Megan's eyes widened…and then emptied…and then deadened.

The man she was sure would never disappoint her…was meant for her…matched her in a way no other ever had or could…would become another in the long line of those she despised, if she got her way.

When her leaden chuckle dropped into the silence, it was for the cruel irony of the situation. It also signaled the departure of the last shreds of her rational mind.

Hotch felt his chest and stomach contract with sorrow. He understood.

He might have turned out just like this woman, but along the way, his identity had changed.

And not just a small alteration. A sea change. A redirecting of his foundation. A new way of using his building blocks. They weren't just stepping-stones for his own progress. They had become lessons in how to reach beyond himself; something he'd never believed he could do.

Hotch's main identity wasn't an abused boy anymore. He was still a survivor, but more than anything else, he was a father.

All the pain he'd suffered and still held close had a purpose now. He'd never really thought about it until Megan Kane had tried to get him to drink from that sunny, fizzy flute of wine.

That glass represented all her hopes. It held all the solutions to the untenable situation she'd created.

But for Hotch, refusing it was proof that he could take the hurt and the scars, and use them to protect his own child from the fate he'd suffered. He wasn't sure of all it took to be a good father, but he knew what to avoid more than most, because he'd experienced the very worst parenthood could offer.

It wasn't how he'd have chosen his life to go, but he'd take it. He'd work with it and leave something behind that bore no resemblance to his own father's legacy. His chest tightened again with the sob impulse.

Megan would never get that chance.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Caution lived in Prentiss's marrow.

It was part and parcel of her construction.

When she reached the Stoneleigh, she scanned every face of every guest and functionary in sight. She'd geared her mental image of the unsub to focus on the placement, the assemblage of eyes and nose. She doubted Megan would delve into things like prosthetics to disguise herself. There was precious little that could be done to alter the placement of those features.

So Emily peered at women wearing glasses, making more than a few uncomfortable in passing.

She made her way to the elevator and up to the fourth floor. She paused at Hotch's door. She didn't really think Megan would be here. She would have had to be craftier than Prentiss gave her credit to figure out where the agents were rooming. Still, she'd gotten close to Hotch three times.

No one had expected that either.

Prentiss didn't want to rouse Hotch from much-needed rest, so instead of knocking, she pressed herself against the door to his room. Holding her breath, she listened.

Then…

…she exploded.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"So, if I win…I lose…" Megan's leaden chuckling continued. Her fingers curled around the stem of the glass. She gave Hotch one more sly look, but the glint in her eye wasn't…quite…sane…

"Do you like Shakespeare, Aaron?"

Hotch nodded. He was reluctant to speak. He didn't know what would set her off, or how she might react. The unpredictability factor had just escalated to a level even Reid would be hard-pressed to calculate. All bets were off. She might kill him out of sheer peevishness. She might go on a spree through the hotel. He held his breath and cursed his own weakness for the hundredth time. The stress of the current situation was using up what little reserves he had. He could feel his body's refusal to rally.

Megan didn't seem to notice his increased trembling. "Do you remember the end of 'Romeo and Juliet?'"

Hotch swallowed. Referencing literature's most famous double suicide didn't bode well. He didn't nod this time. She didn't seem to need his input to continue.

"When Romeo poisoned himself and Juliet discovered it, she tried to kill herself by kissing him. She hoped there'd be enough left on his lips to…how did she put it?...Help her along? I think that's what she said. Help her after?…something like that…I dunno…You have such nice lips, too, Aaron…"

She was rambling. Hotch's small, tense breaths were sips that didn't really fill his lungs. He recognized the beginnings of oxygen deprivation as his head swam, but he couldn't make his chest loosen enough to do anything about it.

"Wouldn't that be a lovely way to go, Aaron? A shared kiss. I would have liked that…" She toyed with the glass. Raising it. Peering at it as she twisted it against the sunlight, admiring the golden-orange color. She brought it to her lips.

Hotch found his voice. "Megan, please. Don't. Please. I'm begging you. Don't. It's not the answer. Don't…"

"It's the only answer left." She sighed, transfixed by the crystal flute. "And now...there are no more questions either."

With a quick, decisive movement, she drank off the contents.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Prentiss heard the mumble of a female voice. Indistinct.

But when she heard Hotch speak; when she heard what sounded like pleading…she went ballistic.

Morgan, official door-kicker that he was, would have been proud. Then he would have been alarmed. And then…awed.

With vengeance and loyalty and adrenaline building to an unstoppable force within her, Prentiss battered against the Stoneleigh's vintage door, tearing it from its framework. Bursting its historic planks. Mindless of the damage done to her own body, she came ravening into the room like an elemental force of nature.

The last thing Megan Kane heard was her beloved Aaron shouting 'NO!'

The last thing she saw was a dark fury in woman-form descending, filling her field of vision.

She never felt the fist.