"Okay, so, hypothetically.." Elijah began.

"No." Fleur pointed.

"Wh- I haven't even said anything." Elijah crossed his arms.

"I know what you think like."

"Rude."

"Now, what did Rigatoni do?" Garcia chuckled.

"Dragged toilet paper through the house." Reid hummed.

"You chased him, didn't you?" Morgan looked at Elijah.

"Wh- No." Elijah looked away.

"Did so."

"Shush." Elijah nudged him.

"So what happened?" Emily asked.

"Things were handled calmly and professionally."

"I'm sure they were." Fleur chuckled.

"Reid." Elijah turned to him.

"..Yes." Reid nodded slowly.

"Does anyone here believe me?"

"I do." Garcia raised her hand.

"Anyone else?" Elijah looked around.

"I do." Garcia pouted.

"I get it, I know who my friends are." Elijah put an arm around Garcia.

"Garcia." Hotch cleared his throat as he walked over.

"Yes sir?" Garcia turned to face him.

"We have a case and I need you to come along."

"Me?" She blinked.

"Yes." Hotch nodded.

"Oh- Well- Of course."

"You're coming with us." Elijah hummed,"Oh, that's lovely."

"Wheels up in ten." Hotch sighed.

*********************************

"Sir, it's not that I'm not glad to be coming with you, because I am, I just don't understand why." Garcia told him.

"One of the aspects of an equivocal death investigation, when suicide is a probability, is an indirect personality assessment. Our victims are all Internet generation kids. There should be invaluable personal data on their computers to mine for the evaluation." Hotch explained.

"If they committed suicide, evidence of it will probably be left in their cyber world." Morgan nodded.

"So I'm going to snoop through dead kid's computers?" Garcia blinked.

"This plane seldom makes pleasure trips." Elijah sighed.

"We've all been over the files, let's talk about victimology." Hotch nodded.

"Okay, all four kids were decent students from different neighbouring towns with the same school, in the same county." Rossi began

"Active in sports and community." Fleur read out.

"Intact families. No mental disorders. No precipitating events." Emily shook her head.

"These are just average, good kids." Morgan looked up,"There has to be some underlying issue."

"Besides relative proximity, there's no obvious connection between any of them." Reid nodded slowly.

"Seems to rule out an overt suicide pact." Hotch finished.

"The first few days leading up to a teenager suicide are usually very telling. Their behavior is transparent, their are a multitude of indicators.." Elijah crossed his arms.

"Yeah, but the most common don't exist here. There's no prior attempts, no period of deep depression, no withdrawal from family members, no spontaneous proclamations of love." JJ shrugged.

"'Spontaneous proclamations of love'?" Emily raised a brow.

"Sometimes a suicidal person, in the days leading up to the act, will just blurt out 'I love you' to family. Sort of like a goodbye." Fleur explained.

The jet was quiet for a few moments before Hotch spoke again,"We'll start with the latest two victims. If they were suicides, let's find out what drove them to it."

*********************************

"Hello. Rhonda Samuels." Samuels walked up to the Agents as they got out of the SUVS.

"Hi, Agent Jareau, we spoke on the phone." JJ shook her hand.

"Hey, thanks for coming out. My county is getting pretty shook up. And I got this reporter who won't stop calling. I'm holding him off, but he's connecting the dots over rhe number of suicides." Samuels explained.

The Agents were quiet, looking around at each other.

"Should I call him back?"

"No, not just yet. We need to be very careful about when we release this information." JJ told her.

"Sensationaling these deaths may cause a domino effect with other kids." Morgan nodded.

"The term is 'suicide contagion'. The spread of suicidal thoughts among a group of people that sometimes results in copycat acts." Reid explained,"It's especially prevalent in teen cases, and studies suggest that media coverage are sometimes associated with more deaths."

"Is there a good place for me to set up?" Garcia asked.

"We don't have much of a command centre." Samuels shook her head.

"Fret not. I've got my own command center. I just need your juice." Garcia hummed.

"You got it."

*********************************

"She was so excited about graduating high school next year. She couldn't wait for her SATS." Mrs Leake, one of the victim's mothers spoke.

"Was Trish dating anyone?" Elijah asked.

"No." Her father shook his head.

"Billy Sullivan." Mrs Leake spoke up.

