#( case file: answers. ) understanding the motive helps build the profile.

[ghostofaformerself]

CASSANDRA ( @melpcmene ) asked for a consult FILE ID: super-powered themed prompts

‘get back! i could hurt you.’ ( from Cassandra !! )

     ❝NO. YOU WON'T.❞ it's stupid for her to be this close after murray's bitten cassandra, but rayne isn't going to let that stop her. she's tired of watching these people who've become her friends get picked off one by one. tired of having to leave them behind. not this time.

     with murray's bite it's different. blends are different and part of cassandra is still going to be present despite it all. rayne is going to do her damnedest to help cassandra still be as much of herself as possible.

     ❝i don't know what's going to happen, but we're going to figure this out.❞

[pastpatientlywaitingforimagines]

Wormhole | Spencer Reid x Reader Platonic

WC: 10k

A/N: This is a comfort fic disguised as a CM episode. Also, I had a lot of fun writing this.

WARNINGS: Kidnapping, murder, general CM things, hospitals, mentions of blood, psychopaths

You weren’t normally nervous to talk to Agent Aaron Hotchner. Sure, he was your boss, but he had also been leading the BAU for so long that you always trusted his reactions and motives. Still, the reason you had asked him to meet was so far out of left field that you were nervous he would tell you you were insane.

You were the first one in the office for the morning, perching on your desk in the empty bullpen while you waited for Hotch to arrive. You stood up when he entered the office, but waited to move until he made it to his office door and beckoned you to follow him inside.

“Good morning, (y/n).”

“Morning, Hotch,” you stood awkwardly in front of his desk, clutching the file in your hands.

“Please, sit. Is everything ok?” As soon as you made eye contact with him, your nerves settled. Everything about his behavior showed that he was genuinely concerned for you and interested in what you had to say. You took a deep breath, sliding the file onto his desk.

“I was looking into this cold case from the eighties, in Illinois. Mia-Rose Horn, 16, found murdered under a bridge. I have a theory, and I was hoping I could take a couple of days to go check it out.” You bit your lip while he picked up the file, thumbing through it.

“What’s your theory?”

“The only suspects considered were older transients in the area because the town was so biased against migrant workers. My preliminary research shows that the unsub profiles as younger, someone who knew the victim and her family personally. It feels like there’s a piece of the puzzle missing, and I think victimology can really help this case. I’d like to visit the dumpsite and walk the crime scene. I’d also like to go through the evidence to see if I can narrow it down a little more, and possibly do updated DNA analysis. I’ve already contacted the lead detective, he said it would be fine if I went out there.”

Hotch was quiet for a minute, reading the case information from the file. The longer you sat in silence, the more you feared he would say no. Finally, he closed the file and handed it back to you, “the FBI wasn’t invited in on this case when it was active, how did you find it?”

You blushed, hard. “I was watching a cold case documentary and when they talked about this one it just didn’t feel right, so I asked Garcia to pull the file. Once I looked it over more I realized my hunch was correct. They barely built a profile and the one they did make was wrong.”

“Do you work on cold cases often?”

“I’ve only worked on it when we don’t have an active case and I’m caught up on my paperwork, it makes me feel like I’m still making a difference when things are slow here.”

Hotch nodded, “you’re a good agent, (y/n). I trust that you’ll represent the BAU well. I can’t let you take the jet but you’re welcome to an SUV. However, as soon as we get an active case it takes priority. Do you understand?”

You stood up quickly, excitedly gripping at the file, “Yes sir, of course. Thank you so much. I promise I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t think I could do something. I won’t let you down, sir.” Hotch smiled softly at your energy. You had reached for the door handle before he spoke again, calling after you.

“(y/n),” you turned, hand still on the doorknob, “take Reid with you, I assume he knows the details of this case, too?” You nodded quickly, practically bouncing back to your desk with excitement. You checked the clock, Spencer would probably arrive in the next ten minutes or so, giving you time to arrange everything you’d need for the trip.

As soon as he stepped out of the elevator, you were waiting for him, go bag in hand.

“Hotch said you could go?”

“Not only that, he said you could come with me,” you smirked, falling in step next to him as he walked to his desk.

“Really?”

“We’re leaving now, so get your go bag.” You did a little happy dance as he started to gather his things.

“Ooh! Where are you going?” Penelope joined you at Spencer’s desk, hot cup of coffee in her hands.

“(y/n) is solving a cold case, we’re going out to Illinois to get more information.”

“The one I pulled for you? You actually solved it? Is there anything you can’t do?” Penelope asked in disbelief. Just last week she had explained to you why she was convinced you were a superhero.

You laughed brightly, “I don’t know if I can solve it yet, that’s why I need to go check it out for myself. Yes, I’ll call you if I need anything,” you answered when she opened her mouth to speak again. She hugged both you and Spencer before you left, making you promise you’d call her with updates and letting you know she’d call the detective to let him know you were on your way.

In true Spencer fashion, he had brought enough audiobooks to last the whole drive. You didn’t mind, your brain was more focused on driving. You didn’t talk about the case until you were nearing the end of the twelve hour road trip. Spencer was the one to bring it up, turning down the volume knob on the console.

“How are you feeling about this?”

“To be honest, Spence, I haven’t really been listening.”

“I meant about the case,” he chuckled.

“I’m trying not to get my hopes up. It’s been a cold case for over three decades for a reason, you know?”

“We wouldn’t be in Illinois right now if you weren’t on to something. Instincts exist for a reason, and your instincts are usually right.”

You fiddled with the air conditioning vents absentmindedly, “I don’t want to dredge up old wounds for the family and the town unless I’m absolutely certain I can bring some closure to them as well. The detective is the only person who knows we’re coming. I don’t want to start interviewing witnesses until I know I can do something to help.”

Spencer nodded, “I’ll follow your lead, you just tell me what you need.”

You spent the rest of the time discussing the details of the case, Spencer looking over the file again while you navigated to the police office. Having Spencer with you made you feel a lot better. You knew the case front to back, but this was your first time leading an investigation and you didn’t want to accidentally miss something in the file out of nervousness. Spencer’s eidetic memory and genius brain would keep you on track and ask you questions you knew would only help you in the grand scheme of things. Spencer was also your best friend, your biggest supporter. Any considerations he had would always come from a place of love and mutual respect.

When you arrived at the police station it was late in the evening, but the detective was waiting for you. He was an older man, tall and mostly bald.

“Hi, you must be Agent (y/l/n). Nice to finally meet you in person.”

“Detective Reeves, nice to finally meet you, too. This is my partner, Doctor Reid.” Spencer brought a hand up to wave. “Thanks for letting us take a look at this.”

“Thanks for making the drive out here. This case…” he sighed, “Mia-Rose went missing two months after I started this job and I’ve been hunting her killer ever since. It’s been thirty two years, a fresh pair of eyes will do this case good. It’ll do the whole town good if you can see somethin’ I haven’t.”

“We’ll see what we can do,” you said, not wanting to promise any results to him. “Is there a room we can set up in?”

“I’ve brought all of the evidence to our conference room. Use it for as long as you need.”

“Thanks,” you took off to the door that he had pointed at, Spencer on your heels. He shut the door behind you, dropping his bag on a chair while you picked up examination gloves.

The next few hours were spent meticulously going over the evidence that had been collected. You occasionally made comments to Spencer about where the item had come from and any notes that had already been documented about it.

The clock had just passed midnight when you were ready to move on to the next part of your investigation. You wanted to walk the dumpsite, but it would be useless to go while it was still dark. Instead, you retreated to a small motel at Spencer’s insistence that you needed sleep.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to shut my brain off enough to actually sleep,” you confessed once you were wearing sweatpants and leaning up against the headboard of the bed.

Spencer wandered out of the bathroom, giving you the softest look as he sat down next to you.

“What are you thinking about the most?”

“The evidence told me exactly what I thought it would, but I can’t build a decent mental picture of what happened until I see the dump site. What if I get there and it still doesn’t make sense? What if I’m in too deep on this one, Spence?”

“This case has been cold for thirty years, it can wait one more night. You are an incredible FBI agent. You’re an incredible human, at that. I know you can handle this, and Hotch knows you can handle this, too. If you aren’t able to solve it, you’re not letting anyone down. It’s been a cold case for a reason, I’m sure you’ll solve the next one.”

“Logically I know you’re right, but that isn’t making sleep happen any easier,” you sighed, sinking down onto a pillow. You could tell from Spencer’s expression that he had an idea when he reached up, turning off the lamp beside him and laying down next to you in the dark.

“This is called Image Distraction, all you have to do is close your eyes, try to relax, and listen to my voice.”

“Are you hypnotizing me?” you giggled into the darkness, feeling like a small kid at a sleepover with their best friend.

“No, it’s just a strategy to help you fall asleep. I’m going to describe a scene to you and the idea is that it takes up enough space in your brain to prevent you from re-engaging with other thoughts. Hypnosis doesn’t actually put you to sleep, just in a trance that seems like you’re sleeping. It’s been proven to help change habits and thoughts around sleeping though. There was a study done in 2010-”

“Is that what I’m supposed to be picturing? I’m seeing dudes in lab coats and creepy hospital walls.”

You felt the mattress shake next to you as Spencer laughed.

“No, that wasn’t it. I’m going to start now, picture a waterfall. As you walk closer it gets louder, pounding onto the rocks below it and spraying a mist into the air. The droplets of water stick to your face. You can see a rainbow that touches the pool at the base of the waterfall. The plants growing around the pool of water are greener than emeralds, bright and shining in the sun…”

That was the last thing you remembered him saying before succumbing to sleep. You had a very vivid dream while you were sleeping, not uncommon for someone in your field, but it wasn’t one you had had before.

There was a teenage girl walking in front of you down a long hallway. You instantly recognized her as Mia-Rose. She turned around every so often, beckoning you to come closer, but no matter how fast you tried to move your feet it was impossible for you to catch up. The hallway was familiar, you realized it was one in Quantico that you walked down every day to get to the elevator. It took longer than normal to reach the end, and just when you thought you could catch up to Mia-Rose, Hotch stepped out in front of you, holding Spencer with one arm and holding his gun to your best friend’s temple with the other.

“You have to choose, (y/n).”

“Choose what?”

“One of them has to die. Him or her?” he moved his gun to point the barrel at Mia-Rose.

“I don’t understand, why can’t I save them both?”

“One of them has to die.”

It only took you a moment to consider, “me. Shoot me. Let them live.”

“Brave choice,” Hotch’s gun came to point at you and his finger squeezed the trigger.

You woke up.

Soft morning light was coming in through the window and Spencer was already awake, quietly tying his tie while perched on the edge of the bed.

“Morning,” he grinned when he noticed you watching him.

“Morning,” you panted, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from your eyes.

“You were dreaming.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Hotch made me choose between him shooting Mia-Rose or shooting you.”

“What did you choose?”

“I made him shoot me instead.”

You expected Spencer to launch into an analysis of your dream and what it meant, but instead he asked another question, changing the subject.

“Can we stop for coffee before we walk the dumpsite?” he pulled a blue cardigan out from his go bag and stuck his arms through the sleeves.

“Sure,” you said, stretching as you stood up. While you got ready, Spencer found the nearest place to get coffee, and you stopped there before continuing on to the bridge where Mia-Rose’s body had been found thirty years ago.

“I’m too used to walking active crime scenes,” you murmured when you pulled over to the empty dumpsite. Normally dumpsites like this were taped off with officers present, as well as some news reporters and civilian gawkers. You were sure that it had looked like that when the crime had first happened, but now it was just a bridge that nobody thought about.

When you stepped out of the SUV you noticed a small memorial for Mia-Rose nailed to a tree, wilted and weathered flowers around it. You stopped for a minute to look at it, then continued through the brush to the overpass.

Mia-Rose had fallen off of the bridge onto the ground beneath, where you were standing now. Her death was originally ruled a suicide, which had slowed the investigation until her parents insisted she wasn’t suicidal and had her autopsied, revealing ligature marks and evidence of assault. Just from reading the file, you knew that her parents were right. She didn’t profile as suicidal, and if she was she could have jumped from further down the bridge into the flowing river to your right, not onto the ground where she likely would have survived.

“Mia-Rose was found right here,” you pointed, “and her belongings…” you turned to your left, Spencer moving from behind you to stand where the girl’s school backpack and shoes had been found, a handful of yards away.

“They were found next to this rock.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” you said, facing him from where you stood, “the ME found traces of motor oil on her skin, so she must have been transported in a car. That means the unsub was driving on this road, stopped here by the bridge, then tossed her over the side. Why not just toss her stuff after her?” After thinking in silence for a minute, you started moving. “Stay where you are,” you instructed Spencer as you climbed the embankment. Once you reached the bridge, you stood on the edge so you could see both locations of dump sites.

“Spence,” you called to him, “how long is the average car?”

“Anywhere between 10 and 18 feet, depending on the size of the vehicle,” he answered quickly. You positioned yourself in line with where Mia-Rose’s body was found, then paced out roughly fifteen feet, landing you almost squarely in line with where Spencer was standing down the hill.

“What are you thinking?”

“This might sound kind of out there, but what if there was a partner?”

Spencer furrowed his eyebrows, trying to figure out how you had gotten there. He climbed up to where you were standing before asking you about it, “what makes you think that?”

“Eyewitness accounts said they saw Mia-Rose in a car with a man the night she went missing, and they were both sitting in the front of the car, but that’s about all anyone can agree on. What if there was a second unsub sitting in the back? If I’m the unsub getting Mia-Rose out of the front, you’re taking her stuff out of the trunk and tossing it over the side,” you acted out.

“Which means my DNA should be on her belongings,” Spencer concluded, finishing your thought, “I’ll call the lab and start getting things processed.”

“Good idea, I’m going to call Garcia and then we can head back to the station,” you said, pulling out your own phone as Spencer took a step away to make his call.

“Crimefighter! What have you’ve got?” Garcia answered her phone quickly.

“Hey Penelope, can you go through the list of Mia-Rose’s family members and get me some updated contact info?”

“Of course! Did you get a lead? I knew you could solve this,” she rambled. You could hear the clicking of her keyboard as she multitasked.

“Not quite, just a better understanding of the situation. I want to start interviewing family members to really nail down victimology and see if they know of anyone who fits my profile. Spencer’s calling the lab to get some evidence re-examined. When they send you results can you run them through CODIS?”

“Absolutely. Anything else?”

“That’s it for now, thanks Garcia.”

“Anytime, my love. I just sent the updated contacts to your tablet. Garcia out!”

Spencer was waiting for you in the SUV, once you finished your call with Garcia you drove back to the station. Detective Reeves assigned an officer to help you call the family members and invite them in for interviews.

“Mrs. Horn, thank you for coming in to talk with us,” you said gently to the elderly woman sitting across from you.

“Anything to help you find my little girl’s killer. Do you really think you can solve it?”

“We’re trying our best. Any information you can give us will make our job easier. Mia-Rose was walking home from school when she went missing, and was later seen getting into a blue car. Is there anyone she would have willingly accepted a ride home from?”

“No, she always walked, rain or shine so she could say hello to the neighbors on her way home. Except for Tuesdays, my brother Dylan would drive her home from band practice on Tuesdays because it was after dark.”

You exchanged a glance with Spencer, silently acknowledging that Mia-Rose was abducted on a Friday.

“Did she have any enemies? Anyone who would want to hurt her, bullies or friends she might have had a falling out with?”

“No, she was sweet to everyone. That’s why it was such a shock to the town when she was killed. There wasn’t a soul who hadn’t been touched by her kindness.” Mrs. Horn spoke so highly of her daughter, further validating your theory.

“Let’s take a break,” you said, noting the way she was tearing up, “excuse us.” You stepped out of the room with Spencer.

“We should talk to Dylan,” he said once you were out of earshot of Mrs. Horn.

“I agree. He was interrogated by police when Mia-Rose first went missing, but I don’t think he’s a suspect. His alibi was rock solid, but he might know something about what happened.”

You had the detective bring in Mrs. Horn’s brother, Dylan Godfrey. While he agreed to an interview, he was much less cooperative than Mrs. Horn.

“I told the police thirty years ago, I had nothing to do with it,” he drawled, “I was at home with my wife, God rest her soul. I didn’t even have my car to kidnap Mia if I wanted to.”

“Where was your car?” Spencer asked quickly.

“My boy had it, out with his friends. He had just gotten his driver’s license. You know how kids are, impossible to control.”

This was the first you were hearing of his son. Nowhere in the records from the original investigation did it say Dylan Godfrey had a son, let alone a son who’s whereabouts were unknown on the night of the crime.

“Mr. Godfrey, let me ask you this. How old was your son the year Mia-Rose was murdered?”

“Eighteen.”

“Do you know where he was that night?”

“Out, like I said. He didn’t come home until after two o’clock in the morning.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

“Last I knew he was working on a farm just out of town, the McGilroy’s place.”

As soon as Spencer had gotten the information out of him, you were firing off texts to Garcia. She sent you the address of the farm, and you called her once you were en route.

“You’re on speaker, Garcia. What have you found about this guy and why didn’t we know about him before?”

“I’ve been asking myself the same question. He wasn’t included in any of the original witness statements. I’ve barely been able to find information about him online. I know he’s still alive because I don’t have a death certificate, but other than that no home address, no phone number, no nothing. Everything I know about him is from his childhood, before Mia-Rose went missing.”

“Something is better than nothing, what did you find?”

“Daniel Godfrey, born in 1965 to Mary and Dylan Godfrey. He was a decent kid from what I can tell. He got good grades in school, even got a scholarship to a college in Chicago but he turned it down at the last minute. I’ll hit you back if I figure out why.”

“Thanks Garcia,” you chirped before she hung up. You pulled up the long dirt drive of the McGilroy’s farm, putting the SUV in park and getting out. Spencer was by your side in an instant, you noticed the way his hand rested on his revolver.

“My goal is to get him in for a voluntary interview. If we can get him talking, we can figure out what happened that night and why his known locations on that night fit our timeline. Best case, we get a confession and the name of his partner, worst case, he had nothing to do with it and we’re back where we started.”

Spencer nodded, so you reached up to knock on the door. After a moment, a blonde woman opened the door.

You flashed your credentials, “hi, I’m SSA (y/l/n) with the FBI, we’re looking for Daniel Godfrey and we were told he might be here.”

“He’s out back in the barn,” she said, pointing down a gravel path.

“Thanks so much,” Spencer said as you stepped off the porch. You reached the barn and pushed open the large door, revealing a man inside. He was carrying a bucket of water that he poured into a trough for a horse before acknowledging you.

“What can I do ya for?”

“Are you Daniel Godfrey?” you asked.

“Depend’s who’s asking,” he chuffed, wiping his hands on his dirty coveralls. You held up your credentials.

“I’m Agent (y/l/n) and this is Doctor Reid. We’re with the FBI investigating the murder of your cousin, Mia-Rose Horn. We were hoping you’d come in to the station so we could get some more information about her.”

“What kinda information? Mia’s been dead a long time now.”

You had to play this carefully, one wrong word and he wouldn’t voluntarily interview with you, “your father told us you were out with friends the night she disappeared. We were hoping you could tell us what town was like that night and if you saw anything unusual.”

“You talked to my father? I can tell ya right now, it was quiet. Just like any other night in this town.”

“Great, that’s exactly the kind of information we’re looking for. Would you be able to come with us to the station so we can get that statement through the official channels? While we’re there I’d like to ask you a few more questions, if that’s ok.”

“Are ya saying I’m being arrested?”

“No, not at all. This is completely voluntary.”

Daniel fell silent, considering your offer. When he finally spoke again it was gruff and hostile, “will my old man still be there?”

You exchanged a glance with Spencer, hoping he had a better read on what answer would be your best choice. Spencer’s tongue flickered over his lips, then he cautioned a response, “he’s there right now, will that be a problem?”

Daniel looked dejected, scuffing his feet in the hay below his boots, “not unless he makes it a problem.”

“We’ll make sure that doesn’t happen. Our car is out front, is there anything you need to do before we go?”

Daniel shook his head and quietly followed you and Spencer back to the SUV. He didn’t say much while you were driving back to the police station, and neither did you. You escorted Daniel inside the station, walking quickly past where his father was sitting, still talking to the officer Reeves had assigned to your case. Dylan stood up when he noticed his son, but Daniel just kept his head down and quickened his pace. You brought him to an interrogation room, a small space with just a table and a couple of chairs.

“You can wait here, we just have to go collect some materials and then we’ll be back, alright?”

“Whatever,” Daniel said, taking the seat closest to the door. You stepped out, shutting the door behind you.

“Did you see the way Dylan reacted when he saw Daniel?” you asked Spencer quietly. He nodded.

“Did you see the way Daniel reacted when he saw Dylan?”

“Do you think it’s relevant to this case? I don’t want to waste time asking about it if it’s just some squabble they had once. Hotch said I could only work this case until we got an active one back at Quantico, and you and I both know serial killers don’t take extended vacations.”

