CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE:
BITTER
( aka 04x11: normal )

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"YOU'RE PREGNANT?"

It couldn't be possible. It made no sense. But there was no doubt that the pregnancy test in front of Dallis had two little pink lines reflected on the screen.

For a moment, she only stared. Wide-eyed, slack-jawed. Then a grin spread from ear-to-ear. She lurched out of her seat, landing on the other woman in a mess of limbs.

"Oh my God! You're pregnant!"

Laughing, Mei buried her face into Dallis' hair and eagerly returned her hug. She'd admittedly been nervous for Dallis' reaction but now her anxiety seemed ridiculous. Dallis looked ecstatic because she was. She felt like she was floating! At that moment, nothing could bring her down.

"I'm going to be an aunty!"

"And I'm going to be a dad," Austin drawled from next to Mei. To be honest, Dallis had forgotten he was there as soon as Mei slid the pregnancy test across the dining room table at breakfast. "Where's my hug?"

Reluctantly, Dallis tore herself away from Mei so she could curl her arms around her brother's neck. He grimaced, lips forming an unamused line when she reached up and ruffled his hair at the same time. Hope and Anthony -- who had found out about Mei's pregnancy while Dallis was working the case in Grenfell -- merely shared a fond smile. Hope had tears in her eyes that threatened to spill at any given moment.

"My first grandbaby," she cooed with a hand over her heart.

Dallis expected to feel strange that her younger brother was settling down and starting a family before she was. Deep down, she suspected that her reaction might've been different, more subdued, if she wasn't about to see Rossi at work. Since the kiss in the hospital -- and all the ones after that -- her perspective had started to shift. Austin might've been younger and now a few steps ahead of her, but Dallis wasn't entirely out of the race.

Just the thought of having kids with Rossi made her face heat up. Where on earth was her head at? They hadn't even gone on a date yet! The constant piles of paperwork since Grenfell had taken up the majority of her week, hence why Dallis was only just catching up with her family outside of a hospital setting.

"Can I choose their name?" Dallis asked, ignoring Austin's vehement scoff. She released him to clutch her hands in front of her, turning to Mei with a hopeful smile that made Mei laugh once again. "Oh, please! I promise not to choose anything ugly... like Austin."

"We'll think about it," said Mei before Austin could come up with his own retort. "Is that your phone ringing, Dallis?"

With a sigh, Dallis realised it was. She followed the sound to the kitchen where she found a voicemail waiting from Jordan Todd. Dallis was needed at work earlier than expected. Another day, another dollar, another murderer on a killing spree.

"Work?" Hope asked as she followed her daughter, depositing some of their used dishes in the sink. Dallis' nod was absent-minded as she typed out a text message to Todd. She didn't notice her mum's knitted brows until Hope made a soft noise, almost like a whine. "You'll be careful."

"I will," Dallis promised, allowing her mum a second to smooth her hair back and kiss her forehead before she pulled away. "I'm sorry, but I really do have to go now."

"Okay. I love you."

"I love you too," came Dallis' dutiful reply.

Hope had tried her best to hide her feelings regarding her daughter's job but her concern was transparent to Dallis. Since Grenfell, things had changed. She'd always worried about Dallis, but now she watched her leave like she wasn't sure she'd ever see her again. Every I love you was deliberate. Every kiss on the forehead lingered. It left Dallis' stomach caught up in knots as she said goodbye to the others and gathered up her things. Hope's face was a silhouette in the living room window that watched her car drive away.

Even when Dallis arrived at the office, she didn't feel quite right. Morgan, Reid and Emily were crowded around their desks, showing no real urgency in heading upstairs to where Dallis could see Todd through the open door. She was dutifully laying out paperwork on the round table, trying her best to make everything presentable while she waited for Hotch to finish up a phone call in his office. Rossi's door was also closed. Before she could overthink it, she discarded her belongings at her desk, blurted out a hurried greeting to the others, then made her way upstairs to Rossi's office.

"What's got you smiling like that, Dolcezza?" Rossi settled back in his seat and admired her as she closed the door behind her.

Without much thought, she perched herself on the edge of his desk. "My brother's girlfriend is pregnant," she said, her face flushing as one of his hands braced itself on her knee. "I'm going to be an aunty!"

"Congratulations," he said, softly rubbing his thumb across her skin. "You must be excited."

"I am," Dallis' eyes glittered. Just like that, her uneasy feeling had disappeared. "There's no one more deserving than Austin and Mei. I know they'll be the best parents."

