Discs.: You know how it goes...
A/N:Just changed a bit...
Sweet, little secrets, part 1
3.A difficult case
Two weeks later :
They all had noticed that something was going on with Hotch, he locked his office now even when he left it only for a few minutes, sometimes he was a lot more cheerful as before, he even smiled sometimes what was really rare especially since Elle had left but there were also times when he seemed totally stressed, but nobody wanted to ask, what it was.
They only got the case in and JJ wanted to tell Aaron about it, like usually. His office door was closed but in the past it hadn´t mattered if it was open or closed. But this time…
Meanwhile in Hotch´s office :
He hadn´t slept at all. It had been like a few times before, to be more exact it happened 7 times – he knew it exactly. Something he wasn´t sure about at all was what this whole situation meant for everyone who was involved into it. He tried to focus on the task at hand. He was thinking about what had happened before Elle had left. The guilt he had felt for everything, he had wished to be able to change the past. How much he had missed her before they met again in that bar. Images of the last night came back to his mind.
Flashback:
He had arrived in record time. After he had let himself in, with the key she had given to him during their third night together, he went to the kitchen, because he heard her washing the dishes. When she heard him approaching she turned around and smiled, her gorgeous smile. He pulled her closer and gave her a kiss.
Later, when they laid in bed together he stroked her smooth skin. Suddenly his fingers touched lightly the scar on her chest and he noticed that this scar was his fault. Elle noticed the look in his eyes and wondered for herself what Hotch thought when he finally said : " I´m sorry for…" she stopped him with giving him a kiss. He noticed then that, what she had said that one day after he had to let William Lee walk, was not what she really thought. But it didn´t changed anything for him.
End flashbackSuddenly his office door was being opened by JJ and his thoughts were interrupted. Before she was able to say something Hotch stood up and went, with a very angry grimace on his face outside. JJ followed him. After he had the attention of every team member he made clear how angry he was. " Who the hell you think you are? There is something called right of privacy…There are reasons why my office has a door, for at least a bit of privacy! And to make this clear it will have consequences for you, JJ…In the future you will write every piece of paperwork with hand, your payment will be shortened over 15 percent and if I only find one mistake in a report of you, you will rewrite it ´til it is perfect!" " Hotch…" " Don´t called me this! Maybe I was not saying something against it before but now it´s over with that! I´m your boss, a person you have to respect. For all of it´s from this moment Supervisory Special Agent Hotchner , Agent Hotchner or even Aaron, but never ever again Hotch… Was that clear enough?" "But," it was Morgan again so Hotch made his point clear with an "Well, it seems like I made it not clear enough…I think, because you wouldn´t have a problem with not using the pc for your paperwork, it would have more effect on your behavior to shorten your payment as well! " Suddenly Gideon said : " Don´t you think that´s a bit hard and unnecessary?"´ "I´m the boss not you…And I have enough of your behavior in front of me. I have enough of, " he looked straight at Gideon "an agent who is in the opinion of the directors of the FBI unable to do his job without getting agents killed," he looked at Morgan "an agent, who is a person who is totally concentrated on himself, " he looked at Reid " a person who thinks he knows everything," he shot a stone-cold look at Prentiss " and last but not least I have enough of an agent, who has this job only, because of daddy dears, but is a horrible profiler ! Was that clear enough? Then let´s get to the case!" JJ gave them the details and they boarded the plane.
