Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

(This work is inspired by my original novel, Throne of Lies. This character is based off of the main character– so she’s a mix of an OC and a reader-insert. For these reasons, I will be tagging this story as x OC and x reader. This means that I will be using a fake language and a country for Cipher’s backstory.)

Key: Dyneshlava - country beside Russia, not real. Anyverna - city inside Dyneshlava. Dyneshlavn - the official language of Dyneshlava.

This chapter will be updated as more of the language (Dyneshlavn) is used throughout the work. Translations will be here.

THE CIPHER

YOU’RE THE KIND OF PERSON THE BAU STOPS.
You have more blood on your hands than any unsub you’ve come across– you’re sure most people who get to read your unredacted file consider you an unsub.

HE FOUND YOU WHEN YOU WERE NINE.
You ran away from your family, your home, everything you’d ever known to get away from the abuse. When he looked at you, a kid, shivering on the streets– he saw potential, not a child.

YOU GOT CAUGHT AT SIXTEEN.
He abandoned you, took the guns, the weapons– left you defenseless and a scapegoat for everything he’d ever done. He knew you wouldn’t say anything. Not to the feds, to your parents– not to anyone. He was right, and now you’re stuck paying for crimes you did commit, and crimes you didn’t.

YOU’RE 25 NOW.
You had two options– work for the FBI or get the death penalty. You chose the only thing that could keep you alive– but you’re still paying for his felonies. Legally, you’re not allowed to have any weapons. You’re too good at using them– you could kill everyone on your team in an instant. Realistically, that makes you a liability– but you’re even better at getting into people’s heads, which makes you a valuable asset. But, maybe, if you’re docile enough, if they force enough pills down your throat– you’ll get your gun back and be the perfect government soldier.

AGENT HOTCHNER KNOWS EVERYTHING.
He knows what you see at night. He knows about the itch. He remembers you. The underfed, aggressive, child assassin– who he made a deal with. Instead of prison, you get to work yourself to death for a Bureau that will look for any reason to put you down like a rabid dog.

SPENCER REID HATES YOU.
From day one, he knew something was off. You’re emotionally volatile, but you’re obedient. All it takes is a harsh yell, and you comply. It doesn’t add up. Of course, your lack of formal education and any footprint– digital or otherwise, he checked– alarms him. You didn’t exist before the BAU. How did you get into the FBI? Hotch trusts you, so you’ve got credit there– but for now, he’s keeping you at arms length.

YOU DON’T REMEMBER YOUR NAME.
On your file, it reads ‘unknown’. He taught you– he conditioned you– to forget everything before him. You don’t want to remember. He convinced you that he was your king, that he was the deity you should worship. All you know is that you crave to be on the receiving end of his tenderness again, no matter how badly he hurt you. The bruises, the scars, the wounds that still made you flinch– would all be worth it if he held you one more time.

HE CALLED YOU REVENANT.
He said that it meant you were beautiful, sacred– and deadly. You believed him. You were too naive to see his web of lies.

THEY CALL YOU CIPHER.
You’re a code they can’t crack, and technically a spy, so the name fits. You’re fine with it– something inside you has longed for a name since you lost your first title. The hungry, disgusting, filthy killer locked deep down.

CAN YOU MAKE IT OUT ALIVE?
You’ve decided that you won’t– that you’ll be dead before thirty, maybe by an unsub, maybe by his hand. Maybe by a bullet from Agent Hotchner’s gun, if you’re lucky. He had always told you that pretty girls like you don’t make it very long.

There will be an updated list of trigger warnings

Chapter Text

CIPHER HAD A PLAN. There was a time, albeit a regrettable period of time, where she had everything figured out. A time where her name wasn’t Cipher at all. A time where she actually had access to weapons that could save her life. A time where the injury she was currently sporting could have been avoided. She still remembered the feeling of her skin being torn by the blade. The kid who’d stabbed her– yes, kid, had done so in an act of protecting his mother. 

His mother, who, after everything she’d done, still had her son’s undying loyalty. His mother, who had killed herself to escape the blame. His mother, who had forced him to do unspeakable things. Things that she herself remembered doing all too well. Things that would scar him forever. If the higher ups were as harsh and unforgiving as she remembered, his mother’s conditioning might very well send him to prison.

Well, that and the fact that he’d stabbed her, an FBI agent. However, that was the least heinous of his multitude of crimes. There was the obvious (murder), arson, grand theft auto, theft of a service weapon (not hers, because she didn’t have one), breaking and entering, driving without a license– and of course, the little mishap he’d had with the knife that ended up in her thigh. Cipher sighed. A long, exasperated sigh. Everything inside her tingled with adrenaline and pain. She still remembered how he’d managed to get to her. He was crying– the oldest trick in the book, really, so she should have seen it coming– and when she knelt down to talk to him, he unfurled like a hedgehog and got her right by her femoral artery. He’d been aiming for her stomach, but she had faster reflexes than he did. A pro of being in the murder business, she supposed. Cipher gave herself some leniency. At the time, both her and the team still thought that the mother was the one committing the crimes, not him. So really, had she not reacted when she did, she could very well have died. At least, that was what Spencer told her. His voice echoed in her ears. “You’re lucky he missed your femoral artery,’ he had said. "If he hit it– which I’m sure was his intention, we profiled that he’ll go for the kill no matter what– you would have bled out in under sixty seconds.”

“Careful, Dr. Reid,” she replied. “Keep this up and people will think that you’re starting to like me.”

He’d scoffed. “I don’t like you, but my friends do. And as much as I’d enjoy you being gone, a death in the team would traumatize the people I actually like. So, since you seem to be very keen on making mistakes, I have to prevent your death as best I can.”

She’d rolled her eyes. “Yeah right. Just admit it; you like me. It’s nothing to be ashamed about, Dr. I am quite attractive.” He’d flushed at that, and she took that as a sign to enjoy a moment of Reid-less peace. Of course, he had to run his mouth again, interrupting the glorious silence between them. 

“Did you know that–’”she’d tuned out after that, unable to take any more ‘fun’ facts from Reid. They were never as fun as he made them out to be. 

Soon after that, Agent Hotchner had dragged Spencer out of Cipher’s hospital room in order to question her. She assumed that he was there to tell her that ‘okay, you’ve proved yourself, you can have a gun now.’ But no, of course he wasn’t! Instead, he used that voice. The one He’d used when He wanted something from her. The one she always obeyed, every time. It felt unnecessary, like a breach of protocol. He had been instructed (by her) not to use that unless it was absolutely required for the benefit of a) the team, or b) the case. (She’d also made it clear that for the benefit of Spencer Reid didn’t count.)

“I’ll ask you one more time. You stabbed Tyler. Why?” Oh, right. Tyler. She’d stabbed him? She didn’t remember much after removing the knife from her leg, but maybe she’d stabbed him. It was a possibility. 

“I stabbed him?” She asked, the daze (caused by The Voice) wearing off, just a little bit. It had always done that to her. Cloaked her in obedience and stripped her of all situational awareness. Cipher. Hated. It. She’d made that clear from day one. It was the one thing from Revenant left inside her. No matter how much the therapists had tried, they were unable to scrub that trigger from the frame of her mind. They’d discovered hundreds of other tiny minefields, had been able to recondition her into forgetting those– but The Voice remained. Once the higher ups had been notified of her lack of progress with that particular part of her conditioning– they’d decided to use it. Trained Agent Hotchner until he had it down to a science. That way, if she got out of hand, he’d be able to control her. 

There was nothing on this planet that she despised more than The Voice. 

He seemed to notice her discomfort and decided to dial back on his tone, just a smidge. Just enough to lure her back into feeling comfortable speaking again. 

“You did,” he said, softer than usual. The whiplash was enough to send her spiraling. “He’s in the ICU now. You stabbed him three times. Twice in the gut, once in the shoulder. Strauss is calling it an unnecessary use of force against an innocent.”

Innocent. It made her blood fucking boil. It was so typical of Strauss to do something like that. Cipher was to be sent to the gallows, yet this boy– this boy, who was in the same situation as she was all those years ago– got a fucking free pass because it would damn her further. 

“He stabbed me.” Was all she could manage to say. “Assaulting a federal agent is a serious felony. Or have the rules changed since I joined?”

He gave a dry, humourless laugh. “No.” He sighed. “They haven’t. But you’re on strict watch, Cipher. Anything that can be used against you will be used against you. You know that.”

“I am very aware of Section Chief Erin Strauss’ game of middle school targeting.”

He sighed again, like she was aging him twenty years due to her existence. It made her want to scream. Sometimes, these things happen. Sometimes, she gets hurt and has to fight back. Cipher is good– but she’s not fucking invincible.

“It’s not a middle school game of targeting.” He finally said. “She has her reservations, and she has reasons for them. Valid reasons, Cipher. You didn’t exactly make it easy for her to find you. The search cost thousands of dollars.” He paused, giving her a moment to let that sink in. “Shooting her probably didn’t help her in deconstructing those reservations.” 

“I don’t give a damn if she has reservations, Hotchner. I care that she’s letting her preconstrued image of me get in the way of justice.” She said, leaning back in her uncomfortable hospital bed and pretending that the wince she let out was just a yawn.

“You could call me Hotch.” He said. “Everyone else does.”

“I’m not everyone else, SSA Hotchner.”

“No,” he sighed. “Unfortunately, you are not.”

—

CIPHER SPENT THE NEXT THREE DAYS IN A HOSPITAL BED. The whole time, she was getting updated by Hotchner about Tyler’s state. Whether he was going to live or not. Normally, she wouldn’t have cared. He tried to kill her, that was damning enough. She really should have had more empathy, considering that she’d been spared after doing the same thing– but she wasn’t a good person, and she’d never claimed to be. 

She cared because whether he lived or died was the difference between a note in her file and a re-evaluation of her deal. Re-evaluations were bad. In the five years she’d been working at the BAU, it had only happened once. The time she’d stolen a gun from the suspect and shot him in the head. It had been the only kill she’d made since her escape from Him. 

Strauss had been absolutely furious. She’d lectured– no, fucking had a one-sided screaming match with Cipher about breaching trust and BAU protocol. When she’d pointed out that Emily had to do the same a few months back, well. She didn’t know a face could turn that red. It was a weak excuse, and she knew it. Erin had nearly exploded. She’d tried to remind the Section Chief that it was either kill or be killed, but she wasn’t hearing it. ‘I don’t care if you’re about to die, the only time you are permitted to use a weapon is if someone else’s life is in danger!’ Someone else’s life. Cipher knew that she wasn’t very… valuable, per se, in Strauss’ eyes, but she hadn’t expected that.

The next week, there was an updated version of her contract sitting on her desk when she came in. Underlined thrice was the new condition. ‘ Under no circumstances is [CODE NAME] Cipher permitted to use lethal force in situations that involve his or her own mortality. In the instance that another agent or victim is in a situation that requires the use of lethal force, [CODE NAME] Cipher may be granted access to a weapon.’

It became clear then, that the FBI did not care whether she lived or died. So, if her actions ended up being what killed Tyler– then she’d have broken her contract. At best, she’d be assigned to another unit. At worst, she’d be imprisoned or put into WISTEC. God, she didn’t know if she’d be able to handle another identity. She’d spent years stripping herself of the obedience– of the plain, boring personality He’d given her. She had built who she was now from nothing. All the sarcasm, the sharpness, everything defensive about her had been carefully curated over a decade. She wasn’t about to do that again just because some woman who’d never had to make the decision to end someone’s life or not said she was out of line. 

The rules were ironclad– and they said that this was a violation capable of  destroying her life.  

—

TYLER FITZ-RAMBEAU SURVIVED CIPHER’S BRUTAL ATTACK, Agent Hotchner informed her. Though there’d be scarring, he’d survive with no lasting damage. His family had no right to sue the FBI, and technically, while she’d broken a rule– there were no deaths caused by her ‘recklessness’ as Hotchner put it, which meant she was probably in the clear. Cipher didn’t care. Reckless meant she’d stay alive. Reckless meant that she wasn’t broken beyond repair. Reckless meant that people would think twice before trying to kill her. But when she pointed that out, he hadn’t even looked at her. He’d just reminded her that being cautious and level-headed was another condition.

‘Fuck the rules,’ she wanted to say. ‘The only ones I follow are my own.’

Instead, she nodded like she’d actually consider changing. Like she was still capable of changing. He glanced up at her then, looking her over once, twice. Taking in her defiant expression, her posture– all of it, then snorted and went back to completing his paperwork. She should have been offended, but he was right, and she had no energy. There was no way in hell she’d “grow from this experience and make better decisions in the future” or “take it as a way to learn and grow”, because fuck that. She hadn’t stabbed Tyler because she felt like it, she’d stabbed him because she didn’t want to die. Because the other option was to just lay back and take it, since she couldn’t exactly point a gun at him and tell him to get on the ground. 

Apparently, having control over her meant more than her life to the Bureau. Then again, she wasn’t surprised. Her life had always held very little value to the people who surrounded her. Except to Him, her life was valuable. He treated it like it was something precious, something to be preserved. She got high off of the admiration and “respect” he had for her, and what ended up bringing her down from that high was handcuffs and a death sentence. It had shattered the illusion, like a rock to a window. Shards of glass, everywhere, and she desperately had tried to put the pieces back together with nothing but her bleeding, trembling hands. 

It was with those hands that she’d shaped Cipher. The scars that ran up and down her back told stories of resilience and someone who didn’t crack– didn’t break, didn’t allow herself to falter under any circumstances whatsoever. She held her future with the very same fingers that had pulled the trigger of a gun too many times. 

Cipher was His worst nightmare. 

Cipher was perfect.

Chapter Text

SHE HAS BLOOD ON HER COLLAR. Nobody notices. They never do, and they never will. She tells herself that it is what she wants. Red painted across her chest, slashes littered throughout her shell body. Scars that will never heal, wounds that fingers cannot touch.

It does not matter, the fact that her shirt is soaked through with it, for she is the only one who can see the mess. She would clean it up, she really would, but her fingers are scraped raw, and the skin on her knees is frayed. Her mind has been deprived of sunlight for too long.

She has wilted. Like a flower, though she does not think she ever had any petals to let wither. A stem, hidden alone, under a staircase, ridden with thorns and holes. That is more accurate.

Kalon appears in her dreams, sometimes. In her nightmares too. As the anchor in the never ending storm that she chooses to call her life. She corrupts it. She betrays it. Apathy helps. Apathy always helps. She buries that, too, under the waves. Deep beneath the sparkling blue hues of the ocean, beyond the grainy sand, down, down, deeper until no one could possibly find it.

It is a sunny day. Flashes of light dance across her vision. The morning grass, still wet with dew, sparkles back up into the sky. She used to think that it was magical. She thought that it was leftover pixie dust from the faeries that visited at night. Somehow, even that was torn apart. That ideal. The thought that, maybe, there was magic somewhere inside of this tortured existence.

She was wrong.

She does not know how to get home. Nor does she want to, if she’s being frank. She lies beneath the trees at the park, turning her head towards the distant treeline whenever she sees a police car, lest one of them recognize her face. She doubts it. Though she is young, she knows how the things she calls mother and father behave. It would be a surprise if they’d even noticed that she’d back her things and left, much more so had they actually called someone instead of sighing in relief and returning to their daily coffee. 

Even now, their faces are blurry. Even now, she cannot recall their names, or their voices. Only the ways in which they hurt her, always hurt her. They are the shards of glass strewn across the rooms in her mind. They are the reason she is gone. They are the reason she has nothing but her name.

She is supposed to be approached by a young woman soon. One whom she will befriend. One, who, when names become nothing, is to be called Kalon.

—

KALON IS THE ANCIENT GREEK CONCEPT OF ‘A PERFECT BEAUTY’. It is said to combine morality, grace, mortal attractiveness, and nobility. It is a word that, due to her childishness, she misuses. She gives it to someone who could have deserved it, in another life.

Not in this one.

Never in this one. 

Still, when Kalon comes to fetch her, she obliges. She rises off the vibrant green grass, extends her hand, and offers Kalon her name. They exchange pleasantries (as many pleasantries as children can give) and rush off to play. Names are very important things. They are uttered wordlessly in the night, screamed through stale air, cried out like prayers— (they say it like a prayer, but is it a blessing, or a curse?)

Names, whether they be common or woefully unique, are the one thing in life that remains ours. As a result of this, when a person is stripped of their name, it is a detriment to their humanity.

However, to give up a name willingly is to surrender. 

To receive a new one— one forged from steel and fire— is to be reborn. 

—

CHILDREN ARE OFTEN FOOLISH, AND KALON CANNOT STAY FOREVER. After much adventure, running, laughing, playing— she must go home. Innocently, Kalon asks her if she has to go home, too.

“No.” She replies. Kalon looks at her quizzically. Deciding that she must make something up, lest she lose her new friend, she lies. “I live over there,” she says cheerily, pointing towards somewhere far away from the play structure. Somewhere in the forest, past the fences of the park— maybe even beyond the horizon, if she pretends hard enough. 

“Oh.” Kalon says. “Will I see you tomorrow?”

She thinks for a moment. It is here, where the foolishness becomes apparent, upon looking back.

“Yes.” She says. 

—

When the dark cascades down, she cannot see. It cloaks her forest in an evergreen glow, little flecks of moonlight dance across the gaps in the treeline. If it were brighter, perhaps she would feel less afraid. Perhaps the shadows would not grow claws, each sound of the woods snarling at her like a monster. Perhaps, when there is a fluorescent hue around you, you do not feel afraid. Streetlights can contrast the shadows, and can brighten her small world like stars. 

The further she goes, the less she can see.

The further she goes, the less she can see.

The further she goes, the less she can see. 

The further she goes, the less she can see. 

—

SHE WOKE WITH A START. Darkness, her greatest enemy, coated the room like grease. Fear hung in the stale air.

Blood. She can taste blood in her mouth. She has a tendency to bite her lips, so there’s no surprise there, yet it will always be shocking for that to be the first thing she can taste at—

She checked the clock.

4:38 am.

It’s far too early to be awake, she knew that. The sun had yet to rise and she is sure that nobody else is conscious, let alone even thinking of waking up. She glanced at the side table, filled to the brim with cards and flowers from her coworkers. Among all the sweet smelling chaos, is one yellow sticky note. She narrowed her eyes on it, but it’s too dark for her to read. However, judging by the fact that it was— well, a sticky note, she immediately knew who it was from. Dr. Spencer Reid, the man who had hated her since she joined the BAU. All because she’d corrected him for a citation. Le Comte de Monte Cristo. “Tu n'as pas déchiré la lettre, tu l’as seulement jeté.” He had said. She couldn’t even remember what had prompted the conversation, just that it was her first day and she’d walked in about five minutes earlier. “Actually,” She said, “It’s “Tu ne l’as pas déchiré,’ dit Caderousse; ‘tu l’as seulement jeté dans un coin, voilà…’” She trailed off when she noticed his glare, and the small snicker of his coworkers. Well, her coworkers too, but that was neither here nor there. What? He had been wrong. Perhaps it hadn’t really been necessary, or something she should have said (to spare him of the embarrassment that tended to come with misquoting 19th century literature), but she wasn’t exactly in the BAU to make friends. She was there to repay her (endless) debt. 

Cipher liked to think that she’d earned his hatred since then. Every snide comment, every childish remark, every stupid mind game… she wore it with pride. After all, she’d worked hard to curate a neverending feud between them, and she’d be damned if she didn’t get the credit she deserved for what she’d managed to do.

Spencer Reid. Often described as a sweet, likeable, adorable nerdy genius. Not to her, never to her. She had yet to see anything about him that could be likeable— well, except for his looks. She supposed that he’d been blessed with effortless blonde curls and honey brown eyes to make up for his atrocious personality. 

A prime target for her rather harmless games. He was entirely too sensitive, and took everything she said personally. She would feel bad for messing with him, if he hadn’t made it perfectly clear that he was entirely capable of reciprocating. And, since she’d won their last argument (about whether you could touch a cloud) (she was being purposefully obtuse solely for the purpose of annoying him), she was sure that the wimpy sticky note was his retaliation. She wouldn’t be surprised if it ended up being a note telling her that he hoped she got sepsis. (Paired with alarming statistics to induce paranoia— she really knew his style all too well. Too well for her own good.)

Careful as to not injure herself any further, Cipher slowly reached over and plucked the note off the bedside table. Scrawled in his messy handwriting was what she assumed was his version of a get well soon card.

‘It would really be a shame if you were to get NSTI. If you show signs of the flu, do not let your doctor know. It definitely isn’t one of the symptoms.’

‘-You know who this is.’

