Aaron Hotchner hung up his office phone and before he stood up he pulled his go bag out from under his desk before standing up and walking out of his office. With the door opening, those in bullpen looked up and immediately stood up and looked at him as they noticed his expression and the go bag.

"What is it?" Morgan asks before he leans over and pulls his bag out and placed it on his desk.

Standing on the catwalk, Hotch replied, "Spree killings on a college campus in Flagstaff. We'll brief on the plane. I'm going to go tell Gideon."

The team nodded and scrambled around the desks as they prepared to leave quickly. Hotch walked over to Gideon's door and paused briefly before knocking.

It had been five days since Sarah had been murdered by Frank. Gideon had been quietly residing in his office since coming back from her funeral a couple of days earlier. While his apartment was no longer a crime scene, the brutality of what happened there prevented him from returning.

When Hotch stepped into the office, he noticed that Gideon hadn't moved from that last time he had stopped by this office.

Without looking up, Gideon said, "what's up Hotch?"

"The team has a case." Hotch replies.

Gideon looks up and his eyes widen as he sees Hotch already holding his go bag. Looking past him, he noticed the rapid movement in the bullpen as the team finished their preparations to leave.

Sitting up straighter he asked, "what is it?"

"A college campus in Flagstaff has a spree killer." Hotch responded.

Gideon said as he stood up and walked over to pick up his bag, "when are we leaving?"

Hotch sighed before saying, "you can sit this one out if you need to Jason." not wanting the older profiler to feel that he needed to go it he wasn't ready. He had only come to tell Gideon to keep him in the loop.

Gideon shook his head and walked over to stand in front of Hotch and said sincerely, "I need to get back to work. You're not benching me."

Hotch nodded and walked back out of the office as he said, "OK, we are leaving as soon as everyone is ready."

"Let's go." Gideon replied before he followed Hotch out of his office.

####

Emily leaned forward and rested her forehead on the steering wheel. She was just leaving the ME's office, an assignment that she was relieved she was doing alone today so she wouldn't have had to explain the phone call she just received. When she had walked out of the building, she answered her phone only to find that it was Strauss on the other end. Asking about the case. Asking if there was any information that Emily needed to share with her.

Sitting back in the seat, Emily considered that the time had come. As if it wasn't bad enough that Strauss had checked in several times while the team was in Quantico, now she was calling for information while they were out on a case.

It had been the fifth time since her meeting with Strauss that the Section Chief had called her to 'check in' and see if she had anything to report. Didn't she realize that everyone's head needs to be on the case, especially on this one with them trying to catch a spree killer!

At this point Emily just wanted to finish this case with the team. Once the team returned to the BAU, she planned to meet with Hotch to give him her resignation as well as giving him a heads up on what Strauss was planning.

Before she could consider that meeting too much her cell phone rang again. She groaned before reaching over to pick it up from the passenger seat where she had thrown it after Strauss called. Hoping it wasn't her again, Emily looked at the caller ID on the screen, noticing it was Hotch. After answering his questions about what she learned at from the ME, she let him know she was heading back to the station.

She shook her head as she placed her phone in her pocket. It was time to get back and fill the rest of the team in. They needed to find this UNSUB.

####

Hotch sat at the table on the jet working on his report as the team headed back to Quantico. He didn't think any of them could be happy with how the team had functioned on this case. He had already received a message that Strauss wanted to see him after the team arrived back.

He was used to getting push back from the locals. That wasn't all that unusual as profiler approach cases different that how the majority of law enforcement approached cases. They looked at evidence a different way. And this case was no different.

The case had been frustrating for all involved. The school decided to close and send all the students home in an effort to stop the murders. However this action put the BAU on a clock to find the UNSUB beforehand. Otherwise they risked that the school would be closed indefinitely until they caught him or the chance that as soon as they reopened that the killing would resume.

Then they were able to identify a potential suspect. Though the evidence they found was largely circumstantial, they had arrested UNSUBs on less in other cases. The most damning was him being in a car with a young woman terrified by the encounter when the team along with locals went to arrest Tubbs though the rationale he gave them was plausible.

