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𝑬 𝑽 𝑬 𝑹 𝑮 𝑹 𝑬 𝑬 𝑵
❝ 𝚙𝚎𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚊𝚖𝚎𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚕𝚏 ❞

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ㅤ"'𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐁𝐄 𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐄'?" Derek repeated, looking at May.

She looked back at him. "'Leave the blade'..." Slowly, it dawned on her. "Is this guy actually serious?"

"Why? What's going on?" Elle asked.

It was Hotch who answered. "The bed's in the middle of the room."

"Which isn't by chance," Derek commented, earning him a nod from both May and Hotch.

"And maybe the light from there," Hotch gestured to the window, "casts a shadow and points to something."

Elle straightened. "Come on, are we in the middle of an Indiana Jones movie?"

"'The hour be none'?" Hotch repeated the etched words, looking at May again, knowing her medieval interests. But she had turned away, facing the wall. 'None' sounded so familiar to her, but she couldn't put a finger on it. While the others continued to spout ideas, she tried to remember what she knew about medieval...anything.

That's when Spencer finally made his appearance. "3PM. Hey guys. Garcia told me where to find you."

"3PM?" Gideon wondered.

"It's medieval. The days used to be broken into hourly intervals. The--"

"The canonical hours of the breviary!" May exclaimed, finally facing her best friend and rushing to give him a hug. "Now I remember! Thank you, Spencer Reid. And your beautiful brain!"

Spencer chuckled as he hugged her back. "I missed you too, May."

"So what does it mean?" Gideon quickly interjected.

"Prime, 6AM. Terce, 9AM," Spencer listed, releasing May from his hug and lazily draping an arm around her shoulders, leaning against her. "Sext, 12 noon. None, 3PM and Vespers, 6PM."

"The others are lauds, 3AM; matins at midnight. There's also compline, right before bed, the hour of vigil," May added. "It stems from religion, the hours of which you're supposed to pray."

Elle couldn't help but laugh a little. "Reid, do not ever go away again. I swear, when you and May work together, miracles happen."

"Medieval, that's why the language changed," Gideon realized. "Doth."

"Keeps coming back to medieval," May stated, sharing a look with Hotch. "The sword, too."

Hotch nodded. "Everything this guy does is a clue."

"Okay, but guys, it's 4:35," Derek pointed out. "What do we do? Leave the blade until 3PM tomorrow?"

The Wonder Twins shook their heads in unison, and Spencer took the lead as he spoke up, "Not if we can block that window."

Much to May's slight amusement at how insane this case has become—making her imagine the team as the Mystery Incorporated more than an actual team of FBI agents—they used the shadow of the blade to find a hollow panel in the walls. Derek tore it open, and inside's a wooden box.

"Take it out," Hotch commanded.

"Oh wait, are we sure it's safe?" Spencer frowned from his crouched position on the floor. Beside him was May, who was nonchalantly sat cross-legged while twirling her little switch blade so that her hands had something to do.

"What, you think it's a bomb? You think he'd be playing this game just to blow us up?"

"He'd have already done that as long as we're standing here," Derek pointed out.

Spencer sighed and shook his head, looking at his best friend. He was quickly enamored by her quick movements and the way her fingers danced across the steel. Then he got up and offered his hand to her as Derek placed the box on a table. May accepted Spencer's hand and pulled herself up, then positioned him to stand behind her as they walked towards their new discovery.

The genius realized that May took note of his anxiety and purposely kept him behind her as if to shield him. He couldn't help but smile softly.

Derek fiddled with the box before looking at Hotch. "It's locked. You want me to break it?"

"No, we should process it first," Hotch shook his head.

Gideon looked deep in thought as he uttered, "'The youngest holds the key'."

Everyone turned to look at Spencer then, and they all watched as he checked all his pockets before finally finding the key that's been mailed to him. They let him unlock it and observed with rapt attention as the box slowly opened.

It was silent for a few moments as the music flowed from the box.

Spencer's eyes shot towards May. "Prokofiev."

