Title: Unbelievable
By: TT92
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Rating: PG
Pairing: gen
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Dang.
AN: This is an old attempt I found in my files and I thought it wasn't completely terrible, so with a few edits, I've decided to post it. Because I wrote it a long time ago, it takes place somewhere between "Third Life" (3.12) and "The Crossing" (3.18), I would guess closer to 3.18. I'm following canon, but with a small amount of literary license.
Summary: An unsub, a hostage situation and surprises, just another day for the BAU. Teamfic.

***

"A story to me is a plot with some surprise. Because that's how life is- full of surprises." Issac Bashevis

Prentiss couldn't believe it.

Emily couldn't believe that she was locked in the bullpen of the Sacramento Police Department.

With a cop killer.

Without her weapon.

Sacramento city council felt it was unsafe and unnecessary for detectives to bring their weapons with them to the bullpen.

Prentiss wondered how many of them had been in a hostage situation.

The only consolation to be found was that she wasn't alone, and no one was harmed.

But even that was wearing thin as the hours slowly ticked by.

It wasn't any help that she was there with Hotch, JJ, Morgan, and about forty other cops.

The only person with a weapon in the entire room was the unsub.

Not like she even knew who he was.

No, this had to be the shortest case on record for the team.

Provided it got over soon, the BAU had only gotten to Sacramento that morning in search of a brutal cop killer.

Needless to say, local police personnel were anxious to catch him.

Almost too anxious.

The fear of vigilante justice seemed quite funny to Prentiss now; the unsub had come to them.

And stopped there.

All he had done for the last three hours was pace, mumble to himself, and talk on the phone at one of the officer's desks.

But everyone else had remained near silent.

Even Hotch and Morgan.

Prentiss knew the frightening cause.

The unsub had gone off script; the profile was wrong.

Prentiss just couldn't believe it.

Her team members were lost.

Morgan couldn't believe it.

He swore he would be crazy by the end of this ordeal.

Patience had never been his virtue, but this was torture.

And there was still no end in sight.

He let out a sigh.

JJ fidgeted beside him.

He knew she was scared.

So were Hotch and Prentiss.

As much as he hated it, Morgan was afraid too.

Just to keep himself occupied, he had tried to profile this man.

Cop killer; stabbed crosses over the hearts of officers out on patrols and positioned their bodies to be found in the shape of Jesus on the cross.

All of this was enough to make anyone blindingly furious, but the morning's interview with the wife of the last victim nearly sent Morgan over the edge.

She hadn't gotten the chance to tell her husband she was pregnant.

After he and JJ left the house, he swore he saw a few tears leak out of her eyes.

Morgan hated this son of a gun.

But, this wasn't right.

And, even though he would dread having to admit it, Morgan was petrified.

He was supposed to be a mission based killer.

Mission based killers had a mission; the mission had to be fulfilled.

If the mission was to kill cops, then Morgan felt that they all should have been dead by now.

Which could mean he wasn't a mission based killer.

But the evidence said he wasn't a sadist.

Or that there were two unsubs.

Which all meant that somewhere in the profile there was a grievous error.

Worse, Morgan's tension and stress was being fed by the tension and stress around him.

Morgan let out another sigh.

He just couldn't believe it.

The unsub had completely deprived the team of any weapon.

Rossi couldn't believe it.

He stared at the screens of security footage as he had been for the last many minutes.

The last few hours had been spent on the phone with Devin Krause, the unsub, trying to convince him to come peacefully.

Hadn't worked, and Rossi had, for the moment, run out of ideas.

However, Devin had started to trust Rossi which had made communications easier.

The small command center that had been set up was quiet. Only Reid and Peter Lopez, Sacramento Police Chief, were with him.

"What are we going to do?"

Reid had finally asked the inevitable.

Rossi had to give the only answer.

"I don't know."

"How can you not know? Those are my men in there!"

"My team is in there too," Rossi calmly replied. "And I'm trying to make sure no one gets hurt."

"What can we do? I mean, you've been talking to him for hours," Lopez continued.

"If we could figure out his profile, we could maybe find a proper course of action." Rossi responded.

"Why haven't you been able to?" Lopez half questioned, half accused.

"Many of Devin's actions don't, uh, line up," Reid began. "On the one hand, we know from his talks with Rossi that he is the unsub. He knew details about the crimes that weren't released. However, those crimes present a profile that doesn't suggest someone who would take hostages."

"Why not?"

"Because most mission based killers are delusional on some level." Rossi answered.

"Exactly, but Devin's actions don't suggest that. They actually suggest quite the opposite. Devin was lucid enough to steal the uniform and keys of a janitor and then make it up to the second floor bullpen before locking himself in. That suggests he had a pre-planned target," Reid explained.

"Because if he had gone by what caught his eye first, he probably would have gone to first floor?" Lopez theorized.

"Right. Which wouldn't have been as smart because there everyone can carry their weapons on that floor."

