V: Bridge between eight and nine
For the first time, Hotch brought Jack with him to the FBI Christmas party. He'd been too young before and then with Haley. But as soon as Garcia's email reminder had gone out throughout the BAU and other offices on the same floor, Hotch had brought up the party with Rachel first.
"Why not bring him?" she'd asked. "There's a couple other kids and he'll know the rest of the team."
Hotch didn't need to ask if Rachel would also attend the party. She had for the past two years and seemed to enjoy them. Besides, Hotch had good money riding on Anderson catching the girl under the mistletoe this year.
In the end, Jack had a good time and even Hotch cracked a smile in front of everyone else when Kevin Lynch stumbled into Rachel right under the hanging green sprig, supposedly unintentionally, but Hotch just knew that Garcia had made out like a bandit with the betting pool.
Christmas Day, he knew though, would be difficult. He and Jack had gone to see Santa Claus and even though Jack had kept his wish for Santa a secret from his father, Hotch didn't need to be a profiler or need to see the look of sympathy on Santa's face to know what Jack had asked for.
Nonetheless, Rachel and Michael arrived Christmas Eve, with Rachel commandeering the kitchen to make Christmas cookies, leaving Hotch and Michael to decorate the tree and Jack bouncing between them all to help. Dinner was a simple affair, The Night Before Christmas was read, and he was about to get Jack ready for bed when the boy stopped. Hotch also turned and saw that Rachel had set up two candles on the table next to the Christmas tree, one white, one green, and lit just the green one.
"What are you doing?" Jack asked.
"I'm lighting a candle for my mother," Rachel answered simply. "And there's one for your mother, too."
Hotch froze. He'd been preparing for Jack's disappointment tomorrow when Haley wasn't miraculously restored to life; he wasn't ready to confront the issue tonight.
But Jack continued to question Rachel about it. "Why?"
"Because I miss my mother," Rachel explained, kneeling down so that she was at Jack's level. "And when I miss her, I light a candle so that even though she's not with me, I can still think about her. And then she can look down from Heaven and see the candle and see me and then I feel her with me."
"So…you don't wish for your mommy to come back?"
Rachel's smile was for Jack, but Hotch clearly saw the deep sadness in it.
"Of course I wish she could come back. But she's in Heaven and she can't come back no matter how much I wish for it. But I can think about her, and love her, and keep her right here, in my heart."
"And my mommy's in Heaven, too, right?"
"Absolutely." Here, Rachel leaned in, as if sharing a secret with the boy. "I'll bet that your mommy and my mommy are friends up there and that they look down on us together all the time. Don't you think so?"
"But I want Mommy here," Jack argued, voice starting to shake with the beginnings of a meltdown. "I thought if I was a good boy, Santa would bring her back."
"Santa can't do that, sweetie. But, there's a second candle there, do you want to help me light it for your mommy? Then she can see the light and see that you still remember her and love her."
Jack nodded, crisis averted for now. Rachel had Jack place his hand on top of her own as she lit another match and set the white candle on fire. Then, with her arm around Jack's shoulder, Rachel began the first verse of "Silent Night" with Michael and Hotch hesitantly joining by the second phrase.
After that, Jack went to sleep easily. When Hotch returned to the living room, Michael had left and Rachel was sitting on the couch, eyes still fixed on the two lit candles. Hotch stopped by the kitchen first, made two cups of hot chocolate, and brought them over along with the plate of cookies left out for Santa.
Rachel accepted her mug and one of the cookies silently, dipping the cookie into the warm liquid and munching in content silence. After the first cookie was gone, Rachel finally looked over at him and answered his question before he asked it.
"It wasn't too hard to imagine that Jack was going to wish for Haley for Christmas. I didn't want him to wake up tomorrow and be disappointed. He doesn't need to have Christmas ruined, so I thought I would try to bring it up this way to prepare him. I don't know, maybe it was stupid."
"It wasn't," Hotch promised her. He hesitated, because one thing Hotch had never done was discuss Rachel's mother's death with her. "I never knew you did that, with the candles."
Rachel shrugged. "I don't do it a lot anymore. But, it helps, somehow. I hope it helps Jack."
"You help him more than you know," Hotch pointed out. "He'll need someone to talk to when he's older."
"I know," Rachel said. "Sharing our stories with people who have never lost someone, it's okay, but it's not the same."
"Did you tell your new boyfriend?" Hotch asked, and a small part of him enjoyed the shocked expression on the young woman's face.
"How did you-?" she demanded.
Of course he had figured it out, though he wasn't sure either Reid or Garcia had.
"No one else told me," Hotch told her. "You did. You've been happier in the past month, you wear just slightly more make up than usual, and half the time you check your phone lately, there's a different smile on your face."
"I hate profilers," Rachel muttered, making Hotch smile more broadly. But she met his eyes. "He knew about Mom before our first date, but we've talked about it, too. His uncle died on 9/11."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Yeah." She looked at him again. "You're not about to interrogate me about him, are you? At least promise me that you'll keep Garcia from finding out for as long as possible. She'll just about hit the stratosphere."
"I will not mention it to Garcia, but I make no guarantees she won't find out," Hotch reminded her. "You're on your own. As far as the interrogation," Hotch paused and made sure that Rachel was meeting his eyes. "As long as he makes you happy, then I am grateful you have him in your life. He does make you happy, right?"
Rachel grinned. "Yes."
Hotch nodded and then brought his arm around her shoulders to pull her in close. They finished the cookies and their hot chocolate in companionable silence.
The next day, Jack was up at dawn and bounced up and down in impatience but kept from out-right whining to open presents while Rachel groggily made cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Hotch poured large mugs of coffee, added sugar and cream to one and handed it to her.
"I feel like I should have apologized to my parents if I acted this way on Christmas morning," the girl muttered under her breath.
"Get used to it, we've got several more years before he'll want to sleep in as much as we do," Hotch commiserated.
It wasn't until after Jessica had arrived at a more reasonable hour and after Jack had torn through his presents that Hotch got out the small, precious package with Rachel's name on it. He had already opened the slow-cooker that Rachel had gifted him so he could more easily make dinners for himself and Jack without having to cook right when he got home after work.
"I meant to give this to you for your birthday, but…"
Hotch would only ever admit to himself just how much he had missed Rachel after he forced her away while Foyet had been at large. He still maintained that it had been the right thing to do, to protect her as much as he could, but the nights he had come home to an empty apartment with no one else for company but his own dark thoughts had been painful.
The look of awe on Rachel's face as she unwrapped the small, silver piccolo was priceless.
"Oh my God, you didn't!"
"Before you get too emotional, bear in mind I waited until after you moved out to buy this," Hotch joked. "I understand the pitches reached by this instrument can be…intense."
Rachel laughed and pushed against his shoulder in protest. "Very funny."
Jessica added her own gift (Hotch's suggestion when the woman had inquired): a new leather flute case that would fit the case of Rachel's original instrument with an added zippered pocket for the piccolo case. Jack then very sweetly presented Rachel with a sheet of flower and bird stickers.
While his son helped Rachel decorate her new case with the stickers, Hotch simply savored the day.
O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant.
Notes:
So, I had already established that Rachel uses candles for her own mother when the episode came out in season seven with Hotch and Jack with the candle. So, I thought I was make that Hotch gets the idea from Rachel.
And even though it's May, almost June, my area is fairly tropical right now, so I thought I would cool down with Christmas.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed.
Cantoris
