" Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. "

— Helen Keller

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17.1 ; AFTERMATH.

IN THE QUIET OFFICE, CAROLINE sat at the small kitchenette table with her eyes focused on the mug in front of her. She watched as the packet of sugar she had poured began to dissolve as she stirred her coffee. She knew it wasn't the best idea to drink coffee at night, but she had no other ideas. She still had paperwork to file from her last case and she needed to write up a profile for a local police station in Colorado. She couldn't do that if she was dead on her feet.

"Doesn't anybody ever go home?" She heard Gideon ask. She glanced up and took a sip from her coffee.

"You're here," she replied. Across from her, Elle snickered.

Caroline looked over at her friend and couldn't help but smile a little. Elle's return to the BAU had been recent but welcomed, even if she had thought it was a little too soon. It was nice to have her back, to have a girl to talk to on a case besides JJ. 

Despite the events a couple of months ago, Elle was doing well. She had cut her hair into a short bob that Caroline thought she absolutely rocked and had started taking boxing lessons. She was even eager to get back to work—jumping into every case they had with everything she has. However, Caroline knew there was a difference between what a person shows versus what they feel inside. It was a skill—mastering the balance between the two—that she knew all too well.

"Exactly," Gideon quipped as he opened the refrigerator. "Trust me, you don't want to model your social life around mine."

JJ rested her hip against the counter as Spencer slid into the chair next to Caroline, his own coffee in hand. "If it makes you feel any better," the press liaison commented, "Hotch and Morgan took off."

"Hotch is married," Reid said as he sipped his coffee, the stem from the drink fogging up his glasses. "And Morgan's, you know, Morgan."

JJ reached across the table and handed the file in her hands to Gideon. The older profiler began to flip through it as he asked, "What's this?"

"Police in Dayton, Ohio need our help with a serial rapist."

Elle leaned forward, pressing her elbows on her knees. "What's the story?"

"Three months ago, he raped five students at a small bible college. Roughly, an attack a week, then suddenly nothing," JJ explained. "Until nine days ago when he suddenly reappeared with a whole new victim pattern. His two newest victims are both in their thirties. They were raped about five days apart."

"Where have the new attacks taken place?" Gideon asked.

"Opposite ends of the city. He was waiting for them when they got home."

Caroline cleared her throat. "How do we know it's the same guy?"

"He leaves voice mails for them," JJ answered.

"Freezing them with fear before they even see him," Spencer mused. 

Gideon turned to JJ. "They don't recognize the voice?"

She shook her head. "No. Cops even have DNA, but it's not in the system."

"Why would someone attacking college students suddenly change victim preference?" Caroline asked with a frown. "Serial rapists hardly ever change victimology once it's established. It's usually based on a very specific fantasy." 

"Maybe he's telling these women that no one's safe," Elle muttered. She glanced over at her coworker. Her eyes were focused on her hands in her lap, picking at an invisible hangnail. A swift wave of worry passed over her. 

Before she could ask Elle what she meant, JJ was calling Morgan and Hotch. They had been cleared to leave for Dayton.

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

The BAU boarded the jet an hour before dawn. Caroline sat in her plush leather seat and rubbed her eyes warily as she stared out the window. The sun had risen a little over twenty minutes ago. IN her opinion, the view was worth the lack of sleep.

The yellow sun bloomed on the horizon, filling the sky with shades of orange and pink. She admired the peach sky with whispy amber clouds. It was the scenery that radiated hope. The start of a brand new day.

However, despite the soft rose light falling into the plane, the mood didn't lighten. She had forgotten what it felt like—to be on a case where the victims are still alive. It felt like everyone on the plane had a different mindset, wondering about different things. 

Beside her, Spencer was reading the case file for the fifth time. She rested her head against the seat and watched his eyes dart over the page, flicking so fast she could hardly keep up. She admired the small crease between his brows, the kind he only got when he was concentrating so hard his eyebrows were furrowed. The new glasses that he had started wearing recently were perched on the edge of his nose. He stared through them as an old librarian would, squinting and peering over the lens. A giggle escaped her lips.