"Is that who she..?"

"Yes."

Her father got up, clasping his hands together.

"What is it, Mr Leake?" Hotch raised a brow.

"She ran up over one hundred dollars texting last month. And we grounded her and we took away her cell." Mrs Leake explained.

"Not we. Me. I did that." Mr Leake was close to tears as he looked down at his wife,"Why didn't you tell me she had a boyfriend?"

"Because you would have freaked out." She nodded.

"No, I wouldn't."

"You are right now." Mrs Leake pointed.

"Not because she had a boyfriend, because I might have caused.." Mr Leake stopped himself.

"Mr Leake, if your daughter committed suicide, it wouldn't have been because of some punishment. It's so much more complicated than that." Fleur shook her head.

"If?" Mrs Leake blinked.

"Sorry?"

"You said.. If she committed suicide." Mr Leake pointed.

"Would you mind showing us Trish's room?" Hotch asked.

"Um.. Yeah, sure. It's this way." Mr Leake nodded slowly.

Hotch stood up, following them. Inside Trish's room.. Well, it looked like that of your average teenage girl. Nothing stood out, although many trophies lined her shelves.

"She certainly was accomplished." Hotch nodded.

Elijah picked up her diary from the desk,"Yeah, there's nothing unusual in her diary. No fury, no angst."

"Do you really have to go through all of her personal stuff? She was such a private girl." Mrs Leake sighed.

"We are terribly sorry that we have to do this." Elijah shook his head,"We care about Trish and we want to make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else's daughter."

"Mr and Mrs Leake, there's a form I need you both to fill out. Can you come with me?" Fleur asked.

"If you need anything.." Mr Leake looked at the others.

"Thank you." Elijah nodded.

*********************************

"Hey, you ready ready delve into Trish Leaked online world?" Elijah asked as he walked into Garcia's office.

"If by ready you mean extremely capable and even more reluctant." Garcia looked up at her.

"Yeah, something like that." Fleur chuckled.

"How're the Leakes holding up?" Samuels asked.

"Probably as well as can be expected." Elijah shrugged slightly.

"Yeah, they're strong people." Samuels nodded.

"Good."

"Well, that's weird." Garcia tilted her head.

"What?" Hotch asked.

"There's nothing here."

"Nothing useful?" Rossi raised a brow.

"Nothing..At all." Garcia shook her head,"Look, there's no root directory, there's no operating system. The registry appears to be blank."

"Why would she have an empty computer set up?" Emily asked.

"I did not say empty. I said appears to be blank." Garcia corrected.

"Meaning?" Hotch raised a brow.

"I'm going to need a little while."

Hotch nodded, Rossi watching over her shoulder as Garcia got to work. Fleur looked over at the map, sighing.

"Flo?" Elijah turned to her.

"I know I shouldn't have said if." Fleur shook her head,"Believe me, the last thing I want is to make things worse for these families."

"I know." Elijah sighed.

"I just don't want this Friday to end up like the last two." Fleur told him.

"We will, I promise." Elijah assured her.

"I got it!" Garcia gasped,"It was just a basic Trojan horse. It just hid the directories, didn't erase them..Oh god."

"What is it?" Hotch furrowed his brow.

"She was on a choking game site the night she died."

"A what?" Fleur blinked.

"It's a game kids play where they choke themselves to get a buzz.. To get high." Elijah told her.

"They call it the 'good kid's high'." Reid nodded,"You get lightheaded and a sense of euphoria even though there's no drugs involved. It's something kids in high school play." He explained.

"Did Ryan have a computer?" Hotch questioned.

"Not in his room." Morgan shook his head.

"What about a gaming system?" Garcia looked up at them.

"Yeah, he did." Reid sighed.

"Teenagers will find a way to get online." Garcia shook her head.

"I have the IP address." Reid told her, handing her a note.

"Oh- That will help." Garcia typed it in, the same choking game site popping up,"Bingo. Ryan was on the same site on the same night."

"It wasn't suicide." Morgan sighed.

"Hang on, this is a text-to-voice icon. Let's see what happens." Garcia clicked on the icon.

They then heard a male voice speaking, taunting whoever listened to it, 'I dare you'.

"I dare you?" Samuels repeated.

"Someone was orchestrating this." Fleur cursed,"Purposely getting kids to choke themselves.."

