"Agent Hotchner is here to talk to you, Erin."

She looked up to see Helen in her doorway, giving her a small nod as she stepped aside to let Aaron in. Once the door was closed, and Aaron had taken a seat in front of her, Erin relaxed before addressing him. "Are you here to talk about your Christmas plans? I seem to recall that you had planned on taking Jack up to New York to see Sean this year?"

From the serious look on his face, Erin knew that this was no pleasure talk that he had come to her with, and she drew in a deep breath through her nose as she leaned forward, folding her arms on her desk as she looked at him expectantly. "There is an issue that we need to discuss."

"And that would be?" She tried to sound placid, but knew that there was still a small shake to her voice that he would pick up on.

"There is someone replicating our past cases."

"Oh, is that all?"

He blanched a little at her blasé tone, shaking his head as he began to frown deeply. "I didn't think that you'd be so flippant about this, Erin."

"You'll forgive me, but I have been trying to tell you that there's something hinky going on for about two months now. I told you about the letter I received, the creepy bird that was inside the package on our doorstep, and you sided with David in saying that it was probably just a prank. So I've been doing background work of my own, alongside Helen and Grant. Alex has received letters, too, you know. Three of them, and all of them as unhinged as mine was. There is something more at play here, and you are officially three steps behind. I never thought that I would have one over you, since you are dealing with people like this every day, whilst I deal with the minutia and paperwork behind the scenes."

Aaron nodded as he folded his hands across his lap as he slumped down in his seat a little. "You shouldn't have had to deal with that on your own."

"I haven't. I have Helen, and Grant, and Alex, when she can get a few minutes away from doing her job here and her professorial work. Things are entirely smooth between us, but we're making headway, and I don't want to rock that boat. Because I know that I am the one who has to do most of the heavy lifting to fix things between us, after everything that happened."

"I have noticed that things are a little easier between the two of you. That has been so good for our team, because I know that it is hard to have that tension and still expect everyone to act like nothing is wrong. We dealt with that for too long with Elise between us."

She nodded as she let out a little sigh. "I know that we could have handled things better, but I am so glad that things are good between us now. And I didn't mean to upset you earlier, it's just such a relief to know that there might be someone else who will take this threat seriously."

"Do you think that I can see what you've compiled so far?"

Erin gave him a small smile as she picked up the file that she and Anderson had been putting together. "This is what we have so far. What cases are you talking about?"

"I left the files in my office. Care to join me there?"

"Lead the way." Erin picked up her reading glasses and followed after him, giving Helen a pleased little smile as she passed by her desk. Her assistant nodded in return before returning to her work. The bullpen was a hive of activity, and yet she was still able to catch Alex's eye as she went over to the stairs, climbing up them behind Aaron. She couldn't help but peek her head in David's office as they passed by, blowing him a quick kiss before heading into Aaron's office. After settling in on his sofa, Erin waited for him to hand over the information that he had.

"Here, this is what I have." He took a seat next to her while handing over a slightly thicker folder than what she had given him, and together, they began to pore over what the other had found. Erin raised her eyebrows to see that the cases Aaron had found were from more recently completed cases, ones that she hadn't thought to consider, since she had assumed they would all be previous cases, like the ones she and Helen had found.

After they finished going over their files, Erin looked over at him and let out a long breath. "This was definitely not what I was expecting to read so close to Christmas. Have you told the team about this yet?"

"Dave and I informed them at the end of the latest case, yes."

"Huh."

"That was not a good huh, was it?"

Erin shook her head slowly as she closed the file folder and set it on the coffee table. "No, because David chose to believe you and not me in regards to how serious this is. And while I know that I cannot officially sanction a deeper dive into this case, I want you to work with Grant to consolidate the data and keep him in the loop. As he is outside our team, he will be able to give fresh eyes to the connections that we might thing we see."

"I think that's a good idea, yes." He gave her a small smile. "Now, to talk about a topic that's a little less heavy, I am going to be running by presents for the kids tonight, since we'll be leaving for New York on Saturday."

"That's sweet, but you know that you don't have to get our kids anything. Just being in our lives is gift enough."

"Yes, but I want to treat Elise well, and it would feel awkward not to treat the others equally as well. You buy gifts for Jack, after all."

"Jack is one extra child, we have four extra people to get gifts for!"

He shrugged a little as David entered the office, and Erin ticked an eyebrow upwards as he came over to their sides. "What did I do?" he asked as he went over to her side, sitting on the arm of the sofa next to her.

"You decided to take Aaron more seriously than me in regards to the copycat we've seemed to pick up recently. Is it because he's a man?"

"No, stellina, it's because I was the one who noticed one of the duplicated cases. I was going to tell you about it, but I wanted to wait until we had more data compiled. And I also wanted to wait until after the holidays, because we needed to have a relaxed Christmas. I suppose that I should have just told you from the beginning?" She nodded. "I'll remember that for next time."

"See that you do, darling. Now, Aaron's just informed me that he's going to drop off the family gifts tonight. I think that he should stay for dinner."

"I like the way that you think, Erin."

"Perfect. I'll head out early and start to make something with Jessica, then. And you two can both think about why you shouldn't keep secrets from your boss." Getting to her feet, Erin reached out to ruffle David's hair, knowing that it would irk him, before leaving the room, her mind still roiling from what she had learned that day.