How positively joyful. Absolutely wonderful. She loved that her coworker was praying for her leg to get demolished by flesh eating bacteria. She scoffed. The majority of people who recorded suffering from the treacherous disease tended to have pre-existing health issues. One of them being intravenous drug use. She wondered, for a moment, if pointing that out would be going too far. 

There was another card on the table, one that hadn’t been there when she’d gone to bed the night before. When Hotchner had come into her room, just to stage cards from her parents. ‘To avoid suspicion,’ he had said. ‘What kind of parents don’t send their daughter something when she ends up in the hospital?’ ‘The kind of parents I have, Hotchner.’ She replied. ‘They already know I don’t speak with my family, why would they think that I’d get sent something by people I haven’t spoken to in— hmm. Let’s see. Sixteen years?’ He glared at her. ‘I think they would hope that your parents still care about their child.’ There was nothing she could have said that would not imply that her parents had never given a shit about her, so she stayed quiet. Let him think that she was too tired to keep arguing. 

The new card stood out from the rest. It was plain white with no design on the front, like something you’d buy at a craft store, not a hospital. 

Unfortunately for her, it was just out of her grasp. If she stretched a little bit, maybe she’d be able to reach it, but that could risk hurting her leg. Or ripping her stitches. Or a myriad of other things that would result in having to change the sheets again. (The nurses didn’t take very kindly to her insisting that bloody sheets were fine for her to sleep in.)

Who brings a blank card to a hospital?

If she shifted a little bit to the left, maybe she could grab it. Really, she’d do anything but ask the nurses for help. Her therapist would probably tell her that it had something to do with being too independent when she was too young, and now she didn’t trust anyone to do things that she thought she could do herself. 

Cipher sighed. Option one. Potentially injure herself and set back her recovery. Option two. Press the call button. Surely, there would be someone able to help her.

To the surprise of no one, she chose option one. Slowly, she shimmied towards the edge of her bed, ignoring the white hot pain that shot up her leg the moment she moved it. Upon extending her arm, she was able to catch the corner of the card, and pull it into the safety of her hospital bed. She turned it over in her hands. It felt like it was made of cardstock. There wasn’t a hint of colour, or wording anywhere on the outside.

Strange. 

Cipher opened the card. Inside, there was one word. A word she hadn’t thought of in years— one she’d worked very hard to hide beneath layers and layers of indifference. 

Kalon.

She stared at the wall, heart racing. That was all she could do. Kalon was in prison, so how would she— how did she— why—

This wasn’t possible. Hotchner was playing a prank on her, or someone happened to know what Kalon meant and had decided that it would do in place of a get well card, or—

Or someone knew, and they were going to use it against her.

Someone knew.

Someone could someone could they would ruin it could everything and she would be nothing nothingnothingnothingnothing 

For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.

- Genesis 3:19

—

THE HOSPITAL ROOM QUICKLY FILLED WITH NURSES. Apparently, upon reading the card, Cipher’s heart rate had spiked, which instantly alerted them of a possible medical emergency, and after being unable to calm her down, they’d given her both heart rate medication and pain meds. After thorough questioning, ‘Where does it hurt’, ‘is there any blood’, ‘on a scale of one to ten,’ blah blah blah. She’d managed to stammer through a ‘leg, no, and ten.’ Somehow, though her voice was hoarse from disuse and far too high pitched for her liking. Once the pain meds hit her system, she was gone.

She despised feeling so… loopy. Incompetent. Unable to work, unable to focus. Unable to stop her eyes from shutting, her brain from drifting— her body from dipping under the waves, and returning to sleep. 

‘Goodnight, dear.’ The sound rang out somewhere, either in her head or in her room. She didn’t know.

‘Kalon is waiting for you.’

—

WHEN THE DARKNESS ENCOMPASSES HER, SHE CANNOT SEE. She has wandered too far into the depths of the woods, past every path, beyond the twinkling of the stars, and under a canopy of leaves so thick that it blocks out every speck of light imaginable. 

Treasure hunter, you are dead, the light of the world is fading.

She does not stop there, for she has yet to comprehend the idea of lost, of missing, of gone, of nothing. She cannot be lost, or missing, or gone, or nothing if she does not have a home, and no one remembers she exists.

Everything is black, invisible, so she does not notice the large tree stump. 

Down. 

Down.

Down.

Unceremoniously, she hits the ground. Hard. The dirt tears at her hands, her clothes, her shoes— she feels it on her face, in her nose, her mouth— her eyes.

If a child shrieks in the forest, but no one is there to bear witness, does she make a sound?

She can feel the blood pooling beneath her face. Crimson, fresh, slowly spreading out further and further. She does not rise.

You cannot see the other end, your body’s lost all feeling. 

A snarl rings out into the otherwise silent forest. 

Those creatures of your woken mind, don’t fear them or their hunger.

Footsteps, coming closer towards her. Human or animal, she does not know. Either way, she is going to die. She opens her mouth into the dirt, but no sound comes out—

A firm hand grasps hers, dragging her to her feet. 

Forgive the sea, follow the tide, with the monsters on your shoulder.

—

“YOU WERE SCREAMING, SO I WOKE YOU UP.” Cipher let the question sit between them for a moment. One, silent moment. 

“I was screaming in joy.” She said flatly. “Was on a rollercoaster. Thanks for ruining that for me, Reid.” He scoffed. It was a lie, they both knew it. Neither of them said anything about her obvious deception.

Pearl diver, dive, dive deeper.

He looked at her, really looked at her. Like he actually wanted to see what was underneath. Like he actually thought he could, if he tried hard enough. It almost made her roll her eyes, but she refrained. Hotchner would be very proud of her if he was there to see it. The lies were stacking up faster than she could keep track of them, plastered on top of each other, blending into one giant disaster.

“Whatever. I made you soup.” He handed her a container of what she assumed was chicken noodle, still warm. 

Pearl diver, dive, dive down.

Now it was her turn to scoff. 

“You sure you didn’t poison this?” She asked. He had the audacity to look offended. 

“Do you really think I would be that stupid?” He took the container from her hands, placing it on the only empty space beside her. He scrunched his nose at the flowers like they personally wronged him. “If I poisoned you, I wouldn’t deliver the poison myself. I’d probably lace your car door handle, seeing as you never wash your hands.” 

This time, she actually rolled her eyes. “I just don’t wash my hands seventeen times in an hour. Because I’m not a paranoid germaphobe like you. Because I actually have enough common sense to realize that washing so frequently can damage your skin.”

“I’d rather have cracked skin than pink eye.” 

“Nobody’s actually gotten pink eye from touching a door handle, Spencer.” As soon as the words left her lips, she wished she could suck them back in. She saw the way his eyes lit up in the way that they always did when he was about to prove someone wrong. 

“Actually, 4.8% of cases originate from touching a contaminated communal surface, which, unfortunately for you, includes doorknobs.”

“Only 4.8%?” She scoffed again.

“Last year, there were 41,514 reported cases of pink eye.” He said, a smug look coming to rest on his face. She wished she had something she could throw at him.

“-which means that 1992.672 people who contracted pink eye got it from touching contaminated communal surfaces.” 

She scanned the room for things she could toss at him. Just to test his reflexes. (And to hopefully break his nose.)

“What are the chances that I will throw something at you and smash your face in?” She asked. He sighed dramatically.

“Absolutely zero, because I’m not doing the math for stupid questions. Plus, there’s no way you could throw something at me and hit me hard enough to break my face in your… current condition.” He glanced down at her injured leg, a flicker of worry crossing his face. 

She pretended she didn’t see it. 

Pearl diver, dive, dive deeper.

“It’s not a stupid question. It’s a real probability. Your ugly face is making my heart rate go up. It’s… disturbing. You should probably get that fixed. You know, one of my friends is a plastic surgeon.” She put on an exaggerated concerned face. “I could get you a discount, if you’re too broke to pay for it yourself.

He glared at her. Good. Much better. 

“I don’t believe that for a second.” 

“What, that you’re ugly and broke? Rest assured, it’s definitely true. I have eyes, you know. I have to deal with it every day.” She gave him a wide, satisfied smile.

“No, that you have friends.”

Back to frowning. 

“You really know how to make a girl feel good about herself.” She said, sitting up as much as she could without wincing. “If this is how you treated all the girls in high school, then I get why you’re still a virgin.”

Jackpot.

“You are infuriating.” 

“And you’re using your brain to overcompensate—” she glanced down into his lap, furrowing her eyebrows. “-for something.”

“Oh, fuck you!”

“You wish I would fuck you. Then you’d have something to brag about besides your brain.” It was then that Spencer decided he’d had enough ridicule for one day.

Before he left, she noticed that he gave her leg one final look. 

Pearl diver, dive, dive down.

Chapter Text

SHE IS RUNNING. She doesn’t dare stop, not now, she can’t. He is following her. He has found her, yet again. In her dream, He is always there. Watching her, waiting for her to stumble into his web of lies. Every time, no matter how she tries to stop herself, she ends up free falling.

No one is there to catch her. 

When they do, it is already too late.

She is gone. Erased. There is no mention of her anywhere. Not in the history books, in the records, in the papers—

Not even in her own mind.

—

CIPHER HATES WAKING UP. The feeling of readjusting to being inside of her body— of being unable to tell whether she was dreaming of something that actually happened, or something her twisted mind made up— is all too much for her. The one she just had— well. She’s unsure of which category it falls under. It makes her angry, not knowing if her memories are real or not. Knowing that she will never fully trust her mind, or her hands. Knowing that she will never truly know the extent of the atrocities she has committed. 

Most of all, Cipher hates waking up and feeling restless. Like she does not know what to do with everything that has built up inside her. Like her hands can’t stop shaking, even though they are laying still at her sides.

So, yes. Cipher has learned to despise waking up. To turn over, go back to sleep, take one more of whatever sleeping pill she is currently prescribed, and pray that she dreams of nothing. 

Not once, though, has she ever been so lucky.

—

HE TAUGHT HER HOW TO KILL. A task which, usually, is  relegated to no one, because people aren’t supposed to know how to kill. They are not supposed to be tasked with the exploitation of the weakest parts of the human body— of cleaning the blood that follows. Simply put, it is not supposed to happen. It goes against every law written, every decree ever signed. 

Do not kill. 

Yet, there she is. Barely eleven, shaking like a leaf. Blood crusted under her nails, she can feel it— but when she looks down, her hands are clean.

‘No,’ a voice inside her scoffs, ‘they are not. They never will be again.’

Her hands are clean.

The street is cold. It is barely lit, the only lamp flickering as the shriek of the wind echoes in her ears. Shelter. She is looking for somewhere to go, somewhere to hide. Shelter is not something that is ever granted for free. She has learned that the hard way.

Time has passed. In this moment, she wishes she was back at the park. In the sweltering summer heat, running through the field of daisies, without a care in the world. 

She enjoyed it. The weight of it, in her hands— the raw power it gave her—

Is she sick? Insane? 

Perhaps someone should arrest her. Show the police her hands, the blood— say “look! Proof!” She washed it away.

She is inside, now. The soft chime of a bell rings out into the quiet street as she opens the door to the Nameless Shop. Names do not matter, not anymore. They never really did. He taught her that. 

“Your name,” he tells her in the past now, “is whatever I call you.”

She nods, delighted.

What was her name before? She cannot remember. It is strange to her childish brain, she cannot comprehend it.

If there was a before, yet no one can recall it, did it ever happen?

Flash. She is at the counter. The woman taking her order does not have a face, her nametag is blank too. Perhaps she truly sees the blood in the paint. 

“I know what you did,” The Woman says softly. “I know what you told them. I will tell them what you did, too. We will be even.” It is now that she makes her first mistake. The strike of her palm that truly condemns her. She was instructed on what to do if a situation such as this were to arise— and as much as she does not want to, she is willing to do anything for Zek. It is not with her own arm that she raises her gun. Not with her own finger does she pull the trigger. Not with her own eyes does she watch Kalon’s body slump to the floor.

Not with her own mouth does she tell the truth lie.

—

HELL AND EARTH ARE ONE AND THE SAME, Cipher thinks. Hell: eternal punishment and torture. Earth: two weeks of bedrest inside her too-small apartment. Doctors orders, Hotchner had said. She’s not entirely sure if he actually consulted anyone, but the signature looked legit, so she obliged. (As an added bonus, being gone for two weeks means that Hotchner is the one who has to do damage control on the Tyler front. She was not at all looking forward to speaking to Strauss, and now she doesn’t have to. A (small) win, (huge) lose situation.)

In simpler terms, Cipher is bored out of her fucking mind. There’s no use in even trying anything. The hospital gave her more painkillers (and told her to go back if her stitches tear, but it’s not like she’d do that— even if she was bleeding out.), but the original ones have yet to wear off.

Of course, naturally, she decided to do something stupid. In doing so… she tore her stitches. Which led to her sitting on her couch, first aid kit open beside her, hands trembling as she tried to get thread through the tiny ass eye of a needle. 

…A sewing needle. One she’d sterilized, so it was (probably) safe, but she’d lost the one from her first aid kit ages ago. 

Did it really matter?

There was blood leaking onto her favourite pants, her thigh was stinging like hell, and she was entirely fed up with being useless.

She nearly tosses the needle across the room. And the thread. And the scissors, as she’s been unable to cut a damn thing. (Blurry vision is a bitch, but she has neither glasses, nor the coordination to put her contacts in at the moment.)

Which leaves two options. Hobble into the hospital, or call one of her coworkers. Hotchner could probably do, but she’d shoot herself in the face before she took her pants off in front of him. Morgan was— well, he was Morgan. And he was away for the weekend. At a beach. In California. (She wasn’t allowed to leave the state without permission from the Director of the FBI.) 

Emily was at JJ’s house. There was no way she was going to interrupt whatever was going on over there. No way in hell.

Which left one person— immersion blender. More commonly known as Dr. Spencer Reid.

She snickered at the thought of Spencer, coming to stitch up her thigh. No, he’d rather let her die of whatever infectious disease that came with an open wound. In fact, he’d probably forego his scepticism towards the concept of curses if it meant that he could cast one upon her. 

It didn’t matter anyway; her phone was in the kitchen. She wouldn’t make it there without getting blood all over her brand new carpet. Well, what a shame. She’d just have to die right there. Oh no. 

What now? 

She couldn’t stitch herself up. There was no possibility of that happening without damaging herself further. She had to call Spencer.

Fuck it.

—

GETTING TO HER PHONE WAS EASIER SAID THAN DONE. It required a strength that, quite frankly, she did not possess. At first, she tried army-crawling towards her kitchen, but that made her pants rub against her wound at an agonizing angle. So, she settled for hobbling towards the metaphorical end of the rainbow to find her electricity-powered gold like the world’s most awkward pirate. She was glad she lived on the fifth floor, because she would have murdered anyone who saw her looking like that. Once she retrieved her phone, she was forced to make her way back to the couch at the same pace. 

This was not how she wanted to spend her Saturday morning— but alas, stupid choices create stupid problems, which are often remedied by humiliating solutions. That was just the way of the world, she supposed.

She turned on her phone. The small screen stayed black. Fuck. It was dead. Wonderful. That was fine, her charger was right there. It was the waiting game which she hated. 

After a thorough bout of torturous hours (five minutes) the screen finally flashed on. Nothing had ever looked so glorious. Quickly, she typed in her password, and opened her messages with immersion blender.

deCIpher

tore my stitches

immersion blender

Go to a doctor.

deCIpher

you are a doctor.

immersion blender

Not a medical one. 

deCIpher

get your ass over here or i’ll end up puncturing my femoral artery trying to do it myself.

immersion blender

Good. stop texting me, I’m not going to call you an ambulance.

deCIpher

allow me to rephrase. either you get over here, and fix this, or i’m telling morgan why your name in my phone is immersion blender.

immersion blender

I despise you.

deCIpher

good boy.

immersion blender

Call me that again and I'll puncture your femoral artery.

deCIpher

and get sued for medical malpractice?

immersion blender

Again, I am not a medical professional.

deCIpher

whatever. just get over here.

immersion blender

ETA: 6:35.

—

“WHERE ARE YOUR PANTS?” Were the first words that exited Spencer’s mouth when he walked into Cipher’s apartment. She took one glance at him, and then pointed to the couch. “Over there. Wash your hands before you touch me.”

“Oh, so now you give a damn about the importance of—” 

“Spencer, we are not having this conversation right now.” She could barely stand at that point, her leg hurt like hell, the painkillers were making her dizzy, and all she wanted to do was go back to bed. 

“-the cleanliness of communal surfaces—”

“First of all,” she said, slamming the first aid kit into his hands. “Your freakishly long fingers are not a communal surface.”

He went bright red. “I- I never meant to imply that– you know I wouldn’t—” She rolled her eyes. 

“If you don’t shut up right now, I’ll sew your mouth shut.” She said, opening the door to lead him into her bathroom. “Are you coming? This is the only time you’ll ever be seeing the inside of a woman’s house, so I suggest you savour it. Take it in.”

“Shut up.” He grumbled, but he followed her anyway. The door clicked shut softly behind them, echoing in the otherwise silent room. Silent. God, the silence was far more uncomfortable than she thought it would be. 

“Wait— where are your pants?” He asked again, quietly this time.

“The wound is on my upper thigh, Spencer. Did you think I was going to cut a hole in my pants for you?” She asked, settling herself on the edge of the bathtub and presenting the injury to him. “Well? Are you going to stare at me, or are you going to fix this?”

When he didn’t respond, she waved her hand in front of his face. “Spencer? Hello? I get that this is the closest you’ll ever to get to seeing a naked woman, but at least try to— what the fuck are you doing?” She asked when he pulled something out of his messenger bag. 

“I brought my own first aid kit. I assumed that yours would have insufficient materials, an assumption that was entirely correct, by the way. You don’t even have Vicryl. Did you really think that polyester thread would suffice?” He gave a small scoff, setting his own kit down next to her faded one. Cipher just looked at him, tilted her head back, and laughed.

“Who has surgical suture materials just laying around their house?” She did, on the top of her bookshelf in her bedroom. A spot she could barely reach on a good day, hence the shitty, old first aid kit. She braced an arm against the wall to keep herself upright. Who knew a stab wound would hurt so much?

“I do.” He said. Of course he did. Why wouldn’t he? Spencer would probably have an entire pharmacy in his house if he could. 

“Right, I forgot. You’re unbelievably overprepared. Do you also have dentures? You know, just in case one of your lovely coworkers gets fed up with you and decides to knock all your teeth out.” She shot him a wolfish grin.

He gave her a flat stare. “I could report this to HR. You’re creating a hostile work environment by threatening me.”

“You could,” she drawled. “That is always an option, Spencie.” She watched him tense at the nickname. Speak. Tease. Smile. Repeat. “But then you’d have to explain why you were in your coworker’s bathroom. While she had her pants off. Would you like that?”

He didn’t reply. Slowly, he kneeled in front of her, needle in hand. 

“Okay.” He said. “I’m going in on three. One, tw—”

“Is that what you say when you go into— fuck!” Spencer jabbed the needle right into the soft skin of her thigh. Pain snaked up her spine. White hot flashes of it landed across her body, though they cooled after a few seconds. Not a big deal, really. She’d suffered worse. But when she saw the smug look on his face, she almost made good on her threat to knock all his teeth out. 

“Three.” He said, smirking softly. 

“What the fuck was that?” Cipher said through gritted teeth. 

“That,” he announced, “-is what happens when you piss off the person in charge of stitching your leg back together.” 

“Oh, fuck y—” Another harsh stitch. God, she was going to kill him. She was going to shove one of his stupid books up his stupid ass until he was coughing up bits of paper for a week. No, make that two weeks. Three, actually. 

It continued on like that, her taunting him, him retaliating by being unnecessarily harsh with the needle.

“Aw? Are you happy? Spencie’s first and last time with his head between someone’s thighs. We should get the camera! Make it memorable, you know?” She cooed. He pulled the needle through, fast. Too fast.

Pain shot through her body. “Fuck.” She hissed. 

“Aw, did that hurt? I’m sorry, I guess I’m too inexperienced for this.” The corners of his lips curled up in a smirk. God, he had dimples. Such attractive features, gone to waste on an annoying, asshole of a man. Sure, she was being an asshole too— but that was her brand. She was an asshole, everyone knew it. Spencer, on the other hand, was supposedly nice. 

Instead of yelling, or threatening him, she entangled one of her hands in his hair, and pulled. Hard.

“Don’t—” he yanked his head back. “-do that. I’ll spit in your wound.” He said, his ears burning red.

She laughed.

