𝑂𝑛𝑒.

    The date was December 31st, and for the first time in years, Melanie wasn't acting like it.
  
The primary reason, much like everything else, came to her while she laid in her bed at exactly four-thirty a.m., marking eight hours from the moment she'd planned to sleep the night prior. For a reason unbeknownst to her, she always recognized the passage of time.

Perhaps it was a result of the deep, deep aching that lived inside of her that reminded her of what time she still had left. Or, as Melanie preferred to tell herself, everything just seems all the more interesting when you're suffering from chronic insomnia and the only thing that reminds you of your consciousness is the tick-tock of your bedside clock.

Dissimilar to all of the nights prior, Melanie realized that she was no longer afraid of each passing minute. Instead, she'd finally come to terms with the fact that the time was going to pass regardless, and it was her responsibility to make do with what she had left. (Which wouldn't be very much, she imagined, but that could just be her pessimism talking.)

Of course, this realization hadn't come to her naturally, though she was inclined to accredit the stroke of genius to none other than her restless mind.

Much to her dismay, she had her sister's abductor to thank. Or more rather, The Doberman as she'd found herself calling him.

As a profiler, she knew it was wrong to assign a nickname to the man who thrived on the existence of her misery, but it was a better alternative to addressing him only as the man who had ruined her life. Besides, it wasn't like she ever talked about the case with anyone other than herself. (Aside from, on occasion, her Bombay cat named Oliver.)

Though she'd never admit it to anyone but herself (as established, she doesn't have much of a choice in that department), The Doberman was a mastermind.

He resurrected the game each year on New Year's Eve, drawing Melanie back in and forcing her on yet another three hundred and sixty-five days of relentless pursuit only to repeat the cycle again with nothing but another letter to show for it.

For now, the letters lived in harmony with the other skeletons she kept hidden in her closet. Only unfortunately for him, Melanie's closet was getting quite full. There wasn't much more she could take (both for her own sanity and storage purposes).

It wasn't a conscious decision for Melanie to crawl out of bed and take the forsaken box of letters into her grasp, but the damage was already done, and now she needed to face her demons.

She knew that she needed to, but she couldn't find the courage to open the box.

For now, all she could do was stare at it and hope it would somehow disappear.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

"Wait, wait, wait!"

Melanie spun around to extend her arm to stop the steel elevator doors from closing.

God, why had she done that?

She knew she should've taken the stairs, but she was already running late. Having to explain herself to her boss would be hard enough, but explaining herself while breathless and full of shit would be immensely more difficult.

Her eyes focused on the brightly dressed woman who came rushing towards her, and Melanie sucked her lips in to offer Garcia a tight-lipped smile before her gaze shot down to the floor. Her right hand instinctively clutched the strap of the leather satchel that hung on her shoulder. Her claustrophobia was kicking in, but she knew Penelope wouldn't pick up on her tells. That bit she was thankful for.

"Good morning, my darling," Penelope beamed, tapping the button that corresponded to their floor with the tip of her finger.

Sometimes it shocked Melanie how polite Penelope Garcia could be, but she figured her habit of self-isolating made her see Penelope that way.

For how little she put herself out there, Penelope had still managed to burrow her way into Melanie's guarded heart. It was just in her nature, Melanie had learned. It was hard not to love her.

After all, when fire meets ice, the only practical reaction is for the ice to melt.

"Morning," Melanie smiled, watching as the elevator began to ascend from the first floor to the seventh.

1 ↑

"I missed you so much!" Penelope exclaimed, wrapping her arms around Melanie and squeezing her into a bear hug. "How was your vacation?" she continued, now rocking Melanie side to side.

Melanie held her breath and closed her eyes, knowing that Penelope meant well but was still amplifying how claustrophobic she felt. She hadn't even begun to process what her blonde counterpart had said until it dawned on her.

Shit.

2 ↑

She was so sleep deprived that she'd forgotten to come up with an excuse as to why she had taken the past week off of work. The truth was that she needed to Doberman-proof her apartment and emotionally prepare for the day of reckoning, but she couldn't be truthful about that.

Melanie had become a bit of a liar. She wasn't sure if she was born that way or if she had grown to be one, but regardless, it was a trait she couldn't shake loose.

"Oh! It was cool!"

3 ↑

Oh! It was cool? Wow, totally convincing.

The last time Melanie could even remember saying the word cool was in the fifth grade when her table partner showed her that he could shove three red crayons in a single nostril. Gross now, but impressive at the time.