He glanced over at her from the corner of his eye. "What?"

"Nothing."

"You laughed at nothing?"

"No, I laughed at you." She reached over and gently pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. "You look like a grandma when you wear your glasses like that."

He shrugged as a slight pink dusted his cheeks. "It's comfortable."

"Okay." She turned in her chair and whispered, "Nerd."

He leaned back in his seat, his eyes turning back to the file. "I heard that."

"You were supposed to."

"Mm-hm."

"Okay, we got new information on last night's victim," JJ announced as she walked out of the cockpit. She held up a black and white photo of a middle-aged woman. "Alicia Jordan, thirty-eight. M.O. is the same. He was waiting for her to get home, he broke in through the back, subdues her with a gun."

Hotch frowned. "Answering machine?"

"Left a message about an hour or so before," JJ answered. She sighed and shook her head. "I can't imagine being taunted like that in my own house, you know?"

Caroline stared at the newest victim's photo now in Gideon's hands. She was smiling at the camera, the corners of her eyes crinkled in a show of true joy. It was a nice photo, to see her smiling. She probably wouldn't smile like that for a while.

"Well, the messages aren't taunts," Gideon said. "They're overtures. 'I think we're ready, trust me.' He's being sincere."

"Sounds like we're dealing with a power reassurance rapist," Morgan commented.

"To him the messages are courtships," Spencer said. "He's introducing himself to the victims."

"If that's the case, he must've stalked them to know so much about their lives," Caroline remarked. "The first victims were all college students, all religious. Why would he change victimology?"

Morgan shrugged and asked, "Have the police found any connection between the latest victims?"

JJ shook her head. "No, nothing yet."

Caroline turned her head and stared out the window. No connections mean no leads for them to follow. Power reassurance rapists don't just change overnight, especially with their preferences. That only left them with one real option left.

They have to figure out what made him change victimology.

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The church bells tolled as Caroline stepped out into the bright afternoon sun. She took a moment to watch the college students socialize the bustling campus. Some students loitered out in the courtyard, enjoying the pleasantly warm weather, while others headed to their next class. It was just a normal day at a normal college. It seemed hard to imagine something so horrific as serial rape to happen on the idyllic campus.

 The moment the team landed in Dayton, Hotch had sent her to meet Maggie Callahan, the lead detective on the case, at Holy Trinity University to interview on of the unsub's past victims—Cheryl Cosgrove. She had only spoken with Detective Callahan in passing, but she could tell she genuinely cared about catching the bastard who ruined so many lives.  To her, that was all that really mattered.

As the two women walked along the stone path with Cheryl, a mousy young girl with short red hair, she said, "When the attacks first started, they put guards on all the campus gates on campus. But that man still somehow got in the dorm rooms."

Caroline slipped her hands into her jacket pockets. "Had you noticed anyone new on campus?"

Cheryl sighed as she turned to Detective Callahan. "We've already talked about this."

"I know it's hard," the detective said, "but sometimes it helps to go through it."

"Maybe it was somebody quiet," Caroline said, her voice gentle. "Someone who seemed like he was always just a little too close."

Cheryl shook her head. "I don't think so."

"What about anyone that's suddenly not around anymore?"

"Before that man did what he did, he told me I should get a dog for protection. And then he said, 'Or maybe you can let your parents have Dexter stay with you'."

"Have there been any men in your life that you may have told about the family dog?" Detective Callahan asked.

A slight blush crept up on Cheryl's cheeks. "I. . .I don't have any experience with boys." 

She watched as the young girl wrapped her arms around her mid-section, her nails digging into her side. The distress was clear on her face. Caroline gestured towards the bench behind them. "Would you like to rest for a moment?"

The young girl nodded and slumped down on the bench, her arms crossed over her chest. Her back slouched as if she was curling into an invisible shell that she couldn't see. She carefully sat beside the girl as Detective Callahan remained standing on the opposite side of the bench. Caroline placed a reassuring hand on the young girl's shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Cheryl said. "It's hard to focus sometimes."

