AN: Written for the Writers Anonymous 10 Year Challenge, and betaed by the lovely Annber.
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"You speak of destiny as if it was fixed."
― Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass
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Hotch follows behind JJ, watching her closely as she clears the room. Her movements are, as always, practised and controlled. In the years he's worked with her, he's seen her evolve from a bright, bubbly media liaison into a strong, efficient agent without ever losing touch with her humanity.
He envies her for her ease of smiling. She can still switch off and go home to be a mother, a wife. She can leave the ghosts of their work behind her.
He goes home to a house that echoes, every corner filled with spectres from his past. Haley, Gideon, Foyet. His failures weigh him down. They etch their mark into every line on his face, written in indelible ink for everyone to see.
These days he can feel the eyes of his team on him, watching and judging. They can see him losing control. He knows that they talk about him when he isn't there, whispered conversations that cease when he enters the room as their concerned eyes lock onto him.
He closes his eyes for a moment. His hands are slippery with sweat on his gun. How can he be an effective team leader if his team doesn't trust him to lead?
How can he expect his team to trust him when he doesn't even trust himself?
He thinks of the resignation letter carefully hidden in his desk drawer, the letter that was becoming an obsession for him always at the back of his mind. The one he'd written out over and over again and put aside every time.
His work is his life but can he justify putting his team in danger in the field just because he can't let go?
A shout cuts through his whirlwind thoughts. He sprints forward towards JJ's familiar cry of "FBI! Put your weapon down!"
He's a pace behind her and she's a moment too slow when the man turns and fires at them. Hotch pushes her aside, hearing her hit the wall with a sharp exhale of breath, before he takes out the unsub calmly with three shots to the chest.
There's a wet trickle of something on his collarbone and an intense burning on his throat and he isn't surprised when he runs his hand over it and brings away a palm sticky with blood. Shock, he knows. Reid could tell him more. If he survives this, he'll ask him. JJ puts her hands against his chest and lowers him to the ground.
The bullet missed his vest by inches, he notes dully. He can feel the hot rush of blood pouring the wound and down his chest. The world around him narrows to a hazy image of JJ watching him with frightened eyes.
Guess there's no arguing with fate.
He closes his eyes.
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He opens them and he's standing in his kitchen, the light through the window blinding in its intensity. He runs an uncertain hand over his neck, feeling smooth skin unmarred by any wound.
The reflection from the polished steel of his refrigerator shows a distorted image of him, dressed casually and barefoot in a way he hasn't allowed himself to be in months. Taking a deep breath, he narrows his eyes and examines the room carefully. It looks just as it did this morning when he and Jack ate a silent breakfast together.
The family pictures on the wall are blank, empty of the smiling occupants. Hotch stares at them, reaches hesitantly towards them. He stops himself, stepping backwards nervously, drops his hand to feel for a gun that's absent at his hip.
He turns around feeling nauseous and suddenly he's in his living room and the coffee table is filled with the objects of his obsession.
His credentials. His letter of resignation. Haley's wedding ring.
His gun.
"Which would you choose if given a chance?" says a soft voice by his side and he doesn't have to look to recognise Reid's voice. His youngest agent leans forward into his view and runs his hand over Hotch's gun with a strange, intense expression that frightens Hotch to the core.
"What are you doing?" His voice is choked, forced. Reid pauses in his regard of the gun and shrugs, his long hair falling into his eyes.
"Tempting fate," he replies with a grin that's both new and somehow heartbreakingly familiar, and entirely inappropriate for him to be wearing while holding Hotch's gun in his long fingers. "Or does it make you uncomfortable to witness a physical manifestation of your desire?"
Hotch wants to take the gun from him. He wants to use his team leader voice on him and tell him to stop fooling around. He wants to deny that he's ever looked at his weapon with quite that much yearning, but he can't bring himself to look Reid in the eyes and say the words. He finally settles for a strained, "Why are we here?" and he knows as he says it that he's not referring to his home.
"To make a choice," Reid replies, putting the gun down finally and allowing Hotch to breathe again. "It's not a big choice, there are severely limited parameters. Two outcomes." His eyes flicker to the gun, the letter. "To stop." Hotch watches silently as he taps the credentials with two fingers. "To go."
