Jack wasn't surprised at all when Aunt Jessie was waiting to pick him up after school.
He slid into the passenger seat, shedding his backpack with practiced ease, and gave her a tepid half-smile. "Hi. Is Dad seeing his doctor again?"
Jessica gave her nephew a sidelong look. "What makes you say that?"
A diffident shrug. "I dunno."
Unfortunately, Ms. Brooks didn't have Rossi's savvy when it came to probing beneath the surface of Hotchner 'I dunno's. She flexed her brows in a dismissive expression and started the car. "All I know is Mr. Rossi called this morning and said he wanted some alone-time with your dad." She forced a grin. "Probably just a boy's night out kind of thing."
But both she and Jack knew it wasn't.
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
"I'm not sure what my part is in all this."
Dave had spent the day with an uneasy Aaron, waiting for the psychiatrist to free up some time to see them. As intrigued as Fletcher was, he couldn't shunt his other patients to the back of the line day after day. And 'day after day' was becoming the norm for his sessions with Agent Hotchner.
So…late afternoon again, and the two agents had arrived for what Fletcher was prepared to consider an open-ended meeting.
"I'm not sure either, Mr. Rossi. But I have a hunch and I want to play it out. Just…stay. That's all I ask."
"Couldn't keep me away, Doc. And it's 'Dave.' Remember?" Rossi kept a proprietary hand on Hotch's shoulder. "Just not sure what you want me to do."
The doctor ducked his head, a faint grin making a brief appearance as he recalled when they'd first met, asking the older agent if he could be on a first name basis, because he wanted to see if Rossi would be as testy about familiarity as Hotch had been. "I remember.. Dave." Fletcher reached into his briefcase, extracting a sheaf of papers, hard copy printed out in preparation for this session. He motioned Hotch toward the couch and nodded Rossi toward a nearby chair. "Now, let's see what the two of you remember."
Rossi looked quizzical; Hotch, wary.
"Wha'd'you mean?" Dave had clued Fletcher in over the phone about the skewed take his Unit Chief had developed when recalling cases. He wasn't sure, however, what he could contribute. He craned his neck to see what the papers contained as the doctor took his own seat near the head of the couch where Aaron perched, a portrait in caution.
"I have here…" The psychiatrist brandished a rustling handful. "…cases that you, Aaron, have worked on. Some of these are the reports you yourself wrote up and filed. Some were submitted by your teammates at the time." He nodded at Rossi. "All I want you to do, Dave, is listen. As for you…" He turned his full attention back to Hotch. "…I want you to tell me what you recall of each."
Fletcher gave the Unit Chief a significant look, one brow rising. "Lie down. Let's begin."
Seeing his teammate's anxiety, Rossi gave him a casual shrug. "C'mon, Aaron. Assume the position."
With slow reluctance, eyes tracking from doctor to friend and back again, Hotch did.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Tell me about…" Dr. Fletcher glanced at one of the papers he held, referencing one of the cases in which both Hotch and Rossi had participated. "…Floyd Hansen."
Aaron let himself relax into the couch cushions as he mind wandered over a career's worth of victims and unsubs. "Floyd Hansen…Hansen… Oh…yeah…him." A note of chagrin entered the Unit Chief's tone. His chest rose and fell with a deep sigh. "He was a sexual sadist. A motel owner. Lured couples in and tortured them…killed them. Disposed of the bodies by trying to make it look as though they'd died in traffic accidents." Another bottomless sigh. "I spoke to him and didn't catch on. Let him slip right past me."
Rossi leaned forward, about to speak, but the psychiatrist held a hand up, palm toward the agent. Dave obeyed the time-honored gesture to stop, biting back his words.
"But you caught him in the end, right?"
"Yeah."
"And did your failure to identify Mr. Hansen during your first contact with him result in additional casualties?"
"Well…no, but…"
"So you didn't cost anyone his or her life?"
Hotch shrugged, opting not to vocalize agreement, since he still felt he could have done a better job and spared the couple Hansen had stashed away in his motel some pain and terror. Fletcher turned to Rossi.
"Dave, does that about sum up your take on that case?"
The older agent nodded. "Pretty much. It was early on after I'd come out of retirement. Aaron was still burning off the baby fat as a Unit Chief, ya know? I told him to join the club. We all make mistakes. The only way to avoid that is to take no action at all. And then where would the victims be?"
"Aaron? Does that jive with your memories?"
"Yeah." Hotch half-turned his head toward where Rossi sat just outside his easy field of vision. "But I still say I should have picked up on something. What kind of profiler carries on a discussion with an unsub that twisted and doesn't?"
"One who's learning. That's what kind."
"Gentlemen." Fletcher interrupted what sounded like a timeworn, but congenial point of contention between the agents. "Let's continue." He rustled the papers again, eyes tracking. "Talk to me about…Evan Abby."
Hotch's sharp, indrawn breath was followed by silence. Rossi frowned, shaking his head, but again was discouraged from speaking by a quick, warning glance from the psychiatrist.
"Evan Abby." He repeated with slow, distinct pronunciation. "What happened with Evan Abby, Aaron?" Fletcher consulted the page before him. "He was an environmental activist involved with leaking underground storage tanks…LUST…?"
