CHAPTER FORTY: PHYSICAL !

9x18

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CASEY WILLOWS HAD BEEN GROWING ODDLY SUSPICIOUS OF HER FIANCÉ IN THE PAST WEEK. He was always groaning whenever he walked around the apartment or bent down to get something, he was always smelling like sweat and he was too tired for "in-bed activities".

Today was one of those days where he reeked of sweat and was walking around slowly and painfully — almost like an old man. It was like seeing Rossi when Morgan would push him in the pool on purpose.

Casey almost had half the mind to guess that he was cheating but she knew he would never. But Spencer's never ending groans were starting to annoy her as they walked up the steps to the conference room. "Okay, what's going on?" She decided to finally ask.

"What do you mean 'what's going on'?" Spencer asked, confusedly. Casey looks at her fiancé with squinted eyes and decides to leave it alone so she walks away. "Never mind."

        They arrive to the conference room where Spencer struggles with sitting down in his seat next to Casey. Before Casey could bother to question it again, Garcia walks in the room. "I'm ready, sir." She speaks. "All right, let's get started." Hotch starts.

       "Oh, great," Garcia exhales sharply. "Okay. So, this morning, a Wisconsin park ranger discovered 3 partially buried bodies in a forest preserve just outside Milwaukee."

        "Two male and one female," Blake starts. "He doesn't appear to have a gender preference." Rossi continues, "Decomposed. They weren't all killed at the same time."
"And that is why I call you 'Eagle Eye'. Preliminary ME reports they'd each been killed about a month apart." Garcia states. "The most recent victim, Susan Clark, has been dead approximately two weeks."

      "28-year-old exotic dancer and prostitute." JJ points out. "High-risk lifestyle. What about the other two?" Casey asked curiously. "I haven't ID'd them yet." Garcia says. "Cause of death?" Vivian asks. "Still working on that, too." Garcia nods.

      "Looks like they were all covered in bite marks." Morgan points out. "From the unsub?" JJ asks. "Probably from critters out in the woods." Rossi figures. "No, they'd definitely be just bones by now." Vivian says. "Lovely." Casey comments sarcastically.

      "He murdered them months apart but buried them all in the exact same spots. The disposal site's obviously important to him." Spencer stated.

      "Susan Clark was reported missing 6 weeks ago. There were long-term ligature marks on her wrists and ankles." Hotch tells. "He holds them captive before he kills them." Rossi says. "But what exactly is he holding them for?" Blake asks.

      "That's what we need to find out," Hotch tells. "Wheels up in 30."

       With that, the team heads onto the jet where Hotch split the team into groups. Casey, Rossi and Reid split off to the coroner's office, JJ, Morgan and Vivian head off to look at the disposal site while Blake and Hotch went to the PD.

        Once they finished up with the coroner office, they headed back to the PD. Casey had been focused on her work at first, her fiancé just standing a few feet away, looking at the maps in front of him. Casey then started noticing quiet grunting noises coming from her fiancé and noticed how he started stretching.

        Casey's eyes lingered a little bit trailing from his jacket all the way down to his butt. The girl smirked to herself and was practically drooling at the sight. She'd never seen the guy stretch before so this was all new to her. She absentmindedly bit her pen, confused yet fascinated by the fact that he was stretching and whispering to himself at that.

        The scene was then automatically interrupted by a confused Morgan and that caused Casey to look like she was working and didn't even notice Spencer.

       "What's with you?" Spencer had immediately stopped stretching. "You okay?" Morgan asks. "Yeah, I'm great. I'm just doing some stretching because it helps me keep my brain limber." Spencer made up on the spot. Morgan looks towards Casey, who shrugs at the lie.

        "Casey and I have also been doing some geo-profiling," Spencer tells. "The red markers indicate where the victims lived, except, of course, Rudy Hightower, who was homeless. The blue markers indicate where they were last seen alive. And this is the disposal site."
          "You might wanna add that I was the one that marked everything." Casey stated.

