Chapter 54

When the team got to the newest crime scene, they all frowned when they saw one of the local officers leaning over, hands on his knees, and puking his guts out next to the sidewalk.

"Jesus, it must be really bad this time," Morgan offered quietly.

Rossi leaned closer to Hotch as they walked. "You did feed properly this morning, didn't you?"

Hotch sighed. "Yes," he insisted and gave Rossi a small grin. "I swear."

Rossi appraised him for a second and then pat him on the back as they walked into an old abandoned building, but he made sure to keep a close eye on the younger man.

The ME came down some stairs as she shook her head. "I should have known better at the last scene."

Mack frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I said then that it couldn't get any worse. I was wrong," she uttered and then looked at her assistant. "Let's go get the cart and we better grab a couple buckets along with the bags." The assistant cringed and then nodded as he followed her out.

"Buckets?" JJ asked wanting to know if she'd heard right and yet praying she hadn't.

Rossi took a deep breath. "That's what she said." He motioned to the stairs. "Let's go see what horrors it left us with this time."

When they got to the top of the stairs, two officers were standing guard. One of them jutted a thumb towards the end of the hall and the opened door that signaled where the body was, so they all followed Rossi.

"Where's everyone else?" Reid asked Morgan as they looked in the room. Detective Iona was the only one in there. Every other crime scene had been crawling with people.

Iona looked up. "They're out canvasing. An eye witness says they saw a few young guys running away from the building. That's why one of my officers came to check it out. Then he had the displeasure of finding that," he finished as he pointed into the room.

"Who would that be?" Rossi asked him clearly talking about their newest victim.

"No ID yet." Iona told him and then ran a hand down his already paled face. "You may not want to go in there if you just had breakfast." He took another deep breath and finally stood up straight. "This makes yesterday's seem like a walk in the park."

Rossi groaned but followed Hotch into the room. Hotch took a deep breath, got down on one knee, and lifted the sheet that had been placed over the body and immediately stumbled back and ended up landing on his ass on the dirt covered floor.

"Aaron!" Rossi yelled and started to go to him but Hotch changed right before his eyes and Hotch grabbed his head and moaned. Morgan moved to join them but Rossi's look told him to stop, and he did. Rossi crawled closer to the man who was more than his best friend. "Aaron?" he asked quietly as he placed a gentle hand on his leg.

Hotch shook his head violently. "Can't get it to go away. Gotta get outta here," he breathed out in rough intervals.

Iona pushed his way passed JJ and into the room. "I told you it was bad. I almost tossed my cookies."

Rossi chose to ignore him and stayed focused on Hotch who had yet to be able to change back. "Calm down, Aaron. Deep breaths."

Hotch did as ordered but moaned even more as he inhaled.

"The detective is right behind you, Aaron. You've got to do something." His sentence was spoken so quietly that only Hotch's enhanced hearing was able to pick up on it.

Hotch nodded once and jumped up, turned to the detective, looked him in the eyes, and said 'sleep', and then lowered the man to the ground with gentle hands.

"Jesus, Aaron. That's not what I meant!" he admonished him but he didn't think Hotch even heard him as he fought to gain control of himself. Rossi looked at Morgan. "You get in here, but the rest of you need to go out and make sure no one else comes in here until you're told it's safe!" JJ and Morgan quickly nodded as he joined his boss and she took the younger team members further down the hall to speak with the officers there.

Rossi put a paternal hand on Hotch's shoulder and almost flinched back when Hotch flinched so hard that he pulled away from the man. "Damn, Aaron. Come on, calm down," Rossi urged.

Morgan wasn't sure what to do, so he just moved where he could keep one eye on the door and one on his boss.

Hotch shook his head. "Nope. Gotta go!" Hotch insisted.

"You can't go anywhere unless you plan on making them all go to sleep," Rossi insisted as Hotch's eyes were drawn to the corpse. "Aaron?!" he snapped trying to get his attention again.

Hotch licked his lips greedily as his whole body shook.

"Aaron Jackson Hotchner!" Rossi tried even louder. "Just calm down."

Hotch half growled, but he looked at the older man. "I can't!" he yelled and then went to the window.

Morgan, thinking he was going to jump out of it, moved and grabbed his arm. "Hotch! You can't go down there either! There're cops all over the place!"

Hotch looked down to the road, winced when he saw several officers and people milling about on the street, and then shoved Morgan away from him. "Then I'll go up!" he sputtered and was gone.

Rossi and Morgan both jumped to the window and looked around, and they just caught a glimpse of Hotch's leg as he climbed onto the roof. Morgan took a deep breath, ran his hand over his head, and then looked at Rossi with eyes full of confusion. "What the hell just happened?"

Rossi huffed. "I have no idea, but I'm going to find out," he insisted and moved to the door.

"What do we do about him?" Morgan asked as he pointed to the detective.

Rossi sighed and then bent down by the unconscious man and then looked at Morgan. "You think he'd believe that he fainted?"

Morgan shrugged and then moved to shake the man. "Hey, Ahe, Detective Iona, hey, Man, come on," Morgan tried as he gently slapped the man's cheeks.

When the detective moaned and started moving his head, Rossi stood up. "You take care of him. I'll go take care of Hotch." Morgan nodded his agreement and Rossi left to search for a way onto the roof.

Iona's eyes started to flutter and he looked at Morgan with confused eyes. "What happened?"