“You would never. You wouldn’t even dream of doing something so unsanitary.” 

Spencer stood up. “I’m going to wrap it with some gauze now.” 

“Oh? Did you like that, Spencie?” She gave him a cheshire grin. “I bet you did, didn’t you? Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.” Cipher winked. “Unless, of course, you want me to?”

He pulled the gauze tight around her thigh. 

“I hope,” he said through gritted teeth, “-that I manage to tie this so tight, it cuts off your circulation, and your leg rots off.”

“Remind me,” she said, glancing at Spencer, a look of mock confusion on her face. “Who’s reporting who for ‘creating a hostile work environment’?”

He sighed, a long, exasperated sigh. “I’m going to die young because of you,” he muttered.

“Good,” she said cheerily. “I’ll make sure to show up drunk at your funeral and tell everyone how boring you were.” Satisfied, she stood up. Too fast. 

“Ow.” She hissed again. Fuck, this was the worst part of the job. Almost dying, living (ugh), and having to recover all over again. Rinse and repeat. 

Spencer grinned. She nearly smacked him 

He also put his hand on her back to steady her, but she chose not to read into that.

Slowly, the two walked out of the small bathroom. She led him to the door, as a good hostess does, and for a moment, Spencer and Cipher were cordial.

One moment.

Take a photo! This will not last forever.

Chapter Text

THE PLANE WAS COLDER THAN SHE REMEMBERED. Then again, she hadn’t been on the jet in over a week. It felt strange, being back so soon. Agent Hotchner had informed everyone that she’d be back on the fourth, but she’d managed to convince him to let her back into the bureau three days early.  Emphasis on the bureau, not in the field. She’d tried, but Hotchner had insisted. ‘You’re already at a disadvantage because you don’t have a gun. I’m not putting you back into the field when you can barely walk up a flight of stairs.’ He’d said. She continued to protest. He told her that it was either desk work with the rest of the team, or desk work with Garcia. 

Virginia drove her insane, so instead, she chose to travel to Nowhere, Alaska. Now she was paying the price. 

Nowhere had exactly 37 inhabitants. 1,037 if it was fishing season. She’d learned that from a very eager Dr. Spencer Reid, approximately thirty minutes ago. He’d since moved on to pestering someone else, but that didn’t mean she was eager to spend twelve hours stuck inside a pressurized tin can with him. Nevertheless, she persisted, out of sheer fear of dying in her apartment (or in Quantico) of boredom. 

Spencer Reid’s voice felt like a cheese grater to the ears. Incessant noise, noise, noise, noise. When he was enraged (which happened disproportionately around her) she found his vocal range to be rather… impressive. Or shrill, depending on the day. 

Hearing him drone on for the better part of twelve and a half hours was not ideal, if you asked her. In fact, it was less than ideal. She was quite partial to the idea of using his voice as a torture method. The harshest of criminals would crack under it.

But that was when he was being annoying, so 95% of the time. The other 5% consisted of a tone so even, it could be confused for glass. Or a lake in the early morning, maybe. Clear blue, no disturbances— a calming reminder that there was a world outside of the gore, one which she would never properly become a part of. 

Cipher told herself that she hated absolutely everything about Spencer Reid. His clothes, his hair, the stupid smug look he got whenever he managed to prove her wrong (which, to her dismay, was more often than not)—

But she couldn’t bring herself to hate that voice. Not when it was so peaceful, the last remnants of a man touched by endless horrors.

Not when hearing it meant that Spencer was at ease.

She watched closely as Spencer talked to Emily, that voice something she couldn’t hear over the roar of the engine. Slowly, she plugged her earphones into her phone, and brought them to her ears. Quiet flooded her senses as she found her playlist for this moment. The Jet. It was one of three, specifically designed to help her cope with her hatred of airplanes. In fact, the first time Agent Hotchner had said wheels up in thirty, she’d presumed he meant car.

She was wrong.

He meant plane. Private plane. A plane, that she had known about before accepting the job, might have made her turn down the offer entirely. 

Planes made her nervous. She knew that it was probably because of something that happened to her, likely situated somewhere within the nine years of her life that she could not recall. She’d thought about asking her therapist about it, but elected to consult the most knowledgeable being of all, Google. (She’d sooner die before she told said therapist anything about her life.) Dissociative amnesia. She wasn’t surprised. Everything from nine onwards was a hellish nightmare, so why would her life before be any different? She must have left for a reason. 

Just as she began to relax, as her anxiety medication began to kick in, she felt her phone buzz next to her leg. She exhaled slowly, watching the screen flash with a number she didn’t recognize. 

Her heart rate spiked.

You have: one new message from: Unknown Caller. Would you like to see the transcript?

Press one for yes. Press two for no.

She almost pressed two. Her fingers hovered over the button, debating whether it was worth interrupting her music and possibly preventing her from getting any sleep, if the message was about the case. Curiosity got the better of her, though, and she clicked one for yes. The transcript flashed across her small screen, and as she read it— she began wishing she hadn’t.

You took everything from me

My pretty face

My pretty life

My pretty mind

It’s time you repay me

For your sins

For which I was prosecuted 

Don’t you think?

She felt goosebumps crawl over her skin. This was clearly someone fucking with her, clearly a mistake— something she’d laugh about with Emily, or Hotchner, about wrong numbers and stupid poetry—

The words replayed in her head, over and over.

My pretty face, my pretty life, my pretty mind.

People didn’t just speak like that, no, this meant something. Blurry faces danced across her vision. People blended into each other, she couldn’t tell anyone apart—

Pretty, pretty, pretty.

Face, life, mind. 

Kalon.

(adjective.)

Beauty that is more than skin deep; the Ancient Greek concept of combining physical, spiritual, and moral beauty. 

Suddenly, the wording made sense. It was inconspicuous, something that would be written off as a peculiar choice of vocabulary to most. Abundantly clear to the right people.

Unfortunately for her, Cipher fell into the second category. 

For which I was prosecuted 

Kalon’s trial had gone awry, had tilted further and further from her favour with every piece of evidence that came to light. Cipher had let her —------------------ 

She couldn’t remember what she’d done. 

It’s time you repay me

Revenge, obviously. But how?

How would she

play this 

game 

dance across

a 

stage

full of blood

and

and

and

and?

For your sins

nothing        but              a

traitor          she wears the         mask

of my               face       .

i            cannot          see the          end

of this       tortured             existence       

Her sins, her failures, ones she could remember, and the ones that had slipped from her grasp, splayed across the tile of a courtroom, under a name

name 

name

name 

name 

what is your her name?

Is it yours, or is it mine? All mine, taken, stolen, torn to bits and pieces

Names are only for those who are worthy, and she is not worthy.

What is her name?

—

She stayed like that for a while, unmoving. Unblinking. No one could see, they did not see, why couldn’t they see? Why didn’t he stop her stop her stop her from committing committing committing the end end end end end end end end end end     e     n      d    i   s     n  e   a    r      c o m i n g      f o r      m   e  i   can   not    r   u n    a n  y       lo ng      er

Hands, shriveled, rotting flesh, fingers that were more bone than skin clawed at her, showed her no mercy, dug in, unrelenting, as she writhed beneath them

“Are you okay?” 

Words swam in the rot, in the pile of bodies, names she could not recall, faces that slipped, smashed on the floor, she had broken them, and in turn, they had broken her— a  fair trade, a—

She felt fingers grasp her shoulders. Violently, her body twitched. Once, twice— then stilled, as though she had expelled it

Rot, rot, rot, get it out of her she wants it gone pleasepleasepleaseplease set her free

She can be good, she will swear by it, please, she promises that she will be good

But she is not good, she never has been.

“Hotch, I think something’s wrong with—”

That name. She remembered it. She closed it in her hands, she brought it to the light—

All of a sudden, she returned to her body.

“I’m fine, Reid. Just a dream.” Quickly, she shook his hands off of her. Cipher was shaking. Little trembles that wrapped around her arms, her legs, her heart. Tremors that ran through her. She couldn’t stop it. 

She wanted to stop it, to prove that she was fine. But she was lying, as she always did. As she always would. The lies, they would pile up on her table, until they collapsed, rolled in all directions of the House, showing everyone the ugly truth that had always laid beneath them.

He gave her a look, one that told her that he could see the way her fists clenched around nothing. The way her whole body would revolt if he so much as shifted an inch too fast. The way her eyes had hollowed since they boarded, plagued with a darkness that normally had armour to protect it from the surface of her iris’.

“Your eyes were open.” Spencer had always been one to call her out when she lied. He’d do it publicly, privately— she was sure he’d volunteer to do it on live TV, if he was given the chance. He despised dishonesty more than anything in the world, she thought.

An unshed sob burned in her throat. Like bile, it threatened to rise up, make itself known— something she did not (and never would) allow. 

“Then I was just spacing out. Bad thoughts, Reid.” She couldn’t meet his eyes. “-We all have them. Including you, I’m sure.”

The quizzical look on his face slipped from curious to worried. For someone who disliked her as much as he did, he surely did worry about her quite often. Perhaps hatred and uncaring were not interchangeable, at least not in their case. They danced around the hate, sometimes, something else peeked through the curtains. Sunlight, maybe. Indifference, likely. Progression nonetheless. Hotchner would be thrilled. (She was sure he despised having to break up their arguments all the time.)

He wasn’t convinced, and she didn’t blame him. She wouldn’t believe herself either. Normally, she was a good liar, but today, right now… it was different.

She’d never had a bout of anxiety so vivid, so unrelenting, in quite some time. Years, actually. There had been a time where it had occurred daily, but she didn’t remember that either. Cipher decided that, this time, she wouldn’t go looking for things she didn’t want to find.

Spencer, being the little shit that he was, sat down beside her. That was how it continued for the remainder of the flight, and surprisingly, she didn’t slip any further.

In fact, she drifted off to sleep.

Deep, deep, sleep. Dreamless sleep.

Peaceful sleep.

—

“CIPHER, YOU’RE GOING TO THE MORGUE WITH SPENCER.” Agent Hotchner’s booming voice rang out into the small precinct. She tensed, just a little bit. She knew that he was displeased that she’d returned so early, but really, he wasn’t the type to be petty or punishing like this. It couldn’t be for convenience, because Cipher and Spencer, when paired together, were the embodiment of disorder. They fought. They yelled. (Only on occasion, and when he deserved it, she was not that unprofessional.) They hated each other, that much was obvious to anyone who had the displeasure of witnessing them interact. She’d been told that it could be compared to torture, listening to them go at each other. This wasn’t like him at all. Normally, he kept the two separated, which was for the greater good of both her sanity and Spencer’s mortality.

Still, she obliged. The pair walked to the car that had been given to them, a government SUV. Standard issue. It had a gun box, radio… everything that was necessary for both surveillance and driving in general. 

The car ride to the morgue was silent. No mention of what had occurred the last time they were alone together. No mention of the one moment in a sea of moments, where there had been quiet between them. That was fine, she much preferred it when Spencer kept his mouth shut.

It was a peculiar fifteen minute drive, but she savoured every second of it. 

When they arrived, the whole room smelled like dead bodies. It was to be expected, of course, as the main (and only) purpose of a morgue was to store and examine those who have expired… yet the stench of it still got to her every time. Perhaps rotting flesh would always have the capability to offset someone, even when they thought they’d become desensitized. 

The bodies were as gruesome as the case file had described. Four women, all mid 20s, blonde, stabbed to death. They’d been found deep within the woods, but had been so mangled that, at first, no one thought that their legs belonged to humans. 

It made her sick.

Each woman had an obscure marking on their backs. An ‘A’, written in cursive, likely carved with a hunting knife, the mortician told them. She looked about Cipher’s age, probably a year or two older. Her dark hair was twisted into a bun at the top of her head. Cipher glanced at her nametag. Alicia. The markings were presumed to be a brand. When Cipher had heard that for the first time, she thought she was about to throw up. Instinctively, she’d touched her own stomach, where the reason she never wore cropped shirts lay burned into her skin. A brand. But she’d survived the experience. These women, on the other hand, were not so lucky. 

“Do we know their names?” Spencer asked. Alicia paused for a moment, glancing at the body laying on the examination table. “That’s the thing,” she said. “We don’t know who these women are yet. They’re not from here at all. Nobody’s been able to identify them.”

Cipher tilted her head in surprise. That was unusual. Normally, victims were local. Non-local victims (especially in a place like Nowhere, Alaska, where any and all communication with the rest of the United States was either documented or available to the public,) meant planning. Resources. A highly intelligent unsub.

Things that she was sure no one in this town had. Which meant, of course, that the victims were either tourists, or that the unsub got them to travel there, somehow. There was another possibility; this case could end up taking them to Canada. Or somewhere else in the world. Really, the only thing they could do before progressing in the case, was—

“Were you able to get identification regardless?” Reid’s (annoying) voice cut through her thoughts like glass. She nearly turned to glare at him. He stole her question. Was he a mind reader? Perhaps. Oh, heinous are the crimes against her that he doesn’t even know he commits. (Exhibit A: wearing insanely attractive suits to court.) (Exhibit B: this moment.)

“Nope.” Alicia sighed. “We’ve already interviewed everyone. No one recognizes them.” Cipher did a double take at her words. We?

Spencer glanced at the crime scene photos spread across the table and grimaced. “I wouldn’t be able to recognize someone if they looked like that, either.” He said.

Alicia seemed to pick up on her confusion. “I’ve been somewhat involved in the investigation,” she admitted. “After all, there’s only thirty seven of us. Twelve cops. We’ve never really needed a mortician, so I occasionally dabble in policework.” She laughed it off, like that was no big deal. Cipher felt her eye begin to twitch; an incompetence-induced headache bubbling behind her eyes. 

“You’re telling me,” she said slowly, “-that you don’t have any qualifications to be a mortician?” Alicia clearly noticed her anger, shrinking back into herself. Good. Four women were killed, and no one thought to bring in a qualified professional? It would make sense if the women had clearly died of animal attacks— but they hadn’t. These were murders. Violent murders. 

She felt Spencer’s hand on her shoulder. “Slow down,” he whispered. “She hasn’t done anything wrong. It’s not her fault that her police chief isn’t… qualified.” He made a good point. (Not that she’d ever tell him that.)

Begrudgingly, she listened to him, though not without a pointed look in his general direction.

She sighed, dialing back a little on the obvious anger. The rest of it continued to simmer inside of her. “Knowing how the unsub treats his victims is extremely detrimental to the process of profiling,” she explained. “Without knowing exactly what he does, we can’t figure out why. And without a why, we can’t figure out a who, either.”

To both the dismay of her and her headache, Alicia scoffed. “No offence,” she began, "but I’m skeptical. Now,” she glanced at Cipher, a small smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. “I am willing to admit that I have a bias. Y’know–” she waved her arms around. Cipher could see the endless woods outside the window. Of course. The mentality of “mental health is not real, Psychos do Psycho things simply because they are Psychos, there’s no way we can find the root cause of this issue” that tended to reside within the residents of small towns was all too familiar. “We don’t exactly have anybody out here to explain how that shit works.” She said it like it was an excuse. (It wasn’t.) Cipher knew what she was doing. Spencer knew what he was doing. Normally, she didn’t give two shits if someone believed in stressors, or childhood trauma, or the grey space between good and bad. This time? Right now? Lives were on the line. Real people. She didn’t have time to debate the validity of her profession. The women who were dying didn’t have time for her to hold someone’s hand through the basics of human behaviour. 

“Well,” she said coldly, watching Alicia recoil. “I don’t care whether you believe in profiling. The woman depending on us to save her right now, because your police force is too small to actually do their jobs correctly, doesn't care if you believe in profiling either.” She felt something sharp hit her in the back. It was Spencer, telling her to back off. 

She ignored him.

“You think you know better than us? That’s fine. It doesn’t mean that I’m not going to do my job. But people are dying, Alicia. Actually dying. Being brutally murdered, and you don’t ge—”

She felt Spencer’s hand on her thin white shirt right before it happened. For a few, blissful seconds, she thought that he was just going to poke her again. She was wrong.

Spencer, innocent, shy, Spencer, yanked her hair. Hard. 

Cipher spun around, face surely red, ready to tell him off—

“My colleague and I are going outside for a moment,” he said, his tone screaming at her to listen and go outside. She didn’t want to, really, but he was gripping her wrist so tight that his knuckles were white. He didn’t even give her time to utter a word before he began to (unceremoniously) drag her to the exit.

Once they got outside, he began his lecture.

“What the fuck,” he hissed, “-is going on with you? Don’t even try to lie to me, we both know that you’re not normally this much of a bitch.”

“Why did you pull my hair!” She yelled, probably louder than she should have. Lucky for her, there was no one there to hear her. Shocker.

“Oh, so you can pull my hair, but I can’t pull yours? Honestly, Ci, that’s very on brand for you. I’m impressed. I didn’t know people could be so predictable.”

The insult, if there was one, flew right over her head. Like wet watercolour, his words bled into one jumbled mess. Only one thing stood out. What he’d called her.

Ci. 

Cipher didn’t have a nickname. She didn’t even have a real name. She was not one for casual, comfortable utterances of her callsign. It was never shortened, manipulated, or otherwise butchered— (though she was of the opinion that every word that came out of Spencer’s mouth was automatically butchered.)

Until now. Until now, in this moment, where Spencer threw her professional preference right out the metaphorical window. She didn’t like it. It felt wrong, like an invasion, like he was—

Close. Like Spencer was close to her in a way that she swore that she would never let anyone be close ever again. Not now, not in a thousand years, and certainly not with him. 

“Hello? Earth to— oh.” A wicked smirk spread across his face. She’d been silent for too long, and he’d read her body language (fuck profilers), so now he knew exactly what was wrong. He knew how to get under skin. He now had a retort for every time she grinned and called him ‘spencie-baby’. She amended her earlier statement. She wasn’t scared, she was just slightly annoyed at the thought of Spencer being able to piss her off when she pissed him off.

That was all.

“As I was saying,” Spencer continued, but he elected not to drop the smug look. For a split second, she considered punching him in the clavicle. The only reason she didn’t was because she disliked the thought of the paperwork and incident report that would follow.

“-you’re acting like a massive bitch, Ci. Why?” She ignored his childish use of the nickname, and instead turned the anger that had been previously directed at Alicia towards him.

“That is no way to speak to your coworker.” She snarled. The pure, concentrated rage in her voice did little to deter him. 

“You aren’t going to be my coworker for very long if you keep doing that.” He sneered. “I know something’s wrong. So, either you tell me what’s going on, or I tell Hotch that I suspect you have a brain tumor.”

She didn’t look at him. She couldn’t exactly tell him about why she’d started avoiding her phone, getting strange text messages, and had been (very obviously, apparently) presenting signs of personality changes. The truth was something she could never say out loud, lest she send herself right back to where she’d been at sixteen. The truth was buried so deep inside her, in a lockbox to which she did not have the key. Nobody had it, not even Agent Hotchner. 

Not even Him.

Fiddling with her fingers, Cipher glanced back up at Spencer. She plastered indifference on her face, praying that he couldn’t see what was underneath. 

“I don’t like small towns.” She sighed. It wasn’t exactly a lie, it was part of the truth— but not really what had her on edge. “They’re too judgy, and always woefully ignorant. Did you see how she acted? Like this— like our job— is a game, and she can ask for a performance whenever she wants.” She thought about insulting him, maybe, just to get him angry enough to not question her.

He spoke before she could even try. “That doesn’t mean you get to treat people like shit. You normally direct that behaviour at me, not random morticians.”

“She’s not even an actual mortician,” Cipher protested. “That tells me one thing: whoever’s running this case doesn’t care enough to find out who actually did it.” Spencer rolled his eyes. He furrowed his brow, eyes lingering too long on her hands. 

Oh. She’d picked at a hangnail, and had pulled too hard. A tiny droplet of blood glistened on her finger. “Okay.” He said. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“It’s nothing!” She shouted, louder than she meant to. Quickly, she brushed the blood off of her hand, smearing it across her fingertip. “Jesus, Reid. Do you know how to leave things alone, or is it your life’s mission to annoy me to death?” 

“When you decide to act like a reckless idiot, I end up having to fix it before we both lose our jobs.” Cipher flicked away another droplet. “Do you have a band-aid?” She asked, purposefully clearing her tone of any and all emotion. Blank. No longer engaging in his petty insults. 

“What makes you think that I have band-aids?”

“That’s a yes,” she said triumphantly. “I knew it.” She held out her (non-bloody) hand for him to deposit the band-aid. It remained empty, with nothing to grace her palm but the September breeze.

