Chapter Ten:
The Trouble With Trauma (seems self-explanatory, really)
.
.
Elle
Her bags were packed and there was nothing holding her in DC except, well, maybe there was. With Nathan and Ade trailing along because, as Nathan informed her, he'd already lost her once this week and wasn't quite ready to risk her vanishing again just yet, she made a detour.
Garcia had gotten her the address she wanted, pulling up outside an apartment building that was just as nice as she'd expect him to live in but maybe not quite the stand-alone family home she'd last known him to reside in. Elle rode the elevator up with Ade on her hip, Nathan scolding her about trying to grab at Elle's bandage, and with her heart thumping somewhere in the proximity of her throat. Time really had changed everything, hadn't it?
He knew she was coming. She wasn't quite confident enough in her welcome to come without letting him know and, when Hotch opened the door to her tentative knock, his eyes lingered on her daughter.
"Didn't want to leave without saying goodbye, so, here I am," said Elle with an unsteady smile.
Hotch switched his gaze to her now before replacing his weary stare with a polite smile and stepping aside to let them in. He was perfectly polite, of course, introducing himself and Jack to Nathan before setting Jack to keeping Ade entertained on the living room rug while he made them coffee.
And an awkward silence prevailed.
"I was here on a job interview, you know," she said suddenly as he handed her her mug. Hotch lowered himself into his chair, saying nothing. His face looked better. She was glad for that. "Turned out the interview was a set-up for him to grab me, but, you know. We're considering it…"
"Moving back to DC?" asked Hotch. There wasn't any expression that she could read in his eyes.
"Not the FBI, but DC, maybe," she said quickly. "I don't know. I guess…you know, when Dad died, people kept saying to me 'everything happens for a reason' and I still think that's bullshit. It used to make me so mad when people would tell me that. Happened again when Mom died, the same words, the same anger."
"I felt the same when Haley died," Hotch replied in a soft voice. Elle felt her heart sink back to just below its usual place at the confirmation of what she'd suspected when Garcia had given her the address to this small but nice condo. It wasn't a family home, but a single parent?
God, their job had tried its best to ruin them.
"Anyway, I guess," she tried again, struggling to find the words since it wasn't really her thing, talking this sweet to people. That had always been JJ, not her. "I guess I eventually realised that it's not wrong, people just say it the wrong way. Things do happen for a reason, if you make them. Garner and what followed, that pushed me away from the FBI. I truly believe it saved my life because I would have died doing that job and never doubted it, but now I have them." She gestured to Ade and, in turn, Nathan, who was quietly drinking his coffee and not getting involved. "And that's a pretty good outcome to something awful. And this, I have to make this mean something otherwise it's going to mess me up just as much as Garner did."
"What could something like this possibly mean?" asked Hotch, confirming her theory that this was hurting him more than he'd let any of them know. Time had passed since the maze, but not enough.
"I've realised I didn't just leave behind a job when I left DC," she admitted. "I left behind people, people who still care about me, for some reason. And I don't really have family, neither does Nathan…I think maybe coming back to those people wouldn't be entirely out of the question. But, more important, I realised something in that maze that I think you need to know, Aaron: I realised that I never doubted that you'd be there to pull me out of there, even before I knew you were trapped too."
Hotch looked surprised, but she wasn't done yet.
"The first thing I thought after I woke up in there was 'fuck, now I'm gonna be rescued by Hotch'. That was my absolute first thought — surety that, at any minute, you'd be there to get me out. And I think if you're doubting your effectiveness after what happened down there, if you're doubting that you can help your team now since in that maze you got hurt and maybe flirted a bit with giving up, you should probably remember that that's the impact you've had on me. I was sure you'd rescue me, without a doubt. It's the impact you've made on me, on this world, and on Jack. I bet that's the first thing he thought too. And that's a damn good thing to take away from this, don't you think?"
Hotch curled his hands around his mug, watched her expressionlessly, and then, as she watched him back, the smallest hint of a smile broke through.
"Thank you," was all he said, but she could hear how much he meant it just in the careful tone of his quiet voice. "Thank you, Elle. I needed that."
And that, she figured, was probably enough to justify making sure she didn't leave this time without saying goodbye.
.
.
