Essential listening: Sleep, by My Chemical Romance

0o0

"How's the buzzing now?"

SSA Aaron Hotchner slumped in the chair across from the Bureau doctor. The auditory imaging chamber had been a trial, both emotionally and physically, and he was weary and drawn from the pain. Although he had nothing against the doctor – she was a known quantity, and he had always trusted her advice when it came to his team – he would quite happily be anywhere else. Except in the room where he'd had his latest psychological evaluation, not half an hour before.

As much as he accepted and understood the necessity of it, he loathed being assessed, particularly so soon after trauma. He couldn't get out of it, however, and he wouldn't try. He had lost a good friend in the explosion in New York, and it would take time to heal – certainly more than the week and a half it had already been.

He knew from personal experience, however, that there wasn't a chance in hell he would successfully heal if he were forced to stay at home.

"It's okay, I think I could actually get used to that part," he admitted, as the doctor took her seat. "The problem's dealing with the pain."

"You're experiencing hyperacusis," she told him. "It's caused by sudden loud noises – like an explosion."

"So what do we do about it, doctor?" he asked, politely.

"Well, you have a small tear in your right eardrum, we'll treat that with a bonding agent," she said, keeping her tone hopeful. "It'll most likely heal itself in a week or two."

Aaron frowned, reading between her carefully chosen lines. "Most likely?"

"The condition can sometimes become permanent," she told him gently, and then returned to her notes.

Aaron nodded, trying to see what she was writing without looking too conspicuous. He felt strangely powerless in this office, like a naughty schoolboy.

"But I can go back to work?" he asked, as meekly as he could.

Watching her face, he guessed her answer before she even spoke.

"Putting someone in the field with acute sensitivity to sound would be a mistake." She looked at him and he guessed that of the agents she regularly saw as part of her practice, every third one tried to go back to work too early – exactly the way he currently was. The doctor adopted a stern tone: "Agent Hotchner, you could lose your hearing entirely."

"I understand," he said, which was true – it was just that 'understanding' and 'acceptance' weren't necessarily the same thing.

"Good."

Satisfied, she returned her attention to her notes.

"But you'll… sign my return to duty?" he asked hopefully.

He watched her expression shift to somewhere between incredulity and exasperation, and wondered whether this was the way he looked when his team members tried to get out of (or back into) something he knew was a bad idea for them.

"Wh -what if I said I'd take it easy and… limit my role in the field?" he asked, before she could refuse.

While he was aware that he wasn't physically ready to go back to work, he was damned if he was going to admit it. He'd spent the majority of the last week staring at the four walls of his empty apartment and he had no intention of continuing this trend. Without Jack to distract him (he couldn't quite think of Haley yet) he was going nuts at home, even though it had only been a week. He hoped his face doesn't look quite so much like a kid trying to wheedle sweets out of his mother as he imagined it currently did.

"Stay out of loud places," said the doctor, relenting.

Relieved, he watched her write some more, hoping it was positive. She looked up, roughly in the vicinity of his midriff, and then further up, meeting his eyes. He stared back, puzzled.

"Your phone is ringing," she told him and his heart sank.

He hadn't heard it at all. Embarrassed and a little afraid at what that might mean, he picked up, making a mental note to set the vibrate function.

"What's up, JJ?"

0o0

SSA Grace Pearce came out of the coffee shop, navigated around the long line of people stretching out the door and set off towards the main bulk of Quantico, enjoying the spring morning. One of the benefits, she decided, of working in what amounted to the caffeine centre of the universe was ready access to coffee shops, and, therefore, the occasional baked breakfast product.

She had given herself more time than she needed that morning, just so she could stroll through the sunshine for a few minutes before having to immerse herself in the darkness that she dealt with at the BAU, and it was very pleasant to meander up the busy street, while everyone else rushed about, to or from their early shifts. It was oddly restful, drifting along, one step removed from the hurly-burly, so she took her time, picking each warm blueberry out of the muffin and popping it into her mouth, savouring it.

