Notes:

Like some of my previous emotionally-heavy, angsty chapters, I've put my chapter notes at the beginning. This chapter (without notes) is nearly 5000 words long, which I want to say breaks my record but I didn't check.

I really thought long and hard about the chapter title, and the reason I went with "Accelerando" is because when watching the episode, I feel like it's one long race that keeps getting faster and faster. Once I thought about it, it stuck, and I couldn't imagine any other title.

And just like with other episodes like this, I tried to play a fine line between repeating dialogue and action sequences from the episode and working Rachel into it all. I think I've got a handle on the balance at this point, at lease, I hope.

All right, folks, take a deep breath and venture on.

Cantoris

Related episode: 5.09 100

Accelerando-an Italian term meaning to gradually increase the tempo

No one told me when George Foyet sent fan letters to Karl Arnold. The team probably thought it was important enough for Hotch to break his code of silence with me, and Hotch was probably so tunnel-visioned he wasn't thinking of anything else.

So my mostly normal morning of Musicianship and Music Theory was progressing as usual until it was shattered by a rapid response team of federal agents storming the classroom.

Professor Hodgins and my classmates all freaked out to varying degrees; some even hit the floor at the sight of agents in flac vests bearing rifles and sidearms. I, however, was pissed off.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I demanded because I recognized the lead agent.

Adam Jones, my defense instructor, holstered his Glock and motioned the other agents to stand down.

"Are you all right?" he asked me, calm in the face of my anger and others' confusion and fear.

"I'm mortified right now, but other than that, I'm fine," I snapped. "And I repeat, what the hell are you doing here?"

"Foyet's on the move, we're bringing you in."

Whatever anger I felt drained out of me, replaced by gut-deep dread. I didn't resist as Adam seized my arm and the other agents escorted me off of campus and to Quantico. I didn't give any thought to what my classmates thought or how I would face them again. I didn't think about anything other than the fact that my nightmare had returned.

Adam filled me in on everything he knew on the way. I tried to get angry with Hotch and Reid for not warning me, but I realized why they didn't on my own.

"Agent Anderson and a partner are sitting on your place in case he shows there," Adam explained. "Agent Hotchner and the team went to Foyet's apartment last I heard."

If I thought Adam's task ended with my retrieval, apparently his orders extended to protection detail even in the safe walls of Quantico, because Adam followed me to Garcia's lair.

"Any news?" I demanded when I walked in.

Garcia didn't even turn around or otherwise acknowledge my presence as I dragged over a rolling chair and sat next to her.

"Foyet went after the federal marshall who took Haley and Jack into WitSec," Garcia answered shortly. "Then he called Haley, told her Hotch was dead, and tricked her into falling into his trap like a nasty little spider."

"Fuck," I muttered. Garcia didn't even correct my language. "Can't someone call Haley and tell her it's a trap?"

"He got her to ditch her phone."

"Where's Hotch?"

"He followed Kassmeyer to the hospital, wait, call's coming in."

I basically put the pieces together after that. Kassmeyer must be the federal marshall who had helped Haley and Jack, Foyet had done his usual handiwork, Hotch was out on his own, and the team was trying to figure out where Foyet's endgame would play out.

I thought I was doing relatively well with the whole situation until I heard Foyet's voice on the other side of Hotch's call which Garcia had put on speaker for us and the whole team to listen in.

"I thought you might scream," Foyet said. "Aren't you frightened?"

It would be stupid to lie. "Yes," I answered.

He chuckled. "But you won't show me just how frightened you are, is that right? Agent Hotchner has taught you well."

His voice had haunted my nightmares for months. Even more than Frank's voice. And to hear him taunt Hotch again as he had taunted him before was worse torture than being stabbed. But Hotch fought back as only he could.

"You're not just a serial killer, you're the Reaper. We'll be studying you and your methods for years."

Maybe I could think that Hotch was getting the upper hand, but then Foyet mentioned Haley.

"Haley looks good with dark hair. She's lost some weight though, must be all the stress you put her under. Where's the little man? There he is. Does he like Captain America because of you?"

I stopped breathing. Foyet was close enough to Haley to see her and we still had no idea where they were. And it only got worse when I heard Haley talking with Foyet, completely unaware who Foyet really was.

"I lost the call," Garcia announced needlessly after Foyet hung up on Hotch.

While the team profiled, I played Foyet's words through my mind, terrified and furious that Foyet had deceived Haley to the point that she would let him in wherever she was. Open the gate…

"The gate!" I cried out. "They're at Hotch's old house, it has a gate code!"

