Even Darkness Must Pass

by safe.from.harm

The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places. But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater.

A/N: Quotes are from the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King screenplay (not J.R.R. Tolkien); summary is from Tolkien.

Reid looked at Hotch; the older man's face was pale and taut and he was holding himself still with inflexible precision. The quote, neither Sartre or Aristotle, came to Reid suddenly, and he spoke without really thinking, not looking at his superior.

"It's like in the great stories," he began, very softly. He was probably the only member of the team that knew that Hotch would understand the reference. "The ones that really mattered... full of darkness and danger, they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy?" He looked up; Hotch was watching him with an unreadable expression on his face, what Prentiss termed a non-expression. "How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?"

Hotch flung open the doors of the SUV and Reid followed; the older man stared at the house in front of them, completely encircled by police officers and, somewhere, the rest of the team. Without looking at Reid, he said, quietly, "But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow... even darkness must pass."

They drew their guns, and began to walk.