Take Over Me

16. Friends

"Well, that was rough," you say, groaning as you get on the jet.

"To say the least!" Emily adds, shaking her head.

The team has spent the past six days in Arizona. There you worked easily the hardest case since you've been at the BAU. The unsub's body count just continued to grow as you guys were trying to figure out leads. It took you all three days before you even broke ground, and two days to finally figure out the location they were committing the murders. The last day was spent wrapping everything up.

Everyone had gone into the location pretty blind, not truly knowing what the unsub's end goal was. He was that difficult to decipher; even for this team.

So when you guys got to the location, unknowingly to everyone, he was ready for you all to come. It was practically a trap. Barely any talking went on before he started freaking out, going to pull the trigger. Luckily, JJ was able to shoot him before he was successful in killing someone else at that location.

The shot JJ made ended up being fatal; the unsub died in the ambulance. In the end, another one was marked down as dead, once again not paying for his crimes.

So, yeah, rough is an understatement.

"It's a four hour flight ahead of us. Try to relax for the time being." Hotch finds his seat as the plane makes its journey in the air.

. . .

Two hours have passed, so you decided to take up a card game with Spencer.

Everyone else was preoccupied, so you had to take up the last resort: playing cards against someone you'll undoubtedly lose to.

Well, at least that's how it has gone in the times you—or anyone else—have played against Spencer. The man is a genius. He of course has some equation in winning pretty much every kind of game.

You two are playing for about 20 minutes, and so far, it seems like once again he's going to beat you.

Confident in succeeding like he always does, Spencer withdraws his attention away for a moment, not worrying about your next move.

"Did you know that the earliest paper playing cards were actually found in 10th-century China? According to tradition, Emperor Mu-Tsung enjoyed playing 'domino cards' with his wife....The first cards were made by hand, but since that was expensive and time-consuming, the invention of the printing..."

His words fade out as you figure out your next move. Usually, you listen intently at his rambling, but when you're trying to beat someone who has an IQ of 187, your full attention has to be put into the game.

"Actually Spencer, I already knew all of that." You smile at him, looking up from the brim of your cards.

"Wait—really?" he asks, clearly taken aback at your deep knowledge of playing card history. "How?"

"Yeah of course!" You continue a smile with excitement. "Did I not tell you? Card mythology was actually my major in college."

His face drops in realization, cracking a smile. "Oh—you're messing with me."

You shake your head, flashing him a look of oblivion.

"I knew you were messing with me."

"I don't know Dr. Reid, you seemed pretty intrigued in my sudden knowledge. I'm pretty sure you believed me!" You arrange your cards. "But, maybe you should have been more intrigued in our game, not the one Mu-Tsung played, because..."