A/N: If this one smells remotely like the S7 episode Profiling 101 you're right. All rights to our not so favorite friend Virgil Williams.

And the references to various other CM episodes through the "good" years? I can't name them all. But all due respect to the writers of the episodes I've touched upon.

Chapter 8

Cait looked at her students as she walked across the lecture hall stage. Cruz and Aaron smiled at how she engaged her class. She burrowed an eye into her students. "What did you learn from the first two cases?" She eyed them deeply.

Davi looked at her. "Don't piss off a woman with psychological issues."

Cait brightly smiled at him. "Winner, winner chicken dinner Davi. You all have thirty minutes left to ask questions of the BAU. Davi, you get the first one."

"Thank you Dr. Barkley," he smiled, looking at Dave. "Agent Rossi, I've read all of your books."

"Thank you," Dave smiled.

"In your earlier books you wrote a lot about Agent Gideon. And how brilliant his mind was. Why isn't he here?" Cait looked at Aaron and then Cruz.

Dave smiled. "Honestly Davi, Jason Gideon became the biggest and best asset as we began building this team. His mind was clinical; he could get into these cases better than Max and I. In the end, he got too close to a case that got personal with him. And he couldn't let it go. It wasn't his conscious that was eating at him; it was his ego. He hung on too hard. And he walked away from the team. That's when I came back after being retired for ten years."

"Why?" Jake asked.

"First off, the team was down a senior profiler. Secondly, I knew Aaron was the Unit Chief. I wanted to help him out. Third, I was just coming off my third divorce, in between writing books, and needed the distraction."

"Your third divorce?" Jake asked.

Dave shook his head at Aaron. "There's one in every crowd." The rest of the team snickered. He looked at Jake. "Yes, my third."

"Don't judge Dave by his marriage batting average," Aaron said. "I said it before to you; I'll say it again. It was, and continues to be, a deep comfort to me to have my mentor in the next office as the team's senior profiler. However, that was the time this team gelled." The rest all nodded their heads.

Davi looked at him. "Gideon didn't fill that role for you Chief Hotchner?"

"Yes he did Davi. Actually, he was the Unit Chief when I became the team's senior profiler. But Gideon, as Dave said, hung onto cases too much. He lost six Bureau agents while negotiating with a bomber. He suffered a nervous breakdown and left the BAU for six months to teach at the FBI Academy. I was promoted to Unit Chief. When Gideon came back, after catching the Footpath Killer, he greatly assisted the team with his knowledge. But he thought he was still in charge. That caused some conflict within the team."

"Jason Gideon was the smartest man I worked with on this team in all my years." Morgan paused, "Concerning cases," he said, looking at Reid. Reid smiled. "But he could not accept the chain of command and overrode Hotch too many times. I absolutely loved and respected the man. But in the end, his ego got to him. And we were not quite a team with two bosses when there was only supposed to be one."

"Where is he now?" Davi asked.

There was a pause between all the team members, some looking at each other. Aaron was about to speak when Reid looked at the students. "Like Hotch, that appreciates his mentor; my mentor was Jason Gideon. The man was brilliant; and took under his wing a scrawny, pipe cleaner with a gun genius that looked way younger back then than I do now. And he pushed me to flourish with this team." He looked at the students. "I have an IQ of 182." Reid thought for a second. "Yet, Jason Gideon was the most complex and intelligent man I had ever met." Reid shook his head. "Two years ago, an old, unsolved case that Gideon and Rossi worked on produced another body with the same MO and signature. Gideon; on his own, started to investigate it before calling us in. And in his bright mind, made the unsub know he was on the case. The unsub killed him; which got us back on the case."

"Did you solve it?" a student asked.

"Yes we did," JJ said. "Donnie Mallick isn't abducting and holding young women for years anymore."

Moesha raised her hand. Cait nodded at her. "Dr. Lewis, how is it you joined the team with your background? And what's it like?"

"My job before joining the BAU was interviewing serial criminals after they were incarcerated to get into their heads more. That sorta gave me a leg up when the BAU put out they had an opening. I made the initial cut," Tara said.

"Given her extensive background in interviewing our former unsubs," Aaron added.

"I had the most amazing thirty-six hour job interview," Tara smiled at Aaron.

Aaron looked at the students. "Just after the interview process started, we got an active case. And I knew her background. While the case was colliding with our interview, I knew I could judge Dr. Lewis' skills that could help us on the case. Her job interview became hands on." He smiled. "I think you all can figure how that went." The class all smiled.

A sophomore student raised her hand in the back of the lecture hall. Cait pointed at her. "Thank you Dr. Barkley," Josie smiled. She looked at the team. "You deal with the worst of the worst. And most of you have been there how long? My question is simple: why? Don't these cases scramble your brains? Because mine is with the three you just presented." She looked at them. "Bottom line: why do you keep doing this job?"

The rest of the students in the lecture hall looked at the team.

Reid smiled along with the team. "You all remember the pictures Garcia up? Of the families of our wins?" The students all smiled. "Gideon didn't have a win book. He had a book of those he lost. That ultimately led to his downfall. I look at our wins. They keep me going."

