*Author's Note: Set during 4.16: Pleasure Is My Business. The four lines of dialogue between Megan Kane and Hotch are not my own, but rather those of Breen Frazier, who wrote the episode.*

"We're taught to expect unconditional love from our parents, but I think it is more the gift our children give us. It's they who love us helplessly, no matter what or who we are." ~Kathryn Harrison

When Haley was pregnant with Jack, she read a lot of books on early childhood and development. The only one that Aaron ever remembered was one that discussed how a fetus could tell whether or not it was wanted or loved by its mother, because it could detect spikes in stress hormones. There were many other terrifying statistics, and Aaron had realized that one could possibly damage a child's psyche before the child was even born. Haley had teased him for how he spoke so softly when he was around her, for the way he tried to avoid fights during her pregnancy, for his odd neurotic care, because of this book. However, when she wasn't teasing him, she was quietly reassuring him that all would be well, he would be a wonderful father.

He had always asked her how she knew such a thing—because in all honesty, the frightening truth about parenthood was that you weren't ever fully certain that you had what it takes (at least not until it was too late, not until you had your own children and spent your entire life raising them and loving them and worrying over them, not until it was all said and done, and even then the verdict lies beyond reach or comprehension, because what you did and how your children remembered it weren't always the same thing). She had simply smiled and said that she just knew, because in some ways, he already was a father—to his brother, to other family members, to his team, to random strangers who received his kindness and his compassion without merit or request.

Haley's words had made him love her even more, but it hadn't truly eased the nervousness—so many old issues came rushing to the fore, so many childhood scars, remembrances of his own father and his failings, fears of history repeating, the white-hot panicked realization that he had no healthy example of what fatherhood looked like.

Some days, he knew that he repeated the mistakes of his father—he traveled too much, he worked too late, he missed bedtimes and soccer games and school plays, he always left his family to answer the call of the BAU. But some days—when he felt the warmth and weight of Jack's much-smaller hand in his, on a walk to the park, or when he spent the evening curled up with Jack's favorite book, looking down to see his son fast asleep as he remained tucked into his father's side, or when he spent a sleepy Sunday morning puttering around the kitchen with a tiny assistant chef whose smile seemed brighter than the sun—he realized that perhaps he wasn't doing too bad. Perhaps there were enough good moments to outweigh his absences.

And some days, like today, as he sat next to a young woman who had gone on a murderous rampage simply to garner her father's attention and affection, he realized that he truly hadn't made any irrevocable mistakes. Jack was still young and there was still time. No one could ever predict how their child's life would pan out, but Aaron Hotchner could at least guarantee that his son knew that he was loved, and that his father truly would do anything to protect him. He wasn't always there physically, but even when he wasn't home, he was emotionally with his son at all times. And even though Jack was still so young, Aaron had tried his best to explain this to Jack, to make him understand the difference, to make him understand the depth of his father's love.

As he looked into Megan Kane's soulful eyes, he hoped that it counted for something.

His mind continued mulling over fathers and failings and the love of children as he held Megan's hand, as she quietly gave her last confessional. Despite her crimes, he felt a pang of pity for this woman-child who had spent her life pining for fatherly acceptance without ever receiving a second thought from the one man who could have prevented this entire situation, if only he'd deigned to be a father to his own child.

"You're the first man I ever met who didn't let me down." She was speaking again, her voice still somehow bordering between hopefulness and pleading as she shakily asked, "Will you stay with me?"

"Yes."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

Aaron Hotchner's grip reflexively tightened around Megan Kane's already-cold fingers as he tried to simply be there for her in her last moments. It wasn't going to be pretty, but he would look her in the eye until her vision faded—he would give her that much, he would give her the small comfort of truly being seen, perhaps for the first (and definitely for the last) time in her life.

Megan suddenly looked so much smaller, so much younger—big eyes wide with fear and hurt and sadness, body slowly retreating inward as it began to succumb to the effects of the poison—and not for the first time in this line of work, Aaron Hotchner realized just how easy it was to empathize with someone who had killed so many in cold blood.

