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9:00AM


"Spike, man, we've gone over this for hours." Gunn groaned, flopping his head down onto his arms that lay resting on the desk in defeat.

Spike stood staring at the white board in front of him, a slight glare in his eyes. Pictures of each murdered couple were stuck to the board with possible links between them all scattered across it with strings and markers. Papers and clippings of information stuck to the boards left hand side, separated from the couples images, they were leads that seemed to go nowhere. With his arms crossed over his chest he glared at the board with narrowed eyes, as if somehow the information was going to jump out at him if he willed it hard enough. The answers were there he just had to find them.

"He's gotta slip up sometime. We'll get him."

It was a determined statement and they both knew it to be true, but Gunn could see his partners resolve starting to slip. This was the first case they had ever encountered that had taken them this long to crack. No matter what leads they seemed to be chasing after or what evidence they seemed to recover at a crime scene it always seemed to lead to the same outcome. Dead ends.

They were chasing their own tails with nothing in sight.

"Of that I have no doubt, but Spike, man, you need to take a break. Staring at that board for hours on end isn't helping anyone."

Spike took a few steps back and sat down in the chair opposite Gunn in defeat. He knew his partner was right. They had spent all the hours of the morning since leaving the latest crime scene going over possible leads. So far, the only thing each murdered couple had in connection with each other was that fact that they were all recently married and all from Sunnydale. Other than those connecting factors there was nothing. The victims didn't know each other, they didn't live in the same area, hell they didn't even shop in the same area.

Nothing made sense.

Spike and Gunn sat in silence, both staring at the board as they waited for the autopsy's to be completed on both bodies from their recent murder. Quite hopeful that new evidence would arise.

"Fred got anything yet?"

"Not since I rang and asked five minutes ago." Gunn mumbled, head still buried in his arms, eyes closed with exhaustion. What he wouldn't give to still be lying in bed with his wife curled up beside him. Since the murders had become more frequent and it becoming quite clear that they were indeed connected the station had labeled the cases to be those of a serial killer. With Gunn working nearly as much overtime as Spike and coupled with the fact that he and his wife both worked for the same crime unit it felt that the only time he got to see her was when they were both at work. He rolled his eyes as Spike dialed the number off the desk phone to the connecting autopsy department below the station.

Spike wasn't a man known for his patience.

"Anything?"

"Actually I think so."

Gunn's head popped up straight from the desk and met Spike's eyes as his wife's voice came through the loud-speaker. Spike's accent coming on thicker as he got more wrapped up in a case and more sleep deprived as the hours ticked on.

"Wha' is it?"

"Well your killer definitely slipped up this time."

"Wha' kind of slipped up?"

Gunn rose from his chair and downed the last of his lukewarm coffee, eyes wide in anticipation of the information his wife was about to deliver.

"The big kind. The 'left some DNA behind' kind. You are never going to guess what just popped up on my screen."

"We'll be righ' down."

Spike grinned, giving Gunn a pointed look as he slammed down the phone before rushing out the door, Gunn not far behind. They missed hitting a co-worker on the way to the elevator and managed to squeeze through the doors just before they shut.

.................

"Morning!"

Winifred 'Fred' Gunn's voice greeted them at the elevator, walking backwards into her small lab that was connected to the autopsy room. Fred was a very chipper and quite welcoming person considering the profession that she was in. Her work space encompassed her personality, her lab walls were covered in bright colored paintings, potted plants with flowers of various size and color scattered in various corners of the room. Fred had a unique way of filling the room up with as much life as she possibly could just to escape the death that she was constantly surrounded by.

"What's the what babe?"

"Charles!"

"What?"

"Wha's the big news, luv?"

Spike couldn't help but chuckle at the couples antics. He had known Fred and Gunn for going on seven years, having been partnered with Gunn when he had started at the station. Fred back then had just started at the station as well. She acted mainly as the Crime Units lab technician and on a few occasions helped out in the morgue. Nowadays though she acted as both positions full-time, this time with help from her own team of lab technicians.

"Right, yes! The reason I called you down here! Well actually you called me, like twelve times within an hour, but that's beside the point. You're down here now and that is because of this!"

She walked swiftly over to a desk that sat along one wall, two computer screens sitting on top. One of the screens had charts and numbers filling it with scientific terms, none of which Spike could read and the other screen showing a picture of a DNA strand.

"Wha' am I looking at, pet?"

"Someones DNA?"

"I know that you berk!"

Spike growled, glaring at Gunn before looking back at Fred. Gunn just laughed, Spike was too easy to goad sometimes.

"It's a woman!"

Both men stared at the screen with the DNA strand blankly before Spike blinked and turned back to face Fred.

"What?"

"Your killer is a woman!" Spike and Gunn stared at her with mouths slightly open, glancing back towards the screens as if to see if they could decipher the scientific codes there. "Mr. Johnstone, your male victim didn't go down without a fight. I found traces of blood underneath his fingernails. Unfortunately it's not enough for me to test who it is exactly, but I can tell you that it is one-hundred percent a woman's. It's also not his wife's DNA."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive. I also found defensive wounds along his forearms, not like the other victims. It was most likely made from the blade that was used to cut his throat. It's thin, sharp. I-I've got a small list of possible weapons or tools that could have been used, but other than that I'm afraid that's all I've got for you guys. The DNA doesn't match anything in AFIS but I'm still looking."

"Fred, you are amazing!" Spike beamed, eyes wide as he pulled out his phone and dialed a few numbers.

"I knew there was a reason I married you." Gunn tugged on the corners of her white lab coat and pulled her in for a hug, kissing the top of her head.

"Get Wells to meet me at me desk, I wan' him to mock-up a profile on a possible lead. Let me know if anything pops up on AFIS, luv."

"Sure thing."

"Watcha thinking Boss?"

Gunn was already following Spikes footsteps towards the labs exit, tossing his wife a smile before falling into step with his partner.

"We've been looking at this all wrong. Gotta hit the board again to see it from a fresh perspective."

Gunn slowly nodded, pushing the button on the wall to call the elevator back down. Staring at Spike, he raised both eyebrows.

"Right, fresh perspective. Woman goes crazy and starts slicing people's throats."

Fred shook her head and turned back to her screens as the duo retreated back to the elevator behind her. The picture of the DNA strand sat spinning on her screen and with furrowed brows she tapped her chin, a trait she had picked up in Med school when she was stuck on a really hard problem.

Turning around she watched as another large screen that she had linked up to yet another computer behind her shot up image after image of people's faces. They were the faces of all the known criminals in the world whose DNA was in the government's system, AFIS. AFIS stood for 'Automated Fingerprint Identification System' and it was part of Fred's job to run the program when DNA swabs such as the one she had found on Mr. Johnstone were found.

Nine out of ten times AFIS found a perfect match, but with each image popping up after the next Fred wasn't so sure it would this time.

"Who are you mystery woman?"


Chapter End Notes:
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