Chpt. 19

After dinner everyone decided to head back over to Hotch's place; JJ and Will needed to bring Jack home anyway. He had spent the past couple of days playing with Henry and having a blast, but he was secretly ready to go home.

Jack missed his dad a lot, and he was still getting to know Alecta a little bit, but he really liked her. She would tell him the craziest stories….she made him think of all those stories he read about pirates and adventurers….His daddy had allowed him to watch 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen', of course Hotch had watched it with his son….in case there was something in there that was questionable that Hotch felt the need to skip over, etc….somehow, Alecta made him think of that movie….he could see her as the female Allan Quartermain…or even a lot like Indiana Jones….Yep, Jack decided, he really liked this one…hopefully it worked out with Alecta and his dad.

Rachel and her boyfriend, Jeffy, were going to drop Sofie and Emma by Hotch's for a couple of days. It would give them time to spend with their mom, and give Hotch, as well as Jack, a little extra time to get used to them. More permanent arrangements could be made for them once it was figured out just where Alecta was going to be calling home for the long term.

Hotch and Alecta had arrived back at his apartment slightly behind some of the others who waited outside, leaning against their cars until he showed up with a key. It was a warm night; most of the group had worn shorts and short-sleeved shirts, flip-flops…it had been a casual dinner, nothing formal at all.

Hotch walked to his door, inserting the key into the lock. As he opened the door, there was a strange feeling that came over him. He switched on the living room light….everything in the great room seemed to be as he left it, but he just couldn't shake the idea that something was different.

Alecta, sensing his hesitation to step further into the apartment, pushed passed him whipping out two blades that apparently never left her side. Twirling the blades around her fingers like an experienced gun slinger, she made her way through the apartment. Hotch had already done more for her than almost anyone in her life….if someone was going to try to hurt him, they would play hell getting through her first.

Hotch and Alecta performed a room to room sweep, the others were standing just outside the door….except Sofie. Being ever so much like her mother, the little girl shrugged Jeffy's hand from her shoulder, 'I'ma help my mommy." And before anyone could stop her she had made her way inside; Sofie had nearly reached Alecta at the end of the hallway, checking the third and last bedroom, before Hotch grabbed her halting her pace.

"But, Agent Man!" Sofie whispered, excitedly.

"Shhh. Let Mommy look first."

The little girl wrinkled her nose and narrowed her eyes at him….So much like her mother…Hotch could only smile at the little girl. His attention was brought back to the matter at hand when he heard Alecta exclaim "Oh my….!"

"What is it?" he came up behind her at the doorway to the bedroom as she flicked the light switch on.

All she could do was bring both hands to her mouth in exclamation. Her eyes began to tear up, she was so happy. "It's….It's some of my things."

"Some….what did you do, knock over a bazaar?" Morgan's voice came cheerfully from the hall.

"No….ok, well, almost. Twice….' Seeing the Morgan and Hotch 'twin' hairy eyeball….'maybe like five times." Rolling her eyes she went further into the room.

"Do I even want to know how the 'movers' got everything in here?"

"No,' Alecta said with a shake of her head as she continued to peruse the room. She couldn't believe 'they' had brought over so much stuff…and in the span of just a couple of hours.

The floor was covered by some of the rugs that she had bought while on her travels to Turkey, Morocco, and Israel, among others…they were tossed haphazardly to give the lived-in casual feel that she loved so much, some over-lapping others.

On the walls were paintings, sketches, maps of varying ages. On one wall, to the left, there was the cabinet that had captured Morgan's attention in earlier days. It was of a Middle-Eastern design.

"Isn't that 16th century Turkish design?"

"Very good Dr. Reid." She kept looking through her things; it was like she was discovering old friends all over again. On the same wall as the cabinet, and partially obscured by it, was an old map of Istanbul (or as it was labeled Constantinople)…it was sketched out as the city would have been centuries ago; also in the same frame was an old pastel of the Hagia Sophia….it wasn't a professional rendering, but it was old and seemed to mean a lot to Alecta.

