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codename-mom · 1 year

Text

A day at work

Summary: JJ arrived early in Hotch’s office to discover that he was not alone. A surprise guest was with him for the day.

Characters: BAU team

Contents: it’s supposed to be a cute fanfic but there are mention of dead people and anxiety (and as we’re still in CM universe, they are talking about murders sometimes of course).

This text was written for the CM Family Challenge organized by @imagining-in-the-margins

PS : English is not my mother language so they are necessarily mistakes. Sorry about that.

___

Jennifer Jareau, usually referred as JJ, even by those closest to her, left her office two cardboard sleeves under her arms. She walked up the sixth floor hallway, deserted at this early hour of the day, and pushed the glass doors stamped with the FBI emblem to enter the bullpen. Two agents were hunched on their keyboards, eyes fixed on their screens, too absorbed to notice the arrival of the slim blond woman who was walking with a determined step toward one of the two offices that overlooked the others.

A familiar smell of coffee wafted through the large, quiet place, a sign that the coffee pot had been running for several hours already, even though the sun had only been up for a couple of hours. Quantico never really slept, and the Behavioral Analysis Unit certainly slept less than the other units in the Bureau. Since the BAU operated throughout all the United States, its agents’ schedules were more stretchy than pizza dough. JJ, like her fellow partners, has long ago given up on a regular sleep schedule. And the recent birth of her son, Henry, hadn’t helped matters. Fortunately, William, her spouse, took over whenever the unit chief ordered the team to takeoff on a new case.

It was towards him she was moving energetically. As she had expected, light was shining through the bay that opened on the bullpen, indicating to her that the master of the house was indeed in the place. This was not a surprise at all, since Aaron Hotchner, aka “Hotch”, seemed to have made the decision to never sleep again since he had been given the position of unit leader. JJ could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen him doze off in the jet after returning from a mission, and she couldn’t remember ever getting to the office before he did. The only time he’d been noticeably absent, the team had found him in the hospital, his torso pierced of nine deep wounds that some sociopath had made in the middle of the night.

A shiver went through JJ’s rib cage at the memory, but the dizziness that had briefly seized her disappeared as soon as she stepped into the office. Her eyelids were wide open, and she couldn’t take her eyes off the scene that was playing out before her eyes.

- “Hello, JJ,” greeted her direct supervisor, with a discreet smile on his lips.

The dark brown-haired giant with the impeccable tailor-made suit was typing on his keyboard, using only one hand since the other one was wrapped around the bust of a small sleeping creature. A little boy, blond as wheat, was sleeping deeply, sitting on his father’s legs, his head resting against his shoulder, his little mouth slightly ajar. Jack, five years old, was Aaron’s only offspring and, in a way, all he had left of a failed marriage that had ended in the worst possible way. JJ had to mentally kick herself out of her catatonic state and ask the only question that needed to be asked in this situation.

- “… Uh, hello, Hotch. What’s up with…?”

- “Jessica is on the road today for a family reunion and the baby-sitter is not available.”

Jessica was the sister of Haley Brooks, Jack’s mother, who had died less than a year earlier under particularly horrific circumstances. Because his schedule was totally incompatible with the management of a young child, Hotch often entrusted the young boy to his aunt, who was happy to help him. She was very close to her older sister and didn’t consider taking care of her nephew a chore, far from it. A chance for Aaron for whom fatherhood was still a mysterious land full of dangers and in which he had landed brutally, pushed from the top of a cliff.

JJ knew that the BAU director would gouge out both eyes without batting an eyelid if that was the condition for saving his son, but she knew that he had serious doubts about his ability to be a good father. The fault of a patriarch more interested by his one-night conquests than by the education of his children, for what she knew of it. In fact, the young woman was pleasantly surprised to discover the kid serenely asleep in the arms of his breeder; a scene all the more happy that the binomial started from very far, Aaron having essentially been an extra during the first three years of existence of the boy. But, there were obviously still some holes in the racket.

- “… Her aunt left for a family reunion without telling you?” she underlined, finally getting back to reality.

- “No. But I forgot,” he confessed with a pout.

JJ smiled in spite of herself, almost immediately regretting that burst of amusement. But Hotch didn’t look up, suppressing his own smile. A year earlier, this blunder would have sent him into a depressive state at light speed, his mind consumed by a pervasive sense of guilt. This day, he simply felt like an idiot, but ready to assume the consequences of this missed act.

- “Okay. So I guess you won’t be coming with us,” JJ surmised, reassured by her chief’s calmed reaction.

- “No, confirmed the latter. Although I’m sure Jack would have loved to take the jet.”

The female agent was convinced of that as well, as her own son looked at her with stars in his eyes whenever she mentioned the private plane that the BAU owned. In his little child’s head, he must have seen her as an astronaut exploring distant planets. It was only a short step to think that Jack would dream of even setting foot on one.

- “Okay. Here are the two cases that could potentially interest us.”

- “Put them down there. I’ll look at it as soon as I’m done,” he told her, pointing with his chin to an unoccupied corner of his desk.

- “You know that it would be more convenient if he was on the couch,” remarked her subordinate after offloading her packages.

- “Yes, but he wakes up when I lay him down on it. Whereas here, at least, he sleeps. And since he didn’t sleep much this night…”

Fact was that the boy seemed perfectly at ease in this acrobatic position, unaware of the encumbrance that his only presence induced. To have already experimented the thing with her offspring two years younger, she did not dare to imagine the dead weight that Jack represented for his father at this moment. A dead weight that was also as hot as a water bottle, which must have been all the more uncomfortable when one was dressed in a thick two-piece suit, shirt and a T-shirt. However, thanks to a secret method that he alone possessed, Hotch looked completely at ease too with this seventy-seven-pound heater slumped over his chest and close to drooling on this expensive jacket.

- “I see. But maybe it’s not such a good idea to type a report with him in your arms.”

- “JJ, this is accounting. The only person it will scare is Strauss.”

A burst of laughter passed JJ’s lips and she left the room smiling, surprisingly relieved to have witnessed this scene. A year ago, the ambiance on the floor was completely different. A heavy, sticky atmosphere of anger, disappointment, despair and pain. A year earlier, Hotch was nothing more than an empty shell in a suit that was too big for him; a broken man, threaten with jail, trying to interact with a tiny human being he knew nothing about, except that he was responsible for the death of the woman who had taken care of him until then. That he was once again able to joke and smile was a small miracle in itself. That he was so close to his son was unexpected.

An hour and a half later, when Reid finally deigned to appear with a boyish smile on his face, the team gathered in the meeting room. Everyone took their seats around the round table and Hotch encouraged JJ to begin her presentation. As promised, he has chosen one of the two cases she had brought to him, and it was time for her to expose her arguments to justify why the BAU was more involved in this case than any other FBI agency. One by one, the agents debated the most salient points, making initial assumptions that would be supported or rejected later, when they had more evidence. Finally, it was determined that the case did fall under their jurisdiction, and Hotch ordered the team to join the airport in the next thirty minutes, with Iowa for destination. He immediately added:

- “You’ll go without me, but I’ll be in touch.”

A surprised silence crossed the room, the agents frowning in unison.

- “Why you don’t come with us?” asked David Rossi, his longest-serving collaborator.

“Dave” had created the BAU with another profiler, Jason Gideon, years earlier. The duo, holed up in a tiny, unnamed FBI office, had recruited a young prosecutor from the side of the road, recognizing in him an innate ability for profiling. Then, when it was time for the two grunts to make their way for more capable people, their cadet had stepped up and kicked the can down the road to build a brand new BAU. This team that was watching him with a puzzled eye was his own. Rossi had come back to deal with an unsolved case that was keeping him awake at night, and stayed because the adrenaline of the investigation was making his heart beat again, dried up from his lonely life. Because of his special status, Dave was the only one, with JJ, to felt perfectly legitimate in calling Hotch by name. The others were reluctant to do so, even though – JJ was sure – the giant wouldn’t have paid any attention to.

- “I have several meetings to attend during the day. Strauss would like me to be there, he explained before adding. For once.“

Erin Strauss was Aaron’s supervisor and to say she had a temper would have been an understatement. For some reason, she seemed to have made it her mission to make the BAU director’s life as miserable as possible. Hotch, on the other hand, didn’t appreciate being dictated to by anyone, and tried to avoid their face-to-face confrontation as much as possible. But, from time to time, his high functions obliged him to face up to the situation and it was up to him to avoid provoking another diplomatic incident between bureaucratic rigidity and the reality of the field.

- “But can we still call you?” inquired Morgan, concerned.

- “More than ever.”

The team smiled at the humor and left the room, following in the footsteps of their leader. But while the agents scattered in the bullpen to recover their luggage prepared for the occasion, the latter joined his office to find a well awake Jack there. Sat on the bench where his father had lengthened him to go to reach his men, he rubbed his eyes of his small fist observing the surroundings of a curious eye.

