It was a cold morning in mid-February, and Hotch was sitting at his desk signing paperwork when he heard a soft knock on his office door. Without waiting for his reply, the door opened revealing a purple-hued Garcia, wearing an unusually serious expression on her face.
"Sir?" she asked quietly as she walked into the room and closed the door behind her. "I need to talk with you. And, probably Rossi, too. Could you call him and get him in here?"
"Garcia?" Hotch was affected by her subdued demeanor. "What is going on? Is something wrong?"
"We need Rossi!" Garcia stated. "Please, just call him."
Hotch picked up his phone, and Rossi quickly joined them in the office.
"Penelope, what's wrong, Kitten?" he asked when he saw the look on the tech's face.
"You need to sit down," she told him seriously.
After Rossi was seated in one of Hotch's guest chairs, Garcia took a deep breath. "I have been keeping an eye out for Christine," she confessed. "That's probably against all the rules and you can fire me if you want to but first you need to know that I think I found her." It all came out in a rush.
"Slow down and tell us all about it," Rossi was trying his best to be patient.
"Well, I have been checking birth certificates in all the states," Garcia explained. "I figured that since she is pregnant, when the babies were born they would need birth certificates. I was doing my routine checks this morning, and when I got to the State of Nevada, I found these." She handed each of them two sheets of paper.
"Ten days ago, a Christine Nichole Nielson gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, in Lake Tahoe, NV."
Rossi studied the papers. "Mother Christine Nichole Nielson, Father unknown," he intoned.
"Unknown!" Garcia was scandalized. "She knows it is Reid. Why didn't she just say so!"
"I don't know about Nevada, specifically, but in most states if the parents aren't legally married, the father has to sign paperwork to be included on the birth certificate," Hotch explained.
The three looked at each other. "Who is going to tell Reid?' Garcia asked quietly.
Rossi stood up slowly. "I suspect it will come easiest from me," he decided. Reaching into his hip pocket, he took out his wallet, extracted a credit card, and handed it to Garcia. "Make plane reservations for the two of us," he instructed her. "First plane out, whatever it takes, whatever it costs, get us to Lake Tahoe."