It had happed after Haley was gone; and they tried to say it didn't mean anything, because it didn't mean anything either of them could express. So Hotch paused, for a brief moment, before he knocked on Reid's door, before he ignored the silence from indoors, and before he used his key to open the door to Reid's apartment.

I paused as I opened the door to Reid's trashed apartment, with Reid as disheveled as his surrounds. For a moment I was worried, worried enough that I stopped. My salvation had been Jack, could Reid's be dilaudid? Then I proceeded because I had to believe that Reid needed what he had given to me, I proceeded across the room and backed Reid up towards his bedroom—as much of his bedroom as could be seen under his books. I pushed Reid, unresisting, gently back on his bed, removed his shoes, he wouldn't be needing those, and set a pillow under his head, he could rest. I gathered up the scattered books and stacked then neatly, in order, on the floor beside his bed. Reid waited silently for me. He must have known what was coming; I could only guess that his silence was consent; as Reid had guessed when he did me this kindness.

Aaron set down what appeared to be his go bag on the floor, he opened it, from it he removed a small bowl and a couple of clean towels, a few small glass jars of what I guessed, correctly, to be oil. His hands moving me, his hands taking my shoes, why was I wearing shoes? I wasn't going anywhere. He lay my head upon a pillow and let me rest. He set my books aside. He removed the last book from my unresisting hands, and set it not on a stack, but on the bed beside me. It all seemed so far away. He left me, quietly, found his way to my kitchenette, and ran warm water. He was still enough that I knew he wasn't disturbing anything. It would all be found how I had left it.

When I returned Reid's eyes were half closed, other than that he was just as I had left him resting. I set the bowl filled with warm water down on a stand beside his bed. I gently damped a small towel, added some oil to the moisture and brought his eyelids down for a moment. Taking another rag, just as he had done, I cleaned out his mouth, first gently opening jaw, and then my task done, pushing it shut again. I cleaned his ears, taking another rag, then his face, another oil, the same smell I remembered from when had had handled me so gently. I stroked his hair back from his face, and then recalling how he liked it falling forward I brought a strand over his forehead.

I had tried not to anticipate his return. Somehow in the safety of his presence I could find some rest, and found my eyes slightly closing, drooping down as I heard him busy in the kitchen. He did return though. I heard him prepare what he needed, warm water, oils, cloth. Then I felt his touch. It didn't surprise me, what did take me aback was how gentle he was, I don't know why I was surprised, he had always been gentle with me. I suppose I was gentle with him as I did this to his body, all I can remember clearly are the scents, and his presence, masked by my tears. I am sure he is crying, if I were to look at him I would know. But I prefer the rest. I have cried more than enough tears—they haven't absolved me of Maeve's death, I do not expect them to, there is no forgiveness grief.

His face his ears, his eyes, his mouth cleaned, I use a purple scarf, his purple scarf, that I had recalled as being kept beside his bed, to gently keep his jaw in place, not as tight as one might need. I don't want to frighten him. Fear is so close to him at this time as to be a friend.

I wonder if he felt this terror at his binding. My silence is suddenly compulsory, but I resist any impulse to break from my quiet stasis. I know that cloth and I think it is appropriate, but I have no way of telling him, so I relax into what I can longer find any way to resist. I wonder if Mauve felt terror in her enforced silence, but I cannot cry out for her again.

Aaron's touch is tender, perhaps like a lover, not the lover he was, he was gentle, but not this steady. I wonder if this is the feel of my hands on his body, of his hands on Haley's body, my hands on Mauve, I cannot explain the reality of her presence to anyone. For a moment I will maybe be allowed to visit her world.

I begin to take off his clothes, and he softens into my touch. I had not expected his body to soften so soon. The dressing gown is easy to remove with a minimum of resistance from his weight. Was he always this light? I couldn't have been this light for him to move. I slide in behind him to support his full weight as he had done with me, head now lifted from his pillow and resting on my chest. I can smell his hair. It needs to be washed, should I wash it? He didn't wash mine, nor did he shave my face, leaving evidence of time passed. I remove the shirt of pajamas, the same one I remember; he ought to have replaced them. Then I lay his body and move to take his pants, this, I imagine will the last time he is undressed by me, and I pause, because he should have undressed her on their wedding night.