Detective Callahan nodded with an understanding smile. "I know."

"The police all act like just because he didn't kill you, he didn't somehow end your life."

Caroline understood that sentiment all too well. After all the bruises, cracked ribs, and internal damage her attacker had left her with, the doctors had told her she was lucky to be alive. She'll never forget that word—lucky. She hadn't felt very lucky as she was poked and prodded and examined. She had just felt empty.

"Did you take my advice and talk to someone?" The detective asked.

"There's always a priest available on campus."

"I mean a woman."

"I—I don't know. Maybe that would be good." Cheryl turned away from the detective and looked out on the campus. She watched a couple of fellow students walk by, laughing and smiling. She shook her head as a frown set on her face. "So many lives have been ruined here. When I went to the doctor, he said that my injuries were minor."

"And you think if they were somehow worse, it would be better?" Caroline asked.

Her breath caught as a tear escaped her eyes and streamed down her cheek. "I don't know."

"Look at me." Cheryl glanced over at her, her eyes shining with tears. She held her hand in hers. "Someone hands over a wallet at gunpoint, everyone thinks that's the best thing to do. You did what you had to do to survive. Don't let anyone tell you differently. All right?"

She nodded as the tears started to fall down her cheeks, her breaths becoming desperate gasps for air. She pulled the girl into her arms as she started to sob into her chest. She felt her tears soaking her shirt as she pressed her hand on her head, holding her. She trembled in her arms.

She whispered reassurances in Cheryl's ear as she cried in her arms, petting her hair. She would hold the girl as long as she wanted, even if it destroyed her shirt or night fell before she got to move. 

She would stay as long as the girl needed her to.

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"What are you thinking?"

Caroline glanced over at Spencer laying across the motel bed, his arms crossed behind his head. "There's something I can't get out of my head."

He sat up, his brow furrowed. "What?"

She uncrossed her legs and walked up the small wooden mirror on the other side of the room. Earlier in the night, she had taped up the pictures of the victims. She had thought to be able to look at their pictures, to say their names, would make her feel better, but it hadn't. She brushed her fingers over Cheryl's picture and sighed. 

"On-campus today, Cheryl said so many lives had been ruined."

"Yeah?"

"Only twenty percent of rapes are even reported."

"Do you think there are more victims out there?"

Caroline sighed. "It's a Catholic school, the percentages are bound to hold, maybe even drop some."

Spencer sat up, his eyes wide. "The unsub committed a rape that never got reported."

"Exactly. Something made him change victims." She turned to look back at the photos of the unsub's known victims. "Maybe he almost got caught or he's religious and felt guilty. There has to be something here."

"Care, you're a genius."

She let out a weak laugh. "Oh, I wouldn't say that. I just know how these girls are thinking, what they are feeling."

She stared at Spencer through the mirror for a split second before averting her eyes. Stupid. She shouldn't have said anything, shouldn't have brought it up.

It was silent for a moment before she heard, "I'm sorry."

She turned to face him, her mouth pulled down into a small frown. "Why are you sorry?"

"Because I know this case is hard for you."

"It's hard for all of us."

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

She sighed as she plopped down on the bed beside him. "Yeah, I know."

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

She shook her head. "No, not really. I'll feel a whole lot better once we find this guy."

Spencer didn't say anything as she laid her back flat against the bed. He twisted his torso to face her, his weight leaning on his arms as he eased himself beside her. 

"Something else is bothering you."

"What? No, I'm fine."

"I know you better than that." He turned on his side to face her, his brown eyes boring into hers. "What's up?"

She rolled on her side and faced him, her eyes focused on the messy knot of his tie. He didn't say anything as she reached for it, her fingers gently brushing over the silk fabric.

He watched her fingers for a moment before she finally said, "I'm worried about Elle."

His eyebrows furrowed. "Elle? Why?"