But they felt they had the right guy. From the nature of the evidence they had to his behavior since his arrest, they were confident they had the right suspect.

However the head detective was continually wavering as Tubbs' attorney was questioning the arrest. They were initially able to hold him off while they cleared the campus and searched for more concrete evidence. But as word got out about the arrest, people started to relax their guard both among law enforcement and the campus community. And it should have been safe and life should have been able to resume. To allow the young women on campus to try to find a new normal as they process the assault on the campus community by someone whose job description was to help keep them safe.

But the change in atmosphere quickly came to an end when another student was found murdered on campus. The BAU immediately saw the difference between this victim and the previous women which, to them, clearly indicated a copycat since the unrevealed aspects of the signature were not found on this victim.

The detective, however, only saw another young woman murdered on campus. Murdered after they had someone in custody that the BAU had pressured him to hold on only circumstantial evidence. In frustration, he had quickly started to lash out at them at the crime scene about not only another victim but their explanation about why they considered it to be a copycat.

And that was only the beginning. Once they got back to the station, the defense attorney was back in earnest about getting his client released citing the new victim while Tubbs was in custody along with a note found at the scene that Tubbs was innocent. They worked on holding the lawyer off until they could finalize plans for surveillance of the campus before releasing Tubbs since he was still considered their best suspect.

However as Hotch found when he reached their workroom, not everyone agreed with holding Tubbs. Morgan was venting as he spoke out about releasing him since they all they had was circumstantial evidence along with the profile. As he'd expect JJ was arguing against him that they should hold him for the allotted time they were permitted without filing charges to allow the campus to be cleared.

Unfortunately, the disagreement occurred in the crowded police station were the officers were already not sure what to make of the whole situation. The BAU team was in their workroom however the door was open and anyone nearby could overhear the nature of their conversation. Word quickly spread through the station.

The locals had ultimately decided to release Tubbs early against the repeated advice of the BAU. The college was still in the process of closing when he walked out of the police station with his lawyer.

Luckily the locals had completed the installation of surveillance cameras earlier that day. Profiling told them that Tubbs and the copycat would meet at some point. If they could record that conversation, then they could arrest both of them.

And they had been right, the two met up when the young copycat approached Tubbs. However, their conversation in a secluded location where the team could hear what was being said through surveillance, though no one could physically get to them before the young woman stabbed both of them. They both later died at the hospital.

As he looked back on the horrible ending to the case, Hotch couldn't get past how the team functioned during it.

Gideon had a questionable presence on this case. Hotch had felt it was too soon after the death of his friend. But Gideon had engaged on the case as early as the plane trip to Flagstaff.

However at times Hotch could see him getting lost in his own head and seemingly being somewhere else.

The most unnerving part was Gideon questioning before they headed home about what if they had been wrong. That doubt about profiling, about their work as a team from one of the founders of the BAU was demoralizing. Because if they lose that then where does that leave them?

Morgan's attitude during parts of this case wasn't surprising as it hadn't even been a year since Morgan was arrested and falsely accused of crimes but was frustrating nonetheless. The disagreement with JJ about whether or not to release Tubbs was classic for him. It also however touched on the same tone of doubt as Gideon.

Doubt in their process. Doubt in their work as a team. Doubt in the validity of profiling itself.

With Morgan the reason was his issues with trust and how damaged his already fragile trust was after what happened months earlier in Chicago. He had been arrested because of a profile written by a member of his own team. A member of the team who he admired.

And to a certain level, he had a point that there were similarities in the cases but there were also stark differences that he couldn't get past to see. At some point he would need to sit down and have an honest conversation even if it was just by himself about whether he could be effective any more as a profiler if he couldn't trust the process.

Thinking like that from him could spread the doubt to the rest of the team undermining their confidence as well as other agencies belief in what they do. Profiling was still not fully accepted.

Throughout the case Hotch had noticed Reid struggling at times. He had been the room with Morgan and JJ and had seemed lost when Hotch walked in as he watched two of his best friends arguing. At the time he, like Emily, had said anything but he stayed close to JJ for the rest of the case.

