Criminal Minds: 2k21

The wind brings some change

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"Could you be any more pathetic?" Andrew said, calmly, poison in his voice.

The boy, poor boy, did not dare to look up at his father. Terror paralyzed him.

His dad was an angry man, that he knew. Today was worse though.

"Look at me"

An outsider might not take a threat from that, but an outsider wasn't able to discern the small fluctuations in the man's voice from when he was truly calm to... Well, this.

He looked up, slowly, scared. A hearbeat. Two heartbeats. Three heartbeats. Then the kick to the face. Almost unexpected. Almost.

The huge effort of laying on his arms was rendered futile, now back on the ground.

A few tears escaped. Really, that was a reflex. That particular move hardly hurt anymore, at least, not with that intensity.

"Oh Lord, du bist ekelhaft"

10th of June, 2021 [QUANTICO, Virginia - FBI HQ] - 9.37 AM

The day was not overtly hot, thankfully. Matter of fact, it was the perfect day for a pic-nic, a walk out in the park, casually doing nothing but enjoy the soft breeze.

Of course, if you were part of the BAU, life was going to have different plans for you.

"I would be lying if I said that the news did not come off as a shock" Emily said, her back laying on the chair behind her desk.

"Yea, figured. But I remember telling Rossi that I couldn't just sit around all day brainstorming about bad guys. I'm sorry, Emily, truly, but I know this is the best choice for me" answered Luke.

Going back to the Fugitive Task Force. Of course, Emily was not about to force people to stay at the BAU, but it was a hard hit nonetheless. Just a few days prior Tara had told her about an offer she had been proposed. So that was two.

And she could see that Matt was rethinking everything. And that made three.

Of course, she couldn't force them to stay, but at the same time she couldn't quite find the right words to tell them it's okay, we'll manage, of course we'll miss and we need you, but it's fine, spread your wings.

"Alright. I'll sign the paperwork. You already know when you're gonna leave?" was said with a small, sad smile.

"Kind of effective immediately, actually. It was basically now or never" was said also with sadness.

They were not gonna say it out loud, but they were gonna miss this. Luke was both relieved and saddened. Relieved, of course, bacause the BAU, ultimately, wears you down. But he would lie if he said that it's tough to leave too. After all, if you weren't on the same unit it was hard to see your friends, schedules seldom overlapped. And Luke knew he was gonna miss them. He was gonna miss them so much.

"Hey, uh, am I interrupting?" came JJ's voice from the door.

"Oh, uh, no, not at all. What's up?" replied Emily, seemingly out of a trance. JJ didn't comment on that.

"We've got a case, kinda peculiar. Local one. You guys good?" she added the last part.

"Yea, alright. We'll be right there" answered Emily.