CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: DAY OF THE DEAD !

9x06

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        SPENCER AND CASEY HAD JUST GOTTEN SOME SHOPPING DONE WITH GARCIA FOR HER PARTY THAT WAS COMING UP. The three had arrived at Garcia's apartment.

        Since Casey was pregnant, Garcia and Spencer had taken the liberty into holding literally everything. They didn't let her lift a finger. "Okay, just put everything on the counter and I'll put it away later." Garcia told Spencer, going into her kitchen.

       "Nice altar, Garcia." Casey complimented, noticing said altar in the living room. "Thank you," Garcia said. "Yeah, there's still a lot to do before the party next week, and... I'm scared. I've never had the whole team here before."

        "Why are you doing a Day of the Dead theme?" Spencer asked in curiousness. "Well, uh, my stepfather's family always made a big deal of it in Mexico, and my name is Penelope Garcia, after all, so..." Garcia stated. "Hey, could you check my refrigerator and see if I have enough hot sauce?" Garcia asks Spencer. "And I think I left my keys by the door, can you get them for me?" Casey gives a strange look to Garcia and then nods, "Okay."

        When Casey comes back, Spencer had gotten jalapeño sauce and a jar of eyeballs in his hand. Casey had come back with the keys and noticing blood coming from Penelope's eyes. The two weren't phased by it.

        "You both didn't even flinch," Garcia looks at the two in disbelief. "JJ's right. I told her I wanted to go scary this Halloween, and she just laughed at me and she said that I don't have a scary side."

        "That's just because you're the sweetest person in the goddamn world." Casey told. "If it makes you feel any better, you probably do." Spencer says, trying to make Penelope feel better. "Really?" Penelope asks.

        "Yeah," Spencer says. "The building blocks of the human personality are complex, varied, and multi-faceted. It's essential to one's mental health to want to express these hidden personalities, and it's a fact of nature that everybody has one."

        "Everybody?" Garcia asks. "You have one?" Spencer nods, "Oh, absolutely. Yeah." Casey looks at Spencer in utter disbelief. "You have one?" Spencer nods.

         "I want to see it," Penelope tells. "I want to see Dr. Spencer Reid's hidden personality." Casey scoffs jokingly. "Good luck with that. I'm the mother of his child and this is the first I'm hearing about a hidden personality." Casey stated.

         "Uh--you, uh-- right here?" Spencer asks. "Like right now, you want to see it?" Garcia grabs her glasses and puts them on her face. "I have fake blood running down my cheeks right here, right now."

         Spencer looks down before continuing in confidence. "Okay, once you see it, you can't unsee it." He tells, causing Casey to sarcastically mutter: "I'm shaking in my boots."

        Spencer wraps both of his hands on the back of his neck and lets out a deep grunt. Both Garcia and Casey put on confused expressions once Spencer starts in his not-so-natural voice. "'I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, did that guy just fire five shots? Or did that guy just fire six shots? You're gonna have to ask yourself a question. Do you feel lucky, punk?" When saying the word 'punk', Spencer enunciates the 'k' vigorously.

        He ends scene and Casey raises her eyebrows, unimpressed. "Wow." She says. "That's Clint Eastwood, in 'Dirty Harry.'" Spencer reveals. "Oh." Garcia says.

        "I mean, I know it's not as effective as my dominant personality." Spencer tells and Casey looks down at the counter and chuckles aloud: "I beg to differ." She then realizes what she has said and she had forgotten Garcia was in the room and looks at Spencer in embarrassment. "Did I just say that out loud?"

         Spencer can't even answer and Garcia ignores them by checking the message on her phone but she had very obviously heard what Casey said. "Hey, look, we gotta go." Garcia informs, being the first one out of the apartment.

        When she leaves, Spencer and Casey have a mini-argument — which consisted of whispers.
       "Why would you—?"
       "I wasn't—"

        When they arrived at the BAU, the team was happy to discover that their boss had finally returned to work. Casey had patted his shoulder in comfort once she had seen him and Rossi had announced the man's return. "It's good to have you back, Hotch." Morgan tells the man. "It's good to be back." Hotch says.

        Everyone had taken their seats at the roundtable. "And under the heading of no rest for the weary..." Garcia stood in front of the team. "A woman was found dead yesterday near Provo, Utah, buried under a pile of rocks. Her face was smashed. Her head was smashed. Pretty much everything smashed."

         "Yuck." Casey comments.

         "Twenty-four hours later, she's still a Jane Doe?" Spencer asks. "No personal items were found at the scene, and the severity of her injuries made official recognition impossible." Hotch informs.

