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Chapter Text

Character Profile: Dr. Emilia “Emmy” DiNozzo

Full Name: Emilia Grace DiNozzo

Nickname(s): Emmy, Em (by close friends), Doc (teasingly, by coworkers)

Age: 20

Date of Birth: March 17, 2005

Zodiac: Pisces

Height: 5’9”

Gender: Female

Pronouns: She/Her

Occupation: FBI Special Agent, Criminal Profiler

Unit: Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU)

Former Assignment: Agent Fornell’s team (FBI Major Case Response Team)

Education:

• High School Diploma (Graduated at 13)
• PhD in Behavioral Psychology and Criminology (Earned by 16)
• FBI Academy Graduate (Age 17)

Family:

• Father: Anthony DiNozzo (NCIS Senior Agent)
• Mother: Unknown 
• Uncle: Aaron Hotchner (BAU Unit Chief)
• Godfather: FBI Director 

Appearance

Build: Slender but athletic; long-legged and naturally graceful

Hair: Dark brown or black, styled in a tousled wolf cut

Eyes: Hazel with gold flecks

Glasses: Oversized, round-rimmed glasses (a signature look)

Style:

• Work Attire: Business casual with a twist — button-down shirts or blouses with blazers, tailored pants, always combat boots
• Off Duty: Cargo pants, flannels, oversized cardigans, graphic tees (Star Wars, science puns, retro comics), and vintage jackets
• Jewelry/Makeup: Minimal — small rings or stud earrings, natural makeup unless dressing up

Personality

Type: INTJ / Enneagram 5

Core Traits: Brilliant, sarcastic, emotionally reserved, fiercely loyal, dry-humored, quietly empathetic

Strengths:

• Hyper-intelligent with photographic memory
• Strategic thinker, emotionally analytical
• Sharp intuition, especially when profiling
  Flaws:
• Struggles with vulnerability and emotional expression
• Hates being underestimated or dismissed due to age
• Bottles stress until it explodes
  Habits:
• Tugs her sleeves when anxious
• Quotes Star Wars or science facts in high-pressure situations
• Writes late at night to decompress

Professional Reputation

• Nicknamed “the baby profiler” in whispers, but not to her face
• Respected for her insight and speed in building profiles
• Some agents are wary of her because of her godfather and her last name
• Keeps boundaries strict, but softens over time with the BAU team

Hobbies & Interests

• Writing crime novels under a pen name
• Playing chess or puzzle-based games
• Star Wars trivia expert
• Collects antique typewriters
• Amateur coding and hacking (legal, mostly)

“Brilliant by nature, fearless by choice—she was built for the FBI, but no one warned her about falling in love with a witness.”

Chapter Text

Anthony DiNozzo hadn’t expected to be a single parent—let alone at twenty.

One minute, he was pacing outside a maternity ward with a cold cup of hospital coffee, and the next, a nurse was handing him his newborn daughter. Her mother, barely speaking, had handed the swaddled baby to him with shaking hands and whispered, “I can’t do this.” Then she turned and left without looking back.

Anthony had stood there, holding the tiny bundle, stunned.
“She has your eyes,” the nurse said gently, as if that made up for everything.
He barely nodded, still staring down at the red-faced baby with dark curls and the most serious expression he’d ever seen on a newborn.

“What the hell am I supposed to do with you, huh?” he whispered, rocking her awkwardly. She blinked up at him. “Great. Just great.”

He called his half-brother, Aaron Hotchner, that night.
“I’m a dad,” he said.
“You what?”
“I’m a dad, Aaron. A real one. Like… the baby’s here and her mom took off. I named her Emilia.”
A pause.
“Are you okay?”
“Nope. But I will be. I have to be.”

He mailed a short card to his parents, not expecting much. They replied with a single sentence: Do what’s best for the child. Typical. That was the last he heard from them.

So he figured it out himself—how to make bottles, how to rock her to sleep at 3 a.m., how to function on two hours of sleep and still be a decent cop in Baltimore. When she was three months old, she smiled for the first time, and he cried in the middle of his tiny apartment kitchen.

