Thank to the reviewers, inlcluding Ecda and Sussi! Thank you as always to Chiroho for the beta. Only five more chapters of this story left...

Some adult language in this chapter.

Humanity

"There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go."

- Richard Bach

Chapter Twenty-Five

The purple gloves stopped her from picking her fingers, a habit Emily fought the urge to turn to to as she watched Hotch pace round the room, Morgan seated at a table in its centre. Karl Hammond had been arrested, and was being left to stew in a cell until the morning, by which time he would have sobered up. Morgan, it seemed, had been given the benefit of the doubt for what had happened by the Salt Lake cops, but Hotch didn't look as if he would be taking such a light view of the events.

Emily wondered whether she ought to step into the room instead of watching through the window. Her presence, she knew, would be enough to calm Hotch slightly and possibly diffuse the situation. The shocked expression had left Morgan's face, and had instead been replaced with a sullen look, one she'd seen before on rare occasions when things hadn't gone Morgan's way.

Nothing had been said for more than five minutes; both men clearly considering how best to approach discussing what had happened, and so much had happened: the failure to follow basic procedure, followed by Morgan's altercation with a civilian. Emily closed her eyes for second, unable watch with anticipation and fear for what was likely to happen.

They were both alpha males, dominant and intelligent, and not as different from each other as they liked to believe. Both would be blaming themselves right now: Hotch for not intervening earlier; Morgan for not protecting Reid and any other officer who could have come into that room. Emily doubted that Morgan regretted holding Karl Hammond against the wall.

They'd caught the story from Officer Furmston on the way back to the station, and it had rung bells with Emily. There'd been an evening, a year or so ago, when she and Garcia had spent some time drinking wine and discussing anything that seemed relevant. Emily had just ended yet another meaningless relationship with someone she hadn't been interested in, and had needed her mind taken off the fact that she'd just wasted some evenings that could have been spent catching up on Prison Break instead.

Morgan had been one of the topics they'd covered, the wine breaking down Garcia's confidentiality rule, and she had told Emily about his aunt who had been killed by an abusive husband the year after his father had died. Emily's retelling of that information to Hotch while Morgan was being interviewed by a Detective Bier had softened Hotch slightly, but it wasn't going to lessen the blows that Hotch was likely to verbally throw.

"I need an explanation, Agent Morgan, of why you didn't check an obvious hiding place for a suspect, thus endangering the life of another agent," Hotch said, his tone as cold as the snow that had lined the streets outside.

Emily could see that Morgan was refusing to make eye contact, trying to avoid confessing what had created this situation, and Hotch's posture became even tenser, were that possible. While Hotch could have more patience with an UnSub or a victim when needed, he wouldn't necessarily use his reserved of it for one of his team, and in this case, Emily thought it was justified.

Morgan's actions had jeopardised their case.

They were now two men down; Reid, although now out of surgery and recovering, would be kept in hospital for a good couple of days; Morgan was likely to be suspended pending an investigation into how Reid was stabbed three times by the very suspect they were trying to find. That left herself and Rossi to work the case, with Hotch joining them after sorting out the avalanche of politics that was now falling around his ears.

"Morgan," his voice was firm, but she recognised the breaking note. "I need an explanation of why you have failed to follow procedure, and then become engaged in a fracas with a member of the public. You've put all our necks on the line here, and I think we deserve to know what's been going on. You know that this team relies on trust, and you know I how much trust I place in you. I don't think you've reciprocated that trust. The past few days have shown how little you think of us, Derek."

Emily felt the cut of the words as they came out of Hotch's mouth. Hotch had hit Morgan's sore point, an issue that had been raised back in New York and had never been truly resolved. She waited for the return punch, but it was slow to come.

"This is nothing to do with the team and my job, Hotch. This was personal," Morgan said, sounding distant.

Hotch shook his head. "You made it to do with the team, Derek, when you became distracted from your job and put whatever personal issues you're having before the success of this investigation. When you put Reid's life at risk."

Morgan stood up. Emily found she had taken a deep breath and was holding it in. He pushed his chair away and stared at Hotch, his face warped by the thoughts that were going through his head. "I fucked up. I didn't check the wardrobes because I got caught up in finding the primary crime scene. If Reid hadn't knocked me out of the way, Savage would have taken me out completely. Suspend me; fire me – do whatever it is you need to do, but I am not about to spill my guts to you about my personal life."

