Disclaimer: The characters of Criminal Minds of course don't belong to me, I'm just borrowing them.

AN: Okay, so I'm taking a stab at writing a Criminal Minds revolving around a case. I know very little about police work in general, even less about the FBI and make no claims of being a profiler so therefore if something is a bit off in terms of technical details, I'll apologize no. I'm trying to at least make things plausible and logically and not too far off base and of course this is a work of fiction so I believe there is always a bit of room for creative license. Though I tried not to change Morgan's background too much, I did choose to create another sister for him in this story so there are a few changes associated with that, other than that I'm trying to keep things in character as much as I can with my limited Criminal Minds knowledge. The story is set sometime shortly after Rossi joins the team. Hope you all enjoy!

Major Rebecca Morgan ducked under the yellow tape that had put up around the rope climb station of the obstacle course. She had spent the last hour interviewing cadets that had been on the obstacle course at the time of the accident. Army ROTC cadets who were clearly shaken by the incident that had taking place.

Looking at the scene before her, she had a feeling of deja vu. Just two weeks ago, a rope on this obstacle had broken while a group of privates had been training on the obstacle course. That accident had ended in a fatality, as the young man had been near the top when the rope gave way, and had suffered major head trauma in the fall. The private had died at the hospital before the parents had been able to make the trip from Nebraska.

This time, it had been a female cadet who had been on the course when the rope had broken. A rope that had been inspected not long before the cadets had taken to the obstacle course. The fact that she had been struggling with the rope climb was probably a blessing, as she hadn't been that high up when the accident had occurred. She had been taking to the hospital with a possible broken ankle and arm, but had been conscious and talking when the medics had left with her.

~One broken rope can be written off as a freak accident,~ she thought as she walked toward her co-worker inspecting the scene. The MP's at the scene had called her and said there was something she needed to see. ~Two in as many weeks though, along with the other three incidents in the last couple of months?~ It was starting to get to be too much to write off as a string of bad luck. Her commanding officer, Colonel Jackson, agreed with her but they couldn't come up with anything to link the incidents together.

"I heard you found something suspicious, Lieutenant?" Major Morgan asked as she stood above the lieutenant expecting the broken rope.

Lieutenant Jacob Marley looked up at his superior officer. "Well ma'am," he began, standing up, the broken end of the rope held in one gloved hand. "I think this incident might not have been an accident. See how this side of the rope is frayed," he said, pointing to the area he was talking about. Major Morgan nodded and Marley continued. "Now look at the other side. The break is smooth, no fraying, like it had been cut. The cut looks to go about a quarter of the way into the rope."

"Like someone had cut the rope part way, and then the weakened rope gave way when the cadet was climbing?"

Marley nodded his agreement.

Rebecca thought back to the investigation on the previous incident on the obstacle course. She couldn't recall anything being mentioned about the break in the rope being suspicious. ~Had it been and we just missed it?~

"Do you think something like this could be easily overlooked in an investigation?" Major Morgan asked the lieutenant.

"I suppose so. At first glance, the frayed area does make it look like the rope just broke. We were told to look at everything closely this time though because of the previous incident."

Major Morgan nodded. "Make sure pictures get taken of the rope and then bag it as evidence, Lieutenant," she ordered. It looked like this investigation had just gotten more complicated. Not to mention, it strengthened her curiosity about the previous incidents. Had they just been accidents or had they missed something?

"Yes, ma'am," Lieutenant Marley replied, with a quick nod.

~Perhaps we need somebody else to take a look at the five incidents to see if there was any link. People better trained for looking for things like that,~ Major Morgan thought, as she glanced up at the top piece of the rope still hanging from the support beam above. She made a mental note to run her idea past Colonel Jackson just as soon as she had a chance to talk to him.

Special Agent Morgan reached into his bag to pull out his cd player. Around him, his fellow agents of the BAU team, were settling themselves for the flight home from this last case in Washington. Across the cabin from him, JJ was already dozing in her seat.

The whole team had put in a lot of hours with very little sleep the last few days. The case had been a rough one, a serial killer preying on teens of a small town. Though the team had managed to catch the killer, they had been too late to save his latest victim. Morgan could still see the shattered look on the faces of the parents of the teen, when Hotch had informed them of their daughter's death. Eight teens dead. Sometimes just stopping the killers didn't seem like it was enough.

As he pulled out the cd player an envelope fell out of the bag. Placing the cd player in his lap, Morgan reached down an picked up the envelope. ~I can't believe I forgot this was in here,~ he thought as he look at the front of the envelope. Leaning back in the seat, he started opening it.