She nodded. "Peter and the Wolf. That's...weird."

"How so?" Hotch asked.

"Well, it's not exactly something you'd usually hear from a music box. It's an odd choice," she frowned. "And it's a story."

"About?"

Spencer sucked in a breath. "Man over nature. In the story, Peter...Peter tames the wolf."

"I assure you, you will all understand in the end why it must be this way," the man, whoever he was, spoke to the camera. "You might even thank me."

"Don't hold your breath, scumbag," Elle muttered from beside May. All of them were situated around a table, eyes focused on the TV in front of them as the video from the CD they found in the box played. The entire room was silent, but May more so. She'd been tense since Prokofiev's piece played softly from the box, and only Spencer and Hotch knew why. Sadly, the two didn't have the time to discuss, as the proof that there really was a girl to save, took their attention.

"You know now you're on a quest," the unsub continued, "a young girl's life depends on the successful completion of it. As you can see," clips of the poor girl was suddenly shown, "she is quite beautiful and in distress. Now please listen closely, for there is one rule and this rule must be followed. The one rule is, only the members of your team may participate in the quest: Jason Gideon, Aaron Hotchner, Derek Morgan, Elle Greenaway, Accalia Black, Spencer Reid, Jennifer Jareau, Penelope Garcia." Every time a member's name was spoken, images of them flashed on the screen.

May's eyes widened when her picture was shown. It was a picture of when she arrived back to DC from her trip to La Push. She specifically remembered this moment because of a certain memory that seemed to linger in the back of her mind.

Odors are known to trigger memories better than other senses. It is because the nerve in charge of the sense of smell—the olfactory nerve—directly sends signals to the limbic system, rather than go through the thalamus like the other senses. And because the signals are immediately sent to the limbic system, all information is directly linked to the amygdala and the hippocampus. The latter, of course, is crucial for memory formation.

And in this instance, as soon as May activated her memory of this night, there was one thing that she can never forget: the smell of burning flesh.

"A quest must be completed in the proper way or it isn't a quest, is it? That's it. One rule. Simple. Now, you will be receiving an item soon that will hold the final clue you will need to finish the quest. You'll find you will also need a book which has inspired many an adventure like mine. Believe me when I tell you I truly hope to see you all soon. It will mean a successful end to this adventure for all of us."

Then the screen went static.

"This guy's got pictures of us?" Elle asked rhetorically, her tone clearly showing her anger.

Spencer pinched the bridge of his nose before asking everyone, "What do we do now?"

"Well, the lock of hair's being analyzed for DNA," Hotch said. "There might be something on file."

"I'll get video to enhance the shots of the girl," JJ offered before leaving the tense room.

"Let's get the clues up on the board. Maybe we can make some sense of something."

"Wait, we're gonna play this guy's game?" Elle asked in disbelief.

"Do we have a choice?" Spencer asked her.

Eventually, the team separated. It started with Gideon, and Hotch followed after him. May then took that as her cue to take a bit of a bathroom break. She did her usual business of emptying out her bladder, but as she washed her hands in the sink afterwards, she couldn't help but stare blankly at her disheveled appearance as she faced the mirror. She even had eye bags now, because she hasn't slept in God-knows how long. She turned off the sink and dried her hands using some paper towels before focusing on her reflection.

Her shoulder-length hair—that she wants to trim...again—was dry, and her fly-aways were so visible that she looked like she got stuck in a hurricane. She hurriedly fixed her hair, wetting her hands a little as she did so that she can style it a bit. After, she washed her face. She was thankful that she had the mind to wash her face and do some skin care before she got back to Quantico, because at least her skin was still okay-ish, if not a little dry.

Taking note of her clothes, she realized that her pants were awkwardly creased in some areas. It was likely due to the fact that she couldn't really sit still when her mind was too preoccupied with other things. Her tank top was a little ruffled too, so she made sure to smooth her hands over her clothes just to make her look even a little bit presentable.

