AFTER AN ALMOST PAINFUL TWO HOUR JET RIDE INTO OKLAHOMA, Katharine made sure she was the first person off the jet. She kissed Spencer goodbye, telling him to behave, before heading off to the disposal sites with Emily and Derek.

Not a single word was said the entire way to the first disposal site, which was agonizing. For three people that could make a conversation out of basically anything, it felt like torture. Katharine could barely even look at Emily through the rearview mirror for fear of making things more awkward than they already felt.

The three agents met with Detective Bonner on-site, Derek being the first to leave the vehicle and Katharine being the last. She joined the group as the detective exited her own vehicle, sliding her sunglasses off her face and tucking them into her shirt.

"Detective Bonner?" Derek asked, reaching out to shake the woman's hand. "I'm Agent Derek Morgan, this is Agent Prentiss and Agent Reid."

"It's nice to meet you all," the detective said, shaking Emily's hand and returning Katharine's wave. As much as she hated to admit it, Spencer's tendency to back out of handshakes due to germs had in fact rubbed off on her.

"So what do you have, Detective Bonner?" Katharine asked, looking down the side road littered with, well, litter.

Detective Bonner offered an arm out, inviting the agents to walk with her.

"Beth's body was found over there," she said, pointing further down the street they were following. Katharine followed her direction, trying not to inhale too deeply as the scent hit her right away.

"You smell the urine?" Derek wrinkled his nose.

"I thought that was air freshener," Emily said sarcastically. Katharine held a finger up to her nose as a discreet way of blocking the scent from further permeating her nostrils. Ever since Spencer fed her the little piece of information about how smelling things actually worked, she'd been hesitant to smell anything really.

"There's drugstore food everywhere," Katharine observed, stepping over a loose Subway wrapper that fluttered slightly in the wind. "Probably because this is a homeless corridor, though."

"Abby was found in a shantytown as well," the detective let them know, coming to a stop next to where Beth's body had been found. Katharine looked around, trying to find anything else that seemed either out of place or anything that could be of use to them.

"So, our unsub hunts and travels through the areas unnoticed," Emily said, theorizing possibilities for who their unsub could be. "And he blends in with his surroundings."

"This guy's either homeless or appears to be," Derek backed her theory up.

"He most likely has a car," Katharine said, turning to look back down the entrance of the side street. She looked in the opposite direction and saw an outlet back into the main road. "In order to get them from the abduction site to here. Just because you're homeless doesn't mean you're carless."

"It could explain why he chose high-risk victims at first," Emily put in her two cents. "They were all around him."

They made quick work of the next disposal site, making the same notes they had at the first. Katharine stepped over a Subway wrapper, highly reminiscent of the previous site they visited, and hopped back into the SUV. They made their way back to the police station, Katharine following the detective as best she could.

"Katharine," Hotch greeted as they walked into the conference room area. "Take JJ and Reid with you. There's been another body found."

Katharine immediately turned on her heel, heading back out the way she came. Derek gave her a look that read good luck while Emily just looked between JJ and Spencer. It was no question that there was some tension between the two of them.

Katharine hadn't spent the previous night talking to Spencer about Emily's reemergence for no reason. There were obviously some underlying issues within the team still and while most of them had been glad for Emily's return, both Katharine and Spencer had additional anger toward their respective support systems.

They rolled up on the latest disposal site, this one more open than the last but still similar in characteristics. Namely, the drugstore food littering the scene as well as the numbers of homeless people roaming the streets.

"Our unsub disposed of the body in an area frequented by homeless people again," Katharine said, making that her first note. In likeness to the two previous dumpsites, they were yet again in a shantytown.

"It's equidistant to the last two dumpsites," Spencer said, strolling up to where the body was still laid. JJ took out a singular glove and pulled it on, crouching down so that she could observe the body.

"He burned her tongue with the chemical this time," she said, pulling the victim's jaw down.

"So this time he removed her ability to taste," Katharine said. She slid her sunglasses back into the front of her shirt, leaning forward a bit to see into the victim's mouth.