- “Dad. Where are we?” he asked without leaving his seat.

A year ago, he had come all the way to enjoy his father’s potential last moments of freedom, but he had not set foot in his workspace. At that time, he had only seen the meeting room, quickly the large room where the vast majority of the agents were grouped, the men’s room and the vending machines for sweets and other soft drinks. Therefore, the room he was in was completely unfamiliar to him.

- “At the office.”

- “At the FBI?” he got going again, widening his eyes.

- “Yes,” Hotch confirmed placing the file back on his desk.

- “So cool! exclaimed Jack with a blissful smile. Can we visit?”

- “No.”

The little boy’s expression of intense joy disappeared in the microsecond that followed this negative answer. Disappointed, he nevertheless dared to question his breeder:

- “Oh. Why?”

- “Because you’re not supposed to be here.”

- “Really?” he raised an eyebrow, perplexed.

Hotch could easily saw the little cogs in his brain kicking in to try to figure out what was going on.

- “No. I managed to get you in because it was early and there weren’t many people there, but you’ll have to stay here with me,” he said, a slight sneer creasing his clean-shaved cheeks.

- “Aren’t you going to capture the bad guys?”

Aaron’s smile widened despite himself. Jack was very proud to have a father who was an FBI agent although he didn’t know what that really meant. To him, his father’s role was limited to handcuffing rude peoples and then coming home at night reading him a bedtime story. Of course, that was just the tip of the iceberg, as the child was far too young to hear and understand what Hotch’s job actually consisted of. But the little Jack knew was enough for now to forgive all his absences by now, which was a significant plus for the director whose anxiety easily rocketed when it came to how he managed his family. However, since this was the only aspect of his professional life that the boy knew about, Aaron hastened to reassure him:

- “The rest of the team is off to. They will call when they need me.”

Several miles away, far above the clouds, the team had not started debriefing the case they were in charge of. Because they had something else to worry about.

- “It doesn’t make sense, hammered Prentiss, confused. If he really wanted to avoid Strauss, why didn’t he leave with us?”

Emily Prentiss was the second-to-last member of the team – Rossi had returned after she joined – and was the least familiar with Hotch’s sometimes nebulous behavior, but she was well aware of his avoidance of the section chief. So, like the others, she guessed there was something fishy going on.

- “He can’t,” JJ replied, biting her lip.

- “Why?, retorted Morgan, turning to her. Emily is right. Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

JJ scratched the back of her left hand nervously. She had noted that Aaron had not mentioned his son’s presence in his office when he had barged into the meeting room and had interpreted his omission as a tacit request to her intention. No one was to know that the child was within the walls of the FBI. However, it was difficult to keep a secret when surrounded by profilers trained to pick up on every micro-expression a human might produce when he opened his mouth. And it was even harder to divert these particular agents when the mystery of the day involved their leader. Usually indifferent to gossip and stingy with details of his private life, the smallest crumb he let slip was the object of a thorough analysis by his subordinates. So she opted for abdication, reassuring herself that they would not be able to spill the beans once they landed in another state.

- “He can’t because Jack is with him.”

- “Seriously?” hiccupped Emily, all her annoyance gone.

- “He had no one to look after him.”

- “Why didn’t he tell us?” the younger member of the group wanted to know, his thin eyebrows wrinkled with incomprehension.

Spencer Reid had the fewest candles blown out of the team, but his uncanny ability to remember everything he read and be able to pull out that information at any time had opened the doors to the BAU. Nevertheless, his immaturity made him very easily prone to anxiety, and Hotch’s protective attitude toward him reassured him. The immense trust that this father figure gave him daily allowed this caterpillar to gradually transform into a sublime butterfly. As long as this trust remained.

- “Because he shouldn’t be here,” Dave realized with a sigh.

- “You mean Hotch smuggled his son into an FBI building?” squeaked Derek, an inquisitive eyebrow raised above his dark eye.

Derek Morgan was, along with Reid and Penelope Garcia, one of the first officers to join the new BAU under Aaron. A former police officer, he had quickly learned the ropes and his natural authority meant that his counterparts turned to him when the director was lacking. Ten years apart, the two men had a similar temper in many ways they didn’t seem to notice, and they regularly clashed. Their cooperation was based solely on the mutual respect they had for each other, which they would probably never admit to, even under torture. Two alpha males roaming the same territory, as the two women of the group had logically deciphered; walking shoulder by shoulder and watching for the slightest weakness of the other.

- “It looks like it, anyway,” replied Rossi, indifferent to this underground power struggle.

- “If Strauss finds out, she’ll tear him apart,” Emily announced, shaking her head.

In Virginia, Hotch walked into his office his arms full of bags and a plastic cup in his hand. He placed his haul on the coffee table as Jack, whose hair was still in mess, looked on.

- “Here. I got you an orange juice.”

- “Can I eat it all?” the boy asked, drooling.

- “No. You pick one or two, and we’ll see about the rest later,” said his father as he went to sit behind his keyboard.

- “Why not three?”

Aaron held back a circular motion into his eyes sockets and replied:

- “No, Jack. Two will be fine.”

- “But it’s so small!” underlined the child, waving a candy bar in front of his eyes.

- “Jack,” sighed Hotch as he was trying to remember his password.

- “Come on!”

- “No. Stop negotiating and eat your breakfast.”

Jack frowned and sank into the seat before opening the package in his hand. Out of the corner of his eye, his breeder noted his frustration. He could even see his anger in his brown eyes staring straight ahead. He thought he was going to have a great day with his often absent father but found out that the ride wasn’t going to be as fun as he had imagined. His aunt Jessica was surely much more gentle and accommodating than he was, and the difference in tone traced the boundaries he shouldn’t cross abruptly. A knot wove itself in Aaron’s guts. A year had almost passed and he still didn’t know where to place the cursor to keep any kind of firmness without sounding like a horrible bully.

- “Can I watch a cartoon?” Jack asked shyly half an hour later when Hotch had finally managed to focus enough to begin his day’s tasks.

- “Uh… wait,” he stammered, caught off guard.

Closing the windows of the software he had open, he ran a query in the Bureau’s search engine to access an online video platform, but the FBI’s firewall turned him down. As he expected, the internal network was walled off and it was impossible to access anything that had not been approved by IT department at headquarters. In other words, no entertainment services for a five-year-old child was within his reach. His gaze turned briefly to his phone before returning to his screen and that negative response. All he had to do was to press a single button to reach the only person in this building capable of fulfilling his son’s request, but he also knew that it was double-edged sword. No one was to know Jack was there – as few people as possible, anyway – and it couldn’t be said that the agent in question had put discretion among her highest priorities. Giving up on this unquestionable support with a sinking feeling in his stomach, he redirected his attention to the little head that was staring at him with hopeful eyes.

- “Look, it’s not going to be possible.”

- “Why?” replied the boy, who was obviously going from one disappointment to another.

- “Because it’s a work computer and I can’t use it to watch cartoons.”

Knowing that children are far more susceptible to deception than many parents realize, Aaron preferred to play it straight with his son as long as it didn’t offend his naive mind. He spared his offspring from wondering about what he was hiding from him without shattering his still-pure world, but he couldn’t guard against the irreparable backlash. As the morning progressed and the child suffered setbacks against his father, the latter had the sensation of losing his superbness in his eyes by bigger and bigger pieces.

- “What am I going to do then?” sighed Jack, looking sad.

- “There’s… There’s coloring in your bag, Hotch remembered, having had that presence of mind as he closed the apartment door. Just try not to get marker everywhere.”

- “I never do that,” the artist grinned, biting his lip to hold back the smile that would have broken his lie.

- “We’ll look at the couch at home.”

Before the miniature vandal had time to open his mouth, his father’s phone rang. Hotch picked up, recognizing Morgan’s cell phone number. Glancing at the clock at the bottom of his screen, he calculated that the team must have landed by now. Not having attended the rest of the briefing on the plane, he couldn’t have known that the former cop and Spencer, a tall Vegas native, had just come out of the local medical examiner’s office and had checked in with Rossi and Prentiss, who had been snooping around the crime scene.

- “I’m listening, Morgan.”

- “Don’t put it on speaker,” were Derek’s first words.

- “What?” said Hotch, confused.

- “We know Jack is with you,” said Reid’s teenage voice.

Aaron opened his mouth to deny it, but then changed his mind.

- “… Who told you that?”

- “JJ,” Morgan admitted without the slightest hesitation.

