CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: MATRIARCH !

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SPENCER AND CASEY HAD ADJUSTED TO LIFE PRETTY WELL SINCE THEY HAD THEIR SON. That was what Spencer thought at least. He was currently looking for his fiancée in the office and couldn't see to find her anywhere. He had then come across JJ, Vivian and Blake sitting and chatting together.

"Hey, have you guys seen Casey anywhere?" Spencer decided to ask. "She went to go take a phone call." Blake stated and then Spencer had come to the realization of what she was doing. "Oh, no." He had began to rush towards the entrance of the office and had gotten there just in time as Casey was dialing the number to her grandmother to check how the baby was doing.

Before Casey could press 'call', Spencer took the phone from her hands. "Nope." He said as he did so. Casey sighed, realizing she had been caught. "Come on. It's normal for a mother to check in on her baby once in a while." She reasoned.

"Not when once in a while is every fifteen minutes." Spencer stated, causing Casey to sigh and realize that maybe she was going a bit overboard.

"Christopher is fine, he's safe, he's okay. He's with Edith and he's perfectly snug in his crib." Spencer tries to calm Casey's nerve and Casey understands what he's trying to do. "I know, but..."

Spencer sighs, "I miss him, too. But I know he's in good hands." Casey sighs again. "I know. The separation anxiety is really getting to me." She tells.

"I get it," Spencer pulls his girlfriend closer to him. "You have no idea how much I want to see him. But we can get through it together." He assures.

Casey nods, "You're right. I will try and go the next case without calling and checking in."

As if one cue, Hotch walks towards the conference room with Garcia following behind. "Guys, we have a case." Hotch announces and Spencer and Casey look each other's way.

"Starting now?" Spencer questions.
Casey clears her throat, "I spoke too soon."

The team makes their way over to the room and look at the files in front of them. "Alright, my lovelies," Penelope starts. "Daniel and Rachel West, 27 and 25, have just been reported missing. They were both going to visit Rachel's parents in Ohio. Rachel's mother contacted the police when they hadn't arrived. Rachel's car was found on the side of the road."

"No signs of struggle?" Morgan asks.
"No signs of them being in the car at all," Garcia shows them the photos of the abandoned vehicle. "They took everything with them and it looked like the car was completely clean."

"Are we ruling this out as an abduction case? There's no signs leading to it." Vivian tells. "Swiped 'em and ran." Rossi comments.

"Rachel's mother said that she based it on mother's intuition." Hotch tells the team to which JJ and Casey both nod.
"That sounds about right."
"Yup."

"Another thing to add, Rachel is eight months pregnant. We've dealt with similar cases of pregnant women being abducted." Hotch explained.

"But we don't even know if they were abducted." Blake stated. "But missing for three days with no calls or texts?" JJ questions. "Especially with someone pregnant and you're expecting them to be there." Vivian nods.

"Well, if our unsub was at the scene, he sure did a good job making it look like he wasn't there." Casey states. "You think the motive was to take Rachel's child?" Morgan asks.

"Unsubs like this one in particular always take children out of maternal or paternal instinct. There's a chance our unsub ran into them and saw that Rachel was pregnant and took them." Reid explains.

"Which means that our time is very limited." Hotch stands up. "Wheels up in 10."

The team had taken the jet down to Ohio. Hotch had separated the team in groups. Rossi, Blake and Hotch would meet at the PD with the detective in charge, Morgan and Vivian would check out the crime scene of the abandoned vehicle and Casey, Spencer and JJ would be meeting with Rachel's parents.

The three had waited for the door to open and they were greeted with Rachel's father at the front door. "Mr. Coleman?" The three hold up their badges. "I'm Agent Willows, this is Agent Jareau and Dr. Reid. We're with the FBI."

The man holds out his had and shakes the hands of tue agents and doctor. "Jared," He greets. "My wife is in the other room, she's... just in hysterics about Rachel. She's worried. I've never seen her like this before."

"Do you mind if we talk to her?" JJ asks. Jared nods, "She's upstairs, in Rachel's room."

"Thank you." JJ looks at Casey and the two decide to go and talk to the woman together.

As Spencer talked to Jared about Rachel and Daniel, JJ and Casey were talking to the unhinged Martha aka Rachel's mother. "It's been a while since they came to visit. They are usually punctual so when once the clock said 10:30, I completely freaked. And I just knew something was wrong. I mean, I called the police almost immediately but they said I had to wait for 48 hours before filing a missing person's report. Goddamn police, what were they gonna do?"

