May Waters had only been interning at the BAU for a few weeks before being called on her first ever case.

The initial month beforehand was spent poring over old case files and being dragged to copious meetings about conduct codes and classified information, which made the young woman's brain feel like a sponge filled with concrete. She spent all of her free time at her temporary desk in the BAU precinct at Quantico, drowning in recent solved cases, and trying to understand JJ's brief but meticulous introduction to being a media liaison – the job May had been working for since she watched the blonde woman on her television, providing a beacon of truth about the murders in her hometown many years ago.

Since that moment, May had stuck her head inside books about profiling and the FBI in general – anything to get away from the reality she was living after a serial killer had ravaged her small hometown in Ohio ruining her parent's marriage, and leaving her an only child for the first time in her life.

The young intern had yet to speak openly to the rest of the team in the unit, she was anxious, doubtful of her abilities to follow in Jareau's footsteps as a media liaison, even though the elder had now moved on to being a full-time profiler. The rest of the BAU was welcoming, but they had their own niches already claimed on the team; Spencer as the brains, Morgan as the brawn, Penelope as the tech-wizard, and so on – it was hard to add a new face to the family.

And so, May kept her head down, although it was admittedly hard, being placed straight across from the un-biasedly gorgeous Doctor Reid. The intern had read up on each of the BAU's core members before beginning her job, and she was in awe of how much the man had achieved at such a young age. However, she still refused to say more than the occasional 'good morning' to the friendly agent, afraid her own traitorous mind would make her say something to embarrass herself in the eyes of a certified genius – May had barely passed calculus in high-school, before moving on to literature and media communications in college.

This would be the first case that May was to physically attend; Hotch expected her to shadow Agent Jareau in her duties, and be as inconspicuous as possible whilst the rest of the team worked to figure out a profile for the Sherriff, who had invited them to assist in the investigation.

The case the team had been called to attend was gruesome, three teenagers from a small town in Illinoi had been killed so far, all in different ways, with only a distinct MO at the scene to connect the murders. The unit had flown to the area in silence, everyone heavily focused on their tablets, filled with the information Garcia had provided.