        "So that's his hunting zone." Morgan figured. "Which means he probably lives close by." Hotch nodded.

        JJ then walks up with a stack of coffees in a holder and one she's holding for herself. "Okay, so something's not adding up for me here," JJ handed the last cup to Casey and stood opposite her. "If we are dealing with a cannibal, why does he dispose of the bodies? Why not keep them?"

       "Well, it's not easy to keep a body fresh. Maybe he doesn't have the resources." Morgan says. "Yeah, the smell would've gotten around eventually." Casey added. "Maybe he doesn't require large portions of flesh to satiate his urges," Spencer tells. "Most ritual cannibalism involves the consumption of particular organs as a means to commune with the deceased."

       "But none of the victims were missing any organs." JJ tells. "Which means it's probably not about the ritual but about the compulsion." Hotch says. "I don't know. He grabs them, he holds them captive, and then he buries them all in the exact same spot." Morgan says.

        "And how do we explain the first victim, Melvin Lewis?" Spencer asks. "He didn't have any human bite marks." Casey shrugs as she sips from her coffee cup. "My guess is: he's the guinea pig." Casey then furrowed her brows. "Question is for what."

          A little while later, Garcia called with news — only Morgan, Casey, Spencer and Rossi were in the room. "What you got, sweetness?" Morgan asks. "Mama's hands are dirty 'cause she's been digging. I got the 4-1-1 on our first victim, Melvin Lewis. Originally from the Malibu of the Midwest, Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Melvin moved to Milwaukee 12 years ago when wifey ran away with his best friend." Garcia informed.

         "Ouch." Rossi comments. "Yeah. Luckily they had no kids. No criminal record. Like super squeaky clean. Not even a parking ticket. He joined Facebook a year ago. He has a whopping 6 friends, all from work."

        "He drives a truck, right?" Morgan asks.
        "Yeah. A milk truck, to be exact. But only did that for a month," Garcia tells. "Before, he worked for 10 years at an animal control center, but he was laid off due to budget cuts."

        "Pen, what was his position at the animal control center?" Casey asks. "He was a dogcatcher. But like a SWAT team of dogcatchers. He specialized in dangerous and trapped animals, including but not limited to skunks, a raccoon, and one time a giant python."
       "All right, thanks, babe." Morgan says before hanging up.

       Casey looks towards her fiancé and he has that glimmer in his eyes. The glimmer he always had when he had an epiphany. "That could be it." Rossi looks at his confused. "What, the python?" He asks.

      "No, bite marks. Of course. That could be how he was doing it. That's why it was undetectable. Brain tissue, we need to look at brain tissue--" Casey could tell that Spencer was getting excited by the heightening in his voice but he needed to catch the rest of them up on what he was going on about here. "Okay, babe--" Casey inhales. "Rewind, we need to catch up with the rest of the class."

       Spencer looks down before continuing. "Sorry. I don't think this is a biting fetish or cannibalism. I think it's a virus, and the biting is merely a means of transmission." He clears up.

      "What kind of virus?" Morgan asks. "There are several possibilities. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, tick-borne encephalitis, but the most likely culprit is rabies, and that wouldn't show up in an autopsy except in brain tissue." Spencer explained.

      "So since Lewis was the only victim not bitten by a human, the unsub must have used an animal to infect him first." Rossi tells. "And after that, he somehow facilitated human to human transmission." Spencer added.

        "Like I said, guinea pig." Casey says, content her theory was being proven right by her fiancé.

       "That would explain the random victimology." Morgan added. "It doesn't matter who he infects. All he needs is a host."
       Spencer nods, "Which also means the holding period isn't about torture, it's about incubation."

      "I was attacked by a rabid fox once," Rossi stated. "Shot the thing 3 times before it went down. Freakin' terrifying.
It was like a horror movie." Casey nods along, "Yeah, when I was little, Sammy Dunbar was bitten by a rabid dog. People say he died because we never saw him again. Still have the fear of rabid dogs to this day."
        "Is that why you change the subject whenever we talk about pets or the K9 unit at the BAU?" Morgan asks. "Why do you think I never got a dog?" Casey questions.

