Criminal Minds: Missing Conversations

by Forestwytch

A series of one-shots of varying lengths in the Pip Harker universe, exploring her relationships with other team members. Mostly set during The Long Summer. Each chapter is named, and the main story will indicate where it fits in

6. Hotch

Hotch

Any fool can know. The point is to understand - Albert Einstein

Hotch didn't look up as his office door opened and closed quietly. "Dave, I'm not really in the mood."

"Good job he's gone home then, isn't it?"

Hotch looked up, surprised by the identity of his visitor. It certainly wasn't the person he'd expected to slip into his office that evening, in spite of the clear message his closed door sent. "Harker? What are you doing here?" he asked, unable to stop himself.

She brazenly settled herself in front of his desk like she belonged there; dropping her bag by her feet, and setting a pair of cut-glass tumblers and the bottle he recognised from Dave's bottom drawer on the desk between them.

"Figured you could use some company," said Harker, spinning the cap off the bottle and pouring them both a generous shot. She raised her glass to him and sat waiting for him to reciprocate.

The muscles across the back of Hotch's shoulders tensed, tightening even further than they had been already. Much more and he'd start twanging like a badly tuned cello. He'd closed his door for a reason, unwilling to socialise with anyone. Although the scotch would be welcome, he couldn't deny that. Hadn't he been contemplating his own bottle of the stuff, barely five minutes previously? Jack was with Jess until the weekend, and a little alcohol would sooth the burn of rejection he still felt in his chest, even two days after the event.

"I don't want to talk about it," he said sternly, and reached for the drink she pushed in his direction. They touched glasses, the chime more muted than if they'd been drinking from crystal.

"Good," replied Harker lightly, smiling when he took a mouthful. "You're going to listen."

Hotch inhaled in astonishment, then coughed as the whisky went down the wrong way. Harker's smile just broadened, as if she'd enjoyed wrong-footing him. On reflection, as he tried to clear his throat, Hotch decided she most certainly had.

"Harker…" he started warily, once he'd regained his composure. If she was going to lecture him…

"Pip," she boldly interrupted. "Let's agree that here and now, for one night only, you're neither Unit Chief or my immediate superior. I'd be at least your equal if I hadn't left field work behind." She shrugged and gave him a rueful smile. "Even if that's somewhat debatable these days. Call me Pip."

Hotch considered her carefully over the rim of his glass, a little put-out at how commanding she sounded. He was used to that tone being used on others, but she rarely did it with him. "How many times have I told you to call me Hotch?" he countered, trying to regain a little control. "Hardly seems fair."

"This evening, Hotch, you're not the boss."

That time, he'd waited for her to finish speaking before taking another sip, so was able to control his surprise a little better. Most people stumbled over using a familiarity for the first time. She just rolled it of the tongue like she'd known him her whole life, no indication she had only ever called him "Agent Hotchner" or "sir" the entire time they'd known each other. Hotch realised that actually, he really didn't know this woman at all, despite how long they'd worked together. Harker…Pip just grinned at him, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.

"Fine," he agreed. "No chain of command. So, what is it you want to tell me, Pip?" Hotch asked, pleased he'd managed her nickname with as little trouble as she'd had with his. "I've already said I don't want to…"

"I'm not going to talk about you, I'm going to talk about me," stated Pip, interrupting him once more.

"What?" That certainly wasn't what he'd anticipated, though he had to admit, he was curious. "Why?" he asked, intrigue overpowering annoyance at her interruption.

"I want to tell you a story," she replied. "A true story. You know parts of it already, I think, but it's relevant to the situation at hand, so I'm going to colour it in around the edges a little expressly for your benefit. Perhaps, you might hear something that…resonates for you. These are my terms: that you and I will be completely honest with each other this evening, no matter how hard that is, or how much we don't like what we hear; and that any details we learn about each other will be taken to our graves, having been discussed with nobody."

Pip finished her little speech and just sat there, waiting for him to agree. Or not. Hotch had a feeling that despite what she'd said about him not being her superior for the evening, she'd still abide by his wishes if he told her to leave him alone.

But he didn't really want to be alone, despite closing his door, and the opportunity to learn more about her was too good a chance to pass up; even if it meant he had to give away a little of his closely-guarded privacy in the process. She'd said he might hear something that helped him, too, although he couldn't quite see how that was possible. Still, it had to be worth a try, and Pip had brought Dave's open bottle of scotch. A drink or two with her wouldn't hurt and was better than moping about in his office brooding by himself, certainly.

The decision was made easier by way she'd phrased the offer; she'd struck a chord, intentionally or otherwise. Pip's words had echoes of two other people, two important people in his life: Hayley, and after her death, Dave. Both had promised similar truthfulness, although Hayley had volunteered, and Dave had done so after being asked. Or was that begged? Hotch couldn't remember much about that night, everything smothered with an overwhelming sense of despair and for some reason, a lingering impression of his friend's aftershave.

Curiosity won against caution. Hotch nodded. "Alright, I agree."

Pip jutted her chin briefly in his direction. "Lose the tie."

"I beg your pardon?" he spluttered, utterly confused.

"You look too much like my boss," she said with a cheeky smile, and took a hearty mouthful of her whisky.

Despite the mood he'd been in before, Hotch huffed once in amusement. He'd seen her do the same for Dave, on many occasions, using humour to lighten the weight of what they saw every day at work. No matter what, somehow, she could always make him laugh. It had mellowed his old friend, the fiery temper and tendency towards self-recrimination still present, but much more under control than they ever had been.

He did as she asked, standing briefly to shed his suit jacket and undoing the top couple of buttons on his shirt to loosen the collar as well. He held out his hands. "Better?" he asked a little sarcastically, as he took his seat again.

"Much." Pip smiled and leaned back casually in her seat. "Once upon a time, in a city not too far away, there was a young girl fighting for a chance to escape her upbringing," she began.

Hotch raised an eyebrow. "Talking about yourself in the third person is never a good sign," he said teasingly, pleased when her saw her eyes flash with mirth. "Just saying."

"You want to hear this or not?" she asked tartly, the smile taking the sting from her words. "It's easier to tell if I pretend it's not about me," she muttered, the smile fading.

Hotch just waved an encouraging hand and leaned back in his seat to listen. He definitely wanted to hear it, and if that meant her telling it objectively as an outside observer, then so be it.

"Orphaned fairly young, she got good grades, but had few friends," said Pip. "Life wasn't easy. She got shunted from foster-family to foster-family, none of them able to cope with her temper or overly-smart mouth for very long. Some of them tried to control her with kindness. Others…not so much."

She raised an eyebrow in his direction and Hotch felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He knew what she was saying. How could he not? He wondered how much of what she'd just implied she'd told Dave. Not all of it, he was willing to bet.

"I understand what that's like," he muttered, feeling a kind of solidarity with her. Not every beaten kid turned bad, they were both evidence of that. "My father," he admitted in response to her questioning look, already bitterly regretting his agreement to absolute honesty. It wasn't something he'd ever talked about, even with Hayley.

Pip nodded and touched her glass with his. They both drank, and sat silently for a moment, digesting what each had just learned of the other.

"She managed to get herself a degree, against the odds, and once a woman grown, joined up to serve her country," said Pip eventually, resuming her storytelling.

Gone was the brisk confidence Hotch was used to. Pip's words came slowly, deliberately. As if each were weighed before being spoken. He wondered again how much of it Dave knew, while also relieved they weren't going to delve into the details of their respective childhoods. Some things were better off left buried.

"Anything to get away from where she'd been," she continued. "She went hoping to find a sense of self-worth, she didn't realise until years later that she'd just swapped one kind of violence for another. As a marine, she did two long back-to-back tours in a war zone, earning herself two battlefield commissions and a Bronze Star, not that she'd be able to lay her hands on it if asked. It's in some drawer or other, I'm sure," she added dismissively. "At the end of her second tour of hell, she was approached by someone, someone who spoke with a silver tongue, promising her the earth. Young and naïve, she accepted the offer that was made and joined the CIA, thinking she would be helping to make the world a better place."

Pip gave him a rueful smile and a shrug. "She was bright, but not particularly good at seeing when someone was taking advantage of her, despite her experiences in the foster care system. She believed the lies she was told and did everything she was asked, not realising how profound an impact she was making on the shape of things to come. Nor did she see how accepting the offer in the first place had made her beholden to someone, someone who would always collect their due."

Pip swirled her whisky around in the tumbler. "She was an idealist," she said to her drink, "the jaded cynicism took years of hard knocks to develop." She glanced up at him. "You know how that goes."

