AN: So, chapter 13 did pretty well, here comes Chpt 14. At this point, eh, just read it and lemme know whatcha think.

"Even if she be not harmed, her heart may fail her in so much and so many horrors; and hereafter she may suffer-both in waking, from her nerves, and in sleep, from her dreams." ( Bram Stoker, Dracula)

"Those with the greatest awareness have the greatest nightmares." (Mahatma Gandhi)

As it turned out, later that day, the doctor was persuaded to let Alecta leave the hospital. Her fever had dropped down to 100°, and had stayed there for several hours. She had stopped moving around so much and gave her stitches a rest. It seemed as though the doctor's attempt at a compromise might have worked after all; it kept him alive, and kept Alecta happy.

And now, here they were, 24 hours later, finally touching down in Quantico. Alecta had been quiet most of the flight, watching her kids. Sasha and Eva had been chatting with Rachel, using the quiet time to finally get to know their sister all over again. Oleg had been talking with Reid about a few things that were of interest to both of them; he was actually quite a bright child, but in the end, few people were as intelligent as Reid. Jazzy was coloring with Henry and Jack. Alecta was, after checking on her other kids, cocked back in her seat with Sofie and Emma sitting in her seat with her. Each one of them was lying on their backs, their heads resting on their mother's chest. It was cute to see how much alike all three were, Alecta and the two children. But it was also difficult. It was difficult for Mrs. King, because up until recently, the last time she saw Alecta, Alecta was the age of her little girls. It was difficult for the team because after all the things they had learned about Alecta, it was hard to picture her being so small and suffering so much.

One of the hardest things for her to do was to leave that house. Alecta had forgotten how much she missed certain things; things like Abigail, Daniel, Dorian…Constance…and little Daphne. Even that spooky old Dead Water Marsh…she'd missed that. The one she missed the most was likely Daniel, Revolutionary Daniel. He'd been by her side off and on over the years. And, as far as Daphne is concerned, knowing her children, they had figured out a way to bring her with them. Chances were good she had attached herself to one of Sofie's dolls and would arrive in Quantico as soon as they did.

As it was, Alecta and the girls were each lazily twirling a strand of hair through their fingers. It wasn't long before Miss Sofie had fallen asleep. Emma had stayed awake, singing quietly, in her sleepy voice 'Five lil speckled frogs, sitting on a speckled log…' and she would give a huge yawn. Emma and Alecta were both murmuring this little counting song, both too sleepy to keep their eyes open, neither one willing to admit it. Before they had managed to get to two speckled frogs, they were both done for.

It had been a short enough flight, compared with some the team had been on, and then the pilot announced they'd be landing soon. Nobody wanted to wake Lex and the girls up, but they had little choice. Her mother, Mrs. King decided to do the dirty work. So, Lex and the girls were soon awake, albeit grudgingly.

It had been determined sometime mid-flight that the kids (all of them) would stay with their sister, Rachel. She had a three bedroom apartment…it would be a snug fit, but they could figure out a way to make it work until Alecta could have time to get her stitches out and get back on her feet a bit. It was way better than sending them off with strangers, and besides, the girls were so happy about spending more time with their big brother.

As they all exited the plane, Rachel and the older kids began loading the family luggage into the SUV that her fiancée had brought to meet them in. Rachel's fiancée, Jeff, was a useful ally as well as wonderful man in general. His parents were in politics, so they knew most of the juicy dirt on anybody that was anybody. Jeff, or Jeffy as everyone called him, had a degree in computers and just so happened to sideline as a hacker. He was nowhere near as good as Pen, but he'd do in a pinch. What his parents couldn't dig up on you, he could. Yes, a good man with a few marketable skills. Rachel thought, as she watched him get the kids loaded into the truck that she may have to keep him around for a while.

Hotch was watching Alecta. She seemed sort of sullen now. Alecta carefully hoisted her messenger bag over her shoulder with a little grunt. She hurt worse than she let on and Hotch knew it.

"Do you need anywhere to stay?"

"No. Thank you anyway. But I have a little place nearby, I'll be fine there."