Rossi's smile mirrored hers. "And I'm sure you'll be the best aunty."

"Of course," she agreed with a chuckle, leaning further into his touch when it slowly skimmed from her knee to her hip. "I'll be the cool one who shows up with the wine."

Rossi's laughter was soft but tinged with an undertone of something warmer. Unable to resist the temptation of her proximity, he drew her mouth down to his in a firm and lingering kiss, swallowing the breathy sigh that escaped her as her eyes fluttered shut. She wanted to seal the moment in time, memorise the taste of coffee on his tongue as it brushed against hers, but she could hear Hotch's voice in the hallway and she knew she'd only shut the door, not locked it.

"This is nice," she admitted, momentarily losing her train of thought when Rossi gently bit down on her bottom lip. "I could get used to kissing you."

Finally coming up for air, Dallis relished in the sly curl of Rossi's smirk. "I've got no intention of stopping anytime soon. But I'm also here for more than just pleasure, Dallis. If you'll let me, I want to take you on a date tonight."

"Yes," she answered without hesitation. She didn't care to hear where they would go, just as long as they were together. "I'd love that. But you'll need to give me a chance to change out of my work clothes."

Rossi's eyes followed her red-painted fingernails as they skimmed across the thigh of her charcoal grey pencil skirt. His throat constricted in a nervous swallow, his own hands pressing indents into her lower back. Still, despite her successful attempt at teasing him, his response was earnest. "Wear whatever you want, Dallis. You look beautiful even in your work clothes."

Dallis dipped her head, the curtain of her hair concealing the shy flash of her teeth. She genuinely considered getting up and locking the office door, but Hotch beat her to it. He pushed the door open to finally summon them, pausing only for a second to watch Dallis quickly rise from the edge of Rossi's desk.

"We've just received another call from Orange County's Sheriff's Department," he said, schooling whatever he was thinking behind an impassive mask. "We're leaving right now."

Dallis couldn't escape the room fast enough. Part of her expected Hotch to say something but he remained tight-lipped as she slipped past him into the hallway, her shoulders slackening as a rush of air escaped her lungs once she'd stepped out of view. She heard the faint whisper of Rossi and Hotch's voices before distance swallowed them up.

"What?" said Rossi, who was yet to move from his chair.

Hotch gazed at the faint pink smudge of lipstick on the corner of his friend's mouth. He handed Rossi a tissue. "Nothing."

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"THIS IS ORANGE COUNTY, California," declared Todd as she passed their latest file around the jet. "Ten days ago, Judy Hannity, a real-estate worker and a mother, was shot-gunned on the '91 Freeway."

Balancing the manila folder on her crossed legs, Dallis flipped to the first photo showcasing a crumpled hunk of metal that must've once been Judy Hannity's car. The hood of the vehicle was curled backwards, revealing the chasm of a smoking engine. The roof was flattened, the windows shattered. It was hard to believe someone had made it out of such carnage.

"She survived this?" Dallis muttered incredulously.

"Barely," Todd sighed, glancing over at where Dallis was sitting between Rossi and Reid. "She's paralysed from the waist down. But the second and third victims were DOA. There were different vehicles for each shooting. A small black SUV, a black Sedan, a white Sedan... no makes, no plates."

"No solid witnesses?" Morgan presumed.

"The first victim described the shooter as a 'normal, middle-aged white guy in an SUV.'"

Hotch cleared his throat, drawing attention to the sharp pinch of his eyebrows. "She gave that description but she couldn't remember anything else?"

Todd shrugged. "Isn't that consistent with trauma?"

"Actually, no," Emily shook her head from beside her. "Trauma victims either remember everything or nothing."

"So, wait," said Reid. "The third victim was shot last week and we just got the phone call today?"

That didn't make sense to Dallis either.

"Until the third shooting, the locals weren't convinced it was a serial shooter," Todd explained. "There were different cars and at the first shooting, there was a different weapon."

Dallis scanned the rest of the photographs, taking in the details of the other wrecked vehicles and the damage caused to the bodies of the last two victims. Each gunshot wound was different in pattern but shot with the same remorseless hand.

"It's the same weapon," Rossi voiced the very conclusion that Dallis was just coming to. He laid his own copies of the photos across the table, allowing the others a better look at what he'd noticed when they were side-by-side.

"The shot pattern on the second and third one are much wider, though," Reid pointed out.