Hotch knew, and he nodded. "Yeah."

Pip took a swallow before resuming her informative tale. "When it all went dreadfully wrong and innocent people died for one of her mistakes, she quit, walked away wracked with guilt over something she couldn't have done a damn thing about. She joined a different federal agency in the hope of redemption and for a little while, it looked like it might be possible. She was good at what she did, after all. She made some friends, even found love, in the shape of an ATF agent called Ian. Life in the FBI seemed good, and it looked like she'd finally found her place, if not peace. Three…for three…"

She stopped, tried to speak and shook her head. Pip swallowed heavily, several times. "Oh, this is harder than I expected," she breathed, looking up and blinking rapidly to try and stem the tears Hotch could see building.

Hotch sat forward. "Pip, you don't have to," he said, concerned. She'd offered the story for a reason, but her getting so upset over it surely wasn't worth any instruction she hoped he might gain.

Pip sniffed inelegantly and shook her head. "No…I think I do," she insisted, flapping a hand in his direction. "Just…just give me a minute."

"Take your time," Hotch reassured her and leaned back in his seat, swivelling round to look out the window to give her some semblance of privacy to pull herself together. Through the window, he could see the running lights of an aircraft high in the sky and idly tracked its progress as he waited. It had almost completed the final turn that would take it out of his view by the time Pip muttered something that sounded like "let's do this", from the other side of his desk. Hotch turned back to her. Pip's eyes were a little reddened, but she had almost completely composed herself. Possibly with help from the contents of her tumbler, the level of which was considerably lower than when he'd last seen it.

"You ok?" he asked, unsure if he really wanted her to continue if it had affected her so much.

Pip nodded and tipped up her drink to finish it. She took a deep breath and let it out. "She was FBI, he was ATF. They were rarely in the same city, both of them were part of teams that roamed the country, not fixed to a base. They were an unlikely pairing, but it worked, they complemented each other in some strange way. They had nearly three years together, before pure chance meant they ended up working as part of the same task force in Chicago. One cloudless day," her breathing hitched, "her birthday in fact, bad intel made her world fall apart all over again. She lost her lover, to the same hail of bullets that nearly killed her, as well as the rest of their team. She woke up in hospital three days later to be told he was gone, as was the baby they'd made together and all of her closest friends."

Pip gave him a thin, bitter smile that made the tears standing in her eyes once more roll down her face, leaving twin trails on her cheeks. "Then they presented her with the engagement ring he'd not had a chance to give her and told her time would heal all wounds - as if her birthday would ever be anything but a reminder of the most horrific day of her life, every year, until the day she died."

"Ah, hell," whispered Hotch. "Pip, that's…I'm so sorry," he said, knowing no words he could find would help. Nothing anyone had said when Hayley died had helped either, and they both knew the standard phrase "I'm sorry for your loss" that got trotted out to victim's families, really was as empty it sounded.

Pip shrugged and wiped her eyes, obviously aware of the shock value of what she'd divulged. He'd known she had been shot, it was in her file. The nerve damage to her right shoulder was the reason she was no longer in the field, even if that was somewhat of a murky grey area following her return to the Bureau. Dave had capitalised on the availability of her skills during the summer, occasionally drafting her into the team when the lack of agents made it necessary.

The rest of it, though…Hotch drained his tumbler in two short swallows. No wonder she'd needed a moment, after hearing it, he did too. The circumstances were different, but he could hear the echoes of the way he'd lost Hayley in what she'd been through.

As the whisky slid down, leaving a trail of heat in its wake, he wondered if she still had the ring her dead ATF agent had been planning to give her. Her eyes skittered away from his when he tried to catch her gaze, and her hands were clamped together as if to resist reaching for something. Yes, she still had it, and not on a shelf at home, either. If it wasn't in one her pockets, he'd eat his briefcase, contents and all.

"Losing someone you love to mindless violence is a unique pain, isn't it?" asked Pip. It was rhetorical, but Hotch nodded anyway. It was something else they had in common. He was starting to see why she thought he needed to hear some of the details of her life.

"One you can't explain to someone else if they haven't been there, done that and got their own version of the t-shirt," he commented.

They exchanged mutual wry smiles of acknowledgement, and Hotch was struck by the realisation that while he still knew relatively little about her, Pip already understood him on a dangerously deep level. She knew what it was like, she knew exactly how he felt.

"Precisely," she agreed, "but it's what happens after that really changes you. You harden yourself, convince yourself that the only way to avoid feeling that pain again is to avoid being in a position like that in the first place. To not get too close, not let yourself be that vulnerable ever again." She cocked her head. "It's a good theory, but real life doesn't work that way, does it?"

Hotch shook his head before he could stop himself. No, it didn't. He hadn't planned to fall in love again, and certainly not so soon after Hayley's death. He hadn't courted it, it had just happened, in between friendly drinks after work and quiet conversations in the car while out on a case. He'd simply turned around one day and caught himself in the middle of imagining what spending the rest of his life with Emily might be like. From the knowing tone, the same thing had happened to Pip, with Dave. Another similarity they shared.

Pip refilled their tumblers before continuing, the measure a fair sight larger than the last. "The loss of her field career came a little later, when it became clear she would never be able to shoot properly with her right hand again. A man came to her when she was at rock bottom, weak and helpless as a new-born kitten and cussing a blue streak at her physical therapist. He knew what she'd been before and offered her a new home in the BAU, a chance for a new start." She twirled her glass in the air, an airy gesture that somehow spoke of the utter bleakness of that time. "It wasn't like she anything else left to lose, so she accepted." She sighed, taking a mouthful to stall for time. Hotch let her have it, content to let her tell it at her own pace while he just kept quiet and listened.

"It was a long road to recovery," she said, "even after she made it to the BAU. She suffered pain, drug addiction. Grief, self-loathing. Loneliness. She was an utter bitch to her new colleagues, taking her own misery out on others by being as difficult as possible."

Hotch remembered what she'd been like when Gideon had brought her into the fold. "Difficult" didn't even start to describe her back then. He nodded, then stopped himself when her eyes narrowed. "Was I not supposed to agree?" he murmured with a flicker of a smile. "I learned long ago not to contradict you when you're right."

Pip let out a single bark of rueful laughter. "Possibly not quite so swiftly, at least," she replied sternly.

The alcohol turned the sternness into something more like the teasing he enjoyed with Dave. Hotch had to smirk, just because the two of them, Pip and Dave, were so well-suited. How had he not seen that before? Their rather odd argumentative friendship, something he'd stumbled onto quite by accident, had been full-grown by time he knew about it.

Even though he had tried to project an air of all-knowing when questioning Dave, that evening they'd flown home from Colorado had been the first time he'd seen how close they had become. He'd never known what had sparked it, although Hotch had always suspected that Dave had been the primary instigator, just because Pip was a good-looking woman and Dave still had two working eyes and a pulse. In the past, his friend had all too often done his thinking with the brain in his pants rather than the one in his head, and Hotch didn't think Dave had changed all that much over the years. Regardless of how it started, once you knew her, it was easy to understand how it had developed. They were two sides of the same coin, prickly sarcasm included.

"I'll try and remember that," he said with a smile, punctuating his comment with a deep mouthful from his glass. He savoured it, rolling it around his tongue before swallowing. Damn, that stuff was good. Much better than the bottle he had filed under W in the cabinet behind him. It would be far too easy to drink more of it than he should.

Pip huffed at him in gentle amusement. "Anyway, as horrible as she was to the people around her, she was being useful, something she'd always strived for, even as a child. For a little while, that was enough. Eventually, she made friends, grew to love her new job, the team around her. Unable to have children of her own as a result of the shooting, she took her team under her wing, nurturing and guiding them as if they were her own."

He'd known about the injuries she'd sustained as a result of the disastrous op in Chicago, but had somehow missed the loss of her ability to bear children. Hotch remembered a conversation with Dave, before the two of them had got together. He'd asked Dave if Pip was pregnant; the shock on Dave's face hadn't made sense at the time but certainly did so after that disclosure. He'd also seen the way she showered her team with love and loyalty, and received the same in return, but had never thought that much about why. Knowing changed his understanding of her – she was far more complicated than she appeared.

"She kept some of the attitude," smirked Pip, "but the worst of the rough edges got worn away. But always in the back of her mind, was the life she'd left behind. The skeletons in the closet that even now, still rattle in her dreams." Pip snorted and rolled her eyes. "Closet?" she muttered. "More like a fucking ossuary." She gave him a lopsided shrug as if asking him to dismiss that, and went on.

