[4.8]

"my birthday was three weeks ago"

Florence took Morgan's advice and decided to tag along with Rossi and Reid when they went to lecture at Strayer University. She hadn't managed to make any new friends before the lecture began. Florence snuggled into a computer chair and ran the PowerPoint for them, growing more bored with every passing moment.

"Most of us have done extensive post-graduate work in areas such as abnormal psychology and sociology, as well as intensive study of relative casework and existing literature," Reid explained to the students.

"But that's after selection to the unit," Rossi added. "First you have to be an agent, work in the field, and that's what we're here to talk about. For that, the academics are wide open. Everyone in this room, once you graduate, regardless of your course study, is eligible to apply to the FBI."

Florence started picking at her pink nail polish. She didn't have to go to college to get her job, but she was under strict orders not to tell potential future agents about how she hacked into the Pentagon and got a job offer for it.

"What did you study?" one of the boys in the class asked.

"Criminal justice," Rossi answered. "But sports appreciation was all full up at my community college."

"I hold doctorates in chemistry, mathematics, and engineering," Reid told them. "As well as BAs in psychology and sociology." The room stared at him in silence for several moments.

"How old are you?" one girl asked.

"Uh, I'm twenty-seven. As of last month, I turned twenty-seven. I'm — I'm also completing an additional BA in philosophy. Which reminds me that I have a joke." Rossi and Florence shared a look before turning to Reid. Something told them that Reid's joke wouldn't do well with this group of students. "How many existentialists does it take to screw in a light bulb?"

"Don't," Rossi whispered.

Reid waved him off and smiled to himself. "Two. One to change the light bulb and one to observe how it symbolizes an incandescent beacon of subjectivity in a netherworld of cosmic nothingness."

The room was filled with awkward silence and a few coughs of awkwardness. After a moment, Florence let out a laugh and dramatically slapped her knee as if she had heard the best joke in the world.

Reid looked at her hopefully. "You got it?"

Florence shook her head and bit her lip. "Not at all."

"Oh, well um, an existentialist would—"

Before Reid could in-depthly explain the joke, Rossi cut him off. "Ok, before he does his quantum physics knock-knock joke, do we have any other questions about opportunities in the FBI?"

The class laughed at Rossi's joke before one guy spoke up. "Did you ever shoot anybody?"

Florence rolled her eyes and went back to staring at the PowerPoint. If the first thing he wanted to know was about shooting people, he probably shouldn't be given a gun. Rossi and Reid did answer the question though, explaining that the FBI dealt with very dangerous people. But they also stressed that they only fire their weapons if someone's life is in danger.

The next question was directed at Florence, who had just opened a pack of Skittles. "What about her? Is she an agent?"

It annoyed her that the question was directed at Rossi instead of her, but she got over it. She tossed a red skittle in her mouth before answering. "Nah, they just hired me to click next on the presentation slide. I wait tables at Applebee's during the day."

Rossi sighed and rolled his eyes. "Florence is a technical analyst for the Behavioral Analysis Unit. She's incredibly gifted with computers and helps us to solve our cases."

"Wow, and how old are you?" the same girl that had asked Reid his age asked.

"Twenty-two," she lied. Rossi and Reid didn't call her out for lying. It was easier to let them believe her than explain how she got hired so young.

Soon, the attention was off Florence, and Rossi and Reid could finally talk about their jobs. Reid continued to try and connect with the crowd, which didn't work at all. Every time he caused an awkward silence, Rossi swept in with a joke to perk the crowd back up. Florence wasn't sure if they convinced anyone to apply to the FBI once they graduated, but it was better than sitting in her office all day.

After the lecture was finished, several students came up to ask Reid and Rossi questions. Florence just hung back and played on her phone while following them. No one was really interested in her, which she didn't mind. Though she'd have to be the one to tell Morgan that she didn't make any friends.

Soon, the people trying to talk to Rossi and Reid thinned out and they could slowly make their way to the door to leave.

"You do know we want them to actually join the Bureau?" Rossi asked Reid after a girl finished thanking them for coming.

"What?" Reid asked, not understanding.

"We want these kids to think it's a cool place to work," Rossi explained while shaking another person's hand.

"I understand that, yeah," Reid said.

Rossi scoffed. "Existentialism?"

"Existentialism is—" Reid stopped to thank a girl who told him that the presentation was neat. "That was a funny joke. What do you mean?"

"Yeah, to Sigmund Freud," Rossi said, rolling his eyes as they started going down the stairs.

