Author's Note: I'm sure it is obvious, but as a disclaimer - I do NOT own Criminal Minds or any of its character, but I'd love to. :)

This is a continuation of my first story Damaged: Time to Heal. All of the characters that I established with back-stories in my first FanFiction continue here. It would be helpful to read that first to understand my version of the CM world. This story starts where that finished.

Spencer was happy he had told the team about Bob, his AA sponsor. He knew he would be spending a lot of time with Chelsea and the team would now believe that he was going out with Bob and his other friends, which meant he didn't have to explain yet. He felt he was doing a good job at keeping it a secret, but even after telling them about Bob, most of the team was suspecting there was someone special in his life. They didn't want to press, they were content that he was happy and not falling back on his habit, but they kept watching him for answers.

The team was only called on a few more cases in February. The first was the next day February 17th. Rossi was still away on his book tour and stumbled upon a case. He called Hotch with his theories and the team started to study all of the recent murders in Cleveland. They figured out that the unsub was mimicking past famous serial killers. Their profile presumed that the unsub was young and was still testing out his murder compulsions. After they arrived in Cleveland, the unsub seemed to hind his calling and continued to strangle his victims. They were able to capture him and save the last potential victim. They all felt fortunate they were able to apprehend the unsub before he became more experienced and better at hiding his tracks. As usual, Chelsea was very happy in the fact they were able to let the victims' families know what happened very shortly after their loved ones were killed and that they had saved another person.

Just before 5:00 on Monday, February 23 Hotch called the Team into the conference room. Emily and Morgan both groaned, they had almost made it through the day without a case. "We've got a case?" Emily questioned as they were all walking towards the room. Spencer pulled out his phone and sent a quick text to let Chelsea know they just got a case and to go to dinner without him. He would contact her with details later.

As they moved into the room, JJ answered, "Not really." Emily looked at JJ confused, but before she could reply, Hotch called for everyone's attention.

"Austin Texas." Hotch started as JJ put the photos of 4 young girls on the screen. "Every 3 days a brunette, green eyed college student is abducted from her apartment, 2 mornings later she is found bound, gagged, sexually assaulted and dumped behind a strip mall."

JJ pushed a button and 2 photos of the first victim appeared on the screen. On the left a girl was smiling in her high school cap and gown and on the right a close up of her face badly bruised on an autopsy table. "This is Celeste Peterson a 22 year old student at St. Edward's University, a private Catholic school. She was abducted on Friday night February 13 sometime after 11:00pm. She and her boyfriend, Ted Brady, were on the phone talking about Valentine's Day plans and hung up around 11:00. He told the police she wanted to get some sleep because she had an early shift at the grocery store where she worked. She never showed up to work and her boss contacted her mother in Dallas when she had not arrived 4 hours after her shift. Her mother called Ted who had a key to her apartment. When he got there the door was closed, but unlocked, nothing seemed disturbed but her purse, keys, wallet and cell phone were on the kitchen counter. He contacted the police, but they refused to investigate because she had been gone less than 24 hours. Celeste's body was found the next morning February 15 next to a dumpster behind a small strip mall in the South side of Austin."

JJ continued to talk about the victims as their photos were shown on the screen. Roxanne Murphy a 21-year-old student at the University of Texas was abducted on the 16th and dumped on the 18th, Katarina Rameriz, 22 also from the University of Texas was abducted the next day on the 19th and dumped on 21st.

After all of the details of the deceased had been thoroughly gone over, Hotch continued. "They all are college students, have similar coloring and builds, are approximately the same age, lived alone in studio apartments, and were raised by either a single mother or father living somewhere in Texas. The police cannot find any connections between them."

JJ stepped up to the screen again. "The latest victim, ironically named Austin, was abducted from her home last night. She will be 22 tomorrow and is a student at Concordia University, a private Lutheran school."

Morgan was taking in all of the information and asked Hotch, "Shouldn't we be going over this on the plane? It seems like we should be in Austin as soon as possible."

