"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
—Albert Einstein

Jodi raced into the elevator the moment the doors opened, her heart racing in her chest as she scratched at her palm impatiently. She'd been woken up at the ungodly hour of 5:30 that morning to a simple text message from Elle, and had originally been furious at the fact that she very well could've slept for another forty five minutes before having to get out of bed.

The fury had fueled her into rolling off the bed while swaddled in her comforter, and sliding across the floor to where she'd left the usual pair of crutches she used in the morning before putting her leg on, usually after a cup of coffee.

She wound up having to search her house, trying to remember where the extremely sleep-deprived and caffeine-crashed version of herself had put her prosthetic leg the night before. After half an hour, she wound up finding it behind one of her various half-dead house plants. She spent another ten minutes trying to figure out why that had made sense to her less than seven hours earlier before moving on and grabbing all the necessary components to her prosthetic leg on upon her arrival home the previous night; her compression sock that she puts on over her knee, and the trio of legs she had to choose from.

It had been a month since her, Spencer and Gideon returned to their places at the BAU, and Jodi couldn't say she'd ever been happier. Even if it was just a desk job, since a case had yet to pop up again, and she had to endure hour after hour of teasing and sibling-like banter from Morgan for absolutely no reason, and everyone in that very building could drive her nuts sometimes — Spencer included — she wouldn't change anything for the world.

After getting herself situated back in her room, and she'd put her crutches back in their proper place, she'd walked out to the living room of her tiny apartment and grabbed her phone off the coffee table, grumbling quietly to herself right up until the moment she actually read the message, and then the one she'd missed that had been sent before it.

ELLE
come in ASAP. Gideon
just caught the Footpath
Killer.
5:26am

SPENCER
You asked me to remind
you that your prosthetic
leg is behind the plant,
and that you put it there
so it was protected. I'm
not sure what from. Sleep
well.
10:58pm

Of course he knew where I put my leg last night. Of course. Why didn't I think of that.

Immediately, she'd gone into the bathroom and showered, then proceeded to simultaneously dry off the chair she needed for balance while in the shower and blow-dry her hair. She got dressed into a pair of checkered pants and a long sleeved white top and her usual Dr Martens. She filled a travel thermos with coffee since she knew the stuff at the office sucked before dumping her bare necessities for the day into her shoulder bag and hi-tailed it over to the office.

Upon walking into the office, rifling around in her bag for her gum container, she was met with Morgan twisting side to side at his desk behind a pile of paperwork, Spencer staring at Gideon's retreating figure with a chessboard on his desk and a serious frown, and a curiously approaching Elle.

"You getting your butt kicked again over there, Doctor?" Jodi asked, grinning as she dropped her bag onto her desk that was across from his.

Still frowning, Spencer nodded twice. "Apparently it's checkmate in three moves," he mumbled, brows furrowing.

"You know, you'll beat him when you learn," Morgan snickered, sharing a knowing look with Jodi as she sat down in front of her own stack of paperwork.

"Learn what?"

"To think outside the box."

"Jodi, you're seriously just getting here? I texted you two hours ago," Elle snorted as she reached the small enclosure of desks.

"That's not my fault," she pouted, shoulders slouching. "I...did a thing that I'm not proud of and kind of confused about and it took me a while to undo."

"And what would that be?" Morgan questioned curiously while trying not to smile, and she sighed.

"I, uh, lost my leg."

Morgan immediately choked on his own spit and started laughing. Elle shook her head and grinned while Spencer seemed to have an internal debate about their friendship and why he was in it. "I even texted you," he sighed, then let out a soft chuckle as well.

"Like I said," Jodi huffed, moving her gum to one cheek and taking a long sip from her coffee cup. She cringed afterwards at the resulting taste. "I'm not overly proud."

The four fell into a comfortable silence that, after a few minutes, Elle broke. "So I'll bite; why did the footpath killer stutter?"

"We got that right about him, huh?" Jodi grinned knowingly, tucking her long red hair behind her ears. She opened her first file and made a weird face at Spencer under the sole reasoning that she could.

Morgan nodded. "Yup. And Gideon won't tell us why. He wants us to figure it out."

Jodi nodded slowly, pulling her lips in at the corners and squinting slightly. "Interesting."

