Front Lines| Spencer Reid + Anne Grey

twenty seven

"Wait, that's a checkmate, right?" Derek Morgan asks, pulling a black king piece off of the chess board.

Anne Grey smiles. "Sure is!" she confirms. "You just won your first chess game, man."

They had been working on the game for about an hour, restarting whenever Derek got confused or just needed to see the board from a new perspective. They had finally finished the game, though, and Anne was quite proud.

"Okay, but you let me win," he replies, sitting back in his chair. He had a grin on his face as well, clearly pleased with himself.

She shrugs, responding, "Let's say that I let you learn."

It had been a successful distraction for Grey, certainly. She had barely found time to think about how Spencer and Hotch were doing, too involved in getting Morgan to process the odd movement pattern of a knight. She was grateful for that.

Chuckling, Derek replies, "That's fine by me. Next round?" He starts trying to arrange the white chess pieces on his side, though he wasn't really sure where they went yet.

Anne nods happily. "Sure, let's..." she trails off, glancing up as the smile faded from her face. "Morgan."

"What?" he follows her gaze, turning around to see what she had seen.

A man was approaching the glass BAU doors, and a gun that looked somewhat similar to an M16 was in his arms. There was also a handgun tucked into his belt, looking far to amateur to be some sort of agent that had just gone to the wrong floor, intending to find a shooting range. No, this was someone who knew exactly where he was.

"What's he doing here?" Derek asks, his voice dead and monotone, but somehow laced with fear.

Grey blinks and licks her lips, mumbling, "Nothing good." She slowly stands up, pulling off her glasses and setting them on her desk. No one else in the bullpen had noticed the man quite yet.

Before she could even begin to approach the man, though, he had swung open the door and started to yell. "Everyone in this office is going to get on the floor and slide their guns toward me, or I shoot."

Anne shuts her eyes and exhales, then begins to slowly walk toward him, hands halfway up, to make sure he wouldn't think that she planned on grabbing her gun. Everyone around her was struck with shock, standing completely still and wondering what would happen next.

When Grey gets close enough to him, she starts,"Hey, man, who do you want to talk to? Maybe we're just starting something unnecessary-"

"Are you in charge?" he cuts off, the M16 aimed somewhere around her legs, not quite raised. He takes a step or two toward her, and she refuses to step back.

Rolling back her shoulders and expecting the worst, she simply answers, "Yeah."

The man strikes her in the face with the heel of his gun, causing her to jump slightly and grip the injured area. The left side of her face stung immediately, from her brow bone to her jaw. Anne pulls her hand away, seeing red, both figuratively and literally.

Morgan stands up at an instant, quickly stepping toward them with his hands up at his sides. "Woah, man, what the hell-"

Grey barely hesitates, knowing the safest plan of action. "Morgan, shut up. You heard him, we're sliding the guns over."

She considers trying to tackle the man now, but knows that he would start shooting as soon as she did and most likely hurt someone before he went down. So, she does nothing.

He smiles slightly. He had been nervous that his plan wouldn't work out. "That's what I like to hear."

Anne begrudgingly takes her gun out of its holster, dropping it on the floor and kicking it toward the man, her hands still raised.