Ending
Thanks to my beta, Greeneyedconstellations!
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"Wie klag' ich's aus, das Sterbegefühl,
Das auflösend durch die Glieder rinnt?
Wie sing' ich's aus, das Werdegefühl,
Das erlösend dich, o Geist, anweht?"
Johann Chrysostomos Senn, Schwanengesang
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"How I complain about it, the feeling of death,
the dissolution that runs through the limbs?
How I sing about it, the feeling of becoming,
the salvation, oh spirit, that awaits you?"
Johann Chrysostomos Senn, Swan Song
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Aaron Hotchner died under the light of the moon that had betrayed him, and Spencer Reid considered following him. Fleetingly.
Then someone laughed and Reid changed his mind.
He wasn't done here yet.
He lowered the cooling body of the swan carefully to the ground and stood, trousers flapping wetly against his legs and the light breeze cutting straight through him. He savoured it. The cold meant he was still alive.
Then he turned and faced the man who'd destroyed everything.
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Aaron fell from the sky and hit the ground with an inevitability that would haunt David Rossi for months to come.
He found himself human again, with his team at his side, and none of them treasured their freedom because Spencer Reid sat in front of them cradling their leader's body, and the cost was too high.
Someone laughed, Reid stood, and Rossi saw murder in his eyes.
He wasn't going to stop him.
He stepped back.
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JJ tried to run to Spence on legs that shook, but Will dragged her back and only then did she see Stephen approaching. Spence stood, and his face was a mask that JJ recognised from the files that used to cover her desk every morning.
"Stay the hell away from them!" she screamed at the mage, wrenching her arm out of Will's grasp and staggering forward. Stephen didn't even spare her a glance as he walked past and she couldn't move, illogically frozen even though her body burned with anger. Will made a low noise behind her, and she knew he was paralysed as well.
"I gave you nothing," Spencer spat at the man, and his fists clenched at his side, shaking with repressed anger and grief. "You know that. You know nothing that I said was for you!"
Stephen's expression twisted, almost inhuman, and JJ didn't think she'd ever be able to read about magic or fairy-tales again without seeing that face. "The betrayal is yours," he said. He smiled. "He died because of you. You're alone because of you. I don't think the intention behind the words really matters in the end, does it? Just the… result."
Reid faltered, and his expression cleared. She felt relief for a moment. He was still thinking, still himself. He could get them out of this, all of them.
"Then take me," Reid said quietly, and her hope shattered. "My life for his."
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He couldn't move and Jennifer fought him, dragged her arm out of his grip and ran forward into danger. Ran towards Spencer and the man capable of things they couldn't even possibly imagine.
The mage turned his head slightly and his eyes skimmed over Jen, and Will almost threw up with the surge of protective fury that burned in him. Don't even look at her, you son of a bitch! He tried to scream it but his voice was gone, taken by the spell that rooted them both to that cursed beach.
His only solace was that Jen was frozen too, unable to fling herself between Spencer and danger like he knew she would in a heartbeat. He knew that was what she was thinking, just as he knew Spencer wouldn't be leaving here tonight so long as Stephen still lived.
Because he knew what he'd do if it was Jen laying there lifeless. He wouldn't stop until the man who'd done it was dead by his hands.
"My life for his," Spencer said calmly, and Will understood completely. He knew Jen wouldn't.
She crumpled slightly in front of him, her blue eyes widening with fear and horror, and he wondered if any of them would survive this night. If two members of her team died here, a part of his wife would, too.
But they would be free. And they would have Henry. His one job, getting Henry's mama home to him.
His feet shifted on the cobbles. He could move again. He wavered, teetering between grabbing her and running from the waves of suppressed power radiating outwards from the mage, or sprinting forward and helping her teammate.
No. Not just her teammate.
The man who'd raised his son when he wasn't able. The man who'd taken in a boy who had lost everything, and still somehow managed to keep him smiling, keep him dreaming and loving. The Henry Will had seen that day was delighted with the birds, joyous with the kingfisher on his hand. Still able to be happy.
He owed Spencer everything.
"Gladly," Stephen responded, and Will decided.
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Reid moved towards Stephen, and Morgan shuffled forward on his knees and lay a hand on the swan's creamy throat, hesitantly searching for some sign of life, some hope.
"Reid, get away from him!" he screamed, looking up and seeing his friend walking placidly to his death. "The fuck are you doing? Don't!"
It was like time had slowed, everything slightly blurred at the edges except for the sharp edged clarity of Reid's back as he walked away from them all.
"If you have me, if I belong to you, you'll let him live?" His voice so quiet that Morgan almost couldn't hear it. He tried to stand, to run forward, but he almost tripped over the swan, putting a quick hand down to steady himself and feeling it press against the soft chest of the great bird.