"I'm up for a challenge," Elle shrugged, smiling almost cockily.

"Good," a voice so familiar to Jodi it made her grin. "Because these—" Jennifer Jareau, or JJ as she preferred to be called, dropped a stack of paperwork onto Elle's desk "—go to you. Special Agent Jennifer Jareau, or JJ if you'd like, I'm the unit liaison."

Jodi grinned and tuned out their conversation, scribbling frantically on the sheet of paper as she tried to make up for the fact that she was late by an hour because she somehow lost a leg, which she probably would've laughed at the irony of if it hadn't made her late for work. Her penmanship was awful, but she was well aware of it but didn't mind; anyone who looked at it usually had to come find her and ask what it said, so she could've written literally anything

She'd managed to get halfway through the first file when Hotch called them. "BAU team, can you meet me in the conference room please; I need to show you something."

Spencer waited for her at the bottom of the staircase, since she usually let everyone else go on ahead because she was a little slower. She smiled at him as he let her go first.

Once in the conference room, she sat in the empty seat between Morgan and JJ, setting her chin firmly in her palm while crossing her good leg over her prosthetic one under the table. As everyone situated themselves, she discretely slid Morgan a piece of gum across the table and mockingly fanned her nose when he looked at her, smiling as he grinned.

"This is from the Phoenix office," Hotch began, gesturing to the TV screen mounted on the wall behind him. A video ready to be played was visible, and Jodi mentally prepared herself for what was most likely going to show up if they had been asked in on the case. "Bradshaw college in Tempe. Six fires in seven months."

"Who recorded it?" Gideon asked from across the table.

"A student with a digital cam-corder," JJ answered. "He was watching a fire across from their dorm. The other person you'll see is his roommate; twenty year old Matt Rowland." She pressed play on the video.

"What the — this is crazy!" A young mans voice emitted from the speakers. "Hey Matt get over here you've got to see this, the building's on fire!" The camera was wavering as it focused on the image of flames billowing out of someone's window.

"Bro, are you getting this?" A new voice asked, briefly peaking his head into the camera's view to verify just that, and grinned when he saw he was right.

"Is that the kid?" Jodi asked softly, dropping her hands to her lap and leaning back in her chair. She uncrossed her legs, and immediately cringed at a tight feeling against the stump of her left leg, and she knew immediately that in her hurry to get to work that morning she had allowed an air bubble in the sock. It felt as if someone was squeezing her leg just enough to be uncomfortable.

"Yeah, that's him," Hotch confirmed.

Jodi listened intently as she heard Matt mention calling campus security, only to have his roommate dismiss it almost immediately.

The camera then followed Matt as he walked over to their front door, and the video caught someone stuffing a substance under it through the gap between the floor and the door itself. Matt moved closer to investigate, the two of them worrying that someone was in the hallway before coming to the conclusion that the unknown third person was trying to get in.

The roommate told Matt to walk away from the door, and Matt commented that something smelled like gas before flames swallowed his body from the floor up. He flailed for a moment, screaming, then collapsed on the floor. The roommate dropped the camera and grabbed a towel to try to pat the fire out.

Jodi swallowed her grimace and rolled her lips together, and sighed.

It was going to be a rough case.

👣🔪🧬

The jet had been prepped and was waiting for them on the runway when they arrived at the airport, in which Jodi lugged on her go bag that doubled as her purse. She usually kept a minimum of two pairs of clothes in it at all times.

She sat next to Spencer as he continued to play the game of chess against himself. "There are two common stressors for a serial arsonist," he announced without looking up from the pieces in front of him.

"Loss of job, loss of love," Elle added.

Morgan, who had previously been typing away on his computer, briefly glanced back at them. "When was the first fire set?"

"March," Hotch answered. "The next one was in May, then the third one wasn't until September, and then two weeks later there were three in one night."

Jodi scratched absently at her palm. "He's escalating." "Fires are continually getting closer together," Gideon agreed.

"Hey Reid, you got statistics on arsonists?" Morgan called without looking up from his computer screen.

Spencer was still playing chess, and Jodi almost smiled at how quickly he answered the question. "82% are white males between the ages of 17 and 27. Female arsonists are far less likely, their motive typically being revenge."

"Sounds like our boy's a student," Morgan breathed out.