Hotch takes a deep breath and figures that if this is his mind making up some insane hallucination while he bleeds out on the floor of the warehouse he may as well play along. "What right do I have to make that choice? My choices in the past have been… ill thought out."
Reid raises an eyebrow in an expression more at home on Rossi's face and glances at the blank photos displayed on the wall. "You wear your failures with pride and allow them to weigh you down." He turns his gaze onto Hotch, studying his face. "You believe that undoubtedly it would have been better if you hadn't been around to make those choices?"
Even though Hotch is fairly sure this is some sort of fever dream, those words spoken so casually in his agent's throaty voice cut him deeply. He pulls back slightly and knows that his eyes betray his hurt. "My actions led to Haley's death. My son lost his mother because of me. You can't say I was right to make that choice."
"That's not for me to say," Reid says, stepping forward and brushing his hand against Hotch's arm. His fingers tighten, digging into his flesh. Hotch tries to jerk away but his hold is iron-clad and painful. "But I can show you."
He tugs on Hotch's arm and Hotch finds himself stumbling blindly after him.
The room flickers and distorts around them and the only thing that feels real is Reid's hand on him as the world whitens and disappears.
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2005
They're in a hospital lobby and Hotch blinks and stares about in shock. He recognises the scene in an instant. Terrified hospital personnel and patients crouch behind gurneys, some crying, while others are silent and shocked. All eyes are locked on the man with the gun. Dowd.
He's been here before.
He's here right now.
Hotch sees himself standing next to Reid, both observing Dowd with alert gazes. The past Reid alternates his regard from the other Hotch to Dowd, waiting for a signal. Waiting for Hotch to lead.
He knows how this goes. He talks Dowd into letting him kick Reid, which lets Reid get hold of his backup weapon. Reid shoots Dowd. Reid saves all their lives. He glances sideways at the older Reid standing next to him with his hands casually slung into his pockets.
"My hair is terrible," the older Reid remarks, pulling a face as he examines his younger self. "I wonder why Strauss never wrote me up for it."
"I never passed along the memos," Hotch murmurs, frowning at the scene in front of them. "What am I doing? I should be trying to get the gun to you by now."
The older Reid shrugs nonchalantly. "Making a choice."
Hotch watches with growing concern as the past Hotch tries to talk Dowd down himself. Reid is silent, listening intently and waiting for a cue from his boss. Waiting to follow his lead. "What am I doing?" Hotch repeats, seeing a trickle of sweat on his past version's forehead as his efforts are in vain. Dowd is getting more and more agitated.
"Not trusting your partner," Reid says as the hospital doors buckle under the ram and SWAT bursts in.
Dowd goes down shooting, leaving them standing in a room of corpses. Hotch stares at the nurse who had been working the counter that day. Her eyes stare sightlessly at the ceiling, her body raked with bullets.
A boy about Jack's age gurgles as an injured doctor tries to resuscitate him, gasping under the pain of her own wounds. Hotch turns away, winded, and his eyes fall onto the younger Reid.
He watches numbly as his agent tries desperately to stem the bleeding from his past self's abdomen. He's concentrating so hard on the wounds that he fails to notice when Hotch's chest stills and his face slackens in death.
"Christ," he gasps, stepping back from the sight of Reid's face crumpling in grief and shock, his dark eyes shattering. "Why are you showing me this? I don't want to see this."
Future Reid stops him from falling backwards with a warm hand on his back. "We are the sum of the choices we make," he says, and Hotch closes his eyes against the ghastly sight, feeling something pulling him away.
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2006
He squints his eyes against the sudden daytime and Elle stands near him now. They're watching Reid cuff a suspect, her face twisted in distaste at the smell of the ragged man's clothes.
He thinks of the last time he saw Elle in his own timeline, her face distant, her gun and creds left on his desk. He can see shades of the old Elle in her face but the cold, blank expression is exactly what he'd been afraid to find when he challenged her that day, so many years ago.
This is an Elle who never walked away.
