This Crazy Thing Called Life-Chapter 9

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Dave's blood ran cold at his friend's news. "What do you mean they're all dead?"

"Exactly what I said; everyone who was on the team that took Dmitri Lazlov down has been killed."

"Why in the hell didn't you tell me before now?" Dave exploded. "I have a daughter, I have a family! Did it ever occur to you that I might need to protect them?"

"No one connected the dots until now, Dave," John told him. "I'm not in contact with them anymore, so it's not like I was in the loop when it happened. Plus, you know The Agency; everyone is so paranoid they barely talk to anyone."

"How did you find out?"

"I was going to tap Anna for a job on my current team when I was told she was dead. That, coming so soon after Dmitri escaped, got my antennae up and I investigated the rest of the team. By the time I got through all of the secrecy, I found out that Steve was hit by a car while vacationing in Jamaica, Bob had been assigned to Egypt and was killed during an uprising in Cairo, and Tyler simply went missing for a few days before his body was found in a lake close to his house. The only person who wasn't dead was Sarah, but that changed before I could talk to her."

"What happened to Sarah?" Dave asked as he fought back nausea; Sarah had been the youngest on the team and had had her whole life ahead of her.

John sighed, "She was found in her house; she had been violently raped and then shot through the head and heart."

"Jesus," Dave breathed.

"Dave, you should also know…" John trailed off, not knowing how to say what he needed to.

"What? What do I need to know?" When his friend wasn't immediately forthcoming, he banged his hand on the table. "Tell me!" He barked.

"Sarah's husband and daughter were both killed as well…both were found in the same room as Sarah and they had gunshot wounds to the head. The medical examiner put their times of death as two hours before Sarah's."

"Christ, he killed them in front of her." Other than him, Sarah was the only person from the team who'd had a family and John's revelation shook him to his very core.

"He might not be after you, Dave," John tried reasoning. "You weren't technically a part of the team, so he might leave you alone."

"I can't take that chance," Dave said as he threw a couple of bills down on the table to pay for his drink. "I might not have technically been a part of the team, but it was my profile that ultimately led to his capture."

John followed Dave's lead and stood up when the profiler did. "I'll let you know if I hear anything else," he promised. "Take care of yourself, Dave, and be careful."

"You too, John," Dave said, shaking the other man's hand. After that, they parted ways and Dave sped toward his home, where he knew his daughter was alone. Once there, he pulled into the garage, cut the ignition and sprinted into the house.

"Hi dad," Katie said from her position at the kitchen stove. "You're just in time; I made chicken a la king and mashed potatoes."

"Smells great, Belle," he said with a relieved sigh as he kissed the top of her head. Five minutes later, they were sitting at the table enjoying the meal and talking about their days.

"So after that, the cafeteria got quiet because there aren't many fights at my school," Katie said. She looked at her dad, who seemed a million miles away, and decided to have a little fun with him. "Then we learned on the news that aliens had landed on the White House lawn."

"Mmmm hmmm, that's nice," Dave said distractedly.

"Then we decided to have a keg party in one of the classrooms," she told him but he was still not listening, "And then I came home and found out I'm pregnant."

That snapped him out of his fog a little. "Wait, what?" He asked, confused.

"God dad, you haven't listened to a word I've said for the past fifteen minutes!"

"Sorry, Katie Belle, I've got a couple of things on my mind," he told her apologetically as she stood up and began clearing her place. "You ate fast tonight; what's the big hurry?"

"Kayla wants me over there by eight-thirty and I still haven't packed," she told him.

"What are you talking about?" He asked with a frown.

"I'm sleeping over at Kayla's tonight. I asked you yesterday and you said it would be fine," she told him when she saw his blank look.

"Sorry Katie, it's not happening tonight," he said. There was no way she was setting foot outside of the house without him until he figured out a way to protect her from Lazlov's henchmen.

"What? Why not?" She whined loudly.

There was no way he was going to tell her the about the probable threat against them, so he grabbed and hung onto the first excuse that popped into his head. "Is your room clean?"

"No," she said in confusion, "But it never is. You always told me that as long as you can't see the mess and there aren't bugs, I can keep my room as clean or messy as I want!"

"Well, I've changed my mind," he told her. "You're not leaving this house until your room is clean." He knew that particular job would take her the rest of the night and most of the next day, so he was safe for a little while.

"WHAT? That's not fair!" She shouted as tears sprung to her eyes. It would have been one thing if he'd nicely asked her to clean her room, but to ground her until it was clean? That was crap!

"Tough, that's how it's going to be," he said, knowing he was being completely unfair, but not knowing what else to do.

"You're a jerk!" She yelled and then ran out of the room. Normally he wouldn't let her get away with name-calling, but she was right, he was being a jerk but he would do that and more to keep her safe. A moment later, the loud slam of her bedroom door shattered the silence in the kitchen.

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The ride to the Strauss residence was largely silent the next night. Katie had been giving Dave the silent treatment all day and it had gotten even worse once she was done cleaning her bedroom and had started hanging out in the living room. If there was one thing Dave couldn't stand, it was his daughter's silent treatment and she had learned it well from her adopted mother, Janet. It didn't help that, in this case, she had every right to be angry with him. As pissed as her silent treatment was making him, he also felt genuinely bad for what he had done.