"About three and a half years after joining the BAU, she made a new friend. With one thing and another that life threw at them, he became a really good friend, one she could rely on. A friend she trusted, when trust was still something she struggled with; someone who made her feel safe, when that had been missing for so long. Someone who understood her, as well as her rather peculiar sense of humour. A friend closer than many would believe, close enough to see and know her, rather than the face she presented to the world. They told each other nearly everything and were both better for it. Each became the other's armour against the darkness we see here every day, the shoulder to turn to when things got rough. Even if there was nothing they could do about it except keep pouring the drinks. They laughed together, and they cried together, and caused each other some monster hangovers."

Hotch snorted softly, a smile finally breaking free. He'd seen the aftermath of some of those late nights. Pip returned the smile, hers a little rueful as if she were remembering the same thing.

"She revelled in it, having a friend like that," she said. "Years went by, and she started to wonder about how close they had become. Where they were going, whether there was a possibility of something more, or if she'd misinterpreted him, because as far as she could tell, he'd never made it obvious."

Hotch quirked a sceptical eyebrow but said nothing. He'd seen Dave was in love with her probably before even Dave had realised it. Their conversation the other day echoed in his head. Perceptive in matters of the heart, but only for others; somehow she was hopeless at seeing those same things for herself. The knowledge of what Dave had hidden in his top drawer edged into his consciousness, like an unwelcome visitor knocking at the door.

Pip shrugged, but otherwise ignored his disbelief. "There was a party, a charity dinner, and she dressed up for him. It was going well, and she was almost sure he wouldn't say no if she offered, when life threw them another curveball. A constant thorn in their side, was their Section Chief. They made life difficult for everyone, but particularly seemed to have it in for the two friends for some reason. They were at the party too, and in the heat of the moment, the woman impulsively weaved a web intended to mislead. To help cover anything that might happen between the two friends. She ensnared herself instead, her superior using it to try and dismiss her for sleeping with a subordinate."

"What?" exclaimed Hotch, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his desk. "When? I never knew anything about this!"

"I told Strauss the absolute truth but phrased it in such a way that she thought the opposite was true. She thought I told her I was gay."

"Actually, I remember Dave telling something me about that," admitted Hotch. "We were in Alaska and he told me you'd worked out how to stop him snoring." He tilted his glass in her direction. "Thank you for that, by the way, he sounds like a blocked drain when he's asleep." That was an exaggeration, but not a huge one.

Pip returned the gesture and smiled. "Can't believe you never mentioned it him, it's not like you haven't shared a twin before, or even a double bed if we can't get enough rooms for everyone."

Hotch snorted. "Always too busy with the case. I tend to get a bit…focussed when we're on a field trip. How did that bit of deception lead to an attempt at dismissal? One I knew nothing of, I might add, I would have fought it tooth and nail." Hotch paused, wondering if he ought to voice the thought, before doing so anyway. "If Strauss was gunning for you, I would have thought it would be about Dave." He'd misunderstood their friendship too, for a while.

Pip's mouth twisted. "I thought it was, when she started. She kept circling the subject, like she was embarrassed. Eventually, I had enough and left politely." She gave him a half-smile. "Well, politely for me at any rate."

Hotch snorted. He'd been on the end of that kind of politeness a couple of times. Somehow Pip had the ability to make even the highest courtesy sound like an insult, but often subtly enough that one didn't realise until it was far too late to call her out on it.

"Bloody woman followed me all the way back to Dave's office," Pip added. Hotch could see where it was leading, he and Dave had heard part of that argument through the wall. "She insisted on continuing the conversation. Eventually, she dragged out a photo of Amber, you remember her? Amber Rishi? She held the finance desk for about five years."

"Yes, hard worker," commented Hotch after some thought. "Bit more confident than Griffin. I wasn't entirely surprised when she finally made the jump from admin support to agent."

"Me either." Pip shrugged. "Griffin's getting there. He knows his numbers, he's just a bit too bright for his own good. He graduated young, so it's not like he's had the same amount of time as we've had, to figure out the world isn't the way you hope when you're a kid."

Hotch nodded. Fair point. "I bet living in the same house as the boss came as a bit of a shock," he said with a flicker of a smile. "I notice he's always on time these days."

"He's not very good at mornings," she agreed with a laugh, "but now he has an obnoxious yapping excuse for a dog to look out for and he's often up before I am. Dreadful little thing, all watery eyes and breath like a flamethrower. If I'd known it would make him more organised, I would have bought him a pet a long time ago."

They exchanged a rueful glance. Pip was obviously thinking the same thing as him, Hotch realised. Which was variations on a theme of "kids these days". When had he got old enough for that to start? He was still in the prime of his life…right?

"The photo was of Amber on her Academy graduation day," said Pip. "One of her classmates took it, I'd never seen it before. It was Amber in full dress, just as I planted a huge smacker of a congratulatory kiss on her cheek. Strauss took that as confirmation that I'd seduced a member of my team, taken advantage of my position. When I asked her where she'd got the picture, she said it was amongst Amber's belongings and that it had been sent back to Quantico among other things when she died. Someone on the post desk gave it to Strauss, thinking it would get passed to me."

"Rishi's dead?" The shocks just kept coming, didn't they? Hotch exhaled heavily. "I never knew."

Pip grimaced. "Me either, until that rather backhanded and insulting notification. Nobody thought to tell us, the admin guys, about an agent's death. Why would they? It was an accident, by the way, not in the field. Highway crash." Pip shrugged. "Just bad luck, but at least it was quick. It wasn't unusual for my emails to Amber to go unanswered for a couple of weeks, so the fact that I'd not had a reply to my last one hadn't worried me. She was doing well in Missing Persons, but always busy." She huffed. "I told Strauss exactly what she could do with her plastic sympathy couched as a fraternisation accusation."

"I bet you did," muttered Hotch into his tumbler, as if he hadn't heard at least part of it.

Pip took a sip and absently ran her finger round the lip of the glass. "I explained a few home truths to her about the nature of my previous employment and that I knew some things about her she'd rather I didn't. We've been at an uneasy stand-off ever since. Occasionally one side or the other will give a little ground, but back and forth we go, still walking the line I drew eighteen months ago."

"That's why you didn't rise to the subject when I mentioned her being difficult the other day," sighed Hotch, understanding flooding in. He narrowed his eyes. "You've got something on her."

"Many things," agreed Pip, "but only one that's pressing right now. I see, but I don't tell, not unless I absolutely have to. If everyone thought they had to stop what they were doing or saying every time I turn up with more paperwork, I'd never get it all done." She shrugged again. It was a gesture Hotch truly hated, but somehow Pip made it expressive, a part of the way she spoke. Like the profanity, which she was obviously making an effort to limit for his benefit.

"I see, and I hear," she said. "I know things about a lot of people they'd probably rather not realise I do. I knew you were in love before you did, for example. Strauss..." Pip frowned. "I don't want to use it against her, she needs help, not leveraging."

"You've seen it?" Hotch only had his suspicions, nothing concrete.

Pip shook her head. "I'm an addict. I will always be an addict, even if I never touch another pill in my life. That's the nature of addiction. I don't have to see the particular vice to recognise one of the tribe."

Confirmation without actually saying it. She could talk in circles and half-truths with the best of them. Hotch sighed. She didn't have any hard evidence either. Pip was in the same boat as he was.

"I think she's got a drinking problem," he said, leaning back in his seat. "Just…the way she is sometimes. The way she speaks, her temper. Dave mentioned after Morgan's interrogation of Doyle that he thought could smell booze on her breath. I keep thinking she must have her reasons…"

"Addicts don't need a reason, just an excuse," murmured Pip. "And we're good at hiding. Did you know I was on drugs the first year I was running AST?"

Hotch shook his head. He'd assumed the dark storm cloud that had been perpetually hanging over her had been pain, she'd even walked with a cane for almost the entirety of that year.

"I can throw her a lifeline. Whether she takes it or not is another matter," said Pip slowly. "It's not the same circles as I move in, but there's some inevitable overlap with my bunch and the traditionalists."

Which Hotch took to mean Alcoholics Anonymous. He nodded gratefully. Strauss was becoming erratic, and the drama of the fallout if she did something really stupid would be worse than any possible leaks from within a notoriously tight-lipped organisation. As risk assessments went, it was a no-brainer. He'd trust AA over Strauss' deteriorating judgement in a heartbeat.

"Keep watching," added Pip. "Nobody stops because they're told to. You have to want to before it'll stick. Watch, and eventually, she'll ask for help, even if she doesn't realise it at the time."