*********************************

"We believe the Unsub responsible for these deaths may be a teenager." Hotch began with the profile.

"He is a loner. He doesn't participate in team sports or group activities. He's withdrawn, very low self esteem." Emily continued.

"His only form of peer interaction is online. He engages in activity that draws attention to himself, yet isolates himself from his oeers." Reid explained.

"Parents and teachers should watch out for the warning signs. Kids with bloodshot eyes, marks on their necks, severe headaches, disorientation." JJ listed.

"In real life, he considers himself a loser. In cyberspace, he can pull the strings. It makes him feel powerful." Rossi nodded.

"Does this kid know that other kids are dying because of him?" An officer asked.

"He's choking himself and daring others to do it, so we're most likely looking at reckless homicides here." Elijah crossed his arms.

"If you see anything that's unusual or suspicious, just call the sheriffs department and we will try to direct you the best we can. Thank you." JJ nodded.

*********************************

Morgan, Reid, Elijah and Fleur had been sent to the school to try and educate the students on the danger they were putting themselves in. Although.. They didn't seem too interested.

"Two different mechanisms, strangulation and hyperventilation, create the same effect. Oxygen deprivation in the brain." Reid explained,"Uhm-"

"Not a good idea, let me see it." Morgan walked over to a desk.

A kid was on his phone messaging another classmate. The kid looked back at his friend before he looked up at Morgan, slowly handing over his phone.

"What planet is this guy from? He doesn't want us to win the contest." Morgan read out.

Reid stammered, fidgeting with his hands,"I think the more accurate statement would be, 'he doesn't want us to participate in the contest at all.'

"This was Ryan's desk, right? This is where he sat?" Fleur asked, walking to the empty desk.

"You guys remember Ryan? He played football, took Shauna to prom. I'm assuming some of you were even friends with Ryan." Elijah followed her, arms crossed,"Ryan wanted to win the contest too. But when Ryan choked himself, he cut off all the oxygen to his brain, which sent a signal to his heart, slowing it down."

"Then, his brain, in effort to preserve itself, shut off all non-essential bodily functions. His arms and legs gave out, which means he couldn't loosen the tie around his neck, at which point panic sets in." Fleur continued.

"And in Ryan's case, it escalated to cardiac arrest, which means that his heart stopped, brain damage began, and within four minutes, he was completely and totally braindead." Reid finished.

"He died scared and probably in a lot of pain. And unable to stop what he thought he had complete control of." Elijah shook his head,"All because he wanted to participate in what I think we all consider.. A pretty shitty game."

"So I mean, your text is completely accurate. I don't want you to win the contest, because I don't want you to play the game." Reid sighed.

The kids all looked around at each other, silent.. Except for one. He had a darker, more gothic style than the others, even wearing a thick chain necklace that covered his neck.

"You all believe this crap?"

"You don't?" Fleur asked.

The kid shrugged, just looking up at the agents.

"Why don't you come up here and tell us what you think?" Morgan tilted his head.

"Whatever." The kid slowly got up before sprinting out of the room.

"Hey! Hey!" Morgan sprinted after him.

"Do we have to run?" Elijah turned to Fleur.

"Go." Fleur pointed.

"Going." Elijah sighed, shaking his head as he hurried out of the classroom.

"Kid, stop!" Morgan shouted as he chased after him.

But he didn't stop. He kept running, even down the stairs before crashing into two other students and their book trolley, falling to the ground.

"You alright? Just relax, it's okay." Morgan jumped ontop of him.

"Let me go!" He struggled.

"Stop fighting! Okay? Stop it." Morgan held him firmly.

"Let me go.." The kid looked away as Elijah jogged over.

"You're okay."

"Are you alright?" Elijah asked Morgan.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Why'd you run?" Morgan turned to the boy.

Elijah bent down, sighing,"Morgan, look at his neck."

"Let me look at your neck." Morgan looked down, going to take the kid's necklace off.

"Don't touch that!" He began to struggle again

"Hey! What did I say? Relax." Morgan sighed, gently moving his chain to reveal marks on his neck.

"Different colors means different stages of healing." Elijah nodded slowly,"You've been doing this to yourself for a long time, haven't you, kid?"

"There's no telling how much his brain has suffered." Morgan shook his head.