“What makes you think I’m going to waste a band-aid on you?” He said it like she was insane for thinking that he, O’ Great Doctor, would ‘waste’ his medical supplies on a lowly peasant such as her.

“Well then. I suppose I have no other option.” She brought her bleeding finger to her mouth, clearly intending to suck it clean. She watched Spencer’s eyes widen. Cipher pulled her finger from her mouth with a wet pop, grinning at the look of disbelief (and mild concern, bless whatever had made Spencer so wary of germs for that) on his face. She just shrugged. Spencer’s hands shook as he pulled out a band-aid, and hurled it at her.

It missed.  She watched it catch the wind in front of her, slowly spiraling down and softly hitting the pavement. She pressed her lips into a thin line, trying to keep the laughter from escaping her. Spencer just rubbed his temples.

The two stood there for a moment, before Spencer turned on his heels and rushed back outside. She barely heard what he told her as he was walking back in.

“Make sure you wash that band-aid before you use it.”

She cocked her head to the side, wondering how he expected her to do that, as band-aids’ susceptibility to water was a well-known trait. But, since it was Spencer she was talking about… they were definitely waterproof. Or, as he liked to say, water resistant. If there was one thing she’d learned after working with him for over a year, it was that nothing is truly waterproof. Phones, laptops, life jackets— you name it, not waterproof. In fact, companies tended to have a rather low standard for an object to be considered waterproof. Usually, the label meant water–resistant, or, in some cases, the product was merely water repellant. Something he liked to remind the team of whenever they dared to even mention the word.

God, she was starting to sound like Reid. 

Slowly, she knelt down and plucked her (waterproof— sorry, resistant) band-aid off the concrete. She gave it a quick swipe with her hands, and decided that was an adequate sanitation method. 

She grinned, thinking of the look on Spencer’s face if he found out what she’d done as she walked back inside.

—

THE REST OF THEIR VISIT TO THE MORGUE WAS UNEVENTFUL. Cipher dialed back on her snark (reluctantly) as to not raise Spencer’s suspicions, and Alicia didn’t test her further. She allowed herself to glare at him on occasion, as penance for the war his bony fingers had raged on the base of her scalp. She supposed it could have been worse, he could have twisted his fingers in and pulled harder, but Cipher didn’t care for lessening her retaliation, especially where Spencer Reid was considered. 

All she could think about was the brand. It was carved, extremely precise. Which meant that the UnSub had time, and pent up rage. The girl’s legs were destroyed, post-mortem (thank god), but they had suffered severe damage before being hacked apart with a knife. Their spines were compressed, from days of being stored somewhere. Likely in a cage, Spencer said.  She shuddered thinking about it. Stabbing was a substitute for sexual assault, which meant that he was impotent. Extremely impotent, judging from the sheer amount of damage the bodies had sustained. 

But the brand… it didn’t match the rage that had been projected onto the rest of the body. So, why the legs? What did they symbolize for the Unsub? Was it running away? Perhaps he felt abandoned after being rejected? 

What really didn’t make sense was the lack of a suspect. The townspeople didn’t have so much as an inkling about who could have done this, she’d been told. In a place so small, with so few people, that was highly unusual. Socially inept, pent up rage, angry at the world, constantly rejected— the people who committed murder like this were always known by name. 

An idea sparked in her head. Maybe, just maybe, the Unsub had moved on from the Nowhere. Had left with his rejection and rage, but just now was deciding to take “revenge” on substitutes for people who had long since grown old and forgotten he had ever existed. 

Maybe they weren’t looking for someone currently causing terror, but someone who had incited it years ago. Someone who had slipped from everyone’s memories.

—

WHEN SHE PRESENTED HER IDEA TO THE TEAM, THEY AGREED WITH HER. It made sense. The lack of recognition of the victims, the cluelessness of the townspeople, it all pointed to someone who had left long ago. But who, and how was he getting them to Nowhere? Another visit to the mortician was in order, and this time, Cipher had been told to stay back to work on the profile. That was likely for the better of both her sanity and Alicia’s dignity. 

Agent Hotchner and Rossi came back with good news. They’d gone off her hunch, made a few calls, and had been able to both identify the girls, and get a qualified mortician to fly in from New York.

She knew their names now. They had friends, lives, families— all torn away from them because some guy decided that his trauma was their problem. They’d all lived in New York, too, which begged the question: how was the Unsub transporting them?

They had enough, now. There was no more speculation that could be done, now they had to see if her idea matched someone who had left town. Which meant that it was time for her least favourite part of being an FBI agent— interviews. 

Cipher wasn’t exactly one who enjoyed talking to suspects or witnesses. It was often grueling, like pulling teeth. The Unsubs in particular always had nasty things to say to her. Once, Agent Hotchner had to pull her out, because she’d towed the line of bad cop and lawsuit. (Twice, actually, but she didn’t count the first time.)

Interviewing witnesses was just something she could only handle on a good day. Every time she watched a mother cry, or a father break down, or someone hurt because someone else had decided to brutally murder a person that they cared about, chipped a tiny piece off of her soul. So, she let Reid do most of the questioning. They’d (after exchanging not-so-pleasantries) decided to begin by interviewing women who looked the most like the victims. The Unsub was likely the same age as his victims (so about mid thirties, early forties), so they began with that age group.

Cipher and Spencer approached a large, mahogany door. The walkway was littered with round grey stones, little tuffs of sun-scorched grass peeking out between the cracks. The stairs up to the door were old, and a worn welcome mat sat perched in the doorway. A rusty watering can lay discarded by a large rocking chair to the left of the entrance.

Spencer knocked, once, twice. After a few seconds, a woman pulled the door open with a long creak. Brunette waves cascaded over her shoulders, stopping just below her midriff. She had thin lines by her lips, which were rosy and pink, her eyes a muddled brown that sparkled in the sunlight. “We’re with the FBI,” Spencer said, pulling out his badge to show her, and motioning for Cipher to do the same. She obliged, flipping open the worn out leather of her wallet to present her credentials. “We were hoping to ask you a few questions.” Spencer continued. 

“About the murders?” The woman asked, her eyes widening in shock. ‘No,’ Cipher thought, rolling her eyes internally. ‘We want to talk to you about the weather.’ 

He nodded.

She led the pair inside, and to her living room, which was a cozy place. A white fireplace sat in the front of the room, where a large TV sat on top. A potted plant cascaded down the side of the white stones, dangerously close to where a fire would roar during the wintertime. A tasseled rug lay in the middle of the room, clearly worn thin from years of use. “Sit,” the woman said, motioning to the long, white couch, the back of it pressed against her living room window.

 “I’m Agent Cipher, and this is my partner, Doctor Reid.” She cocked her head in Spencer’s direction. The woman nodded, glancing between them, a confused look still on her face. “I’m Diane Sullivan.” Diane said. 

“We’re here to ask you a few questions about the murders that’ve happened,” Cipher continued. “We think the man who did this might have been around during your childhood, but moved away.” Diane shook her head. “I can’t think of anyone who would do something like that,” she said solemnly. “And lots of people leave this town once they grow up. Jobs are very limited here. It’s mostly either fishing, or opening a stand at the market,” she chuckled, the worried expression still plastered on her face.

“Are you sure?” Spencer asked. “Think about it. He would’ve been young, uh. Maybe moved away right after high school,” he began listing traits. “Very antisocial, unable to take rejection, very persistent, bullied, had no friends…” he trailed off when he saw Diane shake her head again. “We don’t treat people like that here.” She said, “We don’t bully them, or ostracize them. We’re a very loving community.” Something about the tone of her voice made Cipher want to scream. She was so sure of it, so convinced that they treated everyone fairly, when in reality, the moment anyone showed any signs of being different, they were cast out and ridiculed. She knew how places like this functioned.

“Are you positive?” Cipher asked, her voice harsher than she’d intended. “I know that’s how you remember it, but we’re talking about the 1980s. Not exactly as friendly as you make it out to be. Especially if you don’t fit in.”

“Everyone in this town fits in,” Diane scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous.” Ah. An avid denier. Towns like these were cesspools for what she liked to call selective memory. People remembered the good parts, glorified them— and forgot all about the people who didn’t act right. Didn’t behave right.

Spencer took over, sensing both Cipher and Diane’s growing agitation. “We just want to confirm, that’s all.” He said, handing her one of the FBI business cards. “Please let us know if you remember anything.” Diane nodded, plucking the card from Spencer’s extended hand.

“I will,” she said.

—

“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?” Spencer hissed at her, as soon as Diane was out of earshot. Cipher looked at him with feigned ignorance. “What was what?” She asked. 

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” he snapped. “Your acceptance tirade. We need the people here on our side, and we can’t do that if you keep criticising them. First the morgue, and now this,” Spencer pointed an accusing finger at her. “Are you feeling alright?” He asked, tone softening in a way that made her tense. He didn’t comfort her, that wasn’t how this worked.

“I’m just fine,” she snapped back. Liar, liar, liar. “Just tired of people pretending that their homes are perfect. That no one,” Cipher slammed the car door closed after her, sliding into the hot leather seat. Her hand burned from grasping the metal seatbelt buckle, but she was too angry to care. “-steps out of line. We both know that these murders wouldn’t be happening if there really was no one who fit the profile.” She exhaled, fingers twisting around the hair tie on her wrist. “So why lie to us about it?”

“Well, there are numerous factors that partake in—” He started, but she cut him off. “That was a rhetorical question, Reid.” Cipher gathered her hair behind her head, pulling it into a ponytail. She felt instant relief on the back of her neck as the cool air from the open window hit her face.

“I’m serious,” he protested. “What if she’s just blocked out how bad it was?” She thought, just for a moment. About Diane. About the absence of picture frames in her house, absence of family. Other people. How empty it had felt, drained of colour and presence. She thought of her, much younger, being accosted by a neighbour. About the school doing nothing about it, about him threatening Diane when she said no. About how badly she’d want to forget if he’d gotten violent. Violent.

Diane had a scar on her wrist. It had taken Cipher until now, until thinking about it— to realize what it was. 

An A. In cursive. 

Just like the victims.

“We have to go back,” Cipher announced. “There’s something Diane didn’t tell us.”

—

“DIANE,” SPENCER SAID SOFTLY. “I KNOW THIS IS HARD, BUT YOU NEED TO TELL US. WHAT DOES THE ‘A’ STAND FOR?” Cipher watched with poorly masked anger on her face as Diane sobbed. She’d been right, unfortunately. A boy, one who Diane had told them (through tears) was named Colby Sullivan, had accosted her in her sophomore year in high school. She’d said no, multiple times, but he didn’t take no for an answer. Then, one day, he showed up at her house. Her parents weren’t home. When she opened the door, she felt something hard hit her head. Then darkness. When she woke up, there it was. The scar. She hadn’t been sexually assaulted, though, something Cipher found odd, but didn’t have the heart to question further. Colby was impotent, that much was obvious, so maybe he just didn’t have enough time to stab her? All of it made her sick. None of it made sense. Why hadn’t he killed Diane? She said that Colby had been furious, so the mark shouldn’t have been clean, but it was.

“A-Anderson,” Diane choked. “I-It’s his family name.” 

Why had Diane addressed him as Colby Sullivan, then?

“You said his name was Sullivan, though,” Cipher said gently, ushering Spencer to stand further away from Diane. “Why?” She asked.

“B-Because it’s his mother’s name,” Diane said, taking a deep breath to steady herself. “Take your time,” Cipher assured her, brow creased with sorrow. “You’re doing very well.” 

“He wanted to use his father’s name, Anderson,” she explained. “But he left when Colby was six. So—” Diane choked on a sob, and Cipher felt her heart crack open for the poor woman. Forced to carry this with her all of her life. “His mom made him use her name for everything official,” Diane looked up at Cipher, eyes wet with tears. “But I remember him saying,” she cried, “t-that he couldn’t mark me with a woman’s name.” Shame spread across Diane’s features.

“Fuck,” Cipher muttered. “Okay, Diane. I have to leave, but Spencer’s going to stay here and look after you, okay?” Diane nodded.

When Diane’s breathing calmed, Cipher raced back to the car.

—

FIVE MINUTES LATER, SHE ARRIVED AT THE PRECINCT. “We’ve got him!” She yelled, catching the attention of the rest of the BAU. “Colby Sullivan,” she breathed. “He fits the profile. He already has one previous victim, a woman named Diane. She has- has the marking, and everything.” 

Sure enough, Colby Sullivan, or Anderson, had a record. Assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder, substance abuse, animal abuse… all the signs were there. Colby Anderson moved to New York two months after he graduated high school. He’d come back to Nowhere half a year ago, and gotten a job at the fishing port. He’d been fired from his job right before the murders began, so there was his stressor. Hotchner, Morgan, Rossi, and the rest of the team had gone to his house to bring him in for questioning. But there was still something off about him. If he’d lost his job, how did he get from New York, to abduct the women, back to Nowhere, to dispose of the bodies? It had been confirmed, Colby didn’t own a boat. So how had he managed it? 

Cipher stared at the whiteboard, a million ideas running through her head. It didn’t add up. They were too different. The markings weren’t angry. They were calm, precise— but the stabbing, that had been full of rage. 

Their spines were compacted. Almost like they’d been stored in a cage. But maybe it wasn’t a cage— but rather a shipping crate. It would make sense, how Colby had gotten the women from point A to point B. Drug them, ship them, kill them, mutilate them. The marking was the only thing that had been done premortem, the only thing that didn’t match Colby Anderson’s profile at all. 

Cipher glanced at the white board again. At the top, in Reid’s perfect handwriting, were two words, underlined.

‘Two Unsubs?’ 

That was it— she never thought she’d be saying this, but thank God for Spencer Reid. All she had to do was figure out who the second Unsub was. She pulled out her phone, ignoring the two missed calls from Spencer, and quickly sent him a message.

deCIpher

second unsub. would fit profile. call me.

Spencer didn’t respond.

Someone in New York? A brother, maybe? A twin? Someone affiliated with Colby, could be a friend—

Or, someone who owned a shipping company. Someone who could let Colby borrow his boat to transport women?

Time to call Garcia.

“Hey, Garcia?” She said into the phone. “Do you think you can get me a list of people who own large boats, used for transport?”

“I’m on it, sweetness. I just need to— here. There are two. Anderson Shipping, and Green Transportation. Either of those work for you?” Anderson. Anderson shipping. Reid was right, there was a second Unsub.

“Yes— Garcia, who owns Anderson Shipping?” She asked.

“Uh, one Anne Anderson.” That had to be a fake name. There was no one living in Nowhere named Anne Anderson, she’d gone through the whole list of the town’s inhabitants. There wasn’t even an Anne. “That’s gotta be a fake name, Garcia.” She sighed. “Can you see if you can find out who actually owns the company?”

“I can try, but it’s not guaranteed. I’ll call you back if I find anything, my darling!” The phone beeped in her ear, signaling the end of the call. She groaned, rubbing her temples. She could already feel yesterday’s headache forming again. To keep herself busy, she decided to look through Diane’s medical records. Find out if there was anything about the attack that Diane hadn’t been able to tell her.

Slowly, she walked out of the small room they’d been given to work with, and into the main bullpen. There was only one officer left, the rest had either gone home or were at Colby’s home. 

“Hey,” she announced. “Do you have any records I can look through for Diane Sullivan?” If she had access to Diane’s medical records, she could find out what other injuries she’d sustained that night. Maybe a specific doctor who had seen her and could tell her more, or—

“Diane Sullivan?” The officer asked, taken aback in surprise. “There’s no one here called Diane Sullivan. We do have a Diane Anderson, if that’s what you meant.”

“What?” She asked. “Are you sure?” Cipher’s heart felt like it was about to burst from her chest. That couldn’t be right, that would mean—

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Anderson wasn’t for Colby Anderson.

It was for Diane. Diane was the second Unsub. 

And she’d left Reid alone with her.

Shit. Shit. Shit. 

“I have to go,” she blurted, turning on her heels and sprinting out of the building.

—

IN HINDSIGHT, IT WASN’T THE BEST IDEA TO LEAVE WITHOUT TELLING ANYONE WHERE SHE WAS GOING.  She didn’t consider that, though, not until she was sitting in her car, outside of Diane’s house. Diane Anderson. Diane had lied to her, she’d been working with Colby from the start. Cipher was willing to bet that they had matching ‘A’ scars, too. It was a brand. She felt sick.

The curtains were drawn shut. All the lights were out inside, and it was getting dark. Reid was smart, maybe he’d figured it out, and— oh god. Was Diane going to hurt him? Kill him? That wasn’t part of the profile, though, Diane had only provided Colby with a boat and done the branding. Fuck. Fuck. Diane owned the shipping company, and Anne was her alias. How had she not seen this? How had no one seen this? 

Her cell phone was out of battery, Reid was possibly in danger, and she had no way of getting inside. Unless—

Diane had mentioned not being able to get her back door to lock earlier. If that wasn’t a lie (like everything else) Cipher could get inside through there. That was assuming that Diane hadn’t moved Spencer somewhere more convenient. 

She drove past the house, into the forest, and parked the SUV a considerable distance away from the house. Out of the sight of anyone inside, from any angle. Now, problem number two arose. She didn’t have a gun. She had no way of getting Diane to surrender. But that didn’t matter, she had to get inside. Likely, there’d be something she could use to subdue somewhere in the house. If she had the layout right, the backdoor led into the kitchen, which led into the living room. She could get a butcher's knife, and pray Diane didn’t have a gun.

This was stupid. She should have waited for backup. But no one knew where she was, and everyone else was apprehending Colby. She was making a mistake, she knew that— but Reid was in danger. As much as she disliked him, as much as she wished death upon him— she wasn’t going to let him get killed. Especially not after she was the one who left him alone. 

It would make everyone sad if he died.

Slowly, Cipher crept towards the broken screen door of the house. The grass beneath her feet was dead. Everything around the house was dead. She couldn’t hear Reid inside, or Diane.

The door opened soundlessly. Slowly, Cipher exhaled in relief. She could hear talking, now, two voices. Distinctly female and male. Diane and Spencer. Her voice was high pitched and shaky, but devoid of all emotion. A complete 180 from the woman she’d been when Cipher had left her house.

She scanned the room for anything, anything she could possibly use as a weapon. Apparently, luck was on her side, because she found both a butcher's knife, and a titanium cutting board. She grasped both objects in her hand. The cool metal was welcome against her hot skin. At the pace of a snail, with her back pressed against the wall, she made her way to the living room, where Diane was still talking to Spencer. She had her back to Cipher, she was only a few feet away. She just needed to distract her.

What was better to hit someone with, a block of metal, or a knife? 

Metal.

She didn’t know if it would work. There was a chance that, if this failed, she’d kill both herself and Spencer. But there weren’t any other options, and she was desperate. 

Cipher threw the knife across the room. It slammed into the floor with a loud thud. Diane’s head snapped towards the noise. “Who’s there!” Diane shouted. “I have a gun, don’t come any closer!”

“It’s me, Agent Cipher!” She shouted back. “I knocked on your door, but you didn’t answer, so I came in through the back! I just wanted to tell you that we have Colby in custody!”

She watched Diane curse under her breath, as the woman made her way to where she thought Cipher was. As she got closer, and closer, Cipher got ready to hit her. When Diane appeared in the doorway, gun discarded, she struck. Cipher swung the metal cutting board towards her head, the two colliding with a thunderous,  horrible crack. She watched the horror spread across Diane’s face before she crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

Police sirens sounded in the distance. She didn’t know how they knew to come to Diane’s house, but thank god that they did.

It didn’t take more than two minutes for the cops and the BAU to swarm the house, kick the door in, and escort Spencer to an ambulance.

She looked at Diane one last time before walking out to join the others.

Chapter Text

HER LEGS HURT. Of course they would, it’s only natural; she’d been standing for six hours. Waiting for Reid to be freed from the constraints of the biggest hospital in Alaska. Hotchner had offered to stay in his place, but as she was technically responsible for Spencer’s hospitalization, she declined. Only slightly responsible. The majority of the blame rested on Diane Sullivan, Colby’s wife, who, upon nonexistent pressure (Cipher baiting her), had confessed to everything. But that was six hours ago. Her hands shook from low blood sugar, but her wallet was still in the SUV she’d abandoned outside of Diane’s house. So, she could either wait for someone to notice her shaking and take pity on her, or she could suck it up.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, not even the ant that was currently climbing her leg VIA shoe express, she chose option two. Her adrenaline was long gone, a small hill on the endless stretch of road that was her life. Now, she was left in the waiting room, because visiting hours had ended about four hours prior to her arrival. Electing to take the loss and sit down (proving her weakness), she glanced at the clock hung on the wall in front of her.