         "So Provo missing persons has like zero intel on her." Garcia adds. "Well, it looks like the victim was tortured." Morgan points out. "Lacerations on both arms and a burn in the neck area." Casey added on.

         "It could be the killer's way of silencing her, literally and figuratively." JJ tells. "The robe she's in almost looks ceremonial." Rossi says, looking at the picture. "Yeah, the unsub must have changed her clothing." Spencer pointed. "Could be a straight-up woman hater. Took away her clothes, her voice, her identity." Morgan figures.

        "And then covered her with rocks. Might be a concealment or an expression of remorse." Blake tells. "If it was a sign of remorse, he probably wouldn't have tortured her the way he did." Casey says.

         "Have there been similar kills in the area?" JJ asks. "None that we know." Hotch answers.

         "I'm impressed, Hotch," Rossi admits. "How'd you get the brass to let us investigate a single, isolated murder?" Hotch looks up. "I told them that the ritualistic nature means that he's forensically sophisticated and organized and he's likely killed before."

          "And likely will kill again." Casey tells.

          "Which means we can't waste time. Wheels up in 20."

          The team had made their way to the jet. Casey had been on the couch with Hotch and Spencer to fill up some of the space on the couch next to her. "Let's start the debriefing." Hotch tells and Casey had gotten some headphones out and started playing Mozart and put the headphones on her stomach.

          "What are you doing?" Morgan asks in curiousness. "I've come to the realization that this little one has ears now. Don't want it hearing the gruesome details." Morgan shrugged in understanding and the team had started.

     "Single victim, unidentified. Not much to go on." JJ started. "Let's start with the basics. Those rocks were heavy, so our killer's most likely male, probably in good physical shape." Morgan tells. "There could be more than one unsub." Blake assumes.

       Suddenly, Garcia pops up on screen with news. "Newsflash. We just got lucky with dental records.Our Jane Doe is Gloria Carlyle, 24-year-old grammar school teacher. One red flag, and it's pretty Scarlet, carmine, crimson. She used to belong to a utopian-style sect in town. She joined it right out of high school." Garcia explains.

     "Used to belong?" Casey asks.

      "Mm-hmm. She left the sect three months ago and she moved in with her boyfriend." Garcia informs.

      "Do we know the boyfriend's whereabouts?" JJ asked.
      "He's in Alaska, so his alibi's as solid as a pre-globally-warmed glacier." Garcia nods.

      "Garcia, is this sect run by a man named Herbert Sykes?" Reid asks in curiousness. "Wonder Boy, yes, it is. How'd you know that?" Garcia answers. "Five years ago, a teenage girl was found dead on the grounds of his compound. It was determined to be an honor kill of sorts. The girl was stoned to death."

       "The rocks appear to be the cause of death in Gloria's murder as well." Blake puts two and two together. "The red flag just got redder." Rossi comments.

        "All right, Dave, you and Blake find out what you can about Gloria Carlyle from the medical examiner. Morgan and Reid, go to the crime scene. JJ, Willows and I will talk to Gloria's family as well as have a chat with Herbert Sykes."

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           Down at the crime scene, Morgan and Reid had discovered another body and Herbert Sykes was 'just a treat' to talk to. They were currently in the conference room at the PD. Hotch and JJ had been setting up the board while Casey was seated.

"Casey, were you able to contact Abby Stafford's family?" Hotch questioned. "Nope, they're vacationing somewhere in Europe. We're tracking them down right now. But I did talk to a friend of hers." Casey had sat up. "She said Abby was a conservative, studious type. No drama. No enemies. She pretty much just kept to herself."

Morgan had walked into the room. "I just got off the phone with Rossi. The ME says the new victim died roughly a week ago. Had the same laceration marks and throat burning, but the wounds weren't anywhere near as severe as Gloria Carlyle's."

"He was still warming to the task." JJ nods. "Well, our unsub definitely has a type. Young, blond, pretty." Hotch looks at the pictures on the board. "Now, the elements in common to both murders aren't giving us much. Let's concentrate on the deviations."

"Okay," Casey started. "Well, um, Abby was thrown off a cliff. Gloria was entombed. The unsub left Abby in her own clothes but changed Gloria into a robe." Casey pieces.

"The ME found another difference. Apparently Gloria's fingernail polish had been removed by the unsub. Abby Stafford's hadn't been tampered with at all." Morgan informs.

JJ had taken a seat next to Casey as she explained. "Well, Abby's death was quick and impersonal -- of the cliff. No muss, no fuss. But Gloria was slowly crushed. He took his time to make her suffer."

