Chapter Text
"I am what I am. To look for reasons is beside the point."
Joan Didion
What makes a good communicator? Some people ask. You never ask.
The irony wasn't lost on you considering you’re a Communications Liaison, but somewhere along the way you developed, then justified, your own doctrine: if you can handle a situation—and it was rare that you couldn’t—there’s no need to rope anyone else in. Communication, by definition, requires two people, a contributor on the other end, someone to answer back. Contributors, in your experience, almost always complicate the process, so why invite that in if you don’t have to.
As far as the BAU is aware, you don’t keep anything from them. You review cases in complete solitude, bring them the ones that matter, throw out the ones that don’t, take calls all day from people whose names would make their jaws drop, and by the time anything reaches the team it has already been sorted, stripped down, tied with a neat bow—nothing more, nothing less. If there is some contradiction in being a Communications Liaison who does not communicate openly, you have never been particularly interested in measuring where that places you on a traditional scale, because it works.
Except last week it didn’t, or at least that was how the higher ups framed it. You couldn’t deny their accusations, you went over local PD’s heads to get your team on a case they clearly couldn’t handle on their own. No one called it punishment. They only suggested you take a step back to think about your performance. The wording sounded close enough to punishment to be irritating and not nearly serious enough to matter, especially because the case had worked out exactly the way you knew it would. To most people, maybe that suggested you were a bad communicator. You didn’t think so. You didn’t think about your performance at all. You didn’t ask.
Before this leave of absence, you would have said you had a well-rounded life outside of work (although there was very little evidence of that.) Over the four days you spent out of office, you compiled a great deal of evidence to the contrary. You became proficient at skipping rocks in the pool, decided you looked best in a warm autumn color palette, and, a few hundred dollars too late, discovered you were exceptionally bad at online blackjack.
Still, it hardly mattered, because before long Hotch would have a case and you would be back as though you had never left. You told him to call the second something crossed his desk, and no, you did not spend all day waiting by your phone. You were only making sure your mother had not called, or screening spam, or staying available in case there was an emergency… somewhere, which felt different enough to count.
Whatever. Not too much longer now.
The call came on the sixth evening. You’d been zipping around your dim-lit kitchen, tea towel thrown over your shoulder, finally satisfied that your sauce no longer tasted like you freestyled the recipe. It was Garcia, which was odd only because she should have been home by then and because she, unlike everyone else in your life, usually respected the line between work hours and whatever existed outside of them (if anything). Not that you were in any position to complain, because you loved her and she was calling and your break was finally over.
You set the wooden spoon down beside the stove, streaked red at the handle, and answered before the phone could ring a second time.
“Oh, Garcia,” you said, already exhaling, relieved in a way that felt embarrassing once you heard it aloud, “you have no idea how happy I am to hear from you.”
“Hi, sugar.”
And then nothing. Not silence exactly, but the a pause that wanted to make itself known. It followed a familiar tone, akin to the one she bore after hours of gruesome images on her screen. Careful and solemn and trying very hard not to let either of those things show.
Your stomach dropped before your mind had time to settle on why.
“Is something wrong,” was all you could manage through your tightening throat.
She took a shaky breath, barely audible on the line. “I’m not supposed to be telling you this…”
And then she stopped again, which was worse this time because hesitation suggests options and you did not have the patience for whatever options she was considering. You were unconsciously moving, walking the length of the kitchen because movement felt preferable to standing still and imagining every possible disaster at once.
“Garcia,” you said, sharper this time.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry—there’s a case,” she said.
You stopped in front of the stove, suddenly aware you had been pacing only because now you weren’t. The burner ticked quietly beneath the pot.
“What’s so wrong with that?”
“Well,” she said, and there it was again, that hesitation that was eating you alive, “Reid specifically told me not to tell you.”
You know you didn’t mishear her, but at the same time that seemed like the only plausible explanation. Because Reid, ever-kind with all his integrity and care for you, wouldn’t intentionally go over your head like that.
You pictured Garcia at her desk, anxiously chewing on her nail or a pen, spinning half an inch in each direction in her chair that she was never still in when she felt guilty. She probably pictured you too—steadying yourself on the closest surface with restless fingers and eyes glazed over in thought. You were right. She was, too.
