CHAPTER ONE
( filth teaches filth )

SOMETIMES, WHEN NATALIE LOOKED IN THE MIRROR, HER REFLECTION SMILED BACK.

Rotten teeth and black irises clouded her vision when the other Natalie tilted her head to the side, teasingly, as if it were a taunt. But then, the real Natalie would blink, the stranger in the mirror would disappear, and it would just be her. Plain, sunken-eyed, perpetually disheveled her.

She glanced at the clock. Three-thirteen a.m.

She unlocked her phone. One new message.

A deep breath, and Natalie dropped her phone onto the granite countertop, hands instinctively drawn to the sides of the sink, her grip strong enough to make the glass creak. She blinked again.

The blood had dried on her upper lip, long after she'd given up trying to stop it. The nosebleeds were coming back again, crimson red dripping from above and invading her senses. They didn't used to be so violent, but lately, they'd been lasting longer than usual, occuring more often.

It was almost like the blood was sentient. Like it knew her secrets, knew the things she'd never told another soul, choosing to claim it's revenge in the middle of the night when she was all but defenseless.

Natalie presumed the blood and her father would get along well. They had so many similarities, after all.

Ignoring the metallic scent flaring in her nostrils, she wet the washcloth, ice cold water stinging her fingers, and began to clean. The fabric was rough against her skin, she knew it might leave a mark, but that was okay. Everything was okay, so long as nobody knew.

Perhaps that's why she was so good at it, cleaning up. That's all she ever did, really; whether the mess be her fathers or her own, Natalie had become quite skilled at picking it apart and putting it back together, a bandage at the ready no matter how small the wound.

The washcloth brushed against the base of her nose, and more blood trickled down to her lips. Instinctively, she licked them, and cringed when she realized what she'd done.

(Every time. The taste never got better.)

Her phone vibrated. Two new messages.

Giving up, she let the blood continue to pour.

It was unavoidable, she knew. He was unavoidable. Like a spider that had crawled under her skin, hatching hundreds of eggs, offspring which soon spread to every nook and cranny of her body, infiltrating her bloodstream, eating away at her bones. She couldn't stop it. She couldn't stop him.

She picked up her phone.

FROM: DAD [ 3:13 AM ]
Call me back when you wake up.

FROM: DAD [ 3:15 AM ]
I can see when you read my texts, princess.

The bathroom light flickered, and Natalie startled, dropping her phone onto the floor. As she bent to reach it, some of her blood splattered onto the tile, a few drops landing on the screen.

It hovered over his contact photo, covering everything but his smile. How poetic, she thought absentmindedly, picking up the device and wiping it against the used washcloth. If the blood continued to drip, she wouldn't know. She didn't bother to look.

FROM: NATALIE [ 3:16 AM ]
at work, can't talk

Chest heaving, she waited for a response. When there wasn't one, she tossed the phone back onto the counter.

The screen cracked, but she didn't really care.

Her reflection was smiling, again, and this time it took longer to go away. Natalie wasn't sure when she returned to her original position, meticulously gazing upon the blood leaking from her nostrils with the edges of the sink in a vice grip between her fingers and palms, but the strain on her muscles forced her to loosen her hold.

Sleep deprivation. That must've been the problem, she came to realize, her gaze now focusing closely on the purple rings around her eyes, the red veins surrounding her corneas where it should have been white.

Her phone rang. She pressed decline.

Maybe later, she'd go back to bed.

For now, she kept staring.

━━━━━⭒━━━━━

"You okay?"

The voice snapped Natalie from her daydream, her head whirring to the side to face the culprit. With a wince, she rubbed the back of her neck, ignoring the way the edges of the man's lips twitched into a frown.

Her smile was casual when she nodded, but Hotch seemed far from convinced. Uncomfortable on the receiving end of his glare, she cleared her throat, wanting nothing more than for his attention to be directed elsewhere.

"Didn't sleep."

Natalie had become rather impressed with her own skills, being able to lie to Aaron Hotchner's face and not get caught.

Silently, he slid his coffee towards her, looking back down to the file in his hands after she'd accepted it.

The air vent above her hummed in her ears, the quiet lull nearly forcing her to drift off again. It wasn't a complete lie, she supposed, not getting enough sleep. It was a rare occasion if she ever did.

Of course, there was also the whole father thing, too.

But that never really went away, did it?

Natalie's attention was grabbed when JJ pulled out the chair on her right, carefully setting down two coffees while taking a seat. Both in to-go cups, the one closest to her had the words triple latte scrawled across the lid.

Pointing at it, Natalie tilted her head. "For me?"

"According to Garcia, we'll need all the caffeine we can get," she sighed, before Hotch's mug caught her eye, sitting securely between Natalie's palms."Unless you don't need it—"

"She needs it," Hotch murmured, not glancing up once.