"All the deviations in Gloria's murder involve increased ritual. It's got to be feeding a fantasy of some kind." Hotch states. "It explains why the torture was more intense with Gloria. The ritual fed into the fantasy, the fantasy fed into the rage. And if that's the case, this guy's evolving fast." Casey explained.

Their unsub was definitely evolving fast because later that night, the unsub had changed his victimology from women to men. Spencer had been adding more pictures on the board as the sergeant helping them had talked to both Casey and Spencer about this unsub.

        "So this guy's kills men now." Sergeant Mahaffey stated. "Parker Mills must have had a hidden or perceived connection to the other victims." Casey told. "Or Mills got in the way somehow and had to be killed so the unsub could return to his preferred victim type." Spencer assumes.

       "Then why bother with the cutting and throat burning?" Casey questions. Blake walks in the room. "Came back with the tox report with Abby Stanford and it is interesting." Blake informs. "What'd you find?" Spencer asks in curiousness.

       "Our conservative, studious girl had cocaine in her system at the time of her death." Blake tells, handing the paper of the report over to Casey. "This changes everything," Casey says. "Think we got our profile."

       After delivering the profile, Spencer had decided to do more research so he had gone in another room to do his studying. "I told Dr. Reid he could use my office. There must be 30 books piled up on my desk." Mahaffey stated and Casey chuckled: "Knowing him it's probably more than 30."

       "Yeah, that's either some light bedtime reading or he's actually onto something." JJ agreed. "You know, I was thinking about that branding thing. Maybe it's like that book we had to read in school, about the woman with the Scarlet A." Mahaffey stated.

       "No, that's unlikely," Morgan states. "The Scarlet letter was a badge of shame to be worn in public day after day. Our unsub is killing his victims immediately after the branding."

       "There's something strange going on here." JJ says as she looks at the piece of paper in front of her. "Well, that may be the understatement of the week." Mahaffey commented.

       "Gloria's vision was extremely poor. Her driver's license specifies she had to wear corrective lenses while operating a vehicle."
        "Eyeglasses."
        "It says here she wore contact lenses."
        "No contact lenses were found on her body or at the crime scene."
        "The unsub could've have taken them out, like how he removed her nail polish." Casey told. "Question is: why would he do that?"

        "No wristwatch was found at the crime scene either." Morgan stated. "Nail polish, wristwatch, contact lenses. What if he was trying to strip her of items that reminded him of the modern era?" JJ had been onto something. "It could be part of his delusion. Like changing her into a simple robe. He needed to take Gloria back to a primitive time before he could kill her."

         "Now, this just got scary." Casey commented.

        Casey had only gotten just a bit of rest while Spencer was still up, doing his own little research. Casey slept in the PD and had even worried for Spencer's sanity and rest.

       She had entered the room with a cup of coffee in her hand and placed it on one of the books but not before kissing him on his left cheek so he could remember that he was still sane.

       Spencer gave Casey a tight-lipped smile and then continued reading and then went back into the conference room where JJ was at. "He still doing his reading?" JJ asked in curiousness. Casey safely sat down and nodded: "Oh, yeah. I don't think he's gonna stop at this rate." Casey keeps looking over her shoulder at the room. "I'm just worried about him."

"What do you mean?" JJ asked.

"Well, he's been like this for a while now. Worrying about the baby, reading all the time, spending time by himself. I'm just worried that he's getting jitters, you know?" Casey expressed her worry. "It's normal for soon-to-be dads to get jitters. It's Spence, he just wants to do the dad thing right." JJ told and Casey began to understand the words JJ was saying. "Yeah, I guess you're right." She was glad to have JJ around because she had understood the mother thing.

A couple of minutes later, Casey began to breathe in and out. "You okay?" JJ asks. "Kicking a lot this morning." Casey breathes out. "Like a good friend of ours said while I was pregnant: 'in the third trimester, there's an average of thirty fetal movements per hour.'"

Casey finished the sentence with JJ. "'Babies kick to explore movement and strengthen muscle.'" The two laughed. "Can I feel?" JJ asks and Casey immediately nods: "Yeah, of course." JJ places her hands on Casey's stomach and feels the baby kick.

"Remind you of anything?" Casey asks.
"It's weird when you're not the one that's pregnant." JJ admits, chuckling.

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Successfully, with both Spencer and Garcia's smarts combined, the unsub was caught before harming a mother and her daughter and accusing them of witchcraft. Blake had ended up shooting and killing the guy. Finding out his ancestry did a number on him.

Now, the team had been over at Garcia's place for her party. Spencer and Casey were seated over on the couch and Casey eating a bowl of strawberries. (Ones that Spencer had washed himself, thoroughly).

