The Whumping
True love does not come by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly: - Jason Jordan
Disclaimer: Criminal Minds is not mine.
Floyd sat on the porch and rocked the bundle in his arms. Her feet were bloodied and she was filthy but it was unmistakably Rosa.
Spencer tried to persuade him to bring her in the house. Lay her on the bed. He offered to get something to clean her with.
Aaron watched and understood something of what Floyd had said to him the night before. He went to the telephone and made a call.
Floyd stood up slowly holding his treasure close to his pale sickly looking body.
"Floyd – let me help – please." He completely blanked Spencer as he walked past him and towards the bathroom. "Please Floyd – I want to do something to help."
"Leave us alone. This is your fault Spence. Let me fix it."
Spencer stood looking down at his feet. Then he walked in a small circle. He felt Aaron's hand on his arm. "He didn't mean that Reid. He is upset. He doesn't deal with his emotions well. Give him time. He has Rosa back so things will settle with him again."
"I know. I am going to give him space." He picked keys up from the side table. "You can join me if you want." A hopeful look in the big hazel eyes.
Aaron pulled him close and held him tightly. "I am sorry Spence. I need to go and see Jack and I have things I need to go over with Rossi. Keep your cell with you. I will call you OK?"
Reid held on tightly for a minute or so and then they released each other. "I will leave him a note. I don't want to disturb what he is doing with Rosa." He pulled a hair tie out of his pocket and pulled his hair back. It made the damage on his face stand out a bit more but he wouldn't be able to drive with his hair flying over his face. "I have a hospital appointment. I need to go."
The two men left together. Aaron got in his car and Reid used Floyd's SUV.
The hospital visit was mostly uneventful. He had his dressing removed and they stared at the bruising around his eye and then they looked at the yellowing and greenish bruises on his cheek and jaw and at the split lip and the cut just above his eyebrow. They tried not to look at his hands and Reid was glad he had long sleeves on. He still had Floyd's stitches running up his inner arm.
"We did warn you that this eye had to be protected didn't we?"
"Yes." Fiddle fiddle with this hands.
"What happened to your face?"
"Someone hit me." Twisting the fingers.
"Someone hit you more than once. I hope you reported this."
He looked at the doctor. "It's not a problem. He apologised."
"I will have to delay your surgery. There is still too much damage there for me to even start considering it. You will have to be more careful or you will lose the sight in that eye."
"I will be more careful. How long will I need to wait?"
"I will send you a card in the post for another appointment Dr Reid. In the meantime wear this." A black eye patch was placed in Spencer's hand. "It will offer more protection and next time he hits you please ask him to avoid that eye."
Reid just nodded and sat up. The nurse helped him adjust the patch. "I feel pretty stupid you know."
The nurse smiled. (Oh god I want to jump his bones) "You look fine."
Spencer did a strange half smile and left the hospital. He hated them so the longer he had to wait for surgery the better really and he would talk to Floyd about it. It was coming up to mid day now. He thought about maybe calling Floyd but he checked his phone and there were no missed calls so obviously he wasn't ready. He went and parked up in a spot near to a small diner and had a coffee and bought a donut. He sat at the back of the place with his back to the wall and the exit in good sight. The coffee was drunk quickly but the donut just had the sugar picked off the top and he thought about Floyd and Aaron and Aaron and Floyd and himself and Aaron and Floyd and the three of them and then of Rosa and where they all fit in around the child.
He got up leaving a tip and a picked at donut and returned to Floyd's vehicle. For a long while he just sat there trying to work out what to do next. He had an idea that Hotch would be going back to his own place after seeing Jack and anyway he didn't think it right to be a distraction from seeing his son. Hotch had a son. Floyd had a daughter and he had nothing. The only things he had were what Floyd permitted him to have and a child would never be one of those things. Spencer grinned to himself. Thank the gods!
Reid drove away and out of the town towards the forest road. He turned on the music and opened the windows. By early evening he was pulling into a motel car park.
He parked up Floyd's car under a light and walked to the reception area. He got and paid for a room.
It was simple but all he needed was somewhere to sit in silence and think and hide. He stood in front of the mirror and looked at the scar on his face. He removed the eye patch and looked at the way his eye just didn't look right. He couldn't figure out what was wrong but it sort of looked unfocused. He put the patch back and ran his fingers over the mark on his face. They said it would fade. He raised an eye brow. Fade to what though he wasn't sure. He turned on the hot water and watched it steam up the mirror and then wrote backwards. 'I'm sorry.'
It wasn't that late really but he was tired. He was fed up and he missed the people he loved. Again he thought of Aaron with the only thing he would die for and then to Floyd and Rosa and the same mirrored thoughts. He pulled off his sweater vest and lay on his stomach on the bed wishing he was that one thing someone would willingly die for. He was soon sleeping.
-o-o-o-
Aaron saw Jack. Haley's sister met them in the park and he spent a wonderful after noon with his beloved son. He watched the way the boy ran and played with a ball and wished with all his heart that things could have been different. They rolled on the grass and laughed and smiled and Aaron blew raspberries on his son's small podgy tummy. He lay on his back and played aeroplanes with him and he pushed him on the swing for what felt like hours. He was probably as exhausted as Jack was by the time he left the park with a promise to Jack's aunt to call soon.
Now the decision had to be made. Go back to the house with Floyd and Spence or spend a night alone in that house he hated so much. He knew though in him own house there was whiskey and music he could listen to and Floyd probably needed time with Rosa and so he went back to the house he still hadn't put on the market.