"Who helped you?" He had to ask, because it certainly hadn't been him.

Pip smiled briefly. "Gideon. He'd seen me all sewn up and full of holes, he knew why I'd started. He convinced me that it could also be the reason to stop. That numbing everything wasn't going to bring Ian back. He had a friend, they introduced me to the local chapter of Narcotics Anonymous and the rest is history." The smile faded, and she averted her eyes. "I never did subscribe to the whole 12 Steps thing, but it pointed me in the direction of my higher power." Pip flushed a little, something Hotch didn't understand. Having faith, being strong enough to have a faith all while dealing with everything the BAU could throw at you, was a gift. Nothing to be ashamed of.

"I don't want to talk about Gideon," she whispered to her drink. "Is that ok?"

Despite their agreement to honesty, Pip asked to leave that part of her story out. Because it still hurt, another wound that hadn't healed, like Ian. Hotch could see that clearly. He nodded. He didn't want to talk about Gideon either. Some things should be left undisturbed, even after so long. Gideon's abandonment of them, of Reid, was something he was still angry about. Apparently, Gideon had also been close to Pip, something he hadn't known. The manner of his departure obviously still bothered her in the same way it did Reid, and it made Hotch angry all over again. Best not to rip the scab off that this evening.

Pip leaned back in her seat. "So, where were we? Oh, yes, the dinner and the subsequent death notification of a girl the woman considered a daughter. She flew to San Francisco to visit the grave with the original members of her team, to say their goodbyes together. The night she flew home, her previous life reared its ugly head once more, the skeletons reanimating and removing all her choices. She was ordered to take up her Company designation again and to report to the Middle East, right into the middle of something incredibly dangerous. With no warning or explanation, she had to leave her friend, her job, her life."

Pip paused and gave him a significant look. "And her boss," she added slowly, eyes still fixed on him, "a man she always looked up to, a man she admires greatly and would do anything for. She never got to say that before she left, or that she was sorry for abandoning her post, even if it was against her will."

She fell silent, letting him think about that for a moment. Dave had already given him a highly edited version of that part; Pip had glossed over some of the salient points Dave had mentioned, presumably with that in mind. The bits she had told him, however, filled in some of the larger gaps. He'd guessed, from the stridently-worded reinstatement orders he'd been presented with, that she'd been off doing something highly classified and compartmented. He hadn't known where or for whom. Having been given a little more detail, the manner of both her departure and subsequent return made sense.

Dave had also said years before that she held him in high regard, but it was one thing to hear that as an off-hand comment from an old friend, and quite another to hear it from her directly. It was incredibly flattering, if nothing else.

Hotch was suddenly struck by the semi-blasphemous thought that he was her higher power, the one she would always compare herself to, the one she would try to impress by living well. That put the "superhero" comment she'd made before that first case after her return in a different light. Pip coloured slightly when Hotch caught her eye, all but confirming his conclusion; and he had to stop himself sighing. It was one thing for Jack to look up to him, eager and ready as a sponge to soak up everything his daddy wanted to teach. For a grown woman full of sarcasm and bullet holes to want the same thing suddenly felt very heavy, like another brick had been added to the weight across his back.

Once he thought about it a little more, Hotch realised her actions had already spoken, as loud and clear as her words. If not more so. The question that had been circling in the back of his mind – why it was her in his office instead of Dave, resolved itself.

She was as much of a private person as he was, she had come to him that evening fully intending to expose her soft underbelly just because she thought he needed to hear it for some reason - regardless of how uncomfortable it made her feel. In her odd way, it was Pip's apology for leaving him in the lurch with not so much as a by-your-leave, even though she'd not had a choice. And, most certainly, overtures of true friendship, beyond their existing professional one. Perhaps he needn't think of her admiration as a burden after all. She was capable, that much was obvious, just to survive as long as she had without becoming unstable or UnSub was remarkable. With her experience, she probably would have been his superior in another life, if the Chicago op hadn't ruined her chances of a field career.

A more equal partnership? He could certainly envision that. With Pip to keep Dave under control…and Morgan too, if Hotch was honest with himself, he could focus more on Reid, JJ and Emily. And Jack. And Strauss. The woes of the job of Unit Chief were many and varied and he could use all the help he could get. Friendship would come later, the more they got comfortable with each other. Hotch quashed the smirk. It wasn't her that needed time to get comfortable, it was him. Privacy was a way of life for him, secrecy was for her. Two sides of the same goal – she would have no trouble adapting, but Hotch knew it would be harder for him to share himself in that way.

Hotch inclined his head and raised his glass, toasting her with the remains of the shot she'd poured. He'd have to stop at two, especially as large as she measured them. He could already feel the buzz creeping up on him, the warmth he'd been seeking starting to trickle through. It would be hours before he could drive and if he had any more, he was liable to let slip more about himself than he was happy with.

Pip mirrored his action, acknowledging his acceptance gratefully. She took a deep mouthful, as if fortifying herself for the remains of the story.

"Worried about the future," she said after a moment's pause, "the very real risk she wouldn't make it back, and unsure where her reactivation would lead, she rejected her friend when he tried to tell her how he felt. As she was leaving, at her inadvertent prompting, admittedly, he told her that he loved her, was in love with her and had been for a long time." She took another sip of her drink. "It was a bit of a surprise."

He could sense the overtones of why she was telling him it all. The similarities were striking, in places, with the situation he was in. Dave had started to tell him about it, many months ago, before they'd been interrupted by a case, before he'd gone to Afghanistan. There'd been no time then or since to finish that conversation.

"Holding him at arm's length hadn't worked," continued Pip, "she loved him too. By then, he was as essential to her as the very air she breathed. He'd wormed his way under her defences without her realising, taken up residence in her soul. But she never told him she felt the same. She left, leaving him behind with a broken heart and went reluctantly back to her old life. She saw some terrible things, and she did some terrible things too. Partly because she had to, but mostly out of disgust for herself for shying away from telling him the truth when she had the chance. Those actions still haunt her, still jerk her awake in the depths of the night with a scream caught behind her teeth." She cocked her head. "You know how that feels too, don't you?"

As if the question needed to be asked. If the horrors of some of their cases weren't enough, he had enough personal horror to feed his nightmares for decades to come.

"Yes," muttered Hotch. "I do." He hesitated, then ploughed on, regardless. It was about time he told someone about the terrors in his sleep and if he was going to let her in, he may as well make a start. "I dream of the day Hayley died, and I dream of the rage and the blood, and of beating that bastard's head into the floor. When I stop, it's not Foyet dead in front of me anymore, it's Hayley. I wake up cold and sweating, wondering if I've disturbed Jack."

"You feel like it's your fault."

It wasn't a question, but Hotch answered anyway. "Yes."

"It isn't. Nor is it your fault nobody caught that twisted psycho sooner. You are not responsible for the actions of a madman, Hotch."

"What do you dream about?" he asked, unwilling to delve into any more of his mixed-up feelings about anything related to Foyet.

"I killed people," replied Pip softly. "Not because I was ordered to, not because my life was in danger. I killed a paedophile and a traitor, both in as grisly manner as I could manage, just because I thought they didn't deserve to walk the earth any longer. I dream of the look on their faces when they finally realised I was bringing their death. I dream of them begging for their lives, and I dream of their final looks of terror when that didn't work. I became judge, jury and executioner, and I didn't just want them to die, I wanted them to feel pain, like the pain they'd brought to others."

She leaned back in her seat. "There's a fine line between justice and vengeance," Pip commented casually, as if they were discussing the weather, "and our respective actions fall on different sides of it. You the former, I the latter." She shrugged. "But then, I've always known that you were a better person than me."

Pip drained her tumbler once more and reached for the bottle. Hotch shook his head when she tilted it invitingly in his direction. She examined him, eyes flickering over his features. It was rather a disconcerting sensation, like she could see everything he was trying to hold back.

"I always knew I'd be getting a cab home, you're welcome to share it," she said, putting the bottle back down within his easy reach, having poured herself another large one – considerably bigger than the previous two. "I wasn't planning on being sober having talked about all this shit. Technically it's Dave's, but he won't mind." Pip smirked. "I bought it, after all."

Hotch considered that. He was feeling a little uncomfortable with how personal the evening was becoming and starting to think that maybe, getting a little intoxicated to counter that feeling wasn't such a bad idea. He'd already been more open than he'd planned, but just from what he'd learned so far, he understood Pip was a consummate secret-keeper. If he said something he regretted in the morning, nobody would ever know, and he knew better than to worry about her using it against him. She thought too highly of him for that.