“R-Reid,” you said, because apparently it required repeating before it made sense. Then you gave a short laugh that wasn’t really a laugh at all. “Why?”
Your tone was softer than you expected and much to your chagrin, a bit of hurt bled through your words, vulnerability you usually kept under lock and key.
“He didn’t tell me.”
“He didn’t– what? Does he think I’m not good at my job? Does he–”
She clicked into damage control mode, heart twinging when you began to spiral. “No, no. I’m sure that’s not it.”
She said it far too quickly—the speed of someone choosing certainty because the alternative would require explanation.
You tapped your fingers rhythmically against the countertop, watching how the sauce began crusting at the edges because you’d abandoned the stirring.
“You’re sure?”
“I am.”
And how could someone be so sure of another person’s intentions if they didn’t vocalize them?
“So you’re positive he didn’t tell you why?”
You sigh, wishing you could take that back. She went out on a limb for you and was audibly torn up by the guilt of betraying her friend. This favor was more than you could ask for and you were pushing her undeservedly.
Before she could answer you forced a smile, hoping it shaped your tone into something more gentle.
“Thanks, Garcia.”
You pulled the phone away from your ear before she could offer whatever explanation she was crafting, because there are moments when explanation only dilutes the obvious and this felt very much like one of them.
By the time you reached the stairs you were acutely aware how the way your mind was working ahead of you, fragmented and frantic. You took the stairs two at a time, one hand grazing the railing only when necessary. The bedroom light was still on from earlier, clothes discarded on a chair where you had left them, and you pulled together a professional outfit with the first acceptable garments you laid eyes on.
You dialed Hotch and dropped the phone onto the bed with the speaker on, the line ringing while you wriggled into your slacks pushing off the foot of your bed when you lost balance.
“Y/L/N,” he said when he answered, his voice tinny through the speaker.
“Hotch, is there a reason I wasn’t invited on this case?”
It came out sharper than intended, though by now you’re halfway convinced intention would only slow you down.
“Reid told me you declined to join us for this one,” he said, not accusing exactly, not judgemental, but matter-of-factly, suggesting he had accepted the explanation because there had been no reason not to. You didn’t blame him—you would have done the same.
You stopped moving for the first time in a while, chewing on his words and how little sense they made. “Hotch,” you said, already crossing to the closet. Your voice must have been muffled because you were too far from the phone and too impatient to accommodate.
You found a pair of heels and stumbled back towards the bed as you walked your feet all the way into them.
“Hotch, you know I’d never say no to a case. I’ve been counting down the days until I could come back, you know that.”
You’d spoken to your boss with this level of intensity before, but not with emotion behind it. Maybe it was out of line (maybe more than maybe) but your pulse outran whatever part of you that had the ability to rein something like that in, and there did not seem much use in chasing after it.
He went silent for an agonizing moment.
“Are you implying Reid was lying?”
“I’m not implying anything,” you said, and because that was not entirely true, you stopped long enough to pull in a breath and start again. “I just don’t understand why no one thought to inform me there was a case.”
Silence, then—not empty, only evaluative, which was fair because that was usually how Hotch conducted a conversation. But fair didn’t assuage your nerves because this time he was considering you, not an unsub. For a moment you considered ending the call there, driving to the office without another word, but you didn’t have enough information to proceed yet.
“Have you left yet?” you asked, quieter now.
“We just boarded the jet.”
“Wait for me. I’m coming.”
“Y/L/N, we have to take off, you can—”
“Hotch,” you spoke with as much command as you could to a superior, “I’ll be there in twenty.”
To the chagrin of Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia, you made it in fifteen.
Go bag in hand, you crossed the landing still half out of breath, fixed your face before anyone could call attention to it, and boarded the jet as though arriving late was a small inconvenience and not the result of being royally screwed over by your closest, most trusted coworker.
Derek Morgan and Emily Prentiss sat at the table with a deck of cards splayed between them, both looking up when you stepped inside with expressions difficult to discern—not surprise exactly, not concern either, something suspended between curiosity and the awareness that they were a step behind whatever was unfolding. Aaron Hotchner looked far less displeased than you expected. Spencer Reid didn’t look at you at all.
“Sorry I’m late,” you said, light enough to suggest there had never been any doubt you would arrive, touching Jennifer Jareau lightly on the shoulder as you passed and reaching for one of the manila folders stacked in front of her.
