A/N: And here we are with a new part. I will say this, those who think I might be writing Hotch as constantly at a disadvantage to Gibbs, don't worry, this will be a balanced story. Both men will learn something from each other and get a better understanding of the other. They may never like each other, but there'll be a bit of grudging respect between them. It'll just take them a while to go there and being on Gibbs' home turf, does put Hotch at a bit of a disadvantage, for now. Hope you enjoy and let me know what you think!

Emily was aware that Hotch, Rossi and Gibbs were just outside the glass doors in Abby's lab. She couldn't hear what they were saying, but she could feel their eyes on her. She wasn't ready to deal with them yet, not with anyone. Right now she was feeling too hurt and emotional and she didn't want anyone to see that. It was bad enough Abby had caught her, but given who could have found her earlier, the cheerful Goth was definitely the preferable choice. Abby could be sometimes be smothering in her concern and need to care for someone, but she was also sensitive about giving someone space when they needed, and Emily needed space at this moment.

However, Emily's busy mind also could not shut itself off when there was such an urgent matter, namely a serial killer going after women whom she bore a passing resemblance to. They also had something else in common, they all came from prominent families and Gibbs had said the Secretary of the Navy had forced this joint investigation. That meant these families all had considerable political pull. All of these factors meant she might have more in common with these woman's than just a physical similarity.

They had already done an extensive background search on the victims, but something about the women was nagging at Emily. She could have asked Garcia to do the research, but Emily needed something to take her mind off of things and she knew the tech analyst would pick up on the change in her voice and realize something was wrong. Besides, she didn't need Garcia's considerable skills to do what was needed.

With a simple search on Google, Emily found what she was looking for. She saved what she needed on a USB drive and pushed back from Abby's desk. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, shoving aside the hurt feelings and sense of isolation she felt from the accusations hurled at her. After taking a few more moments, she opened her eyes, stood and walked out of Abby's office.

"Emily!" Abby looked up from where she was examining something on her lab table, the magnifying goggles obscuring her eyes and making her look very much like a mad scientist. She pushed the goggles up on her head and her green eyes peered worriedly at the older woman. "Everything okay?"

Prentiss gave her a small smile. "Yeah. Thanks for…letting me use your computer."

Abby pursed her lips together, but simply nodded. If Emily wanted to pretend nothing had happened, she wasn't going to force it. "Mi lab-o, es su lab-o."

Emily offered her another smile of thanks and nodded. She left forensics and hurried up to the conference room the BAU team had been assigned. When she got there, she saw Hotch was just about to start the briefing. He looked piercingly at her and Emily could feel her back automatically stiffen, mis-reading his dark-eyed gaze as criticism for not being there sooner or questioning what she had been doing.

She ignored JJ, Reid and Morgan and moved to stand over by Rossi who looked inquiringly at her, the concern in his eyes clear. She just offered him a small smile, but his concern wasn't alleviated. As she turned around, she saw Gibbs staring at her, a question in his eyes. She averted her gaze, knowing that the NCIS agent had an uncanny ability to sniff out when she was troubled.

"Good, let's get started," Hotch said. "A week ago, the BAU was called into investigate three murders that had taken occurred in DC, Maryland and Virginia. Due to the multiple states, the FBI had jurisdiction on the case. Like Commander Hill, all three women were from well-connected, prominent families and were successful career women themselves.

"Deborah Mason was the daughter of a District Court judge and the owner of a successful Internet business. She was the first victim and her body was found in Arlington, Virginia. The next victim was Alison James, environmental attorney, her body was found in Fredericksburg, Maryland. Her mother is Lisa Maxwell, the lobbyist. The third victim was Callie Baxter-Thomas, CFO of Three Arches Electronics. Her family owns the company. She was found in DC as was Commander Hill."

"You're familiar with what this unsub is doing to his victims, but what you are not aware of is that he seems to be keeping these women for less and less time," Rossi continued. "Mason was kept a week as was James. Maxwell lasted five days. Hill four."

"The accelerated timeline indicates that he is becoming less satisfied with each murder and as such will likely escalate in other ways besides the timeline," Morgan added.