She was crawling by seven months, walking by ten.

“Emmy, no, no, no, not—” he called out as she let go of the coffee table and toddled toward him, arms outstretched. He dropped the dish he was holding.
She grinned.
He swore. Then laughed. Then picked up his phone and recorded it.
“Okay, you’re officially terrifying,” he told her as she collapsed into his arms, giggling.

By two, she was sounding out words, flipping through chapter books with furrowed brows and asking, “Daddy, what’s a protagonist?”
He stared at her. “Where did you hear that word?”
“It’s in here,” she pointed to the book. “So… what is it?”
“The main character.”
“Oh. I like protagonists. Especially ones who do science.”
“Of course you do.”

She didn’t care for dolls or princess dresses. She preferred Bill Nye and The Magic School Bus, and at five, she took apart the toaster to “see how it glowed.”

“Emmy!” Tony shouted, finding the toaster guts scattered across the kitchen floor. “Did you—did you actually unscrew the heating coil?”
“Yep! It’s not broken. I just needed to see inside.”
He rubbed a hand down his face. “You’re five.”
“I’m careful.”
“I’m terrified.”

She was a daddy’s girl through and through. In Baltimore, where he worked as a detective, she was a fixture at the precinct on his off days. His partner, Jake, always greeted her with, “There’s the boss!” and the captain—Captain Reyes—spoiled her like a granddaughter, always sneaking her juice boxes and letting her color in old case files.

“Tony, if she keeps hanging around here, she’ll be solving cases before she hits double digits,” Reyes joked once.
“She already critiques my reports,” Tony replied. “Told me last week that my sentence structure was ‘disappointing.’”

When Emmy was six, Tony met a woman named Wendy. She was warm and kind, and Emmy took to her instantly.
“She smells like cookies,” Emmy whispered to Tony after their first dinner together.
“She’s a journalist,” he whispered back.
“Can she stay?”
Tony had hoped so. He proposed. Wendy said yes.

But a few months later, it all unraveled. Arguments. Long silences. A final, whispered fight when they thought Emmy was asleep. Then one day, Emmy stood at the apartment window, her tiny hand pressed to the glass, watching as Wendy wheeled her suitcase down the driveway.

“Is she coming back?” Emmy asked.

Tony knelt beside her. “No, sweetheart.”

Emmy didn’t cry. She just watched. And then walked away without another word.

After that, it was just them again. Team DiNozzo.

She threw herself into school the same way she threw herself into everything else. Emmy finished fifth grade by eight, started middle school at nine, and graduated by eleven.

When the final bell rang on her last day of middle school, Tony showed up outside with his whole unit—Jake, Captain Reyes, a few other detectives—and a bouquet of daisies.
“You really brought backup?” Emmy teased.
“Damn right I did,” Tony grinned. “You’re a genius, and I need witnesses.”

Here’s a continuation of Chapter 1 with the new scene written with emotion, detail, and dialogue, keeping it grounded in the father-daughter dynamic:

It happened when she was nine.

Emmy was sitting cross-legged on her bedroom floor, focused on wiring a tiny servo motor into the arm of her latest robot. Her brows were furrowed in concentration, tongue poking out slightly in that way Tony had come to recognize as “deep focus mode.” The robot's arm twitched. She grinned. “Yes! Finally!”

But the grin faded when she felt… something. Wet. Uncomfortable.

She shifted. Frowned. Looked down at her lap.

Did I sit in something? she thought, checking the floor around her. There was a red stain on the carpet where she’d been sitting.

Her stomach dropped.

She stood up fast, hands patting at the back of her long pant overalls. They came away stained. Her breath caught. “Oh no, oh no—what is this? Did I cut myself?”

She darted into the bathroom, flicked on the light, and stared at the streaks of red on the fabric. It was on her thighs too. She thought maybe she was hurt—but it didn’t hurt.

Then it hit her.

She remembered something from health class. One lecture, vague and rushed, awkward and clinical. The word period floated into her brain.