An audible swallow. "He…he…Abby was a good man. If I hadn't shown up, if I hadn't pushed him, he wouldn't have died…at least not like that…"
"Hotch…" Rossi leaned forward, the impulse to comfort overriding Fletcher's gesture to keep still.
"You weren't there, Dave! You don't know…"
It had been a case of a murderous arsonist, before Rossi's return. The memories were burned into Aaron with searing heat. He'd sat by a victim's bedside and eased her passing with lies, saying her son and husband were fine when they were nothing more than charred remnants. He'd targeted Evan Abby as key to learning the unsub's identity. Along the way, Hotch had felt his own scars surface…then reveal themselves as unhealed wounds even after so many years had elapsed since their acquisition.
"Abby…Abby was dying of cancer…lung cancer. Like my…my father." Hotch took a deep, shuddering breath. "He had a son he loved. They needed each other. If I hadn't pushed, they would have had more time together, and that's…that's…" His voice cracked, breaking with emotion.
Fletcher held his palm up toward Rossi again, not needing to even look at the man to know he was yearning to interrupt.
Dave subsided, but was clearly itching to address his teammate's take on the case. Even if he hadn't been present, Rossi knew Aaron didn't have it in him to be as negative a force as he seemed to think.
The doctor checked his notes. "Looks to me as though you did everything in your power to save Mr. Abby, Aaron."
"No…"
"Your teammates wrote up that they had to forcibly restrain you; you were that determined to risk yourself in the name of rescuing a man who was already beyond help."
"No…NO, you don't get it!"
"And the EMS on the scene said that of the FBI agents present, you were the one he knew would throw caution to the winds in the name of saving someone past hope."
"No!" Hotch twisted on the couch, fixing Fletcher with brimming eyes. "I was the reason Abby went after the unsub himself! I was the one who identified him…"
The doctor's voice was a river of calm flowing through a treacherous landscape pocked with pain. "It says here that Abby was the one who identified the arsonist. Not you. You showed him photos, but that's all. Seems to me that Abby made the choice to take him out. He could just as easily have let your team close in on him and…"
"No!" Hotch's strident voice overrode Fletcher. "I deprived a kid of his father…of a father who loved his son, who was still a part of his son's life in a good…in a good w-way…"
Rossi couldn't take it anymore.
"Dammit, Aaron! You're doing it again! You always take responsibility for things that are waaaaay beyond your control! This is Foyet all over again. That busload of victims he shot, and you were so ready to say it was all your fault…"
All your fault… The phrase echoed in Hotch's mind; the words uttered when the Reaper felt himself on the verge of victory, his knife ready to slice its way into Aaron's heart, but his words got there first…his threat aimed toward the one reason Hotch had to keep fighting: his son; the judgment he would pass on to his son. The last words Jack would hear... All your father's fault…
Aaron had flipped back around, lying flat. Fletcher suspected it was the man's way of dropping a shield between himself and those who would condemn him, if they only saw him for what he really was. What he is in his own mind. What someone made him. No one with that much damage would have passed the entry evals into the FBI. Someone did this to you, Aaron. Let's just see if I'm right about how…
There were a multitude of pieces coming together in the psychiatrist's thoughts. Some he had suspected, but more were appearing that he hadn't. Just as the BAU would sometimes need another victim to blaze the trail to their unsub, so Fletcher needed more of the puzzle that was beginning to emerge.
Rossi was still on the offensive. "Aaron, what did I tell you back in that alley in Boston? Remember? I said…"
"Agents, please!" Fletcher hadn't known he'd be cast in the role of referee. Probably should have, though. Dave is very protective of this young man. Might be overcompensating since I pointed out he's wandered off on a path peopled by his own kin, rather than Aaron. Well…one issue at a time…
"Mr. Rossi, please be a silent witness for now. You'll get your chance to talk, but right now, I want Aaron's recollections front and center." The sternness in his tone softened. "Believe me…there is a method to my madness, but you have to let me do this my way. Capice?"
Use of the Italian word jarred Dave enough for him to settle down, still fuming at Hotch's bull-headed insistence on shouldering the woes of the world. Like his own share of them isn't enough already?!
Fletcher cast a warning look toward the older agent. "I promise you'll have your say, Dave. But for now…" He brandished the sheaf of case printouts. "…for now we have a lot of ground to cover."
Rossi nodded.
Hotch made a conscious effort to stop kneading his own knuckles, privately glad that the others couldn't look him in the eye. Something's wrong, but…that is the way it all went down. It is…
"Here…" The doctor snagged a small steno-pad and a pen from his desk, depositing them in Dave's hands. "Take notes, but please stay quiet." He settled back into his chair and rifled through the pages, looking for something that might help bolster the theory forming in his mind.
"Aaron, talk to me about…Darrin Call."
Lying on the couch, Hotch's breath caught.
If he's asking about Darrin Call, then he knows. He knows what I did, and Rossi was there. He knows, too. There's no point in even trying to hide…
Turning his head toward the wall, making himself as invisible as he could under the circumstances, Aaron began to talk in a shredded voice.
No…Aaron began to confess…