𝐓𝐖𝐎 𝐆𝐇𝐎𝐒𝐓𝐒, spencer reid

⠀ zero. behavioral analysis

*ੈ✩‧₊˚

˚⋆ ┊ TWO GHOSTS ┊ ⋆˚
☆⋅⋆ ─ act i. in the place of you and me

CHAPTER ZERO — behavioural analysis

✎

❝  it doesn't matter who my father
was; it matters who i remember he was ❞
↳  ANNE SEXTON

⠀ ⠀ FIRE... THE VERY FIRST THING NANCY CHAVEZ remembered. The thing that snapped her from childhood ignorance into consciousness wasn't flickering Christmas lights. Nor was it brightly colored fireworks painting the night sky. It was flames against her skin. Smoke in her lungs. It was her brother's iron grip on her wrist dragging her from their collapsing home. Trouble was, that was just about the only thing Nancy could recall.

Lost memories had never bothered Agent Chavez. In fact, the Brooklynite didn't remember much of her childhood at all. One of those fun little trauma responses she'd learned so much about when gaining a master's in sociology and criminology. It wasn't as though she hadn't heard all about it. The tragedy of the Chavez family haunted her every place she went. Her father's stoic portrait greeted her every time the precinct elevator doors clanged open. But the serious sneer of a deputy director wasn't the image she kept so dearly in her mind, no matter how little of him she could recall. It fascinated the young agent. How was it that the little people did know of her father made him a frightening hero?

Losing their parents so young had a lasting effect on their teenage years. Even after their aunt and uncle took them in. Nancy spent years angry at the world and all of the people in it. And even though she didn't particularly buy into the 'everything happens for a reason' crap, there was no denying that she'd become a magnet for misfortune.

Nancy was barely nine years old when she witnessed the death of her parents. And barely seventeen when the safety of the suburbs failed her once again. Helpless to do anything but watch as each night a dear friend was taken from her. Murdered in their home or at school or the park. Somewhere they should have been safe. Only to find out her boyfriend was the one behind it all. It becomes difficult to trust anyone at all after something like that.

Future jobs proved what the children left behind thought happened to their parents. Nancy's younger brother, Eddie, was determined to be the best of the best at the FDNY. A lifetime of putting out fires wouldn't make up for the one that destroyed his life. But it could stop somebody's family from being torn apart the same way that his had.

Her older brother, Mateo, didn't have a set career path until Agent Aaron Hotchner saw his potential when helping find his missing sister in the infamous murders of 1998. He'd been handed him his entire future on a business card. The eldest Chavez had spent so long taking care of his younger siblings he hardly had time to think about the truth of what happened to his parents. Just that it left him with third degree burns and the scars to prove it.

Nancy followed in big brother's footsteps. Although not for the reasons everybody thought. Sure, she felt like it was her duty to stop other girls going through what she had. To catch the bastards faster that the BAU did the night she was forced to shoot her boyfriend in the head. But being an FBI agent gave her legal access to all sorts of information. Her deep dive into the minds of criminals proved her suspicions of foul play in her parents deaths. Searching into the databases of a corrupt system that so easily swept under the rug what she knew in her heart was arson... homicide. She'd done everything in her power to search for the truth. Bent any rule she could get away with. But trying to collect evidence under the noses of the people she suspected were covering it up, or at the very least had no intention of believing her, was proving impossible.

It never came as a surprise when the special agents of the BAU were so shocked at her profiling capabilities. She'd gotten rather used to being underestimated, even with her degree framed at her desk. And no matter how many times other women on the force told her it was textbook sexism, she knew the real reason men rolled their eyes at her suggestions. Even with her credentials, her experience, accusations of nepotism were thrown left right and center. The daughter of the dead deputy director must have manipulated her way to the top through pity, not hard work. Hung up on solving an impossible case. A murder that nobody else wanted to believe happened.

She had to move on.

If there truly were no answers for her in Brooklyn, she had to search for them elsewhere. It wasn't like it was doing her any good, simply waiting for a distraction to land on her doorstep.

That was... until one quite literally did.

hi!

firstly wanna saw ty for 1k !! wild that we hit that milestone already without any chapters published :,)

im fr so excited to for this book, like the same as i was when i started adventures in babysitting i just have a good feeling ab what i have planned n hopefully will be able to get chapters out more regularly 😅

safe to say its gonna be a little different cause there's a whole lot more content to work with this time around! i doubt ill end up writing EVERY SINGLE detail of EVERY SINGLE episode (i tried that with supernatural and gave up after season 4 lol)

im thinking these first few chapters n like nancy's first case w the BAU are gonna be completely original from my brain kinda (ofc w inspo from criminal minds n other pieces of media) cause this first case is gonna be very personal to nancy & her backstory !! so hopefully its a compelling and not entirely cliche storyline lol

ty for reading and voting
and commenting it really does make my day!

<3