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Chapter Five
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Late the next afternoon, as he sat in his backyard and watched the sun grow lower in the sky, David Rossi took a drink of very expensive foreign beer in hopes of numbing the brooding thoughts whirling through his mind.
"You look rough."
"Good to see you too, Aaron."
Hotch pulled up a second lawn chair next to his friend and sat down. "Can I ask how many you've had?"
"Hair of the dog, smartass," Rossi said, raising his bottle in mock salute. "Don't get on my case." Next to him on the deck, Mudgie raised his head and made a snuffling, doggy interrogative noise. "Not talking about you, Boy," Dave assured his furry companion and scratched him between the ears.
"Waiting for answers getting to you, I take it?"
"You'd think, but no." Dave pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and passed it to his colleague. "I've got a pretty good idea of what the answer is going to be."
"What's this?"
"A picture of Carolyn's father."
Hotch raised an eyebrow and unfolded the paper. His eyes widened slightly as he took in the likeness. "Uh...wow."
"Yeah."
"Could be a coincidence," Hotch said.
"Sure."
"But you don't believe so."
"No. Do you?" Dave asked, already knowing the answer.
"I'm a former prosecutor; I like proof before I commit myself. But it does seem pretty unlikely. Still, I hope you're not going to show this to Reid until the test results come back."
"What do you think? That I plan on getting the kid all worked up, only to have it be the one time things actually do turn out to be a gigantic coincidence? You know me better than that. Now grab a beer and shut up if you've got nothing intelligent to say."
Knowing Rossi as long as he had, Aaron took no offence. Instead, he pulled out a bottle from the six-pack sitting next to Mudgie, opened it and relaxed back in his chair. "So how are you with all this?"
"I'm..." Dave shook his head. "Christ, Aaron, I don't know. I guess stunned would be the best way to describe it. Stunned, furious, sad, confused, scared - I honest to God can't tell what in the hell I'm feeling right now."
Aaron gazed at him for a few moments. "No pleasure?" he asked quietly. "Or maybe joy?"
Dave looked away, unable to meet Aaron's stare. "You don't get it. After James di...after I thought James had died, I had to get past it somehow. I had to put it behind me and move on if I was ever going to be able to go on living. Of course I still thought about him every day, and I sure as hell still grieved for him, but I had to push it - push him - to the back of my mind. Every day for literally years, I told myself to accept the truth, forced myself to stop thinking about him every minute." He tapped the side of his head. "In my own way, I buried him up here as much as in the ground."
Aaron remained silent as Dave squeezed his eyes in pain. "I know I should be over the moon," the older man went on, "but - even though it was for a wonderful reason - I still feel like I just had the deepest wound I ever suffered ripped open with a chainsaw. Right now, everything feels like nothing more than one goddamned screwy mess."
Hotch sighed and took another drink of beer. The two men were quiet as the sun touched the horizon.
"So why are you here?" Rossi eventually asked.
"It's not important."
"Really, Aaron? Former prosecutor and top profiler and that's the best you can lie?"
"It's harder to do with old friends."
Rossi snorted. "Resorting to cheap excuses now, are we?"
"Look, Dave, it really isn't important. It can wait for another day."
"Just tell me. I'm not made of glass."
Hotch reluctantly reached into the briefcase he had set on the other side of his chair. He pulled out a file and passed it to Rossi, who, puzzled, began to flip through it.
"Alzheimer's!" the older man suddenly roared, leaping to his feet. "Jesus!" Without warning, he hurled the file at his fence. Mudgie jumped up with a happy bark and raced off after the snowfall of scattered papers, but Dave was too enraged to notice.
"I met with Mr. Falco last night after I dropped you off," Hotch explained. "I wanted to ask a few more questions. Even if Reid doesn't turn out to be your son, there were issues - like Brenda Fichman and the hospital's culpability - to deal with. But - "
"But the hospital has been closed for four years and the bitch is in the late stages of Alzheimer's!" Rossi shouted. "GODDAMNIT!" he yelled and kicked his chair over. "Well, that's just..." He couldn't think of what to say. He ran his hand violently through his hair and then whipped around to face Hotch. "What about the doctors? One of them had to have helped! She couldn't have done this on her own."
"Falco's belief is that she had help from a Doctor Young - rumour was that they were having an affair that he was afraid to end for some reason - but Falco has nothing concrete on the man, and anyway the doctor died of a stroke nine years ago."
