Chapter Nine
As Aubrey drove down Eighth Street, past the police station, she realized suddenly that it had been only a few short days earlier when she had stood there with Spencer and watched the Amish funeral procession. She had slipped her hand into his, and he had tangled his fingers into hers. It seemed unbelievable to her now that he had stayed with her that night and that she had let him come so close to her. And that he had wanted to.
And he HAD wanted to, she knew it. She had felt him wanting her, as they walked and talked, even before their walk had ended at her door. It had frightened her, but she had invited him in. He had been so happy that night, so at ease in her bed. But something had changed...something she couldn't understand.
Aubrey sighed as she pulled onto the highway, and rolled down the window to let the breeze in as it blew over the fresh fields in the afternoon sun. She felt old today, after all that had transpired. But somehow those few sweet hours with Spencer had healed her a little, and nothing could change that. It had been as if he had given her a gift, brought her something that touched the deepest part of her life, and would forever. She wished he had understood that, but she never would have found a way to tell him. In order to do that, she would have had to tell him about everything, about John.
She felt a familiar sting come to her eyes and blamed the wind through the window. An urgent pressure settled into her throat. Damn him, after all these years John could make her cry. He could still ruin everything. There were dark memories that had chased her through years, across a state. Flashes of things he had made her do, moments and pieces of pictures that she would never be able to unsee. Of herself allowing him to make her do things to him ... the question that still haunted her nightmares - why had she stayed for three years in that Hell?
She thought of Spencer, of his large deep eyes swallowing her as he stared into her face. She had been startled and intimidated at first - that he would so openly challenge her soul to rise up and meet his. But his eyes had shown both adoration and yearning as they wandered over her, and her terror had melted away as his hands and mouth learned her curves. She felt her skin tingling even now as she thought of him, of the way he had touched her, as if it were something reverent. As if...she mattered. He had never left her for a moment of it; he had never wandered into that place John used to go far away from her, where only his own pleasure mattered and the cost to her didn't.
John didn't look into her eyes when they were in bed - or wherever they happened to be when he decided he wanted it. He never looked at her face. He never spoke to her - oh, he spoke,to be sure, but only to utter the same phrases he had heard over and over again in those stupid pornographic films. He lacked the imagination to go beyond that and speak TO her. There had been no tenderness in his hands. They had taken her body as if it were a toy, and his right. Unfeeling, unconcerned, self-absorbed. Once, he had turned her over roughly, and entered her from behind anally. She had hardly believed what was happening, feeling his wide penis pushing into her. "Just relax," he had breathed. Not "Is this all right? Are you all right?" But "Just relax," so that he could get what he wanted. It had been incredibly painful and she had bitten her lip to keep quiet, closing her eyes tightly and hoping for its swift ending. After, she had stumbled into the bathroom to find herself bleeding. She had locked the door, which made him angry, and taken a bath to wash him away as best she could. She had sat in the bathtub trembling, praying that she would heal on her own, since there was no way she would tell a doctor how she was injured.
"You always wash after we have sex," he whined the next morning, smirking at her. "You don't like it on you, do you?" She hadn't answered, sensing the mocking in his tone. Then he said, "Sometimes I'd like to be licked off," and smiled wickedly at her. Funny how he stared into her eyes when he was trying to get a rise out of her, to humiliate her. But during the most intimate of acts he couldn't. She had hated him intensely as she stood there, realizing what a coward he was. She had waited until he was gone to work and then she had packed a bag and left. A few days at the nearest hotel, or alone in the world again, was better than staying in that house with him. In the end, she never went back.
A COWARD. Oh God, that is what she had called Spencer to his face. That is what he had called himself in the note. But she had been so hurt that he would have given her such tenderness and then said it was all a mistake. That SHE was a mistake! She had wanted to hurt him the way he had ripped her heart out, and she had said whatever came into her mind. But he wasn't . . what was it he had said, that his mother was a schizophrenic, his father was gone, that he had done some drugs? Oh, no! What had she done! That he couldn't be with her because of other things...maybe it wasn't cowardice, it was just Spencer trying to be right. Trying to be good, and reasonable and fair. Both to her and to himself. Now it occurred to her that he had demons too, and had been trying to tell her in his fumbling way. But her hurt had been so blinding and in that moment in his hotel room it had taken her over. She had wanted to leave that room desperately - at that moment she could have clawed the door off the hinges to get out and away from Spencer. From his rejection.
