1. An Awkward Encounter.
The desk in front of him seemed to be overflowing with paperwork, manila folders piled up as high as they could go right before his eyes, and all he had done was take a long weekend to be with Jack. Sighing, Aaron Hotchner sat down gingerly in his seat, and started pulling the folders towards him, hoping to make sense of everything before everyone else walked in. The words on the papers seemed to be blur, and even as he tried to wake himself up by drinking his coffee, nothing seemed to do the trick. Eventually giving up, Hotch pushed the folder away from him, and turned to look at the photographs on his desk instead. There were so many of Jack that without even profiling him, you instantly knew that he was the only thing that really mattered to him; especially after Haley.
The wounds from that were still raw, and although he tried not to let it affect his work, he was always conscious of the way that Prentiss looked at him, as though he was about to lose it any day. That wasn't entirely true, because Hotch didn't like to show that he was losing it, that was something that he kept completely to himself, as far away from the office as he possibly could. As his fingers brushed against an old photo of Jack and Haley, a small smile crossed flitted across his lips, making him ache all over again. The smile vanished as quickly as it had come as Hotch forced himself to get back to business, and pulled all of the files back towards him and made a conscious effort to get through them.
There were still so many of the folders that he hadn't touched, but as people began to rush along the corridor outside his office, Hotch realised that everyone else was arriving. Glancing up from the papers as a knock sounded upon the door, JJ held up another folder.
"We've got a case." She said grimly.
"All right, get everyone together; assuming that they're all there." He replied, and rose to his feet carefully.
"Everyone except Morgan, but he said that he'd be a few minutes late this morning anyway."
"We can start without him if we need to." Following her out of his office, Hotch closed the door behind him, and followed her down the stairs into the conference room just as Morgan came into the bullpen.
"Case?" He called, and followed them immediately as JJ nodded in response to his words.
By the time everyone was settled in the conference room, and JJ had started the projector, Hotch forced himself back into business mode. He had had a really lazy weekend, but now that he was here, he had to separate those two worlds all over again. It was a ritual that he seemed to go through each and every day, and yet somehow, it never got any easier no matter how many times he had forced himself to do it.
"In the past three weeks, ten women have mysteriously disappeared from hospitals all over Virginia. Last night, the body of the third woman, Sara Dawes was found in a creek bed. She was stabbed thirty-seven times, her hair had been hacked at, and there were obvious signs of a needle in her arm. There was also signs that she had been raped within the past week." Clicking the remote, JJ brought up the body, ignoring the obvious horrendous acts that had been committed.
"Was she a junkie?" Morgan's question made sense, but as he stared at the body of the dead woman, Hotch shook his head.
"No, she was a mother. A young one at that, and she was married. The tan line on her finger shows that the ring had been taken off. Whether it was stolen or whether she was divorced still remains to be seen, but if she was a junkie, there would be more signs of needle marks, and there's only one." Leaning over the desk, Hotch pulled the rest of the pieces of paper towards him. "Good news is that we don't need the jet, so you'll all be able to home to your own beds tonight. We'd better get going though. Rossi, you and JJ go to the creek where the victim was dumped, Prentiss go with them, and the rest of us will go to the hospital and see what we can find out from the doctors that treated her." Gathering everything together, Hotch stood up, and headed towards the door. Another case; another day.
It still wasn't enough, to sit there are stare at the blank walls of the hospital four years after being there last. It would have been simply cruel if someone had placed her in the exact same room that she had been in last time, but even she didn't believe in things like that. Depression can do a lot of things to a woman, but Elle Greenaway had simply never thought that she would be back here after a break in. She had been in the FBI for heavens sake; how could she have been robbed and not really defended herself? It was a question that she seemed to ask herself every hour for the past two days. The doctor had said that she could go home in another day or two, but she didn't want that. "Elle?"
It was uncertain voice that interrupted her thoughts, and as she lifted her head slightly, brushing a few strands of brown hair out of her eyes, Elle gasped. Standing there, uncertainly in the doorway of her room was Aaron Hotchner. Could this even be real? Swallowing, she forced a weak smile, and shrugged.
