Letters for Diana

A/N: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR MINIMAL LOSS ahead!

Thank you again so much to all who have read and/or added this story to their favourite/alerts lists. Thank you most especially to those who took the time to leave a review. They were most heartwarming and appreciated; and it's absolutely incredible to hear all your opinions on this. This chapter's a little less intense than the last couple.

His heart had stuttered when Morgan had screamed his name across the offices of the BAU, and it had been thundering ever since. He never felt more ruthless or more frightened than when members of his team were threatened, and two of them had been in danger for far longer than he would have liked. He, Rossi and Morgan had already been forced to listen in as Prentiss had been savagely beaten by the cult leader just because some idiot in the Attorney-General's office had wanted his five seconds of recognition for telling the media that there was an FBI agent inside. Thinking back to how ill he had felt when he heard glass shatter just as Prentiss had let out a particularly pained cry, Hotch vowed that when this was all over he would find out who had leaked the information, and he would make it very difficult for the guy to get a job ever again.

He still lived in fear that Cyrus would decide a beating wasn't enough for Emily, or he would discover that Reid, too, was an undercover agent. But Hotch was the leader of this team, and right now, he was charged with the duty of getting as many people out alive as possible. He was in the unenviable position of having to constantly remind himself that Prentiss and Reid were worth no more and no less than anybody else in there; and as his two agents continued to prioritise the children's lives from the inside, so he also had to do from the outside.

It sure as hell wasn't easy, though.

Hotch, Rossi and Morgan continued to listen anxiously to what was going on inside the compound an hour after Cyrus had ordered his men to tie Emily up somewhere. They hoped fervently that she was sleeping, because they didn't hear a thing from her, but were glad that Cyrus had ordered her to be tied up: it meant she wasn't injured badly enough to be incapacitated by her own body.

Reid was still safe, though it sounded as though it had been decided that he could no longer be left on his own. He was engaged in a conversation with an unknown male – well, monologue probably would have been a more fitting term. He was telling the man everything he had learned in his years "working for children": how Mozart benefited babies and how the ranch should play his compositions to their young children to enable them to grow up to be more ingenious and therefore better able to serve God; how he found that not enough mothers were breastfeeding their babies and how breastfeeding before the age of six months was essential to the development of a child's immune system; and how wonderful it was that the ranch was not getting the children to constantly use antibacterial soap and how the children were allowed to play with dirt, as this, too, apparently strengthened their immune system.

"This coming from the man who won't shake hands," Rossi muttered wryly, getting a little tired of Reid's rambling.

"Sh," said Hotch. "I know Reid can't control his mouth, but there could be something important coming and we have to listen for it." He sure wished he could get in there and give Reid a push in the right direction…

"You calling us dirty?" the unidentified man asked suddenly, cutting off Reid's flow. There was a definite note of offence in his voice.

"No, not at all!" Reid replied hurriedly. "You know what? You should check out the latest edition of The Durango Herald… there's a great article about raising kids on page eighteen…"

"I'm not much of a reader," responded the other man.

"Oh, you're not?" Reid said inquisitively, feigning surprise, but Hotch knew Reid would have already had the man pegged. He gestured JJ over with his right hand as with his left he frantically scribbled down the name of the paper and page number Reid had given him.

"I need a copy of The Durango Herald ASAP," he told her, tuning out Reid's conversation with the man, which had once again gone to inane topics.

"You got it," promised JJ, and she walked away.

It took half an hour before the latest copy of The Durango Herald reached Hotch's hands. He had to chuckle at Reid's… Reid-ness; it was just like the genius to read and memorise all the local papers in preparation for an assignment like his. The unit chief didn't really know what he was expecting as he flipped eagerly to the eighteenth page, but it was not an article about how lonely Colorado's elderly became in nursing homes because nobody would call or visit them, even on Christmas.

