DISCLAIMER - I DO NOT OWN CRIMINAL MINDS OR THE CHARACTERS (UNFORTUNATELY).

This is my first Criminal minds fic. Started writing this whilst on holiday at a friends house in the north of scotland. I have more chapters written so if I get a good response i'll put more up. Hope you like it.

AN - My own characters are Strauss's kids and some others who will show up soon.


CHAPTER 1 - office.

It was a stand off. Nobody wanted to be the first one to break especially not Erin.

As she sat behind her desk waiting for them to make their move she kept praying that David would walk in to save her as she couldn't take it anymore. She just wanted to stop at the store on the way home for a pregnancy test and spend the rest of the evening in her husbands arms. But, a ass, Aaron Hotchner and his bodyguard stood in her way.

Her opinion of him and his team had changed quite drastically in the last 5 years, although that could be because her husband of now 7 years was a member of said team. It didn't stop her from thinking that his team were sometimes out of control but they got the job done without pissing off the locals too much and came home safe, most of the time.

7 YEARS! She still can't believe that she's married to David Rossi and that they have a wonderful life together or that the team still didn't know. For a bunch of profilers how pride themselves on being able to read people they could be quite blind when it came to the other members of their team.

FBI fraternisation rules would appear to be broken if people knew that he was married to his bosses boss but love must be blind as she didn't care as long as he came home to her after each case. Their mutual friend and boss, Director Eric Shephard, didn't mind as he was a guest at their wedding and knew the circumstances of their courtship and subsequent wedding.

Just as she was about to reminisce about their wedding day Aaron Hotchner spoke.

"Ma'am, Agent Morgan has brought it to my attention about certain problems that he believes might have impaired your judgement on our last case. I know you have only been back from a leave of absence for a few months but I have managed to pull some favours with the Director and he has agreed to give you another leave of absence for 6 months starting immediately. Agent Morgan has also organised a facility to help you in your recovery and will escort you to your house to get some belongings and take you straight there."

Once he had finished speaking she just sat there. She couldn't believe that Agent Morgan had taken it this far and that her friend and boss had believed that she had such a problem. Fair enough she had been acting out of sorts lately and seemed to be snapping at people at lot more but she now suspected why and it wasn't because she was drinking on the job.

As she rose from her desk to deliver the verbal tongue lashing that was building within her, her office door opened and her husband walked in without looking up from his phone.

"You almost ready to go now. I've done all my paperwork so I now have the weekend free."
"Oh, erm. What's going on guys? I thought you had both gone home already?" he said as he finally realised that they weren't alone.

"Can you give us a few minutes Dave?" Aaron asked whilst turning to face his friend.

As Dave looked around the room he realised something was going on. Morgan and Hotch both had their games faces on which he couldn't read, but as he looked towards his wife he could see the tell-tale signs of her about to break. Whatever was going on was not good and he made the decision there and then he was not leaving her without her telling him to go. Even then he was debating whether he could actually leave her or not, luckily it didn't come to that.

"He can stay." was all Erin could get out before she sat back down in her seat and put her head in her hands.

"Are you sure you want him to know why we are here? I would think the less people that knew about your situation the better. Especially Rossi, Ma'am." was the curt reply and first words from Morgan since he entered her office.

As she looked up into David's confused eyes she knew she wouldn't be able to do this without his support. She silently pleaded with him to come to her and without question he walked round her desk and knelt beside her.

"Tell me what Erin? What on earth is going on here?" he could feel himself beginning to get angry as he didn't have to know what was going on to realise that his friends were unknowingly ganging up on his wife, but he had to be Agent Rossi not the devoted husband.

"They think I am an alcoholic David due to my rash actions during the latest case and that I supposedly smelled of alcohol the last day we were there." came the quiet reply from his wife before she put her head back into her hands so the others wouldn't see her cry. Damn hormones was all Erin could think.

"Why on earth would you think she is an alcoholic Hotch?" asked David.

