FIC: The Girl Who Lived
Title: The Girl Who Lived
Author: ilovetvalot
Rating: R
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Characters/Pairing: Hotch/Prentiss, JJ/Rossi, Morgan/Garcia
Genre: Romance/Drama
Summary: When a violent unsub from JJ's past reemerges, will the team be able to catch him in time to prevent a tragedy.
Note: I am posting the Prologue through Chapter 4 in one posting. Please, readers, let me know if you enjoy this.
The Girl Who Lived
Prologue
She’d thought it was going to be just another normal day at the office. It was their intrepid team’s stand-down month. Mountains of paperwork to complete and endless boxes of case files to sort through were supposed to be her primary concerns for now. It was supposed to be simple, easy, rote. Definitely not this.
Never this.
This was supposed to be over. A vague nightmare from a distant past she did not, could not remember clearly. Whether the memories were dulled by time or the drugs he’d injected into her, she didn’t know. Didn’t care, really. But that one image that had glared at her from the seemingly innocent white screen had been enough to bring the nightmare that hadn’t plagued her in over ten years rushing back.
Kneeling on the cold linoleum in front of the toilet in the ladies’ room, JJ pulled in a deep breath, sternly willing her stomach to stop its roiling. It was a useless effort. Feeling that breath catch in her throat, she weakly shook her head, her blonde hair swaying loosely against her skin. Avoidance, as determined as she might be, was useless. Raising a hand to unconsciously touch the brand burned into her back, the raised skin still evident to her touch, she suddenly realized that soon, everyone would know. Even if they didn’t already, she’d have to tell them. A part of her, the part that was patiently reasoning with the screaming voice in her head, knew that she had no choice. Somewhere, buried in her subconscious, she might have information that could help them.
For she, and she alone, had been his only survivor to date.
For years, she’d spent valuable time wondering why. Why her? What had been so special about her that allowed her to survive the unspeakable horrors when others didn’t? How had she managed to survive those two weeks when so many before her had not? She couldn’t imagine that she was any more determined than any of his other victims. They’d been children, for God’s sake!
And how was it even possible that this was happening again? Her unsub was dead! She’d watched him die, hadn’t she? Hadn’t she?
Roughly wiping her cheeks, her fingers swiping the tear that she hadn’t even realized she was shedding, she bit her lip, worrying the delicate skin. Pull it together, she ordered herself sharply, biting a smidge harder to draw her attention back to the present. Hearing her father’s soft steady voice in her mind’s ears, she smiled faintly as she heard him demand tenderly, “Shoulder to the wall, girl! You survived. The others didn’t. Don’t taint their memory and sacrifice by falling apart now.”
Closing her eyes as she leaned heavier against the cold, sterile tile, she wondered if her father had handled this any better than she had when he’d been told. Knowing him, she couldn’t imagine he would have. This monster had kidnapped both his children, and, in the end, only one had been returned to him. Lacy had died the day before they’d been found. She didn’t remember it, however. Her mother had told her later in the hospital, the moment a strange, hazy recollection playing on the corners of her mind.
Mama…oh, Mama. For once, Jennifer was glad her mother had already passed on. She and Lacy were together again, somewhere where neither one of them could ever be hurt again. Only she and her father remained of their small family. Nodding at that thought, she reminded herself that she was still living. She was still a part of a family. She was alive.
Forcing herself out of the floor, muscles complaining harshly, she walked slowly out of the small bathroom stall and headed toward the sink. Twisting the water on, she cupped her trembling hands under the flow and splashed her face, drawing her eyes up to the mirror.
Staring at her pale complexion, she winced, casting her eyes back down quickly. If she had looked this rough earlier, then, God, she could only imagine what her colleagues were saying about her inside the war room right now.
When she’d turned to blindly run from the room, unable to she’d caught a brief look at Hotch’s stricken face, his normally stoic expression gone. Rossi had looked on the verge of implosion, his coloring rising as quickly as his temper. And Jason Gideon’s dark eyes had pitied her, his gaze a mixture of sympathy and quiet knowing.
God, how bad was it if Erin Strauss had recalled Jason Gideon back to the Bureau? More importantly, how bad a sign was it that he’d agreed to return? She knew he’d worked the original case all those years ago. Not that she remembered him or any of the others that had repeatedly interviewed her, spoken to her family, searched for details that just couldn’t be found. Truthfully, there wasn’t much of anything about that time that she could see clearly. Those recollections were all shrouded in shadows, whispers on the edges of her consciousness, waning with time and circumstances. Her long ago therapist that her father had insisted she see had defined it as a self protective mechanism, her mind’s ingrained ability designed to protect her body, her psyche .
Logically, she knew that made sense. The mind had a way of blocking out what the body couldn’t handle, shouldn’t handle. And up until this moment, she’d been grateful for that small mercy. Unfortunately, now, though, she needed those memories.
She nleeded them because Jennifer Jareau was the girl who lived.
The Girl Who Lived
Chapter One
JJ’s harsh scream still echoed in the now ominously silent war room as every individual inside watched her fly toward the only door, her blonde hair streaming behind. Moving automatically to follow her best friend, Penelope Garcia found her path blocked as Section Chief Erin Strauss slid smoothly in front of her, effectively blocking her inside the room.
“Ma’am?” Garcia frowned, hands dropping to her ample hips. “I really think one of us needs to go after Agent Jareau. Something’s obviously rotten in Denmark,” Penelope said with her usual colorful turn of phrase.
“You’re absolutely right, Ms. Garcia. But, right now, I believe Agent Jareau might need a few uninterrupted moments to collect herself,” Strauss said judiciously, her voice perfectly modulated as she looked over the roomful of concerned co-workers. “Everything will make sense in a few moments,” she added with a pointed look in Jason Gideon’s direction. “Why don’t we all resume our seats? As I said earlier, we have a case,” she said, nodding toward the screen at the front of the room showing an obviously dead woman.
Shooting a worried look toward the doorway, Rossi frowned as he glanced toward the screen again as he snapped out, “Somebody wanna explain what the hell is going on around here? And why the hell JJ reacted to it like it’s the first dead body she ever saw?”
“Look at the screen, Dave. Tell me what you see,” Gideon said quietly, leaning back in the leather chair as he motioned toward the projected image.
Taking a step closer to the projection, Dave narrowed his eyes, forehead crinkling. “Woman, late-twenties, early-thirties. Body eviscerated by multiple stab wounds,” he said, his eyes cataloguing the body with detailed accuracy as he spoke. Tilting his head, his eyes narrowed as they reached the woman’s shoulder. “Son of a bitch,” he whispered, his voice a mixture of shock and sudden understanding. Turning sharply, he looked at Gideon. “I guess that explains your appearance at our little party.”
Nodding once, Gideon said simply, “Part of it, Dave.”
Looking back and forth between the two men, Hotch ordered, his eyes narrowing dangerously, “Well, why don’t you start explaining it to your Unit Chief, boys?”
“Yeah, I’d kinda like to know, too,” Morgan nodded, tilting his bald head. “Cause all I see on that screen is an unfortunate stabbing victim.”
“That’s been branded,” Emily added softly, her hand waving toward the specific location on the victim’s body. Looking up at Gideon and Rossi, she asked, certainty in her voice, “There’s something special about that brand isn’t there?”