"What's he trying to say?" Morgan asked. He had been reading over Hotch's shoulder. "Do they have elderly inside? Rossi didn't see any, and all our evidence suggests they don't…"

"It's not that," replied Hotch, and he sighed. He'd forgotten all about Diana. It had been over a year ago that Hotch had written his last letter, and as per their silent agreement, neither Hotch nor Reid had mentioned the favours since. Hotch worried a little that Reid was still embarrassed by his mother. It had been improving, certainly: he had gone from only revealing her condition – or even acknowledging her existence – in front of his work colleagues under threat of death for both mother and son to allowing Hotch to listen and even record his most private and intimate feelings that he shared only with her. Hotch could still hear the tired, broken voice speaking from the hospital bed, "I was scared all the time and I had no idea when it would end…" It killed him as a father to know that he couldn't rush Reid into anything. He could only give the tiny, now annual bit of assistance he was permitted to give and go on hoping. "It's alright, Morgan; I know what it means," Hotch said, exhaustion creeping into his voice. It had been a long day. "I'll take care of it; you go and help Dave with whatever he's doing."

Hotch knew he didn't have much time before he'd have to deliver the letter, and he was very pleased there was nothing urgent going on with the stand-off that he would need to attend to, because no matter how much Hotch wanted to help, Diana Reid's feelings couldn't come before an urgent call. For this reason, Hotch was a little hurried when he wrote the letter, not knowing when an urgent situation would crop up that would force him to drop everything; and this meant he had to scribble out a few words where his handwriting had slipped too much into Aaron Hotchner style to be passable as Reid's.

Dear Mom,

I told you yesterday about how Emily and I were going to Colorado to see if there were some children being mistreated in this cult. Well, when we arrived everything was going well, but then the state police began a raid. Nobody had told us this was on, and we were trapped inside – Emily, Nancy from child services and I. It was a bit scary – there was a lot of gunfire for a while, but Emily and I are both okay. There's a man here who belongs to the cult, and I used how he didn't read as a way to trick him into delivering this message outside to the rest of my team, who will send it off. You always said people should read, and I just proved it.

So I'm still inside, but I'm not hurt or anything. My team is heading the hostage negotiations – well, Rossi is, really – and that's wonderful, because he wrote the book on it and he's very good at it, which I suppose is why Hotch put him in charge of it. I'm not too worried for myself at the moment. The religious group is treating me well. My main concern is the children. We have to get the children out of here in case things do take a turn for the worse – and also because of the call we received yesterday. Emily and I are certain the call was truthful – the cult leader is treating the children poorly. So now we have two goals to focus on: the original of investigating exactly what is going on with the leader, and the new goal of ending the siege with minimal bloodshed.

How are you going? Have you written much in your journals recently? I'm a bit jealous of you – I'd love to be in sunny Las Vegas instead of Colorado. Hopefully next assignment will take us somewhere less cloudy – I'll ask Hotch. I doubt he'll say we can take certain cases just for the nice weather though.

I love you, Mom. I miss you.

Spencer

With his brain so wound up and his many errors, the letter took longer for Hotch to complete than any others. He had agonised a little about referring to what Reid had written in his previous letter; if he got that wrong Diana would pick up on that, and she wouldn't take "I forgot what I wrote" as an excuse with a son like Spencer. But he knew Reid and he knew what would have been included in yesterday's letter. He was just a little… stressed at the moment. The day, particularly having to listen to Prentiss's beating, had taken a lot out of him.

He had carefully omitted the FBI's use of bugs, knowing what that information could do to a paranoid schizophrenic, and he had carefully included a mention of Rossi's books, knowing that was exactly the type of thing Reid would write about. He just wished he had a copy on him so he could give Diana a quotation – Reid would have been able to give her one off the top of his head.

Hotch smiled a little to himself, but that smile disappeared almost immediately as he remembered where Reid and Prentiss were still stuck, and how many hours would have to pass on without hope of rescue for either of them.

Hotch sighed deeply as he realised something. He was happy and proud to have been the one chosen for the job, but he really, really hated writing letters to Diana.

A/N: Amplification next. Please support me by leaving a review; my confidence has been shaken by my sister's recent prom and how much work goes into getting her ready – who knew how many stores, salons, and friends' houses it takes to get ready for a prom? I'm exhausted!