A/N: This is an evil plot bunny that took over my life until I sat down to write it. Now that I have written it, I hope I'll get some peace, but plot bunnies are evil little beasties. Anyway, if you like, please read and review!

An Unusual Case

Chapter 1

Aaron Hotchner stared down at the case file in front of him, his brow knotted in thought. JJ was right about it being an unusual case. The only case he could remember that came close to it was the case with the 911 operator trying to save kids from their parents, but this was...unusual. If an unsub kidnapped an adult, it was usually for some purpose. This case...hmm.

Sighing, he got to his feet and left his office to brief the rest of his team, already gathered in the conference room. There was JJ, Rossi, Spencer, Garcia, Derek, and Emily. Spencer's nose was buried in the file, Garcia was chatting with Derek, and Rossi and JJ were deep in a discussion. Hotch cleared his throat as he entered and he was immediately the focus of everyone's attention.

"Needless to say, we'll be taking this case," he said as an opening. "It's...unusual."

"In the extreme," Reid agreed. "Basically, this kidnapper is kidnapping people just to...kidnap them."

"So far there have been three victims. They've all been held approximately three months and then released, and after a period of a week, the unsub takes his next victim. So far, none of the victims have even seen the man's face since wears a mask. All of the victims described a man with the same build and voice, and they've all described the same room where they were kept. Since the last victim has just been released and the police waited a bit before calling us, we have at most five days before he takes his next victim."

"All of the victims taken were low-risk," Derek said, turning pages in the file. "The first one was a martial-arts instructor and volunteer for the local youth program, the next, a Marine sergeant home for a few weeks' leave, and this last, she was a gym instructor and triathlon participant as well as a hospital volunteer. All of them healthy, able to fight back, and all of them with good situational awareness. These people would not have been easy to abduct."

"Interesting," Garcia said, looking over the witness statements. "Is it normal for kidnappers to...I don't know...take care of their victims like this one does?"

"That's part of what makes this case so strange," Rossi admitted. "It's like he took them just to take care of them."

"Brand-new clothes, nicely-furnished room, home-cooked meals, access to workout equipment, an entertainment center, books and magazines...the unsub did everything but take his victims outside," JJ concluded.

Reid blinked and pinched the bridge of his nose. "The whole case is strange. When an unsub abducts an individual, that individual is taken with a purpose in mind. Whenever one of the victims asked their abductor why they were taken, he only answered with a 'why not?'"

"That's Weird Central in Weirdsville," Garcia commented.

"That's not an understatement, baby girl," Morgan told her.

"Right," Hotch said, drawing their attention back. "Pacerton PD has called us in. It's a small town of about ten thousand in Kansas. In their history, there has never been a string of kidnappings like this. Word has gotten out to the press and the town is in an uproar. People are demanding that the police do something, and we're that something. We have five days to figure out this man's game, prevent him from taking another victim, and apprehend him. Wheels up in thirty."

The plane ride was passed in going over the case files and trying-in vain-to come up with some theory.

"If I were to really reach, I would say that it's an extreme case of Lima Syndrome," Reid said, flipping through the case files one more time.

Garcia was listening through the video feed. "Is that like Stockholm Syndrome?"

"Sort of," he admitted. "It's where a captor comes to care for the captive, rather than the other way around. They start to have doubts that what they're doing is right, so they start to take care of the captive. This usnub, though, doesn't fit that model. He takes someone, holds them for a period of time while providing all the comforts of home, and then lets them go. There's no mention of sexual exploitation, mental torture, requests for ransom...it's like his whole motivation for kidnapping is just to take care of someone."

"And how often does that happen?"

"Intimacy-seeking stalkers will care for their victims when they devolve to kidnapping, and other expressive kidnappers have a purpose in taking their victim…" He paused and looked at the screen. "Almost all of them are bad, but this unsub doesn't seem to have any of those purposes in mind when he takes someone."

Once again, Garcia had the perfect word. "Weird."

Reid nodded. "Yep."

"J.J., how do you think it would be best to approach the media in this case?" Hotch asked.

"If the town's in an uproar, the best approach would be to show a calm facade," J.J. answered. "Calling us in shows that the police is doing something, and if we're calm, then hopefully, everyone else will be. We can offer the usual precautions and so forth, and underneath that calm we'll be working frantically."

"Like always," Derek added. "I'm really interested in finding out more about this unsub. I mean, have any of you heard of something like this?"

"There was that guy who was rescuing kids from unfit parents, and then that one woman who wanted to be appreciated…" Emily said thoughtfully.

"Yeah, but this guy is...out there." Morgan looked through the file again and shook his head. "Seems like some weird reverse-dependent personality."

"Or something…" Hotch said thoughtfully. "Let's wait until we talk to the victims before we make any conclusions. It may be that one of them can tell us something that will give us answers."

Talking to the victim was interesting. They were all a little tense at being interviewed and all of them were adamant that their captor had not harmed them.

