#She Ignites the Darkness: Rachel Lewis

[a-bau-tiful-mind]

Survivor (BAU X Reader)

Hi BAU-ties! I’m back from the dead with a request fill! This is an angsty team fic requested by anon who wanted “an imagine where you've been kidnapped when you were a kid and now you're an agent on the fbi and the bau has a similar case with yours so Rossi(the one who helped with your case back then)calls you to help out?but the rest of the bau doesn't know that you have been abducted and they realize it when you show them similar scars as the victim's on the wrists” Unbeta’d! I hope you all enjoy it! 

Warnings: This fic does include some heavy topics such as kidnapping young girls, hostage, death, and more. I tried my best to keep it close to an episode of CM! - xoxo, k

“Good morning, Agent Y/L/N,” your supervisor, Agent Harriman greeted as you walked in, handing you a case file. “You have a call from David Rossi at the BAU waiting on your desk.”

“Alright, thank you, sir! Has he been waiting long?” You asked, hoping Dave wasn’t.

“No, we touched base for a bit and he insisted that he needed to speak with you right away. I’ll be in my office if you need me.” He informed you, heading back to his door.

You scurried over to your desk and picked up the line and warmly answered, “Hey Dave!”

“Y/N,” Rossi began, his tone uncharacteristically somber, “I needed to talk to you, did Harriman hand you the case file I sent?”

“He did.” You responded, nervous and caught off guard. “What’s going on?”

“The BAU-” he paused, “I mean, I need to ask something of you, something I have no right to ask of you but we have no real leads.”

The anxiety you felt turned into full blown nausea as you opened the file, knowing the subject of the contents from the first picture. Current photos of a girl who was mutilated and killed, her wrists scarred just like the ones under your blazer cuffs. You took a shaky breath, “This can’t be right. David, it’s been over twenty years.”

“The BAU thinks the unsub from your case is back. We never did catch him, the case went cold. It’s something I think about constantly, one of my biggest regrets.” Rossi’s voice now full of empathy and traces of guilt. “Again, I have no right to bring this to you, but I wholeheartedly believe that you could get this creep.”

You swallowed the bile building up in your throat and wiped a tear you didn’t even realize fell, “Does the team know my connection to this case?”

“Emily and I left out your records when we brought up the files from 1993. I assumed you’d tell the rest if and when you’re ready.”

“Keep it that way. I’ll be there in in an hour.” You said, numbing yourself enough to handle this.

“Thank you, Y/N. Words can’t say how appreciative I am.”

You headed over to Agent Harriman’s office and let him know you’d be joining the BAU for this case, you grabbed your bag and headed back out the doors you just walked through. Taking a deep breath at the wheel of your car, you started the ignition and headed to Quantico.

Walking into the bullpen, Rossi immediately met you at the doors, pulling you into a warm embrace. The tears came back to your eyes instantly, but you blinked them back and tried your best to push your memories and emotions to the back of your mind where you’ve learned to hide them for decades.

“Right this way,” David said bringing you to the briefing room. “Team I’d like to introduce you to Agent Y/N Y/L/N, she works over at headquarters and will be helping us with this case. Agent Y/N, I’d like to introduce you to agents Walker and Alvez, you remember Prentiss, Reid, Garcia, Lewis, and Jareau.”

“Y/N, thank you so much for joining us.” Emily got up to shake your hand, unable to hide the sympathy in her voice. A tone you didn’t want the rest of the team to adopt. You told yourself you’re here to catch this freak, you’re no longer a victim. The only way this will work is if you distance yourself from the case.

“Happy to help,” you lied, “Alright, Garcia, bring me up to speed?” You threw yourself into work mode, turning off any emotion you could detect other than focus.

“Righty-o,” Penelope began grabbing her remote, “Last Friday a body was identified as that of Jessica McKinnon, an 8 year old girl from Richmond, she was found in an alley with ligature scars on her wrists in Norfolk. She was reported missing two weeks prior after she’d been abducted on the way to her friend’s house. The necklace Jessica was wearing that day was left on the McKinnon’s doorstep three days after she was taken.” The screen projected photos of the Missing Persons bulletin and a children’s necklace with a half heart pendant.

“Geez,” JJ sighed, grimacing at the images.

1993

“Mommy! I’m going to Rachel’s, okay?” You yelled, tying your pink and white sneakers.

“Home before dark, sweetheart! Be safe. I love you,” she called from the laundry room at the back.

“Love you, too!” You shut the door and headed towards the end of the walkway. You shut the front gate behind you and made your way to your best friend’s house a few streets down.

Ten houses away, a pickup truck pulled up next to you, a young man spoke out, “Hey there! Where you heading?”