"So, what could that be?" Lopez inquired of the profilers.

"There's no one illness-" Rossi began.

"Narcissistic personality disorder." Reid interrupted.

Silence fell upon the three men.

"You mean…?"

"We know he's delusional, but we overlooked the possibility that he could have had a disorder outside of the delusions," Reid concluded.

The pieces fell into place.

They turned back to the monitors with a mutual feeling of lightness.

Rossi could hardly believe it.

'They had a profile.

Garcia couldn't believe it.

She stared at her computer screens.

They were betraying her. Instead of giving her comfort, they were only reminding her of the situation they were in.

Four of the people she cared most about in the world were in trouble.

Not knowing if it was because of shock or fear, Penelope Garcia was experiencing a rather strange feeling.

Or lack thereof.

She was numb.

There was no feeling in her body.

She was no longer a technical ray of sunshine but a robot.

A robot who could only stare at the nearly identical images of the hostages.

There was nothing to research, nothing she could contribute.

Out of boredom more than anything, Garcia began to study her teammates.

She found each of them responding exactly as she would have guessed.

Morgan was impatient, drumming his fingers against his knee.

Prentiss was trying to keep cool but looked like she wouldn't be able to hold out much longer.

Hotch was the usual Hotch; the only difference Garcia could see was a sharper frown than usual.

Exactly as she would have guessed.

Then she reached JJ.

JJ was strong and calm even in the most destructive storm.

But today, she was scared.

Not frightened or shaken but silently terrified.

Which went against her profile.

Having picked up far too many tips from profilers, Garcia began to study JJ's body language.

She was leaning against the wall, legs crossed. One arm was supporting herself, and the other was stretched across her stomach.

Memories of recent weeks flooded Garcia's brain.

Penelope gasped.

There wasn't any numbness anymore.

Sobs overtook her faster than she could stop them.

Penelope Garcia couldn't believe it.

Five of the people she cared most about in the world were in trouble, and she could do nothing to help.

JJ couldn't believe it.

She couldn't believe how close she and Morgan had come to avoiding being a part of this fiasco.

They hadn't been back five minutes when the unsub had stormed in, grabbing the person closest to the door.

Her.

But he choose, in JJ's opinion, a cruelly ironic place to position his gun.

Her stomach.

JJ had never felt such terror.

Only three days had she known she was with child, and she already loved him or her.

JJ didn't know how she would live with herself if something had happened. Thankfully, the unsub let her go with the rest of the hostages towards the back of the bullpen once he knew had control.

Even though she knew she wasn't really welcome.

An unspoken question was being asked by every single cop in the room.

"How did you, the FBI, let this happen? Why haven't you done anything yet?"

And JJ knew neither answer.

Thankfully, none of the cops had yet tried to take their revenge out, mostly because they stood no chance.

Still, as minutes ticked by, the restlessness grew, as did the want to do something.

It surely couldn't be healthy for her stress levels to be this high.

The phone rang again, catching everyone off guard. It hadn't rung in over twenty minutes.

The unsub looked at the phone for a few seconds before picking it up uncertainly.

"Yes? What do you want?"

Silence.

"I'm tired. I don't want to talk anymore."

A pause.

"I… I just want to go home."

'Come on Dave, make something happen.' JJ thought furiously

"David, you told me that you knew who was in charge, you can make everything better can't you?"

Had they not met under these circumstances, JJ might have felt sorry for the man.

He knew he had hit the point of no return, or at least, no return from no consequences, and now he was lost.

"David, I really don't want to talk right now."

A silent beat.

"What do you mean send someone?"

Every head perked up only to meet more quiet.

"You promise he won't try to hurt me or bring any weapons?"

"All right, but if I feel you're trying to trick me, don't expect me to pick up this phone again," the unsub answered as he threw down the handset.

JJ looked back to her team mates. Their exchanged glances held confusion and apprehension as to who was coming.

Time had slowed to a tortoise like speed.

The unsub nervously paced the front of the bullpen, weapon in hand.

Finally, there came a knock at the door.

"Devin, I'm a friend of David's, may I come in?"

JJ couldn't believe it.

It was Reid.

Reid couldn't believe it.

As Krause searched his pockets and waist for hidden weapons, his mind was wandering around, far away from the Sacramento bullpen.

It was going back to the emergency room in Des Plaines, Indiana with Hotch and Phillip Dowd.

Back to the rural Texan train with Elle and Dr. Briar.

Back to the Fisher King's castle with Morgan and Hotch.

Back to that awful shack in Georgia with Tobias.

Back to the high school bathroom in Chula Vista with Lindsey and Jack.

All of the negotiations and hostage situations he had been involved in, and how similar they always seemed. Reid knew what Devin's mind was on: how to escape this mess.

"What do you want to talk about?" Devin asked suddenly, jerking Reid from his badly timed thoughts.

Reid stammered for a moment.

