Title: Beautiful Conclusion

Author:

Rating: G

Summary: Reid delivers a eulogy at Hotch's funeral

Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds

Note: For the purpose of this one-shot, Hotch was killed by the shot in the last episode of season 4.

"Death is the only pure, beautiful conclusion to a great passion."
D.H. Lawrence

Reid gulped and looked down at the speech in his hand. He was nervous, no doubt about that. He'd never been asked to do something like this before. Never had to be asked to do something like this.

For a while he struggled. How could he say what he wanted to say and still make sense? He didn't know. He didn't want to have to know.

He wanted things to stay the same, as much as he knew they never could. Even though he dealt with death all the time for his job, he still believed his friends were untouchable; that they could never die and leave him all alone.

He knew he wasn't really alone. He still had the team and to a certain extent, his mother. But it was still a great lost. He'd been like the father he'd had. Better than his own father.

It was his turn. He heard his name called and he finally looked up. He was out of it when he walked up the stairs, more in his memories than actually there.

"Death as a dark shadow/Beckons his prey/Into the unknown/By a soft whisper/In the soul"

He'd written it down, just in case, but by the end his eyes were closed and he was reciting it off by heart. He had never fully grasped what the poem meant but he knew it was one of his favourites.

"Cindy Cheney. He spoke of that poem often. He loved it. I never understood why. To me it was confusing but to him, to him it made perfect sense."

He took a deep breath and risked a glance up. Everybody watching, listening. People with puffy eyes, red eyes, muffled hair.

Everyone here was grieving, in their own way. Some were old friends, friends that now fondly remembered the old times. Some were newer friends, glad that they'd at least known him. Some, like himself, knew him only from work. They were the lucky ones. They'd had the chance to work with him, see him at his best, worst and in between.

"He had a favourite saying. 'The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.' John Dryden. He often repeated it too me." He took another deep breath. He'd told himself not to quote too much, but he couldn't help it. When he was nervous, statistics and quotes helped him. Especially poems his mother had read to him when he was younger.

"No matter what we did, no matter what case we worked, he'd stay strong. He was one of the strongest people I know."

He glanced at the people standing at the back, his team. Combined, they were the strongest people he'd ever known. No one he knew was stronger than his team, including Hotch, not even his mother.

He hesitated for a second.

"He was a like a father to me. He might've been a drill sergeant sometimes, but he was still like the father I'd never had."

She'd come to him, only two days before the funeral. Asked if he wanted to speak. He'd asked her way she thought of him and why not the others. She knew. She knew how much he meant him. She knew how close they were.

"He tried to be the best husband and father he could be, even when he was away. He desperately wanted to be a good father, a good husband. But his need for justice got in the way. His need to see those that wrong, punished."

"It made him the best damn profiler. He was one of the best. Always ready to learn, to teach."

He took another deep breath. He'd never realised it would be this hard.

"He never gave up on us. He was always there; ready to listen to our problems. Ready to help fix them."

He closed his eyes for a second, and pictured him. He was laughing, smiling. One of those rare moments.

"He strived to make the world a better place. He wanted it to be better. For his son, for his son's generation. He wanted to help make the world a better place. And he did, in a way. He helped the world in more ways than he can imagine."

He felt a tear drop. If only he were here. He could just imagine him asking 'Are you okay?' He could imagine him being here, trying to fix it, trying to help it.

"Aaron Hotchner will truly be missed."

But he was no longer here. He could no longer fix it.