Spencer considered the situation, you could almost see the gears turning in his mind, “it might be a way we can get him comfortable talking to us, irrelevant or not. This is the best lead we have. Just like you said earlier, you have to get him talking.”

You trusted Spencer’s opinion, not just because he was your best friend, but because he had led his fair share of interrogations during his time in the FBI. He was really good at it, his accelerated mind picking up patterns of words and behaviors that you could only be envious of.

“What do you mean ‘I’ have to get him talking? I thought this was a team effort.”

“It is, but you have to lead this interrogation.”

You weren’t surprised at his statement, but you resented the fact that he was right. Your favorite part of your job was the quick thinking, the on-the-fly deductions you had to make in the field that helped you put all of the clues together. You liked helping people and actively putting bad guys away for the greater good of the country you served. You were good at your job, too, having spent so much time developing your skills with arguably some of the best agents in the Bureau. You couldn’t not be good at your job surrounded by minds like the ones at the BAU.

Like everyone though, there were some aspects of your career that you were better at than others. You usually excelled in the takedown and arrests of suspects and left the mind games to your colleagues that were much better equipped to handle them. Sure, you could talk a suspect into putting their weapon down instead of pointing it at you or a victim, but that was a heat of the moment interaction. Cool, collected interrogation rooms just weren’t your strong suit, and nothing during your time at the BAU so far had changed it.

“You really think I can do this?”

“Absolutely. You have the skills, knowledge, and rapport to conduct this interview,” Spencer showed no hesitation in his answer.

“Promise to let me know if I’m going down the wrong rabbit hole?”

Spencer smiled, “of course. Let’s go solve this case.” He handed you a sheet of paper, a form for Daniel to sign with his Miranda rights on it.

Once you were seated across from Daniel, you handed him the paper and read him his rights.

“If you don’t mind me asking, Daniel, what happened between you and your father?”

Daniel’s eyebrows furrowed as he looked back and forth between you and Spencer, “what kind of FBI agents are you?”

“We’re with the Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, Virginia. We use psychology to solve crimes. I hope my question wasn’t intrusive, Doctor Reid and I both just noticed the way your behavior changed when you saw your father. He’s been helpful in our investigation and I don’t want any family conflicts to interfere if you’re going to help us too.”

“We had a disagreement.”

“Just a disagreement?” you pressed carefully.

“Just a disagreement.”

“Alright,” you said, deciding to leave it at that and move on. He was giving you too much resistance for the direction you had wanted to take the conversation, so you changed the subject. If his disagreement with his father was relevant to the case, you’d have to get that information out of him another way.

You started off by asking about Mia-Rose and gathering any information Daniel had about her. At first he was reluctant, just explaining that they saw each other during family gatherings and when his father would drive them both home from band practice.

“You went to the same high school then, if you were in band together?”

“Uh huh. It’s a small town, everyone goes to the same school.”

“Can you tell us about who Mia-Rose spent time with? Who were her friends?”

“Everyone was her friend. She was the friendliest kid in school.”

“Who were your friends?” Spencer asked, tilting his head. It wasn’t a question you had thought to ask, but as soon as he did you saw where he was going.

“Does it matter?”

“It does to me,” Spencer answered.

“Alec Krause, Markus Sparrow, Nicolas Rush,” Daniel listed.

“Where are they now?” you asked while Spencer pulled out his phone, presumably to text Garcia for a background check, “are you still in contact with them?”

“They all moved out of town for college. Haven’t seen or talked to ‘em since,” Daniel shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

“You were supposed to go to college, in Chicago, right?” you prompted. Daniel’s eyes flickered between you and Spencer, probably wondering how much about him you knew.

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you go?”

“Got a job at the farm,” he shrugged.

“Daniel, I’m going to be real with you,” you squared up, “I’ve seen plenty of small towns in this job. I’ve talked to many people from small towns just like this one, and almost all of them in your position would have taken the out. They would have moved to the city as soon as they got the chance, so why didn’t you? Why did you choose to stay in this town?”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Daniel was quick to correct you.

“You didn’t?” Now you were on to something.

“The disagreement I had with my father was about me leaving. He wouldn’t let me leave, so he got me the job at the farm.”

“Alright, let’s take a break,” you said, standing up and stepping out of the room. Spencer exchanged a few words with Daniel, then followed you out.

“That was big,” you panted, trying to shake out the jump of adrenaline that you were feeling.

“You’re doing great,” Spencer confirmed.

“When Dylan was talking about his son earlier, during his interview, it seemed like he didn’t have control over Daniel. What was it he said, ‘you know how kids are’? Something must have changed to make Daniel listen to his father telling him to stay, something that changed after Mia-Rose was murdered.”

Right before you were going to go back into the interrogation room, your phone rang. Hotch’s name lit up the screen.

“Hold on, Spence. (y/l/n),” you answered, praying that Hotch wasn’t going to tell you to abandon the case and get back to Quantico right when you were making strides.

“I’m just checking in to see how things are going.”

“We’re talking to a person of interest right now, it’s just very slow going. We think he had been working with a partner when the murder took place, but he’s not giving up names,” you explained, “please don’t tell me we have a case that we have to come back for, we just got a break that might open this case up for us.”

Hotch chuckled on the other end of the line, “no, we don’t have a case. Garcia told me you had a lead and I was curious.”

“Honestly, I don’t know how you were a prosecutor before joining the BAU. This is exhausting, and every time I say something I feel like he’s going to invoke.”

“You’re doing fine,” Spencer whispered reassuringly.

“Spencer says I’m doing fine,” you relayed to Hotch.

“I’m sure you are. Sometimes unsubs like this take time to crack,” he reminded you.

“It’s already been thirty years, I’d like to close it now,” you decided, squaring your shoulders. “I’m going to go back in there and wrap this up. I’ll call you back when we’re done.” You hung up with Hotch, then turned to Spencer. “Let’s do this.”

Daniel seemed to tense up when you walked back in, sitting down across the table from him once again.

“Thanks for being patient, Daniel. I’d like to know why your father wouldn’t let you leave town. From what he told us, he gave you a lot of freedom in high school. What happened?”

“We had a disagreement, like I said.”

“Right, we’ve covered that. It must have been hard going from being able to do whatever you wanted to working a farm job under your father’s thumb. I was hoping you could tell us exactly what kind of disagreement. Was it because Mia-Rose was murdered?” Daniel nodded, “ok, that’s a start. Was there a specific reason beyond Mia-Rose’s murder?”

Your tactic was deliberate, validating his feelings before pressing harder in hopes that he would give something up.

“He didn’t want me getting into more trouble.”

“More trouble? As in, you got into trouble here first?”

“Correct.”

“We don’t have any police records for you, Mr. Godfrey. Usually that’s the kind of ‘trouble’ that stops kids from going to college,” Spencer chimed in.

“The police don’t know I was there.”

“Where?” Your question was burning hot, and you watched Daniel squirm as he realized he had dug himself into a hole.

“I was in the car.”

“Which car?” you hoped he meant the car you thought he did, but you needed a true confession.

“My father’s car…” you chose not to say anything and instead let him sit in uncomfortable silence, “the night Mia was killed.”

“With her? Was Mia in the car with you?”

“Yes, she was.”

You had to maintain your composure, even though your insides were doing cartwheels out of excitement. This was exactly the kind of lead you were looking for, you couldn’t blow it now.

“Your father said you were out with friends, were any of the people you mentioned earlier with you? Alec, Markus, and Nicholas?”

“No, it wasn’t with them.”

“Who else was in the car then, Daniel? It wasn’t just you and Mia-Rose.”

“I don’t remember,” he started backpedaling, a clear sign that you were closing in.

“We’re going to step out and give you some time to think about it, see if you can try to remember,” Spencer interrupted before you could say anything, nodding towards the door when you made eye contact with him. You followed him out, turning to him abruptly once the door was shut behind you.

“I was getting somewhere with him.” You were fired up, to say the least. Now that you were in the comfortable privacy of Spencer’s company, you could let your emotions come forward.

“I know, I know,” Spencer smirked, “Garcia got a hit with Daniel’s friends, we should call and see what she has so we have more leverage when we go back in there.”

You took a deep breath, pulling out your phone and calling Garcia.

“Boy Wonder got my text!” she answered after the first ring.

“What did you find, Garcia? We’re really making strides here and anything you’ve got could really close this for us.”

“I ran the names of Daniel’s friends, like you asked. Almost all of them checked out, normal guys with normal lives.”

“Almost all of them?” you caught the specificity of her words.

“Right. One of them, Markus, he checks out too… but his brother, oh my his brother has done some stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?” Spencer asked, brows furrowed in thought.

“Kyle Sparrow. When he was 11 he attempted to rob a bank, and not just as a joke. When he was 14 he was suspended from school after locking students in storage closets. He’s been in and out of jail his whole adult life. He got out a year ago and hasn’t been back since.”

“That fits our profile. How old was he when Mia-Rose was killed?” Spencer followed up.

“That’s where things get weird, I was hoping you guys would have a good explanation because this really doesn’t make sense.”

“Garcia,” you called, refocusing her.

“Right. Kyle Sparrow was 10 years old when Mia-Rose was murdered.”

“What?” you whipped around to look at Spencer incredulously, hoping he would have some kind of information about child serial killers that would clarify the situation. Instead, he just frowned and shook his head. You had to decide if it was worth bringing up to Daniel and risk wasting precious time. You considered for a moment, then spoke. “Send us his address, we’re going to ask Daniel about him. If he seems like a viable lead then we’ll head out there. Thanks Garcia.”

“Done and done. You’ve got this, crimefighters!”

“Are you ready to go back in there?” Spencer asked when you reached for the interrogation room door handle.

“Do I have a choice? This case just took a turn that I wasn’t expecting.”

“It’s been four hours and thirty six minutes. We can take another minute to get coffee if you need a longer break,” he suggested.

“I’m too close to cracking this. I can feel it,” you confessed. Spencer nodded, acknowledging that your gut feelings were usually right. You opened the door, sitting back down across from Daniel. Spencer stood in the corner behind you, hands in his pockets.

“Did you remember who was in the car with you the night Mia-Rose was murdered?” Daniel shook his head. “Ok, that’s fine. I have some names that we’ve collected as people of interest for this case. I’m going to read them off and you tell me if one sounds familiar, ok?” Daniel nodded, so you opened your file and pulled out a blank piece of paper, holding it so Daniel couldn’t see the lack of information on your side.

“Emily Prentiss.”

He shook his head.

“Derek Morgan.”

Again, nothing.

“Penelope Garcia.”

Your list was intentional, listing people you were certain Daniel wouldn’t know so you could get a baseline for his behavior. It paid off when you listed the next name, “Kyle Sparrow.”

You could practically see Daniel tense up. Though he shook his head, his leg started bouncing nervously and his eyes were flickering frantically around the room, looking anywhere but at you and Spencer.

“Daniel,” you started, keeping your voice low, “remember when I told you Doctor Reid and I use psychology and behavior to solve crimes? You may not have noticed it, but your behavior shifted when you heard Kyle’s name. You know something about him, don’t you? Was he in the car with you that night?”

Daniel finally looked up at you, eyes watering, “I’m not a criminal.”

“I didn’t say you were. Was Kyle in the car with you the night Mia-Rose was murdered?”

“He was just a kid, my best friend’s little brother. We were out in my dad’s car, I had just gotten my license so I skipped class and took Markus and Alec for a spin around town. When I dropped them off back home Kyle said he was lookin’ to go across town to the library so I offered him a ride. I even made him sit in the back because he was still just a small kid. Then we saw Mia walking home. It always took her longer because she stopped to say hi to everyone she passed. Kyle suggested we offer her a ride too, so I did.

“It all happened so fast, first she was getting into the car and then Kyle had a knife at her throat. He told me he’d kill her if I didn’t do what he wanted. He made me drive out of town to the woods and watch as he tied her up and did horrible, horrible things to her. I didn’t even know a kid was capable of doing those things. When he was done with her he made me help put her back in the car and drive to the bridge. She wasn’t dead when he made me push her over the edge, that’s why I didn’t throw her in the river. I thought she’d survive it without Kyle knowing because he was too busy getting rid of her stuff in the trunk. He still made me drop him off at the library after, even though it was closed on account of it being real late at night, and swear that I’d never tell anyone what we did or he’d kill me too.”

“How did your father find out?” you asked.

“He found blood in the car the next morning. I told him it was from Markus, that he had gotten scratched up while we were messing around in the afternoon. He made me clean it out with bleach, told me I’d have to learn responsibility if I wanted to move out. When my auntie called him later and told him about Mia being missing, he connected the dots. He told me he didn’t want to know what I had been doing the night before, but if I tried to move away it would make me a suspect. He got me the job at the farm and I’ve been there ever since.”

“Thank you for your honesty, Daniel. We’ll tell the court how cooperative you’ve been, they might ease your sentence because of it.”

“The court? What?” Pure fear crossed Daniel’s face. It didn’t sit right with you that he had to be arrested, knowing he had been coerced into helping murder his cousin, but he had still committed a felony. You had to let the court decide his fate.

“Daniel Godfrey, you’re under arrest for accessory to the murder of Mia-Rose Horn,” Spencer moved behind Daniel, taking his hands to cuff them. As soon as he was done Daniel was passed off to an officer and you and Spencer took off, SUV keys in hand.

You sped towards the home address Garcia had sent you for Kyle Sparrow, wishing the rest of the team was there so you could split up in case he was at work. This part of your job was where you felt the most comfortable, the tactical side of an arrest that was more physical than the mind games you had just played in the interrogation room. It was just starting to rain, a light drizzle that darkened the skies as you drove to what you hoped was your final location for this case.

“Is there Kevlar in the back?” you asked, realizing you hadn’t gotten vests from the police station before you had left. Spencer turned around in his seat, checking around the vehicle.

“Nope.”

“Great,” you sighed, “let’s try not to get shot at then, alright?”

“Sounds good to me,” Spencer agreed.

You pulled up to Kyle’s house, which was more of a rundown shack on the outskirts of town. You drew your weapon as soon as your boots were on the ground, approaching the door cautiously.

“Where’s Morgan when you need him,” you mumbled, hoping you wouldn’t have to kick the door down, “Kyle Sparrow, FBI,” you announced, knocking on the door. A gunshot flew through the window next to you, shattering the glass. That was all the invitation you needed to bust open the door, but Kyle wasn’t in the room inside. You moved quickly through the maze of rooms, taking one side while Spencer took the other.

“Clear,” you called every time you ensured a room was empty. You heard Spencer clear a couple of spaces, then fall silent. You worked your way to the kitchen, finding him in a standoff with Kyle.

“I’m not going to jail again. You can’t make me,” Kyle seemed unreasonably calm, grinning slightly to himself while he pointed a pistol at Spencer.

“You’re wanted for the murder of Mia-Rose, Kyle. There’s no way to get out of this one,” you had to keep things simple for him and talk him down as quickly as possible before he shot at you again, “let’s just talk about it.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. I’m not going to jail for a person I killed thirty years ago.”

“There’s no other option. We know it was you, this ends here.”

“If I have to go back, it has to be for something better. You’re right, this ends here, but not because I killed Mia-Rose Horn.”

“How does it end, Kyle?” Spencer asked. You noticed the glint in Kyle’s eye, giving you a split second to push Spencer out of the way and get hit with a searing pain in your side. You heard Spencer’s revolver fire as you hit the floor.

“Get him first,” you grunted, putting a hand on your side to try to stem the bleeding. Spencer crouched next to you, worried eyes looking you over before he pulled your handcuffs out of your pocket. Your ears were ringing, but you could just make out the sounds of Spencer talking before you blacked out.

You woke up in the hospital, an all too familiar experience. Spencer was beside you, nose in a book. You weren’t sure how much he was paying attention to it though, considering the way his brows were furrowed and his fingers were tapping against the cover. He was lost in thought somewhere, you just didn’t know where.

“Spence,” you managed to croak through your dry throat. His eyes shot up from the page, lips turning up in a small smile when his gaze met yours.

“Hi,” he practically whispered.

“Is Kyle dead?”

Spencer hesitated, no doubt weighing the value of telling you the outcome now or waiting until you were better rested. He chose the former, shaking his head.

“I did what you would have done and shot him in the hip. He’s not dead, and once he’s healed he’ll go to trial. You did it, (y/n). You solved the case.”

“We solved the case. I couldn’t have done this without you.”

“You also wouldn’t have gotten shot.”

“So?” you shrugged, “I lived. Where’s Garcia? Usually she’s the first one at the hospital.”

Spencer’s smile returned, “she wanted to but a case came in right right after you went into surgery. She sends her love and said she’d make up for not being here when we get back to Quantico.”

“A case? We should get back to help,” though you were exhausted, you brain immediately went into profiling mode.

“No, you’re going to stay here and rest. You should be staying for longer than you’re going to, but I was able to convince your doctor that I was more than capable of making sure you got home safely.”

“I didn’t realize you were a rule-breaker,” you teased, feeling your eyelids droop.

“I’m not, I just thought you would want to go home as soon as possible. You’re not the kind of person who likes being away from their family, and we’ve already been gone three days. Staying here doing nothing, although it would be good for you, would just torment you more.”

“Thanks, Spence,” you murmured, falling back to sleep. You dozed on and off for the better part of the day, Spencer staying by your side the whole time. Towards the end of the afternoon, you woke up to his seat vacant. The immediate panic you felt was squashed by calculated thoughts, he’s probably getting food or in the bathroom. You fought to stay awake while you waited for him to come back. He surprised you by returning with someone behind him.

“Mrs. Horn wanted to talk to you, if you’re feeling up for it,” he said, resuming his position in the chair next to you. You nodded, watching the older woman enter the room from where she had been standing in the doorway.

“I wanted to thank you for finding my daughter’s killer, even though it put you in the line of danger.”

“I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” you reassured her, sitting up a little against your pillows.

“I wish her father could have been here to see it solved. He always told me not to lose faith, that a blessing would come our way. You were our blessing,” she dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.

“I was just doing my job, I’m sorry it took so long for someone to figure this out.”

Mrs. Horn tutted, telling you she was just glad that her daughter could rest in peace now. Before she left, she made sure to tell you that if you were ever in Illinois you and Spencer were welcome to come over for dinner, and that she hoped you got better quickly so you could go help other victims.

Once she was gone, your doctor came in to follow up with you. You had been shot in the side, the bullet passing through and exiting out of your back without hitting any major organs. Spencer did most of the talking for you, asking questions you couldn’t make sense of and checking over your chart for what was probably the hundredth time that day.

“You seem to be healing well and have a… knowledgable… support system, so I’m going to clear you for discharge. If anything changes you’ll need to go into the nearest hospital, ok?”

“Yes ma’am,” you answered. A nurse came in later with your discharge papers, which you signed before Spencer helped you in a wheelchair and out to where the SUV was parked.

“Are you sure you want to drive in this rain? I can-“ you winced in pain, hand flying to your side, “I can do it if you don’t feel comfortable.” Spencer stifled a laugh, reaching his hands out to give you something to brace yourself against as you moved from the wheelchair the SUV.

“I don’t mind driving,” he said simply.

“Yes you do,” you quipped quickly, exhaling as you settled into the passenger seat.

“Ok, yes. Under normal circumstances, I do mind driving, but I think I can make an exception when my favorite driver has been shot.”

“Don’t let Morgan hear you say that,” you smirked, still struggling to breathe in a way that would make your side hurt less.

“Are you warm enough?” Spencer fiddled with the heating knobs once he was settled behind the wheel. You nodded, but the shiver that ran down your body betrayed you.

“You’re the one driving. I want you to be comfortable,” you mumbled.

“You’re the one who just got shot. Here,” he reached behind him into the back where both of your go bags were stored. He unzipped his own and pulled out a cardigan, then leaned over the console to drape it across you. “The wool will help you retain heat.”

“Thanks,” you sighed, relishing in the comfort of his gesture.

“You didn’t have to take that bullet for me.”

“I did. I pulled you into this mess, I wasn’t going to let you get hurt because of it.”

“Hotch sent me with you so that you wouldn’t get yourself hurt,” he rebutted.

You brushed him off, “I’ve been shot before, I’m going to be fine.”

“I’ve also been shot before, you didn’t have to push me out of the way.”

You were quick to counter, “you didn’t have to push Blake out of the way either.”

It was an unnecessary squabble, a fact you both caught onto quickly once you realized the direction the conversation was going. Instead, Spencer changed the subject to explain the history of the small towns you were passing through on your way to the interstate.

Miraculously, once the car was comfortably cruising on the highway, Spencer fell silent. You suspected it had to do with his intense concentration on driving in the elements as the rain got harder, though he also could have been giving you the space to sleep if you needed to.

It wasn’t until you were over an hour into your journey that he spoke again, after a quick glance at you revealed fresh tear tracks down your cheeks under the passing street lights.

