Chapter 2: Scars and Champagne
The BAU break room felt like the eye of a particularly tense hurricane. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a harsh glow on the scuffed linoleum and the mismatched furniture. The air hung thick with the ghost of countless burnt coffee pots and the faint, metallic tang of stress sweat. Fornell, a beacon of forced cheer in his slightly rumpled suit, wrestled the cork from a bottle of cheap champagne. It popped with a sound like a muffled gunshot, startling Derek Morgan where he leaned against the ancient refrigerator, arms crossed, eyes narrowed.
"Alright, alright," Fornell boomed, pouring the fizzing liquid into three paper cups he’d scrounged. "Enough of the ice queen stares, Morgan. We're celebrating. Brittany joining us is a good thing. A damn good thing." He shoved a cup towards Morgan, who didn’t move to take it, then offered one to Brittany.
She stood rigid by the counter, back straight, knuckles white where her fingers gripped the edge. Her gaze, sharp and wary, flickered between Fornell’s jovial facade and Morgan’s undisguised suspicion. The champagne flute Fornell placed near her hand remained untouched. The bubbles rising in the cheap liquid seemed obscenely cheerful.
"Celebrating what, Fornell?" Morgan asked, his voice low, measured. "Her mysterious file? The fact Hotch looked like he’d swallowed a lemon when he couldn’t access it? Or just the general air of classified doom she brought with her?" He pushed off the fridge, taking a step closer. "Who are you, Brittany? Seriously."
Fornell sighed, the sound heavy with exasperation. "Derek, give it a rest. Her credentials are solid—"
"Solidly locked behind black-ops clearance?" Morgan countered, his eyes never leaving Brittany. "That doesn't scream 'solid', Fornell. It screams 'problem'."
A muscle jumped in Brittany’s jaw. She looked down at the untouched champagne, the golden liquid catching the harsh light. Her voice, when it came, was flat, devoid of inflection, a stark contrast to Fornell’s bluster and Morgan’s intensity. "They burned me."
The words dropped into the small room like stones. The hum of the fridge seemed to grow louder. Morgan blinked. Fornell stopped pouring, his expression shifting from forced cheer to profound weariness. He leaned heavily on the counter.
"Who burned you?" Morgan pressed, though his tone lost some of its edge, replaced by wary curiosity.
Brittany lifted her head. Her eyes, a startlingly clear blue, met Morgan’s directly. There was no self-pity there, only a cold, hard resignation. "NCIS. My team. Gibbs." She spat the name like it was poison. "Played the game, followed the rules, trusted the process. Did everything right. Until I didn’t. Until I saw something they couldn’t afford to have seen." Her fingers finally moved, tightening convulsively around the paper cup, crumpling the rim slightly. "They buried it. Buried me. Made me the fall guy. Sacrificed a ten-year career on the altar of expediency and covering some admiral's shiny brass ass."
Morgan remained silent, processing. The deep-seated distrust of "alphabet agencies" she radiated suddenly made a terrible kind of sense. Fornell reached over and gently pried the crumpled cup from her hand before she crushed it completely. He replaced it with his own untouched one, his large, familiar hand briefly covering hers in a gesture that was unmistakably paternal.
"That's why," Fornell said quietly to Morgan, his usual gruffness softened. "That's why the clearance levels. That's why the walls. It wasn't just the job they took, Morgan. It was..." He trailed off, looking at Brittany with a depth of understanding that spoke of shared history Morgan couldn't fathom.
Brittany pulled her hand away, but the tension in her shoulders eased a fraction. She looked at Fornell, and for the first time since stepping into the bullpen, a flicker of something other than guarded hostility showed in her eyes. Something like raw gratitude. "He pulled me out," she said, her voice barely above a whisper now, directed more at Fornell than Morgan. "When WITSEC went sideways. When the Marshals were compromised, and the wolves were at the door... he was there." She swallowed hard, the memory visibly painful. "Got me clear. Kept me breathing. Didn't ask questions he knew I couldn't answer." She met Fornell’s gaze fully. "Only person left in this whole damn snake pit of agencies I trust. Closest thing to family... to a father... I've got left."
Morgan stared. The pieces clicked with brutal clarity: the black-ops file protecting her from her past agency’s reach, Fornell’s fierce protectiveness that went beyond professional courtesy, her instinctive recoil from the BAU's scrutiny. It wasn't just paranoia; it was hard-won survival instinct forged in betrayal. He uncrossed his arms, the aggressive posture dissolving. The suspicion didn't vanish entirely – trust was earned, especially here – but the hostility did. He understood the wall now, even if he didn't know what lay behind it.
