september , quantico virginia , 2005

"IF YOU CAN'T BEAT ME at chess, I don't know how you expect to beat Reid, Arnie." Ruth said as she sat her desk, reading the morning newspaper.

It felt good to sitting in that desk again, back in the BAU headquarters with the familiar sounds and familiar cheap coffee. It especially felt good to insult SSA Arnold Dunford again.

Arnold, or as most called him Arnie, was a celebrated and dedicated member of Hotch's BAU unit. Had he not been out of town visiting his father, he would have been working the Seattle Strangler case with the rest of them.

Arnie had pulled up a chair to Reid's desk, and was attempting to win a game of chess against him. When Ruth spoke, Arnie shot her a glare.

"I don't remember asking." The older man said, watching Reid move one of his black pieces. Before Arnie could even pick up one of his own pieces, Gideon walked by, and made the move for him. "Dude-"

Gideon looked down at Reid, ignoring Arnie's protests. "Check. Checkmate in three moves." Then he walked away as Reid looked down at the board with furrowed eyebrows, letting out a confused "what?". Arnie just looked pleasantly surprised.

"You know you'll beat him when you start learning." Morgan said from his desk after Gideon walked away.

Reid made a face. "Learning what?"

"Outside the box."

"Don't listen to him." Arnie said, causing Reid to look back at him. "Keep thinking inside the box, let me win."

Ruth folded her newspaper up. "Arnie, you once told me you lost to a sixth grader."

Before Arnie could make a retort, Elle came walking up to the four of them. "Question for you."

"Shoot." Morgan said.

"The Footpath Killer. Why did he stutter?" She asked.

"Come on, Elle, we've all asked him and he won't say." Morgan told her as she leaned up against the desk beside Arnie. "He wants us to figure it out."

"Well, okay." Elle grinned a little. "I'm up for a challenge."

"Good. Because these go to you." Came the voice of Jennifer "JJ" Jareau, the blonde and kind communications liaison for their team. She carried a stack of files in her hands, which ended up on Ruth's desk, beside Elle. JJ held her hand out. "Special Agent Jennifer Juerau, JJ if you like."

Elle shook her hand. "Elle-"

"Greenaway." JJ finished. "Highest number of solved cases in Seattle three years running, specialty in sex offender cases."

Elle glanced over at Ruth, who was just smiling a little. "Not bad."

"Well, I'm the unit liaison." JJ said as she started to walk up the lift. "My specialty is untangling bureaucratic knots. You'll probably be talking to me a lot. Door's always open, mostly because I'm never in my office, so just call me on my cell. Okay? We'll talk."

While JJ walked away leaving Elle stunned and as Arnie and Reid continued their game of chess, Morgan and Ruth exchanged a glance, trying to hold back amused smirks.

Before any of them could get back to a normal morning, Hotch's voice caused them to lift their heads.

"BAU team, meet me in the conference room please, I need to show you something." He said, walking across the lift.

Everyone got up from their seats and headed up the lift to the conference room, but Ruth didn't do so without bringing her coffee with her.

Once they were all seated around the circular table, Hotch started speaking.

"This is from the Phoenix office, Bradshaw Collage in Tempe. Six fires in seven months."

"Who recorded it?" Asked Gideon.

"Uh, a student with a digital camcorder." JJ answered. They all went through the files, scanning the pages for anything that stood out. "He was watching the fire in the building from across the dorms. The other person you'll see is his roommate, twenty year old Matthew Roland." JJ turned the screen on the wall on, and a video started playing.

"Hey, Matt, get over here, you gotta see this! The building's on fire!"

The camera was zoomed in on the burning collage building. A young man stuck his head in front of the camera with a "Yo, you gettin' this!?"

"Is that the kid?" Gideon asked.

"That's him." Hotch confirmed.

"Dude, over here."

The camera panned to the door of the dorm, focusing on the floor, where a clear liquid was coming from under the door.

"What is it?"

"I don't know. It's coming from underneath the door. Is someone in the hallway?"

"Hey, someone's tryna get in. Man, you should get away from there."

"It smells like gas-"

Shouting ensued as Matthew Roland suddenly caught fire. The camera was thrown down, and the roommate tried desperately to out the fire with a jacket.

