DISCLAIMER: Don't own anything associated with the show… I just like playing with the characters in it from time to time. Dance Monkeys! Dance!
RATING: T - Teen
SPOILERS: Post Ep for S05XE01 - "Faceless Nameless."
WORD COUNT: 757
SUMMARY: Hotch recalls the attack as he deals with the reality it has wrought. Heavy Angst
A/N: A rabid demonic plot bunny infected my brain following a conversation about the episode. My beta did the once over, but I've since played with it, so any errors are mine.
REVIEWS: Reviews are the way I know if people are enjoying the work or not. So, if you leave one, THANKS! And if not, I hope you found at least a little something to brighten your day, and thanks for taking the time to read.
"Can you remember what happened?" The warm softness of Emily's voice is a direct contrast to the cold and mechanical sounds of the ICU.
In a blinding flash of unbelievable agony, Hotch is assaulted with every single moment of his attack. Coming home, pouring a drink and then finding he was not alone. Foyet's voice, dark and sinister, echoes loudly in his head, thundering until his ears begin to throb with every word.
His voice graveled with pain, Hotch asks, "What did he take?" Hotch quickly gets back to business, questioning the others until he understands exactly what Foyet's plan could be. But even after they ascertain the killer's intentions and launch into action, he is still asking himself, What did he take?
Closing his eyes on the bloodied image of his wife and son, Hotch tries to block out the pain and the worry. And that is when the night before begins to play out in his mind again.
Foyet was there, waiting. He knows there has to be some way to get out this, but the only thing he can hear are his father's words, "Never show them any fear." The shot freezes his soul, but it doesn't break him.
"Is this part of my profile? You can't show me fear? You said that like you actually meant it." He knows what to do and he stands firm, not once betraying his fear.
Instead, he challenges Foyet. "Are you here to kill me or are you here to play games?"
"You tell me. Enlighten me about my behavior." But it's not the fear that betrays Hotch, it's his anger and his arrogance when he attempts to charge Foyet.
Lying prone on the ground, feeling as much humiliation as he does pain, Hotch struggles to regain his senses as Foyet looms over him. "So, tell me…would I use this?"
His mind explodes with the memories of each plunge of the knife. The cold steel invading the space just below his breast bone, slicing at the connective tissue holding his ribs to the sternum and carving away the muscle until it sat like dry ice between his organs; a burning cold that felt like life itself was being killed. Every millimeter of knife thrust into his body representing an agonizing reminder of his failure. But it was when Foyet extracted the knife that Hotch truly felt the pain. Pulling it out so slowly it could only be described as a slide, to him it was as though Foyet was taking a little piece of his soul with it and leaving an emptiness behind, along with the gaping hole in his flesh.
Over and over and over again, Foyet buried the knife in his chest, in his abdomen, and each time he could feel it enter. He tried to calculate the exact location of each impact based on Foyet's position and the flood of sensations coursing through him with every intrusion. If he could just focus on the mechanics of it all, he could stay conscious.
When Foyet stopped, leaning in closer, it took everything he had to whisper, "I will kill you." But Foyet was far from done with him.
His words took on an almost conspiratorial tone, and he spoke in a whisper that would usually be reserved for pillow talk. The whole time he babbled on about the use of a knife and impotency, he only served to confirm the prevailing profile theories. It may have sounded like a bunch of psychological nonsense, but Hotch knows this is Foyet's only means of foreplay. Violence is his only sex. Foyet needs the fear and the control to achieve his ultimate high. He needs it more than he needs oxygen. And the growing erection Foyet pressed into his abdomen was physical proof of that theory.
Maybe this will change the way that you profile.
Foyet was right about that, because the experience would absolutely change his profiling. It makes him trust their work even more.
Right now, that work is telling Hotch this isn't over. He didn't give him what he wanted. He didn't show him that fear he craved and he never gave him any of the control he needs. Killing Hotch is not his final act. That's why he took the page from his planner. That's why Haley and Jack have to go. That need for fear and control is why his heart feels like it took every single plunge of that knife.
And that's when he knows…
What did he take?
"He's taken everything."