He let out a slow breath, the sound loud in the sudden quiet. The cheap champagne in his own cup suddenly felt frivolous, insulting almost. He looked from Brittany, whose vulnerability was already being shuttered away behind that cool facade, to Fornell, whose expression held a mixture of pride and profound sadness.
Before Morgan could find any words – an apology felt inadequate, a welcome insincere – the break room door swung open. Hotchner stood framed in the doorway, his usual stoic expression unreadable, but his gaze immediately zeroed in on the tableau: the untouched champagne, Fornell’s closeness to Brittany, Morgan’s shifted stance. The air crackled with the unspoken weight of the confession just made, a fragile understanding suspended between the three of them, now invaded by the unit chief’s silent scrutiny. Hotch’s eyes met Brittany’s, and the fragile truce in the break room felt suddenly, perilously thin.
The fluorescent lights buzzed a low, angry drone overhead. Hotch's gaze, cool and assessing, held Brittany’s for a heartbeat too long, scraping against the raw vulnerability she’d just exposed. The cheap champagne in Morgan’s paper cup suddenly felt acidic, frivolous against the weight of her words – NCIS, Gibbs, burned. Fornell shifted, a subtle barrier forming between Brittany and the Unit Chief.
"Fornell," Hotch stated, his voice cutting the thick air. "A word? My office." It wasn't a request. His eyes flicked to Morgan, a silent dismissal included.
Morgan watched Fornell hesitate, his protective instinct warring with protocol, then give a tight nod and follow Hotch out. The door clicked shut behind them, sealing the silence. Brittany closed her eyes, exhaling a slow, shaky breath. Her knuckles were white where they gripped the counter edge again. The echoes of betrayal – the cold sting of being discarded by her own team – pressed in, sharp as broken glass.
"Rough deal," Morgan offered, his voice unexpectedly quiet. He abandoned his champagne cup on the counter near the perpetually half-full coffee pot. "Gibbs. Heard he plays hardball. Didn't figure him for burning one of his own."
Brittany’s eyes snapped open, wary. "Figured wrong." The words were clipped. She pushed off the counter, turning her back to him slightly, scanning the small, cluttered space like it was hostile territory. Her gaze snagged on the break room’s narrow window overlooking the parking lot. The black sedan was still there. Watching.
Morgan moved subtly, positioning himself so he wasn't crowding her but could see her profile. He recognized that hyper-vigilance – the stance of someone constantly calculating escape routes, threats. "Fornell mentioned WITSEC went sideways. Marshals compromised." He kept his tone neutral. Observational. "That takes serious heat."
A humorless, almost imperceptible twitch touched her lips. "Heat finds you. When they want you gone, they don't send flowers." She finally looked at him directly, that blue gaze piercing. "Alphabet agencies. Full of good people. Until the machine needs a part replaced. Then they throw you on the scrap heap and pretend you never existed." The bitterness was corrosive. "Toby… he didn't ask. Just acted. Pulled me out of the fire when the fire was supposed to be the solution."
He nodded slowly, absorbing it. The black-ops clearance made brutal sense now – less protection, more quarantine. A way to bury the inconvenient truth she represented. "Trust’s hard after that," he acknowledged.
"Trust is extinct," she corrected flatly. "It gets you killed. Or worse. Forgotten." She glanced towards Hotch’s closed office door, then back to the window, to the sedan. "Toby’s the exception. Not the rule."
Morgan followed her look. The sedan hadn’t moved. "Those suits earlier… Vance. They your babysitters? Or the ones who lit the match?"
A flicker of something colder than anger crossed her face. "Vance is just the messenger. The cleanup crew. Ensures the containment field holds." She tapped a finger once, sharply, against the counter. "Tell your boss not to poke the bear. My file's black for a reason. Knowing why doesn't make it safer. It just paints a bigger target." She pushed away from the counter entirely, restless energy coiling in her frame. "I need air. Actual air. Not this… recycled tension."
She moved towards the main bullpen door before he could respond. Morgan watched her go, the rigid set of her shoulders, the way her stride was both purposeful and weary. He understood walls. He’d built his own, brick by brick. Hers were higher, thicker, scarred by betrayal from within the very institutions sworn to protect. The suspicion he’d walked in with felt cheap now, replaced by a complex mix of professional respect for her survival and a dawning, grim comprehension of her reality.
The break room door opened again. Fornell stepped back in, alone, his face drawn. He scanned the empty space where Brittany had been, then looked at Morgan.