And he wasn't a coward. What had she been thinking to say that to him? The night he had lain over her, he had looked deeply into her eyes and softly entered her as he did. He was no coward. But he was wrong - wrong about all of it. Aubrey was a fighter. She had lived years with the memory of cruelty, and now she had known a few hours of something completely different. She knew that such a thing as she had shared with Spencer was worth a fight. And he was going to get it.
~~/~~
As evening set in, Aubrey watched Leah as she worked beside Mary Mast in her large Amish kitchen to wash the dinner dishes. The tension had gone out of the young girl, and she smiled as she chatted in the Amish German dialect to Mary. For a few hours, the horror of the past week had left them, and the children were free again to be themselves. Here with Simon and Mary and their young family, Leah and the Yoder children could find themselves again and begin to put pieces of their lives together. Aubrey hoped that soon Jacob would be caught and they could return to their own family.
As the sun set, the younger children were sent to bed, and Aubrey stood reluctantly. "I need to get back to town and let you all go to bed," she smiled at Simon. "Thank you so much for your hospitality. I know that Amos is very grateful for your help."
"Well," Simon said slowly with an easy smile, "no one will know they are here for now. You say your police are out looking for Jacob Yoder? We can all pray that God puts him in their path." He winked and showed Aubrey to the door.
As Aubrey walked down the porch steps and down the lane to her car, she thought that things were looking up. Although Jacob was out there, he was alone without his comrades in crime, and perhaps he would be careless now, more apt to make a mistake, easier to catch. There was a police presence now at the Amos Yoder house, and Jacob's children and Leah were not there. Perhaps everyone would sleep better tonight.
Aubrey inhaled the falling night air and the mustiness of the fields. It was getting dark, but not too late. The Amish went to bed with the sundown, but Aubrey thought that perhaps Spencer would be up, reading or talking to Morgan. She would swing by the hotel and see if she could find him. Maybe a good, calm talk could put them in a different place.
~~/~~
Spencer had just settled onto his bed with a volume on the future of the black hole theory in astronomical research when his phone rang. He wondered as he reached onto the night table if they finally had a lead on Jacob. It had been a full day since they brought Kramer in, and Jacob would know by now. A saner man might lay low, but Spencer hoped that the troubled mind of this particular unsub would quickly force him out of the shadows. As he flipped open his phone, he heard knocking on his door. "Reid!"
"Hotch?" he asked into the phone as he strode to the door. "What's up?"
He opened the door to a flushed and eager Morgan. "Come on, Kid."
"Reid," Hotch was saying, "There was a leak. Jacob Yoder is at the safe house. The Mast farm. He has them."
"Morgan's here. We're on our way."
It was well past dark when Reid and Morgan they pulled up beside the lane to the Mast farm. An Amish buggy waited at the turn, and an Amish man flagged them over. "I'm Samuel Mast. This is the place," he said, and pointed to a mile marker at the side of the road.
"Thanks, Man," Morgan said, grateful that they didn't have to ask at some house where the Mast farm was. Out here every farm looked the same, especially in the dark. Now, squinting into the darkness as he turned into the lane, he could just see the flashing of the lights on a police cruiser already up at the house.
They were creeping down the gravel lane in the dark, when suddenly Reid shouted. "Aubrey!"
"What?"
"That's her Jeep," Reid was pointing up ahead to a vehicle parked to the side of the land.
"What? Where is she? In the house?" Morgan looked over at Reid in surprise.
Reid's eyes were wide with horror, and his lips parted, drawing his breath in sharply. He met Morgan's eyes and then looked ahead, "Hurry."
Morgan came to a stop beside the three police cruisers already on scene. He was stepping out of the SUV when Hotch and the others rolled up behind them.
"What do we have here?" said Hotch to Sheriff Bontrager as he walked toward the group of cops.
"Jacob is in the house. We have ten hostages. There are six children, including the two Yoder kids, one female juvenile - Leah, one adult male - Simon Mast, and two adult females. We have reason to believe Jacob is armed."
"Who are the adult females?" Reid asked formally, quietly.
"Reid...," said Morgan, trying to interrupt.
" Uh...Mast's wife, Mary. And Aubrey Bennett."
Morgan felt Reid's body stiffen beside him.
"Okay, we'll try to talk to him," said Hotch. "Tell your people to stay back and stay calm. We don't want to spook him and get someone hurt. You have a megaphone?"
The team and police watched as Sheriff Bontrager spoke for fifteen minutes, trying to get a response from Jacob. He asked the man to send out the young Mast children, but got no response.
