Author's Note: I've decided to continue the crossover world and make this a mini case fic. I haven't really done a case fic before so I figured a mini one would be a good place to start. I know it's an odd choice for a crossover, but it's not a 'goofy' case. This is a CM story so I've toned down the more whimsical elements of GG. I'm just borrowing some of their characters and locations.

Bending the Rules

Emily grimaced as she looked down at the mutilated remains.

Six dogs and five cats had been found butchered over the past six months. All in this one small town with a population of less than 1,200 people. After the fourth set of remains, the sheriff had started suspecting something might be happening beyond just revenge or sick teenagers. By the sixth corpse, the violence had escalated to the point that he'd realized there was a distinct possibility that he had a real psychopath on his hands.

That's when he'd begun holding onto the bodies.

And as Emily looked over the horrors preserved in the freezer case, she knew that he was correct . . . there was something seriously wrong here.

She started to step back from the case, but then her eyes caught on the little heart shaped tag on the golden retriever.

Daisy.

She stared at it, and her eyes began to sting.

Daisy.

That wasn't just a dead dog . . . that was somebody's pet. A furry little member of their family that probably got presents at Christmas and leftovers from dinner, and was in pictures with the family.

She was loved.

And somebody had probably been heartbroken at her loss. That's when Emily looked over the bodies again, this time consciously taking in all of the other tags.

Oscar . . .

Sebastian . . .

Smokey . . .

Princess . . .

Damn it . . . she tried to blink away the tears forming . . . why couldn't this job EVER just be easy?

Feeling her emotions starting to overwhelm her . . . there was just too much heartache in this world . . . Emily dropped the lid on the freezer and spun around. She was started snapping off her gloves as she hurried over to toss them into the receptacle by the door of the storage room.

She just needed to get out of there.

And she was so intent on leaving . . . she just needed some air . . . that she wasn't paying attention as she yanked the door open.

She smashed right into Hotch.

"Whoa," he put his hand up to steady her, "sorry Prentiss." Then he looked more closely at her red rimmed eyes and his tone softened, "are you okay?"

"Yeah," she sniffed as she looked away, "just . . . yeah."

Hotch tipped his head as he looked down at Emily, debating on whether or not he should push it. Her eyes had dropped to the floor, and he could see that she was blinking furiously.

Clearly she was trying to keep from crying.

And he didn't want to force her to lose her composure, so he decided to let it go. If it was important then she'd tell him later. So he just patted her arm as he walked passed.

Then he started pulling out his gloves as he crossed over to the industrial size freezer specially bought just for this case. The sheriff's office didn't have a lab . . . everything went to the State Police . . . so the freezer was tucked into the back of their evidence room/half-assed forensics area.

Basically the room basically consisted of storage for yellow crime scene tape, boxes of rubber gloves, and evidence bags.

When he reached the freezer, for a moment Hotch stopped and stared at the hood. This was never a fun job. But they'd already checked out the arson sites and the scene of the suspicious suicide, and still there was nothing conclusive. But he'd been doing this work for a long time, and he was getting a bad feeling about this one. A very bad feeling.

There was something going on in this town.

"There's something seriously wrong here Hotch."

Hotch's glove snapped as he turned to look back over his shoulder. Emily had her arms crossed at her chest and she was shaking her head at him.

"There's something happening in this town. And it's not just a regular psychopath."

She knew he didn't care for the more colloquial terms, but in this instance it was the only thing that fit. They hadn't sat down yet to do any kind of real profile. And really, sometimes all the fancy psych terms all just boiled down to plain old psychopath. But she didn't think that there was anything 'plain' about this one.

He might just be getting started, but he was definitely hitting the ground running.

Hotch stared at Emily for a moment, jaw twitching, before he turned back to open the hood of the freezer. It took a second for the mist to clear.

Jesus Christ!

The eye sockets were all empty. The tails were cut off, and half the limbs were missing. But the edges around the sockets were smooth cuts so he knew they weren't torn away by scavengers.

They'd been gouged out.

Then his own eye caught on something protruding out of one of the dogs, and he reached in to move the body. He needed a closer look.

Holy God!

For a moment Hotch closed his eyes, his fingers curling back as he tried to clear the image that was burning into his retinas. Emily was right, there was something seriously wrong in this little town.

The lid fell with an 'oomph' as he spun back around.

