Chapter Eleven: To hold your heart in my hands
Thanks to my amazing beta, Tafferling!
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JJ is standing by his desk looking nervous.
"We'll be fine without you, JJ," Reid tells her firmly, her butterfly daemon flicking his wings uncertainty from his perch on her pocket. "You and Kailo deserve a break."
"Not going to be much of a break," she says heavily, folding her hands over her large stomach. "Not with this one on the way." She hesitates for a second and opens her mouth to say something.
"Reid!" Hotch calls from the stairs. "Conference room, now. We've got a case."
Reid grins, scooping up his bag. "Well, duty calls. Good luck JJ. You're going to be a brilliant mom."
She laughs. "Try not to get kidnapped or shot while I'm gone, okay Spence?"
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The nights that Spencer spends at home, Hotch's bed feels empty and cold. He knows that even after a year and a half together they need their own space, but that doesn't stop the missing him.
The nights that Spencer is there Hotch spends drifting in and out of sleep, waiting for the moment that his partner will jerk awake from endless nightmares with his eyes wide and face shiny with sweat.
"Did we do this?" Hal asks one day as Hotch quietly pads to the kitchen to get some water. "He wasn't having nightmares until he stayed with Jack. Is this our fault?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Hotch tells her firmly, but if she's voiced it, he's thought it.
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Morgan's voice floats through his head as he drifts off in the Vegas hotel room, waiting for the loose ends of the case to be wrapped up so they can go home.
"What the hell is scaring you man?"
Exhaustion claims him quickly and before he knows it, he's standing in the basement again with Aureilo by his heels.
It's different this time. Everything is bigger and Aureilo cowers in front of him, half grown and lanky. He turns wide eyes on Reid and folds his ears back. "Spencer, pay attention," he instructs him.
There's a flicker of movement, and a man appears out of the shadows, bending over a still form in the corner by the rusted dryer. "Show your face!" Reid calls, stepping forward.
A whir of movement and suddenly he's facing snarling teeth, a bristle-backed coyote snapping his jaws shut inches from his face. The man turns and looks at him, revealing the child's body on the floor behind him and Reid gasps.
"Dad?"
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"I'm going to stay for a few days." Reid looks determined, eyes shadowed with exhaustion. "I haven't seen my mom for a while. I think she'd like it if I hung around."
Hotch considers him carefully. There's a lot more going on here than meets the eye he can tell, but confronting Reid when he'd put his mind to being quiet about it wasn't going to be easy. "Are you sure?" he asks finally, voice strained.
Reid nods. "I need this, Aaron," he murmurs, and it's the use of his first name that decides it. Reid wouldn't do that at work unless he was desperate.
"Take a few days," he tells him, and Reid touches his hand gently and walks away. Hotch can barely hold back the desire to chase after him, suddenly terrified by the idea of letting him face whatever is scaring him so badly alone.
Someone moves up behind him, and he turns his head to see Morgan and Rossi looming frighteningly close. "How many personal days I got saved up, Hotch?" Morgan asks innocently.
"Yeah, I need to earn back what I lost playing Prentiss on the tables last night," Rossi says with a wink, Eris ruffling her feathers. "That woman has a terrifying poker face."
Hotch almost smiles. Almost.
It's good to know the team has his back.
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Reid opens the door to his hotel and blinks. "What are you guys doing here?"
Morgan shoves a handful of popcorn into his mouth, tossing a kernel into Naemaria's waiting jaws. "What's it look like we're doing?"
Aureilo hops into the room and stands on his hind legs, looking at the TV. "Breaking into our hotel room and watching Days of our Lives?"
"It's Young and the Restless," Eris corrects him, before looking away when Rossi glances at her oddly.
"You're supposed to be on a plane back to DC," Reid complains, dropping the box of files onto his bed.
"And you're supposed to be staying with your mom. Yet here we all are," Rossi replies. He snatches a file out of the box before Reid can stop him.
"I want to do this alone," Reid tells him sternly, trying and failing to grab the file back. Behind him, Eris grabs another file and drops it in Morgan's lap, before pulling one out for herself and turning the page carefully with a light talon. "Did Hotch send you?"
"No one sent us, man," Morgan says, eyes skimming over the folder. "Riley Jenkins? Come on Reid, let us in. We can help you."
"You have a suspect," Rossi hums, profiling gaze firmly aimed at Reid.
He's not going to win this one.
"I think… I think it was my father."
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"Do you want to get a drink?" Prentiss looks awkward in the doorway of his office, as though she's not quite sure what she's asking.
