Part 1 – Contagion

The fact that I was fortunate enough to escape contagion, in spite of frequent, sometimes daily contacts with the disease, was because I soon guessed how it spread.

- Charles Jules Henry Nicole

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Chapter 1

Year 1

Kelly Bryant was the first. She was 20, a student at Castleton State College in Vermont majoring in Early Childhood Education. She was single, had been dating her boyfriend David Nyugen for a year and a half, was decently athletic, active in a number of campus groups, and had no known major health or psychological issues. She had light brown hair that was almost blond, hazel green eyes and a sparkling smile. And she was gone. She'd been out hiking with her friends in the Green Mountain National Forest, they turned around and she was just gone.

Of course one missing college kid wasn't enough to gain the attention of the BAU. Sure, it got a lot of attention, a lot of press, her family doing everything right, but not enough to call down the ones who deal with the crazies.

The next month it was Samuel Dielbery, 63, a lifelong hunter. He was out stalking deer with his buddies one minute, the next he was gone.

The third was Chet Johnston. He was 23, a local resident, notable only because he had two sheriff's officers trying to hot on his tail at the time because of that outstanding possession with intent to sell warrant. They swore he stopped a bit away, looked down, and vanished right in front of them.

The forth month it was David Nyugen, out with a search party looking for Kelly, who disappeared without a trace.

Two days later Kelly came back. The coroner took one look and called for the BAU

"Spencer!" Alex Blake said, loud enough to make the entire courtyard look around. "What did you do now?"

Dr. Spencer Reid sighed and rolled forward. He had six weeks off after being shot in the knee so he could heal enough to get up on crutches but staying home that long was boring as hell and most university buildings were ADA compliant. So he'd contacted his old friend Dr. Alex Blake over at Georgetown and asked if she wanted a guest lecturer in her Forensic Linguistics class. Or any class. Or anything. "I got shot."

"Seriously?"

How she managed professionalism, friendship and motherly concern all at once he would never know. "Yeah. I, um, got between a shooter and his target. They usually don't shoot at that point."

"The one time you were wrong. Do you need help with that?" She nodded to the milk crate of materials on his lap.

It was tricky as hell to balance and get the wheelchair moving. And the paratransport left him at the building curb, it went no further. "Kind of but your hands are full."

"What are advisees for but slave labor?" She said with a quiet smile before turning toward the fountain. "Elena!"

Spencer watched as a young woman detached herself from the group and came over. To be honest he kind of stared as a young woman detached herself from the group and came over. She was small to the point of being petite, with lots of thick, dark brown curls that she pulled back from her face as she walked up, "Yes Dr. Blake?"

"Elena Rosen, Dr. Spencer Reid. Can you help get his materials in to the hall? He's giving the lecture today."

"Sure." Her voice was soft and gentle, almost musical. Spencer felt a little lost as a smile came over those soft rose lips and pixie features and she scooped the crate off his lap. "What's the lecture on today?"

"Dahhh ahhhh, um, the use of forensic linguistics in the field." Great, his stammering had caught Alex's attention. She put an eyebrow up but looked away and said nothing. "Is...your degree in forensic linguistics?"

"No. I'm actually majoring in Anthropology with a concentration in applied linguistics. I'm doing my dissertation on how the justice system, specifically the penal system, affects society, and how you can judge the relative state of a society by looking at how the penal culture affect language. What do you do, when you're not guest lecturing?"

Oh good heavens. Part of him just wanted to stay there and discuss her research. "I'm with the FBI. I'm with the Behavioral Analysis Unit, actually."

She brightened with interest at that. "Really?"

Another part of him just wanted to stay there and admire the intelligence in those crystal blue eyes. "We should really go get set up." Alex said. Damn the woman.

They started in to the building. "Are you going to be lecturing over the summer?" Elena asked.

"Yes. I'll be back to guest lecture regularly." Alex turned to look at him then, an amused smile on her lips.

