Chapter 18: Downtime
Three days back in Virginia.
No new cases. Just paperwork, debriefs, and the strange luxury of having nowhere urgent to be. The BAU operated in cycles—sprints of intensity followed by lulls where the weight of what we'd seen had time to settle.
I used the time to train.
My apartment was small—one bedroom, galley kitchen, a living room that served as office and meditation space and gym depending on the hour. I'd chosen it for the anonymity, the month-to-month lease, the lack of neighbors who asked questions.
Now I used it for something else entirely.
Blinds drawn. Phone silenced. The world reduced to four walls and the system humming at the edge of my awareness.
[TRAINING MODE: ACTIVE]
[SURFACE READ: PRACTICING ON RECORDED FOOTAGE]
I sat in front of my laptop, news footage playing—press conferences, interviews, public statements. Politicians, celebrities, CEOs. Faces that meant nothing to me, which made them perfect subjects.
Focus. Read the tells. Don't let the system do all the work—guide it.
[SUBJECT: SENATOR J. MORTON — PRESS CONFERENCE 09/15/2005]
[ANALYZING: MICRO-EXPRESSIONS, VOCAL PATTERNS, BODY LANGUAGE]
[DECEPTION MARKERS: ELEVATED DURING TAX POLICY QUESTIONS]
[CONFIDENCE: 78%]
The data flowed through my mind—not overwhelming like before, but integrated. Useful. I was learning to work with the system rather than being dragged along by it.
I switched to Danger Sense calibration. Closed my eyes. Listened to the ambient sounds of the apartment building—pipes settling, footsteps in the hallway, a television playing two floors up.
Baseline established. Now push.
[DANGER SENSE: AMBIENT MONITORING]
[THREAT LEVEL: MINIMAL]
[ANOMALY DETECTION: ACTIVE]
A car alarm went off outside. The system flagged it, analyzed it, dismissed it in milliseconds.
Good. Getting faster.
I spent two hours on exercises I'd developed myself—Focus management drills, ability activation under varying stress levels, recovery protocols. The system wasn't designed for self-training, but it adapted. Whatever intelligence guided it seemed interested in my progress.
[TRAINING SESSION COMPLETE]
[FOCUS EFFICIENCY: +8%]
[ESTIMATED TIME TO PHASE 2 THRESHOLD: INSUFFICIENT DATA]
Insufficient data. Story of my life.
I showered, changed, made coffee that was too strong and drank it anyway. The afternoon stretched ahead—empty, quiet, full of nothing that needed doing.
Which meant my mind had time to wander.
"The words I planted in your head don't come out with handcuffs."
Thorne's voice, still circling. Not as sharp as before, but present.
I sat on my couch, coffee in hand, and let myself examine what he'd touched.
The isolation. Real.
The weight. Real.
The sense of being something other than what people see. Very real.
Three years building credentials before I joined the BAU. One month building friendships since. The ratio was wrong, and I knew it. I'd been so focused on positioning, on preparation, on surviving long enough to matter—that I'd forgotten to actually live.
Thorne saw that. Used it. But he wasn't wrong about the diagnosis, just the treatment.
[SOCIAL INTEGRATION: RECOMMENDED FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL STABILITY]
[NOTE: ISOLATED PREDATORS ARE VULNERABLE PREDATORS]
Even the system agreed.
I finished my coffee, set down the cup. Thought about the team—Morgan's easy brotherhood, Reid's genuine curiosity, Garcia's warmth that demanded nothing in return.
Elle.
Elle matters most. And you know why.
Because I knew her future. Because I'd watched her spiral in a television show that was now my reality. Because I carried the weight of knowing what would break her—and the terrible uncertainty of whether I could change it.
You're not a prophet. You're not a savior. You're a guy from another world with imperfect knowledge and imperfect abilities.
But you're also here. Present. Real.
Maybe that's enough.
My phone buzzed.
Elle's name on the screen.
I answered.
"Hey."
"Hey yourself." Her voice was warm, unhurried. "What are you doing tonight?"
"Nothing planned. Why?"
