Call-sign: Miracle

C~8: Sense Memory

"Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it."

~novelist Vladimir Nabakov

Night had arisen, and I could feel some clock ticking in my bones. He might have a new victim, and we should be out there by now. Biting my nails, I try to focus on the conversation. "Unless the victims all wore excessive amounts of perfume, it would take a hell of a hose to detect smell through a taxi window." Rossi insists.

"Not necessarily." Spencer begins, that smart brain about to prove Rossi wrong "People with the olfactory disorder hyperosmia have an oversensitivity to smell. They typically pick up scents that other people can't. I don't think he'd be going after their perfume. It's already artificial."

"So they probably weren't wearing anything on their skin," Emily suggests. Hotch nods. "Something about their natural scents compels him?"

"Smell's a powerful trigger for memory. He might be trying to bring back the memory of somebody he lost." Spencer tries before his phone rings. "Excuse me," he says, moving away.

Looking up, Derek sees my bitten nail and asks, "Hey Cass, you alright?"

Nodding softly, I rock on my heels. "Ain't we all?" I joke.

"We have an address."

At Spencer's words, I'm the first to bolt, grabbing my shoulder holster and gun before rushing to a car. Derek and I both stop on the driver's side, giving each other a look before he sighs. "Fine!"

Laughing, I hop into the driver's seat, gripping the wheel pulling out onto the street. At the sudden speed, Derek stables himself in his seat. At this, I breathe out, "Sorry."

"Nope, you're fine!" he hollers as we pull up to the address with the other cars. Hotch and Rossi are the ones that head to the front door, Emily and Spencer head around back, while Derek and I ready our guns by the car.

This was my first stakeout of my cases so far. Police showing up it's crazy! Hotch bangs on the door calling in "FBI!!!" although, to my ears, the banging is outweighed by an engine.

Turning to peer down a close street, I see the taxi. Patting Derek's arm, I jump on my heels. "He's running!" I call out, holstering my gun and snatching the front seat again.

As Derek climbs in, he motions his arm forward. "Go! Go! Go!"

Flooring it, we're both forced aginst our seats and to the side as I barely grind a corner. "Sorry!"

"Don't be sorry! Drive!"

"Alright!" shouting back, I swerve onto the main street wider than the side allies as yellow catches my eyes. Derek takes up the walkie. "He's moving onto the bridge! All units take the bridge! Santio and I are in pursuit!"

Moving into the other lane to pass by slower cars, I shout out again, "Sorry!"

"Why do you keep saying sorry!"

"Hey, who's driving here!"

The yellow taxi makes a right off the bridge, and just as I follow, a truck stops "No! No!" I mumble, honking the horn. As it moves, I peer around the dark, shrouding the headlights for any sign of yellow. Stopping at a cross street, I study left and right.

Nothing!

"Damnit!"

"We lost him." walkies Derek, frustrated as well. Rossi's voice responds, "Split up."

Driving down another road, I chew my lip so bad it could bleed. How could we lose this guy! Damn truck...no, if only I had been faster. I mean, I fly a jets and can't even catch a guy in a ca-

"LOOK OUT!" Derek shouts, putting an arm across me as I slam on the break. A taxi pulls out an ally before jetting down the road us after it at full speed. "East on Palmetto!" I shout into the on walkie as I turn another corner.

The car slides before picking a path behind our guy. Out of the ally pulls a service truck causing the killer to swerve. Eye widening, Derek shoves his foot across, slamming on the break before I could turn. "Don't follow him!!!!"

My body slams against the wheel, but my thought are clouded by the crash in front of us. The top of the taxi was torn off by the steel beam. Gulping, Derek helps me sit back. "You okay?"

Panting, I nod, readying my gun once again. "Yeah."

As we step out, strange sayings float through the air "Rotted vegetables, rotted fruit, rotted meat, It's not that it's hidden, it's everywhere."

This man's thoughts, stepping next to the car, I lower my hands, this is the first time the Unsubs been killed, and in a way, I drove him down this road to this. Swallowing, I wipe the sweat from my brow while staring at the sight. "Oh god."

*********************************************

The case was solved.

Unsub was dead.

Should be happy we're going home.

But as I lean against the window, my leg bounces up and down once more. I can't even be in control of my own bird. Everyone was primarily asleep...well, except Spencer, who sat right across from me with a cup of coffee.

Looking up and seeing I wasn't asleep, Spencer closes the fourth book he's read on the flight giving me a small smile. "Can't sleep?"

"I usually don't." I shrug, sitting up. "Can't exactly nod off when you're flying the plane." giving a little laugh at this, Spencer agrees, "Hopefully, you don't sleep in the cockpit."

I try to smile back, but I can only bite my lip. Catching this, Spencer sighs, "Hey, I get it."

"You do?"

"Yeah." he nods, motioning outward, "We fly all around to new places, old places to help people and those who were hurt. You want to make sure they got justice, and we couldn't exactly do that this time."

"Problem is we could have." enforcing this, I lay my head in my hands. "If I hadn't gone so fast or braked a bit faster-"

"But we saved someone else from suffering the same fate," he states, moving my hands from my eyes. "With this job, you gotta learn to take the good that you can, no matter where we go, no matter what we do."

Spencer's words calm me. He's good at reading people, but that comes with being a profiler. I guess. "Thanks, Atlas."

At the name, Spencer's face scrunched up. "Atlas? Me?"

Leaning back against the window, I nod. "I say you've earned it, I mean you know it all, everything, you carry the weight of a lot on your shoulders, lives, people."

As I explain this, Spencer's puppies dilate in thought as I smile. "I'm called Miracle because back in my home town people said it was a miracle that a female Santio was even born, that I went against what most women did and became a pilot, an agent, became something no one dared to."

His mouth gapes open a bit at this. "That's...amazing...so your the first girl to be born in your family for how many generations?"

"Five."

Spencer's jaw drops even more before he lets out a breathy laugh. "That's...really rare...wow."

We both laugh a bit at this as his eyes move to his book, "Do you wanna read? Sometimes it helps me fall asleep."

Glancing over, I see it's the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Shaking my head, I shrug. "My eyes are kinda hurting...although I love the book, my daddy used to read it to Bran and me."

At this notion, Spencer takes up the book flipping to the front "Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun."

Sending me a small smile Spencer goes back to reading the story aloud for me, my eyes lulling to sleep for the first early night I've ever had.

And the greatest friend's voice to guide me "Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea!"