Alecta waived at everyone as she walked out of sight. The sky was darkening and it looked like rain. She didn't have an umbrella with her, so the best she could do was hug her jacket around her a bit tighter. For it to still be summer there was a nip in the air; seems as though Mother Nature couldn't get her act together.

Hotch decided to follow her….from a distance. He sent Jack home with JJ and Will, he'd love having a sleepover with Henry. It would probably be next to impossible to get those two ready to go back to school at the end of summer.

Getting into his own SUV, Hotch made his way up the street in the general direction that he thought Alecta had gone. She was a quick little devil; she could disappear quickly when it suited her purposes. But he caught up to her, hanging back quite a few feet. After he followed her for the better part of 15 minutes he pulled the truck to the curbside of a building and watched as Alecta went inside.

MUNICIPAL BUS STATION? Hotch had to wonder what she was doing coming here. He decided to give her a little time in case he was jumping to conclusions; he sat and he waited. It was going on late in the afternoon, passing into evening. There wasn't that big of a crowd this time of night for the station. Twenty-five minutes later, he hadn't noticed Alecta having ever come out of the bus station, so he made up his mind to go in and get her. Although this was one of the better stations on a nicer end of town, Hotch had no intentions of letting sit here alone for any major length of time. After working the job for so many years, you learn just how evil one human being could be to another. He never wanted to see her wind up like some of the bodies they had seen during a case; he almost shuddered at the thought, and she seemed to have a knack for attracting the criminal element.

It was official. She needed him to come and find her; she just didn't know it yet.

He walked into the station, looking around, he didn't see her. Then his eyes caught sight of something on a bench….it was her messenger bag. He knew she was here, but where? And, had she left the bag there on purpose? Was she coming back? Did someone already take her?

That last question is what made him do it. He walked over to the guy behind the counter, flashed his badge, introduced himself, and asked the man if he knew where the owner of that bag had gone.

"That hot little number…Yeah, she went to the rest room. I can't believe she left that bag there. What if someone took it? She's a bit naïve for doing that, if you ask me. But then again, she seemed like she could take care of herself. Did she do something wrong?"

"No, she's….' what was he going to tell the guy? Should he go with co-worker or girlfriend? Saying co-worker would make this sound lame, and the guy probably wouldn't believe him….Alecta didn't look like an FBI agent; coincidentally that's the same thing they said about Garcia, although for different reasons. If he said she was his girlfriend, the guy would straight up think he was a liar; looking at the differences between himself and Alecta, he would have to give the guy points there.

He began to realize part of what Alecta had told him while they were away, about her doubts that he really loved her. Haley and Beth both had been a bit taller, by nearly six inches….they were both on the thin side; Beth had a better shape than Haley had, but neither one of them had nearly the shape that Alecta had….compared to her, they were both string beans. Although Alecta hadn't seen Hotch picking up any women when they would go out for the odd drink with the group after work, by comparing herself to the two women she knew had been in his life, she saw that she just didn't measure up. At least that's what she thought…and thinking that, she knew that he mustn't really love her.

Oh God, he must look like the typical jerk to her. After following her possible train of thoughts, he realized she must think that he's the typical guy who just wants to have his fun and then be out and gone before anybody knows what happened.

"No, she didn't do anything wrong. She's a friend of mine, she left something of hers in my truck, and I just needed to make sure she got it."

The man smirked at Hotch, nodding, 'She'll be back soon enough."

Hotch didn't say that Alecta left him in the truck and that he wasn't leaving this place without her. So, Hotch made his way over to the row of seating where her bag rested against a back wall and waited.

It was only another 10 minutes or so before he heard her southern drawl, 'You're in my bed, move."

"What? You're not sleeping here. I asked you if you needed a place to stay…."

"And I'm fine here."

"Are you insane?! You want to sleep in a public bus station, knowing what we know about the kind of things people are capable of?"

"I can take care of myself."