On the far wall, in front of the windows sat the desk; Alecta walked over to it, running a hand across the top of it as if remembering a different time. Next she continued to the chair that she was going to use as her desk chair.

She smiled, 'They got it." Alecta wiped her eyes as she sat down in it. She looked at the desk top, all of her papers and things in the little bins and trays that sat on top.

"Ooh! I just thought of something." When she sprung from the chair, Hotch noticed that she had kicked her flip flops off under the desk and was now barefoot, running all over the hem of her pants legs.

She made her way back over to the cabinet, grabbing for a key on a chain from the desk top; she popped the lock on the doors to the top of the cabinet. She took out an old manuscript; brittle with age….Alecta tucked the book under her arm and turned to make her way out of the room hastily grabbing Reid by the arm as she went, leaving him no other option than to be dragged behind her. He had to stagger to keep up with her as she made her way to the living room, the others trailing behind her. Alecta flopped onto Hotch's sofa, dragging Reid down with her; he landed on the cushion, nearly on top of her.

"Look it, look it…." she carefully, yet excitedly, showed him the first one briefly. "It's a journal of sorts, kept by Margaret Tudor, older sister of Henry VIII.

"How did you come across this book?"

"Uh, I know a guy. But what I wanted to show you was this."

Alecta removed a tattered old manila envelope; the clasp had long since disappeared and the flap was now held shut by some twine wrapped from end to end and side to side.

Looking up at Reid from the corner of her left eye, her hair falling to slightly to obscure part of that side of her face, "You remember our conversation about the death of Christopher Marlowe? And do you remember I told you that I had proof that he was murdered as part of an 'espionage' racket?"

"Yes, I do, of course."

"Well read it and weep. These papers were letters and bits of journal entries that were written by Elizabeth I, her court astrologer (John Dee), his sister, Edward De Vere 17th earl of Oxford, and William Shakespeare of Avon. They were all in on it."

"How so?"

"Well I know how you love a good read. But the gist of it goes something like this. There was a spy ring that was set up around Arabella Stuart, she was the niece of Mary, Queen of Scots….and of course since it was still, for the moment Tudor England, there were various other plots going on all around."

"Ok. But how do De Vere and Shakespeare figure in to all of this?"

"God you're slow. Ok. Let's see….Going by this bit of information here, it says that Marlowe was one of the good Queen's bastards….according to some of the things I have come across over the years there were maybe four of them. Marlowe would have been the third one. The first two would have been born either just before she gained the crown or sometime just shortly after."

"Who is believed to be the father?"

"Most of my contacts seem to think that Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester was the father of at least three of them. What do you think got his wife, Amy, killed?"

"I always heard that the death was ruled an accident."

"Oh honey…There was a noble family, they had been having trouble starting their own family. One day out of the blue the lady of the house begins talking about how she was expecting. But, she never appeared pregnant, and even in those costumes, there was always some way to tell if a woman was pregnant….and besides, do you think these noble people dressed themselves? No, they had servants helping them. The lady's servant had spoken to her sister, who was a servant in the Leicester house, Amy happened to hear it from her servant. Once, while she was at court, Amy had the poor taste to mention this to someone that she thought was a friend. There was a conversation between them during which time it became apparent that the Queen was the one that was pregnant.

Word got back to Elizabeth that Amy knew. And of course, it was made clear to Amy that, if the Queen was with child, then Amy's own husband the Earl of Leicester was the likely father….he was Elizabeth's favorite after all, they had been friends since childhood.

Amy had never been one to keep her mouth shut. Likely, shot off her mouth at Leicester, and he conversed with the Queen about it. Within days, Amy was found dead at the bottom of the stairs, her neck broken. And within the week two of the Leicester servants left the household to move on to some other commission."

"Well that still doesn't explain the whole involvement of De Vere and Shakespeare."

