Who is the Victim Here
I would love to hear your opinions and look to working further on the story.
I do not own or have connection with the "Criminal Minds" program or its characters.
Chapter Eleven.
The next day
He was standing up on a parallel bar trying to walk through the bars without falling. The bars supported all of his weight since he refuses to really walk. He remembers his master saying that he had taken away his ability to walk and he thinks that if he walks, Jack might get hurt. He refuses to actually walk. Just as he refuses to chew, to talk, to do anything that would define him as anything but a baby. He must remain a baby in order to protect those he loves against his master. His physical therapist is there and encouraging him on, but the man refuses to do it. Eventually they stop and Aaron is put into his wheelchair. They put his stuffed lion into his lap since he refuses to go anywhere without it and take him back to his room where his current babysitter is waiting. Emily sees the man and smiles at him. She asks, "How did it go today, did you enjoy walking Aaron?" She fusses over him after they got him into bed. He points to the cooler and she goes and gets a bottle out for him. He then picks up the book that the team of babysitters is currently reading to him and she begins to read to him. This is the usual day for our team leader. He attends physical therapy in the morning and then swimming therapy in the afternoon and spends the day in his room with a babysitter who reads to him, feeds him and occasionally changes his diaper. He does nothing that would show that he wants to do anything for himself. He is just becoming more infantlike in his deeds if not his thoughts.
He is still thinking about what Sean said that he has to leave the hospital. He doesn't want to leave the hospital or live in a nursing home or rehabilitation center. They wouldn't let him have his team of babysitters with him, strangers would be the ones feeding him, cleaning him, shaving him, talking to him and he didn't want that. But how does he tell that to Sean when he refuses to talk.
Elsewhere in D.C.
He gets out the SUV and walks to the door, patiently waiting after knocking, the door finally opens.
"Hello Hayley. We need to talk about Aaron and Jack." Hayley looks at the man at her door and would rather slam the door in his face rather than talk with him about anyone. But she allows the man to come in and offers him a seat in the front room.
"Would you like a cup of coffee?"
"Yes, thank you." He takes a seat while she goes to get some coffee. A little boy comes running from another room and screams while he launches himself at the man sitting on the couch.
"Hi, when did you get here? Did you bring me something? Have you seen Dad? Is he okay?" The man hugs the boy and tries to answer the torrent of questions being launched at him.
"Hi Jack, I just got here and of course I brought you something. I did see dad and he is doing fine except that he misses you and really wants to see you. Is there something that you want me to tell him?" He gets out a small bag with a pile of workbooks and coloring books for the boy attached to an action figure of spiderman.
"Tell dad I say hi and I hope I can see him soon. Thanks." He gets off the man and runs back out of the room when his mother comes in with the coffee.
"I see that you saw whirlwind Jack."
"The energy of the young is always a wonderful thing to experience."
"You wanted to talk about Aaron."
"He needs to see Jack. I think it would help him immensely to see that he has something to respond to and come back for, something more tangible than a job or money."
"Is he talking yet? Can he doing anything with Jack that would show that he even is able to teach or acknowledge Jack as a son and not just another child? I don't mean another child in the sense that he is a stranger's child. I mean that Aaron is a child right now, can he relate to Jack as an adult?"
"Angie thinks he would be able to, yes. She thinks that his physical manifestations are by choice because he is trying to protect someone. I think that someone is Jack."
"What is he trying to protect Jack from? If it is the man who did this to him then wouldn't it be better to keep Jack away?"
"I think that if actually sees that Jack is safe and the man cannot hurt or get to him, then he begin to heal emotionally and he will begin to talk and progress instead of regress. Please Hayley bring Jack into the hospital today to see his father."
"I will think about it, no guarantees but I will think about what you have said."
"Thank you, that's all I can ask for. Thank you for the coffee." The man gets up and leaves the house. Hayley goes to the door and looks out as he gets into the SUV which drives him away. She sees the other SUV on the other side of the road with its two agents and takes two cups of coffee to them agents inside.
"Here I know its gets cold out here on protection detail." The agents gratefully take the extended coffee. "Jack and I will probably be heading out later to run errands so keep a close eye out." She walks back to the warmth of house and wonders if this is going to natural from now on, always being watched and observed.