Emily was biting her lip as she stared at him. He looked at her for a second before nodding.

"You're right, there is something here."

His gaze dropped to the tile floor as he processed what he'd seen so far. Then he shook his head slowly.

"But the suicide could still very well be a suicide. There's nothing to indicate that it's not." He looked back up at her, "and excluding that one body, we have no human remains found so far, so I'm not sure how much I can expend on resources at this point."

Emily scowled.

"But Hotch, you just SAW what he did to those animals! That was practice for when he moves up the food chain!"

As he walked back over to her, Hotch started pulling his gloves off.

"Prentiss, I completely agree, but unfortunately we have UNSUBs that have already, quote unquote, 'moved up the food chain.' They're already killing humans and we need to devote our time where we can do the most good." With a sigh he dropped his gloves into the trash, "so I think in this instance, that we're just going to have to monitor the situation and tell the sheriff to call us immediately if there's an escalation in activity. We'll give him some guidelines on things to watch for."

For a second Emily continued to scowl up at him . . . pissed beyond reason at his usual outwardly unflappable Hotchness . . . but then her expression softened slightly as her eyes dropped back to the floor.

It wasn't his fault. She shouldn't be angry with him. Of course she could understand the basic logic in his reasoning . . . dead children dumped dead dogs . . . and there were fresh bodies turning up all over the country almost every God damn day.

But she just KNEW, that if they left now . . . now without doing anything more . . . that this UNSUB was going to continue abducting and butchering family pets. And eventually he would tire of that, and then he was going to take the dog and the person out walking it. And that could be just one more dead child on their stats list.

One that maybe they could have prevented.

She looked back up at Hotch.

"Can you and I stay another day? Just one. Just to see if there's anything that the locals missed."

Seeing that he was about to say no, she cut him off with an imploring look.

"Please Hotch, just one more day." Her eyes started to sting again as she once more began to get upset at what she'd seen so far.

"Did you see what he's doing to those animals? Those are people's pets! He's dismembering them. And they're being left on the family's front porches," her voice cracked, "the last one was found by an eight year old girl who went out to call in her puppy."

Realizing that she was getting much too emotional . . . even if it was an informal day, they were still working . . . Emily cleared her throat before she made one last plea.

"Please Hotch, please just one more day to see if can come up with anything."

Hotch jaw tightened as he stared at Emily . . . family pets. That's why she was almost in tears. Her ability to empathize was something to be admired, but he didn't envy it. At times it seemed that gift caused her to hurt in a more personal fashion than the rest of them did.

She couldn't always detach.

Though . . . he thought to himself with a little bit of personal scorn . . . maybe they shouldn't always detach. Maybe they should care that Sebastian and Princess and Daisy were dead. Yes, he'd seen the tags too. All of those little pieces of metal in the shape of hearts and dog bones. He had purposely ignored them.

But she hadn't.

And she associated a loving family with each one of them. The victims weren't people, but they still had someone who missed them. And that's all Emily could think about when she looked at them.

Bottom-line though, she was right . . . eventually the UNSUB would tire of killing small animals and he'd move on to bigger ones.

For a moment Hotch stared at a scruff mark on the floor.

But still . . . that was always the case. And they couldn't get involved with every serial in the making.

Not when they had serial killers that were already made.

Finally he looked up, about to tell Emily that they had to go home . . . and that's when he saw her wiping at the corner of her eye.

Crap.

With a heavy sigh his eyes dropped back down to the floor again . . . well, they were already here. So he supposed it couldn't hurt to run through it down ONE more time before they left. He lifted his head.

"All right," he tipped his head, "one more day."

Seeing her expression brighten . . . and knowing that he needed to temper her enthusiasm before she got her hopes up . . . he gave her a hard look.

"But that's all I can promise Prentiss. If we're not kicking down somebody's door by eight o'clock tomorrow night, then we have to go home, okay?"

Knowing that this was a non-negotiable point, Emily gave him a small . . . slightly watery . . . smile.

"Okay."

She hadn't really expected him to even say yes. This was way outside their usual guidelines for involvement. But . . . she ran her finger along the corner of her eye . . . sometimes he surprised her.

Seeing how happy he'd just made her . . . again, she was always easy to please . . . Hotch's expression softened as he tipped his head to the door.