"True. Now pay attention. Edward De Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford was born 14 years or so before Marlowe, so he had nothing to gain by offing him directly. Oh, no. But Edward owed Elizabeth everything. Edward's father, John, died when the boy was 12. Edward was made a ward of the court. It's not like his mother was going to care for him. She was too busy running off with her lover…who Edward held responsible for his father's death…that's a different story for a different day.

Edward was sent to live in the household of William Cecil, Elizabeth's advisor. Cecil set him up with new tutors and a whole new life basically. It was arranged that he would marry Cecil's daughter, Anne.

Over the years, it became apparent that Edward was notoriously bad with money and women in equal measure…and maybe even sometimes men. It got to the point that Elizabeth had to grant him a yearly stipend to keep him out of hock. And, he was implicated in quite a few plots of various nature, some of them even against the Queen directly….he was pardoned from any jail time. Something made him important to the Queen, otherwise he would have been imprisoned, tortured (or tried, depending on your point of view), and then executed…just like anyone else that got caught in a plot.

Marlowe as we've said had already been hired as a spymaster….he was set to meet three other such men at a tavern that was conspicuously owned by the sister of John Dee….the court astrologer. They were to discuss the next parts of their current mission, at least that was the ruse…In truth, they were only really there to make sure that Marlowe even showed up. Marlowe's drink was drugged, thanks to Dee's sister. By the end of the night of drinking, the other three men had to help Marlow to the door.

Outside, just beyond the tavern gate, waited four men. These were four of William Shakespeare's best actors. They were in costumes and some make-up to hide their true identities.

Now…De Vere had been approached by William Cecil, his own father-in-law and told that something had to be done about Christopher Marlowe, if he was allowed to live that he would jeopardize the kingdom. Cecil reminded De Vere of all of the scandals that he had been excused from and that if he did this it would be like a clean slate, or very nearly.

De Vere would have been a complete moron to say no. If he said no, Cecil and Elizabeth would have cooked up something to charge him with, he would be arrested and either imprisoned the rest of his life or executed for treason. Elizabeth was nothing if not her father's daughter after all; she'd learned a thing or two from old Henry.

De Vere had enlisted Shakespeare's help before. One of the ways that Edward had scandalized the court was through his literary works. Many of his plays and sonnets ridiculed members of nobility outright, and several times he bordered on slandering the Queen herself. Knowing the fine line that he was teetering on, De Vere had paid Shakespeare a sum of money per year to be able to use Shakespeare's name in association with the works. How do you think that William Shakespeare, no better than a commoner from Avon could get away with such poisonous thoughts unscathed? He was never arrested for his slanderous words…Marlowe was arrested numerous times, and he was working for the Queen! William Shakespeare was nobody in the grand scheme of things before Edward De Vere paid him for the use of his name attached to those works. Shakespeare, in comparison with De Vere, was barely literate…he had only the equivalent of a secondary school education. He was like his father very litigious…Shakespeare would rather take you to court and sue you for a few coins than get a real job.

Once De Vere contacted him about the plays and the rest of the works, Shakespeare got into the theater. Most of his success was orchestrated by De Vere. So when Cecil went to De Vere to enlist him in his help with the matter of Marlowe, he instructed De Vere to contact Shakespeare and hire out his best men for the deed.

It's all right here in Latin, and whatever the vernacular of the day would have been."

As she and Reid went through the papers, she rested her head on his right shoulder. He leafed through the letters and correspondences while she turned through Margaret Tudor's journal.

"Why do you seem so attached to Margaret Tudor?"

Looking over at Morgan, where he sat with Garcia on the love seat (ironic, maybe a little), she grinned as she walked back into her knew sanctuary, grabbing a framed photo from the desk. It showed Alecta standing beside a painted portrait of Margaret Tudor that was nearly 600 years old. The two were dead ringers for one another.

"Because, within 16 generations of separation she was one of my great-grandmothers."

