A/N – I have just been watching Dharma and Greg, so if my Hotch is a little Greggy, I apologise

Revealed by Fire
Chapter 1
Discovery

"True love is friendship, caught on fire." ANON

Gayton the fire chief looked in anger as the flames reached new heights. This was an abandoned building, no lives were in danger, except his crew, who were risking injury to save a building that would be better off flattened anyway.

Most of the interior was gone, and the exterior walls were now unsafe.

He called his men back. It wasn't worth any more fire fighters lives on this one.

By the time the fire had finished, they were just damping down the remains, and checking for arson. It was almost always arson, and it confused him. He got a great satisfaction from putting out fires. These crazy people got satisfaction from setting them. He sighed, and joined his men in looking for places where the fire, or fires started.

He noticed one of his men suddenly jump back from the debris he was examining.

'Oh my god!' the man exclaimed. Gayton made his way across the fire damaged floor to him.

'What is it?'

'I thought this building was empty. We checked, I swear it was empty!'

Gayton looked to where his man was staring. There was a body – charred and destroyed, but the shape and smell was very familiar.

'There's more than one.' he said, shining his torch around where he was standing. 'Get the police down here. These people didn't die in the fire. The bodies were already here.'

-0-0-0-

Hotch was eating in his office. He had picked up a chicken tikka wrap on the way to work and it was horrible. He tossed it in the bin and bent down and unlocked his bottom drawer. There was a bottle of expensive scotch there and two glasses. He toyed with the idea of having a tiny drop, when someone knocked on his door. He closed the drawer guiltily.

'Uh..... come in.' he called, and Spencer shyly entered his office.

'I need to t-talk to you.' he said, stammering slightly.

'I know. It's time, I think.'

Hotch got up and locked the door. This was one conversation that he didn't want disturbed.

'There are unanswered questions, Spencer. Is that what you need to talk about?'

Reid nodded and sat in the chair opposite Hotch's desk. Hotch pulled his chair round so that the desk wasn't between them any more.

'I don't want to transfer, Aaron. Would you let me stay?'

'Oh Spencer, Spencer, I would never force you to go. But have you thought this through? I cannot love you, not in the way you crave. I am so sorry, you are like a son to me, and as such, I want you close. But if you need to move on, can you do that if I am with you all the time?'

'Hotch, when I thought that Hesk had killed you, I gave up living inside. I didn't want to be rescued. I thought I had caused your death, It made life not worth living. I don't think I could cope with life if I wasn't close to you. If 'storge' love is what you offer, I accept.'

Hotch leaned forward and took Spencer's hands in his. 'My love for you is 'agape', Spencer. I hope it is enough.'

The moment was broken by a knock on the door. Hotch released Reid's hands and went to unlock it. It was JJ.

'We have a case.'

-0-0-0-

The photographs that JJ distributed around the room were not pretty. Most of the dead were burned beyond recognition or decomposed down to a skeleton. Two of them however had been protected by other bodies, and were still recognisable as human.

'These bodies were recovered after a fire destroyed an old warehouse in the city centre.' JJ said. 'None of them died in the fire though, and arson investigators do not think that the arson and the murders are connected.'

'How many bodies are there?' Morgan asked, looking at the horrific images in front of him.

Twenty four discovered so far, died over a period of about ten years.'

Hotch was reading the arson investigators report. 'He believes that this has uncovered a serial killer's lair?' he asked. JJ nodded. 'Then we will take the case. Wheels up in fifteen. Let's go.'

-0-0-0-

'The first thing we need before we go anywhere is a plan of the destroyed building.' Hotch said. 'Reid, will you do that? And Garcia, get as many of the victims' names, and cross reference them with missing persons. We should get some hits.'

Morgan and Prentiss had the victims' photographs spread over the table between them and were examining them. Hotch thought it was sad how his best team members were able to look at pictures like these, and not feel sick to the stomach. Instead, they were discussing the pictures like they were holiday snaps.

But he knew that these same agents could be haunted by the pictures in their dreams. He wondered, not for the first time, how they could stare into the abyss and not get dragged down into it.

It had happened. Gideon, who was so fond of that quote, had been dragged down. Allowed himself to be? Hotch wasn't sure if he had any choice. So far, his team were hanging on.

As the jet came into land, Prentiss scooped up the photos and put them back in the envelope, and they got ready to land.

They all knew their assignments, and so, when the PD met them with cars at their disposal, they split up, each to their own tasks.

Hotch went with Morgan to view the crime scene. Not that there was much to see apart from charred wreckage. All the bodies had been removed, and there was little left for the profilers to see, other than two areas taped off.

'The two who were recognisable were in this area.' a voice from behind said.