Hotch's features could have been carved from stone, such was their hardness. He slammed his fist against the table, the suddenness of the violent sound making Emily jump. "Damn it, Morgan," he spat. Emily saw Morgan react to Hotch's loss of control, and for a second he looked unnerved, the reality of the situation breaking the shield he'd placed around himself. "Are you prepared to lose everything you have – 'cause I know what your job means to you – over some domestic violence case that we've seen dozens of times before?" Hotch shook his head. "Because that's where your head's been. If you want to give up everything you've worked for, give up the potential to save lives, to do what it is your were put here to do, then walk out of here now and don't bother coming back. Because if all it takes for you to throw everything away is one sorry upset in your screwed up personal life then I don't want you on my team." He walked out of the door and slammed it shut, casting Emily a glance as he paced away down the corridor, presumably to call Rossi.

Emily watched as Morgan sat back down, the wind sucked from his sails. He was cupping his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking, and Emily knew that he had just been broken. For a minute or two she was a voyeur, breaking that unspoken rule of never profiling their own, and then compassion calmed her and she entered the room.

She didn't sit down; she didn't want to interview him. Instead she stood behind him, steadying his shoulders with her hands. Saying nothing, she waited for the shakes to subside, and his hands to move away from his face.

"He told you to come in?" Morgan said. She felt the tension in his shoulders, but left her hands there as a reassurance, because right now that was what he needed.

"No, but he probably expected I would," she said truthfully. "Garcia told me about your aunt a while ago, but Hotch's right – we've seen these cases before and they've never caused this reaction in you."

Morgan nodded slowly, inhaling deeply for a few seconds before speaking. Collecting himself. "I felt low the night before we came here," he began. "I left where I was, with a girl, and decided I was going to end it – it was casual anyway. It had begun to feel meaningless." At any other point she would have mocked him for his realisation, but now was not the time. "On the way out of her apartment I saw a businessman knocking about his woman, who wasn't what you expect your typical victim to be, and it pissed me off that I couldn't do anything that wouldn't cause more trouble for her. I felt powerless. When I saw Karl having a go at Chloe when we got here, I guess I just wanted to do something to stop what I knew was going to happen."

Emily applied pressure to certain points on Morgan's shoulder, unknotting muscles. "This isn't because of what happened to your aunt, Derek. And it's not because of what you saw."

"I know," he said quickly. "I know what I've been doing. Trying to fix things other than what's in front of me. I'm a profiler too, you know."

Breaking their contact, she walked around the table and sat down, knowing that he was now ready to look at her, to return to the connection they'd had since the day she'd told him about Kurt Vonnegut. "I know why you kept your distance. It's difficult to have secrets in this unit. But some things can't be a secret, Morgan. You end up hurting people. That's why Hotch just acted like he did..."

"He had every right to, and he should transfer me off the team," Morgan interrupted. "I've put Reid's life in danger, man. You know how that feels?"

She said nothing, making no gesture. The question was rhetorical.

"I didn't trust the team to help me, Emily, because I didn't want them to see my weakness."

The statement hung in the air, loaded. She thought how Rossi would deal with it, how Reid would, and then trusted herself finally. "We all feel like that, Derek. None of us want to appear vulnerable, because we know that vulnerability can kill you in so many ways. But we all understand what this job does to you. You partition yourself off so you can survive, but then you end up feeling lonely because no one understands what you see every day and what you dream every night. You can lose yourself in a physical act, but it doesn't negate the hate and pain we see and live with. We need lightness, and sex doesn't always bring that. We need that mental connection too, and when we don't get it, we stop being who we are."

He looked away from her, ashamed. "I don't know what to do," he said, confessing.

"Start by talking to Hotch," Emily said, her forearms resting on the table. "Not now, not today. He needs time to calm down. But he will understand where you're coming from, Morgan."

"He's disappointed in me," Morgan said, the pain in his words telling of the thoughts that were currently circling in his mind. "I've let him down."

