Great Loss (a hotchniss story)

suspicions (hotch's POV)

Near the kitchen area is Rossi and Penelope. "Do you think we should tell Hotch about Beth?"

Rossi sighs. "They're over, I don't think he needs to know."

Penelope raises her eyebrows and hits Rossi on the arm. "Shut up shut up, why didn't you tell me?!"

"Because it wasn't necessary Penelope." Rossi taps her cheek.

Garcia looks at my office door. "I'm still telling him and you can't stop me."

"Do what you must," Rossi sighs. Garcia walks towards the door.

I hear a knock. "Come in."

"Sir...there's something you need to —," she looks at me as I'm laying on the couch. "I can come back later."

I sit up and I tighten my tie, grabbing my jacket and putting it on and heading towards my seat. "It's fine. What is it Garcia?"

Penelope shuffled towards the seat and she begins to fidget. "Spit it out."

"Um...Sir...when you introduced to Beth to us —,"she starts.

I keep eye contact with her. "Me and Beth aren't seeing each other anymore."

"Oh I know, Rossi told me," she gasps and covers her mouth. "He wasn't supposed to say anything, was he?"

She continues. "I was suspicious."

"Garcia don't tell me you looked into her?" I raise my eyebrow.

"I — I didn't Sir, but I looked at the security cameras when you went after her," Penelope whispers. "She had a gun."

I sit up straight in my chair. "Are you sure about that?"

She nods her head. "Rossi was with me when we saw on the camera."

I walk towards the door and open it. Rossi is talking to the rest of the team. "Dave can I talk to you?"

He nods. He mumbles something to the team and hands them something, money to pay for the food.

After a couple moments, Rossi walks in and closes the door. "I know what you're going to say. I should've told you."

"Dave why didn't you?" I asked.

"Because... I thought she was protecting herself, that's what women have to do now," he explains. "She probably thought that you were a stranger."

"That's not the only thing we found from the cameras," Garcia interrupts. "We saw you running up the stairs and you dropped something from the jacket."

Garcia gives Rossi a glance. "We checked what fell and we saw that it was a microphone."

I shift slightly in my seat. "A microphone?"

"But Sir, we broke it once we found out what it was."

I nod in agreement.

"Was Beth stalking me?"

Penelope and Dave are whispering, they notice I'm looking at them. "Aaron, do you think Beth could be the unsub?"