Looking back at the small trident seared into the woman’s skin along with a small thirty beside it, Dave nodded. “We’ve seen it before.”
“When?” Reid asked, his intelligent eyes following Rossi’s movement as he stalked closer to the screen.
“Twenty-five years ago, Reid,” Gideon answered for him. “Pembroke, Kentucky.”
“This unsub has really gone uncaught for almost a quarter of a century?” Garcia asked, grimacing as she looked at the woman’s body.
“That’s the rub,” Gideon said shaking his head as he tossed out case files. “Our unsub was definitely killed during the apprehension. But that,” he said, nodding at the screen, “is definitely his mark.”
Scrubbing a hand roughly down his face, Rossi asked, “What the hell does any of this have to do with JJ, Jason?”
“Wait…” Morgan murmured, scanning the file quickly, his fingers tracing down the center of the page. “This says that your guy twenty-five years ago had one victim that survived.”
Eyes meeting Dave’s, Gideon nodded slowly. Leaning back in his chair, he began his explanation. “The press dubbed her “The Girl Who Lived”. Her little sister, Lacy, was the unsub’s last victim. She was only four. The way it looked when we stormed the cabin where the kids were being kept, the little girl was about to become his last victim. Her father was the chief of police, and insisted on being in on the raid, against our better judgment. He took the kill shot of our alleged unsub.” Pausing, he took a sip of his coffee, then continued, his voice void of all emotion, merely relaying the facts. “After she was found and the press descended, the family moved and changed their last name in the interest of the child’s privacy. They wanted to maintain the kid’s anonymity and give her as normal a life as they could, which was going to be nearly impossible if they stayed in that farming community where everyone knew everything about everyone else. Poor kid didn’t remember a damn thing. Up until now, I always thought that was a blessing.” Looking at Dave, Gideon asked, one eyebrow raised in half-question, half-challenge. “You gettin’ there yet, Old Man?”
“No,” Dave whispered, glancing from Gideon to the now-closed door and back again. “It can’t be. I carried her out!”
“What?” Hotch asked sharply, his eyes closely watching the exchange between his two one-time mentors, the distinct feeling that he had missed an obvious clue hanging in the air.
Shaking his head grimly as he met Hotch’s eyes, Gideon stated dispassionately, “The girls name was Jennifer McClellan.” Looking around the room, he added, calmly, “Today, you all know her as Jennifer Jareau.”
Hearing the audible gasps around the room, Dave could only stare at Gideon, his hands clenching at his side. “Max was right all along. The profile we worked WAS right, damn it!”
“Who’s Max?” Morgan asked curiously, unconsciously rubbing the back of his head as he always did when he was stressed, the case gaining weight as the pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
“Max Colson,” Hotch answered for the other two, shaking his head at the memory. “The third and last founding member of the Behavioral Analysis Unit. He died about ten years ago.”
“And he swore to his dying day that we got the wrong man…or more specifically JJ’s father had gotten the wrong man,” Gideon clarified, glancing over at Rossi in agreement.
“Oh my God!” Pen whispered in barely-controlled horror. “He did THAT,” she asked, looking at the picture on the screen with tears in her eyes, “to my little Gumdrop?”
Following her eyes, Gid shook his head. “Unfortunately, sweetheart, THAT was tame by comparison to what he did to the other victims.”
Looking over his shoulder at the screen, it wasn’t the unsub’s latest victim that David Rossi saw. Instead, his mind’s eye remembered the shivering naked little girl, her once-fine blonde hair matted and tangled, her body bruised and bloody. And that little girl had been JJ. For a moment, he wondered if she remembered him? Christ, how could he have not made the association before now? Of all the cases that had impacted him, stayed with him, only a handful made that distinguished list. And that case, that horrible case, had been in the top three.
“Okay,” Emily said, raising a hand to quiet the room, the muttered curses and hushed cries of sympathy and anger floating around them . “Have we ruled out a copycat or a wannabe? Are we sure that this unsub and JJ’s attacker all those years ago are the same man?”
“I’m afraid so,” Strauss nodded from her position in the corner of the room. Lifting the remote, she deftly clicked to the next slide. “As you can see, our murderer left a note.”
“To the one that got away,” Reid read aloud, his eyes scanning the printed text. “I’ve missed you Jennifer. Be seeing you soon.”
“Jesus Christ!” Dave growled, pounding a fist against his leg as he reared his shoulders back. “I need some air. I’ll be back,” he threw over his shoulder as he stalked out the door.
“Should one of you go with him?” Strauss asked softly as she moved to stand between Gideon and Hotch as the others stared in shock at the screen.
“Since I don’t relish the idea of a black eye, I think I’ll wait right here, thanks. But you go on ahead if you want, Erin,” Gideon offered sarcastically, his lips drawing into a thin line.
Rolling her eyes, Strauss shook her icy blonde head as she let her eyes drift back to the note being ominously displayed for the team.. “So glad you’re back, Gideon.”
The Girl Who Lived
Chapter Two
Slamming the conference room door behind him, Dave took a deep breath as images collided violently in his memory. In bare seconds, he’d been transported back to those harrowing moments twenty-five years ago, the horror of those long days invading his present thoughts. He could still smell the sickly sweet aroma of blood filling his nostrils as they’d burst through that cabin’s doors, rough-hewn logs splitting behind him. He could still see the mangled bodies of the unsub’s victims in that small room, their still, pale bodies still open and exposed.
He’d gone in first, followed by Locke McClellen and Jason Gideon. Max had coordinated from outside, willing to let Jason and him do the heavy work on that…their first case within the fledgling unit. Closing his eyes now, Rossi could still hear the deep anguished cry from behind him as Locke had seen the ravaged body of his youngest daughter lying just inside the doorway, eyes rounded, frozen forever in fear, the top of her small skull removed, exposed to the elements. But Rossi hadn’t spared time for more than a sidelong glance at the poor girl. She’d been obviously dead, and beyond any help he could give her at that moment. But a small flutter of movement in the corner of the room had caught his trained eye.
Swinging toward the small movement, his breath had been trapped in his throat when he’d gotten closer, his steps quick but guarded. Lying bloody and broken as a ragdoll, there she’d been, strapped with leather belts to a metal table. Fighting against the incongruous sight, he’d forced himself to focus on the tiny body. Her rib cage had been cut open, but her eyes…God, those bright blue eyes that he’d slowly fallen head over heels for the past couple of years…they had been staring back at him, filled with unshed tears, terror mixing with definite shock in her tiny gaze.
Looking over his shoulder at the older man kneeling on the floor beside his youngest daughter, he’d called out hoarsely, “Locke! It’s Jennifer! She’s alive, Locke!” The other man had been too embroiled in his own grief and the shocking sight in front of him to comprehend what he’d been telling him; Gideon had been at the man’s shoulder, trying to ease him away from his younger daughter’s corpse, to no avail.
But Rossi had turned back to the terrified little girl that JJ had been then, his hands working frantically at the stubborn leather straps holding her down. “Just hold on, honey,” he’d whispered, his voice barely a hoarse thread of sound, his words croaking out of his tight throat as he’d tried to maintain the last shreds of his control. “A few more seconds and we’ll get you out of here. I promise.”
