Chapter Twenty-six: This is their goodbye
Thanks to my fantastic beta, Tafferling!
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"Am I early?" Beth smiles at him, Coop bounding forward to greet Hal with an exuberance Hotch almost envies. He doesn't think Hal has ever greeted anyone with quite that much excitement, except perhaps Aureilo.
Hal stands with quiet dignity and brushes her muzzle quickly against Coop's ear, the husky only standing to just over her shoulder in height.
"No, no, we're running late," Hotch reassures her, pulling her in for a kiss. They're interrupted by Jack appearing behind him, hair wildly sticking out in all directions and still in his pyjamas.
"Beth! Come look at our fort!" he shrieks, dancing on the spot and almost slipping, his socks failing to find friction. Arelys shifts rapidly into something tall and gangly, steadying her human, before dropping back into her favoured otter form. Hotch blinks, the shift happening too quickly for him to process.
"You made a fort?" Beth asks, taking his hand to avoid any more falls.
"Emily and Spencer taught us," Jack says proudly, tugging her towards the living room. "We slept in there all night!"
Beth glances back at Hotch, biting her lip as though trying to imagine Hotch sleeping in a pillow fort. He tries his best to look straight-faced. "He's been obsessed with castles since he stayed at Reid's," he tells her. "It was this, or we turn the garden bed into a moat."
"I'm jealous," she says, laughing as soon as she sees their efforts. One side of it is drooping, knocked over by Hal in the night. "It's…. beautiful."
"Dad's not as good at building as Spencer," Jack says sombrely. "He needs to be taught better. Will you stay over tonight in our fort too?"
He catches Beth's eye as she looks up at him, a question in her expression. "Could she?" he asks gently, winking at her.
"I think she'd like that very much." She drops to her knees and peers in through the opening. "But I think we may need to do some renovations first."
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"My fez is slipping." Tupelo flaps his wings, tilting his head to try and stop the hat from falling off. Garcia makes a frustrated noise, reaching up to fix it back on. "Pen, there's a reason they don't make hats for birds."
"I think it looks dashing," Reid reassures them, trying not to laugh at the sight of the magpie in a fez and bowtie. "Almost as good as Aureilo."
There's a clatter as the robot dog next to Reid stumbles again. "This is embarrassing," the cardboard dog grumbles in Aureilo's voice. "You know, this only worked in the actual show because Baker's daemon was an actual terrier. Not a hare. Boxes aren't made to hop."
Reid frowns at him. "Aur, this was your idea. I was all for making you a scarf to match mine." He flicks the end of the scarf for emphasis, smirking as the robot dog recoils in horror. "I spent weeks on it."
"Shut down by your daemon," Penelope giggles, having finally gotten the hat to sit steady on Tupelo's feathered head again. Reid pouts. "Aww, don't be like that. I'm glad you came with me." She loops her arm through Reid's and beams at him, glancing around at the other costumed groups entering the convention doors. Suddenly her grip on his arm tightens painfully. "Oh my god, it's Kevin. Oh no. Oh no, hide me, Spencer, hide me." She tries unsuccessfully to duck behind his back, Tupelo warbling in worry.
"Oh… hi Penelope. Spencer." Reid groans inwardly as Kevin stops in front of them, a red-headed woman at his side. "Nice… costumes." He adjusts his own eleventh Doctor costume awkwardly, flushing red as he notes the resemblance to Garcia's. His cockatoo daemon peers over his shoulder, own bowtie firmly in place.
"Heckle doesn't have to wear a fez," Tupelo complains quietly. Much like his human, his quiet isn't quite as quiet as he intended it to be.
"We couldn't get it to stay on her crest," Kevin admits, running a finger over the bird's smooth head. His daemon responds by lifting said crest, the bright yellow feathers standing out starkly against her white.
"We used Velcro," Penelope says, slipping out from behind Reid and acknowledging him finally. "I didn't… didn't know you were coming today. And CSU Technician Sharp, hello." She glares at the woman and her Dalmatian daemon, both decked out in police vests. The woman raises a hand in a half-hearted greeting, looking nervous.
