SLEEP HAD ALWAYS BEEN HARD TO COME BY so when Katharine woke up several times during the night, she wasn't surprised. Disappointed, maybe, but definitely not surprised. It had to have been around the third time she had tried to fall back asleep when she figured that sleep wouldn't come and she'd just have to suffer through the next day.

Unfortunately, Katharine couldn't bring herself to do anything productive in the time she could have been sleeping. Instead, she had chosen to lay flat on her back and allowed her thoughts to drift off to one Doctor Spencer Reid. The man, much to her chagrin, hadn't left her mind since the incident from the day prior because of course it had to be him. Of course, he was the first person she would subconsciously reach out for and of course, the nagging voice in the back of her mind had to remind her that she was here for business, not pleasure.

Katharine knew that whatever feelings had started to bloom in her chest wouldn't go away, at least not voluntarily. But she also knew her usual tactics wouldn't work. She couldn't very well go about ignoring the man, especially not when she was supposed to be working with him in a professional capacity.

So, she decided, she'd fight to keep their relationship one-hundred percent professional. She'd treat him like she treated the other agents of his team, as a coworker and nothing more but God was he making it hard.

From the second Katharine stepped back into the police station, he had her full attention captured with his random but educational spiels and his partly rolled-up sleeves though she couldn't fault him for that. They were in Arizona in the wintertime, it was almost like the officers didn't know how to handle the cold at all. The heat was on full blast the entire time and even Katharine would admit she worked up a sweat just by standing near a radiator.

But it also didn't help Katharine's case when Spencer had handed her a coffee, not even moments after she'd walked through the door. She took a sip, trying her best to keep a smile from appearing on her face. Five sugars, just how she liked it.

"We should interview the approved visitors today," Katharine said when everyone finally assembled in the conference room.

"I thought we decided that our unsub wasn't one of the original suspects?" Emily questioned, flipping through her notes. "That we would be looking for a red or black leveled mutant?"

Katharine nodded slowly. That's what she had thought as well, at least up until she got frustrated and accidentally caused her phone to shut down due to the pure will she had forced into the tiny device. "We are," Katharine affirmed, "but last night I accidentally shut my phone down through sheer will alone. It's not uncommon for mutants to be able to move between levels, especially if placed in strenuous situations."

Spencer leaned back in his seat. "She's right. After the first development of abilities at puberty, most mutants don't change color levels but there have been some inhumane studies done that show that when a mutant is under extreme duress it can sometimes cause their abilities to spike. It's a survival instinct."

Hotch moved across the conference room, making his way back to the door as he gave orders to his team. "JJ, Rossi, I need you to return to Helena McHale's home. Try to see if she can remember any of her son's friends suffering a recent tragedy of sorts that might have triggered this. It wouldn't have been something reported to SHIELD or to local law enforcement but it might have made its way through the grapevine to her. Prentiss, Morgan, I need you to give Peter Alston a visit, see if you can get him to come in for another round of questioning. Reid, Katharine, with me."

Katharine was quick to wrap up her things, shoving her notebook into her bag and snatching the coffee cup off the conference room table. The team dispersed, all heading in their own separate directions. They worked like a machine, each person, each part, their own yet when they came together... it was almost like magic.

Hotch led them to one of the three black SUVs in front of the police station and hopped into the one on the end, Reid getting in the passenger seat and Katharine climbing into the back. "Katharine, I need you to try to get in contact with the brother, Jackson, see if Mary would have told him something that she wouldn't have told you. Anything she probably deemed trivial, something she wouldn't have wanted to bother you with."

"On it," Katharine responded, already dialing Jackson's number. She didn't have to wait long for him to pick up, the phone rang once before a man answered the phone.

"Hello?"

"May I speak to Jackson Sawyer. This is SHIELD agent Katharine Morgan, I was assigned to his sister's case."

"This is him."

"Hi, Mr. Sawyer," Katharine greeted. "I just had some follow-up questions about your sister. I promise this won't take more than," she looked at the GPS, "fifteen minutes or less."

"Jackson, please," he responded, voice gruff.

"Okay, Jackson. Great, well, I was just wondering if your sister had called you sometime before her death? The topic of the call would have been something she thought was trivial, or she might have debated on calling the police about it but decided against it last minute."