Emily
It didn't take long for her to bully her way into Reid's room on a regular basis, finally talking him into taking her name off the No Fly list so she could stop sneaking in during the nurse shift change. The first thing she did every time she visited was to roll on up to him and touch his arm, keeping her fingers around his wrist the entire time she was there so he knew she was real.
After a while, this progressed to him holding her hand. She didn't mind. It seemed to help; as soon as his long fingers folded around hers, she saw some terrible tension drain from him and stay gone right up until she was forced to let go.
Her memories of the maze had remained elusive. The doctors weren't worried about it. Retrograde amnesia, they told her. Reid expanded on that.
"Situation-specific psychogenic amnesia," he told her on this day. She'd waited until no nurses were looking and hopped up onto the bed with him, now stretched out comfortably longways while he sat beside her with one leg folded under him and the other hung over the side of the bed. She had a loose grip around his wrist; he was poking at the bandage on her abdomen to soothe his constant, and irritating, worries about surgical incompetence. "Psychogenic also known as dissociative and referring to amnesia centred around a non-physical trauma."
"I was shot," she reminded him, pointing with her free hand to said bandages. "How is that not physical trauma?"
"I doubt the bullet caused the amnesia," he replied pertly with a glance at her without lifting his hand from her stomach. "More than likely, it was the extreme trauma of Morgan being the perpetrator of the bullet that caused it. Your brain couldn't conceptualise someone it trusts so much as having caused so much damage to you, so it's wiped the memory out."
Emily rolled her eyes but was saved from responding by a soft, hurt noise from the doorway. They both looked. Reid stiffened, his gently swinging leg stopping instantly. Like a shadow falling over him, she watched him go from the Reid that was slowly re-emerging from the shell the psychosis had made of him back into that closed-off, paranoid ghost of Spencer Reid they'd only physically pulled out of the maze.
"You're not supposed to be here," Reid said to Morgan, curling into himself with his hand clutching almost unconsciously at Emily's for support. "I don't want you here."
"Well, I'm here," said Morgan, moving past the pain of what he'd clearly overhead and entering the room properly, closing the door behind him. "And I bring Jell-O and dusty books for you, plus this stuffed rabbit Penelope wanted me to give you."
Reid looked at the stuffed rabbit, muttering, "That's a hare," before looking away completely.
Emily sighed, frustrated completely with the men around her who were determined to wallow. "Oh, don't pout, either of you," she snapped, struggling to sit upright and earning a distressed noise from Reid as he agonised about her stitches. "Honestly, Morgan, I feel fine.You haven't traumatised me."
"Reid said—"
"Reid currently believes that the doctors are trying to control his brain via his saline drip," Emily snapped, earning a glare from Reid. "Okay, that was unfair, I don't think he's actually believed that for a week now, but he did. His isn't the medical opinion I care about right now."
"I'm right here," muttered Reid.
"And not a medical doctor, smartass," she reminded him fiercely. "Do you know what I do remember, Derek?"
He just looked at her, dark eyes woeful and the whole picture only made more depressing by the rabbit — hare — drooping in his hands.
"I remember you holding my hand," she told him. Morgan blinked. "I remember you holding my hand and us sticking together. I remember you telling me I was going to be okay, and I remember being in the dark and hearing you calling for me. I don't remember being shot, or feeling pain, or being scared — just your hand and feeling safe because I knew you'd never let anything hurt me."
Morgan gave her the strangest look that lingered before looking at where Reid's hand was still latched onto hers. "You made me real," he said. She frowned, confused, but he wasn't done. "Reid, seriously. Listen, kid. You know, that guy didn't just dope you up down there…I didn't want to tell you, I didn't want anyone to tell you. I thought, I don't know, you'd think less of me or something…but that's dumb. He doped me too, real bad. And I had no fucking idea what was up or down or real or false, except Emily. She called me back to myself. She held my hand and she told me that she was real and I was real and gave me something to hang onto when I was scared that there was nothing concrete left in the world. And I guess right now that's how you feel, like there's nothing that really makes sense…"
"Emily makes sense," Reid whispered, his soft voice breaking Emily's heart just a little as she seethed at the man who'd done this to him.
"Yeah, she does," agreed Morgan. Emily felt her cheeks heat up; she had no memory of any of this. "And if you let us in, we can make sense too, you know. Henry misses you. JJ says he's been having nightmares, worrying about you. Not scared of you, man, but worried. He wants to know you're okay, and so do the rest of us. Maybe we can't help as much as we want to, I get that, but won't you let us try?"