"Why would he do that?" the detective asked them from her spot next to Spencer.

"Historically this kind of torture was used to prevent someone from revealing a secret," Spencer said, hands in his pockets as he looked over JJ's shoulder at the victim's face. JJ closed the mouth.

"Maybe she offended him," the blonde suggested, standing back up. Katharine offered her a plastic baggie so that she could dispose of the glove.

"I wonder what that's like," Spencer muttered under his breath, causing Katharine to shoot him a warning look. This was not the time or place.

"Her lips are extremely chapped," she moved on, looking away from her husband and back at the dead woman on the floor.

"She was probably forced to repeatedly participate in some sort of kissing fantasy," Spencer said, taking a hand out of his pocket to scratch the back of his head in mild embarrassment.

"And when things go awry," JJ said, pocketing the bag with the used glove in it, "he takes the offending sense away."

"He tortured her in these clothes," Spencer observed, taking note of the fabric burns, "which means the eighties are essential to his delusion."

"Maybe that's when this rejection occurred," Katharine suggested. She stepped back from the body and stood on the other side of the detective. "Maybe he's held onto the clothes of the decade all these years just for this."

"And now he's attacking girls who remind him of women from that time," JJ finished her thoughts for her. Katharine nodded, sliding her sunglasses back onto her face.

"He's fixated on her type and remakes them fit his fantasy," Spencer said, elaborating further on what they were saying.

The detective looked between the three profilers. "But why start now?"

JJ shrugged. "Something probably triggered it, and instead of dealing with it, he's acting out."

Katharine clocked the look JJ sent Spencer before rolling her eyes and turning away from the crime scene, heading back toward the SUV. It was a miracle that she and Spencer were ever able to be professional if this is how he was acting in the field toward his other coworkers. She loved the man but he really needed to get his priorities straightened out.

Back at SHIELD, if she ever let her anger get the better of her so that it affected her ability to perform in the field, she'd be sitting out faster than she knew. Katharine tried to reason with herself that a SHIELD mission was way more high-stakes than working a case with the BAU but the sentiment was the same.

If she let her emotions cloud her ability to collaborate correctly with her teammates, she'd have been dead a long time ago. Katharine figured she'd be having that talk with Spencer sooner or later. As much as she was on his side, she knew that there were just some things that couldn't cross over professional boundaries.

They returned back to the BAU, Katharine trying her best not to let the energy in the room affect her, and settled into an open chair around the conference table. They let Hotch know what they had discovered at the latest crime scene and connected what they found to the rest of the information they already had.

No less than thirty minutes later, Katharine found herself standing in between Hotch and Derek, ready to deliver the profile. Once everyone settled in, they began.

"We believe the unsub or unknown subject that we're looking for is a white male in his forties," Hotch began from his spot in the middle of the lineup. "He's punishing his victims for their reactions to him by taking away their sense with sulfuric acid."

"Due to the clothing he's been dressing his victims in," Katharine continued, "we believe that this is someone who's reacting to rejection by a woman from when he was a teenager. Specifically in the nineteen-eighties."

"We also believe that our unsub could possibly work part-time as a janitor or a mechanic," Rossi said from the other side of Hotch, "which would give him access to this chemical."

"And after studying the disposal sites, we think it's likely that he is homeless," Derek said. "Now, how do we typically react toward the homeless? We judge them by their looks and smells. It's that same negative reaction we believe that a woman had toward the unsub at some point in the eighties."

"The unsub's fixation on this woman is now all-consuming," Emily told the crowd from her spot next to Rossi. "It's caused him to develop obsessive love disorder. He most likely has tunnel vision and believes that she holds the key to his happiness. He will stalk her in an attempt to win her back."

"He will do whatever it takes to be near his love interest," JJ informed them. "But her rejection will spiral him into a depression."

"Which would lead to rape and murder of the surrogates who represent her," Spencer finished. "And it's only a matter of time before this rage and anger causes the unsub to go after her directly."

