Accept
Accept: to accommodate or reconcile oneself to
"For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
your place in the world
He sealed the letter with a steady hand and left it on his desk.
He knew who would find it. He knew who would come looking. He knew who would be hurt the most by this abandonment.
He still couldn't stay.
He said goodbye to his team and his life and his job, and he said goodbye to Jason Gideon as well. Because the man who left this cabin tonight, chased away by Sarah and Frank and everyone he'd ever failed, was not the same man who'd worn that name. He accepted that.
And it was time to go.
He stepped out into the rain and left himself behind.
the passage of time
It took him a moment to process the two people standing by Jack's car, their forms distorted by the rivulets of rain on the window Hotch peered out of, and by the deluge from the summer storm that left their hair flat against their heads and their clothes plastered to their bodies.
Hotch blinked and ducked back behind the curtain, a smile twitching the side of his mouth and almost ashamed to have intruded on this moment. Jack, grinning wildly with the exuberance and brashness of youth, and the girl in his arms looking at him like there was no other and never would be.
There'd be others, for the both of them, Hotch knew. But in that moment, standing in the rain and laughing with the sheer ridiculousness of it, they were blissfully unaware.
It was a far cry from the toddling baby that had struggled to form words without a lisp, or the shy child who'd always seen the best in everyone and thought his dad was the greatest hero in the world.
Hotch leant against the wall in the living room and considered that maybe his little boy had gone and grown up without even giving Hotch the chance to enjoy his childhood to the fullest.
He also considered that maybe he didn't mind so much. After it, wasn't it the father's duty to accept that their children would one day cease to be solely their own?
He left them to their fleeting moment of infiniteness and found himself reaching for a familiar book on the shelf. Within minutes, he was immersed in memories and the long-forgotten words from a long-forgotten play. Haley smiled up at him from the yearbook pages, her eyes almost obscured by the pirate hat perched crookedly on her blonde hair.
She'd be proud of the path they'd both taken.
your family's limits
"My son used to visit me, you know," Diana said mournfully, gazing at him with an expression of lost hopelessness that felt like a physical blow to his chest. "He's gone now. They've taken him away and he can't find his way home."
He didn't argue with her. He knew there was no point.
He'd had this argument before.
"Wherever he is," Reid said quietly, reaching out and taking her dry hand in his own and squeezing gently. "Just remember he loves you very much. And he always will."
She didn't pull her hand away, but her eyes flashed with a familiar anger that was out of place on her unfamiliar wasted features. "I know that," she snapped, looking away. "You don't need to tell me that. How could I forget?"
But she would.
And he'd patiently continue reminding her, until the day came that she was beyond needing to be reminded.
Part of family was the moment when you looked at your parents and accepted that they had their limits. He was constantly finding hers; had been since the moment his father had left them Maybe even before, when her mind had turned on her like a starved animal.
The one thing he couldn't save her from.
"I miss you," he said finally, closing his eyes and leaning his head against the wall behind him. Outside, it drizzled weakly, a misting kind of rain. Rare for Vegas at this time of the year. He couldn't appreciate it.
"But I'm right here," she responded, her voice tight with confusion. "I haven't gone anywhere, doctor."
But she had.
your breaking point
She had thought that Reid showing up nightly at her front door would soon become tiring, but three weeks after they'd pretended to bury Emily Prentiss, his knock didn't come.
She ate her tea with Will in silence and the doorway was silent.
She wished Henry a goodnight and kissed his head and the front door stood closed.
She picked up her keys and said something like 'I'm going for a drive' to Will, and didn't say where, and in the end she didn't need to. They both knew where she was going.
Her couch was empty and he wasn't there and she was ashamed that she'd ever thought it could be tiring.
Two steps out of that silent door and she saw his car, the dark shape bowed in the front seat, the head slumped against the steering wheel, and she froze. His form wavered, broken by the steady glide of raindrops on the windows. The rain slowed, stopped, left the world clean and new and still, haunted. She could cry out, call for him, call for Will, but she didn't.
She walked slowly towards the car, her feet swishing on the rain damp grass and her mouth sour with the aftertaste of a dinner she couldn't remember eating. She expected the worst because that way she wouldn't be broken by it when it came true. She could accept it easier that way.
He's dead, he's dead, he's dead, I didn't even notice that he needed me and now he's dead and
Her nails clicked on the glass as she rapped sharply on the pane, and he jerked upright and looked at her with her with grieving eyes. Alive. Breaking. But alive.
Breaking was okay. She could fix breaking.
He rolled the window down and tried to grin sheepishly at her, but the expression slipped off his face, and he was itching absently at the crook of his arm hard enough that the thin fabric of his shirt was spotted with blood.
"Have you eaten?" she asked him quietly, staring at those spots, and he shrugged. "Come on."
He followed her silently up the path to her house, and she thought that maybe this was her penance. Her lie to keep Emily alive had shattered those who loved her.
She had to put them back together so that when Emily returned, she couldn't see the cracks.
Fortunately, she wasn't alone in that. And neither was he. She wouldn't let him reach his breaking point, not without a fight.
They were still a family.
your breaking point
She woke up and she was alone and her gut burned like Doyle had shoved a red-hot poker in there instead of half a fucking tree.
She took the pills that kept away the pain, the slickly coated pills that left her mouth bitter and her gut churning, and she was still alone.