"I'm a parent by adoption," Emily said. "Through a case I worked when I was with Interpol. One of the worst, bad ass, gunning running former IRA members in Europe wanted me to be his son's mother. I was undercover at the time. That boy is now sixteen and my son. He gets it. I do this job for him. 'Mom stop more like my dad' is what he tells me every time I call him and tell him we've got a case."

Cait waved her hand at Garcia. Garcia looked at the students. "I look at some of the most horrific images invented by the pervious discussed minds of mankind." She waved at the two colorful trolls she had on her lecture stand and then put up the family pics of survivors again. "I support this team for those pics; and Hotch letting me fill my office with non-regulation FBI stuff," she said, waving at the trolls. "I need the color. And sometimes baby panda pictures." Aaron and the rest of the team smiled at her.

"This job can make you enemies," Derek said. "I got my own; but in the end I took him down with the team's help. I do it for my wife," he smiled, "and our little dude." Garcia put up the latest picture of Hank. The class all smiled.

"I had the same," JJ smiled. "But for me, I always remember what brought me my first son into the world," she smiled. "I met the man of my life." Garcia put up a picture of the LaMontagne family. "And how this team came to my rescue doing their profiling so Will and I could have a second son."

"That one saved my butt as well," Cruz said. Garcia put up their family photo.

"It's the wins," Tara said. "And being a part of a family." She smiled. "That Hotch and Cait promote and provide with the hospitality of their home."

"It's amazing how Cait cooks," Garcia smiled. "Her Thanksgiving feasts for the team are awesome!"

"I have help," Cait smiled.

"Chief Hotchner?" a student asked. "How do you handle it?"

Aaron smiled. "I'm going to defer to my wife; your professor. Because she will tell you the same story I would. And you know her better."

Cait smiled. "Aaron and I both have the same picture on our desks at Quantico. Mine formerly being here." The students lightly smiled but looked at her.

Cait shook her head. "You are all good; you noticed a pattern. These unsubs can form grudges and come after the people chasing them." She looked at her students. "I'll come clean with all of you; the two oldest boys are mine from my first marriage to a philandering asshole. Let's leave it at that," she said. "And I was a widow the day the second son was born." Her students put it together.

"Aaron was divorced from his first wife when we met. Kiddo number three was he and Haley's and three at the time," she said. And then turned serious. "Just after kiddo three turned four, an unsub that Aaron and the team had battled fought back." Cait shook her head. "He killed Haley, Aaron's wife, in her home. With son three there; Aaron, through a phone call that the unsub started to taunt him, was able to get our little guy into hiding. Aaron got there in time to save him. And killed the unsub. But please know this; even though kiddo calls me mom; a wedding gift from him to me," Cait smiled at her students, "Haley is honored and never forgotten in our blended home. She died, knowing Aaron was on the way, to protect their son. And the life he would have in our blended home." The lecture hall became stone cold silent.

Cait let her students process that. The team reflected as well. "Fast forward eleven months with Halloween approaching and the kiddo now in kindergarten." Her students looked at her. "Kiddo wanted to be a superhero. I took him shopping; he picked out a Spiderman costume." Her students smiled. "Which he pronounced a day later that it was itchy." Cait looked at the class. "Someday many of you will have five year olds and understand this mentality," she smiled. The class all lightly laughed.

"Kiddo made said pronouncement as he was cooking Halloween cookies with his brothers and dad." Cait looked at her students. "Total mom loving moment," she smiled. The students all smiled. "His brothers and dad reminded him he had to make up his mind by tomorrow." Cait looked at the group. "Which Aaron and I now know was a total set-up."

"The next morning," Cait smiled, "the kiddo came down the steps for breakfast before school, wearing his Easter suit, white shirt, collar buttoned, 'good shoes'," Cait said with finger quote marks. "And the red tie that his dad is wearing today around his neck; knotted in about ten different places; except around his collar, so it wouldn't hang to his knees." The students laughed.

Cait looked at Aaron. "He was also wearing an very fake FBI security badge like we all wear at Quantico. His brothers were in on the plot."

"How he got the tie," Davi smiled.

Aaron smiled and Dave pointed at him. "Natural question," Aaron said." "That's not Spiderman?"

"Kiddo looked at dad," Cait said. "Spiderman isn't a real superhero."

The class all smiled. "You're his superhero," Moesha said.

"Both of us are Moesha," Aaron responded, with his soft smile, "along with his brothers that take care of his when Cait has to be out with the team. Or support their mom when I'm out with the team. That picture reminds us every day why we do the job."

"Sir may I," Garcia asked. Aaron smiled at her. So did Cait.

Garcia put up the family's latest Christmas picture, including Lauren, Andi and Bella with the boys and the couple.

"I love that family," Dave smiled, pointing at the picture. "That one is in my office," he smiled. "I'm Uncle Dave." He turned serious. "We all do this for them; the victims; and most importantly, getting families closure for the ones that were lost. Getting that closure for them keeps us sane. Saving a victim is a huge win for us. We keep doing this job to keep our families, and yours safe," Dave said, looking at the students. "And I love this family as well," he smiled at the rest of the team.

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