This is the opening story in an increasingly angsty cycle,

Jason and Aaron: a Tragedy in Four Acts. Each "Act" has four scenes.

The four "Acts" will be:

It's All Context

Does Not Play Well With Others

A Boy Called "Loser"

When the Great Ship Went Down

Only the fourth act occurs during the period broadcast on the TV series, beginning at S01-E01 and ending at S03-E03.

Scenes II and IV of the first act are an expanded and tweaked version of "Fourth Time for Everything." If you're in search of the larger picture of Gideon/Hotchner back story, "It's All Context" should suit you. If you're looking primarily for slash, go with the original.

Act One

It's All Context

Scene I: The Interview

Jason Gideon

December, 1997

The first new thing he learned about his latest interviewee was that he was a looker.

It was a stone fact. Alberta generally just pointed guys down the hall toward Behavioral Sciences with verbal directions, turn here, turn there. Not lookers, though. Prime husband material on the hoof always got a personal escort direct to Dave Rossi's or his office, and Alberta was bringing this one along herself on a very short leash, so to speak.

Jason Gideon, currently highest ranking member of Behavioral Sciences, flipped open the newcomer's CV and reviewed it one last time. On first seeing it, he had read it as a glib hard-sell. Guy seemed to have done everything and done it well. A quick double-check of this Hotchner kid's claims, however, had proved that everything there was literal truth. Second in his class. Assorted academic honors. ROTC, National Guard, JAG corps.

Sucked up by Department of Justice, originally as a warrants specialist, but he wanted to do trial law, prosecution. When someone gave him a break, he ran with it. An impressive conviction rate, considering that he hadn't done the usual primadonna pick-and-choose bit with his cases. They gave him cases, and he tried them. The most surprising aspect that was not his win-loss record, but that he had one, count them, only one reversal on appeal. It was a remarkable record to amass fresh out of the gate.

A knock, solid, but not aggressive. Gideon found that he could tell a lot about a man from the way he knocked on a door.

"Come on in," he said in a distracted tone.

Oh, good gods, yes, Alberta was all but drooling, and he could see why. Tall, dark, slender, intense, but with thick, boyishly goofy hair that he seemed incapable of keeping off his forehead. What Gideon's mother had always called Cherokee cheekbones. Eyelashes a person could practically fall over.

"Agent Hotchner," Gideon said, rising.

"Yes, sir." he offered a firm, dry handshake, a quick and confident smile, then reverted to all business.

Lord help me, he has dimples, too. Thank god we have no women in the division. Not a one of them would be able to concentrate. We'd be mopping the chairs.

"Thank you, Ms O'Hara," Gideon said to Alberta, who still hung back, covertly devouring Gideon's potential replacement for Tillotson with her eyes. He glared. She sighed and retreated to her receptionist's desk.

When she was gone, he indicated the only other chair in his office. Hotchner sat down and waited quietly. His eyes flickered around the room – not much of a challenge, since it was an eight-by-four office, less than the living space allotted to many felons. [The move to new quarters in the new building in the spring could not happen fast enough for the Behavioral Sciences people] Gideon watched his eyes track with interest. They rested momentarily In all the right spots.

Smart. Observant. Analytical.

Aaron Hotchner, age thirty-one, was a product of the previous year's FBI classes. A little old for a newbie. Perhaps more importantly, he had taken a substantial pay cut to sign on as an agent.

"So tell me," Gideon said, "what's up with you and the Bureau?"

An elegant eyebrow arched. Good god, even with the wedding ring on his finger, this kid would be pure catnip to the ladies. Not particularly graceful. A little stiff, a little buttoned-up, but he radiated energy, power, and good breeding.

"I got hooked," he said. Nice baritone voice. "I was fortunate enough to be tangentially involved with the Shawcross trial, and more recently, a member of the DoJ team that provided advice and support to Canadian prosecutors prior to the Bernardo trial. The more I saw the art of profiling in action, the more I was fascinated. Eventually I was reading everything I could get my hands on and took every course you offered. The next natural step seemed to be to join the FBI."

"You seem attracted to, ah, additional training. You've completed Hostage Rescue Team training through Advanced level."

"Yes, sir."

"Use it much?"

"Not at present, sir, although the negotiating skills generalized into courtroom skills," he replied. "The physical stuff, mainly it prepared me for SWAT training."