She was brushing the crumbs off her suit, ignoring the sore tightness of the healing wound in her arm (a souvenir of one of the BAU's most recent adventures) when she saw the familiar shape of Doctor Spencer Reid bounce up out of the subway, a coffee cup in one hand and a book in the other. She watched him for a moment, marvelling that her usually clumsy friend could manage to walk so easily without bumping into anyone.

He'd had a haircut over the weekend, she noted. It was a good few inches shorter than before, and unusually neat. It suited him.

Grace smiled, stuck two fingers in her mouth and wolf whistled. Half the street turned to look, including Reid, and when he saw her grinning at him across the street he blushed, about two seconds before almost walking into a woman travelling in the opposite direction. Grace laughed, watching him turn neatly out of the way and duck out of the main traffic to wait for her.

As always, she marvelled at his ability to not fall over – as long as he wasn't thinking about it.

"You're looking very handsome today, Spencer," she told him, immediately messing up his hair.

He glared at her, but not with any great conviction.

"Uh – thanks," he said, running a hand through his shorter hair, trying to put it back where it currently belonged. "Figured it was getting out of hand. Was that really necessary?"

"No, but you know me – I'm not very nice," she quipped, putting on her very best 'innocent' expression, which made him shake his head, unable to prevent himself smiling. "It suits you."

"Yeah?"

"I think you look very cute," she told him, falling into step with him.

"Thanks," he said again, cheeks turning slightly rosy once more.

Grace felt him glancing at her from the corner of his eye, smiling. She shook her head slightly, an answering smile forming on her face.

He was cute, that was the problem. Too cute. She knew he had a bit of a thing for her (being a profiler had its uses, after all), and while she knew from past experience that co-workers having a bit of a thing for one another almost always ended in disaster, she had found herself incapable of putting him off.

It wasn't just that she valued his friendship, which she did, or that they were consistently there for one another when they needed it, though she had spent a lot of the last couple of months convincing herself that it was.

The feeling that there was more going on there had been creeping up on her for some time, and the team's most recent case, in New York, had rather put things into perspective. Losing Kate Joyner, with whom she had only just reconciled, had been rough, and she knew she hadn't entirely dealt with that (and wouldn't for some time), but it had been that long, awful forty minutes when she hadn't known whether her family was still intact that had prompted her to reassess a few things.

She had been unprepared for the depth of relief she had felt when Spencer had shouted her name across the lobby of the building the NYPD had been using as a command centre, nor for how desperately she had needed to hug him as soon as they'd got into the lift. It had been as if she wouldn't properly have believed that he was okay unless she had her arms around him.

The feeling had unnerved her, somewhat.

The same necessity seemed to have been in him, too, because he hadn't pulled away. There had been a moment – just a moment – where she had thought he had been about to kiss her, but it must have been her imagination. It worried her a little that the possibility hadn't seemed all that unwelcome.

Once everything had calmed down and they had found out that Kate hadn't made it, Spencer had looked after her, staying up most of the night, listening to stories of her time in London and telling stories of his own from before she joined the BAU. They had fallen asleep together, which was beginning to become a habit, and Grace had woken up warm and contented, with his arm tucked snugly around her waist and his nose pressed into her neck.

It had been dangerously comfortable to have someone she trusted at her back, and she had stayed still and quiet until he woke up, not wanting him to move away.

Later, on the jet, it had occurred to her that this was perhaps not the behaviour of someone who had purely platonic feelings for their friend.

The truth was – and she had had to admit it to herself, when she'd woken up the next morning at home and found it odd that he wasn't there – she had a bit of a thing for him, too. Had had a thing for him for far longer than she was ever likely to concede – and definitely for longer than she had allowed herself to notice.

There was something reassuring about his free and easy smile, or the way he laughed, or could replicate schematics for almost every fictional spaceship ever devised, or his fondness for ghost stories, or all the other strange little things that made him who he was. She didn't even mind that he liked coffee.

