Today was the day. It was Dave Rossi's first day as an active FBI field agent in about 10 years. However the leadership position on the team now belonged to another agent. Someone he had brought onto the team years earlier.
Dave had initially met Aaron Hotchner while on a case when Dave was Unit Chief of the BAU and Hotch was a field agent on Seattle. Dave had been impressed when agent's profiling skills and even more impressed with his Bureau file once he reviewed it. A couple of months later when there was an opening on the team, he offered the position to Hotch.
Hotch had quickly became an important member of the BAU team. And now years later he had earned his way to lead the team. His trust in Hotch's abilities is one of the reasons he had agreed to come back as a subordinate to Hotch.
Now as he prepared to walk into the building, Dave recalled how he got to this point. When a knock came on the door of his hunting cabin very early in the morning a few weeks earlier, Jason Gideon was the last person he had expected to be on the other side. Gideon had previous refused to visit his cabin citing his aversion to hunting. In all the years that Dave had owned it Gideon had only come one previous time.
His surprise turned to trepidation in the first couple of minutes as his old friend announced that he had quit the FBI before thrusting a pile of files at Dave. He asked him to look out for the team and the unit that they had built together. Dave grabbed his arm and demanded to know what was going on when Gideon then turned in an attempt to leave.
An hour later as Dave was closing the door after Gideon left, his head was spinning.
What struck him most was Erin Strauss was being a thorn in Hotch's side in a away which could potentially compromised the unit. While that development angered him it did not surprise him as even years earlier he had recognized the leadership qualities of the younger agent. Over time those leadership qualities would have improved and Strauss would see that as a threat. According to Gideon, Hotch was currently serving a suspension because a case went wrong however Hotch hadn't been the one to make the wrong decisions.
Dave had been shocked to hear Gideon's questioning of the whole practice of profiling. When Dave had pushed back Gideon had then explained about what had happened during the Fisher King case including the head showing up at his cabin. He mentioned how he felt at Bruno Hawk's actions knowing Dave knew how long Gideon had known Bruno. He talked about what happened with Morgan in Chicago and how that profile had been used. Then he got to Frank. He told Dave everything - the murders, Jane, needing to let him go to save those kids, Frank getting his book and targeting people named in it. Then he mentioned Sarah which had immediately sadden Dave as he had met Sarah many times over the years.
By the time Gideon had explained what happened on the last case, Dave sighed as he now had a clearer picture about why his old friend had walked away. Maybe before Boston he would have been able to find a path forward after everything that happened but even Dave knew that a part of Gideon would never recover from losing those agents that day.
And once Gideon had left, Dave put his own grief aside and considered Gideon's request. Trying to decide the best way to achieve it.
He and Mudgie had gone to stay at the hunting cabin, wanting to be away from the world for a while after he learned of his long time friend Emma's death.
Even now, weeks later, he found that he couldn't write what was going to be his next book.
He needed something new.
Something to get him out of the rut he had allowed himself to fall into.
Gideon's visit and request to watch over the team and the BAU gave him a place to go if he wanted to take it. He knew the work. There were unsolved cases that were calling to him.
So after considering it for several days, he contacted the Director who enthusiastically agreed for Dave to come back to the BAU in the spot Gideon had vacated. He had mentioned that Strauss was in the process of searching for a replacement and he would just tell her that the position was filled.
Ah Erin Strauss. There was some tense history there but Dave wouldn't allow her to upset his plans. He needed this right now. To go back to the BAU. To get back into the work. And he wasn't going to let the likes of Erin Strauss deter him.
He had left the files that Gideon had left with him at home. What he knew of the current team was what Gideon had shared with him. He had wanted to make his own impressions of each of them before looking at the files.
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After walking out of Hotch's office, Dave made his way down the hall to the office that was now his. The office that until a few weeks ago had been used by his good friend Jason Gideon.
As he walked in, he appraised the empty room. It was a far cry from the cramped quarters they had in the bunker when he had left the BAU years earlier. In those days agents had to share desks.
Just back from his first case, he could see that the office space wasn't the only new aspect of the BAU. As he had quickly found on this case, the current team travelled as a group and worked cases by collaboration. This was very different than the profiling model he was used to and it was going to take some effort to learn to function with that mindset without stepping on toes as he had in Dallas.
And as he sat at the desk contemplating whether one of the items he was going to bring in was a new chair, he thought about the changes he had seen in Hotch in the short time he had been back.
He had known Hotch as a rookie profiler and knew his tells. While most people found Hotch hard to read, Dave didn't have that issue. He knew Hotch before Hotch learned to mask his tells. Even without hearing through the grapevine about Hotch receiving separation papers in the office, it hadn't taken long for Dave to notice a change in the younger man during this case.
What Dave had noticed primarily with Hotch was that he was feeling conflicted and stressed. As much as it saddened him to hear of the younger man's separation, he couldn't say he was surprised.
From all of his interactions with Haley since Hotch joined the BAU, Dave hadn't found them to be well matched, attributing as to why they had been on and off again so many times since high school. Haley didn't have an understanding of the work that they did nor was she interested in learning why the work was so important to Hotch.
However Dave didn't discount that he and Haley had gotten off on the wrong foot and that most likely colored his impressions of her. It was a few months after Hotch had joined the team that Dave first learned of Haley. It was then that he learned that she was someone he had dated on and off since high school. Now that he was back in Virginia, they had gotten back together.
Dave had found out at their wedding that Haley still held a grudge against him, blaming Dave for a break up she and Hotch had had while Dave was still at the BAU. That hadn't been Dave's intention but he had needed to put his foot down about her constant phone calls.