You ducked your head down, knowing better than to talk to a stranger. You sped up until the truck quickly turned into an empty driveway, cutting off your walkway. You turned around and began to run back home, crying as you heard running footsteps coming up behind you. The last thing you felt was a hit to your head before everything went black.

“Good morning, sleepyhead. You’ve been out for a couple of days,” the man said as you opened your eyes, causing you to immediately scream for help and cry when you realized it wasn’t just a nightmare. “Sh-sh-sh, don’t cry,” he tried to soothe you, brushing your hair back from your face. You willed yourself to run when you realized your wrists were roped to the wall. “What will make you feel better?”

“I want to go home,” you cried. Your head was pounding, “Please, mister.”

“I can’t do that. You know what I want?” He said calmly, smiling at you from his swivel chair and desk.

You sniffed, hoping you could give him what he wanted and go back home, “What?”

“I just want to be your best friend, Y/N,” he said holding up the butterfly friendship necklace you had that matched Rachel’s.

Walker leaned forward, looking down at his files, “So he’s clearly taunting the parents. It’s got to be personal.”

“But wait there’s more!” Penelope said, clicking her remote causing scans of old evidence to pop up on the screens, “In the early 90’s, this same thing happened to a small string of young girls in Virginia. All taken near their home, all with the same ligature marks. Sadly, only one making it out alive.” You couldn’t help but tense at knowing you were the one girl.

“So is this a copycat?” Luke thought out loud, “That doesn’t seem likely because this isn’t a well-known case.”

“Well, we never did catch the guy.” Rossi explained, “The girl was resourceful, and incredibly smart. She got away, but when we raided his holding place he was long gone and the case went cold.”

“It’s been almost 25 years, do you really think he’d come back after so long?” Spencer reasoned.

“The profile back then had him at early 20’s, mentally unstable, with undiagnosed developmental issues. That’s the best we have to go on as of right now.” Emily said, grabbing the remote and directing our attention to a new Missing Persons. “Miranda Rivard, a 10 year old in Scottsville was reported missing yesterday and this was delivered to her parents’ mailbox today.” She held up an evidence bag containing a sparkly friendship necklace. “The only this is that the Rivards have never seen this necklace before.”

You immediately shot a look at Rossi, knowing he purposefully left out that there was a little girl out there with the unsub. You cleared your throat, refocusing yourself on the task at hand, “So the unsub is clearly using the necklaces and bracelets as a signature. The fact that he bought this necklace shows how important it is for him. It symbolizes his idea friendship.”

You looked around the table and saw the team nodding to themselves and flipping through the evidence both new and old, the only one looking back at you was Spencer who was looking at you with an unreadable face.

“JJ and Walker head over to the McKinnon’s to speak with the parents, Alvez and Tara wait here, the Rivards will be here shortly, Garcia I need you to research this necklace and see what stores in the area sell it, get us security footage if you can, Reid, Rossi, and Y/N head over to the coroner’s and examine Jessica’s body. I want more details on the ligature marks. I’ll be trying to get in touch with the survivor.” You knew Prentiss was lying, and you were thanking every deity that she was good at it.

You headed out to the car and made your way to the Coroner’s, when you got there you made eye contact with Rossi, silently asking him to lag behind. Once Spencer’s long legs brought him out of earshot you turned to Dave, “Why didn’t you tell me he had someone?”

“I didn’t want you to take on too much at once,” He reasoned, his tone heavy.

“You just didn’t want me to say no,” you shot back, bitterly.

“Would you have said no?”

You paused, thinking it over. What happened to you was something that changed you forever, it’s brought a lot of pain but you couldn’t deny that it was the reason you were standing there as a federal agent today.

You avoided his gaze and resigned, “Let’s just go, Reid’s waiting.” Walking into the examination room was always heavy, no matter how many times you’ve had to do it, the personal ties to this case made it all that much harder.

“Everything okay?” Spencer said, barely above a whisper while Rossi was busy with the M.E. who was revealing Jessica’s body.

You forced yourself to not visibly snap out of your state, “Yeah. It just never gets any easier does it?”

“No, it doesn’t. Can’t imagine when it ever would,” Spencer reassured you, putting gloves on to get a closer examination.

He turned to address the rest of us in the room, “It looks like the unsub used a nylon rope to bind the girl's’ wrists. From the extent of the ligature marks it looks like Jessica didn’t try and struggle too much.”

1993

“How’d you know my name?” You spoke up after hours of silent tears. It was no use. You were stuck here.

“We are friends. Friends have to know each other’s names or they aren’t that good of a friend, now aren’t they?” Your abductor said. Something was strange about him. He was a grown up, but he didn’t talk like one.

“I don’t know your name.” You tried your best to not sound scared of him. Maybe if you were nice he’d untie you.

“Call me Peter. Like Peter Pan! That’s one of your favorites right? I should call you Tink. Like Peter and Tinkerbell.”