It didn't work.

After the video ended, everyone was silent for a few moments. Then the silence was broken by Arnie, who cleared his throat.

"So, we're going back collage?" He asked, seemingly trying to lighten the mood.

Hotch just looked over at him with his usual stoic face and simply said, "We're going back to collage."

Desperate to finally win a game of chess, Arnie had made Reid bring the chessboard with him on the jet to Arizona. As they went over the finer details of the case on the jet, Ruth watched them set the pieces on the board where they had left off in the office, her eyes slightly narrowed - she had never been the biggest fan of boardgames.

"There are two common stressors for a serial arsonist." Reid was saying, multitasking.

"Loss of job, loss of love." Elle finished for him.

"When was the first fire set?" Morgan asked. He was on his laptop, calendar open, ready to mark the dates of each fire.

"March." Hotch answered. "The next one was in May. The third one wasn't 'til September, then two weeks later was three in one night."

"He's speeding up. Fires are getting closer together." Gideon said.

"Maybe the unsub's got a deadline." Arnie said, watching carefully to make sure Reid put the chess pieces in their correct spots. "Or his urges are getting too hard to control and he's losing it."

"Wait, why are you assuming the unsub's a man?" Elle questioned, furrowing her eyebrows a bit.

"Statistics." Arnie said simply, glancing over at her.

Ruth, who was now standing over Morgan's shoulder, turned to elaborate. "Eighty two percent of arsonists are white males between ages seventeen and twenty seven."

"Female arsonists are far less likely," Reid added, causing Ruth's gaze to shift to him. "their motives typically being revenge."

Elle and Arnie stared at Reid for a moment before looking up at Ruth, who sighed. "I could've said that myself." She mumbled.

"Well," Morgan said, getting back to track. "Sounds like our boy's a student."

Gideon looked up from the file he had been starting at. "Oh, don't be so sure. Rely too much on prescient, you never allow for the unexpected. If he went from setting one fire to three in two weeks time..."

"Rapid escalation." Hotch said. "Like Arnie said."

Gideon nodded. "So if the power to destroy a building is something far more satisfying..." He shook his head a little. "Power over life and death..."

Bradshaw collage was painfully normal in appearance. The landscape, the students, the campus; all of it was too normal looking.

But Ruth knew just as well as any of the team that evil can strike the hardest in the most normal of places.

When they stepped out of the black SUVs in the middle of campus, Ruth was well aware of the students walking to and from classes staring at them.

"Hey, Ford." Morgan said quietly, nudging Ruth in the side, causing her to turn to him. He glanced around at the collage students. "They all look like you."

"Fuck you." Ruth mumbled with a glare as she put her sunglasses on to avoid the bright sunlight. Morgan just laughed silently.

"No badges." Gideon told them. "I don't want to satisfy the unsub's attention by letting him know he got the FBI here. Try not to look official." He glanced back at his team, seeing the way they definitely all looked in some way FBI official. "Try to look less official."

They watched as Gideon walked into the office by himself, and then all exchanged glances. Slowly, Arnie undid his tie and then stuffed it in his pocket. Morgan patted his back, and then they all walked inside after Gideon.

They were introduced to Ellen Turner, the Dean of Students, soon after, and then herded across campus.

"Obviously I'd rather be meeting you under different circumstances." Turner said as they walked - now all chalked down to their button shirts without the jackets, thanks to Gideon. The Dean gestured to the other man at her side. "This is fire inspector Zhang."

"This morning, the chemistry department reported several bottle of highly flammable liquids missing." Zhang told them all.

"I'm prepared to evacuate this campus." Turner told them all as they walked back inside one of the buildings.

"That brings in it's own problems." Hotch told her.

"You might evacuate the arsonist as well." Arnie started explaining. "Then, the case goes cold, campus opens back up, fires start again."

Morgan sudden called out from the back of the group. "Wait, Hotch, Gideon, hold on a second." They all stopped walking and turned to him. "You said the chemicals went missing today?" Zhang confirmed his question. "It says here one of the previous fires was set with diesel fuel that disappeared from the groundskeeping facility. How long after it disappeared was the fire set?"