"You've carried the guilt of forcing her out for years," the older Reid says, pacing around her and studying her face as though it's one of his beloved maps. "Did you ever consider what would have happened if she stayed?"
Hotch watches as the unsub wriggles in Reid's grip, turning his face and spitting out an insult in the young agent's direction. Elle's mouth tightens into a line, her hand clenching. He sees lines on Reid's face that shouldn't be there yet. They should have had taken years to form, kept at bay until Georgia brought the darkness and the fear into his eyes.
"We would have helped her." Hotch can see the events unfolding even before they happen as the man turns and bares his teeth in a mockery of a grin at Elle.
"I would have liked to be alone with you, darling," he shouts in her direction, leering. "You'd have been as sweet as my other girls, just as sweet."
"You're not here to help her," Reid says as Elle's hand drops to her weapon. Past Reid looks up, sees the gun in her hand and widens his eyes. He opens his mouth to say something, too late.
He doesn't draw his own weapon, just throws himself back out of the line of sight, and when the unsub drops to the ground with Elle's bullet between his eyes he sits there looking stunned.
Hotch watches as the younger Reid stares blankly down at the unsub's blood splattered on his shirt as Elle drops her weapon and walks away. "Gideon would have helped her," he whispers.
A dark laugh is his only warning before the world around him changes again.
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2007
Hotch recognises Gideon's cabin and can't help but glance down at the exact spot on the carpet where they'd found his old friend lying on that cold day not so long ago. The cabin is dark and silent, except for the crunch of tires on gravel outside and the flicker of headlights casting ghostly shadows on the walls.
Hotch feels ill. He knows this scene. "That's you," he tells Reid unnecessarily, looking over at the desk where he knows Gideon's gun, creds and a final note to his protégé lie waiting for him. "Gideon's left and that's you."
After the last two visions he's been shown, he can't help but be thankful that this is still as it should be. His heart had jumped horribly for a moment when he had considered what else it could have been.
"Is it?" Reid's face is expressionless and Hotch feels his unease growing.
The door to the cabin creaks open. The light flashes on and blinds Hotch for a moment.
Rossi's eyes flicker about the room warily, one hand resting on his hip. Hotch watches incredulously as the older profiler makes his way unerringly over to the desk, his fingers ghosting over Gideon's badge and his eyes closing momentarily as though coming to terms with something he'd expected.
Hotch's mind whirls. "He came back to take over my position," he states. "Instead of replacing Gideon, he replaced me." Reid nods, eyes locked on him. "But why is he here? Why not you?"
"I testified against Elle," Reid says slowly, fiddling with the button on his sleeve. "It was my testimony that convicted her."
Hotch flinches, imagining how hard the youngest agent would have taken that duty. But he would have done it. Reid has never been the type to shirk his responsibilities.
"Some fates are certain," Reid says, running his hand up his arm and rubbing at the crook of his elbow. "The paths may be different but the end result is the same. Your death, Elle's incarceration. Hankel. Maybe in this world, I missed another plane."
Hotch shakes his head against the image of Reid's fingers against his arm. "This is ridiculous, my death wouldn't lead to all this… misery. I'm not responsible for it all!"
Reid laughs. "You're still trying to take the blame, even when dead? That's a little narcissistic don't you think? But, perhaps…" He trails off and turns to walk away, leaving Rossi standing alone in the remains of Gideon's safe house.
This time Hotch doesn't hesitate before he follows him.
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2008
Morgan is working busily in an unfamiliar office, flicking through files and making notes in the margins. Hotch notes his crisp suit, the dark shadows under his eyes, the stern downturn to his mouth.
It's like looking into a mirror.
"He took the promotion," Hotch murmurs, looking down at the shiny silver plate on the desk that reads SSA Derek Morgan. "He left the BAU."
Reid nods towards the shelf behind Morgan's head as the younger man yawns and stretches, shaking the stiffness out of his writing hand. Hotch steps over and looks at what Reid's pointing at.
It's a photo of a smiling woman, her arm slung companionably around Morgan's shoulders. Behind it, a team photo of them on Reid's birthday sits crookedly, half-hidden by the frame.