Hotch thanked the officers for listening before being the first to break from the line, heading back toward the conference room. He stopped outside to talk to the detective, Derek, Emily, and Rossi stopping with him.

Katharine continued into the conference room along with Spencer and JJ, which honestly felt like an accident waiting to happen. She busied herself with sorting out a few pieces of evidence the station already had on the case.

"Spence," JJ was the one to break the silence. Katharine set the piece of evidence down on the table to watch. "Look, we gotta talk about this."

"I don't want to talk about it," Spencer said, trying to move past JJ, who just moved so that she was still in his way.

"I get it, ok?" she said, forcing him to look at her. Katharine stepped around the table but otherwise kept her distance from the situation. "You're disappointed with the way we handled Emily."

"Listen, I have a lot going on, all right?" Spencer tried to leave again but JJ wouldn't let him.

"You know what I think it is?" JJ asked.

"What?"

"You're mad that Hotch and I controlled our micro-expressions at the hospital and you weren't able to detect our deception," she told him.

"You think it's about my profiling skills?" Spencer asked, becoming defensive. "Jennifer, listen, the only reason you were able to manage my perceptions is because I trusted you. I came to your house for ten weeks in a row after Katharine left, crying over losing a friend, and not once did you have the decency to tell me the truth."

JJ looked, for lack of better words, shocked.

"I couldn't," she stammered, taking a step back.

"You couldn't?" he accused. "Or you wouldn't?"

"No, I couldn't," JJ said, her voice stronger.

"What if I started taking Dilaudid again?" Spencer asked. "Would you have let me?"

"You didn't," the blonde defended herself.

"Yeah, but I thought about it," he admitted, finally able to push past the blonde.

"Spence, I'm sorry," JJ apologized.

"It's too late, all right?" he said, leaving the room and storming away. Emily called after him but realized it was futile.

Katharine grabbed her, or rather, Spencer's, cardigan off the back of a chair and pulled it on over her shoulders. She stepped out into the hallway and watched as he left the station entirely, the door slowly closing behind him.

"I've got this," she said, not bothering to look at Hotch for approval. Right now, her husband needed her and as much as it went against her professional code, she needed to break those boundaries.

She left the station only to find him sulking on the bench placed right outside the doors.

Katharine wrapped the cardigan tighter around herself. "Spencer."

"What?"

She frowned when his voice broke in the middle of his word, watching as he hastily wiped under his eyes. Emotional vulnerability was always a struggle with the two of them. Between societal standards for men and Katharine's SHIELD training to keep emotions under wraps, it made it difficult for them to communicate their feelings to each other at times.

"Are you okay?" she asked, not sitting on the bench next to him. Instead, she stood a couple of inches in front of him, making him look up at her.

"I'm okay," he said, taking a deep breath to try and stabilize his voice.

"Okay..." she trailed off, trying to decide if she should continue with her mini-lecture as planned or if she should stick to comforting the man sitting in front of her. She decided on the former, sitting next to Spencer and taking his face in her hands. "I hate to say it, babe, but you've been acting like a child. And we both know that I'm the child in this relationship."

She let go of his face, caressing his cheek softly before dropping her hands into her lap.

"How can you forgive Hotch so easily?" Spencer asked. "After what they did... Ten weeks, Rin."

Katharine scoffed. "Oh, believe me, I have not forgiven Hotch yet. He's still got a long way to go before any forgiving happens but Spence, we're on a case. I'm not saying your feelings are invalid but there's a time and place for this."

He didn't say anything, prompting her to continue talking.

"Listen, we're going to go back in there and work the rest of this case but please leave the brooding for the plane ride home," she begged. "There's a killer out there and our job right now is to catch him."

Spencer begrudgingly admitted that she was right, saying that he needed to focus on the case instead of taking his frustrations out on JJ. He didn't promise that he'd make an effort to work things out with the blonde, which Katharine wasn't expecting anyway, but he did apologize for making her come outside after him.

"I'd follow you to the ends of the earth," was her response, looking him earnestly in his eyes. It was true, she'd follow this man off the deep end if he asked.

"Is this our first fight as a married couple?"