Hotch slumped and drank the alcohol and grieved. He cried for his dead colleague. He cried for what was left of Spencer. He cried for his lost marriage and he cried because he was a more than a bit drunk.
-o-o-o-
He held his daughter under the warm water of the shower.
"How did you get here?" He spoke softly into her long dark hair.
"I walked." She looked up at him and smiled.
"Why didn't you come in last night? Why sleep on the porch?" He kissed her on the nose.
"I heard you and Spencer. I didn't want to disturb you and then I guess I fell asleep."
He grinned. "There was no need. You are more important than he is. I can replace him...I can't replace you."
The rest of the day they spent on Floyd and Reid's bed. The entwined their limbs around each other and kissed gently and just stayed there and defied anyone to come and take this away from them. Floyd's nose bled and Rosa lay and snuggled.
-o-o-o-
They came in.
He was dreaming about some long forgotten thing from his childhood. Someone grabbed his hair and something was wound around his neck. Spencer made a gasping gagging sound as the garrotte tightened around his neck and a voice whispered in his ear.
"You are a very lucky man."
Reid was dragged backwards off the bed. He put his hands up to his neck as he felt the garrotte digging into his flesh. He tried to look around at who was doing this but they were staying out of his field of vision. Vision which was beginning to see black stars bursting over it. Whoever held him up right kept him close to his body. Someone was taking photographs – Reid could just make out the flash of a camera. Then more pain. Pain in the groin and pain in the face and it felt like something had punched him hard in the chest. As the stars started to join up and everything went dark the garrotte was released.
"Stay here. If he tries to get away don't waste time. Just finish the scum off." As the bleeding form lay on the floor the owner of the voice kicked him hard in the face. "You will wish I finished you the first time around."
-o-o-o-
They came in.
He was dreaming about his day in the park with Jack. Only in his dream Spencer, Floyd and Rosa were there too.
At first he thought the rope being put around his neck was part of his dream – but he soon woke up enough to realise that this was very real. They dragged him out of this lounge and into the hallway. One of them went up the stairs and looped the rope around the handrail and pulled. Aaron was swiftly lifted up off his feet. He put his hands to his neck and tried to pull it away whilst trying to get some grip on the stairs with his feet. He managed to get his feet on one of the stairs taking the pressure off his neck. He gasped and took in some much needed breaths as his brain screamed at him for oxygen. His respite didn't last long. He was pulled away from the stairs and then slammed against them again. His face took the full weight of the attack and as the rope tightened again around his neck he saw flashing lights. A camera? He thought as everything went dark.
They lowered him to the floor and left him gasping for breath. A few kicks to the head made sure he wouldn't awaken for a while.
"You stay with him. Restrain him. This one is strong. Don't engage with him. He is a manipulator with his words."
-o-o-o-
They came in.
They stood and looked at Rosa and Floyd. Father and daughter in a loving embrace.
"That creature is filth." A hushed voice. The owner of the voice placed a pile of photos on the floor in front of the bedroom door and a small printed note was left on the top.
-o-o-o-
He opened his eyes and saw darkness. He was breathing in small panicky breaths. Something warm was crushing his chest. Carefully he moved his hands to where he felt the thumping sensation and found the handle of a knife. His shaking fingers moved around it trying to calculate how big the blade was. Spencer knew he needed to get help and so rolled over onto his side to try to work out where his cell was and how to get to it.
"Where do you think you are going?" Spencer froze. He thought he was alone. "Move again and I will have to hurt you some more." He tried to get up onto his hands and knees to see who was here in the darkness. As he managed to get onto all fours a voice spoke to him again. "Dr Reid?" He looked over towards the voice in the darkness and got a boot in his face for his trouble. He made a small 'wurg' sort of noise and fell back onto his side. A hand grabbed him and lay him on his back again.
"Careful – we don't want him falling on that blade. Not yet."
-o-o-o-
He opened his eyes and saw the dusty skirting board in his hallway. Aaron went to put a hand to his face but found that his hands were restrained behind his back. He swung around and managed to get to his knees.
A voice from behind him let him know he wasn't alone. "Get back on your face scum." Hotch continued to try to get up off the floor and turn to look at who he was talking to.
"What do you want?"
He wasn't given a verbal answer – but the baseball bat across the side of the head sent him flying across the hallway and the other side of his head smashed against the corner of the doorway. The blood flowed down the side of his head as Aaron slid peacefully down to his wooden hall floor.
"Oh my – that made a nice sound. I hope he tries that one again." A collective giggle.
-o-o-o-
"Daddy?"
A child's voice in his ear awoke Floyd. "Sweetheart." He brushed his fingers over the girls face.
"Daddy. I can smell him!"
Floyd sat up and took a deep breath. His senses along with everything else it seemed was not as sharp as it used to be. He actually fell asleep that night but now he could smell Iolanda. He put a hand on Rosa's soft child's body and pushed her back onto the bed. "Stay here. Do not move. Not even if I call for you. Do not move until I come back personally to get you. Understand?"
"Yes daddy." She pulled the messed up covers up over her bare body.
He pulled a sheet up off the bed and wrapped it around himself a few times and cautiously walked towards the open door. Floyd looked down at the things placed on the floor.
Firstly he read the note. 'We will take what is yours if you do not return what is ours.'
Then he looked at the pile of photographs.
The ones of Spencer showed him being garrotted. They showed a knife in his chest. They showed blood on his face and they showed blood around one of his eyes.
The ones of Aaron showed him hanging in his hallway by a rope around his neck. They showed him on the floor being kicked. They showed the smear of blood up the side of the stairs.
They fell from his fingers as he turned and looked at the child on his bed.
