Aaron had less than a second of silence before the inevitable question was asked.

"Hotch, are you okay?" Garcia asked with her usual loving and concerned tone.

"I'm fine," he replied dismissively, hoping that would conclude the matter.

It didn't, obviously.

"Why should he be fine?" Blake asked in bewilderment. Hotch almost forgot that as the latest addition to the team, Alex didn't know who Foyet was.

"George Foyet wasn't really a victim. He was the serial killer," Rossi explained with a sigh.

"Then how did he get people to think he's a victim?" she asked again, even more confused.

"I have the case file here," Garcia mumbled quietly, "Do you want me to…?" she left the question hanging.

Aaron nodded. Think about the matter for too long upset him enough – he didn't want to explain it as well.

Garcia uploaded the data and cleared her throat awkwardly.

"George Foyet, or 'The Boston Reaper', was a very prolific serial killer. It was Hotch's first case as a BAU senior. After 20 victims, Foyet became unable to get as much satisfaction from the murders as earlier. Since he was motivated by a need for power, he wrote a contract stating that he would stop killing if Tom Shaunessy, then the lead detective on the case, shut down the investigation. Since the authorities didn't have any leads in the case besides a fake description by Foyet, who in 1996 had killed his girlfriend and severely injured himself, pretending to be a victim of the Reaper in order to manipulate the police, he accepted. As a result of the injuries, Foyet became addicted to a number of medications, including Oxycontin and Tapazole. In 2009, Shaunessy called Hotch to himself on his dying night, revealed the deal to him, and expressed his awareness of the Reaper actually spying on him in anticipation of his death. The following morning, he died and the Reaper got back on the hunt."

Garcia paused for an instance and glanced at Hotch, since they both knew what happened next.

"So Hotch killed him because he resisted the arrest?" Blake asked, still in the dark.

Garcia opened her mouth to answer her, but it took her a moment to let the words out of it. "No, he – "

"He called me and offered me the same deal – if I would stop hunting him, he'd stop killing," Aaron interrupted and explained instead. It irritated him to just sit there and listen to them talk about him like he isn't there – he wasn't a child, he could talk for himself.

"I refused the deal, and that angered him. So to make a long story short, in return he broke into my house, stabbed me multiple times, murdered my ex-wife and threatened my son. When I finally confronted him, I had no other choice but to kill him with my bare hands," continued Aaron. His voice was dry of emotions, and his face was a blank emotionless mask. But none of the BAU team members was fooled by this act – they could all see the hidden pain in his eyes, and hear the concealed sorrow in his words.

"I'm so sorry," Alex said wholeheartedly, as it was not only true but also the only appropriate reaction.

"His mother was probably one of Foyet's students," Aaron said quickly, changing the subject.

"He probably abused her," JJ agreed and continued his line of thought, "And in order to explain it to herself, her subconscious created an illusion that they were actually lovers. That way she could cope with being raped without telling anyone."

"How do you know that?" Blake asked.

"He was a hebephile, which means he'd primarily attracted to adolescents. He worked as a computer science substitute teacher to get near teenagers."

"Oh," she replied, and silence took over the room again.

Aaron felt obligated to say something. The team was expecting him to show some kind of emotion. And indeed, he was boiling internally. Foyet didn't deserve to have a child, he didn't deserve to have a legacy! He didn't deserve a son that considered him a hero, but his son didn't deserve that kind of father. He did what he had to do because unlike Foyet, he did feel sympathy. Although at that moment he was feeling much more than just sympathy – anger, sorrow, frustration, longing – but he wouldn't let it show. It was easier to hide his feelings than to be vulnerable. He considered saying something for a second, but then Haley's words appeared in his head: 'He has to know you weren't always so serious', and he felt a sharp pain in his heart, sharper than the pain he felt when Foyet stabbed him. Was he really that serious, that cold? After all the time he'd spent on repressing his feelings, was he really unable to reveal them?

He couldn't answer those questions. But he knew that he wouldn't continue to talk about it. He couldn't. Every time he felt like he was stronger than he was when it all happened, something happened that broke him down and proved him the wound was still as fresh as it was when it was created.

So instead, he said: "Garcia, present the case," and, after a second, added, "Please."


A/N: So that's it! I really hope you like it :)

I'm considering to write a sequel two years later, when Hotch tells George the truth about his father. We'll see about that.

Have a fantastic day!