if you think you can, there's some things I need to know, and I can't ask anyone else about you." Sydney started off slowly trying to ease her way into Sera's life.

"He killed my mother too, didn't he?" She asked.

"It's hard to say unless we find her body." She says the truth.

"I want to talk to him." Sera tells her. "Would that be okay?"

Sydney nods her head. "Of course." She says as Sera looks at her.

"Will you come with me?" Sera asked as Sydney hesitantly nods her head at her. Yeah, but we gotta get you warmed up first, okay." Sydney says as she wrapped a blanket around the girl. "There you go."

"My mom used to wrap me in this quilt that she made before I was born." Sera said. "She said she always knew it would be for her little girl." Sydney was glad that she had been opening up to her. "I miss her." Sera began to cry as Sydney hugged the girl , resting her head on top of Sera's. "I'm so sorry. I miss my mom, too, sometimes."

After getting Sera straightened up, Sydney had taken her to talk to her dad. She watched as Sera and Bruce sat for a minute before speaking. Bruce took his daughter's hands into his and she accepted. "I'm so sorry." Bruce says apologizing as Sydney just rolled jer eyes at him, knowing that he definitely isn't. "Dad, you need help." Sera tells him.

Bruce nodded and took a notice on Sera's wounds on her head and cheek. "Did I do that? I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He apologized again. "What can I do?"

Sera takes a breath. "They say that if you just tell them where mom is that this will all just be--" Sera says but Bruce interrupts. "But I don't know. You know I don't know."

"She didn't just disappear, Dad." Sera argues. "Oh, God, you killed her, didn't you?"

Bruce shakes his head. "No. No, I didn't." Bruce tells her.

"How am I suppoded to believe you?" Sera asked. "This. This is what you've done." She points to her face and to her arm as she rolls her sleeve up. "You have hurt us all for a long time." The girl stands up and decided she wanted to leave and Bruce begged her to stay but she didn't. Sydney followed behind the girl and decided to go with her to take her home.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Sydney had arrived back at the house with Sera. "The detective said my aunt was coming. Which one?" Sera asked.

"Karen. She's driving from Charleston. Are you cold?" Sydney asks as Sera shrugs.

"A little bit. The thermostat's right there." Sydney nods. "Okay, thanks." She says as she turns it on. "It should warm up soon. Think you'll be able to sleep."

"Yeah. I want a shower first " Sera nods her head. "Okay. Um sure you're gonna be okay up there. You don't need anything?" Sydney asks.

"Yeah, I'll be fine." Sera assures the girl. "Um, I could make us some tea kf you'd like." Sydney says as Sera nods. "That'd be really nice, thanks."

As Sera went upstairs, Sydney couldn't help but notice how odd Sera was acting. Her gut feeling kept telling her that something was off. Sydney looked around and had gotten a text message from her Dad.

all good?
message recieved

not sure, feels off
message recieved

After she fixes up the tea for herself and Sera, her phone goes off as it's her Dad calling. "Hey." She spoke once she answered.

"Whats wrong, baby?" He asked almost immediately.

"I'm not sure. There's something off, I just can't put my finger on it." Sydney tells him.

"How so?" He asks.

"She's just...too casual and almost distant since we got here." Sydney tells him.

"It could be the shock." Spencer assures his daughter.

"I know, but she's compromised at the same time. Don't you think she'd be a wreck if your sister was dead? Someone you grew up with? I mean, Dad, she has not mentionex Katie to me, even once, since we got here." Sydney explains. "Hell, for that matter when JJ's sister died she couldn't even walk past her room."

"Well, what d you think, Syd, Sera pulled it off?" Derek asked her.

"I think it may be a possibility." She muttered a bit, in hopes Sera wouldn't walk in at the wrong time.

"It's a very detailed plan." Derek added.

"What, she knew about her father's condition and took advantage of it?" JJ adds.

"She set up character witnesses like Heff Godwin to back up her fear. She even got ber little sister to make calls to a hotline. She manipulated us from the minute we found her." Derek explains. "Her writing suggested no empathy and no real emotional connection to the family."

"Psychopathic tendencies." Sydney says figuring it out.

"Her wounds are more than superficial, butbthey could be self-inflicted, right?" From the corner of her eye, she saw Sera walked into the kitchen and she knew she couldn't have the girl know about her being on the phone with the team so she acted like she wasn't on the phone with them.

"Annie, I know, I'm sorry I canceled our weekend trip to the waterpark, but you know that this job is really tough. I'm sorry, I know you understand." The team was confused at first but they knew what she was doing.

Sydney looked over towards the girl and acted as if she didn't see her walk in. "You okay, I didn't hear the shower."

Sera nods her head. "Yeah, I just wanted my tea, because caffeine first." Sydney faked a smile as she nods. "Ain't that the truth." She says with a small fake smile.