The team left immediately with Morgan calling Hotch on the way to let him know where Foyet and Haley were. It didn't surprise me that Hotch had already figured it out and was nearly there. In the weeks while Hotch and I were recovering from Foyet's attacks, before graduation and when I moved out on my own, I had watched him assemble Foyet's profile, his entire case file spread out in Hotch's office. I had no doubt in my mind that Hotch knew Foyet better than anyone else and he knew Foyet's endgame down to every single detail.

I hoped that we didn't find out what Hotch had profiled and that we would never know if he was right.

But if I had thought that listening to Hotch and Foyet's conversation had been torture, I learned the true definition of the word when Haley called Hotch and we heard what would be her last words. Garcia and I listened silently as Haley finally realized who Foyet was. I pictured the look on her face as she must have realized that she was going to die by his hands.

I felt tears run down my cheeks as she hugged Jack one last time before he ran off to hide as Hotch had taught him. I closed my eyes as I heard Hotch's final apology.

"I'm sorry for everything."

"Promise me you will tell him how we met and how you used to make me laugh. He needs to know that you weren't always so serious, Aaron. I want him to believe in love because it is the most important thing. But you need to show him. Promise me."

"I promise."

When the gunshot rang out over the line, I closed my eyes reflexively. Garcia sobbed next to me, but I was silent. All day long, I had wished that Haley had thought to try calling Hotch earlier, that maybe she would be alive. I would have. Even thinking that Hotch was dead, I would have tried calling any one else on the team, like Reid or Garcia. If only Haley had tried, if only I had been with her, I could have saved her.

I was months too late to save Haley, but Jack was hiding. Jack could still be saved.

"Where are you going?"

I hadn't even realized I had gotten up and started walking for the door until Adam stopped me.

"Jack is still alive," I said tersely. "I'm going to the house."

Adam's black, almond eyes flashed in anger like I had never seen in him before. "Like hell you are," he snapped. "You are under my protection and you are not leaving my sight."

"I'm going," I repeated, my tone not altering in the slightest. "So you can either let me go or you can come with. Your choice, but decide in the next two seconds or we'll find out how much I've been holding back over the last few months."

Of course I really had no chance of disabling one of the best combat instructors at Quantico, but I was willing to try.

Sensing this, Adam growled and cursed under his breath in Mandarin. "Morgan's not going to like this and Tasha will never forgive me if something happens to you."

I didn't tease him that he seemed to be more worried about his casual girlfriend than the acting unit chief of the BAU. He wasn't stopping me anymore and walked with me down to the parking garage and into a black SUV.

"What do you think you'll do there?" Adam asked me carefully.

"I just have to be there."

Even if I couldn't do anything once we got there, it was better than waiting at Quantico for news. I immediately thought of Garcia and how I had just walked out and left her behind without thought.

"Call Quantico and make sure that Kevin Lynch is sent to Garcia right now," I ordered.

Adam didn't even question me. And he didn't hesitate when we finally pulled up on Hotch's old street and just parked right next to the barricade of emergency vehicles that closed off the entire block from either side.

I bolted out of the SUV, Adam on my heels and flashing his badge to get us through the yellow tape and past the local cops keeping the perimeter. I made it all the way to the front lawn before I stopped dead in my tracks.

"Rachel?"

I breathed deep, searching for the calm and composure I gained from yoga and music. But I couldn't find it and eventually, I forced myself to move forward again, just in time to see JJ come out of the house with Jack in her arms.

"Jack!" I called out, relief flooding through me.

The boy turned around, zeroed in on me, and immediately tried to squirm away from the blonde agent. "Chi-chi!"

I might have teleported to get to them so quickly, but then Jack was hanging onto my neck and my arms wrapped around his body. I held on to him, breathed in the scent of him to assure myself. He was alive and whole.

But he had lost his mother. His father…

"Where's Hotch?" I asked fearfully over Jack's shoulder.

"He's inside," JJ assured me. She eyed Jack significantly, as if to warn me about what to ask next. But I didn't need to ask about Foyet. I knew that if Hotch was alive, then Foyet was dead.

"I want Daddy," Jack told me, face buried in my neck.

"Daddy's coming," I promised him, certain that he would come out soon.

JJ left to go handle the growing number of reporters, but Adam remained a sentry at my side. I still hadn't put Jack down and he didn't seem to want me to the way his head rested on my shoulder and his legs tightly banded around my waist. At least, he was clingy for me until we saw Hotch come through the front door.

