Jack

It isn't Scratch that makes him run…

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It wasn't Scratch that made him run. Not completely. Scratch was nothing next to Foyet, nothing. Hotch would be the first to admit…he was Aaron Hotchner: good at his job, by-the-book, dedicated to a fault, far-too-fucking-arrogant-to-quit Aaron Hotchner. Not a single part of him believed that Scratch would beat him.

No, it wasn't Scratch who made him run.

It was Jack.

Jack sitting quietly by his side in the backseat of the sedan they'd collected him from school in, his backpack between his knees and his gaze locked on the broken zipper. Jack following him silently up the path of the safe-house they'd been assigned, sneakers dragging on the gravel, the blank-faced agents following behind.

Jack sitting at the dinner table with his food untouched in front of him, quietly asking, "What happens to me if you die like Mom did? Where will I go?"

It was his voice breaking, just a tiny bit.

And it was Hotch looking at him and remembering that once, a long time ago, Jack hadn't been afraid of the dark.

"I'm leaving," he said to Dave later. Dave was silent. "Don't try to talk me out of it."

After all, there was so much more than the job. Even if he'd forgotten that for a while. Life was more than fighting its darkest parts.

Dave simply said, "I wouldn't dream of it."