She couldn't let it go any further though – that was absolutely certain. Having learned how dreadful workplace relationships could be the hard way, there was no way she would put Spencer through that.

No, she thought, as they turned into the sprawling complex of buildings that constituted Quantico. There isn't a single thing about this that isn't a problem…

"Penny for your thoughts?" Spencer asked, while they waited for a lift.

Grace shook her head, diverted from her present train of thought, and smiled. "Oh, nothing important," she lied, easily.

He nodded and glanced at the upper part of her left sleeve, where the fabric was distorted slightly by the bandage beneath. "How's your arm?" he asked, reaching out and gently touching the lower part of it – the part that didn't hurt.

"Still a bit stiff," she said, smiling at what was probably an unconscious movement. "And I keep forgetting and knocking into things, but I've had worse."

"I'm – uh – glad you didn't this time," said Spencer, turning up the corners of his mouth. He frowned. "When I saw your boot prints…"

There was an unusual darkness to his voice and he looked away. Grace nodded; she knew she had been very lucky. The four Secret Service agents who had been in the lift with her had died almost instantly when the bomb-maker had emptied his gun into it, and the boot prints her friend had seen had been in their blood. If she hadn't had magic, it would have been a very different story. Garcia had helped her find out their names and she has sent flowers to all four of their funerals, which all had been held out of state, in the towns their families lived in.

"What were you reading?" she asked, not wanting to dwell on it when the rest of their day would likely be filled with similar darkness.

He held up the book so she could see the cover: 'The Long, Dark Teatime of the Soul'.

"Oh, now that's a classic," she remarked, and by the time they'd got to the bullpen, dropped their stuff and headed to the conference room they were so deeply engrossed in a comprehensive comparison of Douglas Adams, Arthur C Clarke and Philip K Dick that they both nearly bowled SSA David Rossi over.

"Whoa, watch it," he said, dodging neatly out of their path. "These shoes are Italian leather."

"Sorry man," Reid apologised, heading straight for the coffeemaker (though he'd only just finished his takeout cup).

"Didn't take you for a prima donna," Grace teased the older man.

"I say again," he said, "Italian leather."

Grace chuckled and took a seat, pulling out her notebook.

"Ooh, nice hair, Reid," said SSA Emily Prentiss, breezing cheerfully in. "Very suave."

"Thanks…" he said, with a frown that suggested he didn't know if she was joshing him or not.

"Here," Prentiss said, dropping a book on the table in front of Grace.

"Oh, ta – did you like it?" Grace asked, secreting 'The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack' in her bag.

"Yeah – it was awesome, thanks. Kept me out of trouble at my Mom's house, anyway!" She made herself comfortable in the next seat. "Mom would've preferred me to be talking to the guests, but schmoozing isn't my thing."

"What, you mean you're not all about champagne and crystale?" SSA Derek Morgan asked, coming in from the other door, Hotch and Agent Jennifer Jareau just behind him.

Emily shot him a withering look as JJ distributed files and Morgan started his own rummage around the coffee machine. Reid took a seat beside Grace and pushed a second mug towards her, which turned out to contain peach tea. She gave him a warm smile, which he returned, happily.

No one mentioned how pale and grumpy Hotch looked.

"What're you two so cheery about?" JJ asked, handing them both files and eyeing them both with mild suspicion.

"Uh – the difference between Joe Chip and Dirk Gently," said Reid, a little too hurriedly.

"Characters from sci-fi novels," Grace clarified, on her obvious confusion.

"Of course they are."

"Also, I had a very good blueberry muffin," Grace added, grinning.

Emily made a sound of disappointment in the back of her throat. "Ugh, I skipped breakfast, don't talk about food."

"Trust me, after this, you won't want to," JJ assured them, and powered up the presentation screen.

Everyone sobered up a little as the bloodied corpse of a young woman appeared. Her head was distorted, caved in on one side, and there were a series of puncture wounds in her abdomen. Apart from her exposed abdomen she was wearing pyjamas, and she had clearly been posed on the bed, like an effigy on a tomb.