"Morgan approached me after their interview with the Colonel with some concerns about Agent Strauss's rash behaviour during the interview. He also mentioned that she smelled of alcohol and couldn't give him a straight answer as to why he could smell the alcohol."

David realised what was going on and couldn't see any other way to help his wife than to tell his friends the truth about their situation.

"Well I can explain why. The night before that interview we received some very good news and decided to go to the bar for a drink to celebrate. When we were there some idiot spilt his drink over Erin and we had words then left. She didn't have another jacket so we washed it out as best we could but obviously it didn't work. We only had one glass of champagne each then went to bed." said Rossi, hoping they wouldn't ask anything about what they were celebrating.

Hotch seemed to be thinking it over but Rossi could see that Morgan was still skeptical and they were going to have to tell him more.

Rossi leaned down next to Erin and whispered "Sweetheart, I think we are going to have to tell them about us as I don't see any other way to explain your absence and these ridiculous accusations of you being a drunk. I will only tell them if you agree though."

As Erin thought it through she realised that David was right and gently nodded her head.

"Can you tell them, as I don't think I will be able to without crying. I can't seem to control my emotions as well as I used to." mumbled Erin.

Seeing that his wife was a bit fragile at the moment David decided to try and guide Hotch and Morgan over to the corner of Erin's office, so she could have some privacy to regain control. He filed a mental note to ask her later if something else was going on as he had noticed her being a bit strange over the last couple of weeks but put that down to her nerves over Anna's pregnancy.

"Are you going to give us some straight answers as to what is going on or not Rossi, as my friend can only hold her place in the programme till the end of the day." said Morgan.

"You can phone your friend right now and tell him to give it to someone else as she does not have a problem with alcohol." snapped Rossi.

"And how is it that you know so much about what's going with her Rossi? You two can't even stand to be in the same room as each other let alone sharing a drink with each other at a bar. What is it you are hiding from us?" demanded Morgan.

"Now Morgan calm down. I don't know what's going on either but we need to give him a chance to explain." said Hotch trying to defuse the animosity growing between Rossi and Morgan.

"Fine but I am not phoning my friend unless there is a damn good explanation to what's going on."

"There is but you might not believe me." said Rossi.

"I'm not sure where to start but you want the truth so here goes." said Rossi as he took a seat on the couch. Both men joining on the opposite one.

"Before I came back to the Bureau I met a wonderful woman who agreed to become the 4th Mrs Rossi. I've know her for a long time and we were together casually before I met Carolyn (Rossi's first wife) and she met her husband. When we met again I couldn't believe that her stupid husband had left her for a younger woman but his loss was my gain. We started having regular dinners together and within a year we were married and have been so for 7 years now."

"That's a great story man but you have never once told us you were married again and I still don't see how this effects her. It's not like you married Chief Strauss..." Snapped Morgan.

"Well actually, I did. She decided it would give away our relationship to change her last name to Rossi so she is just Mrs Erin Rossi at home and before you start the director knows about us, as he was at our wedding, and he still said it was okay for me to come back. At first she wasn't very happy that I agreed to come back but after some sweet talking by the director and myself she finally gave in but set some ground rules. One being we treat each other the way we do so as not to raise suspicion as to our relationship as some people would think our relationship might have been going on longer than it has and could harm Erin's career." explained Rossi.

Rossi could see that things were starting to click in Hotch's head about his strange behaviour near Erin and how he never joined in any of the chief bashing that happened amongst the team. He was always the one to change the conversation. Morgan on the other had looked as if he had just shot Clooney (his dog).

"You can't be serious man. Your trying to tell us that the woman who has been the bane of our teams existence since forever is actually your wife! You have got to be kidding me."

"I'm afraid not Agent Morgan. I am married to David here." spoke Erin from beside David.

"Fine. Say we believe that you two are actually married. You still haven't explained what happened during our last case." said Morgan as he sat down on the couch again.

