Chapter five. And we returned.

"To everything there's a season and a time to every purpose. The Earth spins at a thousand miles an hour as we desperately try to keep from being thrown off. Like the first blush of winter that signals a great migration, was there any warning of their arrival? A sign, a single event that set this chain into motion? Was it a whisper in God's ear? Survive, adapt, escape... And if we could mark that single moment in time? That first hint of the prophecy of approaching danger... Would we have done anything differently? Could it have been stopped or was the die long ago cast? And if we could go back, alter its course, stop it from happening, would we?

For all his bluster, it is the sad province of Man that he cannot choose his triumph. He can only choose how he will stand when the call of destiny comes... hoping that he'll have the courage to answer."

Tim Kring (Heroes)

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Destruction. It always hit you harder than you imagined it to. It was the rain that came down on your head when in the morning, the weatherman told you the sun would shine. It was the sudden bang rebellious teenagers caused by setting off fireworks on December thirtieth that you didn't expect yet. It was the loud bark of the dog in the middle of the night that startlingly awakes you. It was the car that came from the side street, the street you missed while walking around with your headphones on. It did always hit harder than imagined. I liked to believe that it harder than intended, that it somehow, someway, didn't know its own strength. It was a stupid idea, but I didn't want to be drowning in the stupid rain in my good clothes. I didn't want to be scared by a stupid firecracker that was thrown by stupid teens that I should have scared away with my dark, grim glare already. I didn't want to be the person that got hit a by a stupid car because I was listening to my music while walking a deserted street and be crashed and crumbled by some stupid, blind driver.

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They had tried to find me. They kept tabs on my names, my aliases, places I had been seen. They attempted to retrace each of my steps, but they found that there were long pauses in between, gaps that their feet couldn't fill. There still was no real identity. I had covered everything. They were left with the words of a haunted man, distant and emotionally as cold as the dead. He pretended, in the end, like they all did, otherwise they couldn't function and they would drown. He pretended to be fine, but eventually, he came home, his house as empty as the knowledge they had on me and the evidence as thin as the line he crossed between drunk and alcoholic.

Hotch was relentless, I knew that. He came close a couple of times, without him knowing it. He chased me all over America, and I loved imagining how he sat in his office, realising he had been chasing a ghost that lead him right towards a chase of his own tail.

For years, Derek Morgan lingered in my head. His eyes, his voice, his body, the touch of his skin and his soul. I moved out of Washington, it was too dangerous. If we would cross paths, I wouldn't know what to do. Would I ignore him, blissfully and arrogant, or would the fire be set again, passion and lust crawling over my back like rats, a disease re-settling back deep inside my body? Would I be able to constrain myself, keep my composure, or would I jump over the edge of the cliff again? And then there was him; what would he do? Would he recognize me? Would he remember me? Would he jump me, shoot me, kill me? Or would he ignore me, blissfully and denying, bending his gaze away?

I kept track of him, followed him like a shark, like a hawk, a vulture, circling around him, looking down as I used to. But the distance tore me apart. I could no longer observe him through his flat window. I could no longer see him go to bed and wake up by the crestfallen morning. I couldn't see the demons around his head eating him up, slowly, as if nagging at his conscious. He was over there and I was over here. The distance was too much, his scent slowly died, the feeling of his skin again my fingertips vaporized, his voice in my ears eradicated. He became a ghost, a faint presence of a past life. He was the crown on my work, the beauty of my final act. He was my sweet goodbye, bitter, sugar-candy sweet.

They all became objects to me. I tried not to look at them like that, but I couldn't help it. Whenever they would talk, they would spit and talk harshly and rude, loud. When they would smile, they stabbed my eyes and tore out my hair. When they would flirt, they would strangle me over and over again, being so exceptionally blunt and tasteless. And when they would look, they would harden my stoned skin even more, so hard that it started to hurt. I felt closed in, pushed in a coffin and left behind to live in a small, confined space. I had trouble breathing, days became too long, too tiring, too dreadful. Nothing meant a thing anymore, colours grew dull, music became a static rush, and everything turned grey. I became saintless. A cancer joyfully raged through my body, fearless and relentless. I would be free. Soon.

And so I decided, I had to return. I had to re-visit the man that made me feel alive, that made me who I was, intrinsically and abstruse, the one that painted my world. I wasn't in love with him, but I did love him, I died him and I lived him. He was like an angel and burnt my eyes. I needed him.

Long hours kept me up late at night, in the shadow-filled dark night, where piercing screams of long lost lovers failed to reach my ears, the echoes reverberating through grim and solemn places. I left a trail of deceptive, soulless monsters behind, changing everything I used to believe in, letting familiarity and similarity loose to fly on the wind like balloons in the sky. I left a trail, but I left nothing of myself behind. No mirror would see me, and if by chance they did, they would not recognize me. I was the devil in disguise and I was coming home; home to that man that needed to bring me to life again. Life was dull, full of agony and guilt-ridden, restless nights. Memoires of our last encounter haunted me like the inimical laughs of the clowns in children's sleep. I lied to him, I betrayed him, I tortured him up till this day with my words. I didn't mean to. He needed to understand, but I didn't want to cause him more pain. Revelation and realisation. They were just like destruction. They hit harder than expected.