"Okay, time to go!" Garcia says abruptly, grabbing Reid's arm and tugging him away from the door. Reid makes a soft noise of protest, looking back at the entrance longingly.
"You're not going in?" Kevin calls after them curiously.
"Nope!" she shouts, moving more insistently. Reid stops fighting and lets himself be pulled away, his long-awaited Saturday evaporating before his eyes. Aureilo tries to keep up and fails, bumping his cardboard nose into several peoples' ankles, and almost getting flattened by a Vulcan. "We went in and it was super lame, so we're leaving. Bye!"
She releases him on the edge of the crowd, eyes tear bright. "Well," Reid begins, rubbing his arm, and peering through the crowd of legs for the boxy form of his hare. "That was awkward."
"I can't believe he brought someone else." Garcia looks like she's about to cry. Reid shifts and pats her on the arm in what he hopes is a reassuring manner. "We used to come here every year."
"You brought someone else," Reid reminds her. K9 appears at his side, looking distinctly worse for wear. Reid can hear muffled swearing coming from the inside, and his ears burn.
"Yeah, someone I couldn't possibly be sexually attracted to!" she exclaims. Reid processes that.
"You're… welcome?" Aureilo says finally, shaking the head of the costume off and glaring at Garcia with his whiskers bristling.
Garcia isn't paying attention anymore. "Is that Strauss?"
Reid turns to look and has to blink a few times to be sure he's not hallucinating as he sees who's with her. "Is that… Rossi?" The two exit the hotel across the road together, breaking apart at the door. Rossi scans the crowd, and pauses when he sees his two colleagues openly gawking at him. Reid can almost tell the exact moment when the man realizes it's them, his shoulders slumping somewhat.
"Oh, wait until I tell Hal about this," Aureilo says gleefully.
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So much for his quiet Saturday.
"Why are we here?" Rossi asks, eyeing the bank. SWAT and the police swarm around them. Further back, Hotch can hear the shouts of reporters at the police lines, camera crews craning for a view of the situation.
"Crisis negotiation is overseas," Hotch says, eyeing JJ. She's standing next to Will, looking exasperated. "Will was first on scene, he shot one of them. We have footage on the inside, it looks pretty bad."
Rossi nods, expression serious. "These things are always bad. What do we know?"
It gets worse.
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"I want to talk to the cop who shot my brother."
Hotch sees JJ's face drain of blood, the same time that Will's turns stubborn. Hotch has seen that look before, he knows it intimately. It's the first time he's seen it from the outside.
Reid, right before taking off his vest on a train full of hostages. Stepping between Hotch's gun and a teenaged unsub to save his life. Walking towards a terrified unsub on a psychotic break to try and get him to put down the knife. And every time, Hotch watching and looking just like JJ does now, waiting for the worst.
"No one else needs to die because of what I did," Will states in his soft drawl, avoiding eye contact with JJ. Kailo flutters frantically around his daemon's ears, the Alsatian laying them back stubbornly and ignoring the soft, whispering calls of the butterfly.
"This isn't about you," JJ snaps, shooting a desperate look at Hotch. Don't let him, don't let him, that look screams. What if this was you. It has been you. "Risking your life won't bring them back."
"Sorry, Will," Hotch tells him firmly, siding with JJ.
He can't watch one of his team lose a person they love. He can't watch someone else suffer through that again.
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Reid glances up at the feed, hearing a quiet gasp from Garcia. "What's going on? Garcia?"
Her eyes are locked on the screen, mouth hanging open in horror. Reid's heart stops as he realizes that something has gone utterly wrong. Hotch, not Hotch, please not Aaron I can't stand it…
"Will," she murmurs.
If possible, that's worse.
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He can't stop Will.
But he can stop JJ.
She fights him, lashing out wildly, screaming after the man she loves as he walks to his probable death. Morgan grabs her arm, tries to get her to calm down, but Hotch knows she can't. There's no calming down in this situation, there's no stepping back.
"Will! No, no no no, please, let me go, Will! Stop him!"
"I can't," Hotch gasps, pulling her back into his arms. She's stiff with tension, shaking. Abruptly, as though she's a puppet with her strings suddenly cut, she sags in his grip, letting out a long, pained moan. "Please, Will," she whimpers, closing her eyes and gasping for air.