“No,” she whispered. “No no no no—this isn’t—”

The panic surged up in her chest like a wave.

“DAD!” she cried.

Tony burst in like someone had set off a bomb. “What’s wrong? Are you okay—”

Then he saw the blood.

He froze.

“Oh my God, Emmy, are you—did you fall? Are you hurt? Where’s it coming from—”

“I don’t know!” she wailed, tears spilling down her cheeks. “It’s just—it’s everywhere!”

Tony took a step closer, then stopped himself. His brain scrambled. Blood. Bathroom. His kid. Then it clicked.

“…Oh,” he said slowly. “Oh.”

Emmy stared at him, horrified. “What do you mean ‘oh’? What is happening to me?!”

He put his hands up gently, like he was diffusing a bomb. “Okay, okay. Sweetheart. Emmy. You’re not dying, I promise.”

“THEN WHY AM I BLEEDING OUT OF MY BUTT?”

He winced. “Okay, not exactly your butt, and—this is one of those girl things. You… you got your period. It’s okay. It’s totally normal. Just early. Very early. Like, freakishly early. But still normal.”

She blinked. “I don’t want it!”

“I don’t blame you,” he said honestly, stepping forward and kneeling in front of her. “But you’re gonna be fine. It’s just your body doing its thing. You’re healthy. And we’re gonna figure this out, together, okay?”

Emmy, who rarely cried, sniffled. “I ruined the carpet.”

Tony looked past her shoulder at the red stain. “That carpet’s seen worse.”

“I hate this.”

“I know.” He reached out and gently wiped her cheek with his sleeve. “But you’re okay, Emmy. I got you. Always.”

She nodded miserably. He stood, ruffled her hair, and added, “Now come on. Let’s find some supplies and Google what the hell I’m supposed to do.”

She let out a shaky laugh.

And later, after a trip to the drugstore where Tony awkwardly asked a very kind cashier for help, Emmy sat on the couch in his hoodie, sipping hot chocolate while he handed her a heating pad.

“This sucks,” she muttered.

Tony sighed. “It really, really does.”

“But I still finished my robot.”

He smiled. “Of course you did. You’re my girl.”

Chapter Text

It was late October, 2001. The air had just started to turn, the kind of brisk that made Emmy insist on wearing her favorite oversized hoodie instead of a coat. She was twelve now, already taller than most of her teachers, already sharper than most adults.

Tony—thirty, tired, and balancing a bag of apples in one hand and a box of cereal in the other—was deep in a grocery store produce aisle, arguing with Emmy over Pop-Tarts.

“No. Brown sugar is not better than strawberry,” he said, nudging her with his elbow.

“It is. Objectively. You just have bad taste,” she replied coolly, inspecting a box of cereal like it held state secrets.

“You’re twelve. Your palate consists of candy corn and questionable chicken nuggets.”

“And yours is leftover pizza and gas station coffee.”

He mock-gasped. “Rude. Hurtful. Accurate.”

He turned to place the apples in the cart and slammed straight into another man—taller, stockier, built like a marine even in jeans and a worn Henley.

Tony’s mouth opened. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t see—”

The man gave a short nod. “Watch where you’re going.”

Emmy looked up from her cereal box and frowned. “He didn’t do it on purpose.”

The man raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment. Just gave them both a once-over, nodded again, and walked off toward the meat section.

Tony leaned down. “See that guy?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s the face of a man who’s probably solved five murders before breakfast.”

“Cool,” Emmy muttered. “Still rude.”

Tony chuckled, brushing it off—but the encounter stayed in his mind.

A week later, Tony got pulled into a joint task force operation investigating a suspected money laundering ring tied to military contracts. And wouldn’t you know it—guess who the lead NCIS agent was?

“Leroy Jethro Gibbs,” the man said, extending a hand across the conference table in the Baltimore PD bullpen.

Tony shook it, suppressing a smile. “We’ve met. Grocery store. I was the guy with the apples.”

Gibbs just grunted.