"One day." Turner said with a look of dread.

The team exchanged looks, and as Hotch and Gideon stepped away for a short conversation out of the earshot of Turner and Zhang, the others looked over at Arnie, who let out a breath and stated the obvious with a whispered "Well...That's not good".

Ruth rolled her eyes a little and shook her head - one thing she hadn't missed during her leave was Arnold Dunford's 'inexplicable timing' with words.

Hotch and Gideon walked back over, a game plan formulated between them.

"Morgan, Elle, Arnie - the three of you will come back with Gideon and I. We need to go over what we already know, start making connections." Hotch said, then he turned to Ruth. "Ruth, go up to Matthew Roland's dorm, see if you can profile the unsubs thinking from what's left."

Ruth nodded. "Yes, s-"

"Take Reid with you." Hotch finished, cutting her off.

Ruth stopped with her mouth halfway open. She glanced over at Reid, then turned back to Hotch, nodding a little, pursing her lips. "Yes, sir." She said again, the words sounding a little more forced.

"Alright. Break."

With that, Hotch and Gideon walked off with the rest of the team, leaving Ruth and Reid by themselves.

After getting the floor and dorm number they needed from the Dean, Ruth beckoned Reid to follow her with a simple "Let's go", and they walked off together.

It wasn't that Ruth didn't like Reid, he just irritated her. A lot.

Everytime he cut her off to finish a factual statement, everytime he beat her to an answer or conclusion, everytime he made a smartass comment. It irritated her.

Reid carried a subtle arrogance with him, the kind where he constantly made it obvious that he was smarter than everyone in the room. That irritated Ruth the most.

But you know what? Reid hadn't seen Ruth in action yet. He didn't know she could beat the shit out of him while reciting the Treaty of Versailles in German.

Ruth Ford was a character, and so was Spencer Reid. They were both more similar to each other than they'd really like to admit. Maybe that was why they butt heads, why they tried to avoid working with each other if they could help it. Maybe that was why they had a silent, unmentioned rivalry between them.

But it was in Hotch's interest that they started to get along. Because contrary to the two young doctors' beliefs, they worked well together, and that was proved during the Seattle Strangler case.

So that was why Ruth and Reid trudged up the stairs to Matthew Roland's dorm, and stepped inside the charred doorframe after pulling the yellow caution tape away.

Reid walked in first, looking around at the burnt, black walls and belongings. Ruth lingered in the doorway, her eyes scanning the room.

"The fire was lit with diesel fuel. That's a combustible liquid." Ruth started. "With combustible liquids, the liquid doesn't burn, the vapor does. That's why Matthew Roland went up in flames so fast." Her eyes narrowed as she looked around the room again. "The room's not badly burnt compared to scenes were fires were started with gasoline, alchohol, or acetone, turpentine...This is collage, alcohol is everywhere...the unsub also could have easily taken gasoline, acetone, or turpentine from the groundskeeping facility, but he got diesel fuel instead..."

"Either the unsub has no knowledge of chemistry and grabbed the first thing he thought would catch fire, or he does have knowledge of chemistry and chose the diesel fuel for a reason, knowing it wouldn't spread into the whole dorm, but would be enough to kill Matthew." Reid said, understanding where Ruth was coming from.

"If the latter is the case...that means we have an unsub who's evolving and escalating." Ruth said. "The burning of a building no longer brings him pleasure, now it's the kill, and that's what he's focused on. Nothing else matters to him."

"That makes him dangerous."

Ruth nodded a little. "Yeah. So let's try to get in his head." She glanced around the charred doorway she stood in. "Okay...so the door was locked..." She started.

"Matthew Roland and his roommate watched as the doorknob turned against the lock." Spencer said.

"Yep. Unsub couldn't get in...so..."

"So, he pours the accelerant into the room from the hallway." Reid finished.

Ruth's eyes narrowed a bit. "That means he couldn't see the fire..."

"But he could hear Matthew scream." Reid pointed out.

Ruth shook her head a little. "That further proves our theory about him being focused on the kill, but he couldn't hear Matthew's screams for long...He would've left quickly." She looked back up at Reid.

"Yeah, to avoid being spotted."

