AN: The is the last part of the Highs and Lows section of this story. Hope you enjoy it.
Hotch sighed before climbing out of his car. He picked up his briefcase and go bag before walking up to the house. There had been a lot of friction between him and Haley right before he left though arguments about his work were nothing new. While he took responsibility for springing the trip to Milwaukee on her, her storming off earlier hadn't given him a lot of time to discuss it with her.
They needed to talk through what was going on between them. While he had been moving toward transferring to appease Haley, given what he had found in the logs for their home number, he wanted to know what was going on before he committed to undermining his career path.
While he had a fairly good idea of what was going on, he wanted to talk it through with Haley. If she could explain to his satisfaction why she had been communicating with an ex for over a year with not mentioning it to him than he would look at his work options again.
Either way, it seemed like it would be best if he was at home more often for a while if for no other reason than to spend time with Jack. He had seen in the two weeks he was home how quickly the little boy was growing and how much he was changing.
During the flight back, he had thought of a way to have better hours as well as stay in the BAU.
While he hadn't talked to either of them about it, he was going to ask Morgan and Prentiss to take on more administrative responsibilities. While he was suspended, Prentiss had demonstrated that she could handle additional responsibilities for the team.
Morgan was ambitious and had been with the team for several years. When they had talked before the team had left for Milwaukee, Morgan had been adamant that he wanted Hotch as leader of the team. He was counting on Morgan agreeing as a way to help make that happen. Additionally, he would benefit from having administrative experience should he wanted to advance within the Bureau in the future.
With him delegating some of his responsibilities, he could reduce his time in the office with the goal of being home for dinner on the nights the team wasn't on a case.
He also wanted to assure that that had a successor. While he told Strauss that he wanted to stay in the BAU, practically both he and the BAU needed a back up plan.
If for some reason in the future he wasn't able to be the Unit Chief, he wanted to make sure the BAU was left in capable hands. Furthermore, administrative responsibilities was an item he could add to each of their evaluations. Then they could use if at some point they wanted to apply for a promotion.
As much as Strauss boasting at the scene about none of them advancing, he knew from Bureau policy at this point she couldn't prevent it. At least not for the others. For him, he had a year. But for now it seems as all of them were going to stay.
Except for Gideon. And Gideon's recent erratic behavior was another reason he felt he needed to have Morgan and Prentiss take on a greater role in the running of the team. Either way it would take some pressure off the older profiler who had responsibilities at the Academy and CIA in addition to the BAU.
It was somewhat worrisome that he still hadn't returned from his time off. While in Milwaukee he found out that Gideon had missed a scheduled chess match with Reid. Because of that Reid was even more worried which had all of them on edge. At the airstrip after they landed in Quantico, Reid mentioned about checking out the cabin though none of them knew if Gideon had been there since Randall Gardner sent a head there. As far as Hotch knew, Gideon had been avoiding the cabin that then. But at least it was a place to start they all also knew he refused to step into his DC apartment after Frank killed his friend Sarah there.
As he walked through the front door, Hotch noticed that it was quiet. Only a couple of lights were on in the downstairs of the house. Checking his watch, he noted that while it was past Jack's bedtime, it was much earlier than when Haley went to bed.
Walking up the stairs, he went to see if Haley was still in Jack room after putting him to bed. After he opened the door slowly, he was surprised to find no one in the room.
Turning on the light, he noticed that Jack's favorite stuffed animal as well as his blanket were missing from the crib. Looking around the rest of the room, he was surprised by the uncharacteristic clutter in the room. Toys out of the floor, the book basket in disarray while clothes were hanging out of open drawers.
Walking back to the door, he turned off the light in his son's bedroom before closing the door as he stepped back into the hallway. Turning around, he walked down the hall to the master bedroom.
When he reached the room and turned on the light, he suddenly had a feeling of dread cross over him.
Here was a similar mess to what he had found in Jack's room. The bed was in disarray while the closet was open and hangers were all over the room. As he walked across the room he noticed a pile of clothes lying on the floor.
As he moved closer to the dresser that he saw a note written in what he noticed as Haley's handwriting. Picking it up, he began to read.
####
As he finished the letter, he let it drop back onto the dresser. She had taken Jack and was staying with her sister. She wanted him to call so they could talk.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and sighed before running his hands over his face. Everything just got more complicated now that she had made the move to leave the house. He would call her tomorrow so they could set up a time to talk and so he could see Jack. But given her reaction before he left for Milwaukee and now this, it was clear that she would only accept his work if she was completely dictating the terms.
He hadn't spoken to her since talking to Strauss about staying with the BAU when they were in Milwaukee. He had been hoping that the changes he was planning would satisfy her eagerness for him to be home more.
If the transfer he had mentioned Strauss offering wasn't enough, there was no way she was going to go along with his plan of shuffling his workload in the BAU and stay on the team. Now he didn't know what his next step needed to be.
Looking over at the clock, he realized he had been up for 38 hours as the team had worked through the night after he and Emily arrived yesterday trying to identify the UNSUB.