"A… drink?" Hotch stares at her, one eyebrow raised.
"Yeah. You know. A drink. They serves them in glasses. They're… wet?"
Hotch puts his pen down carefully and folds his hands together, putting on his best 'team leader' face. "Agent Prentiss. Do you need to talk to me about something that's bothering you?"
Emily laughs. "Oh god, no. No, I just thought you know, with Reid in Vegas and Rossi and Morgan helping him, you might be feeling…"
"Feeling?"
An unfamiliar male voice answers from Hotch's feet. "Lonely." Hotch looks down and finds himself staring straight into Sergio's green eyes.
"Why would I be feeling lonely without Rossi, Reid and Morgan?"
Emily mutters something that sounds suspiciously like 'worst kept secret in the agency,' before shaking her head. "Never mind, I just thought I'd offer. I'm taking Todd anyway, try to loosen her up a little before we throw her to the sharks. And by sharks, I mean Reid in the morning before he's injected his caffeine."
Hotch waits until her footsteps are fading before jumping to his feet and following her as quickly as his dignity allows, grabbing his coat on the way. "Prentiss! Wait. I'll err... I'll come."
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His dad walks out, and he looks just like Reid remembers him.
Reid freezes and for once, Aureilo doesn't save him.
Rossi does. "Mr. Reid? I'm Agent Rossi. This is Agent Morgan."
A flicker of an old fear passes over his father's face. "Has something happened to Spencer?"
Reid opens his mouth to say something, anything, but Harback takes that moment to turn his head, nose twitching. His yellow eyes widen, and he nudges his human. Aureilo twitches as the coyote's regard falls onto him.
"Hey, Dad," Reid says, as William looks at him in shock.
The elder Reid pauses for a moment, collecting his thoughts. "Perhaps we should take this into my office."
"You think I killed Riley Jenkins? Based on a dream?" William keeps his calm.
"You don't seem all that surprised," Rossi states, watching the man carefully. For once, Eris is perfectly still, perched on the back of a chair with her orange eyes observing everything.
"Spencer's mind stopped surprising me years ago," William says, but there's no pride in his voice. Suddenly, he turns and looks at Reid. "You don't look much like me anymore. You used to, people would say."
Reid goes cold. There'd always been something about his dad that had the ability to send his mind grinding to a halt, leaving him speechless and uncomfortable.
"They say that people look like their dogs too," Aureilo snaps, claws biting into the carpet as he stands. "Prolonged exposure. But since you walked out on us and never looked back, it makes sense that we wouldn't have that now, doesn't it?"
Harback bristles and snaps, sharp teeth clipping Aureilo's fur. The hare barely reacts, both of them vividly aware of the coyote's short temper.
William doesn't take notice of his daemon, Morgan and Rossi both frozen with shock at the harsh movement. "Still talking out of turn?" he says quietly to the hare. "You always were the worst part of my son. There's something wrong with you."
Reid jerks in place. "There's nothing wrong with him!" he yelps, at the same time Eris lets out a furious, barking call, her feathers ruffling up threateningly as she bares open her beak at the coyote.
Rossi moves forward, face calm but mouth set in a tight line. "We'll need to have a look at your computer, access your records."
William narrows his eyes. "You want access to my records? Get a warrant."
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Reid's not answering his phone. So he does the next best thing.
"Rossi," the man answers, and Hotch detects a faint note of something dark in his voice. "What's up, Hotch?"
"Reid isn't answering his phone. How are things going?"
A deep breath. "Reid has… a lot of anger built up. And he's determined to pin this on his father. He's got blinders on."
Hotch had thought as much. "Do you think his father did it?"
A grunt. "No. And Reid will see it as well, once he stops to think. He's just… he really, really hates his dad."
"And?" Hotch can hear something left unsaid between them.
"I honestly don't blame him. I kind of want to smack the man myself. If we don't solve this soon, I might."
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The ride back is silent.
"Hey," Reid says eventually, turning his head to look at Rossi. Morgan is asleep next to him, earphones on. "I want to say… thank you. For your help back there. I guess I lost my head. I wasn't objective."
Rossi shrugs. "It happens, kid. We all lose it sometimes. That's why we work as a team, so we can keep each other on track."
Reid grins. "Well, thanks again. I couldn't have done it without you."
Rossi nods and lets the conversation lapse for a moment, before speaking again in a low voice. "Hey, Reid?"
"Yeah?"
"What your dad said back there? It's not true. There's nothing wrong with you."
Eris pipes up from her perch behind Rossi's head. "Either of you."
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"Spencer. How are you?"