I swallowed the lump in my throat when I saw him. His clothes and face were stained with blood and I lay even odds on it being his, Haley's, and Foyet's together. His eyes burned with grief and tears and his mouth was a tight line of hard-won control. His arms stretched out for his son and I saw the torn skin on his knuckles and more blood. I handed Jack over to his father as soon as physically possible, stepping back so I wouldn't intrude.

But even as Hotch squeezed Jack tightly into a desperate embrace, his right hand reached out to grab me and pull me in. I didn't resist and let myself tuck underneath his arm so that he, and Jack, and I formed a tight group hug without any space between any of us.

Hotch was shaking ever so slightly, but I didn't know how much of it was exhaustion from the whole day, grief for Haley, or relief to have Jack back again. Not that it mattered. I have no idea how long we stood there, but I realized that Hotch's shaking had to be growing more because of exhaustion. I pulled away gently but left my hands on Hotch and Jack.

"You should let the paramedics take a look at you," I suggested.

"Daddy, are you hurt?" Jack asked.

"I'm fine," Hotch answered, but I heard the lie.

I saw Rossi approaching us and spoke again. "The paramedics are just going to make sure that Daddy's fine," I said.

Rossi overheard me and nodded his head. "Good idea. The paramedics can look you both over just to be safe."

I handed father and son over to Rossi's handling and turned back to the house. Hotch wouldn't let me do it, Rossi would probably keep me away, too, but Adam just shadowed me as I walked inside. Just inside the front door, I found Reid, Morgan, and Emily standing in the trashed living room around a sheet covered object.

Object. Body. Formally alive and now dead serial killer.

"Rachel, you shouldn't be here," Emily warned me, moving to escort me outside.

"I need to see," I told him. "I need to see him."

When Frank had murdered my mother and my father confronted him at a train station, Frank had jumped in front of an oncoming train rather than be taken in. At sixteen, I hadn't wanted any kind of closure and I would not have wanted to see what was left of Frank's body.

But Foyet had attacked me, terrorized me, used me to hurt Hotch, haunted my dreams, and left scars on my body that I would carry the rest of my life. He had almost destroyed one of the most important men in my life and he had now murdered a good woman and made a little boy motherless.

I had to see the body to know that it was over.

"Rachel, you really don't need to see this," Emily tried again.

"Please."

Emily seemed to understand and motioned a near-by uniform to lift the sheet back. My brain took what seemed like a long time in processing what I saw. After a while, I recognized what used to be Foyet's face underneath the bruises and blood. I was pretty sure I saw brain matter on the carpet too.

I rushed outside and dry-heaved into the bushes. Gentle hands rubbed my back and helped me stand straight after I was done. I breathed in the smell of Emily's perfume and wiped my hand over my mouth.

"It's my fault," I blurted out.

"No, it's all right," the woman assured me. "You couldn't know how you would react."

She thought I was upset about getting sick.

"No," I corrected her. "It's my fault that Haley's dead."

"How could you possibly think that any of this is your fault?" Emily demanded incredulously.

"If I had gone with Haley and Jack into Witness Protection like Hotch wanted, I would have been with her when Foyet called. If he had tried to tell me that Hotch was dead, I would have called you or Spencer or Garcia and we would have found out the truth."

Emily seized my shoulders and looked me straight in the eye. "It is not your fault that Haley is dead, do you hear me? There is nothing that you did or didn't do that would have changed anything. Haley is dead because of Foyet. It's his fault, no one else's."

I crumbled just a bit and Emily pulled me into a warm hug. Finally, I cried into her shoulder and let her squeeze me tightly and stroke my hair.

After I was cried out, Emily let me go and tucked my hair behind my ears. "Okay?"

I nodded shakily. Reid appeared behind her like the magician he was was and handed over a handkerchief. I gave him a watery smile in thanks and wiped my face.

"Better?" Reid asked me.

"Yeah," I sighed. "I just…"

"We know."

Emily looked over my shoulder and nodded at someone. She and Reid exchanged some kind of look between them and then Emily turned back to me.

"Hotch checked out with the paramedics and gave his statement, can you take him and Jack home? One of us will check in later tonight."

Part of me recognized that Emily was just giving me something to do to get me out of there, but I didn't care. Managing the scene and the press and everything else, that was for the team to take care of. Taking care of Hotch and Jack? That I could do.

"Yeah, I can do that," I voiced my thoughts.