"I tell them I shouldn't — they keep on sending me here. I don't know why," Reid said, frowning.

"Because you're young and the BAU doesn't want people's first impression of a young agent to be Florence.

"Hear that, Spence? You make a better recruitment tool than I could ever be," Florence said, chuckling.

They were then interrupted by an older man with long grey hair and glasses. "Dr. Reid? Wouldn't they sit in the dark and hope that the bulb decided to light again?"

"Excuse me?" Reid asked, confused.

"An existentialist would never change the bulb. He would allow the darkness to exist."

"Yeah, that's pretty good," Reid said, laughing.

Florence and Rossi shared a confused look before they started going down the stairs again. The man followed them and kept talking to Reid.

"I'm Professor Rothschild. It was a brilliant presentation. Brilliant. You're a remarkably effective recruitment tool. The FBI is very lucky to have you."

"Thank you for saying that," Reid said, smiling. Once again they stopped on the stairs.

"May I show you something?" he asked.

"Yeah, of course."

"It's all right here," he said, handing a black folder to Reid. Florence peeked over his shoulder to see weird pictures of ladies who seemed to be trying to cover the camera lens up. She didn't really know what they meant, and neither did the others.

"I don't understand," Reid said, frowning. "What - what are these?"

"Seven homicide victims."

"Homicide?" Rossi asked while pulling Florence to stand behind him. He eyed Rothschild warily.

"Seven women. The bodies have never been found. Not a fingernail, not a hair fiber. Acid is a very tidy way of disposing of something." As he spoke, Rothschild took the photos back.

"Acid?"

"Are you saying that you killed these women?" Reid asked him.

"There is still time to save the others, though."

"Others?" Rossi questioned while Florence nervously grabbed the sleeve of his blazer. Why did bad things always happen when she left her safe office in Quantico?

"Five more," he stated."What do you mean?" Reid asked, studying Rothschild carefully.

"In a bit less than nine hours, five other people are going to be dead, unless you can find a way to save them." Then he dramatically tossed the photos down the stairs.

Rossi and Reid worked fast, sending Florence to get campus police to them to help detain them. Then they brought him to the car outside. Reid made sure to keep Florence walking ahead of them so that she was farthest from Rothschild. Rossi called Hotch while they walked to the car.

"Reid, Florence, and I were just approached by some guy here with photos that he claims are seven women he killed. These pictures have all been manipulated in some way that you can't really see what they are... Seven women so far... There are five more live victims somewhere that we can save in nine hours... I don't think so, Hotch. I get a hit off him. Something hinky. I'm bringing him in... I'm sending shots of the photos to Garcia to start looking over, and Florence will join her when we get back... Yes, Florence is safe. I'll see you in about forty-five minutes."

They reached the SUV and Rothschild was shoved in the back. Florence had originally sat in the back, but she switched with Reid so that she wouldn't be so close to him.

"What is this?" Reid asked Rossi quietly.

"Do not forget a word he says the rest of the time we have him," Rossi ordered.

Once they drove off, Florence sat quietly with her arms wrapped around herself. She kept quiet as Reid started asking Rothschild questions.

"So you said you're a professor at Strayer?"

"No."

"You didn't?"

"No."

"I mean, you did introduce yourself as Professor Rothschild, right?" Reid asked.

"Your degree in philosophy surprises me, Dr. Reid," Rothschild said. "It doesn't fit with mathematics and engineering.

"I kind of like it because there's no right or wrong answers," Reid replied.

"Without right or wrong, how would we recognize perfection?"

"Is this fun for you?" Rossi asked, clearly getting angry with Rothschild.

"Excuse me?"

"Are you having fun?" he asked again.

I'm not, Florence thought to herself.

"It's quite a bit more complicated than that," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"You wouldn't understand."

Rossi scoffed. "Try me."

"I read your books, David. You're not of the intellectual capacity to grasp what's going on here."

"If you're trying to piss me off, it's not gonna work," Rossi said. Though his tone said otherwise. "But if you killed seven women without leaving a trace of evidence, why turn yourself in?"

"Imagine what the world would have missed if Da Vinci never showed his work."

Florence sank farther down in her chair and did her best to not make a comment about how crazy Rothschild was sounding. She also couldn't think of any of his art other than the Mona Lisa, but he probably wouldn't appreciate it. Eventually, they made it back to the BAU. Florence was sprinting out of the car and into the building before Reid and Rossi could even unbuckle their seatbelts. Florence quickly headed to her office, where Garcia was still analyzing the photos.