All Natalie could do was send JJ a thankful, close-mouthed smile, which quickly turned into a yawn. Even with her eyes closed, she was pretty sure she could sense her shaking her head.

Slowly, the rest of the team filed in. She finished the last of Hotch's coffee just as Penelope entered the room, beautiful and shiny and all of the things Natalie was not. Emily, Derek, and Rossi followed closely behind, but Natalie kept her gaze fixed on the door.

As much as she adored her coworkers, they weren't the one she looked forward to seeing every morning.

When Spencer finally made an appearance, he met her eyes and waved, only to drop his hand seconds later as if the action had been embarrassing for him.

(Natalie thought it was sweet, and waved back.)

Eventually, she looked away, eyes drawn to the case file in front of her. The moment she saw the photos, she froze.

INCOMING CASE
RECIEVER: BAU
CRIME SCENE PHOTOS
(PICTURED BELOW ARE THREE BODIES...)

"Okay, this is Ridge Canyon Lake, in California's Los Angeles National Forest..."

Penelope's voice rung in her ears, but really, Natalie couldn't hear a thing. It wasn't the first time she'd seen an unsub drown their victims as means to an end, but it was the first time she hadn't gotten any warning beforehand.

On her left, Hotch tensed.

"...it's a popular destination for water sport enthusiasts, but unfortunately, some campers have discovered someone has chosen murder as their sport of choice..."

Gripping the empty mug in her hands hard enough it nearly began to crack, Natalie forced herself to look up at the screen. Hotch's gaze burnt holes into the side of her face, but she ignored it entirely.

"...three victims, all male, all found early this morning."

And just like that, she could breathe again.

Male victims. It wasn't him. It wasn't her.

Once again staring down at the photos in her grasp, Natalie made a conscious effort to control her heartbeat, which had been pounding in her ears since Penelope first spoke.

In a room full of profilers, she couldn't afford a slip.

The bodies weren't his. The bodies weren't female. She wasn't at the lake. She wasn't at the lake. She wasn't at the lake. She wasn't—

Hotch abruptly took the photos from her hand, a pretense of casualty in his demeanor, but his eyes told a different story.

He knew her. He knew her fear. After all, he'd been the one to rescue her from the very thing she feared, all those years ago. Natalie was alive because of him, even if she could still taste the dirty water on the tip of her tongue, threatening to sink into her lungs.

Natalie left the lake, but the lake never left her.

She looked away almost as quickly as she blinked.

"He used an underwater disposal sight?" Rossi questioned, and Natalie pretended to be deep in thought so she didn't have to look up again.

She could hear Penelope hum a quiet mhm before she answered, "He weighed them down with rocks, and then he hid their bodies underneath the shrubbery around the lake's edge."

Amateur, Natalie couldn't stop herself from thinking, briefly horrified by the fact that she knew the correct way to do it.

(Middle of the lake, weighed down by titanium.)

"That's pretty risky, keeping a graveyard at a popular lake," Emily said, oblivious to the internal battle of the blonde across the table. "This guy is showing confidence early."

Derek nodded. "Well, we should run priors in the area. This might not be his first party."

Natalie forced herself to remember that this unsub was obviously inexperienced, unlike the man who killed her mother, and that the man who killed her mother was in prison, and that she wasn't at the lake, she wasn't at the lake, she wasn't at the—

"All three victims were reported missing last week," Hotch spoke, his voice loud in her ears. Natalie startled, ever so slightly, but no one seemed to notice, which was comforting. "And each of the bodies was discovered more than thirty miles from where they went missing."

"Any indication of sexual assault?" JJ asked him, but Natalie answered before he could, reminding herself that not speaking would be suspicious, even if her voice cracked when she did.

"No external signs, but the time spent in the water could've destroyed the evidence. It's more likely if the water was warm."

Hotch visibly twitched, and Natalie adamantly avoided his eye. Not now. Not in front of everyone.

"The autopsies are being conducted now," he eventually said, his tone gruff, making a point not to look away from the blonde to his right.

Natalie bit the inside of her cheek.

Sometimes, she wished he didn't care so much.

"And I'm about to make things worse," Penelope said, not aware that such a thing was impossible at that point. Clicking a button on her remote, more photos popped up on the screen behind her. Not of another corpse, luckily. "This is Nick Skirvin, and he was abducted early this morning."

"Witness reports indicate a blitz attack," Hotch added.

"His friends were on the water and saw a figure strike Nick from behind just before they lost contact," JJ paraphrased, reading the report.

Natalie swallowed. "Could they get a description?"

"Probably white, definitely male. Nothing more specific," Hotch continued, "They said he'd dragged Nick into the woods by the time they reached the shore."