"When was the last time you talked to Rachel?" JJ asked. "Wednesday." JJ and Casey exchange a look, noting that it was now Saturday.

Martha looks at a framed picture of the day Rachel graduated high school. "Rachel's always been a sweet girl. She's always gotten straight A's, Captain of the volleyball team for two years. She went off to college out of state and I always was scared for her. Now, she's expecting and I can't help but worry for the three of them. When we found out she was having a boy, we were excited."

"Do you think that you could be feeling this way because of how long you've been away from her?" Casey asks but Martha doesn't answer and she just looks up at Casey.

        "Do you have any children?" The woman asks, causing Casey to look towards JJ. This was the first time she had ever been asked that question since she had her child. Casey continues as she nods, "A boy, ma'am. He's twelve weeks old."

       "Then, you know what it's like." The woman tells. "To be scared all of the time... for somebody other than yourself." Casey looked down in that moment. When she first had Christopher, she was utterly terrified of him facing the world she did. She had still been in that phase and she was just reeling with her postpartum — which she had been doing good in very recently. "Please find my daughter. Please." Martha begged as she gripped onto Casey's hand.

         JJ interfered and looked towards the woman, putting a comforting arm on her shoulder. "We will do everything we can." She assured.

        The woman let go of Casey and the girl looked towards the doorway and had seen Spencer standing there. Casey took a deep breath before going to excuse herself. As she walked past Spencer, both he and JJ had exchanged a knowing look.

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        The team had made it back to the PD, Casey isolating herself into a room like she always did. It had now been at least three days now and still no answers. Casey still cooped herself up in a room with a million thoughts in her head. It was taking her all she could not to call home so she spent her time trying to help find this family and get them back in one piece.

       Spencer had figured that he had done enough for Casey and knew that maybe she needed to be alone. Of course, he stopped by occasionally to give her her morning coffee and a kiss on the head to remind her that she was still sane. He knew that when she got like this, it was best to just leave her alone.

       JJ thought otherwise.

       The woman had walked through the doorway and looked as Casey was setting up photos of what the inside of the car looked like and a photo of their most recent evidence. A zip-tie found in the woods that had blood on it. "You okay?" JJ asked.

       Casey whipped her head around and looked towards JJ. "Yeah." She nodded assuringly. "Yeah, I'm okay." Casey was lying and JJ knew it. She wasn't dumb and Casey knew that JJ didn't believe her.

JJ walked into the room with her arms crossed and takes a seat at the table and Casey doesn't seem phased by this. "You know, you're not the only one that gets affected by these type of cases. I get it." Casey looks at JJ and takes a realization that she wasn't alone in this situation. "I mean, when Henry was first born, I couldn't even imagine getting through these cases."

That sentence is enough for Casey to stop what she's doing and sit down in front of JJ. Casey takes a deep breath and sighs was she looks down in her lap. "Does that feeling ever go away?"

"The aching feeling does." JJ admits. "But it lingers." Casey sighs as JJ puts a reassuring hand on Casey's hand. "I just want you to know that you're not alone." Casey gives a little tight-lipped smile over to JJ. "Thanks, Jay."

It was times like this that Casey was glad she wasn't the only mother on the team. She couldn't even imagine what JJ went through before Casey got pregnant. Sure, JJ had Hotch but Hotch never fully expressed how much these type of cases affected him. Casey was just going through withdrawls from baby Christopher. She knew he was home and safe but there was a part of her that always worried.

There was soon a knock on the door and the two women looked up to their coworker, Vivian. "Sorry to interrupt but Hotch wants us in the conference room. We got something." Vivian walked away as JJ and Casey made their way out of the office and the team was huddled over at a conference table. Hotch had been on the phone with Garcia and put it on speaker.

"Go ahead, Garcia." Hotch started. "Okay, our PD received a call from a woman and she stayed on it longer than a minute for me to figure out that the voice is Rachel's." Garcia explained and she relayed the call back to the team.

"911, what's your emergency?"
"Help me. Me and a girl are being held hostage here. The girl's name is Sarah. Sarah Adams. My husband is dead, they killed him! I need somebody here now--!"

Garcia stops the call. "And then it cuts out from then on."

"How did it cut out?" Rossi asked.