"So he used a shot-gun for Judy Hannity," Dallis stated. "Then he sawed off the end. Dave's right. It's the same shooter and he's evolving fast."

"The media's already dubbed him the 'Road Warrior.'" This provoked a collective groan from the agents around Todd.

"That explains why they wanted us there so quickly," Emily grumbled.

"What do you mean?"

"This type of unsub is the hardest to catch," said Morgan. "Totally impersonal victims. A third of the crime scene flees with him in his vehicle, the victim's car is a wreck, and the last third, the road, is contaminated by the other cars that drive over it."

"So how do we get him?"

"We build a solid profile," Hotch said. "We release it to the public with an appeal for help. Somebody knows this guy."

"And it's my job to make them realise," Todd sat back with a tired sigh, making Hotch narrow his eyes.

The rest of the plane ride passed in relative silence, allowing them to pour over the case individually and bounce ideas off each other when needed. Loaded up on adrenaline from two cups of coffee, Dallis was ready to fire by the time Hotch led them through the doors of Orange County's Sheriff's Department. The officers there were hard at work and barely shared them a second glance. From the fragments she caught of their overlapping voices, Dallis realised they were answering an endless stream of phone calls from a tip line.

Detective Thea Salinas only needed one look at them to realise who they were. She held out a hand towards Todd first, standing tall in black slacks and a purple button-up shirt that brought out the rich warm tone of her skin. "Thea Salinas, Sheriff's County Homicide. I'm running the task force."

"I'm Special Agent Jordan Todd," said their Communications Liaison, who then waved a hand at the rest of them. "Special Agents Rossi, Hotchner, Cohen, Prentiss, Morgan, and that's Doctor Spencer Reid."

"Are these the vehicles from the shooting?" Hotch asked.

"Yes," Salinas nodded, watching as a chunk of the group broke away to observe the three vehicles that had been set up on the other side of the room.

Dallis fell into step with Emily, Morgan and Hotch, taking in the details of the car wrecks up-close. The Sheriff's Department had done a decent job at first glance. Even the glass of the shattered windshields remained scattered across the front seats as they tried their best to preserve the original state of their secondary crime scenes. To Dallis' right, a large board had been erected with photos and identifying information about each woman. Judith Hannity, Linda Sicher and Marilyn Cohen (who was of no relation to Dallis, that she knew of) were all white women in their forties, all were blonde and all were of similar backgrounds.

"The MO from the first shooting differs dramatically from the other two," said Hotch, coming to stand next to Dallis in front of Judy Hannity's photo.

Her eyes glittered with vague impatience behind thin metal glasses, her lips forming a weak grimace that was an attempt at a smile. There were faint rings of exhaustion underneath her eyes, indicating to Dallis that she spent most of her time either working or juggling a tiresome home life. The wrinkle lines between her eyebrows were deep, etched into her skin from constant frowning. It wasn't hard to picture her behind the wheel of her car, manicured nails curled in a white-knuckled grip, staring down the unsub with that piercing stare.

But what made him pick her?

"Daylight on a crowded freeway."

'That's dozens of potential witnesses," Emily said as she paced around the vehicles. "It's high-risk. He got lucky."

"Well, then he's a fast study," Morgan scoffed. He'd dragged over a whiteboard and was scrawling in messy lines what he'd determined about the unsub so far. Dallis craned her neck for a better look; male/white, middle-aged, 'normal' and intelligent. "Sawed off his shotgun and lowered his risk by switching to nights and changing vehicles."

"Unless Judy Hannity was a victim of opportunity," Dallis said, fixing her lip between her teeth.

"What, you think the first shooting was spontaneous?" Morgan turned to her curiously.

Her shoulders jerked in an uncertain shrug. "We know what he's capable of when he plans ahead. No doubt he's got a specific type of victim he's hunting, but everything about Judy Hannity is uncalculated. He got lucky, the risk paid off, but I don't think he got in his car with the intention to commit murder."

"And if I'm not planning to commit a crime," continued Hotch, nodding to himself. "Why not drive my own vehicle?"

"So the SUV is his actual car," Emily muttered. "But then, why did he have a gun in the SUV if wasn't planning to commit murder?"

"And what happened to make him pull that first trigger?"

They had too many questions and only one way to answer them.

Dallis turned to Hotch for approval, though she knew before asking that he would agree. "We need to re-interview the first victim."