"Hey," Spencer began. "You okay?"
"I'm okay," Casey started and then rubbed her belly. "We're okay. You okay?"
Spencer thought for a moment before responding: "I think I'm okay." Casey pecks Spencer on the lips and looks down at her stomach. "I cannot wait for you to come out." Casey says in a monotone voice to her baby. "That's your cue to come out."

"You haven't reached your due date yet." Spencer tells. "I know but I'm getting close to it, aren't I?" Casey questioned. "Pregnancy: a blessing and a curse." JJ jokes.

Suddenly, there's a knock on the door — which leaves everyone confused because everyone was already here. "What, what, what?" Garcia opens the door to reveal to Hotch, who had previously stated that he couldn't go. "I thought you couldn't come."

"Well, Jack got a last-minute sleep-over invitation, so I hope it's okay." Hotch tells and Garcia nods, letting the man in. "Yes, of course, of course."

"Okay, everybody, I guess it's time to start." Garcia announces as she hands a glass of wine to Hotch. "Here you go, sir." Spencer helps Casey stand up and gives her her glass of sparkling cider with a plastic eyeball inside.

The team stands around the altar. "Uh... I want to thank everybody for doing this with me, and our altar's burning, and I just feel so blessed to have you all here." Garcia tells the team.

"I will start. Uh..." Garcia puts a picture up by the altar of a man and a woman and a baby. "This is my mom and dad. I miss them." She then puts a picture of a cat next to the picture of her parents. "And this is my cat, Simba with his usual bowl of soda pop. He was a weird cat." Everyone began to chuckle at the comment she made. "Okay, who's next?"

JJ decides to go next. "Uh, okay. Well," She puts up a picture of a young woman that Casey had heard about in the past but never pried from any details from JJ. "Uh, this is my sister, Roslyn — Ros. She always dreamt that someday she'd live in Paris, so, um...it didn't happen, but I thought this would bring her some happiness." She puts up a little figurine of the Eiffel Tower next to the picture.

Rossi then goes next. "Private First Class Darryl Jenson," He puts his picture up next. "We lost him during the Tet offensive." He puts tickets right next to the picture, to which Morgan asks: "What are the tickets?" Rossi points to the tickets. "Opening day next season, Wrigley, right behind the home dugout. Jenson was a diehard Cubs fan." Morgan nods: "Sweet."

Blake is up next. "Um..." She puts up a picture of an older woman and attached a crossword puzzle onto the picture. "My mom." She tells. "She was the one who got me into crossword puzzles -- no erasing allowed-- which got me into linguistics."

Spencer was up next and he had put up a picture of a man. "It's Nikola Tesla. I figured he's probably been inventing things on the other side, so hopefully he'll bring something to us." Casey smiles at her boyfriend's little gesture and then sees the opportunity to go next.

"You said we could bring more than one, right?" Casey asks. "Oh, yes. This is a come one, come all altar." Garcia nodded.

        "Well, the first one I brought was Sawyer," Casey puts up a picture of her ex-boyfriend, Sawyer up at the altar. "Now, Spencer, I know you weren't too crazy about him, but I miss him everyday and I would hope that he would be happy for me right now and know that his death brought something good. It brought you and this baby." Spencer smiles at his girlfriend and puts a wrapped receipt next to his picture. "This is the receipt I kept from the first time we met. We had the same coffee order and... well, you guys know the story."

         "And the next one is my mom," Casey then puts up a picture of her mother that she had found a little earlier in the day. It was probably one of her favorite pictures of her mom now (And what she didn't know was that that was also one of Hotch's favorite pictures of her.) "I know, she... wasn't the best during her pregnancy but... I just know that she's looking out for me during mine. And she's looking out for this one, too." Casey rubs her stomach and the rejoins Spencer.

          Morgan is up next. "I guess that's me. Okay... I brought... my pops." He puts a cigar next to his picture on the altar. "He was a cigar aficionado, big time. And, actually, Rossi, he was also a huge Cubbies fan, so I was thinking maybe he and Private Jenson over there, maybe they could go to the game together."
         "They can sort that out when they get here." Rossi chuckled.

        Finally, Hotch was up. For obvious reasons, he had brought a picture of Haley. He didn't say a word but the silence said everything.

       "Well, I guess this is proof positive that ancestry ain't all bad." Rossi tells and Casey smiles.

       "How about a toast to the... thirty or forty of us?" Garcia holds her glass up and Casey holds her glass of sparkling cider up.

       "Cheers."

hey lovelies!!
look at me being on top with updating this book😁
it's the least i could do after not updating for months lmao

anywayssss
thank you for reading!!!
next chapter is an original and i am excited for this one:)
man i have missed writing originals
this one is called: judgement day
i love you all!!!
-mya </33333