They worked together for two weeks—grueling hours, stakeouts, raids. Tony learned fast that Gibbs didn’t say much, didn’t tolerate BS, and drank more coffee than any human should. But he was smart. Scary smart. And something about the way he moved, the way he handled crime scenes, clicked.

They worked well together. Better than Tony expected.

But that case also uncovered something darker. Tony’s partner—Danny Price, his friend since the academy—was dirty. Real dirty. He’d been skimming from busts, tipping off suspects, maybe worse. Tony confronted him after hours in the parking lot.

“You lied to me,” Tony said, fists clenched.

Danny’s smile faltered. “You don’t get it, man. This job… it chews you up. I needed out.”

“You’re out now,” Tony said coldly. “I’m reporting you.”

And he did.

A week later, Tony handed in his badge and gun at the Baltimore PD. He was done.

That’s when Gibbs called.

“You still want to catch bad guys?” he asked.

Tony hesitated. “Yeah. Just not with people who’ll stab me in the back.”

“I run a small team. I could use someone with your instincts.”

Tony blinked. “You work alone.”

“Not anymore.”

They moved to D.C. by Thanksgiving. A two-bedroom apartment near the metro line, close enough to the Navy Yard. Emmy had protested at first—she liked Baltimore, liked the old unit, her weird little community.

But Tony made it up to her. New school. New space. New start.

“You’re going to McKinley Tech?” Gibbs asked one morning when Emmy tagged along to the Yard.

Emmy nodded. “They tested me. I qualified as a sophomore.”

“You’re twelve.”

She shrugged. “I read fast.”

Gibbs blinked, then turned to Tony. “You’re in trouble.”

Tony sighed. “Tell me about it.”

At McKinley Technology High School, Emmy blended in about as well as a shark in a koi pond. But she made one friend—Avery Thomas, a fifteen-year-old robotics club kid who liked talking fast and hated group projects.

“You’re a literal genius, huh?” Avery said the first week.

“I prefer ‘advanced.’”

“Cool. You want to build a drone after school?”

“Obviously.”

Every afternoon, Emmy took the bus from the apartment to school, then from school to the Navy Yard, where she’d wait in the lobby for her dad. Usually with a book, a notebook full of half-drawn schematics, or a new AI idea she wanted to run by Gibbs—who pretended he wasn’t impressed.

The first time she showed up, though, security wasn’t having it.

“Sweetheart, you can’t be here,” one of the guards said, looking down at her like she was lost.

“I’m here for my dad. Special Agent DiNozzo?”

“Right. And I’m the Pope.”

She folded her arms. “Call him. I’m not leaving.”

After a tense call to the bullpen, Tony came jogging down the hall, badge swinging.

“She’s with me,” he said, exasperated. “Sorry, she’s small but loud.”

Emmy gave the guard a smug look.

Gibbs appeared a moment later, sipping coffee. “Just give her a clearance badge. She’s gonna show up again.”

“Gibbs, she’s twelve,” Tony protested.

“She’s your kid. That makes her dangerous enough.”

From that day forward, Emmy wore her visitor’s badge like a badge of honor—clipped to her backpack with a paperclip and a fierce sense of ownership.

Three months into living in D.C., there was an unspoken rule at the Navy Yard:

Don’t question the twelve-year-old with the Capri Sun and NCIS access badge.

She wasn’t an intern. She wasn’t lost. And she definitely wasn’t there by accident.

If you asked too many questions, Gibbs would just give you a look. Tony would smirk and say something like, "That’s just Emmy. She outranks most of you in IQ, so play nice." And that would be that.

Most of the time, Emmy could be found camped out in one of three places:

1. The Bullpen, spinning slowly in Tony’s desk chair, hoodie sleeves covering her hands, tapping on her tablet or chewing on her straw as she eavesdropped on adult conversations with the precision of a spy satellite.

2. Abby’s Lab, where she was unofficially listed on lab reports as “science goblin #2.” Abby had given her a black lab coat with EMMY, TINY GOTH-IN-TRAINING stitched on the back. Emmy wore it proudly.