It is familiar being undressed by Aaron, but the circumstances so changed. He is methodical, repeating the pattern he knows from only one encounter. My eyes closed I smell his presence, and hers, Mauve's, which still has a tinge of terror to it. I wonder if he can clean that away. He breathes in my scents as he erases them with the oils. I am naked for both him and her. And I wish for Mauve's hands over my body.

I wonder if that is her I feel behind me, curious, not demanding, gentle, or is that Haley? Would she come to visit Reid? The scent of the oils only serves to remind me of her, the scent of Haley and Spencer mixed together in the smell of Myrrh. The presence of Mauve absorbs the smell. I place a towel underneath him and gently press on his bladder, removed the soiled cloth and dispose of it in his restroom and return to begin the project of cleansing Reid.

Aaron's hand on my bladder strips away another measure of my control. He removes the cloth and leaves me temporarily exposed, prostate, silenced, powerless. I don't fight it, he didn't fight it. I underestimated how brave Aaron Hotchner is, not just in willingly subjecting himself to this unknown, but in knowingly returning it to me. He begins to clean my body.

With each touch there are reminders, details of his life, the scarring on his feet because he knew this crooks of his elbows were too obvious, the knot of tissue on his knee that he told me wasn't that bad, the rub marks never quite gone from his wrists where Tobias bound him, the still open flesh on his arm, the gun callouses on his hands from practicing, and from killing. Spencer Reid is a good man, he is also a killer. I believe that is in his mind right now. Every touch bringing a memory with, and I only able to find a few. Every place on my body that Haley had touched held memories, does his body miss the touch Mauve was never allowed to give him?

I wish it were her hands preparing me. It would seem cruel to watch her suffer as I do, as Aaron suffered. Me for her. I search for Mauve's presence in Aaron's touch.

Aaron turns my body over, cleaning my back as well as my front, calloused hands washing me; hands that know more about me than Mauve ever did. I don't resent him, I miss Mauve. His hands touch me intimately in a way that I should have missed. Pushing the cotton plug to seal my anus he is more familiar than we ever were in life. It is the strangest moments when we realize we are loved. Still it is a place his hands no longer belong.

I feel as though I am trespassing as I map his body, this is Mauve's. I had never felt more like I belonged to Haley than after she had died.

He finishes his work. I am bare and glistening with oil, but all he regards me with is sympathy. If he follows my pattern, and I believe from his breathing he does, he is no longer crying. I can feel his eyes on me, I have always been able to feel his eyes on me. The last, one of the only moments, I had with Mauve I could feel her stare, I feel her presence now.

Then he deviates from my script. Instead of dressing me, which was heavy and clumsy, he lays a cloth over my groin, and then rolls me gently onto a sheet, he brings my hands over my chest and crosses them, that I did for him also, and then he shrouds me in a bed sheet, wrapping me from shoulder to toe. He replaces the pillow beneath my head, smooths my hair once more. He closes my eyes fully again.

I wrap him in a shroud, Reid never looked right in the clothes of the everyday world, lovely, but not right. In a sheet he looks contained in a way that he never has been in this life, and soothed, swaddled like a baby. Laid out like this he is for a moment at rest. I lay a hand on his forehead and kiss him gently on his part closed lips. "Come back when you are ready."

I hear him say exactly what I had said to him as he lay this unmoving. And I want to ask how that will take, but I have no will with which to move myself.

I place his book from Mauve on his chest and leave.

Authors note: Thank you wonderful readers! This chapter was awkward to write, and because I wanted to get it out before the new episode (is it a new episode?) on Wed, I haven't tweaked it as much as I usually would. This was originally a standalone, a little different, and maybe more powerful.