Related episode: 3.6 About Face

Chapter Six: Stile Antico-literally meaning, "ancient style" it refers to music composed in the Baroque or early Classical eras that is considered historically concious

When I pulled the unsigned permission form out of my back pack, I cursed under my breath for several moments. The band and orchestra spring break trip to Chicago was suddenly a very real part of my thoughts, from selling boxes of oranges and grapefruits to leaving the final paperwork out on Hotch's desk for him to sign.

Since it and the first deposit were due this morning, I had just grabbed it, assuming that it was signed and ready to go. But of course it wasn't; my life wasn't that simple or easy. Failure to turn in this paper work and money would mean I couldn't go. For a second, I stood at my locker and thought about actually not going. I'd been going to museums my whole life because of Dad, so I wouldn't be missing much there. I still had plenty of other concerts to look forward to in my high school career. And it wasn't like I was going for the camaraderie. Mark hadn't said a word to me since I turned him away and most of the school seemed to be on his side, including many of the music students.

But. It was still a chance to get away from Virginia and DC. I could take time to just focus on being somewhere else, someplace without the painful memories of home. Change of scenery and all that jazz. But really, it came down to the fact that I didn't want Dad to take this away from me, too.

So, I started laying out a mental plan. As luck would have it, we had a test in French, my first period class, and then I had study hall. It would be tight, but it might work. One of my earliest lessons on schoolwork from Reid had been about test taking strategies. I whipped through all the questions I knew right away, saving the others for later. That meant I had two thirds of the test finished before I went back to the ones that stumped me or that I just wanted more time to formulate my answers. In the end, I finished with twenty five minutes left of class when I got up to hand my test to Madame Song.

Despite my twenty four hour phase of being a hooligan, most of my teachers were still very sympathetic toward me. Madame Song easily agreed to write me a pass to the library for the rest of class as well as my study hall. She even offered to email my study hall proctor immediately so that I wouldn't have to leave the library to turn the pass in for attendance. Maybe I should have felt bad for manipulating her, but drastic times were calling.

I exited school grounds and caught a bus to the Quantico. Officer Hughes at the security desk recognized me and got me a visitor's pass with a smile. Up the elevator and down the halls, I entered the BAU bull pen and headed for Hotch's office.

He was my official guardian now, even if the paper work hadn't made it through all the channels just yet. He and I were living at the house just the two of us while Haley and Jack were still with her sister and her family. Hotch didn't ever talk about it, at least not with me.

He was at his desk, working on something when I stuck my head in and knocked on the door. He looked up and I had the pleasure of completely stopping him in his tracks.

"Rachel? What are you doing here?" he demanded, standing up as I walked in.

Instead of answering, I just put my very important piece of paper in front of him. Playing along, Hotch picked it up and then looked horror-struck when he recognized what it was.

"This was due today, wasn't it?"

"Yep."

"And you left it out all week for me to take care of."

"Two weeks, actually," I corrected him.

Hotch sighed, perhaps cursing himself, and took up the pen he'd been using, signing his name immediately.

"This doesn't mean that I'm thrilled you cut school again," he warned me without looking up.

"I finished my test early and I'm only missing study hall right now," I explained. "Do you have your checkbook? I need the first payment today, too."

"Three hundred dollars, right?"

"Yeah."

Both tasks done, Hotch stood up and brought them over to me. I reached for them when he held them out, but even after I had them in hand, Hotch didn't let go. I looked up in confusion. Hotch was staring at me sternly.

"I know that this was an unusual circumstance," Hotch began. "But, no more missing school. This is the year you should start looking at colleges and universities and they will be looking at you. You don't want your grades to slip and keep you from getting into a good school."

"Hotch, I get it," I said. Actually, I hadn't really thought about college in the past several months and I still didn't want to focus on it now. That didn't mean I thought Hotch was wrong.

"All right."

We were interrupted by a knock on the door and a voice clearing its throat. I turned around and recognized Chief Erin Strauss, whom I'd met at Mom's funeral. With her was another man around her own age.

"Ms. Gideon, how unexpected," Strauss commented. "I would have thought you would be in school right now."

"A misunderstanding," Hotch defended before I could speak.

Hotch had already told me that this woman was the reason he had been put under a microscope and suspended for something that was not his fault. In that way, in my opinion, she had helped contribute to Dad's sudden departure and abandonment. Somehow, Hotch was able to still think of her with civility, but I could understand why he didn't want to risk me saying anything.

Strauss only raised her eyebrow at the response and I played the good little girl who didn't say anything rude. Finally, the woman gestured to the man who had come in with her.

"Agent Hotchner, I believe you remember-"

"Dave," Hotch interrupted, turning his attention to the man.