       "Yikes," Spencer started. "We need to have the ME test for rabies vectors in the brain samples." He then gets back on topic of the unsub. "And then we need to deliver the profile." Morgan nods.

         After delivering the profile, Morgan, Casey, Spencer and JJ had regrouped back in the conference room to eat when Garcia called with more news. "Give it to me, Dollface." Morgan started.

       "Do you know that over 50,000 people die of rabies every year in third-world countries? Thank God for Monsieur Pasteur, otherwise we'd all be dead. Okay, so I looked into every known case of rabies exposure in the country over the last 20 years."
       "Did you find anything?" Morgan asks.
       "Cool your jets, hot chocolate. I will let you know if I've got something."
        Casey chuckles at Morgan as he makes a face.

        "So I've got something," Garcia states. "Fifteen years ago, in a town called Two Rivers, Wisconsin, a 9-year-old, Hunter Cunningham, was admitted to the hospital with severe flu-like symptoms. Symptoms get worse, he develops hydrophobia. Turns out that 3 weeks prior, he was bitten by a bat when he was out camping with his family."

         "Two Rivers is less than a 2-hour drive from here, and it's even closer to the disposal site." Spencer says. "A bat. That's odd." JJ says.

        "Actually, bats make up 12% of Wisconsin's mammalian population, and they're responsible for the majority of the infections in the US." Spencer explains.

       "Baby girl, what's so special about this Hunter Cunningham kid?" Morgan asks. "Here's what's special:" Garcia answers. "A week after he was admitted to the hospital, he checked out of the hospital. But I can't find a death certificate. It's like he disappeared."

       "What about his family?" Casey asks.

       "Uh, his father, Patrick died 6 years ago of a massive heart attack. And mom, Wanda, works as a bartender at the Tropicana hotel in Vegas."

       "Any siblings?" JJ asks.

       "Yes, affirmative. One older brother, David Wade Cunningham, 28-year-old resident of Hawaii."

       "And what's his deal?"

       "His deal is..." Garcia pauses. "Ay, chihuahua. He works at Nassee Pest Control, which specializes in dangerous animal removal, and you don't even have to ask me, home and work address sent--bam!"

        The four then make their way to the address Garcia sends them. Morgan lets Hotch know what the four have found and decide to go and search his home. There's a cage in his home along with books about rabies and animals.

       The PD, along with Spencer, Casey, Morgan and JJ are all searching in the home. JJ and Casey had found a box in the man's closet and dug, finding photos of a young Hunter Cunningham and a tape with his voice on it.

      After finding it, Casey and JJ decide to bring it to Morgan and Spencer. "Hey, look what we found." Casey speaks. "It was hidden really well in his closet. He did not want anyone finding it and I think I know why." JJ explains.

      JJ plays the recording of the boy to the other profilers. Casey looks down as Morgan picks up one of the tapes labeled: '1999'.

      "1999 -- that was the year his brother Hunter got rabies." Morgan says. "By the time they got him to the hospital, there was nothing the doctors could do." Spencer tells. "It's possible the parents brought him home to die instead."

      "And then his big brother David recorded the whole thing." JJ added. "He was 12 at the time," Casey speaks. "That's an impressionable age for a single event imprint. I would know."
      "It clearly unlocked some sort of psychopathic fascination that he's still trying to satisfy." Spencer says, looking at the photos of the dying boy.

      "I can't imagine watching my own son die, let alone from rabies." JJ tells. "Ditto." Casey agrees.
      "It almost makes you consider euthanasia." Spencer speaks, causing all three to look at the man.
      "Spencer!" Casey scolds.
      "I'm not saying I would advocate euthanizing Henry or Chris or anything. I'm just--"

      "No, Spence, that's it." JJ tells. "That's why Garcia couldn't find a death certificate for Hunter Cunningham." Casey looks at JJ and then thinks to herself. "Because his parents must have done it. They couldn't bear to watch, so they put him out of his misery."