Finally, after what had seemed like uncountable years, he’d fought his way through the stiffened bindings, caked with her blood, throwing them violently to the side. Scooping her into his arms, he’d remembered yelling in his communications piece that they needed an ambulance. What he remembered most of all was that frightened, weak little girl voice asking, “Sissy? Where’s sissy?”
“Shhh,” he’d hushed the scared, hurt little angel, cradling her protectively, trying not to harm her body any more than it already had been. “You’re safe now,” he’d told her as he’d determinedly moved toward the cabin’s door. He’d been desperate to remove her from that place…the Devil’s own playground. That’s when they’d all heard Max shouting through the ear piece that there was movement in the field behind the cabin. He’d felt Gideon and Locke brush past him as his grip had tightened protectively around the child in his arms…his only focus at the time to get her to the ambulance, knowing the others were more than capable of taking care of whatever was happening on the outside.
By the time he’d delivered her trembling body into the care of the paramedics and made it around the side of the cabin, the echoing kill shot had already been fired. Locke McClellan had stood staring at the fallen body of Mitchell Hines, his gun still smoking in his hands. And though he’d heard the words spoken by the grieving father many times since that night, never had he heard them said with more hatred. “Burn in hell, you son of a bitch.”
Shaking his head at the vivid memories, Dave forced himself to swallow past the bitter bile rising in his throat, to forget the smell of gunpowder that still wafted through his mind. It appeared that the wrong son of a bitch had been sent to the hereafter that cold night. The real monster that had stolen six children’s lives and organs and very nearly taken a seventh, the monster that they had thought was dead, had obviously roamed free for twenty-five years. And if the number branded into his most recent victim meant anything at all, the bastard had taken one for each of those long years, obviously commemorating the night JJ had lived, if his suspicions were correct.
And now their old-but-new unsub needed victim thirty-one. Jennifer. The one that had gotten away.
Damn it, why hadn’t they all listened to Max all those years ago? He’d been a seasoned agent then, having gained twenty years more experience than him and Jason. Hell, Max had been THEIR mentor. Shaking his head, Dave frowned, his jaw tightening. They hadn’t listened because as far as Chief Locke McClellan had been concerned, the unsub was dead. And he’d naturally wanted his surviving daughter to heal. After initially allowing Jason a couple of sessions with the traumatized little girl, the grieving father had finally called a halt to the investigation, labeling it a closed case when JJ had entered a near catatonic state after one of the careful questionings.
But, it hadn’t been closed. Not by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, Dave suspected, it was just getting started again, determined to crack open wider than before, sadistically swallowing everyone and everything in its hellacious path.
And God help them all. Most of all, Jennifer Jareau.
The Girl Who Lived
Chapter Three
Scrubbing a hand down his face, Dave reminded himself to focus. This wasn’t about him. Somewhere inside this building was a woman that had seen the bowels of hell firsthand, whether she remembered the tortured journey or not. And if he knew Jennifer Jareau at all, she was trying to fight her demons all on her own, refusing to allow anyone inside the protective shell that she had slammed into place. And he absolutely refused to allow her to do that, to keep him out. Unfortunately, he realized she’d probably been doing just that for years.
Ten long minutes later, he’d verified that not only was her office empty of her presence, but so was every ladies’ room on the eighteenth floor of the Federal Building. Telling his pounding heart to remain calm as he tried to remember any other nook and cranny that he had missed, he took a deep breath as he stretched his neck, trying to relieve the tense ache that had been steadily building since the startling revelations inside the war room. Think, Rossi! Where could one tiny woman be hiding?
After a long moment, he felt himself relax slightly, a thought invading the corner of his mind. There could only be one other place she might have sought solace. And he knew that particular hiding spot fairly well. He’d unearthed it during those dark days after Haley Hotchner’s death, seeking solace in a place that time and others seemed to have forgotten. Many times since that tragic night, he’d found JJ curled up in one of the chairs scattered along the roof of the office building, simply staring into space.
Glancing at his watch as he walked quickly toward the stairwell, he saw that it was just after six. It had long since grown dark on this early February day, the sun setting early on the East Coast in the throes of winter. And hell, it had been freezing already when he’d returned from lunch at one. Hurrying up the stairs, he winced as he wondered how long she’d all ready been sitting out there. Forty-five minutes had passed since she’d run out of the war room. He only hoped she hadn’t been out there in the frigid air the entire time, her fragile body no match for the shock of Mother Nature.
Pushing open the heavy metal door to the roof, he halted as his eyes found her, and he felt relief invade his body at the sight of her slim body curled in the wrought iron chair, exactly where he’d found her several times in the past few harrowing months. Shedding his suit coat as he watched her involuntarily shiver as a gust of wind blew over her, he quickly closed the distance between them, dropping his heavy jacket over her shoulders before sliding into the chair beside hers.
“We’ve really got to find you a better hiding spot during the winter months, Jen,” Dave said deeply, his voice loud on the eerily silent roof, his eyes roaming her face, fearing the worst.
Ignoring his comment, JJ lifted the brown bottle she’d hijacked from his office a few minutes before to her lips with numb fingers and shrugged. “I stole your scotch,” she muttered with a slight cough as the burning alcohol slid down her throat. “I think I’m going to need it a lot more than you do.” Settling back in her seat as another blast of cold air washed over her, the winter wind violent on the upper elevation, she was grateful for the added weight of his coat, still warm from the heat of his body. Cocking her head to the side, she smiled without humor as she glanced up at him, adding, “In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna need to find a few more bottles for whatever’s coming next.”
“Jen-,” Dave murmured, disliking the hopeless note in her words, her normally positive personality a mere memory.
“How long did it take in there to figure out in there who I was?” JJ asked emotionlessly, her chilled fingers gripping the bottle even tighter as she stared at a flashing light in the sky.
“Longer than I'd like to admit,” Dave admitted uneasily, stepping closer. “I always knew I remembered those eyes of yours from somewhere. I thought I had it figured out a few months ago when you told me about seeing my lecture at Georgetown all those years ago. But that wasn’t it, was it?” he whispered, his shoulders shrugging futilely. “I’m sorry, JJ.”
“Why?” JJ asked, truly puzzled as she shifted her gaze toward him. “Trust me, Dave, the last thing I ever wanted was for you to remember me from my childhood.” Taking a breath as her chest tightened again at those hazy memories, she shook her head, forcing herself to step away from those thoughts, to focus on what she could control. “I wasn’t exactly looking my best during our first meeting,” she added with a tinge of bitterness, once again despising the horrors of her past.
“So you remembered me then?” Dave queried softly, not wanting to push but also needing to know the truth. Pulling a vacant chair closer, he flinched at the scrape of metal against roof, the sound incongruous with the otherwise quiet surroundings.
“I remembered your face. I remembered you were the one that pulled me out of that cabin. But everything before that is just a haze,” JJ whispered, watching as he settled next to her, silently needing his closeness. “And a lot of what happened for about the first year afterward is, too.” Taking another breath, she confided quietly, “What I told you about Georgetown was true though. You were the reason I decided to join the Bureau.”