Her grasp tightened as her body began to convulse, her perfectly-manicured nails biting into the flesh of his palm as she gave her last fight for life. Her nails dug deeper, but the shaking stopped, and one last mighty breath slipped from her body—a breath that sounded so full and final, the sound the angel of death made as it slipped from underneath the doors of the Egyptians during the tenth plague, the sound of the wind as it carried onward, the sound of large and powerful wings pushing back into the sky. Megan's eyes were still locked onto Hotch's, but they were cold and dark.

There was a light shuffle from inside the hotel room, and Hotch knew that Morgan had been quietly waiting until Megan was gone to get back to business.

"Here's the contact list," Hotch kept his tone cool, unaffected, professional (as usual, as was required and expected, as was necessary for this line of work).

Morgan gave a slight nod as he took the SIM card, lightly flipping it over with his fingertips as he informed his supervisor, "They've got Andrew Kane downstairs, in the garage. He has Megan's phone."

Hotch couldn't stop himself from reaching forward to gently close Megan's eyes.

"The forensic team's on their way up," Morgan's voice was soft, lined with a concern that he couldn't fully express. Something about this case was hitting his supervisor harder than usual, and it always worried him when Hotch got this withdrawn and quiet.

Hotch nodded again, rising to his feet and taking a deep breath as he looked out at the skyline.

"Y'Okay?" Morgan finally spoke again, though the tone of his voice implied that he already knew the answer and that the answer was the exact opposite of the question.

"I need to call Jack," Hotch admitted.

Morgan made a small sound of understanding—he'd figured that the whole fathers-and-children aspect of this case had been what was hitting him, but Hotch's statement had just confirmed his suspicions.

"Let the rest of the team know that we'll be heading back to Quantico as soon as possible—you and I will have to stop by the police station to give official statements, but other than that, I see no reason for us to stay." Hotch slipped back into his usual no-nonsense air as he walked out of the room, head bent as he punched buttons on his phone, his mind already back with a small boy in Virginia, where his heart always stayed.

His mind drifted to his own father—he empathized with Megan on a deeper level than usual, because she reminded Aaron of both himself and his son, at the same time. In an odd twist, parenthood was both easier and harder than expected, simply due to the fact that children seemed to be genetically predisposed to love their parents with a whole-hearted, all-encompassing blind trust that held out against insurmountable odds. It was a love given without coercion or reason of any kind, a love not based on merit or worthiness, a love that was deep and unconditional and almost-painful (at least when that love seemed unrequited, when that love was rewarded with only coldness or cruelty, kisses for blows).

The selfless love of a child was both a blessing and a curse, a promise you could never fully keep, a heart waiting to be broken by reality and human flaws, a gift with so many unspoken strings attached—and though Aaron Hotchner strove with every fiber of his being to be somehow worthy of his son's love, his own father had had no compunction about cutting those strings, breaking that heart and that promise just as easily as breathing.

He understood Megan's angst, much better than he wanted to. Sure, being able to get inside the UNSUB's head was a vital skill in his line of work, but sometimes it was…too easy.

"Haley, I know it's late," he was speaking quickly, before his estranged wife had a chance to cut him off. "I just…I need to speak to Jack."

"Aaron, he's already in bed—"

"I know, and I'm sorry, but…I really need to speak to him."

Haley could obviously hear all the things that Aaron couldn't say aloud (not now, not yet, not to her, not while they were in this strange and uncertain place in their relationship), because her tone softened as she whispered, "OK. Hold on."

He heard the muffled sounds of Haley moving, and he pictured her padding down the hall in her bare feet, the phone lightly pressed against her collarbone (the place he'd kissed and tasted a thousand times, the place he might not ever kiss again—the realization was like a stab to his already-battered heart) as she entered their son's room. He could hear the soft cadence of her voice, the voice she always and only used with Jack, indiscernible words as she gently woke him.

"Daddy?" An adorably groggy voice came on the line, and Aaron couldn't help but smile as he imagined the sleepy scrunched-up expression of his son.

"Hey, buddy." His throat tightened with emotion again. "I just wanted to call and say that I missed you."

"When are you coming home?"

"Tonight."

"So you'll be here when I wake up?"

Aaron had to hesitate at that question, trying to be as honest as possible, gently answering, "I'm not sure. I need to talk to Mommy about it first."