Hotch shook his head, "We haven't been invited."

Exclamations and shouts of "What?" were heard from everyone. Morgan voiced what everyone in the room was thinking. "They have 3 dead college students and one missing, and they don't want our help?"

Hotch looked at Morgan, "The local sheriff in charge has had some unfortunate dealings with the FBI and seems to think we would only be there to make him and his department look bad." Morgan started to comment, but Hotch put up his hand to silence him. "He only contacted us to help with a profile because he is receiving a lot of pressure from the Mayor and even the Governor. We will look over all of this info, give them a geographic profile and whatever help we can from here. Hopefully with our input they will be able to solve this soon. If not, at least we have a head start on the case if we do get called in to help later."

As Hotch assigned different aspects of the case to the agents. Reid went to get coffee and give Chelsea some more information. Her old roommate JoAnn and her fiancé were in town for the day and they had planned to go out to dinner with them. Spencer had broken the news with the text, but he still wanted to let her know he was sorry about missing dinner and it looked like he would be staying at the office for the night.

Even though Chelsea came from a law enforcement family and understood the time demands of his job, he could hear the disappointment in her voice. "I really wanted you to meet JoAnn", she stated "but I know you need to try and save that poor girl. I can't believe the Sheriff doesn't want you to go to Austin to help. I always hated the stories Grandpa told me about cop turf wars. Why grown men have pissing matches over who gets credit for saving a victim is repulsive."

Spencer had to laugh at her choice of words. She rarely cussed or used any vulgar language. "I wish they would understand that we would only be there to assist, not come and try to make headlines by solving the case," he replied choosing not to remark on her comment. "At least they called us and are letting us go over all of the case files and witness transcripts. If the unsub keeps to his prior time schedule this last girl is most likely dead and will be dumped in the next 12 hours. If we can pinpoint a dumpsite maybe they can catch him. If not, I think they will have to let us help and go to Austin tomorrow."

They talked for a few more minutes and he again apologized for missing dinner. "I really do want to meet JoAnn."

"I know. Go help with that profile before someone else gets hurt."

He was smiling as he headed to get some coffee and bumped into Prentiss. She stopped, looked like she was about to say something and then just smiled and headed back towards the conference room. Reid shook his head and watched her leave wondering what she thought she knew.

When he arrived back in the conference room, Prentiss had attached a large map of the Austin area up on a corkboard and brought in multi-colored pushpins and markers to help Reid with his geographic profile. He started to get to work and their thoughts were now completely on the case.

Morgan was mumbling about the fact that another college girl's body was most like going to be dumped in the next 12 hours as he and Garcia headed to her lair to see if they could find any connections between the victims that the Austin PD might have missed. If the unsub kept to his current time schedule, they needed to get a profile of potential victims to the media to help keep future victims safe. JJ, Rossi and Hotch were looking through all of the case files to see if they could piece anything together from the interviews with friends and families, autopsy reports, and crime scene photos.

A pattern started to appear as Reid placed the final markers on the map. All of the dumpsites were within a 3-mile radius of the girl's University. All of the strip malls had at least one coffee shop that opened by 6:00 am and a bar that closed at 2:00am with foot traffic from employees and students from around 5:30am to 2:15am but almost completely dead in the early morning hours. Garcia had found that there were no security cameras in the rear of any of these malls. A perfect way for the unsub to get in and out without being seen.

At around 2:00am Eastern Time, they had finished with their profile and Garcia had sent everything to the Austin PD. They didn't have enough information for victimology, but there were 3 strip mall locations that fit the profile where Austin's body may be dumped. As much as they hoped she was still alive, if the unsub was following his usual pattern, Austin was most likely already dead.

Having done everything they could do for the night and hoping that the information they provided would allow the Austin PD to apprehend the suspect, they all headed home. Spencer didn't want to wake up Chelsea so he headed to his own apartment. It was after 3:00am when he finally was in bed, but he had a hard time falling asleep. As he was tossing and turning, he realized that he now slept better with Chelsea at her place.