Emily whistled lowly under her breath, and Natalie wished she had the balls to say, yeah, you're telling me.

Gaining the courage to speak again, she said quietly, "If he's dumping the bodies in the same location, there's a good chance it means something to him. He could live in or near the forest."

Again, Hotch stared, but Natalie had become practically immune to his glare at this point.

"Unfortunately, Los Angeles National Forest is one thousand and sixteen square miles of terrain, ranging in elevation from twelve hundred to ten thousand and sixty four feet."

Spencer didn't look away from Natalie while he spoke, presumably because she'd prompted his explanation, but he didn't look away afterwards, either. Her body felt hot and cold at the same time, for some reason.

"Which means that if the unsub is familiar with the area, Nick Skirvin could be anywhere," JJ concluded, and Natalie could feel the dread seeping into her veins, just as the water once did.

Hotch sighed, and got to his feet.

"Wheels up in thirty. Blair, come with me."

Natalie made sure to snatch her second coffee before following on his heels into the hall. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Spencer frown, but didn't think much of it. They stopped right in front of Hotch's office, and no one seemed to bat an eye at their lowered voices.

(Typical for the FBI, Natalie guessed, but unusual for the persistent nosiness of her coworkers.)

"I'll be fine," she said before he could so much as get a word out. "Just don't send me to the crime scene."

"I'll have Garcia make some room for you in her office, you can help from here," he replied with finality, entirely discarding her previous statement.

"I just—Hotch, did you hear what I just said?"

"I did, and I'm saying no."

Natalie didn't think she'd ever met someone as stubborn as Aaron Hotchner in her life, and she'd even met Erin Strauss, who was objectively the most stick-up-her-ass boss on the planet.

The only one she could think of who would rival him was herself, but even then, when they argued, he typically ended up winning. Seniority, and all that.

"I'll be fine," Natalie repeated, lowering her voice when Emily and Derek walked past, clearly pretending to have a conversation so they could eavesdrop. For profilers, they weren't very good liars; or maybe, Natalie just knew them too well. She liked to think the sentiment wasn't returned.

"I can't risk you being distracted, or worse," he said under his breath, glancing at the passing agents as he did. "This could easily bring up memories of Elaine, and I wouldn't want—"

"If I have a mental breakdown, you can say I told you so, okay?" Natalie crossed her arms, more out of insecurity than anger. Bringing up her mother never panned out well. "Please, Aaron, just trust me."

He seemed to deflate a bit when she used his first name. Natalie knew he would; she counted on it, even.

"You're sure you can handle it?" Hotch studied her closely for a moment, very closely, and it took quite a bit of restraint to not tell him to stop psychoanalyzing her. "Alright. But if anything changes—"

"I'll come to you."

She wouldn't, but he appeared to be convinced.

He nodded, face stern, but she could see the softness behind his eyes. The same softness she'd seen on her first day at the BAU, four years prior, when he wasn't sure if she could handle it all. The same softness she'd seen that day at the lake. The day her mother took her last breath. The day she almost did, as well.

Natalie had been eight years old, then, but the look in his eye was the same as it was now; gentle, concerned, as if she were made of glass and the floors were covered in ice.

"Stop profiling me, Natalie."

Her lips quirked up into a grin. "You first."

━━━━━⭒━━━━━

"Why do you think he changed his victimology?"

Natalie took a sip of her coffee—not the one JJ brought her, but rather her third coffee of the day—after she'd asked the question. Nick's body had been recovered twenty miles away from the previous dump site, and the fact that he was slimmer, weaker, and visibly different than the other victims didn't sit right with her.

Spencer looked up from whatever file he was rereading, humming in thought.

"Could be due to impulsivity, but that doesn't answer the question of why he didn't submerge the body like the others."

Spencer's voice was quiet in the atmosphere of the even quieter private jet, the rest of the team spread out across it, occasionally conversing amongst themselves. Natalie and Spencer sat near the back, facing each other, just as they always did on the way to a new case.

Their brains worked well together, they'd realized shortly after her first day on the job all those years ago. He was smarter than her, when it came to tracking down a killer, and she was more empathetic than him, when it came to understanding them.

They made a great pair, in the end.

(Natalie tried not to let that go to her head.)

Watching the gentle curve of Spencer's lips, she forced herself to look away before she was caught.

The case. Focus on the case.

"Spence?"

He jolted, ever so slightly, as if he'd been doing something he shouldn't. She didn't bother questioning it. "Hm?"

"How many cases have there been like this?" Natalie asked, more as a precaution than anything else. "Serial killers who use drowning as a weapon?"

