"I'M AGENT KATHARINE MORGAN, SHIELD, and this is SSA Aaron Hotchner and SSA Derek Morgan, FBI," Katharine introduced themselves to the local law enforcement. Even though this investigation was fully under hers and SHIELD's jurisdiction, it had been decided that having the local police around wouldn't hurt. If anything, it would keep the attention away from the fact that it was a mutant case.

"Detective Laurent," the detective shook their hands. "Where's the rest of your team, agent?"

"Two of our members went ahead to the station while the other two went to Mrs. McHale's place of residence," Hotch answered for her.

While Spencer and JJ had gone to the station to get ahead on profiling the suspects and getting a hold of the media, Emily and Rossi had gone to Helena McHale's home in order to gain a better understanding of the relationships between the victims in the possible suspects.

That left Katharine, Hotch, and Derek free to go to the scene of the crime. Katharine was anxious to get inside the house, but formalities had to occur.

"I understand that this investigation is technically under SHIELD's jurisdiction, but Mary and Connor were outstanding members of this community. There's a lot riding on finding the person who did this," Detective Laurent mentioned, leading them inside the house.

"We understand," Katharine said. "The McHales were close friends of mine as well, so I can assure you that I'll do anything in my power to bring their killer to justice."

The detective nodded at her, expressing his gratitude to the younger woman. "If there's anything I can do, agents, just let me know."

"We will," Derek promised. "Thank you."

When the detective cleared the room, Katharine took a moment to take in the McHale household. Everything was exactly as they had left it, save for a few police markers and things that their killer had most likely taken. The bed was stripped of its bedding, leaving two rather large bloodstains in the mattress.

"Close friends?" Hotch questioned, taking in the surrounding area.

"Used to be," Katharine said, deflecting the question. "There are some things missing from their dresser."

The SHIELD operative walked closer to the mentioned furniture, pulling a singular glove onto her right hand. She picked up a picture frame, revealing a circle that was void of dust.

"The perfume that Mary wore sat here," she informed the other two in the room.

"The unsub's taking trophies?" Derek asked from the opposite end of the room.

Katharine opened one of the drawers and noticed an obvious lack of clothes. "Something like that. Half of Mary's shirts are missing."

"Any of Connor's clothes missing?" he asked.

Katharine opened up another drawer to reveal a bunch of polos and folded button-down shirts. "Doesn't look like it," Katharine bit her lip, "In fact, it doesn't look like any of Connor's possessions are missing."

"So we're looking for a crossdresser, maybe?" Derek asked, moving toward where Katharine stood.

Hotch came out of their closet, a few empty hangers in hand. "Either Mary liked keeping a bunch of empty hangers in her closet or someone's taken all of the clothes on her side of the closet."

"All of her clothes? Shoes included?" Katharine asked. If their unsub had taken literally every single article of clothing belonging to Mary, that meant that they would've had to have spent a lot of time in their home. They would have also had to know the times their check-ins with Marshal Callahan were, considering this was done the same morning they had a check-in.

"Yeah, it looks like a lot of her jewelry is missing too," Derek commented from the vanity. "None of the make-up looks to be missing though, the drawers look fully stocked and tidy."

Katharine pulled out her phone, listening to it ring once before it was picked up.

"Hub of all things genius, you've got Garcia."

"Hey, Garcia," Katharine pinched the phone in between her ear and her shoulder. She made her way back to the front of the house and approached a generic painting of fruit and took it off the wall, revealing a touch screen that lit up as she tapped the screen twice. "How good are you at hacking?"

"Depends on what you're asking for, little Morgan," came her reply. Katharine could practically hear the smirk in her voice.

"The security logs of the house are kept inside the house. Sadly, I am but a Level Eight agent and do not have access to these logs," Katharine frowned at the clearance level number that stared back at her.

"I got you, sweet thing," Garcia said. Katharine could hear the clicking of keys on the other side.

"Thank you." Katharine hung up her phone, watching as the screen lit up green and revealed the entire security thread to her. She scrolled through the logs, opening the file labeled November 28, 2014.

"The entire file was wiped," Katharine announced. "There's no evidence of anyone having entered or exited the house besides from the Marshal at nine in the morning, when he reactivated the security system."

"Are the logs from the previous days still there?" Hotch asked, coming down the stairs.

"Give me a second." Katharine took a picture of the November 28th page for later reference and clicked on the file labeled November 27, 2014. "The twenty-seventh's log is still here."

Katharine took a picture of that as well, sending both photos to Spencer's cellular. "I think we've got everything we need from the house for now," she powered down the device on the wall.

"Can you help me get the painting back up on the wall?"

Hotch grabbed one end and they got the piece of art back onto the wall. "I'll let Reid know that we're on our way to the station. Can you find Detective Laurent and let him know?"

Katharine nodded, making a mental note to call one of her contacts at SHIELD later on. Maybe the logs from the twenty-eighth could be recovered, it was bound to be swimming around somewhere on SHIELD databases.

