Kate made her way to her desk, knowing that Hotch would come out and scold her some more if she stayed long, so she made a show of talking to Gina.

Hopefully that satisfied him. She grabbed the one file she'd come in for; Parkett's. There had been a copy in her desk for months. It was worth taking to Garcia, seeing if they could kickstart this process.

She hurried to the elevator, and then thought twice, instead taking the stairs. She could feel eyes on her as she opened the door to the stairwell, but shook it off.

Morgan was still there when Kate got back to Garcia's apartment, and Garcia sighed deeply when she saw Kate.

"Okay, pretty boy," she said. "You ready for this?"

Morgan was startled, but listened to Kate's story regardless. By the time Kate had finished talking, JJ had shown up at the apartment with chicken soup. "We need to tell Hotch asap," Morgan said, and JJ seconded it.

"I only heard the tail end, but it sounds like we need to get back out to Bakersfield," JJ said.

"No, we don't need to go all the way out to California," Garcia said. "I may have already started my internet deep dive, sans FBI server, and I've found a few hits already. We can set up a sting, and get this over and done with. I found the auction website that Kate's research has hinted at."

"It can finally be over," Kate said, surprised. Was it really going to be this easy?

"First we have to go to Hotch," Morgan said. "Come on."

"Let's wait on that," Kate hedged. "He's kind of mad at me."

"He's kind of mad at me too," Morgan shrugged it off, startling Kate. "I'm going to call him, Rossi, and Reid. We can meet at Rossi's house and talk about everything."

"Okay," Kate said, startled. "Let's do it."

The team had assembled in Rossi's huge kitchen in less than an hour. Hotch had loosened his tie, and his face was as stern as ever. Rossi was already cooking, totally ignoring how stressful and odd this situation was, and Reid's face was drawn.

Kate remembered that Gideon's funeral had just been yesterday, and her heart panged on Reid's behalf. She could tell this was the last place he wanted to be, but after Garcia started talking (Kate had decided that she was already in enough hot water) then Reid slowly started to come out of his shell.

The conversation was animated, and Kate slowly started to forget that they were talking about an auction site for serial killers. Hotch and Rossi were talking about setting up a sting, and she felt her stress begin to dissipate. She should have come forward sooner. To be fair, she'd asked Hotch about it after the case had happened, when she'd had nothing to go on.

She felt his eyes on her, but she ignored it. He knew he'd been wrong. She wondered how that affected him, if it would affect him at all. He hadn't done the wrong thing, not really. He'd just tried to put a case to rest. She didn't blame him. He had a lot on his plate, all the time.

Rossi finished cooking, and they ate. It began to feel more like a family gathering, but Kate just felt more and more distant. She remembered the funeral yesterday, and how out of place she'd felt. Just because they were including her again didn't make her feel better about it. Why did including her have to be so intentional?

She'd brought this whole case to them, but now it was a team thing. Was this just her own problem? She was so used to working alone, was being part of a team, and sharing things just her own inner child resisting a new way to do things? She'd been here for almost four months, that couldn't be it.

She hated this feeling, she tried to shake it off. She could see that everyone was trying harder with Reid, making him feel needed, loving on him as best they could. Morgan was waiting on Garcia hand and foot; she was on Rossi's couch with her ankle propped up.

Garcia finally gestured to Kate, asking her to come closer.

"Hey, babe," she said. "Come here."

Kate came closer, the glass of wine in her that only thing that was keeping her sane.

"You doing okay?" She asked. "Last night was pretty freaky."

"I should ask you that," Kate said. "I don't know, what if it was all my fault?"

"Were you driving the car?" Garcia asked, eyebrow arching high.

"No, obviously not, but-"

"Then hush," Garcia said. "Stop worrying about it. The BAU is on the trail and we're going to catch the bad guy."

"Yeah," Kate said softly. "I hope so."

Everyone had started to filter out, and Kate was outside in the cold night air before Hotch approached her. "You don't have Jack?"

"He's staying with Jessica," Hotch said. "Because of the funeral."

"Right," Kate said. "I should be getting home."

"I wanted to apologize," he said, halting her. "I should have listened to what you said after the case. I brushed it aside out of a want to get home sooner rather than later, and because you were new."

"It's fine," she said. "Really. Your decision to set it aside made sense, and honestly, I should have set it aside too. I'm just too used to undercover work, and going it alone."

"It's different," Hotch said. "When you work on a team. It takes some adjusting."

"Yeah," Kate admitted. "It does."

"You have good instincts, Callahan," Hotch said, and she keenly noticed how impersonal he was. "Don't stop digging deeper. Next time, just push me a little harder to listen. I'll pay attention this time."

"Deal," she said, just wanting to get out of this conversation. She didn't know that, in just a few weeks, she'd expressly ignore his command to tell him next time she found trouble. This time, however, she wouldn't have a choice.