3. And, most surprisingly, Director Tom Morrow’s office—a place most seasoned agents tried to avoid unless summoned.

Emmy, on the other hand, walked in like she paid rent.

His assistant tried to protest, once. Emmy had looked up from her book, blinked twice, and then Morrow had opened his office door and waved her in without a word.

From then on, she had a chair in the corner. A literal designated chair. With a fuzzy throw blanket and a drawer of her own snacks.

At first, Morrow had simply tolerated her presence. But then one day, she left early—and on his desk, he found a cold case file she’d been glancing through, now with a neon sticky note attached. It was written in neat, blocky handwriting:

“No one ever interviewed the neighbor who made the 911 call. Why?”

He double-checked the file.

No interview record.

No notes.

Nothing.

He didn’t say anything the next time she showed up. He just handed her another file.

“Try not to disable the servers again,” he said dryly, without looking up from his paperwork.

“I barely touched them,” Emmy replied. “They shouldn’t have been that easy to crash.”

Morrow sighed. “And yet, I’m the one who had to explain to Homeland why the east wing’s floor map was replaced with a cat meme.”

She smiled, wide and innocent. “You’re welcome.”

Most mornings, she waddled into the bullpen like a half-asleep gremlin, wearing Harry Potter pajama pants, a baggy Old Navy men’s hoodie that swallowed her frame, and mismatched socks. Her signature Capri Sun—always grape or fruit punch—was gripped firmly in one hand.

Tony usually noticed her first.

“Emmy, it’s seven a.m.”

She’d yawn and flop down on the chair next to his desk. “School doesn’t start until eight. The Navy Yard has better Wi-Fi.”

“Gibbs is gonna make you run laps if he sees you like this.”

“Then don’t let him see me.”

Across the bullpen, Gibbs walked past silently, sipping his coffee. He paused for half a second to glance at her over his cup, then kept walking.

Emmy whispered, “I’m invisible.”

Tony shook his head, amused. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

“I’m lucky I know where the coffee server is stored.”

Tony turned to look at her. “You touched the coffee server?”

“Define ‘touched.’”

He groaned. “Morrow’s going to kill me.”

But Morrow didn’t. He simply handed Emmy another cold case box the next time she appeared in his office and muttered something about “child labor laws being overrated.”

Four months later, on a chilly March morning, Emmy turned thirteen.

Tony took the whole day off. No bullpen, no dead bodies, no case files—just them.

She woke up to the smell of pancakes and the sound of classic Dean Martin echoing through their small apartment. When she shuffled into the kitchen in her oversized hoodie and sleep socks, Tony was already plating breakfast like he was trying out for a cooking show.

“Happy birthday, Dr. DiNozzo,” he said, grinning.

“Not technically a doctor yet,” she mumbled, still half-asleep, but smiling. “You’re in a suspiciously good mood.”

“That’s because I’m not working today, and my baby girl is officially a teenager. Which means I have roughly five years before you take over the world.”

He handed her a plate with pancakes shaped—very poorly—like numbers: 1 and 3. Emmy raised an eyebrow.

“Points for effort,” she said, then noticed the small wrapped box next to her seat at the table. She sat down and opened it.

Inside was a black Moleskine journal, sleek, elegant, and the perfect size to fit in her hoodie pocket. Embossed in silver near the bottom corner were her initials: E.M.D.

She blinked, caught off guard. “This is… really nice.”

Tony poured syrup on his stack. “Figured you need somewhere to keep all that genius when you’re not near a whiteboard. Or to draw weird schematics for whatever you’re hacking next.”

“I don’t hack things,” she said, flipping the cover open to the first crisp blank page.

“You absolutely do.”

She smiled and slipped the journal into the kangaroo pocket of her hoodie. “Thanks, Dad.”

Tony looked up, eyes softening. “You’re welcome, Emmy.”

They spent the day wandering the Smithsonian, starting with the Air and Space Museum—because she insisted rockets were more important than dinosaurs. Tony teased her for an hour straight, then bought her a freeze-dried astronaut ice cream just to make up for it.