"Ordinarily, I wouldn't try to argue with you. But you just had a fever of 104°, and you still have stitches…you're not in top form. Not to mention being pregnant. But even on a good day I would never let you stay here. You're coming home with me."

"N-no. What about Jack, he might think it's sort of strange…"

"He's staying over at JJ's tonight, he wanted to keep hanging out with Henry.' Turning around he watched the look on her face go from stubborn to scared. She was worried about being left alone with him? Alecta was going to subject herself to sleeping on a bench in a public bus station, with God only knows what kind of freaks walking around free in the world, but she was afraid to stay with him. It almost didn't even make sense.

"Look, come on, I'm not leaving you here." Hotch grabbed her by the arm with one hand and with his other he grabbed her bag, he was taking her home whether she liked it or not. There was only one way to make her believe that he was a decent man, and that was to prove it. Alecta had tried to dig in her heels, but she was no match for Hotch; he was taller and stronger, she was going with him after all.

Getting out to his truck, he put her in the passenger seat and reached across to buckle her seat belt; by doing so he could sense how tense she was. She was scared of him? She couldn't possibly be. She had flirted with every member of the male population like a pro since the day they met. There wasn't a man left in her presence that didn't want to take her home.

It was starting to seem true, what he had heard Prentiss say one day….Alecta was the female Morgan. Just like Morgan flirted with ever skirt in the vicinity, Alecta had made her way around every man in the room. Morgan had never settled down with any one of his conquest, everybody knew he loved Garcia too damned much for that, Morgan would never have settled down with anyone but her. Alecta had run from her friend Kevin after living the life she had. She had been married twice. One husband had recently left her, and one was now dead, courtesy of Hotch. And if he had to be quite honest with himself, taking that shot was one of the proudest moments in his life….right behind marrying Haley, Jack's birth, and beating Foyet to death….yeah, shooting Fletcher Davis right between the eyes was right up there. And he'd do it again, too, if that had to happen all over again.

The drive to Hotch's apartment was quiet. There were a million things that he wanted to say or to ask, but one glance over to Alecta told him that now was not a good time. She had curled in her seat, hugging the passenger door, with a white knuckle grip on the door handle; she had shut her eyes to make it look like she was asleep, but he knew better. By trying to make Hotch think she's asleep, Alecta hoped to avoid a conversation. Hotch would let it go for now, but once they got to his place and got settled, he had hoped that he would get her to talk. Somehow, he doubted it would work; but he had to try.

Like clockwork, when he stopped, pulling up to his building, Alecta was quite awake; she was staring out of the front windshield, looking out of her passenger window….it was like she was trying to get her bearings. Hotch got out, closing his own driver's door, and went around to open Alecta's passenger side door to let her out; he helped her get unbuckled….it drover her crazy…she wasn't an invalid, she could do stuff for herself. But, apparently, Hotch was worried about her popping the stitches on her back; and, if she had to tell the truth, the whole thing back there…the carving, the stitches…it was all beginning to hurt a bit. She was getting super tired really quickly. The last few days were creeping up on her. What adrenaline she had been living off of since….since that day was wearing out finally. If it hadn't been for the medication the doctor had her on in the hospital and the sickness she would have gotten no sleep at all, as it was she was only able snatch a couple hours at a time. But now, with her adrenaline running low, the stress of the last few days finally catching up to her, Alecta could barely keep her eyes open. And being so lost in her own little world on the way over here, thinking so hard about how this would all go once she stepped into Hotch's apartment….That was one of her little tricks that she used. If she found herself in the middle of a difficult situation she would try to think of all the possible outcomes and the different routes that one could take to get to these outcomes….For instance, she would try to anticipate what one of Hotch's first questions might be to her or something he might say, and then she would try to plan just exactly how she would reply to that, she would try to anticipate what sort of reaction he was expecting. It always worked with 'normal' people…but she had never played this game with a profiler, well she hadn't openly played the game with a profiler.