The other end was silent for a good few moments. Katharine glanced at the GPS, it read thirteen minutes now.

"I don't remember the conversation much," Jackson finally responded.

"That's okay," she reassured. "Anything will help."

"Uh-- Last Monday, on the twenty-fifth, she called me as we usually did. Every other Monday, I'd call her or she'd call me, either way, we'd keep in touch. While we were on the phone, I heard glass breaking and someone yelling. She said it was nothing but Connor called me a few hours later telling me that some guy had thrown a rock and an apple through their window. Connor fixed it with his abilities but they didn't tell me anything else."

"Thank you so much for your time, Jackson," Katharine thanked him. "I'll be in touch soon."

She hung up the phone and quickly filled Spencer and Hotch in on what Jackson had told her.

"But why an apple?" Hotch questioned, trying to make sense of the story Jackson had given them.

Spencer furrowed his brow. "In Ancient Greece, throwing an apple was the equivalent of proposing to someone. If the woman caught the apple, she accepted the marriage proposal. If she didn't..."

"She would have rejected them," Katharine finished for him. "So Mary rejected our unsub and they lashed out by killing her and her husband before stealing her clothes and perfume before disappearing into the night."

Spencer half turned in his seat. They were about two minutes away from their destination now. "Can you think of Mary talking about her rejecting anyone? Did she tell you about her life before you guys met at all?"

Katharine shook her head. "No, though she did tell me about how she and Connor met. It was at a business party. She said her friend invited her along and introduced her to--"

Katharine cut herself off. "Oh my God," she realized. "All this time, I thought Peter was the one who introduced Mary to Connor, but it was Jonah all along. Think about it! It makes sense because Jonah and Connor used to be business partners."

Hotch was on the phone in an instant. "Garcia, set up a conference call with the others."

Katharine waited for the call to go through. They had stopped right outside of Jonah Cray's home but hadn't made any moves to leave the vehicle. She listened as Hotch described the situation to his teammates, explaining how Jonah Cray was the man who had killed the McHales and that they needed to get to their location immediately.

Lucky for them, Helena McHale and Peter Alston lived roughly ten minutes away from Jonah. In the time their friends managed to get to them, Katharine had made a call of her own, calling for backup and immediate access to the nearest combatant team to her location.

Once everyone had rallied up outside Jonah Cray's home, Katharine had been the one to make the first contact. "Jonah Cray?" she knocked on the door. "Agent Morgan, SHIELD."

When no one answered, she knocked again. "Mr. Cray? We just have some questions involving the murders of Mary and Connor McHale."

Again, no answer. Not that Katharine was expecting anything different. She stood aside and allowed one of the other SHIELD agents to perform a soft open on the door. Treading lightly, Katharine was the first to enter the home. She raised her weapon quickly as she rounded corners, clearing rooms as the others filed in behind her. She made her way upstairs, freezing when she heard movement coming from one of the rooms on her left.

Katharine held a hand up, a silent signal for the agents behind her to wait. She knocked on the door. "Jonah?"

A door at the opposite end of the hallway opened up, revealing the man she had been looking for. He had a gun pointed at her head and a look in his eye that told her that he didn't want to be in this situation any more than she did.

"Jonah Cray, put your weapon down," Spencer spoke from Katharine's side. How he managed to get to her so quickly, she'd never know. But she was thankful he was there for her, at her side in case anything happened.

"Jonah," Katharine tried, taking half a step closer. The terrified man gripped his weapon tighter.

"Stay back," he warned, his voice shaking almost as much as his knees.

"It's okay," Katharine said softly. "Look, I'm going to put my gun away and we can just talk, okay?"

Slowly, Katharine moved so that she was putting her gun back in its holster. "See? Now if you can just put your weapon away and we can have a talk, Jonah."

"You don't understand," Jonah spat. He readjusted his grip on his weapon. "I loved her."

Katharine took another step forward. She wanted so badly to turn around, just to make sure Spencer was still there but resisted. She needed to focus on the highly dangerous and highly unstable man in front of her.

"I know," Katharine took another step, "you loved her. That's why you threw the apple, right? You wanted to propose to her?"

Jonah got a faraway look in his eye and Katharine figured he was fantasizing about how his life could have been. He could have gotten the girl, he could have had a successful business, he could have been happy.