They moved on to the National Archives, where Emmy made them stop in front of the Constitution for a solid ten minutes while she read every word. Tony leaned close and whispered, “I’m pretty sure that guard’s watching you because you look like you’re plotting to steal it.”

“I could,” Emmy whispered back, dead serious. “But only if I had a magnetized glass cutter, a blackout window code, and six minutes of darkness.”

Tony stared at her. “Remind me never to ground you.”

By the time the sun set over the Mall, they were sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, sharing a hot pretzel and watching the orange light bounce off the Reflecting Pool.

“I know I say this every year,” Tony said quietly, “but I really don’t know how I got lucky enough to be your dad.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder. “You didn’t get lucky. You just didn’t run.”

His throat tightened, but he nodded. “Still. I’d do it all over again. Even the exploding diaper years.”

Emmy snorted. “You’re the one who tried to use duct tape as a baby gate.”

“And yet, here you are. Functional. Possibly terrifying. A national treasure.”

She smirked. “I should put that on my resume.”

“You better.”

Chapter Text

The years flew by like pages turning in a thriller novel—fast, relentless, impossible to pause.

Emmy was there when Gibbs and Tony brought Kate on board the team. She watched her dad’s fierce loyalty, Kate’s sharp wit, and the quiet moments they shared. And then, the heartbreak came—Kate’s death hit the entire team like a storm they never saw coming.

But Emmy kept moving forward.

By the time she was fifteen, she had already graduated high school.

Not content with just that, she dove into college headfirst—and didn’t just swim; she swam laps.

In just two years, Emmy earned three undergraduate degrees: Criminal Justice, Forensics, and Psychology. She absorbed knowledge the way some people breathe air. Professors marveled at her brilliance; classmates kept their distance, intimidated but fascinated.

By seventeen, she had defended and submitted two PhDs—each earned on a full-ride scholarship—and still found time to write bestselling crime novels on the side.

At nineteen, Emmy decided it was time to step into the real world: the FBI Academy.

Normally, agents had to be twenty-one to enroll.

Normally, yes.

But with Gibbs advocating, Fornell pulling strings, and the FBI Director himself signing off, exceptions were made.

Twenty-one grueling weeks later, Emmy graduated—top of her class, sharp as a razor.

Her first day on Fornell’s team was nothing short of memorable.

She stepped into the bullpen, adjusted her wire-rimmed glasses, and let her gaze sweep over the room.

She wore a crisp blazer over a fitted men’s V-neck shirt, tailored trousers tucked into worn combat boots, and slung over her shoulder was a battered leather satchel—half laptop bag, half treasure chest.

Two of Fornell’s agents, Mike and Rachel, looked up and did a double take.

Rachel blinked twice, whispered, “She’s... nineteen?”

Mike nodded slowly, eyes narrowing. “Yeah, but she looks... twenty-one. Maybe twenty-two?”

Emmy caught their whispers, gave a small smirk, and set her satchel down.

Fornell walked over, arms crossed, a small grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“Agents,” he said, gesturing to Emmy. “Meet Emilia DiNozzo. She’s a bit of a prodigy. Watch your egos.”

Mike tried to hide a grin. “You got jokes, kid?”

Emmy shrugged, tapping her satchel. “I bring more than jokes. I bring answers.”

Rachel smiled. “Well, Dr. DiNozzo, welcome to the team.”

Emmy nodded firmly. “Please, call me Emmy.”

Later that day, Fornell took her aside, handing her a case file.

“This is your first solo review. Cold case. See if you can find something we missed.”

Emmy flipped it open, brows furrowing.

“I already have a few ideas.”

Fornell grinned. “That’s why we’re keeping you.”

As the sun set over the city skyline, Emmy realized she wasn’t just a kid genius anymore. She was an agent. A part of something bigger.

And she was ready to prove it.

Chapter Text

Sorry for not posting this at the beginning

If you wanted to imagine what she looked like my face claim for her is millie bobby brown.

