"And like the moon, we must go through phases of emptiness to feel full again"
-Unknown-

Natalie walks into work, but in order to head up to the office on the 6th floor she has to take the elevator so when people are coming out Natalie is going in. She presses the button to the 6th floor and watches the elevator door close. She is left in silence the only sound being heard is the soft vibrations of the elevator moving up.

Natalie grips her purse in her hand, her eyes slowly closing as she feels her heart starts to fall into the pit of her stomach.

"Let me- Let me out- please, let me out" Natalie begs as she kicks the wooden door in front of her, but it doesn't even budge. Suddenly, another sword quickly pierces through the box, catching Natalie off guard and causing her to move to the side, only to have her upper arm more expose which causes the sword to slice the side of her arm, and rip the material of her arm sleeve.

Natalie flinches at the memory and starts to see herself back inside the wooden box, being tormented by the man who kidnapped her. Natalie's breathing picks up and when she opens her eyes, she feels as if the walls of the elevator are closing in on her, making it harder to breathe and think straight.

Natalie backs up until she lands up against the wall, her hand tightly holding onto the metal railing surrounding the walls of the elevator and using it as a way to keep herself standing. She suddenly hears a ding, and she finally has made it to the 6th floor.

Natalie quickly exits the elevator, placing a hand on her chest as she catches her breath. Reid walks towards, watching as her chest rises up and down repeatedly. "Are you okay?" Reid asks to which Natalie chuckles softly, nodding her head while Reid moves his eyes between Natalie and the elevator, starting to understand what's going on.

"You don't have to answer that" Reid corrects quickly before Natalie swallows a large lump in her throat, her hand quickly going to rest on Reid's arm, which Reid allowed. "If you want to clear your head, you can help me put these photos in the frames for JJ" Reid states, trying to take Natalie's mind off the taunting thoughts that have been clouding her mind for months.

Natalie smiles softly as she nods her head, agreeing to help Reid.

_____

Meanwhile, Maya was waiting in the lobby of a prison while Derek was inside one of the rooms speaking with Giuseppe Montolo, the man who warned him and the rest of the BAU about the dirty dozen. The two begin talking and Montolo states he wants a nicer prison experience, and in exchange for giving up his league associates.

Giuseppe claims there are four of them and writes down contact info. Easier than one would expect, right? Derek then wants to know who the 'dirty dozen' is. Giuseppe chuckles as he places the pen down on the table, done writing down the names.

"That's the wrong question," Giuseppe states, followed by a cough.

"It's not a who... it's a what" Giuseppe states, one side of his mouth curling up into a smirk and before he can explain what he meant by that, Montolo starts to aggressively cough, making Derek think he's only putting on an act until blood spills from his mouth and he falls onto the ground.

"I need medical!" Derek shouts and all of a sudden, the alarm starts to blare, sending Maya to the edge of her seat as she watches people in the lobby gasp with shock and some of the workers move at a quick pace.

A couple moments later, Derek is seen checking out and when he reaches Maya, she instantly wraps her arms around him. "That alarm scared me, I thought it was for you" Maya states before she pulls away from the hug, noticing Derek seems a bit out of it. "What? What's wrong?" Maya asks, resting her hands in her back pocket as Derek finishes scratching the top of his head in agony.

"Giuseppe is dead."

_____

Now at work, It's JJ's first day back in Quantico and Natalie, Rossi, Reid and Garcia greet her in the round table room where they have thrown her a small surprise party. "Oh! I've missed you guys" JJ cheers as she finishes hugging Reid and pulls Natalie in for a hug, Natalie rubbing JJ's back friendly before JJ greets everyone else.

"We missed you more, mama!" Garcia says, placing a cheek on JJ's cheek as she tightens the hug before Rossi hands her a gift for Will, Reid gives JJ his collection of books for her kids to read before they guide JJ to her desk where sparkling water is set out along with pictures of her new baby that she sent while she was away.

