Chapter 2 – Arrest

The first thing Hotch was aware of the next morning was the pounding of his head. Barely keeping a groan of discomfort in, he opened his eyes and squinted at the room around him. That was when he realized that he wasn't at home in his own bed.

"Gibbs?" He asked, finally noticing the warm body spooned up behind his own.

A shift and then a grunt that sounded somewhat like, "G'morning" was his response.

"You got any Advil around?"

"Second drawer," Gibbs said in a low voice just behind his ear.

If he hadn't felt so bad, he would have shivered in appreciation at the feel of that mouth breathing so softly next to his head.

Instead, he rummaged blindly in the drawer before finally finding the right bottle. Popping the cap off, he took out and dry swallowed two of the little pills, and then leaned back into the warmth at the center of the bed.

Slightly more awake now, Hotch finally noticed that there was a hand gently stroking his arm. That same hand dropped down onto his stomach and gave his chest a brief caress before trailing down to the top of his boxers.

Swallowing hard at the implications of that motion, Hotch turned back towards the man behind him and asked the next important question. "Coffee?"

. . .

As it turned out, Garcia and Abby were the ones who figured out the connection between the victims. At first they had each been a bit wary of one another, but the longer they spent in cyberspace together, the better they worked together.

"Woah. Slow down Abs," Gibbs was standing in front of her with his hands on her shoulders, Agent Hotchner standing silently beside him as he tried to make sense of what she was telling him.

Abby took a deep breath and then explained what their findings meant. "We traced them back and figured out that all of the victims thus far were all part of the same first grade class."

"How big a class?"

"There were twenty originally. And aside from the five victims so far, there are only six living in D.C. that haven't been targeted yet."

"Thanks Abs," Gibbs whispered, pressing a chaste kiss to the girl's forehead and then heading out the door with Hotchner.

"We'll split up. Send protection details to the women with at least one from either of our teams and then send the others to go after the bastard who's been doing this," Gibbs rattled off to the group of BAU and NCIS agents that surrounded him after they were back upstairs.

Somehow he and Hotch ended up going to the home of a Mr. Arthur McBivens on their own. Something about the house and the quietness of the neighborhood surrounding it unnerved both men, and without discussing it, they both drew their guns as they approached the front porch.

"I'll take the back," Hotch said in a soft voice as he spied a side gate leading presumably to a backyard.

"Arthur McBivens," Gibbs called out after knocking and receiving no response. "I'm a federal agent. I need you to open the door and come out with your hands up!"

Hearing something rustle inside, Gibbs made a choice and hastily kicked in the door, coming face to face with a man with a baseball bat.

"Freeze McBivens!" He growled, pointing his gun towards the other man.

Something crashed at the back of the house and McBivens used the distraction as an opportunity to throw himself at Gibbs.

. . .

The back door was open, and Hotch had slipped into the house quietly, only to come face to face with an old woman wearing a tatty worn out housedress. She gasped and her eyes went wide at the sight of him.

"I'm a federal agent, ma'am. I'm not going to hurt you," he said in a clear voice.

Still not speaking, the woman grabbed the iron skillet from where it had been sitting atop the stove and with a great heave she threw it at him. He dodged it easily enough, but it hit the ground with a loud bang.

Probably alerting McBivens and everyone in the neighborhood of our presence, he thought in annoyance.

And that's when the woman pulled a wicked looking butcher knife out her pocket and began swinging it in the air as she rushed at him.

She was a tough little thing; Hotch had to give her that. His vest saved him from the brunt of her attack, but then she kicked viciously him in the knee and he fell sideways.

"Fuck!" He yelled out as a white hot pain lanced through his right arm. Old woman or not, this lady was going down now.

. . .

McBivens was handcuffed and out cold in the floor of the living room when Gibbs finally managed to get away to check on Hotch. He got there just in time to see him slapping handcuffs on a little old woman laying face down on the floor of the kitchen. It was only when Hotch staggered to his feet that he saw the blood spreading outward from a section of his upper arm.

"Hell," he cussed, starting forwards and grabbing the first towel he saw and pressing it tightly down around the other man's arm.

"That's mine!" The old woman screeched from where she was bound on the floor.

Hotch shot him an exasperated look and he looked down and barked out, "Shut up!" to the old bitch.

Gibbs waited until some of Hotch's people showed up before shoving the man in his own car and sliding himself into the driver's seat.

"It's just a scratch," Hotch argued from beside him, the blood now oozing past the soaked rag he still had pressed against his arm.

"Uh huh," he answered with a frown, grabbing the other man's keys from his pocket and starting the ignition before peeling out into the street.

"Where are we going?" Hotch asked when they missed the turn to the hospital.

"Takin' you to Ducky. He's our M.E. Figured you didn't like docs much," he said, raising a challenging eyebrow at his passenger.

Hotch ruefully shook his head. "Not much," he agreed, leaning back to rest against the headrest.

. . .

"Now my boy," Ducky said to the dark haired man sitting on the table before him, "Don't move while I cut this shirt off of you."

An almost imperceptible wince came from the federal agent and Ducky flicked his eyes towards Jethro, who was standing silently at his side.

"Maybe you should leave," he said to his friend in a soft voice.

Jethro nodded and turned to go when the other man spoke. "No, stay," dark eyes directed themselves at blindingly blue ones in silent entreaty.

"Right," Ducky said slowly, eyeing the men around him warily. "This won't hurt a bit, unless you're the shirt," he said, giving his dark haired patient a brief smile.

It didn't take much longer to get the t-shirt off, and then it became readily apparent why the other had hesitated at the idea of exposing himself.

. . .

Staring straight ahead, Hotch didn't flinch as Ducky cleaned and stitched up his wounds. However, after some uncomfortable silence had passed, he found himself opening his mouth and speaking about where the majority of the scars had come from.

"I was attacked by an . . . unsub in my own home," he said slowly, seeing that he had fully caught the attention of Gibbs and Ducky with his unlikely admission.

He paused, waiting to see if either would interrupt him, but when neither did, he took a deep breath and continued.

"He had been laying in wait for me. Earlier that year, we had been forced to put m-my wife and son in protective custody because of the threats he had made against them and me. He called himself, 'The Reaper.'"

A hand lightly touched his uninjured shoulder and he looked over at Jethro in silent misery.

"Was he the one that—?" Jethro began, only to be cut off with a hasty nod.

"He killed my wife."

"Good heavens," Ducky breathed in commiseration from where he was finishing up with Hotch's arm.

"Where is he now?" Jethro's voice was oddly strained to his ears.

"Dead. I—I killed him," he admitted, tightening his jaw against the rush of memory that flooded his brain with those words.

"Good," Jethro's answered roughly, squeezing his shoulder gently.

"He was going to kill my son," he added in a whisper, dropping his head. "I couldn't let him kill my son."