“(Y/n), are you crying?” His question was so soft you almost missed it, “is it the pain? You’re not due to take your meds for another three hours but I know you have ibuprofen in your bag that would be ok to take now. I can pull over-“ his hand was about to move back to the steering wheel from where it had come to rest on the console, but you reached out to grab it instead.

You and Spencer didn’t really ‘do’ physical contact. You both had reasons not to, instead finding comfort just in proximity. As long as he was around, you were happy. This time, though, it was different. Maybe it was because you were touch starved, or because you had just been poked and prodded at all angles while in the hospital. Whatever the reason, the light grip you had on Spencer’s hand to stop him from pulling over was enough to make you feel the tiniest bit better. He was there with you, he was real.

“It’s not the pain,” you managed to hold your composure, knowing that letting any kind of sob escape the confines of your soul would only physically hurt you more.

“Are you tired? I drank enough coffee to get us home by morning but if you really need to sleep we can find a hotel somewhere. There are three off the next exit.”

“Spencer,” you ran your thumb over the prominent vein in his hand, “it isn’t something you can fix.”

“What do you mean?” He was puzzled, and by the way his hands were twitching you could tell he was deciding whether or not to stop the car anyways.

“There are hundreds of thousands of cold cases. Hundreds of thousands of families that don’t have closure. Hundreds of thousands of victims that haven’t gotten justice.”

“There’s one less because of you. You made a difference to Mia-Rose’s family, you got her the justice she deserves.”

“She deserved justice thirty years ago. I feel like the system failed her, the very system I work for. She was just a kid, and the answer was right there the whole time. Why did I have to be the one to figure it out, thirty years too late?”

Spencer’s response was soft and gentle, “because you’re exceptional, (y/n).”

“I didn’t have to be exceptional to solve this case, though. That’s what I’ve learned from all of the cold case documentaries I’ve watched. The ones that get solved are because someone knew what happened and didn’t come forward about it until years later. There was a psychopathic kid on the streets for thirty years because the police didn’t think to talk to Daniel Godfrey.”

“We can’t change what happened in the past, but we can make a difference in our futures.”

“I’m just so tired, Spence. I chose this job, I love this job, but it’s exhausting.”

“Then rest, (y/n). It’s ok if the only person you save some days is yourself.”

He was right, of course. You wanted to keep saving others, but you couldn’t do that if you didn't make time to save yourself too. You finally closed your eyes and pulled his cardigan up to your chin. Though you were still conscious, limiting your sensory input helped calm you down enough that you found yourself flitting in and out of dissociation. Even when Spencer’s hand gently moved out from under yours to answer his phone, you kept your eyes closed.

“Hey JJ,” his voice was quiet, barely audible over the rain pounding against the windshield, “they’re doing ok.” He paused while he listened to JJ’s response. “No, they keep reminding me that it’s not the first time they’ve been shot. I’m worried about them though.” He trailed off.

“They’ve been shouldering this burden of over 185,000 cold cases since we started working on this one, and now that it’s solved they’re finally feeling the weight of it. I don’t want them to drive themselves crazy trying to solve all of them on their own. We deal with enough active cases as it is.”

Though you were barely in a state of mind to process his words, he had hit the nail right on the head.

“How is the case you’re working on?” You presumed JJ was filling him in on what they knew, “have Garcia look into large purchases of triacetone triperoxide… Call me if anything changes. We should be back by morning.”

“Yes,” his change in tone indicated that JJ had asked him a question, “that would be great, JJ. Thank you so much.”

He must have hung up with JJ because his hand found yours again, fingers just barely touching. It was a simple action, loaded with a lot of meaning. Spencer was your best friend, and would always be your best friend. Bullets, cold cases, marriages, there was nothing that could break the bond you had with him.

You didn’t understand why people called their significant others their “better half”. It insinuated that you weren’t a whole person to begin with, a fractured existence that only found completion by the means of someone else. The idea that your life couldn’t be fulfilling until someone else made it whole was a concept that was set up for failure and self-loathing.

Instead, you believed that you were a whole person who could live a fulfilling life without the necessity of another. Instead, you surrounded yourself with people who lifted you up and helped you achieve your goals without being the direct cause of your success. Instead, you followed your dreams and somehow found Spencer Reid along the way.

Spencer was your best friend, your confidant, the one person who you knew you couldn’t live without, but he was not your other half. He was his own whole person, a mirror image of your own being. You found solace in his companionship, safety in the complexities of his brain. When the stress of your job got to be too much, you could reliably turn to each other and exist in the little slice of the world you called yours for a moment.

No, he was not your other half. He wasn’t even yours, for that matter, but he was there. He was there in a capacity that nobody else could achieve.

This is part of my GALAXY universe! If you liked this relationship, check out the MASTERLIST for more content!

Galaxy Taglist: @kermitsaysgayrights @niallthedancingharry @shadyladyperfection  @thatsonezesty13  @lexshead @ceeellewrites @howdycharlie @girlycakepops @fantastic-fans @canimarrypizzaornah @daisyflower138 @dyingrexx @taylormobley @bazzleslynn @tj-drinks-tea @willa-wonky @eddiesbifocals @tee-mbrown @reniescarlett @bone-hurty-bitch @messyacademia

[cheri-translates]

[CN] Gavin’s R&S - Folded Time

🍒 Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers from an R&S (折叠的时光) which has not been released in EN!🍒

This R&S accompanies the Ch 37 karma, but it doesn’t contain spoilers for future content as it depicts the events leading up to Gavin reuniting with MC in Ch 2 :>

[ Chapter One ]

When Gavin appears in the office of the Public Security Bureau of Loveland City, everyone’s eyes fall on him either curiously or cautiously -

His light-coloured denim jacket is left open in a casual manner. Brown hair is scattered in front of his forehead, revealing a pair of stubborn and intractable eyes. Even though he isn’t looking at anyone, there is a palpable tension.

No matter how one looks at him, his entire person, from top to bottom, is incompatible with this place.

A few days ago, Gavin appeared in the Public Security Bureau of Loveland City, and things happened so suddenly that there wasn’t even a suitable uniform provided for him. As such, he was the only person in the office wearing regular clothes, which further cemented the view that others had of him as a "child of an official”. Gavin didn't put a stop to it. To put it another way, such an understanding was even more beneficial to his original objective.

Gavin doesn’t seem to realise that he’s the centre of everyone’s attention as he walks to the seat temporarily assigned to him.

At this moment, a young man in the police station takes the opportunity to go over, placing a thick bag of files on his desk. As though there’s a show to watch, he speaks up. "Officer Gavin, the chief said that you’ll be taking over this case." Gavin takes the bag of documents and looks at it. Then, he nods, indicating that the other party could leave.

Not hearing the questions and requests for help as imagined, the young man is momentarily stunned. Gavin lifts his head and gives him a sweeping glance, his tone indifferent. “Anything else?”

"N-no." The young man who was planning to find fault with him shivers inexplicably, then walks away in embarrassment. The surrounding gazes also disappear, and Gavin turns back to the case in his hand.

A few days ago, a woman made a report at a sub-bureau that she had “teleported”. According to her, she was walking home as usual, but when she passed by a certain place, she suddenly arrived at an unfamiliar plaza ten kilometers away - as if the distance in between was folded.

After this case was investigated, it was shelved aside temporarily due to a lack of evidence and leads. But over the next few days, different victims made reports to various sub-bureaus in succession. Hence, this strange case was finally transferred to the general bureau, and it has now been handed into Gavin’s hands. 

It doesn’t take long for Gavin to come to a conclusion - this crime involves an Evolver. After flipping through the scattered case reports, he taps his fingers on the desk, then stands up abruptly, casually telling the person next to him, "I’m heading on a mission.”

The police officer next to him is given a fright. When he looks up, he sees a back profile retreating with a free and easy poise. He can’t help but mutter, “As expected, people with special connections get special treatment. Tsk tsk tsk, how easygoing.”

-

[ Chapter 2 ]

A week ago, in an abandoned building, the elevators that were still in operation descended at a constant speed into the ground.

The lights on top of the elevator flickered slightly due to unstable electrical currents. Before the signal disappeared completely, Gavin reported the current situation through the headset. The moment the elevator door opened, he drew the gun at his waist and was the first to step out.

Borrowing the faint light from the elevator, Gavin scanned the surroundings vigilantly. When a member of the STF turned on the power switch, the cold white light illuminated the entire area, making everything in the laboratory visible - perhaps there was a hasty retreat. The room was in a mess. Many documents were not taken away or destroyed in time, and debris was scattered around.

Gavin's gaze swept across the documents, walking straight to the host computer in the corner of the room. Someone had already cracked the password and was recovering the destroyed files.

"How’s the situation?" Gavin asked.

The STF team member quickly retrieved various data and materials, and answered him without even lifting his head. "Some core data has been completely destroyed, but some files can be recovered."

Gavin looked at the recovered files, and immediately determined that these were some experiment reports related to Evolvers. The date of the report spanned from more than ten years ago to the present day. He had no idea how many of such experiments were carried out when Black Swan was hiding in the dark.

"Wait." Gavin suddenly stopped his team member’s movements, and a sharp look flashed across his eyes. "Export this name list."

Not long after, this concealed name list appeared on the screen. Among the densely listed names, Gavin saw a name that was engraved deep in his memory - MC.

For a moment, he found this hard to believe. He suddenly clenched his fist, his eyes flashing fiercely. After taking a few breaths, he managed to calm down, and pointed at the name. “Open this person’s file.”

The screen flickered, and the first thing that popped out was a photo of a girl’s college identification card. In this short archive, the girl's academic experience, her family and friends, and the company she inherited... had all turned into cold words, completely exposed to Black Swan without privacy.

Gavin read the entire file line by line, his eyes growing darker and darker, and the memories he deliberately sealed in time seemed to be shaken.

Six years ago, he was forced to leave Loveland City because of the awakening of his Evol. It wasn't until two years ago that he tracked Black Swan’s operations and returned. In the past two years, Gavin deliberately stayed away from the world where she lived in order to prevent potential dangers around the girl to shatter her peaceful life.

However, these dangers had already existed in the girl's world from the very beginning.

-

[ Chapter 3 ]

Ever since the STF destroyed the secret laboratory, Black Swan’s operations in Loveland City have grown more frequent and radical, and Evolver crimes have also been emerging in an endless stream.

"Aren't you all Evolvers? Why do you want to sell your lives to ordinary people?!" The man who was knocked to the ground by the fierce wind current lifts his head and shouts angrily at the group of people in front of him.

Gavin doesn’t speak, lifting his foot and stepping on his back, pressing the man, who was struggling desperately, back to the ground.

At this moment, the electric current in his earphone buzzes twice, conveying an urgent message to him - "There’s an abnormality near the Central Boulevard”.

"Understood." Gavin hangs up, then hands this newly awakened Evolver to his subordinates before rushing to the spot where the energy wave was discovered.

At the crossroads, a bizarre car accident was prevented. The surrounding onlookers don't seem to have noticed the peculiar scene, and slowly scatter as the taxi which started the incident drives away, leaving behind a girl standing at the side of the road in a daze.

In the city sky where nobody notices, a figure suddenly appears.

Gavin hovers mid-air, countless raindrops falling beside him and dispersed by the wind. He observes what’s happening on the ground, his eyes extraordinarily calm, akin to tempering a sharp edge. His gaze sweeps across the scene quickly: an Evolver with an unknown motive had stopped a car accident, and... the victim.

Gavin's line of sight suddenly stills. Amid the flowing crowd, the girl who brushed past death bends down, picking up the snacks scattered on the ground, staring in a certain direction for an inexplicable reason.

From such a great distance, the figure on the ground seems to have turned into a small dot. But memory has already traced a copy of the girl's appearance for Gavin.

Meeting again catches him off guard. The wind, which is being controlled, seems to know that he isn’t at peace, and it rustles the hem of his windbreaker. From beginning to end, his gaze rests on that figure which has undergone many changes.

Six years pass by in a flash, and Gavin’s memories still linger on that lonely night in the library many years ago. But the details of that day seem to be covered in mist, and are blurry.

After a long time, Gavin presses the call button of the headset, and reports to the command centre in a serious voice. "Agent B-7, energy wave detected in Loveland City. Sending coordinates.”

Almost immediately, he receives instructions from the other end, and he replies, "Target locked. Taking action immediately.”

Gavin's eyes follow the girl as her figure slowly grows further and further, until she disappears at the corner of the street. He recalls the name list by Black Swan, and a shadow flits across his eyes.

Now that the girl’s Evol has begun to awaken, the peace around her may be shattered immediately. By then, the distance he had maintained for such a long time would no longer be enough to protect her.

-

[ Chapter 4 ]

The sky has not been fully lit, and a ray of light passes through a gap in the curtains, falling on the figure in bed.

Gavin catches his breath as he awakens from the dream, lifting his arm to cover his eyes. He recalls the chaotic and fragmented images in the dream: the room raging with flames, the familiar school roof, the ruins after the explosion, and the glaring fresh blood...

It seems he hasn’t been able to calm down ever since he saw the girl again.

After a long while, Gavin adjusts his emotions, gets up from bed and walks into the bathroom. The icy water rushes down the top of his head, dispelling the lingering sleepiness, and making him incredibly clear-headed. Even the words that the man once said to him clearly resound in his ears——

"Gavin, she’s special like you, and is destined not to have a peaceful life.”

"Do you really have the ability to protect her?"

Water patters to the ground, a little noisy in the quietness of the early morning. Gavin lifts his head, allowing the water to flow over his face, down the body covered with various old and new wounds, and finally flowing into the drain.

After a long time, he opens his eyes, an absolutely unshakable resoluteness in them. "I will protect her."

Gavin turns off the water, then grabs a towel and wipes his hair as he walks out of the bathroom. The notification light of his mobile phone on the desk flickers silently — it’s a message from an informant.

Reading the message rapidly, he taps open the address book and finds a number in it. After the call gets through, he speaks to the person on the other end and says, "I have a request related to the follow-up report mentioned earlier.”

If she is their target, it is only at his side that she’d be safest.

An hour later, Gavin follows the lead provided by the informant, arriving at a small lane beside Morrow Way.

It isn’t until the school gate appears before him that Gavin realises that this is where Loveland High is located. He glances at the school gate which seems to have undergone renovation work, but has no plans to "revisit an old haunt". He heads straight to the alley mentioned by the informant.

This is a relatively remote alley, and one end of the alley is connected to a bustling commercial street. The sub-bureau that received the report had already conducted investigations nearby but found no leads. But the surveillance camera in this alley happened to be spoilt that day - as if it was premeditated.

After understanding the situation, Gavin is prepared to leave. At this moment, somebody calls out to him. "Is that... Gavin?”

Gavin turns his head and sees a middle-aged man in his forties or fifties with a dark complexion and gaunt face. It takes Gavin some time to recall who the other party is, and he’s quite surprised. “Your shop’s still here?”

"Yeah. It's really you. I even thought my eyes were playing tricks on me earlier." The man whom Gavin remembers as taciturn reveals a small smile. "Is there a reason why you came to this area?”

Gavin doesn’t conceal the truth. "I’m here on a mission, and am investigating something.”

After being stunned for a second, the middle-aged man reacts. "You’re really working in the police station now?"

Gavin nods. The middle-aged man is a little surprised, but understands quickly. He hesitates for a moment, then says to Gavin, "It's already noon. Want to have a bowl of noodles?"

Gavin is about to shake his head to refuse. But for some unknown reason, he agrees.

As compared to the last time he visited a few years ago, Lynn’s Kitchen is much more spacious now. The wall facing the door is still densely packed with all kinds of small post-it notes as it was in the past. Gavin sweeps a brief glance at it, images of the past flashing in his mind.

He finds the seat where he often sat at in the past. After a few minutes, the boss gives him a bowl of hand-pulled noodles in chilli oil: the light yellow noodles are covered with bright red oil, garlic sprouts, coriander and slices of beef placed orderly along the sides of the bowl. The fragrance accompanying the steam that burrows into his nose is exactly the same as in his memories,  easily evoking the hunger in the Gavin’s belly.

“Give it a try and see if there’s any improvement.” The middle-aged man chuckles a little reservedly. "You haven't eaten it in a long time, right?"

“Smells pretty good." Gavin responds. He lifts up the noodles with chopsticks, bringing them into his mouth. The familiar taste involuntarily relaxes the tense corners of his mouth.

At this moment, along with the sound of the school bell from the nearby Loveland High, a group of students dismissed from school at noon swarm into the noodle shop, and Gavin's surroundings instantly become noisy. Judging from the familiar colour scheme of the school uniform and the logo on it, these are students from Loveland High. They stare at Gavin with curiosity as he appears incompatible with this small shop. Then, they return to laughing and joking with each other, as though they have no worries at all.

The corners of Gavin’s lips hook upwards slightly. He finishes the remaining noodles in the bowl in two or three slurps. After leaving money at the cash register, he leaves the shop.

“Okay, 1.30 in the afternoon at Flower Fair." He arranges a meeting time with a victim. As soon as he hangs up, another call comes in immediately.

"Chief Yuan?"

"This is Captain Gavin, right? Regarding the follow-up report you mentioned, the producer will look for you at the police station at one o’clock in the afternoon.”

"Okay, I’ve got it.”

After speaking concisely, Gavin hangs up the phone with a smile in his eyes.

-

[ Chapter 5 ]

On the main road of Loveland City at noon, the vehicles caught in a jam move forward slowly.

Suddenly, the shadow of a black car speeds past along with a wave of heat. The incoming wind lifts the hem of Gavin’s clothes, but seems to surround him and refuse to leave.

There’s quite a distance between Loveland High and the police station. It’s so far that on the way there, things from the past gradually surface in Gavin’s mind -

A figure hiding under the eaves on a rainy evening.

A dusty “Byron’s Poetry Collection” in the library.

A letter stained with blood.

A piano tune on an afternoon when ginkgo leaves danced in the sky.

A... girl who appeared in his life during his most hopeless years.

Gavin’s brows suddenly soften. The emotions which were suppressed for a very long time are released in this instant, surging and foreign.

Those images that were about to be forgotten over the course of six years become as clear as yesterday, reminiscent of dust on the surface being wiped off suddenly by a hand.

They were separated for such a long time. So long that he almost forgot that he once had such ardent feelings, akin to sunlight in the height of summer.

-

1pm, Loveland City Police Department.

Gavin holds a peaked hat and walks down the corridor at a moderate pace. From afar, he can hear the chatter of Officer Landsman, who has always disliked him, mixed with the responses of the confused girl.

"Word around the office is that he’s the son of one of the higher-ups. Just think, if he’s some big shot’s boy... We should just stay away!"

[Note] I’m using his canon dialogue in EN since we’re familiar with it. But what Officer Landsman actually says in CN is: “I heard that... he’s an ignorant and incompetent child of an official - a pampered son. Just think about it - how many higher-ups have the surname Bai? ...we can’t offend him!”

Gavin arches his brows, turns around the corner, and sees that familiar figure.

The girl’s back is facing him, her height pretty much the same as it was back then. Her hair isn’t tied into a ponytail, and it drapes smoothly over her shoulders. It’s as though Gavin is able to see her eyes widening after hearing the gossip - she’s still as lively.

Hearing Officer Landsman getting increasingly unreasonable as he speaks, Gavin interrupts directly. "Officer Landsman, just who were you saying is a ‘big shot’s boy’?”

Officer Landsman is given a fright, and the girl turns her head. The pair of clear eyes from his memories meets his once again.

As though crossing over the tilted time, the feelings of youth are brought from the past and into his world with ease.

The distance which had once gradually widened between them has finally been folded by time. All the memories and images have settled, slowly overlapping with the girl in front of him.

Gavin looks at the fear straying onto the girl's face, as well as the unfamiliarity in her eyes. He lifts the corners of his lips, and smiles -

"MC, do you remember me?"

[roseyserpents]

Existing in Remembrance

Summary: Sweet Peas other half had been ripped away from him and he struggles with living with the overwhelming memories

Word count: 2,081

Warnings: death, grieving, cursing, tiny mention of sex

A/N: this has been sitting in my drafts for a while and just finished it. Sorry.

Posted: February 27, 2020 11:29 PM CT

That morning it was hard to get out of bed. That wasn't the only thing, though. It was hard to wake up. To open his eyes. To breathe. To exist. Everything hurt as he lied staring at the ceiling. His bed felt empty and cold with only him in it, void of extra warmth and a pair of arms wrapped around him. It was quiet without the sound of gentle snoring or early morning chatter, the only sound instead his shaky breaths. It was atleast an hour before he could find the motivation to get out of bed. Another hour later he was walking out his door in black suit, getting lost in his thoughts until he's standing outside the funeral home. It takes everything in him to walk inside and walk in that room without crying. He was the first one there, sitting in the back corner of the dimly lit walls with his head in his hands.

"Come on Pea!" You smile, taking his hand and pulling him after you.