"Escalate how?" McGee asked.

"By giving these women lobotomies, the unsub is creating a docile female to act as a sexual servant. His choice of victims are the complete opposite of such a subservient person. However, the accelerated timeline indicates that he is growing dissatisfied with his choices at a much quicker pace. We think it's possible that besides taking women more frequently, he might resort to taking multiple women."

"Wouldn't they be harder to handle if there were two of them?" Ziva queried.

"He likely would not take them simultaneously," JJ added. "But we might see victims being abducted closer in time than we have been. So he could have one victim there should another fail to meet his needs."

"He's also physically fit," Hotch added. "All of these women, while slender, were incredibly fit. Commander Hill was a trained military officer with a black belt. These women would not be easily subdued."

"And smart," Rossi commented. "Until today, he's left no forensic evidence. The expensive blanket he left behind with Commander Hill might be another indication he's devolving and making more mistakes."

"Any other connection besides being from powerful families and having good jobs?" Gibbs asked.

Hotch was about to say "no" when Emily suddenly spoke up. He and everyone else on the BAU team looked at her in surprise.

"Yes," Emily said in a quiet voice as she stepped forward towards the laptop that sat on the conference room table, projecting pictures of the victims onto the monitor in the room. She plugged in her USB drive and pulled up what she had saved earlier on Abby's computer.

Photos of very young versions of the victims in party dresses appeared on the screen. None of the women were in the photos together and judging by the clothing, it appeared they might have been taken a few years apart from each other.

"We know all of these women were from prominent, well-connected, powerful families with ties to inside the Beltway. However, we haven't found anything linking all of these women together. During the time these young women were teenagers, one thing all women from these kind of families did if they were in the DC area, they all went to Miss Ellington's Academy for Young Ladies for etiquette and social manners lessons. I did a search of their website and these photos were among the archives there."

"Prentiss, how do you know about this place?" Hotch asked suspiciously.

Emily, took a deep breath. "Because I went to Miss Ellington's."

Gibbs felt his blood freeze and he was momentarily thrown back to the park, looking down at Commander Hill's body and being struck by her resemblance to Emily. At the time, the connection was fragile and tenuous. There were millions of slender, pale brunettes, but with this additional information, this concrete connection, he couldn't help but feel a wave of protectiveness towards the FBI agent.

And Gibbs wasn't the only one as Rossi shifted his feet slightly to lean more towards Emily and Hotch's body went rigid and still. There was no reason to think Emily was in any danger, but her similarities with the victims were just too great to completely ignore. Hotch had to quell the urge to order Prentiss to stay out of the field. Good God, he's had her parading around this investigation for a week! If the unsub had watched them at any of the drop sites, he would have seen Emily, found out who she is, her family, if he didn't know her already.

"Is Emily in danger?" Tony voiced what was running through everyone's mind.

"Absolutely not," Prentiss said in a firm voice. "Miss Ellington has taught thousands of girls. The place has been in business for decades and it continues to be. I'm in no more danger than any other woman who might have been a student there."

"None of them have been walking around at drop sites," Gibbs replied in a grim voice, his mind having gone to the same place Hotch's had.

"This is a good lead," Hotch continued. "But we can't ignore other possibilities. We should check out Commander Hills' boyfriend as well as Miss Ellington's. I believe Agent McGee managed to track him down to the Italian Embassy?"

"Right," McGee nodded. "However, I didn't get a name, just that that particular number was assigned to one of their employees."

Hotch was quiet as he mulled things over. He came to a decision. "Prentiss, you and Rossi checkout the boyfriend. Morgan, you and I will look into the Miss Ellington connection. The rest of you dig deeper into our victims since it's obvious we didn't go deep enough."

The NCIS team looked annoyed and Gibbs made his displeasure at Hotch taking lead felt. "My people and I aren't just going to sit here twiddling our thumbs, Hotchner."

"You're more than free to join us," Hotch said in a magnanimous tone.

"Don't mind if we do," Gibbs returned sarcastically. "McGee, help our FBI friends out with the research here. DiNozzo, you go with Hotchner and Morgan. Ziva, you and I will go with Emily and Rossi."