The agent with the bulging muscles and the devastating smile was not a snitch, far from it. But he knew that his colleague was safe. He’d already done the math in his head in the few hours since the conversation he’d had on the jet with her and had no doubt about the outcome of the equation. JJ had betrayed Hotch’s secret knowing full well that she was talking to agents who were admittedly very curious and gossipy, but unwaveringly loyal to their superior. And secondly, the BAU director may have been a six-foot-tall ice chest whose frowns made even the most hardened of men faint, but his rare outbursts were mostly directed at those who put his men’s lives at risk, rather than at them, even though they went out of their way to test the limits of his patience on a daily basis.

- “… I’m not on speaker, you can go.”

- “The coroner’s report says we’re looking at a novice, Reid began. The wounds show hesitation marks. The first ones are less deep than the last ones.”

- “As if he didn’t know how much force to put into his actions,” Hotch analyzed, weighing his words, aware that Jack’s ears were pricked in his direction.

- “But the crime scene says otherwise, Morgan continued. He entered the house quietly, at an hour when the victim was unlikely to be asleep. The neighbors were awake and some were even still up.”

- “But not one was suspicious of his presence in the area. Perhaps a teenager who regularly renders services to the inhabitants.”

- “I’m calling Garcia,” Derek announced, ready to hang up.

- “It is possible that he is doing his chores under the table, paid in cash, so ask the neighbors instead. But present him as a potential witness to avoid panic.”

- “If he’s really a teenager – which would fit with the arrogance he showed in breaking into the victim’s house – he must surely be out of school,” Spencer added.

- “Have Garcia look into this direction.”

- “Okay. We’ll call back if we need to,” Morgan finished.

The tone flooded the receiver and Hotch hung up. As if on cue, Jack jumped up from the bench and rushed to the desk. With his tongue hanging out of his mouth, he climbed into the chair opposite his father’s and leaned in front of the plaque that bore his name.

- “Did you finish your orange juice?” the director asked him, checking his screen to make sure that nothing compromising was displayed.

- “Yes. And my candy bars,” he says proudly.

Aaron glanced toward the coffee table and the trash his son had left there.

- “Including the third one I didn’t want you to eat.”

- “… I was hungry,” he defended himself to sitting normally on the chair.

- “But you won’t be hungry by lunch.”

- “That’s okay. We’ll eat later.”

As usual, Jack had an answer for everything. His logical mind was firing on all cylinders, ignoring the constraints of adult life to offer him a range of solutions to counter his father’s thoughts. While Hotch was constantly amazed by this quick thinking, he had no choice but to remind his son that reality was far more complex than it appeared.

- “Except I have a meeting at one o’clock. So I’ll have to eat before.”

- “Is this a meeting to catch a bad guy?” skirted the boy as he leaned back on the desk, a smile on his face.

- “No. This is a meeting to see if I could put gas in the jet.”

As director of the BAU, Aaron’s primary mission was to defend the interests of his department tooth and nail, and this often involved endless meetings where he had to justify the usefulness of the private plane reserved exclusively for his team. The management committee saw it as a gaping pit into which they were throwing astronomical amounts of money, while he considered this means of transportation – admitted very demanding economically speaking – as an indispensable tool to quickly cross the United States and thus reach the local authorities in order to help them catch the serial killers rampant on their territory.

- “Are you the one who puts the gas in it?” said Jack, his wide eyes looking at his father warily, after he had walked around the desk to sit on his lap.

- “No. But I pay for the gas and the technician who fills the tank, he explained as he helped him up, before adding. And the pilots. And all the people in the office next door and the ones who left earlier to find the bad guy.”

- “You’re actually rich!”

Hotch could clearly imagine the thoughts that were going through his son’s mind at that moment. He was probably already imagining himself surrounded by a mountain of presents for his birthday and all the upcoming holidays. Unfortunately, this enchanting vision had to be rectified for a much more dull truth.

- “Not so much. The money is not mine. I have a boss above me who gives me an envelope with a lot of money in it and it’s up to me to distribute that money among everyone, trying to be equitable.”

- “What does “etiquable” mean?”

- “Equitable, he corrected gently. It means fair. It means that everyone should be paid properly. Without one getting all the money and the others getting nothing or very little.”

- “Why?”

Jack had entered that period of human life when absolutely everything was a source of questioning. Every question, even the most trivial one, now concealed a whole string of other questions, which made any conversations much longer. The giant had nothing against the fact of discussing at length with his offspring, but could not ignore the shiver of anguish which ran through him as soon as he heard the inevitable “Why?”. For it was one thing to explain to an adult who was aware of the ins and outs of life in society, it was quite another to make a five-year-old child understand all the complexities of it, as he had only a superficial view of reality. And the task was even more complicated when one had to preserve his innocence as long as possible.

- “Because if they don’t, people aren’t happy, Hotch summarized. Then they get upset and they can get nasty. To the one who has everything, but also to the one who made the decision to distribute the money any way.”

- “Like you.”

- “Yes, that’s right,” he confirmed, proud to see that his son had followed his reasoning perfectly.

- “But you, do people like you?” asked Jack, his eyebrows suddenly furrowed with concern.

- “I hope so.”

The truth was, he didn’t really know what his men thought of him. The one time he had dared to ask how some of the team felt about him, he had been dressed for winter in no time. And these were the impressions of his closest collaborators, with whom he worked hand in hand daily. All the others must have had a very different view of him, probably biased by his impressive appearance, his demands and his lack of expressiveness.

- “I like you,” confessed the little boy with a benevolent smile grafted on his round face.

- “Oh, well, that’s okay then. I can tell Santa to come over.”

Jack’s look of delight grew in intensity and Aaron kissed him on the top of the head before ruffling his hair. He was about to suggest an activity when a window opened in the corner of his screen. It was the team calling him on video conference.

- “Go back and sit on the couch and put your headphones on.”

- “Okay.”

Jack got off his knees without making a fuss and returned to the bench. He stuck his head between the earpieces of the noise-canceling headphones his father had bought specifically so he wouldn’t hear the conversations he was having with his team and plunged back into his drawing. Hotch finally pressed the button to accept the call.

- “You are free to go.”

- “We followed the trail of the teenage killer,” Spencer said with some pride.

- “And?”

- “Actually, there is not one, but several,” continued Prentiss, with much less enthusiasm.

- “Boy Scouts, said Dave. They’re very active in the area and provide a lot of service to the neighborhood.”

- “It doesn’t fit the profile. Our suspect is rather solitary, he would never get involved in an organization based on solidarity and esprit de corps.”

- “But he can pass himself off as one of them, said Morgan. With the right clothes and a few badges, he’s an illusion.”

- “Did you interview any of them?”

- “They’re all off on an orienteering trip in the woods,” Emily replied, her tone showing no sign of her irritation.

If he had to rank his team members from most impatient to least annoying, the ambassador’s daughter was easily in first place. She hated being on a stakeout and a stalled investigation was a constant source of exasperation. Morgan and JJ took second and third place respectively, closely followed by Spencer, who failed to climb to their side only because of his fearful nature which held him back in his impulsive impulses. His weak constitution, of which he was perfectly aware, caught up with him in time to prevent him from jumping into the fray. For Dave, impatience seemed to be a word that was not part of his vocabulary.

- “How long has it been?”

- “This morning, said the latter. And they are supposed to come back tomorrow at dawn.”

- “If he really is posing as one of them, he won’t be able to act tonight. I imagine that the residents know how the Scouts operated. They would find it strange for one of them to be walking around the neighborhood alone. And with what’s going on, they’d be suspicious right away.”

- “And, at the same time, if he holds back tonight, then we’ll know that he knows how they work too,” argued Derek, whose tone suddenly became more optimistic.

- “A former Boy Scout?” suggested Reid, whose frown Hotch guessed.

- “Garcia?”

- “I’m here,” replied the bubbly analyst, who had listened so far without a word.

Penelope Garcia was probably the agent on the team who fit the least into the FBI mold. This was both an advantage and a disadvantage. An advantage because her undeniable computer skills offered the department exceptional possibilities of action and speed of reaction, making her a formidable weapon that was, fortunately, undetectable to anyone outside the BAU. But there was a downside, as her mannerisms meant that she didn’t fit into any of the Bureau’s boxes, forcing Hotch to keep an eye on her every move in order to anticipate potential disasters or to mop up after her so that his best asset didn’t end up in an ejector seat.

- “Can you make a list of all the teenagers who have done a stint in the scouts. He couldn’t hide his unsociability for long, so he probably got kicked out after two or three months.”

- “He can’t be more than twenty, twenty-five years old, but must look younger than his age to make an illusion. Maybe small,” Morgan added to help her narrow down her search.

- “Garcia, Spencer interjected, he must be from another state or the local scouts would have spotted him by now.”

- “Okay. I’ll get this out to you as soon as I can.”

- “DAD!”

In a surprising reflex, Hotch immediately cut the connection as his son screamed in his office. On the same floor, but beyond the glass doors of the open space and down an angled hallway, another blonde, this one with rhinestone glasses, squinted:

- “Is that Jack I just heard?”