"What's that?" Dr. Spencer Reid asked from off to Morgan's left. He was laying down on the rest of the bench type seat that he was sharing with Morgan, his feet curled up. Though he was tired, he hadn't fallen asleep yet.

"A letter from Becky. It came the day we left for this last case and I had put it in the bag to read when I got some free time and then forgot it was even in here."

"Is she still over seas?" Reid asked, realizing that he hadn't heard anything about Morgan's sister in awhile.

"Thankfully, no. Her last tour ended four months ago, and her new assignment has her stationed at Fort Knox." What Morgan didn't add was that she had stopped by to see their mother in between assignment. Still living in Chicago, Sarah and Desiree had gotten to spend time with her. A part of him felt guilty that he hadn't taken the time off to go back to Chicago then, though Becky had told him she understood. "We've been exchanging emails more than anything since she's on base but she says sometimes she just likes writing an old fashioned letter," he told his co-worker and friend. ~And I enjoy getting them too,~ he added to himself. ~Makes her feel closer somehow.~

Reid nodded but fell silent as Morgan took the letter out of the envelope. The only sound in the jet was the low murmur of voices from Hotch and Rossi as they spoke quietly toward the front of the cabin. She had included a couple of pictures in the envelope, and after Morgan had looked at them, he passed them to Reid, who other than Garcia, was the only one at the BAU that he talked about his family to on a regular basis.

"Can I see?" Emily Prentiss asked, from her seat across from Reid, when the younger agent was ready to pass the pictures back to Morgan.

"Go ahead," Morgan said, not looking up from the letter he was now reading.

"Um, which one is your sister?" Emily asked, shortly after being handed the pictures.

Looking up from the letter, Morgan smiled at his co-workers confusion. It was something both siblings encountered quite often when telling people they were brother and sister, though they never gave a second thought to the obvious difference between them. "In the picture taken at the golf course, Becky is the white gal in the middle."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean."

"It's cool. I'm just messing with you," Morgan told her. "She's my adoptive sister. We took a lot of taunting growing up because of it. Still throws people off sometime, though neither of us really think about our skin colors being a difference. Even though society is slowly becoming more accepting of interracial relationship, its usually the couple that are of two different races not the kids."

"It's been reported that . . ."

Morgan looked over at his co-worker and friend. "Don't you dare make my family a statistic kid."

Reid let his thought trail off with a slight nod of his head.

"She's pretty," Emily said, handing the pictures back to Morgan.

"Believe me, I'm quite aware of that fact," Morgan said, thinking of the guys his sister had dated. He took the pictures from Emily and placed them back in the envelope.

"Ahh, the protective older brother type who thinks the sister can't take care of herself."

"Oh, Becky is quite capable of taking care of herself, she just lets her big heart blind her sometimes. Taking advantage of that is something guys usually don't try twice."

Morgan was getting ready to go back to the letter when his cell phone rang. Taking the phone off the clip on his belt he glanced at the screen, surprised to see his sister's name and number displayed. She didn't often call him, both their jobs and schedule making it hard to reach one another by phone.

"Hey, Becky. Everything okay?" he asked in a low voice, having flipped the phone open. He listened quietly as she told him the reason she had called for. His relief that she was okay quickly replaced by the concern for the situation going on at the base. "I'm actually on the jet with the team now. Let me run it by Hotch and I'll get back to you," Morgan told his sister before saying good-bye.

Ignoring the questioning looks from both Reid and Prentiss, Morgan got to his feet and made his way to the front of the cabin. Hotch looked up at Morgan as he approached, and seeing Hotch's diverted attention, Rossi stopped talking.

"Sorry to interrupt but I need to run something passed you, Hotch," Morgan said. His boss motioned for him to sit down in the empty seat next to him. Morgan did so and then started speaking. "I just got a call from my younger sister. She's an MP stationed at Fort Knox. In the last two months they've had five incidents occur on base, all fatal except this last one. They've had a jeep accident, a fatally related the NBC chamber training, one on a firing range, and the last two have happened on the obstacle course."

"At first they just figured they were seeing a string of unrelated accidents. After all, no matter how hard you try you can't make this type of training one hundred percent safe. Injuries are a fairly common occurrence. Four deaths on base in two months though are starting to make them think they're not just coincidences, especially the two on the same obstacle in the past two weeks. The obstacle course is inspected by personnel responsible for the training before every use and investigation involving the latest incident today uncovered signs that it wasn't just a case of the rope giving way. The rope was cut part way through."