“It was your case that I was talking about that day. Jesus, Jennifer, it had to be hell to hear me talking about it like that,” he muttered, running a hand over his face as he leaned heavily against the back of the cold chair, ignoring the freezing breeze as it once again wrapped around the roof.
“You were honest. And it was obvious it had made an emotional impact on you,” she replied tonelessly, her hands clenching around his coat, pulling it closer to her body as she unconsciously used it as a shield to more than just the chilly weather. Inhaling deeply, she felt his unique smell combine with the frigid air, settling in her lungs, both of them subconsciously reminding her that she was alive.
“It was my first case with the unit. For both Gideon and myself. And up until now, we assumed we’d had the profile wrong,” he said, sighing. Well, almost all of them had made that assumption, he added silently to himself. Max alone had held firm. They should have looked closer…maybe then…
Cutting him off, JJ shook her head as she tucked her fingers into the deep pockets of the heavy wool. “You said that case was why you knew you’d made the right decision when you joined the unit. That as long as there were monsters like that in the world preying on innocent children, you felt duty bound to chase them. You made me feel that way, too.” Drawing in a shuddery breath, JJ swallowed, admitting softly, “I still do.”
“Not this one, JJ,” Dave shook his head, staring at her wan face as he wished he could make this easier for her...that he could do something…anything to ease that ache he watched in her eyes. “You’ve already fought this monster once. You paid your dues. You let us handle this one for you.”
Meeting his eyes as she smiled sadly, JJ shook her head, pulling the bottle back to her frigid lips, the liquid burning as it crossed her tongue and flew down her throat. “We both know that isn’t how that is gonna work. Not this time. Not this unsub.”
“JJ-,” Dave began warily, his eyes tracking the path of the liquor, wanting to take away the alcohol but recognizing the ingrained need for the relief, albeit temporary, that it was offering her.
“It’s time to go home and face the demon,” JJ whispered with an air of finality, her eyes traveling back to the DC skyline as she lapsed back into silence.
The Girl Who Lived
Chapter Four
Striding angrily into Erin Strauss’ office, Dave slammed the heavy wood door behind him, announcing his presence. “Tell me that you idiots aren’t seriously in here contemplating allowing JJ to join us in the field like Reid just told me!” Dave demanded, his voice echoing off the taupe walls.
“Agent Rossi,” Strauss sighed, “So nice of you to join our discussion.”
“Shove it, Erin. I really don’t have the time or feel like wasting my valuable energy by sparring with you this evening,” Dave muttered. Pacing the length of her office, Dave shook his head. “It can’t happen,” he mumbled to himself, fighting the urge to smash his fist through the nearest viable object, his anger needing a physical outlet before the emotional explosion occurred.
“All right, David,” Erin replied patiently, “I’ve heard Agent Gideon’s reasoning for endorsing Agent Jareau’s participation, so…”
“What?” Dave asked, jerking his head up sharply as he comprehended the Section Chief’s words. Glaring at an outwardly serene Jason Gideon, Dave snapped, “Tell me I didn’t hear her right, Gid.”
“Last I checked, you weren’t deaf, Rossi,” Gideon replied evenly, clasping his hands across his stomach as he slouched in the chair in front of Strauss’ desk, his legs stretched out and ankles crossed.
Frowning slightly at Gideon’s attempt at sarcasm, Hotch asked calmly, turning his attention back to his current Senior Agent, “Where is JJ, Rossi?”
“I left her with Garcia. Once I got her off the damn roof,” Rossi grumbled, fists swinging by his side. Meeting Hotch’s neutral gaze, Rossi stated, tightly, “She thinks that she’s going with us.”
“That’s because JJ is a good agent that knows what has to happen here,” Gideon replied without looking at him.
“JJ is a victim, Jason,” Dave argued roughly, his fists clenching at his sides. “How can you even contemplate asking this of her? You know the goddamn rules. We protect the victims, Gid. Have you really been gone so long that you’ve forgotten rule fucking one!”
“I haven’t forgotten anything, Rossi,” Gideon replied, his voice shaper, but still low in the office. “I was there, too, all those years ago. I saw the same things you did. I know she’s been through hell and I don’t particularly relish the idea of asking her to revisit it. But, she’s a witness, too. She saw things, Rossi. We need her memories.”
“Her memories are locked down tighter than the gold at Fort Knox,” Dave denied, throwing an disbelieving look toward his one-time team mate. “You went in after those memories once before. Remember how well that turned out? You almost turned Locke McClellan’s daughter into a vegetable, if I recall!”
Jerking out of his seat, Gideon turned dark, angry eyes toward Dave. “You don’t need to remind me what happened, asshole! I was the one in that room when she shut down!”
“Because YOU never knew when to stop pushing!” Dave yelled, his dark eyes flashing.
“Because we needed answers! And if I’d pushed a little harder, a little faster, maybe we wouldn’t be here today!” Gideon snapped, jerking his head sharply.
“Gentleman!” Strauss ordered, her strident voice rising above them both. “Like both of you, I was there, too. And turning against each other now is going to accomplish absolutely nothing. Either way we choose to go with this, I’ve promised the Chief of Police, as well as Agent Jareau’s father, that we’d have feet on the ground by midnight. We need to come to an agreement.”
“Strauss is right,” Hotch sighed, looking between his two friends who had once mentored him, wondering for a second if his team could survive the current case and the current animosity.
“I bet that hurt to say,” Gideon chuckled, dropping back into his seat, still angry, but somewhat calmer. Drawing a deep breath, Gideon raised his eyes to Dave again, his tone slightly conciliatory. “Look, I know she made more of an impact on you. You carried her out of hell. Those paramedics told me she left claw marks when you tried to hand her over to them; she was trying so hard to hold on to you.”
“She was terrified,” Dave mumbled, his eyes involuntarily twitching at the thoughts. “Traumatized.” Meeting Gid’s dark look, Dave continued, straightening his shoulders, “And you want to do it to her again.”
“Because no matter how much I despise it, she’s a witness, too, Dave. And we need those recollections that she’s got locked inside her,” Gideon replied calmly, watching Dave’s face tighten. “He had her for almost two weeks, Dave. You can’t tell me that she didn’t see something…hear something…that could help.”
“Damn it,” Dave growled, stalking toward the window, his solid steps belying the anger hiding inside. “You couldn’t retrieve those memories the first time, Jase. What the hell makes you think you’ll have any better luck now?”
“First, JJ’s not the traumatized seven year old girl that she was then,” Gideon informed him quietly.
Glancing at Gid over his shoulder, Dave frowned. “Her age might have changed, Gideon, but believe me when I tell you that the woman I just left with Garcia is still as overwhelmed by the events in her past as she ever was.”
“But she’s strong enough to cope now. And she knows what’s riding on this now. As an adult and as an agent, she knows what has to happen,” Gideon replied implacably. “Look, Dave, we both know that I’ll handle her with kid gloves,” Gideon rumbled, holding up his hands.
“Were those the gloves you were using twenty-five years ago?” Dave asked bitterly.
“Agent Rossi,” Strauss said quietly from behind her desk, “We both know we were ALL doing our job back then. None of us did anything wrong.”
“Spoken like the bureaucrat we know and hate,” Dave spat, shifting his black stare to her. “As I recall, you were first on the bandwagon to close the case, Erin.”