"Of course!" Rossi exclaimed. Unable to stand still, he started stalking angrily back and forth across the deck. "My son is taken from me, but Heaven forbid anyone be made to pay for it! That bitch stole my only child and left me to grieve for him, but if I took her to court I'd be the one who comes off looking like a monster! Isn't that just fine and dandy!"
"Dave - "
"She'll never have to pay for what she did! She'll never have to pay for destroying our lives. She likely doesn't even remember! There's just no words for that, Aaron."
"No, there's not, Dave," Hotch said. "There's no words and what happened will never, ever be fair."
Rossi collapsed back onto his chair and buried his face in his hands. Aaron placed a hand on Dave's back and they stayed like that until it grew dark enough for the outside lights to come on. Then Aaron lead his friend inside.
-x-
"I don't know if I can do this, Aaron," Dave said some time later. The two men were sitting on Dave's sofa watching pre-season baseball highlights, but neither were really paying attention to what was happening onscreen.
"Be a father, you mean?"
"No, I mean watching the Cubs go yet another year without winning the Series. Yes, I mean being a father!"
"Why don't you wait until you find out for sure before you start getting into a panic about being a good parent. And I thought you rooted for the Mets?"
"I'm being serious, Aaron."
"Dave, it's not like you're going to have to do 3 a.m feedings or pay for braces or yell at him for breaking curfew."
"That's not what I mean and you know it."
"Look Dave, it'll work out. You'll make it work."
"Aaron, for a very significant portion of my life, I was a complete selfish bastard. I ended up estranged from my parents and brother for over a decade back in the seventies because of it, and I've had three marriages go to hell because of it. I don't know how many people I made suffer over the years because I never bothered to think of anyone but myself. I like to think I've grown past that in the last few years, that the team has changed me at least to the point where I can handle being a good friend, but a father? And to Reid of all people? I just don't know."
"What are you trying to say, Dave? Are you disappointed in getting Reid for a son?"
"It's not that. I mean, he's certainly not how I ever pictured James turning out, but he's a damn fine young man. It's more that he's been screwed around so much in his life. I suppose I'm afraid of doing more damage."
Hotch grasped his friend's shoulder. "Dave, you'll be fine."
"What if I can't connect to him, Aaron?"
"You've been doing a pretty good job of it lately."
"Shared loss may help build a friendship, but it isn't enough to build a father/son relationship on. I feel like we've been thrown back to the beginning, when we barely knew each other, but now it's worse because there's all this baggage to deal with and so much more pressure to be close."
"You're getting ahead of yourself. We don't even know if Reid really is your son. Your basing all of this on one picture of your father-in-law and that's not exactly proof. And even if Reid does turn out to be James, you need to take it one day at a time. You push too hard and you'll push him away."
"But what's he going to expect if we do turn out to be father and son? I don't want to push him, but I don't want to disappoint him or make him feel rejected either."
Something in Rossi's voice made Aaron examine him closely. "Dave, are you even certain about what you want?"
"No," Rossi admitted. "No, I'm not."
"I see."
"Well, then you're one up on me. All those years, Aaron... All those years I spent wishing for James's death to be a mistake or a bad dream, and now - maybe - it's going to happen and here I am, not knowing whether or not I want it. God, I can't even tell you how many times I thought, "If only we could have him back, I'd be the best father in the world!" What the hell is wrong with me? I should feel like rushing over to the kid's house, wrapping him in bubble wrap and keeping him in my closet so I won't ever lose him again! So why am I hesitating? Have I gotten so used to my life that I don't want to face this kind of upheaval? Is it that I don't want to be a father? Do I just not want the hassle and all of the emotions? Or is it plain and simple fear? Am I afraid of getting hurt? Or of screwing it up?"
"I think it's that the reality simply hasn't hit you yet," Aaron said. "You've been thrown for one hell of a loop, not to mention having had all of your memories and grief brought back. It's only natural for your emotions to be all over the place. But I'd bet good money that once you know for sure, it'll be a different story."
"You'll have to believe that for the both of us then."
"In any case, hopefully we'll find out tomorrow."
Dave breathed out heavily. "Maybe. But I tell you, even with the picture, waiting's a bitch, you know?"
"I can easily believe that."
"Do you have to get home to Jack?"
"No, he's at a friend's house for the night."
"Want another beer then?"
"Sure."
Dave got up to go to the fridge, ostensibly for the beer, but also to take a moment and pull himself together. "What do you think the odds are?" he called back from the kitchen, changing the topic.
"Of Reid being your son?"