      With that new information in hand, they inform Hotch what they had found when they are informed of a woman, causing a disturbance to the public — who was foaming at the mouth. Hotch told the four that they were closer to where the woman was spotted and Morgan turns the vehicle over.

      "Got it, Hotch. Marshall and East Lyon." Morgan tells. "We're on our way." Hotch informs.

      They arrive and find a woman screaming and walking around at the park. The four get out of the SUV and recognize the woman to be one of the missing persons.

     "There's too many people." JJ looks around at the terrified children. "Move everybody out while I get her attention." Morgan informs as Casey and JJ clear the children out.

      Luckily, everyone had gotten the hint and ran off. "Liz Foley! I need you to stop right there." The woman started to aggressively walk towards Morgan. "Ma'am, I need you to stay back." He then raised his gun up to the woman, causing Spencer, Casey and JJ to do the same.

     The woman kept walking towards them, yelling and foaming at the mouth. "Ma'am, I said stop now!" Morgan warned. As she got closer, Morgan decided to shoot her in the leg to stop her. Casey watched the woman in horror, not believing what she was seeing with her eyes.

     Rossi, Hotch, Vivian and Blake soon arrived and Liz Foley was taken into the hospital. Spencer and Morgan had rejoined the team as they debriefed. "We can't be far from where he's holding them hostage. She was on foot." Rossi tells.

    "But in her state, how in God's name did she escape?" Blake asks. "Could've been the rushing adrenaline she got from being infected. High-highs followed by low-lows." Vivian answered. "Reid, where are we in relation to his hunting ground?" Hotch asks. "Right in the middle of it." Spencer answers.

    Hotch decides to call Garcia. "At your service, sir." The woman answers almost immediately. "Garcia, we're trying to figure out what kind of building or property the unsub might be using. What do you see in a 5-mile radius of our current position?" Hotch questioned.

    "A lot of stuff," Garcia answered. "What am I looking for?"
    "Anything relatively isolated or industrial." Rossi answers.
"Uh, it's mostly residential, single-family homes, apartment buildings, stuff like that."
    "What about abandoned properties?" Casey asks.
    "Not per se, but people don't usually give notice when they do that. Let me see if there's any condemned. No, nothing."
    "What about properties for sale?" Morgan asks.
    "Let's see, 1, 2, 6 homes for sale. All of them occupied. An apartment building for sale, also occupied. It looks like the city is selling some land."
    "What's there?" Rossi asks.

     "Uh, hold yourself. It is a... Hello. It's an animal shelter, but it's shut down due to budget cuts." Garcia informs. "That's could be it, Garcia. Send the address." Garcia nods, "Done and done. Please be careful."

      With that, the team headed to the abandoned shelter and were now waiting for SWAT to arrive to back them up. Unfortunately, the BAU got there before SWAT did and they had no time to waste.

      "All right. SWAT's still 5 minutes out." Morgan informed the team. "All right, we can't wait. We'll go in in two groups. We'll go in this door, you guys take the west door down the alley." Hotch motions himself, Rossi, Vivian and Blake in one group while Spencer, Morgan, JJ and Casey are in the other. "Let's go."

Casey's group cruised down the dark hallway, with their guns held high. They had heard yelling and Morgan motioned his head to go towards that door. Morgan gave the group a countdown before busting in and yelling at their unsub as he ran off.

JJ had stayed behind with the victim to help him out of the cage as Morgan, Casey and Spencer chased after the unsub. Spencer checked one of the rooms and Casey checked an opposite room while Morgan checked the hallway ahead.

"We have the entire place is surrounded. You might as well come out." Morgan warned before Casey heard yelling — Morgan's yelling and zapping.

