A/N: Hi, guys! Sorry I've been MIA. I honestly did not expect to be away so long. But life, you know? I'm finally at a good place to where I kind of/sort of have everything figured out. I'm dedicating this chapter to Gerardfan. Thank you for your kind message. It's a short chapter but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless. Happy reading!
You cannot find peace by avoiding life.
- Virginia Woolfe
VII.
October
October brings the cold.
The eastern United States, as far south as Orlando is experiencing the coldest October temperatures on record, thus far. And the sun has been hidden behind thick clouds for the better part of a fortnight.
Hotch feels numb. And the feeling is welcomed after a start to a month such as this. It is not only the temperatures that have grown cold.
He and his team get three of the worst cases that he's seen in a long, long time to start the month. Each crime worse than the one before it, in both victim and unsub profile. The cases cause a visible shift in the rapport among the members of his team. Each case taking more than the last. There is anger and there is hurt and oh, how there is so much hatred but mostly heartbreak. Yet, still, even if a small inkling, there is a small amount of satisfaction that each of these unsubs –long since identified—is either dead or will die in prison.
But there is also never forgetting such terrible, terrible things.
It is cases like these that make hotch consider an early retirement.
"Everyone's going out for drinks," Emily tells him. Her voice lures him away from terrible thoughts and Hotch lifts his head to look at her. Emily always knocks, and she likely did, but he didn't hear. She stands in the doorway to his office, wearing black slacks and a navy blue sweater. Arms crossed against her chest; a dark eyebrow raised at him. "You okay?"
"No," he says. "I don't think I am."
They join their team (sans JJ, who had a special assignment from Strauss waiting in her inbox when they landed) for drinks at a corner bar inside the city.
Leave it to Penelope Garcia to make them laugh on a day like this.
The next Thursday, he has to get fifteen stitches in his right hand after a frightened, kidnapped woman mistakes him for their unsub and catches him off guard with a boxcutter. It doesn't hurt as bad as it did before the nurse treated it and he's very glad he got his tetanus shot updated last spring.
"Good thing you're not a righty like the rest of us," Emily quips. He smiles at her, happy to have her back home after being away to assist a team in Seattle for the past four days. Thankful that the farthest she'll be traveling for work, until after the start of the new, year is New York. Jason sits in her lap, head tucked under his mother's chin as he stares intently at a YouTube video on Emily's phone. Jason's has been broken for a few days after a bedtime tantrum sent it hurdling down the stairs. No phone for a while, Buddy. Hotch had reprimanded. But this is the only way to distract him from wreaking havoc in the Emergency Room.
Hotch chuckles as his son's hand jerks upwards to press the screen to his mother's face trying to get her to see the new video that's started playing. Emily watches for a minute until Jason gets tired of holding up his hand and switches over to playing a video game instead of YouTube.
They talk quietly, he and Emily, until a nurse brings him an antibiotic prescription and discharge papers. A "you're free to go," rushing off her tongue as she moves on to the patient on the other side of the curtain shielding them off from the rest of the ER.
Oh, how his hand itches.
October does not end without a few good things.
"Marry me," he says to his wife under the Eiffel Tower on a cloudless Tuesday afternoon with the sun hanging high in the sky.
A week prior he'd talked to his wife about the toll the recent cases were taking on him. How, he was considering retirement. She understood. Emily is one of the small handful of people in the world who can understand. But she tells him that she cannot make that decision for him and that he will know when the time to throw in the towel is.
They take a week off from work, visit London and Paris.
Emily says, "Yes." And they renew their vows in a quiet garden ceremony in the courtyard of a Parisian church on a Friday morning. The sun shines down on them.
November
The holiday sneaks up on him.
The first week of the month, he and Reid partner for a high-profile case in Los Angeles. A cold case with six victims spanning thirteen years. It's open and shut. They are out in two days.
Next thing he knows, the flu sweeps through his family, taking them out one by one. Poor Florence gets it the worst. She is so ill that the hospital keeps her overnight for four days straight. When she is discharged, she is a ball of energy. Still, slightly high from the medication the doctor had her on.
She's been home for three days now.
"Mom," Emily mouths when he walks into the kitchen and finds her leaning against the island, cell phone to pressed to her ear, lips turned down into a frown.
He nods in understanding. She and Elizabeth have been at odds ever since they declined her invitation for Thanksgiving dinner. They have already accepted an invitation from Rossi, but Elizabeth doesn't want to hear it. Claims those are, "My grandchildren, not David's."
Hotch grabs two bottles of water from the fridge for he and Florence. For the better part of the morning, he's been helping Florence (or assisting as much as he can with his right hand still not one hundred percent) assemble a bookshelf from iKEA. Her grandmother had sent her and her brothers $100 each for surviving the flu and she has a new obsession with books. There are several stacked in odd places throughout her room.
"Sure, mom," Emily says with a roll of her eyes. Hotch chuckles and she glares at him, throwing a dish towel at him to shoo him away.
Before he knows it, his family is celebrating Thanksgiving around Rossi's dining room table with Reid and Garcia, Morgan and his significant other, and JJ and her family. Even Jack is there.
His oldest son surprises him by driving down from campus with Madeline, of course. And, yes, he does shed a tear or two when he sees Jack. He was expecting him to spend the holiday tucked away on campus. Florence nudges him in his side, letting him know that everyone else was in on it.
"It's not as bad as it looks," he tells Jack when they get a moment alone on Rossi's back porch. Jack frowns down at a photo of his sans bandage on his iPhone. "There's no nerve damage."
"It actually doesn't look that bad," Jack says. "You cried, didn't you?"
Hotch regards his son and laughs at him. His newly engaged son. What he's seen of the engagement via Florence's Instagram is a cute beach moment, WILL YOU MARRY ME drawn in the sand. He still has his doubts but trusts that his son made the right decision for himself and he's glad that it will be a long engagement. Madeline is adamant that she wants to get her degree first.
"Em told me about, Paris," Jack says. "I'm glad it worked out for you two."
"I'm glad, too."
Things are good, he explains to his son. For the first time in a very long time, things are good.
to be continued
A/N: I expect this story will conclude with the next chapter, which I do hope to update soon. However, the next story that you see from me will likely be from a different fandom. Only because I haven't watched CM in a while but I am about to start it over from the beginning. So do not fret, I have a couple of CM one-shots planned. I also will not be updating White Rabbit anytime soon. I plan to do a complete rewrite of that story.