"Hi, Hotch."
This was definitely someone's idea of a sick joke. In all the years that she had been away from the BAU, and Hotch, and he still had the ability to make her feel as though she was a somewhat naughty child waiting to be punished by her teacher who never smiled, or looked as though he was even having a good time. There was so much that seemed to have changed with him, but she wasn't quite sure what to do or say; it had been a long time since she had really seen him.
"What happened?" Hotch was still standing in the doorway, and as she bit down on the inside of her cheek, Elle unconsciously began to do something that she was afraid that she had forgotten to do: profile.
He was uncertain; staring at her as though he could hardly believe that it was really her (perhaps he was afraid that if he moved she wouldn't be there anymore; or that she was a figment of his over-active imagination). His hand was clutching the door, which suggested that he wanted to move forward but he wasn't sure that it was something that she would be receptive to. His eyes were harder than they had been all those years ago, which led Elle to believe that there was something going on in his head that he really didn't want to deal with. He had spoken her name as though it were a question, something that rarely if ever happened, which made her realise once and for all that he honestly didn't know if what he was seeing was real, or whether or not it was happening inside of his head.
"Break and enter. Some punk kid tried to knick my DVD player and attacked me in my sleep. They're just minor injuries, nothing worth fussing over really, I've had worse…" She let her words hang in the air, a little unsure about continuing on the topic of her shooting. The scar was still there, and whenever she looked down at it, it reminded her of so many different things, things that she wasn't even sure she wanted to think about anymore, but she still dreamed about it.
"Did they catch him?" Shifting awkwardly, Hotch moved his hand away from the door, which made Elle suppress a smile; it was just the move that she had anticipated that he would make. This was really no fun, he didn't seem to have anything to say that would shock the living daylights out of her.
"Uh, no, not really. It doesn't matter though. What are you doing here?"
It was a question that she had been longing to ask from the moment that she had first seen him standing there in the doorway, yet she wasn't really sure that she wanted to know what it was that he was doing there; surely another agent hadn't been shot and left for dead had they? That would have been a real disaster.
"Just a new case." He shifted uncomfortably, and as he did so, Elle bit down on her bottom lip, and turned away from him.
"I guess you should get back to the team, then…" She trailed off, and as she did so, another lock of hair fell back into her face as she glanced up at him again.
"Yeah, I guess so. It was nice seeing you again…I hope you get better soon, Elle."
He was gone before she had a chance to reply to him, but she knew, even before she had asked the question that he would get the last word, and what was more, it left her feeling more alone and confused than ever. Seeing Hotch again was awkward, Elle was only pleased that it wasn't Gideon, his Christmas cards were enough for her to deal with, and she never sent him one in return; not that she could have if she wanted to; he never left the return address on the envelope.
As he walked away from her room, Hotch shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, his eyebrows furrowing slightly. That had been the most awkward conversation that he had ever had with Elle, even before she left the BAU, and for some reason in troubled him. It had been a shock to run into her in the hospital in the first place, he'd never really given a thought to the idea that someone else would be able to hurt her so badly that she'd end up in the hospital once more. Running a hand though his hair, Hotch sighed, and sat down on the nearest seat that he could find, his thoughts suddenly on Elle Greenaway; something that he hadn't allowed himself to do since she left the BAU. He'd promised himself that once she was gone, the guilt would stop; that she'd really done the right thing by leaving, but still, he couldn't help himself. What a day this one was turning out to be, that's for sure.
"Hey Hotch, Prentiss thinks that they found something on the scene, we'd better get over there and see what it is." Morgan's voice startled Hotch out of his thoughts and back to reality, and as he glanced up at him, Hotch remembered that they had a case on hand; he couldn't allow himself the luxury of a nostalgic trip down some unpleasant memories, he needed to concentrate solely on what was going on around him.
"Lead the way." Standing up, Hotch steeled himself carefully, and followed Morgan as they walked in the opposite direction to the room that he had stumbled across Elle in; thankfully. That was one thing that he didn't quite want to share with the team just yet.