"Never let me leave the office ever again," she said, sighing and leaning against the closed door.

"Are you okay?" Garcia asked. "Hotch told me about him just walking up to you guys. Was it scary?"

"Just way too creepy for my liking," she muttered, taking a seat at her desk. She didn't stay there for long. Soon, she and Garcia were called to the briefing room, where the team was trying to piece everything together.

"We went through vicap," Garcia told them. "There are literally thousands of open missing women cases across the country."

"It's not the entire country, though," Reid stated. "Kaylee was abducted at nine-thirty this morning. He had time to take them somewhere, hide them, and make it to Fredericksburg two hours later."

"He'd need a place with a lot of privacy to hide five victims," Prentiss added.

"A house," Hotch guessed.

"He's local," Rossi assumed.

"He was late for the presentation," Reid noted. "You know, it was more like two and a half hours after the abduction. He got there around noon, which puts him somewhere around that radius."

"Garcia, Florence, work up a map," Hotch told them. "We need the farthest point he could have taken Kaylee from Loretto and still gotten back to Fredericksburg by noon."

"Shouldn't be too hard." Florence cut her eyes to Garcia when she said that. Making a map had nothing to do with programming and therefore had no idea how the math involved to create that map worked. In fact, without even trying it first, Florence was confident she wouldn't be able to do it.

"All right, what do we know so far?" Rossi said, grabbing a marker and walking over to the board to write it down. "He's obsessively neat and clean. He did research on Reid and me at least. He's abducted five people and then gets to a scheduled recruitment session at a specific time. That's extensive pre-planning."

"Did you find anything in those pictures, Garcia?" Reid asked.

"I can't even positively say they're dead," she said, frowning.

"What about hair color?"

"All the ones that show hair, they appear to be brunettes."

"So is Kaylee," Rossi noted.

"We'll start there," Garcia said, while Florence scribbled it down. "Brunettes from central Virginia that are missing."

"IDENT got zip on his prints," Morgan said, entering the room. "He's not in any system. He's a ghost."

"All right, if he hasn't been fingerprinted, he hasn't been arrested," Rossi said. "Which also means he hasn't had a passport, driver's license, or been in the military."

"Never been a teacher, either," Reid said. "You have to be fingerprinted to be a teacher."

"So he's a professor who doesn't teach," Rossi said, adding it to the board.

"What kind of professor doesn't teach?" Todd asked.

"A researcher? Someone on a grant, maybe," Reid guessed.

"A grant would give him the time," Hotch said.

"There must be some sort of central grant database. I can't imagine the government just handing out money and not — I'll look into it," Garcia said, gathering her things. Florence got up and followed her back to their office.

"Do you want the map or the database?" Garcia asked once they were back to their computers.

"I would never voluntarily ask for math," Florence said, already getting to work on searching for a grant. "Have fun."

Garcia rolled her eyes and pulled up a map of the area. She stared cluelessly at her screen for several moments. She quickly realized that Florence picked the right choice. "Ok, how far could he have gone from Loretto and make it back to Fredericksburg by noon? There must be some sort of mathematical equation to do this. Should have paid more attention in algebra. Note to self, get Dr. Reid in here ASAP."

"I am glad I'm not you right now," Florence muttered under her breath.

Just as Garcia got up to go and find Reid, her computer dinged with an incoming email. Florence rolled over and watched. It contained a link to some website called golden rat. When Garcia clicked on the link, it took her to a live video feed. It was a long room, and they could see Kaylee and the four children spread out with gas masks on their faces. Garcia immediately ran to get Hotch, while Florence did her best to track the video feed.

Suddenly the child furthest from the camera disappeared behind a wall that slid out of nowhere. Moments later, Garcia came back in with Hotch and Prentiss. Florence could do nothing but point at the screen.

"Th - the kid," she muttered. Her chest ached, knowing something horrible had happened to the first child.

"It just popped up on the screen," Garcia told them, not having heard Florence. "It's them."

"There are only three children," Hotch noticed.

"There were four when I went to go get you," Garcia said. "Florence?"

"The wall just - it just appeared out of nowhere," she said, biting her fingernails. "The kid is on the other side."

"What is this on their faces?" Prentiss asked, studying the video.

"They look like gas masks."

"Why would you fill a place with gas and then provide gas masks?" she asked.

"To space them out like that," Florence realized. "He's keeping them in position until it's time to add another wall."

