Disclaimer: I do not own anything Criminal Minds related. Characters are merely borrowed and will be put back later. ;)

Fair and Foul

Chapter Eleven- Profiling

"Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions."

Agatha Christie

Emily groaned, breathless and flushed. She was perfectly happy to ignore the trilling tone of the phone to kiss him again and again and again- as often as she could- but the person on the other end wasn't hanging up. Exasperated, she aimed to reach for her jacket on the floor- but Aaron caught her arm tenderly and stopped her. "You'll hurt yourself," he said, "And I don't want that."

She knew that his particular ailment was just as bad- if not worse, but she allowed him to reach for the jacket and hand it to her. She reached into the pocket as he rested his chin on her head and ran his hand along her lower back.

Emily pulled the phone open and, trying not to think about the warm hand on her back, said a quick "Hello?"

"Emily. It's JJ."

"JJ! Are you alright? You sound awful," she asserted and pulled away to look up at Aaron, whose eyes were now fixed concernedly on her face, tied into her and thinking the same thing- what's wrong?

"I- Emily, Strauss would kill me if she knew- but I had to call. We got a case. It's a bad one. We have nothing. It came in this morning and we're heading to New York in a few minutes. Strauss told us that we're not to contact you- not if we want to keep our jobs- but we've hit a brick wall."

Emily glanced up at Aaron and said "Hang on, I'll put you on speakerphone, Hotch is here with me."

JJ didn't even question why Hotch was at Emily's house. They had only left the Bureau about an hour ago- although an hour was really quite long, when she thought about it- but she was so worked up that she couldn't think it through properly.

"JJ, give us the details," Hotch said efficiently.

"You won't believe it, I promise. Five women and three men, six children and one pensioner killed in New York over the past three weeks."

"Fifteen people? In three weeks?" Emily asked, aghast.

"Yeah. But that's not the worst bit," JJ said softly- and Emily was very happy Aaron still had an arm around her waist- "He's sexually assaulted the women and the pensioner, beating them into submission, cut the limbs from the men and left the children dead and bleeding on the streets."

Emily flinched openly, disgusted by the detail. And she had a feeling she hadn't heard the worst of it.

"JJ, is there any way you can send us the full details?" Hotch enquired, already deep in thought- albeit looking very worried.

"Aaron," came a new voice over the phone- Rossi's- "We were hoping you and Emily would fly out and help us out."

"But Strauss said-", Emily began-

"We know. But you two are good at things like this- it could be terrorism or so far not need you. If you came out... we could be as quiet as we needed to around Strauss."

"I take it that Strauss will be at the scene?," Hotch asked drily.

"Yes. She's gone home to get packed- which is ridiculous, she's holding us up- but we had to call, and this is the best time," JJ said quietly.

Hotch looked at Emily in silence for a few seconds, neither of them making any change of expression or change of attitude. Emily was biting her lip, Aaron's face was twisted into the familiar swell of sickness at the crimes committed.

"We'll be there," Emily said decisively into the phone, never taking her eyes from Aaron's face.

"Thank you," JJ sighed.

Emily closed the phone and said nothing for a while, hoping he would either yell at her or jump right into the investigation. But she knew him better than that- he was weighing, measuring, thinking through logically the sense of them going to New York.

"Aaron..."

"I think you made the right choice. We'll go there. I'll go there- happily. But it doesn't look good for the BAU's survival long term if they can't cope. She's destroyed their confidence and their structure," he sighed angrily. "Let's get ready to go. My bag is still in my car," he noted softly and when she smiled at him he muttered "Old habits die hard I suppose..."

***

She had never been in the car with him for an extended period when he was moderately stressed and caught up in thought about a case. He talked to her, discussed the case with her, and yet the romantic side still shone through- he deeply regretted that JJ had called at right that minute. Could she not have waited an hour?!

"What do you think? Does Dave have a point, terrorism?" he asked her as they came to a halt at a red light.

"I'm not sure. JJ said nothing about the killer making any point, we'll have to see when we get there. But generally it doesn't seem to fit the bill- there are specifics for each gender, three different MOs, and children? Why target children? I don't think it's political."

