CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: BLAKE'S BIG DECISION !

8x22

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      THIS WEEK HAD BEEN ONE OF CASEY'S LAST WEEKS OF HAVING CRUTCHES. This was probably her second-to-last week before she could walk normally and without crutches. Casey had decided to bring one crutch to work today.

       Garcia had called everyone in at the roundtable because they had gotten a new case. "It looks like someone is taking the term 'Motor City' too literally. In the last month, Detroit PD has found two different crime scenes in the trunks of two different cars."

JJ looked down at the file in front of her. "Married couples in each trunk?" She asked. "Yeah. Brian and Melissa Cain in car number one, Paul and Elizabeth Garrett in car number two. Elizabeth was found alive by a couple of kids, but by the time the paramedics got there, she had lost too much blood." Garcia explained.

"Well, it takes a lot of skill to force a couple into their own car, even with a gun." Morgan told. "But once he does, it's one-stop shopping for this guy. His car become an abduction vehicle and a dumping site." Rossi said.

"According to missing persons reports, he holds on to them for about a week. Do you know what he does with them during that time?" Reid asks, looking to Garcia, who sits down. "Yes, unfortunately I do, and that information is on your tablets in picture form. And if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go to my happy place." Casey shook her head playfully at her coworker.

"Now that's a pretty sight." Casey comments. "Wow, this guy sure likes to cut, doesn't he?" Morgan commented, as well. "Mostly shallow. They could almost be considered hesitation marks, except for the sheer number." JJ stated.

"ME puts the count at nearly 50 per victim and the cause of death is one final stab that's fatal." Garcia says. "Physical and psychological sadism. They never know if the next cut is the one that will kill them." Blake tells.

"And the amount of urban decay in Detroit gives him a lot of room to maneuver. We need to stop him before he takes another couple." Hotch states, giving the team time to get ready for the jet ride to Detroit.

Casey sat next to her boyfriend as everyone had gotten settled in on the jet. "So, we know this unsub uses the victims' own cars as his dumpsite." Rossi tells as Casey grabs her boyfriend's hand as he speaks, not even realizing that she's doing it. "Technically, it's not a dumpsite, it's a transportation disposal modality."

"The point is, what does he do once he abandons the car? Walk? Have another vehicle in place?" Casey questions. "Well, both cars were found about 500 feet from public transportation. He could catch a bus or a train, but back to where?" JJ asks.

"His secondary location is most likely in Detroit. Both the couples he kidnapped are from Grosse Pointe, which is one of the most affluent communities in all of America, and it's only 8 miles from downtown." Spencer explained.

"Well, then he's probably from Grosse Point, too." Morgan assumes. "To overwhelm two people at once, he has to blend in."

"It feels like the real question is, why married couples?" Hotch questioned they were all thinking. "If he's a sadist, having a witness to his torture may heighten his pleasure." Casey tells.

"Israel Keyes kidnapped a husband and wife at gunpoint, got them in a car, took them to a remote location, and then killed the husband in front of the wife." Spencer told. "Keyes was a sexual sadist, though. This guy, I don't know." Rossi stated.

     "Cutting a husband and wife to death, it's--it's more like he's mocking their marriage bond." JJ told. "That's where my head's at," Rossi tells. "They took each other for better or worse, now I'm going to show you worse."

"So his home life's probably a wreck. At least one ex-wife, not to mention his mom and dad." Morgan says.

Hotch speaks up, "All right, we need to hit the ground running. Reid, Willows, I want you working on a geographic profile. Blake, you and Rossi go to the morgue, cover victimology. JJ and Morgan, go look at the cars. We need to understand how he's gaining control of the victims."

Casey smiles at Spencer and he smiles back at her and Hotch seems to notice this and looks down at his file as he speaks to make the tension more awkward on purpose. "I trust you two will get work done, Reid, Willows?" Casey and Spencer break their eye contact and both nod aggressively. "Yes, boss." "Mhmm." The rest of the team then chuckles at this.

Whilst at the morgue, Rossi and Alex had figured out that the couples were killing each other. JJ and Morgan had figured out that the unsub was hacking the cars. And Garcia had called with bad news that there had been another murder.

This time, a woman was found instead of a couple. The husband was actually speaking to Blake, Casey and Spencer right now and he was in a fit of sobs after seeing his wife. "Oh, God." He cried.

"Uh, Mr. Hammond, if you want, we can do this at the station." Blake speaks. The man cleans up his act and continues to look at his wife's body before interacting with the agents. "No. No, what do you need to know?"

"Can you explain why it took you two days to file a missing persons report on Mary?" Casey began with the questions. "I was traveling. I didn't know." The man admits.