*********************************

"Mary, this Christopher kid is fantastic. He's got a segmented hard-drive, serious firewalls, major league encryption." Garcia looked through his coding.

"No reason for all that unless he's hiding something serious." Rossi shrugged.

"Okay, so thats why he isn't worried." Emily nodded.

"This is.." Garcia groaned,"Unusual. Every attack I launch is shot down immediately."

"What's that?" JJ asked as the computer started beeping.

"Someone just uploaded a video to the game site." Garcia blinked.

"It's.. 12:01." Elijah looked down at his watch.

"It's Friday, they're playing." Fleur sighed.

"Its only a matter of time before some of them go wrong." Rossi shook his head.

"Guys, I'm gonna keep dead-ending on this until I get a beat on how he set up his security system." Garcia looked up at them

Morgan and Reid then walked in, Morgan shaking his head,"I hope you got a plan B."

"Garcia, Elijah? I think this kid will relate to you better than anyone else. I want you to talk to him. See if you can get him to open up." Hotch turned to them.

"Sir, I have never done that before. What if I mess up?" Garcia asked.

"You'll be fine. Elijah will be there too."

"And hey, I make mistakes sometimes too." Elijah assured her.

Garcia sighed and got up, walking out with Elijah and looking into the room with Chris inside.

"You can do this." Elijah rubbed her arm before he slowly opened the door.

"Hi there..I'm Penelope." Garcia smiled,"This is Elijah, but you know that."

Christ looked her up and down,"Good for you."

"Can I sit down?"

"You're the cops." Chris nodded.

"No, no.. We look like cops to you?"

"Yeah. What, you aren't?" Chris raised a brow.

"Well, I'm an FBI tech analyst."

"And I'm a Supervisory Special Agent." Elijah looked down at his attire "And they let me dress like this."

"But I just have some administrative cyber crud to go over with you. Just a geekete." Garcia hummed.

"Cool." Chris looked down.

"You are glum." Garcia sighed,"Time is a great healer."

Chris scoffed,"Neither of you have any idea how I feel."

"Well, I lost my mom and my dad when I was about your age, so, I don't know, I think I got a pretty good idea."

"And I went though a rough patch, drugs and bullying.. But hey, I'm still here." Elijah nodded.

"I felt totally alone.. Till I found the netizens." Garcia held Elijah's hand.

Chris looked back at them, smiling slightly,"BTDT."

"And hey, we're not lying. It'll totally get better. BTW I like your nails." Garcia hummed.

"Thanks. You into goth?"

"You know, I don't think we're really supposed to anymore, but the love is still there." Elijah held up his and Garcia's hands, revealing their black nails.

"So you're FBI?" Chris asked.

"Yeah, I know. It's crazy, but we love it." Garcia smiled,"I enjoy your earring, too. Where did you score that?"

"Ebay. It's supposed to be Johnny D's from that pirate movie." Chris told her.

"Most awesome." Garcia smiled.

"I've just got to say, your whole PGP disc encryption system is incredibly impressive." Elijah added.

"Yeah, I'm kinda into that stuff." He shrugged.

"Stuff? Dude, you do not understand. I'm jealous. That is state-of-the-art technology that the Feeb does not have." Garcia shook her head.

"Whatever." He chuckled.

"Okay, how did you get your anonymising sevice?" Garcia tilted her head.

"I got it from some link from some dude online. What do you care?" He shrugged.

"I just think it's uber-cool how you set your whole system up." Garcia told him,"Like, how you use an EShredder to obliterate your net activity and a window wiper as your second trash eraser. Who does that?"

"Everybody does that." Chris blinked

Elijah went to speak, but that's when Hotch entered,"The interview's over."

"Interview?" Chris looked at them.

"I-I was just-" Garcia tried.

"His father invoked." Hotch sighed.

Chris sat up, smiling slightly as his dad walked in,"Dad."

"I'm getting you a lawyer. I screwed up and failed you when your mother died. Not this time.. Unless you people have something to charge him with?" Chris' father looked at the Agents.

The Agents stayed silent, they.. Had nothing, really. They couldn't charge Chris.

"We're leaving." His father nodded.

"SYL Miss P, Mr Deans." Chris gave them a small handshake,"By the way, uhm.. I do miss my mom."