Finally, the closer I got to home, to him, the beast inside of my started to stir. All those pointless lives I had taken during my journey had only put him to sleep deeper, farther away in his consciousness, gone like ashes of reminiscent love in the wind. But now, he stirred, he took a deep breath, and his eyes slowly opened. He was awakening. I was awakening. I was the apocalypse that was about to strike, omens everywhere yet nobody dared to look. Because if they would gaze briefly into the dark abyss that represented me, they would be swallowed by a whale, being the small organisms they were. I was God. I was almighty. I would rule and conquer for I was awakening. And I watched and I touched and I took and I loved. And I returned.

It was a calm morning. The wind was cool and gently towards my skin, a small, soft breeze caressing my cheeks as I hid my black eyes behind tainted sunglasses. The sunlight smoothly came down on my humble body, admiring and worshipping it. It was a beautiful morning, a perfect day. I could feel it deep down in my bones; this was it. Now was the time. I stood on the sidewalk, smoke polluted my lungs and anxious tension tightened my skin, sickening my stomach. I was on the rollercoaster, spinning upside down, flipping around, the world one big blur. I haven't been this excited since I saw him for the first time in my life and felt like I finally had a purpose. A meaning. A goal. He was it. He was everything.

An unset of rattling euphoria, this rapturous delight, this divinity, almost pushed my down onto my knees. There he was. On the other side of the street. Just like that. His sight caused tears to dwell up in my eyes, goose bumps ran freely over my body. 'So be free', God had said and I finally, truly, understood the meaning of the word 'free'. It was as if an ocean, a furious, wild ocean had been contained in a box inside my chest. The box locked, the key discarded. The monster that I was had been locked in there as well and I was drowning, over and over again, day after day. God had granted me absolute peace and serenity for my work and he broke the lock. Waves of ardent, vivid water crushed their way out of their containment, oblivious to everything around it. I could breath. And I did. I grasped for breath once. And it was pure and heavenly.

He looked good. Strong, his usual self, independent and confident and bold. Shades before his eyes to hide the world from what he knew and what he understood. Me. I could see it. His mind was scarred, his soul damaged, the deity Derek Morgan pretending to be standing, but secretly on his knees. I wondered if they saw it too, noticed the signs of anger, frustration, depression and misunderstanding. For I saw it, the signs, the words written down on the protective shields he had drawn. My heart beat started steadily slowing down, consistent and knowingly. This was all I needed. The heartache disappeared, taken by the angels. A warm, destiny-filled, radiant glow spread across my body. And it was then that he saw me.

I was still feeling avid and vigorous, ridden of these bounds that had shackled me to the dirty earth, but my face regained my hard, unfazed mien, powerful and prosaic. His took of his glasses, his lips parted slightly, his eyes all exposed and I could see right through. He didn't expect me here, or not yet, at least. It had been five years. Five long years without him to keep my heart beating. Without him to give me meaning. And now we were united. Finally. Derek took a step forward, closed his mouth and he just looked at me. There were no clenched fists, no teeth gritted together, no anger portraying his eyes. He was calm. Esoteric. Like me. Like us. I took of my sunglasses, slowly and controlled and looked at him one last time. Sun blinded my sight shortly once I laid my eyes upon him. It was everything I imagined, as heavenly and recondite and exquisite as God had told me.

It was all I needed for my last pilgrimage. Within a second, I felt Aaron Hotchner rise up behind me, approaching me quickly and rapid, his gun raised, his team following like a loyal dog. Agent Prentiss showed up behind Morgan, whom still stood frozen on his spot, like the statue of an angel on a graveyard. I glanced over my shoulder, my eyes interlaced with Hotchner's, his burning with rage and fire, my calm and God-like. The bus stopped right in front of me and I disappeared.

They followed me, with their cameras, Penelope Garcia uncontrolled and feverishly working behind her machines to try to catch me, keep track of me to see where I had gone. She would work till late at night and ended up sobbing, releasing the agonizing ache that filled her heart when she realised that despite everything, I was gone again. Like ashes of reminiscent love in the wind. Everything and nothing would keep Aaron Hotchner up late at night, working in his office, hoping, praying, wishing and waiting that I wouldn't have given the final push to the mighty Morgan, whom had been balancing on the edge of the cliff. I might have pushed him. And he might have fallen off the cliff. But Derek Morgan would always find a way back. That's why I loved him, why we were meant for each other. I knew that someday, he would come looking for me, with or without his badge, with or without his anger.

Because that was what we did, what nobody would understand, no matter how long Hotchner locked himself up in his office. We loved. And we returned.