2:37am.

God, what was she doing, waiting around for someone who loathed her with every fibre of his being? Someone who would probably rather see any face other than hers when he got discharged? It was stupid, that was the word for it. But still, she stayed, in the plastic chair that made her back go numb after another half hour of waiting. The endless tick, tick, tick of the clock frayed her nerves, and on multiple occasions, she considered getting up just to smash it. That was probably the sleep deprivation; she’d barely gotten a wink of rest since the team arrived in Nowhere three days ago. She couldn’t sleep, not when she knew what was out there, waiting for her to lower her guard. Who was out there. Cipher thought about opening her phone, borrowing a charger— anything, so she could see if she’d received another mysterious voicemail. She was shocked that the bureau hadn’t already contacted Agent Hotchner about it already; she was almost certain they had access to her phone records. Cipher would have already begun the paperwork to change her phone number entirely, but it had been assigned to her by Director Moreau herself, and there was no changing it. Not without repercussions, as Moreau had put it. Everything in her life had strings attached. She was closely monitored, caged, forbidden from stepping outside of the carefully painted lines that restricted her every move. No change of housing, contact information, location (outside of travelling for the BAU), occupation, hell, she probably wouldn’t be able to update her phone plan without a scheduled meeting with the director.

Cipher sighed, glancing back at the clock. 3:09am. Maybe she had some spare change in her pocket, just enough to buy a soda. Anything to fend off the headache that felt like it was going to tear her brain apart. She hoped Spencer got discharged soon; there was a cheap motel about a block from the hospital; she’d seen it on the drive following the ambulance. Spencer’s belongings were clutched in her hands, resting inside of a baggie on her lap. His wallet was right there, and so was his gun, so really, she should not have this, but alas. She did, and there wasn’t a thing anyone could do about it. 

She was snapped out of her angry daze by watching Spencer hobble into the waiting room, accompanied by two nurses, his eyes scanning the array of faces for one he recognized. She braced herself for watching his face fall when his eyes met hers, but they didn’t. Instead, he looked relieved. Not to see her, surely, but likely just because he was scared, and concussed (she could see it in the way his eyes couldn’t fixate on her, alongside the fact that he had both a black eye and a split lip. Diane had done a number on his face.), and overall, having a really bad day.

He said something to the nurses, and they began to walk him over to her. Eager to rid herself of his things, Cipher pushed the bag into his arms the moment he was by her side. He accepted it quickly, though not without a strange look in her direction. She supposed it was warranted; she must have looked like an absolute disaster. 

There was a pit in her stomach, one that only grew larger with every bruise she spotted on Spencer’s body. She left him alone. He could have died. It would have been her fault. She knew something was off with Diane, but she hadn’t acted on her suspicions. Now, looking at his battered face, she regretted that decision.

She was torn from the churning feeling inside her (literally), by Spencer pulling her towards the exit. Wordlessly, he dragged her forward, out into the cool night air. Moonlight spilled across the pavement, illuminating the sidewalk; stars blinked across the sky like fairy lights. 

She didn’t say anything. What could she say? ‘Hey, I’m sorry I almost got you killed by a psycho lady with a gun, I didn’t know who she was!”

He reciprocated her silence. 

When she glanced towards the treeline, she felt her heart stop. There was a person in the far distance. Just far enough to almost miss, but still, she could see her. She could see everything. Cipher wouldn’t forget that face, not ever, even though the real name that accompanied it had long since slipped through the cracks of her mind. 

She was older now. Her auburn hair, once long and bright, had since faded into a muddy brown. It was choppy and shorn just above her shoulders. Her eyes held the dead, glassy look that she’d seen in her own reflection all those years ago. She was pale, paler than she had been when Cipher last saw her. Thinner, too. That was how life had treated her.

No. This wasn’t possible. She had to be hallucinating, Kalon couldn’t really be here, could she?

Could she?

Cipher turned her head away from the trees. She had to be seeing things that weren’t there, this couldn’t make sense otherwise, it wasn’t possible. Kalon was gone. Cipher didn’t know where, she’d never find out, she wasn’t allowed to—

When she looked back at the spot where Kalon had stood, she was gone. 

—

TECHNICALLY, CIPHER WAS SUPPOSED TO REPORT THE ‘INCIDENT’ TO AGENT HOTCHNER. She didn’t. She knew that it was in her contract to do so, that if she didn’t, she could lose her job— but she also knew that an actual sighting was different from other forms of communication. Phone numbers could be blocked. Letters could go unopened. Emails could be deleted.

Physicality, especially whilst out in the field, could mean reassignment— or worse. WISTEC. A new identity. A clean slate, one that she did not want. As much as she hated seeing Spencer, the rest of her coworkers more than made up for that. Albeit with reluctance, she had allowed them into her life, and now she could not let go. So, if that meant ‘violating terms and conditions’, she’d do it a hundred times over. Selfish, yes, but she didn’t care.

She told herself that it wasn’t real. That she’d been hallucinating. It only took twenty four to forty eight hours for hallucinations to begin, she knew that, and she’d laid wide awake for the majority of the nights she’d spent in Alaska. Her brain must have been lying to her. Full auditory, vivid hallucinations tended to occur after the seventy two hour mark, and while she was exhausted, it hadn’t been that long. 

And that wasn’t the face she remembered. The Kalon she knew was younger, leaner, faster, alive. Not whatever she’d seen back there. Then again, it had been nine years. Nine years in a prison cell will do that to a person. 

‘Our brains can’t create new faces,’ Spencer had said. ‘Only ones we have seen before.’

Cipher didn’t know what terrified her more. The fact that this meant she had to have seen Kalon like this before in order to hallucinate her, or the fact that this might have really been her. In the flesh, come back to haunt Cipher like a ghost. 

Alive, but clearly gone.

—

CIPHER DIDN’T SLEEP THAT NIGHT. She got up twice to use the bathroom, four times for water, eight times to ensure that her hotel room door was properly locked, and once to retrieve an umbrella that had been on the floor when she arrived, in order to fend off attackers should the need arise. It didn’t, of course, but that had never stopped her from preparing before.

Naturally, on the jet, she was a menace. Dark circles hung under her eyelids, and she hadn’t even bothered to brush her hair. She looked (and felt) like death incarnate. Yet, the universe had taken pity on her by keeping her inbox free of any more strange voicemails. She relished in it.

She slept there, in fact, she passed out before they’d finished taking off. She’d taken Spencer’s seat on the couch, watching happily as he sulked in one of the smaller chairs. Oh well. She needed decent rest. Most of the pit-feeling in her stomach had worn off once she realized that Spencer was not nearly as concussed as she thought he’d been. 

The happiness she’d felt upon falling asleep, unfortunately, did not bleed into her dreams.

—

CIPHER DIDN’T KNOW WHY SHE KEPT HAVING THESE DREAMS. They’d haunted her for a very long time, yes, and had gotten less gruesome throughout the years, yes, but remained in the back of her mind since she’d left. When she got to the BAU, though, their grip on her mind had loosened, just enough to allow for her to get decent sleep every so often. The scenes shifted each time. Sometimes she had blood on her hands. Sometimes she didn’t, (but she did, she always does. She can’t wash it away.) but she could still feel it, stuck under her nails like dirt. Kalon was there, to ridicule her, and something else that she could not recall upon waking up. Sometimes she screamed. Sometimes she was drowning, sometimes burning. In her dreams, someone was yelling at her. Shrieking. But the noise was fuzzy during sleep, and incoherent when she was conscious.

She’d blocked most of Him from her mind. If she tried, she could picture him clearly, but she never did. The less she thought of him, the better.

Cipher was staring out the window. She’d slept for a total of ten out of the twelve hours they were to spend on the plane. There were only sixty minutes until they hit the ground, and she could go home to sleep in her own bed. Her back hurt from half-sleeping on a shitty chair the night before, after she and Spencer had walked to the motel next to the hospital. She’d had to sit with him for a few hours (four, to be exact, due to the nature of his concussion), then she’d purchased her own room for $50 (from Spencer’s wallet, he’d been nice for once and let her borrow some cash), and promptly sat awake for another few hours, before finally falling asleep.

Her memory of what had transpired while they were together was blurry at best, non-existent at worst. She supposed that was because of the shock she’d experienced upon hallucinating(?), but Spencer was acting annoying, as per usual, so she knew nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. It bothered her sometimes, the gaps in her memory. Like everything else that was wrong with her health (both mental and physical), she chose to push it to the back of her mind and forget it ever happened.

—

THE NEXT CASE SENT THE TEAM TO DUBOIS, WYOMING. Small town, under 1,000 permanent residents. The population doubled with part time residents during the summertime, Spencer had told her. She’d pretended to be asleep when he said it, but unfortunately, she retained the knowledge. Along with an abundance of random facts he’d announced throughout the years. 

The police station would still be small, but unlike the one in Nowhere, it was actually official! They had a real mortician and everything. That was great for her, it meant that she (hopefully) wouldn’t have to yell at anyone this time. That depended on whether they also held the ‘psychos are psychos and do psycho things Just Because’ mindset. She’d have to wait and see. 

Hotchner hadn’t even given the team a day to recover from Alaska. Well, with the exception of Reid, who would be joining them once he was cleared to travel. (A day, tops. At least until Garcia got tired of him, so she was betting that he’d end up in Wyoming within twenty four hours of their arrival.) The plane ride there had been silent, unusually so. Normally, the lack of arguing at 30,000 feet in the air delighted her, but for some reason, this was different. Spencer Reid, above all else, was a workaholic. It was likely due to the fact that, with their jobs considered, friendships outside the bureau were scarce at best, and non-existent at worst. The point still stood; boy genius had no friends. It wasn’t like she could judge, all her friends were either in prison or dead, but that didn’t matter. She wasn’t exactly calling herself a prime example of heartwarming and friendly behaviour. (Still, Cipher. Don’t throw stones in a glass house.) 

The only time Spencer ever took a day off was because he was physically incapable of working. He’d taken the extra day before joining the team in Dubois of his own accord, which clearly meant that the concussion had done irreparable damage to his brain. She didn’t care much for him or his state of being, really, but she couldn’t exactly ignore this egregious deviation from his normal. Another thing she had learned about the doctor throughout her time with the BAU was that he built routines, and then he followed them like they were his religion. His routines revolved around one thing most of all: being present for his job, day after day. She could count the amount of sick days he’d taken throughout the last year and a half on one hand. So really, it was very, very strange for him to go on leave just because he had a concussion. She could ask Agent Hotchner, but he was currently listening to Garcia explain their latest case (she should be paying attention, but she can’t), and she didn’t dare risk appearing as though she cared about Spencer, especially not in front of Morgan. He’d never let her hear the end of it. (She didn’t care about him, for the record. She cared about her daily life being disrupted. Not him.) 

Still, the plane was too quiet without him. She felt that pit feeling return, just a little bit, when she thought about him in the hospital. How he hadn’t really responded to any of her jabs on the walk to the motel. Diane had done a number on his skull, that was for sure. From what she’d been told, Reid figured it out while he was still in the house. Diane had been in the kitchen when Spencer asked her about her wedding ring, maiden name, etc. He’d then, (like an idiot) decided to confront her in the kitchen instead of feigning an injury or emergency and simply making his escape through the front door. She’d been waiting for him, knocked him out cold with a plank of wood (she’d been in the process of renovating her house, apparently), and the rest was history. Cipher had thought about yelling at him then. Something about geniuses and smart decisions, but had chosen not to, seeing as he was already miserable. Cipher was regretting that decision now, because maybe if she had, he’d be texting her right now to finish the argument. It happened like that from time to time, Cipher and Spencer getting wrapped up in the intricate strands of arguing. Of course, there wasn’t always time for them to undo knot after knot, so it was neither here nor there if he messaged her later about something pertaining to their exchange. However, if there was no argument, then there was no reason for him to contact her after hours, which led to her current predicament.

Boredom. And when Cipher was bored, bad things tended to follow. She’d have picked a fight by now if she didn’t actually like her coworkers, but alas, they were good people. (Spencer not included.) She could start something with Hotchner, but didn’t really like the idea of pissing off someone who knew as much as he did about her. 

She was so caught up in her own thoughts that she didn’t even notice that they’d begun to descend.

—

“LANEY!” A SHRILL, LOUD VOICE RANG OUT INTO THE PRECINCT. Lanie. The name made her whip her head around. The voice belonged to a young woman, blonde, maybe early twenties, and that was pushing it. Lanie, Lanie, Lanie, will you play with me? Oh Lanie, please don’t go. 

Please don’t go.

I still need you, Lanie. 

At that moment, Cipher didn’t care about anything. Those two fucking syllables had transported her back in time, thrusted her into the body of a girl who was ten years younger. A girl who had loved that name, lived it. She still remembered how she got it, one of the only memories that had not fractured and shattered into a million tiny pieces. She’d been young, she knew that much because her voice was higher. Happier. She looked about thirteen, judging by the state of her hands. She didn’t have the large scar across her right palm, she’d gotten that one when she was fifteen, doing God knows what. They were eating breakfast at the kitchen table, just the three of them. Her, Kalon, and Ichor. She tried to remember their real names, what she’d called them that day— but she came up empty. Nothing. He had always insisted that they use their callsigns in non work related environments, because they were still young, still capable of fucking up in the field. Still stupid, naive children.

Revenant was too hard for nine year old Ichor to pronounce, so it had been shortened to Lanie. Cipher didn’t know how one could come up with Lanie from Revenant, but it had happened nonetheless. Ichor had also taken to calling Kalon Kally, too, which had been Cipher’s name for Kalon since they’d met. Kally rolled off the tongue nicely. Kally felt less harsh than Kalon. More affectionate. Wrong, if they got caught. 

Kally and Lanie. Best friends, practically sisters. If only they knew. 

But she hadn’t seen her Kally, really seen her, in nine years. The way her lips curled up into a smirk when Cipher did something stupid, the twinkle she got in her honey brown eyes when they were alone together. How wrong it was, how wrong it always had been.

How long, how long, can we play this way?

She was still sitting in the precinct, in an uncomfortable blue plastic chair. Her expression was unmasked, likely full of sorrow and something else, something no one had ever seen on her face before.

Shame.

Slowly, she came back to herself. She pushed thoughts of Lanie, and Kally, and Ichor to the back of her mind. Cipher scolded herself, although not harshly. She didn’t have the mental capacity to be mean right then, not to herself. She was Lanie, and after all, Lanie deserved so much more than what Cipher could give her. But oh, she desperately wanted to know what had happened to them. To her friend, to the girl who was like her younger sister, to the twins. To everyone in that god forsaken hellhole she’d tried to help. Tried and gotten burned, had become standoffish and volatile after too many trips to the metaphorical hospital. 

Where were they now? 

—

THE UNIVERSE IS CRUEL. Cipher knows this. She has always known this. She has, throughout time, gotten used to this simple fact. It is unfair, and life, for whatever reason, has chosen to target her. This is also a fact that twenty four year old Grace Mulligan cannot seem to grasp. Cipher was directed to accompany Emily and JJ to the house of their first victim's sister. She felt bad for her, she really did, but it had been thirty minutes of her reciting everything she’d done to wrong her sister throughout her entire life. It broke her heart. It was also not what they needed from her. They wanted a list of people who could’ve tried to hurt Jane, and poor Grace was the only person who could provide that kind of information. Their parents had died when Jane was eighteen, and Grace was twelve. She’d learned that this meant all of Grace’s relatives were dead, because both their parents were only children. Jane had become her only parent overnight. To some degree, it reminded her of herself. Becoming a kind-of parent when she was still a child, except her ‘sibling’s’ parents weren’t dead, just either abusive or absent. And two of the four didn’t really count, they’d been born into the clusterfuck. Their parents just didn’t give two shits. Their parents had seen how much she enjoyed spending time with the kids, said fuck it, and dumped the majority of parenting onto her. The other two had been like her, and had been given a new life. And she’d tried, she’d fucking worked her ass off to keep those two away from Cyro. Away from the names and the mind games. But they wanted power, they were hungry, aching for it. Just like she had been, sixteen years ago, when she agreed to learn how to do what He did. They went behind her back, started a life like hers anyway, despite all her warnings. And then Cyro had gone and gotten them all fucking arrested, gotten her stuck here, stuck with this stupid job that she only kind of liked—

God, she needed to pull herself together. 

“I mean,” she heard Grace sniffle, a distant sound. She cursed herself for being so absent when this girl needed justice for her sister, her only relative. The last of her family. “-you could try talking to Ange?” It was the way Grace said it that fucked her over. The perfectly imperfect accent. The ah instead of an. But it did indeed fuck her over regardless. It didn’t care that the voice was female, not male, that she was twenty five, not sixteen, that her name was Cipher, not Revenant, not Lanie, and definitely not Ange. It didn’t care that she’d broken the illusion, just like it hadn’t cared when she’d heard the other name that morning.

 She’d been His first, His favourite, His ange. That’s what he called her, His angel. Perfect and sweet. That’s what she’d been then, pliable. Putty. He’d shaped her. Changed her forever. He refused to call her Lanie, had said it was too unprofessional. Ange was better. Ange would get her somewhere, Lanie sounded like it belonged to a child. But that’s what she had been, a child. Ange deserved power, Lanie was a scared kid. But that’s what she was. 

She needed to get out right now, lest she burst into a million pieces. Lest she float down to the ground, still flaming, burning up.

She needed to go outside.

Now.

Escape. Get out. The walls are closing in, if you don’t leave, you could die—

Cipher didn’t even say anything; she just walked right out the front door.

How pathetic. How absolutely, fucking pathetic.

Chapter Text

APPARENTLY, ANGE HAD BEEN USELESS. Cipher had heard this from Emily, who, upon getting her to calm down, had sent her to the car to wait for news. She didn’t know how Emily knew to find her, or that she wasn’t alright— but she had, and to Cipher’s relief, also didn’t ask questions. She wouldn’t have been able to answer them if she had, not without losing her job. It had taken her a total of twenty three minutes and sixteen seconds for her to collect herself. Longer than usual, but she hadn’t heard that word (meant as a name), in almost a decade. 

Did she miss it? Not really. She wasn’t sure what she wanted back, and what she wanted to leave behind. 

Distract yourself, Ci. Think about the case.

Okay. Three victims. Were killed instantly after their throats were torn out, likely by some sort of animal. A wolf, maybe? The interesting part, the part that made local P.D call for the FBI— were the state of the corpses, and of course, a heap of post-mortem bodily mutilation. 

Their eyes were sewn shut. 

This made her wonder. Normally, the fashion in which people were killed was a way to identify serial killers. But the M.E had confirmed, they’d died at the jaws of something wild. Not human. Which meant that their Unsub was not deriving pleasure from the killing… which was strange, to say the least.

Couldn’t they get a normal case for once?

The last weird case had sent an agent to the hospital. Oh dear god. She was not about to start worrying about Reid, of all people.

Then, there was the question of how. The animal had only bitten the women once, on the throat. Exactly where they needed to be bitten in order to bleed out fast. But aside from scratch marks, deep red gouges on their arms and legs, but no extra damage. No more bites. This wasn’t a wild animal eating a dead body, this was… 

Well, she didn’t know what this was. 

Reid probably would have figured it out by now, and they’d be on their merry way back to Virginia. 

Then their eyes had been sewn shut. By a human, hopefully. So, to recap, that would mean: a suspiciously ‘wild’ animal bites someone’s throat. Then, the person who finds the body just happens to also be someone who enjoys bodily mutilation. Then repeat that three times. Yeah, there was no way that was statistically possible. 

A starving animal would be willing to kill a human, even a big one, if it was desperate. But the body would be unrecognizable if that was the case. None of this made any sense.

Cipher didn’t really like dogs. They didn’t like her, either. Reid said that it was because they could smell her fear, but it wasn’t that. She wasn’t scared. She just didn’t get along with them. She didn’t know where the aversion had started, but it had, the reason probably laying somewhere in her lost memories. It wasn’t exactly like she could request hospital records, or anything, because her DNA hadn’t been in the system until November 19th, 1993. When she was nine years old. So, nothing. No birth certificate. No medical history. No family matches in the system, not even when they’d expanded the search with FBI resources.

On paper, Cipher had never existed.

And yet, there she was. Staring at herself in the side-view mirrors of a federally issued car. Oh, how the tables had turned. 

Still, deep inside, she had this lingering feeling of ‘I’m not supposed to be here.’