Katharine laughed. "No. A disagreement, maybe, but not a fight. I've got plenty of other things for us to have fights about."

"Okay," he said, taking her hand in his own and pressing a kiss to her knuckles. "And you're not a child."

"What?"

"You said that you were the child in this relationship and you're not," he clarified. "You're more mature than I am and I went to college when I was thirteen."

Katharine grinned. "Must be why you like older women."

"A year, two months and fourteen days isn't that much older," he defended. "It's only four-hundred and forty-one days."

"Oh, well when you say it like that then it really makes it look like I'm that much older," she playfully rolled her eyes. "Just admit that you like older women."

"Fine," he said, slipping an arm around her waist and pulling her in, kissing her lips. "I like one older woman, and that older woman is you."

"If we weren't on a case right now I'd be making out with you like a teenager by now," she smirked"

"I didn't get to live out my teenage years so..." he trailed off, giving her a suggestive look. She pushed him away from her, standing up from the bench.

"Nice try," she said, pulling him up as well. "But we have to get back in there before Hotch flames our asses."

They started walking back into the station, both in much better moods.

"'Flames our asses?'" Spencer asked, amusement laced in his tone. "Where'd you get that from?"

Katharine groaned. "Nina's rubbing off on the both of us, I swear."

He laughed quietly as they made their way back into the conference room, separating upon crossing the threshold. Katharine retreated to where she had been sorting through evidence and Spencer went to the side closest to the board.

"It would have had to have been a woman very close to the unsub to make him react this way," Hotch said, ignoring the fact that the two of them had been gone for an extended amount of time. He either didn't want to know or didn't want to have to ask.

"Then why go after surrogates?" Derek asked, eyeing his cousin as she proceeded to act like nothing had just happened, which was true. Nothing had happened.

"I don't think we're dealing with a typical homeless person," Spencer finally spoke up, turning away from the case board. "He's good with chemicals, owns a car. I think the only mistake in our profile was assuming there was something wrong with his physical composition, reducing him to some sort of stereotype."

"You think it's only his mental state?" Rossi asked.

"I think this guy might be smart enough to use his disability to his advantage so he comes across as harmless," Spencer confirmed.

"Then when he's alone and the victim rejects him, he goes off," Derek continued.

Katharine furrowed her brow. "What if he doesn't live on the street? What if he's in a halfway house?"

She watched as Hotch pulled out his phone, dialing Garcia's number before putting her on speaker.

"Garcia," he said after she picked up. "I need a list of halfway houses and mental health centers in the unsub's comfort zone."

"Ok. Five are being sent to your phones."

Katharine pulled her device out of her pocket just as her screen lit up with the message from Garcia.

"Which of those were around in the eighties, Garcia?" Derek asked.

"There are two in your area."

"Katharine, Morgan, and Prentiss take the first," Hotch delegated. "Dave and I will take the second."

"What about us?" JJ asked, motioning to herself and Spencer.

"Stay here and check ViCAP for similar MOs and signatures," he said. Katharine made her way over to Spencer.

She kissed him on the cheek quickly, muttering, "Play nice," before leaving the room with Derek and Emily not too far behind.

Derek drove them this time, Katharine opting for the backseat which allowed Emily to sit up front. There wasn't much talking going to the halfway house, mainly Emily giving Derek directions and Katharine humming along to whatever was on the radio.

It didn't take them long to arrive at their location and it took less than half that time to get ahold of a worker that would be willing to talk to them.

After introductions were made, the worker, Gwen, was ready to tell them just about everything they wanted to know.

"I've worked here over fifteen years," Gwen said, trading empty plates for full ones over the small window in the wall that looked into the kitchen. "There are many people who fit that description."

"This guy would be mobile," Emily offered, "probably early forties."

Gwen turned around and put the full plates out on the table in front of her, turning back for a stack of napkins.

"Well, if he's got a car, then he's transitioned out in the last few years," she said, putting the fresh stack of napkins out. "State budget cuts."

