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In the end, they all went down together.
They’d actually kind of expected something like that anyway. Perhaps a bomb going off unexpectedly, or a killer they just couldn't outsmart. It was half anticipated, in some horrible way.
It was Spencer who first bought it up.
He’d been reading The Virgin Suicides, and was discussing it with JJ one day when he mentioned it casually.
Them all killing themselves together.
JJ and Spencer had laughed at the time, but then they'd said it again at a round table meeting, and then at a dinner, until the BAU bought it up almost daily.
It was still a joke, at that point. Until it wasn't.
Spencer spoke about it the most. The idea fascinated him; the idea of all of them just being gone. Poof, like that.
Penelope spoke of it least. She didn't want to imagine a world without her teammates in it, even if she wasn't there too.
In the end, though, it got to them all, one by one, the thought seeping like poison through their bloodstream. So they hatched a plan.
They’d do it in their separate homes, they decided, so if one of them backed out, they didn't have to see the others’ bodies. None of them imagined backing out, though. A life without each other was hardly a life at all.
They did it on the 5th January, only deciding a day before. Together, they hugged each other tight and then went back home. The only person left in the office was Hotch.
They all had their different methods.
Spencer overdosed. Kind, clever, witty Spencer, who had battled his addiction like a soldier, succumbing to it on his bathroom floor. It was a short death, but not instant. He needed the high of the Dilaudid one more time.
JJ cut her wrists in the bathtub. She'd seen it before, and she knew from research exactly how deep she'd have to go. Smiley, gentle, sweet JJ, who lost her sister the exact same way just decades before. She prayed before she went, for a better life for her boys than she had had herself.
Derek shot himself. Like a man, because the amount of will it takes to pull the trigger is almost inhuman, they say. One bullet straight through the brain, and then a body on the floor. Clean. Tough, joking, brave Derek, with a heart of a lion, and also a house-cat.
Rossi poisoned himself. It seemed the only appropriate way for him to go, really. Somewhat dramatic, like something out of a book. It was a slow poison, too. He wanted the suffering. The blood spilling from his lips as he clutched the table and prayed to God that he would reach heaven. Face of thunder, calm, calculated Rossi. He always expected to be outlived by his children.
Emily hung herself. It was quick, she decided, a simple slipping of a box from below her feet, and then the cracking of her neck. She knew how to do it officiantly. The only thing she'd thought about was Sergio, and who would feed him now. Anxious, beautiful, street-smart Emily. She would never laugh again.
Penelope took too many sleeping pills, and then curled up surrounded by pillows, prepared to enter a sleep she would never wake from. Bubbly, flirty, adoring Penelope. She cried before she drifted away, not for herself, but for her friends who would never live their full lives. That was the only thing she thought of. Selfless Penelope. Selfless.
The only man left was Hotch, and he shot himself three times. Same as Haley, he recalled, smiling softly as he bled out across his carpet. She'd be so angry at him for leaving Jack all alone, but it was for the best, really. Although he had blocked the thoughts from his mind, being with her again was all he had dreamed of since the night she had died. Stern, loyal, courageous Aaron Hotchner. The last of them. A great leader, a bad husband, and a sorry excuse of a father. He chuckled those thoughts softly to himself as his vision went black.
Those who outlived the BAU members had their lives shattered in two when they found them. The faces at funerals all blended into one, in a sea of despair and confusion.
Spencer Reid, outlived by his parents. Jennifer Jareau, outlived by her children, parents and husband. Emily Prentiss, outlived by her mother. Aaron Hotchner, outlived by his son. David Rossi, outlived by his many wives and children.
Outlived, outlived, outlived. The word was said so many times that day, printed on that row of sombre tombstones, that it barely even seemed like a word anymore.
How could that team, so brave and daring and admirable and incredible, have done something like this? That was what the press asked, and their fans and their co-workers and their family, and the people who's lives they'd saved.
How could they all be gone?
Spencer had wanted another doctorate, and a family, and a cure for schizophrenia or dementia. He had wanted to reconnect with Elle, and to live the life that Maeve didn't get. JJ had wanted to see her kids grow up, and go to college, and get married. So had Hotch, and Morgan. Hotch more than anyone. Emily had wanted a child, although she had never mentioned it, and she had wanted a girlfriend and a small house. Penelope had wanted a snug home with puppies and kittens and a gentle life, as ridiculous as she had felt for wanting it.
How could people with such high hopes have just killed themselves, all together, like that?
Nobody knew. It was puzzled over for many years, discussed in long threads on true-crime reddit, a question sobbed over by parents and partners and children.
More than anything, it was a question that would never be answered, and it was people who they would never get back.
‘The BAU team’ they thought, ‘heroes diminished to nothing more than a few words on a slab of stone.’
The BAU team. Sorely and incomparably missed.