She didn't want to be here. For all the things that could possibly happen to her sleeping on that bench back at the bus station, she was less afraid of that prospect. She knew what people could do to each other….Her entire life was a BAU case gone horribly wrong. But it was these like this that terrified her. She wasn't afraid, much, of total strangers….but it was always the people closest to her that had hurt her the most. Strangers, she could care less about, she had no expectations of them, and they couldn't let her down or fail her if she didn't have anything to lose. But the people that she trusted…that was something else. Look at the shining examples; Jake, Fletcher, her brother-Jax…her mother being 'dead' all of these years (although that wasn't entirely her mother's fault, it still weighed on her like nothing else)….even Kevin and Yuri. Kevin for being so cruel as to turn his back on her for all those years, but she had to give him points for trying his damnedest to make it up to her…he had made every effort…and she was grateful. And Yuri, after so many years of believing he was dead…and then he turns around and leaves her, thinking that he's doing her some sort of favor…he never bothered to consider what she might want. The only thing she was grateful for in that situation was that he left the kids with her, giving her time to try to get to know them.

And now, Hotch wanted to profess his love for her? Was he crazy? After all of these issues, now was a bad time to want to be in love with someone like her. It didn't matter how handsome he was, how tall he was, how dark his hair….or the fact that he had a kid, too, and was a great dad according to all that she had seen so far. She didn't want to let him be next in line in her life, because, what would happen when he turned on her? Or worse yet, what would happen when he discovered that she had been right all along….that she wasn't the kind of woman that he needed to be around?

Hotch was a sedate man. He didn't show a lot of emotions, he liked a fair amount of order and structure in his life. And for all that Alecta tried to have the same principles, she had failed miserably.

She tried to show no emotion…but after watching what happened to her mother and to three of her closest friends, she was a basket case. And as for order and structure…sure she may have that as far as the Agnes's were concerned….Well, hell she didn't even have it there any longer…it felt as though, with Theo's maneuver to sell them out, that the group might fragment. She knew she was getting too old to lead them. She was pushing 40, she had all these kids. Recovering from injuries was taking longer than it used to. Even if she couldn't turn her mind off, her body was getting tired….somewhere along the way she had lost a step that she couldn't get back, and she had no idea how it happened. And that was what worried her more than anything; the girl that could once dance on the point of a needle was missing a step, faltering. She hated that.

Getting to Hotch's apartment door, Alecta's stomach started feeling even worse; she wished she could blame it on pregnancy, but for once she was pretty sure that the baby couldn't take the blame for this. Hotch unlocked and opened the door and stood aside to let her go through first; he switched the lights on, watching her get her first good look around.

For a single dad this place was actually quite nicely decorated. It wasn't her personal tastes, but then there aren't many people that could through together Medieval/Renaissance and Industrial into a workable decorating scheme. But it was still a very nice looking apartment. For the most part the furnishings said a lot about the man; no nonsense, a man of few words, few emotions…but they also had a little something more to them…something in them that allowed for Jack to be in the picture….it was the thing that gave off the vibe of him being a good dad. For all the distinction in this apartment, it was also lived in….Hotch didn't live in a museum, he had a home.

Home. That was a funny word. A mom, dad, siblings….Alecta had all of those things, whether she knew it or not…even down to having a half-brother. But she had never actually had a home. After her mother left, there had been nobody that cared for her. Nobody was there to read her a bedtime story. She had to make up her own before she was old enough to read by flipping through the pages of some old book of fairytales that she had gotten from her mom….even that came to her second hand. She still had it, she read to Sofie and Emma from it most nights. That book had been one of the few creature comforts she had been able to save from her life with her father and his friends. And suddenly, she stood there in the middle of the apartment feeling jealous of Jack, before she remembered that his mother had died, for real, and there was no chance of her coming back….but at least he had a dad that would do anything in the world to make sure that a hair on his head wasn't harmed…Hotch wasn't about to sell Jack to the highest bidder.

Drawing in a deep breath to steel her nerves a bit, 'Can I get a shower? I need to get the funk of the last couple of days off of me."

Hotch nodded his agreement, and then moved to make his way to the bathroom and set out towels for her; he let her use his master bathroom. The one that he had designated for Jack had all of these little tub toys and things laying around, he didn't want her to have to work around that.