Gideon's voice caught Jodi's attention, and she leaned around Spencer to get a better look at him. "Oh, don't be so sure. Rely too much on the precedent, you never allow for the unexpected. If he went from setting one fire to three in two weeks time—"

"—Rapid escalation," Hotch finished for him knowingly.

"He's gone from the power of damaging a building to something much more satisfying," Gideon agreed. "Power over life and death."

"Who're we talking to first?" Jodi asked curiously, shifting slightly in her seat to get more comfortable, only to feel the same twinge of discomfort in her leg that she'd felt back in the conference room.

"Dean of Students Ellen Turner," Hotch answered her question.

They all fell into a somewhat tense silence, and she shifted again, then sighed. "Okay, um, would anyone be uncomfortable if I took my leg off? I need to fix something," she asked, shifting uncomfortably.

Everyone turned to look at her for a moment, as if surprised she'd ask, but were immediately nodding their heads. "Go ahead," Gideon hummed.

"You don't have to ask to do something like that," Hotch promised her, and she smiled a little shyly at him in response.

Spencer lifted the fold-out table for her so she'd have more space, and watched her push the pin to release the leg from the umbrella piece that held it onto the sock, then extended his free hand out to her as the other was holding his chess board. He held her prosthetic leg on his lap as she adjusted the sock over the stump of her right leg.

It wasn't something Jodi ever liked to look at, or even talk about with anyone who wasn't the therapist she'd had at age 13, so she felt a little bit weird having it on display for everyone to see. The end tapered off into an ugly scarred wound that was no longer red like it had been when she was younger, but the sight where the weapon from that one fateful night twelve years earlier had cleaved her leg below the knee. But nevertheless she kept her head down and did what she had to do to make it more comfortable to wear, then used the back of the seat for balance so she could stand and click the pin back into place.

She was almost surprised the rest of the team had been considerate enough to give her the privacy she'd silently hoped she would have, since most people were too nosy for their own good, but smiled thankfully at Spencer as he unfolded the table again. She knew he'd done the math for the curvature and size of the blade that had done the damage to her leg in his head, only using the still available scarring from the original wound, and knew full well his calculations had lead him to a logging axe, and was all the more appreciative about the fact that he didn't ask her any questions.

"Can I have my random fact of the day?" She asked softly, twisting her body so she was facing him.

He only had to pause for a second. "Some tropical mango's are closely related to cashews and pistachios," he hummed quietly, lips quirking into a tiny smile as she stared at him.

"You're kidding me; mango's are cashews cousins?"

"I am not kidding you."

"I mean, I know that but...oh what the hell."

👣🔪🧬

Upon arriving at the campus, Jodi quickly came to the conclusion that if she had shown up without any knowledge that something was happening, she never would've noticed until it did. Students still milled around the campus, albeit in a slightly more careful manor than she remembered from her own college years, but still looked comfortable in their space.

She felt the eyes on them as her and the team exited the government issued SUV's, and she could practically hear the whispering about how it was most likely because of the fires.

"No badges," Gideon ordered as he closed his own door. Jodi immediately took hers off and dropped it into her bag. "I don't want to satisfy the unsub's need for attention by letting him know we've got the FBI here. Try not to look official," he instructed, jogging down the steps leading to the Dean of Students office. He turned to face them as he reached the bottom, taking in everyone's official attire, then almost chuckled at Jodi's plaid pants and long sleeved white shirt. "Try to look less official; she's got it."

Jodi stuck her tongue out childishly at Morgan as he passed her on the stairs, snickering to herself as he rolled his eyes. "Shut up," he muttered, though she could hear the laughter in his voice.

"Not a chance," she grinned.

They continued following after Gideon, who was walking at an unbelievably fast pace, and fount him talking with Helen Turner just outside the main building of her office. She was a pretty woman in her mid forties with dark skin and shoulder length straight black hair. A middle aged Asian man was standing next to her, the label on his shirt saying he was the fire inspector. "Obviously, I'd rather be meeting you under different circumstances," she sighed, walking next to Gideon as she guided them to the Student Building. "This is fire inspector Zang."

He fell into step next to Hotch. "This morning, the chemistry department reported several bottles of highly flammable chemicals missing," he announced quietly, gesturing with his hands as he spoke.