"Oh, well, that's actually pretty interesting," Spencer shifted in his seat, his hands moving in front of him like he was preparing to tell a story. It made her smile. It always did, when he got so excited over something so small. "It's extremely rare for a killer to choose water as their weapon of choice. There have only been four documented cases of the ritualistic and repetitive drowning of one's victims, and the most recent was almost twenty years ago. Water burials, on the other hand, are much more common."

"Do you know a lot about the most recent case?"

It was a risky question, but she asked it with enough innocence to not draw any suspicion. Simple curiosity, surely.

Spencer shook his head, his lips pressed into a tight line, similar to the face one might make when smiling at a stranger. "Not particularly, other than that there were five total female victims, all of whom suffered severe torture and sexual assault prior to their deaths."

Natalie didn't flinch. "So, this one is different."

"Very."

His eyes narrowed for a moment, but he didn't say anything else, instead choosing to glance back down at the file in his hand.

Out of the corner of her eye, Natalie saw JJ approaching them, and internally sighed at the interruption. The older woman didn't comment on her third coffee of the day, but she did roll her eyes at the sight of it.

"What's different?"

"Nothing," Natalie said, just a bit too quickly, and she played it off by following it up with a casual, "Just talking about cases with similar M.O.'s, is all."

JJ didn't press the topic further, taking the seat on her left and running a hand through her hair. For the briefest moment, Natalie allowed herself to admire the beaming light that was Jennifer Jareau.

Her best friend.

It had been four years since they'd met, and Natalie had been able to classify her as such since. Something about the kind way JJ smiled, about the glint of understanding in her eyes even in the toughest moments, about the way she never asked questions that Natalie didn't want to answer; they just clicked, and the rest had been history.

Natalie cared about JJ more than she cared about herself; Natalie cared about JJ's family like it was her own.

(Well, not quite like her own.)

"Talk about my worst nightmare, jeez," JJ huffed, oblivious to the woman staring at her as if she were the sun itself. "Drowning to death definitely isn't on my bucket list."

Spencer said nothing, but Natalie caught him watching her from beneath his eyelashes, far too inquisitive for her liking.

Natalie forced herself to laugh.

"Tell me about it."

━━━━━⭒━━━━━

Hotch had, rather expectedly, sent Natalie to the police station to speak with the victim's brother.

It was a talent of hers, she supposed, reaching into people's minds and fishing for information, her bait catching each time without fail. Killer or victim, guilty or innocent, she had a way with her words, a way with her stature, which presented her as someone who was trustworthy. Someone you could tell your dirtiest secrets to and not have to risk exposure.

Their initial cooperation was helpful, but not exactly necessary. Natalie always found a way.

(If Hotch had a problem with her questionable ethics while doing so, he never said a word.)

Leaving Nick Skirvin's brother in the empty conference room of the police station, she shut the door gently, muffling his cries.

"Anything?" JJ questioned with a heavy sigh, running a hand through her hair. A map of the Los Angeles woods was pulled up on the computer screen beside her. Rossi sat a few feet away, not seeming to be very busy at all, aside from pondering his thoughts.

Natalie made her way over, perching herself casually against the edge of the desk. "Not much, other than that the unsub definitely blends in with the younger crowd. Mid-twenties, early-thirties."

As if they'd expected anything different.

"Well, he's methodical," JJ scoffed, "Social, too. He's been able to isolate all of his victims. The mother of Jake Shepherd, our first victim, said there were several members of their church at the lake that day, but Jake was the only one with brown hair that matched the age preference of the unsub."

Rossi squinted, picking up a photo from the desk. "Nick's brother is a brunette, and he's a lot like the other victims. Why not go after him?"

Natalie plucked the photo from his hands, the face of the dead teenager causing an ache in her chest. "He chose Nick Skirvin for a reason, and we need to figure out why."

The loud ring of her cellphone startled her, and she handed the image back to Rossi, reaching into her pocket for the device.

INCOMING CALL... DAD

She pressed decline.

(For the thirty-seventh time that day.)

Natalie could feel JJ and Rossi's eyes on her, the former looking her up and down, a question in her gaze. JJ tended to be concerned for her friends before she was accusatory, and Natalie appreciated it as much as she loathed it.

Natalie often joked that she liked her better when she wasn't a profiler, back when she was only a press liaison. Keeping secrets was next to impossible, now.

"You can take that, if you need to," Rossi allowed, and it was then that she realized they could see the contact name pop up on her phone. "We can't do much until the others get back."

Purposefully putting on a mask of indifference, Natalie only shrugged, tucking her phone away with little to no suspicion. "No, it's fine."

It wasn't, but that was besides the point.

Maybe, it would be easier if she knew what he wanted from her. Because whatever her father wants, Natalie gives. She gives, and she gives, and she gives, until she has nothing left and is forced to remove parts of herself, instead. Her veins, her lungs, her heart. By now, she wouldn't be surprised if very part of her has been given away. Given to him.