The first victim Hotchner and Rossi spoke to was the martial arts instructor, Gerald Blake. The rest of the team listened in on the interview. He was in his forties, and had a kind yet kick-ass no-nonsense demeanor. He described his kidnapper as "weird, but all-around, a nice guy. Good cook. Fun to talk to. He'd play word games with me. Never threatened me, never got violent."

"Not once?" Hotch asked, surprised. "Say, when you mentioned leaving?"

"Nope, not even then," Gerald told him. "He said he knew that I wanted to go home and he promised I would when our time was up. He actually had a list of things I could do to get time taken off."

Eyebrows rose all around the room. "Would you feel comfortable sharing some of those?" Rossi asked in the following silence.

"Nothing bad," Gerald said. "Sit down and share a meal with him, and he took off a day. Sit down and play a game, the same. A game of 20 Questions about me got me two days off."

Hotch checked the number of days Gerald had been held. That sounded about right. "Okay. What about where he kept you? Can you tell us anything about that?"

"Big room. Screens divided it up into a living area, dining area, workout area, and bedroom. The bathroom was a separate room, but it was as nice as the rest of the place. Nice furniture. Decor was okay, but a little boring. There were cameras, though, so I always changed in the bathroom. That was the only place without one. The cameras were creepy, but I learned to ignore them after a while. I'm thinking they were his way of keeping an eye on me and making sure I was okay."

JJ and Emily exchanged looks. That was...super-creepy.

"What did you spend your time doing?" Rossi asked.

"It was boring, at first. There was an entertainment center, so I watched TV a lot. Later, I started picking up books, and of course, I spent some time everyday on the treadmill and lifting weights. Dinky little hand weights didn't do much, but they were better than nothing."

A captor giving their captive a possible weapon and trusting them not to use it? Hotchner jotted that down.

"You said that he brought you meals," Rossi said. "How did he do that?"

"There was a slot in the wall next to the table," Gerald explained. "He'd slide trays through there for me. Later, when he sat down to share a meal with me, he came inside. One of the rules was that I couldn't try to see his face. I don't know how he made his half of the table dark, but I couldn't see him, even though he was a few feet from me. It was weird, but as long as it got me time off, I wasn't going to complain."

"Did he ever force you to do something that you didn't want to do?"

Gerald shook his head. "Nah. If he wanted me to do something, he'd suggest it, and if I didn't do it, he didn't say anything else about it. It was always something like, 'Why don't you go to bed now, Gerald?' or 'I think it would be a good idea if you took a break.' Things like that."

"That's it?" Rossi asked.

"That's it."

"And when he took you, how did he accomplish that?" Hotch asked, looking concerned.

"Honestly, I have no idea. One second I was heading to the car after locking up the dojo, and the next, I was waking up in that room and he was telling me not to be afraid. He said that a lot during the first couple of weeks. Didn't want me to be scared of him. At first, I was just pissed, but then I calmed down, but I wasn't really scared. Worried, yeah, but not scared."

They didn't learn much else from the other two victims. They all described the same setup, the same rules, and everything else Gerald had mentioned. The female victim did state that whenever their captor couldn't make the room dark, he wore a ski mask, but he was never close enough for her to tell what color his eyes were. All of them described a tall, broad-shouldered man with a deep voice, dressed in jeans, work boots, sweatshirt, and a ski mask.

"Did he ever leave you alone, for any length of time?" Hotch asked her. He'd asked the same question of the two men and both had said yes, for hours five days a week, but the length of time often varied. There had been no pattern either of them had been able to discern.

Hotch wasn't surprised when she said the same thing. The unsub had been in complete control all the time.

It was past midnight when they decided to stop going over files and head to their hotel. Reid stumbled on his way out the door and Hotch caught him by the elbow to keep him from tumbling down the steps to their car. JJ was carrying too many files so Hotch took some. Once at the hotel, they all gathered in Hotch's room to have one last re-hash so they could wind down enough to sleep. They shared their impressions, offered their theories and conclusions, and made a battle plan for tomorrow.

"I am not looking forward to the press release tomorrow," JJ said.

"We may have bupkis on figuring out who this guy is, but at least it's interesting bupkis," Rossi opined, leaning back in his chair.

"Sooner or later, there's got to be a break in the case. His victimology is pretty consistent: strong, care-taker types with a lot of responsibility and stress in their work. Police have increased their patrols and once we speak to the press tomorrow, there'll be public awareness for him to worry about. It won't be so easy for him to take someone by surprise. Next time he tries to take someone, somebody will notice something and we'll get our break."

"From your mouth to God's ears," Emily said, trying to stifle a yawn. "I vote we get some rest before we all fall asleep where we are."

A snore answered her. All of the team turned around to stare at Reid, who had taken a seat on the floor to lean against the foot of the bed. He was out like the proverbial light.

"Awww," Emily breathed. "Quick, somebody take a picture and send it to Garcia!"