"This is so sweet guys, thank you, all of you" JJ thanks before she looks to the window that shows inside Hotch's office and sees Derek speaking with him. "Where's Maya?" JJ asks before the group hears someone walk up behind them, "Uh, right here" Maya says, making JJ whip her head around and clap her hands together happily.

"Ah! Hi, how are you?" JJ asks as Maya wraps her arms around JJ, slightly swaying side to side before JJ tightens the hug, never wanting to let go. "I am great, how's the baby?" Maya asks as the two women pull away from the hug and JJ sigh happily, "He's doing great, you should definitely come see him again even though you say you don't like kids" JJ jokes, playfully poking Maya's arm.

"Okay, your two sons and Jack don't count. They're just... different" Maya shrugs as she looks back to Hotch's office, seeing Derek and Hotch still speaking. "Still debriefing?" Maya asks, looking over to Rossi who nods his head slowly before Garcia starts pouring the sparkling water into everyone's glasses and making everyone clink their glasses together in a form of a cheers.

"Ok, you did not just have a baby" Derek compliments as he walks towards the group who is having a drink. "Hey, you" JJ smiles brightly, pulling Derek into a friendly hug, same with Hotch.

Just then, "I hate to ruin the fun, but-" Hotch begins, "But you're going to anyway" Maya adds, setting her glass down on the desk as Hotch sighs and nods his head before informing the team of a new case.

Turns out, on a college campus, there has been signs that coeds have been kidnapped up and down the east coast, one every two years. And the latest woman has just been grabbed so they have been called to check it out.

The latest victim, Bonnie, was abducted right nearby, so Maya and Natalie drive right over there and chat with the team over the phone. "Hotch, you said the last victims were abducted about 2 years ago, why weren't we alerted way sooner?" Maya asks as she drives the car, Natalie being the passenger seat.

Maya is then informed that it's because the women were taking two years apart in different states 'using different MOs'.

"Can I ask what exactly you want us to do?" Natalie asks, looking out the window as she awaits a response, "Track Bonnie's movements. The campus police checked her room, and she's not there" Hotch explains before Natalie wonders where her cellphone says she is since she's a college student and most of everyone in the 20th century has a phone.

Garcia checks and states the phone is still pinging to her room, which the team thinks is weird since Bonnie so young, you'd think she would go everywhere with her cellular device. Garcia then finds out that the victim had put in a request to withdraw from school, and they immediately assume that the disappearance is related to that.

They were able to find Bonnie's sister, who clears up that the withdrawal from school was a misunderstanding, and she was going to cancel the withdrawal on Monday.

_____

In the victim's room, Maya and Natalie look around. Maya looks over at Natalie, who continuously cracks her knuckles. "I hate to sound like Reid, but you've cracked your knuckles like 8 times since we walked in here, is everything okay? I know that's a stupid question considering everything you went through but... you know you can talk to me, right?" Maya explains, meeting Natalie in the middle of the room as she rubs her hands on her pants nervously to stop her from cracking them again.

"I'm fine, I think, I just had a scary moment this morning in the elevator. I- I felt like everything was closing in on me, and I was scared" Natalie confesses, Maya nodding her head slowly in reassurance as she listens to Natalie admit what's going with her.

"Have you talked to anyone? A therapist? Your mom?" Maya asks, but Natalie waves her off, "I don't need a therapist pointing out the obvious and my mother already calls like 10 times a day, and I tell her what I can" Natalie explains before she walks past Maya and checks out the two chemistry books that are lying on her desk.

"Uh, doesn't look like she was leaving town or school anytime soon since her clothes and stuff is still placed neatly in the room" Maya announces, not wanting to urge Natalie to talk about something she's not comfortable with. "Also looks like she was trying on different outfits" Maya says as she looks down at the clothes loud out on the bed, waiting to be worn.

"It's still weird, why not take your phone? She'd need to meet up with her friends at some point" Natalie voices until she looks back down at the two chemistry books in her hand and opens them up to reveal Bonnie's name in one of them and Paddy Morris in the other, "Unless her friends were already here..."