"Which now has them wondering if the other incidents weren't simply accidents," Hotch said.

Morgan nodded. "Unfortunately most of the equipment involved in the other incidents has been discarded by now, as they had initially been ruled accidents. They're looking to see if the gas mask worn by the private in the NBC training incident can be tracked down. That death had been ruled as an adverse reaction to the gas mixture by doctors and the quick check of the equipment didn't reveal any obvious defects."

"Are they asking for our help in this matter?"

"Officially no. Though they are treating this latest incident as a criminal investigation, there is no solid evidence to warrant re-opening the other incidents, not only due to lack of evidence but to the fact that they can't come up with any way to link them all."

"Which is where we come in, right?" Rossi commented.

"Yeah. Unofficially, Colonel Jackson, head of the MP's stationed at Fort Knox, shares my sister's suspicions that these weren't all just simply accidents. He's authorized her to send us the information they have on the incidents, and the victim's if we will take a look at things and see if we can link the incidents together somehow. Depending on what we can find, he's keeping an open mind on whether to officially call in FBI to help or not."

"He's trying to keep things quiet and not cause a panic," Hotch commented.

"Can you blame him? If someone is targeting soldiers on a US military base, that's going to cause some panic. Our soldiers should at least be able to feel safe on home soil," Rossi commented.

"Not to mention, this is most likely an inside job. Getting on and off a military base if your not either a soldier or a civilian worker isn't easy. If its more than an isolated incident than an outsider on base would arouse suspicion."

Hotch looked over at Rossi, silently asking his opinion. Rossi nodded slightly, indicating that he thought they should take a look at the information. He looked over at Morgan as he started talking. "Tell your sister to fax the information this evening and we'll take a look at it first thing in the morning."

"Thanks, Hotch," Morgan said, reaching for his cell phone as he got to his feet. He was already dialing his sister's number as he made his way back to where he had been sitting before. Prentiss had drifted off to sleep but though Reid hadn't moved from his position, Morgan could see the younger agent was still awake. "Yeah, Becky, I talked to him. Hotch said to send the information and the team will take a look at it in the morning."

"Thanks, Derek. We really appreciate this. We've had training exercises suspended since the discovery that this latest incident wasn't an accident and I'm not sure what the base commander plans on doing tomorrow. Right now, we just need to keep things quiet here and keep people from panicking, especially with the cadets on base right now."

"Watch yourself, Bec."

"I'll be careful. Don't worry. I'm gonna go start getting that information together for you guys. What's the fax number there?"

Morgan gave her the fax number at the BAU and then hung up the phone. As he clipped the phone back to his belt, Reid spoke up.

"Something going on down there?"

"Possibly," Morgan answered, trying to keep the worry out of his voice. He wasn't completely successful and having spent a lot of time around him, Reid was able to pick up on it.

"Your sister's got a good head on her shoulders, she'll be okay."

"You're right. I guess after all this time of worrying about her serving overseas, I just assumed she was going to be safe over here. That I wouldn't have to worry about her."

"What's going on?"

Morgan looked over at the younger agent, trying to decide on whether to tell him about what was going on at Fort Knox. Under normal circumstances he probably wouldn't but he would be finding out in the morning anyway. Keeping his voice low so as not to disturb his sleeping co-workers, Morgan began to relay the information to him.

Morgan hadn't slept well, despite being tired and in his own bed. His mind had been on Becky and the situation she was dealing with down south. Who would cut a rope on an army base obstacle course? Was it the first time or the second time that they had done it? Was the same person behind the other incidents? He had spent most of the night contemplating those and other questions. At five a.m. He had finally given up on any pretense of trying to sleep.

Now at ten minutes to eight, over an hour before he had to be at work, Morgan was approaching the front entrance of the BAU in Quantico. He was driving himself crazy at his apartment imagining all kinds of things that could go wrong on that army base. He had thought about calling her, but knew she would be busy even at this early hour.

Rebecca Styles had been five years old when her parents had died. Not that even those first five years had been kind to the little girl. Her father had been abusive to his wife and sometimes even his daughter. Hooked on drugs and alcoholic Gerald Styles had finally snapped one night and had shot his wife before shooting himself. Their daughter, having hid behind the couch, had survived but had been forever scarred by those early childhood experiences.