"Come on," he put his arm up, "let's go pull the incident reports, and get some maps and a white board. Maybe we can figure out a pattern." Then he checked his watch, "but we're going to have to do it elsewhere because believe it or not, this police station actually closes down at six o'clock."

Emily looked over in astonishment.

"They keep office hours? How is that possible?"

Hotch pulled the door open and stepped back to let her through.

"Budget cuts. Counting the sheriff, they only have four full time officers. Mostly they work patrol, each on an eight hour shift, so the town decided it was cheaper to shut the municipal building down completely after hours unless there was a major incident. And the sheriff said that with the exception of this recent spate of violence, they generally don't have much of a crime rate, so the shutdown wasn't much of an issue. Most of their calls are for traffic accidents, a few drunken disorderlies and couple of regular domestic violence calls," he tipped his head as they walked down the hall, "that was it up until the mutilations and the fires."

Emily looked at him.

"So given that's their regular caseload, you're telling me that basically they have no practical investigative experience to have even looked into these cases."

No wonder they hadn't made any progress.

"Well," Hotch bit his lip, "yes and no to that point. The sheriff is retired NYPD, and he had thirty years on the job," he pursed his lips, "that said, he was a beat cop, not a detective. So even coming from the city, he wouldn't have any experience investigating something on this scale."

Though really, with the exception of his team, few departments had much experience investigating things on this scale. Serial offenders weren't like other offenders.

It was a different kind of evil.

Emily sighed as she looked around the small bullpen area that they'd just walked into.

The after hours shutdown at least explained why all of the desks were empty. She'd just assumed that they were on patrol. Then she huffed to herself.

Yeah, actually that was true. The one guy was! And beyond that minimal staffing, it appeared that there was one administrative person on the day shift. And seeing shutting down her computer, Emily checked her watch . . . just after five.

But now where were they going to go work though?

Then a thought popped into her head and she grinned as she started fumbling in her pocket. Hotch was looking strangely at her until she whipped out the business card and flashed it in his face.

"We can stay at Lorelai's inn!"

Hotch blinked as he stared at the little cream colored slip of paper.

"Uh, yeah," he shrugged, "I guess we can. The town doesn't have any lodgings so we were going to have to go out of the city limits anyway."

Nothing Emily's happy demeanor at this development, his eyes crinkled.

"Why don't you call her now and get us a couple rooms, and I'll ask the sheriff for the reports, some maps and office supplies. We'll pack everything up and set up back at the inn." He shook his head, "it's probably just as well we have to leave. You know we always work late so we probably would have ended up sleeping in the conference room here because it was too late to find a motel."

Emily bopped her head as she pulled out her cell phone, "true."

So as Hotch went off to talk to the sheriff, she went over to sit down at one of the empty desks in the corner to call her new acquaintance. She was excited about seeing the Inn.

If nothing else it should beat the Econolodge they'd stayed in last week.

As Emily looked at the little card, her eyes crinkled.

Dragonfly . . . that's pretty. Then she punched in the number, mentally crossing her fingers when she did so that Lorelai was actually still working. Most regular people did get off work at 5 o'clock.

Just then she heard, "Dragonfly Inn, Lorelai speaking."

"Oh good," Emily sighed in relief, "you're still there." She shifted the phone to her other ear, "this is Agent Prentiss, we met at your husband's diner this morning."

Lorelai smiled into the phone.

"Special Agent Emily, of course! What can I do for you?"

At the other woman's greeting, Emily's eyes crinkled.

"Actually, my boss and I do need to stay overnight now and we were hoping that maybe you had a couple rooms available?"

Please, please please! Let her get the nice cushy New England B&B mattress just this once!

"Sure hon, hold on," Lorelai started tapping on the computer, "yep, got two right next to each other. How long?"

Emily pursed her lips as she thought about the case.

"Um, one day at least, maybe two."

Yes, Hotch had said that they were only staying the one day, but maybe they'd luck out and actually catch the UNSUB. In which case they might need a day for follow up.

Lorelai was nodding even while she typed.

"I'll reserve it for three. Need anything else?"

Noticing movement out of the corner of her eye, Emily looked over to see Hotch in the small office down front trying to explain the need for their precious white boards to the sheriff. The reason she knew that he was 'explaining' was because of the hand gestures that he was making.

And she knew he was 'trying' because the sheriff was shaking his head no.