If this goes wrong, she's never going to forgive him.
He meets Rossi's horrified gaze and realizes that if this goes wrong, he's never going to forgive himself.
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They shoot him.
Will walks in and they shoot him. Reid doesn't make a sound, just watches uncomprehendingly as the feed is cut. The screen is blank, but the image of Will buckling as his white shirt blooms red stays burned into his mind.
"Is he alive or dead, Garcia? Did Mia… did Mia dissipate?" Aureilo asks quietly. "Where did they shoot him?"
"I don't know," she whispers. "Mia was still there, she fell. He might be okay."
"Might be," Reid repeats, and he's not sure if it's a statement, or a prayer.
"We need to go inside." She's calm again, but there's a gleam to her eyes that he doesn't trust.
"It's too risky," Morgan says, and he looks suspicious as well. "We don't have eyes in there anymore."
JJ's hand reaches up to her hair and brushes it, as though searching for comfort. Hotch glances at it, frowns as he notes something missing.
Kailo.
"Yes, we do," she says numbly, dropping her hand down again. Her eyes are glazed, and he should have realized that it wasn't just with shock. They're glazed with the pain of a stretched link; as two beings pull against the bond between them. He tastes bile in his throat, and for a moment he can smell offal cooking on a smoky woodstove. "We do."
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He's skating on the thin edge of panic and he can't imagine how JJ is faring.
He watched Jack lose his mom. He can't stand the idea of watching Henry lose his dad as well.
"I should be there," he says, but Garcia grabs his arm and pulls him back. There's a scuffle by the door, Aureilo darting back and forth as Tupelo hops at him, wings spread and cawing threateningly. He pecks at the hare every time he ducks near the door, herding him back with a stabbing beak. "We've learned everything we can from here!"
"No, you can help more by helping me," she snaps, pushing him back into his seat. "There's a lot to go over and your brain works faster than mine."
He takes a deep breath. Compartmentalizes.
They need to stop this now. For JJ. For Will.
For Henry.
"Okay."
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The bank explodes and JJ screams as though she's being torn in two.
For all Hotch knows, she could be.
"Kailo!" howls Hal through the ringing in their ears, and Hotch sees Rossi turn and stare at the wolfdog like she's a ghost, the realization sinking in. His eyes slide to JJ, half buckled and clutching at her chest, and back to the wolfdog. Eris takes to the air, great wings silent and beak open as she too calls for the small daemon.
Not again. Not again.
"Where's Emily?" shouts Morgan nearby, and Hotch sees Rossi steel himself, run out in front of them, gun drawn. Hotch follows. They need to hold it together. If need be, grieving comes later.
JJ doesn't follow yet and he wonders if she can. Eris swoops past, the greater range of the owl daemon meaning she reaches the bank before them and weaves through the rubble without care. Hal stays by his side, eyes wild with fear, nose almost bumping into the back of his knee as they move in.
Emily. Sergio. Will. Kailo. JJ.
If need be, grieving comes later.
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"Again, breaking news- an explosion at Colonial Liberty Bank, killing a possible 24 hostages and an unknown number of law enforcement agents."
"I can't get through," Garcia moans. "Even the SAT phone has a busy signal. What do we do?"
Reid stands. The world swims slightly around him, vision tunnelling, as though he'd gotten up too quickly and staggered. Fallen. Except that there's no ground beneath him at the moment, and if he falls there's nothing to catch him.
He tries not to chant the names of his team in his head, as though by refusing to acknowledge the fact that they were there will keep them safe.
"We're going down there," Aureilo says firmly.
Reid follows his daemon and doesn't say anything, laying a hand on his badge and switching to his methodical, agent side. His back straightens, he moves with purpose. They all knew it, they'd all been taught what to do if an agent (if all the agents, all your friends, everyone) went down during a raid.
Grieving comes later.
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They find Emily. Then JJ finds them, smeared with dirt and looking shell-shocked and unheeding. "I can't find Will," she says loudly, holding her hand up to her ear.
Or her hair. Searching. Looking uncertain when she fails to find what she's looking for.