"We already had milkshakes today." He sighed in protest though you still took him inside Pops and ordered.

"Since when do you say no to more milkshakes?" You ask, unable to hold back a laugh.

He could hear your laugh echo through the building but it's gone before he can salvage the sound. Maybe it was just in his head, but it didn't matter.

Five minutes later Toni, Fangs, Jughead, and Betty arrived, five minutes after that Veronica, Kevin, Archie, and Cheryl.

"Hey Pea." Fangs said, pulling his friend into a hug. He falls against him, tightly gripping Fangs. He couldn't help but wish it was you holding him.

You are not allowed to go out anymore." Sweet Pea says after you'd come home with cuts and bruises.

"I'm fine." You assured him as you turned your head with your chin and cleans your cuts. "It was a small fight that I won."

"But now you're hurt." He says. "I'm supposed to stop you from getting hurt."

"I can handle myself." You say, standing up and so does Sweet Pea. "I'm not a delicate princess."

"You're my princess." He smiles, wrapping his arms around you. You roll your eyes but copy his smile, pulling him into a strong hug.

"You okay?" Toni asks, seeing her friend standing still with a distant look in his eyes. She knew he was getting lost in his thoughts and memories again like he had been the past week, having to hold back her own tears. "She loved you, Sweet Pea. She still does."

He nods and presses his lips into a line, scrunching his face together as to make sure no tears slip out. "Thanks Topaz." He mumbles. She squeezes his arm before walking towards Cheryl.

"I love you." You say, still staring up at the stars in the back of the truck you both lied on.

"What?" Sweet Pea quickly looks away from the stars and watches you, examining your side profile.

"I love you." You repeat, finally turning to look at him. A smile was on your face as you saw the look of excitement and love on his face.

"I love you." He smiles, leaning closer to you and pressing his lips against yours. "I love you so much, Y/n Y/l/n."

"Aw you're such a Sweetie." You giggle as he hovered over you.

"I hate you."

"You love me,"

You sit up on your elbows to meet him in the middle, your lips fitting together perfectly before parting and rejoining. A warm tingle was spreading through you from a source in your chest, like how you felt when you first kissed but ten times more intense. You knew he felt it too, the warmth seeming to radiate off of him in waves. He moved so you were above him before sitting up so you straddled his lap. His lips trailed down to your neck, your hands combing through his hair.

"Sweet Pea," you breathe after his teeth grazed your neck causing your breath to hitch in your throat. He pulled away as quick as he'd started, a partially embarrassed.

"I'm sorry I just-"

You cut his apology off with a kiss softer than before. "It's okay."

The two of you were just that; just the two of you. You had all your firsts together, first relationship, first breakup, first kiss, first I love you, first hook up. You explored this new world of being teenagers and being a boyfriend or girlfriend together, and ever step seemed easy with him by your side. Despite your obviously differing personalities, yours greetings and smiles while his was "don't talk to me, I bite", you fit together like a two puzzle pieces from separate puzzles that didn't go with the rest but were perfect for each other.

But then one day you disappeared. At first he just thought you were off doing your own thing, then thought you were blowing him off; that he said something wrong. After a week of nobody seeing or hearing a single thing from you, the missing persons report was filed. You weren't really known as Y/n around the school anymore, more as the girl who went missing last week. The days went on and Sweet Pea tore himself up over it. Maybe you ran away because of him because you thought you were moving too fast. Maybe you never really loved him, it was just an act until you could get away. Maybe you were hurt somewhere and--

"Sweet Pea, you in there?" Fangs asked causing him to physically jump up out of his head.

"Yeah, just... Thinking." He answers, running a hand through his hair.

"She'll come back dude." He gives Sweet Pea a sympathetic pat on the back before walking to his seat.

"Sweet Pea, can you join me in the office please." Weatherbee asks after walking into the classroom. Sweet Pea rolls his eyes but does so, the principal closing the door to his office once they get there.

"Sweet Pea, you might want to take a seat. The news I'm about to tell you is... Shaking." Weatherbee says.

"I can take it." He says through his teeth.

The man in front of him frowns and sits at his desk, his hands folded in front of him. "Well, I got a call from the sheriff's office about an open case."

"She's home?" Sweet Pea asks knowing immediately which case it was, his entire body language changing, "where is she, can I see her?"

"Miss. Y/l/n was found, yes, but she... She wasn't alive. I'm sorry."

"No, no you're lying."

"Sweet Pea, I understand this will be a hard time for you," Weatherbee starts but is cut off by Sweet Pea running out of the room and to the parking lot, a mess of emotions that seemed to be drowning him, pulling him further and further into the depths of his spiraling mind with stops along the way of memories and thoughts of you. Of his girl. His girl that wasn't really his girl anymore because how could you be his girl if you were gone?

"Sweet Pea?" He heard you say.

"Y/n?" He looked up with excitement shining in his dull eyes but they went back to the previously seen empty look after seeing it was just Betty. "Oh. Hey."

"I'm going to go talk to Toni." Betty excuses herself. Sweet Pea silently wished that she'd taken Jughead with her, not wanting the burden laid upon him of pouring out his feelings to someone else because that's all everyone keeps fucking asking.

"Jones, I swear to God if you ask me how I'm doing I'm going to throw you into a wall." Sweet Pea says, not meeting his eye instead looking at his own hands that had held yours so many times in the past.

"I like to think I'm not that cliche." Jughead says quietly. "Thinking about her?"

"I can't stop thinking about her." He replies in a quiet voice, still scared of opening up to anyone; he opened up to you, not them. "Every little thing about her is just... I miss her."

"We all do, man." Jughead tries to comfort him but didn't quite know how to get through the thick cloud that was thoughts of the girl he'd loved and lost.

"I was thinking um... About when I found out." Sweet Pea continues, "I just remember thinking that I didn't even get to say bye, or tell her I loved her. I don't even... Don't even know why she was out of town."

It was silent for a while between them until Jughead let him be alone which he obviously wanted.

Everything just hurt. His head hurt, his stomach hurt, the memories hurt. He wanted to escape from his body and go to some far away land that was just him and the pictures of you he'd put together in his head. He had so many more things to say to you. So many more things he wanted to do with you. So many conversations you'd yet to have. He wanted you to help him with his pain like you'd done with him times before, but could you really help if you were the cause of the gnawing, aching feeling deep within him?

People kept telling him over and over time would be the cure to his hurt, but they couldn't be more undeniably wrong. As each day went on, he longed for you more and more, he kept seeing whispers of you in the hallway, like the memorial in front of your locker filled with cards and flowers from people you didn't really know. There were scattered pictures of you there, your heart-melting smile looking straight at him, and there was pictures of the two of you on your common dates to Pops. He saw you in the newly put up colourful posters pasted to the walls about going to the guidance counselor to "help guide you through your grieving"; He saw you in couples walking down the hallway just the way you used to; And he saw you in your seat next to him in fifth period despite it's emptiness that served as a cold reminder.

Everyone asked him how he was and every time he gave them a one worded answer varying of "good" "okay" "fine" "great". He didn't want to share the memories he had of you that only the two of you knew about, like how the earth around you seemed to stop it's rotation around the sun and instead rotated around you that night when you first said you loved him. You loved him, and of course he knew that, but it was so damn hard to keep remembering that because when he thought of you it wasn't a warm fuzzy feeling anymore, it was pain and sorrow and regret. He loved you, so fucking much it hurt; then again, that hurt was probably longing for the other half of his heart. It was rare for someone to find their person. The One with a capital "O". And that's what you were for him and him for you. With you gone it felt like half of him had just disappeared into a phantom, like he was walking around slowly disappearing into the air around him and no one seemed to realize as the days went on he sunk deeper into this place where his body didn't exist in the present, instead getting stuck in the past following after his mind.

Everyday in his trailer he passed the black velvet box on his table. Sometimes he just sat and stared at it, gently popping it open and turning the ring inside between his fingers. It was a promise ring, something that binded the two of you until you were old enough to get married and carry out the rest of your days together because you'd found the One. He was going to give it to you the day you disappeared, sitting in the truck he'd slide it on to your finger and you'd smile and kiss him saying how much he meant to you and he'd look up to meet your eyes but then this dream world would merge with the real one and you'd be gone; disintegrated into thin air leaving him alone to keep you with him as a mere collection of memories.

[puddygeeks]

𝑊𝑎𝑟 𝑂𝑓 𝐻𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑠 - 𝐶𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑀𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑠, 𝑆𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑟 𝑅𝑒𝑖𝑑 𝑥 𝑂𝐶 - 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑟 5: 𝑆𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑦 𝑇𝑜𝑑𝑑

Masterlist

Rating: Mature

Summary: 𝐴𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑛𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑑 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑑𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑟𝑒 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑝 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑛 𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑙𝑒𝑓𝑡 ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑙𝑒 𝑜𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠. 𝑊𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑢𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝐴𝑈 𝑓𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑦, 𝑚𝑎𝑦𝑏𝑒 𝑠ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑏𝑒𝑔𝑖𝑛 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑠𝑡.

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Pairing: Spencer Reid x OC

Status: Ongoing

LONG TERM ONGOING PROJECT :)

My writing is entirely fuelled by coffee! If you enjoy my work, feel free to donate toward my caffeine dependency: will work for coffee

𝑾𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔: 𝐺𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑎𝑑𝑢𝑙𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑔𝑔𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑤. 𝑃𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒 𝑏𝑒 𝑎𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑐𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑚𝑢𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟, 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑 𝑎𝑏𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 & 𝑠𝑒𝑥𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑎𝑏𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑎𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝐴𝑈'𝑠 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘. 𝐼𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑚𝑦 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑙𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑢𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑠 𝑐𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑢𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑎�� 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑖𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑙 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑏𝑒 𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑑, 𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒 𝑙𝑒𝑡 𝑚𝑒 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤.

Eᴘɪsᴏᴅᴇ: Pʀᴇ Sᴇᴀsᴏɴ 1

Chapter Five

Driving into the Twenty Nine Palms base was a reality check that I hadn’t been prepared for and I swallowed my nerves as we began approaching a large building. This was my first time in any kind of military establishment and I had to admit that I felt entirely out of my depth. There was an overbearing sensation of always being watched and I was acutely aware of how little I knew about military culture, other than that converses would probably not give the best impression. 

The driver opened the car door for me and again took my case, treating me with more courtesy than I’d ever received at Interpol. He led me into the bland halls of the building and I kept my eyes firmly trained on his back until I reached something familiar. He placed my case just outside of a small dark room filled with screens and stepped aside for me to catch a glimpse of puffy blonde hair.

“Thank you, Harris. This is the most important delivery that I’ve had this year.” Penelope breezed from inside before she came charging toward me to wrap her arms around my shoulders and my driver promptly left us to reunite. 

“I missed you so much! It’s great to have you back.” She muttered, surrounding me with her fruity scent as she clung to me and although I’d previously been comfortable with contact from her, my increased anxiety caused me to rush out of her grip barely seconds into the embrace.

“It’s great to be back.” I responded quietly, forcing a smile which I knew she had noticed was fake and I attempted to distract her from it by turning her attention to our workspace. “This certainly looks crowded. Where do you want me to set up?”

“I’ve left a space for your laptop here, sugar plum. You can set it up ready to support me if I find anything that I need backup with, but from what I’ve heard, Hotch has plans for you to take on a different role this time.” She explained, pointing to a spot on a small desk beside her workstation and although this statement made my stomach flip, I focused on getting straight into action.

Penelope returned to her seat to continue her investigations, whilst I made a start on preparing my laptop for use. I noticed straight away that she had already plugged in adapters to the nearby plug sockets for me and smiled in appreciation. She was always considerate of my needs and at times, I wondered what I had done to deserve a friend like her.

The moment that I’d finished getting everything ready, she hopped to her feet and motioned for me to follow her.

“Hotch asked me to bring you to the meeting room as soon as you were ready. Don’t worry about any military men giving you grief, it’s just our team in there at the moment.” She described as she led me with a bounce in her step and I hummed thoughtfully as I absorbed her words. It was clear that she had already noticed my discomfort and her wording caused me to relax slightly, as it seemed that she’d blamed my anxiety mostly on our location rather than the darker causes that I wasn’t keen to discuss. 

“Oh, just a heads up that Gideon is still on medical leave, so the boys will be especially happy to have an extra pair of hands. Teams looking pretty small at the minute.” She added cautiously with an encouraging smile over her shoulder and I nodded in understanding.

There was a certain tension in the air throughout the base that kept me on edge and though Penelope’s sunshine personality seemed immune to its effects, I had already begun ensuring that I didn’t make contact with anyone, attempting to be as invisible as possible as we navigated through the labyrinth of the building. Penelope charged straight into the meeting room with confidence, completely unphased that she was interrupting.

“Attention everyone. Look who’s here!” She announced, indicating back to me with a wide smile and I made every effort to seem relaxed as the BAU members turned to view me. Sitting around the table that was almost totally covered in paperwork were Hotchner, Morgan and Reid, all looking rather disheveled from the strain of the case already.

“Oh, hey! If it isn’t Mary Poppins herself.” Morgan breezed as he got to his feet to shake my hand first and though his touch made my spine stiffen involuntarily, I forced myself through it. Though his smile was kind and genuine, his eyes seemed as if they were profiling me already and I worried at what his scrutiny might discover that I preferred to keep hidden.

“Welcome back, Agent Hawthorne.” Hotchner called from the head of the table and indicated for me to take a seat, prompting Penelope to leave with a subtly reassuring smile at me as she crept out.

Without hesitation, I followed this direction and positioned myself at the table in a specific seat where I could still clearly see both exits, allowing an empty seat between me and anyone else. I noticed Reid watching me out of the corner of my eye and when I glanced over at him, he waved shyly at me. I waved back with a fond smile, before turning to address Hotchner.

“Thank you for inviting me, Agent Hotchner. I’m honoured that you would go to the trouble, Sir.” I answered honestly, still feeling confused about his intentions for me, especially after Penelope’s earlier comment.

The reasoning had been bugging me ever since I received the call informing me that I had been assigned to this case. The BAU already had Penelope to assist them on the technical angle and I was sure that it would have been easier to have loaned some agents from another team to bolster their numbers, than drafting me all the way from France. So, what was it that made them think that they needed me specifically?

“We appreciate you coming so quickly.” Hotchner replied, making an obvious effort to soften his tone and I nodded politely in return. “As I’m sure you are aware, this is a highly sensitive case that will need to be carefully handled. Garcia has been granted access to the base systems, but even so, the information that we’ve been able to obtain is still limited. We’re in the dark here.” He summarised, before glancing at Morgan.

“Here’s what we do know. Amanda Franklin was taken 22 hours ago from somewhere on this base, leaving only a note that was addressed to Colonel Franklin. We’ve been given files on everyone here, but trying to find someone with the right motive amongst all of this red tape will take weeks. Amanda doesn’t have that long.” Morgan explained, causing me to fidget in unease as I glanced over the mountain of paperwork, until Reid cleared his throat.

“The statistics for children that are abducted and murdered show that 44% die within the first hour. 75% are gone within 3 hours and practically all of them are dead after 24.” Reid reported, causing a crushing weight of responsibility to drop on my chest and I glanced around the table doubtfully.

“So, if we’re going to stand any chance of finding Amanda alive, we have to find her in the next two hours? And the odds are that we’re probably already substantially too late?” I asked, feeling as if we were defeated before we’d even begun and Hotchner nodded solemnly at me.

“That’s why we’ve enlisted your help. We've been here for hours already, attempting to build a profile, but nothing thus far has led us to Amanda.” Hotchner addressed me, directing his intense gaze at me and I felt as if I’d somehow given the impression that I was far more capable than I actually was. “Garcia has told us of your past history with finding people, even under the constraints of working remotely and without support from law enforcement. Considering the time limit, I would like for you to lend us the full range of your skills. Morgan will take you to the home and potential abduction site to see if there’s anything that we missed the first time around.”

I turned to look at Morgan for confirmation and though I felt as if I might die from shock at this revelation, he seemed completely at ease with the situation. For a moment, I wondered if I’d misheard somehow, but Morgan promptly got to his feet and tapped on my shoulder expectantly.

“Sir, are you sure that you want me in the field? I have no experience.” I blurted, meeting Hotchner's eyes with a blatant uncertainty and was honestly baffled by the confidence that he displayed as he viewed me.

“You have a higher success rate for the safe recovery of abduction victims than any other bureau employee, Agent Hawthorne. I’m sure.” He answered firmly, the slightest hint of a smile in the corner of his lips and I glanced between him and Morgan reluctantly. “Morgan will remain at your side at all times. If you have any concerns, you can trust him with them.” He added and with a final defeated sigh, I got to my feet to stand beside him.

“Don’t worry, kid. You’re in safe hands with me.” Morgan smiled, before striding from the room with me trailing along behind him.

--⥈--

Morgan stood at the door, whilst I wandered around the bedroom in an effort to find something useful. It didn’t seem at all like a teenage girls room, with no posters or photos, muted coloured walls and plain bedding. The entire space seemed more reflective of an adult woman and I quickly noticed that something was missing. I turned to face Morgan in confusion. 

“Plenty of books but, where’s the technology?” I asked, as I glanced around at the perfectly organised space and Morgan smiled at me as if he was impressed with my observation. “I mean, I’m a bookworm myself but even I have basic essentials. A thirteen year old girl with no laptop, no tv, no mp3 player?”

“Dad says she has a phone and they watch tv together in the living room. As for the internet, he doesn’t let her use it out of sight, so she can only access it on the family laptop in the dining room.” He answered and I raised my brows in surprise, before turning to examine the space again. “We’ve already combed through this room. There’s nothing useful here that isn’t obvious. Amanda lives a military life. Her room reflects a strict upbringing, everything organised as it would be in the barracks. She views herself as an adult, likely making up for the absence of her mom. She’s trying to be the perfect kid for her dad.”

“So, where’s her outlet?” I suggested, causing Morgan to knit his brows together as he considered my question. “This kid has every moment of her life monitored. She goes to a military school, lives on a base, every friend she has is right here, under her dad's nose. She’s not allowed a boyfriend, no unsupervised internet access, no clubs or hobbies. What early teen would be able to endure that without finding some way to cut loose?”

“Amanda doesn't think of herself that way.” Morgan reminded me simply and I shook my head at him. “Look at this room, Hawthorne. There’s no self expression, no experimentation and definitely no way to break the rules. Amanda already considers herself matured and responsible. Rebellion would go against her need for approval.”

“She thinks that she’s an adult, sure. But biologically, she’s still a pre teen girl with hormones and mood swings. Every kid goes through a need to break the mold somehow at this age, even just in a small way. A kid under this much pressure would feel it even more. So, how is she managing it?” I questioned, beginning to pace around the room frustratedly and Morgan watched me with interest.

“Sounds like you had some interesting teenage years.” He remarked with a smirk and I rolled my eyes at him as I desperately wracked my brain for something that I was missing. 

“Alright. Let’s say that you’re right. She needs to find a way to rebel that her dad won’t ever find. Her dad is in every inch of her business; even how she organises her room is dictated by him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he does spot inspections here. How would she hide it from him?” Morgan began to guide my thought process and I allowed my gaze to roam over the items in the room again, until something occurred to me.

“Amanda turned thirteen six months ago, right? So she’s probably already started her periods.” I theorised, judging Morgan’s reaction as part of my idea and the moment that he grimaced, I knew that I was onto something. “There’s no mum or female figure in the house. It’s just her and her dad, which means she’s dealing with that stuff on her own. What’s the one place that her dad wouldn’t look now?” I explained as I strode over to her bedside table and pulled the top drawer open, throwing aside the underwear in search of anything deviant.

“Hawthorne, you really going through this kids panty drawer?” He groaned as I tossed aside her garments and a huge supply of menstrual supplies, more than she could possibly need for anything other than warding off her father. When I finally reached my prize, I held up a tattered diary for Morgan’s attention and he sighed in disbelief. “Well, I’ll be damned. That kid exploited her dad's discomfort. Smart.”

“Let’s get this back to the office. Reid could have this whole thing read before we even make a dent.”

--⥈--

“Enjoying the chronicles of teenage drama, pretty boy?” Morgan teased, as Reid’s face grew increasingly confused with every page that he flicked through in the diary and I chuckled to myself. Watching him read was already fascinating, but the expressions that he made whilst enduring the personal writings of our abductee were especially entertaining.

“You know, the inner workings of a thirteen year old girl's mind were not what I imagined I would be studying when I joined the FBI.” He answered, keeping his focus on working through the diary at an impossible speed and I continued my study of the family’s laptop. 

I’d decided that it made more sense to analyse this in the meeting room, where I could cross reference with anything that Reid found, but that hadn’t happened yet. The further that I dug into her internet usage, the less the information that we’d been given made sense and I rubbed at my temples in stress. Morgan quickly noticed my reaction and thinned his eyes at me.

“You managing alright with all of this, Poppins? This is pretty far out of your usual realm.” He investigated, levelling me with a worried expression and I forced a smile as I met his eyes.