"She's been different ever since she's gotten back, but today just seemed worse than usual." She looked up at him. "How did she seem at the hospital?"

He shrugged a little. "A little tense, maybe. I chalked that up to talking to the newest rape victim though."

"And how did that go?"

He let out a tired sigh. "It was rough. The victim was pretty upset, but Elle did fine."

"Yeah, she did fine. She's okay."

"She's okay."

"Yeah."

Spencer gave her a small smile. "You don't feel any better, do you?"

She sighed and buried her face in the comforter. "No."

With a quiet grunt, Caroline rolled out of the bed. Spencer sat up and watched her start to take down the photos of the victims taped to the mirror. 

"What are you doing?"

Once she had finished taking them down, she set them together in a neat pile before turning to face him. "I'm going to go talk to Elle."

Whether Spencer thought that was a good idea or not, she didn't know. Before he could reply, she was out the door and halfway down the hall. She headed all the way to the end of the hall to Elle's. That was something else she had found odd—Elle had taken a room on the hall farthest from the team, which also just so happened to be the closest to the emergency exit.

When she finally reached the end of the hall, she froze. Never had a hotel door seemed so intimidating before. Caroline stared at the chipped white paint the golden-rimmed peep-hole, and the peeling striped wallpaper with her fist outstretched, hovering near the door. Through her thin socks, her toes dug into the coarse, cheap hotel carpet. 

She lowered her hand.

Elle had a kind of brutal honesty that tested most people, but she appreciated it. She was used to people walking on eggshells around her but Elle didn't. She always knew where she stood with her. It was refreshing to have someone be starkly honest without fear of repercussions.

Elle had always been honest with her, so she was going to return the favor. 

Caroline took a deep breath before rapping her knuckles against the door. She heard the sound of glass clinking together and quick footsteps before the door opened. Elle stood still in the doorway, her eyebrows furrowed together.

"Hey," Caroline greeted as she stuffed her hands in the pockets of her flannel pajama bottoms.

Elle's eyes raked over her attire and a small smile appeared at the corners of her mouth. "Hi."

"Sorry about this." She gestured to her yellow and blue checkered pajamas. "I was just discussing the case with Reid and I was just thinking—well, it doesn't really matter what I was thinking. Anyway, I just wanted to talk."

"About what?"

She dug her heels further down into the carpet as if she were steeling herself. "Are you okay?"

Elle's eyes narrowed slightly. "Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, it's not that you wouldn't be. I just—" She sighed as she tucked her hands under her arms. "Do you mind if I come in? I feel really weird standing out here in my pj's."

Elle didn't say a word as she stepped out of the doorway, letting Caroline slip inside. Once inside, she shut the door behind them and deadbolted it shut. The brunette brushed past her standing idly by the door to reach for a small glass bottle of alcohol from the mini-bar.

Elle must have seen the apprehensive look on her face because she said, "You want to check my I.D.?"

She shook her head as her friend sat down at the small, beaten-up table in the corner. She twisted open the cap and began pouring the clear liquid into the glass in front of her. 

It was deadly silent in the room. All Caroline could hear was the sound of the ice tapping against Elle's glass as she drank. However, her eyes never left Caroline near the door.

She had to say something. The way Elle was watching her was unnerving and she had a feeling the longer she stayed here, the worse it would get. She just had to rip off the bandaid and get it out in the open.

"I thought maybe...you might wanna talk?"

The brunette set her drink on the table and scoffed. "Don't go all profiler on me."

"Elle, you got shot in your own home, and then came back to the BAU like nothing ever happened. Thinking you might want to talk isn't profiling." She gave her a tiny shrug of her shoulders. "It's called 'been there, done that, and got the t-shirt'."

"What?"

"It's something my dad used to say, he'd always—" Caroline shook her head. "Nevermind, that doesn't matter. I'm just saying I know I wish I had talked to someone about how I felt after my parents and brother died."

Elle didn't say anything. She raised her glass to her lips and took another deep swig.

"Please?"