She sighed softly. "Doesn't make any sense..." She shook her head again and walked fully into the room, crossing her arms as she came up beside Reid.

"Pyromania as mental disorder may just be a simple myth," Reid started. "But we do know from precedent that serial arsonists derive pleasure from pathological fire setting."

"Sex and power." Ruth nodded, staring at the charred objects in the room.

Reid furrowed his eyebrows. "But a serial arsonist wouldn't just set a fire and walk away."

"Yeah...that's why this isn't adding up..." Ruth murmured. "He needs to experience it.. that's supposed to be the whole point..."

"...So why would he set a fire he couldn't watch?" Reid asked.

Ruth shook her head. "...I don't know."

When Ruth and Reid returned from the dorm, they filled the rest of the team in on what they had observed, what conclusions they'd come to, and the discrepancies in the profile that they needed to straighten out. This was just before the fire marshal walked in with a cardboard box in his hands, which he sat down at the table they were all perched around with Dean Turner.

"They turned the water off just before the fire." Zhang said as he opened the box up. "The last three were set with these." In the box was several chared device remains. "Two devices, simultaneous ignition."

"There wasn't a device used on Matthew Roland." Arnie said with furrowed eyebrows. "That means the unsub set that fire manually, probably a lighter or matches, right?" Zhang nodded in confirmation, and Arnie looked up at Hotch and Gideon.

"He wanted to be there." Morgan suggested. "To enjoy the kid's death."

"Not necessarily." Ruth countered, causing Morgan to turn to her.

Elle spoke up. "Well, if the target was Matthew Roland, then why set the other two fires?"

"Motives for arson are relatively simple." Reid said. "There's vandalism, crime concealment, political statement, profit-"

"And revenge." Ruth finished.

"We interviewed Matthew Roland's roommate." Zhang started. "He said Matthew was very well liked. No reason for revenge."

"What about vandalism?" Turner asked, her arms crossed.

Arnie immediately shook his head. "Not it. The fires are too sophisticated. And if the unsub is trying to make a political statement, he's not being clear about it at all."

Gideon looked up from where he'd been examining the melted devices in the cardboard box. "There's an underlying strategy behind this case. Matthew, firefighters, all just victims to the unsub. They're not people, they're-"

"They're objects." Hotch finished.

"More like, uh..."

"Chess pieces." Reid said, Gideon looking up at him. Ruth couldn't help but sigh and roll her eyes a little.

Gideon however thought the young man was on point. "Exactly." He tossed a charred device back in the box.

At that, Reid glanced over at Ruth, an eyebrow raised, a very small smirk playing at the corner of his lips. Ruth just shook hed head slightly, turning her glare down to the box.

Whatever, she told herself. He sucked at chess anyways.

Ruth was on coffee number three by the time she, Reid, and Arnie were discussing the devices used to set the first three fires.

"So, the timer sets the road flare, which then lights the chemical mixture inside the canister...so...that's simple...right?" Arnie said, unsureness in his voice.

The poor man, he was trying his best to help out, but he was surrounded by the two smartest people in the FBI, so he ended up becoming more of a pincushion for halfway formulated ideas.

At Arnie's unsure statement, Reid shook his head a little. "It's simple, yet sophisticated simplicity. I mean, there's a meticulous contruction to it."

From her seat beside Arnie, across from Reid, Ruth took a sip of her coffee before speaking. "Chemical accelerant could mean chemistry student. Then again, if they were a chemistry student, why use diesel fuel on Matthew Roland?"

"Well, if we look at it that way, it could also mean chemistry professor." Reid pointed out. Ruth just nodded a little.

Arnie furrowed his eyebrows a little, leaning back in his chair. "Professor? That doesn't match the profile of an arsonist."

Ruth sighed. "Arnie's right. You need self-confidence to get up and speak in front of a whole class full of young adults." Reid nodded, seeing where she was coming from. "Arsonists are socially incompetent."

"Exactly." Arnie nodded. "That's what I'm saying. This guy's a dork."

Ruth gave him a look. "In simple terms, yeah, sure. But it goes deeper than that." She told him. "This guy doesn't go on dates, he doesn't go to parties, he doesn't feel comfortable in front of groups..." She took a sip of her coffee.