“I’m fine. It feels strange being away from the desk, but kinda nice too. Usually I have to wait for other people to look into things for me. It’s much easier actually doing them myself.” I explained carefully and although he nodded, I could tell that there were additional concerns that he held about me that he was unsure on how to address.

“I might have something here.” Reid interrupted and I sighed in relief as he distracted Morgan from his analysis of me. “A month ago, Amanda started talking to someone who told her they had information about her mother. She refers to them as Mr Todd.” He divulged, causing Morgan and I to glance at each other in concern.

“Garcia already pulled all of her phone records. There’s no one on there that she communicates with other than her dad and best friend Hannah. She barely even uses the thing.” Morgan stated, seeming as lost by this revelation as I felt. “Is there anything about a Mr Todd on her online activity?”

“Nothing even close. Honestly, there’s very little usage on her account on this either. It’s strange.” I thought aloud, causing Morgan to look at me questioningly and I cleared my throat, unused to being asked for my opinion. “Considering how little contact this kid has with technology, the way that she uses it is still advanced. She’s confident, she types fast and she uses a lot of text talk. She hasn’t got that from nowhere. It’s possible that our girl has a second phone that daddy doesn’t know about. Maybe one specifically given to her to speak to this Mr Todd.” I theorised, noticing that Reid glanced up from the diary to flash me an interested look.

“The name is likely an alias. From all of her entries, it doesn’t seem like Amanda ever actually met this person at any point. She was cautious of them.” He advised, before placing the journal down to return his attention to the note that had been left for her father. “There were a few references in this letter that seemed strange, but I couldn’t place them until now. The unsub refers to Colonel Franklin as one of the privileged few, stating that he views his lower ranking officers as little more than vermin. We thought it showed an inferiority complex, but it might have a deeper meaning. See this line here, the lives of the wicked should be made brief-”

“Sweeney Todd!” I exclaimed, quickly covering my mouth apologetically for cutting him off, but Reid simply smiled at me in surprise. “Sorry, I read a lot. It’s one of my favourite musicals too, so the lyrics tend to live in my head rent free. It’s a strange choice to use in this context, though.” I added, watching Reid’s smile only grow wider at my revelation and he opened his mouth to speak with an air of excitement about him, but Morgan jumped into the pause in conversation.

“So, all we’ve got is a fake name, a relative area where her phone last pinged and a creepy note with some weird musical references? There has to be something that we’re missing. This girl was raised to be careful and mature. She wouldn’t just wander off with a stranger.” He stated, the frustration beginning to show in his mannerisms and I could understand his plight considering the time scale that we were working to. “What’s the situation with her mom?” Morgan asked and we both faced Reid in the hope that the diary may have revealed something.

“Amy Franklin drowned in ‘98 in a boating accident. Amanda was visiting her dad at the time, but always suspected that there was something more to it.” He recapped, as he resumed flicking through the pages and I considered carefully how this could have affected our victim, as Morgan moved to begin pacing around impatiently.

“This unsub knew that Amanda had doubts about her mothers death. The only way that he could know that is if he’s close to the family. It’s not the kind of thought that you would share openly, especially if you’re raised in the military. Amanda’s reserved, quiet and controlled. Her last known location was on this base. Colonel Franklin locked it down as soon as he realised that she was missing and Garcia already checked all the surveillance for every exit, from the time that she finished school. There’s no way the unsub could have left with her. She’s right here somewhere.” Morgan ranted, running his hands over his head in a gesture of stress, before picking up a photo of Amanda. “Who are you with?” He muttered under his breath and Reid looked up again from the diary.

“Did you know that Sweeney Todd first appeared as the villain of the Victorian penny dreadful series The String Of Pearls? The original tale was much simpler, with Todd simply being portrayed as a barber who murdered his customers with little rhyme or reason for doing so. It was only in ‘73 when Christopher Bond adapted the story into a musical that the character was deepened to have more sympathetic motivations.” Reid explained, before furrowing his brows and seeming as if he’d reminded himself of something.

“It’s possible that our unsub might see the Colonel as Todd. In the musical story, which is far more commonly known, Todd turns to killing after Judge Turpin has him wrongly convicted and takes his wife from him. He returns after his sentence to find that his wife has died and his daughter was taken in as a ward by the Judge. Colonel Franklin lost his wife to tragedy and that could be enough to cause an association. Perhaps the unsub was even involved in Amy’s death and as a result, he feels compelled to fulfil the role of the Judge by taking Amanda.” He added, causing Morgan to immediately get on the phone to Penelope, who still had Hotchner in her office reviewing the names of everyone on the base.

“Hey, babygirl. I need you to work your magic for me.” Morgan crooned into the phone, before he launched into a full recap of the conversation that we’d just had. 

I stared at the note on the table, lost in thought as I attempted to understand how our unsub could possibly have interpreted the story to his needs and Reid cleared his throat to draw my attention, silently asking with his expression what I was thinking.

“Why call himself Todd?” I grumbled, picking up the note to read again as I struggled to fit the pieces of the case together and overheard Morgan eliminating anyone who could have been present at Amy’s death as a possible suspect. “If the unsub sees Colonel Franklin as Sweeney Todd, then why would he want Amanda to refer to him as Mr Todd? It wouldn’t fit with his delusion.”

“It would certainly cause a disconnect between the way that the unsub sees himself and how Amanda sees him.” Reid responded, seeming equally unnerved by this flaw in our theory and Morgan had already begun sounding frustrated by the lack of results on his call.

“What if we’re looking at this the wrong way around?” I wondered, causing Reid to only seem more confused in a manner that was honestly pretty adorable. “We’re looking at this note as confirmation that this unsub is suffering a delusion that urges him to replicate parts of the story. What if he’s not delusional? I mean, he managed to snatch Amanda as if she disappeared into thin air and he even left a note without being spotted, on a military base no less! That takes a level of organisation and self awareness. The references to Sweeney Todd could simply be hinting at the parallels in his own life, meant as a taunt to the Colonel. Everything in this note points towards someone seeking vengeance. Perhaps he simply identifies with the feeling of injustice in the writing, rather than the key points of the story itself?” I suggested, causing Reid’s eyes to widen as he sat up straight.

“In which case, he would view himself as Todd, not Franklin. Garcia, can you look into anyone who has been close to the family again. This time, look for someone who has suffered a loss, perhaps a wife, or even a child?” He listed off commonalities between the story and regular experiences of military staff, and I followed his train of thought with interest. “The cause of death would likely have been something that Franklin was either personally involved in, or something that he authorised. There has to be a reason that the unsub is blaming him specifically.” He added, whilst I nodded in agreement and Penelope made a celebratory sound over the phone.

“Bingo! I have one Matthew Logan in my results. He served with Franklin way back, before he became the man in charge. He was close to the family for years, pretty much knew Amanda since she was born. He lost his wife last year whilst she was on deployment in Egypt. She was a soldier in Franklin’s unit who was on her final service, before she planned to take early retirement. It wasn’t discovered until her autopsy that she was actually pregnant. Sounds like she hadn’t even told her husband yet. Didn’t want to let her squad down.” Penelope reported, her voice cracking with emotion toward the end and Morgan frowned as he viewed us. 

“In his mind, Franklin took everything from him. He’s trying to return the favour.” He breathed, his expression every bit as furious as mine and I cursed under my breath. “Sweetness, can you get me an address for Logan?”

“Bad news, I’m afraid. Matthew Logan was medically discharged from service six months ago due to mental health issues following the loss of his wife. He moved to an address in Montana.” Penelope replied, leaving us all feeling deflated as the lead vanished before our eyes. “However, I can check his previous address in the base, if you can give me a minute to...umm, guys. It’s right next to where Amanda’s phone last pinged. I didn’t notice it before because it’s supposed to be empty.”

“We need to get there now. Hawthorne, that means you too.” Hotchner ordered over the phone and I felt my eyes widen in shock. “You’ll go with Morgan. Reid, you’re with me. Let’s go.”

--⥈--

My legs shook uncontrollably as Morgan strapped the bulletproof vest across my torso and I tried to contain my anxiety to little success. Part of me was excited to be able to experience a girl being rescued in person, instead of waiting for confirmation over the phone, but the rest of me was mostly terrified at the number of military personnel that were being prepped around us.

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, you know. Hotch will understand.” Morgan advised quietly, meeting my eyes with an obvious concern and I shook my head at him resolutely. 

“No. It’s fine. I can do it. I want to help bring Amanda home.” I argued, forcing my voice into my best attempt at a confident tone and Morgan continued to look uncertain. “It’s just a lot of weapons. Makes me nervous. I grew up in England. I’ve not really had contact with guns.” I explained, glancing over at the array of heavy weaponry that was being handed out and Morgan chuckled at me.

“We all carry pistols, Hawthorne. It’s the FBI. Just remember, they are there for your safety as well as ours.” He explained soothingly and I sighed, fidgeting awkwardly in the vest the moment that he had finished strapping me in it.

“Reid doesn’t.” I argued, struggling to manoeuvre my hair out of the straps. “And please, just call me Alice. I hate being addressed by my surname.”

“You noticed that, huh? Well, maybe don’t mention it around him. It’s a bit of a soft spot for the kid.” He teased, a mischievous grin spreading across his face and I chewed my lip nervously as I watched the assigned soldiers taking positions around the house to support us if needed. 

“Alice, I’m gonna keep you safe in there. Alright? You just need to make sure that you stick to me. Now, come on. It’s time to find this crazy bastard.” He instructed firmly and I wasted no time in ensuring that I remained as close to him as possible as he moved to approach the house.

My heart pounded in my chest, only worsening with every step that I took and I couldn’t help feeling almost completely defenceless. The home was painfully normal from the outside and it was hard to imagine that someone could be imprisoned within it, especially within a community that should be impenetrable for someone like Logan.

Morgan kicked the front door in with an overpowering amount of noise, launching everyone into a frenzy as Hotchner and Reid entered from the back of the house and I steeled myself as we rushed inside. I could barely hear myself think over the yelling of everyone around me and attempted to keep my focus in the moment, scanning my surroundings for anything that could lead us to Amanda. There was scarcely any furniture, or any signs at all that anyone was living here, and for a few moments, I worried that we had been led on a wild goose chase. 

Without warning, a man charged toward Morgan causing me to jump backward in fright and after a brief scuffle, Morgan managed to subdue him by pressing him against the wall.

“Sergeant Logan. We’d heard that you moved out. Got a few questions about what you’re doing on the base.” Morgan growled, his anger at finding our suspect giving him a substantial boost in power and Agent Hotchner rounded the corner to cover Morgan with his pistol.

“Reid. Take Hawthorne and search the house. Amanda has to be here somewhere.” Hotchner ordered, glancing toward me with an expression that revealed his faith in me to find something useful and Reid nodded obediently, before motioning for me to follow him.

We crept carefully through the other rooms on the ground floor, clearing out one before moving on and eventually made our way upstairs. I was painfully aware of the fact that neither of us were armed and prayed that there were no surprise accomplices waiting to jump out at us. Reid checked a room to my side, calling back to me that it was also clear and leaving only one door unsearched before me.

I turned the handle to find it locked and as Amanda’s face flashed through my mind, I had a moment of madness. Just as Reid appeared behind me, I kicked the door with all of my might and instead of crashing down as the front door had when Morgan did it, I simply bounced off it with practically no impact. I lost my footing from the power of my rebound and fortunately, Reid was quick to catch me before I hit the ground, causing me to blush furiously.

“Alice! Are you alright?” He breathed, as he helped me back to my feet and I nodded, feeling my cheeks burning with humiliation.

“I’m fine. Mainly just wounded my pride. That’s a lot harder than Morgan makes it look.” I grumbled awkwardly and Reid couldn’t suppress a grin as he regarded me. “Other than taking it off the hinges, which we definitely don’t have time for, I’m shit outta ideas.” I added in annoyance, glancing at the door as if it were the sole cause of my issues and Reid leaned over the bannister.

“Morgan, we’ve got a locked door up here that could use your persuasion skills.” He called, followed almost immediately by Morgan’s heavy footsteps rushing up the stairs and as he arrived on the landing, he glossed over us both with a judgemental smile.

We moved out of the way so that he could take a full charge up if needed, but he barged through the door as if it were made of paper. At a less pressured time, I would definitely have made some kind of sarcastic comment about being able to do that if I’d really wanted to, but for now my only concern was finding the girl.

From the state of the space inside, it was clear that this was where he had been holding Amanda, with items strewn around that had been used for the initial kidnap, but there was no sign of her any longer. Morgan turned back to face us with disbelief and we shared in his desperation.

“She’s not here. Where the hell is she?”

[sofreakinmanyfandoms]

November 22 - A Tingle and an Itch

I probably should have made the 22nd’s fic a Thanksgiving one, but my brain was in the mood for a soulmate!AU instead.

So - soulmate!AU in which soulmates have each other’s signatures somewhere on their body. That soulmark acts up when they get near their soulmate until their first kiss.

Word count: 1863

Warnings: None

Pairing: Tony Stark X Reader

You shifted the stack of files in your arms as you navigated the overly-busy hallway. For your second day, you felt like your boss was requiring an awful lot of you. That was to be expected, though, when you worked for someone like Pepper Potts.

Two months ago when you’d been let go from your last job because the company went under, you’d applied to be Ms. Potts’s assistant on a whim. It was a high-profile job for an assistant, one that would ensure you could get a good job after if you ended up deciding to switch fields, and since she used to be an assistant herself you would be sure she would have absolutely fair expectations for what a human could do.

You’d forgotten she had been the golden standard for assistants.

Not that she asked you to do anything unreasonable as part of your job, but after your first day she expected you to know her schedule backwards and forwards and be able to handle what she threw your way. It was taking every ounce of organizational skill you had; your poor apartment hadn’t been unpacked yet beyond absolute essentials because you had no motivation left beyond stuffing your face with takeout and falling asleep when you got home at night.

The absolute worst part, however, was knowing your soulmate was somewhere in the building and you didn’t have time to search for them around doing your job.

Like everyone, you had a soulmark – your soulmate’s signature was scrawled across your skin. Yours was on the inside of your left ankle, and try as you might you couldn’t decipher it. (You were maybe sixty percent sure the first name was Anthony, but all you could make out of the rest of it was the initials E and S.) When you got within a certain distance of your soulmate, your mark would get a tingling buzz to it that supposedly went away the first time you kissed them. Whenever you were at work, your soulmark tingled almost constantly. It made doing your job that much harder when you had to fight the urge to run through the whole building until you found them.

Then again, you reminded yourself, as long as you worked in the same building, odds were that you’d run into them eventually. Maybe they’d be the one who got time to look and found you! It had to happen eventually. Soulmates were inevitable.

----------

Tony was trying to listen to what Pepper was saying, really he was, but the constant itch on his collarbone was terribly distracting. His soulmark had been acting up the whole work day for almost a week now except for the two times when he’d had to go out for an Avengers call.

(Which had been a blessing, really, since fighting off weird chimera things was hard enough without that distraction.)

“Tony, pay attention.”

His head shot up from where he’d be trying to sneak a glance at his mark. “I am, Pepper dear, really I am. Just a small itch. It’s nothing. It’s not like it’s making it hard, impossible really, to focus on anything except for oh hell it’s getting worse –”

Tony cut off his rant at a knock on the door because Pepper shot him a look before she called for the person to enter. That and damn, he didn’t know his soulmark could hurt that badly.

----------

The tingle in your ankle had reached epic proportions as you entered with the paperwork Pepper had requested you bring to her office. Walking was becoming rather difficult, but you somehow managed to keep your expression neutral, an accomplishment you were even more proud of when you realized Mr. Stark was also in the room.

“The contracts you requested, Ms. Potts,” you confirmed as you passed the stack of files to her.

“Thank you, Y/N,” she told you. “Can you take a seat, please? I’ll need you to run these to legal once they’re signed.”

“Of course.” You sat and absently crossed your legs, most of your attention focused on not showing just how much pain you were in.

Pepper flipped open the files and signed where she needed to, passing them to Mr. Stark when she was done. He signed them rather absently, seeming far more focused on scratching what must have been a highly persistent itch than he was on what he was doing or even what Pepper was telling him.

Brave man, you couldn’t help thinking. Even if his name was on the company, you had a hard time imagining anyone being comfortable enough with Ms. Potts to outright ignore her.

Your boss slid the now signed contracts back to you and dismissed you with a nod. As you shifted to get up your mark twinged, and although you managed to keep your expression neutral your first step wobbled a little. Pepper didn’t catch it because she was again facing Mr. Stark, but he was staring at you with far more intensity than you were expecting.

To your relief, the tingling in your mark faded a bit as you made your way to the floor where legal was located. You must have been pretty close to your soulmate for it to have been that intense.

----------

“Tony! I can’t believe you’re ignoring me to stare at my assistant! Who am I kidding, of course I can believe it. I really shouldn’t be surprised with how long I’ve know you. I’m warning you, stay away –”

“Pep,” Tony interrupted, absently rubbing at his mark where the itching had started to fade as he kept staring at the door, “I know that you know me well enough you’re  not going to want to believe this, but I think I saw my signature on her ankle.”

Pepper gaped at him for a moment, before collecting herself.

“Tony,” she said softly, “are you sure?”

“My soulmark’s been bothering me since Monday and it was by far the worst it’s ever been when she was just in here. Yeah, Pep, I’m sure.”

“Well,” she straightened up and shot him a look he knew meant what she was about to say was law, “Monday was her first day. I’ll find out for you. You are not to go anywhere near her until I do. We do not need a sexual harassment suite in the making.” Pepper paused in the doorway as she exited, sighing and turning back to shoot him a rueful look. “I really liked working with this one.”

Tony felt the smile spread across his face once she was out of the room.

Maybe now he could get rid of that damn itch.

----------

Your boss was waiting for you when you arrived back at your desk.

“I’m going to ask you two questions,” she said as soon as you entered the room. “I don’t want to, but if I don’t ask them, someone else will, and he’ll be much creepier in how he does it, I’m sure. If the answer is no I’ll pass it on and it will not affect your job in any way. If the answer is yes, we’ll figure it out.” Pepper took a deep breath and held out a piece of paper to you. “Is the signature on the bottom the same as your soulmark, and is it on your ankle?”

You froze when you saw the familiar scrawl across the bottom.

“Is that a yes?” she asked you softly after a few moments of silence. All you could bring yourself to do was nod.

Pepper sighed. “He was right, then.” She set the paper aside and took your hands in hers. “I take it you know your soulmate works here? You’ve felt in in your mark?”

You shook your head, then realized what that would look like. “Oh, um, yes, I knew that from day one. I just haven’t had time to figure out who it was. I promise I would never use company time for personal business,” you rushed to assure her.

“I appreciate that,” she said with a smile, “but you’re about to on my orders. You’ve realized by now that I know who your soulmate is.” It wasn’t a question. “Do you want me to tell you who it is or just direct you to them? I know that the pain of a soulmark is intense when you’re close to them, so you won’t exactly have time to process who it is when you see them, but I don’t want to take away the surprise if you’d rather find out face to face.”

You worried your lower lip as you considered her offer. “I’m guessing the fact that you’re even offering means it’s someone I’ll know well enough be surprised to be paired with?” She nodded. “I… I think I’d still like to find out in person.”

“I understand,” she said, and from her eyes you knew she did. “Take care of them for me, okay? They’ll be waiting for you back in the conference room we were in earlier.”

----------

You weren’t an idiot. As soon as you’d realized what Pepper was asking you, you’d known who your soulmate was. The pain you’d felt when you’d brought her the papers made sense.

It was honestly annoying that you hadn’t realized sooner. Anthony E. S… Anthony Edward Stark.

Tony Stark.

You were working in his building, for goodness sake; the name and the times your mark tingled should have been enough of a clue.

Your soulmark was nearing the point of pain again as you reached the conference room door. Before entering, you paused and reminded yourself that just because you were pretty sure you knew who was on the other side of that door didn’t mean you weren’t wrong.

You weren’t wrong.

Tony’s eyes shot to yours as you entered, his hand again pressed over his right collar bone where you assumed his mark must be.

“I… I know I’m probably not what you were hoping for,” he said hesitantly as you stood in the doorway. “I’m older than you by a bit, unless you look remarkably young for your age in which case great job, and I’m kind of a mess which meeting you honestly probably won’t change too much. I mean, I’m still gonna forget to sleep and spend hours in my workshop and, and leave for dangerous Avengers stuff… I’m not safe, and being with me wouldn’t be safe, and I understand if you want to turn around and walk out that door again –”

“Oh, shut up and kiss me already,” you interrupted breathlessly, and then you were meeting in the middle and his arms were around you and his lips were on yours. The tingle from your mark spread through your whole body, the pain an immense wave of pleasure as you angled your head to deepen the kiss and he pulled your body closer to his. You were both gasping for breath when you finally had to pull back.