"Yeah actually," she refocused on the call, "do you have any dry erase boards that we could borrow? Those white ones." Then she added, "and maybe a bulletin board? The local sheriff's department seems to be a little short on our usual office supplies."

And Hotch did love the white boards. She honestly wasn't sure if he could solve a case without one!

"Yep," Lorelai nodded, "we have both. We host conferences, so I'll have them set up in your rooms." Then she frowned, "wait, do you want them for both of your rooms?"

"Uh, no," Emily's brow wrinkled slightly, "that's okay. We'll work out of Hotch's room most likely, so putting everything in there is fine. And you have wifi right?"

"Sure do." Came back the immediate response.

Seeing Hotch walking over with a scowl on his face, Emily started to wrap up her phone conversation.

"Okay then," she straightened up in her chair, "thanks so much Lorelai. And barring any wrong turns, we'll be there in about a half hour." Then she remembered something else, "oh wait! Sorry one more thing, is your husband's diner still open?"

She was starving again! Emily didn't care what Sipowicz said, man could not live on donuts alone. So maybe they could get some take out from the diner . . . she frowned . . . if they had take out. God only knew with these little towns.

Lorelai laughed at Emily's question.

"It is open, but if you'd rather stay in and work, then I can have Sookie, that's our chef, put together something for you and send it up to your boss' room. And don't tell Luke, but trust me, Sookie's food is as good as his is."

Emily tipped her head back to see Hotch standing over her.

"Yeah thanks Lorelai, food in the room sounds great."

Seeing Hotch tap the case files, Emily nodded as she spoke back into the receiver.

"And if you could please put a do not disturb, or do not enter, whatever on both of our rooms. We're going to have crime scene photos with us."

There was silence for a moment before Lorelai cleared her throat.

"Right, of course," she tapped a couple keys, "all set."

It had just sounded cool being an FBI agent. It hadn't really occurred to her all of the real life nasty stuff that went along with that job title. And 'crime scene photos,' sounded pretty nasty.

"Okay thanks Lorelai, see you in a bit," Emily said by way of good bye before leaning over to hang up the phone. She looked up at Hotch with a little smile.

"She's sending up a bulletin board, AND a white board, to your room."

Hopefully this would make him happy. Again, he LOVED the white board!

Hotch shot Emily a grateful look.

"Thank you," he rolled his eyes, "the sheriff didn't have any 'to spare.'"

He couldn't believe it. The Sheriff didn't say that they didn't have "any," no he said that they didn't have any to "spare." And the "any" clearly implied that they had more than one. And they only had ONE cop on duty at a time! So what the fricking hell were they doing with all of the damn white boards!

Making GROCERY lists?!

Seeing Hotch's clear annoyance at the white board situation, Emily's lips twitched slightly before she tipped her head down to the box in his hand.

"Original incident reports?"

"Yeah," Hotch nodded as he refocused, "and glossies of the remains. Plus the arson photos, Fire Marshall's reports, the autopsy report on the suicide and a stack of local maps."

As he thought about everything he'd collected, Hotch bit the inside of his cheek. They actually DID have a lot to look over. More than he would have expected.

Perhaps a concentrated review actually would turn up something the locals hadn't seen.

"Good," Emily said as she stood up and nodded, "then maybe after we sift through everything again, we can put together a basic profile and do that geographic thing that Reid usually does for us." She rolled her eyes as they started walking out.

"Too bad he's not here. He loves doing those things."

Hotch waved his goodbye to the sheriff through the glass wall, before looking back down at her.

"Yeah, I know. That's why I've been letting him work victimology so much lately."

Furrowing her brow slightly, Emily shot Hotch a confused glance.

"I thought you were just trying to keep him out of the field because he's a terrible shot and he drives like an old lady."

Hotch looked at her.

"Well, yeah there's that too."

A/N 2: I plan on keeping this relatively short, I'm already juggling two big stories. Plus keep in mind this is an offshoot of regular season three so I can't have H/P missing from the full team for long.

This is going to be an odd balancing act because you can see I'm going with a really nasty UNSUB but working in the more brightly lit world of Stars Hollow. Hopefully I can pull it off. As I said, everything in GG will be a bit toned down. Trying to keep them true to themselves (whoever I roll in) but all of the characters had some dramatic moments there so it's not a terrible stretch to paint them in softer pallets.

Please let me know what you think!