The team on the field responded with a long silence that spoke volumes. A wave of fire rolled through her veins.

- “Tiny-Hotch is in the office, and you didn’t tell me!”

Garcia didn’t have any children herself but interacting with these miniature humans was always a pleasure for her, who, with her colorful outfits, frilly jewelry, and toys scattered all around her monitors and keyboards, could easily claim to have kept a childlike spirit even after seeing and hearing more horrors than she would have liked. Jack was the firstborn of the unit, so he had a special place in her heart, and she was always happy to see him. It was an affection she never hid from anyone, so she was offended to learn that they had killed his presence.

- “Penelope, he’s not supposed to be here,” JJ pointed out, embarrassed.

- “Say right away that I’m not discreet.”

- “Strauss really can’t know,” Dave added, saving his colleagues from having to figure out how to get out of this mess.

- “Roger, said the computer expert, momentarily calmed. I’ll send you what you want right away.”

- “Thank you, beautiful,” Derek responded with a reassuring smile.

Quickly, the luscious blonde fluttered her fingers across her keyboard and saw a list of names appear on her main screen that matched the search criteria the profilers had given her. She herself had not been trained to profile serial killers or victims, because she had not been hired for that purpose. This was rather convenient for her because her heightened sensitivity did not allow her to deal with sociopaths and bereaved relatives as her colleagues did on daily basis. She sent her findings to the team and jumped out of her chair to leave her lair. In no time, she reached the desk of her supervisor, who happened to be on all fours near the bench, his arm fumbling more or less randomly underneath. Jack was standing next to him, watching the scene so intently that he hadn’t noticed the newcomer’s irruption.

- “So, my ears had not deceived me.”

The little blond head swiveled around, and a wide smile lit up the boy’s face.

- “Penelope!” he cried, running towards her with his arms spread wide.

- “Boo! My little gummy bear!” she said as she hugged him, her pink lips placing a long kiss on his fine hair.

- “The door, Garcia, please,” Hotch grumbled, his head still turned between the four legs of the sofa.

- “Oh yes, sorry.”

She released Jack for a moment to close the door and returned to hug the boy, who gladly accepted this new embrace. His father was not a tactile man, so Garcia wondered if he ever hugged his son, other than to move him from point A to point B.

- “How is my favorite candy cane?” she questioned him as she released him again.

- “I’m on a secret mission,” Jack replied with a serious look.

- “Oh, yeah? And what is this mission?”

- “It’s a secret.”

- “Ah, yes. Of course, she reacted by repressing the giggle that tickled her stomach. You need a hand?”

- “No, it’s okay,” said the director, still kneeling on the carpet.

He suddenly pulled his arm out from under the sofa and straightened up to place a felt cap on the coffee table. Jack rushed over to this treasure and hurried to put the cap back in its proper place.

- “Otherwise, they dry up,” he says with undeniable pride.

At his back, his breeder was climbing out of the space between the table and the cushions, and, rubbing his hands to remove the dust, made his way to his desk.

- “Why didn’t you tell me he was there?” Garcia questioned him, however, with a frown.

- “No one was to know. At least, as few people as possible,” he asserted as he froze to face her.

- “Did you really hope it wouldn’t be noticed?”

- “If at all possible, I would like to avoid Strauss finding out.”

- “I won’t tell her,” she promised in the firmest tone she could muster.

The two agents were as dissimilar as they were oddly inseparable. She was short, curvaceous, platinum blonde, always improbably dressed and flashy, and expressed her feelings loudly and openly when the cruelty of the suspects hit the limits of what she could endure. He was tall, square, dark-haired, adorned in dark, austere suits and ties, and cloistered his emotions behind impenetrable reinforced concrete walls. She was an unstoppable will-o’-the-wisp, he was an unbreakable monolith. But if she had managed to get out of the bad situation in which she had been stuck after the death of her parents, it was thanks to the hand he had held out to her while the prison box was looming in front of her. In spite of her exactions, he had made her a member of the team without an ounce of hesitation. Despite her propensity not to follow the established protocols and her inaptitude to the physical tests, he stood systematically against her detractors without doubting for a moment her good faith. So she had at heart to be faithful to him and, on occasion, to return the favor.

- “I know, he said, a fleeting smile stretching his thin lips. But you’re just in time, actually.”

- “I listen to you,” she announced, standing at attention.

- “I need to do an evaluation. I was thinking of doing it on video, but with Jack, it’s complicated. Is there any way you could…?”

- “You won’t find a better babysitter around, sir,” she exclaimed, delighted.

Hotch’s smile widened at the young woman’s ecstatic joy. He knew that the reason she was still at her job after all these years was more because she felt indebted to him and had a strong sense of justice than because she loved it. So, being entrusted with the task of looking after a five-year-old boy was just right for her.

- “Take him to your office. He should find plenty of stuff to play with.”

- “Could I have a cartoon?” asked Jack, who had been casually following the conversation.

- “I didn’t find out how to bypass the firewall, but I guess that shouldn’t be a problem for you.”

If many men were reluctant to admit their weaknesses, the giant had no qualms about revealing his limited computer knowledge to Garcia, because it was obvious.

- “The gentleman’s cartoon is advanced,” she said with a pompous air.

- “Yeah!” the little boy exulted, raising his fists to the sky.

He was about to leave the office, excited to visit the analyst’s nest, when his father called out of him.

- “Jack, wait, he ordered before kneeling in front of him. You’re going to go into Penelope’s office for a little while. Promise me you won’t touch anything, okay?”

- “Okay,” nodded Jack, his spirits momentarily dampened.

- “It’s her work tool, it’s very expensive and it’s fragile. So, you only touch what she gives you the right to touch.”

- “Yes, Daddy.”

Aaron stood up with his gigantic stature and turned to his subordinate.

- “Of course, no video, no photo, no audio tracks related to the case.”

- “It goes without saying, she agreed before asking. Can he read?”

- “No. But he is smart.”

This meant that she couldn’t afford to post an autopsy report in the boy’s presence – the words wouldn’t tell him anything, but the drawings would be explicit enough for him – and that she would have to be careful with her own words when she came to discuss with the other team members.

- “Like his daddy,” she teased the interested party.

- “Go ahead, smiled this one. See you later, buddy.”

- “See you later, Dad.”

After observing the surroundings, Garcia took the boy’s hand, led him across the open space and through the long hallway to her office, which was protected from prying eyes. But she didn’t let him in right away.

- “Close your eyes for a moment.”

- “Why?”

- “You’ll see. Close your eyes. And don’t cheat, right!”

- “Okay.”

Obediently, Jack closed his eyelids and even placed his hands over his eyes to make sure he wasn’t cheating. Penelope rushed into her den to close all the photographs of corpses related to the current case. In some expert movements, she isolated the screen farthest from hers from the elements of the case and from any sensitive file to frighten or traumatize the child. She typed again a little and, a victorious smile running from one ear to the other, made appear a platform of online video for young public on the aforementioned screen. Proud of her work, she opened the door and let in her guest of the day, who had been waiting patiently without saying a word. She pushed the door behind them.

- “You can watch.”

Jack lowered his hands and opened his eyes wide. Garcia was pleased to see the expression of a child let loose in Santa’s workshop on his face.

- “Wow, that’s great!” he exclaimed, his brown eyes lingering on all the toys in the room.

And there were plenty of them, the luscious blonde diverting the anxiety that seized her at each affair by focusing her attention on an object or snapshot expressing only positive and warm emotions. She had started by redecorating the place – a narrow room with cold, dull walls – in a discreet way, taking back her belongings as soon as she got home. Then, when she noticed that none of the members of the BAU had made the slightest remark on the subject when they had appeared in her office during the day for X or Y reason, she had opted for a more relaxed reorganization. In fact, now every empty space was occupied by a bright or funny knick-knack, and the dark paint that surrounded her was hidden under smiling portraits, friendly group photos, and funny or cute pictures from the Internet. For Jack, who could no longer keep his mouth shut, it was like stepping into the cave of wonders.

- “Go, install you, small prince,” she enjoined him by pointing out to him the screen she had reserved for him.

He climbed onto the rolling chair and put on his headset, which Garcia connected to the screen.

- “What do you want to see?”

- “That,” he replied without thinking.

His index finger was pointed at a box with colorful heroes with big tires and a benevolent windshield.

- “I knew it, she said, winking at him. I have to work, but if you need anything, you let me know. Okay?”

- “Okay.”

- “Check?”

She presented him the palm of her open hand facing him and he immediately placed his against hers. The telephone rang at this moment and Garcia kissed the forehead of her small neighbor before going to settle in her place. She started the child’s video and picked up the phone to take the conversation.