"Tired. We're on our way home. I… Aureilo misses you. And Hal."
"You may have to postpone his reunion. You're needed elsewhere."
"Oh?"
"JJ's having her baby."
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It's a weird feeling to be walking into a hospital to celebrate life, instead of waiting to hear if someone they love has lost theirs.
"Congratulations, JJ," Hotch tells his media liaison proudly as she beams up at them with her son in her arms. "He's beautiful."
Spencer stumbles in, still ruffled from the plane ride, and Hotch wishes he could call out his name in the same excited voice that JJ does. "Spence! Hi!"
He watches his partner admire the baby, talking to JJ in a low voice. JJ suddenly swallows hard and reaches a hand out to touch Spencer's. "Hey Spence… Will and I have been talking and we want to… well, would you be Henry's godfather?"
Spencer freezes, Aureilo at his feet, both looking like they've been caught in headlights. "I don't… um, I don't know. I don't know," he stutters, his words gone. Hotch almost laughs at the shocked, strangely identical expressions on the two faces, holding it back just in time.
JJ passes Henry to Spencer, who looks down at him with an awestruck expression that he's never looked at Jack with, and for a second Hotch suspects that the strange kick in his stomach might be jealously.
"Hi, Henry," Spencer murmurs to the baby, curling a finger through his tiny hand and crouching so Aureilo can sniff at his hair curiously.
The kick turns to a warm glow, and Hotch quietly promises himself that he'll see Spencer look like that again one day. The same way Hotch had looked the first time Jack had been handed to him, still wet and gasping.
They have their whole lives to make it happen.
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"Have you noticed?" Spencer asks him one day, putting down the scientific journal he's reading. Peering over the top of his glasses at Jack chasing after Arelys who's in turn chasing Aureilo, he smiles. "That when Jack is here with you, Arelys is always a canine?"
Hotch pauses with his cup of coffee held halfway to his mouth. "No? Is she?"
Aureilo waits until boxer puppy-Arelys is almost on him, before rocketing across the room and through Hal's legs to safety. "Looks like someone wants to be just like Dad," he teases, going back to his journal.
Hotch spends the rest of the day grinning stupidly.
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He's screwed up.
He's screwed up again, and somehow this time it's worse because he has so much more to lose now.
"Spencer," Aureilo says suddenly, turning slowly in front of him to stare at the broken canisters of powder scattered on the floor of the shed. "Oh god, Spencer, stop Morgan, stop Morgan."
Reid turns and slams the button to seal the door, almost closing Naemaria's nose in it. "Reid, what the hell man?" Morgan exclaims, coming up behind her looking confused and pissed off. Reid quietly memorizes that expression, right before he tears it down.
"Stay back, Morgan," he says, and Morgan goes pale as he registers the fear in his voice. "There's white powder in the room and the air con is blasting."
"No," Morgan snaps. "No, no, no, not again. Not you, not again. Reid, why the hell did you run ahead?" His voice cracks, breaks, and Naemaria is staring through the glass at Aureilo as though the hare can somehow make this all better. "Reid, man…"
Reid swallows hard. "Morgan, you… you have to call Hotch."
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"Hotchner."
Morgan makes a strange noise through the phone, and Hotch closes his eyes, because he's heard that noise before and it's usually followed by, 'Reid's done something stupid.'
"Reid's been exposed."
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"Reid," Aaron says in his best 'I am a leader' voice.
It's incredibly comforting to look up at his boss (partner) through the glass of the door and see him calm and collected and, most of all, safe.
"Hotch, I really messed up this time," Reid tells him, walking up to the door and biting at his lip, seeing the faintest lines of stress collecting in the corner of Aaron's eyes. He wonders dully how many of those lines he's caused.
"It was my fault," Aureilo pipes up. "I ran ahead, not Spencer. He just followed me in."
"We need to get you both out and to the hospital," Aaron says, professional mask in place.
Reid shakes his head slowly. Aaron isn't the only one who needs to stay professional. "No. I'm already exposed, it's not going to do me any good to stop working the case."
Aaron's face doesn't react, but Hal makes a noise like her heart is breaking. "You could die."
Reid looks away from them right as Aureilo coughs.
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"Where are you going?" Morgan is glaring after him.
"To find out who's responsible for this before Re… before he can strike again." Hotch doesn't let any emotion show on his face.
He's not entirely sure he's feeling any emotion at the moment, other than a slight uneasiness as though he's taken a step in the dark and found that the ground under him falls away sharply.
"You gotta be here, Hotch. With Reid, in case things get worse."