Concluding that whatever was going to happen wasn't going to happen tonight, he took off his suit jacket and hung it on the rack in the bedroom where he kept clothes that needed to go to the dry cleaners. His tie was next off and that went into the bag that went to the dry cleaners as well. His shoes were put in their place in the shoe rack.
After taking off his socks, he walked over to the bathroom to put them in the laundry basket only to find a mess there was well. Walking back out of the bathroom, he went and got a plastic laundry basket to put the wet towels. He wanted to put them through the dryer before mildew formed on them. He knew Haley would be upset if anything happened to them as these were the luxury towels that had been given to them for their wedding.
Stepping back into the bathroom he groaned as cleaning up messes was the last thing he wanted to do tonight. Right now all he wanted to do was brush his teeth and go to bed and hope all of this was a bad dream when he woke in the morning.
As he set the basket down, he heard something dripping. Looking over he noticed that it was the faucet for their large jacuzzi tub. After he carefully stepped over several soggy towels on the floor, he turned the knobs until the drip stopped.
Standing up he shook his head and thought grimly perhaps leaving faucets dripping particularly when no one was home was why their water bill had been so high. Just as he was turning to step back over to the basket, something shiny on the floor caught his eye. Leaning over so he could get a closer look, he immediately recognized the shiny square wrapper as well as the company name written on it.
A condom wrapper.
Hotch could feel a wave of disgust come over him as he stood up and looked around the room again. The recently used tub. The towels used to absorb large amounts of water on the floor. The missing liner for the trashcan.
He turned and walked out of the bathroom, forgetting about the towels. As he reentered the bedroom, he started to pace. He could say with absolute conviction that it wasn't his or from him. While he and Haley had used condoms at various times during their years long on and off relationship, they hadn't used condoms since they had married. And they certainly never used them since moving into this house.
While he respected their purpose and usefulness, Hotch preferred not to use them. However, he had only gotten to the point of not using them in a handful of long term serious relationship once both had confirmed that they were clean and his partner was on birth control. With Haley, birth control hadn't even been a concern as they discussed when they got engaged that they wanted to try for a baby right away. After Jack was born Haley had gone back on the Pill.
So for him to come home to find a condom wrapper in their master bathroom could only mean one thing. The conclusion that he had been trying to avoid was confirmed. He could explain away hang up calls, the increase water bill, the unfamiliar jacket in the hall closet, the strange discussion with at her parents a week or two earlier, Haley's strange behavior and her unexplained outings with 'friends'.
Walking over, he sat on the end of the bed as he considered what he needed to do next. All of the sudden he realized where he was sitting and jumped up as if it was on fire. Their bed. Had Haley and her boyfriend had sex in the bed too? Is that why it was in disarray when Haley generally made it everyday? Walking up to the top of the bed, he took a deep breath and pulled back the sheets. Then he stared at the bed as he looked for anything that would answer his questions.
Suddenly, he looked away and quickly walked out of the room and down the stairs. Going through the kitchen, he roughly opened the back door and walked into the side yard. He was so intent of his target that he was not paying attention to small pebbles as he walked down the path in his bare feet. The trash can.
In the bathroom that the trash liner was missing without a replacement. The trash collection for their house would be early the next morning. Maybe he was a glutton for punishment but if the bathroom trash was in this can, he didn't want Haley to be able to get rid of it and the proof of her deceit that easily.
He paused before he opened the can and looked inside. He pulled out a couple of bags before he saw the clear bag that he was looking for. After placing it on the ground, he untied the top. And then when he opened it, he had his proof. Four used condoms in the bag along with three wrappers.
Angrily stepping away, he started to pace before walking up to the side of the house with a clenched fist. Before punching it, he stopped himself and took a couple of deep breaths. He couldn't do this. Punching the wall would not solve any problems. It may make him feel better momentarily but the possible damage could have him out of the field for weeks just as he had reclaimed his position as Unit Chief.
No. That was not how he needed to handle this.
What was the right path?
Call Haley? No that wouldn't do him any good.
Show up at Jessica's and have it out with Haley? No, as tempting as that would be it would scare Jack and probably end up with him being arrest. That wouldn't look good when they filed for divorce and were setting up custody. Not to mention problems it could cause with his job.
Divorce. He never wanted that. With how long they had known each other, he didn't consider that she would cheat on him particularly since she knew his feelings about his dad and his affairs.
With that, he thought back to his mother and how she didn't say anything about the affairs. How it had made him feel as a child growing up in that environment.
How much did Jack see of what Haley was doing?
Had he been home with them or already at Jessica's?
That would have to be a question for another day. What he did know was that he could not stay in this marriage if Haley was going to cheat on him. He didn't even know if he could get past it if they went through counseling given the length of time she had been concealing her contact with Thomas Hannon. But it would need to be something that he and Haley would need to talk about as he didn't know if she really even wanted to stay in their marriage given the condition she left their room and bathroom in when she went to Jessica's.