Not to mention that drinking with her was proving far more interesting than an evening commiserating with Dave over past cases. No matter how they started, that's always what they talked about when deep in their cups.

"Why not?" he conceded finally and topped up his empty tumbler to a level matching hers. If he was doing it, might as well do it properly.

Pip smiled. "Why not, indeed. Which brings me to the last chapter in what has been up until now, rather a sad tale." She cocked her head. "Bear with me, we're almost there."

Hotch tilted his glass in a silent gesture to continue. He'd learnt more about her that evening than in all the years they'd worked together, and he had a feeling he was about to hear the part that she'd wanted to tell him from the beginning. The rest had just been build-up, background information so that it made sense.

"She tried to put her friend's declaration behind her when she returned a year later with a Company termination order hanging over her head," she said, "knowing he had been told she was already dead. Getting back to the US was no easy thing for a start and she'd been disavowed, marked for death because of something she knew. I mean, how does one start a relationship on that basis?" she added as an aside.

"What?" exclaimed Hotch incredulously. "What do you mean, "marked for death because of something you knew"?" He was vaguely aware the CIA would kill their own if circumstances demanded it. Somehow to have that policy not only confirmed, from the horse's mouth as it were, but that it had been applied to her, was deeply shocking. "What the hell were you doing out there?"

Pip cocked her head. "We agreed to honesty, and you have to have realised I've already committed treason by being as open as I have. Any more details of the op will have to be ignored for the purposes of this conversation – it's still ongoing."

Hotch frowned. "Fine," he said unhappily. "You're safe from assassination now, I take it?" That the most important point, anyway.

"As can be," replied Pip cryptically. She shrugged. "It's complicated. The immediate threat has been lifted, certainly. A devious little garden gnome with friends in high places saw to that – along with my reinstatement here."

Hotch decided he wasn't going to ask for an explanation of that rather odd statement. "So, you thought there was no chance of…" He stopped, feeling once more the resonance of current events. Emily had used the word complicated too, when he'd tried to explain.

"Not a chance." Pip waved a dismissive hand to illustrate the absurdity of the idea. "Besides, the woman had long given up hope of that, given the things she'd done. But he was persistent and tried again to tell her how he felt. She attempted to push him away, knowing she still might be killed just for making it back alive, and that her atrocities would be too much. That they would slowly poison any relationship between them. That because of them, she would lose him anyway."

Pip leaned forward in her seat, resting her arms on his desk. "He persevered. Made her listen. Then he gave her space to think about it, without pressure or expectation of anything other than remaining her friend, no matter what."

She sat back a little, enough to give him a shrug. "Given a chance to mull it over, she quickly realised that any chance for happiness, even if it was to be short-lived, was worth it. That life is all too short not to grab every opportunity, and with both hands. All the time she was away, he was all she could think about, even when the bullets were flying. Why not take the chance? Now, she's happy, and finally at peace with herself…more or less."

Pip fell silent, tale at an end. Hotch could see what she was trying to tell him, but she hadn't been party to the conversation that had led to him sulking alone his office. She didn't know just how badly he'd handled it.

"I'm in a unique position," noted Pip quietly when he didn't speak. "Parts of my life mirror you, other parts, her. I can at least partly understand the different directions you're both travelling in. She's scared you won't understand the things she's done and doesn't want to lose the friendship you already have. You finally let your heart out of the lockbox you've kept it in, and when you didn't hear what you'd hoped, you lashed out like the wounded animal you really are. Then you closed yourself off entirely, like you did before."

Hotch shifted awkwardly in his seat. He'd drunk enough by then to be completely unable to hide his overwhelming discomfort of her all-too accurate assessment of what had happened. He could feel the blood draining from his face too, because Pip wasn't a profiler, but he worked with several very good ones. If she had picked up that level of detail, then what had everyone else seen?

Pip shook her head gently. "Relax," she reassured him. "I'm sure everyone else just thought you were uptight about revealing the deception surrounding her death, and that she was just nervous about their reactions. In a former life, I made a career out of helping or hindering relationships for political ends." She smirked. "You could say it's something of a speciality of mine. Far more effective than assassination, although I did my fair share of that, too. I'm good at seeing things others don't." Pip shrugged easily. "Just not for myself."

"Ye-es," Hotch said slowly, gladly latching onto the obvious topic that had presented itself, desperate to avoid discussing his own situation. He'd agreed to honesty, so all the time they were discussing her, it meant they weren't discussing him. It was only form of control he had over her this evening, having already given up both his position of authority and the option of deception hours previously.

"There's a large piece missing from the story of that woman, isn't there?" he asked, setting his tumbler down in order to lean forward and emphasise his point. The booze was definitely doing the talking, because he'd never have questioned her about it while sober. Not after the last time. "Her abusive boyfriend. You never mentioned him. Or the concern of her boss when he could see what was happening. The bruises she covered, the angry phone calls. None of that was anywhere in what you just told me."

Pip went still, like a hunted animal. If there had been one to hand, Hotch could have heard a pin drop in the silence that developed.

"That asshole hit you, I know he did," he said softly into that silence when it dragged on too long to be comfortable any longer, becoming heavy and oppressive. "Many times."

"Twice," she whispered. "It was only twice."

"Is that what you've told Dave?" Hotch asked scornfully, starting to get irritated. "I thought we were being honest with each other this evening? You were with him for nearly two years. It wasn't twice, Pip, more like twice a fucking month," he insisted, the combination of alcohol and frustration with her making his temper bubble over a little. Their evening of truth-telling was likely to be his only opportunity to get it out in the open, something he'd wanted to do for a long time; and there she was, trying to renege on her own terms.

"I kept my mouth shut, against my better judgement, because you obviously had no intention of cooperating if I'd tried to do something about him," he said, unable to make that sound anything other than scathing. "You made that perfectly clear, the last time I brought it up. I will continue to keep my mouth shut, because you evidently haven't given Dave the whole picture either. I know that because McGill is still breathing. But this evening, just you and me, I want to hear you say it."

Pip shifted uneasily. "Plead the fifth," she mumbled into her tumbler as she necked the contents.

"That wasn't what we agreed," he growled. "If you think anything of me at all, then honour me with the truth. Answer the damn question. He repeatedly abused you, didn't he?"

He'd boxed her into a corner, caught between her regard for him and her own rules for the evening, and they both knew it. Pip nodded, eyes averted.

"You forget that while Dave never met Damon McGill, I did," Hotch noted, drawing her gaze back to him with the force of his words. "I saw him instantly for what he was, and I saw what he was doing, yet you either brushed me off or blew up whenever I tried to mention it. Why? Why would you put up with it, and for so long? Why on earth didn't you come to me for help? I would have done, you know I would." He leaned back in his seat with a huff of frustration. "Look how it ended! Two dead Alexandria police officers and two more dead at the courthouse when he was finally convicted, one of them a child. Very nearly you and Dave too, a couple of weeks before that, we both know it was mostly luck that you survived instead of your assailants."

Pip flushed and turned her head away, refusing to meet his eyes. "Doesn't matter now," she muttered.

Hotch hissed, a long sigh of exasperation. He picked up his tumbler again, just to have something to look at other than her stricken expression. He hadn't meant to throw it at her quite so bluntly and she obviously felt the weight of responsibility for those deaths, regardless that it was McGill at fault.

Somehow, his glass was empty again, the third one going down much swifter than the previous two. Pip's was empty as well. He refilled both without asking, hoping she saw the overly generous size of the measure for the circumspect apology it really was. Pip grabbed hers from the desk and just stared at it. Hotch swirled his, watching the amber liquid rise and fall against the cut glass as he forced his temper back into the cage where it belonged. Honesty, yes, they'd agreed to that. Not ripping each other to shreds with it.

"I think it does matter," he disputed softly into the hush that had fallen over them. It was late enough by then that one could hear the building ticking gently as it cooled, lacking the heat of the bodies that occupied it during the day. "To me, it matters a great deal." Still contemplating his drink, he felt her head shoot up to look at him more than seeing it.

Hotch took a deep breath, gaze still focused on the contents of the tumbler in his hand. "I know how it all turned out, and I hope you already know I don't hold you responsible for anything that stemmed from that dreadful relationship. It was all him, it always was. What I want to know is why, if you think so highly of me, you didn't let me help you stop it in the beginning. Before everything got so completely and utterly out of anyone's control."

He could feel the warning glare now, too. It was softened by the quantity of Dave's rather excellent scotch they'd ploughed through together, but still effective. It would have been even more effective if she hadn't started by trying to brush him off again, like she always had when he mentioned McGill.

