WRITER'S NOTE: Please know that yes, I am taking dramatic character liberties here, but this is an idea – a theory really – that I can't quite let go of. Maybe I'll get Joss'd or I guess in this 'verse, Bernero'd, but that's a risk I'm willing to take to get this idea out of my head. As for the other story I've been working on- THE BIG EMPTY - I still am. Such is the glory of outlining. Allows me to move between the two.
CONTENT WARNING: At least initially we'll go with a strong PG-13 type rating, but the potential for a harder one down the line is there. This chapter does deal with rape, but it's hardly graphic.
FINAL NOTE: This first chapter sets the stage and thus doesn't deal with the modern day BAU, but it's vitally important going forward. Please be patient- I promise come the next one, our team will be in action.
December, 1983.
She was blonde, tiny and slim. Perhaps a bit too slim to be bluntly honest. Thankfully her massive ear to ear smile made up for that. And her eyes, blue like the turbulent ocean after a hard rain. Really, she was stunning. The most beautiful creature that twenty-six year old Tucker Krause had ever seen in his life.
And she was beneath him now, her skin against his. Hot like a fever. He looked down at her and saw that eyes were closed. Too bad, he thought. It seemed almost a sin not to be able to gaze into them, to look deep into her soul and see the imprint that he'd left there.
Another time then. They had plenty of time for that. Now, he thought, unable to keep from smiling, now they had forever.
He could still remember the first time he'd laid eyes on her. It'd been only a few months earlier, a crisp Fall morning, the streets full of leaves, the wind whipping around. She'd been bringing her kids to school, a pretty blonde five year old daughter who looked a lot like her mother and a seven year old boy with light brown hair.
He'd been bringing his own five year old son in. That night, over steamed ten for a dollar hotdogs, he'd grilled his boy extensively about the daughter, had tried to learn about the mother through the child. His little man had been as children often are, vague and disinterested, clearly not grasping the extent of his father's need to know.
But then, his boy still missed his mother. Hard to imagine, but true.
His mother had once upon a time been Tucker's college sweetheart. A bright shining masterpiece in a sea of cheap imitations. Or so he'd thought.
Looking back, he realized that she'd never really been faithful to him. Not in heart or body. She'd always wanted more, more than a life settled down with a man she would scream during their frequents fights had no ambition, more than a life with a child she'd never really wanted.
Then there had come the day when she had stopped wanting more and simply gone out seeking it. A note left on the fridge saying, "There has to be better than this. Take care of our boy. Jean." Not even an "I love you, I'm sorry." Nothing. No sign that there had ever been love between them. Just the empty coldness of a letter which had probably taken all of ten seconds to scribble out.
The bitterness had been overwhelming. The loneliness even more so. The dark thoughts had started around that time, consuming his every waking moment, making him think of and even consider acts of violence which up until that time had seemed unfathomable. Slowly, but surely, these acts, not yet committed, only dreamt about, had started to take an almost romantic vibe.
They had seemed to call to him.
Like she had. Not his wife.
Her. Beautiful, sweet, too slim her.
A soft whimper beneath him brought his attention back to the here and now. He glanced down at her and saw that her jaw had clenched. He reached out and touched her cheek and she shuddered.
He closed his eyes and prayed for calm. Told himself that her reaction had been an accident. She hadn't meant to do it.
Not hadn't meant to do it like Jean had claimed that she hadn't meant to cheat on him. But hadn't meant to do it in a real way. In an honest way. Because, he reminded himself forcefully, Kate was nothing like Jean. Kate was honest and true. That was her strength. That was her beauty.
"No," he said, reminding her. "Don't do that. Don't ever do that."
And so, like a well trained dog – a comparison he himself wasn't all that fond of – she obeyed, forcing herself to release just a bit. He touched her again and this time, she allowed it.
Again, she moaned. To him it sounded like bliss.
Tucker returned his mind back to their first meeting. How he'd walked right up to her and introduced himself. How she'd replied with a warm, "Kate," and then offered her hand. How her shake had been soft, but terribly, shockingly strong. That seemed to him to be an apt description of Kate overall. Soft, but strong. Yeah, he liked that.
He'd told her that their kids were in the same class, suggested maybe a play date. She'd accepted immediately, seemed a bit relieved. She'd told him that she was a stay at home mom and sometimes she got terribly tired taking care of her little ones. She'd said that school was a sanity saver, but that her little girl, since she was only in kindergarten, was only in class the first half of the day. And apparently she was a wild one, always racing around, always moving.