Kailo wouldn't stay away from her if he had a choice.
Hotch tries not to think of delicate paper-thin wings shredded by an explosion, and studies the remains of the lobby. Emily is crouched by the survivors, Sergio at her side. Both their gazes are locked on JJ.
"Where's Kailo?" Emily asks suddenly, standing and taking a quick step towards the blonde agent. "JJ, where's Kailo?"
Running footsteps behind them and Emily's face turns furious. "What are you doing here?" she hisses, and he knows who it is even before he turns.
"You should be at Quantico running point," he says firmly to Reid, anger turning him cold. The only thing keeping him steady was the knowledge that Reid was safe, and now he isn't anymore, he's right there in hell along with the rest of them.
Reid only has eyes for JJ, and Hotch can tell that he knows as soon as he looks at her.
He would.
"I'm here now," he says, walking up to her and grabbing her shoulders with both hands, turning her to face him. "JJ, look at me. You can feel him. You know where he is. You just don't recognise it because he's always been by your side before, but you can find him. He's not gone, trust me."
Trust me.
Aureilo hops forward, long ear swivelling back and forth, listening. The remains of the other are pointed firmly at the two agents. He focuses on JJ, his ear acting independently of his eyes. "He's a part of you, you know him better than anything else in the world. You can always find each other, no matter how far he goes."
JJ shudders and her eyes narrow. Some focus returns. Reid's stare doesn't leave her face, and Hotch feels something cold and frightened ooze down his spine at the intimacy there. Hal had never gone far enough away from him that'd he'd been forced to search for her before. She'd always just been there. A constant reassuring presence. A guarantee that no matter what, he'd never be alone.
She nods slowly, and turns on the spot, eyes snapping to a point just over Hotch's shoulder. "Over there," she gasps, taking a couple of stumbling steps. Suddenly her expression stills, becomes familiar and fierce again. "This way, he's this way!"
Aureilo outruns all of them, vanishing over the rubble in bounding leaps, the white flash of his tail all that marked him as he went. Eris circles tightly over their heads, faster than the hare, but restrained by her tie to Rossi being outside keeping the reporters back. She watches them go, turning back to re-join him. Emily is by JJ's side. Reid stays by Hotch's.
They find him together.
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Will's badge is on the ground of the alley outside, and Kailo is perched on top of it. His yellow wings are stained red with Will's blood, one battered and torn.
Reid feels the crushing horror that had enveloped him the moment he saw the vacant look in JJ's eyes lift at the sight of the daemon, alive. Unable to return to his human, but alive. Reunited. Aureilo is next to the butterfly, but practically hurls himself into Reid's arms once they reach him.
Reid scoops up the hare and clutches him close as JJ does the same to her butterfly. The glowing relief on her face is achingly familiar, even though they'd only been apart for a short time. The other agents don't react as openly, but he can see both Sergio and Hal pressing close to their humans, the knowledge of the pain suffered haunting them all.
JJ places Kailo on her shoulder with a shaking hand, the daemon quivering against her neck. She picks up the badge with the other. Caresses the warm leather. Takes a deep, shuddering breath. "Will always says, if you can, leave a breadcrumb," she tells them, and Reid wonders what they'd discussed for that to come up in conversation.
Morgan is there, walking up behind them and placing a hand on Reid's elbow. His eyes are worried, and not all of the concern is aimed at JJ. Reid tries to smile and instead just feels sick. Aureilo shakes in his arms.
"Ok, so he was here, and clearheaded enough to leave us a clue," the agent says firmly. He looks at Hotch and nods. "And there was no blood down there. Both are good signs."
"He was shot," JJ whispers, holding the badge close. "They shot him. They have him." She looks at Reid now, plaintive. "I can't lose him."
Kalio's voice is soft, but Reid still hears it. "He says he's sorry, Jennifer. He told me to tell you."
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The five words that every agent has nightmares about. JJ looks up at him and says the five words guaranteed to stop cold the hearts of any law enforcement officer who hears them.
"They know where we live."
Hotch has been an FBI agent for a long time. He knows how it works. They have two families. There's their families at home, their partners and children; their parents and siblings.