She looked up at her. Caroline attempted her best puppy-dog eyes and she let out a deep sigh as she set her glass on the table. "Damn, you're good."

She allowed a small smile to creep up on her lips as she sat down across from Elle. The brunette offered her one of the small bottles of alcohol and she took it, cracking open the cap and pouring it into her own glass.

Elle stared down at the table as she fixed herself a glass. A moment of silence passed before she took a deep breath and said, "After he shot me, he reached into my wound so he could write on the wall in my blood. I was barely conscious, but I could feel his hand in there...and sometimes, it's like I can still feel it."

Caroline set her glass to the side. She never had much use for alcohol, anyway.

"Elle, he's dead. You're...you're right here. You came back from what he did to you. You won."

She smiled at her. It was small and a little weak, but it was still a smile. Elle cleared her throat as she held her glass up to Caroline.

"Then here's to winning."

She tapped Elle's glass with her own. She watched as her friend downed the rest of her drink before taking a small sip of her own.

"Yeah," she murmured. "To winning."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

The next morning, Caroline went straight to work on her theory while the team delivered the profile. The files she had requested from Holy Trinity had come in not long after she did and once she got her hands on them, she wasn't going to stop until she found something.

After reading about a couple of vandalism cases and a few cases of public intoxication, she had found something suspicious. During when the attacks at Holy Trinity stopped, a young girl named Shelly Norvell committed suicide. Nothing much was reported on it, but it seemed odd that her suicide corresponded exactly with when the campus attacks stopped. It wasn't much, but it was something.

After a visit to the parents' house, they learned that it was more than just a coincidence. In the suicide note Shelly left to her parents, she admitted not only that she had been raped, but that she was pregnant with the unsub's baby. 

The unsub was a power-reassurance rapist and he saw these rapes as "relationships". In his eyes, Shelly killed their baby. It was his stressor.

Upon re-questioning the newest victims, the pattern became clear. All three women had visited a fertility clinic to talk about artificial insemination—the same clinic.  At first, the unsub had targeted young, religious women who he assumed wouldn't want an abortion. After Shelly's suicide, he decided to go after women who were desperate to get pregnant. 

He was trying to start his own demented family.

Once they took a trip to the Dayton Heights Fertility Clinic, they discovered a questionnaire that the clinic made each woman fill out with all the same things the unsub knew about the latest victims. The clinic sold the questionnaires to a direct marketing company called First Hand Media.

This lead Caroline to where she was now—standing in a small, cramped office that distinctly smelled of roast beef. With her arms crossed across her chest, she stared out the blinds and watched the employees of First Hand Media working outside, rushing around and talking on their headsets. 

It was unnerving to think that the man who caused so much pain was only separated from her by less than an inch of glass.

The office manager, a short, squatty man with a sharp nose, stared at the FBI agents in front of him, his eyes narrowed. "You really think this rapist is one of my guys?"

"Well, he's used to being in strangers' homes, always on the phone. That's how he's confident. " Gideon tore his eyes from the room full of employees on the other side of the window to face the manager. "Thanks to your research, he feels like he knows these women."

"Can you create a list of any employees you have that worked in a fertility clinic and university questionnaires?" Spencer asked the manager, rocking back on his heels. Unlike Caroline and Gideon, the young doctor seemed uncomfortable looking out the window to the office.

"I give every employee complete access to all of our materials. It helps  keep them fresh if they can alternate between types of calls."

Gideon frowned. "So I fill out my intimate personal information and then you just share it with everyone you have working here for minimum wage?"

The office manager turned to Gideon and crossed his arms. "I sense an attitude."

"We need copies of every single questionnaire that you got from the clinic," Caroline said.

 The manager looked over at her reluctantly, his arms not moving from his chest. She shrugged.

"Fine. We can get a warrant here in about an hour in you prefer that instead."

"Look," the manager huffed, "if you think about it, all I'm doing is profiling, just like you guys."

She scoffed. "Well, let's not think about it."