Emily looked at Reid who was, in turn, staring at his lap.
"They're letting me out tomorrow," she said gently. "I know they're letting you out too as soon as you tell them that you're not hallucinating anymore—" He gave her a startled look but, honestly, she could tell. The kid had been faking for a week now, probably because staying here was less frightening than going home. "You can't keep us away forever."
"Besides, if you do, you won't be able to meet Elle's kid when she brings her back next week to say hi," Morgan added.
That earned a reaction. Reid's head snapped up, his eyes going wide, and he gasped out, "Elle has a kid?"
"It's been six years, Reid," Morgan reminded him. "Life does move on, you know, even after trauma if you let it. Elle has."
"Will you?" asked Emily.
"I'm trying," Reid murmured, slumping back into the bed as Emily made room for him. "Seriously, I'm trying…"
"Try harder," Emily said firmly, no quarter given. They couldn't afford to be gentle with him here; they were all very aware that if they lost him to this, they'd lose him for good.
And that wasn't happening on her watch.
.
.
Derek
Morgan wasn't sure who was happier to see him when he let himself into Garcia's apartment: Garcia herself or Clooney, the dog having stayed there since their attack under the premise of letting Morgan recover — although Morgan knew it was also a little bit because his dog being there made Garcia feel safer. He supposed Clooney, since Garcia didn't throw herself at his chest and lick his face exuberantly, tail wagging like crazy. Though he was sure she would if she thought she could get away with it.
"There's my boy, what a good boy," Morgan assured his dog as he kneeled to give him the petting he deserved after everything they'd been through. A snicker followed him, looking back up to find himself staring into the wide green eyes of a cat giving him the most disgusted look he'd ever gotten from an animal. "What, you want to be told you're a good boy too, kitty?"
"He does not," said Emily's voice from the couch, her ruffled head poking up as she revealed where she'd been hiding under a mountain of pink blankets. "Sergio has decorum. He doesn't need your doggy platitudes. Honestly, Clooney, get some self-respect."
"Derek!" Garcia cried, appearing out of her bedroom and bouncing over to him much like Clooney had. "You're here! Welcome to Villa de Penelope and Emily!"
Morgan looked at Emily, who visibly sulked.
"She's pretty useless right now, so I moved her in," added Garcia with a glance at Emily. "After she tore a stitch getting a mug down, anyway. A mug she could have asked for help with, honestly."
"I refuse to be defeated by crockery," Emily muttered. "It's not my fault past me stored everything so ridiculously high."
Morgan snorted, jangling his keys in his hand as he took in all of Emily's Emily-ness right in the middle of so much Penelope. Maybe it was just him projecting, but she didn't look super comfortable.
"She wouldn't let me put her in my bed," Garcia said with a pointed stare at Emily. "So she's on the couch even though she knows the doctor said she needs to be careful and couch sleeping is not being careful."
"Well, now, I think—" began Morgan.
"And she won't let me feed her," Garcia added.
"I don't want to be fed," Emily complained. "Just let me get terrible food delivered — I got shot, I deserve pizza!"
"The doctor said you need to eat well to facilitate healing!" was Garcia's stern response.
"She's stress baking, Derek," Emily said, turning on him now fast enough that he winced for her stitches. "She's stress baking and won't let me eat anyof it, how unfair is that? It's torture, I'm telling you!"
"Well, I—" Morgan tried.
They both looked at him, Garcia twisting her face into inexplicable expressions and Emily looking fraught.
Morgan gave in. He knew that look on Garcia's face and, although he'd never seen Emily's expression before, he assumed it was a healthy dose of 'I'm Peneloped out'.
"I have a spare bed," he said mildly. "And a great pizza place near my house. And minimal tall cupboards."
"Oh no," Emily spluttered. "No, no, I'm not staying with Mor—"
"Brilliant," Garcia declared, clapping her hands. "I'll grab your stuff, you'll love it there. He has a shower that takes up the whole room, although maybe you better avoid that until you can get your stitches wet. Where's your bag? Sergio, come on, my handsome boy, you're going for a sleepover at Uncle Derek's!"
Morgan looked at Emily, who looked morose.
"Don't worry," he said. "I promise minimal mothering. And no stress baking."
"I give it a week of close quarters until I try to murder you," she warned him.
