Epilogue

Cait and Hotch were heartily welcomed home by Mike, Jack and Beans. Jake, accepting the beer that Aaron had handed him coming in the door, smiled at the reunion. "Missed you mom," Mike said pulling her into his bear hug. Soon to graduate from high school, he looked Aaron in the eye as well with his height.

"Me too mom," Jack said, getting transferred from Aaron to Cait as they switched kids. "Especially now."

Cait looked at him, kneeling down. "Jack, Uncle Jake didn't help you with your homework?"

"Mom, Uncle Jake was awesome at homework. But he sorta sucks in the kitchen." Cait burrowed an eye at her youngest son for his language, while Aaron stifled his giggle, looking at Jake.

Mike, releasing his hug from his dad, looked at him. "I could've done a better job dad. Delivery pizza and mac and cheese are great; but we need real food." Jack nodded his head in affirmation.

Cait and Aaron looked at Jake, while giving Beans her rub down. "I'm not looking forward to what is on the menu tonight," Cait said.

Jake smiled. "I knew you two were on your way home. I got some chicken out of the freezer. Since the weather is still so nice, I figured Aaron could teach me how to cook it on the Weber. JT is giving me hell that I've got to step up to the plate in cooking department around our place."

"It's about time," Cait bristled at her brother. Aaron just shook his head.

"Do it soon Uncle Jake," Jack said heading back to his homework. "'Cause you suck at it."

"JACK!" Cait and Aaron said together. Mike shared a high five with his younger brother.

-00CM00-

Two weeks later, as Alex Blake was about to start her lecture with her students, she heard the lecture room door open. That was not normal; her students knew to be in there early ready to go at precisely eight in the morning for the start time of class. She looked up to see who the late arrival was and smiled.

Finishing her lecture, she gave her students their assignments. "I expect all of you to be on your game on Wednesday." They all smiled. "And please, welcome Dr. Caitlyn Barkley to our class. She is the Assistant Chair of the Psychology Department. We had a chance to work together recently." The class all swung around to look at Cait sitting in the back row of seats. "Thank you Dr. Barkley for being here."

"It was my pleasure Dr. Blake; it was a very informative lecture and I appreciated the intuitive observations of your students. They are a wonderful group," she smiled. "I hope another class is like that this afternoon." Alex knew Cait only taught morning classes and gave her a puzzled look. "I'll see you a bit later; I'm helping chaperone 26 second graders for their visit to the BAU for career day," she smiled.

Alex looked at her class with a smile. "I'll explain on Wednesday; class dismissed."

-00CM00-

Cait walked off the elevator on the sixth floor, wearing her visitor credentials and headed to the glass doors a little after 1:00. As the BAU SAC's wife, she didn't need the usual security escort. Gina noticed her, heading the same way. "Hey Cait," she smiled. "You here for career day?"

She beamed. "Yeah Gina; but I'm just Mrs. Hotchner, helping keep 26 second graders corralled."

Gina laughed. "Everybody is in on it. I've got a super cool forensic project for them. And Brian is going to fingerprint a few of them," she smiled.

Cait smiled. "They'll love it."

Gina's look turned serious and she stopped Cait before she reached the door. "Cait, you had to come up with all the suggestions we got from the boss man."

"No I didn't Gina," Cait said, stopping. "That was all the boss man, aka dad," she smiled.

"Shit," Gina said.

"Gina?"

"I just lost five bucks in the office pool; most of us swore you had to be part of the plan."

Cait roared with laughter. "That's my husband, giving me a payback for keeping a secret from him on the case I went out with the team. Sorry Gina."

"As Morgan says," Gina smiled, "paybacks are a bitch."

Cait laughed again. "One of which I'm sure I'll hear about from my husband when he gets home."

It was Gina's turn for deep laughter. "Just wait until you see what Garcia has cooked up," she said, pulling one of the glass doors open for Cait.

Cait rolled her eyes at Gina as she entered in. "Knowing Penelope, it's got to be over the top." Gina just nodded.

As Cait entered into the bullpen, the lady in question was gushing with excitement to the team members. Alex noticed her first. "Hi Cait," she smiled. "Long time, no see." Morgan, leaning against Emily's desk, shot a look of question at Blake.

Alex smiled. "Cait sat in on my lecture this morning."

The rest looked at Cait. "It was wonderful," she smiled, rubbing Alex's shoulder.

"That's awesome you two," Reid smiled. Cait and Alex looked at him. "I'm trying to expand my verbal horizons for our young visitors."

"Keep tryin' kid," Morgan said. "You gotta sell it; just not say it."

"Cait, what are you doing here," Emily asked.

"Being Mrs. Hotchner that knows her way around here to keep some second graders in line," she smiled.

Jayje raised her hand. "I'm part of that mother project," she smiled.

Morgan smiled. "Check out Mama's project for the kids."

