Dorothea's POV
"Please help my daddy!" A little girl cries out as she enters the police station with her clearly injured father.
"I need help! I was attacked!" The man says, causing Mama to run over to him.
"Can I get some help here, please?" Mama says while I walk over to the girl and hand her
Spot.
"Spot keeps people safe. My name is Dorothea Prentiss and my mommies work with the FBI. What is your name?"
"Mary Ramirez and that is my papa, Edward." Mary tells me while holding onto Spot.
"Please...Call my mother to come get my daughter. Please." Edward tells Mama while I bring Mary to another room.
"This is my mommy, Agent Emily Prentiss and her partner Agent Aaron Hotchner. They are going to ask you some questions about what happened to you and your papa."
"Mary, is it okay if I ask you some questions? It would really help us find the bad man that hurt your papa." Mommy asks Mary and I go to walk away, but Mary grabs my arm,
"Please stay Dorothea." Mary begs me and Mommy nods, letting me know that it's okay. Sitting down with Mary, she grabs my hand and I give her hand a gentle squeeze.
"Is my papa going to be okay Dorothea?" Mary asks me.
"Yes because you brought him here to us." Mary smiles at my statement.
"Did he say anything to your papa?" Mommy asks Mary.
"No." Mary tells Mommy and Aaron.
"What were you and your papa doing before the bad guy came?" Aaron asked her.
"Papa took out the garbage... And then he jumped out... And he hit my papa... I was screaming at him. I thought he was going to hit me, too. But then he stopped... And he looked at me funny." Mary explained to them with tears in her eyes.
"What do you mean by "funny"?" Aaron asks her.
"He looked... Sad... He did say something. Not to my papa. To me." Mary tells them.
"What was it?" Mommy asked her.
"He said...'Are you okay? Why are you crying?' And then we ran." Mary tells Mommy and I give her a sad smile.
"Mary... What you did was very brave. Can you help my mommy and Agent Hotchner with one more thing? Can you tell them what the man looked like?"
"He was white, and tall, and dirty... And he had a ring like that man over there." Mary said referring to Aaron's wedding ring.
"Thank you for being so brave Mary. You helped them a lot." Mommy entered the room with an older woman, who Mary recognized because her eyes lights up.
"Abuela!" Mary says before going over to her grandmother. They hugged and Mary runs back to me, hugging me and I hugged her back.
"Thank you for letting me hold Spot, Dorothea." Mary says before handing Spot back to me.
"You are quite welcome Mary." Mary smiles before she and her grandmother leave the room.
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JJ's POV
"He asked if she was okay and why was she crying. He wasn't aware of what he was doing to her." Hotch tells us. Dorothea was asleep on my lap and I was rubbing her back, hoping she'd stay asleep. She's been having nightmares ever since she returned home, only sleeping in bed with Emily and I. She won't admit it because she understands that Emily and I need our intimate times, but we'd make sure that she came first.
"Garcia's on line one. Go ahead, Penelope."
"All right, cowgirls and boys. I've got the comparison satellite images of the before-and-after pictures, and I found something. Check it. Do you see it yet?" Garcia says, causing all of us to look at the image.
"Yeah, an S.O.S."
"Yeah, it's made of debris and other rocky bits of gobbledygook. This is the building where the security guard got killed." Garcia explains to us.
"He's asking for help." Hotch when the construction outside continues.
"He's a war veteran." Emily added on.
"He thinks he's in a war zone. He left a distress signal on the roof of one of the buildings." Hotch tells us when Dorothea opens her eyes.
"The quick strikes are consistent with trained military." Derek says.
"He must have served in a place that looked or sounded like this ward."
"Well, we were right about him being homeless, in a sense. Wherever he is, in his mental state, he's certainly not at home." Gideon says.
"He may not even be aware he's killing." Aaron says.
"Now, how's that possible?" Detective Fuller asks us.
"When soldiers suffered from anxiety, depression, and flashbacks in World War I, it was called shell shock. In World War II, battle fatigue. Now we refer to it as PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, war related. A side effect of which is slipping into dissociative states." Spencer says.
"The mind dissociates itself from reality so it can cope with the trauma. He is reliving a memory and is trapped in his mind in some war zone." Emily says, reminding me of Dorothea's dissociative state when she has her ptsd attacks.
"Hiding and defending himself from the enemy." Derek says.
"Okay, so how do we find a man who's trapped inside his head?"
"He's got a wedding ring. Someone's missing him." Emily says when Dorothea gets up and goes to grab something from the other table.
"Good. I'm with Detective Fuller. Morgan has the last crime scene to check." Gideon says.
"JJ, check missing persons reports, see if anyone matches the description. It would have been filed recently, the last two or three days." Hotch says and I nodded when Dorothea rushed back and hands me a file folder.
"Dana Woodridge and Max Weston... Her husband and his best friend. Roy Woodridge has been missing since Tuesday. I saw this on one of the tables while I was drawing. Sorry for looking." Dorothea apologizes to us.
"Thanks Dorothea." Hotch said with a smile on his face.
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Emily's POV
"She's truly an angel." JJ smiles while we watched Dorothea asleep in my bed. JJ has now officially moved in with us and Dorothea loves having her in our house all the time.
"She truly is." JJ says while playing with Dorothea's hair and I noticed that our daughter was sucking on JJ's shirt.
"She may want to breastfeed from you. Are you okay with that?"
"Yeah of course. If it's something that she needs, I'll do whatever it takes to help Dorothea." JJ tells me with a smile on her face.
"She looks so peaceful right now. I wish she was always like that."
"Me too Emily." JJ says before kissing my forehead.
YOU ARE READING
How To Save A Life(Criminal Minds Fanfic)
Fanfiction"Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend. Somewhere along in the bitterness. And I would have stayed up with you all night. Had I known how to save a life."~Grey's Anatomy *Starts from Season 2 Episode 9-Onwards*