"Oh, um, I was gonna bring up your tea, but it should be ready by now." Sydney stands as she hands the tea to the girl and sees her walk away. "Uh, yeah, I'm still here."

Spencer then speaks. "We'll be right there, stay on the phone."

Sydney continues. "Gotta go." She hangs up and hopes that her Dad and the others will be here soon.

Sydney had heard the shower running indicating that Sera was in the shower and that gave Sydney time to investigate the house. She decided to investigate the basement due to what she discovered earlier and might help with the case.

She grabbed one of the boxes and began to look through it and saw the quilts she talked about before. She'd been looking through a real estate book when she heard a gun cock behind her. "Why did you have to come down here?" Sydney realized that Sera was holding a gun to her head.

Sydney kept her cool as she saw Sera with the gun. "So, that's where the other gun went. We've been looking for that, you know." Sydney tells her.

"It's an old house. I know the best hiding places." Sera says to her. "But you, what do you think you know?"

"You put everything that went missing with your mother inside this box." Sydney nudges her head towards the box and Sera was irritated that she figured it out. "1999."

"Maybe my dad did it." Sera says shrugging. "See, I don't think so. You chose this box because it's the year Katie was born and everything changed. She was your little sister." Sydney tells as that's when Sera aimed the gun at Sydney's shoulder and pulled the trigger.

Sydney fell back but still had her gaze on Sera. "Katie ruined everything and my mother let her."

Sydney tried. "Well, she loved Katie more." Sera shook her head. "I should have cried for Katie. I guess there's somethings I just can't fake."

Sydney dropped her gun when Sera shot her in the shoulder as her back was leaning against the shelf to maintain her balance. "You won't do it." Sera says as Sydney was reaching down for her gun.

"You need to back up...now." Sydney warns as Sera began to approach closer. She shakes her head. "I can say my trauma kicked in. PTSD. I saw you with the gun and I didn't know what else to do." She pretends as if she was crying.

"You thought of everything, huh?" Sydney asks and that's when she noticed Derek and her dad arrive holding their guns up. That's when Sydney slipped from the small puddle of blood and she slid down. "Sydney is down, got shot in the shoulder." Spencer says into the radio.

"Sera, put the gun down." Derek says to Sera.

"No, no, you don't understand. She had a gun. She was going to hurt me." Sera says acting out quickly as Sydney groans from the pain in her shoulder.

"No. No, Sera, it's okay. Listen to me. I understand. It's okay. She wasn't gonna hurt you. I know. You've been through enough. All right? I get it. Sera, your safe now." Derek tries to persuade her as Spencer held his gun to her head incase she tried to do something as Sydney was just watching what's happened.

The girl began to put down her gun down and that wad when Spencer arrested her. "What are you doing?!" Sera yelled.

"You're a smart girl, Sera. Figure it out." Derek says as that's when he saw Sydney getting up as she had a cloth thing holding the wound to try to stop it from bleeding. "How are you?" Derek asked her as hentried helping her up the stairs but she waved him away.

"Just a days work, Morgan." Sydney says as she walks up the stairs with Derek close behind her. When she got to the top of the stairs she saw her Dad.

"Your only allowed to say, 'I'm glad your okay'." She says as she walked past him, which caused Spencer to look at Derek.

"She doesn't want you to worry about her getting shot." Derek says to Spencer as he agreed with Derek.

They got into the car to head back, and JJ was tending to Sydney's wound on her shoulder. "For the most part it stopped bleeding." JJ says as she finished cleaning it up.

"Thanks." Sydney says to JJ as she nods her head.

"Of course, glad you didn't get beat up too bad." JJ says as Sydney saw that her Dad and Derek were in the front seat.

"Sup dudes." Sydney greets as she was in the spot where JJ sat before.

"Dude?" Derek asked as he turned his head slightly to look at Sydney. "Where'd you get that from?" He asked with a grin on his face.

"I know people who addresses other people with 'Dude', and other things." Sydney says to Derek which made him shake his head at the girl.

"Translation, she got it from you." Spencer says as Sydney pointed to her dad to prove her point.

"See, Einstein got it right." Sydney says as now it is Spencer's turn to give his daughter a look but of course it has a grin on his face. "Before you say anything, blah blah blah, same thing."

"I wasn't gonna say anything." Spencer says as Sydney ruffled his hair which made him sigh.

"Seriously, Syd." Spencer says as he was fixing his hair that his daughter so graciously messed up.

"Yeah, it was mandatory."

"She got you there, Pretty Boy."

"Why must you side with my daughter?" Spencer asked.

"Because, I can and I will." Derek shot back to him as Sydney just grinned.

"I love this." She says as she leans back in her seat.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

hannah speaks!

how did you like this chapter!

it was long as heck but totally worth it, if i say so myself

feel free to vote and comment your thoughts or something.

have a good day/night wherever you live!

<3