Author's Note: This story is not finished, nowhere close, but I want to start posting it to see people's reactions. I love feedback and know that I read everything but I don't usually have time to respond even though I greatly appreciate what people write. I am going into my University exam period with essays due and studying to get done and writing is my stress relief. I will try to write and update as much as possible but no promises.

Adoption

Chapter One

JJ called them all into the conference room early that morning and immediately Rossi knew it must be a bad one. He was still getting used to having the blond on the team but she definitely made it easier to deal with the media, a task he despised. He followed Gideon into the conference room with Hotch right behind him. It felt so different to have a conference room and offices at Quantico instead being in the bunker they started in but he wasn't going to complain. Especially with the fancy office he landed as team leader, a position he was sharing with Gideon.

He found himself in the conference room looking around at his team. What changes it had gone through from the initial group. Hotch who was the definite future of the BAU, coming from a legal background and had the ability to play the Bureau's politics that he and Gideon had absolutely no interest in. Gideon was next to him looking ready to go, his co-leader took everything too hard but had such emotional connections. And then the new-kid Morgan, who replaced Kate who'd, moved on to head the crimes against children unit. He still hadn't made up his mind about the African-American man; he was a good profiler and explosives expert and had a physical sense that was interesting addition to the unit. Though he did slightly pity JJ being the only female in what was slightly an old-man's club.

JJ began her presentation, "Las Vegas, Nevada, children are turning up dead in the sands close to the main highway. However there are no signs of physical or sexual trauma with cause of death being tranquilizers to knock them out and then suffocation." She spoke as she showed images of children dressed in what looked like Sunday-best laid out in the desert, arms folded across their chests.

He spoke first, "How many victims?"

"Four, the last one, Jason Miers, was found yesterday afternoon." JJ spoke as she switched up to a picture of a ten-year old boy with curly brown hair. "The first was Megan Brendon, seven, second was Hayden Virton, eleven, then Jessica Neil, eight." Rossi was just sick looking at these pictures of these children killed. He hated all death but when it was children it was so much harder.

"Okay. Everybody grab you ready bags, flight out in thirty minutes. We'll start brainstorming on the plane. I don't want to hear another child has been taken, or that another has been found." Rossi ordered, giving one more flip-through of the file in front of him as the team filed out the door.

When they had all piled onto the plane, another new perk as the BAU was moving up the ranks of the Bureau's top-units with their suburb success rate, they began to go over the case.

Hotch started off the brainstorming session, "The way they are laid out seeks to remorse over their death," he paused thinking and then questioned, "what about the clothing? Where these the clothes they went missing in or did the unsub purchase them?"

"These weren't the clothes they were taken in." Morgan answered, glancing in the file, "It says here all the children were taken in the afternoon presumably on their walks home from school."

"Same school?" Gideon asked, thinking that was the connection between the victims.

"No. Jason Miers and Jessica Neil were at the same school, however Megan Brendon and Hayden Virton were at completely different schools." JJ clarified, "However all four childen are wards of the state."

"Foster children?" Rossi asked?

"Yes. Miers had been in the system for just a year since his parents died in a car accident with no surviving relatives. Neil since she was four, taken out of her home because of abuse charges. Megan Brendon, for three yeas, since she was four; apparently her father abandoned the family when she was an infant and then her mother was killed in car accident. Hayden Virton was taken in by the state when he was an infant, abandoned at the steps of a local church, however for some reason he was never adopted.

"So we have the connection between the victims." Gideon stated, thinking he had found the missing link

"Yes they were all foster children which speaks to victimology but they didn't have the same case worker." Morgan tried to argue,

"There's more than just case-worker that deals with foster children Morgan." Rossi corrected, "That is probably the link between the children. We should go through the children's histories in the foster system and that should give us our unsub."

"Don't we have a technical analyst now?" Hotch questioned, remembering they had been introduced to the eccentric computer analyst a month previous.

"Yes, we'll connect with her when we land." he confirmed.