That Named Grief
On the first night, nobody slept. They bundled the Hotchner duo into one of the SUVs and all five agents piled in with them, and Morgan drove them back to the BAU to pick up Garcia, and then there were five agents and a technical analyst and a heartbroken father and a motherless son in the car, and in another time Emily would've made a joke about five in the bed and the little one said, and Morgan would've quipped something back, and Reid would've started in on the history of co-sleeping. They would've laughed, and then they would've argued about where to stop for dinner because none of them could remember the last time they'd eaten, so the number must've been in the double digits. But it wasn't another time, and the little one hadn't said anything since JJ had taken him outside, and nobody felt much like laughing anyway, so the drive to the Hotchner apartment was made in silence and stifled tears.
Of course, he'd tried to send them away, tried to shut them out like he'd done so successfully before, but she'd stuck her foot in the door as he was trying to close it and raised a perfectly arched eyebrow at his scathing look, and he'd backed down almost immediately. So they'd filed in, and JJ and Rossi set about making dinner, and Garcia and Reid sat with Jack, and Morgan stared out the window and she tended to Hotch's wounds, and when all of that was done they'd eaten silently, and then they'd each changed into pajamas and they'd spread out in Hotch's apartment and pretended to sleep but fooled no one.
The first night was awful.
On the second night the nightmares came. She would say that they came unexpectedly, but that would be a lie. They were all too well versed in this work to think that they'd escape the Reaper without psychological scarring. Still, she hadn't expected the technicolor horror that had appeared almost as soon as her eyes had closed, and judging by the looks on Garcia's and Rossi's faces as she joined them at the scratched kitchen table, they'd been taken by surprise as well. As the dark night stretched on, the remaining chairs were filled one by one until they were all assembled around the worn oak clothed in mismatched sleepwear and identical despondency. At some point, someone made hot cocoa, and in another time the frothy chocolate drink would've been too warm to have while summer was still holding tightly to September, but tonight the little comfort it brought was sorely needed, and she held hers like a lifeline.
And she thought it rather fitting when deep booms of thunder accompanied dawn, the chaos outside rivaling the churning of her mind, but she knew that not everyone found solace in storms like she did, and so she pulled herself out of her thoughts and focused on the two terrified boys in front of her. She stood from her place at the table and reached to squeeze Reid's shoulder before beginning to clear away the empty mugs, pausing to ruffle Jack's sandy hair as she moved back to the sink. And the clatter of ceramic dishes faded into the background as Rossi started in on a story of Erin Strauss in her younger days, drawing faint smiles and quick exhales of almost audible laughter from the agents, the cadence of his voice lulling Jack to sleep almost immediately. His stories kept them together until the thunder could no longer be heard, and even now she couldn't remember a single word – she wasn't sure any of them could. For those briefest of moments, though, they were ok.
Not good, not by any stretch of the word. But they were alive, and they were together, and that was enough.
But then Jack's nightmares returned, and she knew that because the little boy screamed like she was sure he had wanted - but hadn't been able - to do as his mother was being killed one floor away from him, his little body shaking so badly she was sure he was going to fall from his father's lap, and any one of them would have given anything to soothe the inconsolable child, but he wanted his dead mother, and they couldn't give him that, so they sat in the small kitchen at the worn table listening to his cries until he fell back asleep sometime after the sun rose.
The second night was awful.
On the third night, they dragged every blanket they could find in the apartment into the living room. Each of them were unwilling to chance another night like the previous two, so instead they pushed the furniture out of the way and made a giant nest in the middle of the floor and watched as Morgan attempted to connect his Xbox to Hotch's television while Reid offered tips from his spot between Emily and Garcia. Eventually, the gaming system was successfully connected, with impressively minimal swearing from the involved party, and brightly colored characters danced across the screen. Tossing a controller to Reid, Morgan scooped Jack into his lap and placed his hands over the boy's much smaller ones, expertly pressing buttons and moving the joystick. Jack giggled as the character raced around the track, and the dark cloud that had encompassed them lifted ever so slightly.
And as life reinvaded their small bubble, an all-too familiar, and yet completely foreign, hand found its way into her own.
Maybe in another time, the tight grasp that his gun-roughened fingers had on her wrist would've given her hope. They would've worked their way up her arm, kneading her muscles until she melted into him, her head tucked neatly against his chest, resting under his chin like his body was made to cradle hers. She would've listened to his heartbeat, and breathed in time with the solid thumps sounding in her ear as they stretched out on the couch, and they would've talked, really talked, like they had been careful never to do, as the stars rose and fell in the night sky and the sun stretched its fingers into the earth and drug up a new day, and the deep baritone of his voice would've woven together with hers in the air surrounding them, and she thinks that in that other time, they would've been happy.
But they are not in that other time, and his fingers tremble against her skin as he watches his son laugh for the first time in three days, and the lump in her throat prevents her from speaking at all, and they are so, so very far from happy that she can't even imagine it, can't picture what happy would be like.
She felt him tremble again, and so with a look around to see if anyone was watching them, she pulled him to his feet and into the kitchen, a hollow, "We need some snacks" tossed over her shoulder for anyone who cared.
Under the fluorescent lights, he looked more broken than she had ever seen him, more even than the first day, when they'd bundled him in the car, or the second night, when they'd listened to his screaming son.
Suddenly, her mind went blank, any idea of what she would do, gone, and they were standing in the silence together, but completely alone.
