NO GOOD DEED || S. REID

3.19

FOUR MONTHS. It had been four months since Katharine had last seen any of her friends, and more importantly, it's been four months since she had seen Spencer.

Skype was a Godsend, allowing the two of them to stay in contact even with the seven-thousand, six-hundred and ninety miles between them. Though the connection was sometimes shoddy and her call time was to be split with Hotch, she valued every moment she even got to talk to Spencer.

Then, of course, there was inevitable bonding that happened between Katharine and her boss. If she didn't see him as a surrogate father figure before, she definitely saw it now. Even out in the hot drylands of the desert, he was there for her. Anything she needed, whether it be a shoulder to cry on or a speech to hype her up, he was there.

She'd come to appreciate the man who truly had stepped up to the plate even when he didn't need to.

They had just returned from the field, tired and sweaty as usual. Katharine had retired to the tent for a brief nap while Hotch stepped outside to take a call. She was wiping the dirt and grime from her face with one of the moist towelettes she had been sent by Garcia in their latest care package.

"Fucking disgusting," she muttered to herself as she dropped the dirtied cloth cleanser into the bin they had been supplied. She unclipped her utility belt from around her waist sighing in relief as the restricting strip of leather fell from her body.

She yanked the end of her shirt up to view the hot-to-the-touch imprints that the leather had left there. Katharine reached over for the bottle of lotion when Hotch came back into the tent, heading straight for his bags. Katharine watched as he started packing things away, which made Katharine stop in her tracks.

"Uh," she said, her shirt half-way up her stomach and a glob of lotion in her hand. "Anything you wanna tell me?"

She rubbed the soothing lotion into her skin, not caring if her boss was in the same room as her. Four months living under the same tarp together really redefined social and personal boundaries for the two of them.

"That was Morgan," he said, moving to the desk that had been set up and rearranging some of the files. He flipped through the folder in his hand before deciding that he didn't need that one. "They found Doyle."

Katharine dropped her shirt and wiped her hand off on the towel that hung off one of the posts of her cot.

"They found who?" she asked, getting up from her bed and retucking her shirt into her pants.

"Doyle," he said, crossing back to his own cot. "I'm heading back tonight. Uh, I didn't tell them you were coming back because I didn't want to make that decision for you but you can... If you want to, that is."

Katharine stopped him in his tracks, blocking him from getting back to his desk.

"Wait," she said, holding her hands up and pushing him back slightly. "What about the taskforce? Are they just gonna let us go back?"

"I'm still the unit chief of the BAU," Hotch said, taking her by her shoulders and physically moving her to the side. "Now, you can either stay here or come with me. I won't force you to do either."

Katharine crossed her arms.

"You're crazy if you think I'm letting you guys deal with Doyle on your own," she said, pulling open one of her drawers and grabbing the phone she kept on her in case of emergency. She typed a few words into a message, letting Nina know to dispatch a Quinjet to her location. When she got the response she wanted, she tucked the phone into her back pocket. "A Quinjet will be here in less than an hour. That should give us enough time to pack."