AUTHOR: LosingInTranslation (losingntrnslatn, Jennifer)
DISCLAIMER: Don't own anything associated with the show… I just like playing with the characters in it from time to time. Dance Monkeys! Dance!
RATING: T - Teen
SPOILERS: Through US Aired Episodes of Season 4
WORD COUNT: 2751
SUMMARY: The BAU is asked to investigate an unusual missing persons case that has a very personal connection to the team.

A/N: This is one of those monster epics I am so well know for in the CSI fandom. It is completely written and I am going through the edits with my betas as quickly as possible. There are a total of nine chapters, and I will post them as I complete the edits. It is most definitely a case file fic, with a lot of interaction between the entire team. I hope you enjoy it.

REVIEWS: Reviews are the way I know if people are enjoying the work or not. So, if you leave one, THANKS! And if not, I hope you found at least a little something to brighten your day, and thanks for taking the time to read.

Chapter 4

From the word go, it was nothing but a bad case. Coming on board six months after the fact was the least of their worries. The personal investment for the team meant that no matter the outcome, it was not going to be easy. Not when their best case scenario involved Gideon simply sliding further into his twisted sense of paranoia and breaking free from his last remaining tether to humanity. Worst case scenario…well, the worst case was not something Dave wanted to think about just yet.

The fact that no one in the town closest to Gideon felt there was a case at all certainly added another layer of difficulty to it. He worried that without cooperation from the locals there would be little chance of finding anything to point to a cause for Gideon's disappearance. And then there was the disappearance itself. Was he really missing? Or was this daughter-in-law of Gideon's merely mistaken about his level of commitment to his son?

When he worked with Gideon in the past, he was shocked to learn the man even had a family, because he was so single minded in his work. Dave had a hard time reconciling the two different Gideon's; the man and the profiler. They were simply two entirely different entities, and he wondered if keeping them separate was ultimately what led to his fall from grace, when the two were forced to occupy the same mind.

Many found fault with his mix of the professional and the personal, but Dave also understood his own mind. He was unable to shut off his humanity from his reason, and instead chose to use that humanity to temper his reason with a heart. Pure reason was a dangerous and lonely space to occupy, and Dave was not a man who handled lonely very well. What little he did know of Jason Gideon told him the man thrived on being alone.

With half the team sorting through the items brought back to the Coeur D'Alene field office, and the other half on their way to Gideon's compound, Dave wondered which group was better off. Reid, J.J. and Hotch were combing through Gideon's personal effects, while he and Emily were being treated to the Morgan-Garcia Show in the front seat on their way up into the hills of Idaho.

"Now, are you really gonna sit there, trying to tell me that absolute cheese-fest from the eighties is better than my amped up, super-powered, Starbuck as a bad ass honey, Battlestar? Woman, please!" Morgan's laugh punctuated his ranting question.

"I'm telling you…" Garcia was twisted sideways in her seat, waggling a finger in Morgan's direction as she debated him in a way only she could. "That the original Battlestar Galactica was a much better portrayal of the hero's journey, showing all the qualities of the myth and the legend of the hero. Whereas, your BSG is closer to the style of the Greek epics, which include the hero's journey, but don't focus on it. They show the grand theatre, all the drama and the tragedy, and leaving the ending totally up to personal interpretation. It's all about the philosophy, and not the tale or the lesson. It's just different."

Morgan shook his head and asked, "So, why'd you say my BSG sucked?"

Garcia dismissed him with a shrug and turned forward again as she said, "Duh! Because I prefer my Starbuck as a sweet talking hottie of the male variety."

Normally that would have been the end of the argument, but from beside him he heard Emily jump into the fray. "I'm right there with you, Penelope."

Her joining the meaningless argument was just a way to pass the time, and under most conditions Dave would simply have engrossed himself in the view, or looking through the case file with an amused smile, but hearing the barks of comfortable laughter being exchanged among his team members felt good. Seeing Emily smile and laugh without reservation was like a balm. As hard as the case was about to get, that laughter was his lifeline.

"All right, Rossi…" Morgan called over his shoulder him to jump in. "I need some back up here, man. Which Battlestar is better?"

"Sorry, I can't help you on this one, Morgan." Dave had to do his very best not to look beside him when he admitted, "Only time I watch TV it's the Outdoor Channel or the Food Network… Everything else depresses me."

Garcia twisted around to stare him down, and suddenly Dave felt like he was on display. "Okay, Food Network I'll buy… But the Outdoor Channel? Seriously? Next stop, Hooterville TV?"