Hotch turned around to see one of the fire investigators standing watching them.

'I guess you are the Feds sent to sort this mess out.' he said.

Hotch extended his hand. 'I'm Agent Aaron Hotchner, this is my colleague, Agent Derek Morgan. Yes, we were sent for and are hoping that we will be able to track down who did this.'

'I hope you can.' the investigator replied. 'It's got half the city terrified, especially how the newspapers reported it; a serial killer in out midst. It's got people afraid of their own family.'

He turned away, and returned to his equipment. Hotch called after him.

'Can you show us where the fires were set?' he asked. The man showed Hotch a ground plan with the sites marked off.

'You can keep that.' he said.

Hotch thanked him and put the plan in his pocket.

-0-0-0-

Back at the police head quarters, Emily had been getting together some causes of death. It wasn't possible in most of the cases, since the bodies were little more than skeletons, but the more resent ones, COD was the same every time – torture and beating.

'The most recent body is only about a month old, Hotch. This killer may not have finished.'

'I don't think he has.' Hotch said. 'But he will be looking for a new body dump now.'

Reid had taped the plan of the building to the wall, and had marked several areas with a red pen.

'These are the places where the bodies may have been hidden.' he said. 'Although they were all found on the ground floor, they might have been stored higher in the building and fallen through in the fire.'

'You said "stored".' Morgan said. 'Why do you use that word?'

'Most serial killers like to return to the bodies and interact with them. It could be that the bodies are kept for a while somewhere else, and when it is time to replace them, they are stored in the warehouse where they are fairly easily accessible in the future.'

'Try to find any likely places he would now use, Reid. Let's see if we can pre empt him.'

'We don't know how long he keeps the bodies for before he needs to store them.' Emily said.

'And until we have some identification of at least some of the victims, we are stuck.' Dave added.

'See if you can help Penelope with that, Morgan.' Hotch said.

Morgan called Garcia up on the lap top. She had failed to ID any of the victims. The autopsies had shown that many of the victims had likely never been to a dentist, so dental records didn't exist.

'I think they might have been homeless people.' she said, 'And if so, it will be almost impossible to id them.

'Let's assume that these victims are local. We can get down to the streets and show the picture of the latest victim and see if anyone knows who he is.' Dave said. 'We might get someone remembering.'

'Good idea.' Hotch said. 'Let's get on it'

-0-0-0-

Hotch went with Dave to an area of town where the homeless made the best of life under a freeway overpass. They showed the picture of the latest victim, but no one could remember seeing him. After about an hour of fruitless searching, they started to walk back to the car.

As they approached the SUV they noticed several of the people they had been talking to were standing by it, and facing them off. Hotch and Reid tried to walk through them. One of them pushed Dave.

'Don't come back up here asking questions and upsetting the women.' he said to Dave. 'Life is hard enough.'

Hotch put his hand on his gun. 'We are Federal Agents. Please stand back.'

The small group closed in on Reid, separating the two men. Hotch drew his gun, but they were too close and Hotch couldn't raise it. He heard Dave shouting at them to get off him, and a startled cry as he fell under the mob.

'Dave!'

Hotch tried to push his way through to him, but he was being held back as they started to kick the fallen agent. He heard Dave cry out as the mob laid into him. He tried to raise the gun above his head and shoot over their heads, but someone grabbed his wrist and twisted it, and the gun fell from his grip. He saw someone pick it up as he was pushed to the ground. He could see Dave through their legs and he tried to reach through to him, but someone stood on his hand.

He yelped in pain and tried to pull it back, but they started kicking him, and he wrapped the other arm over his head for protection.

Dave was trying to get back on his feet. He had seen Hotch go down, and needed to help him, but the kicks raining down on him were making it impossible to get up and each kick was like a stab wound. He raised his hands in front of his face.

'Stop! We are Fed.....'

A vicious kick to the side of the head, and Dave was dizzy and disoriented. He could see Hotch trying to get up, and suddenly someone fired a gun.

Then everything went dark.

-0-0-0-

The mob stood back and looked down at the two unconscious men.

'Now what?' asked one of them.

'Well, we only need one. Choose which one, and kill the other one.'

They chose, and left him standing there with Hotch's gun in his hand.

It would be so easy. Just point the weapon at his head, pull the trigger, and it would be over. No witnesses. They'd be home free. But he couldn't do it. He had killed before, but only in a gun fight. He had never shot an unconscious man before, and it went against even his shaky morals.

He watched the others push the other man into the SUV and turn the engine on, then he looked again at the man at his feet. He pointed the gun, and put his finger on the trigger.

The bullet hit the ground beside his head.

Then he went back to his corner and watched the SUV drive away.