"If you're in such an honest mood this evening," he looked up and finally caught her eye, "then answer me that one thing."

Pip simply stared at him. Silence reigned once more. It was another test of who would break first, and Hotch was determined it wouldn't be him a second time. Trouble was, even though she two sheets to the wind, so was he. Outstaring her was like trying to outstare a cat. His nose started to itch and beads of sweat formed on his brow as the battle of wills stretched on.

Just as he was about to concede and give in to the maddening tickle in his left nostril, Pip finally faltered, her eyes dropping. She didn't look up as Hotch ran a shirt cuff over his forehead as subtly as he was able and furiously rubbed his nose.

"Because I didn't want you to think less of me," she mumbled.

The quiet admission wasn't addressed to him per se, more to his desk. The shame in her voice stole any satisfaction Hotch might have felt at winning their little stand-off.

"I wouldn't have thought any less of you!" he exclaimed incredulously. "I wanted to help, that's all. I'd do the same for anyone in that situation. Why would you think that?" That she'd thought it, was not only surprising, but a little hurtful too. While they'd never been close friends in any sense, he thought she'd known him better than that. Would have trusted him more, even back then.

Pip shrugged one shoulder, a defeated gesture that spoke volumes about her discomfort with his line of questioning. "I was a marine sniper, and a highly-trained covert operative. More than capable of handling myself, even before I joined the FBI. I could have stopped it without help," she said quietly. "But I let him push me around for two years until he finally put me in the ER, because I felt like I needed punishing for past sins. I thought I was in control."

She'd deliberately let McGill use her as his personal punching bag. Hotch was stunned and attempted to cover his discomfiture by topping up their drinks again. The twisted frown he received in thanks told him that Pip saw his reaction as confirming her previous assumptions.

"I don't think less of you, Pip," he said gently, trying to head off that line of thought immediately. "I'm confused, if anything. What sins? Surely anything you did was because you followed your orders, either as part of the military or one federal agency or another. If there's blame to be handed out, it wouldn't lie on your shoulders, but on those of your former superiors." He gave her a gentle smile. "I'm discounting myself of course, you've never done anything questionable for me that I didn't ask for."

He got the reaction he hoped for, a small smile making an appearance. "And a few you haven't," she said. "How did Jack like that action figure I got hold of for you?"

Hotch chuckled. "He loves it. I never did work out how you managed that, they were sold out before I even knew he wanted one." He fell silent, unable to work out what the expression on her face meant. "What sins, Pip?" he repeated, when she made no move to answer the question.

"For living, when Ian didn't," she admitted. "And for not realising I was pregnant and getting his baby killed, too."

Well, didn't that explain a whole lot about her? And her relationship with that jackoff McGill. Profiling 101. Today's subject: Survivor Guilt. A little late in developing maybe, but still practically textbook.

"Is that why you've still got his engagement ring?" asked Hotch. "You haven't told Dave about that, either." Hotch resisted glancing towards his desk drawer. "You carry it around with you."

Pip let out a huff of irritation. "Oh, I do hate profilers," she said with a bitter laugh. She pulled her keys out and unscrewed a small decorative wooden fob. "It's funny though. Whenever Dave asks me something, he'll tell me to start at the beginning, but his curiosity means he'll follow that up with a question that inevitably means I start the story in the middle. But in answer to your question, no, I haven't told him about this."

Hotch only had a brief glance at the diamond ring before it was whipped away and buried back in the same pocket from whence it came. He allowed himself a small smile. His briefcase was safe from being consumed in lieu of dinner, for that night anyway. The smile faded as he remembered the Gimmel ring on a chain Dave had found in Emily's apartment.

Pip offered him a twisted frown as if she knew where his thoughts had taken him. "I will eventually, but doing that means letting go of the dream that came with it. The happily married couple with a white picket fence, two point four children and a dog. I'd never thought about kids until I couldn't have any, but it's a bit late now, probably for all of it. Sometimes it's hard to let go, because it still hurts."

Hotch gently rubbed the indent on his ring finger with his thumb, running his nail across the skin where his wedding band used to sit. Pip caught the movement and offered him a half-smile, as if he'd just made her point for her.

"And sometimes," she said lowly, "sometimes, we want it to hurt. That's the darkness we battle every day, to not sink into that, when it would be so easy to do so."

In other words, McGill had been a means to an end. Either unwilling or unable to cause herself physical pain, she'd hooked up with a complete jerk and let him do it for her. She'd continued to let him until one day, he went too far and put her in hospital. Either she'd finally had enough punishment, or that evening had been some sort of wake-up call and she had finally put an end to their train-wreck of a relationship. Or tried to, because things had only spiralled from there. Although it finally culminated with McGill locked up for his third strike and never to see the light of day again, it had all started because she'd needed to feel punished for something she couldn't have done a single thing to change.

"You're happy now, though?" Hotch asked. He would never have done so before, his relationship with Pip as the team leader of the AST had always been coolly professional, despite the way she had with words sometimes. Having spent an evening drinking Dave's scotch with her, the question suddenly seemed incredibly important. It would continue to be as well, he was determined to get to know this rather extraordinary woman a little better. Especially if Dave's plans…Hotch mentally clamped down on that, lest his face show his thoughts. He'd drunk far too much to be able to hide much of anything anymore, and the contents of his drawer was practically shouting for his attention.

"Right now?" Pip nodded. "Yes. I had a moment of vengeance-fuelled madness during the summer and went rogue to deal with the leader of the gang that shot Ian, but I was lucky. An old friend in the Pentagon had a long-term interest in him and sanctioned my action to further his own operation. If it hadn't been for him pulling my toes out of the fire, I would have lost everything. That kind of brought it home to me a bit, woke me up, I suppose. I'm back behind my desk where I want to be, working for you, with a good team around me. Dave keeps the horrors of the past at bay, he makes me laugh, makes me feel safe."

"Are you going to run a risk like that again?" he asked. Apart from her personal wellbeing, if she went off the rails, it could have an operational impact too.

"No." Pip replied quickly. "For the first time in a long time, I've got something to lose, and I'm happy with that."

Pip leaned back in her seat. "In the future?" She shrugged. "The shadows may still win, or he'll get tired of me, but it's worth it while it lasts." She fixed his gaze with her own, pinning him to his seat. "It's worth another try, Hotch. Who knows where it might lead?"

Hotch felt his eyes being dragged towards his top drawer, despite best efforts to the contrary. No wonder Dave had said it felt like it was burning a hole in his pocket. It was burning a hole in his desk, and it wasn't even his. Hotch felt like he could see the damn thing grinning at him, even through the layers of wood hiding it from view.

Oblivious to the contents of his drawer, Pip thankfully misinterpreted his sideways glance. "Just be there. Let her know there's no pressure, let her see that there's no judgement of her actions. Show her that you are, and always will be, her friend. No matter what."

"You think…" Hotch stopped. Was he really going to do it? Have that conversation, with Philippa Harker of all people? A woman perfectly capable of verbally tearing him a new one while still calling him "sir" with every other breath? Hotch suppressed the irreverent smirk. That had been a particularly memorable experience, and not one he cared to repeat.

But not that night. He had been granted a privileged glimpse of a whole different side to her, the Pip that was under the prickles on the outside. It was the sympathy on her face that made the decision for him. She knew, as she said, from both sides of the equation. Or was it the alcohol doing the thinking? Hotch topped up their empty tumblers and almost missed the desk putting the nearly empty bottle down. Somewhere along the line, he'd lost count of how many they'd had, both of them just refilling at will as they talked. They'd be pouring him into a cab at this rate. He owed Dave the best part of a very expensive bottle of scotch.

He cleared his throat and tried again. "You think if…if I told her again, properly this time, then give her some space, maybe…"

Pip gave him a small smile. "We're different people. Different lives, for all the similarities. But, yeah, maybe. What she did in the past plays on her mind. The reaction of your team to her return plays on her mind." She waved a hand. "You don't have to be a profiler to know either of those things. Perhaps, once she's dealt with it all, she'll be more open to the idea." She took an untidy gulp of her drink, the first indication Hotch had seen that she was getting as inebriated as he was. Not quite what he'd planned for his evening, but it had been informative, if nothing else.

"Not to mention your timing is fucking awful," she added with a snort of genuine amusement. "She came back to protect the boy, who then watched his father die, as did she. Let her sort it out in her head, then deal with the other thing. Let her focus on that first, before you try and elbow your way in."

"I did sort of spring it on her," he admitted, starting to see something inherently funny in that.