- “Cinderella speaking. I’m listening, my dear Javotte.”

- “… Isn’t that one of the two snipes who gets her foot cut off?” retorted Prentiss, a little offended.

- “Wrong example. What can I do for you, princess?”

The ambassador’s daughter immediately moved on, forgetting about the inappropriate nickname she had received to dive back into the investigation. Garcia listened carefully, took notes and then hung up. For the next twenty-fives minutes, she never took her eyes off the screen, typing at breakneck speed to get the information the rest of the team wanted. Concentrating one hundred percent on her task for as long as it took, she turned around to check on her tenant the second she hit the enter key.

- “Are you all right, little angel? ...”

The chair was empty.

- “Blast! Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. Where are you hiding, little wizard?”

Her heart pounding in her temples, she turned back to her main screen and in a quarter of a second connected to the building’s remote monitoring network. A multitude of small screens took up the entire space, displaying different areas of Quantico in shades of gray. Agents walked around in front of her, unaware that they were now being watched by someone who was not in the business. But Penelope was not interested in them, her brown irises swirling from right to left in search of an individual smaller than the others crisscrossing the corridors of the building. In vain. On the verge of a heart attack, she jumped when her phone chimed again.

- “Garcia, my goddess, I need your help again,” Morgan said, light years away from realizing the drama she was experiencing.

- “It will have to wait a little. I’m in trouble,” she confessed, tears in the eyes.

- “Why?” immediately worried her colleague and friend.

- “Hotch gave me custody of Jack for an hour, I turned my head for five minutes, and he disappeared. I checked all the surveillance cameras, he’s nowhere to be seen.”

- “He may be where there is no camera.”

The analyst frowned and straightened up, pondering the former policeman’s suggestion. The gears of her brain brought her the answer to this riddle after a blink of an eye, and she felt her heart rate calm down immediately.

- “… Ooooh! Well done! She said, smiling again. What did you need?”

- “An address.”

Her left hand scribbled the request on a multi-colored pad of paper and then cut off the conversation. She jumped out of her chair after answering Derek’s request and emerged from her lair to stand in front of the upstairs men’s room door. Impressed in spite of her, Garcia took a breath, grabbed the handle of the door then closed her eyes and covered the top of her face of her free hand. She thus invested the places without seeing anything of her environment and by ignoring completely if somebody was there. Her overflowing imagination made her see the space crowded, a score of pairs of angry and surprised eyes pointed at the intruder.

- “Jack? Jack, are you there, darling?”

No answer came.

- “No? Well, I’m going out then. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

Pivoting on herself, she groped in the emptiness in search of the exit and reopened the door while narrowly missing to hurt herself in the passage. Obliged to throw herself into the gaping chasm of the open corridor in front of her, she staggered for a moment in order to be sure she was no longer where she should never have been before looking around again. Her arms fluttered around her in search of any wall that might have told her that she had made a mistake and ended up in one of the toilets instead.

- “Garcia, what are you doing?”

- “Oh, my God! She cried, leaping up. Hotch! I… I didn’t see anything.”

- “Open your eyes, you’re in the hallway.”

Obediently, she saw that he was telling the truth.

- “Ah? Ah, yes.”

- “What were you doing in the men’s room?” he frowned as the door slowly closed behind her back.

- “I… I’m sorry. I’m looking for J-A-C-K, she spelled out in a low voice as she looked around them. I just turned my head for a second and…”

- “He’s in my office,” interrupted the director, with an Olympian calm.

- “Oh. Sorry, she felt compelled to add. Still, he was in front of Cars. I thought that…”

- “He just came to get one of his figurines, he was going to go back to your office afterwards.”

- “Ah. Okay. Indeed, he’s a smart boy,” remarked Garcia, whose body was invaded by an incredible feeling of relief.

If there was one thing she cared about most, it was not betraying the trust her friends had in her. And, strange as it may seem to those outside the Bureau, Penelope considered her BAU partners to be close friends, including her supervisor. She respected him – betrayed by her inability to call him anything but “sir” when everyone else called him by that diminutive last name – but her relationship with him was nothing like what one would expect from an employer-employee relationship. To tell the truth, her affection for him was matched only by his affection for her, but the devotion of one and the shyness of the other kept them from tipping over into a familiarity that would have been more than inappropriate. Mortified by the disappearance of the son of her boss, she felt revived to know him in full form.

- “I’ll bring him back to you,” Hotch said with a quiet smile.

- “Thank you. And sorry.”

Aaron quickly retraced his steps and returned to his office where his son was waiting. When he saw Jack come in a few minutes earlier, he knew that he’d gone off the deep end with his impromptu babysitter and that she must be in a stated. He had therefore immediately interrupted what he was doing to intercept Penelope and thus reassure her. He knew that under this avalanche of spangles and frills particularly showy hid in reality a personality quickly prone to anxiety and stress, and which had in heart to make well. Even if he didn’t realize how much his team members made a point of not disappointing him, he was aware that they were always working hard to accomplish their mission and that Garcia, more than the others, wanted to prove that she had a place in the Department despite her great sensitivity. Fortunately, he had not had to look very long to put his hand on her and reassure her.

A few moments later, after driving Jack to safety, he sat back down behind his desk and reactivated the window on his screen. Focused on his task, he didn’t see the next hour pass and didn’t realize that time had flown until his eyes fell on his watch. It was time for him to go and get his descendant, whom he could not decently leave all day in the hands of his colleague. Not because he didn’t trust her, but simply because it was his duty to be more present for the boy. Since Haley’s death, he had been consumed by an oppressive feeling of guilt whenever he abandoned his son to his aunt. And it became even more intense when he and his agents flew to another state for an investigation that would last several days.

He kept feeling that the child’s mother was looking at him from where she was standing and shaking her head reproachfully, as she had done when he picked up the phone at home. He had been absent for her, and clearly, he wasn’t much more present for him. Luckily, Jack didn’t blame him yet, fascinated by this father who put bad guys behind bars and not taking offense that he saws his aunt more often that the man without whom he wouldn’t even exist. Hotch knew, however, that this situation was temporary and that one day the child would be old enough to point out that he should be paying more attention to his family than to the bad guys that others could catch instead of him. So, whenever he could, and despite the stress that systematically seized him on these occasions, he made a point of spending as much of his free time as possible at his son’s side. He always felt extremely clumsy and incompetent in front of this small being who observed him with admiration, even after one year to have him under his whole guard, but he had to face his fear to make badly in order to attenuate the rain of reproaches which threatened to fall to him soon.

Walking up the hallway to Garcia’s office, he pushed the door open without knocking and stopped when he saw the two heads side by side, focused on the screen where shimmering cars were speeding through a grandiose CGI setting. With their headphones on, they had not heard him enter and he closed the door as gently as possible with a smile. Without a sound, he walked towards them and said:

- “I see that research is progressing well.”

- “Hotch! The analyst shuddered, pirouetting in her chair. Oh. The team didn’t need me anymore, and I had finished all my research.”

She stuttered and tried to tidy up the knick-knacks she had knocked over with a start, all the while dodging the dark look on her face. Jack’s attention was alternately on her and his father. He had noticed the discreet sneer at the corner of his lips, not her.

- “Sorry. This is the first time these screens have seen anything other than C-O-R-P-S-E-S, so I wanted to enjoy a little.”

- “If your work is done, I don’t have a problem with it, he said calmly before questioning Jack. And you, wouldn’t you be a little hungry?”

- “What’s for lunch?” asked the little boy, forgetting about the cartoon in progress.

- “Garcia. Show him the menu for the canteen and we’ll get the food upstairs.”

- “Right away,” punctuated the bespectacled blonde as she rolled to her keyboard.

- “Hotch?”

The voice that had just called out to the department head tensed his muscles. Recognizable among a thousand, it put all his senses on alert, activating a warning signal in the back of his mind. Determined to not reveal Jack’s presence on the floor, he wiped all traces of panic from his face and left the room, careful not to open the door too far. Strauss was waiting for him behind it, fists on hips. His supervisor glared at him, eyebrows furrowed, eyelids creased. She was clearly in a bad mood and had surely not appreciated to discover his office deserted. In Garcia’s workspace, she told the boy that it was crucial that he not make any more noise.

- “Chief Strauss?”

- “I’ve just read your evaluation, she said, dodging all the politeness. Are you one hundred percent sure of your judgement?”

- “As I’ve always said, a second opinion is necessary. You will ask Rossi when he returns before you do anything.”

- “Do you think they’ll be around much longer?” she grumbled after letting out a frustrated sigh.

- “As far as I know, they are making progress.”

- “As far as you know? Choked the fifty-year-old, outraged. You are not aware of the progress of the investigation led by your team?”

Hotch was aware of the immense power Erin possessed compared to him, but he couldn’t help but retort with some irony:

- “As you may have noticed, I am here. Therefore, I only know what’s going on there when they call me.”

