Here we are again. I know I went only a couple of days between posts... probably going to slow down more.

Thanks so much for the new reviews, Jane! I really do appreciate it. I love Jack too, and I wish he had gotten more screen time. Hotch isn't perfect, but I try to write him as the ideal dad. He's strong and masculine, but not afraid to be tender with his son. We start with a little more Jack fluff in this chapter. Hope you like it.

Warning: Slight creepiness in this one. I think you can handle it.

Setting: The next morning (Tuesday, in case I forget later lol), Hotch's point of view. Scene changes are pretty clear after the breaks.

Surviving 19: The Deal

I woke up around six. I could hear someone moving around already. It was a little early, but my alarm would go off in half an hour anyway, so I decided to get up. When I went into the hall, I saw Reid coming out of the bathroom.

"Did I wake you up?" he asked sheepishly.

I shrugged. "I'd be up soon anyway."

"I woke up about an hour ago and couldn't go back to sleep."

"You should try to get a little more rest in. I'll make you some breakfast if you want."

"Okay. I'll try." He yawned and turned back toward the living room.

While I was working on breakfast, Jack rolled out of bed and offered to help. When it was ready, I sent him to see if Reid was awake, and the two of them came back together.

"Jack, I want to get to work early again today," I said, thinking of the appointment I had to keep.

"I can take the bus," Jack said.

I had let Jack ride the bus to school only in extreme circumstances when I had had to leave early and Jessica wasn't available. I didn't like the idea of the child-to-adult ratio and lack of supervision. "I'd rather we just get an early start here."

"Okay, but I'd be fine on the bus."

I put toast and eggs on Jack's plate. "I know you're getting older, and you were all right when you rode the bus before, but it's a lot of riding around without a grown-up paying attention to you just to go a few miles."

"I have to agree with your dad," Reid put in. "I always hated riding the bus. It was too easy for bullies to do mean stuff to me where no one could see."

"People don't fight on my bus," Jack declared.

"I guess they don't put gum in each other's hair, either."

"I heard it happened once, but I never saw it."

"And they don't shoot spitballs at each other."

Jack looked away.

"Or call each other things like 'string bean' and 'fart face.'"

"Fart face?" Jack repeated, looking like he wanted to laugh but was afraid of being scolded.

"Don't repeat that," I put in.

"Sorry," said Reid. "My point is, just because no one's threatening to punch you in the face if you don't give them your lunch money doesn't mean no one is mean on the bus. And they make so many stops… it takes you an hour to go five miles."

"Well, the drop-off line is really long, too," Jack said. "I could walk to school from the next street down a lot faster than waiting in that line."

"But you wouldn't get to talk to your dad while you walked."

"Well… no." Jack looked a little sullen as he turned his attention to his breakfast.

We managed to get out of the house ahead of schedule and were doing all right on time when we pulled up in front of the school.

"Have a good day," I told Jack as he unfastened his seatbelt.

"Okay. Bye." Jack opened his door and scrambled out of the car.

"Hey."

He paused and came over to my open window. "Yeah?"

I reached a hand out toward him. "I love you."

Jack seemed to hesitate before taking my hand and shaking it instead of the hug to which I was accustomed. "You too. Have a good day. Bye, Spencer."

Then he was off. I stared at him as he walked away.

"Everything okay?" Reid's voice snapped me out of it.

"Yeah. It's just… This is why he wanted to take the bus. He's ashamed of me."

"What?"

"Did you see the way he shook my hand? He doesn't want to hug his old man goodbye anymore."

"Hotch, he's not ashamed of you. He's proud of you. Really proud."

I pulled away from the curb, still preoccupied. "Last week, he hugged me every day—we even exchanged kisses sometimes. Yesterday just a quick hug and now this… Haley was right: it goes by too fast."

"He is growing up, but that's not the only factor. Last week, I was missing. Jack was probably worried about you disappearing, too. But maybe some of his classmates noticed him being clingy, so he's compensating. Trust me, it's not you. It's them." Reid said the last word with more than a hint of resentment.

"You think so?" I wasn't sure I liked the idea of other kids picking on Jack for having a close relationship with me any more than I liked the idea of his growing up too fast.