Pip rolled her eyes. "Course you did. You've not seen her for months and even though you knew she was alive, you couldn't talk to her." Pip chuckled. "I bet you basically ambushed her, first chance you got, like an overeager Spaniel."

Hotch laughed along with her. "I guess I did," he agreed.

"What is it with you two? You and Dave, I mean," she added in response to his questioning look. "You wait months, years even, to tell a woman how you feel, and then you just sort of throw it at us all in one go while we're distracted with something else." Pip snorted with laughter. "Both of you. Both of you picked the absolute worst time, one way or another."

"You're all a bit scary," muttered Hotch, the scotch a little more in charge of his tongue than his brain was.

Pip just laughed, and Hotch joined in. "I can't imagine why," Pip said drily when they subsided, the lingering smirk telling Hotch that she knew exactly why.

That had them laughing again, their whisky-fuelled evening suddenly making everything incredibly funny. Pip spilled some of her drink and shoulders shaking with laughter, Hotch poured the last bit in the bottle on his desk trying to top her up.

It took some time to sort themselves out, mopping up the whisky on his desk with an old t-shirt from Pip's bag and sniggering the whole time. Hotch reached back for the bottle he kept in the cabinet behind him and by unspoken agreement, they retired to the couch with it, rather than sitting across his desk from each other. Neither of them felt comfortable with the formality the desk implied any longer, preferring to sit casually as friends instead.

"Wasn't supposed to be like this," commented Pip absently, once she'd tucked herself up in the corner with her drink, legs crossed in a display of flexibility Hotch could never hope to replicate.

He'd lounged back with his feet up on the coffee table instead, shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow. "What do you mean?"

"I was supposed to be a ballerina."

That got him chuckling again and Pip reached over to whack him good-naturedly across the shoulder. "It's not that funny!" she exclaimed.

"Oh…oh yes, it is," spluttered Hotch through the laughter. "Now I've got this mental image of you in battle fatigues and a tutu, dancing Swan Lake wearing combat boots."

Pip dissolved into giggles. "That's quite a picture," she managed when she could draw breath long enough to speak. "Wasn't quite what I had in mind."

"And what was that?"

"I was going to be on Broadway, have my name in lights," said Pip, making an arc in the air with her hands. "I did ballet until I was almost ten, but extra classes and stuff like that aren't exactly on the menu when you're a foster kid who moves family every few months." She shrugged. "I was good, I guess, and I enjoyed it but…well." She shrugged again, that time eloquently expressing the futility of her dream. "It's probably why I took so easily to knife fighting, there's a lot of the same flexibility and movement involved."

"How many foster homes where there?" Hotch asked curiously. "If you don't mind me asking."

Pip smiled gently. "I don't mind, but it's not like it matters now, I can't even remember all their names. In the four years I was fostered, I had twelve different placements before I ended up in a group home as one of those kids they'd given up trying to find a family for." She shuddered. "Dreadful place. I hated Highlands House, but I learned how to fight, and fight dirty, and to use my intelligence as well as my fists to get what I wanted."

"Never did play well with others, huh?" asked Hotch with a teasing smirk, keen to return to the lighter mood they'd been enjoying.

"You could say that," agreed Pip with a laugh. "There was a pair of fraternal twins who ruled the roost. Anything you wanted, it had to go through them. The adults had no idea there was another layer of management underneath them, and the Carson twins took full advantage of their lax attention. It wasn't until I framed Tilly for a theft that Dale had tried to pin on me that they finally left me alone. They realised then that I was too much trouble to make it worth their while. All I wanted was to be ignored, and after that little incident, they did."

"Doesn't seem to be the case here in the BAU," commented Hotch with a smile. Pip gave him an odd look and Hotch suddenly felt like he'd misstepped, spoken out of turn somehow. "Being ignored, I mean," he clarified, but that just turned the look into a frown. Hotch took a large swallow of his whisky, knowing for sure that he'd said the wrong thing, but unsure quite how what he'd said had caused that furrowed brow.

"Why change a habit of a lifetime?" muttered Pip into her tumbler, draining its contents.

Hotch poured them both another, aware that his bottle wasn't as smooth or well-aged as Dave's had been. They would have done better to drink them the other way around, but it was far too late to do anything about it now.

"What's wrong?" He ignored the faintly warning glare. "Just me here," he reassured her, wondering if he was about to hear something regarding the profiling team he wouldn't like. "If there's something amiss, I want to fix it."

Pip sighed. "Did you realise I was in and out of your office twice after you'd shut your door?" she asked. She flapped a hand at him. "Before I turned up with booze and a story to make your hair stand on end."

Hotch paused, thinking carefully. He'd been making a determined effort to bury himself in work before she'd disturbed him with Dave's bottle. "I know you took the Doyle file away and topped up the pile of consults in my in-tray," he said slowly. He hadn't seen her, the files moved on and off his desk as if by magic, just as they always had done since she'd been part of the BAU, so he only had his memory of what he'd been working on to judge her movements.

"Before that, I brought you the AIS reports for everyone who fired their weapon at the airfield," said Pip. "That's why I could take the Doyle file back. None of you notice us."

"I don't do it deliberately – honestly, I just…" Hotch stopped, a little lost for words. He'd never been told that someone under his supervision essentially felt ignored and a little under appreciated.

She waved an airy hand. "Don't get me wrong, for the most part it's to both our benefit, and it makes turnaround times quicker, but sometimes it feels like I'm invisible. It happens to all of my team, even Hank."

Hotch frowned. Duffy could practically cause a solar eclipse, it wasn't like he was easy to miss. "I'll try to change that, but I can't make any promises. I've got so used to you giving me everything I need before I need it, I don't know if I can break the habit. You're too good at your job, Pip."

The compliment softened the sense of unease that had begun to permeate the atmosphere, and Pip smiled softly. "So, I was going to be a ballerina...stop laughing! What were you going to be, mister? What did you want to be as a kid?"

Hotch cleared his throat, feeling the faint blush pinking his cheeks. "An astronaut."

"And you laughed at me? That's rich," sniggered Pip. "Captain Hotch, boldly going where no Hotchner has gone before…" She started giggling again. "Oh dear…that sounds like the tag-line to a bad porno."

"Charming," said Hotch sarcastically, laughing with her. "I was going to lead the first manned mission to Alpha Centuri if you must know."

Pip grinned at him. "So why did you join the FBI? You already know why I never became a ballerina, why didn't little Aaron grow up to join the Air Force and be an astronaut?"

"Well, I trained as a lawyer initially, although I'd ask you not to hold it against me," Hotch replied with a smirk. "I'm well aware of your feelings about lawyers."

Pip laughed. "I think all lawyers ought to be shot, but I've made exceptions for you, Hank and JP."

"Thank you," said Hotch drily. "Your forbearance is deeply appreciated," he added with a smirk as she sniggered into her tumbler. "By JP I assume you mean Sirro? He tried the case against McGill, didn't he?"

Pip nodded. "That's him, reckon he'll be President or something one day, that man is going places. Looks a bit like you at a casual glance. He's getting married soon, d'you remember Mark Holden? He ran the logistics desk for a little while, before Phillips joined us. They've finally set a date." Pip grinned. "Mark had the biggest crush on you."

Hotch choked. "Really? I don't…" Memories of a tall blonde with admiring eyes surfaced. He'd assumed it was hero-worship, much as he'd seen on the face of young Rishi before she finally joined the Academy to become a field agent. "Oh, him." He stopped, with the disconcerting feeling that he was blushing again. It was kind of flattering, in a dreadfully awkward, definitely unreciprocated sort of way.

"Yes, him. Something about when you strapped on your gun," chuckled Pip, enjoying his reaction just a little too much, in Hotch's opinion. "Although I don't think that was really the weapon he was interested in…"

"Oh, stop, mercy! I surrender," he cried. He was more blushing by that point; his face was burning. Both of them dissolved into laughter once more.

"I even said it to Dave," commented Pip a few minutes later once they'd calmed down. "That one day, Mark would find an equally tall, dark, handsome man to settle down with, and that he'd become a superb field agent. JP certainly fits the first part, and all I ever hear is sunshine from Narcotics. He's made quite the impression there."

"Handsome?" Hotch asked uncertainly. She'd called him many things over the years, one way or another, but never that.

Pip gestured vaguely with her drink. "You don't have enough Italian blood for my taste," she said with a wink, "but I'm a woman with two eyes and you're a good-lookin' guy. I can't say I blame Mark for his little infatuation."

"I'm starting to regret this honesty business," said Hotch with a groan. "I'm learning far more here than I ever needed to."