"I called Megan Reeves, she's already informed your professors not to expect you tomorrow," Reid shared with me. "She also said that she has already tracked down your classmates from this morning to keep gossip at a minimum."

I stared at him, uncomprending what he meant. Then I realized what he was saying and what Megan had done to protect my privacy. It seemed like a lifetime ago that Adam and his tactical team had burst into my classroom, not less than a day.

"That's good," was all I said. Some distant part of me knew that I would face an inquisition of some kind as soon as I got back on campus, but I wasn't even thinking of returning to my classes. For the rest of today and tomorrow, my campus life wasn't even close to my radar of importance.

I turned away from Reid and Emily, tracked down Adam who had pitched in to follow Rossi's lead to circle the wagons. Of course we all knew that Morgan was the acting unit chief, but even he was deferring to Rossi's management and direction.

Adam handed over the keys to the SUV without comment and told me that he had called Natasha to let her know what was happening. I just filed that away with something else that I didn't need to think about immediately. I found Hotch sitting in the back of an ambulance with Jack parked in his lap. When Hotch saw me, he carefully got to his feet without losing his grip on his son.

"Would you take him for a minute?" Hotch asked. "I need to call Jessica."

"Of course."

Jack easily transferred his grip from his father back to me. I smiled at him gently and watched as Hotch walked a little ways away and pulled out his cell phone. I had a fleeting thought to wonder if he knew the whole team and myself had been able to listen in on his last conversation with Haley.

"Why are you sad?" Jack asked me solemnly.

Those were some of the last words Jack had said to Haley and I almost lost it then and there. For a panicked moment, I wondered if Hotch had told him that Haley had died and if he hadn't, if I had to be the one to explain to him that he would never see his mother again.

"Is it because Mommy died?" Jack asked before I could answer. I will confess to feeling a fraction of relief that I didn't have to explain to him what had happened.

I met the little boy's eyes and saw so much of both Hotch and Haley in him that I felt my eyes start to well up again. "Yes, Jack, we're all sad because we miss your mom."

"Isn't she in Heaven?"

"Of course she is," I assured him immediately. I may not have ever had a strong sense of faith in my life, and I still didn't know where I stood with God, but I had to believe that someone like Haley was in Heaven. "I just know that we're going to miss her very much because she's in Heaven."

Even though that was only a fraction of the reasons to be grieving, I figured that was all a four-year-old could understand. I knew that someday, Jack was bound to ask more detailed questions about how and why his mother had died, but today was not that day.

When Jack had been born, one of the first things I had thought was how much he and I would have in common given our fathers. When my mother had been murdered, I had never expected that Jack would also one day share that with me as well.

Eventually, Hotch rejoined us and I passed Jack back to him, leading the way to the SUV. All this time, Hotch had not commented at all on the fact that I was there; he didn't question now why I was driving him and Jack home in an FBI vehicle. Instead, he simply sat in the backseat with Jack, silent and exhausted, and followed the gentle, leading touches I used to steer him to his apartment when we arrived.

I hadn't been back here since I had moved out months ago, keeping away like Hotch had wanted. All the distance between us, though, had completely evaporated, leaving us to move around each other inside the apartment in old, familiar rhythms.

Once inside, I settled into the same practices I had used whenever Hotch had come home from a bad case. I pointed Hotch in the direction of his bathroom, hoping he would shower and take the opportunity to grieve in private while I corraled Jack and got dinner started.

I set Jack up in front of the TV first with some cartoons, thinking to keep him occupied while I scoped out the kitchen. The apartment itself was its usual orderly self because Hotch was actually a very tidy person, but as I expected, the pantry and refrigerator were both nearly bare. I knew without looking that the garbage was probably mostly take-out containers.

Grocery shopping had been my job when I had lived with him. Hotch could cook and Hotch did cook, but never regularly due to his job, so I had taken on making most of the meals myself. I made a note to myself to call Natasha and see if she would be willing to do a grocery run for us tomorrow so that I wouldn't have to go out.

Thankfully, I found a frozen pizza in the freezer that hadn't expired and even better, it was plain cheese. I would have still cooked a pepperoni or sausage pizza and then just picked off the toppings for myself, but I was thankful regardless. I might have tried to find a vegetable, but quickly dismissed conforming to nutrition for the night. One unbalanced meal was not going to kill any of us. And I probably wouldn't have trusted any perishables I had found.

Eventually, Hotch came out in clean clothing and free of bloodstains, though I could still see some bruising and cuts on his face and hands. Even though I had seen the result of what Hotch had done to give him those marks, I didn't think anything wrong in what Hotch had done. Maybe a better person would have been even just a little bit horrified, but all I felt was relief that Foyet was dead.

Hotch first zeroed in on the living room, checking that Jack was safe, of course. But rather than go straight to his son, Hotch came to join me in the kitchen where I was setting up a cold brew for iced tea.

"Thank you," Hotch said simply.

Whether he was thanking me for driving them home, for setting up dinner, watching Jack, or simply everything, I didn't care. I just watched him carefully, looking for signs for anything else I could do to make it all better. Hotch had quickly learned to read me like a book in the past two years, realized what I was looking for. To my surprise, Hotch just reached out, closing his hand around the back of my neck in that familiar gesture that only he did for me. It was his way of thanking me, comforting me, and grounding me all at the same time.

All the hurt I had felt since Foyet's attack with how he had shut me out just withered away. And it had hurt, even though I had known why he had done it and I had understood why. But that was over.

The quiet evening passed as both Hotch and focused on Jack and practical matters. Hotch cleaned up after dinner and I gave Jack a bath. My old bedroom was still empty, so after Jack was dressed in an old tee-shirt of Hotch's by way of pajamas, I tucked him into Hotch's bed despite the early hour. Luckily, Jack was tired enough that he didn't fuss.

I found Hotch sitting on the couch, leaning over and holding his head in his hands. I approached him cautiously and sat down next to him with some space between us. I might have leaned back to let him have some space, but his hand reached out and grabbed my knee.

I didn't bother asking how he was doing. I just sat and waited. Sure enough, soon his shoulders started to shake and what little posture he had been maintaining dissolved. Still a private and controlled man, his sobs barely made sound, but the fact that I could hear them at all spoke to how deep he was hurting.

I closed the distance between us and wrapped as much of my body around him as I could given my smaller size. As he kept going, I joined him, letting my tears dampen the back of his shirt where my face was pressed into his shoulder. I cried for the pain he was feeling, I cried for the loss of Haley, and I cried for the sharp reminder I had gotten that day for how much loving a federal agent can cost.

After some time, we both gathered ourselves, but stayed close on the couch.

"I should let you go home," he eventually said, his voice still hoarse.

"I'm not going anywhere," I answered and gave him a look to dare him to try again.

But Hotch simply nodded in acceptance. We both got up to check the alarm, door, and windows. Hotch headed for the bedroom and I set up on the couch, stripping down to my undershirt and underwear since all my clothes were at my apartment.

Later that night, someone shook me out of a thankfully dreamless sleep. For a second, I panicked, the circumstances all too familiar to the last time I had been woken on this couch. I took in several cleansing breaths and recognized Jack standing over me, looking concerned.

"What is it, buddy?"

"Daddy's having a bad dream," he told me solemnly.

I nodded my head and threw the blanket off. I followed Jack into Hotch's bedroom, but left him to stand at the doorway to be safe. I approached the side of the bed where Hotch was shifting restlessly and breathing erratically. I had never woken Hotch from a nightmare before, but I knew what I was like when someone tried to wake me.

"Hotch."

I just spoke his name and rested my hand on his lower leg, well out of range in case he came up on the offensive. Sure enough, Hotch bolted upright, Haley's name on his lips as he transferred from sleep to awake.

"Rachel?" he asked, waiting for confirmation.

"You were dreaming," I explained simply for Jack's benefit.

He ran a hand over his face, and then winced as he brushed against the wounds there. I saw the moment when it all crashed down on him again and he shuddered. "Where's Jack?" he demanded.

Without any further prompting, Jack sprinted for the bed and crawled under the covers to his father's side. Hotch rolled over to face the middle of the bed and pulled Jack into his arms. I started to head for the door, to leave them alone again, but Jack sat up.

"Can Rachel stay?"

I looked at Hotch, waiting for his reaction.

"Of course she can."

Without any other hesitation, I got in the other side of the bed so that Jack was sandwiched between Hotch and me. Within moments, we had settled so that Hotch lay on his back with Jack curled up to his chest and I rolled on my side to face them both. Jack drifted off quickly, content and secure with us on either side of him.

Hotch looked over Jack to meet my eyes in the dark. I smiled a little and then moved a little closer so that I could rest my hand on Jack's shoulder. Hotch's hand closed over mine and then he closed his eyes. I lay awake for a moment more, taking in the fact that we were all sharing a bed as if it were completely normal. Maybe it wasn't and no one else would ever consider it that way, but at that exact moment, it's what we all needed.