Ineffable - S.REID

03

・゜゜・．TWO WEEKS LATER  .・゜゜・

Clara, like the weeks beforehand where she had spent three days helping on cases and getting to know her colleagues on a more personal level, listened to JJ's brief as to what case they would be seeing to for the coming days. She had learnt the most about Spencer, given that they often took the Metro home together and unsurprisingly she knew the least about Hotch. She knew about his wife and his son, that was about all and she had only gathered that information from a photograph on his desk. She knew tons about the three other women in the workforce, ranging from ex lovers to full in depth descriptions of some of the best and worst times in their lives. She had found a best friend in Penelope Garcia and honestly, after the few weeks and many tea breaks they had both spent together in her office, they would both say that they loved each other as friends should. She had even told her about her prior meeting with Spencer Reid - missing out some details she wanted to keep private of course. Garcia, as she had expected, came to the completely wrong conclusion and had already come up with a rather awful ship name Spenara.

Pushing all those thoughts aside, Clara focused on what JJ was saying about the women made into dolls and was quick to pick up on a rather peculiar look from Spencer. He often sat across from her in the briefing room so she was quick to notice his change in facial expression. Instead of his usual thoughtfulness during the first instances of a case, his brow furrowed much further down than usual and his lips almost downturned in concern.

The second the briefing ended, both Clara and Spencer hurried to grab their go bags from their opposite desks. She sat in her desk chair, writing some final notes whilst he simply leant against the side of their desks. "You're listening to music during briefings now?" he almost joked, real concern hidden behind the comment, as he looked at the almost triangular mole hidden under her left dark brown eye.

She laughed softly, playing with one of the wires attached to her ears . "I had an incident a couple weeks back. I get ringing sometimes. It comes and it goes."

"What are you listening to?"

"Beethoven," she paused as she put her pencil down and fished her bag out from underneath her desk. "Drowns out the humming so I can focus. Don't tell my Doctor. "

He chuckled and moved to pick up his own, which had been dumped onto his chair previously, "I won't and good choice."

She smiled as they both began to walk towards the elevator, shoulders almost so close that they could touch, "I'd like to think so. Oh hey how was your chess session with your friend?"

"He didn't believe that I attempted to play through every permutation of moves on a chess board. He thought it was an infinite number of games," Spencer laughed amusedly as he brushed hair out of his face. She could feel the annoyance at the strands radiating off of him so, without even thinking twice about it, she pulled the hair band off of her wrist and handed it to him without a word.

"Why wouldn't he? It does seem to be infinite, I mean I thought it was when you told me and we played out a few of the alternatives," she countered as he took the hairband, momentarily looking at it puzzledly.

"You two, hurry up. Wheels up in ten," Hotch called out as he headed for his office, likely filling some last minute paperwork before the trip.

They both quickened their steps and hurried to the elevator in silence. Clara found herself deep in thought, she did not even hear the sound the button made when it closed. "I know that look," he almost whispered when he was sure she had finished her train of thought, not wanting to ruin whatever process her mind was flying through.

Clara sighed softly, rocking on her heels ever so slightly, "I don't know if it's just, and I'm going to be so stereotypical and I resent myself for that but... I mean what man knows how to correctly color match someone's skin tone with various different foundations and concealers. The angles for contour and highlight. The techniques of eyeshadow application and how to get the perfect eyeliner wing, even false lashes. They're things that makeup users learn from their teens and perfect over the years. Unless it was a man doing so in private since it has not been socially acceptable for men to wear makeup and such for very long, I don't think a man would be so practiced in the art and all the dinner details of it. Again I hate to be so stereotypical."

"So you think that unsubs a woman?" he asked as the elevator doors opened.

"Speculation," she shrugged, smiling in thanks as he gestured for her to leave first. "Plus the love and care."

-

At their destination, after many failed lead, Clara stood in a doll shop with Spencer and Morgan. There had been speculation that the doll makers could know about the dolls the unsub was trying to recreate with all her kidnappings. Clara, after rather reluctantly stepping through the threshold, tried to look anywhere but the faces of the dolls that surrounded her. She wasn't too keen on dolls, the blank stares creeped her out far too much.

"Collectors are good, honest people. Just because you enjoy dolls it doesn't make you a creep or a pedophile."

"We appreciate that sir but the woman we're looking for has lost her ability to control her obsession."

"She's killed three women trying to recreate a type of doll she had as a child," Clara responded, fixing her gaze on the wall behind the man's head.

The doll maker sighed softly, almost unnoticeable before he realized that it was probably just easier to answer the questions and avoid feeling judged for too much longer. "Describe the line to me."

Spencer, who had been looking at something on a shelf, now appeared in between Morgan and Clara. "There's a pattern to the victims. They're in their 20s, petite..."

"...Chiffon dresses. Pink, purple and blue. Worn by a blonde, a redhead and a black woman," Clara continued, watching the gears in the man's head begin to turn. As she trailed off, things seemed to snap into place within his mind.

"Is she sewing them herself? The dresses?" the doll maker asked, glancing towards a filing cabinet in the back of his office.

Morgan, like Clara, raised a brow, "How'd you know that?"

"It's the Valois Line. A local company back in the 80's," the doll maker began as he headed to the back room, going to grab whatever he could find as proof of this line's existence.

In his absence, Clara now noticed a rather creepy doll without an eye staring blankly at her behind the counter. A coldness swept down her spine, shaking her soul. "I'm going to go get some air," she whispered to Spencer, who looked minorly covered until she nodded it away. Clara walked out of the ship and went to sit in the car, purposely sitting in the blacked out back seats so that she could no longer see any remnants of doll .Some things were enough to creep her out and dolls were definitely one of the bigger ones.

"Dolls freak you out huh Davia," Morgan teased as he sat in the driver's seat, turning back to smirk at her. "Not decapitated heads but dolls?"

"They're creepy! Plus its a perfectly normal fear to have, like death or the dark... Bet you're afraid of something weird like... being crushed by your weights," she laughed, not expecting the slight twinge in his brow to tell her that was one of his fears. But she wouldn't say a word.

Morgan almost scoffed, jokingly of course, "Being scared of the dark is not normal."

"Tell that to like seventy percent of people, it's a normal fear."

"Because of the inherent absence of light," Spencer added to her point, adding to Derek's annoyance.

Clara smiles softly, "Exactly."

Derek Morgan gave up his argument then, knowing that he wasn't going to get anywhere further. Points were hard disproven when Spencer and Clara shared the same view, which was often but not all the time. Those occasions created some interesting discussions that most couldn't help but listen to some of the times, especially when they jokingly started to yell at each other.