Author: ilovetvalot
Rating: R
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Characters/Pairing: Hotch/Prentiss, JJ/Rossi, Morgan/Garcia
Genre: Romance/Drama
Summary: When a violent unsub from JJ's past reemerges, will the team be able to catch him in time to prevent a tragedy.
Note: I am posting the Prologue through Chapter 4 in one posting. Please, readers, let me know if you enjoy this.
The Girl Who Lived
Prologue
She’d thought it was going to be just another normal day at the office. It was their intrepid team’s stand-down month. Mountains of paperwork to complete and endless boxes of case files to sort through were supposed to be her primary concerns for now. It was supposed to be simple, easy, rote. Definitely not this.
Never this.
This was supposed to be over. A vague nightmare from a distant past she did not, could not remember clearly. Whether the memories were dulled by time or the drugs he’d injected into her, she didn’t know. Didn’t care, really. But that one image that had glared at her from the seemingly innocent white screen had been enough to bring the nightmare that hadn’t plagued her in over ten years rushing back.
Kneeling on the cold linoleum in front of the toilet in the ladies’ room, JJ pulled in a deep breath, sternly willing her stomach to stop its roiling. It was a useless effort. Feeling that breath catch in her throat, she weakly shook her head, her blonde hair swaying loosely against her skin. Avoidance, as determined as she might be, was useless. Raising a hand to unconsciously touch the brand burned into her back, the raised skin still evident to her touch, she suddenly realized that soon, everyone would know. Even if they didn’t already, she’d have to tell them. A part of her, the part that was patiently reasoning with the screaming voice in her head, knew that she had no choice. Somewhere, buried in her subconscious, she might have information that could help them.
For she, and she alone, had been his only survivor to date.
For years, she’d spent valuable time wondering why. Why her? What had been so special about her that allowed her to survive the unspeakable horrors when others didn’t? How had she managed to survive those two weeks when so many before her had not? She couldn’t imagine that she was any more determined than any of his other victims. They’d been children, for God’s sake!
And how was it even possible that this was happening again? Her unsub was dead! She’d watched him die, hadn’t she? Hadn’t she?
Roughly wiping her cheeks, her fingers swiping the tear that she hadn’t even realized she was shedding, she bit her lip, worrying the delicate skin. Pull it together, she ordered herself sharply, biting a smidge harder to draw her attention back to the present. Hearing her father’s soft steady voice in her mind’s ears, she smiled faintly as she heard him demand tenderly, “Shoulder to the wall, girl! You survived. The others didn’t. Don’t taint their memory and sacrifice by falling apart now.”
Closing her eyes as she leaned heavier against the cold, sterile tile, she wondered if her father had handled this any better than she had when he’d been told. Knowing him, she couldn’t imagine he would have. This monster had kidnapped both his children, and, in the end, only one had been returned to him. Lacy had died the day before they’d been found. She didn’t remember it, however. Her mother had told her later in the hospital, the moment a strange, hazy recollection playing on the corners of her mind.
Mama…oh, Mama. For once, Jennifer was glad her mother had already passed on. She and Lacy were together again, somewhere where neither one of them could ever be hurt again. Only she and her father remained of their small family. Nodding at that thought, she reminded herself that she was still living. She was still a part of a family. She was alive.
Forcing herself out of the floor, muscles complaining harshly, she walked slowly out of the small bathroom stall and headed toward the sink. Twisting the water on, she cupped her trembling hands under the flow and splashed her face, drawing her eyes up to the mirror.
Staring at her pale complexion, she winced, casting her eyes back down quickly. If she had looked this rough earlier, then, God, she could only imagine what her colleagues were saying about her inside the war room right now.
When she’d turned to blindly run from the room, unable to she’d caught a brief look at Hotch’s stricken face, his normally stoic expression gone. Rossi had looked on the verge of implosion, his coloring rising as quickly as his temper. And Jason Gideon’s dark eyes had pitied her, his gaze a mixture of sympathy and quiet knowing.
God, how bad was it if Erin Strauss had recalled Jason Gideon back to the Bureau? More importantly, how bad a sign was it that he’d agreed to return? She knew he’d worked the original case all those years ago. Not that she remembered him or any of the others that had repeatedly interviewed her, spoken to her family, searched for details that just couldn’t be found. Truthfully, there wasn’t much of anything about that time that she could see clearly. Those recollections were all shrouded in shadows, whispers on the edges of her consciousness, waning with time and circumstances. Her long ago therapist that her father had insisted she see had defined it as a self protective mechanism, her mind’s ingrained ability designed to protect her body, her psyche .
Logically, she knew that made sense. The mind had a way of blocking out what the body couldn’t handle, shouldn’t handle. And up until this moment, she’d been grateful for that small mercy. Unfortunately, now, though, she needed those memories.
She nleeded them because Jennifer Jareau was the girl who lived.
The Girl Who Lived
Chapter One
JJ’s harsh scream still echoed in the now ominously silent war room as every individual inside watched her fly toward the only door, her blonde hair streaming behind. Moving automatically to follow her best friend, Penelope Garcia found her path blocked as Section Chief Erin Strauss slid smoothly in front of her, effectively blocking her inside the room.
“Ma’am?” Garcia frowned, hands dropping to her ample hips. “I really think one of us needs to go after Agent Jareau. Something’s obviously rotten in Denmark,” Penelope said with her usual colorful turn of phrase.
“You’re absolutely right, Ms. Garcia. But, right now, I believe Agent Jareau might need a few uninterrupted moments to collect herself,” Strauss said judiciously, her voice perfectly modulated as she looked over the roomful of concerned co-workers. “Everything will make sense in a few moments,” she added with a pointed look in Jason Gideon’s direction. “Why don’t we all resume our seats? As I said earlier, we have a case,” she said, nodding toward the screen at the front of the room showing an obviously dead woman.
Shooting a worried look toward the doorway, Rossi frowned as he glanced toward the screen again as he snapped out, “Somebody wanna explain what the hell is going on around here? And why the hell JJ reacted to it like it’s the first dead body she ever saw?”
“Look at the screen, Dave. Tell me what you see,” Gideon said quietly, leaning back in the leather chair as he motioned toward the projected image.
Taking a step closer to the projection, Dave narrowed his eyes, forehead crinkling. “Woman, late-twenties, early-thirties. Body eviscerated by multiple stab wounds,” he said, his eyes cataloguing the body with detailed accuracy as he spoke. Tilting his head, his eyes narrowed as they reached the woman’s shoulder. “Son of a bitch,” he whispered, his voice a mixture of shock and sudden understanding. Turning sharply, he looked at Gideon. “I guess that explains your appearance at our little party.”
Nodding once, Gideon said simply, “Part of it, Dave.”
Looking back and forth between the two men, Hotch ordered, his eyes narrowing dangerously, “Well, why don’t you start explaining it to your Unit Chief, boys?”
“Yeah, I’d kinda like to know, too,” Morgan nodded, tilting his bald head. “Cause all I see on that screen is an unfortunate stabbing victim.”
“That’s been branded,” Emily added softly, her hand waving toward the specific location on the victim’s body. Looking up at Gideon and Rossi, she asked, certainty in her voice, “There’s something special about that brand isn’t there?”