She only wished she knew what he was doing with all of it. Maybe it was hidden somewhere, stored away for safe keeping.

Maybe one day, she'd get those parts back.

"Oh, Nat!" JJ's voice drew Natalie from her thoughts, and it was only then she realized the woman was approaching her with a tissue, "Come here, your nose is bleeding."

Fuck.

Fingertips reaching up to graze her skin, pulling away only to be covered in crimson, Natalie winced. This hadn't happened while on the job since her first week as an agent, a case involving multiple bodies washed up along the coast of Oregon.

Her theory of the sentient blood persisted.

Maternal instincts kicking in, JJ had balled up the tissue, taking the liberty of placing it gently against Natalie's nose while she waited for the other girl's hands to take over. Not that she seemed to mind, or even notice how she was mothering at all.

"It's not—I'm—thanks," Natalie stuttered out, moving a step back and tilting her head forwards. "You don't need to—"

"What's going on?"

Jesus fucking Christ, she squeezed her eyes shut, party due to a sudden head rush, and partly due to the sound of Hotch's voice.

Natalie sighed, the tissue now sitting inside her nose, blocking the blood along with the air passing through. Just barely, she could feel the material moistening on the tips of her fingers.

Her voice sounded comically congested when she peeked open one eye and told him, "It nobting."

"Nosebleed," Rossi informed him, visibly amused. Well, at least one of them was having fun, right?

Hotch faltered, as if deciding which course of action to take, before leading her towards the small kitchenette of the station. Unintelligibly, she protested, but gave up when the other two began to snicker. They didn't even bother to do it behind her back.

Wordlessly, Hotch stared down the officers occupying the space until they left. Natalie would have laughed if she could.

Replacing her tissue with a paper towel while he watched her, eyes calculating, Natalie sighed in relief. Unlike the previous night, the blood had begun to slow.

"How long?"

Glancing over at him, only for a moment, she sniffled, folding the paper towel neatly into a square. "A couple of weeks."

The thing about Hotch was that, under the mask of sternness and power, was a man who worried constantly. About the rest of his team, about his son, about her. He cared, deeply, and the fear he instilled in strangers may have been able to hide that from most people, but Natalie wasn't one of them.

"What did your doctor say?"

"Not much," Natalie shrugged, and it took about half a second to communicate that she hadn't gone to see the doctor at all. "They come, they go, weak lungs, bad asthma. It's fine."

Finally feeling the pressure leave her sinuses, she removed the paper towel from her face and tossed it in the trash. She sniffled again.

"Natalie, if—"

"It's fine."

Hotch opened his mouth, presumably to argue that it wasn't fine, but his attention was stolen by the door to the station swinging open, revealing the remaining members of her team who quickly walked towards the area where the local police had allowed them to set up. Silently, she praised them for the interruption.

Natalie raised a brow, and Hotch sighed.

"This conversation isn't over."

Looking her up and down, a frown painted on his lips, he left her alone in the kitchenette to join the others.

Watching him go, she paused, waiting a few moments before turning back to the sink and scrubbing her hands clean of her blood.

With a shiver, she tried not to remember how many times she'd seen her father do the exact same thing.

━━━━━⭒━━━━━

"Did you know that asthma patients with significant rhinitis are four to five times more likely to have poorly controlled asthma, compared to patients without?"

Natalie paused, and slowly lifted her head up. Spencer stood in front of her, looking down at her with his typical casual nervousness. His lips were pressed together in a tight line, and he held a cup of something. Coffee or tea, probably.

"What?"

"Rossi told me your nose was bleeding earlier," he continued, as if that clarified anything at all. "That's a rhinitis symptom, but they're often more severe in asthmatics."

Her three pages of notes on the case, which Natalie had jotted down sometime in past few hours, were now going completely ignored.

"How do you..." she faltered, feeling as though her brain had suddenly started spilling from her ears and down the sides of her head, "...who told you I have asthma?"

Spencer blinked.

Natalie was incredibly confused.

"You always make a wheezing noise after you run, and you get short of breath if you speak for over sixty-two seconds." With a shrug, Spencer began to fold in on himself a bit, as if coming to the realization that he sounded creepy rather than observant. "Not that it's—I just noticed, is all."

The conference room went silent, and Spencer pretended to study the case board (which only contained information he already knew) to look busy. Natalie was just thankful they were alone, so no one could see her blushing.

He noticed.

A knock on the doorframe, quickly followed by the rest of the team shuffling in, made them both breathe a sigh of relief.

Natalie ducked her head so JJ wouldn't notice the red flush on her cheeks. A raised brow sent her way proved that it didn't work as intended.