"We're assuming that the call was coming from a secreted area where there's no service." Reid told. "It's the only way it could explain the cut out. That and the phone probably died." Morgan told.

"Did you get the location from where the call was coming from, Garcia?" Hotch asked. "I can, but it would take some time." Garcia informs. "Try it anyways. We're going to the area where their car was found. Keep us in the loop, Garcia." Hotch orders as the team follows behind him. "On it."

The team had put their vests on and headed out to the area where the car was found. The team split into groups. Casey and Spencer had taken an area up until they were told into their earpieces that shots were fired a mile from where they were at.

The team had made it a closeted area. Vivian, Hotch, Morgan and Rossi were the first to find a woman with a baby. The woman was covered in blood and it looked like she had been grazed by some bullets. She had tears in her eyes and her vision grew blurry as she had seen the FBI standing there, guns held high.

"Rachel West?" Vivian called and woman dropped down to her knees, clutching her baby in her arms. The woman wasn't responding but the team understood why. "Rachel?" Rossi asked next. No answer. "I need medic here pronto." Morgan tells into his mic.

Rachel had looked focused on a particular area near the cars. She had begun to whimper and shook her head. Luckily, Casey and Spencer arrived on time to turn their heads and see an angry-looking older woman, who looked like she had also been shot, holding a rifle gun and aiming it towards Rachel and her baby.

The rest of the team noticed this but before anyone else could make a move, Spencer Reid and Casey Willows had beat them to it. They had pulled their handguns out and shot the woman numerous times.

Casey made her way over to Rachel and Vivian tried to get Rachel to speak to her. "Rachel? Where's that girl you were talking about? Sarah?" She asked curiously.

"She's right..." Rachel turned to her side and looked to her shock that no one was next to her. "Here..." The team looked around and knew that Rachel was dehydrated and maybe thought of Sarah as some delusion. "Rachel, there's no one there." Casey tells.

After finally getting Rachel into a hospital, she had reunited with her family and they had finally gotten the story from her. Her husband was killed right in front of her and she delivered early. These crazy people wouldn't let them leave and had plotted to kidnap Rachel's baby and adopt the baby as their own. Rachel had ended up having a girl so it ended up getting all complicated. She had told the story, though, truly, no one would truly understand what she went through. All she knew was that she trying to protect her child at all costs.

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As soon as the team landed back in Virginia, Casey and Spencer had immediately left after finishing their paperwork. They didn't say a single word and they knew they didn't have to. Casey raced towards their apartment and frantically unlocked the door and was greeted with her grandmother, who — no offense — wasn't the face she wanted to see right now.

"Hi, honey—" Edith started but Casey immediately interrupted her. "Where's Christopher? Is he asleep?" She asked as she put her go-bag down on the ground. "Yes, wha—?" Casey passed by her grandmother and immediately headed into her son's nursery.

Edith looked back towards her granddaughter and then back at her future grandson-in-law. "Is she—?" Spencer sighed as he looked towards Edith and began to follow behind Casey to the nursery. "We had a rough case." He explained.

As soon as Spencer walked through the doorway, Casey had wrapped her arms around her son and held onto him, not wanting to let go at any point. If you had even dared to pry Christopher away from Casey, she might've just bitten you.

"Hey, baby. Hey." Casey spoke in a hush tone as she carried Christopher. "It's okay, shh... Mommy's here. Momma will always be here. I promise. I promise." As Spencer watched the scene, his heart warmed for Casey. She had cared so much about him. She'd do anything in the world for him. It was one of the many reasons why he was attracted to her. The way Casey was just caring towards people and showed affection.

Spencer softly smiled at his fiancé, realizing that he could wait his turn to hold his son. Right now, he was gonna enjoy the scene.

it's the way y'all would've gotten this chapter literally last month if i hadn't broken my phone el oh el
anywaysssss
sorry for being mia i needed a new phone lmao
BUT I FINALLY GOT ONE
I GOT THE 11 AND I PAID FOR LITERALLY THE WHOLE THING LMAOOO

butttttt
anyways onto important matters
i finally updated and we're already at 70k- wow-
i hope you guys enjoyed this chapter and the sweet moment at the end- 🥺

question : what do y'all wanna see more of from this book???

i hope you guys enjoyed this
i love y'all
hopefully i get to update more soon
AND ITS FINALLY MY SPRING BREAK AHHHH SO MAYBE MORE UPDATES LOL

anywayssss
i love you all
-mya </3333