A/N: For Maia. Set sometime between the scene on the jet and finding the Footpath Killer at the end of Extreme Aggressor.
"You have no control over what the other guy does. You only have control over what you do."
― A. J. Kitt
It's another successful case for them. They saved another life and put not one of their unsubs behind bars and Morgan, Hotch and Reid are all in incredibly good spirits when they get off the jet. Morgan's teasing Spencer again and even Hotch is cracking a smile at that, but Jason finds himself getting lost in his own thoughts as he walks towards the car alongside them.
He's managed to put in a good word for Agent Greenaway – Elle – with Hotch after she'd handled the situation well at the end of the case and it was enough for her to be considered a serious candidate for the remaining open position on the team. Not only did she get along well with all three of his colleagues, he can see a lot of potential in her. Impatience aside, he believes that she can bring a fresh perspective to the team and the cases that they handle due to her background, and it's obvious that she can work incredibly well under pressure. She saved his life back at the shipyard and this is the least he can do in return.
It should feel great. That he got to be back in the field, doing his job again.
But it doesn't.
He thought he'd managed to keep the symptoms of his PTSD under control, but suddenly being wanted back in the field working cases again and the pressure to perform well on the case had made it all begin to slide. He had a reputation to uphold, and it was clear that the Director had assigned Aaron with the task of assessing his abilities in the field. Working at the Academy whilst he was on leave felt safe, the one place he could be that had allowed himself to deal with his grief and come to terms with everything by himself with a considerably lower risk of anything that could trigger him. But being out in Seattle with three other agents who knew all too well about what he was feeling was a whole new ballgame. The feeling of their worried looks aimed towards him when his back was turned right from the moment they had left his office to get on the plane had been enough to constantly set him on edge all over again.
He hadn't let any of them in whilst he was on leave, let alone now, because the last thing he wanted to be was a burden. They had cases to work, bastards to lock up and put away for life, and paperwork to file.. Not listen to him. Besides, he'd always found that keeping his emotions under lock and key only for him to see had been the most effective way for him to do his job and it always worked. Never let yourself get emotionally involved, he had told himself countless times, because thinking objectively and focussing on what's going on the UnSub's head and not your own is crucial to profiling. Seeing that goddamn newspaper clipping in Slessman's textbook had shot that mantra down completely, made him seize up, his head swimming, and all he could do was tell himself to breathe, breathe, breathe. He'd managed to keep himself calm for mere minutes until he'd slid the article across the table and Slessman reeling off that CPR statistic had brought all that anger and self-loathing that he'd been holding back since they'd left Quantico come bubbling back up to the surface.
It was his fucking fault that those agents had lost their lives in that explosion. He should've been in there, not them.
"Gideon?"
The sound of Spencer's voice brings him out of his reverie and he blinks hard, almost surprised that they've reached the car. The keys are in his pocket, so he pulls them out, unlocks the car and tosses them to Aaron, sliding into the passenger's side without another word.