Tick, Tick…Boom.

"There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it."

~Alfred Hitchcock.

*Author's Note: First of all, let me say this: Guys. Guys. GUYS. Y'all are the best. I started writing CM fics in 2013, and received one nomination (and one win!) for the 2013 Profiler's Choice Awards (for Pay the Piper, in case you were wondering). The 2014 Profiler's Choice Awards brought about FOURTEEN nominations in thirteen separate categories—and it's all because of YOU! Obviously, only five nominations can be chosen for the final ballot, and voting doesn't close until February, so I have no idea how well the chosen five stories will actually do—but I'm just amazed and so very grateful that you've all been so awesome and supportive of the work!

So my way of saying thanks: a brand new "big one"—and it's bigger than ever. This will be a two-part story, because there's just too much to cover for one fic (unless we wanna go like 100 chapters, and I'm really not about that life, yo).

Thank you, thank you, thank you a thousand times. And without further ado, let's get started on part one of this year's journey. Let's kick off with a bang, shall we?*

Schuyler Adams was not a special agent, or even a probationary agent, or an analyst or an IT guy. He was an undergrad junior who'd scored a job as a courier for the FBI Quantico branch, because his dad was an analyst for the crime lab. It was a mundane, entry-level job made cool by the simple fact that he got to wear a badge with the FBI logo, and he got to work around a bunch of people with guns.

And because Schuyler was not an agent, he had an unwavering sense of faith in the system and he truly believed that by working at Quantico, he was actually safe from harm.

Sadly, Schuyler Adams was very much mistaken.

Today, there was already a stack of mail and small boxes waiting for him (all of which had passed the x-ray scans and explosives scans and every other precautionary measure short of opening the envelope or package), arranged neatly on the mailroom table. He sorted them by department and then began making his way through the halls, smiling and occasionally nodding to the people who walked by.

When analyzing any event, one must break it down into a series of points, points at which the course of such an event could have changed. The first point was the moment Schuyler loaded the items into his mail cart—if he'd been a little less careful with the package marked for the Behavioral Analysis Unit, things would have been a little different. However, young Schuyler was careful, and disaster was momentarily averted.

The second point was the fact that Technical Analyst Ariane Jamison woke up precisely 30 minutes late this particular morning, and she'd been running to catch up ever since. She was currently late for a briefing, and as such, she was practically sprinting down the hall, with little concern for her fellow employees. If she hadn't been late, she wouldn't have been running. If she hadn't been running, perhaps she wouldn't have stumbled into Schuyler Adams and his mail cart at full-force as she rounded the corner.

However, Ariane Jamison was late, and she did slam into Schuyler and his cart—and that, sadly was enough to jar the little inconspicuous package marked Behavioral Analysis Unit. In defense of the package, it did exactly what it was meant to do—its contents stirred and mixed together, and those chemicals erupted into a loud, horrific boom.

And Schuyler Adams and Ariane Jamison, as well as any other person within a 30 foot radius, were no more.

"What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from."

~T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding.