"Where ever you go, I will go, and where ever you stay I will stay."—from memory, book of Ruth.

The hospital had called me. He was staring off into space. No one had said, "Say your goodbyes," or "This is it." but between the call and hush around the room I knew there wasn't much longer. I had become used to him around the house, Jack and I had. Even now though, after years of living together, he hesitates as I take his hand. "Dad?" I say, not wanting to raise my voice, he hates that, though his hearing has been poor since the bomb. I had heard about that from Mom I heard about things from Mom that I wished I had heard from Dad, but he wouldn't talk; and it was a kindness on her part, even as she worried she was breaking his trust, it was a kindness for myself and Jack.

He had felt he was imposing on us. He wasn't, we could insist on it, but he would still feel that way. I had initially pointed out that we would be happy to have Mom and Daddy stay if that was what they choose, and then stopped short of saying, "but they have each other." The look on Dad's face said it, "they have each other." He would never say, "I have no one." At first I thought it was Haley, Jack's Mom, then wondered if it was Beth, I had known her for all intents and purposes as Jack's Mom, when I heard about Kate—Mom had implied that she might have been the one; to the end I remained unsure as to who wasn't there.

When people are dying, and I have seen more than my share, as had Jack, when people are dying they often see loved ones. And now he looks past me, and wonder who he is seeing, Haley, Beth, Kate Joyner, Dave—he was close to David Rossi, but I can't hear what he is saying. The more his deafness progressed, the more quietly he spoke, and now he is nearly silent as his lips move. It is too close to a prayer to be ignore, and although he was never a religious man I have prayed for him, and I do it again, the simplest of prayers, "Our Father," I begin, and know he will follow the rest from years of experience, a muscle memory of the chants of childhood.

"As I lay me down," I whisper under my breath as we finish praying. He is struggling with his body, he is trying to escape. I can see, feel, the twitching in his hands that has beset him more frequently, and he reaches for an elbow, and tries to scratch. I lead his hand back to where It was before. I wish Jack was here. I feel inadequate in watching Dad die. He grips onto my hand, I think it his last grasp at this world. I think I hear his words and I listen carefully, but can't catch it, I don't know who he is calling, though I am calling out to Jack myself. Maybe he is calling Jack along with me, but I wouldn't know that, he doesn't know that.

I wish I could say Aaron Hotchner's only vice was drinking. Jack told me Dad has left the BAU, retired, due to his loss of hearing, it must have been getting worse, even then, but it was years past the bombing. He told me Dad had started drinking after he left the BAU, and then he told me the story that truly frightened me, because in it Special Agent Aaron Hotchner, that is how I thought of him as a child, Special Agent Aaron Hotchner, was broken. It was terrifying for Jack, he only told me years into our relationship, just before Dad moved in with us, as though he wanted me know why Dad had his weaknesses. He told me how Dad had come home with Dave, broken and crying, sobbing, and saying he had failed, and then the thing that puzzled Jack, "He shouldn't be gone." Jack associated it with his retiring.

I am, was, younger than Jack, but I went to the funeral, and I remember him clearly. I remember Halloween and Mom and Daddy, at their wedding, and I remember him at dinners, and could nearly claim to remember him holding me as a baby. I went to the funeral, I don't know why, I was probably too young, but, as Jack and I now know, parenting is too hard to be done right. At the funeral I remember Agent Hotchner and I remember him leaving, and then Jack remembers the rest of the story.

It is hard to stay when someone you love is dying.

Calling of the beloved dead

don't close the circle cast

each time it is the last

uncover the mirrors

don't spill the salt

-sacred heart of Christ—

Dear Readers:- Thank you for reading thus far, to the end as it were. A, as always, thank you.

–always in love- M