It nearly started out as a normal day, but I was so deep in my own thoughts, that I did not care about what felt so wrong, when I walked into the Bullpen this morning. For most people, everything was as usual, I saw Morgan and Garcia talking and joking about something in the Kitchenette, Hotch was in his office, already busy with paperwork. Nothing was new about that.
After I sat down at my desk, JJ walked in grinning at me. She sat down at her desk as well and pulled out some reports she had finished at home, so that she could accompany Henry to his best friends birthday party.
We talked about Henry for a moment and then started working. After a few moments, Garcia walked by, gave JJ a quick hug and made sure their were still having lunch together. Morgan went to his own office, waving at us.
Then Rossi would come his usual ten minutes late and looked even more tired than any other day, which could be the fault of his Cigar Friends Meeting he had attended yesterday. He would walk past us with a mumbled 'Good Morning' and continue his way to his office.
As I wanted to focus back on work, my eyes would linger on the only empty chair and desk in the room, which had me frowning. Normally she would already be here by now, later than me, but most of the time earlier than JJ, a coffee in hand and even though she was not a morning person, with a kind smile and word on her lips.
It could have been a normal day, if Alex Blake had been sitting at her desk, but she wasn't and I knew if she had been sick or held back in traffic, she would have called me, neither was the case. So it wasn't a normal day and I was worried.
I checked my phone but I had no missed call or sms from my friend, I looked at JJ who flashed me a smile.
"Hey, have you heard something from Alex? I'm surprised she isn't here by now" I saw how the mother of my godson turned and looked at our friends empty desk.
"Huh, you right...well, maybe she's just late?" she answered. Something in the back of my head knew something was wrong, but I choose to ignore that feeling a little more. After all, she was only twenty minutes late, that happened to the best of us.
But after another hour, I could also see how JJ kept throwing glances over her shoulder towards the door. An hour twenty minutes late, without a call, was highly unusual for Blake.
"B-...where is Blake?" asked Hotch suddenly from his Office. "I need her sign."
"We don't know, she's not here and hasn't called in sick or being held up in traffic or so" I answered and watch our boss frown.
"Have you called her?" I nodded, half an hour ago, I had called her but after a minute it went to voice mail.
"And?" in this moment Morgan and Rossi stepped out of the older ones office and looked at us a little confused.
"She didn't answer" now I also saw a little worry flicker in Hotch's eyes.
"Who didn't answer?" Rossis voice asked interested, he still hadn't taken notice in our fellow Agents absence.
"Blake, she is still not here and hasn't called...I'll ask Garcia to call her again" Hotch said and made his way down just when Garcia walked in.
"Guys did you see this? Urgh! Don't you think this is complete sickening?" she asked us, not catching up immediately one the worried atmosphere of the team.
"What Baby Girl?"
"This!" she pointed to the TV hanging in the kitchenette, it was just big enough that we could read the headline over the news moderators head.
And what I read made me feel sick, as I knew in this second where our friend was.
Forty Graves on Alexandria Cemetery vandalized and destroyed! No leads or witnesses.
"Oh my God..." I said just loud enough so that the others could hear me."I know where she is" I added.
"Where is she?" asked JJ, I turned around and pointed to the TV.
"Her son's grave was on that Cemetery." I answered hollow, the others stared at me with a mixture of surprise and shock.
"What?" Morgan was the first one to find his voice again.
"Yes, she had a son named Ethan who died seven years ago of a mysterious neurological illness...he was only nine" I said and grabbed my jacked.
"Oh my God..." I heard JJ whisper and knew everyone felt extremely sorry for our colleague and friend.
Rossi felt even more sorry, as he knew what it was like to lose a child, but at least his son didn't have to suffer from an illness or any other pain. It was the only thing that had kept him going on the early years after his sons death.
"What are you doing?!" asked Hotch when he saw how I put on my jacket.
"If her son's grave was under the destroyed ones, which I'm hoping is not the case, though I know it is, then she'll need me...James is currently in Africa on a mission without a chance to contact him, she's all alone. And I won't let her go through this alone, that much I owe her" I said and made my way towards the elevators.
"Spence wait! You don't have a car, I'll drive you" JJ said and without a comment Garcia walked with her and so Morgan followed and not a step behind him, Rossi and Hotch. The next minute we all squeezed into JJ's car as she began to drive to the Cemetery, where I suspected our friend.
"What happened?" asked Morgan after a moment and everyone, except JJ, looked at me.