UPDATE: Probably won't be posting this on Wattpad soon just got into a 4 year college from my community college so I am going to be busy. I am trying to update my stories best i can. I just have a lot of stories unfinished and don't know where to pick them back up

Chapter Text

The case file Fornell gave her had dust on it.

Not literal dust—Emmy had wiped that off as soon as she sat down—but the kind of figurative dust that clung to forgotten paperwork. Three years old. Unsolved. Dismissed. A teenage girl gone missing in a small town outside Richmond, written off as a runaway by the locals, shelved by the FBI after a month of dead ends.

Emmy didn’t like cases like that.

Which is exactly why she asked for them.

She sat cross-legged on her temporary desk, the file spread out in front of her like a crime scene reconstruction. Her glasses perched low on her nose, a half-drunk Capri Sun beside her, and one boot tapping a quiet rhythm on the edge of the desk.

Mike passed by, glanced down, and blinked.

“Are you sitting on your desk?”

“Yes,” she said, not looking up.

“...Why?”

“Better overhead angle.”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Walked away muttering, “I don’t get paid enough for this.”

Rachel approached next, holding two coffee cups. She offered Emmy one, who shook her head.

“Still off caffeine,” Emmy said. “It makes me twitchy.”

Rachel handed her a protein bar instead. “Fornell said you had a theory.”

“I have five,” Emmy said. “But one’s screaming at me.”

She jumped down from the desk and spun her whiteboard around. It was already covered in notes, sketches, and time stamps. In the middle was a photo of the missing girl—Lexie Harper, sixteen, last seen leaving school. No prints, no DNA, no sign of foul play. The town chalked it up to teen rebellion.

“They said she was a runaway,” Emmy began, pointing at the first line. “But Lexie was saving for college. She had an early acceptance letter from NYU and hadn’t touched the money in her account.”

“Okay…” Rachel said slowly.

“She also packed no clothes, didn’t say goodbye to anyone, and left her phone plugged in. Even if you’re impulsive, you don’t leave your phone behind.”

“True.”

“But that’s not the weird part,” Emmy added, flipping to a second page. “This case was closed fast. Too fast. The only person who claimed to have seen her leave town was a man who worked at the gas station nearby.”

Rachel blinked. “Witness statement—"

“Was never followed up on. He said she got in a silver pickup. No plate number, no security footage, no other witnesses.”

“Convenient.”

“Exactly. So I pulled his name—Victor Renner. He’d just been released on probation for a prior conviction: unlawful restraint.”

Rachel’s brows shot up.

“Yeah,” Emmy said. “I think we have the wrong focus.”

The next forty-eight hours were a blur.

Fornell approved her lead. Mike and Rachel backed her up. Emmy coordinated a team to canvas the area around Renner’s old job site—an abandoned farm outside Richmond.

They found Lexie.

Alive.

Scared, malnourished, but alive.

The media went nuts.

FBI saves teenage girl three years after presumed runaway.

Fornell was flooded with calls. Emmy kept her head down, quietly slipping a sticky note onto the corner of his office window that simply read:

“You were right to take a chance.”

He didn’t say anything. Just peeled it off and kept it in his wallet.

Chapter Text

The crime scene was a mess.

The victim—male, late thirties, schoolteacher—was found tied to a chair in his living room, strangled with a necktie. No sign of forced entry. No defensive wounds. One detail stood out: his hands had been scrubbed clean. Too clean.

Fornell stood in the doorway, arms crossed, jaw tight.

Emmy was crouched beside the body, tapping the blunt end of a dry Sharpie against her lips, scanning the room like it was a puzzle waiting to be unlocked.

“Third one this month,” Rachel muttered, flipping through her notes. “No apparent link to the other two. Different cities, different backgrounds.”

“Not different enough,” Emmy said, softly but clearly.

Mike frowned. “You’re seeing something?”

She stood up abruptly, eyes wide, almost electric. “They weren’t picked at random. They were chosen. Purposefully. Ritualistically.”

Mike and Rachel shared a look. Fornell sighed. “Alright, DiNozzo. Go ahead. Walk us through it.”