Likewise, "Dave" practically ignored Strauss, hugging Hotch in greeting. Automatically, he got brownie points in my book.

Looking back and forth between the two men, Strauss excused herself. "I'll just let you two catch up."

Once she was gone, it was my turn to fall under the new man's scrutiny.

"Dave, this is Rachel Gideon," Hotch introduced us.

"Jason's daughter," Dave realized.

"Rachel, this is David Rossi, one of the founding members of the BAU," Hotch continued. "He's come back now that…" here Hotch faltered for a second.

"Now that Dad did a runner," I finished for him. I was proud of myself for not sounding petulant at all. "It's nice to meet you Agent Rossi."

"And you," Rossi replied.

Looking at him now that I knew who he was, I wondered what the hell David Rossi was doing. And I wondered how he would handle working with the team. If he had started the unit back with Dad and Max Ryan, he might not appreciate the agents I knew and respected. And "come back" implied that he had already left for a reason. Not to mention, him staring at me right now made me wonder what he knew about me, especially about Dad.

"I should get back to school," I told the two men.

Hotch nodded. "I'll have Anderson drive you."

"I took the bus here, I can take it back," I objected.

"Anderson will drive you," Hotch repeated firmly, giving me a look to dare me to argue more.

So I smiled, agreed, and said my good byes. No point in showing a profiler obvious dissention amongst the ranks. And if I thought it was odd that I was thinking of this Rossi guy as a potential threat, I didn't over analyze it. I walked down the steps, hesitating briefly at the door to the office that had been Dad's. It was empty now except for his nameplate on the door. I walked past it deliberately, passing JJ on her way up the stairs.

In the bull pen, I saw Reid, Morgan, and Prentiss at their desks. To my amusement, but not my surprise, Reid had a ghoul mask pushed back on his head and a rope noose around his neck. Reid loved Halloween as much as any little kid. In that spirit, when Reid noticed me but Morgan and Prentiss were facing away from me, I put a finger to my lips.

Reid launched into a tangent about All Hallow's Eve as a distraction while I crept up behind Morgan. Just as I was entering Prentiss' peripheral vision, I tapped the back of Morgan's neck, announcing, "What's this? An FBI agent caught off his guard?"

Morgan jumped a mile out of his chair while Reid and Prentiss cracked up.

"Twice in one day?" I heard Prentiss choke out over the sounds of Morgan's cursing. She turned to me. "And extra points for style, quoting Lord of the Rings."

I smirked and then faltered as Morgan stalked toward me, a devious grin on his face. I hurried a few steps away, but the larger man caught me easily and locked me into a full body bind. I could have fought him off—or tried to since I was fairly certain nothing I did could help me against him—but I played dirty instead.

"You know Hotch could look out and see this, right?" I asked.

Morgan let me go so quickly, he had to reach out again to catch me before I fell.

"Truce?" he offered.

"Deal."

I hopped up to sit on Reid's desk and pocketed the candies he slipped to me, his own sugar-themed form of approval.

"So, playing hooky today?" Morgan asked, trying to sound disapproving but failing.

"Hotch forgot to sign something for me," I explained.

"Wait, were you up there just now?" Reid asked, excited about something. "Did you meet David Rossi?"

"For, like, two seconds," I answered quickly before Reid could start quizzing me on every word and nuance that had happened.

I was saved from interrogation when we heard Hotch's voice from the upper walkway.

"Rachel."

I looked up and saw Hotch and Rossi starting to walk down the steps.

"I'm going, I'm going," I protested.

Prentiss hurried to her feet and Reid yanked off his ghoul mask and noose. Rossi must be a pretty big hotshot around here since they were acting like they were meeting a celebrity. While Reid was babbling at break neck speed about literature at Rossi, Hotch looked at me again.

"School," he prompted quietly.

"And straight home after," I assured him.

"And we'll talk about what to do the next time this happens."

I shrugged. Even when I had had two parents around, permission slip signing had been dicey then. Granted, I'd never had to ambush either Mom or Dad at work before, but I had a feeling that this trend was going to continue.

Agent Anderson did drive me to school, though he stopped a block away to let me out when I asked him. I knew he still watched me until I walked through one of the side doors near the library, hoping that no one noticed my absence. Slipping into my seat in Statistics with no one the wiser, I realized I had actually pulled it off. Not that I would think of pulling it off again…

I was pleased enough that I told Michael about my adventure when we got to orchestra. He quirked a grin at me.

"I've been a bad influence on you," he said.

"Please," I scoffed. "I would have done that even if I had never met you."