"He took Cipro, we all did. He'll be fine."
Morgan catches his arm and stares him in the eyes, face grim. "He might not be. Can you live with yourself if you walk away right now and he's not here when you come back?"
Hotch shakes his arm free and walks away.
He will be.
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His fingers shake on his phone, and he can't look at Aureilo without seeing the rapid rise and fall of his sides as his breathing rate increases, smaller lungs succumbing twice as fast to the pathogens.
If he looks at that, then he's going to start thinking about the prickle of heat on his face, and the tickle in the back of his throat, and how he's pretty sure that if he tries to talk he's going to lose control of his words.
Aphasia. Some of the patients showed signs of it right before they died.
A small irrational side of his mind wants him to stay silent so the aphasia can't possibly take his language from him, but he has to do this.
"Hey, Reid." Garcia's voice is on the knife's edge of bawling, and he feels tears beginning to threaten at his own eyes.
"No witty greeting for me?" he tries to joke, his voice catching. He holds back a cough with effort, determined to see this through. "Garcia, do you think you can do something for me?"
"Anything," she replies instantly, and now he knows she's crying.
"I, uh, I know I can't call my mom without alerting everyone at her hospital. I… I need you to record a message for her. And for Hot – for Aaron. Please. In case anything happens to me."
Garcia is silent for a moment. "Oh honey, nothing's going to happen to you. We're going to beat this. You're going to be brilliant as always, and we're going to beat this."
Reid begins to cough and it feels like his chest is being torn apart with every shake of his body.
"I need… I need them to hear my voice," he says when the coughing is done, and he knows there's a whimper in his voice but he can't hold it back.
He doesn't want to die. He doesn't want to lose his words and his life, and he can't bear the idea of Aureilo just not… existing anymore.
"When you're ready," Garcia says softly after a long, pained silence.
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"Hi, Mom. This is Spencer. I just, um, I just really want you to know that I love you. And - I need you to know that I spend every day of my life proud to be your son."
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"Hotch? Derek called."
"Yeah?"
"Reid's in trouble. He… he got sicker on the way to the hospital. He's in respiratory distress."
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"Hey, Aaron. I know you're probably really mad at me for getting into this situation, for always getting into these situations, but I need you to know that no matter what happens this isn't your fault. And… and I need you to know that I love you. I've loved you for a long time. And I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I just hope that's still an option."
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"Hotch, don't you think you should be going to the hospital?"
Hotch ignores Rossi, strapping his vest on and eyeing the opening to the subway.
Down there waits the man responsible for this.
"No. My place is here." At his side, Hal is a silent, dark form and the sight is oddly reminiscent of a time before Reid. A time when Hotch had been by himself and was fine with that. When the wolfdog slept alone, without a lanky brown shape by her side. "Nothing that's happening at the hospital will be changed by my presence."
A time that could have returned without either of them being ready to say goodbye.
Rossi doesn't say what he's thinking, but Hotch can see it mirrored clearly in Emily's face.
They move together as a team, and the empty spaces between them hold all the air in the room.
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Chad Brown falls for their bluff and puts the bag down, turning to them with a gleeful expression and his fox daemon slinking around his legs.
When Hotch sees that wide grin, suddenly it hits him.
Reid is dying because of you.
"You understand why I had to show everybody how vulnerable we are!" the man crows, and he takes a single step towards Hotch with the bag on the ground behind him.
I might lose him because of you.
There's a roar beside him and Hal lunges, smashing into the fox with all of her considerable size, mouth gaping and eyes wild. Hotch does nothing as she grips the fox with crushing jaws and slams him into the ground, snarling in pain as though she's trying to transfer her own agony into the man responsible.
He could already be dead because of you.
Hotch does nothing but watches.
"Woah! Call her off, call her off!" someone is shouting, but Hotch ignores them, their voices muted and distant through the rushing blood in his ears, as though it's his own fangs sinking into the daemon, the man screaming and crumpling to the ground.
He's probably already dead because of you.
Oh god, he's dead.
Pain slams into him as a blow to the head and he cries out as Eris rakes her talons across the back of Hal's skull and shrieks. Hal drops the fox and staggers away, turning in a dark blur of rarely released fury and snapping her jaws shut on an outstretched wing.
Rossi yells now, with his owl, as Hal drops Eris into a crumpled feathered form on the cement, and leaps back, eyes wide with horror at what she'd almost done.
"He killed Reid!" screams Hotch, turning on Rossi with hate in his heart "Spencer's dying because of him! He deserves to die instead!"
Rossi stares at him in shock as Hotch crumples to the ground and lets his head fall into his hands.