Stephen looked hungry, reaching out for Reid. The air around his hand pulsed. Morgan realized with a sick certainty that if that hand touched Reid, he'd die in front of them and none of them would be fast enough to stop him.
JJ, standing frozen with her mouth slack as though facing a nightmare, Rossi looking from Hotch's body to Reid with a dazed expression, as though uncertain of what was real and what was madness.
Will flew past and it was Stephen's hyper focus on Reid that gave him the opening, the two men going down in a flurry of limbs.
"Will!" JJ shrieked, and she was moving too, but Will was already up off the mage, lashing out with his foot, the heel impacting wetly against the mage's nose and throwing him back to the ground. He turned and wrapped his arm around Reid's chest, throwing him back. Reid fought him, but Will was stronger and recklessly determined.
"No one dies here," Will said firmly as Reid stumbled back over Hotch and hit the ground hard, eyes wide and stunned. Will turned back to face the mage, his own hands clenched into fists. "No one dies here, not anyone. You got that? You can't go through all of us."
Morgan straightened. "Damn right," he growled.
Stephen laughed wildly. "You think you can stop me?" His lips flecked with spittle and the whites of his eyes showing; for the first time he looked truly insane. Something popped in Morgan's ears as the pressure ramped up around them, the air suddenly thick and heavy with the scent of a storm.
He raised his hand and the skin on Morgan's arms began to sear faintly with the promise of pain.
A flicker of uncertainty in Will's eyes, and he glanced at JJ as though pleading silently for her to run. He'd turned them into birds in an instant; what could they do against him unarmed?
"Don't do this," Reid murmured. Morgan shot him a filthy glare, furious with the idea that Reid had been so happy to leave them. "Not for me, not now. I'm not worth it. JJ – Henry needs you. Just walk away, please."
"Shut up, Spence," JJ answered coldly, and took Will's hand.
Morgan reached for Reid, to pull him upright, to hold him close; he wasn't entirely sure of his plan except that he wasn't going to die without touching his friend one last time.
The air shattered with a gunshot and they all dropped as it tore the world apart.
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Morgan reached for him and Reid considered ducking away from his hands and sprinting past them, but he already knew that plan had a low probability of actually working. Almost impossible. Maybe against one of them, maybe against two, but four of them?
And he didn't fancy finding out just how hard JJ could hit if he really riled her.
Instead, he locked eyes with Stephen and tried to convey with his expression to take pity on them, to let his friends live. They'd paid the price, Aaron was dead. They deserved their freedom.
He locked gazes with Stephen's cold, blue eyes and that was the moment the bullet slammed into the mage's skull and those eyes emptied forever.
Stephen Gideon fell for the last time and behind him, Emily Prentiss lowered her gun.
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Her team, loosely clustered around a vivid splash of white against the dark cobbles that she didn't want to think too closely about. Reid on the ground, and by the furious looks Morgan kept shooting him, he'd probably just done something really stupid and dangerous.
Rossi turned his head slightly and saw her, and he nodded just once.
She aimed the gun and fired without hesitating, and the world around them imploded as the mage died, sending them all to the ground.
A scream behind her as the air folded in upon them, and she turned, still crouched, and felt someone small hurtle into her arms, shaking with fear.
When the air corrected itself the lake was still there, but the sky was familiar again and the sound of traffic hummed over the forest towards them. She relaxed her arms, and the figure slipped out. Blinked. Turned his head and saw the people clustered on the bank.
"Mama! Daddy!" screamed Henry, sprinting towards them. "Spence!"
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Stephen died and the first thing Reid heard was Henry's voice calling for his parents. When the boy leapt out from Emily's arms and ran towards them, he wasn't even shocked. If magic was real, why not miracles as well?
He looked down, blinking the aftereffects of the spell collapsing out of his eyes. The swan was still there.
Impossible.
Stephen was dead. The world they had been trapped in was gone. How could Aaron still be a swan, still be…?
A hand on his shoulder. He didn't need to look to know whose.
"Spencer…" Rossi said softly, his hand tightening. His voice wavered. Reid remembered numbly that he wasn't the only one here who loved Aaron. The crowd around them had dispersed, Will and JJ crying and hugging Henry to them as though they could never let him go. Reid didn't blame them. He didn't know how he was going to let him go either, now the time had come.
Morgan standing back, looking lost. Someone screamed. Garcia appeared like a wraith and wrapped around him, almost sending them both toppling to the ground. Reid couldn't focus on their happiness through the desperation crowding onto him.
One more step. One more step and he would have taken Stephen's hand and traded everything for Aaron.
Why couldn't the world have allowed him that final step?
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Reid's hand settled on the swan as though saying a final goodbye, and the motion was so oddly familiar that Rossi looked away.
And saw the moon.
"Wait," he said, his grip so tight on the man's shoulder under him that it must have been painful. "Wait!"
