Subtextual

The bullpen always smelled faintly of burnt coffee and anticipation.

Monday mornings at Quantico weren’t for the weak, but the BAU team moved like they were born of the grind—Reid fluttering through paper files like they whispered secrets to him, Morgan balancing a football on the tip of a pen just to irritate Hotch, Penelope sashaying in with a scarf that could double as a cape, Gideon already looking like he'd read the case file in a dream. And JJ—JJ sat quietly, fingers curled around a lukewarm cup of whatever passed for caffeine this morning, trying to center herself between the hum of fluorescent lights and the roar of organized chaos.

She liked this quiet chaos. It was a rhythm she knew well. Her inbox was already a mess, and the briefing schedule had changed three times before 9 a.m., but there was comfort in the familiar cadence of emergencies-in-waiting. It was like muscle memory—typing out agency alerts, coordinating inter-agency calls, prepping brief summaries she could recite in her sleep. Order within the madness. Until it wasn’t.

Her phone buzzed again. She didn’t check it.

"So," Morgan started, spinning the chair across from her and flopping into it like gravity didn’t apply to him, "we finally getting that new agent today, or is this one another ghost recruit?"

JJ didn’t look up immediately. "She’s not a ghost," she said, a little sharper than intended.

Morgan raised an eyebrow. "Well damn, Blondie. You’ve already got feelings about her?"

"No," JJ said quickly. Too quickly. She hated how defensive she sounded. "I just read her personnel file."

Morgan grinned. "And?"

"She’s solid. Fluent in multiple languages, came from Interpol’s London division."

"Interpol girl, right?" Reid chimed in without looking up. "I think I read one of her policy reports on multilingual interrogation methods. Very progressive."

Penelope swooped in like a burst of glitter and espresso, holding a tablet in one hand and a steaming cup of something suspiciously colorful in the other. "Her name is Emily Prentiss. Word is she speaks nine languages, has a photographic memory, and used to be the best negotiator Interpol had on-call for crisis response in Europe."

"She was raised overseas," Reid added, adjusting his watch without glancing up. "Paris and London, mostly. And she’s Ambassador Prentiss’ daughter."

"Wait, she’s *what* now?" JJ blinked.

"Yup," Garcia confirmed, practically vibrating with glee. "We are dealing with literal, diplomatic royalty. Accents, mystery, international power lunches... she’s basically MI6 Barbie."

JJ shifted in her seat. Something about all this rubbed her the wrong way—not because she doubted Prentiss’ credentials, but because... well, something else. A name like that usually came with a spotlight. She didn’t love spotlights she hadn’t turned on herself.

"You all sound like you’re about to meet a royal," she muttered.

"Technically?" Reid offered with a shrug. "She kind of is."

"Fluent, connected, and mysterious," Morgan smirked. "Sounds like the plot of one of Garcia's spy dramas."

"You wish," Garcia said, dramatically flipping open her compact. "I live for the espionage fantasy, but even *I* don’t have clearance that high."

Before JJ could form a proper rebuttal—or retreat into the safety of her desk—Hotch’s door opened with his usual silent authority.

"Conference room. Now."

---

She arrived like a storm in silk.

Emily Prentiss walked into the BAU conference room like she owned the oxygen in it. Tall, dark-haired, tailored in a way that suggested old money and sharp instincts, she moved with the posture of someone used to being watched—and entirely unbothered by it.

JJ noticed everything. The heels, sensible but sleek. The subtle arch of a perfectly groomed brow. The way she scanned the room not out of insecurity but calculation. Eyes sharp, mouth soft. JJ hated herself for how immediately she wanted to know what that mouth sounded like in every language she spoke.

"This is SSA Emily Prentiss," Hotch said, formal and measured. "She'll be joining us starting today."

Emily's smile was faint but deliberate. "Pleasure to meet all of you," she said, British accent sliding out like honey over frost. Her voice was low and velvet-lined, cultured but not pretentious.

Her eyes paused on JJ. And stayed there.

JJ straightened, suddenly hyperaware of her blouse, the way her hair was pinned, the sharp inhale she took when Emily's gaze dropped ever so slightly—lingering on her mouth.