“Nice of you to join us,” David Rossi said, already smiling like he knew better than to ask questions in front of everyone. You couldn’t tell if he had been clued in—you hoped for the contrary.
Regardless, you let it pass because there was nothing useful to say and because whatever this was belonged, for the moment, to Reid and you alone.
You slid into the seat beside Morgan and asked Prentiss to deal you in next hand. She nodded, grinning in a way that loosened something in your shoulders you had not realized was still there.
“What changed your mind?” Morgan asked, low enough that only you could hear it.
“My mind was made up a long time ago,” you said, louder than necessary.
It landed exactly where you intended.
Your eyes lifted to Reid almost immediately, just in time to see the way he shrunk into his seat. He sat near the front of the plane with a book open in his hands, turning pages too quickly to be reading any of them, as it would shield him from the jabs you were throwing from across the aisle.
Reid had never done anything you could classify as unkind, not even by accident. If anything, he had always been the easiest person on the team to work with, which may have been why this stung so badly. You took a beat to neatly file away the assumption that it’d all been a ruse and these were his true colors. True? Likely not. Illogical? Certainly. Easy for you to release your grasp on despite that? Not at all.
You had an itemized list in your mind of all his best qualities (admittedly, you did for everyone, and his list was by far the longest.) He never explained things you already understood, never mistook a gap in expertise for incompetence, never treated your work as adjacent simply because it was not his own. And maybe you were biased because you wanted to believe there was something particular in the way he understood you, but you had noticed long ago that he detected things about you that others missed—when you were tired, when the details had started to settle somewhere heavier than usual, when you said you were fine in exactly the tone that meant you were not. He had a way of removing weight without naming it, which was useful because naming things usually made them worse.
You never asked how he knew to do that. Maybe it was profiling. Maybe somewhere, unofficially, you had acquired one that included a fragile ego and a stubborn refusal to admit when anything was too much. You hoped not, though you could not argue very convincingly against either point.
Which made this harder to place, because going over your head felt deliberate in a way you could not reconcile with anything you knew about him, you couldn’t will your mind to stop circling back on that. Disrespect did not belong anywhere in Spencer Reid’s profile, and yet here you were, on a jet you had not been meant to board, angry enough that even sitting still required effort.
Prentiss fanned out a set of cards in front of you and you focused on the three aces amongst your hand with enough force that your breathing became manual.
Boston was charming in the way old cities often are, something about its history had taught it restraint. Brick everywhere, narrow streets that seemed designed before anyone imagined automobiles, church spires poking out along the sky line and an alarming number of men who sounded as though they had stepped directly out of a film you were already tired of by the time you left the airport.
Maybe you made a bit of a show of taking point when you arrived at the police station, but that was your job, wasn’t it, and if there was some satisfaction in stepping ahead of everyone else with your chin lifted a little higher than necessary, you allowed yourself that much.
You followed the police chief into the conference room with the rest of the team trailing behind, only to lose some of that resolve the moment the heat hit you. The room felt tight with the kind of muggy that settled over every inch of skin. You gave up any pretense of indifference when you located an oscillating fan, settling into a chair directly in its reach. It lurched lazily from side to side, moving hot air more than cooling it, but it was better than nothing.
While you did your best to glean what you could from the case file, flipping pages as though you’d become more familiar if you looked busy enough, you were aware you were starting on your back foot, something completely foreign to you considering it was your job to know these things inside out and backwards. Not to mention, the information wasn’t compiled nearly as well as you could do it, only making each detail more muddy and convoluted.
Too stubborn to ask and too embarrassed to admit why you needed to, you settled for reading faster than comprehension allowed. Sooner or later you would have to say something. At the moment you couldn’t bring yourself to.
JJ began pinning files and photographs to the corkboard, and you fixed your attention there instead of where it wanted to go. Reid sat directly across from you, exactly where he usually did, which under ordinary circumstances meant shared glances (and sometimes stolen ones of your own) and half-formed ideas passed back and forth without needing much explanation. Today, you’d be doing no such thing.
“Do you have any questions before we start, Y/L/N,” Hotch asked from the head of the table.
“No.”
Fuck.
