The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s training academy, located on 395 sprawling acres in Stafford County, Virginia was home to one of the world’s premier Law Enforcement Training Academies. The cadets, some of the nation’s best and brightest, were chosen from universities, other law enforcement agencies and the military to comprise the ranks of the FBI’s pool of future agents. They underwent rigorous training in many areas, including investigations, interrogations and psychology at the hands of some the FBI’s best-- current or retired agents that were asked to teach at the Academy because of their experience in their particular fields.
The decision to teach at the Academy, for Aaron Hotchner, had not been an easy one. He was a man built for the field- driven, intense and passionate, and loathed the idea of being bound to a desk and adhering to “office hours”. But as his son, Jack, had grown older, his need for a father figure had become more and more apparent. Acting out in school, starting fights, and trouble with behavior at home had highlighted for Aaron how important it was for him to establish a job with normal hours, before things went so far south that they couldn’t be recovered.
And so, Hotchner found himself accepting the position of Class Advisor, along with the Instructor of the Abnormal Psychology Unit, at the Academy. It was his job to mentor and teach the newest cadets while they made their way through the Academy, and class #1371 included a peculiar young woman named Taissa Spencer.
The Class Advisor would have had to have been deaf, or willfully ignorant, to not catch the way her classmates looked at her, or hear the rumors circling. It wouldn’t be the first time someone with a dark past, more specifically a monster of a parent, had went into Law Enforcement, determined to change the trajectory of their fate. Aaron was one of them himself, his father had been a monster of sorts. He’d notice that Taissa hadn’t fit in with the ‘in-crowd’, and while her excellent academic performance hand’t seemed to have been effected, he was all too aware that this line of work was a difficult one without people around you to support you.
At the conclusion of one of his lectures, this one pertaining to serial killers and the basic behavioral patterns, he decided it was a good time to ask. The class was being cut for lunch, and as he gathered up his papers, he looked up at the class and announced, “Class dismissed. Be back for your lecture on Arrest Techniques at 1300.”
The room began to empty with the dull chatter that normally accompanied them, when Aaron called out,” Miss Spencer, may I have a word please?”