Several hours later
Aaron is once again in his room after his swimming therapy, he at least gets a work out from that as they place him in the water and have him float around and then work at exercising his muscles and keeping them in good condition. Spencer was with him this afternoon and they actually had him go in the water with his boss in order to give him someone to work off of. The men got playful in the water when the therapist did something unusual by splashing Aaron and he got into the fun of things. He was good in the water, even standing on his own legs and walking on them in the water. It showed that his inability to walk on the parallel bars was by choice not by inability. The swimming therapy is very good for our agent even though he doesn't really realize how good for him. When they got back to his room, he had an afternoon bottle and then took a nap. When he woke up a new babysitter was with him.
Aaron wakes up with Sean sitting next to him with those damned brochures again still trying to decide on what would be best for him. Aaron looks at them with a look of complete despair, he doesn't want to go to any of those places but how does he tell that to his brother intelligently. He asks Sean with his hands if he could see them again and Sean shakes his head.
"I don't think so Aaron, I don't want to play 52 pickup. You'll just have to let me read them and decide what is best for you. How are feeling right now?" He gets up from the chair and goes over to the bed where he proceeds to check and then change his diaper. He then gives a bottle of warmed up cream of rice which helps to provide fiber for the man. To give him all the vitamins, fiber and protein that an adult man needs in the form of just liquids is not easy. Aaron gets eight bottles a day: two protein drinks, one vegetable juice, two fruit juice, 2 fiber drinks and one bottle of whole milk. This and additional bottles of just plain water if he wants more are why he is always needing to be changed. He is actually becoming quite healthy physically. It is his mental health that is worrying people.
Sean wants to get Aaron out of the room for a while, even though Aaron doesn't want to go anywhere. But Sean thinks that the day room would be a good place to just sit for a while, so he bundles up Aaron and puts him in his wheelchair and pushes him down to the room. He then realizes that he forgot Leo the lion back in the room and that is why Aaron was complaining about not wanting to go. He likes to have his lion with him. Sean locks his wheels in the room and tells Aaron that he will be right back and runs back to the room. At the room, Hayley is just leaving the room with Jack and sees Sean.
"I thought Aaron would be here. You wanted me to bring Jack. We are here, where's Aaron?"
"I, um, he's in the day room, I've got to get something and get to back to him. We don't leave him alone. Why don't you go down to the end of the hall, take a left, first door on the right." He rushes past her into the room.
Meanwhile, back in the day room, Aaron is looking around and getting a little nervous, because he doesn't see anybody around. He whimpers and whimpers even louder when a voice comes behind and says, "Hello puppy, your babysitter had to leave you alone for a few seconds. I decided to take advantage and let you that I am still watching you. I have a gift for you." He places a small box on the man's lap. "Bye bye puppy, I'll be watching you." Aaron whimpers as he looks at the small box in his lap. He doesn't want it, where is Sean. He can take it away. Sean! Sean! As he whimpers louder and louder, he cries out when all of sudden he is touched on the shoulder.
Sean says, "It is okay Aaron, I am here. What is it? Why are you so scared?" Then he sees the box in his brother's lap. "Where did this come from? Who brought this to you?" Aaron only whimpers. Sean takes the box and removes it from Aaron's sight. "Aaron, you need to relax there is someone here to see you. Someone very important, he has missed you and he needs to see you in your best adult way. Sean calming voice is finally reaching the man inside and he looks at his brother. Someone to visit him, a stranger? Aaron looks at Sean with trepidation. "I will stay right here beside you. I am not going anywhere again." Sean turns to someone behind Aaron and reaches out to the person. He takes Jack's little hand and brings him into Aaron's line of sight.
"Hi Dad." Aaron looks at him and tears comes to his eyes as he looks at his beloved son. He reaches out his arms and the boy jumps into his lap. The man hugs and cuddles the boy as if he would never let him go.
The man finally speaks for the first time in two weeks, "Hello Jack, I have missed you. I love you son." Sean and Hayley look down at this sight of father and son reuniting and tears fill their eyes. Sean places his hand on his brother's head and the connection of the Hotchner males is powerful indeed.