She found the detective outside of the house, talking to a uniformed officer. She informed the man about their plans for the rest of the evening before making her way to the SUV that they had driven there in.

"You think Hotch'll let me drive?" Katharine asked, eyeing the driver's seat. It had been a while since she'd last driven. When she was on Davis's team, they didn't let her drive. Not since she drove into a wall, effectively killing their unsub. In hindsight, she'd saved them a whole lot of time but the paperwork she had to fill out afterward, well... she could've done without.

"I think he'd sooner let you shoot him in the foot, Kit Kat," Derek said, flipping through a notebook he'd uncovered from the McHale household.

"What've you got there?"

"Looks like Mary's diary," Derek flipped another page. "Did you know she kept a day by day account for every single day since she'd moved into that house?"

Katharine shook her head. "Whatever they did in that house after I dropped them off was up to them. I wasn't in charge of keeping tabs on their wellbeing."

"You visit often?"

"Often enough." Katharine adjusted herself in her seat. She looked up to find Derek looking back at her through the rearview mirror.

"What?" she squeaked.

"What are you hiding from us, Kit Kat?" Derek nearly glared at the younger girl, but his expression stopped short at malice.

She waved him off, stating that she was hiding absolutely nothing, which was true enough. There were some things that she just couldn't tell her cousin or his team.

KATHARINE COULDN'T SAY THAT SHE MISSED shitty station coffee. At best, it was glorified bean water with enough sugar to give any healthy person a heart attack.

Instead of hanging with the rest of the BAU team, she and her cup of coffee decided to step outside to take her phone call.

She put the phone to her ear and crossed her opposite arm around her waist, waiting for the person on the other side to pick up.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she heard the pickup sound.

"Hayes."

"Now, that's no way to greet an old friend," Katharine teased. It had been at least three months since she'd seen her best friend, Nina Hayes.

They'd become friends during SHIELD recruitment and it stuck throughout those long seven years. She was her main contact in SHIELD while she was on mandatory leave, telling her the things that went on while she was teaching small children the alphabet. It was completely illegal and the very reason why Nina Hayes was the name listed as her emergency contact.

"Katharine Morgan, I haven't heard your sweet voice in such a long time. Where have you been?"

"I've been around," Katharine laughed. "Hey, have you heard about the McHales?"

"Yeah, totally brutal stuff. Heads cleaved right off with an ax while they were tied up, totally expecting sexy times."

"That's the one," Katharine responded, running a hand through her hair. "Listen, the security logs were deleted off the security system. I need you to tell me there's a way to recover them."

"I can do that and more, babe." A few seconds of listening to a keyboard click later and Nina talked again. "I've got it here and ready to fax over, it's a long log. Chandler PD, right?"

"You're magic, Hayes. Talk soon." Katharine listened for the hang-up tone before putting her own cellular away, taking a few moments for herself before heading back into the bustling station.

Katharine made her way to the fax machine where she picked up the security log Nina had just sent over. She scanned the document, finishing off her coffee and making her way back to the conference room the BAU had been allowed to set up at.

"None of this makes sense," she announced, entering the room and tossing the empty cup into a nearby bin. "The McHales had no visitors at all. The security logs only show myself and the McHales leaving and returning at various points in the night."

She passed the log off to Spencer, who looked it over himself before walking over to the board they had been given and pinning it up with the rest of their photographic evidence. Katharine's eyes skipped over the photos of the McHales, averting her eyes from their severed heads and lifeless eyes.

"What were you doing at the McHales?" Derek asked, twirling a pen between his fingers.

"You know how I said I was close friends with them?"

Derek nodded.

"I had dinner with them on the twenty-seventh of every month per Connor's request as a thank you for saving their lives." Katharine frowned. "But it looks like I didn't do too well of a job, considering that they're dead."

"That's not on you, Kit Kat," Derek comforted. "You couldn't have known what would have happened to them when you left that night."

Spencer walked away from the board. "On the ME's report, it said that their time of death was around two-thirty in the morning. You left their house around twelve-fifteen." He crossed his arms across his torso in a nonchalant manner. "What does Umbrella Protocol mean?"

"Umbrella Protocol locks the house down if there's a power outage in the city. The house shuts down unnecessary technology and runs on its own power source until the city regains electricity," Katharine explained. She furrowed her eyebrows. 

If there was a power outage, the house would have shut down everything before rebooting the second the city's power came back. Any entrances or exits wouldn't have been viewed by security because they'd already have gotten in through the front door. 

Katharine looked up at the genius, panic now visibly displayed on her features, "But there wasn't a power outage in Chandler, right? Derek, can you--"

"Already on it," he held his phone out in front of him, waiting no less than two seconds before the technical analyst on the other side picked up. "Baby girl, can you check for power outages in Chandler, Arizona around two o'clock in the morning?"