"She left?" Fornell asked, his voice rough with fatigue. "Saw the car, didn't she?"
Morgan nodded towards the window. "Still there. She needed air. Real air." He paused. "She told me. About NCIS. Gibbs. The burn."
Fornell sighed, running a hand over his face. "Yeah. Ugly business. She wasn't wrong." He walked to the counter, picked up his own abandoned, now-flat champagne, and drained it in one grimace-inducing gulp. "Hotch isn't thrilled. Wants assurances. Wants to know the exact nature of the 'heat' she brought with her." He set the cup down hard. "Like I'd let her walk in here if it was gonna blow back on you guys. She's family."
"Family with serious enemies," Morgan observed quietly. "And a cleanup crew parked outside."
Before Fornell could answer, the sharp ring of Morgan’s desk phone sliced through the bullpen’s low hum, followed immediately by Garcia’s voice, unnaturally high and tight, crackling over the intercom system. "Morgan? Hotch? Anyone near a phone? We've got a situation. VICAP just flagged something… bad. Like, really bad. Multiple jurisdictions screaming. They need us wheels up now."
Morgan was already moving, Fornell on his heels. The champagne, the tension, Brittany’s haunted eyes – it all snapped into the background as the job surged forward. He reached his desk just as Hotch emerged from his office, his face set in its familiar, grim lines of command, the personal concerns of moments ago ruthlessly shelved.
"Garcia," Hotch ordered, his voice cutting through the sudden buzz of activity. "Conference room. Briefing in five. Everyone." His gaze swept the bullpen, instinctively seeking his team, landing briefly on the empty space near Brittany’s abandoned desk spot, then hardening with focus. "Morgan, prep the jet manifest. Reid, coordinate with Garcia. Prentiss, JJ, with me."
Morgan grabbed his go-bag from under his desk, the familiar weight anchoring him. As he moved towards the conference room, he caught sight of Brittany through the bullpen's glass doors leading outside. She stood on the concrete steps, her back to the building, facing the distant treeline, a solitary figure dwarfed by the Quantico complex. The black sedan was a dark smudge in the periphery of the parking lot. She didn’t turn, didn’t flinch as the first fat drops of rain began to splatter the asphalt. He wondered what kind of air she was breathing out there. What kind of storm she was listening for. Then the urgent rhythm of the crisis pulled him away, leaving her alone in the gathering dusk, the weight of her secrets a silent counterpoint to the chaos erupting inside. The jet engines would soon drown out the rain, but the image of her, standing watch against unseen threats, lingered like a premonition.
The jet engines roared to life, a deep-throated thunder that vibrated the soles of Hotchner’s shoes as he boarded, the sound swallowing the fading memory of Quantico’s rain. Inside, the Gulfstream’s cabin hummed with focused energy. Reid pored over preliminary case files projected onto a screen, muttering statistics about accelerant burn patterns. JJ coordinated logistics with field offices, her voice clipped and efficient. Prentiss methodically checked gear beside Morgan, who stared out a rain-streaked window, the image of Brittany alone on those steps stubbornly replaying in his mind. Her stillness felt like a held breath before an explosion.
"Alright, Garcia," Hotch commanded, settling into his seat as the plane taxied. "Hit us. What's got five different SACs lighting up the Director’s phone?"
Garcia’s face appeared on the main screen, her usual technicolor vibrancy dimmed by urgency. "Okay, deep breath, my darlings. We have multiple high-value disruptions, all hitting within the past twelve hours. Synchronized chaos." She clicked a key. Images flashed: a darkened power grid control room, shattered server racks, lines of frozen traffic stretching into city skylines. "First, a sophisticated malware attack crippled the Eastern Interconnect grid control center in Baltimore. Blackout affecting two million." Another click. "Concurrently, a physical breach at the Federal Reserve backup data facility in Richmond. No money taken, but core financial routing protocols were… scrambled." Her voice hitched. "And worst? A targeted EMP device detonated inside a major air traffic control center outside Dulles. Total comms collapse. Near-misses reported. Chaos."
Morgan whistled low. "Triple threat. Infrastructural, financial, transportation. Someone’s playing Jenga with the country’s spine."
"Played," Reid corrected, adjusting his glasses, his eyes scanning data feeds. "The sequencing suggests a coordinated execution window down to the minute. This wasn’t opportunistic. This was rehearsed, funded, and timed for maximum cascading failure. The EMP signature is… non-standard. Military-grade but with custom modifications." He pointed at a complex waveform onscreen. "See this harmonic resonance? Unfamiliar. Highly sophisticated."