Pip laughed at him, her eyes sparkling. "Am I embarrassin' you, Hotch?" she asked cheekily.

"Only a bit more than a lot," he retorted and they both laughed again. Hotch was starting to see what Dave saw in her. Despite the awful things they'd talked about, there they were, giggling like teenagers.

Pip refilled their drinks. "So, law school. You took the bar, practiced?" she asked, nudging them back on topic.

"Prosecution," agreed Hotch. "I wanted to lock up the bad guys, and I did. Lots of them."

"You wanted to punish the bad guys," she corrected. "Probably one in particular. Tell me I'm wrong," she added bullishly when he frowned at her.

"No," he sighed into his drink. "You're not. But I'd rather that got left alone." Hotch could feel his pulse starting to race and a thin trickle of cold sweat making its way down his spine. They'd been honest all evening, brutally so in some places, and he really didn't want that to become part of it. He raised his eyes to hers. "Please?" Begging had never been part of his character, but he would if it meant they weren't going to discuss his father.

"You never told anyone. I didn't either," said Pip softly. "It's ok, I understand." She nodded, agreeing to leave that subject be. "Go on."

Hotch closed his suddenly stinging eyes and let out a deep breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. That breath turned into two more heaving, shuddering lungfuls as he tried to shove everything that had just been dragged up like a dirty anchor, back down into the deep where it belonged. He jumped when he felt a gentle hand on his arm and turned his head to see warm hazel eyes not far from his own.

"It's ok, Hotch. Just breathe. Steady on, there." Pip tightened her grip. "Whatever happened, it's not here right now. You've risen above it. Now breathe, or I'll slap you."

That surprised a bark of laughter out of him and Hotch suddenly found he could breathe normally again. "Your bedside manner could do with some work," he muttered from behind his hand as he scrubbed his eyes. He hated tears, had always been told they were a sign of weakness, but for some reason in front of her, those ones held no shame.

"Foster-mom number nine: sympathy is just a word between shit and syphilis in the dictionary," commented Pip. "That was right after I told her that I couldn't live with someone who was incapable of completing the New York Times cryptic crossword. Her thoughts on sympathy turned out to be one of the few things we actually agreed on."

That had him chuckling again, the demons of the past banished once more by their conjoined laughter. There had been a lot of that over the course of the evening, one way or another, probably more than in the last several months put together. He was drunk as a lord, but it felt good.

"So, young Hotch was a lawyer," said Pip when they'd both got themselves under control again, somehow managing to put her own unique twist on the word "lawyer" so that it sounded more like "asshole". She took a sip of her rapidly emptying tumbler and refilled both glasses. His bottle was emptying faster than Dave's had, both of them drinking faster as they got more intoxicated. "A good one by the sound of it, if there can be such a thing. What changed?"

"The system has its flaws," replied Hotch. "I saw too many guilty men walk away on some technicality or other. I had an excellent prosecution record, but what no one sees is what goes on behind the scenes, the deal-making, the concessions you have to make. The state won't prosecute unless they're sure you can win." He shrugged. "It's a money thing, trials are expensive."

"Everything always boils down to one of two things," noted Pip. "Money or politics."

"Or both," noted Hotch, touching his glass with hers in agreement. They downed their drinks in salute. "Putting just some of them away wasn't enough, so I decided I wanted to catch them instead," he said simply, as he topped up their glasses once more.

"The fact that the girls," she smirked at him, "and some of the guys, like a man with a badge and a gun wasn't part of it then?"

"Oh yes, that was definitely part of it," he agreed with a dead straight face. "I always wanted to be mooned over by young men just out of the Academy."

Pip threw her head back and laughed long and hard. "Guys and their guns," she snorted. "You're all the same. Anyone would think giving you a gun also gave you an instant penis enlargement."

"What about you?" Hotch retorted stridently. He quirked a teasing suggestive eyebrow. "There's always something about a woman in uniform, y'know."

"Yes, Hotch. I chose the Marines because the camo pants were the most flattering," she deadpanned. "Much better than the Army."

He laughed with her again, thoroughly enjoying himself. "Come on, really. Why join up? I have every admiration for anyone who does, believe me."

"I'm a language specialist, I figured I'd get a translation posting somewhere, hopefully far, far away from New York." Pip shrugged. "That was it really, I just wanted to get away and the military seemed like the easiest way to do it. What can I say? After the dorms in Highlands House, Marine barracks were reassuringly familiar and someone else cooked and did the laundry. They realised I could shoot during basic training, and it just kind of snowballed from there. Sniper school, here I come," she added bitterly, gesturing with her glass. "Pretty sure that's when The Company started watching, at the behest of a little short woman who's probably the most inferring busy-body the world has ever seen. It's her fault I joined the CIA in the first place, and she was the one who suggested the FBI when I left. I always suspected she'd spoken to Gideon after what happened in Chicago, too." Pip stabbed at the air several times with her index finger. "Fingers in lots of pies, that one."

"We've met, if you're talking about the person I think you are," said Hotch drily. "Sniper, huh? If big guns improve male prowess, then what do they do to women?" he asked with a smirk.

Pip drained the last of the bottle into their respective glasses. "Oops. Last orders ladies and gentlemen," she muttered, shaking the last few drops into his tumbler.

"From what I've seen," she said once she'd slouched casually next to him, close enough that their shoulders touched. "It causes them develop an attitude that puts off pretty much every available male on the planet. When you're in that overwatch position, do you know what those people relying on you call you?" Hotch shook his head. "They call you "god" because from where you are, you decide who lives and who dies." Pip smirked. "As a woman, I was called "goddess", designation Aphrodite for some poor punning on my name. Pip, apple, get it?"

She rolled her eyes when he grimaced. "I did say it was a poor pun. Goddesses are expected to be a breed apart, untouchable, and it's not like I didn't have the sharp tongue and attitude already. I didn't want to be there, doing what I was doing. The uniform did nothing for my love life, believe me, even after winning a medal I'm still not convinced I deserved. That didn't change when I got my badge either," she added over the rim of her glass. "Ian and I originally met while I was in the Academy, but we lost touch and didn't meet again until years later. There was the odd hook-up in between, but nothing serious. Longest was a summer romance with an LAPD detective, and I took it far more seriously than he did. I'd given the badge up again by the time I met Damon. We'll ignore him."

"Be nice if he'd never existed at all," muttered Hotch.

"I can't disagree with you there," she agreed, and they touched glasses again. "Maybe that's why I never saw Dave as anythin' more than a friend. I assumed he'd never be interested and left it at that." She laughed a little, eyelids drooping as their long evening of alcohol consumption started to catch up with her. "Think he likes the attitude though, for some reason I'll never understand."

Hotch knew for a fact that Dave loved it, and the bossiness that drove others crazy. "You certainly keep 'im on his toes," he commented, having to concentrate in order to form the words properly.

She laughed again. "'S good for him. What can I say?" Pip dropped him a cheeky wink. "I finally found an incent...incentive that makes him to get the paperwork done on time. His desk has never been so clear!"

Hotch let out a bray of laughter and they toasted each other sloppily with the remains of their drinks.

"Time atta bar," mumbled Pip, a little incoherently.

"Time," agreed Hotch.

They drained their glasses and began the somewhat difficult task of gathering their things to leave while completely plastered. Standing up gave Hotch an incredible headrush of alcohol, he hadn't been so wasted since his college graduation party. Pip was no better, stumbling into his desk trying to pick up her bag.

Together, they weaved their way out of the building, each leaning on the other in an effort to stay vertical. Given the height disparity, it felt like a very awkward three-legged race and there were several moments when they teetered on the edge of their balance.

"Thank you, Pip," mumbled Hotch, as they sat slumped in the back of a cab together. "This evenin'…I know you tore open some wounds jus' to tell me somethin' I should have known already."

"'S worth it if it helped," she replied, eyes warm.

He squinted at her blearily. "You'd jump in fron' ofa bus for me, wouldn' you?"

"Yep," said Pip happily. She wagged a finger in his direction. "Haveta stop n ask which number first. I'd wanna do it right." She sniggered, and that got him going too.

"Still 'spect you normal time ina mornin'." He tried for stern, but slurring as he was, he was missing all his usual weight of authority. "Punishment f'r gettin' the boss drunk."

"'S'already mornin'," she disputed, a little smugly. "An' 'm pretty sure we're all gonna get sus-suspended anyway."

"Mmm," agreed Hotch. That was tomorrow's problem. Today's problem. Whatever. "Normal time later, then," he managed.

"Yessir," slurred Pip. "'S my honour."