Morgan laughed. "Well then, I guess we'll be even after that."
.
.
Penelope
Garcia waited until Emily had been packed off to Morgan's — oh, she loved having her here, but she needed her somewhere else being looked after by someone tall, dark, and uber handsome for this next part — and then packed her own bag.
"Knock knock," she announced, breezing into Reid's apartment with her bag over one arm and not waiting for an answer. She found him mid-mouthful of noodles, staring blankly at her from the confines of a musty bathrobe. His hair was a wild tangle, his eyes red and swollen. He looked exhausted; she was just in time. "Move over, I'm coming in."
And, with a whumph of the couch bouncing under them, she dropped down beside him. Reid looked at her. She looked right back, keeping her smile fixed.
"I'm alarmed by this development," he finally said, putting his fork back into his bowl of noodles and leaning back to stare at her abandoned bag. At least he was eating, although she doubted the nutritional value of the wet looking noodles. "Are you going somewhere?"
"I'm coming here," she told him, arms crossed and giving no indication that she was going to give in on this. "If there's anything I've learned, it's that we're not going to do this alone. So, let me stay so I can sleep on your couch until we're all feeling better, otherwise I'm going to sleep in your hall and demand hourly updates on your state-of-mind."
"Oh no," said Reid.
"Oh yes," she informed him. "Welcome to Penelope Garcia, mothering you. We are gonna heal, baby!"
She had to hand it to him, sometimes he really proved he was a genius inside that occasionally dumb-but-still-cute brain of his: he let her stay.
Smart. He really wouldn't have liked the alternative.
.
.
Aaron
The best thing to come out of this entire mess was the fact that they were all most definitely off rotation while their various team members recovered both physically and mentally. It was going to be a rigorous process to get them all recertified for the field, those who were willing to return, and Hotch wasn't looking forward to it. Despite having focused the last few weeks solely on his son and his recovery, he'd kept his team in his peripherals the whole time.
He knew that Elle was doing surprisingly well and considered that perhaps she'd learned how to cope with the aftermath of potentially life-shattering trauma after the events that had driven her out of the FBI. He was glad for her, and for her family. He also knew that Morgan had, on his own back, attended the — at this point — optional trauma counselling that the Bureau had offered them. Prentiss had not, which was unsurprising, but all his reports on her seemed to indicate that she wasn't following her usual pattern of pretending to be fine until people stopped paying attention to her; this time, she seemed genuinely okay, at least according to Garcia.
Garcia who he knew was also attending that counselling, mostly because she was his eyes and ears on Morgan. And she was frank, always, about how she was recovering from the past events, telling him bluntly that the nightmares were tedious and her sleep was terrible but that, overall, she was slowly finding her place again. It was likely she'd return to work before any of them. Definitely before Rossi, who'd scoffed furiously at the idea of counselling and who had another two surgeries due on his hand as well as a solid month and a half of physical therapy remaining before he could even think about picking up a gun again. Hotch knew they had two weeks, tops, before they'd find him back behind his desk, certified or not. Morgan and Prentiss would likely be close behind him.
Reid?
He didn't know. He worried, though. He worried a lot.
And then there was JJ. JJ, out of all of them, he was actually more aware of, and that was because of Henry.
"Hi," JJ greeted them with a weary almost-smile as she answered her door and stepped aside to let them through. Hotch stood beside her once he entered the controlled chaos of her front hall; Jack vanished to go find Henry. "How's Jack going?"
"He's responding well to therapy, according to his doctor," Hotch said. "At the moment, long term treatment seems like it's going to be unnecessary. He's sleeping through the night again, at least, which is more than I can say."
Not when he was waking up every hour with the desperate need to go and check on his son, to make sure he was still there, and especially not with the nightmares about trying endlessly, and failing, to reach his team, screaming for him in that maze…
"I suppose I shouldn't bother asking how you are then," JJ said with her light eyes locked on his. He didn't answer. "That's what I figured. You know, part of caring for Jack is taking care of yourself as well, Aaron. Same as me and Henry."
Hotch glanced up the hall, lowering his voice so the boys didn't hear: "And how is Henry?"
It was JJ's turn not to answer. Hotch looked away.
That was exactly what he'd feared.
They sat in the kitchen together, with a view of the boys playing together in the backyard. Hotch pretended not to notice the way Henry constantly checked where both JJ and Jack were, him losing sight of either of them even for a minute preluding shrill cries of terror.
