retribution.

Chapter Four

Tuesday, two weeks after funeral

Morgan's POV
I sat at my usual seat at the round table, accompanied by Rossi, Hotch, JJ, Davis, and Garcia. We all took our usual spots, but one chair was empty, and that was the one next to mine.

I looked at the empty chair with an emotionless gaze. Heather hadn't left her apartment ever since Rossi went to pick her up and bring her to work. After a few days of trying to get Heather out of her apartment, the entire team sort of broke apart. JJ and Hotch had another argument about Davis, I got mad at Rossi because I thought he had said something to Heather that made her sad enough to isolate herself, and JJ actually told Davis she didn't want to be his friend, they were to stay as coworkers and coworkers only. That's what prompted Hotch and JJ's fight.

Personally, I think Davis isn't that bad. He and I managed to talk on his first day, and he overall seems very nice. I explained to him not to take anything JJ says to heart, because she's grieving and she doesn't like that it feels like he's replacing Reid. Davis was super relaxed about it and told me he understood, and he wasn't trying to replace Reid at all. Davis actually attended one of Reid's lectures once and got to meet him. He said he only had high praise for Reid and his work.

The room was tense, and we could all feel it. If Heather were here, she'd probably tell us we were being stupid and we shouldn't argue. And she'd probably tell Hotch to stop being stuck up and JJ to be nicer to Davis. I smiled softly. Heather never really recognized authority figures, which got her close to being fired multiple times. Not from Hotch, but from Strauss. Hotch told me about a time when Strauss threatened to fire Hotch if he didn't fire Heather. Because as much as she wanted to fire Heather, she didn't report directly to her, so she couldn't.

But Hotch stood his ground. I don't know what he said to her, but she never complained about Heather again. I asked him what he said to her and he just responded with, "I told her she was irreplaceable", but I knew there was more to it. I asked Rossi what he really told her, and Rossi just chuckled and said, "just be happy Heather's here".

Heather did, however, have a stern talking to about her problems with authority, and after a short, quiet argument, she began to respect Strauss a little more. But only Strauss.

"Okay, this case is in one of our very own's backyard, Chicago!" Garcia announced cheerfully. Although she could sense the tension, she would try to be as cheerful as possibly to hopefully lift the mood. Which, by the way, was very hard to do while talking about murder.

"Four bodies of women, all 26, were just found in dumpsters around two miles apart from each other." Garcia explained. She clicked a few buttons on the remote and photos of the bodies showed up on the screen. Each one had a rectangle cut right where there breasts were, exposing them to whoever was passing by. What I found interesting was that they only cut the breast part, not anything else. Garcia stopped talking, a silent prompt for us to begin to discuss theories, but we all stayed silent. Garcia looked at all of us like an annoyed mother, a look I know very well. "Guys, come on!" She said, exasperated.

I looked around at the table. Even Davis seemed to pick up on the tension. "Listen, I know we're all unhappy and I really hate talking about stuff like this, but we need to stop arguing and act like we actually like each other! Because we do, we're family. Now stop pouting and smile at each other, or at the very least, be professional." Garcia said sternly. I raised my eyebrows at her assertiveness. I looked around the room, and everyone looked, for the most part, surprised. Even Hotch's head was tilted  slightly out of curiosity from her outburst.

Garcia seemed to shrink under the gazes of her teammates and sat down calmly in front of her laptop. "Now," she paused, looking at each of us, "do your crime discuss-y thing."