"Did you catch another bad guy?"

"Yes. I did." He didn't like discussing work with Haley or Jack, but at this point, he'd talk about anything, so long as his son was talking back to him.

A movement down the hall caught his eye, and he looked up to see Derek Morgan, who was motioning for him to rejoin the forensic team.

"Look, buddy, I've gotta get back to work. I love you."

"I love you, too, Daddy."

"Be good for Mom."

"I will. I promise."

Haley's voice returned, surprisingly amused as she asked, "Did I just hear you two making breakfast plans for tomorrow?"

"If it's alright with you," he tried to keep his tone neutral.

"Of course it is," her tone softened again (she never wanted to keep him from his son, she never wanted to be the bad guy in this situation, and she hated how her own husband danced around her as if she might explode over something as simple as being able to see his child).

"Thank you," Aaron felt his throat tightening again, but he tried to rein in his emotions.

"See you tomorrow, then," Haley tried to infuse playful optimism into her words, but it was obviously forced and only made the moment more painful.

"See you tomorrow," Aaron repeated before hanging up (he wanted to say I love you, but he didn't, because he knew that Haley didn't want to hear that right now, because things were already confusing and awkward and he wouldn't stress her any more than he already had, because he always put her needs and emotions before his own, even when she didn't realize it), tucking his cellphone back into his pocket as he returned to the darker world of work.

Again, he thought of his own father—a military man, a mountain of few words, whose main concern seemed to be "toughening up" his two sons. Aaron's aunt (his father's sister) had once quietly told him that his father wasn't always so cold and quiet (he changed, after the war—he came back from Korea and it was like he was a whole different person, wouldn't even talk about why), but sadly, he was by the time Aaron and Sean came along. After Aaron was fully grown, with many years of distance between the past and his pain, he realized that perhaps his father's harshness was an attempt to prepare his sons for a world that didn't truly exist—a world that he experienced in a land far away, a land where conscience was a weakness, where a second's hesitation could get you killed, where being mentally and emotionally hardened was the only way to survive.

Parenting was always a gamble. It always took more than you expected, in ways that you never even imagined, and not everyone could handle the pressure. Some fathers physically abandoned their children, some just abandoned their offspring emotionally, some hit their children, some only used verbal abuse, some truly tried and still failed.

His father definitely fit into several of those categories—but perhaps, he also fit into the final category as well.

It was too late to ask. Time and distance and memory had created a veneer that could never be cracked—everything was muted and changed by perception, and a true reality (which was needed to gauge the answer of such a delicate and uncertain question) was so far removed that it could never be retrieved again.

In that moment—standing in a hotel in Dallas, hands tucked into his pockets as he nodded in agreement with Morgan's assessment to the lead forensic investigator—Aaron Hotchner forgave his father. Not completely, but just enough. Just enough to feel a little less guilty about his own abilities as a father, just enough to feel as if he might have made a vital step in his own recovery, just enough to feel as if perhaps he could eventually be able to view his childhood with something less than the usual pain.

It wasn't the end of the journey, but it certainly was a start.

Another step on this strange road was going back to the police station and providing his final official statement on Megan Kane. He couldn't (wouldn't) excuse her actions or condone the murders of these men or discount her victims in any way, but he would treat her with dignity, even after death. He would tell her story, as best he could—he would try to make the world understand why she did these horrible things, how her childhood shaped her future, how she wasn't created in a vacuum. He would not turn her into a heroine, but he wouldn't paint her as a villain, either. It was the least and the most that he could do.

Once the forensic team was fully engaged in their respective tasks, Morgan and Hotch headed back to the police station to give their statements. Morgan was oddly silent on the elevator ride, but Hotch was grateful for the quiet chance to collect his thoughts.

However, Morgan broke his silence once they were back in the SUV.

"Y'Okay?"

It was the second time that he'd asked the question, but Hotch didn't mind. This time, his answer was different, and this time, he could answer truthfully as he gave a small, slow nod, "I am, actually."

He meant it. Every word. An odd peacefulness filled his chest at the realization.

He was OK. Perhaps even better than OK. He was healing.

"Parenthood...It's about guiding the next generation, and forgiving the last." ~Peter Krause