When Hotch had joined the BAU, cell phones were just beginning to be used. While they each had one, they did not work in the bunker where their office was located at that point in time. But as Dave considered it, even today's cell phones may not work in the bunker.
Since she was unable to contact Hotch via his cell phone, she had begun to call the office to talk to him tying up one of the unit's four phone lines. While each of them at times had taken personal calls, Haley's quickly became daily and then multiple times a day. It wasn't even that there was an urgent reason, she just wanted to talk. Dave, along with others in the office, on more than one occasion had been on the end of irate phone calls when they had to inform her that Hotch wasn't available to talk.
Dave wasn't sure what she did in her job because she had no concept that Hotch had responsibilities that would make him unavailable at times. It had gotten to the point that Dave as Unit Chief had been forced to confront Hotch about the situation as it was upsetting the entire unit. The phone calls stopped immediately after that meeting and shortly after that he discovered that they had broken up.
Dave hadn't heard much about Haley once he had left the BAU. He didn't even know that they had gotten back together until he had received a wedding invitation. The last time he had been able to sit down with Hotch was shortly after his wedding four years earlier.
Now they were going to be working together again however the dynamics was different this time. Hotch was now in charge of the unit. The first Unit Chief for the BAU other than he and Gideon.
When he had first arrived, even with knowing about the state of Hotch's marriage, Dave was surprised at his choice of who he thought was a secretary.
Petite. Blonde. Slight build. From what he had seen just Hotch's type.
However he quickly learned two pieces of information on this case about Agent Jareau or JJ as she introduced herself. One she wasn't a secretary but an FBI field agent whose position on the team was media liaison. Dave still wasn't sure what her purpose on the team was exactly. However, he was now fairly certain that some of his actions on this case had undermined that role.
And the second, no matter how closely she resembled what he recognized Hotch's type to be, as a profiler he was certain that there was absolutely nothing of a personal nature going on between Hotch and JJ.
Then there was the rest of the team. When he had been meeting with Strauss there had been the annoyance that he had expected from her about his return. But then there had been something else. She was attempting to hide it but while they were meeting she thought of something that had amused her.
When the time had come, she had insisted on walking over with him to the BAU. He objected stating he knew how to get there and knew Hotch however that hadn't deterred her.
When they had reached the bullpen, there were the three agents who he would learn were the other profilers on the team just sitting around talking instead of doing work. While that bugged him as a former Unit Chief it was what he saw as they got closer to their desks.
Halloween decorations. Masks.
Then as he walked closer he noticed that one of them who looked more like a college student had an actual noose around his neck. When they were later introduced, he learned that this must be the genius Gideon mentioned that he had recruited to the team.
A glance over to her showed the amusement now evident on Strauss' face. It was then that he realized why she had walked over with him.
Having known him since the Academy she knew of his background as a Marine and his sense of order. She had been waiting for his reaction to that scene. As he climbed the stairs to Hotch's office, he began to wonder what he had gotten himself into.
A question he asked himself again a little while later when the team was meeting about their next case, Garcia made a sudden appearance in the room. After Hotch had introduced her, she hadn't stayed in the room for long though. She was not what he had expected even after Gideon's description of her. Her colorful personality and dress was not at all what he expected Hotch would find acceptable for an employee.
After the meeting had ended, Dave thought of the two other profilers. Gideon had described Agent Morgan as a good agent with trust issues whose specialty was obsessional crimes.
Then there was Agent Prentiss. Her name was familiar however he couldn't place from where. Perhaps he should have been paying better attention to Gideon as he described her.
Though that probably wouldn't have helped him much because as Gideon was telling him about the team he got somewhat squirrely when it came to her. An observation he hadn't made until after Gideon had left. Gideon had mentioned some details however Dave hadn't heard them because as Gideon was talking Dave was looking at Prentiss' picture, immediately noticing that she looked like Emma.
His Emma or who he wished had been his.
They had grown up together. Thinking back, there had been a time when he should have asked her to marry him. But when he got out of the Marines, he was so invested in establishing his career that by the time he thought of his personal life again, that time had passed. Since then they both had married other people, her to a judge and Dave to three different women.
A year ago they ran into each other unexpectedly. Dave just finishing a book signing while Emma was in town for a work conference. They had stopped to talk over coffee and then when the coffee shop closed they walked around all night talking and catching up.
There was something about the love that they shared that transcended their other relationships. A deep unconsummated connection that had begun in their childhood. A complete understanding of the other that no other person, even their respective spouses, had been able to grasp.
When the sun rose and they made their way back to the hotel, they parted, promising to stay in touch. And they had and the next 10 months were some of the happiest Dave had had since he and Emma were together as kids. On some level part of him hoped that the time would come when the stars would align and they could be together again.
That had all come to an end a couple of months before Gideon showed up at his door when he received word that Emma had been killed. Hit by a truck while tending to roadside repair.
Dave sighed as he sat back in the chair. He needed to move forward. Even with the unexpected challenges that he had come up against with being back in the BAU, he wanted things to work. At least for a while. He wanted to help with the team's workload as well as he had some cold cases that he would like to solve and have arrests made.
But before he got too far into work, he wanted to take time to review the files gave him about his new teammates.
AN: With this being when Rossi started with the team, I wanted to make this chapter from his POV. It will set up later parts of the story including Dave's understanding of Hotch and Emily. The part about him missing part of what Gideon said about Emily will also come into play later. I added Dave's friend Emma here because in Reckoner(5.3) Dave mentioned that she had died two years earlier which would have been around the time he returned to the team.
Next chapter- Dave is working to find his place on the team. Emily has a difficult moment at a crime scene. Hotch explains how the team functions to Dave. Still being written, will post as soon as it's ready.