"Is he happier?" he asks Reid.
"In different ways, maybe," Reid answers. "Different doesn't always mean bad."
Hotch grimaces as he imagines Garcia's reaction to Morgan leaving. "Garcia wouldn't have been happy."
Reid smiles.
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2010
The child in Garcia's arms is every bit as beautiful as she is.
"She went with Kevin," Reid says, leaning against the wall of the hospital room and beaming down at his friend. Garcia looks overawed by the infant in her arms, Kevin nervously hovering over them both.
Hotch nods. There's nothing more to see here.
Different doesn't always mean bad.
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2011
Reid's apartment looks just the same as it always has, except for the figure of Reid sprawled limply over the threadbare couch.
Hotch looks at him and feels something inside him drop into his gut and lay there heavily.
"Spencer," he whispers and he's not sure if he's talking to the one on the couch or the one watching him with tired eyes. The Reid on the couch has blue-tinged skin and the rise and fall of his chest is sporadic. Hotch knows if he lays a hand on his heart the beat will be faltering.
They're watching him die.
"Do something," Hotch snaps at the other Reid, shuddering in horror as a small bubble of foam and vomit builds at the corner of his youngest agent's slack mouth. It catches on the curve of his lip and pauses there, taunting Hotch with his helplessness, then slides sickly down his chin.
The arm that dangles bonelessly from the couch is thin, dry skin stretched over a delicate frame. Hotch can almost see the thrum of his pulse at his wrist, sluggish and intermittent.
He can the rash of red marks up the crook of his agent's elbow, the sign of dependence.
"It's not my place to do something," the healthy Reid tells him coldly. "I'm not the one making the choice here, he is."
Hotch feels the cold weight in his stomach turn to rage. "He didn't choose this!"
"I have an IQ of 187." His Reid is still, face inscrutable. "Do you really think that I didn't know exactly how much I was taking?"
When Reid's lanky form begins to seize, Hotch turns and walks away.
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2013
"You know, this is a figment of your imagination," Reid tells him as the world around them rearranges itself to a busy street. "If you want it to stop, you can just wake up."
Hotch ignores him. He can't look at him without seeing the shape twitching violently on the couch, with his arm marked horribly with the signs of his inability to cope alone. The signs of his abandonment.
He can see where he has to go. There's a knot of onlookers crowded up ahead and the flashing lights of an ambulance. Reid takes a few steps towards it before tilting his head back towards the motionless Hotch curiously. "Are you coming?"
Hotch looks around, reads the date on a newspaper clutched in a passer-by's hands. "No. You keep going on about choices, here's mine. I'm not looking."
Reid walks back towards him. "Don't you want to know?"
Hotch looks again at the date and realizes he doesn't need to see. "Strauss."
His companion looks over at the group of people and nods. "She didn't have you to push her into AA in this timeline. She lost her job, her family. She never had David."
Hotch takes a breath that burns. "Did she..?"
Reid shakes his head slightly. "Hit by a car crossing the street. She was never meant to live past this day. The only difference is the way she lived before it."
He feels hopeless and shaken by everything he's seen. "I want to wake up."
"Do it then." Reid's voice is cocky. It's a challenge.
But Hotch doesn't know how.
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2018
Prentiss's hair is short and cut close to the base of her neck. It suits her.
The black clothes she's wearing do not. They bring out the paleness of her skin and the redness of her bitten nails, gnawed back to bloody quicks.
Hotch follows her silently into the graveyard, dodging around the headstones as Reid follows at a more sedate pace. His eyes flicker over each inscription.
Whomever she's come to say goodbye to, she's come too late. The mourners by the open grave are dispersing, fracturing off into tightly knit groups that huddle together in their grief. Hotch sees Morgan's mother in the crowd. Her head is bowed and a fist reaches in to squeeze his heart.
Rossi is walking away with a blonde-haired woman at his side but they pause when they see Prentiss. Prentiss stops, nervous, hands brushing the side of her skirt down tersely.
JJ walks away from Rossi with a small tousle-headed boy in her arms. Hotch can see Henry pressed against Rossi's leg, watching his mom approach Emily.