"There has been no sound inside that house for an hour now," said Rossi, "How long do you want to do this?"
"Hotch, send me in," said Morgan. "I can go through a back window."
"We have to be patient, Morgan."
"There is no SOUND in there, Man."
Suddenly there was the sound of an Amish buggy's wheels on the gravel, the horse clopping quickly up the lane. Amos Yoder appeared from it's cavern. He stepped around to help Emma down out of the passenger side, as Bontrager followed him, "Amos, you can't help Jacob here. He is in there with ten people. I'm not going to promise you this will end well."
Amos placed his hands in his pockets and looked up at the house thoughtfully. He spoke slowly, "He isn't right in the head. He doesn't listen to a lot. But he will listen to his mother."
Hotch and Morgan exchanged worried glances. Rossi stifled a laugh at Prenitiss' look of shock at the man's words.
"Amos, we aren't letting anyone near the house now. Jacob has a gun."
Morgan walked into the high grass around the side of the house trying to assess the number and location of windows. Reid followed. Morgan sensed his friend behind him and was glad of it. Reid could be a bumbling idiot in a social situation, but when there was imminent danger, when they were in the field, the young agent took on a cloak of calm control and focus that Morgan trusted. Even now, knowing that Aubrey was inside, Reid was in control of himself. They hadn't brought flashlights, not wanting to alert Jacob to their creeping around, and they moved slowly and carefully. "I don't see any light," Reid said. "No lanterns."
"What are they doing?" muttered Morgan.
Reid crept up to a low window. Stretching onto his tiptoes his tall, lanky frame could just peer over the sill. "I can't see anything here. It's an empty room." Suddenly he hissed into the darkness, "Morgan, the window is open. SHH. It's a screen."
Morgan fished around on the ground in the darkness and finally picked up a large twig. He tossed it toward Hotch and Rossi. It landed at their feet and they looked toward Morgan, who pointed to the window. Hotch bent his head to Rossi talking, and then looked back at Morgan, holding up 5 fingers. "Five minutes," Morgan whispered to Reid as he walked back to where Morgan stood.
Reid felt his heart pounding like thunder, and yet felt strangely calm. Adrenaline. It courses through the veins, quickens the heart, pumping blood to extemities to ready them for the flight response. He had told Hotch once that he always did his best work at times of extreme terror, and it was true. His mind settled into a reasoning, calm rhythm. He trusted himself. Aubrey was in that house, and he knew he could rely upon himself to do what he needed to do, calmly using his most well-trained skills, to get her out.
Morgan pressed his watch, watching it light up. "Two minutes, Kid, we're putting you through that window first. You...you okay with this?"
"I'm fine with it, Morgan." Reid started slowly through the grass again to the window, Morgan close behind.
Prentiss suddenly appeared and fell in behind them in the darkness. Drawing a pocketknife from his jeans, Morgan reached high and slashed at the screen, three times. Then he nodded to Reid and bent, offering his laced fingers to Reid's foot for the boost.
Once inside, Reid drew his gun and crept silently to the door of the room. Listening, he could detect nothing. He cautiously turned the knob, and slowly opened the door a few inches. His eyes had adjusted some to the darkness, but he waited and squinted before seeing through the cavernous great room into the kitchen beyond. The light from the new moon could only offer a small bit of help, but he could see children sitting silently against a wall. Leah sat on one side of the row, her arms around a small child. Reid was momentarily grateful that he couldn't see her face well enough to see the fear. He could not see Aubrey nor Mary Mast. He felt his heart quicken as Jacob came into view, pacing the room. He had a hunting rifle in this arms.
Reid crept back to the window, and whispered to Prentiss and Morgan. "He's got a rifle - hunting. The kids are okay so far, just quiet. Nobody is talking... Jacob is talking to himself a little. He's agitated."
"Can you lift me?" Morgan asked Prentiss, who looked back at him with momentary disbelief. "No, you lift ME."
Suddenly Reid jumped as he heard a woman's stifled cry. He looked back toward the door and stood. "REID!" Morgan hissed, "WAIT!".
But Reid wasn't interested in waiting. He sprinted soundlessly to the door and knelt again, watching. Jacob waved the gun at the row of children, and a woman stifled a cry again. The Amish man was babbling to himself now in German. Even in the darkness, Reid could see Leah shaking with fear. Several of the children began to cry, and he wished in vain that they could be silenced - they would further agitate the crazed man.