"Alright, so here's what we know," Derek started, taking a seat opposite of Natalie while the others did the same around the table, aside from Spencer and Hotch who remained standing. "We're definitely looking at a sadist. Killing them once isn't enough. He has to resuscitate his victims until he can't bring them back again."

Nodding, Natalie glanced over the M.E. reports that JJ had handed her when she added, "Why the change from choking to multiple drownings?"

(The mere thought made her tense up, ever so slightly. Out of the corner of her eye, Hotch shifted on his feet.)

"With the damage to Jake's throat, the unsub wasn't able to successfully resuscitate him," Spencer answered, and Natalie finished his thought without any prompting.

"Resuscitating them makes him feel more powerful, which means he has no power in his everyday life."

Absentmindedly, her hand drifted to her chest, gentle fingers skimming over the fabric of her sweater. Just barely, she could feel her heartbeat.

"But the change in victimology is interesting," Emily continued, getting to her feet and pointing at the photos on the case board. Natalie watched, her knee bouncing. "Nick Skirvin was the smallest, but he had the most defensive wounds on his body."

Hotch glanced at Natalie for a split second before concluding, "He fought back the most."

(It only took that one sentence for Natalie to retreat back into her mind. Not that anyone seemed to notice.)

The others continued to come to different conclusions about the case; Spencer realized the unsub was transporting the bodies to different locations postmortem, Hotch questioned why that was, Derek decided the unsub was intelligent and criminally sophisticated. Natalie could've told them that from the beginning.

The unsub wasn't drowning them, he was resuscitating them. He wanted his victims to come back to life, and the question now was why. The others assumed torture.

Coming back to life isn't torture, her brain supplied, but the burning in your lungs, the tightness in your throat, the helplessness, the pain, and the fear it'll all happen again definitely is.

But Natalie wasn't sure that was it.

At some point, she followed them outside to deliver the profile to the local officers, and maybe she spoke, or maybe she didn't. The words circling in her head were too loud to know for sure.

White male, mid-to-late twenties, local to the area, sadist with a god complex, gets off by killing his victims over and over again, went from choking and moving larger men to drowning and dumping smaller victims, most likely injured or sick, experienced in CPR.

But none of it made sense.

Well, it did, she supposed, but not to her. Drowning in and of itself was far too specific of an M.O., let alone resuscitation. There was a reason the unsub was doing all of it, and it wasn't simple sadism.

Drowning hurt, sure, but a real sadist wouldn't use such a gentle element for such a gruesome death without an underlying cause.

Natalie, more than anyone, would know.

━━━━━⭒━━━━━

"What are you thinking?"

JJ sat down in front of her, and it was only then that Natalie realized she'd gone back into the conference room alone.

"It's more what I'm not thinking that's the issue," she shrugged halfheartedly, brows furrowed while she twiddled a pen between her fingers. "I'll let you know when I know."

Nodding, JJ shifted in her chair, and it didn't take a genius to know she had something else to say.

It wasn't until she cleared her throat that Natalie knew it was serious. That was one of her more obvious tells.

"Nat," she started, placing her elbows on top of the table, "I know I've been pretty busy lately, everything with Will, and Henry starting school, but... you can talk to me, you know."

Don't look down at your hands. Don't let your right eyelid twitch. Don't let your left knee bounce. After controlling her own tells, she tilted her head, something she always did when she was confused. "What are you talking about?"

JJ squinted for a moment, as if deciding how to approach the topic. Natalie cursed herself for being so obvious.

"I'm just saying, I'm here if you need to get something off your chest."

Natalie narrowed her eyes as well, attempting to sus out the situation. The other blonde seemed curious, and a little knowing, but there was no pity in her gaze. If she had to guess, she'd assume that the other woman didn't know anything about the lake, which only begged the question—what did she know?

"Yeah, uh, back at you."

Apparently, that wasn't the correct response, because JJ sighed, heavily, as if Natalie was knowingly withholding information she already knew.

"Okay," she rolled her eyes, a ghost of a smile on her lips, "Fine, I'll just ask. Do you have feelings for Spencer?"

A pause.

Natalie felt her heart stop.

"Are you on drugs, or something?"

Don't look down at your hands. Don't let your right eyelid twitch. Don't let your left knee bounce—oh, no, fuck, fuck, fuck, don't let your eyelid tw—

"No way," JJ sat back in her chair, her arms crossed, a wide smirk growing on her face despite the open panic building on Natalie's. "You totally do."

"No, no, I—"

JJ leaned forwards, her elbows on the table.

"You were blushing when he talked to you on the jet, which I thought was weird, because you've never done that before," she continued, as if explaining a hypothesis to herself. "I thought maybe it was just a one time thing, but then it happened again... Nat, you like Spencer?"

