A/N: This is the third instalment, and I guess I am in a writing mood, as this is the second one tonight. As with before this is based of the quote from episode 4.12, this time with Agent Hotchner. I set this one roughly a few months before Hailey died. Now, on with the story, read, review!
Enjoy!
Shot three, Aaron Hotchner
Aaron Hotchner stood at a good height of six foot one inch. Today however, he stood far less then that. He and his team of profilers had just come home from a case that ended truly horribly. Not only did they fail to save the latest victim, a young mother, but the unsub conveniently committed suicide by cop, and to add injury to insult, a young beat cop loosed a bullet after the unsub had gone down and hit Morgan in the calf.
Aaron was the first to admit that today, he had failed. Failure, in his eyes, was inexcusable, especially his own.
Aaron, despite only being forty five, felt as though he had lived a life time, in the last week, and his body felt on the verge of collapse. He hung his head as he made his way up to his fourth floor apartment.
Aaron unlocked the door, disarmed the security system, closed the door, rearmed the system and locked the door on autopilot, and then let himself sink heavily into his couch. Just as he was nodding off a knock sounded at his door. He lifted his head, gazed at the door, as if wishing it would open on its own before dragging himself off of the couch and towards it.
The bedraggled man unarmed his security system, unlocked the door, opened it, and saw no one. He looked each way down the hall and none of his neighbours were out, no one was there. With a sigh, Aaron shook his head looking down and went to turn back into his apartment. As he was doing this, he spotted a baby sitting on the floor looking up at him. The child was easily a year old and evidently female.
Aaron Hotchner knelt down in shock. Someone had left their child, their daughter in front of his door, and hadn't even stuck around to see if he took her in. He shuttered slightly at the unwanted thought of leaving Jack outside a strangers home. Reaching out, he picked up the small girl and held her in his arms. Standing up Aaron took one last glance down the hall, and disappeared into his apartment.
He balanced the child on his left hip as he raised his right hand to lock the door, and rearm his security. Then he made his way over to the couch and deposited the girl there. He sat on the coffee table in front of the couch and watched at the girl cocked her head and looked around.
"Hey there, can you talk?" He asked after a minute.
The girl raised her head to look at him and said, "hi."
He smiled, "hi, what's your name?"
"Me, 'Liz 'Beth, who you?" The little girls eyes narrowed slightly as she watched Aaron.
"My name is Aaron, Elizabeth." Aaron stood and picked up his cordless house phone.
"Hailey? Can you come over? And bring Jack's car seat from when he was a year old." He said as soon as the phone was answered.
"Aaron, what do you need with it? And why do you need me?" His ex-wife asked.
"Well, its illegal to drive a vehicle with a child in it without the proper seating. And there was a little girl left at my door step. Please Hailey, I could really use a hand here."
Aaron listened to the woman on the other end of the phone sigh. "Alright Aaron, give me a bit to find it and get Jack ready."