"I agree with you- this is probably the closest thing to Frank we're likely to find. Entirely purposeless and if the killer is really making no point, then he's a real psychosadist- the worst kind."

She nodded and sighed. She felt as though she had never been gone, and sick though the thought was, she was glad that the separation anxiety was hitting everyone equally.

***

On the plane, they didn't talk about the case. A commercial airliner in the wake of the post 9/11 torture of flight traffic restrictions and fears was not the place to discuss mass killings. They spent the flight pleasantly enough, determined to put the badness out of their minds as often as they could- not to mention the complications arising from their involvement with it. If they were to be honest, it made both of their heads spin. Aaron held her hand and kissed her fingers and lips whenever he could, happy to be seen with her and talking to her.

She felt relaxed by the time they got off the plane, their "hand luggage only" status preventing a long queue to get out of the airport. She thought she never seen Newark quite so busy, but she shrugged it off, knowing that it was only because she never usually flew there- especially not on a commuter flight at this time. She missed the BAU jet- the bar stocked and ready when she needed some Dutch courage, the quiet and important talks that had happened and overall, the amount of available sleep space.

She knew exactly where they were headed. It was always the same, only this time they had to rent a car and slowly drive through traffic- total nightmare- before they arrived at the old familiar hotel they always used. It wasn't overtly expensive, and it wasn't overtly luxurious, but the BAU team had decided many years before that spending large parts of their budgets on hotel rooms they rarely saw was pointless; it wasted resources that would be better spent elsewhere.

Wandering into the lobby, Emily took off her sunglasses and walked to the desk as Aaron checked his messages- Rossi had left one to say that they had arrived at the hotel an hour previously (having skipped the traffic and the commercial flight)- and that they were heading out on the case. As Aaron continued to listen to the message, he watched Emily booking them rooms.

When she was finished talking to the clerk, she passed her credit card over the counter and paid quickly and efficiently. Usually, this step was also forgotten about with the BAU- a hotel bill was generally sent to the Bureau and the Bureau dealt with the expenses.

Sighing, he wandered closer to the desk and Emily turned to face him. "Here's your key," she said, handing him a plastic card which he took from her while turning to face the receptionist.

"I believe you're holding something for us? Emily Prentiss and Aaron Hotchner, a friend dropped something off here earlier..."

The receptionist said that she would check and looked under the table, quickly producing a rather large brown envelope and handing it over. Emily took it and smiled at her, before turning to head for the elevator.

Aaron Hotchner hated elevators. Always had, always would; but there was no way he could climb the stairs to the 13th floor. Thankfully it was spacious and empty but for the two of them. There was no point in denying it; he was nervous about what sat in the envelope Emily had under her arm. It seemed so counteractive to be here in New York, helping the team, when he knew that eventually they would have no option but to do this on their own. He wasn't sure why he had come. The logic had occurred to him that the team would eventually have to fend for themselves, but his heart was still intricately tied to the FBI and the loyalties that he still had there. He simply wanted to help.

Emily glanced over at him. "Aaron. I know exactly what you're thinking," she said as the elevator beeped and the doors pulled open, "Don't think about it. We're only here as a backup."

He nodded at her and took her hand as they stepped out of the lift, wandering down the hall with her. "I don't want to be presumptuous," Emily said, "But I might as well tell you that it's one room. They had no singles, and well... it did cost less."

"Emily. I know. I would have done the same thing. This isn't being offset with FBI funds."

"Exactly," she intoned, disgusted once more at being outside the loop of the team. She had never realised how hard it was going to be, separated from the internal thinking of the entire BAU- everything was oddly different and the entire experience was surreal.

Hotch pushed the key into the door and when the green light flashed on, he pushed it open, letting her inside before following her. She dumped her bag on one of the beds and sat down at the nearby table, brown envelope with their names written on it in front of her. He followed suit, dropping his bag next to hers and sitting on the other chair, pulling it to the table.

She opened the envelope and took out a number of files, the provisional thoughts of the team contracted into shorthand on some of Rossi's notepaper tucked in with them. The photographs fell out of the files and the gruesome images spread across the table.