"Oh, yeah. I got roughed up plenty of times, but if I'd been spotted kissing my dad… oh, god. It would have been so much worse. Jack is lucky his school has a decent level of supervision and good policies on bullying."

"Hm."

"He'll probably be fine with more affection when you come home from work."

"Yeah. Probably."

.

After I made sure things were status quo at the office, I headed for the detention center where Heathbridge was being held. He was waiting with his lawyer in a private interview room.

A prison uniform didn't suit Heathbridge, though his good looks still showed through the stubble that had grown in over the weekend. He looked as if he hadn't been sleeping much.

"Thank you for coming, agent Hotchner," Farrow said, shaking my hand.

I nodded and took my seat across from them. "I understand that your client wants to meet with Doctor Reid, but Reid's status as an investigative agent is superseded by his status as a victim in this crime. Therefore, such a meeting is out of the question." I was exaggerating slightly. The meeting would be highly unorthodox, but not truly impossible. The main issue, in my opinion, was that Heathbridge shouldn't be allowed to breathe the same air as Reid.

"Spencer isn't a victim!" Heathbridge exclaimed.

"Miles," Farrow said calmly, "remember what I told you."

Heathbridge sullenly turned his gaze on the table.

"I appreciate your position," Farrow said to me. "I've advised my client to consider more reasonable terms, but he's reluctant to compromise. I was informed shortly before you arrived that the charges he can expect are now up to eight murders. Insanity is the only plea he could hope would keep him from the death penalty in this state, which I'm sure you've surmised is why I worked so hard to have him arraigned in Maryland first."

"It's a strategic move on your part," I allowed. "You're hoping that Maryland's lesser sentence may influence the Virginian judge."

"However, if he were allowed to see Doctor Reid, Mister Heathbridge would be willing not only to enter his insanity plea here first, but to try to help identify the remaining victims. As you know, the plea is no guarantee that the death sentence will not be handed down, but that's a risk he is willing to take."

Heathbridge was still staring at the table, not appearing to hear what his lawyer was saying about him.

"Upsetting as it might be to see him again, your agent would be in no danger should he agree to the meeting. My client, however, would be risking a factor that could be the difference between life and death for him. I hope that the weight of his proposal isn't lost on you."

"It isn't," I said, "but it begs the question…" I turned to Heathbridge for the first time. "Why do you want to see him so badly? What good would it possibly do?"

Heathbridge looked up at me. "Because I have to. I have to see him one more time. The last time he saw me, one of your agents was dragging me away in handcuffs. I don't want him to remember me like that."

"You put Reid in handcuffs," I all but growled. "You would be in them and he wouldn't—is that how you want to remember him? Free?"

"Of course. Of course, I want him to be free. I love him. Even if I can't be with him, I want him to be free and happy."

"Then, when your other captives didn't turn out to be ideal lovers, why did you kill them? Why not let them go?"

Heathbridge clamped his jaw shut. Either he was smart enough not to state anything incriminating before his court appearance, or he was mindful of clear instructions from Farrow. After a moment, he said, "I wouldn't have to be close to him. Not even within ten feet. Just as long as he could see me and hear me. I need him to know I still love him. And I need to know he understands…"

"I don't want him within ten miles of you, let alone ten feet."

He looked crushed for a moment, but then his look turned bemused and then surprised. "Oh, my god… you're in love with him too!"

This wasn't exactly what I had expected, but it did seem to fit what we knew about him. In his mind, the only way that I could fail to see that he and Reid had found true love was if I were jealous of them in some way.

"You don't understand what love is," I told him. "There are many ways to love someone, but tying them up so they won't try to escape your house isn't one of them. Hitting them when they don't do what you want isn't one of them." My voice was rising in volume, and I was struggling to control it. "And forcing them to piss in front of you isn't one of them! You've never known what it means to be loved. That's why you did this—you were searching for someone to finally love you, but you had no clue how to do it. You resorted to kidnapping and enslaving, and, when it didn't work, you committed murder. You should be glad if Reid never sees you again." I had cut back the volume again, but now it was hard to keep the venom out of my voice. The prosecutor in me was coming out.

"You're wrong," Heathbridge said. "I do love him. And he loves me."

