"Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged." – Samuel Johnson

"Well?"

Rossi barely had enough time to blink as he stepped out of the interrogation room and was approached by Hotch. It was understandable though. The question must have been gnawing at him. Knowing this, Rossi came back with a quick and direct response.

"He's not our un-sub," Allowing Hotch a moment of release, Rossi waited before adding the rest of his analysis. "But I do get the feeling that he's hiding something."

Before another word or thought could be constructed, Hotch's phone buzzed again from his pocket. He lifted the device to his ear and answered immediately, "What is it, Garcia?"

Since she wasn't on speaker phone, whatever news Garcia shared went unheard by Rossi. All he could go off of were Hotch's expressions. From the darkening in his eyes, it wasn't good.

"Right. We've already established that Gideon isn't the one responsible but this definitely helps," Rossi cocked an eyebrow as he listened to Hotch's replies. "Yes. Alright, the moment you find something, let us know. Thanks, Garcia." The phone slid shut and the two men looked at each other, "The Boston Bomber."

"Adrian Bale?"

Hotch turned his attention back to Gideon in the next room as he nodded and answered, "Garcia traced the evidence back to him after examining one of the defused bombs and recognizing his Bale's design. Evidently he's escaped prison six months ago and is still missing."

Rather than jump to the conclusion of Gideon's absolute innocence, Rossi crossed his arms and followed Hotch's gaze toward the interrogation room and thought a loud. "So… I'm Adrian Bale. In 2004, I get caught and sent to prison. I hold Gideon personally responsible for my incarceration. With nothing else to do, I only think of ways that I can get my revenge on the man who put me behind bars. When the opportunity presents itself, I take it and I escape. "

Following Rossi's lead, Hotch added to the brainstorming, "I learn that Gideon has stepped down from his post at the BAU and had fallen off the grid. I also know that I caused him a severe mental breakdown by taking the lives of six officers under his command."

"So rather than track down the man himself… I go after the team I know he's abandoned. I keep tabs on each member, I study them and then I wait until they are out of town and then I send bombs to each house."

"But what I didn't know is that Spencer Reid has his mail forwarded to his office, rather than his house. One of the teammates who sees him with the package, sees a similar one on his door and backs off, calls the rest of his team."

"My plan is almost completely compromised and I only manage to hit two of my targets." Rossi's addition to the hypothesis is followed by a brief moment of silence before he speaks again, "I'm not satisfied at all with how this turned out… so I… go after the family of the team?" The last bit of Rossi's statement came out as more of a question and much less confident than the rest. "Are we even sure that Diana Reid's disappearance is related to what happened? No one else has been taken, right?"

Hotch took a moment to think before replying, "My son and his aunt have been in protective custody ever since the bomb was found. All of Morgan's family lives in Chicago. Garcia has no children, no siblings and her parents died when she was eighteen. Prentiss was a successful target and even is she wasn't her mother is a protected ambassador."

"And the only family I have nearby are my ex-wives," Rossi added. "Which means…"

"JJ. If he really is going after our families, the only ones he'd be able to get to are Will and Henry," As Hotch reached this conclusion, he flipped his phone back open to call the father of JJ's child.

Waiting for Will to pick up, Rossi spoke again, "This just doesn't make sense, Aaron. None of this does. Even if he does have Reid's mother… and if he plans on taking JJ's kid… what is he going to do?"

"Nothing." Hotch slapped his phone shut and growled but his words were not an answer to Rossi's question. "Will's not answering."

"So what do we do?"

There was a long drawn out pause before it came to Hotch. "We need to regroup. David, I want you to make a call to Strauss and let her know that we're on this case now no matter what the record says. Then I want you to call the rest of the team and have them meet at the BAU. Have one of the police officers escort you back to Quantico. If I'm right about this, Bale will be trying to contact us soon."

"What about you?"

"I'll be here. Like you said, Gideon is hiding something. It's a long shot but whatever it is… it might help our investigation."

~ Author's Notes ~

2/3 of the way into this chapter and my computer froze and shut down. I've never experienced a more torturous eleven minutes of my life. But luckily Microsoft Word is amazing with its automatic saving techniques. PHEW.

Anyway, for the first time today, I watched Jones. It took me way too long to catch it. (SO MUCH REID!) And the final line from him in that episode made me smile like mad. Bitch better not miss another plane ever again. Last night I caught Demonology. Eh. Rossi earned a whole heap of cool points with me but other than that… eh.

P.S. If you haven't started reading the Reid-centric fic, Simon Says by purplerayz, then you need to get your ass into gear and do that like yesterday.

P.S.S. How about some words about the actual story, amirite? … So yeah… Gideon what's Gideon hiding? Why isn't Will answering his phone? How is Reid going to react after learning his mother is missing? Tune in next week tomorrow to find out!