"What is that....?" Emily asked, though she had already worked it out. Staring up at her from one photograph was, undeniably, a number of human hands- five, she counted- some of the fingers interlaced and some broken.

"We need somewhere to pin these up or lay them out," Hotch noted, reading Rossi's handwriting.

"The closest thing to a notice board we have is the other bed," she noted, standing up with some of the picture in her hands and walking to it, laying them out in her traditional fashion, grouping them according to victim type and the names attributed to each. The photographs of the crime scenes, such as the one with the hands on it, she grouped in a separate area and she just looked at them all for a few minutes, thinking about the chain of events that had led to such brutality.

She was thinking about how to overcome some of the doubtless fit and strong men in the photographs when Hotch brushed past her to look at some of the pictures in detail.

"Rossi's notes point out that there's no message here. He's just abducting people, taking their shoes and clothes, beating them senseless, sexually abusing any women but not children or men. He severs the hands of all the victims, but only actually fully dismembers the men."

"Looks like a medic of sorts. He definitely has medical experience, there's some very neat work in the cuttings on the edges of the wounds," Emily said, "And none of them are related, I presume, judging by the names. If he gets some sort of sexual satisfaction from the women, what's the deal with the men? And the children? Not to mind the hands, why take the hands from all of them? Some of the fingers are broken, almost as though-"

"Almost as though they were alive and kicking when their hands were sliced off," he finished for her. She nodded as he continued, "There are smaller cuts around the wrist areas that resemble hesitation marks, but I don't think that's what they are. I think the victims fought back sometimes or somehow, and he couldn't control them at times- mostly the men."

"Age is just a number to this guy, and nothing more. None of the women look alike and none of the men had the same profession or social class. The children had mostly been out playing or walking- which means he must blitz them or be friendly enough to approach them- and the old woman... Well, that makes no sense at all. It's manic, more raging than anything else he'd done before. Did she just get in his way?" Emily suggested, half to herself.

"It doesn't make a whole lot of sense- three separate MOs, no sincere pattern of victimology, no signature that we can see. It's almost as though he's not a serial at all," Hotch noted.

"The MO is specific to gender and age, that's the only thing that sticks out. Maybe that's a signature of itself?" Emily thought aloud. "Seems a bit like George Foyet... an omnivore."

"Exactly. An omnivore. He has a system for everyone, he's not being picky. He'll fit himself around what he finds on the street. Still, he shows preference; the younger women were beaten worse and abused worse than the older women and the pensioner. The men were ripped apart and degraded- maybe they're not good enough to fit his standards?"

"Might be," she said, "But what about the kids?"

"They remind me of Frank. He always said that hurting children did nothing for him- but he targeted them when he wanted to make a point to Gideon. I think the point he might be trying to make is that he has no type-" Hotch said, "But what's really striking me is that if you put these on a pedestal, these are ordinary men and women, family people, no criminal records for any of them, nothing that makes them stand out at all. He's avoiding anyone of consequence, anyone extraordinary, and none of them were attacked in their homes."

"Yes! If we look at it in a different way, what he's not saying is of more importance than what he is. He doesn't trespass, he treats men as lesser beings, he leaves no message so he has nothing to prove- he's narcissistic but only insofar as he has to make us see him that way," Emily noted, seeing they were coming to something.

"So if he's looking for no response, that means he needs none. He's not dependent on our attentions, he doesn't need them- he has enough attention as things stand. Someone in the public eye, someone with power in his hands- because he shows most brutality toward women in their 20s, we could say that he might be a little older than them. Definitely white."

"Probably has a criminal record for sexual assault or at least attempts- but it feels like we're still missing something," Emily said, the idea niggling in the back of her mind.

"He's highly intelligent and focused on what he has to do... hang on. We said maybe medical. What if he's a surgeon?" Hotch finished.

Emily picked up her cell phone and rang Morgan. Within five minutes, the profile was fitted and ready to go- but it didn't make Hotch feel any better. He felt even worse than before. The help they could give was worthless in the long term- because Strauss simply wouldn't let them in.