"I'm cooking dinner. Actual food, not takeout. You should come over."
The invitation hung in the air. No preamble, no uncertainty. Just Elle being Elle—direct, unguarded, reaching out.
First invitation to her space. That means something.
"I'd like that."
"Good. Seven o'clock. I'll text you the address." A pause. "Bring wine. Something red."
"Any preferences?"
"Surprise me."
She hung up before I could respond.
I stared at the phone for a long moment.
This is different. Not drinks at a bar with Morgan as buffer. Not stolen moments between cases. This is intentional.
This is her opening a door.
[RELATIONSHIP DYNAMIC: ELLE GREENAWAY]
[STATUS: SIGNIFICANT PROGRESSION]
[RECOMMENDATION: PROCEED WITH AUTHENTIC ENGAGEMENT]
Thanks for the tip.
I dismissed the notification and started getting ready.
The wine shop was three blocks from my apartment. I stood in front of the red wine section for entirely too long, the system trying to be helpful.
[WINE SELECTION ANALYSIS: INITIATING]
[FACTORS: PRICE POINT, LABEL DESIGN, REGIONAL REPUTATION, PAIRING PROBABILITY]
[OPTIMAL CHOICE: CHIANTI CLASSICO, $34 PRICE RANGE]
I turned off the analysis.
Some things shouldn't be calculated.
I picked a bottle with a nice label—something Spanish, red and rich-looking, the kind of wine that promised good conversation without trying too hard. Paid cash. Walked back to my car with the bottle tucked under my arm like a talisman.
The drive to Elle's took twenty minutes through Virginia evening traffic. Her apartment was in a complex near the river—older building, good bones, the kind of place that had character instead of amenities.
I parked. Sat in my car for a moment.
You know what happens to her. The Fisher King. The shooting. William Lee. The spiral that ends with her badge on Hotch's desk.
You can't unwrite that. Can't pretend you don't know.
But you can be present. You can be real. You can give her something that's actually true, even if you can't give her the whole truth.
I got out of the car. Walked to her door. Knocked.
The door opened.
Elle stood in the threshold, wearing jeans and a soft sweater, her hair down around her shoulders. A wooden spoon in one hand, the smell of garlic and something else—tomatoes, maybe, herbs—drifting from the kitchen behind her.
She looked at the wine bottle, then at me.
"You brought wine. You pass."
She stepped back, letting me in.
Her apartment was smaller than mine but warmer—books on shelves, photographs on walls, a couch that had clearly been chosen for comfort rather than appearance. Music played from a speaker in the corner, something jazz-adjacent that filled the space without demanding attention.
This is where she lives. Where she's real.
"Kitchen's through there," Elle said, gesturing. "I'm at a critical stage with the sauce. Make yourself useful or get out of my way."
"What do you need?"
"Open the wine. Pour two glasses. Don't judge me for how much butter is in the pan."
I found her corkscrew, opened the bottle, poured. The wine was good—better than the label suggested. I handed her a glass.
She took a sip without looking up from the stove.
"Not bad, Mercer. Not bad at all."
"I have hidden depths."
"I'm starting to notice."
We worked around each other in the small kitchen—Elle managing the sauce, me handling whatever tasks she assigned. Chopping vegetables. Setting the table. Staying out of the way when staying out of the way was what she needed.
Dinner was simple—pasta with a red sauce, salad, bread that had come from a bakery rather than a bag. We ate at her small table by the window, the city lights of Virginia spreading out below us.
"This is good," I said. "Really good."
"My mother's recipe. One of the few things she taught me that was actually useful." Elle took a bite, chewed thoughtfully. "She wasn't much for nurturing, but she could cook. Figured if she fed us well enough, we wouldn't notice the other stuff."
"Did it work?"
"For a while." She shrugged. "Then I got old enough to notice anyway."
We ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes.
"Can I ask you something?" Elle said finally.
"Depends on what it is."
"The Prophet case. Thorne." She set down her fork. "Something happened between you two. I saw it on your face when you came out of that basement. What did he say?"