"I mean," Melanie screwed her eyes shut and shook her head, trying to come up with a convincing story. "It was really nice. I could actually feel the sun."

"I thought you said you were going to Oregon?"

4 ↑

"I did go to Oregon."

"Oregon has nice beaches in the middle of December?"

"Yep!"

5 ↑

Melanie never let anyone know anything that she didn't want them to know, and that meant that her team hardly knew anything about her aside from what was written in her file. But as she got closer to Penelope, she learned that lying to someone you care about is one of the hardest things to do.

Considering that her mother was an absent alcoholic, her father was dead, and her sister was abducted nearly a decade ago, it was no surprise that she didn't have much experience in that field.

6 ↑

"Oh, that's great!" Penelope smiled, allowing Melanie to sigh in relief. "I need a vacation from this place, too."

Melanie nodded and watched as they finally reached their floor.

7 ↑

She stepped out of the elevator quicker than she intended to. Melanie hoped that Penelope hadn't noticed how antsy she was, because if a non-profiler could pick up on her tells then she was absolutely screwed.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

"Sir?"

The knocking at his door got Hotch's attention, and he let out a stout sigh of disappointment when he realized the person behind it was Melanie.

"You're late," was all he managed to say.

Melanie blinked.

"I know. I'm sorry, Hotch," she accepted, "traffic was ridiculous this morning."

Hotch stared back at her for a second too long, and Melanie watched as her worst nightmare came to life.

He saw right through her.

"Was the traffic outside of your bedroom window?"

"No?"

Instinctively, Melanie dropped her head, realizing that that was Hotch's way of trying to joke around with her but she was too sleep reprieved to even notice.

Hotch sighed. "Then maybe you've caught the common cold, because I've never seen you sleep deprived enough to call me sir."

Melanie had no response to that. All she could do was stare out the window and hope that the moment would pass.

"How are you doing?"

Damn it. That question immediately caught her attention.

"I was under the impression that the counseling was helping," he continued, this time with a voice much gentler than the one he originally assumed.

It wasn't, but she'd said that it was. The key to counseling lies in the patient's willingness to be honest with both their observer and themselves, and Melanie was willing to do neither of those things.

Perhaps The Doberman had much more of a hold on her than she wanted to admit.

After all, she'd devoted the past six years of her life to finding a woman whose likelihood of survival was slim to none, but the hope that he bestowed in Melanie's heart kept her in this position.

Sometimes, in the early hours of the morning when darkness forces every living thing to roam the deepest pits of their own minds, Melanie would find herself thinking about the day where she would be able to wear his blood.

It was a demented fantasy to have, Melanie knew it, but that didn't stop her from wishing it was real.

And that scared her.

She often wondered how she can even consider herself to be a good person if that was the image that drove her to keep going.

The more she thought about it, the quicker she realized the unfortunate truth was that she was no longer good, but she was damn good at pretending she was.

"Lamont?"

Melanie finally looked at the dark haired man. Despite feeling invisible the majority of the time, she could never feel that way around Hotch. He made it impossible, and she wasn't sure if she should thank him or curse him for that.

"The counseling is working," Melanie immediately snapped.

She was absolutely off her game today. Taking the last week off was evidently not in her best interest.

A knock at the door cut the tension in the room like a knife.

Anderson appeared in the doorframe of Hotch's office with a polite expression. "I've got a few coffee orders from the conference room. Can I get you anything, Hotch?" he paused, finally noticing Melanie standing next to him. "I can take yours too, Lamont."

"Oh, no thank-"

"Thank you Anderson, we'll take two," Hotch responded.

Anderson nodded and went on his way, understandably ready to get the hell out of there.

"You didn't sleep well, and that's fine."

Hotch's voice seemed to soothe her in the way that her father's used to, but she wasn't quite sure why.

"But when you have days like this, I need you to come to me. I understand you more than you think."

She doubted that sentence, but nodded anyway. "Thank you, Hotch."

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

The sound of a clanking board game interrupted Melanie's thoughts. She turned to find Spencer in front of her.  

"Do you play?" he inquired, laying down a brown and crème chess board and placing the pieces in their respective locations on both sides of the board. He was done in a matter of thirty seconds, and now his eyes were back on Melanie, waiting for her response.

She nodded. "I competed in tons of tournaments as a kid."