I didn't say goodbye.
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Rossi walks into the hospital room with Eris on his arm, her wing in a splint and with a slow kind of anger showing on his face.
"Where's Hotch?" Reid gasps instantly, pulling the oxygen mask aside. "He hasn't been in, is he hurt? What happened to Eris?"
"He's a fucking idiot, that's what happened," Rossi snaps, easing the dozy looking bird onto the back of a chair. She lists to the side, hooting softly to herself, and he puts a hand out for her to lean on. Morgan stares at the drugged up owl for a moment, before turning curious eyes onto Rossi.
"What happened to Eris?" Reid asks, as Rossi reaches over and smacks Reid's hand off the mask before he can take it off again, pushing it firmly back against his mouth.
Aureilo struggles up, shaking his own head free of the mask looped around his instead. "And where's Aaron?"
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"Suspended," Spencer repeats, voice oddly gleeful as Hotch pushes him out the hospital in a wheelchair, Aureilo in his lap. "You, Mr. Prim and by the book, got suspended for a week."
"We lost our heads," Hal grumbles, hanging her own head in shame as she ambles after them. "It's not funny."
"But you never lose your head! What did you do?" Spencer asks again, tilting his head back, and even with his skin pale and worn and eyes shadowed, Hotch finds himself once again thanking someone that the stupid man is still alive. "No one will tell me. And no one is telling me what happened to Eris either. I'm getting better, you don't need to keep sheltering me."
"We always miss all the fun," Aureilo protests from his lap as Hal and Hotch both ignore them.
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Spencer stays over a lot during that week, and Hotch picks up an odd habit of holding his breath when he walks into any room Spencer is in, just so he can hear him still breathing.
In between guiltily trying to think up ways to make it up to Rossi and Eris, which Rossi isn't helping with by bombarding him with elated messages, somehow weirdly delighted that it was Hotch for once who'd lost control.
D. Rossi – I know you're sitting at home obsessing over your little freak-out
D. Rossi – Stop it. I can hear you thinking from my house. I can't hear my TV over the sound of your brain ticking.
D. Rossi – You want to make it up to us?
Hotch sighs as the phone buzzes with the last message, glancing over at the sleeping Spencer before picking it up and finally replying.
To D. Rossi – Yes, so you'll stop messaging. How?
D. Rossi – fucking tell the kid you love him already. Because at this point, he's the only one who doesn't know.
Hotch throws his phone away in disgust. Rossi is starting to disturbingly resemble a bored housewife.
He waits until he's sure Spencer is firmly asleep before rolling over and wrapping his arms around him, pressing his nose against his head and breathing in the scent of his shampoo.
"I love you," he says finally, voice muffled by Spencer's hair.
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Reid smirks, even as his heart attempts to jump out of his mouth in shock.
He knew Aaron can't tell when he's faking sleep. Morgan owes him five bucks.
"I love you too," he says after a beat, and he's never been more thankful for the fact that Aaron is hearing that from him and not from a recording on Garcia's computer.
Aaron stills against him, and Reid can feel his heart thumping against his back.
"About bloody time," Aureilo complains from his spot on the floor.
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Reid is never going to be able to get the stink of pigs out of his clothes. Even Hal is complaining that she can't smell a thing through the stench clinging to all of them. They're all exhausted, all broken by the horrific case they'd been through.
So many people dead. So many failures to add to their growing lists.
"Go home," Hotch tells him gently as Reid stumbles off the plane. "Your home. Get some rest, we can catch up on the weekend." Reid nods, already distracted by the thought of his books and his couch calling to him.
"I'll call you," he says absently, wandering towards his car. He goes home and falls asleep without even taking off his shoes.
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He unlocks his apartment with the phone held to his ear, Spencer's cheerful voice giving a polite request for him to leave a message. He smiles as Hal tiredly walks into the apartment ahead of him, still complaining about pigs, leaving him to lock the door and hang up his coat.
Spencer must have fallen asleep as soon as he'd gotten home. Hotch had been right to send him straight there.
"Hey Spence, just ringing to make sure you got home alright," he says into the phone, pouring a glass of whiskey with one hand, Hal's claws clacking against the tiles in the kitchen. "And I just wanted to say I love you. I'll see you soon."
He hangs up just as Hal gasps.
"How sweet," says a cold voice behind him. He turns to see Hal staring in shock at Foyet. The man grins widely, gun held casually in one hand. "You should have taken the deal."
He shoots Hal in the chest without once breaking eye contact with Hotch.
She falls and takes him with her.