So a play date, she'd said, blue eyes flashing majestically, had sounded just wonderful. He'd suggested the first one at the park in the middle of town and again, she'd seemed relieved. Boundaries after all. She was married. Her wedding ring had gleamed brightly in the afternoon sun.
The date had gone wonderfully. He and Kate had talked for over an hour as their kids had played with each other. The children didn't quite get along, but that was mostly because her daughter was so outgoing and his son was almost morbidly, even pathetically shy.
Still, the day had been perfect.
Until Matthew had shown up. Handsome with brown hair and eyes and a swagger that seemed cut from an old Hollywood movie, he'd come up and wrapped his arms around Kate, kissed her, held her. Drawled out, "Hey, babe." Like he was a cowboy or something. So easy. So comfortable.
And she'd folded into him. That same easy, effortless comfort.
Tucker could still remember the intense hatred that had surged through his body. Matthew was something of a local celebrity around town, a young lawyer with a gifted tongue that might have made Cicero jealous. He was charming, good-looking and in all fairness, a nice man.
In a different world, in one in which Matthew hadn't won the girl like the star football player would the prom queen, he might have even liked the man. But that was a different world.
In this one, Matthew had been dying since the moment Tucker had reached out and shaken his hand.
Matthew aside, his relationship with Kate had continued for several months like this. Frequent dates, all involving their children who had never really grown to like each other and probably never would. But they hadn't cared. Kids would be kids and the adults needed their adult time. And so since September, three times a week they'd met. And talked like old friends.
Like soulmates, he liked to think. Because surely the things she told him, the concerns and doubts she confided in him, they were things one only told their dearest friend. Their most important one.
It had all led up to today. To this moment. To this wonderful moment where he and Kate had finally given in and come together as one.
It had started with a simple offer to pick her five year old up from school. She'd been unsure and he loved that about her. She'd said that her daughter could be fussy and he'd already known that. She'd protested that her little angel could be a real pain in the ass around naptime and he'd replied that that was no problem because unbeknownst to her, he'd known that, too.
Kate had never realized just how much he knew about every part of her.
Every part.
He knew that Matthew, who drove an old black Ford truck which probably should have been replaced, but never would be because he had been given the vehicle by his father, was a playful man who liked to touch his wife a lot. He seemed fond of wrestling with her, tumbling with her. And he liked to sneak up on her, too. Scare her a bit. Make her jump.
He knew that her son loved to collect action figures, knew that he was currently working on the He-Man ones. Knew that he was trying to find a Teela one because He-Man needed a girl.
He knew that her daughter, who her mother called Jenny, but who hated that name, loved chocolate. He knew that a week and a half ago she' crept downstairs in the middle night while her parents had been sound asleep upstairs and she'd broken up a box of chocolate cake mix. Knew that the little blonde child had eaten every bit of the powder and then, presumably overwhelmed by the sugar, had collapsed face first onto the ground, only to be found hours later by her father who hadn't stopped laughing for almost twenty minutes. Kate had tried to be angry with both husband and daughter, but had managed neither well and simply eventually said, "well, one day when she gets married, at least we can embarrass her with this."
He also knew that Kate had always wanted to buy a puppy for the family, but couldn't because in a cruel stroke of irony, she was allergic to dog hair. And so she settled with having a calendar of various dogs on her refrigerator. She even liked to name them. It was terribly cute.
Yeah, Tucker thought with a smile, he knew a lot about her and her family. Which, of course, made sense.
Because they were soon to be his family. His daughter. His second son.
Again, beneath him he heard a whimper. "Shh," he told her and immediately, she fell silent. He fell a rush of pride go through his lean frame. He was proud of himself for being such a good teacher and proud of her for being such a quick student.
But then, he reasoned, perhaps it was less him than the sight of her husband lying dead on the ground, just a few feet away from the bed. That could certainly rob a girl of her wild spirit.
No, he quickly corrected himself. Matthew was of the past. The future was now. With him. He wanted that. She wanted that. He knew she did.
He'd known the moment she'd walked into his house late that afternoon, a big beaming smile on her face. She had reached out and touched him, her fingers clutching lightly around his shoulder for just a moment. "Thank you," she'd said. "You don't know how much today meant to me."
And he'd replied, "Trust me, it meant the same to me." For a brief second she'd seemed puzzled, but then that had passed and she'd called out for her daughter.
"Jenny!"
Her daughter had come running, had leapt into her arms. "Where's Daddy?" she'd asked.
"At home waiting for us. We have a surprise for you?"
"Really? What is it?" the little girl had cried out, such joy in her tone. Tucker could remember glancing towards the stairs of his house, wondering why his own son seemed so incapable of expressing the same kind of glee.