"You're here." JJ's voice is rough. The boy squirms in her arms and blinks sleepily, smiling at Emily who reaches a hand out and ruffles his hair.
"Of course," Emily says softly and there's something unspoken in their words, something that separates them greater than distance. This is an Emily that never recovered from Doyle. "What's this one's name?"
JJ holds her child closer, her face shuttered against emotion. "Spencer."
Hotch isn't sure if the child had cried out or if it was him. He sinks down, sitting on the damp earth with his head in his arms. "I don't want this," he moans. Reid comes up behind him and he talks through his clenched hands. "How?"
"Line of duty," Reid says, and it's not a surprise. "A hero."
Hotch hates him in that moment, hates him savagely. "He didn't need to die to be a hero."
He feels Reid's hand on his shoulder. "Neither do you."
Even an imaginary Reid is smarter than he is.
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2020
Rossi is older than Hotch ever wanted to see him, sitting in his garden with a notebook and pen and scribbling away furiously. The years haven't been kind to his friend, his skin worn with worry and hair grey and thin.
They hear the gate creak and turn their heads as one, the sound of sneakers swishing hesitantly against the grass.
The boy that appears should be a stranger to Hotch but he knows him instantly.
"Jack," Hotch and Rossi say together, the former in a wondering tone and the latter with affection in his voice. "Jack Hotchner," Rossi repeats. "You're a sight for sore eyes."
"Hello, sir," Jack says. "You were a friend to my father."
Rossi stands and takes Jack's hand, shakes it. "I was. He was a good man, one of the best."
"I… I want to know what he was like. From his friend, not my Mom," Jack says, and Hotch can see himself in the steely gaze.
"He's still Jack," Hotch says in wonder, everything about his son as familiar as he'd expected. "Even without me, he's still Jack."
Reid laughs softly. "Of course. Your son was never going to be anything other than a good man. You lived through Haley, and she never let him grow up without knowing you."
Hotch watches his oldest friend and his son talk for longer than needed, unwilling to walk away. Jack is tall, awkward in his height, still growing into his body. He almost knocks over his glass but Rossi stills it with a smile. He can see the barest patch of hair on his son's chin, almost a man.
His heart aches to know him, not as a child, but as the man he's becoming and he knows his expression is hungry.
"Are we done?" he asks Reid, emotionally exhausted and more confused than when they'd begun.
"One more."
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2023
Rossi is motionless in the bed. He's dwarfed by the machines surrounding him and it's almost a physical pain to see the man who has been such a huge part of Hotch's life so diminished.
"What's the choice that led to this moment?" Hotch asks Reid bitterly.
"You think your choices have led you to being an ineffective team leader. " Reid paces and reads the displays on the machines thoughtfully. "Is that all you are?"
Hotch thinks of Jack, almost a man grown, facing his past. He thinks of Reid, lost without anyone to guide him back to sobriety. David, abandoned and old, dying alone.
"People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead," Reid quotes, stopping his pacing with his hand on the foot of Rossi's bed.
"James Baldwin," Hotch says, dredging the memory of the quote from his sluggish mind. "This isn't the life that would happen if I walk away from the team now. These chances have already gone."
Reid nods, meeting his eyes and gesturing with his free hand. "Of course. But the possibilities remain. You're still a father, still a friend. Still a leader. Stop. Or go."
Hotch takes a breath and
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opens his eyes in a room bright with sunlight filtering through the thin curtains.
His chest is a dull pain and he lifts a heavy hand up to it, feeling the thick covering of the bandage under the sheet. He coughs, his throat dry and swollen.
A hand holding a small cup of ice chips appears and holds it to his mouth. He swallows the cool chips thankfully, the cold trace of them soothing his throat.
He turns his head slightly and meets Reid's bright hazel eyes.
Alive. Himself. Hotch almost groans with the relief of it.
Reid smiles, his book forgotten on the side of his chair. "You had us worried for a while, Hotch. But you're still here," he says with a pleased grin.
Hotch coughs and smiles carefully. "Always."