"Get her up to speed," Hotch continued. "JJ, can you walk her through orientation?"

"Of course," JJ said, her voice only cracking *a little*.

Emily turned to her with a smile that was both professional and vaguely wicked. JJ felt heat crawl up the back of her neck.

---

JJ’s office felt too small.

Emily entered first, moving like she was examining a crime scene for the tiniest inconsistencies. She didn’t sit. Just leaned against the side of JJ’s desk, fingers grazing a pen holder, eyes tracking every corner like it had secrets she planned to uncover.

JJ cleared her throat. "So, basic onboarding. Protocol, FBI guidelines, procedural workflows. Paperwork, mostly."

"Sounds thrilling," Emily said dryly. Her voice filled the room.

JJ busied herself with the file folder, flipping to a random page. Anything to not look directly at her. "You’ll also be assigned a rotating partner for field evaluation. Hotch wants everyone cross-integrated."

"Does that include you?" Emily asked.

JJ looked up. "What?"

Emily smiled. "Will I be partnered with you? I’m just trying to gauge how lucky I am."

JJ laughed—awkward, abrupt. "I don’t... I mostly stay in contact liaison roles."

"Shame," Emily said softly.

JJ looked back down quickly, heart thudding in ways she wasn’t proud of. She’d had interactions like this before. Sort of. But never at work. Never with someone who looked like they could break and rebuild you with just a look.

""You seem awfully confident for your first day," JJ said, eyes narrowing just enough to pass for curiosity rather than deflection.

Emily's lips curved. "Comes from years of diplomatic functions and hostile interviews. Confidence is often mistaken for arrogance. Or charm. Depends on the room."

"And what about this room?" JJ asked, trying—and failing—to keep her tone even.

Emily shrugged, slow and elegant. "Still calibrating. But I have a good feeling."

JJ flipped a page in the protocol binder she hadn’t really been reading. "We’re not exactly known for being... warm."

"No, but you're precise. Reliable. Effective. That’s a different kind of welcome. I respect it."

JJ risked a glance up and regretted it instantly. Emily's gaze was steady, unreadable but somehow... intimate.

"You’re very good at saying a lot without saying much," JJ murmured.

"It’s a specialty," Emily said. "But I assure you, Agent Jareau—I mean what I say. Especially when I say it to you."

JJ’s breath hitched. Not visibly. She hoped.

"This isn’t Interpol. It’s not London. The dynamic here is... different."

Emily nodded, but her smile didn’t falter. "Understood. I’ll adapt. I always do."

JJ tried to find her footing again, glancing back down at the page. The room was too quiet, too charged. She needed to reroute, pull the tension down before it became something she couldn’t manage."

JJ hesitated. "We don’t get distracted."

Emily tilted her head. "And am I a distraction, Agent Jareau?"

JJ stood abruptly, walking around the desk like she needed to escape the orbit of whatever gravitational pull Emily was operating under. "I think you’re new. And we’ve got a job to do."

"Agreed," Emily said, stepping back. "All business. No charm. Got it."

But there was a glint in her eyes that said otherwise. Like she wasn’t convinced JJ wanted her to stop.

Silence thickened. JJ felt it in her bones.

Emily's accent lingered like perfume in the air. Every word she’d said looped in JJ’s head, a puzzle she wasn’t sure she wanted to solve. She looked up, and for a second—just a second—Emily looked vulnerable. Like someone used to being looked at, but not really *seen.*

JJ almost said something reckless.

A knock at the door saved her.

Hotch. "We have a case. Conference room. Now."

JJ nodded, grateful and... disappointed?

Emily pushed off the desk with fluid grace and walked past her, pausing just briefly. "Thanks for the walkthrough, Agent Jareau. Very... informative."

JJ didn’t respond. She couldn’t. Her mouth was too dry and her thoughts too loud.

She watched Emily leave and realized: this wasn’t just a new team member.

This was going to be a problem.

A very attractive, British-accented, emotionally compromising problem.

And it was only Monday.

---

The conference room was already humming with tension when JJ and Emily walked in. Files had been opened, monitors flickered with crime scene photos, and the entire team was gathered around the table, a strange mix of caffeine and grim focus saturating the air.