"They're not your friends. They were trying to trick you." Christopher's dad quickly left with him.

"Sir, I'm sorry, I tried-" Garcia turned to Hotch.

"If he invokes..He invokes." Hotch shrugged,"Concentrate on cracking the encryption."

"Yeah.." Garcia nodded as Hotch walked out.

"Don't blame yourself, okay?" Elijah looked at her.

Garcia nodded slowly, looking down at the earring in her hand.

*********************************

With that, the Agents pulled up outside of Chris' house. It was his dad, he was manipulating and abusing Chris while also posing as a student to get the other kids to play the game.

"FBI!" Morgan shouted before busting the door down

Inside the house, it was.. Empty. All the lights were on but it didn't seem like anyone was home.

"You need to see this." Rossi ran to the group.

The group followed him into the next room, Chris' bedroom.

"There's dozens of discs here." Rossi pointed.

"I was right here and I never even looked around." Detective Samuels sighed.

"Well, we only had consent for the laptop and he knew it was encrypted." Emily shook her head.

"We didn't have probable cause for a warrant. So Summers didn't have a chance to come back and get his trophies. He'll definitely try to download the videos tonight." Hotch cursed.

"This kid was doing everything he could just to survive." Elijah crossed his arms,"The extreme abuse conditioned him to shield his father."

"When his father came into the room, he seemed genuinely relieved." Hotch paced.

"Like his burden had been lifted." Reid nodded.

"He was elated when his father rescued him. We need to rethink everything."

*********************************

Luckily they managed to save Chris, and arrest his father. They caught them at the Chapel. Wilson was taken away in the cop car as Chris was loaded into the ambulance.

"You okay?" JJ asked everyone.

"Been better." Elijah sighed.

"I can't tell you all how much I appreciate you all coming out here." Samuels nodded.

"We're just glad it ended up okay." JJ told her.

"Come on. A small time County sheriff calls the FBI about potential suicides, and you drop what you're doing and you come here?" Samuels chuckled.

"We're an asset to all levels of law enforcement. It's what we do." JJ nodded.

"Well it's incredible." She hummed,"Would you like to come with us? We're going to tell the parents what really happened."

"..No. We need to be getting back." Elijah shook his head.

"You sure? I mean, I know it won't bring them back, but I would think that knowing that it wasn't intentional would bring some level of comfort."

"It will, definitely. You go ahead. Good luck, Sheriff." JJ hummed.

"Thank you." Samuels hugged JJ.

JJ smiled as she hugged back.

*********************************

"Are you really going at that again?" Fleur pointed towards the star puzzle Emily was playing with.

"What is it?" Reid tilted his head.

"It's called a star puzzle. It's practically impossible to figure out. You have to put all of the pieces back together to form a perfect star. But the origin of it is kinda a romantic tale." Emily hummed.

"Oh, you've peeked my attention now." Elijah turned to them, Morgan taking off his headphones to hear.

"There was this young prince who wanted to win the heart of the fairest maiden in the land. So, he climbed to the top of the tallest tower in the kingdom and he caught a falling star for her. Unfortunately, he was so excited that he dropped it and it shattered into all of these pieces. So he frantically put it back together again to prove his undying for her, he succeeded and they lived happily ever after." Emily explained.

Reid furrowed his brow,"That doesn't make any sense."

"What do you mean?" Fleur asked.

"You can't catch a falling star. It would burn up in the atmosphere." Reid told her.

"Yeah, but it's not literal Reid." Emily chuckled,"It's a fable."

"But there's no moral. Fables have morals." Reid blinked.

"Okay, so it's just a romantic little story. The point is, it's basically impossible to do because you have to take all of the pieces and fit them together exactly.." Emily trailed off.

Reid solved the star puzzle, gently sitting it on the table in front of her.

Emily stared for a second before she spoke,"There's a lot to hate about you, Dr Reid."

"Play poker with him sometime." Rossi spoke up.

"Try playing chess with him." Morgan chuckled.

"Or Go." Garcia added.

"Don't worry, hun. We still love you." Elijah kissed his cheek,"Now, who wants coffee?"

"Hot cocoa." Fleur pointed.

"Anybody else want anything?" Elijah asked as he got up,"While I'm standing?"

"Coffee." Rossi nodded.

"You got it." Elijah hummed as he headed off to the machine.