This case seemed routine to everyone else, but not to you, red flags raised in your head the moment you saw it. Your parents had been killed when you were barely six, and when you joined the BAU around the same time as Derek, once you’d gotten properly trained you realised that an unsub did it. This time you knew, you definitely knew, everything was the same. It made you angry, and emotional, and you felt like your judgement was set askew. You wanted to kill the fucker that did it, and that terrified you— never once in your life had you thought about intentionally killing someone. But this guy was why you never had a mom or dad.

Was this what the unsub wanted? Did they realise that the child whose parents they mercilessly slit the carotid artery of was after them? All those questions were running through your head and all those questions had answers you didn’t want to hear.

Fuck.

“Hey, baby girl, stop.” Derek followed you, slightly annoyed and putting his hands on his hips when you stopped— what were you doing, storming out of a brainstorming like that? The unsub needed to be found and Hotch needed the whole team; this was one nasty son of a bitch.

You’d been acting strange. He didn’t like it.

He pulled out the eyebrow raise and the classic Agent Derek Morgan head tilt. He didn’t know what was in your head — how could he — and he wanted to know what was up with you, which was why he was sporting concern. “You can’t just walk like that.”

Come on, sweetheart, just tell him the truth. Right now, in the thick of it, it wasn’t the time to just walk out for no reason, it was unprofessional. He was just very unaware that there was a very valid reason why you suddenly took a runner into the break room of Jersey City PD.

This case was personal.