"You didn't check in with your wife?" Blake asks. "We'd been fighting." The man tells. "About what?" Blake asks. "We have a standing Thursday night dinner at our favorite restaurant. Last Thursday, my boss told me I had to stay in Cleveland through the weekend. But I didn't get around to telling her that... till later that night."

"When she went to the restaurant by herself." Casey assumes. "Yeah." The man nodded. Casey and Spencer then try and talk to the man to calm him down and Casey looks at Spencer, wondering why the MO had now changed. Usually, this unsub took couples. Why now was he just taking the women instead?

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It had been over a day and Hotch had told Casey to go and get Blake from the room they set up because they had another missing persons and Casey had walked into the room at the wrong time. Blake was on the phone and it seemed pretty tense. Casey heard as Blake's tone was off.

"It's taken me ten years to get here. Not just to get to the BAU, but to restore my reputation inside the Bureau. And the job comes first for both of us. That was the deal." Casey had realized she had listened in too much and cleared her throat as she spoke.

"Uh, Blake?" Casey asked. Blake turned around to the girl and held a single finger up and turned back to her phone call. "I gotta go. Let me think about it. No. No, it means let me think about it. Love you." With that, Blake hung up.

Blake took a deep sigh and Casey furrowed her eyebrows, worried. "You okay?" She asked. "Fine." Blake nods. "What do you have?" She changes the subject and Casey remembers why she came in here. "Uh, Hotch wants you. Grosse Point PD got another missing persons report."

Blake and Casey exit the room and meet up with Hotch. "Missing persons' name is Emma Churchill." Hotch told. "Married?" Blake asks. "Her husband called it in." Hotch tells. "Why doesn't this unsub want men anymore?" Blake asks, stealing the question from Casey's head.

Hotch had been getting the report from the ME when Casey pulled Blake aside and asked her if she was sure she was okay. Blake had assured that she was but Casey just wasn't buying it. She made a mental note to talk with her later when they had time.

And when the time came, she did. After delivering the profile, Casey and Blake had been the only ones in the room and Blake had been ignoring the messages on her cell phone. Casey couldn't help but notice and hear the ding coming from the phone... it was really starting to annoy.

"Hey, Blake? You gonna check your phone any time soon?" Casey questioned once she had had enough. "I'm on the job, being on cell phones can distract yourself." Blake says.

"Are you sure it's that or are you just ignoring the person you were talking to earlier? Because that phone call sounded pretty tense." Blake then turns around and puts on a neutral smile and assures, "I'm good."

Casey raises her eyebrows, knowing that she was in fact, not good. Once Blake could see that Casey wasn't gonna let this go, she gave in. Blake took in a deep sigh and looked at the girl. "It's my husband." She explained how her husband had been offered a position at Harvard and he had told them that he was going to consider taking it if only Blake had been offered a position there as well in the linguistics department and they agreed to it. Casey had then noticed the similar situation she had been in not too long ago.

She thought about what to say before saying it. Casey looked down as she spoke. "You know... before Spencer and I got together... there was another guy. His name was Marco. And he was, well, perfect. Maybe a little too perfect. But... he lived pretty far away at the time in Syracuse. And he would fly here, I'd fly there. Eventually, he got tired of it. And without me knowing, he recommended me to the New York office. But in the end, I chose the BAU. And I am so glad that I did. I mean, I wouldn't have been with Spencer if I took that job, I wouldn't have met you. The point is... don't let him force you into doing something you don't wanna do. But if you love him and you really love him, then it's worth it in the end. I mean, sure, we'll always have work and there will always be work... but being with someone you love, that's something special. Don't let go of that. Now Marco wasn't the one, but Spencer was. That's why I didn't choose New York. I chose home."

        Blake had taken in the advice that Casey had just given her. "You know, you sure do know a lot for your age." She told. "I am decently smart." Casey jokes.

        After that, Hotch had decided to take Reid and Casey with him to speak with the car companies in charge of the cars and to cooperate with the FBI. "Agent Hotchner, what you're asking for is extremely sensitive." One of the men said.

       Three men were sat in front of the three agents. "We're asking for you to cooperate with a federal investigation." Hotch told. "You're presuming that the three different car companies represented in this room track our drivers via their GPS. That's a bold presumption." One of the men stated.

      "Actually, it's not bold, and we're presuming nothing," Spencer spoke up. "When customers access their GPS for the first time, they go to a 'terms and conditions' screen. They scroll to the bottom, they click the box that says 'agree' so they can start using it. They don't realize they've just agreed to allowing their car to communicate its entire driving history with your corporate headquarters. For research purposes only, of course. The only reason these people agree to share this information with you is because they don't take the time to read the fine print. But I do." As Reid explained, Casey couldn't help but chuckle to herself.