He fell asleep around 5:00am and his phone rang at 7:00am. JJ apologized for calling so early, but she wanted to let him know that the Austin PD had caught the suspect while he was dumping the body. Their profile had been correct and he was at one of the 3 locations they had predicted. The Sheriff had even apologized to Hotch and told him he was sorry that he had not contacted the BAU earlier. Also, Hotch had given everyone the day off and to be back in the office tomorrow morning.

Reid was now awake and went to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. While the coffee was brewing he took a shower, shaved and dressed. He grabbed a cup of coffee and waited until 8:00am to call Chelsea. She was sorry that he had missed meeting JoAnn and her fiancé, but she had a great time at dinner with them.

He went over to spend the day with her. As they were walking hand in hand to a local restaurant for lunch, she said, "Those poor girls. I'm glad you were able to help, but I wish you could have saved the last one." Spencer just nodded. "I'm especially glad you didn't have to leave town and have the day off to spend with me," she said smiling and squeezed his hand.

He squeezed it back. He was still amazed how comfortable he was with her. Over his lifetime, he saw happy couples holding hands and never thought he could find someone that would make him so happy. He didn't notice her watching him. "Penny for your thoughts." She said smiling.

He smiled back. "I was just thinking how happy I am right now" he said truthfully. "I didn't sleep well last night, but I don't feel tired here with you."

"Why didn't you sleep well? Nightmares?" she wondered aloud.

He shook his head and shyly said, "I was lonely." He felt slightly silly as it had only been less than 2 weeks from their first night together.

She laughed "Me too. I'm glad you are comfortable sleeping at my place. You should have just come over no matter how late it was." She blushed a little as she finished saying, "It would have been worth waking up in the middle of the night if it meant I would get to wake up in the morning with you."

He said, "I'll remember that" with a big smile on his face.

#

Chelsea wanted to arrange for Spencer to meet her mom. Her mother was extremely concerned that she was dating someone in law enforcement and was unhappy with Bob for setting them up. She could tell that Chelsea was in love and all she could focus on was that she didn't want her to be hurt if something were to happen to him on the job. Since Spencer had the day off she called her mom and Bob and then made reservations for the four of them at the rifle club that night.

Spencer was very nervous about meeting her mom. He had never been in a situation like this before and was very uncomfortable. "What am I supposed to say? Hi, I'm the guy sleeping with your daughter?" He was starting to panic and was nervously chatting in the car with Chelsea all the way to the club. As they were walking in, Chelsea took his hand, squeezed it tightly and told him "My mother is going to love you. I promise. Just be yourself."

"Being myself is what I'm worried about."

Chelsea smiled squeezed his hand again reassuringly. "Remember my mom loves literature and is an educator. She loves conversations with intelligent people and you are going to blow her away."

The dinner went well and Elizabeth, Liz as she asked Spencer to call her, was impressed with him. After a few awkward minutes of discussion about the dangers of his job, the conversation changed to literature. Liz asked how his family felt about his job and Spencer mentioned that his mother was a retired English literature professor. Chelsea had mentioned it, but Liz was too focused on his job to think about that. After that most of the night was a back and forth discussion of classic literature from around the world. Bob and Chelsea kept quiet most of the night silently communicating and smiling at the conversation around them. The evening had gone just the way the two of them had planned.

Spencer and Chelsea continued to spend most of his free time together with him staying most nights at her place. Near the end of February, Hotch was asked to help with a case privately and flew to Dallas alone to find out the details. That night he asked the rest of the team to come and help with the sensitive case. A high-end prostitute was killing her very high profile clients. No potential victim wanted to admit they were having extra-marital affair, especially an illegal one and did not want to help with the investigation. Even now that Spencer was in a relationship, he was still uncomfortable talking about sexual acts with a "madam" that had offered to help. That night when he called Chelsea from the hotel, she could hear the tension in his voice. Just talking with her helped him work through his issues. The next day he was focused again and helped come up with a plan to take the suspect into custody.