An atheist, he thanked the heavens, however, that his cell phone rang just as Strauss was about to make him swallow that line she hadn’t enjoyed at all.

- “Yes, Morgan?”

- “There’s nothing working, Hotch,” lamented Derek on the other side of the line.

- “What do you mean by that?”

- “Garcia did find several teenagers who didn’t fit the scouting mold, Dave interjected, but they’re either still in their home state, in a state other than Iowa, or in jail.”

- “And the locals know about the local scouts, says Emily. They know they always come in pairs.”

- “We also checked for other teenagers who could provide services in the area – paperboys, babysitters, dog sitters, Spence scratched before stopping abruptly, probably because of a glare from one of the team members, and none of them fit the profile.”

- “And they all have an alibi with a witness,” Morgan finished, in a dejected tone.

Here was indeed problematic, thought the giant whose brain was grinding at full speed, indifferent to the attention that the woman next to him was paying.

- “Okay. Let’s go back to the beginning. We started with the adolescent hypothesis because of the hesitation marks in the wounds.”

- “And the fact that the rest of his MO emphasized a great assurance,” recalled Rossi, surely the calmest of the bunch.

- “What if it’s the other way around, Aaron suggested. Maybe we’re dealing with an old serial killer. He’s confident because he’s experienced and he doesn’t hesitate, he’s shaky.”

- “It’s true that no one is suspicious of a retiree walking his dog,” bounced Prentiss to interrupt the silence that had settled after this proposal.

- “I’m calling Garcia,” announced the ex-policeman.

- “I’ll take care of it, she’s next to me.”

The BAU director hung up and, still ignoring Strauss’ presence, presented his back to her to reopen Penelope’s door. Knowing that the section chief had her attention focused entirely on him, he used his tall stature to hide the interior of the room from her sharp gaze.

- “Garcia. Headphones.”

Penelope shielded Jack’s ears in a second, turning on the cartoon sound to prevent him from hearing clearly what was coming next. The little boy made no comment.

- “I’m listening.”

- “Look for a man over sixty with recently diagnosed Parkinson’s or early senile dementia. He probably had a long stay either in the hospital or in a nursing home, he ranted, pouring out the search criteria as his neurons chained synapses and spun deductions under his skull. Perhaps as a result of an accident.”

- “Perimeter?”

- “He must not be a native of the area, but he has lived in the vicinity for several years. Enough for him to know the locals and for them not to pay attention to him anymore.”

- “So, at least, ten years,” Garcia said.

Aaron nodded imperceptibly to validate this assertion and went on:

- “Cross-references his moves with other unsolved murders with similarities. He had to change his MO to adapt it to his new physical condition, but not completely.”

- “Okay.”

- “Ah, and he must be tall. In any case, enough for his victims to be afraid of him despite his tremors.”

- “Work on it. I send the result to my little elves.”

- “Thank you.”

Satisfied with this exchange, he closed the door immediately afterwards to face Strauss who had heard everything, fortunately without seeing Jack. But despite the obvious progress in the investigation, she didn’t seem to share Hotch’s contentment.

- “Her little elves?” she repeated, raising an eyebrow in disdain.

- “It could have been worse.”

Indeed, the analyst of the unit had the habit of calling the members of the team more eccentric nicknames than the others, without worrying about the difference of age or status between her and them. He was probably the most spared of the lot – probably because of the deference she expressed to him – but he was always wary of what she might say wen he called her and she was on speakerphone. Not that there was anything insulting about what she was saying – far from it, since it was mostly affectionate – but he was often embarrassed to meet the surprised, suspicious or outraged looks of the policemen, marshals and rangers who heard the over-vitamin logorrhea against their will. Usually, he reacted by feigning indifference, which cut short any remark about the unmistakable discrepancy between the young woman’s speech and the strict image of the FBI.

- “… Don’t forget the one o’clock meeting,” Strauss grumbled, suppressing a sigh.

- “I will be there.”

The director turned around and walked quickly down the hallway until she reached the elevators. She flipped a switch, waited for a car to arrive, and then disappeared inside. Hotch didn’t breathe again until he heard the motor drive the metal box to the upper floors. He then returned to Garcia’s office.

- “Jack,” he called to his son as he was absorbed in the images on the screen.

- “Yes, Daddy,” he answered, turning his head in his direction.

- “Come with me, we’ll order food from my office. We need to let Penelope work a little.”

- “Okay.”

The boy took the headphones out of his ears, unplugged the cable, and rushed into his father’s arms. He waved to his temporary hostess, and she smiled mischievously.

- “Garcia.”

- “Yes?” she hiccupped, regaining her seriousness.

- “You are welcome.”

- “Anytime.”

So Hotch went out into the hallway for the umpteenth time and went into his own office. Jack, holding his headphones in one small hand and his toy in the other, watched his father with a puzzled expression.

- “Why do you call her Garcia if her name is Penelope? he asked as they passed the elevators. Is that her code name?”

- “No, it’s her last name,” Aaron replied as he opened the heavy glass door to the bullpen.

- “Why do you call her by her last name?”

- “It’s a habit. And it’s more professional,” the director pointed out as he put his son back down before closing the door behind him.

As he uttered this answer, he realized that it would not speak at all to the five-year-old boy who was staring at him. His thin, circumflex eyebrows expressed the confusion he felt. The question that followed was obvious:

- “What does that mean?”

- “Usually, the people you call by their first name are family or very close friends,” he began to explain as he settled back into his chair and motioned for Jack to join him.

- “She is not your friend?” worried immediately this one after having climbed his legs.

Hotch knew that his descendant was very fond of the members of his team, and that he even had a soft spot for the analyst, whose radiant personality and amusing expressions suited his childlike spirit. His father sometimes wondered if he wasn’t even more attached to her because she reminded him of his mother, whose joyful and colorful humor spoke to him much more than the cold austerity and outdated vocabulary that he offered him daily. With Haley gone, he only found this cheerful tone in the company of his aunt – to a lesser extent – and Garcia. Logically, he was thus saddened to discover that his father did not share his attachment to the bubbly, bespectacled blonde from Quantico. The question now was, could he really consider Penelope a friend in the strictest sense? The answer was so obvious that he didn’t really have time to think about it.

- “Yes, but she is also a co-worker, and I am her supervisor.”

- “What does that mean?”

- “That I am her boss. I give her orders and she’s supposed to follow them. And friends don’t normally do that with each other.”

- “So, you can’t be friends.”

The FBI’s rules of engagement would have dictated that he should have strictly professional relationships with his subordinates, but the reality of the field was quite different. In truth, outside the BAU, the fingers of one hand were enough to count the number of people he could consider friends. He had countless acquaintances, but he didn’t have the closeness and attachment to them that he had with his team members. Nevertheless, if he knew that he could count on them, he could not totally ignore the fact that he was still their leader and that at any moment, he was able to sanction them for having defied the laws or endangered the life of one of them or of a civilian. And then, nothing attested that the reciprocal was true. Just because he had friendly feelings towards his group did not mean that they felt the same way. Maybe they only saw him as what he was on paper: the unit manager. His heart wished it wasn’t so, but his reason sowed doubt in his mind.

- “It’s a little more complicated than that,” he said, settling Jack on his lap properly so he can see his screen.

- “Why? Don’t you like her?”

- “Yes, I do. A lot, he confessed with a smile. She’s a very important person to me. So are the other members of the team. But when we work, we have to keep a certain distance between us all. And calling Penelope, Garcia, helps to… to make everyone understand that I’m the boss and she’s my employee. You see what I mean?”

- “No.”

- “Okay. It’s a little bit complicated to explain, it’s true. Basically, when we’re not working on a case, I call her Penelope. But when we’re working together and there are people around who are not FBI, I call her Garcia.”

- “In fact, you pretend not to be friends,” his son summarized, reassured.

The simplicity of the boy’s reasoning amused his father. By dint of developing convoluted thoughts on daily basis, he forgot that the straight line was sometimes much more explicit than a jumble of loops and detours, especially when speaking to a child of barely five years.

- “… Yes, that’s it. You’ll understand better when you’re working, he concludes before pointing to the page of the day’s menu. What do you want to eat?”

- “Can I have an ice cream?”

- “I was talking about the dish, not the dessert.”

- “Yes, but if I don’t have ice cream, I won’t eat the same thing.”

