Criminal Minds Series Rewirte: Season Five

Solitary Man: Part One

"We're all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life." - Tennessee Williams

You feel good. For the first time since you got released from prison, you feel like the weight of the world isn't lying on your shoulders. You're still required to go to therapy until she deems you fit to be on your own but you're not dreading going to her anymore. You actually look forward to it. You feel safe in her office and feel like you can talk about anything without judgment. You trust Spencer with everything you're telling your therapist, but he's strictly Team Y/N and will side with you on anything. You need your therapist's unbiased opinion and advice.

You're sitting at your desk staring at your open notebook wondering what to write. You've rewritten every single nightmare you have besides the rape. You don't know what you can write that will make what happened better.

Spencer walks into the bullpen and sees you tapping the end of your pen on your notebook. He walks behind you and places a hand on your shoulder. You look up at him with a smile as he runs his fingers through your hair.

"Are you okay?"

"Doing better now."

"Why is that?"

"You."

Spencer leans down and kisses you Spider-Man style, one of your favorite positions.

"Come on, we have a case."

You leave your notebook at your desk before following Spencer to the briefing room where everyone else is. There is already a picture of the most recent victim and her crime scene.

"Her name was Tanya Hill. She was twenty-nine and a bartender. She was found two days ago in Edgewood, New Mexico. She's the fifth woman in over six months to be found dead in a ditch off the I-40 and I-25," JJ explains. "All were manually strangled and none were sexually assaulted."

"Well, maybe the act of strangulation is what gets him off."

"Where were they abducted from?" Emily asks.

"All over."

"Well, they're not just crossing state lines. These cities are hundreds of miles apart," Derek says. "That's a lot of bodies. Why is it taking so long to be invited?"

"We haven't been invited. We found this on the HSK database," Hotch says.

The HSK is the Highway Serial Killer database. With someone crossing state lines like this, they don't belong to one county or jurisdiction, therefore, landing themselves on the HSK database.

"Well, a lot of police departments won't want this problem," Derek says.

"The geographic profile shows that only one of them has it. They just don't know it yet."

"How do you know that?" Rossi asks Spencer.

"Because he has a comfort zone based on the direction he was heading when he dumped the bodies. All five cases point to our unsub heading to Edgewood."

"Now so are we."

You make sure to pack your notebook in your go-bag before heading to the jet with the rest of the team.

"Clearly this unsub doesn't care about his victims being found," Derek says once the plane is in the air, "or he knows he can't be linked to them."

"The ME report supports that first theory. Matching DNA was found on all five victims but not in any database. It's also in keeping with the victimology and abduction sites."

"Which is what?" Emily asks your boyfriend.

"Target rich and offender-friendly."

"The time of death from the time of abduction varies dramatically in each case. Some lived twelve hours, others twenty-four before they were killed."