“Hi,” he said with a grin, “I’m Tony.”

“Hi, Tony,” you replied with a smile of your own, “I’m Y/N. Nice to meet you.”

[balonlionardo1992]

ohio health insurance laws

BEST ANSWER: Try this site where you can compare quotes from different companies :insurancefreerates.top

ohio health insurance laws

ohio health insurance laws.  In general, you can’t get your health insurance or Medicare if you’ve been in a car accident.  In this case, your auto insurance will cover you and your passengers if there are medical debts or any lost wages. In case you were injured in a car accident, you’re not on your own right now.  You’ll need to speak to an underwriter to get a determination of who is accepted by the auto insurance company.  There can be a “short term” that isn’t in your control yet.  There are things you can do in the meantime: You might also consider getting a DUI and paying the extra to not get into a car accident together, but that’s another story.  Keep in mind that if you plan to get into an accident together, it’s best for you to have a permanent home or auto insurance policy to avoid any financial consequences.  If you just bought. ohio health insurance laws If you don’t enroll your health insurance in time for your deadline, you can expect to pay extra on your premium when you apply. If you are eligible for Medicaid, Medicare, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) If you do not qualify for Medicaid, you may still be eligible for an insurance or financial assistance program (e.g. CHIP or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SAPAP). Many states offer a free health insurance calculator. These tools can help you estimate which companies offer the best health insurance rates based on your age, location, household size, and other factors. What happens if my employer offers my health insurance? You may have a grace period to take possession of your health insurance. Most states require that your employer provide health insurance coverage to residents while employed at your job. If you miss work due to a covered trip, your state will suspend your license if you fail to provide adequate proof of. ohio health insurance laws are similar to ACA plans. A . Also, the plan limits are typically higher and the deductible is lower in addition to your premium. . This means that the higher the premium, the more coverage you can achieve to provide adequate health care to your loved ones. The new plan is called . The ACA offers plans in the following states: Arizona, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. However, plans are not available in Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, Washington. Health insurance premiums are calculated based on the risk profile of the person to be insured. The higher the risk profile and the higher the premium, the higher the risk. Premiums for individual policies, like those for short term health insurance and long term health insurance, are more expensive. In addition, premium rates vary based on the health benefits. Affordable health insurance plans offer the ability to save money with an individual.

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Need insurance? You re in the right place. We ve been serving the insurance needs of families and businesses for more than 40 years. So why make insurance so much more important? Well, I have you covered. I’ve been in the industry for over 35 years. And, in that time, Insurance has become a powerful force in the area, which is really exciting for me. I’ve talked to many great people, I’ve talked to people who have been in the game before. That’s the real motivation. If you’re looking for a career in insurance, I can’t think of anything I’ve really ever said, which I think is really exciting. I’ve started off writing a book about it called. And then it really started going away. I really think we would have had the answer in the book if I hadn’t started back in 1995. ”I had no idea what book I was looking for…” ””.

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Requirements for Employer Health Insurance Plans for a Driver or Operator of a Vehicle In Massachusetts, is covered under only a driver’s or operator’s insurance plan. The company will not offer coverage for vehicles registered in the name of the driver or operator. Insurance for Driver or Operator’s Vehicle For those with no car dealership experience, or if you have a salesperson, please refer to “” which provides a standard solution that covers you if you are licensed to operate a motor vehicle in Massachusetts. Driving Violation Insurance for Driver’s Vehicle Vehicle X .

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Ohio Health Insurance for Dependents/Children You are welcome to apply for child coverage for dependent children who live in the same household but do not have a resident state in another state, even if you would qualify for Medicaid. Please refer to our FAQ page if you do not know what form your own medical plan would take. How long do you have to have? To buy health insurance as an adult in Oregon, you must have a qualifying family member with a documented family history of health insurance coverage on file. The Oregon Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the Children’s Health Insurance Program Act, and the Oregon Health Insurance Pool are designed to protect uninsured children. There can be no assurance that family members or individuals will have the opportunity to file for child coverage, but parents who are not covered under their parent’s health insurance plan or are not the sole policyholder for a young person living in Oregon should consider purchasing health insurance as soon as they become eligible. Because parents are often.

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Our Insurance Blog is here to help our community understand insurance better. We will fight you every step of the way to save you money and help you shop for coverage that suits your needs. When our team reviews your policy, we work hard to ensure the entire process is working for you. Insurance companies rely on the financial strength of insurance companies, as well as the financial integrity of insurance companies. The companies that we have been working with will take the time to show us that they are strong financially for an individual insurance policy. They will provide customer service and help us get the information to them in an easy and timely manner and are willing to walk you through every step of the way to obtain the lowest rates on the right insurance. We’ll be there for you the entire process from start to finish, and when you need us, we’ll be there to help you be the best insurance customer you can be. We can provide you with all of the necessary coverage and guidance we need at the same time.

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Health Insurance Submission and Approval. I have been a patient and the doctor had my insurance cancelled due to billing. I was not at all concerned and thought that they would take care of me without having to use it to bill insurance. My insurance company is about to cancel my insurance, but a new claim for a damaged vehicle has been filed against me, with the permission of the insurer. I hope that I am not a legal issue, but I am still on the hook with the insurance company so that the car was not damaged. Will be considering a bankruptcy in 2 weeks. Thanks so much for the advice. When paying on insurance is the best way for a claim that is actually paid by the insurance company. The insurance has policies that are “pay for the damage” and the company is obligated to pay the claim in full. At the end of the day, paying by the car insurance company is the cost associated with not having an insurance claim on your hand. It depends on what your insurance company has.

Get health insurance in Ohio

Get health insurance in Ohio. It s no matter your situation or needs. We can help. When you get started on your search for good and cheap health insurance you can rest assured that you are protected from some of the highest quality health care coverage available. When you make your way to the right health coverage for your needs, you ll be pleasantly surprised with the best quality health insurance for everyone. When you sign up for your first health insurance now, find out whether or not an insurance plan will be perfect for you or if you need them to have you stay for longer than that. If you need to move to Ohio, you can do so by calling 12 or 12. In the following case you are moving to Ohio, you should let your company know. You will be able to check out your insurance coverage for next year by contacting your insurance broker. You ll need to add a few health insurance companies to the list of policies with the help of the Department of Insurance. As your state and for all times, the.

We discuss current events, products and innovations in the insurance marketplace.

We discuss current events, products and innovations in the insurance marketplace. To learn more about the as one of our top picks for any of our , read our reviews of our favorite vendors. If you’re interested in building a more robust and positive relationship with your agent, you can ask her or his to join your team. We also review our favorite sellers. If you have a personal or business auto policy for another vehicles and/or are getting a discount on your vehicle (in the next 3 to 5 years you’re on a discount), you’ll know you can use this discount to help pay for repairs and replacements of vehicles you’ve been saving for your vehicle.  Read more about our top picks for the . If you have a commercial auto insurance policy to cover your liability, you’re going to need to contact the insurance company. You’ll need to sign something called a “claim form” and fill out a  to . These types of forms typically require that, at the time.

We are a participating provider with most major health insurers in the Ohio region.

We are a participating provider with most major health insurers in the Ohio region. We have a number of different options for Ohio health insurance carriers, so we can get you an exact quote and compare policies and prices. If you would like to compare the quotes from the top providers we have, simply give us a call , and we would be happy to help. We have so much more than just our personal info. We also look at other types of products, such as car insurance, and have resources for people from both sides of the debate, such as when you have more questions in certain situations. Don t leave your loved ones without health insurance they can get in the meantime. Get started by using our . We look forward to working with you. Ohio residents may qualify for up to 30 percent of the state’s Medicaid funds for 2019. This includes $300,000 in Medicaid benefits and $150,000 in Ohio Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). You don’t need to take your car or truck, bike or watercraft while you.

Health Insurance Plans – Adding Dependents

Health Insurance Plans – Adding Dependents to a Car Insurance Policy is easier than you think, when it’s done right. You’ll get the coverage level you need at a great price. Whether you’re in the market for a new or better policy to start, we can help. You’ll want to review what’s covered by your policy and what other coverages and coverages you might need to change. It isn’t that surprising that so many people end up buying auto insurance without looking into the implications. The same can be said about having lots of options, especially if they’re an individual with high out-of-pocket expenses. We get calls like you’re the beneficiary “s daughter and are very happy with it,” she says. If they don’t pay that amount by the time her 18th birthday rolls around, she’ll have to start paying again. If you don’t have auto auto insurance.

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Accepted Health Insurance Payors and Plans All (A-Lifetime - $500 monthly fee) $300 annual coverage All LowCost Health Plan Medicare SupplementMedicare Health Plans All Other Policies & Discounts Medical Assistance$6.75$17.65$9.09$1.35$19.10$10.08$12.10$22.85$46$58$74$86$82$90$94$94$100$106$134$143$152$159$187$193$220$240$262$262$316$317$360$328$380$393$414$424$427$427$435$449$453$453$453$461$454$469$474$474$474$474$474$474$474$474$474$474$474$474$474$474$474$474.

[ghostofaformerself]

STEVE ROGERS ( @peacereflected ) asked for a consult FILE ID: enemies make the best lovers

‘you've always impressed me. you're stronger than you look.’

     HEART DROPS INTO HER STOMACH. all of a sudden there's a hollow feeling in her chest and the air is gone from her lungs. there's no hiding how shoulders drop slightly, the crushing weight of realization of how far down this rabbit hole he really is and how she may very well not be able to bring him back. still, rayne wants to believe the steve she knows exists, and she's not willing to give up on that idea just yet.

     ❝good, then maybe that'll help me hold you off long enough so you can really thinking about what you're doing. this isn't you, steve. none of this is.❞ she doesn't want to believe she's been played the whole time, not when her gut is screaming that it can't all have been a lie.

[webriferinfo-blog]

Digital Marketing Agency USA

SEO

 Before you think about clever ways to evade  policies, you should be aware that any trick you can think of has probably been tried before, and that sneaky editing leaves a trail an experienced sleuth can follow. Before you succumb to the dark side, know that the results may be unpleasant, public, and permanent.

 If you are an SEO practitioner who has come to  seeking to increase the link popularity of your site or manage your client reputation, first of all, welcome! Second, we hope you will learn more about how because we want you to be a productive member of our community, rather than a source of linkspam and bias. Before you make any edits, please familiarize yourself with the  of interest guidelines. Also, be aware that page titles can have a "bombing" effect towards topics linked, so be sure to name articles neutrally.

  There are a variety of ways that you can participate in the  community:

If  has an article about your organization, you are welcome to correct link spam or vandalism in your article at any time. If you would like to suggest changes to the article, you can post suggested revisions to the article talk page and ask other editors for help getting the material into the article. You can also announce yourself on the article talk page and offer to provide answers if other editors have any questions about your organization.

Because of, many SEO companies are getting good ranking for their websites. Getting links from high PR sites is one type of strategy in SEO.

If your organization doesn't have an article yet, and you think your organization is notable, find an appropriate category or article talk page and suggest a new article. You can even help start the article and collect references. Ideally, you should post these raw materials in your own user space. You can start a page such as Mypage/Sandbox.

  If a competitor is introducing bias into articles, you can report these incidents in the proper venue. Begin by raising concerns on the article talk page. If that fails to resolve the issue, you can go to the requests for comment page or "third opinion". For obvious violations of  conflict of interest policy, you can file a report at the conflict of interest noticeboard.

By participating in articles related to your field, other experts or journalists may notice you, but please avoid self-promotion when editing articles. Participation in  may lead to public relations opportunities. You can create a user page for yourself with a short bio and a link to your personal site to provide more information about yourself.

Many organizations seek to inform and educate the public. By linking to relevant  articles or copying  content to your web site, you can provide value to your audience.

Please help expand and create articles, so long as you follow  policies, guidelines, and community customs. Improving the public understanding of topics that are important to you is a good thing. Again, avoid promoting yourself or your products within articles, and maintain neutral point of view.  is for education, not propaganda.

Remember that you are a guest in  house. While you are here, you will get the warmest reception if you follow house rules and customs. If you don't like the rules, you are welcome to comment on the rules' talk pages and request changes. If you build consensus, you can even edit the rules.

  Edit for hire

 Edit for hire is a very bad idea. Microsoft caused  themselves a great deal of bad press by paying someone to edit their article. The problem with edit for hire is that an editor paid by an organization, being externally motivated, will almost inevitably violate neutral point of view, one of most important policies.

Instead of edit for hire, you can advise your clients to get involved with relevant articles and Projects. Once they understand what wants, they can suggest a new article about their organization. Disclosing any commercial connections is a way to increase trust and avoid ethical challenges. If other editors are interested in covering your organization, you can support them by pointing out useful references.

Can  increase your link popularity?

Is an encyclopedia, not a search engine,  nor a directory. There is no need to add every website that might be relevant to the external links section of an article. Long lists of external links do not add value to articles, and may reduce article quality by confusing the reader. To help create and maintain high quality of articles, many ns monitorrecent changes for link additions. While an editor may get away with adding unnecessary links to a low profile article for a short time, improper links tend to be deleted immediately from high-profile articles. In any case, when improper links are removed, the editor who added them may receive a spam warning. Editors can be blocked from editing  after receiving several warnings.

  Before adding external links to articles, please read : External links. When citing an external link as a source for a statement, make sure that you have chosen the most reliable sources available.

  All links on  use the nofollow attribute on external links. Google and other search engines claim to disregard such links when calculating link popularity. Certain  pages may also use the noindex robots meta tag value to prevent search engine indexing. You may freely place links on some of these pages, but doing so probably will not help your rankings in the major search engines.

Blacklisting.

  There may be instances where  interest in creating high-quality encyclopedia articles coincides with the interests of businesses that want to better educate the public about particular topics. The  community recommends focusing on the edit, rather than the editor. If a commercial interest is seeking to educate the public, they can possibly add appropriate, neutral point of view material to  without provoking a backlash. Adding spin to  is highly discouraged and will usually result in a rebuke. Likewise, starting an article about a non-notable subject in order to promote the subject will usually result in the article being deleted.

Bite: Can you explain why it a bad idea for a PR firm to be editing  on behalf of a client? How does the  community react to such activity?

Wales: It is a bad idea because of the conflict-of-interest. It is perfectly fine to talk to the community, to show them more information, to give them things that show your client in the best light. But it is wrong to try to directly participate in the process when you have an agenda.

  Paid editing and conflict of interest. If an editor is paid, that signals a likely conflict of interest, but unpaid agents can also face a similar situation. Agents should maintain the same standards of behavior as if they were the principal. Any editor, even the subject of an article, can make certain kinds of edits, for instance: reverting vandalism, and clearing linkspam. To protect their own reputation, agents may announce themselves on the talk page, and place any remotely controversial edits there, so somebody else can add them to the article. In general, a principal interests benefit most by encouraging neutral editors to work on the article. Agents are probably wise to take one step backwards and let the community maintain the article, while they offer support. Agents can, for instance, identify new facts or sources on the talk page so other editors can verify that information and add it to the article. Agents can also offer to answer questions.

 digital marketing agency usa

[seotipsandtricks-me]

Originally posted on white.net Content marketing; creating and distributing engaging content to your core target audience. But how does it work? What are the processes and best practices? What do we need to consider before, during and after strategising our content? In this blog, we reveal all. If you want to skip the blog, you can see all the slides here. Why do you need a content marketing strategy? First of all, why can we not just write any old content for our websites? The answer is because we need to create a loyal brand that resonates with our customers. In The Human Brand written by Chris Malone and Susan Fiske, there are two key principles when it comes to brand loyalty; Warmth – Connecting with humans and having the right values – and Competency – Being able to deliver the service to a high standard. For example, as digital marketers, we need values in our business that show passion for what we do. We need to show warmth through the eagerness to explain and educate clients, friendly participation at events and sharing knowledge, as well as talking to clients/industry people about digital – beyond our day-to-day SEO and PPC roles. But at the same time, we need to show competency through knowledge of the latest changes in digital marketing, attending thought‐leadership events, and expanding knowledge beyond our immediate deliverable work. Personal connections are key Ultimately, personal connections with our audiences are key. The more we connect with our audience, the more we will improve rankings, drive traffic and increase awareness. This is especially in today’s digital market as traditional ranking signals are becoming less significant. Google’s algorithms are becoming so complex through machine learning that’s understanding more about what the user wants to find when browsing – not so many websites specifically optimised for keywords etc. The best metrics to measure how engaged the audience is with our content is Bounce Rate vs. Organic Position Average Time on Site vs. Organic Position Engagement. This shows that Google is recognising that the more time a user spends on your site, the better the rankings you’ll have. The core ranking factors like high-quality backlinks and keyword targetting are now just not enough to get by. It’s all about suiting your content to your users to gain a personal connection so they’re more engaged with your brand. Step 1: Define Your Commander’s Intent So, step 1 of what to consider when launching a content marketing strategy is defining your commander’s intent. What do we mean by this, well General George S. Patton once said: “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity”. Essentially, if you lay out a step by step process of how someone should reach a goal then when there are complications, that person gets stuck because the original plan is then obsolete. If, however, you tell someone what the end goal is then their natural ingenuity will help them get to the end goal. A great example of this is Spirit Airlines. The owner told their strategist that their only goal is being the cheapest domestic airline in the US. This is the commander’s intent, and the strategist, in turn, formed a strategy to reach this goal accordingly with features like bare fare, frill control and plane simple. Step 2: Know what you will measure The next step is to make sure everyone involved in the content marketing process knows what will be measured and which goals want to be achieved. Usually, this means coming up with three core goals and others to monitor. An example of the measurement options include Rankings, Profit, Revenue, Engagement, Brand Awareness, Traffic, Enquiries, Repeat visits to the site, Social Following Partnerships built, ROI and Time on Site. All these metrics measure the impact of a content marketing campaign and the progress of an online business. So it’s important to look at them as a whole for different timescales; i.e. what metrics matter months 1- 3, which are more important 3-6 and 6-12, etc. Over time the strategy can be altered to improve certain metrics measured during the campaign. Step 3: Initial Research So why are we creating the content? If it’s all about how we can resonate with the core audience groups, what questions do we need to ask before creating and distributing the content? Initially, research and answer these questions: How do people know they want your product/service? Who will you be selling to? What makes you different from your competitors? What is the alternative to your product/service? What questions is your audience asking? The broader the picture you build of your target audience and why you’re selling to them, the more you’ll focus on creating relevant content to fit their needs. Which stage of the purchase funnel are they? All content created is based on ‘how do people know they want your product?’. By this, we mean the potential customer could be at the ‘awareness’ stage when they’re finding a solution for something (‘how to fix TV with fuzzy sound?’), or the  or the ‘interest’ stage where they’re researching the options for solving the problem (‘best tv reviews’), or the ‘desire’ stage when the user is looking to purchase a product to solve their solution (‘difference between 4k HD and HD’), or the ‘action’ stage where the potential customer is ready to buy (‘Ultra HD 4K Pro HDR OLED Television’). All four of these stages are important when creating content and ultimately driving more sales. There are then lots of ways to create personas of your core audience groups. Ask yourself questions to understand the person you’re likely to be selling to. Are they male or female? How old are they? What’s their income? What job do they do? What’s their family status? What are their likes and dislikes? What’s their everyday routine? All thee questions can be first answered based on your personal experiences and knowledge of your brand then use tools like You Gov Profiles Lite to research the questions being asked in the relevant market. Step 4: Know what your customers want Now it’s a case of knowing exactly what your audience wants. The best way to understand this is to know where your audience hangs out online. There are multiple places this may be including forums, social media, Google search pages and tools like Bloomberry. First of all find a forum that suits your audience group then do a site search by typing ‘site:domain plus keyword’ into the Google search bar. For instance, the site search ‘site:mumsnet.com/talk motivation’ will bring up all the conversations around motivational techniques for mothers. These forum thread titles can then be translated into blog topics/titles. Similarly, if you type in any relevant hashtag or keyword into Twitter’s search bar you’ll find heaps of relevant tweets with questions around a topic. You can then use scraping tools to extract all the relevant information on those chosen topics to scan your findings. Finally, tools like Bloomberry and Answer The Public gather data from Google suggest and aggregate the most common search queries around a topic. From here you’ll have an overview of what your audience is speaking about. Step 5: Produce the content Now it’s time to produce the content, but where do you start? Start again by ‘who is my content for”. There are two types of audience to cater to and consider: current customers and potential customers. The idea is to attract new customers who engage with your current content, while also making sure that new content appeals to current and new audiences. There is content that exclusively appeals to current customers, other content created for potential customers, and some do both. It’s also important to consider the factors of who is reading the content. For instance, are the audience likely to be those sitting down and having a good read of your content, or will they more likely be scanning and flicking through? If they’re using a desktop, do they want more information on screen compared with an on-the-go mobile browsing experience? Are they looking for location-specific content? For example, they’re in a new area, would they be looking for your restaurant by location? Don’t just create the newest thing Sometimes it’s easy to have a so-called lightbulb moment with a content idea, but although the topic/title may be brilliantly interesting, has something similar worked before? Is there evidence that this content will really fly? Don’t just make the newest thing, but don’t copy old ideas. Adapt successful old ideas to make them your own. For example, theatlas.com and mapchart.net are two sites with publically available data from sources you can rely on. Data and statistics are always changing so why not base your content on new trends? In addition to this, optimising your content for featured snippets is also a great way to improve click-through rates (CTRs) in SERP. What is a featured snippet? It’s that information box that comes up with an informed answer for a specific search query. If you’re a furniture retailer and users are searching for ‘how do I clean my leather sofa’, you could produce a blog post containing an answer to this exact search query in the form of a single paragraph or in list form. A great trick for brand trust. Step 6: Help people find it So, you’ve created the great content but don’t forget to promote it. First, and foremost, use your technical SEO knowledge; make sure Google can access it. Really you shouldn’t be creating new content until the technical health of your site is up to speed. With a clear site taxonomy, consistent internal linking, an updated XML sitemap and robots.txt file, your site will be easily crawlable by the Google bots, and more importantly, they will be able to seek out all your great content. Then its a case of sharing your content on the most relevant social platforms. Twitter is popular for ages 18-‐29, but remember that LinkedIn users tend to be slightly older, earning more money and have a university degree, while Twitter and Facebook are also more frequently used than LinkedIn, at least once a day. Again, know your audience. Lots of ways to share your content Other techniques include building and following Twitter lists. and publishing content on LinkedIn Pulse. The former will keep you up to date with who wants to hear about the type of content your producing, and over time, you’ll build up a quality list of Twitter users and influencers who may well share your content pieces. The latter is another way for businesses to upload their content in front of a niche audience group. You can also automate all your social media posts through tools like Sprout Social, so you consistently post each day. Finally, most importantly, be consistent with all your posts. Users will expect a tweet of a certain style, format, imagery and time each day. If a tweet is delivered in an unusual way then this may throw the core audience group. Also always think about tagging related accounts which could engage with a new audience group and share content beyond a retweet. It’s also worth promoting quality content through paid social channels like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to gain even more eyes and ultimately drive conversions to your product. Key takeaways Step 1: Commanders Intent Step 2: Know what you will measure Step 3 : Initial Research Step 4: Know what your customers want Step 5: Produce the Content Step 6: Help people find it And if you need any further explanation or advice on content marketing then don’t hesitate to contact our very friendly team. The post CREATING A CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY appeared first on FOUND.

