(Hey everyone! I hope all of you reading this had a wonderful Christmas and will be blessed with a happy and exciting New Year! I just can't seem to resist writing something Christmas-y, and even though I'm a few days late, I'm hoping to have this mostly posted by New Year's Day. It's a set of holiday one-shots, a chapter or a one-shot for each member of the BAU team. Please enjoy, and don't worry I'll be posting on "Trial by Fire" before my break ends as well. I am proud of it so far, but don't want to push it and not have it be as good as it could be. I will finish soon though; I haven't abandoned a story yet! Enjoy this for now, more soon, I promise! And, of course, I still own nothing even remotely connected to "Criminal Minds." I'm only imagining things I wish they'd do!!)

Christmas at Quantico

Chapter One: Hotch

"I'll be home for Christmas,

you can count on me

Please have snow and mistletoe

and presents under the tree

Christmas Eve will find me

where the love light leads

I'll be home for Christmas,

if only in my dreams…"

-"I'll Be Home for Christmas"

The stately two-story house on a quiet block in Arlington, Virginia seemed especially, oppressively, silent in the early evening on December 23rd. Aaron Hotchner had twined some greenery around the handrail of the staircase and set up the stately artificial tree they had always used, foregoing the massive assortment of ornaments Haley had always enjoyed sifting through to simply string white lights on its boughs. Tree or not, the house would still seem empty without her there – without her and Jack.

He stood from the wingback chair where he had been pensively contemplating his needless handiwork with the tree and went into the kitchen to get himself a drink. There was really no reason for him to have even bothered putting all the Christmas decoration up; he certainly didn't feel like celebrating alone. But the though of the amazed look on Jack's little face and the way he had grinned, transfixed, and clapped his pudgy little hands when the tree was lit last year, had made Hotch put the tree up anyway. At least it would be there for Jack to see whenever Haley did let him visit over Hotch's holiday vacation time.

The "missing them" feeling of wanting his wife and son with him was an actual gaping hole within him – an ache that didn't stop or ever leave the back of his mind. He knew that he wasn't hiding it; his team had noticed the way it drove him even harder since work was all he had left now. He that that he had become even more vigilant, dedicated, and single-minded in his work since the night he came home and found his family gone. His home had been ripped apart so simply after all the years spent building it, leaving him alone to live in the empty shell that was simply not enough.

More now this evening than ever, Hotch let himself admit as he made his way back to the armchair he had vacated with the neat Scotch he'd poured himself and stared at the unlit tree in the light of the lamp beside him, that this was not his home. Not anymore. Possibly, without Haley and Jack, he didn't have a home at all. There was nothing to come home to.

All through his career with the BAU, not matter where they had been, no matter how long he had been gone, his wife and child – his family – waiting for him at home had given him a purpose for his fight and a goal at the end of each journey. Now there was just the work for its own sake, weighing him down, without his reason for doing it. The two reasons he had been trying so hard to make a better world were gone. It had been for them, and now it was all for nothing.

He sat a few more minutes, nursing his drink in small, stinging sips and thinking thoughts that he knew were getting him nowhere. Finally, he hauled himself back out of the chair, went to the kitchen and dumped the golden liquid down the sink from the tumbler that was still mostly full. He had never been much of a drinker, even in his blackest moments of despair or anger, there were too many fuzzy memories – memories Hotch knew he had allowed his subconscious to muddy and bury deep for self-preservation – from childhood that had never once allowed him to get drunk or lose that death-grip he held on control.

He turned, straightened the tie and dress shirt he was still wearing, and grabbed the suit jacket he had draped over the back of the kitchen chair. Plucking his keys back out of the dish in the foyer, he stepped back out his door and headed down the front walk into the lightly falling new snow.

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BAU headquarters were still lit much more brightly and had many more cars still parked in the lot than there ever usually were at that time of night, due to the Bureau's Annual Holiday Party. He had not intended to go, fearing honestly that he would drag down his team and the rest of their department's good time with his less-than-jovial and lighthearted mood. Now, however, he realized as he stepped into the elevator and headed up to the BAU's floor, that he had quite possibly been wrong.

Stepping out on his familiar floor, Hotch could see into the bullpen, lit by a tree in one corner, garland on the railings, and the happy chatter of people mingling and enjoying refreshments and each other's company without being consumed by gruesome cases. His gaze zeroed in on his own team, warming considerably as it did. They weren't excluding others, but they were gathered loosely to themselves near the ramp up to JJ's office – all of them but Dave. JJ stood in the middle of their little cluster, looking as if she positively glowed as the other laughed at her instructing Reid on how to take Henry from her and hold him comfortably without setting off screaming and tears. Garcia and Emily were obviously both waiting for their turns, fingers itching to take the adorable little bundle off of Reid's hands as soon as they could. Morgan was standing back, chuckling at his younger friend's predicament, but Hotch knew the taller man wouldn't have been much more comfortable with the baby himself and that was why he had taken the caution of putting both Reid and Garcia between himself and the proud new mom. Reid himself was blushing profusely at the attention, and his own discomfort, looking extremely nervous. A closer glance, though, told a different story. Their youngest profiler was also obviously pleased that JJ wanted him to hold her son and that she had named him, of all people, as Henry's godfather. There was a gently tender look in Spencer Reid's eyes as he cradled the small child and Henry gurgled happily, blinking up at him instead of crying and being scared.

Coming up to his team, Hotch found himself beginning to smile unconsciously and finally felt some warmth spreading through his insides which had felt horribly frozen, not just that night, but for months now. Emily noticed him first, looking up and then smiling happily as she called out a greeting and waved him over.

Reid looked up at him, his wide eyes sparkling with excitement as he urged his supervisor to see Henry snuggled comfortably in his arms. "Hotch! I think he actually likes me!"

Hotch couldn't help chuckling lightly, his eyes also twinkling merrily at Reid's surprised joy and the rest of his team's cheerful greetings. They did want him here. "Yes, Reid, I'd say he does like you," was all he spoke aloud.

JJ stepped to his side, resting her small, manicured hand on his forearm and giving it a light squeeze. When he looked down to see what she needed she was smiling up at him – a small, knowing smile – her eyes seeming to say that she knew exactly what he had been thinking and struggling with all evening, and what had finally brought him here. It was that look she had that made Hotch wonder if she might be as good or better a profiler as the rest of them if she ever wanted to try the job. "I'm glad you came," she said quietly. "You should be here with us."

Hotch felt himself still smiling at her in return, and then looking around at the rest of his team. They spent the majority of their days, and weeks, and months together – year in and year out. They supported each other, trusted each other, bailed each other out, saved each other's necks, and had each other's backs. Their job was certainly not easy, and his life was not as perfect or normal and composed as he'd had it and thought it would continue to be, but this was what he loved to do. He was good at it, and these people made him better. There were no other people he would rather spend so much time with. In a way, this team was as much his family as anyone he was related to by blood. Here, surrounded by them and in his element, he did still have a way to find some gratitude and joy for the holiday, and a place and loved ones to return to after all…a home.