Among the information he had gathered about his son during the past year, the main one was that he was a born negotiator. Everything was a pretext for long deliberations so that he could get what he wanted, and the fact was that he had a certain repartee that regularly caught his father off guard. And the meals were certainly the most important part of the discussions between them. Jack already had strong tastes in many foods – tastes that stemmed mainly from the dishes his mother used to make for him – and Aaron had several rules in this area that he insisted on adhering to. Problem: the giant was an absolute sucker behind the stove. Even with the best concentration in the world, it invariably resulted in an indeterminate pile of food with a more than questionable flavor. At best, it was barely edible. At worst, he had to order out to prevent them from poisoning themselves. A weakness that Jack regularly took advantage of to get his way. For this bunch, however, the father’s objective was to make sure that the little guy on his haunches did not end the day full of glucose.

- “… If you take an ice cream, you don’t eat the other chocolate bars,” he suggested in order to please him without giving up too much ground.

- “Why?”

- “Because it’s way too much sugar and I know someone who won’t be able to sleep tonight.”

In the past, he had twice made the mistake of lowering his barriers to delight his son, but the disastrous consequences that had followed had dissuaded him from repeating the experience. Now he also understood better why so many parents denied their children so many treats: they were preserving their sanity.

- “I can have both, but not the dish,” counteracted Jack, a greedy gleam in his eyes.

- “No. You get a dish and dessert, or a dish and a snack later. But not dessert and a snack.”

- “Please!”

- “No. You have to choose.”

Jack frowned, his mouth twisted into a disappointed pout, but Hotch did not blink. His gaze returned to the screen where pictures of the dishes were displayed, and he seemed to be deep in thought. Finally, he looked up and questioned him:

- “… What are you going to take?”

- “It depends on what you take.”

Anticipating the fact that he would probably have to finish some of his plate, Aaron preferred to avoid unfortunate mixes or double portions of rich food as much as possible. He still had to fit into his mostly tailored suits, not having the means to renew his entire wardrobe.

- “… Can I have the burger and the fries?”

- “Dessert or snack?”

- “… Dessert,” opted his offspring after an interminable silence.

- “Okay. I call them.”

About thirty minutes later, father and son were gathered around the coffee table and their dishes. Penelope was with them, sitting in one of the available chairs.

- “The bad guy was captured?” inquired Jack as he swallowed a pair of fries stuck to the end of his fork.

He had tried to negotiate to eat them by hand, but his breeder had refused to do so in order to preserve the office furniture and the spotless carpeting that lined the floor. Strauss was so quick to jump on his bandwagon whenever one of his team members incurred an unexpected expense that he was convinced she would be able to pick up the dry-cleaning bill from his salary if the slightest grease stain appeared.

- “Yes. Emily called me before I came here to tell me that the case was closed.”

- “Thanks to Penelope, who found the villain’s address in no time,” the director pointed out.

- “You’re so great!” exclaimed Jack, as the analyst lowered her nose to hide her blush.

- “It’s a team effort, she said, stammering. I found the address and the others went to get it, all thanks to your daddy who had the idea of looking for a bad old man.”

- “I know. My dad is the best.”

The two agents exchanged glances and smiled in unison. Though dissimilar in many ways, Hotch and Garcia were similar in the importance they place on their loved ones. Both cherished their friends and family members in their own way – she in an obvious way, he in a more discreet way – and made a point of having their qualities noticed by those around them. Perhaps because, more than the other profilers of the team, they could not hide their flaws because they were too obvious, even to neophytes in the analysis of human behavior. But it was clear that their tactics to try to raise the esteem of the other were useless with the child who was standing next to them: he was already fully committed to their cause.

- “Can I have the ice cream?” he asked, fidgeting on the cushion of the bench.

- “You didn’t finish your fries,” his father noted, pointing with his chin to the handful of forgotten potatoes.

- “I don’t want more.”

- “You don’t want it because you’re not hungry anymore or you don’t want it because you want the ice cream?”

The boy’s brown irises swung to the side. He was thinking about what to say, sensing that one of the two proposals hid a trap that would force him to finish his meal before attacking the dessert. But he was much more interested in the glazed stick than in the soggy potato slices that were lying around on his plate. His racing brain breathed a first response, which was chased away by a small voice reminding him that his father detected lies from miles away. In the end, it was greed that made him say:

- “… I want the ice cream.”

- “And who’s going to eat your fries? Aaron immediately objected, in that strange tone of voice that mixes sweetness and firmness. It’s not nice to waste food, you know.”

- “You can eat them,” Jack replied, pushing the dish in his direction.

- “I’d rather eat your ice cream.”

- “NO! It’s mine!”

- “I’m the one who paid for it,” the giant reminded him, repressing his urge to laugh at the boy’s upset look.

- “No! Please!”

He had climbed down from his seat to grab the director’s sleeve, his wide eyes shining with dread at the thought of his objective passing him by. As Hotch remained stoic, he turned his gaze to his only potential ally, who was biting her lip to keep from blurting out her superior’s plan. Jack redirected his attention back to him, his little fingers firmly gripping the thick fabric of the jacket.

- “Go eat your ice cream,” Aaron agreed, grinning from ear to ear.

- “Yeah! the kid exploded, arms raised to the ceiling. Can I sit in your chair?”

- “Yes, but don’t put chocolate everywhere. You tell me if you need a napkin.”

- “Yes, Daddy!”

Grabbing the frosted bag, the boy ran to the big desk, disappeared behind it for a moment and then gradually reappeared as he climbed onto the chair. Then he tore the paper off without any delicacy and bit into the milk chocolate shell. Hotch and Garcia watched him with the same happy expression.

- “He’s tough on business,” she finally remarked, turning back to the man sitting next to her.

- “And again, you didn’t see anything.”

Penelope looked again at the kiddie who was playing with one of his figurines while sucking on the frozen block of caramel. A thick beige trail beaded down his chin, running straight down to his still clean shirt. Seeing him so still, it was hard for her to realize what he had been through a year before. Children who experienced this kind of trauma sometimes developed such disorders that they became a danger to society, if not a danger to themselves. But Jack seemed to have come through the ordeal with ease, and if she didn’t know what had happened, she might have thought he’d had a perfectly peaceful life until then. It seemed that Hotch was a magician.

- “He is adorable.”

- “Yes, it’s a good thing he takes after his mother,” admitted Aaron, aware that if his son had had his temper, the relationship would have been much more difficult.

- “It’s true that he looks a lot like her. Is it not too hard, by the way?”

Jack’s mother had been as blonde as his father was dark brown-haired. So, the child’s light hair was a constant reminder of the appearance to the woman who had given him life. Penelope knew how strong his boss’s love for her had been – and probably still was – and so she worried about what it would mean for him to be around this constant reminder of the one he had lost.

- “It depends on the day,” he said, lowering his head.

Garcia felt her throat tighten and so she hurried to change the subject.

- “… I didn’t know you had to take an assessment again.”

- “It wasn’t for me, but for a prisoner seeking parole.”

- “Ah, phew!” she breathed, relieved.

- “But I should probably go through one again in a few weeks.”

The anniversary date was now approaching fast, and this information was becoming more and more obsessive in everyone’s head as the days went by. Everyone knew that this fateful moment was a difficult milestone to pass, and in spite of themselves, they watched the giant’s reactions out of the corner of their eyes for the slightest hint of a possible crisis. But until that moment, Hotch was as good as new. He would, however, have to face an FBI psychologist who would judge whether or not he could handle his job.

- “Oh. And… you’ll be okay?”

- “I’m not too worried about the evaluation. I helped write the questions and answers, he says with a fleeting smile. It’s more…”

His irises rolled instinctively towards his feet. A wave of anxiety had just overwhelmed his chest, strangling his windpipe and knotting his entrails. Unconsciously, he had repressed this perspective not to suffer the backlash, but he could not deny the obvious any longer. In a short time, he would have no choice but to speak again about what had engraved an incurable wound in his heart. While it was true that he knew exactly what to say to pretend that everything was fine, he didn’t know how he would actually react on the D-day. Just as he couldn’t predict how Jack would behave either. Would he even know how to do and say the right thing to appease him if necessary and, above all, not to make things worse?

- “If you ever need to talk to someone, I’ll be there,” Penelope said, placing a hand on Aaron’s wrist.

He looked up in her direction and she gave him her most confident smile. She was ready to help him if necessary, as compensation for all the times he had stood by her side to get her back on her feet and restore all the confidence that had eluded her.

- “Thank you.”

- “Daddy!”

Both adults looked up at the desk to see Jack waving his chocolate hands in the air. Without waiting, Hotch left his seat and joined him to stop him from spreading the leather seat he was perched on. With the child washed up, the director retrieved his laptop and phone, kissed his son on the forehead, saluted Garcia and left the floor to attend the budget meeting to which he had been urged. His employee returned briefly to her den and came back to the boy with her arms full of toys and games of all kinds. The duo did not see the time pass until the child indicated his desire to go to the bathroom. She willingly led him to the door, which he already knew, but did not enter the reserved space this time. And whereas she waited in the corridor, Lynch emerged from the elevators and, seeing her, went straight towards her. An icy shiver went down the spine of Penelope who concentrated not to look in the direction of the door of the WC.