Prentiss leaned forward. "Motivation? Cyber-terrorism feels broad. This has the hallmarks of a demonstration. A flex. Or a prelude."
Hotch’s gaze was flint. "Garcia, perpetrators? Any chatter? Signatures?"
"Ghosts, boss," Garcia admitted, her fingers flying over her keyboard offscreen. "Firewalls melted like butter. Network intrusion points scrubbed cleaner than a brain surgeon's scalpel. Zero trace on the EMP device components. It’s like the Three Stooges did the planning, but Navy SEAL Team Six executed it. Mismatched skill levels, impossible coordination." She frowned. "The few digital breadcrumbs I did snag… they lead to servers bouncing through proxies that haven’t been active since the Cold War. It’s… disorienting."
The plane leveled off. The cabin lights flickered subtly, a reminder of the grid’s fragility. Morgan rubbed his temples. "Disorienting is right. Feels like fighting smoke." He glanced at Hotch. "Where are we setting down?"
"Dulles," Hotch stated. "Ground zero for the most immediate physical threat. We need to see the EMP site. Garcia, dig deeper on that anomalous signature. Reid, cross-reference with any known state or non-state actors capable of this level of multi-vector attack. Prentiss, JJ, coordinate with local LEOs and DHS on the ground. I want unified command, no turf wars."
The cabin door hissed open. Every head snapped up. Brittany stood at the threshold, silhouetted by the dim cabin light. Rain glistened on her leather jacket. She looked impossibly calm amidst the tension, her gaze sweeping the scene – the worried faces, the glowing screens displaying chaos. The subtle vibration of the jet underfoot didn’t seem to faze her.
Fornell hovered behind her, looking flustered. "Found her pacing the tarmac. Said she needed to be on this bird." He shrugged helplessly at Hotch’s sharp look.
Hotch rose, his expression unyielding. Archer. This is a restricted federal flight responding to an active domestic crisis. You don’t have clearance to be here, much less participate." His tone was ice. "Fornell, escort her—"
Brittany didn’t move. She met Hotch’s stare head-on, no defiance, just absolute certainty. "I do have clearance, Unit Chief Hotchner." Her voice was low, clear, cutting through the jet’s drone. She reached into her jacket, not with haste, but with deliberate economy of movement. She pulled out a slim, black leather credential holder, flipping it open. The Presidential Seal glinted gold under the cabin lights. The ID beside it bore her photo, a nondescript title, and a signature Hotch recognized instantly. "Executive Order 14287. My jurisdiction is this threat. I operate where the President directs. And he directed me here. Now."
Silence slammed down, thick and disbelieving. Garcia gasped, her eyes wide on the monitor. Reid blinked rapidly, mouthing the order number. Prentiss and JJ exchanged stunned glances. Morgan stared, the pieces – the black file, the cleanup crew, her skills – clicking into a terrifying new configuration.
Hotch took a single step forward, his eyes locked on the credentials, then lifting to hers. The controlled anger was palpable. "You walk in under a shroud, disrupt my unit, bring unknown liabilities, and now you wave this? On the heels of an attack that smells like state-sponsored chaos?"
Brittany snapped the credential holder shut, the sound final. "The liabilities were always here, Hotchner. They’re called blind spots. Institutional ones." Her gaze flickered to Garcia’s screen, to the complex EMP waveform Reid had highlighted. Recognition sparked in her eyes. "And that signature? It’s not state-sponsored. It’s worse." She stepped fully into the cabin, her presence commanding the cramped space. "It’s Chimera. A black project. Our black project. Thought buried years ago. Someone dug it up. Weaponized it." She looked back at Hotch, her blue eyes holding no triumph, only grim necessity. "You need someone who knows where the bodies are buried in this particular graveyard. That’s why I’m here. Orders or not, you need me to stop what comes next."
The plane hit a patch of turbulence, jolting them. Outside, lightning flickered, illuminating the roiling storm clouds. Inside, the storm was just beginning. Brittany moved past Hotch towards the screen, her focus already locked on the data, the weight of the Presidential order hanging heavy in the air, a stark counterpoint to the chaos it had just unleashed within the team. Morgan watched her, the solitary figure from the steps now at the epicenter, wielding unimaginable authority. The black sedan was miles below now, but the sense of being watched, of playing a game on a terrifyingly larger board, had never been stronger. Brittany pointed at Garcia’s screen. "Pull up the source code fragment from the grid attack. Third line, the redundant loop. That’s Chimera’s calling card. Confirms it." She turned, her voice cutting through the stunned silence. "We land in twenty minutes. Start talking mitigation protocols. Now."