I don't know who to feel sorrier for: Dave and Mischa, or the team. Well, Hotch is going to get his deathbed confession if it's the last thing he does...and it very well might be. I hope you don't mind that I focused on Hotch for this chapter. But I hope more than anything, I captured him and who he is. Please let me know if I succeeded.

I don't own Criminal Minds because I could never intentionally hurt Dave...or the team.

No Place Left To Fall

Hotch was desperate for any news on Colleen Fontaine's condition. Two hours after accompanying her in the ambulance, the doctors were still mum on the outlook.

It had taken everything he had to coolly place a phone call to Strauss and update her with the case status. Three minutes and more cuss words than he thought possibly existed later; he finally got a word in edgewise. Calming her down, Hotch explained what happened upon arrival to the residence and how no one was aware of Colleen Fontaine's current health problems.

Hanging up the phone at the desk, Hotch walked over to where JJ was sitting. "Any word on Reid?" he asked taking a seat beside the liaison who was busily texting Garcia. Once Colleen was loaded into the ambulance, Hotch had ordered Reid to go thru the house and find anything that could point to where Dave and Mischa were being held.

"So, far Reid has found items connecting the two to Rossi's abduction, but nothing that would help us locate him."

"Tell Garcia to tell him to keep looking. Even if they have to turn that house upside down, something is there that will tell us where Dave is."

JJ dutifully typed the message. Glancing quickly at Hotch, JJ let Garcia know she had to go and would be back shortly.

"What's on your mind?" she asked.

"This case," Hotch replied.

JJ nodded. "Not the fact that Dave and Emily went behind your back and got married?"

"It was wrong of them."

"How is it wrong that they found love and wanted to be with one another? Or is it that they by-passed the FBI regs that state marriage between a senior and junior agent in the same department in clearly forbidden?"

"They broke the rules."

JJ gave a slight chuckle. "When has David Rossi ever followed the regs?"

"This was different."

"Hotch, it wasn't as though he was having an illicit affair with a co-worker; he did the right thing this time…albeit he went about it the wrong way. But there is nothing punishable about falling in love and wanting to be happy."

Hotch stared ahead. He remembered holding Emily in his arms as she wept after he broke the news that Dave had been abducted. The sadness, the grief…it all came out as her body shook with sobs, and he had held her so tight. He tried to imagine what Dave would have done in his place. Then he shook his head as a memory of Hailey flashed thru his brain and the look she gave him back in the early days of their marriage -before life and the FBI got in the way…before The Reaper took everything away in an instant.

He was jealous. He was jealous of Dave because he had found his reward of love and happiness…albeit it was with a fellow agent, but honestly could he have found any one more perfect? Cut from the same cloth emotionally and mentally, proud and determined to prove themselves to anyone no matter the cost, and buck the system if politics got in the way…Emily was the perfect balance for a man like David Rossi.

And Emily…she was everything Hotch had wished Hailey could have been: determined, strong, loyal and non-judgmental. He wondered if Hailey had ever wept over him like Emily did for Dave. He couldn't imagine her shedding a tear for him. Maybe at the beginning, but toward the end, he knew she blamed him. Hailey made what he did personal; Emily made what happened to Dave business; she couldn't afford to make it personal.

"I think you're jealous," JJ continued.

"I think….maybe you're right," Hotch confessed quietly.

Taken aback at his confession, JJ tried to find the right words. In all the years she had worked with Aaron Hotchner, not once could she recall such an open confession. "How are you going to tell Strauss?"

"I'm not. I figure it's their secret to tell, and when the time is right, they'll let everyone know. Of course that doesn't mean that the journey to hell is going to be any less painful."

JJ gave him a soft smile. "We're taking bets that Strauss is going to blow a brain cell."

Hotch felt a grin tug at the corner of his mouth. "I hope I'm there." What his team did was wrong, but… Stop it, Aaron! He chastised himself. But what he would give to see Erin Strauss swallow her tongue for once. It would serve her right.

A doctor approached them. Standing up, Hotch made the introductions and asked about Colleen's status.

Heaving a heavy sigh, the doctor didn't try to mask his features with neutrality. "I'm not going to sugar coat it; it's bad. From what I gather, she has had heart problems in the past and was on a combination of Procardia, Mavik, and Percodan. Initial blood tests indicate a high level of drugs in her system."

"You think she deliberately overdosed?" Hotch asked.

"I'm saying that she knew the right combination to take to make her heart stop."

"Is she conscious?"

"Yes," the doctor replied reluctantly. He knew his patient was the chief suspect in several abductions and murders and the FBI wanted her to divulge information to the possible whereabouts of one their agents. But she was still a patient with medical problems that did not need to be exacerbated by pissed off federal agents.

"May we talk to her?" Hotch knew Colleen had the answers and he was well aware that the doctor would stop him from talking to her if it meant she could go into cardiac arrest again. But if she died with the answers to Dave's whereabouts before they could question her and Dave died….he didn't want to think about it.

Sensing what was about to go down, JJ quickly sent a text to Garcia to have her put Strauss on stand-by.

"I know what this is about Agent Hotchner and I'm really not for you berating a dying patient. But at the same time, I have two daughters and if something had happened to them and someone held the answers… anyway; I can give you five minutes."