Then there was JJ. Her argument of since they could legally hold Tubbs until the students left was what he expected from JJ. He had found in the time he had been working with her that within her job she not only saw all of the cases but when personal appeals were made from locals or family, it came to her.

And on this case, things got very personal for her with a few of the students, one of whom was later killed by the copycat which they could all see JJ took hard when confronted by another student at the scene. However, it was JJ that a student went to with concerns about the behavior of a different girl in her dorm who they later confirmed as the copycat.

As he thought about Emily, he couldn't help but think about how she closely she resembled their victimology in this case. If he was being honest, it was a little too close to how he remembered her appearing years earlier.

And it was clear she noticed the similarity as well as Tubbs did. Each interaction they had Tubbs giving her eerie looks which Emily had responded to by staring him down. Each time letting him know that she wasn't going to be intimidated by him. Given that he had ambushed all of his victims, as expected, each time Tubbs would look away first, unable to confront a woman face-to-face.

The information Garcia had found on his ex-wife backed up Emily's guess that she was a brunette. However on closer examination, he could see that she also resembled Emily in age and appearance. The college girls were most likely just the population that he had the greatest access to.

Another frustration for him was despite her reaction to Tubbs, Emily had shied away from speaking out went Derek was venting. She and Reid were both in the same room Derek and JJ so the opportunity had been there.

It wasn't that she didn't have an opinion or wasn't familiar with the evidence. It had been Emily who had linked the burn marks on the bodies with a Taser. She had also been the one who had assembled all of the evidence they had.

But she had also been the one who had lead them to security guards based on that information. Among the security guards, Tubbs had the background and then they went looking for him after noticing how many times he was on scene when the bodies were discovered.

But in that room she was uncharacteristically quiet. Had something been said to her privately? Was she internalizing what Morgan was venting about given her role in identifying Tubbs? Or was she still doubting her position on the team?

Hotch sat back in his seat and sighed. It was only a couple of weeks ago that he thought everything was looking positive for the team. Gideon had been doing better. Reid was looking stronger everyday after his ordeal in Georgia. Emily seemed to have fully integrated onto the team. The team had been looking stronger as a whole. He felt that they would be able to continue to function well when he moved to his new assignment.

But then Frank came back into their lives. And now he just didn't know.

After they got on the plane, Gideon mentioned he was taking some time off when they got back to Quantico. Hotch didn't disagree however as he watched Gideon during the flight, he wondered if Gideon was going to be able to make it back another time or if the job had just taken too many pieces from him.

For now he needed to finish his report and prepare for the meeting with Strauss.

####

Erin Strauss still looking bewildered as she watched Aaron Hotchner walk out of her office. Bewildered at what he said as he profiled her and what he shared about the other members of the BAU team.

That feeling quickly diminished as she smirked as she thought about him as he headed to HR to complete paperwork concerning his suspension. Her eyes fell to his badge which now sat on her desk.

She got what she wanted and she didn't even need to do anything to get it. The spin she could put on the BAU team's actions on this last case had given her sufficient ammunition to suspend Hotchner. And with that suspension, he was no longer eligible for promotion in the coming weeks. He would need to wait for another year.

However, she wasn't going to take a chance. What he said and what he knew about her was one of the reasons he needed to go. While he didn't mentioned it, she couldn't take a chance that he knew her secrets. And if she had her way he wouldn't be an FBI agent in a year. No if she had her way, he would be gone before his suspension was up.

Now that the first part of her plan was done, she needed to put more pressure on Emily Prentiss to get enough evidence for part two.

As she stood up she knew the perfect way to get this reluctant agent to talk. Walking out of her office, she made her way towards the bullpen.

AN: News on upcoming chapters- the next two chapters will cover what happened during the two weeks Hotch was suspended. One focusing on Emily and the team while the other focuses on Hotch. Both will lead up to the following chapter which will be set around episode In Name and Blood. That chapter is turning out to be very long so I may end up splitting it.