"This is Delilah Grennan," said JJ. "She was bludgeoned and raped during the night at her home in Lower Canaan, Ohio."

Emily frowned. "Lower where?"

"Small town, forty miles outside of Cincinnati," JJ explained.

"Staging of the body, face up, with the arms crossed like that…" Spencer observed, trailing off.

"Ritual," Morgan agreed. He flicked Spencer's hair on his way to his seat. "Nice hair, by the way."

"Uh – thanks…" Spencer grimaced, pushing his hair back.

"Uh – there's more," JJ told them. She changed the picture to show a more detailed image of the victim's abdomen. "Small puncture wounds on her stomach – note the lack of blood."

"They were inflicted post-mortem," Emily mused. "And she was re-dressed."

Grace put her head to one side, looking at the pattern of injuries. "Oddly precise, don't you think? Looks too deliberate – could it be more ritual? Don't suppose there were dribbly candles around?"

"No," said JJ, as the others chuckled.

"Oh, well – worth a punt…"

"Were there any other victims?" Emily asked.

"Uh… kind of," said JJ, screwing up her face.

Kind of? thought Grace, Well, that sounds juicy.

There was a pause when JJ frowned at the papers in front of her, considering her next words. "Victimology and signature match a serial killer from the same town, ten years ago," she explained, bringing up the images on the screen. "Six victims, spanning over ten months. He called himself –"

"The Angel Maker," Hotch finished, with a nod. "I remember the case. I had Pearce look it over as a case study before she transferred to the BAU."

Grace nodded. "Yeah, that was pretty grim, from what I recall," she said. "All the victims were posed the same way, and their shirts lifted up to expose their abdomens – different numbers of puncture wounds, made by a screwdriver."

"They caught that guy," said Reid.

"And executed him," Rossi added.

"That's right," JJ told him. "He was put to death by lethal injection, a year ago yesterday."

That makes sense, Grace reflected.

"Yesterday," Emily remarked.

"They're celebrating," observed Grace grimly.

"So, we're lookin' for a copycat," said Morgan, sucking his teeth.

"Honouring the anniversary of his hero's death," Rossi added.

"Says here they found semen at the crime scene," said Reid hopefully, looking through file. "Perhaps the locals will get a DNA match when they run it through VICAP."

"Well, that's where it gets weird," JJ told them. "They ran it already, and they got a match, too."

Everyone at the table made noises of surprise. Wincing, JJ handed the file to Rossi, who had held out his hand for it.

"Well, if they already have a name, why'd they call us?" Emily queried, with a frown.

"You've gotta be kidding," Rossi exclaimed. "The match they got back on the DNA is to Cortland Bryce Ryan – otherwise known as: the Angel Maker."

"That's a new one," Emily remarked, raising an eyebrow. "Killing people from beyond the grave."

Grace nodded slowly, but didn't say anything. It wasn't entirely new to her, but no one here needed to know that. She looked up in time to see Hotch narrowing his eyes at her and she frowned slightly, aware that another fairly awkward conversation was in her future.

"Let's not get carried away," he said slowly, his eyes still on Grace. "Obviously we need to get on this before the people of Lower Canaan start to panic. Wheels' up in thirty minutes. Pearce – can I have a word?"

Grace, who had been halfway out of her seat and heading to the door in a spirited attempt to avoid him, sighed and turned back, following her boss meekly to his office, ignoring the inquisitive eyes of her colleagues.

"What's up, boss?" she asked, as he dropped his files on his desk. He didn't sit down, so neither did she, sensing that this was a conversation he didn't entirely want to have, either.

"Is there…" he paused, choosing his words carefully. "Is there a precedent here?"

"For a copycat?" she asked, innocently, then relented under the hard look he was giving her. "Technically, yes."

"Technically?"

"I've never seen it before, but I have heard of it," she clarified.

Hotch watched her face for a moment, then sat down.