Casey immediately ran to Morgan's aid and seen that David was zapping Morgan with an electric stick. She immediately pounced on the man and he knocked her back into the wall with his body but Casey was holding on for dear life. David was also throwing Morgan against the wall as the two continued fighting. Spencer arrived at the scene as soon as Casey did and held his gun up, trying to get a shot at David but it was no use. He'd either risk shooting his friend or his fiancée.

"Spencer, just— shoot!" Casey managed to get out.

David pushed Morgan into a wall and with all of his strength, pushed both David and Casey into a different room in front of them back into a desk. Casey stood up from the impact and was face-to-face with David before he zapped Casey right in the chest with the stick. The girl yelled in pain and landed back against the wall. Morgan went after David again but was then met with the same fate with the stick once more and he was knocked back on the ground.

Seeing his friend and fiancée hurt caused Reid to put his gun back into his holster and to tackle David Cunningham to the ground. It didn't work to his advantage, seeing as the unsub got back up almost immediately and punched Spencer square in the face.

Casey stood up almost immediately as she had seen the scene unfold and grabbed a heavy hole-puncher on the desk and hit the unsub right in the face with it, causing him to fall down to the ground.

Spencer stood up and pulled his gun out of his holster and pushed the man back down as he tried to get up with his foot.

"Nice tackle, kid." Morgan complimented. "Thanks. I've been working out a little bit." Spencer panted.
"And you with that latching on his back? Impressed." Morgan looks over at Casey next as he pulls out a set of handcuffs and goes to arrest David Cunningham.

"Yeah, that's always been my best quality. But you..." Casey turns towards her fiancé and notices blood dripping down his eyebrow from where he was hit. "Oh, baby, you're bleeding." Casey says, wiping the blood from his temple. "I'm fine. Are you okay, though?" Spencer asks. "Yeah," Casey tells as Morgan walks out with their unsub. "My back hurts. But it's fine."

"But you, though..." Casey smirked. "I gotta admit... I find that side of yours very sexy." She chuckles as Spencer looks down with a small smile on his face. "Come on, let's get out of here."

After that, Spencer, Casey and Morgan were sent to the hospital to check on their injuries they sustained from taking David Cunningham down. Spencer had a bandaid on his eyebrow from where he was hit and Casey had a scratch on her forehead and had taken a prescription of ibuprofen that the doctor suggested.

"Pretty boy, Ace," Morgan said, approaching the couple.
"I hope they didn't mess up that face too bad. You know that's your best asset."
"Yup, along with your brain... and your hands." Casey added.

"Luckily, just some superficial nicks and bruises. How are you doing?" Spencer asks Morgan next. "I just got a couple burns, but I'll be all right. Ace?" Morgan looks towards the woman next. "Eh, my back hurts but I'll survive." Casey tells, holding onto Spencer's arm and leaning her head on his shoulder.

JJ, who had been there for Liz Foley's family and their latest victim, approaches the three. "Found another body at the disposal site." JJ informs. "Hunter Cunningham?" Spencer guesses. "Well, we're still awaiting DNA confirmation, but they're the skeletal remains of a 9-year-old boy, so..." JJ says. "It's gotta be him." Morgan finishes.

There's a pause before JJ speaks. "You guys ready to get out of here?" JJ asks. "Yes." Casey sighs. "Yes, please, I can't stand hospitals. It's something about the lighting." Spencer looks up.

"Who's Rossi talking to?" Morgan asks, looking towards one of the rooms. "The Foley family," JJ stated as the four watch the Foley family had been visibly upset. "She slipped into a coma." Casey holds Spencer's arm tighter as she looks down. "It won't be long now." Spencer said.

Before the four left, the victim they saved had come up to them and thanked them for saving his life. Casey smiled down at him in the wheelchair, grateful that her pain had at least been worth something.

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So, Casey eventually figured out why Reid had been acting like he was in pain lately. He revealed on the jet ride home that he and Garcia had been told that they had to take fit test and that their jobs would be at stake if they didn't participate. The fit test required them to run a mile and if they couldn't do that, then that was it.

