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Poison.

Uncle Charlie called several days ago, begging me to come home for a visit. Aunt Gina was very put out with me when I missed Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. I wish that I could make them understand how important my job is and that I can't just leave the team. I love my family so much, but I just can't pick up and go at the spur of that moment. I wish they would stop thinking that I can just because I'm single and childless.

The annual East Allegheny snowmobile rally is next weekend and my uncle wants me there to see him defend his title, because it's probably going to be the last time he can compete. The bursitis in his shoulders is getting worse with every passing year, and riding gets more and more difficult.

I wasn't going to ask for time off, but then we had a case that kind of got to me. Actually they all get to me, but I'm usually better at not letting it show.

We went to Beachwood, New Jersey because several people ended up in the hospital strung out on LSD. One of them attacked his own son and beat him almost to death. They all had enough in their systems to kill a small child. So the CDC called us because it was a poisoning.

The first clue we had was that several of the victims ate lunch at a local café. One of the kids that worked there never showed up for work. Elle checked out his girlfriend's house and found that she was dosed too. I forgot to mention that it wasn't just LSD they got; there was GHB too, which is why they couldn't remember what happened that day.

So the first thing we thought was that this kid had raped his girlfriend, but it turned out she was a victim like the rest.

Of course the press got a hold of the story despite my efforts and there was a complete panic, with all these people going to the hospital with psychosomatic symptoms. Gideon and Hotch sent Spence and I down there to try and find someone that wasn't a victim of panic.

There was a woman there that was very sick. It turned out to be botulism poisoning and they didn't have the antitoxin. We just had to watch her die. It was terrible. You should have seen the look on Spence's face. Do you think he uses obscure facts and statistics to distance himself from all the horrible things we have to deal with? Maybe I was wrong to think that he doesn't care sometimes.

The women, who turned out to be a partner to the un-sub did give us a clue that helped us catch the guy. He was a disgruntled chemist for a pharmaceutical company that wanted revenge for the company stealing his idea. He poisoned the punch at a company party to distract us. It was Spence who figured out that he was poisoning envelopes the company heads were using at a retreat. We found them in time, thank God and no one else was killed.

Hotch sat down with me on the plane. I had moved on to the next case and it was a bad one. I asked Hotch why he chose the BAU and he said it was because he wanted to catch the bad guys, not just put them in jail. I know there's more to it and he knows I know, but he said he was still trying to figure out the reason.

Now I can't bring myself to lick an envelope… I know it will pass, but I wonder how long it will be before I'm completely comfortable again.

So I went to Hotch and asked him for a couple days off to go home. He just looked up at me with his usual glower and said. "What took you so long to ask?"

How does he always know? One of these days, I'm going to figure it out and then maybe I'll be one step ahead of him for a change.

Henry called just a few minutes ago. I told him that I was going home and he said he was glad I finally decided to go, but that he would miss me. He also told me that he was happy that I would have family time, and that we would have dinner when I got back. Sometimes I wonder if he's too good to be true.