[ramyaharikrishnan01]

seo company in chennai

SEO

Before you think about clever ways to evade policies, you should be aware that any trick you can think of has probably been tried before, and that sneaky editing leaves a trail an experienced sleuth can follow. Before you succumb to the dark side, know that the results may be unpleasant, public, and permanent.

 If you are an SEO practitioner who has come to seeking to increase the link popularity of your site or manage your client reputation, first of all, welcome! Second, we hope you will learn more about how because we want you to be  seo company in chennai  a productive member of our community, rather than a source of linkspam and bias. Before you make any edits, please familiarize yourself with the  of interest guidelines. Also, be aware that page titles can have a "bombing" effect towards topics linked, so be sure to name articles neutrally.

 There are a variety of ways that you can participate in the  community:

If  has an article about your organization, you are welcome to correct link spam or vandalism in your article at any time. If you would like to suggest changes to the article, you can post suggested revisions to the article talk page and ask other editors for help getting the material into the article. You can also announce yourself on the article talk page and offer to provide answers if other editors have any questions about your organization.

Because of, many SEO companies are getting good ranking for their websites. Getting links from high PR sites is one type of strategy in SEO.

If your organization doesn't have an article yet, and you think your organization is notable, find an appropriate category or article talk page and suggest a new article. You can even help start the article and collect references. Ideally, you should post these raw materials in your own user space. You can start a page such as Mypage/Sandbox.

  If a competitor is introducing bias into articles, you can report these incidents in the proper venue. Begin by raising concerns on the article talk page. If that fails to resolve the issue, you can go to the requests for comment page or "third opinion". For obvious violations of  conflict of interest policy, you can file a report at the conflict of interest noticeboard.

By participating in articles related to your field, other experts or journalists may notice you, but please avoid self-promotion when editing articles. Participation in  may lead to public relations opportunities. You can create a user   seo company in chennai   page for yourself with a short bio and a link to your personal site to provide more information about yourself.

Many organizations seek to inform and educate the public. By linking to relevant  articles or copying  content to your web site, you can provide value to your audience.

Please help expand and create articles, so long as you follow  policies, guidelines, and community customs. Improving the public understanding of topics that are important to you is a good thing. Again, avoid promoting yourself or your products within articles, and maintain neutral point of view. is for education, not propaganda.

Remember that you are a guest in  house. While you are here, you will get the warmest reception if you follow house rules and customs. If you don't like the rules, you are welcome to comment on the rules' talk pages and request changes. If you build consensus, you can even edit the rules.

  Edit for hire

Edit for hire is a very bad idea. Microsoft caused themselves a great deal of bad press by paying someone to edit their article. The problem with edit for hire is that an editor paid by an organization, being externally motivated, will almost inevitably violate neutral point of view, one of most important policies.

Instead of edit for hire, you can advise your clients to get involved with relevant articles and Projects. Once they understand what wants, they can suggest a new article about their organization. Disclosing any commercial connections is a way to increase trust and avoid ethical challenges. If other editors are interested in covering your organization, you can support them by pointing out useful references.

Can  increase your link popularity?

Is an encyclopedia, not a search engine, nor a directory. There is no need to add every website that might be relevant to the external links section of an article. Long lists of external links do not add value to articles, and may reduce article quality by confusing the reader. To help create and maintain high quality of articles, many ns monitorrecent changes for link additions. While an editor may get away with adding unnecessary links to a low profile article for a short time, improper links tend to be deleted immediately from high-profile articles. In any case, when improper links are removed, the editor who added them may receive a spam warning. Editors can be blocked from editing  after receiving several warnings.

  Before adding external links to articles, please read : External links. When citing an external link as a source for a statement, make sure that you have chosen the most reliable sources available.

  All links on  use the nofollow attribute on external links. Google and other search engines claim to disregard such links when calculating link popularity. Certain  pages may also use the noindex robots meta tag value to prevent search engine indexing. You may freely place links on some of these pages, but doing so probably will not help your rankings in the major search engines.

Blacklisting.

 There may be instances where  interest in creating high-quality encyclopedia articles coincides with the interests of businesses that want to better educate the public about particular topics. The  community recommends focusing on the edit, rather than the editor. If a commercial interest is seeking to educate the public, they can possibly add appropriate, neutral point of view material to  without provoking a backlash. Adding spin to  is highly discouraged and will usually result in a rebuke. Likewise, starting an article about a non-notable subject in order to promote the subject will usually result in the article being deleted.

Bite: Can you explain why it a bad idea for a PR firm to be editing  on behalf of a client? How does the  community react to such activity?

Wales: It is a bad idea because of the conflict-of-interest. It is perfectly fine to talk to the community, to show them more information, to give them things that show your client in the best light. But it is wrong to try to directly participate in the process when you have an agenda.

  Paid editing and conflict of interest. If an editor is paid, that signals a likely conflict of interest, but unpaid agents can also face a similar situation. Agents should maintain the same standards of behavior as if they were the principal. Any editor, even the subject of an article, can make certain kinds of edits, for instance: reverting vandalism, and clearing linkspam. To protect their own reputation, agents may announce themselves on the talk page, and place any remotely controversial edits there, so somebody else can add them to the article. In general, a principal interests benefit most by encouraging neutral editors to work on the article. Agents are probably wise to take one step backwards and let the community maintain the article, while they offer support. Agents can, for instance, identify new facts or sources on the talk page so other editors can verify that information and add it to the article. Agents can also offer to answer questions.

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[seoambattur-blog]

Seo Training in Chennai

SEO

 Before you think about clever ways to evade  policies, you should be aware that any trick you can think of has probably been tried before, and that sneaky editing leaves a trail an experienced sleuth can follow. Before you succumb to the dark side, know that the results may be unpleasant, public, and permanent.

 If you are an SEO practitioner who has come to  seeking to increase the link popularity of your site or manage your client reputation, first of all, welcome! Second, we hope you will learn more about how because we want you to be a productive member of our community, rather than a source of linkspam and bias. Before you make any edits, please familiarize yourself with the  of interest guidelines. Also, be aware that page titles can have a "bombing" effect towards topics linked, so be sure to name articles neutrally.

  There are a variety of ways that you can participate in the  community:

If  has an article about your organization, you are welcome to correct link spam or vandalism in your article at any time. If you would like to suggest changes to the article, you can post suggested revisions to the article talk page and ask other editors for help getting the material into the article. You can also announce yourself on the article talk page and offer to provide answers if other editors have any questions about your organization.

Because of, many SEO companies are getting good ranking for their websites. Getting links from high PR sites is one type of strategy in SEO.

If your organization doesn't have an article yet, and you think your organization is notable, find an appropriate category or article talk page and suggest a new article. You can even help start the article and collect references. Ideally, you should post these raw materials in your own user space. You can start a page such as Mypage/Sandbox.

  If a competitor is introducing bias into articles, you can report these incidents in the proper venue. Begin by raising concerns on the article talk page. If that fails to resolve the issue, you can go to the requests for comment page or "third opinion". For obvious violations of  conflict of interest policy, you can file a report at the conflict of interest noticeboard.

By participating in articles related to your field, other experts or journalists may notice you, but please avoid self-promotion when editing articles. Participation in  may lead to public relations opportunities. You can create a user page for yourself with a short bio and a link to your personal site to provide more information about yourself.

Many organizations seek to inform and educate the public. By linking to relevant  articles or copying  content to your web site, you can provide value to your audience.

Please help expand and create articles, so long as you follow  policies, guidelines, and community customs. Improving the public understanding of topics that are important to you is a good thing. Again, avoid promoting yourself or your products within articles, and maintain neutral point of view.  is for education, not propaganda.

Remember that you are a guest in  house. While you are here, you will get the warmest reception if you follow house rules and customs. If you don't like the rules, you are welcome to comment on the rules' talk pages and request changes. If you build consensus, you can even edit the rules.

  Edit for hire

 Edit for hire is a very bad idea. Microsoft caused themselves a great deal of bad press by paying someone to edit their  article. The problem with edit for hire is that an editor paid by an organization, being externally motivated, will almost inevitably violate neutral point of view, one of  most important policies.

Instead of edit for hire, you can advise your clients to get involved with relevant articles and Projects. Once they understand what  wants, they can suggest a new article about their organization. Disclosing any commercial connections is a way to increase trust and avoid ethical challenges. If other editors are interested in covering your organization, you can support them by pointing out useful references.

Can  increase your link popularity?

Is an encyclopedia, not a search engine, nor a directory. There is no need to add every website that might be relevant to the external links section of an article. Long lists of external links do not add value to articles, and may reduce article quality by confusing the reader. To help create and maintain high quality of articles, many ns monitorrecent changes for link additions. While an editor may get away with adding unnecessary links to a low profile article for a short time, improper links tend to be deleted immediately from high-profile articles. In any case, when improper links are removed, the editor who added them may receive a spam warning. Editors can be blocked from editing  after receiving several warnings.

  Before adding external links to articles, please read :External links. When citing an external link as a source for a statement, make sure that you have chosen the most reliable sources available.

  All links on  use the nofollow attribute on external links. Google and other search engines claim to disregard such links when calculating link popularity. Certain  pages may also use the noindex robots meta tag value to prevent search engine indexing. You may freely place links on some of these pages, but doing so probably will not help your rankings in the major search engines.

Blacklisting.

  There may be instances where  interest in creating high-quality encyclopedia articles coincides with the interests of businesses that want to better educate the public about particular topics. The  community recommends focusing on the edit, rather than the editor. If a commercial interest is seeking to educate the public, they can possibly add appropriate, neutral point of view material to  without provoking a backlash. Adding spin to  is highly discouraged and will usually result in a rebuke. Likewise, starting an article about a non-notable subject in order to promote the subject will usually result in the article being deleted.

Bite: Can you explain why it a bad idea for a PR firm to be editing  on behalf of a client? How does the  community react to such activity?

Wales: It is a bad idea because of the conflict-of-interest. It is perfectly fine to talk to the community, to show them more information, to give them things that show your client in the best light. But it is wrong to try to directly participate in the process when you have an agenda.

  Paid editing and conflict of interest. If an editor is paid, that signals a likely conflict of interest, but unpaid agents can also face a similar situation. Agents should maintain the same standards of behavior as if they were the principal. Any editor, even the subject of an article, can make certain kinds of edits, for instance: reverting vandalism, and clearing linkspam. To protect their own reputation, agents may announce themselves on the talk page, and place any remotely controversial edits there, so somebody else can add them to the article. In general, a principal interests benefit most by encouraging neutral editors to work on the article. Agents are probably wise to take one step backwards and let the community maintain the article, while they offer support. Agents can, for instance, identify new facts or sources on the talk page so other editors can verify that information and add it to the article. Agents can also offer to answer questions.

 seo training in chennai

[sanjeevhimachali123-blog]

Most important aspect of HR is Developing a talent pipeline for sustainability of growing business

Interview with Varsha has proved, yet again, that being a successful HR leader is not about your education or whether you are an MBA or not. It is about your compassion for people and your strong business acumen and how you walk that tightrope between the two. Varsha was working as an Electrical Engineer with an organization when she was offered a role to set-up the HR Function. It was over 20 years ago. And, as they say, rest is history. In the following years, Varsha worked on several HR projects, such as, organization restructuring, succession planning, developing HR systems for business growth, competency mapping, M&A Due Diligence, C&B Benchmarking, to name a few. Varsha has worked across geographies and industries. Thank you, Varsha for agreeing to do this interview. We value your time. We are certain that an insight into your vast experience will help our readers.

We would be pleased to learn about your journey from the beginning. So, please share with us about your first job interview.

Everything that we do “First” holds a special place in our hearts.  After my engineering, I went for my interview for an apprenticeship. I was ready to embark on my new life. Though I was scared, just a sheer feeling of new start made me very excited. The interview was a bit informal. Now when I look back, I guess the questions were framed to gauge my learning ability and my willingness to take the risk. I still remember a couple of questions asked – “what will you do if you fail or not able to complete the task / get the desired result”? “I will try again and again” was my answer. “Are you willing to move to remote and smaller towns”? My answer was yes. My answers were simple but, filled with enthusiasm and optimism. I got the job.

Which, according to you was the most intriguing interview? Can you share your experience in detail?

My belief that everything happens for a reason, kept me going for 6 rounds of interview in a span of 4 months. At the end of the third round, I even doubted the company if it was serious in hiring. However, I wanted to learn their interview process as I found their reverse pyramid hiring technique quite interesting. Once their first telephonic (international) round with talent acquisition head was cleared, I was asked to prepare a short presentation on “Driving change” followed by psychometric test round and case study discussion and finally one to one personal interview. The combined assessment report of personal/psychometric / case study and presentation was mapped very well and they were able to identify the matched criteria as well as the shortcomings. Though the entire process was exhausting, for critical positions the process was robust. In India, we go with expressway in hiring and spend very less time in planning/ analyzing. Remember, right hiring sets a foundation to the strong and sustainable organization.

The practicality of work is very different from the theoretical knowledge we gained in college.

The first job is a major milestone for many people. Let’s discuss your first year at the job. How was your experience? What were your expectations for your job and your role? Were they all fulfilled? What didn’t coincide with your expectation?

The myth of “I have studied and gained so much knowledge in college” evaporates within a few weeks when you take up your first job. The good news is that your learning curve can be very steep if you keep yourself open and focused. The practicality of work is very different from the theoretical knowledge we gained in college. Learning is experimental in universities and learning is practical at workplaces. My first job (after apprenticeship) was as a design engineer and I was lucky to get a good line manager who also became my mentor. Though there was no formal mentor concept at that time, his support and patience played an important role in building my confidence which led me to succeed. I was keen to explore more hence, whenever I was done with my responsibilities I would ask my seniors to assign me more work even if it was not related to my area such as arranging their files, helping them doing data entry. I can now say that I got my basics very strong because of them and will always be thankful to them. Asking questions, going beyond your comfort zone, lending a helping hand can help you to climb the organizational ladder.

Raed complete interview of Varsha Ponnuswamy

Your experience in the company is the reflection of how you are treated by your line manager.

According to you, do you think workplace mentors and coaches play an important role in settling fresh graduates in their first job? How was your experience?

“You join the company and you leave your boss”, we have heard this phrase and it is actually true. You may join a small/ big brand but your experience in the company is the reflection of how you are treated, especially by your line manager. In today’s world, as a line manager, you also have a responsibility to be a mentor to your subordinates. The life is fast and influenced by technology, the constructive human interaction is any way disappearing at workplaces. To build a strong talent pipeline every organization has to give an importance of mentoring by the line managers, at all levels. As I mentioned before, I was lucky to have a line manager who also became my mentor in my first job, he guided me and allowed me to take a risk and to make mistakes. As long as I don’t make the same mistake twice he was okay. He was also tough and stringent when it came to quality delivery.

You are an HR Practitioner for so many years. Could you please tell us why did you choose this profession? If not in HR, what another profession you would have chosen for yourself?

The companies may have the best strategy and best facility with great wealth in the world, but if they don’t have the hearts and minds of people who work with them, none of it comes to life.  I had an engineering degree and was working as head of the electrical dept. The leadership saw potential in me and when the company started formal HR department in the year 2000, they asked me if I was interested to diversify my profile. I was hesitant at the beginning but took the challenge as it was exciting and something new. Looking back now, I must say, that was the best career decision I had made. Building organization through human capital initiatives, joining hands in creating and implementing business strategy and to ensure that we have an engaged and motivated workforce for the present as well as for future, keeps me alive in a true sense.

Having worked in a leadership role, what do you think are the expectations of a CEO or the Management Team from its HR Function in general and HR Head in particular?

The business is simple and its one page summery -- top and bottom line. The expectations are simple and that is to contribute to business growth through human capital initiatives. The business is ever-changing and thus the responsibility of Head HR. Keeping the team engaged in an ever-changing environment is challenging. Creating an empowering work environment where employees are driven and hungry for their achievement is an exciting as well as challenging task.

In the same breath, can you also highlight about expectations of employees from the HR Function of an Organization?

HR leaders are the bridge between the employees and employer. Employees are the core part of the success of any organization and their expectations from HR leaders are simple –

Alignment - The clarity of roles, understanding the expectation and facilitating employee alignment with business

Belonging - To build an environment that gives a sense of pride and respect, open communication with the HR leader, building a community culture and creating belongingness.

Growth - Creating opportunities for employee growth and their career path within the organization

Commitment - Engaging employees to create a sustainable long-term win-win situation for employees and employer.

Contact Us

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Phone no: 9975689991

Email Id:  sanjeev.himachali@ecliptichr.com

Website:  http://sanjeevhimachali.org

[zeroviraluniverse-blog]

Florida tragedy raises questions about moral obligations of gun owners

Visit Now - http://zeroviral.com/florida-tragedy-raises-questions-about-moral-obligations-of-gun-owners/

Florida tragedy raises questions about moral obligations of gun owners

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Did you know: Gun registration is not required in Nevada.(Photo: The Spectrum & Daily News file photo)Buy Photo

With a six-minute video posted on Facebook, Scott Pappalardo became the face of the ethical gun owner to many Americans.

Looking at the camera just three days after Nikolas Cruz allegedly killed 17 people at a Florida high school, Pappalardo said, “The barrel of this gun will never be pointed at someone,” then sawed his cherished AR-15 in half.

Pappalardo, who lives in New York, is not the only gun owner who was motivated to get rid of an AR-15-style weapon after the Valentine’s Day massacre in Parkland, Florida.

Florida resident Ben Dickmann surrendered his AR-57 to his local sheriff’s office, saying, “No one without a law enforcement badge needs this rifle.” In California, a father who was assembling the gun with his son turned in his gun, too.

More:Funeral services held for Las Vegas shooting victim Heather Alvarado

But the ethical questions that have been raised in the aftermath of America’s most recent mass murder go beyond whether civilians should own semiautomatic weapons.

They include whether someone who carries a gun is morally obliged to use it when confronted with a crime in progress, as in the case of the officer who was outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School while Cruz was killing teenagers inside. Another is whether schoolteachers should be armed to defend their students, a policy President Donald Trump has pushed.

There are deeper questions, too, that challenge gun enthusiasts like Pappalardo, as calls for stricter gun laws grow louder. Some ethicists talk about the importance of bridge building and compromise, while defenders of current policies say personal freedom and the right to defend oneself and one’s family in a fallen world supercede other virtues. (Even robots, after all, have a right to self-defense, some people say.)