Garcia held up plastic badges like the one Cait was wearing. "Sorry Cait; I hacked into the school system database to get the kid's class pictures." She looked at Cait to judge her response. It was simply a large smile. "If they're gonna be junior G-men and women for the afternoon, they need the creds; right?"

"Penelope, the kids will love them; Jack most of all. He's always complained that when he comes here to see Aaron he never gets a security badge like his brothers." Garcia beamed as only she could.

Morgan reached to pull her into a hug. "My god of chocolate thunder," Garcia said, pulling away from him. "Do you not remember our fraternization lecture of last week?"

Cait laughed. "I heard about that from a certain Italian," she smiled.

"And….," Emily asked.

"He bitched that he had to sit in and it wasn't his fault," Cait laughed. The rest all joined her laughter.

On cue, Rossi exited his office and strolled down the stairs to Reid's desk. He looked at Cait. "I've heard through the grapevine you've been a busy lady today," he smiled approaching her, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

Cait kissed his cheek, accepting his hug. "I'm always a busy lady."

Rossi pulled away and looked at her, pointing a finger at Blake. "Welllllll…"

"It was amazing Dave; I'm glad I sat in." Alex smiled with pride. Dave offered Blake a fist bump which she returned. The rest smiled. Just then Section Chief Cruz strolled in the doors and joined them.

He smiled at Cait. "Welcome back Dr. Barkley."

"Thanks Mat; I'm Mrs. Hotchner today," she smiled.

Cruz smiled back. "I'm in on the plan; I get to introduce the one and only David Rossi to our young visitors in the second floor lecture room for new FBI recruits. He'll be doing the official FBI welcome."

Cait eyed him. "Did you not get the memo to refrain from feeding a certain Italian's ego?" They all, including Dave, roared with laughter. It was obvious that that having the kids around was going to make the BAU's day.

"Hang on a sec Mother Goose," Morgan said. "I know school district budgets are tight; how does this all get approved for one class, on a school bus, to be able to come down here?"

Cait smiled. "Maggie and Jarrod's youngest grandson might have slipped a hint to them," she smiled with a wink. "And they sent a check."

Garcia rubbed Cait's shoulder. "That is totally awesome cool," she beamed.

Emily pointed at Reid. "That's how you talk; totally natural."

Reid frowned. "I think I've already failed."

The rest laughed. JJ's desk phone rang. She picked up the receiver and listened, said "Thank you; we're on our way down," and hung up. Smiling, she looked at the rest. "That was the front security desk. The yellow school bus just pulled to the curb."

"Places everyone," Rossi directed. The rest smiled and moved to make career day for one second grade class memorable.

###

A/N: Thank you everyone that has taken the time to read this story. I appreciate it very much. To those of you that did a review, my deepest thanks. A writer needs the feedback. And to the wonderful peeps that hit the favorite or following alert button, thank you as well.

Special thanks go to my Dutch Delight and my Massachusetts Martial Artist. They were there when I was writing; their love and support, like always, was wonderful. Thank you my friends! And to the OK teacher; I always look forward to you being the one of the first to tell me how I'm doing; and you never disappointment me.

I must give some special acknowledgements. The first is to my Spanish Sparkplug that inspired me to start writing case fics in the first place. Her CM Wiki when I'm researching my case fics is my second Bible along with Google and its connection to Wikipedia a close third. I had picked a very difficult criminal psyche; on purpose I might add because I had my Cait involved. I thought it would be a piece of cake. I'd pick Sparky's brain and start writing away. We had a Twitter DM conversation in early February about my then story idea. And very honestly, that convo went nothing like I planned. However, here's the beauty of it. What she told me made me stop and think; long and hard. She raised some extremely valid points. And because of that, I feel that this story, while still true to my Cait character, is truer to the wonderful BAU team that our CM writers created. And I can't thank her enough for that. I'm prouder of this story than the one I envisioned months ago; and I owe my Spanish Sparkplug much of the credit for that. From my heart Kitten; hugs and luvs my dear friend. You made me a better writer and this story better.

That said, and as you can imagine, that convo turned my head upside down. And I went crying, my head in a spin to one person. She talked me down, gave me her thoughts and advised me. Her first words; walk away a bit and think. Like always, my mentor had the magic elixir for my troubles and when I was struggling, so, so badly in the writing process, she was there. I've never taken this long to write an FF. That's how bad I struggled with this story. And it's a Cait story! This should've been easy for me. I would tell her that I finished a chapter but I thought it was garbage. She said, "Get to the end and then do back; it'll fall together." My Spanish Sparkplug made this story better; my mentor, once again, helped me bring it to life. Thank God for FF mentors! I got blessed with THE best. The one and only 2013 CM FF Writer of the Year: Thn0715.

I sorta luvs ya Tigs!

*Knightly bow*