She heard Spencer's sharp intake of breath from trying to stifle a laugh. The man stared at her for a moment before letting out a resigned sigh. He turned to the filing cabinet behind him, opened a drawer, and stuffed all the files from the drawer into a cardboard box. He then shoved it into Spencer's arms.

The young doctor blinked at the mound of files. "All these?

"We cover the entire Great Lakes region."

"Let's narrow it down. The guy we're looking for is a male, white between the ages of twenty and forty, socially awkward, unable to make connections easily."

The office manager sighed and gestured to the workspace behind the window. "I have two hundred and fifty employees. Most of those are men and every single one of them matches the description you just gave me."

Caroline looked at the box of files in Spencer's arms and let out a soft sigh. "I guess we have two hundred and fifty files to read then."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

"Wow." Caroline glanced up from the file in her lap. Derek stood in the doorway, coffee in hand, focusing on the stacks of files strewn across the table. "I heard you ran into a wall of paper."

She scoffed. "You can say that again." 

"You can lock your doors, but these people still find a way into your home," Hotch said in response before turning to Elle, who was sitting across from Caroline with her own stack of files. "Elle, it might be worth going back to the victims. It's a long shot, but maybe somebody remembers a first name from a telemarketing call."

She nodded as she started gathering up her things. "Yeah, the unsub feels a connection with them, right? So, he wouldn't lie or use an alias."

Once she had her jacket, Elle slipped out of the room and into the precinct. Derek took a sip of his coffee before saying, "We know this guy's DNA is not in the system, but I'll cross-check employment records against sexual misdemeanors: peeping, exposure."

Hotch nodded without looking up from his file. "Good."

Once Derek left, Caroline tossed the file in her lap and reached for her one while Spencer finished the last half of his pile. She shook her head incredulously.

Sometimes, she forgets the team has their own walking, talking computer that can read 20,000 words per minute. 

The young doctor patted the stack of files to his right and handed Caroline half of it. "I separated the Dayton forms from the rest of the region.

She blinked at the growing stacks of paper in front of her before shaking her head, steeling herself, and throwing herself back into the thick of it.

"So, what do we know from the latest set of victims?" Hotch asked after a few minutes of silent reading.

She sighed. "They're all single and all over thirty-five."

"Each of them also indicated recently buying books on babies and children rearing," Spencer added.

"So he knows they're committed to having children, which means they're much less likely to abort, even in the cases of rape," Hotch surmised.

Caroline frowned at the file in front of her. "Huh."

Spencer glanced over at her. "What?

"Each of the victims also checked the yes box when asked if it would be okay to contact them on special deals on pediatric items."

"In the unsub's mind, they've consented," the young doctor said, shaking his head. "He thinks he's doing them a service."

She couldn't help but shutter. Doing them a service? How could breaking into these women's homes and raping them be considered helping?

Hotch nodded towards the files on the table as he reached for his own pile. "Check those forms for each of those elements. If we can narrow it down to a potential list of victims, we can be waiting for him."

Now that she had something specific to look for, Caroline went through her stack much faster than before. Out of the corner of her eye, Spencer kept flipping over paper after paper. He turned them over so fast it didn't look like he was even looking at them, but she knew better.

After a while, Hotch asked, "Any hits?"

Caroline held up the questionnaire she just finished skimming. "Got one."

"Reid?"

"Nothing."

Hotch stopped searching as she frowned, her brows furrowing together. She looked down at the questionnaire in her hands. "It's the only one?"

"It's a small city," Spencer reasoned. "There can't be very many single women in their late thirties going to the exact same fertility clinic."

Caroline handed the questionnaire to Hotch, his eyes darting across the page. Once he finished, he looked up at the two of them.

"We know who he's going after next."

➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴ ➴

addy here.

sorry for the long update! a lot's been happening lately with covid-19 and online classes so finding time to write has been a challenge. hopefully, though i've gotten into a schedule and can start writing more :)

i love you guys!

p.s. pls talk to me i'm going NUTS during self-quarintine.