That was the first piece of real information about herself that she'd offered to anyone on the team.

"Did you win?" Spencer's pupils were constricted, and Melanie couldn't help but notice the way the amber highlights in his irises grew brighter in the golden light seeping in from the jet window.

"I always win," Melanie shrugged, taking her first move.

"Well, unluckily for you..." Spencer paused for a brief moment to make his well-calculated move on the board. "I've attempted to play through every permutation of moves on a chess board which is exponentially large as one could imagine. With an average of forty moves per chess game, I've come to realize that every match I play is a simple variation of the exact same thing."

Melanie's lips curled upwards. "Is it impossible for you to not be brilliant at everything you've ever attempted?"

As soon the words left her mouth, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

That was certainly way too forward, but she knew that he was used to receiving compliments like that, she'd heard them a million times. So, she hoped that hers would fade away into the depths of his mind.

"Well, sure," he replied, color flushing to his cheeks. "I'm not the greatest at solving the New York Times crossword, if that's any consolation."

It wasn't, but Melanie still smiled.

"What's that's supposed to mean? It takes you more than a minute to solve?" Melanie laughed at her comment, but Spencer didn't, instead he stared back at her pensively.

"On average, I solve it within thirty seven seconds," Spencer shrugged, almost as if she was supposed to know that.

"Wow."

Spencer chuckled, a real chuckle, one that he couldn't stifle no matter how hard he tried. "What about you?"

Melanie hummed, moving her piece on the board. "To be very honest with you, Spencer, I haven't looked at a newspaper in years."

"What?!" he exclaimed, almost sounding offended. "I update the papers in the office bi–weekly based on the ones I deem as both the lightest and most harrowing reads."

Melanie blinked.

Spencer blinked.

"I think you'd enjoy them is all," Spencer shrugged, attempting to play it cool after having a nerd-out in front of his coworker.  

"Got it."

The two agents sat in comfortable silence, the only thing that either of them could hear was the sound of their own intense inner monologues. Neither of them had ever played with someone as skilled as the other.

She moved her piece before she responded to his earlier statement. "Aggressive opening, patient mid-game, inevitable checkmate," Melanie nonchalantly spoke, reciting the strategies that any good chess player would have.

"Precisely," Spencer replied, his voice low and hoarse as he made his next move. "I see checkmate in two."

Spencer's fingers traced the seams of his blue cardigan sweater, a nervous tic that prompted an amused smile to form over Melanie's cerise tinted lips.

"I see it in one," Melanie spoke at a low volume as she moved her piece. The genius's face contorted in confusion, his eyes still glued to the chess board.

Although the persistent doctor wasn't ready to accept his hearty defeat, the corner of his pink lips pulled upwards into a satisfied smirk. "How– How did you do that?" Spencer spoke with intrigue, leaning forward and resting his forearms on the table.

"Can't say," she replied while shrugging her shoulders.

The truth was that Spencer was far too preoccupied with his gloating to even imagine that someone could even compete with him. He hadn't put his strongest defenses up, and Melanie recognized that immediately, leading her to her victory.

She knew that if they were to play again that she would undoubtedly lose, but she was willing to retire from her chess career on a high note.

Morgan laughed from across the aisle as he leaned against one of the leather seats, his hand nudging Spencer's shoulder. "Guess you've finally met your match, huh, Reid?"

"Yeah." Reid's nose crinkled slightly, his enticing gaze traveling to meet his new favorite opponent before he replied. "I think I have."

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

"Did you happen to notice any identifiable characteristics about the man who Mariah left the hotel with?"

The witness, Cassidy, nodded her head. "He was white, brunette, but had a really jacked up haircut like he had been cutting his own hair."

Melanie nodded, gently smiling. "What about the clothes he wore? Were they new? Branded? Worn?"

Cassidy, keeping her eyes closed, nodded again. "His clothes were new, but the tags were still on them. It didn't make any sense. I told Mariah not to leave with him," the young girl began to break down, forcing her eyes open.

Melanie handed her the box of tissues to her left, rubbing her knee to provide some comfort. "Take your time."

JJ nodded beside her. "Whenever you're ready to try again, you say the word."

Cassidy looked up at the clock. "I can't stay for much longer, I'm hosting a New Year's Eve party tonight," she said. "I tried to get out of it but– I'm a senior and– my sorority–"

JJ nodded. "I remember those days, I completely understand."