Now, Natalie had two options.

One, she could deny, deny, deny until she was as blue in the face as the unsub's victims. JJ wouldn't believe her for a second, of course, but it would allow Natalie time to stuff her feelings down into the very pit of her stomach, deep enough to where only she and God could feel them.

Two, she could tell the truth for once in her life.

Natalie did trust JJ with her private emotions, despite it all. That wasn't the reason she was hesitant to answer.

"Please just let it go, Jen," was what she ended up saying, somewhat of a combination of the two. "Nothing could happen anyway. Even if he wanted it to, which he doesn't."

"Why not?" JJ questioned, the smile slowly slipping from her face. "I mean, you'd have to fill out some paperwork, sure, but I can totally see you two going on dates, him buying you flowers, meeting the parents—"

"JJ, stop."

Natalie's eyes were drawn to the pen in her hands, a shaky breath leaving her lips, because the stupid fucking paperwork wasn't the issue at all.

Spencer wasn't the issue, either.

The issue was her.

It tore at her insides like a rabid animal feasting on a corpse, the idea that she was incapable of letting herself be loved. Her father used to say that it was in her DNA, that she simply wasn't meant for romance, that neither of them were.

Natalie came to the conclusion that her mother's affair had something to with his thought process. Of course, her father didn't even know about it until after her mother had already been brutally murdered.

Which was fitting, seeing as the man she was fucking was the same man who slaughtered her like a pig.

(Liam Marlowe, forty-two, serving two life sentences. Denined bail. Denied parol. Currently serving time in Maine State Prison. Murdered five women; Jess Parker, Alana Stevenson, Sophia Cruz, Nicole Larson, and Elaine Blair.)

Natalie couldn't sleep at night without reminding herself of their names like a lullaby. Seeing their faces. Feeling their pain. Watching her mother drown to death.

Sometimes, if it was a bad night, her father's face replaced them, screaming how it was all her fault.

Natalie had always been the problem, it seemed.

So, no, she couldn't have feelings for Spencer. She couldn't risk dragging him into the lake with her, no matter how willing he may be to take a swim.

"Okay, I'm sorry," JJ's voice broke through her internal struggle, the dubious expression on her face telling Natalie that she'd seen something go down behind the other blonde's eyes. "I just think you deserve to be happy, and from what I've seen, Spencer is a big part of that. That's all I meant."

Natalie sighed, and the guilt set in.

"Yeah, I know, I—I'm sorry. This case is just kicking my ass, and I think something's off with the profile."

If JJ noticed how she skillfully changed the subject, she didn't say a thing. "What do you mean? What's off?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out."

She tilted her head, a soft smile on her lips. "Is that why you've been locked away by yourself all day? 'Cause the rest of us could help, if you let us."

For the first time in several hours, Natalie smiled back. "Hotch wants me to stay here in case we get anyone else to interview. And I got a nosebleed earlier, so naturally, he's acting like I'm on my deathbed."

(Of course, she didn't mention her ridiculous yet incredibly adamant fear of the water, which Hotch was more than well aware of.)

JJ scoffed a laugh, inclining her head in a manner that suggested she knew exactly what Natalie was talking about. "Yeah, but he's always like that with you, isn't he? I swear, sometimes he treats you like he's known you forever."

Natalie forced a chuckle. "Ha, yeah."

The funny thing was that he had known her for forever. Well, for the past nineteen years, at least, not that any of her coworkers would know.

Keep your work life and your lifelong personal trauma separate, Natalie had always told herself.

Speaking of lifelong personal trauma—

INCOMING CALL... DAD

Before Natalie could press decline for the thirty-eighth time that day, JJ picked up the vibrating cellphone from the desk, raising a brow at the contact name. Natalie quickly snatched it from her grasp.

"Your dad's been calling all day. It's probably important, I'll let Hotch know you'll be a few minutes."

JJ got up from her chair, readying herself to leave, and Natalie couldn't help but to panic. If she was left alone, there would be no excuse.

"No, it's fine, he can wait—"

"It's no big deal," she shrugged, now only a few feet away from the door. "Hotch won't mind if you take a family call, trust me. Besides, I need to talk to him about something anyways."

"No, Jen, you don't need to go—"

The door clicked shut, and she could see JJ through the panes of glass, still visible, which meant Natalie really had no excuse this time around.

The cellphone continued to ring.

Fuck it, Natalie bit the inside of her cheek, fingers grasping roughly onto the edges of the device. Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it.

She pressed accept.

"Hi, Dad."

There was a shuffle on the other end of the line. A scoff, maybe. Natalie sucked in air, bracing herself.

"You've been ignoring my calls."

"I've been working, actually."