Hotch stood at the head of the table. 

"We’ve been handed this case directly by the Director. It’s coming out of Seattle, Washington. Three women abducted in the last month. All in their thirties, all taken from their homes late at night with no signs of forced entry."

He clicked the remote, and images appeared on the screen. Photos of three women, their names and brief bios listed underneath. Smiling faces now part of a grim narrative.

"Each victim was reported missing by morning," Hotch continued, "and exactly seven days after their abductions, their bodies were found. Execution style—single gunshot wound to the head."

Reid leaned forward. "Same caliber weapon?"

"Yes. Ballistics confirm a .22 handgun in each case."

"That’s a personal weapon," Morgan noted. "Small caliber, up close."

"There’s something else," Hotch said. He gestured to Garcia, who tapped her tablet.

New images came up: each was a photo of a front door. Taped to the wood or glass in each one was a note—handwritten, on heavy cream stationery, and each a five-line poem.

Penelope read aloud, voice solemn:

I saw your light from far away,
A flame too bright to live alone.  
What’s yours will always be mine,  
Even if the stars refuse to shine. 
Don’t make me wait.

She hesitated. "They get... creepier."

Reid took over:

You laughed like music—too loud, too pure,
So I took the silence back for myself.
I wear your smile like a stolen coat, 
And it fits better than you’d think.  
I’m colder now, but still alive.

"It’s not just possession," Gideon said, arms crossed. "There’s something darker. A fixation."

Emily, silent until now, stepped closer to the projection. "The metaphor choices are deliberate. ‘What’s yours will always be mine.’ ‘I wear your smile.’ This isn’t about romantic love. It’s about identity. About *wanting* to be them."

Morgan frowned. "So he wants to become the victims?"

Emily shook her head. "She."

A beat. Then Gideon, brow furrowed. "You’re saying the unsub is a woman?"

"That doesn’t track," Morgan said, crossing his arms. "Women don’t usually kill like this. Execution-style? It's controlled, detached. That’s textbook male aggression."

"Not always," Emily countered. Her tone didn’t change—still level, still sure. "You're looking at the weapon, not the words."

Reid tilted his head. "The notes are emotionally expressive, but they’re... theatrical. It could still be male. Poetic narcissism isn’t gendered."

Emily nodded. "True, but this isn’t about narcissism. It’s envy. Intimate envy. Look at the phrasing. ‘I wear your smile.’ ‘Don’t make me wait.’ This isn’t about possession in the romantic sense. It’s about substitution. This person doesn’t want to *have* them. She wants to *replace* them."

JJ spoke up, carefully. "So, you think she’s targeting women who look like her? Or how she wants to look?"

Emily turned toward her. "Or women who have something she never could. Looks. Security. The illusion of a perfect life."

Their eyes met, and for a moment the room dissolved around JJ. She didn’t want to be impressed. She didn’t want to be drawn in. But she was.

"That kind of delusion..." Gideon murmured, nodding. "It would explain the timeline. The week between abduction and murder. She’s studying them. Maybe even pretending to be them."

"Exactly," Emily said. "And the poetry—it’s not a taunt. It’s a calling card. She's telling the world she’s entitled to the lives she takes."

The silence that followed wasn’t skeptical anymore. It was sobered.

Even Morgan gave a short nod. "Hell of a take, London."

Reid added quietly, "If you’re right, we’re not just looking for a killer. We’re looking for someone who believes she’s already the victim."

JJ glanced down at the case file, then back at the door Emily had walked through earlier.

Yep. Definitely trouble.

Hotch finally nodded. "All right. Wheels up in thirty."

Morgan stretched and stood. "Seattle, huh? Better pack a raincoat."

"And poetry books," Penelope added, grimacing.

JJ didn’t speak as the others filed out, but her eyes stayed on Emily for a moment longer than necessary. There was something about the way she delivered that analysis—cool and intuitive, without needing to dominate the space.

She was good. Really good.

JJ filed that away.

Problem confirmed.

They were in trouble.

And the case hadn’t even started.