Rossi closed the connection and slipped the phone back in his pocket.

He lingered in the kitchen for a moment, thoughts racing. Reid was right. If we'd asked Hotch what the trigger phrase was, he wouldn't have been able to tell us. So if I ask him about the color red, he won't be able to recognize it as…what did the kid call them at first?...Oh, yeah…anchors. He wouldn't know if red was set as one. Rossi swallowed a small rush of bile in the back of his throat. So if there are a whole nest of anchors in him, and if he can't identify them for us, then how the hell are we supposed to find them?

The answer wasn't much comfort. We have to watch Aaron like hawks; put him under a microscope and keep him there in hopes of stumbling across more landmines in his psyche. Damn. That'll make him feel like a liability rather than a leader.

Rossi squeezed his eyes shut and gave himself a mental shake. Getting way too far ahead of myself here. First things first. If red doesn't elicit some kind of emotional response, then I'm worrying about nothing.

He glanced around the kitchen, looking for something red…and frowned. There was nothing he would consider a true, fire engine red. Or an apple red. Or a ruby red. Nothing with the clear, bright hue to qualify it as quintessentially red. His frown deepened. Come to think of it, I don't ever recall Aaron wearing a true red…except in the print of a tie, and that was usually interspersed with patterns that made it less noticeable as pure red. And he probably only wears those because it's part of the FBI uniform that's like a second skin to him.

Rossi did a quick, efficient search, opening cupboards and drawers, digging into the back of every storage space. The less he found, the odder it seemed, and the more probable that there was a connection to the color red that Lewis had excavated from some deep place in Hotch's past.

Finally, Dave's eye was caught by the bright flash of a label on a can of cleanser in a cupboard beneath the sink. He pulled the garish item from the back where it had been pushed…either by neglect or design…and, bracing himself, went to confront Hotch.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The team were a subdued lot for the rest of the flight to Montana.

At first there'd been some sporadic conversation about their Unit Chief as Reid and Morgan shared more of their experiences over the last few days. But then each agent retreated into his or her own thoughts.

J.J. kept glancing at Derek. His eyes and nose were still puffy and bruised. When he caught her staring, he sighed. "What up, Pennsylvania Petite? Think I'm gonna scare the locals lookin' like I do?"

"No…no…sorry. Just thinking about how even the weirdest fiction can become real life."

The statement caught the others' attention.

"What d'you mean?" Kate gave her colleague a puzzled look.

"I think I know." Reid's soft voice interjected. His eyes were disturbingly sad as they locked with J.J.'s. "Harry Potter, right?"

"Yeah." The corners of J.J.'s lips trembled.

"What? The kid's books?"

"I'm not so sure they're just for kids, Derek. Henry wants to read them. He already has this thing about monsters, so I thought I'd see if they would be too scary for him." J.J. shrugged. "So I read them myself first."

"And?"

Reid stepped in, seeing the misty look in J.J's eyes. "I think she's talking about the concept of the 'Horcrux.' It was an object that could hold a piece of a soul. The bad guy in the series…Voldemort…tried to attain immortality by divvying his soul up and secreting the bits into different objects."

Morgan's eyes were narrow. "That's dumb. Impossible. But what does it have to do with Hotch?"

"Nothing. It's just the only way to defeat the bad guy was to destroy the things into which he'd anchored his soul. The whole story turned into a quest to find them all." Reid looked away, lips beginning to twist and chew with inner distress. "Just feels like we might need to look for a whole bunch of things that are anchored into Hotch…That might be the only way to defeat our bad guy, too."

A few beats of silence followed the young genius's explanation.

Morgan turned to stare out the window as they began their approach for landing.

"That is weird. I sure hope you're wrong about it all, Pretty Boy. But if you're not…I guess we'll be hunting anchors when we get back." He looked around at his teammates. "And this Harry guy won in the end, right?"

"He did." J.J.'s voice was almost a whisper. "But it was a really hard journey. A lot of people got hurt…killed. I decided not to let Henry read them all. Not yet anyway."

Reid buckled his seatbelt. "I wonder if Jack's read them all."

XXXXXXXXXX

Rossi wasn't sure how to proceed.

There was nothing in his profiler's training or experience to tell him the best way to push a colleague's hidden buttons in a way that wouldn't traumatize him, when the whole point was to find that concealed trauma in the first place.

In the end he opted to use the element of surprise. It was a cruel thing to do, if it worked. But Dave told himself it was for the greater good of locating Hotch's wounds so they could be healed. He clutched the can of cleaner behind his back as he entered the living room.

Hotch looked marginally better. He'd finished almost the whole glass of water and, judging by the glazed sheen in his eyes, the painkiller was starting to work on him.

Rossi felt a surge of protective pity wash over him. The guy's such a lightweight when it comes to drugs...Lewis wouldn't have known that, but it would have made his work go deeper and harder than even he would have expected. Of all of us, Hotch is the most susceptible. He felt his throat tighten. Aw, Aaron…I wish it had been me.

"So what'd you find out?" The Unit Chief sounded a little fuzzy around the edges, but calmer.

"Not much. Just started some wheels rolling is all." Rossi swallowed his anxiety at what he was about to do.

Hotch could tell, even in a druggy fog, that something was wrong. "Dave? What is it?"

Rossi felt like a matador brandishing a red cape at a bull. He was torn as to how he hoped the bull would react. If it didn't charge, then he would have to accept that the single trigger had left so much damage behind, Hotch would need longer than any of them thought to recover. If the bull did charge, it would almost be preferable.

We'll know this weakness and frailty we're seeing now isn't innate. It's an outside influence. It can be traced to a cause and the cause can be dealt with. But then, too, we'll have to keep searching through him. And that will be no small task.

The older man pulled the can wrapped in a bright red label from behind him, holding it directly before Aaron's eyes.

Hotch stared, pupils dilating. He recoiled, moving as far away from can as the couch allowed, pressing himself into the corner formed by the armrest. He didn't attack. For that, Rossi was grateful. Yet, he hated the naked dread in Aaron's eyes.

Dave kept his voice steady and authoritative.

"Reid has a theory, and I think he's right. The only way I'll know for sure is if you can tell me right now what you're thinking…what you're feeling…Talk to me…"

Hotch sounded strained. "I…I hate the color red. I really hate it." He dragged his gaze away from the can, transferring it to Rossi.

For a few beats the men stared at each other, searching: Rossi for information concerning the origins of the Unit Chief's hate. Hotch for the reason why his trusted friend was subjecting him to this additional torment when he already felt as though he'd shattered into an irretrievable spray of shards.

And then Aaron understood.

Damaged and hurting, his mind was still capable of assembling the pieces of his own demise.

"Oh, God. Dave…this was another one, wasn't it? This is more conditioning from L-Lewis?"

"I'm not sure. Reid thinks there might be more." Rossi set the stoplight-colored can aside. "Once you were aware of the trigger phrase, you were free of it. Maybe that'll happen now."

Hotch gave his head a miserable shake. "I don't think I'll ever not hate red."

"No, but maybe you won't have the violent reaction you did when you saw red gummy worms. Tell me…tell me why, Aaron. What is it about red?"

The younger man's eyes closed, head drooping. His voice was thready and somehow younger when he spoke. "When I was a kid. A red belt. My dad used to whip me with a red belt…" Hotch curled in on himself, holding his hurt arm close. "He really enjoyed it…Ol' Red…Called it Ol' Red…"

It had been an act of courage to reveal that detail of a wretched childhood. Rossi knew that.

Hotch's cringing posture told him his friend was still trying to escape it.

And now that twisted unsub, Lewis, has enslaved him with it all over again.