He had almost forgotten his job; get Devin into the hallway outside the bullpen, his body to the North, where SWAT was ready to take the shot.

"Devin, we need to find a solution. Let these people go. I'll stay. We can talk."

"God would be proud of me." Devin suddenly stated reassuredly.

"What?"

"I've been here for hours, and no one's been hurt. I know that God, he wanted me to find a better way to rid the world of these hypocritical, falsely righteous vermin, and I tried, I really did, but this is how it had to happen." Devin rambled.

Suddenly a light bulb went off in Reid's head.

"Devin, I know you were hurt while you were in prison by some of the guards there, but why do these people have to suffer?"

"Hurt? Suffer? What do you know about that? I didn't do anything, and I had to suffer for it! Now they must pay for what happened!" Devin roared.

Reid could feel the tenseness of the room quadruple around him. People were already pushed to their breaking points, and this wasn't helping. He knew he had to do something soon, but he wasn't sure that Devin trusted him enough yet.

"Devin, why don't we-"

"Are you one of them? Are you going to hurt me too?" Devin's hysteria was rising. "David was lying all along, I knew it. He-"

"Devin, listen to me, I just want to talk to you. I don't care about these people here, I care about you. I know God picked you. I know how he's used you to do good. Now, we need to clear some things up, and I want to talk to you in private."

Reid surprised himself; Devin bought his spontaneous statement.

He motioned Reid to leave with his gun.

They exited into the hallway, and Reid attempted to stand with his back to the south side as Devin jammed the door behind for safe measure.

"Stand still. Be quiet."

Reid was caught off guard. Devin's entire demeanor had shifted.

His face was wild with madness, his eyes leered at Reid and he moved the gun all too freely for Reid's comfort.

"Devin, I-"

"I said be quiet," Devin softly and suavely commanded.

Before he could stop it, the butt of the gun made contact with Reid's head sending him to the floor.

Reid couldn't believe it.

Right before the blackness set in, Reid could feel the vibrations of gun being fired.

Hotch couldn't believe it.

The tension lifted for the first time in hours when Devin left the room, but not for the profilers.

Every ear was taut, perked up for the slightest bit of noise.

Hotch would have run over to the door and placed his hear next to it, but Devin effectively closing the door put everyone at risk if each hostage was not the way he left them.

The team waited.

Each second lasted longer than than the previous.

Bang.

Even the most hardened police officers were thrown off guard by the first gun shot, a strangled cry of pain following.

JJ and Prentiss were attempting to maintain their composers and failing.

Morgan was painfully restraining himself; Hotch could also hardly resist running out to the hallway to check on his agent.

Bang.

The second gun shot came only a moment later, and with an even louder cry of pain.

Morgan, JJ, and Prentiss looked to Hotch and each other with frantic and frightened faces.

Bang.

The third gunshot was different. Instead of being followed by an anguished scream, it was followed by a larger, more distinct, glass shattering,

Bang.

Silence.

Not a soul moved.

Hotch wasn't entirely sure anyone took a breath.

Seconds ticked.

Slowly, small movements from the various officers began.

"Should we go out there?" One dared ask.

"No," Hotch's SWAT instincts took over. "We're still hostages, and above all we're unarmed. We wait for the all clear and then we can leave."

"Someone just got shot!"

"I know, but if it was not the unsub, then we're still all in hostages and we're in danger," Hotch explained.

Disgruntled mumbles followed Hotch's command, but Hotch neither listened nor cared.

The profilers sat together in a tight-knit huddle, keeping a familial vigil for the safety of their fellow team member.

Hotch knew that this was unlikely; Reid would have returned by now, but he kept his hopes up.

Minutes passed and sudden noises in leading from the hallway trickled in from the hallway.

Relief flooded every soul when the door was suddenly opened and an array of SWAT members entered.

Everyone stood, stretching their sore limbs. Rossi entered suddenly, and the BAU members rushed over to him.

"Rossi, what happened?"

"He surprised Reid. He was narcissistic on top of delusional, and my bet is when he was down to one hostage, he relaxed and changed. Reid was supposed to get him in the right spot, and the shot would have been clear, but right as he left the bullpen, Krause backhanded him with the gun. Worked out though, SWAT got the shot."

Confusion passed between the profilers.

"But Dave, we heard four shots..."

"Yeah, he shot Reid three times. Point blank, right to the chest. Poor kid, that's gonna hurt," Rossi replied almost nonchalantly.

Without a moment's hesitation, Morgan and Hotch were over to the door, pushing away SWAT and Sacramento police officers.

The hallway was chaos.

Outside the door, blood covered the floor along with body covered by a white sheet. A few feet over EMT's were working on another body, they and the confusion of everyone else obstructing Hotch's view.

An object in the beside them caught his eye first though.

Hotch couldn't believe it.

Reid had been wearing a bullet-proof vest under his shirt.

"Do not always expect good to happen, but do not let evil take you by surprise." Czech Proverb

***