"He said one of them is already dead," Reid said, barging into the room with Rossi.

"One of the five," Rossi added.

"There are only three children," Hotch told them as they crowded around the screen.

"Is this them?"

"An anonymous site emailed to me," Garcia explained.

"He said one will die every two hours, not all five in ten. When he said ten hours, I just assumed—"

"It's a chess game," Reid stated. "He's two moves ahead."

"Let's not get diverted. How are we doing with the seven missing women?" Hotch asked.

Garcia pulled up the list of women. "So far, I've got thirty-nine missing brunettes in central Virginia."

"Ok, thirty years old like Kaylee. Narcissists tend to be extremely preferential."

"Twenty."

"He said he's been working on this for five years," Rossi added.

"Over the last five years, seventeen."

"All right, if he thinks he's going to jail for even one of the original seven homicides, maybe he'll tell us where the rest of them are and give himself some deal room," Hotch said. "How long do we have until the next one?"

Reid checked his watch. "One hour, forty-eight minutes."

After Florence failed to trace where the video signal was coming from, they focused on potential past victims. Once everyone was back in the briefing room, it didn't take Reid long to figure it out. He went on about the Fibonacci sequence, which just flew over Florence's head, but she trusted him on it. He took Rothschilds' golden ratio necklace to try and help explain his reasoning. Eventually, he managed to locate where Rothschild was keeping Kaylee and the children.

Apparently, Rothschild had boobytrapped the cabin, but Reid and Rossi were expecting it. They found tanks of acid behind the cabin and if they hadn't found it, they would've been drenched in it when they entered the room. The kid that had disappeared behind the wall was alive after all. Rossi and Garcia had also teamed up to make Rothschild think his trick had worked in order to get a confession out of him.

While it had been nerve-wracking, it was one of the cases that ended on a happy note. Rothschild went to jail and everyone came home safe. Florence was able to skate home that night and sleep like a baby.

|||

"Seriously though," Florence said from her seat on top of Morgan's desk. It was the Monday after the latest case, and she was eating her lunch there so that she could talk to the others. "I'm never going anywhere near another college campus. The one time I do, we get approached by a serial killer."

"Well, statistically, the average American walks by sixteen murders in their lifetime," Reid told her. "Though we are outliers in that equation."

"I don't think she finds that very comforting, Reid," Morgan said, chuckling. Then he turned to Florence. "Sorry you didn't make any friends and instead came back home with a murderer."

Florence rolled her eyes. "I'll live. Besides, people that are about to graduate college don't want to hang out with a nineteen-year-old girl who barely made it through high school. They're too smart for me."

"You're eighteen, Ren," Prentiss said, chuckling. "And they wouldn't care how smart you are. You'd win them over with your charming personality."

"No, I'm nineteen," she said, sipping on her Capri Sun. "My birthday was three weeks ago."

Everyone in the bullpen froze and looked at her with wide eyes.

"Sunshine, did we forget your birthday?" Morgan asked, rubbing his head. Then he turned to Reid and narrowed his eyes. "Spencer, what's the point of that brain of yours if you don't remind us of Ren's birthday."

"I - I - no one ever told me when it was," Reid stuttered out. He looked like a little kicked puppy. "Florence, I'm so sorry."

"It's fine," she said, waving them off. "I didn't tell anyone about my birthday."

"Why not?" Prentiss asked, frowning. "We could've done something special."

Florence shrugged. "I don't know. No one ever made a big deal about my birthday growing up. And then the only gift I got for my eighteenth was being kicked out of the group home. I don't really think about my birthday."

"I'm getting Garcia right now and we are doing something for your birthday," Morgan said, getting up. "And you can't say no. We're taking you out this weekend."

"And what if I already had plans?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips.

Morgan raised an eyebrow. "Do you have plans?"

Florence slumped back over. "No," she mumbled. "Just tell her not to make a big deal."

"You know that's not possible," Prentiss said, grinning.

"I should've just kept my mouth shut," Florence said, finishing her drink. "I probably could've gone a year and a half without you guys realizing."

"So, what would you like for your birthday?" Reid asked, smiling.

"You guys don't have to get me anything."

"Nice try, but we're getting you presents," Prentiss said. "There's no telling what Rossi could buy for you between now and then. Maybe he'll get you an engraved iPad or a gold-plated skateboard."

"See, I know you're joking, but now I kinda want a gold-plated skateboard just to say I've got one."