Another man died last night. Some lady is responsible, they think. They dressed up for Mardi Gras and were roaming around some party last night looking for her, and that's the plan tonight. They want me in on surveillance with them this evening so I'm supposed to take it easy. They go out for interviews while I play the victim of flirtation with three different officers. Yesterday was my day to relax. I'm itching to do something. I try to help by being the liaison point with Garcia, but it still doesn't quite feel like I'm part of the team. My stomach is back to normal by lunch, but everyone is treating me like I'm fragile. I guess, in their eyes, I must be. Puking at the sight of a body, at the site of the body, definitely suggests that I'm not cut out for this. They'd be right. I'm a statistician for a reason.

Regardless, they let me watch in on an interview. Some guy who they think raped the unsub before Katrina sits in an interview room. Prentiss and JJ get sent in since they think he'll have a better reaction to being interviewed by the women. The men outside profile the unsub and compare her to Jack the Ripper. Once Prentiss and JJ show the guy pictures of her victims they get a name. Sarah.

It's such an ordinary name.

We get a home address for her from Garcia over the phone.

"Come on, Bouchard, one last ride," Hotch says.

I hurry up, dashing out of the building after them in my bulletproof vest before anyone can point out I'm supposed to be on flowerpot duty. You know, something that is ultimately decorative but will easily die if nudged slightly. They tell me to wait outside, but it's something at least.

So, there I wait, leaning against the car. Reid, Morgan, and Hotch head into her apartment. Sitting and waiting isn't a skill that I'm very good at doing. My feet are idle. I always need to be going somewhere.

A bang erupts, metallic. I draw my gun. Someone's been shot. I look down the road. There are a couple of people on the road, one lying down. A car zooms away from them. Putting my gun back in its holster, I hurry down. Someone's been hit. It's barely a block, and I'm sprinting as fast as I can.

There are four girls together decked out for Mardi Gras. The one who was hit is off the ground swaying.

"What happened?" I ask.

The girl gets up, swaying a bit.

"That guy was an asshole," her friend says, slurring her words. "He like, totally cut us off."

"You're not going to like, arrest her for smacking the hood of his car, right?" a third girl says, only for a fourth girl to elbow her and shush her. "What? He was being a jerk!"

"No one was hit by a car?" I ask.

They all shrug. So much for any action

The radio clicks.

"She's at the Royal Ruby Inn with a victim. Heading there now."

The radio clicks off. I turn back to the cars, pulling out my radio. If they don't make fun of me for puking once we are back in DC, I'll never hear the end of running off to solve the great caper of drunk girls jaywalking.

"You guys are doing a bust at our hotel?" the one girl spins on her feet.

She points just down the street and at the sign. At this point, it'd be faster to run there than hurry back to the cars for the rest of the team.

Before any of the girls can say something incriminating, I'm off. I click on the radio and speak into it.

"Moving in on foot," I say. "I'll explain later."

I run and run, and maybe if I'm lucky I will get in their first. She's got a potential victim in there with her, and since she isn't exactly torturing the men all that much I don't know how long I have to get to him.

"She's in room 236. Wait outside once you are there."

Hotch's tone is easier to make out than the pitch and quality of his voice. I know it's him because he's stern and because he speaks so directly. I'm there within two minutes. The place is more of a motel. I bound up the stairs onto the second floor zooming past until I find room 236. My heart is thundering and I take slow breaths to try and force it into the right beat.

I hear a guy scream inside. That's an exigent circumstance. I can enter now. The wood looks old. Hotels around here must be expensive this time of year if those girls are staying in a place like this. It looks like it's got termites. Yeah, I could kick it down, but Hotch told me to stay outside. I'm not really prepared to go in. I got sick from the smell of a body last time, and I've never drawn my gun on a living suspect before. It's too stupid.

The guy screams again. Man, people will just ignore anything at a motel.

I pull out my gun and lift up my foot. With as much force as I can, I kick the door and it bursts open. Even though I did it, I didn't think it would work first try. And now, I'm looking down at the suspect.

My gun is trained on the lady. She glances at me, still straddling the guy. There is blood on his chest, a knife in her hand, and only one glance shared between us before her eyes are back on him.

"FBI!" I say, the training working in me, if a bit delayed. "Drop your weapon."

"He's getting what he wanted," her voice is edgy, icy.