Looking back at the small trident seared into the woman’s skin along with a small thirty beside it, Dave nodded. “We’ve seen it before.”
“When?” Reid asked, his intelligent eyes following Rossi’s movement as he stalked closer to the screen.
“Twenty-five years ago, Reid,” Gideon answered for him. “Pembroke, Kentucky.”
“This unsub has really gone uncaught for almost a quarter of a century?” Garcia asked, grimacing as she looked at the woman’s body.
“That’s the rub,” Gideon said shaking his head as he tossed out case files. “Our unsub was definitely killed during the apprehension. But that,” he said, nodding at the screen, “is definitely his mark.”
Scrubbing a hand roughly down his face, Rossi asked, “What the hell does any of this have to do with JJ, Jason?”
“Wait…” Morgan murmured, scanning the file quickly, his fingers tracing down the center of the page. “This says that your guy twenty-five years ago had one victim that survived.”
Eyes meeting Dave’s, Gideon nodded slowly. Leaning back in his chair, he began his explanation. “The press dubbed her “The Girl Who Lived”. Her little sister, Lacy, was the unsub’s last victim. She was only four. The way it looked when we stormed the cabin where the kids were being kept, the little girl was about to become his last victim. Her father was the chief of police, and insisted on being in on the raid, against our better judgment. He took the kill shot of our alleged unsub.” Pausing, he took a sip of his coffee, then continued, his voice void of all emotion, merely relaying the facts. “After she was found and the press descended, the family moved and changed their last name in the interest of the child’s privacy. They wanted to maintain the kid’s anonymity and give her as normal a life as they could, which was going to be nearly impossible if they stayed in that farming community where everyone knew everything about everyone else. Poor kid didn’t remember a damn thing. Up until now, I always thought that was a blessing.” Looking at Dave, Gideon asked, one eyebrow raised in half-question, half-challenge. “You gettin’ there yet, Old Man?”
“No,” Dave whispered, glancing from Gideon to the now-closed door and back again. “It can’t be. I carried her out!”
“What?” Hotch asked sharply, his eyes closely watching the exchange between his two one-time mentors, the distinct feeling that he had missed an obvious clue hanging in the air.
Shaking his head grimly as he met Hotch’s eyes, Gideon stated dispassionately, “The girls name was Jennifer McClellan.” Looking around the room, he added, calmly, “Today, you all know her as Jennifer Jareau.”
Hearing the audible gasps around the room, Dave could only stare at Gideon, his hands clenching at his side. “Max was right all along. The profile we worked WAS right, damn it!”
“Who’s Max?” Morgan asked curiously, unconsciously rubbing the back of his head as he always did when he was stressed, the case gaining weight as the pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
“Max Colson,” Hotch answered for the other two, shaking his head at the memory. “The third and last founding member of the Behavioral Analysis Unit. He died about ten years ago.”
“And he swore to his dying day that we got the wrong man…or more specifically JJ’s father had gotten the wrong man,” Gideon clarified, glancing over at Rossi in agreement.
“Oh my God!” Pen whispered in barely-controlled horror. “He did THAT,” she asked, looking at the picture on the screen with tears in her eyes, “to my little Gumdrop?”
Following her eyes, Gid shook his head. “Unfortunately, sweetheart, THAT was tame by comparison to what he did to the other victims.”
Looking over his shoulder at the screen, it wasn’t the unsub’s latest victim that David Rossi saw. Instead, his mind’s eye remembered the shivering naked little girl, her once-fine blonde hair matted and tangled, her body bruised and bloody. And that little girl had been JJ. For a moment, he wondered if she remembered him? Christ, how could he have not made the association before now? Of all the cases that had impacted him, stayed with him, only a handful made that distinguished list. And that case, that horrible case, had been in the top three.
“Okay,” Emily said, raising a hand to quiet the room, the muttered curses and hushed cries of sympathy and anger floating around them . “Have we ruled out a copycat or a wannabe? Are we sure that this unsub and JJ’s attacker all those years ago are the same man?”
“I’m afraid so,” Strauss nodded from her position in the corner of the room. Lifting the remote, she deftly clicked to the next slide. “As you can see, our murderer left a note.”
“To the one that got away,” Reid read aloud, his eyes scanning the printed text. “I’ve missed you Jennifer. Be seeing you soon.”
“Jesus Christ!” Dave growled, pounding a fist against his leg as he reared his shoulders back. “I need some air. I’ll be back,” he threw over his shoulder as he stalked out the door.
“Should one of you go with him?” Strauss asked softly as she moved to stand between Gideon and Hotch as the others stared in shock at the screen.
“Since I don’t relish the idea of a black eye, I think I’ll wait right here, thanks. But you go on ahead if you want, Erin,” Gideon offered sarcastically, his lips drawing into a thin line.
Rolling her eyes, Strauss shook her icy blonde head as she let her eyes drift back to the note being ominously displayed for the team.. “So glad you’re back, Gideon.”
The Girl Who Lived
Chapter Two
Slamming the conference room door behind him, Dave took a deep breath as images collided violently in his memory. In bare seconds, he’d been transported back to those harrowing moments twenty-five years ago, the horror of those long days invading his present thoughts. He could still smell the sickly sweet aroma of blood filling his nostrils as they’d burst through that cabin’s doors, rough-hewn logs splitting behind him. He could still see the mangled bodies of the unsub’s victims in that small room, their still, pale bodies still open and exposed.
He’d gone in first, followed by Locke McClellen and Jason Gideon. Max had coordinated from outside, willing to let Jason and him do the heavy work on that…their first case within the fledgling unit. Closing his eyes now, Rossi could still hear the deep anguished cry from behind him as Locke had seen the ravaged body of his youngest daughter lying just inside the doorway, eyes rounded, frozen forever in fear, the top of her small skull removed, exposed to the elements. But Rossi hadn’t spared time for more than a sidelong glance at the poor girl. She’d been obviously dead, and beyond any help he could give her at that moment. But a small flutter of movement in the corner of the room had caught his trained eye.
Swinging toward the small movement, his breath had been trapped in his throat when he’d gotten closer, his steps quick but guarded. Lying bloody and broken as a ragdoll, there she’d been, strapped with leather belts to a metal table. Fighting against the incongruous sight, he’d forced himself to focus on the tiny body. Her rib cage had been cut open, but her eyes…God, those bright blue eyes that he’d slowly fallen head over heels for the past couple of years…they had been staring back at him, filled with unshed tears, terror mixing with definite shock in her tiny gaze.
Looking over his shoulder at the older man kneeling on the floor beside his youngest daughter, he’d called out hoarsely, “Locke! It’s Jennifer! She’s alive, Locke!” The other man had been too embroiled in his own grief and the shocking sight in front of him to comprehend what he’d been telling him; Gideon had been at the man’s shoulder, trying to ease him away from his younger daughter’s corpse, to no avail.
But Rossi had turned back to the terrified little girl that JJ had been then, his hands working frantically at the stubborn leather straps holding her down. “Just hold on, honey,” he’d whispered, his voice barely a hoarse thread of sound, his words croaking out of his tight throat as he’d tried to maintain the last shreds of his control. “A few more seconds and we’ll get you out of here. I promise.”