Listening to Ruth listen out the unsub's likely attributes, Reid narrowed his eyes a little, looking up at her. Arnie furrowed his eyebrows and looked over at Ruth as well. When Ruth brought her coffee back down to the table, and glanced between the two men for a moment, confused, then realized she had essentially described Spencer Reid in simple terms.

"Oh...well...I mean, and of course, he's a total psychopath..." She added quickly.

Reid ticked his eyebrows. "Of course." He pursed his lips.

"And you're not, you know...you're not a psychopath." Ruth added again. "You're...normal."

Reid gave her a look. "Are you...sure about that?" He asked, honestly looking amused.

Ruth's mouth opened and closed a few times before she sighed in dejection. "No."

That's when Arnie let out a quiet chuckle, shaking his head a little. Ruth just sighed to herself again and put her face in her hands.

"Then she accidentally called Reid a psychopath."

Ruth shot a glare over at Arnie as they walked down a set of stairs with Morgan and Elle.

"I didn't." Ruth insisted. "I didn't call him a psychopath. In fact, I deliberately said he wasn't a psychopath."

"You totally called him a psychopath." Arnie said with a smirk. Morgan and Elle let out quiet chuckles and grinned. "You can't have a normal conversation with that guy for the life of you."

"Well, that's not my fault." Ruth defended herself. "He's...he's weird. He's weird. I never know how to talk to him. It's like trying to talk to a more passive version of Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory." She grumbled, causing the other three to chuckle again.

Before the conversation could go any further, the faint sound of an alarm caused them all to pause their walking and look out the window. That's when they saw a building across the way with a smoke beginning to billow out of the top floors - this was where the fire alarm came from.

The four of them widened their eyes, and without speaking another word, they ran out of the building.

Morgan and Ruth were the fastest out of the four, despite Elle being more nimble and Arnie being more athletic. Ruth and Morgan were able to run into the building first, scaling the stairs until they reached the floor that was filled with smoke.

They found Gideon at the end of a hallway, spraying a fire extinguisher through the broken window of a burning office, putting his own life at risk.

"Gideon!" Morgan yelled. "Get out of there!" He grabbed the older man from behind, pulling him away from the burning room. Ruth grabbed the fire extinguisher, prying it from his hands. It took Arnie catching up to them and helping Morgan to finally pull Gideon away from the window.

The two men and Ruth dragged Gideon down the hallway and out onto the fire escape with the students, fighting against his struggles and his shouts of protest.

"Gideon, get a hold of yourself-" Arnie was cut off as Gideon shoved him and Morgan away with a frusterated "Get off of me!".

In his rage, Gideon grabbed Arnie by the collar of his shirt. "That was a teacher!" He practically snarled.

"Gideon-"

"A teacher!"

"Gideon, stop it!" Ruth suddenly yelled, prying his hands away from Arnie, getting between them. "Let it go! He's dead; he was dead before you even got there. There's nothing any of us can do about it now. Let it go."

Reluctantly, Gideon bottled up his anger, and Ruth stepped away. Behind her, Arnie was hunched over with his hands on his knees, coughing. Morgan had a hand on his back. All four of them coughed as they stumbled down the stairs, but none of them were as bad as Arnie, who had to lean on Morgan to prevent himself from tripping down the steps.

By the time they made it to solid ground, ambulances and firetrucks started to arrive, and a crowd of students started to form as they stared up at the smoking building.

Morgan leaned Arnie up against a brick wall, trying to get him to calm down. Arnie's breathing was heavy and raspy, and it was clear he was struggling.

"Morgan, he needs to get to an ambulance." Ruth said, panting herself.

Morgan glanced over at her for a moment before nodding, putting his arm around Arnie and walking him towards one of the ambulances. Ruth followed after them loosely for a moment until she saw Morgan hand Arnie off to a paramedic. Then she sighed and stopped walking, putting her hands on her hips and dipping her head down to try and catch her breath.

"Ruth!"

At the sound of a familiar voice, she looked back up, standing straighter, seeing Reid walking quickly towards her.

She sighed as she pressed one of her hands to her face. "Reid, hey..." She said, her voice a little strained.

