The first thing he noticed was the silence.
It wasn't just quiet — it was the kind of silence that blankets a man's thoughts in the moment before a firefight. But there were no gunshots here. No sand under his boots. No blood caked on his gloves. Just sterile fluorescent lighting and the faint scent of coffee brewing somewhere nearby.
Jason Cole opened his eyes slowly, testing his surroundings. It was an office, sterile and functional, with high security doors and a soft hum from the computer servers behind the walls. He blinked, feeling an eerie dissonance, like waking from a dream that felt more real than the world he was now in.
He remembered dying.
More specifically, he remembered the moment — the flashbang, the scream in his ear, the sound of his own breath failing him as he lay bleeding out in an alley in Damascus. Delta Force. Last op. Last breath. And then… this.
"Agent Cole?" a woman's voice called out from the hall. "You're up. Briefing in five."
He stood automatically. The motion was smooth — muscle memory. But these weren't the limbs of a battle-hardened 35-year-old. They were leaner. Younger. Lighter. He caught his reflection in the glass panel of a display case.
He was twenty-four. Again.
Same sharp jawline. Same storm-gray eyes. But he wasn't just younger. He felt different — sharper. The weight of war was still there, coiled under the surface, but it was fused with something new: an overwhelming sense of clarity. Like every detail in the room — the angle of the door, the rust on the vent cover, the residual stain on the hallway carpet — had been filed and processed before he even realized he'd seen them.
Jason Cole had died a soldier. Now, in this strange second chance, he was reborn a profiler.
The Behavioral Analysis Unit was smaller than he'd expected. The bullpen felt more like a college research department than a division that hunted serial killers. There were only a few desks. Papers and whiteboards. Faces he recognized.
Aaron Hotchner. Controlled. Cold steel behind a civil tone.
Elle Greenaway. Sharp, skeptical, a survivor's edge in her posture.
Jason Gideon. The legend. A mind honed like a scalpel, fraying at the edges.
And Dr. Spencer Reid. The youngest — like him, chronologically. But while Reid had intellect, Cole had something different: experience, and the instincts that came from having watched men break under interrogation and under gunfire.
"Gideon," Hotch said, glancing up as Jason entered. "You finally brought in the Delta boy."
Jason gave a half-smile. "I go by Agent Cole now, sir."
Gideon looked at him, eyes narrowed as if peering through a microscope. "You're the one they say passed Quantico's training in half the time. Got a master's in forensic psychology on a six-month sabbatical from the Army."
"Didn't like downtime."
Reid, standing by the board, looked over with curiosity. "You look like you're my age. But you sound like you've been through more than everyone here put together."
Jason turned slightly to him. "I have. And you're Reid — the one who remembers everything and doesn't know how to forget."
Reid blinked, taken aback.
"People talk," Jason said, heading to an open desk. "Even geniuses."
The case file they were handed was grim — two missing women in Seattle, both abducted from their apartments with surgical precision. No ransom. No trace. The local PD was spooked. That's why the BAU had been called in.
Jason read the file once, absorbing every detail with unnerving speed. His mind raced in patterns — timelines, behavioral flags, victim profiles. And beneath it all, the soldier in him traced something familiar: tactics. Whoever this unsub was, he operated like a professional.
"We leave in an hour," Hotch announced. "Gear up."
Jason stood, tucking the file under his arm, and met Gideon's eye.
"You trust me for this?" he asked.
Gideon didn't smile, but there was something approving in his gaze. "You don't hesitate. That's rare."
Jason nodded, stepping out.
As he walked toward the elevator, a thought buzzed in the back of his mind:
This wasn't just a new start.
This was a second mission.
And this time, he had more than bullets.
He had the mind of a killer — and the will to stop them.