Then there's his agents. Their team. He loves them, god he loves them, for their bravery and their loyalty and for themselves. He thinks of each and every one of them and he knows that he loves them. It's an unspoken love, they don't talk about it. They show it in the little things. A smile, a hand on a shoulder. Comfort given during a tough case. They trust each other with their lives. They'd die for each other if need be.
Someday, they might have to. And that's the difference between their two families. Hotch thinks of his team and everything they give him. Morgan, hot-headed and reckless. Brave. Unfalteringly loyal. Rossi and his humour, his arrogance, his secrets. Reid's intelligence and his awkwardness. JJ's kindness, and the softness to her that sometimes threatened to be her destruction. Emily's pain, and her courage. Gideon. Elle. All of them, they can be taken from them in a moment, and he is ready for that.
In return for that sacrifice, they expected their other families to be safe.
But sometimes, they weren't. He learnt that years ago. Now it's JJ's turn.
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"You can't blame yourself," he says as they drive towards her house.
"Want to bet?" she snaps bitterly. "I should have never left Henry today."
"Do you blame me for Foyet? For Haley? Foyet told me I should, as he shot me. 'You should have taken the deal.'"
She blanches, turns to him with wide, horrified eyes. "Hotch, no! Of course not. You were doing your job, what Foyet did had nothing to do with the decision you made."
"I knew he'd come after me. I knew he'd make it personal. I'm a dad first, and I put my son in danger."
"You're a federal agent. You have to make choices like that sometimes. You had no possible way of knowing how it would end."
"What makes you so different from me then?" He lifts an eyebrow and she frowns, frustrated. He sees her relax ever so slightly. Not much. She wouldn't, not until her family was safe. But it was enough to stop her from shattering in the meantime.
"Damn you, Aaron Hotchner," she retorts, voice cracking. "We… we made a deal. Will and I. That Henry would never be alone without one of us. And… I broke that."
"He'll forgive you."
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Reid follows Emily into the station. She vanishes out of sight and he swears, looking around for her, gun held ready in sweaty hands. Despite the adrenaline coursing through him, he doesn't falter. His finger doesn't twitch towards the trigger, his hands don't shake. His teacher was too good for him to make mistakes like that.
He wishes Aureilo was here. He can feel him. A thread connecting them. What he told JJ was true, he'll always be able to find him. Remembering Kailo's wing, an injury that may never heal, he's grateful for the ease of the distance between them. It means he can do his job without being vulnerable.
His teammates don't have that option.
He sees Sergio first, watching him approach with green eyes. "Get out of here, kid," he says, lashing his tail.
He sees Emily. Then he sees Will.
And the bomb.
"Just give me a minute," she hisses at him, hands hovering over the device. Reid's not a bomb tech. He has all these facts, all this knowledge, and it all betrays him. His mind goes blank. He looks at Will and Will is staring back with a resigned expression. It's up to Emily.
00:57
"That's about all you've got," the Alsatian daemon says, pacing around them and eyeing the device. She limps slightly, hackles raised. Protecting them, until the last. No one will reach them while she's on guard.
Pity that the danger is one she can't stop.
He trusts her to do this.
00:45
"Reid, get out of here," Emily snaps. He watches the countdown tick. His presence is distracting her.
"I'm not leaving you," he says firmly. He thinks of Aureilo.
He wishes he was here.
They never seen to be able to say goodbye.
00:29
"Spence, JJ needs you," Will chokes, eyes skimming from Reid to Prentiss. "You two, get out of here! Don't leave her!"
He picks up Sergio. Emily is muttering feverishly and doesn't notice. The cat bumps his head against his chin, purrs furiously. "Spencer," he says softly. "If this goes wrong…"
00:15
"You don't get to say goodbye yet," Reid snaps. Aureilo, Aureilo, Aureilo….
Aaron. I'm so fucking sorry.
00:03
There's a click.
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Hotch watches JJ and Will reunited with Henry and is glad that today isn't one of those days. There's no gold coin, no Taps making every cop in the crowd feel sick.
Just for once, everyone lives.