—

SPENCER REID WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE ARRIVED IN WYOMING BY NOW. It had been nearly twenty four hours since the rest of the team had been abandoned (flown in on a private jet) in the middle of nowhere (that one was actually accurate, no translation needed.), and Spencer was nowhere to be seen. He had been cleared six hours after they took off, so really, he was supposed to have appeared about fifteen hours ago, but alas. He was not. And Cipher? Well. Cipher was bored out of her fucking mind. She had nothing to think about now, nothing but her thoughts. And about how late it was. And about how she should be sleeping, but couldn’t. 

She turned over, sprawling across the king sized bed with a yawn. A baseless yawn, one that was rooted in the kind of exhaustion that could not be resolved with sleep. 

Her eyes were met with an alarm clock, blinking red in her eyes. 1:47am. If she didn’t sleep, she’d be useless for the case tomorrow. There were only two things she hated more than Spencer Reid; her other life, and being useless. Docile. Lazy. Exhausted. Synonyms but not. Words she associated with one another, regardless of their actual connection. It was something she’d learned from somewhere she couldn’t remember. Everyone  had words that they put together like a tower, building a vocabulary of strung together syllables that were just close enough in meaning to be understood. 

Family. Friends. Alone. 

There was an outlier, always, but to a random eye, it made some semblance of sense.

Wrong. Lover. Death.

Hatred. Self. Human?

—

IT WAS A NORMAL MONDAY. She made cereal and scrambled eggs. She sat at the kitchen table, happy, talking, laughing. Happy is a word she no longer knows. It has warped and changed meaning over time, and she chases it (of course she does) but it is against her nature to succeed, so she doesn’t. The finish line, the reward, will always remain just outside of her reach. But today, in this moment, the moment that is now and lost forever, only ever replayed as fractured moments that have decayed. 

It was a normal Monday. And then, she blinked, and it was gone.

“Do you remember anything else?” Harsh voice, loud. More fractures.

No, it’s all gone. Please help me get it back, I’m scared.

“Fuck off.”

—

“FOR FUCK’S SAKE, CAR, YOU GOT BLOOD ON THE SHEETS AGAIN.” She can see through eyes that are not hers anymore. Were hers, once upon a time. The air in the house is hot and sticky. That’s right, this is the summer when their AC was broken. 1998, if she recalls correctly. She’s already gripping the worn metal of the knobs on the cabinets, about to grab the salt so she can clean up the mess. Car’s been like this lately, coming home late, bloody and bruised. She cannot stand to look at it most of the time. 

It’s been a few months since he began leaving every night. Since he finally wore her down (made her cry) and convinced her to let him try.

She thinks he’s already killed two people. Nothing in comparison to what she’s done, she has no right to be upset, but emotions are fickle things. 

She’s watching the light slowly drip out of his eyes, and there’s nothing she can do to stop it. He wanted this, she reminds herself, but he didn’t really know what this was, did he? He saw what she’d done, not what she was, and decided that he wanted it too. 

A sick, twisted part of her hoped that the blood was getting to him. That fourteen year old Carson Elliot had decided that this was not worth it after all.

No, she knew he was too stubborn to back down, especially not when it had taken him weeks to force her hand. His parents hadn’t given a damn, and He was eager to make Car useful, but he’d forced him to get permission from her first when she’d threatened to stop if He let Carson join.

Car spent months waging a psychological war on her until she finally relented. Fourteen. He was only two years younger than her. 

So no. If he wants to do this, to be like this, he can figure it out on his own.

She hurls the box of salt at his head, and winces a little bit when it hits him square in the chest. 

He lets out an indignant noise in protest, but she ignores it, keeping her face neutral with undertones of rage.

“If you want to go out and kill people so fucking bad, you can clean it up yourself.”

—

CIPHER THINKS HER DREAMS ARE TARGETING HER. She hadn’t thought of Car nearly as often as she thought of Kally, or Ichor. Or even Cyro. Now that she’s thought of it, Cipher realized something. She doesn’t even know where he ended up. He could be dead.

She laughed. A cold, bitter laugh, devoid of all humour. Between the Kalon bullshit, her job, and this? Her brain is overwhelmed. Completely full, at the limit of what she can take. She rolled over again, glancing at the time. The clock read 6:55 am, so really, not the worst. She’d have to get up soon anyway, so why not bite the bullet and do it now, before she can decide not to, and end up stewing in her thoughts for the next hour?

Slowly, she peeled the sheets away from herself, allowing the chill of the air-conditioned room to hit her heated skin. It’s unpleasant, sure, but exactly what she needed to wake her up fully.

She missed Car, and Liam, and Kally, and Marley, and—

Cipher pushed that thought to the back of her mind. 

So when her phone buzzed, she was too distracted to glance at the contact name. In fact, by the time she was out the door, she’d forgotten about it entirely.

—

SPENCER ARRIVED AT THE PRECINCT FORTY-THREE MINUTES AFTER CIPHER DID. With a file folder in one hand, and a coffee in the other, in true Spencer fashion. He already had seven theories about the Werewolf  killer’s profile. The name was given by the media, because of course it was. She was surprised that the local news hadn’t been outside when she’d come in that morning. The name in question was an homage to the animalistic and human nature of the kills, the news anchor had said. Cipher knew it was bullshit, the only reason he got a name was to stroke his fucked up ego and terrify everyone within a 200 mile radius of the town. 

Reid didn’t talk to her, which was fine. She didn’t have the energy to interact with him anyway. For a brief moment, Cipher considered pulling an all-nighter, just so that she didn’t have any more dreams. Kalon was fine, seeing her broke her, yes, but Carson was different. Carson was the one she failed to protect. She’d —----------------------.

No.

She’d done what she’d done, made her bed, and now she had to lie in it. Whatever guilt she felt, she’d have to live with. But it was so much, so many things, stacked up on top of each other, a neverending pile of mistakes. The case. She had to focus on the case. 

Focus on the case.  

“I don’t know, what do you think, Ci?” Oh. There it was. She must be human, because she saw it now. Her breaking point. Spencer’s smug, infuriating expression was going to send her over the edge. 

“I think that you should—” But she saw Agent Hotchner’s face change at the harshness of her words, and she really didn’t feel like explaining why she thought it was okay to snap at Reid at 8am. So, she sucked in a deep breath, and pushed all the rage she had inside her back into the box in her mind.

Do not overreact. Do not snap. Do not make them suspicious.

But wouldn’t it be more suspicious if she didn’t yell at him? 

“I think,” she tested the waters with a nice, calm reaction. If anyone so much as glanced at her wrong, she’d explode. She’d give them the anger if they wanted it so badly. 

As if he could sense the tension coiled around her spine, Spencer narrowed his eyes. God, she thought. He doesn’t know when to back off.

Another deep breath. She knew that if she spoke now, her voice would be taut. On edge. A warning, of sorts. 

“-that you should repeat yourself.”

Spencer, in all his oblivious glory, either did not get the message, or elected to ignore it. Either way, he continued to be condescending, and she’d, quite frankly, had enough. 

“If you’d been paying attention, I wouldn’t have to repeat myself. Though I really shouldn’t expect so much from you, you have the attention span of a fruit fly.” Oh! So he wanted to be punched in the stomach, good to know!

Normally, she would brush it off. Retort in kind, cause an argument that would bore everyone quickly, and they would move on. A speck of dust in a pristine house.

But today was not normal, because she was exhausted and worn down and fucking tired.

So, so tired. Can’t she just lay down for a while?

She’s going to walk out, cool off, or she’s going to cause a scene. There’s no inbetween, not right now. Not when everything she’s managed to suppress for the past nine years is threatening to explode right now, at someone who only deserved about 25% of it. 

So, she did the only thing she knew how to do. Run away. Well, technically, she was walking, and ‘away’ was maybe a hundred feet between her and Spencer, but it separated them with a massive brick wall, so she didn’t care. 

Outside, she felt much better. Freed from the constraints of stale air and even staler coworkers. Did that even make sense? Whatever. Spencer had the personality of a cracker. A stale cracker.

God, what was she doing? First yesterday, and now this? She needs to pull herself together. Focus. On. The. Case.

The case is more important than whatever is happening in your fucked up head, Ci.

Two voices joined in.

Since when did you start calling yourself Ci?

So you acknowledge that your head’s fucked up? What do you think did you in? Was it the murder, or the abuse, or your mother— ooh, maybe it was your father!

A firm, warm hand landed on her shoulder, jolting her out of her spiral, thank god, but also scaring the shit out of her. Instinctively, she whirled around, attempting to identify the threat, take it out—

Oh. Agent Hotchner. With a grim look on his face. Surely nothing bad can come from this interaction! 

He saw the way she tensed up, knew what it meant, but he didn’t say anything. Just… sat down on the step beside her. They stayed that way for a few moments, drinking in the cool summer breeze. Saying nothing, telling everything. Of course, he had to shatter the illusion of peace, she knew he would eventually. It was only a matter of when. 

“So,” he said, testing the waters. Seeing if she was as… emotionally charged as she had been inside. She thought about snapping at him, but it wasn’t his fault. Hell— this wasn’t even Spencer’s fault, and that was saying something.

“What was that all about? You just walked out.” She didn’t answer right away, just let the silence glisten in the sun between them. She didn’t want to answer, not really. Answering meant explanation, and there was no explanation she could give about her behaviour that wouldn’t put herself in jeopardy.

Finally, she spoke. She let no emotion slip through into her voice, keeping her tone cold and flat. “It was either that, or punch him in the face. Which do you prefer?” She asked.

“You know that’s not what I was asking.” Quickly, she turned to face him, her face a mask of indifference, lips permanently painted in a stretched out smile. Fake, obviously, very clearly made of plastic and lies. 

“Then what were you asking?” Voice, pleasant. Even. Keep it even, Cipher. Do not yell at your boss. Do not yell at your boss. 

He sighed. A long, exasperated sigh, one that echoed in her ears twice, before flitting away into an exhale. 

“You’ve been acting… strange, lately. Since the hospital.” Oh, she’d been acting strange? Of course she was; her life was on the verge of collapse. What a concept. Ten points to Agent Hotchner for pointing out the obvious, bravo! She’d slow clap if she could.

But she couldn’t say all that, then he’d know for sure that something was up. Then he’d question and pester her until she inevitably told him to piss off, rinse and repeat that process until she finally broke and explained. She would not have it.

God, why did she have to quit smoking? 

She’d been forced to quit after she was arrested, and hadn’t had a cigarette since. Huh. She didn’t know she was capable of change, much less a change so drastic. Interesting, she’d have to file that information away for later.

Cipher had two options. One, really, but she gave herself the illusion of choice. She preferred it that way, always had. Maybe not always will, if she continues changing. She hoped not. 

She could always gaslight him. No, that wouldn’t work, he knew her too well. But it’d be fun to try regardless, maybe piss him off until he left her alone. That wouldn’t work either, because he’d see through her obvious attempt at deflection and give her the look, the one that told her that he knew that she knew that he knew that she was just spewing bullshit. He wasn’t Spencer, she couldn’t bait him into leaving her the fuck alone, even if she really wanted to (which she did).

“I can see the gears turning in your head.” Ding ding ding! Time’s up! We’ll reveal your answer in 3, 2… 1!

“I’m just tired.” There goes nothing, folks! Now, will he buy it? It’s looking grim, his face is still suspicious… but he’s looking away, maybe he’s just—

“Bullshit.” So close! 

She said the first thing that came to her mind. “Excuse me?”

Hotchner scoffed, giving her another one of his glances. He shifted on the stairs slightly, angling his body towards hers. But he didn’t look her in the eyes, he knew that was how she liked it. Good, she didn’t think she could make eye contact and keep the glass bottle holding her emotions from shattering. “Oh, I’m sorry, did I offend you?” She rolled her eyes at his sarcasm, but still didn’t turn her head.

She watched his expression soften a little from her peripheral vision. Not enough to fully break her resolve, but enough to chip away at it.

She decided to be honest with him. Not entirely, but he deserved to know what she could tell him. “Just…” she trailed off, taking a deep inhale. “Dreams. Weird ones. You know the type.” But the worry that crossed his face after she finished talking told her that he did not, in fact, know the type, even though she was absolutely sure he did. She’d heard him yelling in his sleep when they had adjoining rooms enough times to be considered a reliable source.

For a third time, silence blanketed the pair. 

“...I’m going to choose to believe that you’re being honest with me.” Agent Hotchner said, after about a minute in their newfound soundlessness. “I’m going to go back inside,” he said slowly, “because I do not believe there is anything I can do to help you right now.”

He could stay, but neither of them want that.

Right?

“And you’re going to follow me when you’re ready.” She nodded carefully, still avoiding his gaze. His words sat in the air between them for one beat, then two, and although he had said he was going to move, she saw the opposite. He stayed completely still.

He didn’t leave for another five minutes. She found that, for some reason, she didn’t mind his presence as much as she thought she would.

—

“SO, WE KNOW WHAT THE REMOVAL OF HER SIGHT MEANS.” Emily’s voice echoed in the small room the team had been assigned to work on the profile. It was cramped, a tight fit when there were seven people inside it all at once. She’d been forced in the corner next to Spencer, which had proved to be nothing but a nightmare, seeing as he had a tendency to tap his fingers against the polished wood of the table, a sound which irritated her to no end. 

Since the day before, Cipher had been avoiding the common areas of the precinct at all costs. As it turned out, the name that had sent her into a spiral was also the name of one of the deputies. What a small world! 

“It could represent a desire to be hidden,” Morgan added. “He doesn’t want the girls to see him, so he makes sure they can’t.”

“In that case,” Hotchner continued, “we’re looking for someone who was bullied severely. For his looks, probably personality, too.” 

“No friends, loner, ugly… this profile could fit half the people in this town, Hotch.” Emily said, pressing her fingers to her temples. Cipher glanced at her, then at Reid, and back at the table.

“But where does the animal bite come in? It doesn’t make sense, doesn’t fit the profile.” She turned towards Emily, angling herself as best she could with how much space she had. “He should want total and complete control over the kills. If he has the skill to sew their eyes shut, then he’d be able to slit their throats himself. So why doesn’t he?” She asked. “Why does he wait for the animals to take care of them first?”

Suddenly, Spencer stood up, shoving the leg of his chair right into her foot. She hissed in pain, but he either didn’t notice, or didn’t care. He began to try to pace, despite the limited space. How very selfish, and very typical of Spencer. 

“What if,” he said, gesturing wildly with his hands, “he’s training the animals to kill for him?” 

Morgan scoffed. “Come on, kid. Do you know how hard it would be to—”

“Not very hard at all,” Hotchner cut in. “Most animals can be trained with enough food. Especially dogs.”

Cipher felt a shiver creep up her spine. Dogs. Committing murder. 

“Or—” Reid said, “Through starvation. There was a-a study done a couple decades ago, 1974 I believe, about dog breeds that were usually docile showing violent tendencies if they believed they’d be fed for it. The study was stopped when a teenager broke into the lab and was… I’ll spare you the details, but it was gory.” 

Cipher was impressed. See, she’d been right, Reid cracked yet another case within the first twelve hours. Another point for her.

“But how would he make sure that their throats were the only part of their body that got bitten? There were no bite marks anywhere else on the bodies.” JJ said, shifting in her seat. She glanced down at the file in front of her, then quickly looked away. That made sense to Cipher, the bodies hadn’t exactly been in mint condition when they were found. 

“That could be solved with an electroshock collar,” Cipher said, her voice bitter. “He makes sure they only get one bite in.”

By the time she’d finished speaking, Morgan had already begun calling Garcia, to check for older men who had recently bought larger dogs, electroshock collars, and had gone to the vet multiple times for malnourishment and aggression.

She was able to give them a name, a man called Kenny Jenson. His wife had left him two months before the killings began, due to his alcoholism. There was the stressor. 

It only took two more minutes for Garcia to get his address, then another four to get on the road.

—

THE HOUSE WAS QUIET. The lawn was dead, speckled with wilted flowers and patches of sun-scorched grass, adorned with holes that had been clearly dug by a dog. Cipher knew she wasn’t supposed to judge a book by its cover, but if you had asked her, she’d say that Kenny’s house fit the bill. 

She glanced at Agent Hotchner, who was assigning roles. “Reid, Emily,” he said, "you'll take the main floor. Morgan and I will take the upstairs. Rossi, I want you to check the shed. Cipher,” when he said her name, her head snapped towards him. “You’ll check the basement.” Cipher nodded in agreement as everyone began the trek towards Kenny Jenson’s front door. 

The inside of the house could have been mistaken for a horror show. There were rushed, scribbled drawings strewn across the floor, and the whole house smelled distinctly of rotten wood. Upon their entrance, their suspicions were confirmed, seeing as there was blood (dried and fresh) splattered across the floor. 

The basement door was covered in deep gouges. The wood was nearly shredded at the base. As she opened the door, the smell hit her full force. Rotted meat, and something else.

It wasn’t until she took her first step did she realize what it was.

The last thing Cipher heard before the world went dark was a sickening crack, and a growl as the stairs gave way beneath her.

—

Chapter Text

JULY 17TH, 1999

THE ARCADE IS LOUD. That’s the first thing Lanie thinks when she walks through the double doors. It’s loud, and it’s absolutely perfect. The two children to her right, Isnya and Marley, the youngest of the five, immediately abandon her in favour of the more… exciting options that surround them. Carson’s looking fucking miserable, but that’s been his default for the past few months, so she tries to not let it bother her. It still does, though. It always has, and it always will. She hopes it’s just normal teenage angst, but she knows better than that. She knows that this is really a response to her repeated refusal to let him follow in her footsteps. 

The scene shifts, and she’s sitting with Kally at a high top table, kicking her legs and attempting to keep an eye on the children. They know better than to go with anyone, and she hopes that any kidnapper knows better too; she’d hate to have to break someone’s jaw today. (She wouldn’t.) 

The inconvenience of a possible violent altercation would simply be because this is her first time taking the kids out alone, without supervision. Of course, she’s allowed to drink, smoke, and shoot people, but going to an arcade in broad daylight with no weapons is out of the question. Makes total sense, right?

The fries that sit between them on the sticky table are cold, but she doesn’t care. She’ll eat them either way, but Kally is more particular. Lanie glances across the arcade, just checking, ensuring that no one has begun to fist fight the other over a losing score, or something. Really, she’s being paranoid, but who wouldn’t be? She’s half convinced that Cyro is going to show up and demand she return them home, then make her feel guilty about taking them somewhere ‘dangerous’ in the first place. The thought almost makes her laugh; key word: almost. Cyro will try to convince her on a daily basis that she should allow a literal fourteen year old child to join the actual mob, but they can’t leave the house alone. It would be humorous if it wasn’t infuriating. 

She hates the back-and-forth with him. One day, she’s his best soldier, the next, she’s an incompetent child. It isn’t fair. 

Kally seems to notice the tension in her shoulders. Her brown eyes flit across the room for a moment before she exhales in relief, grasping Lanie’s hand under the table. “Everything is going to be fine,” she whispers. “Carson will forget about this in a few weeks. You know how she is.” Kally’s right, but only partially. She does know how Carson behaves, agonizingly so. She knows exactly how stubborn he can be, and how volatile he becomes when he doesn’t get what he wants. She knows that he’d have gone behind her back already, if Cyro hadn’t forbidden it. So no. The words of reassurance do not reassure her. She nods anyway, though, and holds her hand tighter. 

The walls melt away again, and suddenly, she is walking through the carpeted arcade, her boots making muffled sounds on the soft surface. Isnya is tugging on her wrist. She’s not strong enough to actually force Lanie to do anything, but she finds the effort admirable. A small smile settles on her face. Isnya wants to show her something; it doesn’t make much sense to her, but she’s happy to look nonetheless. She’s watching the younger girl beaming with pride, pointing at her score. 

After a few moments of her trying to explain what game she was playing, how she won, etcetera, Lanie begins to zone out. She reaches for Isnya’s hand, which she gladly takes. Good, at least one of the kids still likes her. 

The world warps sideways, and suddenly, she’s in the car. Kally’s in the front seat, Isnya and the twins are in the middle, and Marley is behind them. Lanie’s driving; she’s the only one with a (fake) license. She’d have a fake ID too if she didn’t need one; most bartenders in the places she goes are willing to serve her if she forks up a couple extra bucks. She’s thought about asking Cyro to get her one, but she’s not exactly speaking with him at the moment. She’s giving him the cold shoulder, if you will.

A red plastic bag sits on Kally’s lap, filled to the brim with things that were won at the arcade. Carson, in true Carson fashion, is sitting with his face pressed against the window, sulking. He’d asked her again before they left, just for a small role, and she’d yelled at him right there. He’d been embarrassed, probably. Good, if he can’t handle being yelled at in public, there was no way she’d even think about handing him a loaded gun. Or any gun at all, for that matter.

