Becoming A Profiler

Compulsion

Gideon was retelling the Footpath Killer case to the visiting students.

The students had come to help unpack Gideon's supplies from the academy. It hadn't taken long to unpack. There was just a few minor case files and his photographs. These students were happy to help, especially because Gideon always explained the story behind each photograph.

Not gonna lie, I was listening in from the hallway. Some of these stories were really impressive. A lot of them stories had Rossi guest starring. Gideon made the other profiler sound like a modern Sherlock Holmes.

Still. As they finished the unpacking, the students talked him to the big one.

"Weren't you a little worried he might just shoot you?" One of them asked, enraptured in Gideon's story.

"I was a lot worried." Gideon admitted.

"But...how did you find him?" Another student wondered.

"I was just stopping for gas. I walked into that store and saw pieces of a profile that I had given Virginia PD almost a year ago." Gideon revealed. He was toying with a broken off piece of a Rubik's Cube. "Truck in disrepair, disheveled young man, severe stutter. James Reese once said 'there are certain clues at a crime scene which by their very nature do not lend themselves at being collected or examined'. How does one collect love, rage, hatred, fear? These are things that we're trained to look for."

"So anyone else would have just seen a guy who stutters, but you saw the footpath killer." The female student summarized.

"Right. But sometimes these guys are still found by just dumb luck. Berkowitz was caught because of a parking ticket." Gideon explained.

There was a small silence after. 'Right. I'm...Elle now. Or, I've taken Elle's role. Her lines are my lines.'

"Except the officer who arrested him wasn't staring down a shotgun like you were." I spoke up for the first time.

The students whirled around to me in surprise. I put on a warm smile for their sakes. This seemed to steady their nerves.

Gideon smiles warmly, honestly. "This is true." He looked to the students. "This is also a good time to stop."

The students got their few belongings together. I stepped to the side of the door, letting them all out. Once they were cleared I peeked inside.

"Okay, I'm curious." I admitted, sitting across from Gideon. "Why'd he stutter?" I asked.

"You're on your way to becoming part of the Behavior Analysis team now, Megan. You tell me." Gideon challenged.

'Damn, he dropped a badass line. I like it.'

After a brief pause for that thought, I followed behind Gideon into the bullpen.

He quickly moved some chess pieces beside Reid's desk. "Check. Checkmate three moves." He remarked to Reid. Then he went off.

The super genius gaped at the board. "What..."

"You had him on the ropes, Reid." I assured, leaning against the railing above. And they both knew my assurance was a lie.

Derek folded up his newspaper. "You know you'll beat him when you start learning."

"Learning what?" Reid asked in exasperation.

"To think outside the box." Derek supplied.

I went over to my desk. There still wasn't a lot of personal touches to it yet. The most was a bright red pen to the side of my keyboard.