"Right boss," DiNozzo replied for the rest of the team though he was curious as to why Gibbs didn't take the Ellington assignment which was the lead with more potential and would give the NCIS agent a chance to keep an eye on Hotchner.

Normally, Gibbs would have gone with Hotchner. It was clear that they would most likely find something useful with Miss Ellington, but he was concerned about Emily. She seemed composed and present, but less than an hour earlier he had seen her upset and he still didn't know what had agitated her. With the possibility she might be a target, he wasn't going to let her out of his sight unless he knew she was completely alert and aware of everything. Although, what Hotchner was doing was obvious to everyone in the room. Emily, with her connection to Miss Ellington's Academy, was the best person to follow-up that lead, but the BAU leader was clearly putting her out of the line of potential fire. It was something Gibbs understood, but didn't agree with. Additionally, the older man was annoyed by the FBI leader's high handedness. Gibbs figured sticking DiNozzo with Hotchner was punishment enough.

Emily was well aware of what Hotch was doing and was annoyed by it. This was her lead, her information and with her past connection, she was the obvious and perfect agent to follow it through. Hotch was giving her clean up duty, probably out of some misguided feeling to protect her. There was no need for it. She didn't need his or anyone's protection. The possibility that she was in the killer's sights was a million to one.

Everyone began to gather their things and leave the conference room to take care of their assignments. Emily hurried after Hotch and stopped him in the hallway.

"Hotch! A word please."

Imperceptibly, Hotch's shoulders stiffened but he simply nodded and gestured towards an open doorway that led into another small conference room. He closed the door after her. "What's wrong, Prentiss?"

"Why am I on the boyfriend track and not the Miss Ellington connection?" she asked, coming straight to the point.

"Because I decided that would be best," Hotch said in his most authoritative, no nonsense voice.

"It doesn't make any sense," Emily argued.

"Prentiss, are you questioning my orders?" Hotch took a step towards her. He didn't want to explain that his blood ran cold every time he thought she might be in danger, that all he was doing was trying to protect her and make sure she was safe. He did not want to fail her like he had before. But he couldn't say any of these things, because she was who she was and he was who he was.

"I'm asking why you made the assignments in the way that you did."

"I don't have to explain my orders to you, Prentiss, but you do have to follow them. Now, either do that or I can put you on leave," Hotch snapped back.

Emily was furious and he could almost see the waves of anger radiating off of her. However, she held herself back and only snapped out a sharp,

"Yes, sir!" before spin on her heel, yanking the door open and slamming it after her with a resounding bang.

Only Emily Prentiss could inject enough venom in that one syllable word of "sir" to knock a person back on his heels. Hotch sighed and rubbed his face wearily. He hated being at odds with her, especially after how thoughtful and supportive she had been in the wake of Foyet. But he had failed to protect one woman, he wasn't going to let that happen again.

Hotch opened the conference room door and stepped out into the hallway, only to find himself face-to-face with Gibbs.

"Pissed her off," Gibbs commented. He had seen and heard the door slamming. "Should've expected it."

These were all said as factual statements, causing Hotch to bristle, something he commonly did around Agent Gibbs, at the implication that he should have known better.

"You can't keep Emily in a glass box. She's an agent," Gibbs continued.

"How I run my team is none of your business," Hotch replied in a cool voice.

"Emily is a friend, so that makes this my business."

"And she's my subordinate and I decide what assignment she will be doing," Hotch snapped back. He peered pointedly at Gibbs. "Obviously you yourself have some concerns since you decided to go with her to interview the boyfriend."

Gibbs let out a soft chuckle and started to walk away. "Hotchner, you gotta learn the difference between being over-protective and having someone's back."

A/N 2: For those who are looking for the Profiler's Choice nominees and how to vote, you can find it at:

topic/ 74868/73609377/1/ 2012-Profiler-s-Choice-CM-Awards-FINAL-VOTING-BALLOT-HERE

Just remove the spaces. There are a lot of very good authors/stories nominated so show your support by voting!