Title: Bumps in the Road Part 1: Another Day at Work
Author: Trista Groulx
Rating: T
Disclaimer: I do not own these lovely people, they belong to their network, creator, writers, actors and actresses who bring them to life. Don't sue you'll get debt and makeup and skin care products.
Summary: Reid and Prentiss are happily married, but sometimes work and bumps get in the way of what they want.
Notes: Another instalment in my Prentiss Reid series (Wedding Date Blues, Learning Something New, Who Celebrates Six Months, Drama Love and Parents, Planning the Big Day, Sometimes the Best Laid Plans). This one is more of a case fic, which a lot of drama thrown in there. Oh right I'm evil, sorry, didn't mean to be but it just worked out that way with this one.

Emily Prentiss woke up with a smile on her face. She moved in the bed a little bit, and found her husband, Spencer Reid's, lips. He let out a tiny grunt before his arms snaked around her, pulling her to him in a powerful hug. His eyes didn't even open. She laughed, Reid was not much of a morning person if he didn't have to be awake he didn't want to be. For the first few months they were married this would work. Now however there were mornings he still wanted to sleep.

"Spencer," she purred, running her hands up and down his chest.

"Emily it's sleep time," he groaned. "You had me up late last night."

"I had you up late last night? I thought I married a man with eidetic memory. He remembers the dates of every milestone in the time we have known each other, and the maps of every city he's ever been to, but he doesn't remember what he did to me last night. If anyone should be tired it should be me, you're the one who has an oral fixation."

"I didn't hear you complaining last night. Besides didn't you wake me up to make that oral fixation work to your advantage?" His eyes were still closed but his hands were slowly making their way down his back toward her ass.

"Mm, well maybe I did, still, you're the one who won't wake up."

"I'm awake."

"Your eyes are still closed."

His eyes popped open and he flipped her over onto the bed. She let out an excited squeal, as his lips began their journey at her neck line. The two of them were just starting to get comfortable when their phone began to ring. They both sighed, knowing that it was JJ calling about a case.

"Ever want to ignore it?" Prentiss asked him, drawing circles on his bare chest with her hand.

"Yeah, every time it rings. Then I realise they know where we live," he replied, getting up slowly. "Then I remember that JJ has our spare key, and can be a madwoman when she is on a mission. So I think I could continue whatever it is we are doing, but it would likely be the last time we did it, because I'd never get over someone walking in on us."

Prentiss laughed. "Fine, you're so shy Spencer Reid."

"You knew that when you married me Dolcezza."

She got up and began to get dressed while Reid took the phone. He spoke for a few minutes and began to get dressed himself. He was in a pair of brown corduroy pants, and a light blue button down shirt. Prentiss came out of bathroom, now fully dressed. Reid was putting on a brown pattern sweater.

"No," she said.

"What do you mean no?" he asked, knowing she was talking about his sweater. "I can dress myself."

"You can dress yourself, but you have no style sense. Now that we're married I can fix that. As much as I love you geeky side, you don't have to wear it on your sleeve. Just be glad I find something strangely sexy about those glasses of yours. That sweater was out-dated before you born." She was rifling through the closet. "So what's the case?"

"It's in Dallas, there are four women missing. They are all redheads, housewives and in their late thirties. They all disappeared from the same mall. There are no bodies, and no sign of the women but there are too many similarities for it be just a case of missing persons. We're meeting on the plane."

"All right, there's what I was looking for."

She handed him a plain dark purple sweater. He sighed and pulled it on over the button down shirt he was wearing. He didn't really like purple, but had learned the hard way not to argue with his wife. She said he looked sexy in purple, and she liked it. She smiled, kissing him softly, before they both grabbed their go bags. She took the keys from the hook on their way out the door.

They were soon at the air strip. As soon as they got within eyeshot of the rest of the team Reid's hand fell from where it had been on her back. Prentiss hated the feeling of losing his hand on her body. She found it comforting that he would have his hands on her when they were walking. Even though they had been married for over a year Reid was still the picture of professionalism as soon as they started work.

Even though Hotch had assured him that they could still act like themselves, Reid refused to bend his personal rules. One of which was that they not share a room when they were out of town. Prentiss had been so desperate to change this that she even told her mother. Knowing she would talk to Section Chief Strauss, telling her she had to bend the FBI's rules about agents sharing rooms. She told them that she would turn a blind eye to it. Still Reid said it was better if they acted like they always did when they were working.

Everyone began to get on the plane, taking their usual seats. Reid and Prentiss had taken to sitting next to each other, and this would sometimes lead them to curl up together in their sleep on the plan ride home. When Prentiss had asked him about that, Reid explained that the case was technically over, so they weren't really working. He also added the fact he had no couldn't control what he did in his sleep.

JJ began her presentation about the latest case as soon as the fasten seatbelt sign was shut off. She went through the victims in the case, who all looked eerily similar. The team knew that this was going to be a challenging case it would only be a matter of time before bodies began to turn up.

"This guy is taking a very specific kind of woman," Morgan said, staring at the pictures in front of them. "Maybe he's a collector?"

"It's possible," Hotch agreed. "There seems to be something more here though."

"These women probably remind him of someone, his wife or his mother, and she is either dead or she's left him so he's trying to replace her," Reid suggested.