She’s no sooner finished her thought before she hears sirens behind them, creeping closer. Red and blue lights flash across her peripheral vision. Great, a cop. That’s just what she needed. She slows to a stop, pulling over to the side of the road. She rolls down her window, and is met by a police officer, holding a ticketbook. He’s pale, with dark hair and brown eyes. He has a sharp jaw, and his eyebrows seem to be knitted in a permanent furrow. His lips reflect the same disposition, downturned and frowning. 

“You were going sixty five in a sixty.” He says, his voice deep and gruff. Harsh, but not unkind, she notes. Slowly, she turns to face him, placing her license in his outstretched palm. He glances at it for a moment, then two, before returning it to her. She thinks she saw his lips twitch into a slight smile before flickering to their original state. He ends up giving her a warning, telling her to slow down, especially when she had children in the car. She hadn’t even noticed that she’d gone over the speed limit, but she slowed down, just to ensure that she had no more difficulties. Thank God she hadn’t gotten a ticket, Cyro never would have let her live it down.

It wasn’t until March of 2000 did she realize exactly who that ‘friendly cop’ had truly been.

Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner.

—

JULY 27TH, 1999. 3:46AM.

IT’S LATE. Carson still hasn’t come home. She’s been looking at the clock multiple times a minute, trying to pretend she isn’t worried about how dark it is outside. About the fact that he’s been coming home later and later, if he comes home at all. If she doesn’t wake up to a phone call at 3am, telling her that he’s ‘staying at a friend’s house’. A lie so bad, it should be considered a crime. He’s been doing this lately, staying out as long as possible just to piss her off. Cyro sets their ‘curfews’ and since he’s on Carson’s side, he’ll do anything to help him wear her down. It’s been messing with her head lately. 

She’s not being overdramatic. Lanie knows what the things she does can do to a person. What they’ve done to her. How they’ve ruined her, to a degree, twisted her brain in ways she can’t even begin to untangle. 

The alleyway beside their house has always been quiet, especially at night. Aside from the occasional car driving by, it tends to be silent. So, naturally, when she hears voices outside, she is inclined to check it out. Slowly, she creeps to the safe where she keeps her gun, unlocking it swiftly and making sure she still has bullets. Good.

Lanie hopes that all she’s hearing is Carson, coming home and knocking things over like an idiot. Like he used to do, when he still came home at a reasonable hour and was reasonably nice to her. No such luck, though, because upon peering out the window next to their side door, she can see three figures standing just almost out of view. She’s about to close the blinds when she spots a familiar head of curls. Fuck.

Carson Elliot is going behind her back, in front of her house. In front of her face, actually, because apparently he’s not smart enough to call her beforehand; pretend he’s somewhere safe before engaging in dangerous activities.

Her rage, however, hits her all at once when she notices who he’s talking to.

Ace.

No fucking way. He wouldn’t dare. 

Ace, or Jason, is notorious within her community for all the wrong reasons. He sells drugs to children. He cheats on all of his girlfriends. He cheated on her. He’s been arrested. He almost destroyed everything by being a rat. He lets everyone else take the fall for things he’s done. He rips people off. He puts lives in danger without a second thought. He’s seventeen years old. He’s a fucking idiot. He’s all of these things, she’s warned Carson about him multiple times—

Oh. He’s doing this to spite her.

The little shit.

She throws the door open. Immediately, she’s yelling— no, screaming at all three of them. They haven’t seen her face, not yet, but she knows that two of the three men know exactly who she is. 

In that moment, Lanie doesn’t care about causing a scene. 

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Carson?” Carson whips around, stepping towards her before Ace motions for him to stay put. 

She stops there, seething. She’s sure her face is bright red. One of the men laughs— actually fucking laughs at her— and puts his hand on Carson’s shoulder. He’s doubled over, wheezing.

She doesn’t think she’s felt more anger— pure, undiluted fury— in her life. Ever.

“You’re really gonna let a girl tell you what to do, man?”

Oh. That’s what this is about. She watches him snicker, a sense of calm settling over her as she takes one step forward, allowing herself to be illuminated by the moonlight. Upon seeing her face, recognizing it, the third man steps backwards. His eyes widen.

She can identify him too, now, as Alec Whitman. He’s not new to this shit, he’s been around since before she joined. But, she notices the switch in his face. He’s scared of her, she realizes. It’s not an uncommon occurrence, most people who are in Cyro’s orbit are at least wary of her. They’ve heard the horror stories. Unlike Ace, Alec has enough brains in his head to turn and walk away. Ace scoffs at him. She hears Alec mutter “hell no” when Ace beckons him back. He sighs.

With Alec out of the way, she sets her sights back on Carson. He’s still bright red, but has somehow mustered the courage to glare at her. Hell. Fucking. No. 

“Mais qu'est-ce que tu crois faire, putain?’ She says it (yells it) with such vitriol that it makes him recoil. The French seems to catch him off guard. Good. Ace just looks amused, but that’s fine. She’ll take care of him later.

Lanie grabs Carson’s arm, whirling around to drag him inside, still yelling at him. She stops before she tosses him inside the house, motioning for Ace to stay right where he shrugs. He just shrugs and pulls out a cigarette. Whatever. She just needs to make sure Car is inside, safe.

Now she has to deal with Ace. 

She slams the door behind her, not caring about the shout that comes from one of their next door neighbours. She’s fucking furious, she can barely contain it—

“What’s got your panties in a twist?”

She smacks the cigarette out of his hand, stomping it out with her boot. Grinding it to dust beneath her heel, exactly what she’s going to do to him—

He lights another.

She does the same thing.

“You are going to leave Carson alone, or I will shoot you myself.” Her voice is steady, but full of rage. He just laughs.

“He’s old enough to be involved, Lanie.” He says the name in a mocking tone, one that makes her consider shooting him with the gun she has in her waistband. She refrains, only because she refuses to give Cyro any more ammunition to declare her unfit to make decisions for Carson. She’s not unfit, she’s just angry. There’s a difference.

“He’s a kid.”

“So were you.”

She’s different. She’s not Carson. She was never a child, not in the same way that he is. He has light inside him, a kind of light that she could never dream of possessing. She’s always been angry. In fact, Lanie cannot remember a time where she was not full of rage. But Carson… he has a chance. One that she never had. She refuses to let him throw it away; join her down here in the disaster that is the life she has.

“That’s different,” she says firmly. She’s not going to budge. 

Ace scoffs. “I watched you shoot a guy in the face when you were thirteen. The kid can handle selling some drugs.”

“Tu lui donnes les drogues?!”

“Calm down.” Oh, calm down?! He wants her to calm down?? Hell no, she can’t be calm, not when he’s—

“It’s just cocaine.” JUST COCAINE?

“Possession of cocaine with intent to sell— in fact, possession alone— is a serious felony!” She’s in his face now, and he’s giving her that look, the one he always gave her when they were together— the one that meant he thought she was being dramatic.

“So is murder, Angel.”

“Call me that again and see how fast I shoot your dick off.”

“Okay, feisty. I like that.” He smirks at her, but returns his face to neutral when her hand drifts towards the gun in her waistband. He raises his hands in the air in false surrender.

“I am going to kill you if you go near him ever again. Do you understand?”

Ace just walks away, leaving her standing there. She thinks about chasing after him, making sure he understands— but there’s no way in hell she’s willing to leave Carson alone in the house, not after the shit he’s pulled. 

So, against her better judgement, Lanie walks back inside the house.

—

JULY 27TH, 1999. 4:06AM.

“TU ES STUPIDE, TU SAIS? QU’EST-CE QUE TU CROIS, À SORTIR AVEC LES GARÇONS COMME EUX?” Carson doesn’t even look at her. His eyes are glued to the floor, but she notices a backpack next to him. She hopes it’s not what she thinks it is, but she knows she’s right. Ace gave him cocaine. He’s fourteen. That’s a felony, if he gets caught. Punishable by a minimum of ten years in prison, life if his negligence causes anyone’s death. It could be shortened to five if he flips on Ace and Alec, but Carson wouldn’t do that. He’s stupid, but he hasn’t got a single traitorous bone in his body.

“I’m not stupid. I’m doing what’s best for me.”

“Oh, believe me when I say that you have no clue about what’s best for you.”

He looks at her. Really looks at her, with an expression she’s never seen him wear before. It’s something, she’s sure of it, like regret and disappointment rolled into one. 

He sucks in a deep breath. She waits there, hands on her hips, ready to hear whatever excuse he thinks he has for pulling this shit. No matter how ready she thought she was, Lanie is entirely unprepared for the words that come out of Carson’s mouth.

“I want to be like you.” It’s vulnerable. He still won’t look at her. It would have been sweet, if by ‘like you’ he hadn’t meant part of a mob. 

She says the only thing she can think of. “No, you don’t.” She scoffs. The way his face falls makes her feel slightly bad, but for the most part, Lanie is still angry.

“I do!” He shouts. “I want to be like you. I want to do what you do, I know what I’m doing!”

“No, you don’t!” She retorts. “You don’t know what it’s like, how much I’ve protected you from—”

“You’re not my mother, that isn’t your job! I don’t need you to protect me, Lanie, I can do it myself—”

Not his mother? That’s true, technically, she’s more like a sister. But still, it stings the same. And protect himself? What is he thinking? He doesn’t know what he’s doing, that’s good. He’s naive. He doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into, but she does, and he won’t fucking listen. He just won’t listen.

“Your mother is high and drunk most of the time, she’s not exactly good at making decisions, is she now?!” He stops. He looks at her, eyes wide, and she realizes that she’s basically insinuated that he was a mistake. That’s not what she meant, but he doesn’t see that. Instead, she gets to watch as his face hardens.

“Oh, and you are? You’re good at making decisions? You don’t go to school, your only work experience is completely illegal, and you’re on a fast track to prison. So respectfully, Lanie, I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. You spend half your day drinking and smoking on a rooftop, for fucks sake, with the girl you think we’re all are none the wiser about. We know. It’s obvious.”

Shit.

She hadn’t been nearly as good at hiding Kally as she thought she had. 

No. 

No, no, no, no.

She can see it now; slipping through her fingers. The illusion shatters on the floor like glass, scattering across the tiles.

She freezes. He does, too, as if he’s just processed what he said. The look on his face tells her that he wishes he could take it back.

“I mean, come on.” He says softly. “Did you really think we couldn’t tell? We’re not stupid, Lanie.”

They know.

No, no, no.

She can feel her heart racing, reverberating in her eardrums—

“It’s not a big deal, we—”

“Do whatever the fuck you want, Carson. I don’t care anymore.” Her voice is hoarse. Worn down, from the yelling and this grand reveal. They know. They knew the whole time, and they didn’t even bother telling her. Did Ace know? Did he know it had been happening since before they were together? Did they know what she really was, what she had been all this time, did they—

They both sit in the painful, ugly silence. Carson had won, but from the look on his face, she knew he didn’t consider it a victory.

He had broken her, at last.

—

AUGUST 4TH, 1999. 3:28AM.

“CARSON KNOWS.” She’s been sitting on this for a long time, waiting to tell her when it felt right. Kally knew something was wrong, she could tell, but not that it was this. She shot upright. “Are you serious? How long has he known?”

Lanie couldn’t look at her. “A long time. He just… he just didn’t want to say anything, I guess. I don’t know why.” The quiet hangs in the air between them, blanketing the two girls in something that felt a lot like shame. Or anger. Or sadness.

Or all three. 

She doesn’t speak for a few minutes. Lanie sits down next to her, dangling her legs over the edge like she always does.

“Do you think Cyro knows?”

Lanie scoffs, taking a drag from her cigarette. “Probably.”

More silence.

“How long have you known?”

She doesn’t answer right away. She lets the question linger, unsure of how to answer. How could she answer? She knows exactly how long she has known for; eight days. She opts to ignore the question entirely, instead airing her concerns about Carson’s newfound role within their circle. The thrill of it hasn’t  yet worn off, but she hasn’t really spoken to him since their argument. 

“I’m worried about Carson.”

Kally spins to face her, her face red and contorted with anger. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’ve known for over a week, and you didn’t tell me?!”

Kally’s smart, she’s just put two and two together. Lanie had gone to her that day, crying, telling her about everything that had happened, everything except for what had broken her. That had been fine, at the time, Kally had respected her decision to keep it undisclosed, because that’s who she is. 

She knows exactly how long it has been.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t— I wasn’t ready, I was still—”

“You don’t get to not be ready,” Kally hisses, “-especially when it directly involves me! Do you think they all know?”

Lanie pauses. “That’s what he said.” Her eyes remain downturned, fixated on the hundred feet that separates her from the ground. It feels like there’s a pit in her stomach. Guilt, maybe. 

“Fuck!”

And then, softer, “You were supposed to tell me if anything like this happened. I trusted you to tell me if anyone found out.” 

“I’m sorry!” Defensive. Defensiveness is better for her, it always has been. “I wanted to tell you, Kally. I really did.”

She makes the mistake of eye contact, and it makes her want to throw up. Her mouth feels like it’s full of ash. She puts the cigarette out on the concrete, the smell of it in the air suddenly making her nauseous. Lanie watches intently as the butt spirals down, down, down, until she can no longer see it.

Hurt. It’s written all over Kally’s face. Devastating, aching hurt. She wishes she could take it back, tell her sooner, and for a moment, she thinks Kally might be about to break up with her.

Instead, she just puts her head in her hands.

“What are we going to do?” She asks, her voice soft and broken. Lanie wishes she could give her an answer, but she can’t. She doesn’t have one. Guilt, guilt, guilt. What have you done?

“I don’t know.” She admits.

Kally looks at her. Scared. She’s scared, and it’s then that Lanie realizes it. She’s scared, too. “Well, we can’t stay here.” Kally finally says. Her voice is firm. Harsh. Authoritative.

“What are you talking about?” Lanie asks, the panic finally settling in. She can’t mean that. Either way, Lanie will refuse. She needs to take care of Carson, and Liam, and Isnya, and Marley, and—

Herself?

She’s not going to just abandon them; especially not Carson. He needs her to be there for him. If she leaves, he’ll be all on his own; twice as likely to get himself killed because he won’t be able to call her for help. There will be no one to get Marley and Isnya to school, to go to interviews because Cyro can’t. Their entire lives will fall apart.

“We can’t do that.”

Kally spins around to face her. “What do you mean? We can’t stay here, you know that.”

“The kids.” That’s all she has to say. Kally’s face falls. Slowly, she slumps down, sitting beside her on the edge of the roof. Clearly, she hadn’t thought of that. 

“Fuck, man…” she trails off. Her eyes are scanning the ground, like the solution to their problem is written on the concrete. If only.

“I’m not going to abandon them,” Lanie says softly. “-and something tells me that you won’t either.”

Kally nods solemnly. That’s fair. This is fine, it’s all fine. They will be fine, everything will be fine, nothing can ever hurt them, because they’re invincible. They’re stupid and they’re kids and they’re fine and—

Nothing’s about to happen to them. This will blow over, it’ll just take time. She has time. Both her and Kally have lots of it, too much, actually. They’re young; they have an abundance of time.

Who is she kidding? Definitely not herself, and definitely not Kally.

“Mari could take them,” Kally says quietly. But they both know that won’t work, Kally’s only throwing it out there because she’s desperate. Lanie laughs, actually laughs. It’s bitter and loud, a stark difference from the quiet that had accumulated on the rooftop. “Are we talking about the same Mari?” She has to blink tears out of her eyes, she’s laughing so hard. 

Kally scowls. “It was an idea,” she says. Lanie falls quiet, taking a deep breath.

“I know.” Lanie tilts her head to look up at the stars, of the few that still blink in the night sky, despite the city light shining beneath them. 

“I know.”

—

SEPTEMBER 26TH, 1999. 5:16AM

IT’S LANIE’S BIRTHDAY. Not really her birthday, she doesn’t know when she was born— but it’s the day she chose regardless. The day she pointed out on a calendar, chose to be hers. September 26th. Later in the year, she knows, just bordering on when the temperature begins to drop. She doesn’t know why she picked today all these years ago, but she did. 

She’s been sleeping on the couch since August. She’s given Kally the bed, and has taken to sleeping in the living room. It’s to divert suspicion about her and Kally, yes, but it’s also because she wants to make sure Carson is safe. They haven’t spoken much lately, but she wakes up whenever she comes home, no matter the hour. The side door opens, and so do her eyelids. Most of the time, it’s because she hasn’t fallen asleep yet, but even if she has, the sound of the latch rattling forces her awake. It’s automatic, she thinks. 

Lanie doesn’t remember their last real conversation. Mostly, their interactions have consisted of her berating him for doing something stupid and getting himself hurt, or fixing him a plate of food because he can barely stand. She’s stopped going out at night because she’s too worried he’s bleeding out in an alley somewhere.

So, of course, even though it’s her birthday (kind of), even though it’s five in the morning, even though he has school today, and they should be asleep— the routine remains the same. She hears the door open, and stands up.

He has a black eye. 

Fuck.

“Tu as perdu?” Did you lose? She asks, keeping her tone neutral. He gives her a small smile, shaking his head. Despite herself, despite her disappointment, she grins. She’s already opening the microwave, heating up the pasta she’d made earlier for everyone else. She sets two bowls on the table carefully so as to not wake anyone. 

He’s okay. For the most part, for now, he’s alive. Lanie allows herself to drop her shoulders for the first time since he left, which was ten hours ago.

She’s supposed to be angry.

“Tu as l’air blessé.” You look hurt. She tries not to let pride seep through into her voice, but it’s there anyway. When he hears it, he gives her a grin. 

“You should see the other guy,” he chuckles, eyeing the bowl hungrily as she scoops pasta into it.

She has to shatter this now. She doesn’t want to, but she has to. She can’t keep doing this, nearly giving herself a heart attack worrying about him for hours every night. 

“You’re being irresponsible.” His fork stops halfway to his mouth, the sound of pasta dropping back into a bowl the only sound in the silent room.

“I thought we talked about this already.” His tone is pleading. He’s exhausted. He doesn’t want to have this conversation; neither does she, but it has to be had.

“I’m not going to stop having it until it sinks in.” She punctuates the words by slamming the fridge doors shut. He looks annoyed, guilty, and tired. She knows he’s tired. He’s been tired consecutively since August, since they fought. Since she relented. 

“You don’t need to wait for me.” Carson says. His voice is cold, devoid of all the warmth it held minutes prior. That’s how this works; he comes home, they fight, he storms off. He needs to know that she’ll never approve of this. Never. Maybe it’s hypocritical; she doesn’t care.

“I need to make sure you’re alive.” 

He scoffs. “That’s not what this is about. You’re just being petty.” He tosses his bowl and spoon into the sink, making his way towards the staircase. She can’t let him go.

“Wait.” She says.

He pauses. Carson turns around, looking at her. Really looking. She looks at him back. He’s gotten visibly older; taller too. Taller than her, to be exact. She can see the void behind his eyes, the absence of childhood that was there a month and a half ago. 

He’s different.

“What?” He says boredly, leaning against the wall beside him and yawning.

“I’m always going to be here.” She says. Her tone is flat. No affection; her voice and her words do not match. He looks surprised, like that wasn’t what he was expecting her to say. It’s enough to make him come back into the kitchen, sitting down on the stool. Looking at her. Listening. 

She sucks in a breath. “When I was your age,” she says, “I did this all on my own. I came home. Got food. Passed out on the floor before I could even make sure I’d locked the door. No one was there to make sure I wasn’t dead.”

She sits on the couch. He moves with her. She laughs darkly before continuing.

“I mean, sure. Cyro would have noticed the next day if I wasn’t there, but…” she trails off, taking a moment to collect herself before she keeps going. “I was alone. The first time I fell through a window, yes, the first time, it’s happened more than once,” she confirms after seeing the look on his face upon hearing her say the first time, “I came home and spent hours picking glass out of my hands. On my own. No matter how angry I am,” she takes another deep breath. His face is indistinguishable. “I’m not going to do that to you. You’re not alone.”

He’s speechless. He doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. She waits for him to respond. She remembers that night very clearly. It hurt. It hurt so much. She’d tried to call Cyro, but he’d been out doing something she couldn’t recall.

He’s just opening his mouth to speak when a flash of white hot pain in her leg pulls her into darkness.

—

Chapter Text

A SCREAM TORE THROUGH HER THROAT. She turned her head frantically, searching for Carson, the couch, her house— hell, she’d settle for Ace— but there was nothing. Fuck. Her head hurt; she felt like she’d been submerged underwater. Her eyesight wasn’t much better; she could barely make out the shapes in the room or the cellar, or— well, wherever she was.

