(I am thinking of writing a short oneshot about Emily telling JJ and Garcia about the baby, but I don't know when I'll get the chance. The novel I am writing is taking off weally, weally well, and I'd hate to break stride on it--on a side note, you can find an excerpt at my homepage…. homepages. ius. edu/ bgoller/ bridgetgoller (without any spaces) under the works of fiction section—the two main characters are a criminal profiler and a criminal psychologist….)

ACCIDENTS ELEVEN

They couldn't break the case. No matter how they tried, they just couldn't seem to find the piece that made the puzzle all fit. And it was wearing on all of them. Three days into the case and there was nothing. Hotch had even had JJ and Garcia flown out to join them.

Emily'd told them the first day about the baby. Hotch didn't know what was said, but whatever it was, apparently the two younger women had been ok with what was happening between Hotch and Emily. If the supervisor didn't know better, he'd think Garcia was actually pleased as punch by it all.

He knew the tech just liked to see her friends happy, so whatever Emily had told her, it was probably good.

It was the one good thing about this case.

Still, their revelation had changed the team, just as much as Elle's leaving, as Jason's, as Emily's arrival, as Dave's. As JJ's pregnancy. And they were all still feeling that. Poor Reid was completely at a loss with two pregnant women, and if Hotch admitted it, it was hilarious to see him.

Especially when they started talking babies. Reid would swallow and excuse himself quickly. Derek would just shake his head, at the women and at the genius. It was Derek who was probably driving Emily the most insane, and Hotch could easily see it. The agent hovered. Especially when out in the field. The Kentucky temperature had easily hit the late eighties, early nineties, and while Hotch had been careful not to partner up with her, the one time he'd sent her out with Morgan she'd come back looking ready to kill him.

The next day he sent her out with Dave instead. What he really wanted to do was assign her straight to the precinct, but with both JJ and Garcia there, there was no need for a third. Plus, he knew she'd object royally if he relegated her to a stay-behind position. Still, it didn't stop him from wanting to grab his phone and call her every fifteen minutes.

He'd sent Reid and Morgan south of Louisville following a lead, and he'd sent Emily and Dave north into the hills of Indiana. He'd chosen to stay in the city itself with the local FBI agent, Ted Mayors. He was a man about Hotch's own age, and of similar manner. Hotch had been immediately comfortable with him when he'd met him on a previous case six years ago, and the two had remained casual friends. He'd felt a resurgence of that comfort until the conversation took a turn he wasn't too happy with.

"What's it like?" Mayors asked.

"What's what like?" Hotch ran one thumb over the face of his cell phone, fighting the urge to call her, just to check. She'd woken pale and ill, and he'd heard her in the bathroom on the other side of his wall.

They'd not been together since the night they'd taken the test. Her choice, although she still had her room to herself. JJ and Garcia had opted to share a room, and Hotch knew they were assuming he was sharing with Emily. Only Dave and the two of them knew the truth.

Emily might have admitted to being with him—at least long enough to make the baby—but when it came down to sliding into an actual romantic relationship, she was proving mighty resistant.

He knew it all boiled down to her fear of loosing control. He'd long suspected she possessed slightly obsessive-compulsive tendencies, at least a very mild sort. It was in the way she organized her desk, her files, her home. He remembered his initial impressions of her home the one time she'd let him in. Neat, feminine but not overly so, classic yet modern, and so severely organized the place shouted—to him, at least—the pathological fear of losing control.

An unplanned pregnancy, especially your supervisor's baby, was enough to throw any woman into a tailspin. To have that supervisor suddenly making demands on you, was just another brick added to the wall you'd found yourself trapped against.

Still, she didn't pull away from his touch, and he took that as a good sign. He'd have her yet, one way or another, it was just a matter of time.

Mayors took the next exit before continuing. "Don't take this the wrong way, but a lot of us have been wondering."

"Wondering what?"

"Well, we don't have many female agents in our office. And none that look like yours, at least not more than one I can think of."

"Excuse me?" Hotch's tone had turned slightly lethal, and neither man missed it.

"All I'm saying, one team leader to another, is how do you prevent problems from developing? I mean, you have some hot women on your team, Hotch. Real hot. You have to be aware of it. You don't wear a ring, you've been divorced for a while. You got to have noticed, especially the brunette."

"What are you getting at?"

"So has anything ever happened?" Mayors asked. Hotch could read the man's sincere curiosity in his gaze. The profiler sensed it was something more.

"Yes." Hotch admitted. "It has. It's always a complicated situation."

"And has it worked out?" Mayors didn't ask who. Hotch found that telling in itself.

"You have feelings for this woman in your office?" Hotch asked, catching the subtleties behind the man's questions. The man wasn't overly expressive but Hotch knew his friend pretty well."Does she return them?"

"What? No. Of course not." The man's words were flat and they both knew he was lying.

"One of my agents is pregnant by another team member." Hotch admitted, though he'd normally not be so free with personal information—even with his friends. "It's made things a bit awkward with the rest of the team."

"Jareau? You're team seems to be pretty accepting, almost pamper her."

"No. Not JJ." Was all Hotch said. "It's a recent development. It's changed things."

"And how are you dealing with it as team leader?" Mayors asked.

"One hour at a time. She's independent, stubborn, and damned good at her job. I can't afford to change anyone's position in the team. We're too balanced as we are. Keeping her out of the field for the next seven months or so, will put a big press on the team. But the other part of me…"

"I understand. So two members of your team are pregnant?" Mayors asked, as they pulled the car to a stop outside the latest victims' home. They'd had two more attacks in as many days and it was growing more brutal. "Wow. I'd guess that doesn't happen in this line of work very often."

"Yes." Hotch said, "And it was completely unexpected, for all of us."

"So the agents involved, are they going to be sanctioned for breaking fraternization rules?" Mayors asked as the two suited men walked confidently up the stone sidewalk and ducked under the bright yellow crime tape stretched over the porch rails.

"No. How can I sanction myself?"