That'll do, she thought to herself, twirling around to see if she could fix anything else. When she was finally satisfied with her appearance, she walked out and back into the conference room. The three had just begun talking when she walked in, and Spencer cut himself of from saying anymore as he looked at her. He explained that Haley Hotchner had arrived with the next clues they needed.

She frowned. "Wait, she's here? How is she? How is Jack? I mean...the unsub..."

"I know," Spencer grimaced. "Hotch is with them. He's a little rattled. So he left us to figure this out."

May nodded grimly, then looked at the board where the large paper that had numbers written all over it was pasted so that it can be seen by everyone. "What is that?"

"Well, the unsub said we needed a...a book, didn't he?"

Derek looked at him. "Yeah. 'A book that inspired many an adventure'."

May sat herself beside Derek, which left Elle and Spencer standing. She looked at Spencer, then the clue, then back at Spencer again as her mind connected the dots.

"So it's a book code?" She asked, straightening her posture. She barely reacted when Derek acknowledge her by leaning a little bit in her direction, then patting his hand on her knee. But she could feel herself flush a little bit, especially when he handed her a cup of coffee without a word.

Spencer pointed at her in agreement. "Each one of these sets of numbers represents a particular word. For instance," he leaned forward and pointed at a set in the middle, "page 118, line 30, word three. We need to figure out what the words are and fill in the blanks."

Derek leaned back in disbelief, sharing a look with May who took a sip of her coffee. He looked disgruntled and it was obvious that he was just as tired as her. And Elle, the beautiful woman that she is, also looked tired and stressed, bags under her eyes. She was the one with the least amount of sleep out of all of them. Between the four, only Spencer looked presentable.

"Yeah," Elle looked at Spencer, "but from what book?"

"I don't know," Spencer said helplessly. "The trouble is, it has to be the same exact edition of the exact same book that he used."

JJ then entered the room. "Just got a DNA hit on the lock of hair. Rebecca Bryant. She's been missing out of Boston for two years."

"Two years?" Elle emphasized, taking the picture of Rebecca Bryant that JJ handed to her. The blonde could only nod. Derek took the photo next, and showed it to May. He frowned then look up at the others.

"Guys, how are we supposed to figure out which book this code was copied out of?" He wondered.

Spencer looked at him, mirroring his frown. "I have no idea."

May sighed. "This is slowly turning out to be a wild goose chase."

While Elle and Derek continued to mull over the 'clues', Spencer gestured for May to go outside with him. She followed without a word, and let him lead her to a secluded area, away from others. He had a glint of concern in his eyes, but something akin to anger was also swimming in his hazel gaze.

"What is it?" May asked as soon as they stopped. They faced each other, and both had their arms crossed.

Spencer licked his lips, eyebrows furrowed. "I think the unsub knows, May. The music. Peter and the Wolf? That was for you. It's the only clue that doesn't add up. It's the one clue that doesn't scream medieval. He knows."

May broke eye contact and looked down. "I...I know. I realized it as soon as I heard it play."

"You're in danger, May."

"I don't think I am," she shook her head. Then she met his eyes again. "Spencer, this guy is...is focused on a 'game'. It's all about 'medieval' with him, all about the 'quest'. He stalked us, that's for sure. He knows things he shouldn't. But I think him letting us know what he knows is just...that. He's just showing us that he knows things about us. That's it."

"But May, I don't like that he knows that about you," he said.

"I know. But he already knows. All we can do know is play his game. And hope that none of us gets hurt."

author's note: basically, in the original script, the piece that played from the box is the Trout Quintet — "five people fishing" according to Hotch. obvi, there's 6 of them now in that room, so it wouldn't make total sense. and since i've been looking for a way for fisher king to have a "gift" for may, i decided that that piece specifically would be replaced for her to include her in the story. and the best piece i could find to replace it was Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev. never heard it ever from a music box tho, so i made it so that the fisher king specifically had that made for her.

idk, i found that detail kinda cool. it definitely integrates may into the scene without changing too much. 

anw, i hope you guys enjoyeddd <33