"All right, we'll need a list of those names," Derek said, stepping back as Gwen came around the table with a handful of plastic spoons. She put them in the organizer, scoop part down.

"It ain't gonna be small," she said, flipping a spoon over. She stepped away from them, excusing herself so she could get the list for them.

Katharine busied herself with observing the room a bit better while Derek and Emily talked. The halfway house looked drastically understaffed, most of the workers being in the kitchen while those that worked as servers seemed far and in between.

"Hey, Morgan. What do I do about Reid?" Emily asked her cousin.

"Emily," Derek turned to look at the brunette, "there's a lot about you being back that's unresolved."

"Are you pissed at me, too?"

"Come on, now," he said. "How can I be? You're here."

Katharine tried not to roll her eyes. Sure, she wasn't upset with Emily, but it didn't mean she couldn't be upset with the situation. Still, she remained professional.

"Thank you," Emily said. "Because I know what you went through. Grief counseling. You carried my coffin."

"Yeah, I sure did," Derek said, laughing slightly. "What was in that thing, anyway?"

"Most likely rocks," Katharine said offhandedly, crossing her arms over her chest. "That's what they put in my coffin. My old director's, too."

"You've faked your own death before?" Emily asked curiously.

Katharine nodded. "Yup. Died in Ireland, resurfaced in DC. Funny enough, my boyfriend at the time was my handler."

She stopped talking as Gwen reapproached them, a singular sheet of paper in her hands.

"Here you go," the worker said, handing the sheet off to Derek.

Derek thanked Gwen, allowing her to get back to her work.

"Just give Spencer some time," Katharine said. "He'll come around. I promise."

Emily sent Katharine a grateful look, causing Katharine to smile at her. Honestly, the whole situation was going to give her a heart attack. She wondered if Spencer would forgive her as easily if she ever had to disappear.

Considering they were married, it was most likely a no.

Derek pulled out his phone to call Hotch, Katharine leading them out of the halfway house while he had his conversation. She hopped into the backseat, not bothering to buckle up as they headed back to the station.

She caught onto the tail end of their short conversation, Derek saying that they'd start reaching out to the extended families, before starting up the car.

AFTER INTERVIEWING THE NINETEEN PEOPLE RELEASED FROM THE GROUP HOME, Hotch sent Katharine out with Spencer and Rossi to the last known location of Tammy Bradstone. According to her parents, Tammy never returned home from homecoming.

She stood out front while Spencer and Rossi went inside and profiled the interior.

"So kids spill out of the motel toward the cars," Rossi said, coming back outside. "If Tammy walked this way, how could she disappear without anyone seeing her?"

"Someone would have heard her scream," Spencer said.

"But that's only if she did scream," Katharine said. "Unlike the past three abduction sites, this one is nowhere near public transportation. It's possible that she knew the unsub."

"Or thought she did," Spencer said. Katharine looked further down the walkway, toward the street.

"What if--" Katharine walked down the walkway and sat on the curb. "What if Tammy was the target all along?"

Spencer stopped behind her, looking at the street. It was one way, the homecoming venue having its own driveway.

"That would explain the change in the MO," he said, helping Katharine back up. She dusted off the back of her pants, taking out her hand sanitizer and squirting out a generous blob. She offered the sanitizer to Spencer, who took the bottle from her hand.

She rubbed her hands together, taking the bottle back from Spencer once she had finished rubbing the disinfectant in.

"So whoever did this knew she was coming here," Rossi said. Katharine grimaced as she pocketed the hand sanitizer. The trio made their way back to the SUV.

Katharine took the driver's seat while Rossi sat in the back, leaving Spencer to the passenger seat. She turned the vehicle back on, pulling away from the curb and back into the road.

She drove off toward the Bradstone home, Spencer telling her directions as she went. They arrived a bit later, Katharine being the first to exit the car. She knocked twice on the door, Derek greeting her on the other side.

"Any luck?" he asked, letting them in. Rossi closed the door behind him, separating them from the outside world.

"He hasn't been to either of the mechanics' shops in the past two months," Spencer told them their findings.