I feel myself tense. They kept me out of every room. Hostage negotiation is complicated and everything I've learned about FBI-specific hostage techniques was from one of David Rossi's books. I am not supposed to be in this room. I don't want to even look at them, her on top of a guy with a knife, the man tied to the bed by his wrists and feet. He's naked too.

Unlike when we saw the body, I can't puke. He's depending on me. My blood feels cool, I can hear my pulse thrumming in my ears, and I focus on the cold feeling of the gun in my hand. I need to stay here, not to leave myself. Not like when I did when Reid was abducted.

"He wanted this," she murmurs again.

"You can want something then and not want it now," I find my voice, somewhere warm deep inside of my body, far away from my numb fingers. "You can want something but not want what that thing becomes, Sarah."

She turns to look at me. The other agents burst into the room. I feel myself moving to let them take up space. Hotch calls for an EMT.

She addressed Morgan instead of me, "why don't you shoot me? I won't fight back as much if I'm dead."

My stomach turns. I feel sick. Stéphane. It's an annoying thought, but it's there. I've managed on my own for years now. I've travelled continents alone, walked down alleyways late at night, and done a thousand things more dangerous and scary than this. Yet, I can't help the illness in my stomach again. I feel the gun in my hand. My father wasn't the kind of Dad so many other girls have. He didn't give guys a talking-to on the porch. He taught me how to shoot a gun because he knew he would never be able to defend me. Stéphane was, but Stéphane couldn't save me now. He was an okay shot a decade ago, but he didn't know how to shoot. My Dad couldn't save me either. He's dead.

There are other people in here with guns, looking out for me, but I am my own primary saviour.

I'm about to speak, to tell her to talk to me, two women in a room with the men who scare us, but the local detective, William Lamontagne Jr. cuts in. His father knew her, and she seems to listen well enough. He takes the knife from Sarah. Then, he pulls her off the body and the other FBI officers begin to move. I go over to help Lamontagne cuff her while the others deal with the victim. Together, we head outside, moving toward a cruiser that's there. Lamontagne reads her her rights, finishing just before we shut the door.

"I think your boss isn't going to be too happy you went in early," he points out.

My hand feels cold. I'm still holding my gun. I put it back in my holster, and then nod at him.

"He was screaming in there," I say. "It didn't feel like it could wait."

"You might be riding desk duty for a while."

When I glance at Lamontagne, I see he is smiling a bit. You know, I wish he was sticking around. He doesn't seem so bad. It might be the fact that he's not a profiler. Still, knowing that he will leave, I don't bother telling him that all I do is desk duty anyway, and after this stunt, I'm probably happy to return.

Once the EMTs are upstairs, Hotch is the first one out. He heads over to me, and I know I'm going to get torn a new one now. He looks no more stern than usual, but I think he's already so close to anger that it's hard to tell if he's actually mad. Hotch pivots when our eyes meet, gesturing for me to follow him. As he commands, I do. It's better to listen to this order than none at all tonight.

"I'm going to speak and you are going to respond only when I'm done talking," he begins. When I don't respond, he presses forward. "I know you've done training, but this is your first time out in the field. I asked you to wait because even my most experienced field agents shouldn't walk into situations on their own. That's how bad things happen. What went through your mind when you busted the door down?"

So, I explain to him what I thought. The wood would be something I could break in one hit. I knew I was unprepared, and that it was risky, and that I might panic or get sick, but I didn't want to be the person, like the other people in the motel, who heard the sound and didn't act.

I couldn't pretend I didn't notice. Not when that man needed someone to notice.

He nods when I'm done.

"I had assumed you thought about it. You're good at guessing odds," Hotch points out. "I'm not going to penalize you. I don't give out passes for ignoring orders, but it is your first time in the field, and I would be lying if I said I never ignored a command, or that none of my agents ever ignored my commands. In fact, you wouldn't really be on the team if you didn't do something that I told you not to do from time to time."

I swear, Hotch almost smiles. It is barely complete, only a second, but it's there. I try not to join in. The adrenaline is no longer rushing through me. I feel a bit sick again. One thing is certain though. Another man didn't die tonight.

And I don't feel like I'm going to throw up. Even after entering a hostage situation. Somehow, I feel fine.

~~~~~

Here we go. Did Reid appear? No, but this sets the stage completely for the next chapter, and then the next, which if I do say so myself are absolute bangers. Hardcore. My little hard is singing! Any expectations heading in?