"You could be onto something Reid," Rossi agreed. "But why would he take so many women in so few days?"

"He's trying to find the right one," Prentiss explained. "Just because she looks right doesn't mean she's acting the way he wants to her to. Maybe he's keeping them long enough to see if she'll change into who he wants."

"He doesn't want to have to re-live losing that person again," Morgan added. "Then these women should be fairly safe."

"For now," Rossi sighed. "We need a lot more in order to find this guy."

"Seeing where these women lived and were taken from will give us more ideas," Hotch assured the team.

They all continued to discuss theories about the unsub until the plane touched down. They all got into two SUVs and headed to the local police station when they arrived they were set up in a conference room.

"Are we going to have a press conference about this?" asked JJ.

"I want to hold up on that," Hotch admitted. "Drawing attention to this is going to make him do something rash. Right now we can assume that these women are safe. I want to be able to warn these women but we don't want him to escalate and hurt any of the victims."

Reid was looking at some maps, and looked up from what he was doing. Everyone knew that look on his face. He had already found something that they had missed, before Hotch could even organise his own thoughts as to where the team should go next.

"All these women live in suburban sub divisions," Reid explained. "I had to check the map, but I was right. If we can't do a press conference we could always go door to door in those neighbourhoods and warn people to be careful."

"All right, so I guess we're going to be doing good old fashioned door knocking for today," Hotch said. "I'll go see if there are any officers able to help us out, to get the most ground covered."

"Can I stay behind and work the geographical profile?"

"Sure. We'll call when we need you," Hotch agreed.

Hotch left the room in search of volunteers to help canvass the neighbourhood. They decided it would be easiest if each member of the team was paired up with one of the locals. Reid had made himself comfortable in the corner of the conference room as he worked on the geographic profile while Hotch and Rossi went to each of the victim's homes to see if anything there might give them some clue about what had happened. They knew the mall parking lot wouldn't be very helpful because there were too many people in and out.

Prentiss had been paired up with a young detective named Geoff Allen. There was something about him the rubbed her the wrong way. She had tried to talk Reid into tagging along with them, but he was onto something with his geographical profile, and told her that he needed to focus on it. She really didn't want to be alone with this guy, but she knew she wouldn't get Reid to change his mind. When he started something he always had to see it through.

After about an hour the detective was getting on Prentiss' last nerve. Anytime he tried to talk to her he stared at her chest. She would try to keep their conversations professional, but he always found a way to steer them in a different direction. She kept thinking that he couldn't possibly get any more annoying he would. She could feel his eyes on her chest when they spoke, and on her ass while they were walking. Even Reid wasn't that fixated on her.

"Okay, seriously, you need to stop that!" she snapped. "My eyes are all the way up here!"

Normally she wouldn't be bothered by someone looking at her like that, but she felt like she was a piece of meat on display. She wasn't normally this cranky, but she hated canvassing, especially with some cocky detective. She would have preferred to stay at the station, she would even have helped Reid with his geographical profile she was so annoyed, but she didn't know why. Normally she could tune guys like this out, but today she couldn't.

"Agent Prentiss you are so sensitive. Can't a man admire a beautiful woman?" he asked, smiling at her.

"He should try keeping his opinions to himself. We are working a case, there are four women missing and you are acting like a horny teenager!" she replied.

"What if we weren't working a case, Agent?"

"I would still be married, Detective."

"Ever thought about cheating?"

"You did not just say that!" She growled, wanting to punch him in the face. "I'm done working with you."

"Fine, you finish up this street, and the next one over and I'll keep going. You're the one who keeps telling me there are four women to think about."

"Fine by me I'll meet you back at the station."

Prentiss could not believe that the detective had actually said that. She tended to wear her rings on a chain when they were in the field. She was going to have choice words for his superiors when she got back the station. She knew that she shouldn't keep going on her own, but she was in the suburbs, she felt safe. It was only a few dozen houses, she'd be fine, then she'd call Reid to pick her up.

She watched Allen go off on the opposite direction and felt a sense of relief wash over her. She began to knock on doors. There weren't many people at home at that time of day, but it was the stay at home wives this guy was targeting so she just kept ringing on doorbells waiting for someone to answer. She would scan every once in a while to see if Allen came back, glad to not see him. She knocked on another door and was a little surprised to see an older man answer it.

"Who are you?" he grumbled.

"Emily Prentiss, I'm with the FBI," she replied, getting out her badge.

"FBI?!" he demanded. "What the hell are you doing here? I didn't do nothing wrong. Why are you here?"

"I'm just canvassing, there are four missing women. I'm just warning people, and asking if anyone has seen anything suspicious."

"I don't know nothing about any missing ladies."

"Then I'm sorry to have bothered you Sir."

Prentiss turned around to leave. This guy wasn't going to be able to help her. He wasn't in the demographic being targeted, and didn't seem to have the mental capacity to hide four women from anyone. She decided she needed to go back to the station, this was going nowhere. She was pulling out her cell phone when she felt something hit her over the head. She didn't even have time to react, before everything went black.

End part 1

Notes: All right, so this might be evil. I'm not going to draw it out too long I promise, it's only four parts, and the last part will more then make up for my evilness I hope… Next up "Where's my wife?"