Alecta's shower was quick. She had taken her messenger bag in the bathroom with her. She was glad she always packed an emergency stash; she had a small bottle of shampoo and one of conditioner. She was careful to lean forward to rinse the stuff out of her hair….luckily Hotch had one of those flexible shower heads on one of those long cords….it made things so much easier. She had to be careful about getting soaps and detergents on the area with the stitches; she didn't need that area irritated worse than it was. She washed up the rest of her body as well as she could, rinsing off; it would have to do the trick until she got the damned stitches out.

Once out of the shower, Alecta dried off carefully, wrapping her hair up in one towel, and wrapping another towel around her body. Reaching into her bag she pulled out her one pair of emergency under wear that she had and put them on.

Coming out of the bathroom in the towel, she realized that Jeffy and Rachel had accidently picked up her other bags.

"Damn it!"

Hotch had been in the kitchen getting himself something to drink, but stopped and rushed into his room, not even thinking….

As he rounded the corner of the doorway to his room he happened to look up and caught sight of her standing there still wrapped in the towel; except now, her hair was down, the dampness having been wrung out by the towel she had wrapped it in initially. Once he saw her he tripped over the strip of flooring that separated his room from the hallway. Luckily he was able to keep his balance without making too much of an ass out of himself.

"What's wrong?"

"It seems as though Rachel and Jeffy have my bags with my clothes in them. I don't have any pajamas, and I know I can't sleep in a towel. If I did you might break your fool neck trying to make breakfast in the morning."

Hotch gave her a wide eyed look, 'Oh please, you've been tripping over furniture for days now. I think it's starting to become a habit."

Smiling at her, Hotch had the good sense to blush a bit, 'I may have something you can sleep in, hang on."

Hotch rifled through his closet, producing one of his button front dress shirts, like the ones he usually wore with his work suits.

"Oh, honey…it's so cute how you think that shirt will fit over these ta-tas. Would you happen to have a t-shirt, or something that doesn't button across the front….I don't trust the buttons."

"You wear blouses similar to this all the time around the office."

"Yes. But I have them custom made. I learned my lesson after I busted out of a few of the store bought ones that I tried. My boobs are like the Borg, resistance is futile. So yeah, if you have a spare t-shirt…and maybe some sweat pants, I am kinda cold natured. And some socks….I'm sorry…but they have my stuff, or else I'd…"

"Hush, here." Hotch grinned at her again as he placed the dark grey sweat pants and some socks and an old faded blue t-shirt that had bits and pieces of an old FBI logo left on it.

"Thank you." Without even flinching, she went ahead and grabbed the sweat pants, pulling them on underneath the towel. Next she grabbed the t-shirt and pulled it down over the towel. After that was finished she was able to drop the towel altogether, and she didn't even show anything.

Hotch started snickering, Alecta looked at him, 'What?"

"I knew you were tiny, but damn. It makes me think of when Jack tries to dress up as me."

Alecta looked down, she saw what he meant. The jogging pants were so long on her that the cuffs around the ankles hung off of her feet; as it was she had the drawstring as tight as she could get it and they were still almost too baggy. And the t-shirt…the shoulders of the t-shirt hung down almost to her elbows.

Shrugging, she pulled her hair out of the back of the shirt to let it flow over her shoulders. She hopped up on the bed, having a bit of trouble between the height of the bed and the pain she was in because of her back, so Hotch had to help her a little. She seemed sort of quiet as she pulled her knees up, one at a time, to put the socks on her feet. Hotch could only smile and shake his head at how much bigger his socks looked on her feet.

"I can't help it never grew past age, what 14…not my fault. Did you know that Jack is almost as tall as I was when I was like 12? It's all true."

That gave Hotch a turn. Jack was about to turn nine soon and he was around 4' tall; so what she was basically saying was, that at age 12, she wasn't much taller than a nine year old boy. Of course there was the odd chance that Jack was just tall for his age, with Hotch being around 6'1, and Haley had been about 5'6-5'8.