Emily automatically blurted out, "For the Ducks Unlimited show." The moment the words left her mouth Dave could see the panic in her eyes, and as he looked at the expressions on both Morgan's and Garcia's faces he knew that they had caught the slip as well.

Emily immediately took a defensive posture. "What? Like no one else has seen the water dog pictures or the antique double barrel in his office? He's either a duck hunter or has an unnatural attachment to Elmer Fudd cartoons."

Dave smiled when the others looked to him for confirmation. "Hmmm… Well, I have found myself chasing a great many wascally wabbits over the years."

The tension in the car was immediately dispelled with the raise of his eyebrow after delivering the fatal last laugh.

However, as they pulled up to the front gate of the compound, all that tension, and more, was back. Seeing the crime scene collection trucks and the armed checkpoint let each of them know it was not just another case.

Once they were cleared to drive up to the house, Dave decided someone needed to take charge. "Garcia, you should check in with the tech team. I understand they've been having some trouble cracking the rest of the security system."

"Righteo, Boss Man." Garcia gave him a two fingered salute that drew a chuckle from everyone else.

"I should probably debrief the lead scene investigator," Morgan added as they came to stop in front of the house.

"After we do a walk-through at the house, Prentiss and I will head back to town and start on the interviews." Morgan turned to regard him as he explained, "I want to have a good idea of who we're dealing with before we start asking questions."

"It's just Gideon, man, and you already know him." Morgan was sincere with his observation and Dave had to answer him honestly.

"We knew him, Morgan. We knew the Gideon he used to be, but this man…" Dave gestured at the plain, militaristic compound to demonstrate his point. "He is not the Gideon we knew."

Morgan nodded. Dave hated to say it, but the team needed to understand where they stood on this case. They were not looking for the man they knew, but the man he had become. Or, from the looks of it, the shattered semblance of the man he had become.

An hour later, he and Emily were back on the road. There was really nothing there to see giving them even an inkling as to the man who inhabited that space. It was plain, non-descript and completely devoid of human touch. It just felt wrong, and no amount of time standing in the vacant home would tell Dave anything else.

Halfway back to the small hamlet that served the area, Emily exhaled sharply and he knew she was ready to speak. "That has to be the cleanest scene I have ever seen."

"You think someone cleaned up?" Dave knew enough to only ask the questions that would keep her talking. Emily was someone who thought things out on her feet, and it was merely his task to keep her train of thought moving.

"It's more than that." She drummed her fingers on the door panel a few times before she spoke again. "I can't imagine anyone has lived there in years. It's like…" He watched from the corner of his eye as the light came on in her face. "Like it's just a front room."

"A front room?"

"Yeah." Emily turned and asked him directly, "Didn't your mother have a room that no one actually used, except when you didn't want people to see-"

"To see the rest of the house." Dave slapped the steering wheel hard as Emily pulled out her cell phone. "Call Garcia."

"Hey, Garcia… Yeah, I do think he'd look pretty silly in one of those earflap hats." Emily rolled her eyes at the obvious Elmer Fudd reference from the irreverent technical analyst, but Dave could see the delight lurking in them. "Look, I need you to pull the records for that property. See if you can find any other structures having been built there, or any medium to large scale excavations that may have taken place."

She was quiet for a while, but Dave could hear the analyst's voice chirping out of the phone as they traveled down the road. Eventually, Emily was able to speak again. "Yeah, I understand, but just do what you can. We have some suspicions about the cabin and if you can-"

Emily was interrupted by the sound of her phone ringing again. "Hold on Penelope, it's Derek… Then tell him to hang up and put me on speaker, and I'll do the same."

Dave gave a quick nod of agreement when she waggled the phone at him and she flipped it on to speakerphone mode. "Okay, it's me and Dave, and we just asked Garcia to do a property records search to see if there are any other structures or any excavations that have taken place in the last three years. What have you got, Morgan?"

Morgan's voice came through the phone loud and clear. "Well, seeing as the scene techs haven't recovered a single fingerprint from inside the house, other than the sheriff's deputy and the daughter-in-law, and there's a lot more than six months worth of dust on everything… I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say, this is not where Gideon's been living."

Garcia left no room for Emily to even breathe before she chimed in as well, "And I just finished checking the heat signature readings and compared them to the land survey, and guess what…no match! I'm going to feed the scene techs these GPS calculations and have them find the actual house."

"Good deal, Garcia… Can you also give Hotch the heads up? Those guys are sifting through bogus evidence, and the real stuff has yet to be uncovered." Emily was quick on the draw to get the whole team back on task.