       Someone is definitely getting lucky when they went back home. Casey thought in her head.

       Flabbergasted, the three looked at one another. "Ahem. We'll, uh-- we'll need to consult with risk management." Casey spoke up next. "Yeah, well, we don't have time for lawyers. A woman's life is on the line and we need an answer now." Casey told and Casey could definitely tell that Reid was definitely into that.

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      After that in getting a direct answer, Garcia had found a come intersection for each car and that was to a track field. They had looked over at the missing persons' pictures and were focused on Philip Connor. He had been reported missing around the same time as Molly Hammond and JJ had discovered from his mother that he and a woman named Maya got engaged while she was still married to another man.

       Blake and Spencer had been sent over to his mother's house and Spencer had noticed Blake muttering to herself and her cell phone blowing up beside her as she drove. Just like his girlfriend, he suspected something was wrong.

      "You want to talk about what's bothering you?" Spencer asked. "No," Blake spoke. "Nothing's bothering me." Reid shook his head. "Something's bothering you. I can always tell when you're bothered because you whisper lyrics to yourself. Hip hop, specifically. I thought it was odd at first, but then I remembered your dissertation was on the fluidity of metaphor. You seem to have a particular fondness for Nas." Blake raised her eyebrows. "Wow. How did you know?" She asked.

      "Morgan made me listen to him when we started working together. He said anybody that can't quote Illmatic is ignorant. So... do you want to talk about it?"

      "Uh... the text, it's from my husband." Blake told. "Is that a bad thing?" Spencer asked. "He just wants to know if I've thought about his offer." Blake answered. "What offer?" He asked. Blake sighs, knowing that maybe he'd find out soon enough from Casey.

     "To teach with him at Harvard." Blake revealed and Spencer began to think. "How would you
tea--?" He pieced it together quickly. "Oh."

      "Yeah."
      "Tough call," Spencer stated. "What do you think you're gonna do?" He asked.

       "When we got married, part of the attraction was that we were both obsessed with our work, and for a while that was okay." Blake explained. "Yeah, the last time we talked about it, you seemed to prefer it." Reid told and Blake shook her head. "Oh, not anymore." Reid looked her way as she spoke. "I don't like going home to an empty house."

      "May I offer some advice?" Spencer asks. "Sure." Blake nods. "We need to turn around. You just passed the house." Blake turns her head and realizes that that's true and turns the car around. "Oh."

      They park and Spencer looks towards Blake. "That's not the advice, though." He begins to piece what he's going to say together in his head. "Blake, for the last 10 years, this job has been my life. And then, for almost a year now, I've had a taste of what you have. So, work... there's always work, and there'll always be work. What's rare is finding someone who makes us happy." He explains.

      "No wonder you and Casey work together so well." Blake shakes her head. Spencer furrows his brows. "We-We do?" He asks. "Yeah, she told me the same thing."

       With that, Blake and Spencer got out of the car and spoke with Philip's mother and had come to find out that he was not a victim - but someone who was an unsub. He was killing and masking himself as a victim. Philip and Maya had been separated for some time now and this was really getting to him. Blake and Casey had come up with a way to get to Philip and Garcia had found his location. They had SWAT come in with them and JJ brought Maya in to calm him down and to release Emma from his grasp. With that, it ended peacefully and Casey had reunited Emma with her husband.

       "There he is." Casey said as Emma looked up and whispered her husband's name and rushed over to him. "John." They embraced each other in their arms and Casey sighed as she looked at the scene. Spencer had put his arm around his girlfriend, almost embracing her in a way and the two looked over at Blake, who was also watching the scene. "You've made up your mind, haven't you?" Spencer asks Blake. "We're happy for you." Casey told.

       Casey had been attempting to walk without her crutch and Spencer had noticed that she didn't have it at all. "Do you need your crutch right now? Are you okay?" He asks. Casey nods, "Yeah, I think I just might need a cane now. I feel like I'm waddling." Spencer chuckles a bit.

      "Let's go home." Spencer whispers in Casey's ear as Casey giggles a bit. "I like the sound of that."

hey, lovelies!!!
ik the story has been pretty boring recently but fret not this next chapter is gonna be a big one
LITERALLY A BIG ONE
soooo
yeaaaa
also
guess who's sick again for the second time this month?
literal bs bruh this sucks👎
anywaysssss
thank you for reading!
love y'all!
-mya </3333