In the fall out of the fight between Mark and Michael, it was even odds between people siding with Mark or me. Those that sympathized with Mark also firmly believed that I'd been cheating on him the whole time with Michael, because why else would I break up with such a fantastic catch? I had more people than I expected backing me up and agreeing that any guy who tries to tell you to dump one of your friends wasn't worth it. I was also pulling some sympathy because of both Mom and Dad.

Sadly, my old friend Alicia was on Mark's side of things. We didn't even formally end our eight year long friendship, we just adopted a policy of avoiding each other. As luck would have it, we hadn't signed up for roommates yet for the spring break tour and Liz Peterson was willing to partner with me. Maybe I should have felt that loss a little more, but we'd been drifting apart already. And in the wake of Dad, nothing else felt as painful as that.

After school, Michael gave me a ride to Hotch's house. He even came in to hang out for a couple of hours. One thing that had come up quickly between Hotch and me was Michael. Hotch, probably going off of Dad's opinion first, hadn't been pleased with his first impression. To be fair, the circumstances appeared pretty harsh, considering the fight and truancy.

"He's my best friend," I had argued. "He's probably the only close friend I have left. Please don't tell me to stay away from him. Please."

So Hotch had invited him over one night and grilled him as expertly and subtly as I knew he could be. Michael figured out what was going on any way, but Michael was far from stupid. Whatever unspoken communication had happened, it ended up with Hotch approving of Michael which was all I cared about.

But that night, Michael headed home for dinner while I waited for Hotch. In the past couple of weeks, I had taken over most of the cooking during the week, partly because of Hotch's hours, partly to make myself feel like I was contributing and giving back, and partly because I realized I had missed it. Of course, I still wasn't cooking a lot of meat, so a lot of times Hotch would bring home a rotisserie chicken or just call me to say he was bringing take out with him.

Tonight, I made up a pan of enchiladas, taking some of the left over chicken and adding that to half of them. I sliced up an avocado and made sure there was salsa and sour cream in the fridge. For fun, I even made up a pitcher of homemade lemonade.

I was half way through my homework when Hotch walked through the door, sniffing the air.

"Is this to charm me into not yelling at you for ditching classes today?" he asked, finding me in the den couch with my books spread around me so that I could hear the oven timer.

I raised my eyebrows at him. "First of all, I know it wouldn't work with you. Secondly, I cook just as much for myself as I do for you. And you all but admitted that today was partly your fault anyway."

Hotch continued to stare at me expectantly.

"It's just dinner. If I had made dessert, that would have been sucking up," I admitted.

I swear Hotch actually sighed in disappointment. "I wouldn't turn down bribery like that."

"Duly noted."

Despite the fact Hotch wasn't my father, despite the fact that Hotch's wife and son were missing from the table, dinner was painfully domestic. Sure, Hotch and I were still feeling our way around each other, and there were cases like today when I had to improvise or he has to put his foot down.

But we were actually sitting down at the kitchen counter, side by side, eating and talking about what we needed to cover. We worked out that if I ever needed something signed like I did this morning, I could use the fax machine at school and call his office line. Once that was out of the way, I brought up what was on my mind.

"So, what's the story behind Special Agent Rossi?" I asked. His name was only vaguely familiar, but I couldn't come up with any specifics.

Hotch glanced at me sharply. "Your father never talked about him?"

I shot him my most sardonic look. "Hotch, I didn't know you existed until four years ago. And I had to learn from Reid who the rest of the team was."

"Right, of course," Hotch agreed, remembering that Dad always tried to separate work from home which always worked out so well. "Dave was one of the founding members of the BAU when the unit was created along with your father and Max Ryan, you met him, didn't you?"

I nodded. It was actually a big reason why I was asking about Rossi. Max Ryan had rubbed me the wrong way.

"Well, Dave retired about ten years ago and has become a prolific author and lecturer. He's easily one of the most recognized profilers from the FBI."

"And he's returned to work on the team, just like that?" I asked skeptically.

Hotch gave me a long, measuring look.

"He only joined because Dad left, didn't he?" I guessed. "So they didn't get along."

"What makes you say that?"

This wasn't the first time I had guessed something sensitive around Hotch. And just like that time when I refused to swallow the public story covering up terrorism, Hotch first wanted to know how I came to my conclusions.

"Even I know about at least two openings on the team in the past three years," I explained. "If he'd wanted back in, he could have filled the spot that Prentiss took last year. Or how about right after Boston when you guys lost so many agents? No, only he comes back after Dad has gone. Not a coincidence."

I got up and started cleaning up the dishes and packaging the leftovers. I honestly wasn't expecting Hotch to give me a straight answer. He was better than Dad at answering in general, but he still kept things from me "for my own good" or for policy. To my surprise, Hotch came up next to me to rinse our plates.