Morgan and Prentiss are sitting sandwiched around Reid. The man looks green, holding Aureilo on his lap and petting him fanatically. Hotch wonders what happened when they went to get Will. If the rest of his team knows, they're not telling, eyes sliding guiltily away when he asks.
He assumes Reid did something stupid again. He'll find out eventually.
Rossi sidles up, smirking. Hotch tears his eyes away from his team to look at him. "What are you looking so pleased about?" he asks him suspiciously.
"Got any plans for tomorrow night?" Rossi says, lifting a hand to run a finger across Eris's chest.
"Depends, are you buying?"
Rossi nods, grins even wider. Hotch almost groans at that look. A Dave party. If this one ends like the last… "Want to be my plus one, Aaron?"
"Where to?"
Rossi puts his hand on Hotch's shoulder, tilting him around to face the window through which JJ and Will are embracing. "Oh, a little butterfly may have told me about a wedding…"
.
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Rossi stands, raises his glass. They all wait. Reid watches JJ, and he can't help the smile. She looks beautiful, looking at Will as though she could never be parted from him.
Her dress is simple, white and flowing, undecorated except for a single beaded butterfly gleaming gold on her shoulder, matching the real life version inches away from it. There's a delicately stitched canine on the heart of Will's tux in gold thread, standing proud. On the cake, the butterfly and dog stand together.
These are the moments to cherish, because they can be gone in an instant.
"They say that good things happen to good people. Today is one of those days, and these are two of those people. We love you." Rossi bows his head at the newly married couple. JJ lifts a hand to hide her face, laughing through the tears.
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"How are you?" He knows the answer before he asks.
Emily sighs. She looks beautiful in her dress, but still the same woman. Confident. Self-assured. Sad.
"That bad, huh?" He hasn't worked with her for five years without picking up some tricks. She frowns at him. "That's your tell."
The frown vanishes and she laughs. "How long have you known that?"
He nudges her playfully. He can hear Jack laughing somewhere with Henry. Hal lowers her head and nuzzles Sergio. The cat is startled, wide eyed, but purrs anyway. "Uh, ever since I've known you."
She wrinkles her nose, watching the two daemons with knowing eyes. "Well, you have one too."
"What is it?" He's suspicious.
Another laugh, and she touches his hand. It's as close to a hug as he's going to get.
It's a goodbye.
"I'm not going to tell you, or you'll stop doing it," she scolds him.
A comfortable silence settles between them, and there's an air of contentment around her that she'd been missing since she'd returned from her 'death'. As though she'd finally found her place, just not with them. "Do you think Reid knows? About my 'tell'?"
This time the laugh is long and loud and she has to take gulped breaths in around it. Hotch sees Reid glance up at them from the table where he was flourished a deck of cards to an intrigued looking Beth. "Oh, Hotch," she chokes eventually, when the laughing subsides. "Who do you think taught me?"
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"How do you do that?" Beth asks curiously as he shows Henry and Jack the new card trick he'd learnt.
"A magician never reveals his secrets," he says, tapping his nose with the cards and winking. Despite himself, he likes her.
He's not entirely sure why Rossi seated him next to her though. Judging from the look on Aaron's face when he saw the seating arrangements, he wasn't sure either. He suspects that Rossi was meddling again, in his not-so-subtle way.
She quirks an eyebrow. "Can you pull a rabbit out of a hat?" she teases.
"Only if he wants the rabbit to feed him the hat," Aureilo warns them, narrowing his eyes at Reid as though daring him to try.
When she smiles at him, it's a real smile. She's genuinely a nice person.
Perhaps Rossi wasn't meddling at all. Maybe he was just giving Reid the chance to see that Hotch has found the best woman he could for him and Jack.
"Want to see some more?" he asks her, holding up the cards with a flourish. She looks delighted.
"Oh, please!"
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Hotch dances with Beth. She can't help but laugh at his shuffling steps.
"It's been a while since I danced last," he defends himself. "I'm out of practise."
"You're supposed to be leading," she says, shaking her head at him in mock disgrace. "You keep faltering, waiting for me to lead."