And then, as quickly as she was lost, she was found again, and she moved to stand in front of him. She hesitated for just a moment, biting her lip as she wondered if she'd lost her mind, but another shake wracked his form and her body moved of its own accord and then she was wrapped around him, her hands working their way across the tight muscles of his back until he was pressed against her, his head heavy in the crook of her neck, and she could hear his heartbeat racing and she was sure that hers was just as fast because they don't do this, and it felt wrong and right in the same breath, and she wasn't sure how long they stood there, but eventually she felt calm envelop them, and she figured that it was time to let him go, and he must have had the same thought because they took the same step back.
When his eyes reached hers, she almost took another, because though he had given her some of the pain of that night, she had added the weight of another world to his shoulders, and she could see the shame flood him just before he excused himself and returned to the living room.
She felt the tears threatening behind her eyes, but she'd be damned if this was what broke her control, so she pushed them away and took a steadying breath before following his path back out to the laughter.
The third night was awful.
On the fourth night, Jack came to her. They had attended his mother's funeral, and made it through the reception relatively unscathed, though Emily was sure she'd seen Haley's sister stop her mother from speaking to Hotch multiple times throughout the day.
Emily had a fairly good idea of what the woman wanted to say to him, so she was grateful for Jessica's interference.
They hadn't really seen much of the Hotchner men after the graveside service. Hotch senior had been preoccupied with the many attendees of his late ex-wife's service, and Hotch junior had been well taken care of by his mother's family, so the team had mostly stuck to themselves, offering their silent support from a medium distance. At one point, she was sure they'd been about to be called in to work, but Rossi had managed to talk another team into going in their stead.
She wasn't sure how he'd done it, and she really didn't care. They needed to be here.
And then the reception was over, and they were shepherding the exhausted father-son duo back into the SUV that had carried them all there, and in the blink of an eye they were back at the apartment that they had all called home for what felt like a lifetime.
Slowly, they'd all filtered off to bed until only she remained, a sentinel in the dark night, her mind too full to dream. She held a long forgotten book in her hand, not even bothering to pretend to read it – there was no one awake to pretend for – instead staring at the wall that had, not so many months ago, been painted red with the blood of the man passed out in the bed down the hall.
Rossi might have drugged him, or it could just be the exhaustion catching up with him, and she didn't particularly care either way. With how little she was sleeping, and knowing that he was sleeping even less, she figured he needed the rest in whichever form it appeared. Still, with him firmly unconscious and the rest of the team equally unresponsive, she was the only one who heard the shuffle of little feet on hardwood at, she glanced at the time glowing on the microwave, 3:17 in the morning. Her broken heart splintered just a fraction more as his tear-streaked face came into view, and her open arms were the only invitation offered or needed as the boy catapulted himself into her embrace. She stood from her seat and rocked him in the middle of the kitchen, tears and snot dampening her collar and making the material stick to her skin as he clung to her and sobbed. She held him just as tightly, until his sobs were only whimpers and his tears had dried, and then, when he was close enough to asleep that he didn't protest at the damp cloth she used to clean his face, she turned to carry him back to bed. And when he refused to be placed back between his Captain America sheets, she tucked him under the ocean of blue cotton that covered his father and kissed his little head, but before she could make her escape back to the safety of the empty kitchen, there was a warm hand on her wrist and a gruffly whispered "Stay" floating in the air around her, and in another time, she would've hesitated before climbing into her boss's bed, would've thought twice before shifting his four-year-old to rest against her chest and moving the both of them over so she could wrap her arms around the man himself, or at least she would've removed herself when she'd realized they'd both fallen back into dreamless sleep. But in that other time, there would not be twin wet spots on her shoulders from their tears, and the man in question would not be clinging to her as tightly as his son had, and she would have more than eleven hours of sleep in four days to draw strength from, and so instead she slept in a bed she had no business sleeping in, with a man she had no business sleeping with, holding a boy she had no business holding.
The fourth night was awful.
On the fifth night, she refused to leave. He'd managed to kick everyone else out of his apartment, but neither assurances of his fineness, nor threats of reprimands, nor even his trademarked glare could move her.
She'd actually rolled her eyes at the last one, right before she'd shoved a basket of laundry into his lap to fold and gone to make dinner. It infuriated him.
And when he went to pour himself a generous helping of scotch after putting his son to bed, the fifteen minute process tripled by the little boy's tears, she pulled the bottle from his grasp before he could splash more than two fingers worth in the glass held in his hand, and he shattered like the crystal he was holding, and all of his fear and frustration and guilt and grief from the past five days, and the few months before them, came spewing out in the form of vile, hateful, untrue words, and he couldn't even bring himself to look at her afterwards for fear of what he'd see, but she just pressed a towel to his bleeding hand and a kiss to his jaw and drew him into her, telling him that it was going to take a lot more than that to make her walk away.
Apologies fell from his lips as freely as tears were falling from his eyes, and she brushed both of them away and held him all the tighter, only releasing him for as long as it took her to sweep up the broken glass that littered the floor. Rejoining him in the living room with only kindness in her eyes, she handed him the remote and crawled next to him on the couch, barely even blinking when he leaned them both back to lie against the cushions.
In another time, he would tell her how much she meant to him in that moment. He would run his fingers through her ebony strands until she was boneless against him and wrap them both in a blanket, would kiss her into senselessness and with all the love she filled him with. And though they weren't yet in that time, he thought they would be, one day, and so he chose to name this time, this in-between period of glimpses into their shared future muddied by pain, hope instead of the grief he had known it as.
The fifth night was not as awful as it could've been.