A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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Chapter 01

Fall 2004

Aliens.

Aliens was not what people expected when they went into work that morning. Aliens were rather surprising.

What should not have surprised people was when the aliens didn't do what they always did in the movies.

The large mothership de-cloaked in orbit, up by the moon, just like everyone expected. Every government in the world panicked, just as everyone expected. The aliens send down a shower of smaller ships, just as expected. And they entered the atmosphere and started hovering, just as expected.

But everyone expected them to hover over major urban centers, to start broadcasting threats or offered of peace, or something.

They didn't.

The one over North America made its way to a patch of grassland in the middle of nowhere, South Dakota. And it proceeded to hover there, a malignant shape over the prairie, calmly ignoring the jackrabbits that hopped about underneath.

The US sent the Air Force in first, of course. They would have done so with the agreement of their nearest neighbors, if the US military ever really gave a damn. They quickly discovered the force shield that cut out the engine of any plane that came too near. But the planes didn't crash; they just glided to a safe distance. Once there their engines came on again. There was some talk of shooting something in their general direction, but cooler heads prevailed. After all, the aliens were just sitting there.

Of course they weren't just sitting there over a patch of South Dakota. They were also just sitting over a patch of Siberia, over a patch Mongolia, over a patch of the Pampas, over the African savanna. In all the major areas of the world the aliens hovered over a large, flat plane of nowhere.

But only in North America were they not left alone.

Everywhere else people were content to watch the aliens on the nearest screen, trusting news crews standing at a safe distance and government reports to tell them what was going on. But in North America, fueled by hundreds of sci-fi stories and thousands of conspiracies a significant chunk of the civilian population wanted to welcome them personally. Caravans headed out in the direction of Mud Butte to welcome them with signs and costumes and campers held together with duct tape and easy credit.

There was general agreement among the North American Powers That Be that this was not a good idea. It would be better to keep the civilians away until they learned what the aliens wanted. So they sent in the military, which set up under and around the spaceship, out on the prairie.

Where they sat watching the aliens.

Who weren't doing anything.

"What do you think they're doing out there?" Elle asked.

It was the third day after the aliens arrival, the first day the BAU had been able to breathe and reflect after catching the Arizona arsonist with OCD. Now they were all sitting in the bullpen, drinking bad coffee and watching the news. For the next few days no one was going to be catching any Unsubs. Odds were they were watching the news too.

"As Gideon would say, we don't have enough for a profile." JJ replied.

"It's creepy is what it is." Morgan said.

"They might be coming in peace." Spencer replied. "Their intentions might be benign, even helpful."

"I'll believe that when I see it."

It was another four days before the aliens announced their intentions.

As the world watched another, smaller craft detached itself from the mothership. It entered the atmosphere and slowly made its way to the surface.

It landed.

It landed in the heart of New York City. Just like all the movies said.

It landed directly in front of the UN.

As the world watched a door opened and aliens ran out.

It was hard to tell their height, their size. They were pale, with large heads and large eyes. They were bipedal, more or less humanoid, but they seemed to prefer to move quickly on all fours. They made their way into the UN building, at least twenty of them, moving quickly in and around people who were too shocked at the sight to even panic.

One guard, panicked at the sight, got a shot off without thinking. It bounced off some sort of shield around one of the aliens, who scampered up to him and slapped the gun from his hand. Then it shook its head, admonishing him before it scampered away with the others.

The aliens poured into the General Assembly chamber before anyone could stop them, jumping over the tables and around the terrified delegates, until they reached the front of the room. They slowed there, milling about, until one of them slowly climbed his way up to the front. It looked out over the room as it placed its front hands or paws on the podium. And then, as the world watched, a mouth opened under it's eyes and it spoke.

People of this planet. We have watched you for the past one hundred of your years. We address you in this manner as our observations have shown that this is the manner in which you address each other in a way that is peace.

We wish to welcome you to join those of us who live among the stars.

We have wished this for one hundred of your years. We have watched and waited for you to be ready. Your people are close to readiness now. We wish to extend the hand of friendship to you to make the last steps to join us.

But you are not ready. There is an evil among you. It stops you from reaching the hand we offer. It stops you from reaching the stars.

This evil is taboo to our kind. We may not speak of this evil so great. But it must be stopped before you can take your place among us.

We bring you a gift. With this gift you will be able to eradicate this evil. Within one hundred more of your years this evil will be gone from you and you will be ready to take that last step.

Today we give you this gift. One hundred years from this day we will return to this place. It is our greatest wish that you will be ready at that time.

For now we leave you in peace. Farewell.

The speaker stared out at the assembly for a long moment. Then he dropped back to all fours. At that the entire delegation, for that is what it had to be, ran out of the chamber. They ran back to their ship, which lifted off and headed back for the mothership.

As if a signal was given the hovering ships all around the world lit up. Then they rose up as one, and returned to their mothership.

They watched it fly away into the darkness between the stars.

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Notes – Just to reassure everyone, I am still working on the epic-length story rated MA I'm publishing over at AO3, and I will be continuing to update that twice a week as I go. But I know a lot of people out there prefer to avoid MA rated stories, especially ones with very strong adult themes and explicit sexual situations, so I had some free time on my hands and decided to crank out a quick rated T sci-fi story just for the readers here. Rated T means no explicit descriptions of sex or violence, any scenes like that are implied not described.

That said I'll be honest up front. Spencer gets a boyfriend in this one. Why? Because I've written him with 21 original female characters, one crossover and JJ and I want to try something new to see if I can pull it off. But like I said, no explicit descriptions of sex or violence, if that helps at all.

This is set in seasons 1 & 2 until Prentiss joins the team. In order to fit in some real world events I had to play with the timeline a little. You can assume cannon order to the cases but I had to spread them out over a longer amount of time to get it to work. That said they really don't come up all that much, this happens in between things and at least one event happens out of order, but it will make sense with the story.

I hope you all enjoy this one.