"And you took SWAT why?"

Hotchner shrugged. "I wanted to be less of a drawback if I were on scene. It also helped me better to understand the problems and perspectives of law enforcement personnel so I could bring out whatever I needed when they were on the stand."

Rossi will love this guy; he doesn't split infinitives.

"And you're – intermediate at SWAT?"

"Advanced at the tactical end of it." A modest duck of his head. "I still have a lot to learn on the physical side."

The Bureau, in spite of popularity of movies like Silence of the Lambs, was still jammed with hulking physical types. It was principally females who seemed drawn to profiling, hoping to emulate the fictional Agent Starling, although Gideon had yet to find a female who could handle the unrelieved horrors of the job over the long haul. An intellectually-oriented guy who wasn't afraid to get in and mix it up when he had to could be a distinct asset to the division.

Gideon leaned back carefully in his ancient swivel chair. "So, tell me: What can't you do?"

"Professionally?"

"And personally."

His brows knit briefly. "Professionally, I'm a good shot, but hand-to-hand – well, I'm a work in progress. Personally, I can come off as distant and arrogant."

"And are you?"

Hotchner considered that. "I don't warm to people very quickly, so, yes, probably 'distant' has some truth to it. I'd like to think that I'm more confident than I am arrogant, but I may be wrong. Or maybe it's one of those things that fluctuate day to day."

"Anything else?"

"Sir, I'm sure that there's a whole list, but I didn't prep on that question. If you'd like, I can call my wife. She's in charge of cataloging my shortcomings."

Sense of humor so dry it took me a moment to figure out that he was kidding. Time to take a little shot.

"And you don't think that chirping 'Sir' at me every few seconds doesn't connote a certain distance?"

That one took him by surprise. A bit of pink appeared in his cheeks, and he lowered his head for a few seconds. Finally, he said, in a very soft voice, "It wasn't intended that way, sir." As that last word echoed in the tiny office, he bit his lip and grimaced, then he turned it smoothly to his own advantage. He met Gideon's eyes with a wry grin and said, "I don't wind up under the scrutiny of a living legend every day, sir."

Ohh, good god, yes – this boy is just as slick as snot.

"This is a high stress, high-intensity division, and the hours are brutal," Gideon said. "We have more turnover than most of the other sections of the Bureau. What assurances can you give me that you won't fold under pressure and waste the time and resources it will take to complete your training?"

That eyebrow again. "Sir, I'm also ambitious. High turnover provides more opportunities for early promotions." He drew a breath and backed down a little on the intensity, but maintained that aura of directness and candor. "By the time I left Albany, I was handling all the RICO cases in the region. I understand frustration and risk and impossible hours. I don't back down and I don't give up."

"Your father was an attorney."

"Yes, sir. Defense attorney in Richmond, Virginia."

"Did you ever consider the defense side of the aisle?"

"No, sir." His face was almost unreadable – to anyone but Jason Gideon. To him it was obvious that Hotchner had some major daddy-issues. Upholding the law was his avenue of rebellion.

"Tell me about your wife."

"Her name's Haley, she's sixteen months younger than I am. We met in high school but it didn't really take off until college. We've been married now for four years."

"Do you have any pictures?"

"Certainly." Hotchner reached into his jacket and withdrew his billfold. He opened it up to two pictures. One was a candid shot of a delicate, sophisticated blonde with almost-almond eyes glowing in a sweet, somewhat feline little face.

The other picture had clearly been intended as a formal portrait of the couple, Aaron in black tie and his goofy hair, and Haley in a shimmering scarlet gown with a black velvet choker, one diamond-encircled ruby at her throat. What made the effect so enchanting was that their eyes tracked toward each other's, rather than toward the camera, and they both looked as if they had been laughing before and were about to laugh again.

A devastatingly beautiful couple, and the fact that they had chosen that particular shot, rather than one more serious and traditional, spoke volumes about their relationship.

"What's her family like?"

"Her father's retired Richmond homicide. Her mother's a middle-school principal."

"Any plans for children?"

"Not at this time, sir. Maybe someday down the road, but we're still establishing ourselves and our lives. Looking for a little stability."

He probably doesn't want children. His wife definitely doesn't want children.

Good god. All this, and daddy-issues, too.

He's bound to wash out, but I have to give him a try. I just have to.