How did he know that? How did this man know so much about you? This man wanted to be friends, so maybe if you pretended you were his friend you could go home. You imagined you were talking to Rachel, “It is my favorite! Can we watch it?”

“Yeah! But not right now. We have all the time in the world. We have forever. Best friends forever.” Peter said, looking at you to confirm.

You know mommy said it wasn’t good to lie, but making Peter mad probably wasn’t the best idea. You forced a smile to your face and nodded, “Best friends forever.”

“Let’s get you something to eat,” Peter said leaving the room.

Eventually waiting for Peter to untie you became uneventful, you fell back asleep. You were awoken by a burning, scratching sensation on your wrist, “Ow! What are you doing?”

Peter was scratching your skin over and over with a letter opener in what looked like a number 8 in your scarlet blood. “You said we’re best friends forever!” “Why are you hurting me then, Peter?” Your eyes stung with tears.

“It’s what grown ups do when they’re friends forever! They can’t wear the necklaces so they mark it on them so they can see it all the time. Do you know what this picture means?”

“The number 8?” You said, exasperated.

“No, silly Tink! It’s this weird little thing that means forever! Like for how long we’ll be friends!” He was still going over your already broken skin, causing you to hiss.

You put gloves on yourself, taking Jessica’s limp wrist in your hand. Two weeks was a long time to be with Peter. No other girl besides you lasted as long. Sure enough almost identical to yours was a messy, hand carved infinity symbol, “Hey Reid, take a look at this.”

“A number 8? Is that another signature? I don’t remember reading about the other victims having a laceration like that.”

“It’s an infinity sign.” You clarified, grabbing your cell phone and dialing Prentiss knowing you couldn’t ask Garcia without giving yourself away, “Hey Emily, can you check the files of the victims in the 90’s and see if any had an infinity laceration on their wrist and tell me how long it was between abduction and when their bodies were found?”

“Okay, the reports say that only you and a girl named Nancy Sinclair have a record of that laceration. Do you know what that means?” Emily asked, hoping it was a step in the right direction.

“I think so. We’ll be back soon.” You hung up and Reid was staring at you with his head cocked in uncharacteristic confusion.

“So,” Rossi said, coming back into the room with the report, “The COD matches the profile. Jessica died because her neck was snapped, most likely due to harsh shaking.”

“Any sign of malnutrition?” Spencer asked, taking the clipboard from Dave and skimming through it. “I don’t see any signs of that,” You added, knowing full well the unsub kept you fed and hydrated.

“Let’s head back over to the BAU and see what the others found.” Dave said, handing you your coat.

Back at the bullpen, you and the rest of the team congregated into the briefing room. Rossi took the floor, “Our unsub is a white male in his mid 40’s with an untreated developmental disorder. He has a fixation with friendship and seems to want to actually be friends with the girls he takes. None of the victims had any sign of sexual assault.”

“Something Y/N noticed at the M.E.’s was that there was a lacerated inifnity symbol on Jessica McKinnon’s wrist. Something that hasn’t been seen on previous girls.” Reid added, speaking up for you.

“So he’s evolving?” Walker spitballed.

“He’s all about forever right? The necklaces, the twisted carving tattoo?” Tara spoke up, “It’s his way of seeing that he and his victim are best friends. The necklaces aren’t a strong enough symbol, he wants permanent.”

You nodded in agreement, unable to help tugging at your coat sleeves.

“Garcia,” Emily asked, “Anything from the jewelry store?”

“I did manage to get this clip from the security cameras at an accessory store in the Simon Mall in Norfolk.” She began, typing on her laptop and bringing up the footage. You held your breath as you saw Peter on the screen, browsing the necklaces. “Here he grabs a necklace and if I pull up this clip,” she clicked on to the register camera, “it matches the one our unsub sent to the Rivards.”

“Rossi and Y/L/N, head over to Norfolk and see what you can find out. I’ll have the rest of the team go over the interviews with the McKinnons and Rivards.”

“Got it, Em.” You nodded, grabbing your bag and walking out a little too fast. You went for the driver’s side of the SUV.

“Y/N,” Dave said calmly, “I think I should drive.” He stuck his hands out for the keys that were in your white knuckled palm.

“Whatever, let’s just get this son of a bitch.” You forfeited, walking over to the passenger’s side.

“Look, Y/N, I just want to tell you how grateful I am that you said yes to helping us. I know this isn’t easy for you.”

“It’s not, but if I can stop this from happening to another little girl, then I have to. You know, it’s crazy, I sort of want to help him, too. Growing up, I understand now that what Peter’s doing is due to some string of problems in his life that he never got addressed. Finding him will get him help he needs too.” You admitted, as crazy as you felt for sympathizing with your kidnapper.