Hotch was still sitting in the same spot kicking himself mentally for not seeing the changes in both of them when he came back to work for the Bureau. He realised now that what he thought were sneak tactics from the Section Chief during the George Foyet saga was actually Erin trying to protect and help her husbands best friend.

"As David told you already, the night before the interview we went out to celebrate as our first grand child, Philip Ryan Mathews, was born that day. I had received the phone call earlier to let us know that Anna, my oldest, had gone into labour back home. My absence from work 6 months ago was due to the death of my ex-husband. He had taken Anna and Tom, my youngest, out for lunch and were involved in a car crash on the way home. He died in the crash and Tom was... Tom was..."

"It's alright sweetheart. I'll finish explaining" comforted Rossi.

Both men were surprised to see not only the Ice Queen Section Chief cry but also to see Rossi be so tender to her.

"Tom had a head injury and was in a medically induced coma for a week to help with the swelling in his brain. He is fine now, thank god, and luckily Anna only had some cuts and bruises. That's actually when we found out she was pregnant. Anna and her husband were over the moon but she found it difficult to come to terms with it after the sudden death of her father." explained Rossi.

As Rossi continued the story Erin got up and went back to her desk as she couldn't be sure if she could hear it again after having to live through it so recently. She sat back down at her desk with a drink of water and thought about how it could be possible that at the age of 48 she could be pregnant again.

"Stop it. You can't be sure yet. You could just be going through early menopause you silly old fool. " She told herself. "You need a pregnancy test to be sure. "

She decided that once they had managed to explain that she was definitely NOT an alcoholic that they would break their rule of driving home separately and she could pick up a test on the way home. There was no way she could concentrate enough to drive home tonight. She'd tell David she needed to pick up some pain killers for the massive headache this mess was causing and get the test then.

As Erin sat thinking about how her life would be changing now, either by becoming a grandmother with early menopause (hot flushes -great) or by becoming a mother for the fourth time. David had continued on with the story of the recent events in theirs lives.

"After the accident Erin decided the kids needed her more that she needed to work so she took time off to help them grieve over their fathers passing and also to help with Anna's pregnancy. After the accident the doctors classed Anna's pregnancy as high risk, she was then diagnosed with pre-eclampsia in her 32nd week. She was put on bed rest for the rest of her pregnancy and if Erin wasn't at work she was round at her daughters doing the housework or taking care of her daughter. We have basically been living there for the last 2 and a half months." explained David.

As he finished his story he noticed the far away look on his wife's face and decided that anymore questions could be answered tomorrow.

"Listen guys. I am going to go home with my wife and give you both some time to digest what we have told you tonight. We would appreciate it if you would keep our relationship private as we don't want people to know about us as it could hurt Erin's career and it could also affect the team. I suggest you both come round tomorrow after lunch to my house and we can answer any questions you want to know." suggested David as he went to his wife's side.

"Come on sweetheart. I'm taking you home. I don't think you should be driving tonight."

"Oh, sure. Let me pack up my files and we can leave." answered Erin absentmindedly.

Once they had left Hotch and Morgan were still sitting there like statues trying to understand everything the couple had told them.

"I think I actually believe them man. I have never seen him act so caring of anyone who wasn't on our team." said Morgan

"The only time I have seen him act like that was when he was married to Carolyn. He never acted like that with his other wives. He must really care about her." mused Hotch as he stood to leave the office.

"I don't know about you but I am going to go home, see my son and then try and figure out how I could have missed seeing their relationship. I am going to go round there tomorrow and I suggest you do too. We don't need anymore animosity on the team after just getting Prentiss back." suggested Hotch as he made to leave the office.

"I'm still not sure she's telling the whole truth but from what Rossi explained this evening I understand how I could have misread the situation. I think I will go over as well tomorrow and don't worry Hotch. I won't even tell Garcia about any of this until we know what is definitely going on between them and they give the okay to do so. The last thing our team needs is more false rumours flying around this place." said Morgan as both men left the Section Chiefs office.


Please R&R

Thanks hope you liked the story.