I considered deflecting. Considered a half-truth that would satisfy curiosity without revealing too much.
But Elle had opened her home to me. Had cooked for me. Was sitting across the table with wine and candlelight and the unspoken question of what we were becoming.
She deserved better than deflection.
"He saw things about me that I didn't want seen," I said. "The isolation. The sense of being something other than what people perceive. He used those things to try to break me down."
"Did it work?"
"The first time? Almost. I left that compound shaking, barely holding myself together." I met her eyes. "The second time, I knew what he was doing. Knowing made it resistible."
Elle nodded slowly.
"He tried that with me too, you know. When Morgan and I went to interview Sarah—the former member. She'd been feeding us information, but Thorne found out. Sent us a message through her."
"What kind of message?"
"Personal stuff. Things about my background, my family. Things he couldn't have known unless he'd done serious research." Her jaw tightened. "He wanted me to know that he saw me. That I wasn't hidden just because I carry a badge."
"What did you do?"
"Arrested his recruiter and turned Sarah into a federal witness." A sharp smile. "Best response to psychological warfare is operational success."
"I'll remember that."
We finished dinner, moved to the couch with fresh glasses of wine. The conversation shifted—cases we'd worked, team dynamics, the strange rhythm of BAU life.
"Morgan talks about you constantly," Elle said. "In case you were wondering."
"Good things?"
"Mostly. He's impressed, which isn't easy to accomplish. Says you've got instincts he's only seen in veterans who've been doing this for decades."
"That's generous."
"That's Morgan being Morgan—calls it like he sees it." She tucked her feet under herself, settling deeper into the couch. "He also says you're too quiet. Too careful. Like you're always calculating five moves ahead."
"Is that a criticism?"
"It's an observation." Her eyes found mine. "You do that, you know. Calculate. I can see you doing it sometimes—watching conversations like chess games, planning your responses."
She's not wrong. The system trains me to analyze everything.
But that's not all I am.
"I spent a long time learning to be careful," I said. "Environments where a wrong word could get someone killed. You don't unlearn that quickly."
"I'm not asking you to unlearn it. I'm asking you to trust that sometimes, with some people, you don't need it."
She held my gaze.
"I'm one of those people, Ethan. Whatever you're carrying—whatever you're hiding—you don't have to hide it from me."
The moment stretched between us.
She's offering trust. Real trust. The kind that doesn't come with conditions.
And I can't fully accept it. Because accepting it would mean telling her everything—the transmigration, the system, the knowledge of her future that I carry like a weight.
But I can give her what truth I have.
"I was broken once," I said. "A long time ago. I put myself back together, but the cracks are still there. Sometimes I worry that people will see them. That they'll realize I'm not as solid as I pretend to be."
Elle's hand found mine on the couch cushion between us.
"We're all cracked, Ethan. That's not weakness. That's proof we survived something."
Her fingers intertwined with mine. Warm. Real. Present.
"This," she said softly. "Whatever this is becoming. I want it. But I need you to be here. Not calculating, not planning. Just... here."
I looked at her—Elle Greenaway, with her darkness and her strength and her future that I couldn't save.
"I'm here," I said.
And for that moment, I meant it.
The wine bottle emptied. The candles burned low. Somewhere around midnight, I left—not because I wanted to, but because staying would have meant something neither of us was quite ready for.
Elle walked me to the door.
"This was good," she said.
"Yeah. It was."
"We should do it again."
"Whenever you want."
She kissed me then—brief, soft, a promise rather than a demand. Her lips tasted like wine and possibility.
"Goodnight, Ethan."
"Goodnight, Elle."
I drove home through empty streets, the taste of her still on my lips, the weight of what I knew pressing against the warmth of what I'd felt.
[RELATIONSHIP DYNAMIC: ELLE GREENAWAY — SIGNIFICANT PROGRESSION]
[WARNING: EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT COMPLICATES OPERATIONAL CLARITY]
[RECOMMENDATION: UNCLEAR]
I dismissed the notification.
Some things aren't for the system to calculate.
Some things were just human.
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