Everyone was talking quietly about Hotch´s outburst. Suddenly his phone ringed, he pulled it out of one of the pockets of his jacket an answered it with a " Hey " He fought the impulse to smile when he heard Elle saying warmly : "Hey yourself!…You can not talk, right?!" " Yeah…A new case… I will call this evening, okay?" He ended the conversation. JJ approached him with an unreadable expression on her face. " I have the information you asked for…" He nodded and after getting them handed over he said : Listen, I´m sorry about what I said…It´s just…I don´t know, I haven´t slept that much in the last time. I hope you can forgive me my behavior…I mean you have not really done anything wrong, because in the past it was not a problem and maybe I was kind of harsh…Of course you don´t have to write everything per hand and I will not shorten your payment…" She only was able to nod. He felt ridiculous about the fact that he nearly begged for forgiveness from a subordinate. He wasn´t the type of person who acted that way…
His thoughts were now focused on the case but often he had to think about his outburst that morning. He regretted the things he said to his team members, he hadn´t a problem with being called Hotch and also not with their behavior. What he had said was not really true, except the things he said about Prentiss. What he said about her was his real opinion she was not as half as good as Elle, like he had told Elle in that bar, he hated her for taking Elle´s position in the team away, because he had hoped she would come back someday. And to top it he couldn´t really do anything against her being there, because of her father. So the situation this morning had been the perfect chance to tell her his opinion without her running to daddy and bare her soul to that bastard and tell him how cruel her new boss is to her. Another reason, why he hated her was the fact that everytime he saw Prentiss he was reminded of his failure : He hadn´t been able to protect Elle, even if it wasn´t making Elle angry it made him angry…He was still feeling guilty for not telling Agent Anderson to stay there with her…Or maybe he should have brought her home himself?? His thoughts were interrupted ones more, this time by Gideon , who took a seat next to him and asked : "Have you meant what you said this morning?" Hotch shook his head no. Gideon´s face was lit up by an expression of satisfaction and he relaxed.
Two hours later near a small town :
When they arrived they were met by the police officers who had found the two bodies. In the police station they were informed about new leads the police had found. The two women had been raped and then killed with a cut through their abdomen. The unsub had redressed them in dresses like princesses, he had put make- up on their faces and arranged the bodies in an, on pictures of fairy-tales oriented way. Another thing was that it wasn´t the first case like this in that town. There had been another four women, who were killed like this but no real lead. The press was calling him the fairy-tale-killer, because of the way he was arranging the bodies. The women had not that much in common with each other except the fact they were all pregnant since a short while. The unborn children had vanished and nobody knew what happened to them.
One possibility the team thought of, was that the unsub, was totally fascinated by tales, that he had a problem with his sexuality, and was, because of that reason, letting the unborn babies vanish, to build for himself and maybe also others the illusion, the women were still virgins. In cases like this he wished so much Elle would be there to tell them her conclusions, but she wasn´t…
After a while they had completed their profile, after they had taken a look onto the crime scene and also onto photos of the crime scenes of the other murders. They described him to the police officers as a man in the middle thirties, white not very suggestful in his job, single, a quiet person who had grown up in a rich family, always watched by a nanny.
Very late that evening :
They were right with their profile and caught him soon, even if it was not that easy for them. But they had to stay because of the horrible weather. So they decided to go to eat in a small Chinese restaurant. Because of the case they had forgotten Hotch´s outburst that morning, so the atmosphere was light and they talked in a good mood about the case and other stuff. After they had finished they went to a bar to celebrate the good ending of the case, which had been partly kind of difficult.
It was a nice evening and when they arrived back in the hotel they were shocked when Gideon´s cell started to ring. He listened carefully then he hung up. " Bad news, it seems like we got the wrong guy. There was another murder in the woods…" They walked back to the two SUVs which were rented for them. And drove back to the police station.
After they arrived back there Hotch searched a quiet spot and took his cellphone, because he wanted to hold his promise from earlier that they. He dialled a number he knew by heart. When Elle answered the call, he smiled inwardly. Just hearing her voice was making him wish to be with her. He was seeing images of her in his mind and was starting to feel aroused by the combination of her voice, telling him about her day and the memories of their nights together. He finally told her : "It will take a while before I will come back to D.C. We actually thought we had the unsub, but then there was another murder, like the last six and,…." He told her about the case, told her what they thought and asked her what she was thinking. After hearing her opinion he told her what he did that morning then they ended the conversation. When he started to walk to the others his cell started ringing. It was Haley…He explained her the situation and told her to give their son a kiss from him. When she said she loved him he answered : " I love you, too." He noticed he wasn´t sure about this any longer. He was really not sleeping that much, because of work and all the things, which were going through his mind. And when he was able to sleep it was more exhausting than recharging his batteries, because he had nightmares, about his troubled childhood, about Haley finding out about Elle, and then there were also the other nightmares back, the ones he had since Elle had been shot.
Tbc
A/N: Hope you liked it and PLEASE REVIEW!!!