"What happened?" Reid asked as he reached her, his eyes shifting behind her to the building.

Ruth shook her head a little, putting her hand back on her hip. "Don't know. You'd have to ask Gideon. A teacher died in his office, and the fire sprinklers weren't working...that's all I know..." She sighed again and grimaced slightly, trying to take in a deep breath, only bringing herself to cough, turning her head away as she did.

"Are you alright?" Reid asked.

"I'm fine." She said, clearing her throat. "I'm okay."

"What about Morgan? Arnie?"

"Morgan's fine, same as me...I don't know about Arnie though." Ruth sighed. "He was coughing bad, couldn't breathe. Morgan took him to an ambulance...God, he was only in there for a moment..."

Reid furrowed his eyebrows a little. "Does he have asthma?"

Ruth shook her head. "No...I don't know what happened..." She stared down for a moment before looking up at Reid again, seeing the concerned expression on his face. "Go check on him, Reid. I'll be fine."

Reid stared at her for a moment before he sighed. "You're sure?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Where's Hotch?"

"Over there, with Elle." Reid nodded in the direction.

Ruth let out a quiet "Thanks", and Reid nodded before jogging towards the ambulance. Ruth watched him for a moment before turning away to go find Hotch.

By the time Ruth had washed the ash off her face, changed into new clothes, and had stopped coughing, it was dark outside.

She sat in the security office with the rest of the team, minus Elle and Gideon. She sat beside Arnie, who was leaned back in his chair, eyes closed, yet not asleep.

Morgan had brought Arnie back from the paramedics almost an hour after the fire had initially started. Arnie had been on an oxygen mask for most of that time, trying to level his breathing out. The paramedics' working theory had been that Arnie had simply just inhaled too much smoke, but something about that didn't sit right Ruth.

She didn't bring it up however once Arnie was in his new clothes and slumped back in a chair in the office. He was exhausted, and rightfully so since he'd been fighting to breathe for the better part of an hour. Even now, several hours later, his breathing was still a little raspy. He would cough every once in a while, and any time he spoke his voice was hoarse, like he'd just woke up.

They were all concerned for him. That's why Hotch let him hang back from the issue at hand and rest as needed.

The issue at hand involved at least twenty photographs of the students that had been watching the fire earlier, all taken by Elle. The purpose of going over the pictures was to find a student who seemed thrilled by the situation - because the unsub could have been in the crowd.

But so far, they had found nothing.

Gideon and Elle returned from the Dean's office after a while. When they did, Gideon came up behind Arnie and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, causing the younger man to open his eyes and turn.

"You alright, Arnold?" Gideon asked. He never called him by his widely used nickname.

Arnie just nodded, not wanting to use his raspy voice and risk coughing again. Gideon nodded as well. He patted his shoulder before moving to lean against the wall near the door, turning to Hotch and Morgan to ask what they had found so far.

A quiet scoff came from Morgan. "We've been at this all night and we've got nothin'." He walked around Hotch, who was sitting across the table from Ruth and Arnie, his face in his hands. "Look at these expressions. We've got fear, touch of horror, even a little bit of panic. Where's the guy getting off?"

Reid spoke up the desk behind Ruth and Arnie. "When asked about his motives, Peter Dinsdale said 'I am devoted to fire; fire is my Master'."

Morgan sighed. "Okay. So was our boy's 'master'?" He pulled a lighter out of his pocket. "Ten thousand plus students," He lit the lighter. "and one has a serious fascination with fire." He turned the lighter off.

"Well," Ruth started, sitting up a little straighter. "Fire starting is part of the homicidal triad. It's an early predictor of adult dissociative criminal behavior. If we look in his childhood you'd likely find all three. Bed wetting, cruelty to animals, starting small fires."

"Perhaps an abusive father, trouble with the opposite sex, chronical low self-esteem." Gideon added. "M.O. will be dynamic. Imbolding. Fire-setting escalates, they thrive on panic, fear, just standard profile of a serial arsonist."

"Based on interviews." Reid pointed out.

"Based on precedent." Morgan added.

"Everything the unsub should be, according to research." Elle said.

And that was the exact problem. It wasn't adding up.