There was still hope.
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Reid was vaguely aware that there were more people around then there had been. Emily took his hand for a moment, squeezed, then bent to help him lift the swan. He was strangely light.
"Who did you bring?" Reid asked her through numb lips, too shaken to turn and look. He couldn't face them, not if they watched them with expressions devoid of hope. It would drag him away from the lifeline he was tenuously reaching for.
"No one who didn't demand to come," she replied. "They chose to come on their own. You took the car so I needed to borrow someone's, Garcia practically cemented herself to me, and I couldn't leave Henry there alone. You're lucky Anderson agreed to stay behind and run damage control."
"Jessica would have looked after him, or his grandparents," Reid said, and Emily's eyebrows shot up. Reid bit his lip. The desire to turn his head burned. He ignored it and stepped into the water, Emily by his side.
"Do you really think Jessica was going to let Jack's dead Dad run out of that room without a chase? She's Haley's sister – I'm shocked she didn't beat us both here."
The water was up to their waists now, and Reid could almost believe they were the only ones left in the world. Rossi followed them, slightly behind, pausing before the water reached his hips. Reid glanced at him, and when the man nodded, lowered the swan gently into the water.
"This is insane," Emily muttered under her breath, her teeth chattering. Her lips were blue in the low light, skin almost as white as the swan. Reid imagined he didn't look much better.
Silence. Nothing. No light, no magic. Just waiting.
They stood in the lake as it flowed around them, and still he was dead.
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She could see the darkness in Reid's eyes growing by the second. The gun felt hot in its holster, looped over her shoulder to keep it dry, but she didn't regret it. She took the shot so Reid wouldn't have the chance to feed the demons that he'd been cultivating.
But by the looks of it, she'd been too late, anyway.
No. Not too late. Her mind ticked. Half remembered words. Reid, no doubt, could remember them perfectly, but she had the gist of them in her mind.
"It's not working," Reid said finally, shaking helplessly. His hands slipped on the swan, and she slid her palm under his head to stop the bill from dipping below the surface. "There's nothing left to save him, it died with Stephen." She didn't know if she was imagining the blame in those words.
A frantic splashing and she jolted, turned, and found herself looking down into Jack Hotchner's furious eyes.
"It has to work," he said stubbornly, his mouth set in a fierce line that was so much like his father's she was forced to believe it. Behind him, Jessica waded uncertainly into the water. "He was alive, I saw him. Henry said that he was coming back."
Henry. Dragging his mom by her hand and almost tripping into the shallows, chasing his friend. Their team clustered on the bank behind them, not following, but waiting. Rossi caught Jack before he could push past, almost lifting him out of the water in an effort to tug him back.
"No," Reid said, jerking. He let go of the bird for a moment, reached for Jack. "Let him go. Jack, come here."
"It's deep," Emily pointed out, judging the water level. "Reid, if he slips…"
Rossi solved it, wading over with his hands wrapped around Jack's chest, holding him up. Reid took his arm. "It's okay, I've got you," he said quietly to the shaking boy. Rossi let him go, trusting him entirely to Reid's hold. "Put your hands where mine are, like that… I've got you."
She held her breath as Jack's smaller hands replaced Reid's. Met Reid's eyes. For the first time, the darkness was gone.
He looked hopeful.
"Come on, Dad," breathed Jack.
The moon glimmered on the lake.
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The darkness cleared. Hotch tried to take a breath. It was like inhaling water, but without choking him, like drowning without the need to breathe. He knew the feeling.
"Dad."
Jack. His son. Calling him.
"Come on. You can't. You were alive, don't die again. Please?"
In all his life, Jack had never asked him for anything as intently as he was asking him for this.
Aaron wasn't in the habit of denying his son.
He struggled against the dark, and took another breath.
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The light was so slight at first Reid couldn't be sure it wasn't just the reflection of the moon off of Aaron's feathers. Then it grew, and he was sure. He could feel Jack's heaving breaths in his hands as the light trailed up their arms, somehow brighter and cleaner than it had ever been previously.
"Spencer…" Jack whimpered uncertainly. Emily caught his hand before he could pull it away.
"It's working," she whispered.
It was.
It did.
Under their hands, the chest moved. The swan blinked. Dark eyes met Reid's.
The light grew.
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Breathing burned. But it was good, a good burn, and so fucking welcome that Hotch took two more just to be sure.
There was a single lingering moment when he opened his eyes and Reid was looking down at him, hazel eyes wide with wonder and his mouth slightly parted as though midway through saying his name.
Then the light blurred him away and Hotch felt the change steeling down his spine, hot points of contact from hands on his skin.
It didn't hurt.
The change came and he found himself human in the waters of the lake for the final time, and there was no pain.
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Hotch lived again and Reid began counting.