Morgan shrugged as he helped him sit up. "You fainted, Man. Damn, did you even eat breakfast?" When Iona ran a hand over his head, and tried to stand up, Morgan held him down. "Nah, Man. Give yourself a second."

The detective looked around. "Where'd Agents Hotchner and Rossi go?"

Morgan winced as his mind raced. "Hotch had to step out," he started and then gestured with his head towards the body. "He's got two sons close to his age and they both have blond hair. I guess it just hit too close to home."

Iona sighed as he nodded. "I had a case last month with a girl about my daughter's age, so I understand completely." He took a couple deep breaths and then waved Morgan away. "I'm ok, now."

Morgan nodded and helped him up as the ME and her assistant came back into the room. She exhaled roughly as she shook her head and then fixed Morgan and Iona with a serious look. "I'm getting really tired of this case. Please catch these bastards!"

Iona's phone vibrated and he took it out and then smiled. "Actually, Mendel thinks they might have found them." He looked at Morgan. "You want to go check it out with me?"

Morgan took a deep breath as he nodded. "You know it," he offered but mentally prayed that the locals hadn't found the shapeshifter but only a few innocent kids who had been in the building. He took out his phone and text Rossi as he followed the detective back to the entrance.

XXX

Rossi squinted when he got to the roof because the sun was even brighter up there and he hoped he could get Hotch calmed down before the sun hurt him again. He searched and then a small smile formed on his lips when he found Hotch sitting under the old building's water tower, the only shade the roof offered.

He sighed and joined him. "You alright?" he asked because Hotch had his face hidden behind his hands and he couldn't tell if he'd changed back or not.

Hotch shook his head and swallowed. "No."

Rossi mentally winced. "What happened? I thought you said you fed this morning."

"I did!" Hotch insisted and then looked at him; he hadn't changed back. "But I got a whiff of that and I wanted it so badly I could taste it!"

Rossi studied him.

"And I don't mean that figuratively. I could literally taste the sweetness and the salt, and I. . . Arrgghhhh!" he yelled and the grabbed his head with his hands. "Just thinking about it. . . I want to run back in there!"

Rossi put a supportive hand on Hotch's back. "Let's get you calmed down, Aaron," he offered as he stood up and took a few steps away from him as he took out his phone.

"Hey, Dave. Why are you calling me instead of Aaron? Is something wrong?" she asked with a quick breath.

"You need to talk to your husband, Kiddo. He needs to calm down, and I thought you were the best one to get that to happen."

"He needs to ca. . . What the hell is going on?"

"I'm sure he'll explain, but I just want you to talk to him first. Get him to focus on something else," Rossi led.

"Ahh." She took a deep breath. "No problem."

Rossi took the phone over to Hotch and nudged the man's shoulder. "Here, talk to your wife," he ordered as he stuck the phone down in front of Hotch's face.

Hotch frowned for a second and then winced. "You called her?" He had yet to change back.

Rossi nodded as he smiled. "Yep. Now talk to her before she has a conniption fit."

Hotch moaned his disapproval but he took the phone and held it to his ear but not really wanting to hear the lecture she was about to give him. "Hey, Babe."

She could tell by how deep his tone was that he was in vampire mode and she instinctively wanted to ask what was going on, but she pushed those questions to the back of her mind and forced a smile. "You need to have a talk with your daughter," she started.

"Joey?" He frowned as he stood up. "Why? What happened?"

Rossi smiled as he watched Hotch's frame relax a little. Yep, get his mind on something else, Kiddo.

"She, Billy, and Maddie got caught up on the roof at school today. Apparently they saw a bird struggling to fly and then fall onto it at recess, so they snuck away from the teachers to go see if they could help it."

"I swear that child." He took a deep breath. "And what happened?"

"They all got a week's worth of afterschool detention for sneaking away."

"That's the school's punishment. What was yours?"

"Well. . ."

"Kahlan! You can't let her think that was acceptable behavior!"

"But they saved it. It had fishing line tangled all around one of its wings. It would have died, Aaron," she whined.

He huffed. "I understand that, but she snuck away from the teachers! I can imagine how worried they were."

Kahlan laughed. "They wouldn't have even known except they brought the bird down wrapped in Joey's jacket because they wanted it to rest for a bit before trying to fly again."

He shook his head. Part of him wanted to be mad at the teachers for not knowing his child was missing, but he also knew that Joey and her best friends could be very sneaky. He sighed. "So you don't want to punish her because of the motivation behind the act was good?"

"Exactly."

He sat back down as he smiled. "But let me guess, you chewed her out for getting caught."

Rossi smiled even more as he watched Hotch relax even more and his eyes slowly turned back to brown.

She giggled. "If they would have just left the bird, it would have flown off as soon as it was strong enough, and then no one would have been the wiser."

"You are so bad." He chuckled. "And what is it you want me to talk to her about?"

"Well, you can tell her it was wrong to sneak away, if you want."

He ran a hand down his face. "I'll try to call home before they all go to bed later."

"So you ok, now?"

He smiled. "Yes, Babe."

"You want to talk about it?"

"I'll explain tonight. I really need to get back to the case."

"Alrighty. Talk to you tonight."

"Yep," he agreed. "Love you."

"Love you, too, Hun," she told him and then ended the call.

Hotch looked up at Rossi, smiled as he stood up, and then handed him back his phone. "Thank you."

Rossi's grin went from ear to ear. "No problem."