"He wakes up screaming for Spencer sometimes," JJ said suddenly. "You know, I'm really angry at Spence for this…I get that he's hurting, but we were all hurt in there and you don't see the others isolating ourselves like this. You still bring Jack here, Morgan is sticking close to Emily, Garcia's been a rock. Henry needs to know his godfather is okay and he just…he doesn't believe me, Aaron, he just won't believe me when I tell him he is, and Spence won't answer my calls to come tell him himself."
"The last time Henry saw Reid, Reid was still in that maze and acting completely unlike himself," Hotch pointed out gently. "It's a huge step that Henry is worried about him instead of afraid, that's something to be positive about. At his age, it's very easy for him to associate trauma based around people tangentially involved, not the traumatic context itself."
"And the clinginess?" JJ asked tiredly. "I can't leave the house without him freaking out anymore. The only times he tolerates me away from him is when Jack is here, and then he frets when Jack leaves. He's exhausted, I'm exhausted, Will is exhausted…I don't know what to do, therapy doesn't seem to be helping. How am I supposed to come back to work with him like this?"
Hotch looked out the window at the boys playing, his mind working quickly. It seemed obvious what Henry needed, but was it possible?
He wondered.
"Can you watch Jack for me?" he asked. "I want to try something."
The drive to Reid's was over too quickly and, as he climbed the stairs rather than be trapped in the small space of the elevator, Hotch considered what he was going to say to the man. He'd been out of the hospital for four days now and hadn't reached out to any of them.
Unsurprisingly, he didn't answer Hotch's knocking. Hotch, unbothered by this, simply leaned close to the door and called through it: "Reid? If you don't let me in, I'm going to say everything I've come here to say out here, where your neighbours and anyone passing by can hear. I understand that's not at all an outcome you want, so I'm giving you this chance to open the do—"
The door opened. Reid scowled at him, bundled tight in his bathrobe and looking more than a little pissed off. Hotch cut off that irritation right from the get-go.
"I'm here about Henry," he said shortly. The anger vanished instantly, replaced with worry, and Reid stepped wordlessly back to let him into an apartment that smelled like dust and sweat. Closed in for too long, Hotch suspected, despite the inhabitant having been home for days now. There was a congealed bowl of noodles on the coffee table and packed bag beside the sofa. "You need to go see them."
"The last time Henry saw me, I almost shot him," Reid croaked in reply. He'd made his way back to a couch set up as a bed, throwing himself down into it and curled into himself further, all tangled hair and sour smelling. "Why would he want to see me?"
"He's having nightmares about you dying." Hotch didn't pull his punches, seeing Reid's eyes widen. "He's four and obsessed with your death. Not you hurting him, but you being hurt. He has no idea if you're okay, no concept of your survival — all he knows is that his Uncle Spencer would never vanish from his life if he could help it so the fact that you're not there when he wants you so badly must mean something has hurt you. Therapy isn't going to help that, JJ can't help that. He needs you, Reid."
Reid kept staring at his knees, his eyes still painfully wide and chest moving rapidly like he was struggling not to cry. Hotch shifted back, leaning against the door with his head tilted away and allowing Reid his privacy without actually leaving to ensure it.
"I fired a weapon in your direction, in the direction of my son," Hotch reminded him quietly, "because JJ told me the shot was true and because I trust JJ absolutely. After being blinded in that maze, blinded and hurt to the point where I was ready to give up completely, I got back up and kept walking because Elle asked it of me. I found the centre, found you, because Morgan believed in me. And none of that would have happened at all if Garcia hadn't guided us through. Reid, you were alone. The entire time in that place, you were alone and isolated and scared and I'm so sorry that happened to you. But you need to realise — we never once stopped looking for you. Even when he told us you were dead and we grieved you — we did and it hurt, Reid, it hurt and you have no idea how much pain I saw everyone going through — we never stopped talking and planning about finding your body and bringing you home. Some of us never even believed you were dead. Do you understand the depth of the love that takes, the belief and trust in one another?"
"You thought I was dead?" Reid murmured, finally looking up. "You all…grieved me?"