Everyone passed the photo around and could only gawk at the family resemblance.

"So you see, not only am I practically indestructible, but somewhere deep inside I have the Tudor temper….it lives."

"Oh dear, that temper is legendary all on its own." Reid interjected.

"Would you really expect anything less from me?"

"Well, now that you mention it…No."

"Hotch, you poor bastard." Rossi chuckled.

"Hey now, I have never plotted against him or in any way tried to bring bodily harm to the man. He pretty much took care of that by himself. I resent that remark."

Alecta had sat back down on the sofa, curling up and resting her head against the arm of it.

She was starting to wind down, but didn't want to admit it; she was as bad to fight sleep as Sofie and Emma.

"Well look I hate to cut this evening so short, but we have a big day tomorrow, so.."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you do." Morgan smirked at Hotch, a little disbelief in the tone that he used.

"No really. I had thought about taking her back out to do some more shopping…for the baby….and then she has a doctor's appointment."

"What doctor's appointment?"

"I set one up for you so you could have a scan done to see where you're at in the pregnancy and to see to the overall health of the baby so far. I made it while you were sleeping…um…earlier. It's for 3pm. I mean, I hope it's alright."

"Well, in that case…since you have a point I guess we probably should head out."

Mrs. King was already over at Alecta giving her the 'mom' speech about calling her after the doctor's appointment and telling her how everything was going and giving her the updates…of course Alecta could only agree. With Alecta having the appointment tomorrow afternoon, Rachel and Jeffy were going to take the kids back to their place and had arranged for Hotch and Alecta to pick them up later on that evening.

After everyone piled out of the apartment, Hotch turned to getting Jack ready for bed. Little Jack wasn't exactly going down without a fight. Hotch came back to the top of the hallway and saw Alecta sitting there, thinking.

"I didn't over-step anything did I?"

Alecta turned and looked at him, studying him for a second. "You really did that for me? I mean you wanna go?"

"Yes, I do." Hotch said carefully.

Alecta only nodded and said so very quietly, 'Ok'.

"Well, look, Jack is fighting bedtime tonight. He wants you to tuck him in. He's never this hard to deal with. You want to take a crack at it and see if he will listen to you?"

"Eh, sure….it can't hurt."

Alecta got up and walked gingerly down the hall; Hotch knew she was still thinking over the fact that he had set up her appointment. He knew it likely threw her for a loop. She was off balance, and that didn't happen so blatantly very often. It was kind of strange, but he liked it; it showed she was just as human as the rest of them after all.

When Alecta arrived at Jack's bedroom door, she knocked before entering. Jack invited her in, and was sitting up in the bed, not interested in the least in going to sleep. After talking with him for a moment she was able to learn that he wanted her to read him a story out of one of the books on her shelves in her new room. Allowing him to scoot down out of bed, she took him by the hand and they walked down the hall to the other room. Once inside she took him over to some of the book cases and allowed him to look over some of the books she took down. He finally settled on an old dusty volume of Sherlock Holmes Hound of the Baskervilles. This copy was nearly 100 years old, and had been given to her by a dear friend…a very dear friend. When she told Jack it was her favorite, his eyes lit up and he begged her to begin reading it to him.

Hotch watched them walk back into Jack's room; he made his way down the hall and watched her with Jack in his room. The boy had lain back on his pillow; Alecta was snuggled down beside him, one arm around his shoulders, and had turned to the first page in the book.

Hotch went back up the hall to the kitchen to get something to drink and a bit of a snack. After nearly 20 minutes, which was usually plenty of time for Jack to fall asleep when he was being read a story, Alecta still hadn't come back out.

