Tiredness
He gets a call at 4 am waking him from restless sleep. He is relieved to be awake as it's better than his nightmares and now he has an excuse not to sleep.
JJ is apologising on the other end for disturbing him, he brushes her concern aside and promises to be at the office as soon as possible. He has noticed the worried looks of the team and has endured the not so subtle questioning of how well he's sleeping for a while now, but nobody has actually called him on it yet.
He hasn't slept more than few hours a night in the past three weeks and he knows it's catching up with him soon, but he tells himself that just this one more case and then he takes some time off. As he promised himself two cases ago.
He gets up from the bed, goes to the bathroom, dresses, takes his gun out of its safe and grabs a ready bag from the floor, all on automatic, he doesn't need to think.
He walks to the living room and then pauses. He hasn't switched any lights on, the full moon outside is bright, lighting his way as he is only now noticing.
He stands in the doorway. Looks at the moon beams and the fluff of dust dancing on them. He feels that he's intruding on something, standing in the dark while looking into the silver light of the moon.
He sadly smiles to himself. Even the moon is trying to force the reality on him, however he already knows that he's trapped in a dark place, looking out towards the brightness of what is his team.
He walks through the moonlight, out of the main door, locking it behind him. He walks along the empty corridor to the lift, punches the button for lobby and waits.
He steps into the lobby, greets the night guard with his soft voice and walks out to his car. He buckles himself in, while the moon is curiously peeking in to the dark interior of the car.
The street is empty when he turns onto it from the parking lot. Everything is a play of shadow and light and in his tired state, it is slightly disorientating. Everything is slightly blurry and he shakes his head to get rid of the feeling and becoming a bit more alert.
The drive continues quietly and the next thing he knows is a searing pain in his head, side and legs and the car has come to a stop. He leans against the airbag. Everything is quiet except for the hiss of steam from under the hood of his car, which he can barely see from the blood that is flowing down to his eyes. He doesn't have the energy to move but looks out of the window without moving his head. He is not on the road anymore. He can see lawn and trees scattered here and there and especially one big oak tree in front of him that his car is squashed against.
The lights are coming on in the surrounding buildings and some people are coming out to see what the noise was. He can't see anything except the play of light and dark in the interior of the car. It's too hard to concentrate on anything.
The last thing he sees before closing his heavy eyes is the moonlight dancing in front of his eyes, gently touching his face. And Hotch slips away peacefully to an endless sleep.