But for tonight as he looked back at the trash bag, he needed to bring out Agent Hotchner. It was not something that he normally did at home but these weren't normal circumstances.
He knew how Haley would react when confronted with that he knew about her affair. She would deny it and try to turn it back around on him. So he needed proof. And irrefutable proof was something that he had plenty of right now.
But to make the evidence collection proper, he couldn't do it himself. But who could he call? He did not want his team to know or to see this sickening betrayal by his wife. No, he needed to work with them everyday. At some point he would need to tell them something however they did not need to know these details.
That is when he remembered Sam Cooper, a former BAU agent who was now back with the FBI after during some work overseas. This request wasn't how he wanted to greet his long time friend however the jovial former profiler was known as a man who could find you anything. Tonight Hotch needed someone willing to come over to do evidence collection at this late hour.
After an uncomfortable conversation with Cooper, Hotch received a message 20 minutes later than someone would be by within the hour. As promised 45 minutes later, there was a knock on the door.
####
Hours later, Hotch closed the door after thanking the evidence tech. Throughout his years in the FBI, he had seen evidence collection done countless times however this had been the first time that it had been at his home. And hopefully the last.
When Max, as he found out was this tech's name when he arrived, Hotch had summarized what he had found and in what locations as well what he suspected he happened. With that out of the way, he showed Max the yard as that is where the evidence tech wanted to start. After pointing out the trash can and the various bags, Hotch excused himself after mentioning he was going to have coffee in the kitchen.
In the kitchen, Hotch had sat at the kitchen table occasionally watching Max's work through the window as he drank his coffee.
When Max had finished outside, he had taken a bag with collected evidence out to his car to be stored as per procedure before coming into the kitchen for promised coffee. They spoke for a few minutes while drinking their coffee before Max gathered his supplies and they walked up the stairs so Hotch could show him the master bedroom and bathroom.
As they had reached the top of the stairs, Hotch stared at the guest room door.
The guest room that Haley had run up with Jack to when he was going to do work there.
The guest room that he had distracted him to get him out of.
The guest room where she deliberately hid his supplies so he couldn't do the work a few days later. He had remembered all this as he had been waiting in the kitchen.
So before they went into the master bedroom, Hotch walked over to the closed door and stopped. He asked Max to please check this room out as well explaining that it should be a rarely used guest room.
After Max stated he would after the master, Hotch walked him to the doorway as he hadn't wanted to look at his bedroom again right now. With Max set with his tasks, Hotch walked away and back downstairs to the kitchen.
It seemed like hours before Max came down and filled him in on what was found as well as what items he had taken for analysis.
Max nervously described what he had found in the guest room and bathroom. Multiple men's clothing and toiletry items. A pair of men's shoes in the closet. Questionable stains on the bedding. And a most empty box of condoms in the bedside table drawer. The photo that Max showed him of the receipt found in the bag with the condoms showed that they had been bought three months earlier, there had been two other boxes purchased at the same time and Haley had brought them used her credit card.
Before Max left, Hotch had him collect the jacket in the hall closet that he had noticed when he fixed the closet light.
Now that Max had left and after locking up downstairs, Hotch walked tiredly walked up the stairs. It was more than the physical fatigue from lack of sleep during the case. It was now also the emotional angst because over the last few hours, his worst fears had been confirmed in a horrible way. After today his whole world would change. But even worse Jack whole world would change.
He stepped into his room which now had the sheets stripped from the bed. He walked over to the dresser and pulled out a pair of pajama pants before changing out of the rest of his suit. As he walked over to the other side of the room, he saw the wet towels still lying on the floor in the bathroom. However from what he had learned over the last few hours, he could care less about the towels.
Walking into the hall, he pulled a set of sheets out of the cabinet for his bed. But as he reentered his room with the sheets in his hands, he just stared at the bed.
Walking over to the dresser, he placed the pile of sheets on top before walking out of the room. He couldn't stay in there. He couldn't sleep in that bed knowing what had occurred in the room and most likely also in that bed. Their bed.
He quickly shut down the profiler that started to wonder what Haley got out of having her boyfriend in their bed. If he went too far down that path he would never get the sleep he needed tonight.
But as he stood in the hall, he didn't know where to go. The guest room was also off limits given what Max had stated he found in the room. Jack's room only had a crib.
Just then he turned to his office door and made a decision. Going back to the cabinet, he pulled out a pillow and blankets before going over to the office door and unlocking it.
He had installed the lock shortly after Jack was born to assure that when he was older, Jack wouldn't be able to go into the room and see something no child should ever see. However, for tonight, the locked door had another advantage. This was the one room in the house that he was most confident that Haley and her boyfriend hadn't had sex.
Entering the room, he walked over to the couch and set it up before lying down, hoping he could get to sleep quickly before he would need to get up to go into the office.
Little did he know that his personal and professional chaos wasn't over.
AN: I plan on getting the next chapter out by the end of the week.