He shrugs, glancing about at his team and friends dancing around them. He's not doing as badly as Morgan. The man may know his way around a nightclub, but he's out of his element slow-dancing with Strauss. "The last person I danced with led," he says absently. A memory teases, evading him.
Beth is saved by Rossi appearing between them and offering his arm. "How about I show you how to really dance," he says with a wink, sweeping her away. Hotch laughs, left alone in the middle of the dance floor. He takes a step back, intending to make his way to the table to find Hal, and bumps into someone.
More like has someone thrown at him. Reid stumbles and Hotch puts an arm out. The man grins shakily, turning to glare at Emily, who shrugs and disappears.
"All I did was ask her to dance when she was finished with Rossi, and she just grins and shoves me," Reid complains, turning to get out of the way of Garcia and Kevin. The two are glaring at each other, clearly arguing under their breaths even as they dance.
"I think maybe," Hotch says with a restrained chuckle. "They were hinting at something."
They're not subtle. He really needs to tell Rossi to stop interfering.
"Oh?" Reid turns to face him, looking confused. The suit he's wearing is finely tailored around his body, showing off all his long lines. Hotch's mouth goes dry at the sight of him. The response is almost Pavlovian at this point.
He'd worn a suit the day they'd gotten together.
He holds out his arm. He's really just encouraging Rossi's misbehaviour at this point. "May I have this dance?"
Reid smiles and nods. "Only if I lead," he teases gently. "You've always been awful at it."
Oh. Now he remembers who the last person he danced with was.
He's hyperaware of his hands on Reid's body as they hold each other a careful distance apart, moving in slow, graceful strides. Hotch remembers how shocked he'd been the first time he'd danced with Reid, jokingly around the living room, finding him to be elegantly skilled at the art of it. A far cry from the nervous shuffling he did when Morgan dragged him out on weekends.
The music picks up slightly and almost unconsciously, Reid pulls him closer to speed up their footwork. Hotch pulls back slightly, unwilling to let Reid sense the hammering of his heart in his chest.
This is dangerous.
"Emily's going to leave," Reid says quietly, looking into his eyes. Their eye line is level. It's not strange, dancing with a man the same height as him. He doesn't have to consciously adjust for someone shorter. He tries not to dwell on that.
"I know."
Reid opens his mouth to say something and pauses. There's a single, tenuous moment where Hotch focuses on those delicate lips and considers leaning forward and seeing if he can taste the words left unsaid on them. It would be so simple, pulling him close and curving their bodies together. Yet another dance they knew off by heart. He knows exactly how the other man would feel pressed against him.
He knows the beat of Spencer's heart intimately. He tenses, falters.
Reid steps away.
He nods and thanks Hotch for the dance with a voice that's steady, and walks away. Again. Saving Hotch from his own destruction.
He hears Beth laugh and sighs. Swallows down bitter guilt and regrets.
He's so sure of the dance he's learnt, he doesn't know if he can learn another.
.
.
He finally gets his dance with Emily.
"You still look at him like you're in love," she says, glancing at Hotch. "I saw you dance with him."
He flushes, embarrassed. He's horrified to have been caught swooning in another man's arms like a schoolgirl. Surely he still has some self-respect. Apparently except when it comes to Aaron Hotchner, anyway. "Because I do love him," he admits. "I probably always will. Same as you, and Morgan, and everyone here. But no more than that."
She rolls her eyes at him. He focuses on her, tuning out the people around them. This is their last dance, he knows it. "Spencer, if you love me like you love him, then this dance is going to go in a whole different direction," she says with a wink.
"I'm not going backwards."
"It's not going backwards to change your mind." The words are laced with double meaning. He knows the conversation has shifted, that this is it.
"When are you going?"
"Soon. I'm sorry." Her eyes catch the light wetly, glittering at the corners. She's going to smudge her makeup. He reaches up to catch a tear before it can drip, wiping it away gently. It reflects on his finger, blurs. His own vision waters. He doesn't bother to hide it, he has no shame about feeling sad about this.
"Don't be sorry. I'm proud of you." He brushes his lips against her forehead and pulls her close. "I think I miss you already."
His shoulder is wet but he doesn't mind. This is their goodbye.
He's grateful that they get one.