"But the one on Fourth said a bunch of car batteries had gone missing," Rossi supplied.

Katharine tensed slightly as the Bradstone's home phone started to ring, everyone's attention moving to the landline.

At the same moment, Derek's phone rang. Emily told Lyla Bradstone, Tammy's mother, to wait while Derek answered his call.

"It's him," he confirmed, hanging up on Garcia.

"Ok, go ahead," Emily coached. "Just like we talked about."

Katharine watched as Lyla took a shaky breath before reaching out for the device. She picked it up and shakily pressed it to her ear, her whole body shaking due to the anxiety.

"Hello?"

There was a pause for their unsub to respond.

"Matt got arrested," another pause. "They think that he hurt Tammy."

Katharine looked over to Matt Bradstone, Tammy's father, and watched as he uncomfortably shifted in his seat. The thought of hurting Tammy didn't seem to sit right with him which told Katharine that he wasn't that kind of father. For some reason, that put her at ease.

The last thing this family needed was a domestic abuse case.

"I just--I--I need you to, uh, come over here and-- I need you to talk--" she cut herself off as she read Emily's written words. "I need you to hold me."

The words seemed to make Lyla visibly repulsed. Still, she pressed on.

"Yes. I-- Hurry. I have no one else to turn to," she hung up in a hurry, slamming the phone back into its receiver. "He's coming."

"Reid and Prentiss stay with them," Rossi delegated. "Katharine, Morgan, and I will get the front."

Katharine left the house with Rossi and Derek, the two men crossing the street to wait behind the trees there while Katharine stayed on the same side of the road, standing further down the sidewalk with her phone pressed against her ear. She tugged her jacket over her gun and felt her thigh to make sure her secondary weapon was still holstered there.

She had to admit, a skirt during the fall-turning-winter was not the best idea she'd had in a while. She felt the cold bite at her legs as she rubbed them together to generate what little heat she could.

Thankfully, she didn't have to wait long before she heard the unsub's truck roll-up in front of the Bradstone home. She turned slightly and hid behind a tree as he came bounding out of the truck, arms outstretched as Lyla made her way out of the house.

"Lyla!" he cried, taking her in his arms. "Lyla. Shh... It's gonna be ok. Shh. It's gonna be ok."

Katharine pulled her gun out as Cy Bradstone hugged Lyla, the woman not making any moves to hug him back.

"Cy Bradstone! FBI!" she heard Derek called, prompting her to move from her spot as well. "Put your hands where I can see them! Let me see your hands!"

"On your knees," Katharine demanded, moving in between Cy and Lyla. She pushed the older woman behind her, ushering her back toward her house. Cy's knees hit the cement at Katharine's order, Derek cuffing him in an instant.

"How could you do this to me?" Cy screamed as he saw Matt exit the house. He grabbed onto his wife, who was still crying.

"Get up," Derek ordered, pulling him up from the ground. Katharine relinquished her grasp on Cy, allowing him to move.

"How could you do this to me!" Cy shouted. He lunged, causing Katharine to grab him by the shoulders and order him to stop resisting. He did as told, moving pliantly into the back of one of the SUVs.

KATHARINE SAT OUT OF THE INTERROGATION, sitting in the conference room with her Kevlar vest still strapped onto her chest. All they needed was to find where Tammy was and it didn't look like Cy was going to give it up to them.

She watched as Hotch came out of the interrogation room, saying that Cy would only give up Tammy's location to Matt. The Bradstone father obliged, leaving Lyla in the waiting room to go with Hotch.

Not too long after, Hotch came back out with an address. It didn't take much to get Katharine back out and into an SUV, driving them out to the cabin Cy had given them.

She was the first to arrive, as always, and was the first at the door. She waited for everyone to get in position before kicking down the door, weapon out in front of her.

Immediately, she sees Tammy strapped to the chair. As the rest of the team fanned out to check out the rest of the area, she was quick to get to the teenager's side. She pressed two fingers up to her neck, finding a steady pulse that let her know she was still alive.