"Yeah, totally." Melanie nodded in agreement, despite having never been in a sorority. She figured that would be a better response than staring blankly at the witness.

"Reintroducing yourself to normalcy is a good idea," JJ added.

For a reason unknown to Melanie, the mere mention of New Year's Eve nearly sent her into a panic. A single bead of sweat began to form on her forehead, her leg began to bounce with an unforeseen ferocity, and she was quickly unable to regulate her breathing.

Her time was running, and for some reason, she had spent the last week pretending that she could still catch it.

God, you're so stupid, Melanie. Louise is dead. Louise is dead and it's your fault. You can't catch The Doberman. You can't catch him and it's your–

"Excuse me for one moment," she managed to say before rushing out of the room.

She walked aimlessly until she could find an unlocked room that just so happened to be a storage room with aisles of filing cabinets.

Her vision was blurry, she had to use her hands to find her way around the room. She couldn't catch her breath, and she could feel herself getting lightheaded from the lack of oxygen reaching her brain.

Tears pooled at her rosy cheeks and she instinctively swiped them away. She dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands, giving herself a reminder that she was alive and okay.

But with that, came the realization that Louise might not be, and she could receive a letter at any moment that would assure her of that possibility.

"Melanie?"

A sharp gasp escaped her lips as she turned around to find Spencer standing in the doorway.

(Don't let them see. It's against the—)

"I'm fine," she breathed, leaning over as if she was winded by the two words she just said.

"You're not fine." He quickly crossed the room and took her hands into his, attempting to unfold her palms to stop her from drawing more blood than the small amount already leaking from her hands. "Melanie, let me help."

Let me help.

(Remember where your allegiances lie.)

She relaxed the muscles in her hands, allowing Spencer to hold her hands in his.

(No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no—)

"You're doing great, alright?" he whispered.

Melanie couldn't tell what he was saying over the pounding in her head, but the sound of whatever it was sounded like pure heaven, and it managed to distract her from the thoughts racing through her head.

"Breathe with me. In for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight. Ready?"

His grip tightened on her hands until he received a nod of acknowledgment. He practiced the breathing strategy with her, watching as it already began to calm her down. They completed the exercise three times, Spencer counted.

As she came down from her anxiety attack, her eyes left Spencer's and looked downwards at her hands.

He loosened his grip slightly, and that was the moment she saw the blood.

She shook her head feverishly, realizing that the blood shed was her own. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Reid, I-"

"Don't apologize," Spencer attempted to console her, but her apologies persisted. "Melanie, don't be sorry."

Melanie slid her hands out of Spencer's grasp, looking at them for a second before bringing her eyes to his.

"Too close," she exhaled shakily.

She began to look around the room, almost as if she was looking for someone else to be in the room apart from him. It was a force of habit, he soon recognized, but he couldn't help but wonder why would she have that habit in the first place.

"Spence, you're too close."

Spencer was almost too occupied with the fact that Melanie had not only spoken more than sixteen words to him directly (not that he typically counted), held his hands, and used his nickname all in the same day to notice that he still hadn't stepped away from her.

"Oh–I'm–um.. right." Spencer stumbled over his words as he took a long stride backwards, allowing Melanie her space.

In a sick, tormented way, Melanie saw that as fate reminding her that she could never be close to him, or anyone for that matter.

Not unless she wanted blood to spill on their hands.

"Thank you," she breathed. "I-I've got to go."

"Melanie, wait..."

Spencer turned with Melanie as she began to exit the room in hopes of reassuring her, but his efforts were unsuccessful.

As Melanie rushed to the bathroom to wash her hands, she watched in astonishment as her own blood began to swirl around the sink and down the drain.

At that moment, she knew.

She knew that she was rotten. She was a low hanging fruit, after all. She was easy to win over. To obtain. To persuade.

Melanie had done many things she wasn't proud of, just as everyone has, but what set her apart was that she was that for the most part, she didn't regret doing them.

And now, Melanie Lamont could recognize that Spencer Reid was purely good. As much as she wished she could be, she knew she couldn't be like him.

Not even if she died trying.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

The jet ride back to Virginia was quiet. Too quiet.

Then, her phone buzzed.

incoming phone call from:
BILL HEATHER
accept          decline

Melanie flinched at the sound of her phone ringing, and she immediately brought it to her ear.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Melanie! It's Bill, your neighbor."

A small smile spread across her lips. It never failed to amuse Melanie when Bill, her sixty-five year old neighbor, would call her and say that exact same sentence as if she couldn't read the caller ID.