"What would we be dealing with?" he asked, heavily, motioning for her to sit.

"Well," she said, thoughtfully. "As such a spirit can't physically kill you, unless it pushes you down the stairs, or gives you a heart attack, or drives you mad, or something. Most of them can't do much to the physical world except makes us cold or whisper in our ears, with the exception of poltergeists and those things classed as demonic. Sometimes you get scratches and stuff, but a lot of it is over-hyped by disreputable ghost hunters – they're in the minority, but they're still a pain in the arse."

She returned her gaze to his face for a moment, but was unable to gauge his mood from his expression.

Hoping that he wasn't about to send for the men in white coats, she continued, "I wouldn't expect direct spirit involvement here, given Delilah Grennan's injuries. It could be a possession, where a spirit is using the copycat as a proxy, but that's pretty rare."

"But not unheard of?"

"I've only seen it once," she told him, "and my older colleagues could only remember a couple of other instances. That was a bad one," she recalled, grimly.

"What would we see?" Hotch asked, after a moment.

"In terms of a profile?"

He nodded.

"The proxy would profile exactly like a copycat, but with the same kind of extreme changes in behaviour as someone experiencing a psychotic break." She scratched her nose. "It's difficult to tell the two apart, really. If it's a true possession, rather than someone who just thinks they're receiving instructions from beyond the grave then the proxy will have to have been exposed to something of the deceased's – either something important to them, like a pen they poured out their heart through, or the screwdriver he used in his murders, or…" she winced.

"Or?" he prompted.

"Body parts are always a firm favourite."

He nodded again, and Grace relaxed a little, glad that he trusted her enough not to immediately dismiss the more insane possibilities.

"Anything else?"

Grace pulled a face. "Worst case scenario would be –" she winced, aware of how crazy this would sound, "a revenant."

"A revenant?" Hotch asked, both eyebrows heading rapidly skywards. "As in…"

"Yeah."

"Is that even possible?"

"I would very much like to say no, but…"

"Which is the most likely option?"

"A human copycat," she said, at once. "The occult is never the most likely option. Particularly given the DNA found at the scene. Organs break down pretty fast post-mortem, I wouldn't like to speculate whether it would be possible for a revenant to… express a sample of DNA."

Hotch considered this. "I'm not sure who I would feel comfortable asking about that."

"I could call the Medical Examiner who used to liaise with my old unit if you want," she offered. "He's used to unusual questions."

"I would appreciate that."

0o0

We all die. The goal isn't to live forever – the goal is to create something that will.

Chuck Palahniuk

0o0

Grace perched on the chair opposite the main table on the jet, wondering whether Arnold could be persuaded to visit Washington, maybe with his counterpart in forensics, Belle. It would be good to see them again. She'd headed to the roof of the building to make her call, on the basis that there would be fewer people to overhear. Arnold had been at a rock concert when she'd answered the phone, and had cheerfully and briskly promised to call Grace back about the possibilities of zombie seminal fluid when he'd had time for a 'proper think'.

Grace had missed the man's easy approach to the more ridiculous parts of the world. It had been too long since they had last spoken, and both of them promised to keep in better contact, though both of them knew this was unlikely, given the hours they worked.

She turned her attention back to the file she had open on her knees, in which Cortland Ryan's many misdemeanours were detailed. He was almost a classic serial killer: abusive childhood, lost his mother at a young age, angry and violent outbursts at home, charming man in public…

He had grandstanded throughout his trial and his many appeals, and had probably done the same at his execution. He was extremely intense and extremely charismatic. Although the idea of murder groupies had never sat entirely well with her, Grace could well understand why this particular psychopath had attracted a follower dedicated enough to murder for him.

Reid tapped his pen on his open file thoughtfully. "The Angel Maker's victims were beaten with the assailant's bare hands," he said, frowning at the autopsy report. "Delilah Grennan was bludgeoned with a heavy instrument. Maybe a hammer…"

"Okay, so this unsub is a weaker guy – or at least someone who perceives themselves that way," Morgan proposed.