"She's got a pulse," Katharine announced, moving her hand away from her neck. She worked on the restraints, calling over her shoulder, "I need a medic in here!"

Emily came up next to her and helped with the rest of the straps on the chair, She held up one of Tammy's burnt hands grimacing at the severe burning on them. They got her off of the chair, handing her over to the paramedics.

Katharine and Emily stood back, allowing the paramedics to do their jobs. The two women shared a look before leaving the building together, making sure that Tammy was loaded up and on her way to the hospital before leaving the scene together.

They had done their job and it was time for them to go home. Katharine packed up her things, glad that they hadn't needed to stay in Oklahoma for more than one day.

Now, as she laid against Spencer on the jet's couch, she found herself closing her eyes as Spencer pulled her in closer. He had a book in his other hand, as always, with his left arm thrown around her waist. They were very comfortable.

She kept her eyes closed as she heard someone sit across from them, sinking further into Spencer's embrace. She felt him close his book before he wrapped his other arm around her as well.

"So, the surgeon said he believes he can restore feeling to Tammy's hands," she heard Emily tell Spencer, keeping her voice low. Katharine didn't bother opening her eyes, feeling that this was a moment that the two of them needed.

"Good," Spencer said, brushing a strand of hair out of Katharine's face. "We got there in time."

"I heard Mr. Bradstone wants to watch the tape," Emily tried to continue the conversation.

"People have an innate curiosity to see things in order to confirm them," he said, returning his hand to his lap.

"That explains why I'm going to Rossi's tomorrow night," Emily joked. "I want to see if he really can cook. You coming?"

She felt Spencer shrug.

"I don't know," he said. "I'm not so sure I can make it."

"Look, Reid, I know you're mad at us because we didn't tell you what really happened, and I understand that. But I promise you, we had no choice," Emily went silent for a moment, most likely considering Spencer. Katharine felt a gaze fall onto her face though she made no movement to signify that she was awake. "You mourned the loss of a friend. I mourned the loss of seven. This whole thing gave me an ulcer. Please don't give me another one. Are you gonna go to Rossi's tomorrow?"

Spencer shrugged again. "We'll see."

"ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO GO?" Katharine asked, hand hovering over the parking gear. "You know you don't have to if you don't want to. They'll understand."

"I know," Spencer said, taking a deep breath. "But I've been angry long enough."

Katharine smiled. "Who are you and what have you done with my husband?"

Spencer laughed at that, unbuckling his seatbelt as Katharine put the car in park. She shut the car off and grabbed the expensive scotch Tony had gotten her a while back. She hadn't opened it, being a Tennessee whiskey girl herself.

They made their way to the front door together, Spencer offering Katharine his arm like the gentleman he was. He rang the doorbell, waiting not even two minutes later for someone to open the door.

"Glad you guys could make it," Derek jested, opening the door wider for them to come in. Katharine grinned, taking her jacket off with Spencer's help. He hung both of their coats by the front door.

"Spencer couldn't decide on an outfit," she joked back, allowing Derek to pull her into his side and press a kiss to the top of her head. He then led them to where everyone else was, the smell of Italian cooking in the air.

"Sorry we're late," Spencer said, entering the room behind Katharine and Derek. She broke away from her cousin, coming over to where Rossi was cooking and setting the scotch down on the counter.

"Here's our apology," she said, showcasing the liquor worth seven-thousand dollars.

"You're forgiven," Rossi said, taking up the bottle and shelving it with the rest of his alcohol.

Katharine grinned and walked back to the other side, accepting the glass of wine Hotch had poured for her.

"So, uh, when do we get to drink the wine?" Emily asked, holding up her own glass.

"Almost there," Rossi said, turning back to the rest of the group. "Ok. We start at the beginning. You eat what you cook, I'll supervise, but we're gonna do this all together, just like a family."

He plated his food, showing it off to the group gathered around his kitchen island.

"Ok now?" JJ asked, eyeing the red.

"Now," Rossi approved, taking up his own glass. He raised it in the air toward them. "Salud!"

They cheered. "Salud!"