"Can't tell you 'til we get home," Kate had replied. And little Jenny had nodded quickly. And started leaning towards the doorway.
Desperately trying to get home to her surprise. To her daddy.
And in that moment, he'd known that the time had come. A few seconds later he'd bid Kate and Jenny goodnight, knowing full well that he'd see them later.
Knowing damn well that the next time he saw them, he'd making them his.
When he'd got to the house that night, he'd been stunned to find the kids gone. He'd heard Matthew say something like, "Thank God for your sister." That had apparently been the surprise, sending them off to their favorite aunt's house, where spoiling would likely be aplenty.
Or so he figured. Of the aunt, he actually knew little. He cared even less. The kids would come back to him soon enough.
One night would make little difference, he reasoned.
Not in their lives going forward.
He'd peered through the window and watched with furious hatred as Kate had giggled and slapped her husband's arm lightly. She'd said something about him defiling her and this time Matthew had laughed.
Tucker had not.
He'd waited for them to go upstairs before he'd made his move, sliding up and through the window that led into their son's bedroom. He'd been in her only once before, when Kate had given him a tour of the house during his first visit to the little two story Victorian. It had been during that walkthrough when he'd noticed just how easy it would be to use that as a way inside. That had been the night he started thinking about her nonstop. Dream after dream. Until owning her had become an obsession.
After glancing around the young boy's room once more, he had turned and walked down the hall. Taking care to walk softly, he'd heard the sounds of Matthew and Kate's lovemaking echoing through the house and his rage had started to built to near blinding levels.
By the time he had entered their bedroom, all he'd seen in front of him had been a solid spray of angry red.
Matthew had never seen him, but Kate had.
Above them both with a butcher knife stolen from the kitchen. With Kate's screams as background music, he'd stabbed Matthew three times.
He was quite certain that Matthew had been dead after the second one.
She'd pleaded for him to stop and then when it was done, when it was obvious to even her that Matthew was gone and couldn't be saved, she'd asked him, no – begged him – to tell her why he was doing this.
He'd simply replied, "For you. For us."
And then he'd made her his, teaching her quickly and with brutal efficiency that screaming was not acceptable.
Now, beneath him, he was thrilled by how quickly she'd taken to the lesson. She was accepting him in every way, letting him in. Letting him-
"Please," she suddenly whispered and he blinked, not quite sure that he'd heard what he thought he had.
"What?" he demanded hoarsely, pressing down, letting his weight fall fully onto her. He could hear the sound of the mattress creak in protest.
"Please, stop," she said again and tear leaked down her cheek. That was when he realized, much to his horror and shock, that she'd been crying for awhile, weeping silently.
Once again, his rage built. He hit her hard. Warned her to remember her training. But suddenly she couldn't or wouldn't. Suddenly she was hysterical, thrashing, moving, trying to push him off and away.
He couldn't tolerate that. Wouldn't tolerate that. No, not after all he'd done for her. Not after he'd removed Matthew from their lives, paving the way for them to be together.
And damn her if she wasn't thanking him with a whimpered plea for help.
It was too much. She wouldn't stop so he reached forward and placed his hands around her throat. He squeezed hard, not to kill her, not to hurt her, just to silence her. Just to make her stop acting like he was a threat to her, like he wanted to harm her.
But harm her he accidentally did. She stopped breathing after just a few moments, her blue eyes locked upwards and staring back at him.
It was a brutal horrible shock. But one that like the rest of his life, he simply accepted and let change him.
As he'd fled into the cold Pennsylvania night, he'd known then that the darkness had finally taken him and there was no going back.
And suddenly, somehow, he was absurdly thankful for that.
"Christ, Bobby, up here," Officer Scott Hale called out to his partner on the first floor of the house. He turned and looked around the room.
It seemed clean enough, some blood here and there, but hardly a bloodbath. Still, the emotional carnage was on wild display. Something damned horrible had happened in here.
Matthew lying naked on the floor, discarded like cheap trash, a knife stuck in his back, his face scrunched up in unimaginable pain.
And Kate on the bed, a blanket thrown almost reverently over her. Hale crossed over to her and pulled it back. He sighed as he gazed down at her, looked into those now fogged over eyes.
"They both-" Officer Bobby Max asked as he entered the room. The kid was a rook and was already showing off a little green around the gills.
"Yeah," Hale replied thickly, knowing that he'd never get these mental images out of his mind, knowing that they'd haunt him for the rest of his days. "You'd best call it in. Matthew and Kate Jareau are both dead. "