"They didn't get along," he told me. "On a personal level, they were very different. Dave dated very casually and also married and divorced twice in the years we all worked together. Your father was very loyal to his wife, even after she died. Professionally, both Dave and your father were very good at what they did and they both knew it. But they always argued about why they did it. Your father wanted to understand the people we chase. Dave only ever wanted to put them away."

"And what do you believe?" I demanded.

"I think that in order to put them away, we need to understand them first."

Food for thought, I had plenty buzzing around my mind during the next day. Learning that Dad hadn't made himself popular at the office wasn't a shock to me at all. That Dad had approached serial killers and bombers as people to be studied also wasn't a surprise. The whole romance thing had me confused a little. Sure, I knew about Dad's wife and the fact that I only existed because he and Mom had hooked up soon after that, thinking it was a one night only deal. Even if they never got married, they still had a relationship and raised me together. From where I was sitting, Dad would be a hypocrite to disapprove of anyone having a second love of their life.

I did wonder about how Rossi would adjust to being back for some reason. I still remembered hearing Max Ryan belittle the agents that I knew and respected. And now those same people were trying to recover from losing one of their teammates. If this Rossi knew what was good for him, he wouldn't make the same mistake.

After school that day, Halloween, I took the bus home and then drove my car to Garcia's apartment. I knew the team had flown to Dallas that morning and Garcia was housing my kitty. I hung around her place for the afternoon, working on homework and playing with Hannah who seemed to be growing more comfortable with her current home. We were both adjusting.

Since Michael was working and I had no other friends, I waited for Garcia to come home. I had called hours earlier for pizza to avoid the rush so the veggie supreme and mushroom and cheese pizzas were delivered soon after Garcia walked through the door.

"Thank you, chica. This hits the spot," the techno queen said, slipping off her high heels and collapsing on the couch. "The team should be coming back in around midnight tonight, all right?"

"That quick?" They had only been gone a day.

Garcia hrumphed. "Agent Rossi decided to goad the unsub into action by revealing sensitive information to the press and lie about the profile."

I winced. Her tone did not endear me to this man or his methods, even if they did work.

"No more work talk," Garcia declared, getting up to get sodas for us both. "We need a Halloween movie."

We watched the Johnny Depp version of Sleepy Hollow, eating Pixie Stix like sugar shots for every decapitation and fainting spell. So I was still on a sugar rush and wide awake when Hotch arrived home that night. Seeing that my light was on at one in the morning, Hotch stuck his head inside my room.

"What are you still doing up?"

Since it was said out of curiosity more than admonishment, I explained what had happened. Glancing at my fingers, still twitching and tapping out a quick beat, Hotch winced.

"Just, try to get some sleep, okay?"

"Yep," I promised, popping the "p" at the end of the word.

It was too late and Hotch looked too tired for me to ask how he thought the first case with Rossi had gone, so I didn't. By the morning, I also decided that unless I heard about it from Hotch, it shouldn't be my business. Since Haley and Jack had left, Hotch had become much more reserved than usual. Hopefully, I could ignore Rossi's presence on the team and just concentrate on the team members that were my family.

Notes:

Yes, I have returned! I'm sorry that I was later than I had promised, but I was working toward finishing the whole thing and posting then...but that hasn't happened. Instead, I do have four brand new chapters for you, my gift to everyone for the holiday season (whichever you celebrate). As usual, these four chapters will be posted once a week for the next four weeks, followed by another break as I work on wrapping this baby up.

Let's see, comments about this chapter...I was trying to get Rachel's perspective on the assumed rivalry between Gideon and Rossi. It seems like everyone accepts that while on the same team, they didn't get along, so I have put out my own interpretation of why that was. Personally, I am prefer Rossi to Gideon, but you could call both arrogant sob's and not be wrong.

The chapter title is in reference to Rossi's style of profiling as compared to the rest of the team's. There is a pendulum effect in music composition when you look at how composers and audiences considered music at the respective times. Baroque music was polyphonic (many different lines of music in balance with each other) and centered around dance but then Classical music was more refined and simple with a clear melody supported by harmony (think of hymns in church). Where Classical music was all about refinement, Romantic music was emotional and passionate which was then followed by atonal music that used numerical patterns and codes to create music instead of creative artistry. Back and forth and back and forth. And that is your music history lesson for the day.

Not much more to say than that. I hoped everyone enjoyed this latest installment of Sonata in G, Mvt III and I hope to hear your reactions which are always welcome. The next chapter will be posted next week on Monday. Thanks for reading!

Cantoris