“You’ve come a long way from that little third grader I met all those years ago.” Rossi said with pride evident in his voice. “But even then, you were so strong and resourceful. It killed me not being able to catch the guy that made you feel so vulnerable.”

“Dave,” you started, shifting your focus onto Dave, “You did more than enough. There’s a reason you weren’t able to find him back then, but you did what you could. Keeping in touch with you is what made me strong again, made me feel safe. You know you’re the reason I’m with the Bureau today.”

“I’ll always wish I could’ve done more.” He said with a smile, pulling into the lot of the large mall.

You two headed into the mall, bee-lining for the accessory store. It was empty despite the two employees stocking hairbows. “Excuse us,” you started, catching their attention. You and Rossi flashed your badges to the young girls, “We’re with the FBI and we had a couple questions for you about a customer that came in a couple days ago.”

After conversing with the employees and management you got into their cashiering system, you were lucky to learn that Peter purchased the necklace with a credit card under the name of Jolene Hathaway.

Back in the car, you called Penelope with the information. You heard her typing away, “Got it. Jolene Hathaway married to Edgar Hathaway, two kids Brooke and Peter Hathaway, and oh,” Penelope stopped suddenly.

“What is it?” You pressed.

“Three weeks ago Jolene died of complications from pneumonia, and that’s not all. In 1993 Brooke committed suicide, her brother was the one to find her. Current address is sent to your phones and the team will meet you there!” Penelope said at a mile a minute. “Ready to finally end this?” Rossi asked, turning on the lights and sirens.

You sped over to the Hathaway house in Norfolk, seeing the other SUVs pull up minutes later. You put on your bulletproof vest and head towards the door with the team. Stephen, Tara, and Emily go towards the back as the rest of you knock on the door. Rossi yelled out, “Edgar Hathaway, FBI!”

You waited a moment and hear the lock click, and elderly man answers, “What is this about?”

“Is your son Peter home?” You asked, urgency in your voice.

Edgar lifted his hand to adjust his hearing aid, “His room is in the basement. What happened? Why do you need Peter?”

“Sir, please come with me,” JJ said, bringing him out to tell him what his son had been doing.

“Don’t hurt him! Whatever he did, he doesn’t know better!” Edgar shouted as we made our way to the basement, guns at the ready.

Luke kicked down the locked door to the basement, “Peter Hathaway, FBI!” Miranda was tied to a workbench, gagged with an oil-dirtied rag. She noticed us come in and started thrashing and shouting. Peter stood in front of her, guarding her with his arms out.

“NO! You can’t take her! She’s my friend. Everybody needs a friend,” Peter started sobbing.

“Peter,” Rossi began gently, “If she’s your friend, you shouldn’t hurt her.” He took a step towards them and Peter grabbed a large butcher knife that was resting on the workbench.

“Don’t! Don’t don’t DON’T! ALL MY FRIENDS LEAVE ME AND YOU CAN’T TAKE THIS ONE. FIND YOUR OWN.” Peter pointed the knife at Rossi.

Suddenly, you got an idea. You put your gun down and Spencer shot you a look. You gave him a confident nod and stepped out from behind Luke. You kept your hands raised to show you didn’t have a gun and inched towards Rossi. “Hey, Peter. Do you remember me?”

A dawning of realization came over Peter’s face and he dropped the knife in awe, “Tink? Is that you?”

“It is!” You said, forcing excitement in your voice as if you were talking to a toddler.

“You came back! Where’d you go? You left!” Peter rambled, Rossi used the distraction to free Miranda and Reid took her upstairs.

“We still have to watch Peter Pan together! I’ve been waiting all this time!” You said to Peter’s beaming face.

“Can we do it now?” He asked.

“Yep! And guess what?”

“What? What?” He said, shaking with excitement.

“I got a movie theater for us! With candy and popcorn and soda! And it’s only for us! Best friends only!” You lied, reaching your hand out for his. “Come on, there’s a fancy car waiting for us!” “Really? Let’s go!” Peter was bouncing with excitement. You weren’t scared of him anymore, you felt for him. He had severe developmental disabilities and has been through some stressful losses. You led him outside to the police SUV and opened the door for him, letting him get the help he needed.

Back at the bullpen Emily gave you all your files to wrap up the case. You sat across from Stephen, pulling a chair up to his desk.

“So, Y/N, you were the one girl from that case all along?” Luke asked, breaking the silence.

“Yes, I’m sorry for not telling you guys. I just thought it would be better to approach this as an outsider, not a victim.” You explained.

“Y/N, you are the farthest thing from a victim,” Rossi said, coming out of his office, “You’re a survivor.”

#criminal minds angst #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds one shot #criminal minds drabble #request #david rossi fic #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid #david rossi #tara lewis #emily prentiss #jj jareau #stephen walker #luke alvez #Penelope Garcia #a-bau-tiful-mind