"Are you ever going to speak to me again?" He asked her as they pulled up to a red light. She remained silent and stared out the passenger window.

"What do you want me to say?" He asked gently. "That I was an ass last night? Well, I was and I'm sorry." Katie whipped her head around and stared at him in open-mouthed shock. "What, I can admit I'm wrong."

"Yeah, but you usually don't," the teen said, still astonished that her dad would refer to himself as an ass.

"Anyway," he said with a smile as the light turned green and he accelerated. "I'm sorry that I was in such a bad mood last night."

Katie, seeing an opening, decided to go for broke. "I know how you can make it up to me."

"Oh?" Dave asked in amusement, thinking she would ask him for a new dress or something. "What do you want?"

The teen took a deep breath. "So there's a formal dance next month and I really want to go. Kayla said she heard from Becky, who heard from Maddie, who heard from Jane, who heard from Anna's sister's best friend's boyfriend that Billy wants to ask me and, if he does, I want to go with him."

It took Dave a minute to follow the convoluted train of information his daughter had given him, but when he did, it finally dawned on him what his daughter was asking. He hit the turn directional wand, pulled over to the side of the road and then faced her.

"No. Absolutely not. You are not dating until you're at least 16 years old; we've talked about this!"

"But daaaaaaaad," she whined. "That's totally unreasonable! You owe me!"

"I'm sorry Belle, but that's my rule. I know I owe you and if you want to take a trip to the mall in order to collect, then fine, but you are NOT going on a date at 14," he said firmly.

"Don't you trust me?" She asked loudly, her anger from earlier quickly returning.

"Of course I trust you," he told her. "It's the hormonal high school guys I don't trust. It's not happening Katie, end of discussion." With that, he hit the turn signal again and pulled back out into traffic while Katie huffed and returned to giving him the silent treatment.

Ten minutes later, they pulled up to the Strauss house. Katie got out of the car as soon as it stopped and practically ran to the door, letting herself in.

"Hi honey," her mother as she walked out of the living room.

"Hi," she said tightly as she made her way to the stairs. All she wanted was to be left alone and the only way to do that would be to barricade herself in her bedroom.

"Hey, where are you going? I thought we were doing 'make your own tacos' tonight." Instead of their normal date night, Dave and Erin were staying in and spending time with the kids.

"There's no way I'm eating with him," she said, nodding toward her father who had just walked through the front door. "I'll be in my room." With that, she ran up the stairs and into her bedroom, where she slammed the door behind her.

"What was that all about?" Erin asked, surprised at her daughter's behavior.

"I was a jerk to her last night and as payback, she wanted permission to go to the formal dance next month with some guy and she was less than happy when I said no."

Shaking her head, Erin said, "She is much too young to date; I'll go up and talk to her."

"Actually, I need to talk to you first."

"Let's go to the kitchen, we can talk while we get everything prepared for tonight," Erin suggested and Dave followed. On the way he stopped in the family rec room and said hello to Clara and Allie.

"No Ellen tonight?" He asked Erin as they entered the kitchen.

"No, she's out with some friends," Erin responded as she got two cutting boards out of the cupboard. She handed one to Dave, along with a knife, and the both of them began chopping vegetables. While they worked, Dave gave her the abbreviated version of what had happened to his old CIA team. By the end, Erin was suitably freaked out.

"My God, David! Do you think this man will come after you? What am I asking, of course he will!" She said panicked. "I've got to call Ellen and get her back home!"

"Erin, calm down," he said. "I know what you're feeling, it's the exact same thing I went through last night, but Ellen is fine."

"We have to tell the kids! I have to get protection set up for them!"

"I'm way ahead of you," he told her. "When everything happened with Hotch and The Reaper, I hired a couple of guys to protect Katie from afar. She never knew they were following or watching her so it didn't scare her. I called the same firm and the two men will start their protection detail first thing Monday morning and I arranged to have to people on each of the girls as well. If they set foot outside of the house, there will be eyes on them but they won't know what's going on, so they won't be afraid."

"You did that for my girls?" Erin said, deeply touched by the way he had thought of their safety along with Katie's.

"Of course I did, they're my family," he said with a shrug. "You need protection too."

She shook her head, "I'll be fine, Dave; I work in a secure federal building and I carry a gun."

"So did all of the members of my team," he snapped.

"Be that as it may, I'm not going to have agents following me around." Seeing he was ready to argue with her about it some more, she beat him to the punch. "Are you going to ask for agency protection?"

"No," he huffed, knowing she'd won the argument. "At least let me assign some of my guys to your house when you're home. You won't even know they're outside."

"Fine," she said, knowing it would give him peace of mind. "What are we going to do about this, David?"

"Don't worry Erin, I'm going to find Lazlov and take care of him before he gets anywhere near us," he told her, not knowing just how wrong he would be.


A/N 2-THE AWARDS SEASON HAS COMMENCED! Nominations have opened for the third annual Profiler's Choice Awards for Criminal Minds' fandom! Please visit Chit Chat on Author's Corner forum for the nomination ballot, rules and guidelines and category definitions. Please review all of the information and rules before submitting your nomination ballot. Ilovetvalot, Tonnie2001969, and HxChick are NOT eligible for ANY awards.