"Already done, my sweet. Text sent to J.J. while I waited for you all to finish jawing. She's putting Hotch and Reid in a SUV right now and hauling buns to Osage to meet up with you guys." Garcia was always efficient, but Dave never ceased to be surprised by just how well she was able to anticipate their needs. "And my dark knight companion is not saying good bye because he just took off like The Flash with the scene techs. Methinks they may have found the grail, my lovelies."

"Keep us updated, Garcia, and we'll get going on the interviews as soon as we hit beautiful downtown Osage."

Before Emily switched off the phone, Dave distinctly heard the analyst say, "Happy hunting, and don't take that left at Albuquerque."

Dave shook his head in disgust. "I will never believe that woman doesn't need a serious psych eval." Emily's delighted laughter filled the interior of the car. "Or at the very least a drug test."

"You just think that because Garcia is more woman than you could ever handle." Emily started flipping through the case file again when she looked away from him.

Dave nodded, knowing that Emily was absolutely correct in her assessment of his threshold for feminine wiles. "Yes, well, I'm fairly certain that I already have all the woman I can handle…and then some."

Her snort of laughter was exactly what he needed to hear as they pulled into town. They had several hours of interviews to get through, and knowing they were both relieved from the burden of tension was of great importance.

When he stopped the car in front of the sheriff's office, he knew it was time to get down to business. "Okay, small town in the middle of Idaho…"

"If you wanted to tick off the sheriff, I'd do the talking…so, you're gonna take point and make nice with the locals?" Emily winked at him to show she understood the situation.

"Thank you." He was about to get out of the car when he turned quickly back and touched her arm as he said, "Because…if this were anywhere else, I wouldn't have any prob-"

"Dave, it's fine, really." She laid her hand over his, reassuring him. "Seriously, I know what we're up against, and without this guy's help we're screwed. You make nice with the boys club and I'll take your notes like a good little girl."

The warmth in her smile was sincere and he nodded.

As they exited the car, the door to the sheriff's office swung open and every cliché about a backwoods lawman came strutting out of the building, complete with a protruding belly and mirrored highway patrol sunglasses. Looking over the top of his designer sunglasses, Rossi could see Emily struggling to keep her laughter in check.

"Well, well… If isn't the world famous author, himself. Super special agent Dave Rossi, here to set us backwater yokels straight on the ways of the Eff Bee Eye." In his youth, it would have taken everything in Dave's considerable power not to cut the over-stuffed, glorified security guard down to a manageable size. With time and experience, came wisdom, and so his only reaction was to smile politely.

"Sheriff." Dave nodded slightly to acknowledge the man, and to keep from calling him an insufferable bastard.

Without missing a beat, Emily stepped in and extended her hand to the man with a bright smile on her face. "Sheriff Lauder… Thank you very much for meeting with us today." The man turned an admiring eye in her direction and awkwardly shook her hand.

"I see you're already familiar with our Agent Rossi." She afforded Dave only the barest of glances before introducing herself. "I'm SSA Emily Prentiss, and I believe our liaison, Agent Jareau informed you that we'd be coming in, am I correct?" Emily slipped into the role of lead effortlessly, and quickly set the sheriff on his heels. It became crystal clear in their first exchange that while Idaho was a boys club, boys from the outside were considered a threat, but a strong, beautiful woman would always get their better sides.

"Ah, yeah, she did." The man's rancor was immediately defused by Emily's easy charm.

"Good, good…then you know we're only here to interview a few people as we investigate the disappearance of Agent Gideon." Dave had to hold back his smirk as Emily used every trick in their bag to engage the sheriff, much as they would with a suspect. That was where Emily shined the brightest, working the interrogation room. "We're not trying to step on any toes, Sheriff Lauder, but this is one of our own, and we have to be sure that he's gone of his own free will. You understand, don't you?"

"Yes, Ma'am… But I hope you can understand why we haven't taken any action on this so-called disappearance." The man was only trying to cover his own ass, but Dave still had no use for sloppy work.

"Of course. The circumstances led you to believe there was nothing amiss. Your conclusions were perfectly understandable, given the information available to you." Emily was playing to his ego perfectly, but Dave also knew she was setting him up for a fall. "But we have access to other information, and it leads us to believe we are dealing with something else entirely."

Dave was proud to see the sheriff shrink down all the bluster and escort the two of them into the county offices. Emily had managed to subdue the prickly law enforcement officer in under five minutes, and got his support for the interviews at the same time. She was good. Following her into the sheriff's office, he silently remarked to himself, "She is very, very good."