- “Hey, hi baby.”

- “Oh, Kevin. Uh… hi,” she stammered, panicked that Jack would come out right then and there.

- “What’s with the scared look?” the computer scientist frowned as he stared at her through his thick-framed glasses.

- “Scared? Me? Oh no, it’s nothing like that. It’s just that…”

- “What were you doing in the hallway without moving?”

Penelope’s brain was racing to come up with a good excuse for her boyfriend to justify her presence here. Not that she wasn’t allowed out of her den, far from it, but when the team was on the field, she really only left it to get a coffee or go to the bathroom herself. Now, the glass door behind her offered an obvious view of the absence of the BAU agents and she had no cup in her hands.

- “Uh… I was waiting for… a colleague. But she’ll find the way on her own, she said, speaking much too quickly. Let’s go to my office before Strauss sees us.”

- “No worries. She’s two floors up, in a meeting room. And it looked pretty tense.”

- “Is that so?”

- “Something tells me that the BAU has blown up her credit card again.”

- “As if it were our type.”

Grabbing Kevin by the arm, Garcia managed to subtly lead him to her office without him suspecting anything, but felt terribly bad for Jack who was going to discover the empty hallway when he came out of the amenities. And indeed, a few minutes later, the little boy was saddened to see his nanny of the day gone. He rushed to his father’s office, hoping to find the young woman, but had to face the facts: she had abandoned him.

About thirty minutes later, a phone call brought Lynch back to his quarters and Garcia then crossed the entire floor like a rocket.

- “Oh, boy! Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn! » she repeated as she realized there was no sign of the toddler in Hotch’s workspace.

Stressed and terrified, she retraced her steps and nearly collided with her colleagues who were spilling upstairs through the elevator.

- “Oh, thank goodness! You guys are back.”

- “Is everything okay?” worried Emily, intrigued.

- “What’s going on, baby girl?” asked Derek, noticing his friend’s tremors.

- “I lost Jack. Again.”

- “… What do you mean?” inquired Prentiss, her eyebrows furrowed.

- “Again?” stressed Spencer, confused.

Garcia then quickly summarized the situation so that everyone was aware of what had happened in the last few hours.

- “I love Kevin, but I couldn’t let him see Jack.”

- “Did you look at the surveillance cameras? Dave asked calmly. Just like the first time.”

- “That’s just what I was about to do when you arrived.”

Less than a minute later, the entire group crowded into the analyst’s office, and they watched as she tapped away at her keyboard to bring up the multiple boxes on the video surveillance system.

- “It looks so simple,” Rossi noted behind her back in admiration.

- “It’s because she’s so good,” JJ explained, smiling despite the gravity of the situation.

It was essential that the child be found before the leader returned upstairs. If Aaron were to realize that his offspring was left to fend for himself in a building where he had no right to be, his anxiety would spike so quickly that it would not be surprising if he were to have an attack. Which neither of them wanted to witness.

- “There. He’s leaving the men’s room,” Emily pointed, a finger pressed to the miniature screen in question.

- “Went into Hotch’s office and got one of his toys,” Morgan reported, following the boy’s actions with his eyes.

- “He wants to reassure himself, Reid analyzed. Logic would dictate that he is now looking for his father.”

- “Except Hotch is in a budget meeting and he has no idea where it’s being held.”

- “Let’s see where he comes out,” Derek said as the team watched Jack enter the elevator they hadn’t used.

The twelve eyes carefully scanned the images that flashed before their eyes, looking for the little blonde head that interested them. They mentally reviewed the different floors, crossing them off their list as soon as it became clear that the child was not there. Inwardly, they crossed their fingers that he had not gone through the lobby, where he would have been spotted immediately by the guards, who would have alerted Strauss.

- “Is this… the parking lot?” remarked Emily warily.

She wasn’t wrong. A grayscale version of Jack was now walking between the columns of the underground parking lot and striding purposefully toward the manager’s assigned spot. Pressing one of the buttons on the key he’d stolen before leaving, he unlocked the vehicle, opened the rear door and climbed into his booster seat, where he sat, clutching his toy.

- “Isn’t that weird?”

- “No, JJ said. He’s afraid Hotch will leave without him. As he settles into the car, he’s sure his father won’t forget him at the office.”

- “Smart kid,” Dave hissed, grinning.

- “He has someone to hold on to”, argued Prentiss, also relieved.

- “Let’s go get him before he gets cold,” Morgan suggested, already starting to turn around.

Following the same path as the boy before them, the agents reached their superior’s personal car and retrieved its occupant to take him up to the sixth floor. By a happy coincidence, Hotch did not return to them until everyone was out of the elevator, giving the illusion that nothing of note had happened in his absence.

- “Back already?”

- “We took the first flight,” joked the former BAU director.

- “Daddy!”

The kid threw himself into his father’s arms, nearly poking his eye out with his toy. But Aaron didn’t care and lift him up from the ground before apologizing:

- “Sorry, Jack. It took longer than I expected. Everything went well?”

- “Wonderful. Perfect. Of course. Absolutely.”

This outpouring of positive expressions from the entire group aroused the giant’s suspicion, but a benevolent spirit diverted his attention through his descendant.

- “When do we go home?”

- “Not yet, Jack. I’ve still got some works to do, he explained, before showing him the face of his watch. You see, we’ll have to wait for the hands to move a little more.”

- “Oh! Exclaimed Emily suddenly. How about we all go dinner together afterwards?”

- “With me?” Jack immediately asked.

- “Of course, with you, JJ reassured him, stroking his cheek. You will be our very special guest.”

- “When were you going to tell me that your son was here?”

In a general gasp, the entire team turned to find Strauss standing at the entrance to the bullpen. Jack shrivelled in his father’s arms, trying to make himself as small as possible.

- “Chief Strauss, I can explain everything,” Aaron began, putting the child back on the ground, who immediately ducked behind his legs.

- “Oh, I imagine, indeed, that you have a good reason for bringing your five-years-old son to the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the most deranged criminals in the United States,” spat the headmistress, her blue eyes flashing.

- “He saw nothing, heard nothing that could shock him.”

- “I hope so. But that’s not really my point, she countered, her fists on her hips. The point is why didn’t you tell me? Why did other agents come and tell me that a little blond boy of four, fives years old was walking around the corridors?”

Penelope and JJ exchanged a look. As they thought, it was highly unlikely that anyone but them could have missed Jack’s presence at Quantico. Whoever had warned the fifty-year-old surely meant no harm, but the result was there. Hotch, usually so quick to verbally dismiss his opponents, didn’t know what to say to excuse his behavior. Probably because he knew he was wrong.

- “… I’m sorry. I should have…”

- “Yes, you should have, shouted Strauss. Do you realize that if anything had happened to him, our entire security protocol would have been compromised?”

- “Yes, ma’am,” he replied, without any irony this time.

- “Good. Next time, have him register as a visitor.”

- “Yes, ma’am.”

- “And don’t forget your reports, ladies and gentlemen,” she continued, glaring at the rest of the team.

After this final salvo, she left the open space and then the floor. The silence lasted for a moment, and then Jack dared to come out of his hiding place and his reserve:

- “She is scary.”

- “Yes, a little, conceded his father as he knelt down beside him. Are you okay?”

- “Is it because of me?”

- “No, it’s not. It’s me. I didn’t follow the rules.”

- “It’s not right, Dad.”

- “No, it’s not,” confirmed this one with an embarrassed expression.

Hotch kissed his son to reassure him and then took him back into his arms. With his package clutched to his chest, he turned to his unit who came over to greet the little boy they hadn’t time to see in the morning before leaving. Very sociable, Jack gave them all an ecstatic smile that completely dispelled the effects of Strauss’s outburst.

- “When are we going to the diner?” he asked once the greetings were over.

- “As soon as we finish our homework,” grumbled Emily, rolling her eyes.

Like most of the team, Prentiss enjoyed the practical side of her job more than the administrative side – Spencer was probably the only one who loved writing his mission report, often adding information that was dispensable to the bureaucrats who read it, but undeniably important to him – and so she dragged her feet when it came time to sit down behind her keyboard.

- “Where would you like to go?” asked JJ, all too happy to be able to put off the moment when she would have to get down to work herself.

- “I want to eat pizza.”

- “Ah, that’s my department, said Dave, the Italian-American in the group. I’ve got a few good places you might like.”

- “Cool!”

Cheerful smiles lit up the faces of the adults around him. Rossi being a gourmet and a chef in his spare time, they all knew that the dinner was going to be the perfect end of this disjointed but refreshing day in their routine. And all this thanks to this little blonde head who looked at his father with unbounded admiration. Proof if it were needed that a family could gather much more than individuals sharing the same DNA.

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