"We grieved," Hotch confirmed with surety. "Reid, we were terrified that we'd lose you, lose anyone. And we got out of that maze, but we haven't stopped being scared of that outcome. You pulling away like this, I understand that it feels like it helps soothe the part of you that thinks your presence worries us. But it doesn't do that at all, that's your brain lying to you. There's nothing soothing about the walls you're putting up. They're hurting every one of us who heard that man gloating that he'd killed you — each of us who is waiting for confirmation that our friend has made it out of that maze alive. Henry is one of those people, Spencer. He's desperately waiting to know that you're okay. I'm begging you, please give that to him so he can move on — don't leave him trapped waiting."
"I don't feel like I did though," Reid rasped out, shivering a little. Hotch worried; he'd only ever seen him shake like that once before, after Hankel. "What if it turns out that I never made it out of there? I feel like I'm still down there, in the dark, with that man…I wake up and feel like he's still in my mind, controlling my thoughts and manipulating my perceptions. How am I supposed to recover when I can't trust anything I see or hear? How am I any different from Mom!?"
Hotch had never meant anything more than what he said next.
"Then tell us. Tell us that you're trapped, tell us where you are — and we'll get you out, Reid. Do you know what JJ promised us when we were down there? What she told us when she thought you were gone?"
Reid just looked at him quizzically.
"She said that she'd never leave you alone in the dark," Hotch told him. "She promised to go find you, and she did. She never gave up on you, even when she thought you'd fallen in that maze — but what you're doing right now? You're doing what she never did. You're giving up on yourself…and don't you think that's betraying her belief in you?"
Reid's voice was so low that Hotch barely heard the response: "I don't know what to do."
"Then trust in your team, trust in us. We can get you out too, I promise. We won't leave you in the dark."
There was a quiet noise, a door to another room opening and a ruffled blonde head poking through. Hotch raised an eyebrow at Garcia, who grinned back without a qualm that she'd clearly been eavesdropping.
"What have I been telling you all this time?" she demanded of Reid, who looked a little dazed to be caught in the middle of them. "You're important to us and we're here for you, you adorable nitwit. There's not a single one of us that isn't. All you had to do is ask."
Reid looked from one of them to the other, his expression thoughtful. Finally, he spoke: "Could I get a ride? I think I might be late to go see someone important."
.
.
Jennifer
JJ had never been this tired. Not when Henry was a newborn, not on any of their longest cases, not even when she'd been trapped in that maze. This exhausting, never-ending cycle of Henry's recursive trauma was more devastating than any other singular moment in her life. It was hurting Will too. He struggled just as much as she did to try and come to terms with how hurt their son was despite being physically unharmed by his terrifying stint in the maze; Jack had done his best to protect him, but Henry was haunted by what he'd seen down there.
JJ lingered by Henry's open bedroom door, listening to him and Jack talking in there. They were watching Henry's betta fish in its tank, a pastime that Henry had always loved before, taking great pleasure in shaking the little flakes of food down atop the surface of the water and watching the fish vacuum them up hungrily, but which he'd been resoundingly avoidant of since the maze. JJ wondered why.
Today, she found out.
"Do you think Mommy would take me to the fish place?" Henry asked Jack with resolute seriousness for someone so little.
"What's the fish place?" Jack asked. "You mean the pet shop?"
"No," Henry said firmly. "No, they've got more mazes there. I don't want to put Fish into another maze. He's gotta go to the fish place."
"I don't know where that is, but maybe?" Jack replied. JJ could hear them moving around, Henry having gotten out his toys to play and then promptly abandoned them in favour of the fish. "What kind of place is the fish place?"
"You know," said Henry, "the place from Nemo, where the fish go."
"The ocean? You want to put Fish in the ocean? I don't think fish like him go in the ocean, Henry, he'd probably die. Besides, Nemo is from Australia and Fish's bowl says he's a Siamese Fighting Fish." Jack paused for a moment, clearly thinking that over. "I guess that means he's probably from Siamese. I don't know where that is either, but your mom probably isn't going to take you there."
Henry was quiet. JJ leaned against the wall, feeling a little bad about spying but desperate to know what was going on in her son's strange, shaken little world. Will appeared at the end of the hall, looking a little confused when he saw her standing there but, on her cue, sneaking up beside her to listen too.
"Why do you want to get rid of Fish?" Jack was pressing. JJ loved him at that moment; he was every bit his father's wonderful son. "I thought you loved him."