Reid didn't wake up until after the camera flashed. He never did find out why his teammates all started laughing when he asked if it was time to go to bed.

The next day was just as hard as they were expecting. The public were not happy to hear that the BAU was not this superhuman force that had already managed to catch the bad guy. All day long phones were ringing with people demanding that somebody do something about this nutjob prowling the streets. What Aaron really wanted was a concrete profile to offer them, but so far, it was still too fluid. When the time came to offer a preliminary profile, he could tell that no one was happy.

Hotch took a deep breath and started. "This is a man who likes to be in complete control of another person, down to where they sleep, what they eat, and what they spend their time doing. This man is patient, meticulous, and is seeking to build a relationship with each of his victims in which he is the caretaker and can control their environment down to the smallest detail. He tends to gravitate toward individuals who undergo a lot of stress and responsibility in their work. He enjoys the challenge of subduing powerful individuals, even though he has an imposing physical build. Despite his build, he is not a threatening individual. It is likely he can approach almost anyone and immediately begin to build trust with a victim. He is not feared, rather; people seem to trust him as a matter of course. Look for someone who works in a position of authority-police, firefighter, public official, an educator, or doctor. With the added public attention on the case, it will not be long before someone notices something."

An officer immediately raised a hand. "So, basically, you're telling us most of what we already know, but you want us to look at our own force and so on? How do you know he's in a position of authority?"

"This is someone who thrives on caring for someone else. It is likely that he enjoys that role and finds that his time doing his job no longer meets his need for caretaking. It's not likely he has a family on which to expend that need and he feels the only way to meet it is to abduct strangers who, he feels, deserve some care," Hotch elaborated. "Finding him will not be easy. Due to his meticulous nature, he will have covered his tracks. None of the victims noticed someone paying attention to them or following them prior to their abduction, and they all had high situational-awareness, so he is good at blending in and being unnoticed. This ability to hide in plain sight will make him that much more difficult to find."

One officer muttered something under his breath. Hotch didn't catch what he said, but he agreed with the sentiment wholeheartedly.

That was another long day. The thing that really surprised all of them was when the female victim came to the station to show them something.

"It's my birthday today," she told them, placing a box on the table in their temporary headquarters. "When I opened my door this morning, I found this."

They examined the contents of the box. Inside was a brightly wrapped gift and birthday card in an envelope. The police examined the items thoroughly and found nothing dangerous. In the envelope was a card covered with pink roses and the words "Happy Birthday!" in curly writing. Inside the card there was no little poem about birthdays, but there was a handwritten message. Happy Birthday, Sherry. Our time together was short, but I will cherish it always. I am always thinking of you and hoping you are happy. Your Caretaker. At a detective's request, Sherry opened the gift and inside it was a leather-bound journal.

She smiled when she saw it. "I told him I like to write."

A kidnapper who sent gifts for a victim's birthday. That was definitely a first in Hotch's career. The police promised to increase patrols at Sherry's house until the man was caught and she went home, reassured.

No one on his team was reassured. If anything, the gift raised more questions. They kept the card to run some handwriting analysis and possibly look for any matches in their databases, but Hotch already knew they wouldn't find anything. The man was too careful to come to the attention of the authorities before now.

He looked around the conference room at his team. Morgan was squinting at their files, looking for a pattern. JJ was looking over all the media coverage. Emily was helping Derek with the files, and Rossi was examining a map. Reid was passed out in a chair. He'd been going hard all day and not even all the coffee he'd drunk had been able to keep him awake. Silently, Hotch picked up Reid's jacket and covered the sleeping agent with it.

Rossi looked up and smiled. "Awww. Poor kid's all tuckered out."

Hotch looked Reid over. "You know, this late and in this lighting, he looks a little like Jack does when he's asleep."

"So, spread out like a starfish?" Emily asked.

JJ stifled a chuckle. "Sounds about right."

Reid shifted in his chair and let out a little snore, but he didn't wake up.

"Dinner was six hours ago," Hotch said, feeling his stomach complain. "Did all of you want to press on, or should we call it a night?"

"Do you really think that if we quit now we'd make it to the hotel?" Rossi asked. "We've got the whole town watching us like hawks. Like angry hawks. Someone should explain to them that Rome wasn't built in a day."

"I doubt they'd listen. I vote that we press on until we all end up like Reid."

"For that we'll need more than just police coffee and vending machine food," Hotch sighed. "I'll go get us some provisions and when I get back we can get back to work. Maybe with some food we'll all perk up."

"Espresso would be best," Rossi advised. "Want some help?"

"Nah, won't take long," Hotch said, firmly quashing the desire to yawn. "Be back in a few."

Hotch left the station and headed down the street to the all-night restaurant that catered to the station. When he was gone a half-hour, his team were starting to wonder just how long he was going to take. At forty-five minutes, they started ringing his phone and went in search of him. They found his phone behind a trash can in an alley, but there was no sign of Hotch.