retribution.

Chapter Five

Sunday, two weeks after funeral

Hotch's POV
We haven't seen Collins in two weeks. That worried me.

I'm sure Garcia has sent over fifty fruit baskets to Collins' apartment. I overheard Garcia talking to Morgan about how worried she was about Collins, especially since she hadn't even taken the baskets. Collins has a weird obsession with oranges, and yet there were baskets of untouched ones right outside her door.

Collins and I had an odd relationship. We bonded over our workaholic tendencies, and I didn't realize how much I enjoyed spending time talking to her until she suddenly didn't show up at work. I find myself looking out into the bullpen from my office more often, looking for Collins so I could ask her what she thought on the case we were working on, or so I could just talk to her. I messaged her and told her that she could take as much time off as she needed, and I was left on read. From what I understood she hasn't responded to anyone since Dave visited her at Reid's grave.

I could tell Morgan was unhappy. First he lost who he saw as his younger brother, and now one of his best friends isn't responding to any of his texts. He and Garcia tried to get her out of her apartment. Everyone on the team had tried except me. I knew I wouldn't be able to do anything. If Dave can't get her out, nobody can.

We were all coping with the loss of Reid in different ways. Dave leaves work early and spends his time sitting in front of his fireplace, drinking some old scotch and contemplating what he could have done differently. Morgan spends extra time at the shooting range or the punching bags in the gym downstairs. Anything to get his anger out. Garcia keeps a smile on her face and remains positive no matter what, and then goes home to the solitude of her home and cries until she can't cry anymore. JJ spends time with the friends she has left, trying to forget the fact that one is gone.

Prentiss and I are similar. We bury ourselves in paperwork and put all our energy into each case, and then we go home and sleep the rest of the day. It was an unhealthy habit, but I'd never admit that out loud.

I was sitting in my office sipping on a small glass of bourbon as the rest of the team went home. Prentiss and Davis stayed behind to finish extra paperwork that wasn't completed on the plane ride home.

The Chicago case was rough. We had spent all of last week working on it. I could tell the team was unhappy. During the case the chief of police said something like, "I think there's some sort of statistic on how many women are killed in Chicago a day, but I can't remember what it is," and Morgan subconsciously looked around the room for what I believe to be Reid, because when he couldn't find him, his eyes saddened. We all knew if Reid were there he could pull up the statistic as if he were pulling up a computer page.

On the jet Prentiss spent around half an hour looking around the entire jet to find Reid's old chess board. When I asked why she wanted it she said that she wanted to play a game with me in honor of Reid. So I asked JJ where it was, and we eventually found it in the pullout storage space under the couch he had claimed as his own so long ago. This led to a team-wide chess tournament, and we played the entire flight back. I smiled fondly at the memory. In times like this, we really needed to be able to let our guard down and just have fun for a while.

Morgan, obviously, had found a way to bring money into the tournament. So each time a new round began, we would get money on who would win. I ended up making 10$, and Dave made the most money out of all of the team, scoring 70$ by the end of the flight.

I heard a quiet knock on my door and I looked up to see Prentiss in the doorway. Her eyes went from me to my bourbon and she gave me a playful stern glare. "Hotch, you know the rules about drinking at work."