Responsible gun ownership is about education, safes and trigger locks, among other things. What does ethical gun ownership look like? And what should people thoughtfully consider before making the decision to buy — or keep — a gun?

‘Part of our normal’

For Pappalardo, ethical gun ownership involved cutting up his AR-15, an act which, as Popular Mechanics magazine later pointed out, made the still-usable weapon illegal.

Pappalardo has since given the remains of the gun to his local police department, and he told the Deseret News he wishes he’d spent more time researching the best way to destroy it. But he remains firm in his belief that giving up the gun he’d had for about 30 years was the right thing to do.

“Is the right to own this weapon more important than someone’s life? … I don’t think so,” he said.

AR-15 rifles are displayed at Impact Guns in Ogden on Friday, March 2, 2018. (Photo: Deseret News Hive)

The AR in AR-15 stands for ArmaLite Rifle, not assault rifle. The firearm was originally designed in the 1950s for military use, and today’s version is similar to the military’s M16. The NRA’s blog called it “America’s most popular rifle” in 2016, but that may be changing. Dick’s Sporting Goods, a nationwide chain based in Pittsburgh, announced Feb. 28 that it would no longer carry assault-style weapons or high-capacity magazines, tweeting that “thoughts and prayers are not enough.”

Pappalardo came to the same conclusion after the Florida shootings.

A building-material salesman, Pappalardo fits the profile of the typical American gun owner as described by Pew Research Center in a 2017 report: He’s a white male who grew up with early exposure to guns. He was 18 when he had the Second Amendment tattooed on his arm.

“My father was an avid Western-watching man, and guns were always part of our normal. We had a summer house in the country, and we were taught to shoot at a young age. I’ve always had a respect for firearms and really enjoy shooting them,” he said.

More:Mesquite Honors Vegas Shooting Victims as Part of 1000-Flag Dedication

Pappalardo retains a number of shotguns — the number and style of which he did not want to reveal — but he has unambiguous standards for their storage and use.

“First of all, all your rifles should be legally owned and legally registered, where required. All should have trigger locks on them, and all firearms should be secured. Personally, I keep mine in a gun safe,” he said.

“You should never have a loaded weapon sitting around; any responsible gun owner would tell you the same thing.”

Yet, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Public Health, more than half of U.S. gun owners say they keep at least one firearm unsecured.

Gun owner’s dilemma

In Pew’s 2017 report, two-thirds of gun owners said they bought guns for protection, which presents an ethical quandary: How do you simultaneously have a gun handy to protect your family from an intruder, while keeping it secure and sometimes unloaded?

For some gun owners, the answer is to store their guns in high-tech, biometric safes that open swiftly to a stored fingerprint.

Others, like Darin Kendall, operations manager for Impact Guns, adjust their habits to the current circumstances of their lives. Kendall and his wife are grandparents, and young children are often in their home, which is why his guns are locked in a safe if he’s not using them.

Darin Kendall, operations manager for Impact Guns, poses for a photo at the Ogden store on Friday, March 2, 2018. (Photo: Deseret News Hive)

“The chances of you getting attacked are very small; the chances of a 5-year-old getting a hold of the gun that you left on the table are much greater,” Kendall said.

Kendall works for a business that says it carries more handguns, AR-15 rifles, ammunition and other firearms than any other gun dealer in America. A gun owner “forever,” he shoots for pleasure and hunts, and he concedes that some people might call him not just an enthusiast but a “gun nut.”

His thoughts about gun ownership, however, carry the gravity of someone who understands that things can sometimes go wrong. The most important thing people should do before acquiring a gun, he says, is educate themselves about the risks. “A lot of people probably aren’t really ready when they actually buy a firearm,” he said.

“Guns are pretty easy to get if you’re a citizen who hasn’t been arrested or have felonies, but I think people should think about it a little more than they do sometimes. To me, an ethical gun owner is someone who tries to educate the people around them. They share their passion about firearms, and they share it in a way that’s educational.”

Parents, even if don’t have guns themselves, should talk to their children about gun safety since they could encounter firearms at a friend’s house, he added.

Children and guns

Days after the Florida shooting, a study about gun prevalence and storage in families was published in the journal Pediatrics. Researchers found that gun storage practices and the presence of guns were about the same whether or not a teen at risk for mental-health problems lived in the house.

Suicide was the second-leading cause of death among children 10-17 in 2015, and guns were used in 4 of 10 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Daniel Webster, executive director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research in Baltimore, noted that in many of the recent mass shootings, the shooter did not own the gun or guns used but had taken them from family members. (Parkland was one of the exceptions; Cruz was a legal gun owner.)

More:Local dogs help Las Vegas officers struggling with PTSD

“In my mind, responsible gun ownership, particularly if you have young children or teenagers, begins with securing your guns so they can’t access them,” Webster said, adding that the issue goes beyond school shootings, since accidents and suicides account for most children killed or injured by guns.

According to the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive, at press time, there had been 560 children under the age of 18 injured or killed by guns in 2018.

D.R. Smith, a veteran and former law enforcement officer who lives in Park City, Utah and is a firearms instructor, said ensuring that children can’t get to your gun isn’t just an ethical mandate, but the law. “If a child gets your gun, you’re going to prison,” he said.

States with the strictest requirements for gun storage have some of the lowest teen suicide rates, according the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. In Massachusetts, where all guns have to be in a locked case when not in use, guns are used in 9 percent of youth suicides, compared with 39 percent nationally, the center says.

Utah does not have any laws governing gun storage and does not require permits and licensure to own a gun. To obtain a permit to carry a concealed gun, people must take a four-hour “firearms familiarity” course and pass a criminal background check.

Good versus evil

Conversation about ethics and guns is often steeped in language of the Wild West, according to the author of a paper titled “Gun Owners, Ethics and the Problem of Evil,” published in the Journal of Ethnographic Theory in 2017.

Joe Anderson, an anthropologist at the University of Edinburgh, spent 15 months over the course of four years interacting with gun owners in San Diego, who also taught him how to shoot. He describes a community that embraces a worldview of good guys and bad guys, with the responsibility of protecting the larger community falling to the good guys with guns. They inhabit, he writes, “a morally charged guardianship of the spaces within which they move.”

To people passionate about guns, giving them up is akin to turning the world over to monsters, Anderson said. That helps to explain Pew’s finding that three-quarters of gun owners say they can’t imagine ever not owning one, and also the arguments of AR-15 owners who don’t want a world in which only bad guys have this type of gun.

Gun owners in America are more likely to be evangelical Christians, who are also more likely to feel safer with a firearm around, according to Christianity Today magazine, reporting on religious components of the Pew data.

Revolver handguns are pictured at Impact Guns in Ogden on Friday, March 2, 2018. (Photo: Deseret News Hive)

But the conversation about the ethics of gun ownership is more complicated than a story about good versus evil, said Mark Ryan, who teaches ethics at the University of Dayton in Ohio and has written about the “clash of narratives” in American gun culture and Christian ethics.

The Christian worldview is based on the idea that we’re living as God’s companions and inviting strangers and even enemies into friendship, he said.

However, “To some degree, our gun culture in America trades on this idea that we’re all on our own, that we should first of all see our neighbor, the stranger we may meet, as hostile to us. That comes out of an idea that freedom is fundamentally about being left alone. When we’re arming ourselves, we tend to identify others as potential threats,” Ryan said.

The classic Christian virtue of prudence, therefore, is an essential component of gun ethics, he said.

“In its premodern form, prudence is not just being cautious, but being really wise. What we would hope is that whatever discipline, whatever formation, goes along with somebody being a responsible gun owner or gun user, it would be such that they would be able to refrain from its use in the event that they couldn’t be sure that they weren’t going to do more harm than good.”

More:Las Vegas shooting: Dixie GunWorx

It’s that uncertainty of what happens when a gun fires that makes gun policymaking so highly charged, even among gun enthusiasts. Trump wants to train and arm teachers to make schools more secure, but both Pappalardo, in New York City, and Webster, at Johns Hopkins, believe that’s a bad idea.

“You’re asking a teacher to carry a tremendous amount of responsibility, and in the event of a shooting, they’re reacting to a shooting, not preventing a shooting,” Pappalardo said. “By the time they’re aware of the situation, shots have already been fired. And in an extremely stressful situation like that, your ability to aim properly is diminished. God forbid the teacher kill a student; how would the teacher be able to live with that?”

According to Pew, 44 percent of Americans personally know someone who has been shot, either intentionally or accidentally.

Webster noted that the debate over arming teachers focuses on mass shootings and rarely touches on more likely outcomes.

“How many hundreds of thousands of schools are there across America, and every single day, there are conflicts between students, conflicts between teachers, all kinds of risky and reckless behavior. You interject guns into those scenarios, and people are going to end up being shot,” he said, citing the 2014 case of the Utah teacher who accidentally fired a gun in a bathroom at an elementary school.

As for the question of whether someone who carries a gun is ethically obliged to use it in an event like a mass shooting, Smith, the firearms instructor in Park City, Utah and a former police officer, said if the person is in law enforcement, the answer is yes, because he or she has sworn an oath to protect lives.

Guns, safety devices and a Youth Handgun Safety Notice are pictured Impact Guns in Ogden on Friday, March 2, 2018. (Photo: Deseret News Hive)

For private citizens, who have not taken an oath and lack the specialized training that those in the military and law enforcement have, it’s not clear-cut. In Sutherland, Texas, last year, a civilian armed with an AR-15 chased the assailant who killed 26 people at First Baptist Church, wounding him and leading to his capture. Kendall of Impact Guns, however, said getting involved is a personal decision, not a moral obligation.

“Even if you were a proficient firearms handler and trained soldier, and you did react to something like that, things can still go wrong, and you’re putting yourself in a situation where you could be personally liable,” he said.

“Everyone likes to think, yeah, I could be the hero if that was needed, but all of us aren’t heroes. I’ve never been in a situation like that, so I couldn’t tell you what I would do. I don’t think anybody knows until they’re actually put there.”

Gun owners and would-be gun owners also have to decide if they are psychologically equipped to deal with the prospect of ending another person’s life, even if they did so to defend their family, as a Springville, Utah, man did in 2012.

More:Survivors speak out: Two decades of school shooting survivors speak out about solutions

In law enforcement and the military, people are taught to regard killing as “just business,” Smith said. Civilians can’t have that attitude, but they prepare mentally, up to a point, for the idea that “if it’s between your family or them, or you and them, they lose,” he said.

As the country recovers from the latest mass shooting and again begins debate on what to do to try to prevent another, Webster, at Johns Hopkins, said the conversation, to be effective, should be driven by not just data, but the values that Americans bring to the table.

Ryan, at the University of Dayton, said to reach consensus, we need to think about freedom in loftier ways, not the “thinned out” concepts that people often employ.

“Theologians sometimes call this thinned-out conception ‘negative freedom.’ It means getting external obstacles out of the way so that I can do whatever I want. That’s fine as far as it goes, but to get the kind of conversation we need — one that promotes our country’s common good — we need a positive concept as well,” he said.

“Positive freedom acknowledges that we become fully free — that is, people of good character — in relationships of accountability with other people. To be a virtuous gun owner you have to be a good human being, not just technically good with guns.”

EMAIL: jgraham@deseretnews.com TWITTER: @grahamtoday

  Read or Share this story: https://www.thespectrum.com/story/news/2018/03/06/florida-tragedy-raises-questions-about-moral-obligations-of-gun-owners/111106920/

[ghostofaformerself]

RIVER O'CONNELL ( @aviiatrix ) asked for a consult. FILE ID: super-powered themed prompts — from the observer

‘you have to stop,  you’re killing yourself!’ / Western Riv @ Sheriff Rayne

     HER IMMEDIATE REACTION IS DEFENSIVE and she can't help it. both river and katrina keep driving into her over how she chooses to handle the lowlifes in this town. maybe with good reason.

     ❝i get you guys care, but i'm fine. i can handle my shit. so i get a little beat up every now and then, it's fine.❞

[trendingnewsb]

The Fight for LGBT Equality in 2018 Will Be Fierce

Jay Michaelson: So, here we are at the end of a strange year for LGBTQ Americans. On the one hand, mainstream acceptance of gay people continues to spread; gays are now officially boring. On the other hand, trans people are being singled out for government persecution on the one hand and continued street violence on the other.

Meanwhile, as all three of us have written, the Trump-Pence administration is inflicting the "death of a thousand blows" against LGBTQ civil rights, severely limiting employment rights, marital rights, access to healthcare, access to safe facilities in schools, and so onwhile literally erasing LGBTQ people from government forms, proclamations, and observances.

For that reason, it's even harder than usual to look toward 2018 with any sense of certainty. What are we most hoping for in the year to come? And what do we fear?

Samantha Allen: I have written the word bathroom hundreds of times over the past two years of covering the various state-level attempts to restrict transgender peoples restroom use. I wish I never had to type it again; I didnt sign up to be a reporter to write about the human excretory system every week.

But in 2018, I am hoping to talk about bathrooms a lot less frequentlyand I have reason to believe that will be the case.

One of the most important victories for transgender people this year came in the form of something we avoided: a bathroom bill in Texas that would have effectively made birth certificates into tickets of entry for restrooms in public schools and government buildings. But that was scuttled at the last second by the business community, local law enforcement, and a sympathetic speaker of the House who said he [didnt] want the suicide of a single Texan on [his] hands.

Im confident that well see somebut fewerred-state legislatures really push for bathroom bills. Theyre political losers and money drainersand everyone in elected office knows that by now

I was in the state this summer when this thing almost got passed and I witnessed firsthand the gloriously outsized Texas rage against a bill that could have cost them billions (Tim wrote about the Texas bathroom battle at the time for the Daily Beast).

Between that and North Carolina being forced to repeal the most controversial aspects of HB 2 under pressure from the NCAA, Im confident that well see somebut fewerred-state legislatures really push for bathroom bills. Theyre political losers and money drainersand everyone in elected office knows that by now.

Tim Teeman: Id like to share your optimism, but Roy Moore supplies a harsh correctivefor me anyway. In the celebrations that followed his defeat at the hands of Doug Jones in the Alabama Senate race, some difficult questions were left hanging.

Moore was a candidate whose rampant homophobiahis actual desire to see discrimination enacted against millions of LGBT Americans, his desire to see prejudice and discrimination enshrined in lawwent mostly unchallenged and unquestioned. Only on the last day of the race did Jake Tapper of CNN ask his spokesman whether Moore believed homosexuality should be illegal (the answer: Probably).

This was a shameful and telling omission by the media. The depressing footnote to Moores loss is that extreme homophobia itself is not a disqualification for a political candidate in 2017. Active homophobia was seen as a valid mandate to hold by the modern Republican Party.

Moore was only too happy to hold it close even in defeat, as he showed by posting (on Facebook) Carson Jones, Doug Jones gay sons, post-election interview with The Advocate. It was a sly attempt to stir up anti-gay poison. Politicians like Moore are thankfully fewer and fewer in number, but homophobia and transphobia are still a major currency in this White Houseand that Trump and other of Moores high-profile Republican supporters dont see it as a disqualifying characteristic tells us something very sad and alarming indeed.

Since ordinary gays are now not so novel, Hollywood's search for novelty is causing them to explore stories of people of color, rural folks, genderqueer folks, and other people who aren't Will or Grace

Jay Michaelson: I am putting most of my hopes outside the machinery of the state. Hollywood told some beautiful queer stories in 2017; I hope this expands and continues in 2018. A decade ago, when I was a professional activist, we had it drilled into us that the number one factor in someone "evolving" on any particular LGBTQ issue was knowing someone who was L, G, B, T, or Q. And if they didn't have firsthand knowledge, media figures counted too.

So, while the Republican party caters to its Christian Right base, I hope that continued media visibility makes them pay for doing so. There's a nice irony too: since ordinary gays are now not so novel, Hollywood's search for novelty is causing them to explore stories of people of color, rural folks, genderqueer folks, and other people who aren't Will or Grace. That might not be for the best motive, but the consequences could be profound.

Tim Teeman: Then we have the 'wedding cake' case at SCOTUS, which you have written about Jay. That seems currently going in favor of the baker refusing to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. This isn't just about a wedding cake, of course, but providing a signal that discrimination based on "beliefs" is OK, which can be used against LGBT people in so many contexts.

Samantha Allen: Im afraid the Trump administrations attacks on the LGBT community will continue to be so persistent and so piecemeal that they will continue to get shuffled to the side. This past month, we were stunned when the Washington Post reported that the CDC had been discouraged from using the term transgender in preparing their annual budget, but if people had been paying closer attention to Trumps appointments in the Department of Health and Human Services and other federal agencies, this wouldnt have been a surprise.

We cant afford to pretend anymore like these are stunningly cruel attacks that come out of nowhere: leaders of anti-LGBT groups regularly walk the White House halls, they wield tremendous influence right now, and the administration is quietly giving them what they want.

Im worried that, with so many other scandals dominating the headlines, the systematic erosion of LGBT rights will continue to fly under the radar

Trumps tweets on transgender military service created a media shockwave, but that moment aside, the administrations attacks on LGBT people in 2017 have been considerably less flashy: amicus briefs filed to the Supreme Court, tinkering with executive orders, adjusting the Department of Justices approach to transgender students. All of these perniciously subtle attacks have taken place against a cultural backdrop of continuing bigotry and violence: In the last year, for example, at least 28 trans people have been killed, most of them transgender women of color.

Tim Teeman: I think one of the things the U.S. would do well to figure out (he said vainly) is the separation of Church and State. The Religious Right has such a grip on the levers of power here, in certain states and in certain administrations like President Trumps which is greatly relying on the bedrock of its support. LGBT people, activists and groups are facing a traumatic 2018, as the far right of the Republican support seeks to shore up support around Trump, and trans people especially are especially vulnerable in such an atmosphere.

Jay makes a good point: at a time when the Right seeks a ratcheting up of the LGBT culture war, LGBT people and their straight allies working in the culture at large should work to put a wide diversity of LGBT lives and characters into that culture, whether it be TV, film, literature, art, or whatever. Actual LGBT presence will be vital in 2018.

If this global backlash isn't stopped, queer people will be murdered, arrested, targeted, stigmatized, and forced to leave their countries (and then denied refugee status) in numbers we have never seen before

Samantha Allen: The death of a thousand blows of LGBT rights under Trump is only going to continue in 2018, and Im worried that, with so many other scandals dominating the headlines, the systematic erosion of LGBT rightsa phenomenon thats directly affecting at least 4 percent of the U.S. population and 7 percent of millennialswill continue to fly under the radar.

Thatd be like the Trump administration deciding one day that everyone in the state of Pennsylvania didnt deserve human rightsand it somehow not being front-page news every single day until it got fixed.

Jay Michaelson: My greatest fear for 2018 is on a somewhat macro-scale. The rise of nationalism, nativism, and right-wing populism around the world is terrifying. On one level, it's an understandable backlash against globalization, multiculturalism, and technology: people unable or unwilling to change are clinging to old identities and myths. But it's also profoundly dangerous, and queers are just one population endangered by it. It's not to be taken lightly.

Already we've seen the United States retreat from the whole concept of human rights, giving carte blanche to murderous anti-LGBTQ elements in Russia, Egypt, Chechnya, Indonesia, and elsewhere.

In 2018, the US will practically zero out its aid to vulnerable LGBT populations around the world. At the UN as elsewhere, America is now allied with Putin's Russia, in this case withdrawing protection from LGBT people and instead defending the oppression of us.

But this is just the beginning. If this global backlash isn't stopped, queer people will be murdered, arrested, targeted, stigmatized, and forced to leave their countries (and then denied refugee status) in numbers we have never seen before.

Figure out some way to help those who dont have as much, or who are especially politically and culturally vulnerable, and who could do with support. Give money, volunteer, whateverdo what you can

Tim Teeman: On that basis, LGBT people and their allies with any time, money, commitment and energy might think about involving themselves with activism and campaigning for organizations like The Trevor Project, HRC, Anti-Violence Project, National Center For Transgender Equality, GLSEN, PFLAG, OutRight Action International, and groups in their local area. If they don't want to do something overtly political, then maybe figure out a way to help those who dont have as much, or who are especially vulnerable, and who could do with supportwhether that be financial and pastoral.

If you need inspiration, look to Nathan Mathis who wasn't going to let Roy Moore winor lose at it turned outin Alabama without shaming him over his homophobia; and without remembering, in the most moving way possible, his dead lesbian daughter, Patti Sue.

Listen to, and be inspired by, the stirring stories of those from times when things were not just bleak but political progress and cultural evolution seemed alien and utterly distant. Eric Marcus has distilled, and continues to distill, amazing interviews with the likes of Sylvia Rivera and Frank Kameny, conducted for his landmark book Making Gay History: The Half-Century Fight For Lesbian and Gay Equal Rights, into a must-listen podcast.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-fight-for-lgbt-equality-in-2018-will-be-fierce

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