Emily nodded. She couldn't lie. "But at one time or another, we all let down the people we care about. It's human nature; we're flawed, and it's how we deal with those flaws that makes us who we are."

He left her words to settle in the ether, his eyes staring into the nothingness of the table. "I'm going to head back to the hotel," he said. "I need to sleep, or try to at least."

"I'll let Hotch know," she said, standing. "And I'll phone St Mark's and find out how Chloe's doing. At least Karl won't be able to get to her for a few days while she recovers."

"You think she'll ever leave him?" Morgan said, almost urgently.

Emily shrugged. "It's only Chloe who can make that decision."

"I know." There was defeat in his words. "Thanks, Emily."

She gave him a nod, leaving the room, wondering how this had happened and what would become of it all.

Rossi stared at the computer screen looking at Garcia's rather more garish than normal lipstick. He'd already adjusted the colour on the monitor, yet it still bothered his senses, and he'd not had enough whisky yet to numb them.

"Lee Ashley," she said, as if about to make a big announcement. "To all appearances dead. No trails anywhere. However, your goddess of all things unfathomable has worked her magic yet again." She stared at him from several thousand miles away, and Rossi longed for the days of phones rather than webcams. "Tell me again that Reid's okay."

"Garcia, I've already said this three times. They're keeping him in for a couple of days, but it won't be long before he's discharged. Nothing major was hit, and the wounds aren't deep. Just a small case of an artery being nicked. Now, tell me what you've got, so that when Hotch and Emily appear I can keep their minds of everything else that's happened today."

For a moment a strange look crossed her face, quickly replaced by a smile that he could only describe as odd. "Okay. Hotch mentioned that Lee's mother, Leah Ashley had changed her name to Rachel Jacobs, a name with quite a few biblical connotations. He also talked about Lee's first, and as far as we know only, girlfriend Gemma Lafayette, nee Gemma Romney. I assumed Lee would know about these name changes, so worked out some permutations, and lo and behold we had a winner with Jacob Lafayette. I can, given that I am a genius, link the two names together with a bank account that has no other activity other than a regular monthly withdrawal of three thousand dollars. It's taken out in cash from different branches in both Utah and Colorado around the tenth. I suspect he has another alias, and is probably practising under that. So..."

Rossi resisted a shudder as Garcia continued, wondering what her output of carbon dioxide was like.

"...I've pulled up a list of pharmacists in the two states, looking for anything that stands out. Any suggestions, as this list is a little like Kevin's Christmas list?"

Rossi thought for a second as Garcia look expectantly at him. "Look for obituaries and death records for pharmacists that died in 2005 or 2004, and see if they're still practising," he said finally. "I suspect that Lee Ashley will have taken on someone else's identity as it would have been the easiest thing to do."

"Gotcha," Garcia said, a figure entering her abode.

Rossi squinted at the screen. "Is that Agent Mansfield?" He wondered if another trip to the optician was in order; he was convinced he had an astigmatism.

"No, sir. Why would Agent Mansfield be in my office?" Garcia said, clearly lying. He needed to give her lessons in the art.

"Well, if you should see him, remind him he owes me a bottle of Laphroaig," he looked accusingly at the screen before flicking it off, knowing that if Garcia came up with anything else, she'd call him, a form of communication he much preferred.

Pulling out a neat moleskin notebook, Rossi began to log what details they knew of Lee Ashley. Finding him quickly was now of the utmost importance. It was likely that he would kill again within the next few days, needing to complete his mission. If they could identify an area where he might live and a house type, and a make and model of car, they could narrow down Garcia's list of names even further.

The door swung open and Rossi looked up to see Hotch enter, looking as if he was in need of a week spent asleep and the bottle of Laphroaig that Agent Mansfield should be providing. "I take it things didn't go well with Morgan," Rossi said.

Hotch nodded, not looking at him and grabbing a chair instead. "JJ still at the hospital?"

"She said she wants to stay with Reid a while longer. Then she's going to speak with Chloe. Savage has been charged with the murder of Marie Finlay, and the attempted murder of an FBI agent. We don't need to deal with that. I know he had contact with Lee Ashley, but there's nothing that we can learn from him that we can't get from the letters."

