A/N: Written for the March Madness challenge over at Chit Chat on Author's Corner. My first foray into anything involving JJ, so we'll see what you guys make of it!

Disclaimer: Apart from a newly acquired Series 5 DVD, I got nothing

Pairing: Hotch and JJ
Prompt: Who's The Boss?

It was quite a good dream, by all accounts, and Hotch was sorry to have it disturbed by the shrill ring of his phone. For a moment he kept his eyes shut and hoped that the noise was just another bit of the dream and soon it would stop.

It didn't.

With a sigh, he rolled over and grabbed the offending noisemaker, groaning as his eye fell on the illuminated numbers of the digital clock face. 2:25 am exactly. A brief panic welled inside him when he remembered Jack was staying with Jessica and he checked the caller ID, praying that it wouldn't be her phoning to tell him something was wrong. As JJ's name flashed on the screen, he took a second to let his pounding heart slow down and pressed the green phone, retreating back into the warmth of the bed clothes as he lifted the phone to his ear.

"JJ? What is it?"

The rasp in his voice surprised him and he coughed quickly to clear his throat. She was silent, waiting to him to finish before she spoke.

"Sorry to do this to you, Hotch but we've been called in to a child abduction in LA. They want us there ASAP."

Massaging his forehead slowly, Hotch processed the details silently before he spoke again.

"How long has it been?"

"Three hours."

"That's a great response time," he murmured, almost to himself, "Do we have much to work with?"

"A witness who thinks they might have seen something important and whatever you can get from the previous dump sites."

"Previous?"

"In the last two months, two other twelve year old boys were taken and their bodies dumped thirty one hours later. Local PD are working on the theory it's the same guy."

Throwing back the covers and swinging himself out of bed, Hotch was already padding towards the bathroom when he said, "OK. Call the rest of the team and have them meet at the office as soon as they can get there. I'll phone you again when I'm on my way."

He hung up and threw his phone behind him on to the bed. He splashed some cold water on his face, looking longingly at the shower reflected in the mirror over the sink. They'd only just got back from a case the previous evening and he'd fallen into bed with the intention of showering in the morning instead of having to stay awake for any longer. He gazed at it for a moment longer and then quickly rid himself of his sleepwear, stepping into the cubicle and switching on the water; he was an expert at taking quick showers and it wouldn't delay him that much. They couldn't go anywhere until Dave got to the office anyway and he lived further out than any of them. There was time.

By 3am, he was showered and dressed, with the re-packing of his go –bag taking the longest amount of time. He cursed his disorganisation, trying to block the bizarre mental images he was getting of standing at the abducted boy's funeral and knowing that his unpacked go – bag was the reason they couldn't get to California sooner and rescue him. As he carefully folded his last clean shirt, he promised himself that he would never again relax after a case until he was sure that he could leave for the next one in an instant.

Pausing to set the security alarm that he hadn't quite been able to shake the habit of having, he took a last glance around and grabbed his keys, running out to the car and throwing the bag and his suit jacket into the passenger seat. The roads were always quiet this early in the morning and he drove quickly with one hand on the wheel, the other dialling JJ. She picked up after only two rings.

"Hotch?"

"JJ. I'm just leaving now. I'll be there in twenty minutes. Can you phone the pilot and tell him to have the jet ready for 4 am? That should give everyone enough time to meet and for us to get to the airstrip."

"Sure thing," she said brightly, her voice far too chirpy for the ridiculous hour, "And don't call again unless you're on the hands free."

"I beg your pardon?" he asked guiltily, eyeing the innocuous phone cradle on the dash and practically feeling the weight of the neglected ear piece in his shirt pocket.

"I can tell when you're not using it," she said matter of factly, "And if you're predicting an ETA of twenty minutes from now, you're driving far too fast to only be using one hand. Stay safe, Hotch."

And she was gone before he had a chance to reply. With a small smile, he slotted the phone into the cradle and fitted the receiver into his ear. It had become a recent quest of JJ's to have the team – especially certain male members of the team – use hands free devices more when they were driving. She'd won with Prentiss and Reid, but the three alpha males were proving tougher nuts to crack. Hotch knew that she would never believe him capable of such a thing, but part of the reason he kept 'forgetting' to use his was because it irritated her so much when he didn't. She'd expect something like that from Derek and even from Dave, but never from him.

And that was half the fun.

He was over halfway to the office by the time he saw another vehicle on the road – an ambulance that screamed past him, heading in the opposite direction. Any good cheer he had been nursing after his last call to JJ seemed to evaporate with the fading sound of the sirens and his mind strayed to the missing boy. JJ had said he was twelve, which meant that he was more than double Jack's age, but that had never stopped him making the connection before. He hated cases that involved children more than anything else, and whilst that wasn't entirely due to having Jack, his son certainly didn't help matters. The day JJ had told him she was pregnant, during the madness in New York, one of his first thoughts had been, to his shame, entirely selfish.

"Thank God it's not just me."

With a sigh, he pressed the number two speed dial on his phone. JJ answered almost as quickly as before in the same cheerful tone.

"JJ, it's me."

"Hands free. Very good," she quipped, "What do you need?"

"I'm about halfway there. I should be about another ten minutes. If Garcia gets there before me, I need you to ask her to start pulling files on unsolved child abductions and murders in LA. Go back ten years and look for anything that seems to match any details of this case you haven't told me yet. You know the drill by now."

"Sure thing," she replied, and he heard the rustle of paper in the background, probably as she picked up the file for another read through, "Anything else?"

"That's it, thank you. Are any of the others there yet?"

There was a brief pause before she answered, as though she was actually performing a head count, "Yes."

"OK. Well, like I said, I won't be long. See you soon."

Exactly ten minutes later, Hotch pulled into his favourite parking space, grabbed his bag and headed towards the elevator. The security guard on the main gate had shot him a sleepy looking smile as he raised the barrier but had said nothing; the man had seen them all enough at random times of night to not even need to check their credentials anymore. The elevator seemed to climb slower towards the BAU, as though it knew that it was night, and Hotch watched the numbers impatiently until they finally hit the right floor.

The rest of the team was already in the briefing room when he entered it, and if he had got a little more sleep, he probably would have realised it was rather odd they should all have beat him there. Instead, he fell into the spare seat and gratefully accepted the coffee JJ handed him.

"Good morning," Dave grimaced, his hands clasped around his own mug, "Lovely time of day for it."

"Mmm," Hotch agreed, sipping his coffee, "OK. I know that the rest of you don't know much about this case yet but we're not going to hang around here talking. We can sleep for a couple of hours and brief before we get there. Agreed?"

The nods around the table were all he needed as he eyed each face displaying that slightly bewildered look of the sleep deprived. They felt even less like talking than he did. All except JJ, that is. She looked as calm and composed as always, leaning against the coffee table in the corner, her hand resting on a stack of files that Hotch saw but didn't really acknowledge. He drained his coffee and stood up.

"Right. I asked the plane to be ready for four, but if we head off now it might be early and we can go. Reid, you take Dave, Prentiss and Morgan. You look the most awake of them all. JJ can come with me once we've seen Garcia. Let's go."

As the team stood up and moved out of the room, Hotch failed to notice the lack of argument on Dave's part for being driven – an argument that he should have expected – and he only saw the look JJ shot towards the retreating form of the oldest team member. It was what he privately called her 'fighting' look and he wondered what Dave had done to piss her off that morning.

"OK, JJ. Let's get going. I think I'll make sleeping on the plane an order."

Shrugging into her jacket, she smirked, "You're the boss."