"He pretended to love you so that you wouldn't kill him." Finally in control again.

"No!" Heathbridge attempted to stand, but Farrow put a hand on his arm. "He does love me. He does, and he needs to know that nothing has changed."

I thought about the concern which Reid had shown for Heathbridge, and the subtle ways that he had expressed a connection to him. I didn't believe for a moment that it was a sign of romantic love, but maybe Reid did need to know that nothing had changed—that Heathbridge was still a serial killer. A rapist and murderer with enormous delusions in his troubled mind that weren't going to go away. And, maybe he needed the chance to reveal the truth to him outside the courtroom. To tell his captor that he did not belong to anyone and never had.

"If he didn't love me, why would he send you to see me?" Heathbridge asked, quirking an eyebrow as if he thought he had the upper hand.

"He didn't send me. Your lawyer asked me to come."

"I mean before! At the hospital."

Farrow looked at me in surprise. "You saw him at the hospital?"

I hadn't done anything unlawful, but I hadn't had any necessity to ask the nurse to wake Heathbridge up at the time, either. If he made a big deal about it, it could make things sticky. I had let my anger get the better of me. "I stopped by to advise the nurse to put him on suicide watch," I said.

"But he sent you, didn't he?" Heathbridge persisted. "You may have tried to make him think it was all pretend, but he still loves me."

"I think we've gotten off track," Farrow said, his voice still calm. He looked at me again. "Will you consider the deal?"

I again wished that I had more time to think this through. Such a weighty decision should never be made quickly. I sighed. "I still think it's a bad idea, but if Reid did agree to see you, would you honor the terms if he saw you from behind tinted glass?"

"That's much better than nothing," Farrow said.

Heathbridge didn't look happy, but finally he said, "All right."

"Even if he agrees," I said, "he may not be ready to see you before the arraignment. But I'll get something in writing to Mister Farrow so you can be sure we'll follow through."

"I'll go over everything with you," Farrow told him.

"Fine," he said.

"I'll get an answer from him as soon as I can," I said to Farrow. "I know it will take some string-pulling to have Heathbridge arraigned in Virginia on such short notice."

"I appreciate it," Farrow said.

We stood and shook hands again. I didn't look at Heathbridge.

.

I was already having second thoughts by the time I got back to headquarters. Was it fair even to tell Reid about the deal? I needed another opinion and soon.

I found Rossi in the observation room as I expected. They had been at it for over an hour, and it sounded like Reid was describing the tedious hours that he had spent while Heathbridge was away at work on Tuesday.

"I've been taking notes so you could catch up," Rossi said quietly, passing me his tablet. "There wasn't a lot of significance so far… the kid has been giving us every detail."

"He might be stalling," I said, glancing over the notes. "Tuesday night was really rough."

Rossi had noted that Heathbridge had taken Reid to the bathroom and then tied him in the bedroom again while he showered. Then he hobbled Reid and let him sit in the kitchen with his hands free while Heathbridge prepared breakfast. He had tied Reid up, leaving him with a selection of books for company again, before leaving for work.

"How'd the meeting go?"

I wasn't sure how to answer.

"That bad, huh?"

"I'll talk it over with you at lunch. I have to decide whether or not to pitch a deal to Reid."

Rossi blew out a breath. "Sounds heavy. I'll pick something up at noon and meet you in your office."

"Thank you." I handed his tablet back to him.

He stepped past me, patting my shoulder as he went by.

I focused on Reid. He was slowing down, and Morgan was interjecting with reassurances.

"We can stop if you want," Morgan reminded him.

Reid shook his head. "Not yet." He took a moment for some deep breaths.

Morgan reached across the table until he was just touching Reid's hand. Reid didn't take Morgan's hand, but he didn't move his away either.

"He was tired when he got home," Reid said. "It was a little later than he got home Monday. He took me to the bathroom like usual, and he kept in contact with me, mostly touching my arms and shoulders. We had canned soup for supper. He didn't ask much about what I'd been reading."

It was hard to watch Reid forcing himself to talk. I wished I could be in the room with him as I had been at the hospital. But, while I didn't fully understand why, I knew that Morgan was the one that he needed right now.

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