Hotch and Rossi looked over the body of Kelly Bryant with no little curiosity. "Do we know what killed her?" Hotch asked

"Not David Nyugen." Rossi said. "He was under close watch this entire time, he couldn't have done this." He accepted the report from the coroner with a murmur of thanks, "Apparently a mixture of sedatives and a large dose of sodium Phenobarbital. Blue juice, they use it to put down animals humanely."

"So she went without pain. She looked like she's in otherwise perfect condition."

"She is. I had to get the first blood work done to figure out what killed her." The coroner replied. "She was wearing the clothes she went missing in; I sent them off to your lab already"

Rossi turned her arm over. "Track marks. Any idea what she was on?"

"Nope. Still waiting on toxicology. I'll get it to you when it's done."

"All on one side, and look at the scarring on her wrist." Rossi pointed it out. "He restrained her on that side."

The coroner nodded. "None of that is the weird part. This is why I called you." He showed them a set of pictures. In it was a slender glass capsule with a grey lining, sitting next to a common rollerball pen, to show that it was the same size. "I found this tucked into her abdomen. There was a very faint scar where it had been inserted."

"Can we see it?" Hotch asked.

The coroner shook his head. "I'll send it back to you but you'll need to open it in some kind of lab. I have an old radiation meter in this lab, as soon as I cracked it the thing went off. I sealed it up right away just in case."

"Shielding to protect her," Rossi nodded. "But what is it?'

"I have no idea."

"How long was she gone again?" Hotch asked.

"Exactly 90 days." The coroner replied.

"Keep us posted." Hotch said.

Exactly 90 days after Samuel Dielbery went missing his body was found. He was found in the same perfect condition as Kelly, with the same glass tube in his abdomen. That was the same month that Amy Kessler, another college student, went missing. The BAU waited to pass official judgment, but they all knew what was coming.

Ninety days after Chet Johnston went missing he too was found in the same condition. And Josh Wise, a sheriff's deputy, went missing. "OK, it's a serial." Morgan said, looking at the board.

"A very, very patient serial," JJ said.

"Three victims at a time," Emily mused. "So maybe he only has facilities to hold three. And whatever he's doing takes exactly ninety days, so once he clears out a slot he brings in another."

"But why stagger them?" Morgan asked. "Why not take three at once?'

"The only commonality is geographical." Spencer pointed out. "All of the disappearances have taken place within what's known as the Bennington triangle, an area reputed to be a hot spot for paranormal activity. "

"One of the legends must be drawing him." JJ said. "How is he catching them? Witnesses say they just disappear into thin air. I mean Samuel Dielbery, Chet Johnston and Deputy Wise were all armed, you would think they would fight back somehow."

"Did we ever find out what was up with that tube in each of their torsos?" Emily asked.

"No. The labs are still testing them." Spencer said. "It looks like Homeland has classified the test results."

"Homeland? That's weird. I may have some contacts over that way, I'll ask around, see what I can find out."

"We still don't have enough for a profile." Hotch said.

Ninety days after her disappearance Amy Kessler came back. And a leader from the local Boy Scout troop, Bob Trout went missing

Ninety days later the local Sheriff's search and rescue team was out looking for John Wise's body. While they were out one of their dogs, trained to cadaver searches, did a remains spot on one location, but there was no body there. "What did you find?" Hotch asked when they arrived.

"Cremains," the Sheriff replied. "And one of those glass tubes in the middle. Think it was Josh?"

"We'll have to see if tests can be done, but it's likely."

The Sheriff sighed, "Hard on his wife, without a body to bury. "

"And where is he getting the facility?" Rossi asked. "Cremating a body takes large equipment."

"We'll check every crematorium in the state just to be sure. Why did he change up now?"

Hotch shook his head. "We don't know"

While everyone else went out into the woods looking for the missing people Spencer got stuck in the Sheriff's substation yet again. Not that he minded, the woods were never his favorite place to be. Granted the local deputies were looking over at him and whispering from time to time, but he just ignored them in favor of trying to refine the search maps.

