Principessa Diana

Chapter Two: Dave

"Dave, how long do you plan on being away?" Aaron asked, not looking up from the paperwork in front of him.

"A little over a week." I was seated on the leather couch in the younger agent's office with a stack of case files on the glass coffee table in front of me. One lay open in my lap as I filled out a case report.

The B.A.U. was experiencing an unusual amount of down time – not that we were complaining – so Aaron and I were taking that time and catching up on all of our backed up paperwork. The bureaucracy that was the FBI really, truly sucked sometimes. There was no elegant way of putting it...it just sucked.

"The last day of April to May eighth." I gave him the exact dates. He was filling out my vacation time request form. He was going to end up asking anyway.

"Where is it you're going anyway?" Aaron finally looked up. "You said you were taking vacation, you just never said where or why."

"I'm a guest speaker at a conference in Boston," I replied, signing my name to the bottom of a case report, I finished up with the case file that I had been working on for the past two damn hours. "I'm also doing a book signing for my new book."

"The one about the Reaper?" Aaron asked with a haunted look in his eyes.

I gave a curt nod, "It's my first release in awhile so my publisher wants to drum up some interest." While the Reaper case may finally have been put to bed, I knew that with the loss of Hailey, the memory of George Foyet would live with Aaron forever.

"Are you going to take any of that time away to actually relax?" Aaron changed the subject and gave me a look that I was almost positive he gave Jack when he was giving the little boy a lecture.

"The cabin is for relaxing. This is a work trip." I replied dismissively.

"When was the last time you were even up at Little Creek?" Aaron challenged, not letting the subject drop.

It had been almost five months. Mudgie was going stir crazy in my D.C. area condo with only daily walks and no room to really run free. My friend Bill, who owned the hunting lodge to the north of my cabin had even called a few days earlier to check up and make sure that I was still alive.

The truth was...I was sick of the solitude. I was tired of drinking hundred-year-old scotch and listening to Tony Bennet alone. The more I worked, the less time I had to focus on how lonely I truly was.

"Drop it, Aaron," I told him sharply.

Aaron Hotchner was a smart enough man to know when to leave well enough alone and shut up.