It was decided that Dallis would accompany Hotch, leaving Emily and Morgan to rejoin Rossi and Reid as they waited for Todd's press conference. The hospital was nearby and bustling with life. With a flash of their badges, a nurse clearly in the middle of her rounds briefly stopped to direct them to Judy Hannity's room, then she disappeared into the next room in a blur of blue scrubs and medical equipment.

In contrast to the chaos happening in the hallways, Judy Hannity's set-up was quiet. She laid in bed with her eyes closed. A bandage covered one side of her head, a sling had her left arm balanced across her torso and a blood-pressure cuff remained wrapped around her other bicep. She cracked her eyes open at the sound of the door creaking but was met with the sight of her teenage son's back when he stood quickly, hands bunching into fists that he stuffed into his hoodie pockets.

"Ms Hannity, I'm Agent Aaron Hotchner and this is Agent Dallis Cohen," Hotch introduced them both. "We're from the FBI."

"She already told the police everything she can remember," her son protested, but he was quickly silenced by the sound of Judy's croaky voice.

"Rick, it's okay," she promised, making his shoulders slump.

Sharing a brief look with Hotch, whose only change in expression was a slight raise of his eyebrow, Dallis knew it would be her job to distract Rick while Hotch asked Judy the confronting questions. "Rick, is it? Why don't you wait outside with me? It won't be long."

He fell into step beside her without another word. When Dallis shut the door behind them, Rick lingered next to its window, gazing sorrowfully at the state of his mother. Dallis recalled that Judy Hannity was divorced and that she only had one child. She couldn't imagine how scared he really was. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot. His bottom lip trembled until he noticed that Dallis was observing him. She tried her best to keep her smile soft and reassuring, aware that her sympathy might not be wanted when he forced his expression into something cold and neutral.

"Have you seen accidents like this before?" he asked.

"A few," she nodded.

"And do people recover?" Will my mum recover?

Dallis was quiet for a moment, carefully choosing the right words. "The doctors say she has a good chance. But the road to recovery is always long, Rick. She'll need your support."

Rick bowed his head. His blonde hair was dishevelled, the front of his polo shirt wrinkled. His own well-being was the last thing on his mind. When he spoke, Dallis had to lean in to catch the strained whisper. "It's my fault."

"No," she denied immediately. "This is no one's fault but the man who made the choice to shoot your mother."

"I got in trouble at school," he exclaimed, the words and tears spilling over faster than he could breathe. His chest started to rise and fall with each frantic gasp. Dallis rested a hand on his shoulder, angling him away from the window so that Judy -- who was looking back and forth between the hallway and Hotch -- wouldn't be distressed. "She was on her way there. She shouldn't have even been in her car."

"You couldn't have known this was going to happen," Dallis said firmly.

Rick continued to sniffle into the collar of his shirt while Dallis consoled him, but her mind was also racing with possibilities. She pictured Judy in her car, rushing to pick up her son. In the wrong place at the wrong time. She'd need to confirm her theories with Hotch, who was starting to wrap up his interview with Judy and was approaching the door, but Dallis' heart had sunk to her stomach with her suspicions.

"Is she okay?" Rick immediately turned his attention to Hotch, blinking until his eyes were no longer glossy.

"She says you've been taking very good care of her," said Hotch, and a tentative smile tugged at the corner of Rick's mouth.

He turned to Dallis one last time, whispering a bashful 'thank you' as she mirrored his smile and let her hand drop from his shoulder. He stepped past Hotch and dutifully returned to hold his mum's hand. As soon as the door was shut and Dallis knew any lingering whisper of their voices would be drowned out by the persistent sound of various medical alarms, she rounded on Hotch.

"What did she say?"

"She made it personal."

Dallis sighed. "I thought so."

They set off down the hallway, filling each other in on what they'd learned.

"Rick says she was in a hurry to get him from school," Dallis said. "This was a road-rage incident, then?"

"A victim of opportunity," confirmed Hotch, recalling what Dallis had previously claimed back at the Sheriff's Department. "She said he 'drove like an old lady' and called him, to sum it up, over-emotional. He didn't get a chance to talk before she drove away."

"And when he caught up with her again..."

"He decided to prove her wrong."

As they entered the warmth of the parking lot, Hotch handed Dallis the keys in a silent order for her to drive. She complied without thought, listening vaguely as he called to update the others on their pending return. The radio was low, playing some country station that neither of them were listening to, but Dallis sat to attention when he hung up the phone and switched the radio off altogether. The silence was charged with an undertone of tension. Dallis had a feeling she knew what he was about to say. She glanced at the GPS in a desperate plea for an escape but found they still had several minutes left of their car ride.