Finally, after what had seemed like uncountable years, he’d fought his way through the stiffened bindings, caked with her blood, throwing them violently to the side. Scooping her into his arms, he’d remembered yelling in his communications piece that they needed an ambulance. What he remembered most of all was that frightened, weak little girl voice asking, “Sissy? Where’s sissy?”
“Shhh,” he’d hushed the scared, hurt little angel, cradling her protectively, trying not to harm her body any more than it already had been. “You’re safe now,” he’d told her as he’d determinedly moved toward the cabin’s door. He’d been desperate to remove her from that place…the Devil’s own playground. That’s when they’d all heard Max shouting through the ear piece that there was movement in the field behind the cabin. He’d felt Gideon and Locke brush past him as his grip had tightened protectively around the child in his arms…his only focus at the time to get her to the ambulance, knowing the others were more than capable of taking care of whatever was happening on the outside.
By the time he’d delivered her trembling body into the care of the paramedics and made it around the side of the cabin, the echoing kill shot had already been fired. Locke McClellan had stood staring at the fallen body of Mitchell Hines, his gun still smoking in his hands. And though he’d heard the words spoken by the grieving father many times since that night, never had he heard them said with more hatred. “Burn in hell, you son of a bitch.”
Shaking his head at the vivid memories, Dave forced himself to swallow past the bitter bile rising in his throat, to forget the smell of gunpowder that still wafted through his mind. It appeared that the wrong son of a bitch had been sent to the hereafter that cold night. The real monster that had stolen six children’s lives and organs and very nearly taken a seventh, the monster that they had thought was dead, had obviously roamed free for twenty-five years. And if the number branded into his most recent victim meant anything at all, the bastard had taken one for each of those long years, obviously commemorating the night JJ had lived, if his suspicions were correct.
And now their old-but-new unsub needed victim thirty-one. Jennifer. The one that had gotten away.
Damn it, why hadn’t they all listened to Max all those years ago? He’d been a seasoned agent then, having gained twenty years more experience than him and Jason. Hell, Max had been THEIR mentor. Shaking his head, Dave frowned, his jaw tightening. They hadn’t listened because as far as Chief Locke McClellan had been concerned, the unsub was dead. And he’d naturally wanted his surviving daughter to heal. After initially allowing Jason a couple of sessions with the traumatized little girl, the grieving father had finally called a halt to the investigation, labeling it a closed case when JJ had entered a near catatonic state after one of the careful questionings.
But, it hadn’t been closed. Not by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, Dave suspected, it was just getting started again, determined to crack open wider than before, sadistically swallowing everyone and everything in its hellacious path.
And God help them all. Most of all, Jennifer Jareau.
The Girl Who Lived
Chapter Three
Scrubbing a hand down his face, Dave reminded himself to focus. This wasn’t about him. Somewhere inside this building was a woman that had seen the bowels of hell firsthand, whether she remembered the tortured journey or not. And if he knew Jennifer Jareau at all, she was trying to fight her demons all on her own, refusing to allow anyone inside the protective shell that she had slammed into place. And he absolutely refused to allow her to do that, to keep him out. Unfortunately, he realized she’d probably been doing just that for years.
Ten long minutes later, he’d verified that not only was her office empty of her presence, but so was every ladies’ room on the eighteenth floor of the Federal Building. Telling his pounding heart to remain calm as he tried to remember any other nook and cranny that he had missed, he took a deep breath as he stretched his neck, trying to relieve the tense ache that had been steadily building since the startling revelations inside the war room. Think, Rossi! Where could one tiny woman be hiding?
After a long moment, he felt himself relax slightly, a thought invading the corner of his mind. There could only be one other place she might have sought solace. And he knew that particular hiding spot fairly well. He’d unearthed it during those dark days after Haley Hotchner’s death, seeking solace in a place that time and others seemed to have forgotten. Many times since that tragic night, he’d found JJ curled up in one of the chairs scattered along the roof of the office building, simply staring into space.
Glancing at his watch as he walked quickly toward the stairwell, he saw that it was just after six. It had long since grown dark on this early February day, the sun setting early on the East Coast in the throes of winter. And hell, it had been freezing already when he’d returned from lunch at one. Hurrying up the stairs, he winced as he wondered how long she’d all ready been sitting out there. Forty-five minutes had passed since she’d run out of the war room. He only hoped she hadn’t been out there in the frigid air the entire time, her fragile body no match for the shock of Mother Nature.
Pushing open the heavy metal door to the roof, he halted as his eyes found her, and he felt relief invade his body at the sight of her slim body curled in the wrought iron chair, exactly where he’d found her several times in the past few harrowing months. Shedding his suit coat as he watched her involuntarily shiver as a gust of wind blew over her, he quickly closed the distance between them, dropping his heavy jacket over her shoulders before sliding into the chair beside hers.
“We’ve really got to find you a better hiding spot during the winter months, Jen,” Dave said deeply, his voice loud on the eerily silent roof, his eyes roaming her face, fearing the worst.
Ignoring his comment, JJ lifted the brown bottle she’d hijacked from his office a few minutes before to her lips with numb fingers and shrugged. “I stole your scotch,” she muttered with a slight cough as the burning alcohol slid down her throat. “I think I’m going to need it a lot more than you do.” Settling back in her seat as another blast of cold air washed over her, the winter wind violent on the upper elevation, she was grateful for the added weight of his coat, still warm from the heat of his body. Cocking her head to the side, she smiled without humor as she glanced up at him, adding, “In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna need to find a few more bottles for whatever’s coming next.”
“Jen-,” Dave murmured, disliking the hopeless note in her words, her normally positive personality a mere memory.
“How long did it take in there to figure out in there who I was?” JJ asked emotionlessly, her chilled fingers gripping the bottle even tighter as she stared at a flashing light in the sky.
“Longer than I'd like to admit,” Dave admitted uneasily, stepping closer. “I always knew I remembered those eyes of yours from somewhere. I thought I had it figured out a few months ago when you told me about seeing my lecture at Georgetown all those years ago. But that wasn’t it, was it?” he whispered, his shoulders shrugging futilely. “I’m sorry, JJ.”
“Why?” JJ asked, truly puzzled as she shifted her gaze toward him. “Trust me, Dave, the last thing I ever wanted was for you to remember me from my childhood.” Taking a breath as her chest tightened again at those hazy memories, she shook her head, forcing herself to step away from those thoughts, to focus on what she could control. “I wasn’t exactly looking my best during our first meeting,” she added with a tinge of bitterness, once again despising the horrors of her past.
“So you remembered me then?” Dave queried softly, not wanting to push but also needing to know the truth. Pulling a vacant chair closer, he flinched at the scrape of metal against roof, the sound incongruous with the otherwise quiet surroundings.
“I remembered your face. I remembered you were the one that pulled me out of that cabin. But everything before that is just a haze,” JJ whispered, watching as he settled next to her, silently needing his closeness. “And a lot of what happened for about the first year afterward is, too.” Taking another breath, she confided quietly, “What I told you about Georgetown was true though. You were the reason I decided to join the Bureau.”