Inwardly, Hotch relaxed. "Thank you." Following the doctor to the CCU, he waited for the curtain to be pulled back before stepping into the small confined space. The sound of a heart monitor and BP machine indicated that at the moment the main suspect was stable.

Standing over Colleen, Hotch took in her tight features. He had stopped trying to figure out what made people tick. After Foyet, he had given up trying to understand what made people hold on to a level of hate so intense that it consumed their every waking moment.

"Colleen!" Hotch demanded. Slowly her eyes opened to look at him. "I'm Agent Aaron Hotchner of the FBI. We met earlier. Do you remember?" At her nod, he continued. "Are you the mother of Carter Fontaine?" Another nod. "Do you know where he took Agent David Rossi?"

No response. Instead she closed her eyes and turned her head away. Hotch felt the anger swell. No matter what Dave did or didn't do, it was no excuse for the horrible hell she and her son had committed against their victims.

"I'm asking nicely; where is David Rossi?"

Sighing, she opened her eyes and glared at him with hatred. "In hell," she whispered.

"I got that earlier. Why?"

"He killed Jamie. He lied and Jamie died as a result."

"Agent Rossi didn't lie and he didn't kill James Gifford. Gifford made his own bed without any help," Hotch corrected.

"Jamie was framed."

"And you think that Agent Rossi was the one who framed him."

"He destroyed my family."

"You didn't have a family," Hotch countered. "You were in a mental hospital impregnated by a serial killer."

"Jamie didn't mean to kill those women; that bastard framed him for his own profit. He wrote a book and made millions while my Jamie lay dead by his hand."

"Agent Rossi was in Quantico when the trial happened; he had nothing to do with the trial and sentencing."

"He hired that whore to frame Jamie."

Hotch hesitated. Although he didn't totally agree with the methods Dave and the investigators used at the time, he understood the hows and whys that the situation had called for. "She had nothing to do with Gifford killing those women. She was used to bring him in, but it was his choice to walk away. Gifford made his choice, now you need to make your choice. Tell me where Agent Rossi and the woman are."

Colleen closed her eyes and turned her head away.

"Please. For once, do the right thing. I understand that you hate Agent Rossi, but why are you taking it out on innocent women? You do realize that when the FBI catches up with your son, they will kill him. The word has been given to shoot on sight. He will not survive and all you have tried to accomplish will be for nothing. Is that something you can live with?"

One tear escaped to run down her cheek. Hotch could feel the fight inside of her. He just hoped that the good fight won…for Dave's sake.

"If you want David Rossi to pay for killing Gifford, wouldn't it better serve your revenge to have it done in a court of law? Let the law do its job and make him pay that way than to make an innocent woman pay the price. You've been the innocent woman done wrong…you know how it feels; please do the right thing," Hotch pleaded in a tight voice. It was all he could do not to yell at her and shake her silly, but the moment called for decorum.

"If you want to see David Rossi pay for his crimes, you have to tell me where I can find him to arrest him. If Carter kills him before he can go to trial, people will remember him as an innocent man killed by an angry son bent on revenge. But if I can arrest him, the world will know the crimes he committed."

"You FBI people stand together when it comes to one of your own," Colleen whispered. "You'll let him go. He'll never be punished."

"Colleen, I'm a prosecutor; I know the law. If David Rossi broke the law, I will have to prosecute him -FBI agent or not. I'm under oath here, but I have to find him. Tell me where he is."

Slowly, she turned her head to look at Hotch. For the first time since he walked into the cubicle, hope shined in her eyes. "You'll protect my boy?"

"If I can find him, I will do all I can to make sure that nothing happens to him."

"He's not a bad boy."

"I understand. Where is he?"

"He's…" Colleen gasped for breath. "He's…" Her eyes rolled up in her head. Suddenly the heart monitor alarm sounded as a crash cart was rushed in. Unable to fathom the scene in front of him, Hotch watched as the doctors tried to shock Colleen back to life.

He barely felt the nurse push him outside and close the drapes. Stupidly he stood still and waited as he heard the noises on the other side. He barely felt JJ come up beside him.

The seconds ticked by so excruciatingly slow.

Suddenly the sounds stopped and the curtain parted. A doctor stepped out and walked over to Hotch and JJ.

"I'm sorry but we lost her," the doctor apologized and walked away.

Hotch felt the fight leave his body. This wasn't happening. They had been so close to saving Dave and Mischa and now… What was he going to tell Strauss? What was he going to tell Emily? Blankly he looked at the cubicle and then at JJ. He tried to speak, but couldn't.

"Hotch," JJ began. "I got hold of Garcia. She said that Reid found cell number with a Virginia area code. We believe that it's to a phone Carter Fontaine was using to contact his mother. Garcia traced the number to a couple of towers and narrowed down the location that Dave and Mischa could be at. Strauss wants us back in Quantico to formulate a plan."

Hotch thought over JJ's news about the cell phone revelation. "Is Garcia sure about the towers?"

"If I had to guess I would say she's 98 percent sure."

Hotch gave one last glance at the curtain that hid Colleen Fontaine's body. She, like Gifford, had made her bed and could lie in it. Now Carter was going to face the same fate.

"Contact Reid and tell him that we will be there to pick him up shortly," Hotch ordered, fully back in the role of Unit Chief. "Then contact Strauss and tell her what happened. Stress to her that Colleen overdosed."

JJ furiously sent a text to Garcia as she rushed to keep up with Hotch's pace.