Cipher was about to try to stand when she heard it. A low growl.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. The dog. The starving dog, the one who had been quite literally trained to kill humans. The one that was hungry, separated from her only by a pile of debris. Now that she thought about it, really, she resembled the victims in a way. Same hair colour, eyes…

Fuck. She was going to die there, in a cellar, surrounded by rotted wood and blood. Shit.

Panic ripped at her body. Memories slid around inside her head, playing over one another and blurring into one. She couldn’t think, she had no defense, she—

She felt something sharp sink into her leg. Teeth. 

She had no way to defend herself. That dog was trained to go for the throat; to kill as fast as possible. It wouldn’t waste time attacking her, it would just bite her once and be done with her. 

She really wished she had a gun. 

She screamed again, the sound of it making her wince. It was loud. She needed help. God, her head hurt. She couldn’t think, her vision was fading again—

Don’t pass out. For the love of God, Cipher, if you pass out, I will kill you. She thought. She heard sounds coming from above her, footsteps, probably— but when they opened the door, she heard herself shout. Huh. She didn’t remember authorizing words to come out of her mouth. 

“Don’t come down! The stairs are rotted!” She didn’t know she had it in her to sound so put together, not when her body and brain felt like mush.

The dog tugged on her leg. She felt a rush of pain explode through her body, and against her will, screamed again.

When the dog let go, she could see it in his eyes.

He was going to kill her. 

She was going to die.

Quickly, she pushed her hands around her, desperately trying to find something she could use to defend herself. Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out. Do not pass out. DO NOT PASS OUT.

Her fingers grazed something solid; heavy. A piece of wood, maybe? It didn’t crumble with the softest touch, so it would have to do.

She raised it above her head, feeling a twisted ache in her shoulder. Fuck. She gritted her teeth, getting the slightest bit of relief (and guilt) as the dog winced in pain. But it wasn’t enough. The wooden board had split in two upon impact; now useless. She had nothing. 

Cipher braced herself to be bitten again—

A shot rang out. The dog slumped to the floor with a cry, and she glanced up to see whose gun the bullet belonged to.

Spencer Reid.

For a second, everything between them was peaceful. She laid there, eyes flickering between him and the dog in shock; him staring at her as though he could decipher her injuries with his eyes alone. The harshness (and worry?) of his gaze was disarming, to say the least.

“I was handling it.” The halo around his head disappeared as he processed her words, his features quickly shifting into a scowl.

“Sure. You definitely were. You weren’t about to die, or anything. Nuh uh, you had it in the bag.” The sarcasm in his voice was sharper than she’d ever heard from him before. She rolled her eyes in response, tilting her head upwards to avoid the look he was giving her.

She felt like a screw that had been stripped raw; all her emotions on display for him to see. 

The haze around her consciousness returned as she struggled to stand. She felt blood drip from her face onto her white shirt. 

Oh. She’d have to clean that later. 

The side door (where Reid had entered) burst open again, this time with Prentiss and Hotchner appearing in the doorway. The latter of the two’s faces were twisted with confusion and worry; the former only sporting the latter in the former—

Her brain might be broken, she thinks. 

Hotchner said something to Reid, who responded  and then he repeated himself to Prentiss, who glanced at her and then—

She can barely feel her body as she’s hoisted up in Reid’s arms. Her voice says something again, maybe in protest. She’s not quite sure. 

She does, however, know exactly what he’s doing when he flicks her nose. She’d retaliate if she could move her arms.

Sunlight spills across her vision as Reid pushes the door open once more. She’s not exactly able to support herself, given the open wound on her leg, so Spencer’s still touching her. She’s about to think about how it feels, and then refuses to. 

But it’s so warm. Too bad they hate each other.

No, that’s not Reid. He doesn’t look like Reid, he looks like… like Car. Why does he look like Car?

Oh. Her vision is fuzzy again, and in that moment, in the light, that’s who she sees.

Her voice acts up again. “Carson?”

And then everything goes black.

—

CIPHER WAKES UP IN A HOSPITAL. AGAIN. She’s not sure exactly how many times this has happened, but knows it’s far too many for her liking. To her absolute and utter surprise, though, this time is different. Upon opening her eyes, she notices that she is not alone. And, in addition to this shocking revelation, she realizes exactly who the body in the room belongs to.

None other than Penelope Garcia. Holding a chocolate cupcake with vanilla frosting, one unlit candle on the top.

Shit. Is it the 26th already? She hadn’t even realized. She also didn’t know how Garcia knew, but given the blonde woman’s ability to obtain classified information… Cipher was concerned, but not surprised. 

Slowly, she lifts her head to look at Penelope, eyes darting between her and the cupcake as though she could make it disappear with her eyes alone. 

Cipher hates birthdays. She always has. In fact, now that she’s actively thinking about it, she can’t remember a single birthday. 0-9 is untouchable, she can’t recall anything from that time period. 9-16 was… messy, to say the least. She had celebrations, sure, but not really. 16-20 again, messy. She doesn’t even think she told any of the therapists or psychiatrists her name, let alone her birthday. 20-25 has been uneventful; she never told the team when the day was exactly. Just said that it was ‘sometime in the fall’ and she ‘didn’t like celebrating’. Technically not lies, but not entirely true either. 

Garcia has a hopeful look on her face. God damn it, fuck her comfort. She’s getting too soft, really. She should refuse any and all attempts to celebrate. But she can’t deny Garcia, especially not when she’s so happy about it. Or when Cipher’s this hungry. A cupcake couldn’t hurt, right?

“Hey,” she rasps.

“Oh! You’re awake!” Cipher winces at the volume of her voice. To her credit, the blonde immediately takes a step back, muttering a (thankfully) softer apology. 

She watches in horror as Garcia’s face shifts into something different. Something sharp; quizzical. It’s going to be the dreaded question, she is but a passenger in her own body when the words breach the barrier between thought and sound—

“So, why didn’t you tell us it was your birthday?” Well, that’s a loaded question. She knew it was coming, Penelope Garcia loves to go all out for birthdays, after all. Now that she’s missed five of Cipher’s, she wants to know why. In that moment, Cipher wishes she could simply disappear entirely. She’s always been good at confrontation, that’s not the issue— more so that Garcia is not someone she wants to confront. She’s too nice, and also quite terrifying, if you asked Cipher. That woman could un-classify even the most classified of government documents. If she wanted to, she’d probably be able to find her case file, too. 

Garcia doesn’t say it like an accusation. If anything, she sounds hurt, which makes Cipher want to die. She says it like she wants a real answer, not whatever bullshit lies Cipher has fed them about her dramatic escape from the constraints of the womb. Which is fine, but no matter what she says, she’s technically lying. 

“I didn’t think it was important.” Did she select the correct answer? Who knows.

Garcia gasps. “Not important? Of course it’s important. You’re important, and it’s a marker of life that only comes once a year, so why—”

Cipher tries to listen to the rest of Garcia’s spiel, but God, her whole body hurts, all she wants is to go back to sleep, and on top of all that, she’s nearly 100% certain that she’ll get a rabies shot. For safety. 

“I’m so sorry. You’re probably tired, and in pain, and it’s very inconsiderate of me to just— you know what, I can leave. Sorry.”

“It’s fine, Pen. You can stay. Besides,” she says, shifting carefully to avoid hurting herself (she ends up hurting herself anyway) in order to sit up straight. “I have a concussion, so I’m not supposed to go back to sleep yet.” She yawns, a soft chuckle slipping out as she exhales. “Doesn’t mean my body isn’t gonna stop trying, though, so talk away.”

Pen grins, dragging the chair forward and angling it to face Cipher’s hospital bed. She slips a lighter from the pocket of her dress— blue with black and white spots— flicking it on and bringing it towards the wick of the candle. The yellow and blue flame sparks to life, little puffs of wispy smoke drifting out into the room. She’s greeted with the candle smell, one that she quite enjoys, actually. (So long as it’s not scented.) 

There’s no song and dance, but it still feels… special. Nice. Like something she can tuck away within the depths of her heart for safekeeping. Like a beacon, saying see? You can have nice things.

You can have nice things.

A pang of something else shoots through her body, something sad and lonely. She missed this, this feeling of happiness. It was something that, oddly enough, she feels bad for experiencing. Kally and Car and Isnya and Liam and Marley aren’t here, that’s why. 

But she pushes that to the back of her mind, focusing on the flickering flame in front of her. She blows it out, smiling as she watches the tip of the wick curl inwards as the fire disappears.

Cipher smiles as Penelope plucks the candle from the cupcake, coated in icing and somewhat melted wax. She discards it in the trash can next to the bed with a soft thud. Slowly, Cipher peels back the wrapper, crumbs dusting her lap. They’ll be annoying to sleep in later (she’s assuming the hospital will keep her overnight) but she’ll deal with that then. A problem for future Ci, if you will. 

When did she start calling herself Ci?

The cake is great; delicious, even. But there’s one thing that’s bugging her. How did Penelope know which one to get? She’s never so much as spoken about desserts in front of the team, let alone told them her favourite flavour.

“Hey, Pen? How did you know which cupcake was my favourite?” She asks. She expects a laugh, an ‘I just guessed!’ , anything but the words that leave Penelope Garcia’s mouth.

“Oh, Reid told me.”

—

UNFORTUNATELY, THE CONVERSATION WITH GARCIA WASN’T THE LAST SHE HEARD OF REID THAT DAY. To her utter contempt, Spencer Reid had been tasked with watching over her for the night. Perhaps it’s a cruel joke from the universe, another middle finger to add to the assortment of ‘fuck you’’s she’s received from life so far. It’s really just Aaron Hotchner deciding that proximity breeds indifference instead of resentment, but she decides to go with the former instead. It’s more fun, more accurate.

They’re already holed up in a shitty motel room two blocks from the hospital. Apparently, this arrangement is for convenience. Cipher decides that the team collectively agreed that: 1. Nobody wanted to deal with her being in a shitty mood, which is fair. She wouldn’t want to deal with herself either. And number 2: This way, if she ends up murdering Spencer during the night, no one will be woken up by his screaming, which is also entirely fair.

Really, she’s leaning more towards the second option at the moment. She’s exhausted. Spencer is talking (as per usual), and her head is pounding. Which is why, when she pushes open the door to their room (all on her own, despite the fact that she can barely walk), she considers simply dropping to the ground like a beached whale and giving up. 

There’s one, (1), SINGULAR (as in one, if it wasn’t clear enough already) bed.

Oh, may the gods smite her. In fact, she’s sure they’re laughing at her right now. Tossing a coin, deciding which misfortune they’ll bestow upon her next.

Spencer looks gobsmacked. Entirely confused, completely red in the face. He scans the room carefully, as though he can simply will another bed to appear. Honestly, if he did, she’s not sure it would surprise her.

She composes herself, plastering an indifferent smirk on her face. “Come on, pretty boy,” she quips. “Are you implying that you don’t want to sleep with me?”

“That’s exactly what I’m implying, yes.” He retorts. “It’s quite impressive, given your lack of profiling skills. It’s good to see you’re qualified, I was beginning to doubt your skillset.”

She rolls her eyes. 

“My skillset. Might I remind you that I figured out who the second unsub was in Alaska, not you. So really, I’m the one who should be questioning you.” She gives him a sly smile, depositing her towel and toiletries on the left side of the bed. Morgan had recovered her things from the original motel the team had been staying at so she could rest.

“You only figured it out because of my note!” He exclaims.

“Semantics.” He whips his head around to face her, outrage scrawled across his features. Cipher, on the other hand, is absolutely delighted with herself. Gleeful, even. 

“You’re trying to piss me off,” he notes, as though the thought just occurred to him. Good, she was beginning to wonder when he’d realize that she’d been baiting him.

“Glad you finally noticed, profiler.” 

He doesn’t say anything after that. She enjoys the peace for a few minutes, feeling her eyes drift shut—

Cipher’s almost-sleep is interrupted by a sharp jab from a bony finger. Now it’s her turn to whip her head around, glaring, and Spencer’s to grin like an evil lunatic. She considers insulting him, just to watch his face change, but decides not to. To preserve what she has left of her peace of mind, not because it’s kind of adorable. Well, it is, but she can acknowledge both things at once. Two things can be true. Oh, she’s figured it out. It’s cute that he thinks he has the upper hand, but in a patronizing way. The concussion must be really getting to her.

Right.

“You’ve still got an hour left before you can sleep.” Spencer says it in a tone that makes Cipher sincerely consider making good on her promise to knock all his teeth out. He’d be so much prettier if he couldn’t talk. He’s positively giddy. She might cry (or commit first degree murder) if she doesn’t get to sleep right now. Maybe that’s the concussion talking, though.

The smug look on Reid’s face doesn’t dissipate until she turns the TV on. Then, the mask slips, and they’re just two people watching TV. It’s nice and uncomfortable at the same time, somehow. She’s too tired to egg him on, too tired to keep up the facade of hostility she’s maintained for so long. It was a facade in the beginning, at least. When she joined the team two years ago, she needed it. She didn’t trust these people; not when everyone she’d ever looked up to ended up being pure evil. Especially Dr. Reid, with his big brown eyes and effortlessly disastrous hair. But now that she knows him…

She actually does hate him. It’s not a facade anymore, the resentment to fuel her actions finally has a source to leech off of. 

She feels her head dip, resting on something hard. Her cheek scrapes against fabric that feels suspiciously like a cardigan.

Spencer looks at her quizzically. “Are you sure the doctors said your brain was salvageable?”

And there it is. She’s not sure why she ever doubted her hatred for Spencer Reid. 

She just rolls her eyes, and returns her head to its original position. 

—

THEY SPEND HER FINAL HOUR WATCHING TV. Well, it’s not her final hour as in before her death, but rather before she can sleep like she’s dead for the next ten hours. When it’s time, they say their goodbyes. She slips herself under the covers entirely, head and all. The air is hot, it usually is when she sleeps like this. But she’s cozy, and she’s almost out cold when a wave of frigid air attacks her face. When she manages to pry her eyes open, drink in the face of whoever committed this heinous crime against her—

Of course, it’s Spencer. He’s glaring at her. He’s judging her, she can tell that much from the intensity of his gaze. Specks of moonlight illuminate his face in chunks, the effect created by the tattered state of the curtains. He looks almost ethereal in this light, she thinks. 

“If you die, Hotch will kill me.” 

She furrows her brow in confusion and irritation, wondering for a moment if she’s dreaming. But she’s not, that much is made abundantly clear when his knee bumps into hers. 

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Elevated levels of carbon dioxide can cause serious brain damage if exposure is long-lasting. Forgive me for caring about your health.”

“You’re forgiven.” She returns to her original state, ignoring the indignant noise that exits Spencer as she refuses to comply. 

It takes thirty seconds for Spencer to remove her blanket. Again. This time, he looks even more determined. She didn’t think that was possible, but alas. Here she is. 

“Why the fuck do you care about what happens to me?” She asks boredly. He rolls his eyes, as though she’s annoying him with the question alone. Very typical Spencer behaviour; causing a situation and then acting like a child when the other person matches his energy. 

“As I’ve stated before, personally, it doesn’t matter to me. However, for whatever reason, the people on our team care about you. I’ve been entrusted with your safety. I’m not going to let them down.” She looks at him incredulously. 

“I’m not listening to you.” Cipher tries to pull the blanket over her head, but Spencer’s holding it in his hands. She’s not going to give in; she would have considered it if he asked nicely (she wouldn’t have) but he didn’t. So fuck him.

She finally manages to yank it from his grasp, returning to her perfect sleep conditions at last. Her victory is short lived, though, because Spencer has created a small oxygen pocket for her to breathe out of. It ruins the atmosphere, but she’s too tired to keep fighting him.

The last thing she hears before falling asleep is Spencer muttering about a ‘compromise’.

—

THE NIGHTS ARE COLD. Lanie knows this firsthand, which is why she’s worried about Car. It’s one of those nights, where the air is cold and heavy. Where the frost bites at you; unforgiving if you’re out for long enough. Even here, where it’s objectively warm, the cold still claims people each year. Stupid, ignorant idiots who think that luck can outlast a bitter freeze.

Today, it seems, Carson is one of those idiots. She’s been waiting for hours for him to come home. She hasn’t slept a wink— how can she, knowing he might be dead? It’s a gamble every night, yes, but tonight especially. 

Kally doesn’t like that she’s been sleeping on the couch. She’s tolerated it for this long, yes, but only because Lanie was still sleeping. Now? She barely rests at all. She’s stuck all night waiting, waiting for someone who might never come home. It’s nerve wracking. 

The wind whistles around the corner of the house, making a shrill whistling sound as it scrapes along the brick. 

Lanie hears the stairs groan. Someone’s coming down. She whips her head towards the staircase, grimacing as a familiar pair of slippers comes into view. Kally. “You should be asleep.” Lanie says. Her voice is weak. Tired. Exhausted. She blinks, unsure if Kally’s really there, or if she’s just hallucinating. Anything is possible when you’re running off two hours of sleep. Kally’s real, though, that much is made obvious by the look of absolute ‘are you serious’ on her face. She’d never be able to recreate it perfectly with her mind alone.

The look shifts into something oddly like concern after she gets a look at Lanie. She’s barely keeping her eyes open. The couch is uncomfortable, but she made a promise. Lanie doesn’t break her promises. 

The wind hollers in protest as she moves to make space for Kally to sit next to her. 

“You need to sleep.”

She does. Kally isn’t wrong, per se, but she can’t. She won’t. She needs to be awake; ready in case something happens. God forbid something happens.

“Car needs me more, Kal.”

“You’re useless to him if you can’t stand up straight, Lanie.” Another thing that is technically right; another truth she elects to ignore. 

“I’m never useless.”

“You are right now.”

Lanie’s close to crying now. She knows this isn’t sustainable; that going out into the field like this could very well get her killed. But damn it, she made a promise. She’s going to keep it. 

When Kally drags her to her feet, she doesn’t protest. She leans into it, she’s so tired. One night never hurt anyone.

The two make their way up the rickety staircase, careful and slow. Car will come home, but she won’t be there. The thought is almost enough to make her turn around, and while she does try, it isn’t enough. Kally won’t let her move if it isn’t up the stairs. She’ll be grateful for that tomorrow, she knows it. 

The door to their bedroom opens with a slow creak. Lanie nearly cries when she sees the mattress; it’s been over a month since she last allowed herself to rest here.

She collapses with a groan, her shoulders crying out in relief. Thank god. It’s nice, warm, and perfect. It’s making her even more tired; she didn’t think that was possible. 

Kally slides in beside her. The two pull the covers up, up, up, until there’s nothing left to hold; to see, except for each other.

That’s how she falls asleep, intertwined with the only girl she’s ever loved.

Love. She’s in love.

She’s so in love.

—

SPENCER WAKES UP FEELING UNUSUALLY HOT. And heavy, which is strange, because he keeps his weighted blanket at home; he never brings it with him on cases. The sensation is caused by none other than— oh. Wow.

Cipher. She’s half on top of him, still buried under the blanket, hair disheveled and face peaceful. He’s never seen her like this before, so… he doesn’t know what this is. He does, however, know that she will shoot him in the face if she wakes up like this. So, carefully, he shimmies out from under her, watching as her chest rises and falls. She’s sleep talking, though he can’t quite make out what she’s saying.

Talia, maybe? Somebody’s name, he can tell that much. Tally? 

She’s muttering now, something about a car. He sighs. It’s probably just gibberish, senseless sleep-talk. It would be kind of cute if it wasn’t her who was doing it. He pokes her once, twice, to see if she’ll stir. She doesn’t.

Ci looks so… calm. It’s disturbing. Maybe the carbon dioxide finally did her in, who knows. This isn’t his problem, he doesn’t know why he’s trying to make her comfortable. He should just leave her there; twisted up. Sure, it’ll hurt like hell tomorrow, but he can just sleep on the couch and forget about it. 

No, no he can’t.

Slowly, he untangles her arms and legs, careful not to wake her. He places her gently back on her side of the bed, clearing enough space for him to rest comfortably. He even pulls her blanket up over her head (with the air hole, of course, he was serious about that), just like how she said she liked it. He’s not entirely sure as to why he’s doing all of this. He doesn’t like her. He really, really doesn’t. Maybe it’s human decency, maybe that explains it. Maybe, at the end of the day, she’s still a person and deserves comfort. He saw the terror in her eyes; saw the way her life flashed before them. She thought she was going to die, he can cut her some slack for that. Just for today.

‘Just for today,’ he thinks as he stares up at the ceiling.

This means nothing.