Hotch rubbed his eyes with his thumbs, then looked at Rossi. "I'm beat," he said. "But we need to deliver an updated profile on Lee Ashley tomorrow morning. What's Garcia found?"

Rossi recapped Garcia's information, leaving out his sighting of Agent Mansfield. If Rossi hadn't been seeing things, then he would guess that some sort of threat had been made to the team, or a member of the team. Hotch did not need to know about that right now. It could wait.

"He'll have picked a home similar to the one in which he lived with his grandparents," Hotch said, after a few minutes of thought. "And in a similar area, but not Willow Springs itself. If he's withdrawing cash from ATM's in Colorado, then we're looking at somewhere near the border. Somewhere near Jensen or Vernal."

"He's going to be attached to the house," Rossi said. "For him it will symbolise his success. As a child he was shipped from his mother's to his grandparents, so having a place that no one can take from him is important to him, and he will make every effort to get back there each night."

"And that," Emily said from behind them where she'd entered without either of them noticing, "means that it will have been bought rather than rented."

Rossi nodded. "He'll be withdrawing money each month to cover the mortgage payments and bills. Any money from his job will finance his lifestyle, although I expect him to have savings."

"And he'll have to work part time," Hotch said. "For him to have stalked his victims in the way that he has suggests that he has the time to do it."

"Or he could be a manager in a company, and therefore able to schedule meetings and visits to suit his needs," Emily said, sitting down. "Given his age and intelligence, it's likely that he is more than just a supermarket pharmacist."

"We have some parameters for a search," Rossi said, taking out his cell and hitting the speed dial key for Garcia. There was no answer. He hung up, looking at his colleagues with a puzzled expression. "She's not there."

Emily checked her watch. "It's eight-fifteen, and tonight's her shift at the help line. We know he's unlikely to kill in the next forty-eight hours. He needs time to instil fear into his victims by stalking them. We also have a list of possible targets, and have alerted the care homes they're in. I say we call it night and reconvene in the morning."

Rossi stood up, nodding. "I agree. It's been one hell of a day."

Hotch remained silent, stacking his papers. Rossi glanced at him, and saw him cast a glance at Emily. He decided to leave them to it, to return to his hotel room and call for room service, then give Jolene a call to find out how her sister was. It seemed like months since he had last seen her, when in fact it had been less than a week. '"Night, folks," he said. "Don't stay up too late." He walked out of the room, a cool breeze floating from the night into the station that seemed claustrophobic in its events.

August 1988

Willow Springs

Tooele County, Utah

Lee shifted his weight from one foot to the other, waiting for the door to open and for Gemma to come out. He'd enjoyed what they'd done so far, as much as he'd enjoyed anything. He'd found he could control her reactions towards him, as long as he stayed in control of himself. She liked attention, someone taking an interest in her, and as long as he did that, she didn't seem to mind when he lost control of himself for a while, allowing her to see something of what he was really like.

Her family were Mormons, but she was only too happy to be doing things she wasn't supposed to. Besides, she'd had sex before with that freak of an ex boyfriend, the one she was trying to get revenge on by going out with him. It didn't bother him that he was being used. In fact, he almost got off on the fact that she wasn't interested in him, in who he was or who he wasn't.

He knew by now that he was different. Things didn't affect him the way they did other people. He didn't flinch when he saw violence, in fact he enjoyed it. It was a release. One that he thought he should celebrate in his own way.

His fingers found the tablet he'd concealed in his pocket. They were a special gift for his Gemma, one that would make sure she was well rested in the morning. He smiled as she answered the door.

"Hi," he said, smiling keenly.

She gave him a smile back that told him something was wrong. "I'm not coming out tonight," she said. "In fact, Lee, I'm not going to see you again."

His heart started to pound rapidly in his chest, anger welling up. He wanted to kick her till she bled inside, till she screamed for mercy, but instead he nodded. "You want to finish it?"

She nodded. "I'm sorry. But – well, I guess there's no point in explaining it, as it won't make any difference."

He nodded slowly and walked away, hands in his pockets. He'd find someone else to give his little tablet treat to instead.

Please review – the last few chapters are always a slog to write and encouragement will help – and motivate the muse to carry straight on with writing a third fic...

Sarah x