Then he saw Aubrey. She crossed the room, her eyes fighting not to look at the rifle as she passed Jacob slowly. She stood in front of the children and turned to face him. "Jacob," she said. "Jacob, there are police outside. They will not let you leave here with Leah, or with your children." Jacob responded by waving the gun at her. "Sit down," he ordered.
Aubrey stood, and spoke slowly and softly. "They will kill you Jacob. You need to put down the gun and walk outside with me now. They aren't going to wait."
"SIT DOWN!" He ordered again and punctuated the air with a shotgun blast. Plaster fell from the wall just over Aubrey's head as she sank to the ground beside Leah.
Reid stood and pushed the door out of his way, "FBI!" he shouted. "Put the gun down NOW!" Jacob swung and aimed at Reid, and Reid fired. Prentiss was right behind him and pushed past him into the room. Chaos exploded as the children, startled, ran for the door. Prentiss shouted into the yard, "HOLD YOUR FIRE!" as they poured down the porch steps. She looked back at Reid, who was oblivious to anything but making his way to Aubrey.
~~/~~
Morgan was silent as he drove back to town. Jacob Yoder was dead. Reid's shot had gone right to his head. The kid always could aim true when he needed to badly enough. Morgan had watched the forensics people go into the house to examine the body. Jacob Yoder's parents waited silently in the farmyard with the police. There was no mournful wailing, hardly a tear. God had given them this burden, and now it was taken away. They had done their duty, they had loved him through childhood and into a troubled adulthood, and now it was over. Relief canceled out tears. Jacob could go on to find his peace elsewhere now.
Morgan had watched Reid slide Aubrey into the back of the SUV, without speaking, drawing his FBI jacket around her shoulders. She wore a look of utter wide-eyed confusion on her pretty face, and Morgan knew from experience with victims that it would be days before that look went away. Seeing a person shot and killed was always traumatic, even for a seasoned law enforcement professional. For a bystander, a hostage, it was certainly a shock.
Now, as they drove silently back down the country road to the highway to town, he glanced into the rear view mirror periodically and watched them - Reid and Aubrey. Reid cradled the girl in his arms and whispered softly, kissing the top of her head through her hair intermittently. Morgan wasn't embarrassed as he strained to hear the words, but couldn't make them out. He only heard an occasional, "Shhhhhhhhh." Aubrey was stone still and never spoke.
Morgan drove them straight to Aubrey's house, and followed Reid as he helped Aubrey out of the car and up the steps to the door. Reid took the keys from her and opened the door, greeting her dog and flipping on the light switch. Then he turned to Morgan. "I'm going to stay her with her. Can you tell Hotch?"
"Yeah, sure. We'll see you tomorrow, Kid." Morgan had never seen his colleague in this light. Reid jumped whenever anyone touched him. Even when Morgan touched his shoulder in affection, as he often did. Reid avoided even shaking hands - stepping forward and offering his only when he deemed it useful to the situation. Now, he held this woman as if he had done it all his life. Morgan hadn't known Reid was capable of such...tenderness. He wondered how far the relationship had really gone. He had been wrong to think so lightly of it, and to underestimate the depth of Reid's attraction to Aubrey.
~~/~~
Reid lay a long while in the dark waiting and listening to his sweetheart's breathing until it became regular and deep, before he allowed slumber to overtake him. Aubrey had not spoken a word. She stared into space as he respectfully removed her outer clothing, and helped her to the bed. He had gone into the kitchen to feed Griff, not really knowing if he should, but not wanting her to worry about trivialities. When he came back he found her trembling, laying on her side, staring at nothing. She held a wadded up piece of clothing to her chin as if it were a child's stuffed toy. Spencer gently covered her, and as he did he recognized that the piece of clothing was his own shirt - he had left it here the last time he was here. The thought that she would keep it and use it to comfort herself... moved him so deeply that he felt faint. He switched off the lamp and lay down beside her and faced her, close enough that he could feel her breath on his face. He studied her beautiful heart-shaped face in the moonlight. His hands found hers between them where she clutched his shirt, and he covered them with his own. Her eyes were large and haunted, and bored into his with a million questions that she couldn't yet formulate. He knew that her mind was still seeing Jacob fall from the gunfire. He looked back into her eyes with all the love filling his heart that he had withheld from her, and from time to time he smiled softly at her to reassure her. I won't leave you. You're safe now. I love you, Aubrey.