He was going to treasure every moment this time, because he'd learnt for certain that forever wasn't a promise.
"Jack," Aaron gasped, standing in the water with it trickling in rivulets down his body, his clothes clinging to his form, and his son leapt into his arms with a sob that was almost a howl. "I'm here, buddy. I'm alive. I'm alive and here, and I'm am so goddamn sorry."
Someone pushed past as Reid backed away, blonde hair wild, and Jessica almost drove Hotch back into the water as she flung her arms around them both, a family again. Reid turned his head and this time he did take notice of everyone, JJ and Will, Henry and his grandparents, Garcia and Morgan and Rossi. Emily. His family, every last one of them. All alive. Almost. Except one. Gideon's absence was sobering.
The still form of Stephen, alone. Gone.
There was a pang at that. A life wasted. So much potential. Reid had hungered for his death, but now it had come all he felt was sad.
He limped out of the water on a leg that stung, dragged against the rocks at some point during the madness of the last two hours, and observed. A bystander as everyone celebrated Aaron's revival.
He tested the words in his mouth.
Aaron's alive. Nothing. Numbness. Cold.
We're all alive. He shivered. From the cold and the wet. It wasn't true anyway. Gideon had died here.
He's coming home. Still nothing.
He felt clean. Hollowed out, but in a good way. As though starting afresh.
But still empty.
JJ turned her head, as though to look for him, Aaron still holding Jack. Crying. Reid didn't blame him.
He stepped back into the gloom of the undergrowth before they could see him, and turned and walked away.
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Hotch finally disentangled himself from his son and turned to Emily, his eyes red-rimmed and mouth smiling helplessly. It wasn't the eerie grin that the mage wearing his skin had given her. It was real and relieved and so thankful for life and family and living.
"Gideon was right the first time," she said quietly, tucking her hands between her arms and her sides, shivering. "It was familial love all along. The son and his father. We could have solved it from the beginning."
Hotch hissed out a breath at the mention of Gideon, his death haunting them. "He died to protect his family," Hotch answered eventually. "If the spell was fair, it should have broken then. Reid…"
He stopped and looked around and Emily's heart twisted. "He's not here, Hotch. He left."
"Why?" The word was pained, confused. Hurt.
"I don't know."
"Where?"
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They found him in the building where the whole thing should have ended without the pain and the blood and the hurt. Hotch stared at him, standing surrounded by glass glittering in the moonlight shining through the broken window. His. His everything. He knew in that moment that he loved him, more than he had ever imagined he could love someone who wasn't his son.
Emily stopped, took Jack's hand, and waved him forward.
"You didn't drive, did you?" His voice was calm. Oddly composed, considering everything that had happened tonight. "Technically, you've been dead a year. I don't think your license is valid anymore."
"Spencer…"
"Speaking of, I'm really not entirely sure how we're going to spin this so we don't all come out looking like crazy people. Plus, Gideon…" he trailed off and Hotch heard the catch in his voice, pain. It was almost a relief. He'd been worried that he'd sunk back into the semi-shocked state he'd been in the night he saw Hotch turn from a swan to a man.
"Why did you run?"
Reid turned, and tilted his head. Hotch could see blood on his forehead. He'd been hurt at some point between Hotch flying through that window, and him waking up in the water under Jack's hands. "I didn't want to intrude. Your family, you'd just come back from the dead, Aaron. I think they take precedence."
"You are family."
Reid blinked. "I'm not going to hold you to that, you know. I'm pretty sure at the least, there are consent issues behind vowing undying love to a man under a curse; at the very least, it poses an interesting ethical dilemma."
Hotch clicked. Idiot. "I meant it," he snapped. Whether or not you did, I meant everything that was said. I loved you then, I still love you, and I stand by that. Even if you are ridiculously insecure."
His eyes narrowed. "You have control issues. We'd be an appalling couple."
"I'm a terrible husband. I'll work too much, I'll neglect you, and we'll fight over it."
"I won't be able to express my emotions adequately and you'll feel unfulfilled."
Hotch saw something darker on the floor and stooped to pick it up, brushing the glass off. It bought him closer to Reid. They were both breathing heavily, as though they'd run a race. "I'm willing to try anyway."
Spencer closed his eyes and a multitude of emotions crossed his face, as though he'd been hit by them all at once. Shock. Grief. Acceptance. Happiness. Fear. "So am I."
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Hotch handed him the empty box that had contained the ring. "Ask again?"
It wasn't exactly the kind of proposal dreams were made of. He couldn't kneel, surrounded by shards of broken glass and chairs overturned in the panic. They were both filthy, bloodied, and Aaron was technically still deceased, according to the state of Virginia.
But under the same moon that had separated them and watched by Emily Prentiss, Jessica Brooks and the still shell-shocked Jack, he asked anyway.
Aaron said yes.
And their time began once more.