Emmy exhaled, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet. She needed to pace—needed motion to align the pieces in her head.

“All three victims were male, between thirty-five and forty. All lived alone. All had high visibility jobs—teacher, city planner, podcast host. Not celebrities, but they had followers. Influence. Respect.”

“And?” Mike asked.

“They were safe.” She stopped pacing and turned. “They lived structured lives, posted their schedules, had clear routines. No drugs. No history of violence. But they all shared something else.”

She pulled a notepad from her blazer pocket and flipped to a page covered in handwriting so small and neat it looked typed.

“Each of them gave public testimony against known sexual predators. Not high-profile cases—quiet ones. Ones that never made national news. But they stood up. They said no more.”

Rachel’s voice caught. “You think the unsub is… punishing them?”

“Not just punishing,” Emmy said. “Silencing. Each victim’s cause of death is symbolic. The first was gagged. The second suffocated with duct tape. This one strangled with a tie. It’s escalation—but it’s also messaging. The unsub is targeting people who used their voice. Now he’s making sure they can’t speak again.”

Fornell blew out a slow breath. “That’s... not something a regular investigator would catch.”

“I’m not a regular investigator,” Emmy replied, matter-of-fact.

Mike rubbed a hand over his face. “So how do we find this guy?”

Emmy tilted her head. “We look for the echo.”

Rachel blinked. “The what?”

“The echo of the trauma,” she said, stepping to the wall and outlining an invisible chart with her hands. “This unsub didn’t just wake up and decide to kill. This is personal. Revenge. He was silenced. Humiliated. Probably by someone with authority. Maybe even a victim of abuse himself. He’s picking people who remind him of those who didn’t listen to him.”

“So we profile the unsub through his past, not his victims,” Fornell said slowly.

Emmy nodded. “Exactly. He’s not copying them. He’s correcting his own story.”

They spent the next two days cross-referencing past abuse cases where the accused got away and one or more of the current victims gave public comment. Emmy worked without sleep, her satchel under her chair, hoodie sleeves pushed up, fingers stained with highlighter ink.

Her desk looked like a crime scene itself—maps, photos, timelines. A full web of paper, tape, and post-its.

Rachel brought her food. Mike brought her backup. Fornell kept the rest of the Bureau off her back.

Finally, she found him.

Daniel Rowe. Thirty-one. Former choir assistant. Accused twice of inappropriate conduct as a teen. Dismissed both times. No charges filed. But Emmy found a forum post—a single anonymous thread—where he mentioned all three of the victims by name. Each post ended the same way:

“They lied. So I’ll make sure no one believes them again.”

They found him in a storage unit outfitted like an apartment, soundproofed and bolted shut from the inside.

He didn’t fight.

He just looked at Emmy—really looked—and said, “You’re not like them.”

“I’m not,” she answered calmly. “I listened.”

He didn’t say another word.

Back at the field office, Emmy sat on the edge of her desk, Capri Sun in hand, too exhausted to move. Her legs bounced rhythmically, brain still running simulations.

Fornell stepped in, dropped a file beside her, and leaned on the desk.

“You know profiling freaks most people out, right?”

Emmy gave a tired half-smile. “Only if they’re hiding something.”

“You ever turn that lens on yourself?”

“All the time,” she said, and sipped her drink. “It’s not always fun.”

He nodded. “Well… whatever it is you’ve got, Emmy, it works. I don’t get it half the time, but I trust it.”

She looked up, honest for a moment. “Thanks for not making me change who I am.”

Fornell smirked. “You couldn’t even if you tried.”

She laughed, just a little. “Fair.”

Outside, the sky was turning pink with early morning light. Another case closed. Another ghost laid to rest.

Emmy sat alone for a while after the others left, flipping through her Moleskine, writing nothing—just drawing small lines, a pattern she didn’t fully understand yet.

But somewhere inside, she knew it was leading her closer.

To something bigger.

To the BAU.

To the place that might just understand her the way her team tried to.

The way no one else ever really had.