The Morgan's weren't the first family that Rebecca Styles had been placed with. She had been with the first family for only two months. The husband and wife who had taken her in had been an older couple. They hadn't been able to reach the withdrawn child. It had taken awhile for her to feel comfortable with the Morgans, but Derek's parents had always been people who openly showed affection with all of their children. She had eventually started to feel comfortable with all of them. To his parents, two older sisters and himself, Rebecca had slowly become a part of the family and not just another foster kid staying with them.

Reaching the tops of the steps, Morgan noticed Hotch already at the door. The older agent held the door open as Morgan approached.

"I see I'm not the only one who came in early," Hotch commented, as he followed Morgan through the door. "You don't look like you got much sleep last night."

"I didn't," Morgan admitted.

"I wasn't aware you had a sister was in the army. Has she been serving long?"

"For about the last eight years. She went in after college. Did army ROTC while getting her degree in criminal justice. I kind of feel responsible for her being in the military. That if I hadn't joined the marines than she never would have considered doing ROTC in college."

"She made her own choice, Morgan. You're not responsible for what she chose to do."

Morgan didn't comment on his boss' last statement. He knew there was truth in Hotch's words but that didn't make it any easier to convince himself that.

"Are the two of you close?" Hoch asked, as the two agents stepped into the elevator. He knew Derek didn't like talking about his family life much and part of him didn't expect an answer. Hotch was about to change the subject with Morgan spoke up.

"Yeah, we're close. Becky and I are closer to each other than we are either of our two older sisters. Probably closer than most brothers and sisters," Morgan told him, glancing over at his boss. He saw the curiosity on the older man's face but didn't miss the understanding look of concern there too. Morgan knew if he left the statement there, Hotch wouldn't press. However, Morgan found that in a way he wanted to tell his boss about this. Wanted him to understand how important this situation was. "My mother didn't have an easy pregnancy with me and was advised after wards not to have any more children. Both my parents were a part of big families and they had wanted one of their own."

"Some couples would consider three kids to be a big family," Hotch commented.

"Not my parents. Not able to have any more children of their own, they became foster parents."

Now that he had begun, Morgan knew he had to continue. He hadn't even ever told Garcia what he was about to tell Hotch. The only one that he had ever talked about this particular part of his family history to was Reid. Morgan reached out and flipped the switch bringing the elevator to a stop.

"I got use to kids coming into our home and then leaving again. I learned quickly not to get too close to any of the kids my parents took in because it wouldn't last. I was nine when Rececca came to us. Both of her parents were dead and she didn't have any other family. She had seen the kind of stuff at five that we see on this job. She was quiet and withdrawn when she came to live us. Though my parents showed her the kind of unconditional love that they had shown all the previous children, that they showed Sarah, Desiree and me everyday, she kept to herself. Even at that age, I could tell she was very sad and was hurting."

"She'd been with us a month, when for some reason I ventured down to her room after my parents had gone to sleep. I'm not sure what time it was, but I do remember how loud my footsteps sounded to my ears as I walked down the hallway in the quiet house. I remember standing outside her bedroom door and hearing the crying coming from within. I don't know how long I stood there listening but eventually I went in. Rebecca was sitting up in her bed, hugging her pillow closely. I didn't say anything to her. Wasn't sure what I could say. I did eventually go over, and sat beside her on the bed, and put my arms around her, just letting her cry. I stayed with her until she went to sleep that night."

"She cried herself to sleep most nights the first year she was with us. She eventually told me how her parents died, and that she had been a witness to it. Once she and I started bonding, she opened up to my parents too. Rebecca started to become a part of our family in a way that the other foster children never had. She had been with us for four months when my father was killed. Suddenly, the two of us had something in common, something that went much deeper than the bond we already shared. The bond Rececca had formed with the rest of the family."

"For a period afterwards there had been talk about placing Rebecca with another family. Even while dealing with her own grief at losing her husband, my mother fought it. She argued that the progress that Rebecca had made in trusting people again during the time she had been with us would be destoryed if she was uprooted again. I've also often wondered if after losing her husband, my mom just couldn't deal with the thought of losing Becky too. Two years after she had first come to live was us, the adoption went through. Rebecca even took our last name. Rebecca and I saw each other through everything after that."

"Family isn't just about being related by blood, its about how you feel about and take care of one another. Being part of this team should have taught you that."

"It has," Morgan told him, putting the elevator back in motion.

"If there's something going on down at Fort Knox, we'll figure it out," Hotch told him. "I asked Garcia to come in early to get the files ready for the team. We'll get started on this as soon as everyone gets here this morning."

"Thanks, Hotch."