"Who's in the other room, Jonah?" Katharine questioned softly. Jonah had lowered the gun, it's aim going from her head to her chest. If he shot her from this angle, he'd most likely just give her a wicked bruise and maybe a few more issues to work out with her therapist. Katharine took another step forward, she was almost directly in front of him now.

"She was just so beautiful," Jonah said, the gun dropping lower. "She looked so much like my Mary."

"Who, Jonah?"

The man was crying now. The tears, copious and bitter, were coming down in waves. Jonah snapped back to reality, bringing the gun back up higher but Katharine could tell his heart wasn't in it.

"I didn't mean to," he sobbed, taking a step back. "I didn't mean to kill her!"

"Kill who?" Katharine demanded. She was done with acting sorry for the man. She knew he wouldn't shoot her now, not with her presence so painfully reminding him of what he had done to Mary.

"Just let me die!" Jonah cried, turning his gun in on himself. Katharine saw the opportunity, leaping forward and tackling Jonah just as the gun went off. By some sheer amount of luck, the gun had missed it's intended target of Jonah Cray's skull and instead shot into the wall behind them.

Katharine was quick to wrestle the weapon out of Jonah's hands, overpowering the distraught man and turning him onto his stomach. She read him his rights as the SHIELD agents retreated from the home. Then, Spencer was next to her again, helping her pick Jonah Cray up from the ground and passing him over to one of the police officers that had made their way into the house.

The nightmare was finally over. Mary and Connor's killer had been caught and the additional rescue of a woman named Amanda Richardson wrapped up the day. Katharine should have been happy but she was far from it.

"ARE YOU SURE YOU CAN'T COME BACK WITH US?" Derek Morgan asked with an arm wrapped loosely around his baby cousin's shoulder. She shook her head. The SHIELD operative team here had requested her presence for a little while longer and instead of asking her directly, they had gone to her Unit Chief who had then issued her the order to stay in Chandler for at least a week longer.

"I'm gonna miss you, Derek," Katharine said, turning her body slightly so that she was now hugging her cousin.

"DC's not that far from Quantico, Kit Kat," Derek reassured. He pulled back and held the woman at an arm's length. "You do still live in DC, correct?"

Katharine bit her lip. In addition to Unit Chief Davis ordering her to stay in Chandler for a little while longer, he had also informed her that Director Fury was having her relocated to Ireland. A few months undercover, depending on how fast and efficiently she could do her job. She was hoping it wouldn't stretch a full year as her first undercover job had done.

Katharine patted Derek's arm. "I'll call," she promised. "They're making me change my number after this, but I'll call. It won't be seven years this time."

Derek frowned, an odd sight for the man who never stopped smiling. "Promise?"

Katharine nodded. She felt like a little kid again, standing with Derek in the school playground and making promises that she didn't know if she'd be able to keep. Finally, she uttered the words, I promise, and Derek was satisfied. He boarded the plane, glancing back only once before he disappeared into the jet.

"You're not coming back with us?"

Katharine spun on her heel, catching herself with her off foot. She turned to greet the hazel-eyed boy that captured her attention from day one. No matter how little time she knew him, it would have always felt like an eternity of knowing.

"Yeah," she admitted. "Received orders from the boss this morning to stay in Chandler for a little bit more."

Spencer played with the strap of his messenger bag, tugging at it slightly as he walked closer to the woman. "How long are you staying?"

"A week," Katharine managed. In this light, she could see that his eyes were more light brown than anything. Maybe she had gotten one thing wrong.

"Are you going back to DC after?" the good doctor stepped closer to Katharine. One more step and they'd be chest to chest.

"I don't know," Katharine answered truthfully. And it was true. She didn't know how long of a reprise they'd give her before she'd be shipped off to Ireland. "I'll call," she made the same empty promise she had made to Derek.

Spencer nodded, accepting her answer. He smiled slightly, his teeth teasing at his bottom lip before relinquishing it. "I'll be waiting."

Katharine closed the space between them but as much as she wanted to full-on make out with him, she settled for a simple kiss on the cheek. "You should get on the jet, don't want to make the others wait for you."

And then she was gone. She brushed past him like a cool breeze on a summer day and even if it was getting colder out, she left Spencer feeling warmer than he had in a long time.

And that was only the beginning.