“It was your case that I was talking about that day. Jesus, Jennifer, it had to be hell to hear me talking about it like that,” he muttered, running a hand over his face as he leaned heavily against the back of the cold chair, ignoring the freezing breeze as it once again wrapped around the roof.
“You were honest. And it was obvious it had made an emotional impact on you,” she replied tonelessly, her hands clenching around his coat, pulling it closer to her body as she unconsciously used it as a shield to more than just the chilly weather. Inhaling deeply, she felt his unique smell combine with the frigid air, settling in her lungs, both of them subconsciously reminding her that she was alive.
“It was my first case with the unit. For both Gideon and myself. And up until now, we assumed we’d had the profile wrong,” he said, sighing. Well, almost all of them had made that assumption, he added silently to himself. Max alone had held firm. They should have looked closer…maybe then…
Cutting him off, JJ shook her head as she tucked her fingers into the deep pockets of the heavy wool. “You said that case was why you knew you’d made the right decision when you joined the unit. That as long as there were monsters like that in the world preying on innocent children, you felt duty bound to chase them. You made me feel that way, too.” Drawing in a shuddery breath, JJ swallowed, admitting softly, “I still do.”
“Not this one, JJ,” Dave shook his head, staring at her wan face as he wished he could make this easier for her...that he could do something…anything to ease that ache he watched in her eyes. “You’ve already fought this monster once. You paid your dues. You let us handle this one for you.”
Meeting his eyes as she smiled sadly, JJ shook her head, pulling the bottle back to her frigid lips, the liquid burning as it crossed her tongue and flew down her throat. “We both know that isn’t how that is gonna work. Not this time. Not this unsub.”
“JJ-,” Dave began warily, his eyes tracking the path of the liquor, wanting to take away the alcohol but recognizing the ingrained need for the relief, albeit temporary, that it was offering her.
“It’s time to go home and face the demon,” JJ whispered with an air of finality, her eyes traveling back to the DC skyline as she lapsed back into silence.
The Girl Who Lived
Chapter Four
Striding angrily into Erin Strauss’ office, Dave slammed the heavy wood door behind him, announcing his presence. “Tell me that you idiots aren’t seriously in here contemplating allowing JJ to join us in the field like Reid just told me!” Dave demanded, his voice echoing off the taupe walls.
“Agent Rossi,” Strauss sighed, “So nice of you to join our discussion.”
“Shove it, Erin. I really don’t have the time or feel like wasting my valuable energy by sparring with you this evening,” Dave muttered. Pacing the length of her office, Dave shook his head. “It can’t happen,” he mumbled to himself, fighting the urge to smash his fist through the nearest viable object, his anger needing a physical outlet before the emotional explosion occurred.
“All right, David,” Erin replied patiently, “I’ve heard Agent Gideon’s reasoning for endorsing Agent Jareau’s participation, so…”
“What?” Dave asked, jerking his head up sharply as he comprehended the Section Chief’s words. Glaring at an outwardly serene Jason Gideon, Dave snapped, “Tell me I didn’t hear her right, Gid.”
“Last I checked, you weren’t deaf, Rossi,” Gideon replied evenly, clasping his hands across his stomach as he slouched in the chair in front of Strauss’ desk, his legs stretched out and ankles crossed.
Frowning slightly at Gideon’s attempt at sarcasm, Hotch asked calmly, turning his attention back to his current Senior Agent, “Where is JJ, Rossi?”
“I left her with Garcia. Once I got her off the damn roof,” Rossi grumbled, fists swinging by his side. Meeting Hotch’s neutral gaze, Rossi stated, tightly, “She thinks that she’s going with us.”
“That’s because JJ is a good agent that knows what has to happen here,” Gideon replied without looking at him.
“JJ is a victim, Jason,” Dave argued roughly, his fists clenching at his sides. “How can you even contemplate asking this of her? You know the goddamn rules. We protect the victims, Gid. Have you really been gone so long that you’ve forgotten rule fucking one!”
“I haven’t forgotten anything, Rossi,” Gideon replied, his voice shaper, but still low in the office. “I was there, too, all those years ago. I saw the same things you did. I know she’s been through hell and I don’t particularly relish the idea of asking her to revisit it. But, she’s a witness, too. She saw things, Rossi. We need her memories.”
“Her memories are locked down tighter than the gold at Fort Knox,” Dave denied, throwing an disbelieving look toward his one-time team mate. “You went in after those memories once before. Remember how well that turned out? You almost turned Locke McClellan’s daughter into a vegetable, if I recall!”
Jerking out of his seat, Gideon turned dark, angry eyes toward Dave. “You don’t need to remind me what happened, asshole! I was the one in that room when she shut down!”
“Because YOU never knew when to stop pushing!” Dave yelled, his dark eyes flashing.
“Because we needed answers! And if I’d pushed a little harder, a little faster, maybe we wouldn’t be here today!” Gideon snapped, jerking his head sharply.
“Gentleman!” Strauss ordered, her strident voice rising above them both. “Like both of you, I was there, too. And turning against each other now is going to accomplish absolutely nothing. Either way we choose to go with this, I’ve promised the Chief of Police, as well as Agent Jareau’s father, that we’d have feet on the ground by midnight. We need to come to an agreement.”
“Strauss is right,” Hotch sighed, looking between his two friends who had once mentored him, wondering for a second if his team could survive the current case and the current animosity.
“I bet that hurt to say,” Gideon chuckled, dropping back into his seat, still angry, but somewhat calmer. Drawing a deep breath, Gideon raised his eyes to Dave again, his tone slightly conciliatory. “Look, I know she made more of an impact on you. You carried her out of hell. Those paramedics told me she left claw marks when you tried to hand her over to them; she was trying so hard to hold on to you.”
“She was terrified,” Dave mumbled, his eyes involuntarily twitching at the thoughts. “Traumatized.” Meeting Gid’s dark look, Dave continued, straightening his shoulders, “And you want to do it to her again.”
“Because no matter how much I despise it, she’s a witness, too, Dave. And we need those recollections that she’s got locked inside her,” Gideon replied calmly, watching Dave’s face tighten. “He had her for almost two weeks, Dave. You can’t tell me that she didn’t see something…hear something…that could help.”
“Damn it,” Dave growled, stalking toward the window, his solid steps belying the anger hiding inside. “You couldn’t retrieve those memories the first time, Jase. What the hell makes you think you’ll have any better luck now?”
“First, JJ’s not the traumatized seven year old girl that she was then,” Gideon informed him quietly.
Glancing at Gid over his shoulder, Dave frowned. “Her age might have changed, Gideon, but believe me when I tell you that the woman I just left with Garcia is still as overwhelmed by the events in her past as she ever was.”
“But she’s strong enough to cope now. And she knows what’s riding on this now. As an adult and as an agent, she knows what has to happen,” Gideon replied implacably. “Look, Dave, we both know that I’ll handle her with kid gloves,” Gideon rumbled, holding up his hands.
“Were those the gloves you were using twenty-five years ago?” Dave asked bitterly.
“Agent Rossi,” Strauss said quietly from behind her desk, “We both know we were ALL doing our job back then. None of us did anything wrong.”
“Spoken like the bureaucrat we know and hate,” Dave spat, shifting his black stare to her. “As I recall, you were first on the bandwagon to close the case, Erin.”