"Anything for you, my delectable and steaming cup of Hot Chocolate," Garcia responded, clicking away at her keyboard. "Right, so it looks like there was a mini-power outage at one fifty-five exactly, lasting for thirty seconds before power was restored."

"Thanks, Mama," Derek hung up his phone, slipping the device back into his pocket.

"That's an extremely specific time for the power to go out at," Spencer pointed out. "And for thirty seconds only? It looks like our unsub probably has some sort of electrical capabilities."

"But to short circuit an entire city?" Katharine questioned. "That would take a lot of power, I think we're looking at a red or black level unsub."

"And all the current suspects we have listed are orange-level or lower," Hotch voiced. "Which means we're looking for a completely different person than we originally thought."

Katharine felt light-headed and nauseous. If only she had put her goddamn friends before her job for once in her life, Mary and Connor might have still been alive at that moment. God, how could she have been so incredibly stupid?

She felt her knees start to buckle under her. She reached out and grabbed the nearest object, person, thing, before her legs could give out on her completely. Whatever she had grabbed, assumingly a person by the feel of the clothes she gripped, held her tight. Katharine could hear people talking to her, or talking at her, while she tried to make sense of everything that was happening.

Katharine was meant to stay the night at the McHales, and the guilt of leaving them prematurely was eating her alive. If she had stayed, not jetted off to attend to the next coolest thing, Mary and Connor would still be alive.

She was fixating, she knew that. After multitudes of sessions with her mandatory therapist, she knew it was something she struggled with, and, God, she tried, but was she trying hard enough? Did she ever try hard enough?

"Katharine," they finally managed to break through to her. It was JJ who was crouched in front of her, offering a tissue for the tears she hadn't realized she had shed. She had been placed in a chair, but by the concerned looks of the people around her, she could tell that it was bad.

"How long have you been having panic attacks, Kit Kat?" Derek asked. He, out of all his coworkers, looked the most concerned. Of course, that was warranted considering they were blood relatives, but it was still nice to know someone cared.

"I haven't had one since I was twenty-five," Katharine answered him softly. "They were much more frequent after I escaped..." she trailed off. 

The information on her capture and torture was a Level Five clearance requirement and even if she wanted to just talk about how she felt... she couldn't do that in case she slipped up and revealed the information on her time undercover.

"It's been a long day," Hotch finally decided. "We've been working for seven hours straight. We should end here for tonight and get some sleep. We all need it."

Though Hotch technically had no authoritative power over Katharine, she heeded his words. After convincing everyone that she was okay, Katharine and the rest of the Behavioral Analysis Unit packed up their belongings and their case files before filing out of the room.

First, it was Hotch, who packed his things and then left in order to find the detective that SHIELD had entrusted with the case. Then it was Rossi and Prentiss, who both traded words of encouragement with Katharine. Those that she greatly appreciated. And after they left, JJ and Derek, who hadn't originally wanted to leave his baby cousin alone but once she made her intentions clear, he had left with the statement that he loved her no matter the time or distance they were apart. It was very heartwarming and Katharine returned the sentiment, saying that she loved him as well.

And then that left Katharine and Spencer.

"I'm sorry you had to witness that," Katharine started, hesitantly taking a step closer. "And thank you, for what you did."

Spencer looked mildly surprised as if he had thought she wouldn't have noticed his slightly wrinkled clothing where she had gripped a little too tightly in the time she was spiraling. 

He cleared his throat. "It's okay--I mean, you don't have to apologize for that..."

Katharine looked at the hazel-eyed man while he avoided her gaze at all costs. Man, she would give anything to know what he was thinking. The inner workings of his mind must have been amazing, and that was based on stories Derek had told her of the genius.

"What I mean is," Spencer cleared his throat again, "I didn't mind being able to help you."

"Good," Katharine voiced. A smirk slipped onto her lips. "Then you wouldn't mind helping me a little more?"

The boy was then a stuttering mess in front of her. His cheeks flushed a red color she'd want to see again and his eyes darted around before settling on her face. If her therapist were there now, she'd have said that this was not the proper way to be dealing with her trauma... but her therapist wasn't there and Spencer was. 

Besides, what harm could a little flirting do?

"I'm kidding," Katharine finally gave, laughing ever so slightly. "Oh, if Doctor Abrams could see me now... she'd probably have a fit and issue an order for me to be taken out of the field or something."

Spencer was getting his reddened cheeks under control, pressing a hand against his face in an attempt to cool himself down. Katharine thought he looked cute, however, with his cheeks flushed red and him looking all flustered. She wouldn't mind seeing him like this again, under different circumstances and whatnot.

Katharine almost laughed at the thought. The chances of her and Spencer getting together were about as likely as her chances to win the lottery, which were about one in nearly fourteen million. The odds were just about impossible.

But a girl could dream, and Katharine was one-hundred percent positive that this girl would do just that--dream.