“Great, let’s get to work then. Prentiss and Reid, I want you to head to the most recent crime scene. Morgan, see if you can get any more information out of the Rockwell family. I’m going to speak with the reporter’s family. JJ and Y/L/N, stay here and start parsing through what we have—we’re still missing too much.”
Then he looked directly at you, which had the immediate effect of making you sit straighter. You closed the folder as if you had complete confidence and the papers were of no use to you now.
“Y/L/N, we should put out a statement to the press as soon as possible, so start there. Draft something, run it by me, then arrange the press conference.”
You gave one quick nod, trying not to let it show that the instruction made your stomach tighten. You wondered if this was what it felt like to have a fear of public speaking. Apparently the nerves didn’t discriminate, even if you were anxious for entirely different reasons.
Hotch pushed away from the table and headed for the door, reminding everyone to keep their phones on. Reid followed almost immediately, too quick to look accidental, while the others filtered out more slowly behind him.
JJ pulled her hair up and fanned her face with one of the folders, muttering that she had not realized New England was capable of heat like this, which under ordinary circumstances might have led to a longer conversation about weather and regional superiority, but you were already deciding whether embarrassment was worth prolonging.
You abandoned the internal debate when anticipation took over, a relentless spreading from your chest. You drew your lips between your teeth and cleared your throat.
“Can you fill me in, Jayj?”
Your voice came out steadier than you felt, which was useful because confidence, once heard aloud, sometimes became convincing enough to steal.
“Of course,” she said, with no trace of surprise, as though this were the most ordinary request in the world and not something you had spent the entire time avoiding. You had a habit of working things up into something they weren’t, and now the feeling on the forefront of your mind was embarrassment.
She moved around the corkboard as she spoke, one hand still holding the folder, the other pointing from photograph to photograph, building the sequence piece by piece. More than one unsub, they were sure of that much. Different methods each time—two shootings in broad daylight that looked random initially, then escalation yesterday: a mass shooting in a supermarket, carried out only to instill fear which made this all the more complicated.
There had been a car bomb early on, she said, almost as if it belonged to a different case entirely, which in some ways it did because everything about this felt segmented by design. That meant they had the capability for explosives and, according to Reid, would likely circle back to them once whatever point they were making required something louder. You couldn’t doubt his judgement, no matter how badly the grudge you held wanted you to.
The only connection lived in the minutes immediately after each attack. These events went under the noses of emergency response for minutes because phone signals near dispatch centers were being jammed—manually, they believed, close enough to local 911 operating centers.
JJ hesitated only once, and you noticed it because hesitation was unusual for her.
“Two local media employees were taken,” she said, glancing briefly at one of the photographs pinned near the edge of the board, all corners covered by other photos, almost as if intentionally hidden. “They forced both of them to record a statement. Only one agreed.”
You leaned forward in your seat, examining the dots before you were able to connect them.
“They handed him a microphone without a station logo and filmed it on a phone,” she continued. “Some alley, no effort to hide that it was staged. He looked terrified.”
Disheveled, pale, reading in a flat voice from something just off camera. The syntax, the tone, the message—all too off to read as authentic. But that didn’t matter because there was no illusion that anyone was supposed to believe the report itself. The reporter had been found dead in that same alley not long after the video surfaced, uploaded through an anonymous Twitter account that lasted less than ten minutes before disappearing. The other reporter, the one who refused, shared the same gruesome fate as the first.
“They’re fabricating a narrative,” JJ said. “Or trying to.”
Trying, yes—but not very hard, which was exceedingly more concerning, because failure that blatant suggested deception was never really the point. The video was too careless for that: the empty microphone, the shaky frame, the alley still visible behind him, every detail crude enough that you were meant to notice the construction before you noticed the message itself. Good communication was never what they were after. They wanted people to see how easily it could be manipulated, abused, bent to the will of whoever controlled it. A reporter forced to speak, false statement posted where everyone would find it, emergency lines cut off. Every tool was useful to them so long as it carried fear farther than the violence itself.
And now the FBI was here, which meant statements, cameras, questions, briefings, reassurance—just one more outlet falling into their lap, the most high profile one present at that. You.
These unsubs had never asked what made a good communicator, never cared to. Neither did you.
And that’s exactly why Reid didn’t want you there.
"It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us."
Norman Maclean