After a time, she stopped shaking, and he slipped off his shirt and trousers and got under the covers with her, pulling her to him. She curled against his side and lay silent, waiting for sleep to come. It was a long wait.
At some point during the night, Spencer felt himself being pulled from a deep sleep by the strong sensation of being touched intimately. It was comforting and sweet, but as he realized what it was he gained consciousness rapidly. He felt his manhood spring to life, and her mouth on him. He gasped in surprise. Minutes later he was whimpering in pleasure as she teased him, and suddenly she stopped and stretched the length of his long frame up to his face, laying her body on his, and kissed him deeply. He could feel her breasts against him, her nipples against his chest, and he realized she was naked. "I can't help it," she whispered,"I can't not touch you."
He wrapped her into his arms, and kissed her back for a long while, and then explored her once again with his hands. He rolled her under him and covered her protectively with his body, and he slowly coaxed her. When his elegant fingers found the heat between her thighs she gave a few small cries, and he saw tears on her face. "I'm sorry!" he said, "Did I hurt you?" He pulled back from her to look at her face.
"No," she laughed softly and pulled him to her, "Don't stop. I just...I just need you."
After they were spent, she wrapped her arms around him, one around his neck and one around his side. She stroked his back slowly up and down, a simple gesture that he found so moving that he nearly cried himself. He thought that he had never felt so at home in his life. He lay with his cheek against hers and listened to her breathing. She turned her head slightly and kissed his ear, sending tingling coursing through him again. "I am not afraid of you," she whispered. "I'm not afraid of your past." He thought about this for a time. She had no idea about his past - how dark it had been, what the consequences might be that he still didn't know himself. He lived with fear of them every single day. How could he ask this person - this wonderful, loving girl - to share those fears? After a long pause, he whispered into her hair, "You don't know. You don't know...what I've done. What I've...known. Aubrey..."
"I don't care," she purred, still not moving from his ear. "Life is short Spencer. I've spent so much of it missing you. I've missed you for years. I don't care. I'm going to fight you if you run. I'm going to fight you." Then she drew back and looked into his eyes with those icy blue orbs. "And I'm going to win," she smiled.
He nuzzled back into the crook of her neck, and kissed her shoulder. "You jumped off a cliff."
"Yes, I did." She breathed in and out deeply before speaking again, "And I'm not sorry. I would do it again, to be with you one night," she said softly, shyly.
Spencer felt his heart pound as she whispered to him. He wondered if she felt its increase, if she knew what it meant for him. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry I wasn't...brave enough to stay with you."
She drew back again. "Spencer you are one of the bravest people I've ever known." Then her eyes looked away from his and down as she stoked his shoulder, "I was wrong to tell you otherwise. I'm so sorry, Baby."
The word "Baby" as she said it left an explosion in his head that traveled the length of his body, and he pulled her closer in his arms and kissed her for a long time, wishing that he could somehow merge with her and climb into the depths of her, and rest there for the rest of his life on earth.
~~/~~
Hotch watched as the team walked to the jet, and turned back to hurry Reid along where he stood saying goodbye to his girlfriend. Hotch started to open his mouth to call to him, but stopped himself and smiled. He'd give them a few minutes. He watched Reid's fingers tangle into her hair as he hugged her to him once more, and he remembered with a pang how he had felt when he first knew Haley all those years ago. Before he knew how much a man could crave a woman, and what he would do to protect her.
As Reid entered the plane, Prentiss quickly lowered her eyes toward her magazine. J.J. smiled and looked down into her lap, opening a book. Morgan looked at Reid with a sly smirk as Reid dropped into the seat opposite his friend. "What," said Reid, "no offensive comments? No chiding review of my every move? No lecture about how we men shouldn't get too involved? How playing the field is so glorious?" Morgan looked at Reid intensely for a long moment. "Nope," he said smiling, and buckled his seatbelt.
Reid gazed out the window and watched the plane roll away from the terminal. He wondered if she stood there watching, or if she had already turned and left. He had promised to come back in a month's time, if even for a few days. And although he hadn't said it to her yet, he would be flying her to Virginia too, and often. They would make it work. They - HE - would jump off the cliff.
He leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. One day, he would fly into this very airport, and meet her and they would drive off together in the Jeep. Maybe stop high on the hill where she had taken him. And they would sit in the grass again and look out over the beautiful farmlands. And this time he wouldn't be afraid of her, of loving her. This time, he smiled to himself, he might even bring a ring.