"Hi, Bill, what can I do for you?"

"Well, uh, I'm outside your door right now and there's a pretty big box with a letter on top of it. It's addressed to the wrong person, though, and there's no return address. Might be a scam, I get 'em all the time from the IRS. Anyway, do you want me to throw it in with the junk mail, or-"

"No!" she exclaimed, too loud for Bill on the other end and loud enough to wake JJ up from her nap. "Don't touch it. Just.. leave it there."

"Alrighty, it isn't some kinda bomb or anything, ha?" Bill laughed at his own joke, but quickly stopped once he realized Melanie wasn't laughing with him.

Truth was, Melanie hadn't ever received a package from The Doberman. There could very well be a bomb inside. Or a decapitated head. Or–

"You there, honey?"

"Sorry. Yes. Thank you for checking, Bill, just leave it there. I'll be home within the hour."

"Well, alrighty."

Bill hung up the phone, and Melanie put her phone on the table in front of her. She slumped her head backwards, which made her unable to see the blonde woman approaching her.

"Hey," JJ soothed, taking a seat beside Melanie. "You alright? That sounded pretty intense."

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine," Melanie replied. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"Oh, no, don't worry about that," JJ said through a smile, "it's a habit I've had ever since I had Henry. The smallest noise and I'm up."

Melanie chuckled, looking out at the D.C. city landscape beneath them. "Any plans for the New Year?"

"Oh, you know, consoling my sick kid and taking over the parent shift so Will can get enough sleep to get to work by 6."

"Sounds great," Melanie joked.

"It is," JJ nodded, chuckling softly. "What about you?"

"Uh, not much. Just gonna stay inside, and maybe go get a new bag of treats for my cat."

"Ha. Well, at least one of us will get to celebrate."

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

Each year without fail, Melanie almost convinces herself that The Doberman isn't real.

So long as there isn't a letter waiting for her, he doesn't exist. He is just a figment of her imagination.

Every other day, that is.

But today, Melanie didn't have that luxury.

He wasn't an urban legend, or a myth, or a monster under her bed that her mother could reassure her wasn't there.

The Doberman was real.

She stood, paralyzed. Her eyes were locked on the package and the letter resting ever-so-gently on top of it.

Seconds, minutes, and possibly even hours could've passed as Melanie stared at her doorstep, but she would never know.

All she did know was that whatever he'd sent her this time could be the missing piece that would blow open her entire investigation.

She unlocked her front door and gently pushed it open. She stepped over the package and took her gun from her waistband, searching her apartment just in case one of her safety measures had failed.

After scoping the place out, three seconds passed before she mustered up the strength to turn back to pick up the mail.

Oliver cat–walked across her feet, seemingly aware that his owner was incredibly anxious. All Melanie could do was scoop him up, plop a kiss on his head and leave him on her bed.

She could almost hear him maniacally laughing at her, knowing that he had successfully reeled her into yet another cycle of his game. For a split second, Melanie debated leaving the mail at the door.

Would all of this stop? Could she live a normal life?

As good as that sounded, the counter question that followed sounded much better.

What if you find Louise?

Melanie knelt to the ground and took the mail into her trembling hands. She set the delivery on her kitchen counter before turning back towards the front door.

Just as her fingertips met the unlocked deadbolt, a rhythmic knocking on the other side of the door stopped her dead in her tracks.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

Notes.
welcome to the rewritten version!

i saved all of the lines with a good amount of comments (you can tell which ones they are because they're the only indented ones lol), and i'll try to do that as i rewrite bc i enjoy reading the comments so much and i kind of love how you can visually see what has stayed the same and what hasn't?? i'm a neat freak but some of the lines not being indented currently isn't bothering me so let's pray it never does 🤲

my writing style has changed a lot from the first write, and i now realize that it's become like a lot more conversational??? idk, i'm an english major and i can't even describe my own writing, but that's besides the point. this book gives me an outlet to write however i want, structure and formalities thrown out the window, which is something i desperately need after spending 6 hours of my life studying english every single week.

on a more heartwarming note, i love every single person who took the time to read this chapter and supported my decision to rewrite the book. i chronically reread every single comment left on the book and actually get emotional sometimes. as someone who felt like they was talking to a door the majority of my life, seeing people read my work and actually enjoy it is surreal.

thank you for reading <33 it means so much to me.