You’re cramped in the back of the surveillance van, headphones digging into your ears as static crackles through the feed. The glow of the monitors casts everything in a cold blue, including Elle, who sits across from you with her legs crossed and her eyes fixed on the split-screen display.

“You look like hell,” she says without looking at you, sipping lukewarm coffee from a paper cup.

You smirk. “That’s rich, coming from someone who slept a total of twelve minutes this week.”

She finally meets your eyes, one brow raised. “Twelve’s being generous.”

Silence falls again, not awkward, just tired. Comfortable in the way only BAU agents can be after days chasing a sadistic unsub with a thing for symmetry and fire. This guy stages his victims like sculptures, burns their homes afterwards. So far, he’s always two steps ahead.

You lean back against the metal wall, eyes drifting to the feed from Camera 3 - your unsub’s latest possible hunting ground. A park. Empty swings swaying in the wind.

Elle taps her pen against a notepad, scribbling a new theory. “I think he’s going to try again tonight,” she murmurs. “He always follows the pattern - two days between kills. Today’s day two.”

You nod slowly. “You ever get tired of being right?”

She chuckles, soft and low. “Constantly.”

There’s something different in her tonight. A weight. The case is crawling under her skin, and not just because it’s brutal. Because the victims? Two of them were women Elle had interviewed during a domestic abuse task force initiative last year. She remembers their faces, their fear.

You reach over and slide the coffee cup from her hand, swapping it with a protein bar from your bag. “Eat something.”

She blinks at you, then takes it without argument. “You always do this?”

“What?”

“Play the quiet protector.”

You shrug. “Only when someone forgets they’re human.”

That earns you a small smile. Real. The kind of thing Elle doesn’t give out often.

Then - a flicker on the monitor. Movement. Camera 3.

Elle bolts upright. “Back corner. There. Did you see that?”

A figure in a hoodie moves between the trees. Slowly. Deliberately. Like he knows he’s being watched but doesn’t care.

Elle grabs her vest. “Let’s go.”

You follow her out into the night, adrenaline sharp in your chest.

The air is damp and quiet, the kind of silence that hums in your ears. You and Elle move fast and low, cutting through the trees like shadows. Every instinct sharp, every step calculated.

He doesn’t run.

The unsub just stands at the edge of the swing set, staring up at the moon. You flank him from the left while Elle circles wide, her gun trained on him the whole time.

“FBI!” she calls. “Hands where I can see them.”

He turns slowly, mouth twitching into something between a smirk and a grimace. “Took you long enough.”

He raises his hands, and for one sharp second, you expect him to reach for something. A weapon. A trigger. But there’s nothing.

You cuff him with practised speed, reading him his rights while Elle stares at him, silent.

The parking lot is mostly empty, save for a few cruiser lights strobing lazily in the dark. You’re leaning against the hood of the car, watching your breath fog the air as the adrenaline starts to wear off.

Elle stands a few feet away, arms crossed, gaze fixed on the police station doors. She hasn’t said much since the arrest. Just gave her statement, brief and clinical, then walked outside like the walls were closing in.

You walk up and hand her a bottle of water. She takes it without looking.

“He said their names,” she murmurs. “Right before you cuffed him."

You nod. “I heard.”

She exhales sharply, like she’s trying to let go of something she knows she can’t. “They trusted me. I told them we’d help if anything ever happened.”

“You did help,” you say, steady. “You got him.”

Her jaw tightens. “It doesn’t bring them back.”

“No,” you admit. “But it stops him.”

A long silence follows. You don’t try to fill it.

Then, quietly: “Sometimes I wonder if this job just... chips away at us. One case at a time.”