"Because," Henry answered, "he's stuck like we were and I don't want him to be. He wants to get out and go home to his family too. See? He's got scared bits. It's scary, being stuck…"
JJ closed her eyes, feeling Will slide his arm around her.
How were they ever going to help him?
Right on cue, the doorbell went.
"That'll be Aaron," JJ murmured, pulling away from Will and walking to the stairs without looking at him. "Can you get Jack?"
She didn't think she could look at Henry just yet without crying.
"Jen," Will called after her, but she'd already fled to the door. She tugged it open, knowing her misery was showing but unable to hide it — and blinked to find not just Hotch there, but also Garcia…and Spence.
In a heartbeat, her anger at him vanished. He was unshaven, his hair shaggy and his eyes sore-looking like he'd been reading too much and not sleeping enough. He looked like they did at the end of long cases, not after three weeks of rest and recuperation. She ached for him.
"Oh, Spence," she felt burst out of her, launching forward into his arms and hugging him tight before she could stop to wonder whether he wanted this embrace or not. But she needn't have worried; he was hugging her back just as tightly. "Please tell me you're okay."
"I'm not," he murmured into her hair, nuzzling close in his usual fashion. "But I will be. Henry?"
His query was answered by a shriek that was only slightly more hysterical than hers had been; JJ stepped out of the way just in time for a speeding rocket to burst past and slam bodily into Spence's torso. It would have knocked him back, had Hotch not put his hand up to stop Spence stepping back and falling right off the front stoop. And it took a moment for JJ to realise that speeding rocket was her son, and he was sobbing his godfather's name into his abdomen as he clung like the only thing that mattered in this world was holding his godfather tight.
"You've been missed," Garcia pointed out with a wink at JJ. "What did I tell you? Important."
"I'm so sorry," Spence breathed, scooping Henry up and cuddling him close without even seeming to care that Henry was getting his shirt all snotty and crushed. "I'm so so sorry, Henry, I'm sorry. And I'm okay — I'm okay, buddy. Here I am."
JJ covered her mouth, watching them for a moment before the whisper of an idea snuck into her brain. It took only a second more for it to solidify into a firm plan.
"Spence," she said, seeing him look up at her over her son's blonde hair, his eyes bright with tears. "Do you know much about the fish place?"
It took another week for her plan to come to fruition. That day had ended predictably, with Spencer going home and leaving a hysterical Henry who was even more upset that his godfather had been and gone than he had been when he hadn't been at all — although he hadn't had a nightmare that night, so JJ was calling that a win. Spencer had dodged all her attempts to leave Henry alone with him to discuss the fabled fish place, but she knew his curiosity would soon get the better of him. It usually did.
Sure enough, exactly a week later he arrived on their doorstep with an armful of books and a sheepish expression. JJ waited until he and Henry were deep in discussion about betta fish and their natural habitats before taking Will's hand and calling that they were going out — stopping only once on the way to whisper to Spence that anything he thought was appropriate to soothe Henry's worries about Fish's homesickness, they'd support.
And they went out on a date that was long-needed, just the two of them together, her and Will; she treasured every minute of it, and the knowledge that Henry was with Spence kept the worst of her worries at bay.
When they got home, the house was silent. JJ crept in, shooting Will a worried glance as she headed straight for the stairs — but Will quietly calling her name stopped her. She went back towards his call, finding him leaning in the living room doorway. In she peered, blinking with shock at what she saw in there.
"Have we always owned an aquarium?" she whisper-asked Will, finding that one wall was now taken up by a truly ridiculously large tank with a single startled looking betta fish speeding madly around it. The whole thing was liberally decorated with plants and rocks, one small section of it for some reason above-water and with a filter bubbling expertly away. JJ could see a number of pirate decorations spread through the tank, complete with tiny cutlasses and parrots.
"Forget the aquarium," Will said, squinting as he peered into the tank. "Since when have we owned a frog?"
And there was indeed a green frog sitting in there, eyes half closed and looking very pleased with himself. JJ stared at that frog as she went in for a closer look and almost stepped on Reid, who was curled up looking deeper asleep than she suspected he'd been in a long time atop a series of what appeared to be complicated blueprints and mathematical equations about the perfect betta fish tank. The whole thing had been labelled with a firm 'THE FISH PLACE' across the top in blue and purple crayon traced over the light lines of Spencer's handwriting in pencil. JJ stared at that for a while before looking around and finding Henry fast asleep on the couch with a blanket over him and the coffee table covered in a series of drawings of a fish and a frog doing…something. It looked heroic, anyway.
