Authors Note: Welcome to my first challenge fic, written in response to the New Years Challenge on Chit Chat on Author's Corner Forum. I signed up with the character of Hotch, with his resolution being that he would smile more and awaited my assignment for the other half of the pairing. I will confess that as soon as I signed up I started mentally planning different scenarios depending on what character I might be assigned and had rough sketches in my head of how it could play out depending on characters.
I knew I probably wouldn't be lucky enough to get one of the women, but the one I was silently begging from the beginning to not get was Reid because he was the only one I personally struggled a little with how to fit that dynamic together. Now I know why they call them challenges and wonder who read my mind to assign him to me, lol. That said, it was fun to sign up and be put in a position where I had to write outside my comfort zone even if it may not be my best work and the challenge was definitely helpful in getting me to think outside the box.
I did consult a beta for some brainstorming when I decided the bald look was not for me after spending a week struggling with where to go with it. So many thanks to Kitty (starofoberon) who supplied me with a couple of brilliant ideas while we emailed back and forth that allowed me to combine a total of 3 abandoned attempts into one fic that came together. She helped me not go totally AU as I was originally beginning to resign myself to having to do. So her help is much appreciated. She helped with brainstorming, but grammatical/punctuation errors are all mine.