"Where did you get your height, or lack thereof? Your mom is like 5'11 and Jake was around 6'6. Where did they get you?"

"Gypsies. They figure heavily in the story of my life.' She jumped down off the bed as carefully as possible. "Ya got anything to eat? I'm about to starve." As if on cue, her stomach rumbled quite loudly.

"Ok, come on." Hotch looked in his fridge, wincing. There wasn't a lot of food in there, but much of what was there looked suspiciously like a science experiment. "Um, we need to call for take-out."

"Alright, I am actually feeling sushi right now. I want a couple orders of Nigri Hamachi, an order of Melting Snowman, an order of Russian Roulette, and a Tempura Seafood roll…."

"You're about to cost me a fortune. You know that right?"

"See you should have left me at the station after all. I'll share….I mean, I'll try to share…but if the baby eats it all….well, I can't help you with that."

"You…." Hotch shook his head, but picked up the phone. He would order one of everything off of the menu if she wanted it. He just hoped she could keep it down. He phoned in the order, hanging up he told her it would be there in about a half an hour. While they waited, they were sitting side by side on the couch; she was slightly slouched, but not too much…their arms were side by side. Hotch didn't make a big deal of the fact that she was starting to relax around him. He didn't want that to suddenly change. While they were trying to get into the TV show they had finally settled on, they had talked a bit, just idle chit chat….he could tell she was winding down again. That shower might have perked her up, but it wasn't lasting that long.

The doorbell rang, Hotch leaned over to pat Alecta's stomach; it surprised her, she grabbed his wrist as his hand got closer. She wanted to see what he would do, but she wasn't afraid to stop him if she must….it was just sad that, if she had to stop him, it would include his wrist being in a cast….

As he put a hand on her stomach, he leaned over a bit, 'Be nice to mommy and let her eat something for a change." With that he stood up and went to the door, fishing some money out of his wallet; he smiled, actually chuckled at the shocked expression on Alecta's face. Hotch couldn't believe it, but he would swear he had just rendered her speechless.

"You're speechless? I would have never thought…"

"Don't get used to it, smartass. Ooh! Ooh! Gimmie it."

"Chopsticks?"

Reaching into the carton to pull out a piece of the sushi roll with her fingers, 'You're kidding right? Do I look like the kind of girl that likes to let her food escape?" Alecta merely raised an eyebrow at him.

"Ok, but let me get you a fork. They're new inventions…."

"Not so much. The earliest use of small forks for eating were bone forks from the Bronze Age from between 2400-1900BC and some in later Chinese dynastic tombs….But forks that were created for personal became the rage during about the 4th century CE, I can even look up the name of the Empress that started it…"

"You don't get to spend so much free time with Reid."

"Oh, dude, everybody knows that one. And you forget, you read my file…history major. I don't need Reid for this. I can do this all day. On a lighter note….This is sooo freaking good. What place is this from?"

Hotch mentioned the name of the place, 'Ah yes," smacking her lips together, as if she could tell who made it, 'I wonder if Chen made this. Try the Tempura Seafood roll…ohmyGod that is good."

"I don't like a really fishy flavor."

"More for me." Alecta shrugged, not waiting for him to change his mind. They ate and chatted, Hotch couldn't believe how animated she seemed to be now. Before the death of Jake and his friends, she still had humor, but you could see the black cloud that seemed to hang over her head. Her humor was more sarcastic and cutting. Now, that cloud was gone. Most of the wariness in her eyes was gone, she smiled more freely. Some of the tension was still there, but then again, she'd lived nearly her entire life being stuck in those circumstances; it wasn't going to all go away in one day.

Hotch was suddenly brought out of his musings, 'Ow!"

He jumped up, knocking over his chair he moved so quickly, 'What happened? Are you ok?"

"Dude, calm down, the kid was kicking me. It was kicking the shit out of me actually,' Alecta sort of leaned forward a little bit, 'I'm trying to eat as quick as I can already. Gah! Calm down."

"We have got to get you a doctor's appointment and see exactly how far along you are now and to see if things are going along normally with the baby. It's already kicking?"