Bruises faded on the face that stared back at her from the mirror. Alone.
She opened a window to let in the breeze that was thick with the promise of rain, and there was no one to share that promise with.
They'd buried one friend, buried Emily Prentiss in the hard ground of DC, under a gravestone etched with lies and her own betrayal. She'd buried six, metaphorically of course, in the graveyard of her memories and her heart.
What they didn't know was that Emily Prentiss hadn't died on that operating table. Emily Prentiss was still dying, slowly fading, piece by piece in solitude and miles away from everyone who had ever thought to care about her.
If they mourned her and accepted her death, then was she really still alive?
In the long hours between the sun rising and setting on the endless days of her exile, she thought of many things. She wondered who had Sergio. She wondered if Reid was okay. She considered the many names she'd worn throughout her life, and how each of them had ended in blood and undeserved grief.
She considered her breaking point. She stood with her toes on the line.
Alone. Always alone.
Her laptop dinged, the only noise to break the silence of her apartment.
One new word played
Cheeto_Breath played ACCEPT for 15 points
She stepped back.
Emily Prentiss wasn't done with living yet.
your family's limits
Her doorbell rung and she almost dropped the carton of milk she was holding, her hands suddenly damp with sweat and heart hammering against her ribcage.
Panicked, swooping, choking fear and it clouded her and for a moment became her everything.
Her phone dinged. One message.
Chocolate Thunder
Yo Babygirl, let me in. It's raining out here and I bring gifts.
Derek.
She walked to the door on legs that wobbled and considered that maybe, just maybe, she was going a little insane. That guy, that monster, had taken all her sanity and her trust and broke it as easily as his bullet had broken her skin and left her frightened of her own damn home.
When work, with the ick and the gross and the evil that it threw at her daily, had started feeling safer than her apartment, she'd known she was in trouble.
"Hi," she said simply when she opened the door and found him standing there, wiping water from his head and his shoulders patterned with dark dots of rain. He examined her carefully with the scary profiling gaze that they all had, even little Reid, and she tried to shrink away from it. "Is the gift you?"
Terrible. Terrible weak attempt at banter, and he saw through it as easily as he would a pane of glass.
"I'm staying over tonight," he said calmly, smiling at her and her heart skipped a beat. "And I'm gonna stay over for as long as it takes for you to admit that it's okay to ask for help, my gorgeous girl."
"I don't need help," she lied, and her chest ached around the still healing wound.
"And that," he said, moving past her carefully. "Is the kinda stupid talking that's going to have me sleeping on your couch until we're both old and grey."
She didn't argue with him, just closed the door and put the bolt on, and tried not to cry with the realization that sunk into her.
It was okay that Colby had left her a little broken and a little mad and a lot frightened. She could accept that.
Because she wasn't alone.
And with her family, she never would be.
the passage of time
They buried his Dad on a Thursday.
Derek had never liked Thursdays before because it was the health day in the school cafeteria and they only gave out things like broccoli and soggy cheese sandwiches with the crusts still on. This particular Thursday was worse because it was soggy and grey and rain loomed overhead in dark clouds that never actually broke.
They buried his Dad on a Thursday and Derek watched the coffin disappear into the dark earth and silently considered that things like that didn't really matter anymore. His mom stood alone and his sisters stood apart and the only man that was there for them was him.
He couldn't be a kid anymore.
And he had to accept that.
He squared his shoulders as the earth pattered against the wood. The rain begun, finally, breaking the tension and the humidity of the air that tried to smother him.
He'd always hated Thursdays.
your place in the world
"Want to share a cab?" Hotch smiled, a rare smile, draining his glass and putting it gently onto the bar, standing without a hint of the alcohol he'd consumed in his stance. "It's wet out there."
"Some profiler," Rossi teased, reaching for his coat. "Scared by a bit of rain."
Hotch laughed at they made their way to the exit, shoulders for once light without the weight of their work pressing down on them. The rest of the team waved, animated with the freedom the night offered them, together and unbroken.
Reid with his quick smile and quicker hands, trying to teach JJ coin tricks with fingers that didn't fumble, no matter how many drinks Morgan pressed on him. Morgan himself, letting his playful side show, finally relaxing around the intimidating presence of their newest member.
The women, JJ and Emily, both watching him warily, both smiling warmly.
Rossi said his goodbyes to them and they said them back, and Garcia wrapped him in a forceful hug that smelled of cinnamon and dust and the faintest hint of alcohol.
"They like you, you know," Hotch reassured him on the way out, skirting puddles. "I told you they'd accept you."
"What, as part of the team?" Rossi asked, looking around for the cab they'd called. "Hell, Aaron, I've been here three months. It'd be a damn shame if they didn't think me part of the team yet."
He was walking in Gideon's shoes and Gideon hadn't just been part of their team, he'd been part of their hearts. And Rossi had no illusions about his inability to breech those walls.
"If that's what you think I meant," Hotch said calmly.
Huh.
Maybe he had a chance after all.
"You know they call you mom, right?" he teased his friend as they got in the cab. Hotch snorted, oddly undignified.
"Yeah, but I still wear the pants," Hotch replied shortly, his mouth twitching.
Rossi hadn't had a family for a long time.
But he was willing to give it a go, if they'd accept him. He had a feeling they would.
Maybe they already had.