"It takes a lot of force to beat someone to death with your bare hands," Grace observed. "And a lot of rage – maybe this unsub doesn't have the same anger."

"Probably brought along the hammer to make certain his victim wouldn't fight back," Emily added.

"They have parachutes on board, right?" Rossi asked, confusing everyone.

"They should – it's standard on all federal air transport," Reid assured him, puzzled.

Rossi nodded. "Maybe we can give one to the elephant in the room? Get him out of here?"

Grace rolled her eyes.

"That'd be the elephant with the dead man's DNA," Morgan surmised.

"Well, obviously someone planted the semen on the victim," Hotch said.

"In the victim," Morgan reminded them.

"That's one theory," Reid began, with the air of someone about to blow a case wide open, and for a moment Grace wondered whether he was about to go down the occult route.

He had been doing a lot of research into it, of late.

"There's another?" JJ asked, leaning on the seat behind him.

"Think about who shares the exact DNA makeup of another person," Reid suggested.

"Reid, you're not seriously floatin' around the idea of an evil twin," Morgan exclaimed.

"Stranger things have happened," said Grace slowly, though personally she thought this was far more outlandish than ghosts and zombies.

"No, I'm not," he said confidently. "I'm floating around the idea of an eviller twin. Uh –traditionally, the concept is a good twin and an evil twin," he expanded, warming to his theme as his colleagues shared incredulous looks. "But in this case, it's evil twin, eviller twin."

He looked down, as if he was only just beginning to process how oddly everyone was now looking at him, and Grace felt the need to rescue him.

"Could be," she said carefully. "There was that guy in Portugal a couple of years back, who was prosecuted for his brother's crimes."

"Exactly!" said Reid, sending her a grateful smile.

"I think we can work on a couple of other theories before we get back to that one," said Rossi, amused.

Hotch leaned forward suddenly, clutching his head. The other agents watched him warily, exchanging worried glances, aware of how close he had come to being blown up – and how recently.

"Hotch?" Morgan asked, in a slightly admonishing tone.

"Yeah?"

"You have been cleared to fly, haven't you?"

Hotch gave Morgan a momentary glare then sat back, still clutching his head, which Grace took to mean 'No, and I'm not going to admit it'. In lieu of telling her boss he was an idiot for putting his battered eardrums through intense changes in atmospheric pressure, she got up and headed to the kitchenette, while Rossi and JJ made their way back to their seats, pulling a bottle of water out of the tiny, crammed fridge.

"Here," she said, dropping it on the table in front of him, along with a pack of aspirin. He nodded his thanks, still in obvious pain, and clutched at the aspirin as if he'd have dry-swallowed the whole packet if he had been allowed to.

The agents around him eyed him with open but silent concern; they all knew full-well he had come back to work too soon, and they all knew they would have done exactly the same thing if it had been them. With this in mind, the others left him to grimace into his hands while Morgan, Emily and Reid stared worriedly at him. Grace made her way back to the seat beside Rossi, mentally running through the alternative explanations for the presence of a dead man's semen turning up at a crime scene a year after he was dead, in her mind.

Mildly worried for her own sanity, she wondered when she had become someone for whom an evil twin scenario was weirder than the possibility of animated corpses.

"Evil twin?" Rossi asked, as she sat down.

"I know," she said, "but far be it for me pretend I understand the workings of Reid's brain."

"You defended him," Rossi pointed out.

Grace narrowed her eyes at him, suddenly aware that she was being profiled. "And?"

He held her gaze for a moment before looking away. Grace frowned. He had what would best be described as a knowing smile on his face, which (while not an unfamiliar resident on Rossi's face) was an unusual thing to be directed at her.

She blushed, suddenly and apparently without cause.

Noticing this, Rossi grinned. "Nothing," he said innocently.

"It better be," she shot back, mock seriously, and both of them chuckled.

She busied herself with her files, wondering why her cheeks felt so pink.