"I..." I wasn't feeling well telling my friends darkest secret to the others. But I knew they should know. "The first five years, everything was perfectly normal, but then he would start to get sick and collapse from time to time, no one found anything that wasn't normal. Then he would start to get seizures without any logical cause, as they could rule out epilepsy or any other seizure causing illness. After two years of living like that, it got worse and he was in great pain during the seizures and days after he had one. Alex told me he said to her it was like his whole body was on fire, as if he was burning from the inside. Then the pain began to get constant, he couldn't move without being in pain, even growing was painful.
The last months he lived in the hospital, they were sure that it was his own brain attacking his body and causing him to suffer. They just couldn't help him, as his brain was going to attack his organs too, in his last week he couldn't even breathe on his own. The doctors couldn't even give him much medication because if they gave him as much as he needed to ease his pain, it would have killed him.
They gave him two days tops before he would die of a multiple organ dysfunction, but then he had a sudden heart failure and died in Alex's arms. For four years she was forced to watch, how the body of her own son, the boy she gave birth to and raised, killed him in the most cruel way, waking up to his screams of pain nearly every night and never knowing when his last day was going to be, only that it could always be the next day...the doctors still don't even have a name for it. This being nearly as painful as his death, she doesn't even have a name for what took away the most precious thing in her life." I said and saw how Garcia clung tightly to Morgan as she cried, while Morgan stroked over her back.
Beside them Hotch had tears in his eyes, as he eyed his best friend who openly let his tears fall over his face. Rossi couldn't imagine what it was like to watch helplessly the death of your child, listen to his screams and pleas for the pain to end, to his cries of help from you, knowing, that there wasn't anything you could do to help you child. There were no bad guys you could hunt and kill, because it was a part of you own child, your own flesh and blood that took him away.
JJ as the driver couldn't risk driving against a tree or something, because of the tears in her eyes, which had started to build after his first sentence, so she blended out Spencer's voice and concentrated on the road and kept her mind busy with images of her own son. Her own, healthy, living son. After we spent the rest of the ride in silence, not knowing of what to say, we were at the Cemetery. We got out and walked up the rows of headstones.
I knew from my one time visit with Alex where Ethan's grave was, but as we came near, it didn't matter, we all heard the heart wrenching sob's and my last hope was out the door, when I saw a woman kneeling in front of what had been once the prove for everyone that she was a mother, that Ethan Blake had been alive and breathing outside of her memory, before he had been ripped from this world and her arms.
In her hands I saw white stones, I saw how she held tightly onto one of the last pieces of what was left of her precious sons grave. She cried out in agony of what had been done to the memory of her only son, of her worst nightmare coming true, all while her body was wrecked by the horrible sobs that escaped her throat. I kneeled next to her and laid my arm around her, it seemed like I had chosen the right moment, because seconds later, she slide down my side until her head was on my lap and she laid on the cold ground, where once Ethan's grave had been.
I wanted to tell her how sorry I was, but decided against it, now was just not the time, nothing I could say, could ever sooth the pain she was feeling right now. So I only held her close and stroked over her shaking back. I saw how JJ and Garcia (both crying silent tears) sat down behind and next to Alex's other side.
"Why?" Alex finally managed to say between sobs and I felt tears burning in my eyes, I knew much, but I didn't know why someone did something so incredibly stupid and unfair and I didn't know why it had to be her sons grave, after everything she had went trough. As if burying her only son wasn't hard enough, no, someone had to destroy the place where his family should be able to mourn the loss and stay connected to him even though he wasn't with them anymore.
"I wish I could tell you...but I don't have an answer for that. Only that both you and Ethan did not deserve this"
The people who did this hadn't been found, but two weeks later, the team was present when Ethan's new headstone was placed on his grave, both JJ and I held Alex's hands when the white stone was raised once again.
Ethan Blake
Born June 10. 1998
Died November 25. 2007
It read nothing else, because no words in the world could describe to Alex what he meant to her and how much she loved her son. We decided to give her some space and waited a few graves away, watching the sad picture in silents. Alex caressed her sons headstone and leaned down to press her lips to the stone, before she walked over to us.
"Thank you...it means a lot to me" Alex said and we walked her back to our cars, with her in the middle, to let her know, that we were there for her. Like family was supposed to be.
"There is no need for a thank you Alex" I said and lay my arm around her.
"He would have loved you...all of you" she said and I looked back. I was absolutely sure, that I saw a brown haired boy, looking a lot like Alex, standing next to the grave. He smile at me and weaved with a thankful look in his eyes, before he vanished as the leaves of the tree near his grave flew through him.
"We would have loved him too."
This just needed to get out of my head, tell me what you think!