"We should find who this is, she could know where she went" Maya voices before Natalie closes the books shut and follows Maya out of the room, closing the door after her as they head off to find where a fellow Paddy Morris is staying at on campus.

Once they find Paddy, they see she is clearly hung over but decide to talk to her anyway and discover that she had brought the victim to a lame party where they both got drunk, and then the victim walked home alone. They didn't have phones because they didn't bring purses, and their outfits didn't have pockets.

Now that they know where the victim was that evening, they can check her route back to the dorms, which allows them to find footage of the killer lurking in an alcove and then following her when she walked by. There was no camera footage covering the half-a-block where she was assaulted, though, so they don't know about his car just yet.

Garcia does manage to get good picture of his face, and the fact that he was reading something on a cell phone when she walked by made them think she was his main target.

Natalie and Reid go to check out the abduction zone, "This is the last spot she was seen. The next camera is 100 feet down, which makes this the abduction zone" Reid explains as him and Natalie walk side by side. "The police already searched the buildings, nothing there" Natalie informs before they both think that if Bonnie got into a car with him, it would've shown up on the camera down the street, but it didn't.

"But they were out in the open, it's too risky" Natalie states as she clears her throat harshly as she squeezes her fist tightly.

After Natalie fell limp, the man held her body in his arms bridal style and stared up at the camera that was placed right above him. He tilted his head tauntingly before he started walking away, straight towards his black van where he forcefully places Natalie in the back and drove away without a care in the world.

"But it's not impossible" Natalie sighs as she loosens the grip she has on her fist and lets out a stressful sigh before turn towards an alley, that they didn't notice before, and it's not even covered with cameras.

_____

Just then, Reid gets a message about his mother, who is not doing well. "What's wrong? If you don't mind me asking..." Natalie wonders, willing to be there for Reid if he lets her. "The doctors have had to change her medicine 3 times to try to stabilize the schizophrenia" Reid explains and Natalie stops in her tracks, grabbing Reid's arm gently before he moves any further.

"Reid, why haven't you said anything?" Natalie asks, Reid shrugging his shoulders, "I don't know. I didn't want to bother you since I know what you're already going through. I just wanted to help you" Reid answers and Natalie shakes her head in disbelief.

"Bother me? Reid, first off, you could never. Second, your mother is more important than me. How long has this been going on?" Natalie asks to which Reid answers for the past few weeks.

"You should go see her. She needs you" Natalie says and Reid nods his head understandingly. "I know, but right now so does Bonnie and- and maybe even you" Reid says before he walks ahead of Natalie, continuing what they came to the abduction site to do. They assume that the killer had been stalking the victim for a while and took his chance when he saw her wandering drunk and alone down the street.

_____

Back at Quantico, the team talks about how the important thing is to make sure that the killer sees his victim as a person- hopefully that will buy more time. Garcia also says that she's going to search out the DC-area guys with stalking and peeping records, to compare to their full-face photo of the killer.

Later, during the press conference, Maya walks past Derek's office and sees him in it, which makes her take a few steps back until she is standing in the doorway. "What are you doing?" Maya asks as she walks in, seeing Derek slowly close a file that he was reading at his desk.

Maya narrows her eyes at him and takes a few steps closer before she grabs the file and reads through it, seeing it's about the dirty dozen case they've started up.

"Really? Right now, as we're in the middle of a case?" Maya questions, tossing the file back onto his desk. "I can't get all the blood I saw leave Giuseppe's mouth out of my head. These people are the worst kinds of people, and we have to find them. We need too" Derek argues and Maya shakes her head in disbelief.

"Right now, we need to find Bonnie, not a bunch of contract killers" Maya states, looking down at Derek, who lets out a stressful sigh. "Don't let this dirty dozen fiasco interrupt what's going on right here, right now" Maya demands and Derek nods his head slowly as he stands to his feet before Garcia rushes to his office.

"Guys we got some walk in, and I can't find Rossi. Can you talk to him?" Garcia asks to which Maya and Derek nods in agreement before Garcia scurries off, Derek places the file in one of his drawers, and Maya walks out of the office towards the lobby, where Derek follows after her.