"Cohen, I need to talk to you about what I saw this morning."

"Do we have to?' she asked with a sheepish smile. Hotch's expression remained stern and a lump formed in Dallis' throat. "Nevermind."

Her skin prickled beneath the weight of her anxiety, leaving her feeling raw and exposed. She wanted to sink into the chair, hide away from the piercing heat of Hotch's gaze, but he wouldn't let her. At that moment, he was her boss, not her friend. Dallis braced herself for what he would say.

"I'm not sure what I walked in on between you and Dave," he said carefully. "And I don't want you to say anything, alright? But I need you to know that the professional atmosphere of this team will always take first priority. If nothing is going to come of this, I need you to make sure it's ended now."

Dallis was quiet for a while, biting down the instinctive rush of reassurances she wanted to give her friend, not her boss. That she'd never hurt Rossi. That she cared for him enough to love him someday. Things, she was sure, Hotch already knew. But he needed something tangible going forward that would protect themselves and everyone else.

"You don't want me to say anything?" she confirmed. Hotch nodded. "Then I won't. But I hear you, Hotch. I won't put the team at risk."

"Good."

They found everyone except Reid pouring over files. They'd dragged Morgan's whiteboard into a separate room, allowing them to brainstorm with privacy. Dallis caught a glimpse of Reid across the hallway with Detective Salinas but with her brain spinning around in circles, she soon forgot to question his absence. She held her hand out to Morgan wordlessly, muttering a vague 'thank you' when he passed her a bright red marker. She got to work on a new list of identifiers to join the ones Morgan had already written.

"So we've got something?" asked Morgan as he watched over her shoulder, his hands resting loosely on his hips.

Non-threatening. Personal. Emotional. Identity.

Hotch spoke up when Dallis didn't. "Judith Hannity said that he shot her after she challenged him personally. Before that, he was almost apologetic."

The others didn't have the chance to question them further. Reid burst into the room, wide-eyed and eager, his arms overflowing with a detailed map of the city. He wasted no time before informing them of what he'd discovered, his voice rising in a passionate pitch that Dallis struggled at first to follow, still somewhat consumed by her list. She turned her head when Reid's hands slammed against the table, fighting to smooth down the corners of his map.

"Out of the thirty road work sites in the kill zone, only two were alternate merges, both less than three miles from the crime scene."

"Alternate merges?" Emily frowned.

"Multiple lanes tunneled down to one," he said. "One car per lane alternating at the driver's discretion."

"These sites allow him to set up the confrontation," Morgan remarked, slowly piecing together what Reid had picked up on.

"A guy who follows the rules may lash out once," muttered Rossi, whose shoulder was firmly pressed against Dallis' as they stood side-by-side. "But to do it again, he'd need similar provocation."

"So he seeks out alternate merge sites," Hotch said. "And he goes through them over and over again until he finds a woman that fits his victim type, who cuts him off."

Emily blew out a sharp breath, scanning the bright red circles Reid had put around each merging site. "So we shut down every alternate merging site in the county immediately."

Morgan nodded. "And we need to talk to the crews that work these sites."

Salinas -- who Dallis hadn't noticed following Reid into the room -- stepped aside to let Emily start making calls in the hallway. She slipped into the empty space on Dallis' left, her brows furrowed in confusion. "So, what does all this tell you?"

"Impersonal killers are like drug addicts," declared Hotch. "The first time gives them the ultimate high and after that, no high is as good. Unfortunately, the addict doesn't know that. He will chase that high to the gates of insanity and death."

"By now, killing is all our unsub thinks about," Dallis added. "He's meticulous to the point of obsessive in his planning, setting up the exact same situation again and again in the hopes he'd get the same sense of satisfaction that Judy Hannity gave him."

"He'll begin to think he's doing it wrong. He becomes obsessed with improving his skills, honing his MO, and tailoring his weapon to his deadly purpose. He figures that if he gets them all just right, if he can get his technique and his tools perfected, he'll feel that first high again."

"He's becoming a more lethal addict," Dallis said grimly, subconsciously turning the red marker over and over in her hand. "And he'll never accept that the high is gone and it's not coming back. He's going to take out anyone or anything that tries to stop him."

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A/N: This is dedicated to obliviates, my unofficial editor and the creator of this gorgeous banner! Dallis is back y'all, let's see how long it lasts hehe