Real life's nasty. It's cruel. It doesn't care about heroes and happy endings and the way things should be. In real life, bad things happen. People die. Fights are lost. Evil often wins."

- Darren Shan

Looking down through the windows of the plane Aaron Hotchner couldn't help but feel himself tired. Was this all that there was to life? Traveling around and getting to think and think, just to catch the very worst of humanity? Was humanity a cesspool of hatred and filth that was so obsessed on its own darkness and hatred that...he couldn't help but let himself push an open hand against the window of the plane. Obviously it was reinforced to stand the pressures of travel at 35 thousand feet, the clouds moving fast below them. The vastness of all that was below them, all the little squares he could see, and what he couldn't see imagine, sometimes even managed to amaze him.

But if the world was so vast...was there no good in it? Was there not a shred, a hope, a hint of good in anyone? He gently pummeled a fist against the glass. - There was no risk of it breaking, it was reinforced after all, and he gently rested his frame against it. Pressing his head against his arms.

"Overly dramatic much?" - One of his team members had joined him, Rossi, David Rossi, the one with the accent spoke with a flair, but he was emphatetic towards the other man. He too had been in this business for so long and he knew that sometimes some thoughts went through their heads. - "I know that you are having a tough break in life, but try not to push us down." - Rossi was not one for jokes, or, if he was, he was more for the grim, or dramatic jokes, one's where the punchine was in the pain of someone, in this case the death of someone. Or all of them. They weren't the only occupants of the plane, the whole team was there doing whatever, after having resolved one of their casis.

They'd feel satisfied for having resolved the case, like a particular tough mind boggling puzzle, except how could they? It just proved that the worst of humanity still existed

Hotch didn't know if the words that Rossi had ushered had ushered had a double meaning, the obvious, push them down if he broke the window, and let them be sucked down into the floor down below, which would be probably be pretty much impossible anyway, and the other, pushing down on their mood, making them blue, depressed.

" I thought you were the one with the flair for the dramatic." - Hotch smiled at Rossi, with that gaze of his fixated on him. The two men stared at one another trying to distract one another from the dark - awful thoughts that they were having. If it worked none of them could tell. As they couldn't read minds, but Rossi had at least tried to distract himself and Hotchner.

"Well...according to my ex's sure." - He smiled. Mumbling something to himself. - "All of them, indeed, but I am actually a subdued man. I have learned." - He said something, too quietly for Hotchner to hear, - "I have heard..."

The two men stared intensely at the cloud that lazily drifted by below them, as with previously Hotchner thought back to the vastness and beauty of the planet but also how much the human race could be evil.

He thought about how surely if there was such a large world to live by, and such spaces...even if there was vile, wretched, scum, then surely there were also innocents, wonderful, human beings. It was why he had this job after all. It was why he was paid, to protect them.

His fists tensed up as he thought back to some of the blood he had in his hands, life often came down to choices, especially in the kind of job that he did, and not all of them were pretty, but when it came time to protect those he cared about…

Like his son Jack….and an immediate smile came to his face as he thought about how he would see him soon. He wasn't a vile human, he was a wonderful, simple child who saw him as a hero, as his own dad, as "Captain america". Jack was worth protecting. It was for children like him, and even adults who had been one day like him, adorable little child that he did it.

"You're thinking of Jack, aren't you?" - Hotch was taken in by surprise, his dopey smile going away from his face as he got a serious look on his face. - "You always get this smile when you're thinking of him...You really do love him don't you?"

Hotch nodded curtly. - "He's my son."

It was all he had to say, but yet he still added a little bit more to the conversation. - "Why shouldn't I love him?"

"Just because you are his son that doesn't make him automatically love him, we've had enough cases where that wasn't the case." - Hotch grinded his teeth, those were always the ones that annoyed him the most. Every case of mistreatment of a human life were bad, but when it was with a small child, he just wanted to punch the perpetrator in the face. As a parent…he just couldn't see how anyone could abuse or mistreat their own kid, to him that notion was ridiculous.

"Jack's progressing really well, isn't he? He's a bright kid"

Smile back, Hotch nodded back at Rossi. He couldn't help but be proud of his kid...ever since his mother had been taken away from him, unfairly might he had, and he had, lost it, he had grown to take care of him more and more.

And if it was possible every single day he cared more about the little boy he had created, if that was possible, it was like his heart could hold no more love, yet it somehow still did.

Rossi put a hand over Hotchner's shoulder.

"Don't worry about the evil of humanity. For every children that grows demented there's 300...500...a thousand Jack's. And hey, they clearly idolise heroes, and you, you are your little kid's hero."

Hotch nodded. Emotional. Sometimes he couldn't help but feel like Rossi had all the wisdom, even if he couldn't keep a relationship for more than a few years. Came with the territory of being married for years. This job was hard on relationships, he knew it well.

"Oh and...I hope you don't mind if I stick by here watching the clouds, Reid is going on one of his dorky rants about something."

Hotch nodded. He actually enjoyed the company of the other man.

Words (according to google docs): 1135

Author's Note: So I haven't seen the show regularly in almost….4 or 5 years now, but I wanted to write something cute. Why pick the fandom that's most like snuff? I don't know. I like the characters, or at least I did as of season 7. Hum...well, I lived for those Jack/Hotch moments.

Dedicated to Deejaymil, who just talks about criminal minds all the damn time and got the writing bug in me.