This is the first chapter I've uploaded that wasn't written a year ago, so I hope you enjoy it. And thanks for all the reviews so far (:
The mistake regarding Henry's age has been fixed. It was a typing error, thanks for pointing it out (:
"No, you need to leave. Right now," she said, her hands wiping at her eyes that were threatening to betray her. "My son died fourteen years ago. Go!"
Henry was at a loss and could feel the tears welling in his own eyes. No, she was wrong. He was her son, he knew it. He could see himself in her, even if she didn't want to believe that. He was a bag of mixed emotions and he didn't know how to deal with it; confusion, anger, fear, the need to know where he came from and why he had ended up like he had. Just as he was about to open his mouth, Hotch entered the kitchen.
"What's going on?" He asked, seeing JJ in floods of tears and the teenager on the verge of breaking down, too. JJ couldn't speak; she just buried herself into Aaron's chest. He couldn't help but sigh before he glanced at Henry. "You need to leave."
"But I'm your son!" He yelled, anger filling his eyes, if only for a brief second. Henry didn't know if this man was his father, it was the only assumption he could make. This was going to be one fight that Henry wasn't going to be able to win with words alone. But then again, he hadn't really expected to. Not deep down, anyway. "Fine, but I thought you should have this."
With that, he placed his scruffy dog on the table and turned to leave. He had barely made two steps when he heard her whisper his name. He closed his eyes and stopped in his tracks. Using the back of his hand, he tried to wipe away the tears and force away the burning. It didn't work. Henry turned around and saw her clutching at the stuffed toy, staring at it as though it was a lifeline. And he could see, in her eyes that it was. A lifeline to something she had thought she would never see again.
"Why did you give me up for adoption?" He asked again, not turning around to look at her. He couldn't look her in the eyes, knowing that he had been dead to her for the last fourteen years of her life.
"She didn't." He hadn't expected Hotch to answer for her, but his answer still filled him with confusion. They had to have given him up for adoption: why else would his parents tell him otherwise. "Sit down, Henry."
Doing as he was told, he took a seat at the table across from his parents. Henry could see that his mom – biologically speaking – wasn't going to be doing any of the talking, so he looked to his father.
"Fourteen years ago, you were kidnapped from a park." He paused seeing that Henry was about talk. "No, just listen. Once I'm finished, you can say what you have to." Henry just nodded his head.
"We were out with the team – a picnic in the park. You and Jack were playing soccer, when Jack came back saying you'd gone to fetch the ball but had never come back. We searched for you. The team, your father, everyone we could spare at the FBI, the police force. Three months before we were told we were told the case was cold and that other, more recent missing children had to take precedent," Aaron explained, watching the teenager carefully. "We caught the guy who took you eventually, but he died before he could tell us where you were or what he had done with you."
"Thinking you were dead was an easier option that imagining what kind of horrors you could have been going through," JJ whispered, having eventually found her voice again. "You've changed so much."
But Henry wasn't listening. He was trying to take in everything that he had been told, and he couldn't. No, there was no way that his parents had kidnapped him. You heard about that sort of stuff all the time in the news all the time, so surely his neighbours would have suspicious of his parents if that were true. No, it wasn't. She just didn't want to admit that she couldn't cope with him.
"Stop lying to me. My parents would never do that. Never," he said, standing up. "I'm sorry I've wasted your time," he added as he moved towards the kitchen door. The hurt was clear as day on JJ's face as her son went to leave the house, to leave her again after he just walked back into their lives.
"Henry, please wait," she said, barely louder than before as she got up and left the kitchen. JJ returned a few moments later with a photo album, which she gave to him. "I want you to have that, even if you don't believe us."
Confused still, he took the album and flipped it open. Henry didn't need telling that these pictures were of him when he was a child. Silently, he ran his finger across the picture of him taken seconds after he was born, screaming his tiny little head off. And as he turned the pages, he made his way through the first three years of his life until they just stopped. That must have been when... He didn't want to think about it.
Before he could speak, the phone in his pocket began vibrating. It was getting late and his mom would be worried. His mom... He wasn't sure what she was anymore. Pulling the phone out, he ended the conversation quickly with a,
"Yeah, I'm making my way home soon. I'll be back in about two hours, don't wait up for me." Henry put the phone away and looked to the people in front of him. "I'm sorry, I have to go." Henry didn't bother to stop as he heard JJ break down again, not bothering to hide her sobbing.
Henry rubbed his forehead and wiped at his eyes as he shut the door behind him and made his way to the car. Why did this have to happen to him? Why did he have to find that box in the garage? He had been happy the way he was and now his life had been turned upside down.
"What gives you the right to walk into our lives like that and then walk out again as if nothing happened?" Hotch asked, causing the teenager to jump. He hadn't heard him walk up behind him. Henry didn't have an answer, he just shrugged.
Even though he'd retired, he still profiled people, especially people like Henry. It was a handy skill to have.
"Take this," he said eventually, handing Henry his card. "If you ever want to talk, I'm available at all hours." Usually he would have limited the time when to call and when not to call, but this was his wife's son. This was his step-son, even if he hadn't been around for the last fourteen years.
"Thanks," he said, giving him a nod too, before he got into the car and drove off, the tears streaming down his face all the way home.
Home was the place you were supposed to feel safe and loved, but now this home, this place that he had grown up in was just that: just a place. He no longer felt safe, or loved, but lied to. Slowly, Henry made his way up the path, his feet hitting the slabs as he made his way up to the door and inside.
Food was on the kitchen counter with a note from Georgina. That was how he was trying to think of it. His mom wasn't his mom and his dad wasn't his dad. Parents didn't kidnap you or buy you off of someone that did. Honestly, he wasn't even sure what happened, but he knew that his real parent's lives had been destroyed because of them.
After reading the note, he screwed it up. Henry didn't want to read those words. 'I love you.' He wanted to scream the house down, break everything within his sight and just cry. Grabbing the food and a fork, he went to his room and kicked the door shut behind him. If what they were saying was true, then there would be some sort of newspaper article or a video or something. He had to know.
The search didn't take long at all. FBI son kidnapped was all he had to type in the search bar and he had more than enough to go through. And there it was: Henry Jareau, aged three, taken from the park at midday today; case gone cold in search for FBI agent's son.
Henry had to get out of there, sooner rather than later. Silently, he packed his bags. How was he supposed to decide what he wanted to take and what he didn't? His entire life was in that room, and so was everything that was important to him. With a sigh, he packed his clothes up, managing to squeeze his photo album in. Even if his life was a lie, he had some good memories contained within those pages.
Tomorrow, he would leave, he told himself as he climbed onto his bed, still fully clothed. Tomorrow couldn't come quick enough.