Henry woke a little when JJ snuck over there to peek, smiling up at her. "Auntie Penelope took us to a shop," he mumbled sleepily, putting his arms up to be carried up to his bed. "And we got Fish a big house and a friend so he's not stuck anymore. Uncle Spence says you can't be stuck when you've got friends looking after you."
"Uncle Spence is absolutely right," JJ murmured, glancing back at where Uncle Spencer himself was still fast asleep. They'd have to wake him, even just to get him to the spare room or the sofa. He couldn't sleep on the floor. But god, oh god, she was so thankful to him; Henry hadn't smiled like this since…well, since before. "What's Fish's new friend's name?"
"Jack," answered Henry in a drowsy hum. "His name is Jack."
.
.
Dave
It took some time to get everyone together again but, when that time finally came, Rossi was glad it had. In the end, he hadn't been as present during their recoveries as Jason had tried to coax him to be, but he suspected that he hadn't needed to be. From what he could tell as he watched them gather around the table he'd set up in his backyard and loaded with food for this casual dinner, they'd healed despite his absence. Hotch sat with his son and neither showed the terrible doubt that had crept into Hotch's bearing the moment he'd fired that shot and stayed there decisively for some time after. Henry ran around playing 'Fish and Frog' or some other weirdly titled game both by himself and with whoever decided to play with him; he didn't stop constantly to check that JJ was still there, seemingly finally confident that his mom wasn't going to vanish on him again.
Garcia was Garcia as she'd always been and Emily seemed determined to prove that she was as intact as ever, seeming to make up excuses to have to reach for high things and staring at Morgan every time she did so like it was a personal challenge the two of them had set her. Rossi was just damn glad to see her so vivid once more. And Morgan was his own easy-going self, even if he did seem a little twitchier than usual.
Not every scar was going to fade. Rossi's hand was proof of that, although they were almost certain he'd be able to shoot again.
"Are we late?" someone called from the gate, Rossi turning and grinning to find Elle leaning through looking uncomfortable. He'd never worked with her but was enjoying slowly meeting her properly, outside of the confines of the BAU. Her partner followed, their daughter in his arms.
The daughter, with one look at Rossi, immediately recognised a soft touch and demanded to be carried by him. Never one to deny a lady their desires, he did so. Besides, it had been a long time since he'd had a toddler to bounce on his knee; he may as well enjoy this one.
It was later that night, as twilight dimmed and the overhead lights were casting a white glow down upon the now much quieter gathering, that Rossi noticed Reid. The man was on the outskirts as, Rossi realised, he'd been all night. Oh sure, he was joining in on the games when the boys asked him and he'd been happy to show Adeline magic tricks when Elle had teased him about being an amateur magician, but in between pretences, he was sitting alone. Some of them were still holding their hurts close.
Rossi watched him for a while before sauntering over there, an almost asleep toddler in his arms to be used as a weapon to ensure the man didn't escape him. Before Reid had even realised he was there, he plonked her down in his lap and flopped onto the seat next to him as Reid hurried to wrap his orangutan arms around her.
"You don't need to support her head," Rossi pointed out, "she's almost two, she can support it herself."
"But she's so floppy," Reid argued, looking distressed as Ade smiled and took that as an excuse to get even floppier. "What is she doing? Where are her bones?"
Rossi snorted, leaning over and helping them sort out their limbs into some semblance of Reid holding her effectively, just in case one of the girl's parents glanced over and wondered why the man was tipping their daughter upside-down.
"Now that you're pinned down by a sleepy toddler," he warned once Ade had her eyes shut and thumb wedged firmly into her mouth, other hand scrunched around Reid's tie to hold him there, "we're gonna talk."
"Oh no," said Reid with an inexplicably rueful stare at Garcia. "Why do people keep doing this to me?"
"Because you're sitting alone drowning in your own oversized brain, that's why. And I have a solution. What are you doing next Saturday?"
Reid eyed him warily; this was clearly not where he'd expected the conversation to go. But, like the smart little weed he was, he answered correctly. "I assume wherever you're about to tell me to be," he said with clear resignation in his voice.
"Good lad," said Rossi proudly. "Now listen closely, this is what I want you to pack."