Alecta nodded, 'Don't believe me? Put your hand right here, and wait…."

"But you're not even showing yet."

"Wait for it….' suddenly there was a sharp kick, you could definitely make out a foot. "Since you like to ogle me so much that navigation is an issue for you, you better get your eyefuls while you can. I'm not showing now, but when I start showing I'm going to be as big as a barn. I'll be the whale in the revival of 'Free Willy'."

"It won't be that bad."

"Says the man that has no clue. Move it over boss man, you're holding up progress."

At one point during the conversation, Alecta dropped her fork on the floor, and grabbed one of the sticks from her pair of chop-sticks and kept on going by stabbing the bits of sushi with the stick.

Hotch laughed as she did pause long enough to pick up her fork, then stuck about four pieces of sushi in a row onto the stick as she walked into his kitchen to put the fork into the sink and get a dish cloth to clean up the mess if one was made.

"I have never seen you pack food away quite like this. Tapeworm?"

"You'd think so. I'm just super freaking hongry….not hungry, hongry." She winced a bit.

"Another kick?"

"Yes. I'll bet this crumb snatcher is going to keep me up all freaking night. I'm feeding the baby, he or she should calm it down."

They ate and talked for another 20 minutes. Finally, it seemed, Alecta had reached the full mark and couldn't eat another bite. Her eyes were getting heavier; when she would blink, it would take her longer to open her eyes.

"You need to get to bed. You've had enough excitement for a few days." Hotch leaned over her again.

"If you pick me up one more time, I swear…."

"You can kill me later. Although, I might recommend you wait until after you have the baby. By then I will have warn you down."

"Wanna know what I was doing during my pregnancy with Sofie and Emma? I can sleep on the couch. Put me on the….' she had to stop to yawn.

"I'm putting you in the bed. You need to sleep in a real bed."

"I'd be comfortable enough on the couch."

"Hush, I'm putting you in the bed. End of story."

"Where are you going to sleep?"

"On the sofa."

She tried again to squirm free, "But this is your house. You should get to sleep in your own bed. I told you I'd be fine at the station." Her voice sounded somewhat excitable, but he could tell she was running on fumes.

"Hush hard head. God are you and Garcia alike."

He didn't hear anything else out of her; as he walked down the hall to his bedroom, he looked down at her, and she had fallen asleep in his arms, with her face nearly buried against his chest.

"Sleep on the sofa, my ass.' Hotch mumbled to himself.

Using one hand he pulled the covers on the bed back while he still held her with one arm, then he placed her ever so carefully onto the bed, ever mindful of her stitches. Pulling up the covers, he wondered if she would be warm enough; he had the sheet and a relatively decent comforter on the bed, but he had grown to know how cold natured she could be, and he kept it around 68° or so in the apartment. He and Jack were both a tad hot natured at times, and with Jack being so active, he'd get over heated in no time. As Hotch backed away from the bed, he decided to go to the hall closet and get a spare blanket, one that he placed over top of the comforter. While in his room, he went through his chest of drawers and found something that was suitable for him to sleep in; another pair of jogging pants and t-shirt, he went into his master bathroom to change.

Coming out he saw Alecta curled over on her left side in much the same pose as he had seen her take sleeping before, as well as the twins. Her head was resting on the very bottom corner of the pillow. She had her left arm tucked under her head, and her hair was spilling over onto his pale blue sheets. Now he'd never get the combination of brown and blue out of his mind. His bed was a king size; and even considering the fact that Alecta was stretched out to nearly her full length, she still on took up about half the entire length of the bed. Shaking his head, Hotch walked out into the hall and went to the hall closet, getting out a spare blanket and a pillow before padding down the rest of the hall to his buddy the couch.

Four hours had passed, the only sounds that could be heard in Hotch's apartment would be the ticking of the odd clock or the sound of the air coming on…..that is until the blood curdling scream that jarred him from his deep sleep

POST AN: Ta-Da. I am now going to be brewing the next chapter, we'll see what falls out.