JJ, however, did notice. "They're staring at you, you know." She murmured as she brought over some coffee. She had stayed behind to manage the gaggle of press outside.

"I know." Spencer said.

"That doesn't bother you?"

"No. Does it bother you?"

"A little, I don't know why they are."

"Probably because they think I'm the useless geek the "real" agents were saddled with, and that I'm too weak to go out in the field."

JJ was shocked by this. "That is both not true and not fair!"

"I know. But I know what I did was right. Their thoughts on the issue don't matter to me. Have we heard back from the searchers in Sector four yet?"

"I don't think so. Want me to go see if they've checked in?"

"Please."

"They have doughnuts in the break room. Want one?"

"Or two, please." Spencer watched her walking away. He really didn't care what the locals thought, he knew that if he hadn't been recovering from being shot he'd be out there, that was all that mattered. But he was very touched by JJ's attention. That meant a lot more than she knew.

The month they found the cremated remains of Josh Wise no one went missing.

No one went missing the next month, when the cremated remains of Amy Kessler turned up.

No one went missing the next month either, when they found the remains of Bob Trout.

Homeland locked down all of the test results and refused to share.

Spencer knew that a tall scarecrow of a man in a formal suit, leaning on a cane, was not the most intimidating being that could arrive on someone's doorstep at near to midnight, but at the moment he didn't care. "Hey!" He barked out.

The men in front of him were just drunk enough to be dangerous, just enough to be frightening. "What?" One of them asked.

"She's not home." Spencer said, clearly and calmly. "Go away."

"Yo, fuck off man. She's home. Get your ass out here bitch!" He screamed up at the building. "The fuck you break up with me!"

"Lisa. Is. Not. Here." Spencer said very clearly. "She went to her parent's house in Baltimore for the holiday. Now why don't you three leave and discuss the matter with her when she returns."

"Or what?" The man in front of him read as dumb jock, he had two of his friends here to back him up. "Why the fuck do you care, huh? You the guy she's been fucking around with behind my back or something? Huh?" They advanced menacingly.

But Spencer knew how to deal with this sort. He stood his ground and flashed his badge. "No, I'm the one who's about to have you arrested. Do you really want assaulting an FBI agent on top of drunk and disorderly?" The badge slowed them just enough for the DC Metro cops that had finally arrived to get in there and make the arrest.

Not long after Spencer was up in the third floor apartment with a very shaken Elena. "Thank you." She said when they were finally alone. "I called the cops but they said it would take time to get to me and they sounded more and more violent and I was just afraid..." She winced and shook harder.

"Shhh, it's all right. I don't mind. Come here." It seemed the right thing to do, to pull her into his arms then and hold her while she shook.

She rested against him, warm and alive, and he fought the urge to rest his cheek on her hair. She smelled of some kind of flower, gardenia maybe, or jasmine, or some kind of flower all her own. "You're my hero you know."

"I called DC Metro again." While he had not formally asked for backup the implication had been enough to bump her to the top of the response queue. That was all that had really been needed. He'd only come out here to...why had he come out here?

"Still," she looked up at him and smiled. "When Lisa gets back she is going to find a new place, and I am going to find a new roommate."

He nodded. "Good idea."

Elena finally managed to look up at him and smile. "I know it's late but can I at least make my hero a cup of tea?"

"Sure." He settled on one of her kitchen stools as she went to put the kettle on. All of a sudden tonight was wonderful.

Two months after the cycle of disappearances stopped it started up again.

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Note: More sci-fi/horror. Entirely unrelated to any of my other stories.

This chapter is set between January 2009 to January 2010 and covers the time between Episode 05x01 "Nameless, Faceless" (which was set the day after their return from the case in 04x25-26 "To hell...and back" and so the end of May 2009) and 05x12 "The Uncanny Valley" which is the first time we see Reid without his cane. Hopefully I can keep the calendar accurate as we go.

Despite the list of warnings up there I have yet to find a need to create a sub-story for any real bad parts so I don't think it's that bad. It's certainly not as bad as some of my others.

- TKL