"Can we help you?" Maya asks, and walking up towards the guy as he takes his hat off. "I'm the man in the video. I saw the press conference. You wanted to talk to me?" The man states and Maya looks at the man in shock before Derek urges the man to follow him and takes him into an interrogation room.

The guy claims that he's a cabbie that drives drunk people home, and he was waiting for a fare, when he saw a dude escort the victim into an alley. They have one question, though - if he thought she might be a good fare, why did he duck back into an alley and hide when she was coming, then follow her out? But he doesn't give an exact answer, he just tries to deflect the situation off of him.

They then ask whether or not he seen Bonnie being put into a car and he hesitates. Maya looks over at Hotch, who looks at her knowingly before she walks out of the watch room and heads towards where Garcia is and asks her to run the plates of every car that was around campus the night of the abduction.

Garcia does as she's told and checks the list of all of the cars on campus and finds that one of them was the delivery car from the place that the victim orders from all the time. And the car is registered to a 22-year-old man named Tom Larson. Who doesn't have any type of criminal record.

"What about juvenile offenses?" Natalie asks and Garcia gasps before begins to tap on her computer keys and finds what she's looking for. Tom has lots of misdemeanor peeping offenses in his teens and every-time he got busted he'd end up in the hospital with bruises and broken bones.

"Probably an abusive father. Were child services ever called?" Hotch wonders and Garcia shakes her head, stating the mother always lied and explained the situation away until she committed suicide a couple years ago. Now it's off to save Bonnie from Tom and possibly Tom's father, who isn't as innocent as people think.

Speaking of Bonnie, she sprays the pepper water in Tom's face, but doesn't have a plan for the next step. The noise of their fight attracts the attention of the scumbag father, who thinks they should kill the victim and dispose of the body, so the son won't go to jail.

Once a scumbag, always a scumbag.

The son was visibly getting angry and couldn't take any more orders from his father.

Tom takes his father's cane and places it around his neck forcefully, slowly murdering his father to save Bonnie, and moments later the team rushes in to save the day, only to find the father dead and Tom willingly raising his hands, not wanting to resist or fight anymore because his only reason was now gone... for good...

Case closed.

_____

Later that night, Natalie sits with Reid at his desk and stays with him as he phoned his mother. As he talks with her, his hand reaches over to hold onto Natalie's and neither of them wanted to let go because Natalie wanted to be there for Reid in his time of comfort, like he was for her.

Meanwhile, Derek and Maya go to say goodnight to Garcia, and finds her hiding in Derek's office. "Hey, you okay, Garcia?" Maya asks as she unhooks her arm from around Derek and steps closer to Garcia, seeing tears form in her eyes. "Yeah, I've just- I've just been looking over this dirty dozen case" Garcia starts off, sniffling in her tears.

"I think I have a lead- I- Um-" Garcia stammers over her works before Derek places his bag on the ground and kneels in front of Garcia, resting his hand on her leg while Maya sits next to her.

"Garcia, what's wrong?" Maya asks before Garcia clears her throat nervously, "The dirty dozen- is- is me." Garcia answers, making Maya and Derek furrow their eyebrows in confusion before Garcia explains that she used 12 programs to search for the killer's targets, and she investigated them in the deep web during Montolo's case and is subsequently perceived as a threat by the network.

Now his team are after the FBI asset, and she thinks they can't be stopped...

"They'll never stopped" Garcia cries over as she leans into Maya's arms, sobbing uncontrollably while Maya wraps her arms around her lovingly, looking towards Derek who keeps his hands over his mouth, in complete and utter shock.

"The villain will always be the villain if the hero tells the story"
-K-

disclaimer: this act will mostly revolve around the dirty dozen anddddd i didn't name Rossi's daughter in this chapter or any other chapter because i honestly don't care for her. To me, she's not an important asset in the book so, i just never stated her whereabouts and stuff like that.