"Don't use that fucking tone with me." Natalie winced, her eyes screwing shut, and she must have made a small noise because he quickly followed it up with a gentle, "Oh, princess, you know I was just worried."

It was a lie, and they both knew it. James Blair was many things, but a worrier was not one of them.

Everything he did was planned, and every potential surprise was accounted for. There hadn't been a single moment in his life when he wasn't one step ahead.

The profiler inside of her constantly screamed he's a fucking psychopath, idiot, it's textbook! But when it came to Natalie, there were several things about her that were textbook, as well, only on the opposite side of the spectrum.

(Denial is a common trait found in those who suffer a major trauma, because their brain is trying to protect them from whatever pain they would feel if it didn't. Forgetfulness, too, as well as memory loss.)

Instinctively, Natalie ducked her head.

"I know, Dad. I'm sorry."

On the other side of the phone, James hummed.

"So, you're at work?" He didn't wait for a noise of confirmation or any response before he continued. "I assume Agent Hotchner is keeping an eye on you."

Natalie tensed.

Her father hated Hotch, far more than he ever hated the man who slept with and killed her mother, the man who almost killed her.

Hotch used to check up on her, after everything that had happened. Natalie guessed it was some subconscious urge, he saved her and so he was responsible for her, but he always insisted he was just doing his job. He visited her once a month, up until her ninth birthday, when James saw to it that he wasn't allowed into their home anymore.

(Her father never gave her a reason, no matter how many times she cried and begged to see her friend Aaron again.)

"We all keep an eye on each other, we're a team."

It was the most general and tame response she could come up with, but her voice still wavered when she spoke.

"Hm. I was thinking of coming out to Virginia for a visit soon. The shop has been slow these past few weeks, and I deserve a vacation. How does that sound?"

"Um, I don't really have a set schedule, but I can plan to take a week off, maybe in a few months?"

There was a stretching silence, and Natalie could tell he was angry simply by the sound of his breathing. She heard the click of a lighter, an inhale, an exhale, and a cough. Faintly, she could feel the memory of cigarette burns on her hands.

"Are you hiding something from me?"

"What? No, I just—"

"Only filth teaches filth, princess. I thought I raised you to be better than this, lying to your father."

Heart racing, Natalie swiveled in her chair so she was no longer facing the glass, her brows caving inwards and her free hand clutching desperately at her bouncing knee. She shouldn't have argued, she should have just agreed—

"I'm not lying, I just don't know when I'll be in town." Natalie knew her voice sounded frantic. "Dad, I promise, just... just let me set up some vacation time with my boss."

"Your boss... Agent Hotchner."

The line went quiet.

"Dad?"

"Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord," James quoted, and Natalie recognized the passage almost immediately, flashes of her childhood bible clouding her vision, "Corinthians 5:8. You should remember that."

"I—"

The call ended, and all Natalie could do was stare.

Not because of her father, surprisingly enough. She'd become used to his preaching, his borderline obsession with all that was Holy. She'd grown up with it, it had become a part of her without her permission, and it no longer shook her the way it did when she was young.

No, that's wasn't the reason she was staring.

Why would the unsub drown his victims over and over again, resuscitate them over and over again, if not for torture? What possible reason could there be, not something physical, not something he could touch?

It wasn't about what the victims felt while drowning. It never was. It was about what they saw.

Natalie's feet moved on their own accord, her hands pushing open the conference room door without her permission. The others were gathered together, and JJ hung up her phone with a face that screamed she'd just gotten bad news.

"What is it?" Hotch asked her.

"They found another body," JJ sighed, "Female this time. He's still moving towards weaker targets."

Natalie stopped in her tracks, and that's when the others noticed her presence. Most of them simply waited for her to speak, but Hotch crossed his arms over his chest, brows furrowing.

"Blair?"

Natalie looked him in the eye.

"I know why resuscitating the victims is so important to the unsub," she said, and on the outskirts of her vision, she could see Spencer tilt his head in interest. With a deep breath, she moved her gaze over all of them, a silent question behind her eyes, as if it was too hard to ask.

Hotch watched her closely, and she couldn't find it in herself to care that he was profiling her again. 

"What is it?"

"It's not about the victims dying, it's about what happens after they die." For just a moment, she paused, choosing her next words carefully. "It's about the afterlife. The unsub wants to know what's waiting for him on the other side, and he's bringing them back to life so he can find out."

In a way, Natalie felt bad for him.

In her experience, there wasn't much.

AUTHOR'S NOTE ! ━━━━━━━━━━━━
the first chapter is here!!!

i feel like i should note that after the
first two chapters, this fic is very much
NOT canon compliant. like, canon is
the weird distant cousin at the family
reunion we only invite bc we feel bad.

that being said, i am SO excited for
this fic, and i hope you all are as well!