"We're off the mark." Hotch stated the obvious.

"Because of the two missing elements." Gideon nodded.

"Sex and power." Ruth said. "The two motives that drive a serial arsonist. A serial anything, really."

Gideon nodded again. "Without them, we do not have a profile."

Only minutes later, Dean Turner came into the office with an urgent expression. Ruth's first reaction was to think that ther had been another fire, but Turner simply told them that they needed to talk to the chemistry students, who thought they knew how the unsub started the last fire.

With that, Hotch rounded up Ruth and Reid to go with him to the chemistry labs across campus. Once they got there, fire inspector Zhang was there with a few students, who were at their tables.

"Reid." Hotch said, coming up beside the younger agent, a tentative tone to his voice. "Since you're more their age...you should do the talking."

Reid looked up at him, a shocked look on his face. "Me? ...Why not Ruth?"

"Because you're younger than her."

"She's only a year older than me." He furrowed his eyebrows.

"Stop complaining and just get it over with." Ruth said with an edge to her voice.

Reid looked between Hotch and Ruth before sighing to himself and walking to stand in front of the students, clearing his throat.

"H-hi, guys...Uh, my name's, uh, Dr. Spencer Reid." He started awkwardly, causing the students to look up at him. "I'm a, uh...agent with the BAU, Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI, which, um...it-it used to be called the-the BSU, the Behavioral Science Unit, but n-not anymore, they changed it to the BAU. Um, it's part of the NCAVC, the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, which is also part of this thing called the CIRG, the-the Critical Incident Response Group, and-"

After receiving a side-eye from Hotch that said "save us", Ruth sighed to herself and stepped up beside Spencer, cutting him off by putting a hand on his shoulder.

"What my colleague here is slowly trying to get to is, we would love to know how you guys can help us. Any information is useful." She said to the students, a small, polite, tight-lipped smile on her face. Reid looked over at her, looking both offended and relieved she'd cut him off.

The room was silent for a moment before a boy - Jeremy - stood up from a table and walked up to them. "May I, please?" He said to Reid, pointing to the lightbulb the older man messed with in his hands. Reid held it out, and Jeremy took it, holding it up. "Thank you. See this?" He pointed to the side of the lightbulb. "Drill a hole in the side, fill it with gasoline or whatever's good and flammable, turn the light on...Boom." He explained. "That is what went down, didn't it?"

"This stuff's all over the Net." Said a girl from the back of the room. "Wanna know how to make a molotov cocktail that sets itself on fire?" The agents turned fully towards her, interested. The girl ticked the list off with her fingers as she spoke. "Potassium, sulfur, and normal sugar." She shrugged, smiling a little. "Sugar....Sugar, which is-"

"Not exactly plutonium." Jeremy cut in. "You could get this stuff anywhere."

"Sugar from the supermarket."

"But you don't need to be a chem major to know that." Hotch pointed out.

"Do you think it's a chem student?" Zhang asked.

"You wanna know what I think?" Jeremy walked back up to them, and they turned. "...I think," he smirked a little as he held the lightbulb from before to his forehead, like a cartoon character getting an idea. "it would be a good time to take the semester off." He tapped the lightbulb against Reid's chest, handing it back.

Ruth watched Jeremy for a minute, glancing over at Hotch, the vagueness of the student's statement unnerving them.

The agents left a few minutes later to give themselves time to mull things over until the morning, and Jeremy left with them. As they got in the elevator, Hotch tried to press the button for the ground floor, but it didn't work until Jeremy stuck a key into the panel.

"Hold on," The young man said. "You need a key to get it movin' after ten p.m." He told them.

"So what are you still doing here?" Hotch asked him.

Jeremy scoffed. "I can't leave. We've all got projects. You know how to solve the Three Body Problem? Computing the mutual gravitational interaction between the Earth, sun, and moon?"

Hotch just stared at Jeremy, then glanced back at the two younger agents. Reid was nodding to himself silently. Hotch glanced over at Ruth, and they shared a look before she shook her head a little, muttering "I hate collage students".

AUTHOR'S NOTE

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my goal with this chapter was to nurture an attachment between you guys and Arnie and then make you worry about him

- Dan<3