Casey had talked to Morgan about this and told her that he had the fit test waived so they didn't have to do it but a great idea popped up into the two's heads. They would help them get ready for the fit test and then reveal that they actually didn't need to do it at all.

Casey had joined Morgan onto the track, with baby Christopher in his baby carrier that was tightened around her stomach. Spencer and Garcia had noticed the two approach and were confused on why they were there.

"Why are you here?" Garcia asked Morgan. "It looks like I'm your new PT instructor. Watkins got sick, so today's your lucky day. I'm your guy."

"And not that I'm not happy to see you or my godson, but why are you here, fair maiden and dazzling baby genius?" Garcia asks.

"Well, Spencer ended up telling me about your fit test so I decided, 'hey, why not?' and besides, I thought baby Chris here could be a little incentive for him to keep going." Casey told as baby Christopher babbled in his carrier.

"Guys, come on. Seriously, you should have just said something. This whole fit test thing is just a formality. I could've got the whole thing waived." Spencer looks at Garcia and gives her a look. "But since you didn't, you ready to do this?"

Garcia and Spencer immediately stand up. "Yeah, let's do this! Whoo!" Garcia shouts, heading to the track. "Whoo!" Spencer shouts after her.

"Uh, hey, hey, hey. Happy-go-Luckys, where are you going?" Morgan asks. "To run the mile." Garcia tells. "No, no, no. You didn't hear? The fit test is more than just a mile. Get your little butts back over here."

Morgan and Casey had definitely put them through the ringer. Having them do push-ups, run agility bags, jump-rope, go up-and-down the bleachers. They had officially wired them out and Casey knew by the way both Garcia and Spencer landed on the ground after all that.

Casey had taken baby Christopher out of his baby carrier and held him towards her hip. "Hey, hey, hey. What are we doin'?" Morgan questioned. "What's all this huffin' and puffin'?"

"Come on, you guys still got two miles to run, let's go!" Casey encouraged. "Two miles?" Garcia groaned. "It's supposed to be one mile." Spencer says. "No, no, no. Not on my watch. This whole fit test is altogether different. Now suck it up!" Morgan tells.

The two remain stiff on the ground and Morgan and Casey look at one another and begin to laugh. "All right, we've had our fun. Tell 'em." Casey tells. "I guess I gotta let the cat out of the bag." Morgan nods. "I kind of already had your fit test waived."

Both Spencer and Garcia sit up. "What?" Spencer asks, still out of breath.

"Yeah. Baby girl, think about it. You're not even in the field. And pretty Ricky, you already got enough case hours to qualify. This was just a good time for me and Willows." Morgan told. "And my, oh, my, was it worth it." Casey nods, fist-pumping Morgan.

"I'm gonna kill them." Garcia says, looking at Reid with a serious face. "You get him, I get her?" Spencer breathes and Garcia nods, beginning to stand up. "I'm regaining my strength."

"I told you you should have said something. I said--hey--uh, hey-- oh, oh!" Morgan begins to step back as well as Casey. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" Spencer stands up, beginning to playfully and slowly chase Casey around the area they were standing in.

Casey sits down. "Hey, you wouldn't attack a girl with a baby, would ya?" Casey says, holding her son up as a shield and Spencer picks his son up out of her hands and holds him towards her next. "Now, I got him on my side!" Casey playfully yells as Spencer places baby Christopher on top of her. "Oh, no! I'm caught!"

casey is literally me whenever i look at reid hehehe

hey, lovelies!
three more chapters and we are done with season 9
thank god because i spent literally my entire senior career on this season lmao

i absolutely love this episode omg
and kinda starting to notice that my writing has been getting better and i gotta thank tumblr imagines for that lmao

i have been plotting things for the later spasey seasons like s12-s15 and i am so ready for it HEHEHEHEHE😈

anywayssss
thank you for reading!
-mya </3333