Face Cachée [ENGLISH version]

Coming back after Hailey

It's barely a week since Hayley Hotchner died, taken by Foyet the Ripper. The whole team is struggling to grieve and move on as the cases start raining down on them again. Everyone copes with the shock in their own unique way, while trying to remain professional and strong for their friend and boss, Aaron Hotchner.

Reid tries to explain all of this tragic phenomenon by the laws of physics and probability, while JJ remains more fragile as for Jack, child and brother-in-law of his own son Henry, who lost his mother at the age of five. Rossi is sympathetic and helps Aaron a lot during drinks and discussions in his office at the end of the investigation, while giving his boss and best friend a little privacy. Morgan and Garcia console each other. Prentiss, for her part, is armoured, like an old habit that would be hard to break. She says nothing, seems strong and refuses to show how certain things in this case may have affected her. On the other hand, if she represses her own feelings to hide them from the eyes of others, and Hotch in particular, she convinces herself that she must do what she can to help Aaron.

While everyone makes their own contribution to the unit's leader, Prentiss's commitment is all the greater and more remarkable given that she has no family to look after and always puts others before herself. However, Prentiss's unique temperament does not explain all her behaviour towards her boss. "A long-standing 'friend', if you could call them that, she will never forget her first encounter with Agent Hotchner: rather chaotic and unexpected. Over the years, after not seeing each other for almost a decade, they learned to rediscover each other and to work together in a collaborative and thoroughly professional way. They became close. A family, to be exact. Not in the literal sense of the word, but a second family in which every member of the team has found a place, so much so that they have remained close-knit and almost inseparable.

It's Monday morning and Hotch is due to make his return to the team today. He insisted at length on returning to work straight after a short weekend with his son. Despite the reluctance of the others, more specifically Erin Strauss and Rossi, he doesn't want to go back on his decision, and no one can talk him out of it.

It's already 8 o'clock in the morning when JJ steps through the door and opens the bay window that leads directly into the open space. Prentiss, Reid and Morgan are already there, sitting at their desks, joking as usual. Then she looks up to see Rossi's desk, still empty. Her gaze then drifts to the next room, where Hotch is already leaning against his table, his nose in his files.

"Hello my loves! Good news, it's been a long weekend and I've missed you all terribly, especially you..." Garcia says in passing, not missing a wink in Morgan's direction, who quickly returns it, making the rest of the crew laugh along the way.

"... the bad news is that you'll be leaving for Miami in no time!

- The bad news?! The sun, the beautiful beaches and...

- Morgan don't you dare finish that sentence!" laughed Emily as she walked past him and patted him on the back.

With a sulky look on their faces, Derek, the other three agents and the analyst headed straight for the debriefing room.

After Morgan, Reid, Prentiss and JJ had taken their seats, they began to grab their tablets and the file to study and take a first look at the case. Rossi soon arrived, while Hotch kept a low profile as he entered the room, going straight to sit between JJ and David.

"So now that we're all here, hang on because it's not going to be pretty. "Garcia began before grabbing the remote control to scroll through the images of the victims.

"A fortnight ago a young, recently married couple were found murdered in their holiday home in Miami. The killer went after the husband, stabbing him about thirty times before cutting off his genitals and ramming them down his throat.

- We have rarely seen anything so horrible ... (Rossi)

- What happened to the bride?" asked Reid.

"Her death was much quicker because he cut her carotid artery in one clean, perfect stroke (Garcia).

- Is there a series of murders for us to be asked to intervene in the case? (Morgan)

- I'm getting to that, dark-haired boy. So, a week ago, in the same suburb, a little further south of Miami, a young couple was found dead in the same way, except this time the husband had been stabbed no less than forty-one times. (Garcia)

- He's escalating, he's starting to lose control (Prentiss)

- His pathology must be very deep for him to be able to strike and gain power so quickly. Usually a killer changes his method and deepens it after the third or fourth murder on average, which must suggest that he suffered a very strong trauma just before the crimes began ... which continues to haunt him ... or a situation that is rapidly worsening. (Reid)

- Emasculating his male victims is a sign of his impotence? (Prentiss)

- We can't rule out the impotent man theory. I imagine that his relentless pursuit of men is simply the result of a hatred fuelled by a problem in himself. (Hotch)

- But then why married couples? Not just men he might have met in a bar or bumped into in the street. He specifically chooses young married couples under the age of 30. (JJ)

- He identifies with them. Our unsub can't be older than 35 in this case. (Rossi)

- We'll continue on the plane. We'll be taking off in thirty minutes, so be ready," Hotch concluded before getting up and leaving the room as stealthily as he had entered it a few minutes earlier.

The flight proceeded normally. All the agents continued to study the file and Hotch finally allocated the tasks to be carried out as soon as they arrived on the scene. Morgan and David would go to the first crime scene, Reid and JJ to the local police station and he and Prentiss to the second. Everyone nodded and tried, some unsuccessfully, to get some rest before landing.

Morgan put his headphones on while Rossi and Reid played a game of chess. JJ went to lie down on the seat at the back of the plane. Prentiss, for her part, watched Reid and Rossi play with great amusement, while glancing at Hotch, sitting alone in the front. Deep down, she couldn't help but protect and watch over her boss, the man who had been her friend, perhaps even more so 10 years ago; but on that last point she wasn't sure. She inevitably noticed the change in Hotch's demeanour as the plane began its descent. He grimaced and his face stiffened. Then he closed his eyes and took her face in his hands. She couldn't move from where she was, that is, trapped in the square by Reid, who was passionate about the move he was going to have to make to finally win the game. Forced to watch only, she swore to herself that she would pay more attention to her boss, because a simple headache could hide something much more serious.

When they landed, the agents dispersed as they should. Prentiss walked straight to the car where Hotch was already waiting behind the wheel.

The journey was silent apart from a few words exchanged about the investigation. The two agents soon arrived at the scene. A sumptuous house surrounded by yellow "crime scene" tape. Prentiss was the first to get down and bend over to avoid the yellow thread which was blowing in the wind.

As she turned to hold the ribbon up to Hotch, she spotted her boss in the distance, still near the car. On closer inspection, he was standing at the door, head down and eyes closed. This was another negative sign for the young woman, who was becoming increasingly worried about her boss's physical condition.

Her thoughts were only confirmed when Hotch decided to move towards the house, but collapsed two metres further on, unconscious, before the panicked eyes of his team-mate.