Hotch made his way back to his son's room. Opening the door, he saw why Alecta hadn't come out yet. She had rolled over on her side and was facing Jack, she was fast asleep, one arm wrapped around his little boy. And Jack was mimicking her. He had rolled over on his corresponding side, with one arm tossed over Alecta's waist and was fast asleep with his head resting against her chest. The book was long forgotten, lying slightly further down, still opened to the page that they had stopped on. Leaning over, Hotch grabbed the book, taking it back to Alecta's little room, and found a piece of paper to stick into it, and closed it, having marked the spot, and then placed it on the desk. He returned to his son's room and untangled them gently so he didn't wake either of them; then he carefully picked her up, her little feet just barely peeking out from under the hem of her pants legs. He carried her carefully down the hall to his own bedroom and laid her on the bed; he wondered about how to get her changed into her pajamas without waking her and settled on just leaving her in them for now. If she woke up later and wanted to change, it could be her choice; but sleep was so hard for her to come by sometimes, he didn't have the heart to wake her up unnecessarily. He remembered to set her down on the side away from the door. He had never bothered to ask her why she preferred that side; although he could probably guess. It likely had a lot to do with memories of her dad coming into her room in the middle of the night and not having any sort of protection against him or anywhere to hide from him. And if that was what was behind it all, he was better off not making her go through that again if she didn't have to.

He watched her curl up on her side, facing away from the window. The profiler in him figured out there was part of her that was scared of the dark or something of that nature. He pulled the covers up over her, up to her shoulders and walked back out into the living room.

Picking up his cell phone, he decided to call Reid and ask him about this.

"Reid."

"Hey it's me."

"What's wrong Hotch?"

"I have a question. I have noticed over the last few days or so that Alecta sleeps with her back to a window, especially at night. I know that she likes to sleep away from the door, putting some distance between her and whatever is on the other side; and I'm pretty sure I know the reason why. But why would she feel the need to sleep facing away from a darkened window, at least to start off with….she usually manages to turn over at some point around dawn or slightly thereafter, when there is at least some light to be seen."

"Well, I do know that in some belief systems that it is thought that windows are portals to some other plane….like a doorway to the other side. And judging from what we learned from our little field trip just recently, it would stand to reason that this or some version of this is part of her beliefs. I mean, you've met 'Revoultionary Dan' and Dorian…and that's not the least of them. And if what we learned from Eli was the truth, and there is something that is bad news that haunts her, she may be worried about giving whatever it is any chance to get to her. And even if there isn't something negative out to get her personally, if windows really were portals, then it wouldn't be any trouble at all for something that is negative to find its way through if it thinks it has a chance…and honestly, she has enough problems as it is, don't you think?"

"This is very true. Alright, I'm going to hop off of here. I just wanted a second opinion. She's in bed now. Jack requested that she tuck him in tonight. I think he really likes her."

"Watch out Hotch, that boy is trying to push you two along." You could almost hear the grin in the young man's voice.

"The thing is he doesn't have to try too hard."

"What book did she read to him?"

"Hound of the Baskervilles….her copy is pretty old; it looked like it was nearly 100 years old actually. One of the things she's picked up on her travels no less. I think she really likes talking to you about some of these things."

"Yeah, maybe. I figure she's had so many adventures. Whether they were educational or work related remains to be seen. But she never talks about many of them. When she showed me those papers, you could have knocked me over with a feather. The way she is about so many things, I figured that would be one of those things she guarded with her life."

"Well, I'm for real this time, I need to hop off here and check on her and get ready for bed myself."

"Alright, call us if either of you need anything."

"Of course."

With that, Hotch did just what he said he would do. He made his way down to the bedroom and saw her still lying there, sleeping…her hair draped over her body; her breathing was so quiet you had to really listen carefully. Quietly Hotch made his way to his master bathroom and changed into his own pajamas. Coming out, he crawled into bed next to her and pulled her closer to him, and she wrapped an arm around him almost automatically.

Smiling to himself as he drifted off to sleep, Hotch had no idea how different life was going to be in a matter of days.

Post AN: So there is chapter 19. I know I ended it on a bit of an awkward note; it left it open as to whether the change is good or bad. There will be some of both I think. Lemme know….