"That's not good at all," Jodi grimaced, glancing over at Elle who was nodding as well.

"I'm prepared to evacuate the campus," Dean Turner sighed, murmuring a quiet thank you to Hotch and Gideon as they opened the pair of front doors for her.

"That brings with it it's own problems," Hotch sighed.

"You might evacuate the arsonist, too," Jodi hummed. She glanced around her, briefly remembering her very first day at Harvard when she was seventeen, and sighed.

"The case goes unsolved, the campus reopens but the fires start up again," Elle agreed, her lips pursing.

"Wait Hotch, Gideon, hold on a second," Derek interrupted, and the small group stopped in the middle of the hall. "You said the chemicals went missing today." Inspector Zang nodded. "It says here that one of the previous fires was set with diesel fuel that disappeared from the grounds keeping facility. How long after it disappeared was the fire set?"

The realization seemed to settle on Dean Turner gravely. "One day."

Jodi pursed her lips and rolled them inward. "Very not good."

"If he's holding to a pattern," Gideon trailed off.

Hotch sighed. "Who's to say the next fire won't be today."

After a brief deliberation, Hotch and Gideon came to some understanding and the team split up in two groups; Jodi and Spencer with Hotch, and Morgan and Elle with Gideon.

Dean Turner brought them down to the crime scene where Matt the college student was killed, and gave them free-reign of the apartment. It wasn't the biggest space, but it was enough for two people who only needed it as a space to spend the night between classes, and was much nicer than the one Jodi had lived in during her own college days.

Nicer than what she remembered, anyway.

She stood off to the side of the room with her arms folded over her chest, watching Spencer pace from her position next to Hotch. "The door was locked," she murmured analytically.

"Matthew Rowland and his roommate watched as the door  knob turned against the lock," Spencer nodded.

"Hey, just out of curiosity, Doctor, how many times was the door handle turned?" Jodi asked, chin lifting slightly as she looked up a fraction higher to meet his eye.

"Three times, why?" Spencer hummed. "You think it's important?"

She shrugged. "Could be."

"But the unsub couldn't get in," Hotch observed from their conversation. His gaze was scrutinizing as he looked around the room.

Spencer nodded slowly. "So he pours the accelerant into the room from the hallway."

"Which means he couldn't see the fire," Jodi concluded, the corners of her mouth pulling into a frown. Watching the destruction they'd caused was usually what got the arsonist off.

"But he could hear Matthew Rowland screaming," Spencer pondered. His brows furrowed slightly the way they always did when he was caught up in his thoughts, and Jodi almost smiled at the little crinkle that formed between them.

That's going to be a wrinkle in fifty years, she thought to herself knowingly. An endearing one, sure, but a wrinkle all the same.

"He wouldn't have heard it for long, though," Jodi hummed, head tilting slightly as she created a mental list of all the information they had so far.

"He would've left quickly," Hotch nodded. As always, his frowned bordered on a scowl.

Doesn't fit the profile...weird.

"Yeah, to avoid being spotted."

"But that doesn't make sense," she huffed, scratching slightly at her palm as she crossed the room to get a different viewpoint of her surroundings.

"Pyromania as a mental disorder may just be a simple myth, but we do know from precedent that serial arsonists derive pleasure from pathological fire-setting," Spencer rattled off, briefly looking over and meeting her eye as he always did when he listed off his facts.

After just one week of tutoring university students, the two had come to the conclusion that they worked best as a team; Spencer would do the explaining, and Jodi would explain what he'd said in simpler terms. This worked so well that even outside of the school setting, he would look to see if she was there to ensure she was there to pull pieces of information from his tangents and stop him from over-explaining, as well as just to make sure she was beside him.

She offered him a small smile and a nod as Hotch moved to join them. "Sex and power," she concluded.

"But a serial arsonist wouldn't just set a fire and walk away," Spencer continued, the crinkle still present between his brows.

Hotch set his hands on his hips and Jodi could almost swear his frown intensified. "He needs to experience it."

"So why would he set a fire he couldn't watch?"

A/N: I figured I'd include the video to give you guys a bit more insight into how prosthetic legs are put on, since I had to turn to the internet myself for information.

Message me if you have something you want to share!!!