"Of the two of us already knowing each other," Dave clarified as he came back in and handed Hotch a bottle. "I mean, what are the chances I'd already be working with my long lost son?"
"Ironically, I think if anyone was going to know, it'd be Reid."
"But you've got to admit it's pretty crazy."
"I don't know about that. After all, you've both at the top of a relatively small and specialized field. I know it seems like he spends most of his time solving esoteric puzzles or co-ordinating data for us on cases, but Reid's an exceptional profiler, which he no doubt inherited from you. Well, if he is your son," Hotch amended. "So maybe it wouldn't have mattered at all who adopted him or how far away from you he might have spent his childhood: that talent in the blood drew him into our field and let him rise to the level where his meeting you was perhaps inevitable."
"I never thought of it like that."
"So why are you frowning?"
"I was just wondering if I would have noticed the same potential in Reid as Gideon did. I hate to think if I'd been the one to meet him on that recruitment drive..."
"You underestimate his stubbornness. And his inherent gift. I think he would have found us sooner or later."
"Still, I wouldn't have easily accepted him. On our first case, some guy called Spencer a 'pipe-cleaner with eyes' and I hate to say I pretty much agreed with him."
"We all thought roughly the same thing when we first met him. He'd would've won you over like he did the rest of us. Like he did win you over, in fact."
A corner of Dave's mouth quirked in a wry smile, but his thoughts were still downcast. He had misjudged his own son, completely missing the man's worth for months. What kind of father did that foretell him being? And despite all of Aaron's reassurances, Dave still had some doubts that he and Spencer could connect that way. (Does he even want to connect that way? Dave asked himself. It's no good getting excited to be a father if my son is going to tell me he wants us to stay how we are.)
The fact was, that even with the print-out photo of his father-in-law, there was a part of Rossi that still couldn't quite see Reid as James. Never had he pictured a son of his being so cerebral, so responsible in his youth where he'd been so wild, so adverse to physical contact (his own large, Italian family were very passionate and that came out in all kinds of physical expressions), or so quiet and gentle in his demeanour. Nor did had he ever imagined his son ever caring so little for his physical appearance. Dave liked to think he wasn't vain, but he had to admit he was more than a little used to fine suits, Italian shoes, and good hair cuts. Not to mention he also greatly appreciated being able to write his books on a computer and then blowing off a little steam with a bit of "Grand Theft Auto". Sure, he might not fully get the importance of "trending on Twitter" but he was light years ahead of the young man Garcia called her "poor, sweet Luddite" and "Doctor-Lives-in-the-Dark-Ages."
It wasn't as if Rossi saw these traits as being bad - he even admired some of them - but together they were so different from his own outlook that he wondered if it was even possible for he and Reid to ever relate to one another. It seemed like a bad joke of the cosmos that not only had he been robbed of those early bonding years with his son, the kid had turned out so differently from him there seemed to be almost no point of contact other than the job. Gideon and Reid had apparently clicked immediately, but he and Reid hadn't really gotten close until both of them lost the woman they loved within months of one another. What a thing to bond over, Rossi reflected with some ruefulness.
"Are you all right, Dave?" Aaron asked, breaking into his thoughts.
"Yeah, fine. Just woolgathering a bit."
"Dave, you've always been the most practical of us; the least likely to brood unnecessarily. I know this is likely hopeless, but try to stop thinking about the whole thing for now. Do whatever you normally do on a Sunday night. I've been trying to tell you this all night, but there truly is no point to worrying one way or another until you get the DNA test back."
"Do me a favour, Aaron, and try to go a whole day without thinking about Jack."
"Touche."
"Seriously though, I'll try."
"That's all you can do."
"Not according to Yoda. 'Do or do not. There is no try.' "
Aaron nearly smiled. "See, you're already getting familiar with Reid's mind."
"Too bad it doesn't make me any smarter."
"You may have fathered a genius - try not to be greedy."
Dave opened his mouth to say something, then stopped. "That's right! If he's my son, then I've fathered a genius! Hell," he whistled, "that's pretty damn impressive, even if I do say so myself."
"Oh, Lord," Aaron mock-groaned. "You're going to be insufferable about this, aren't you?"
"Calm down. I'll try to restrain myself in the office. But I swear, the next High School reunion - "
"Good night," Aaron said pointedly as he got up to go. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"Seriously, Aaron, my graduating class was filled with imbeciles - "
"I don't want to hear it, Dave!"
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Author's note: Once again I'd like to express a tremendous thank you to everyone and apologize for the slow updates. I'd also like to thank everyone who wished me well - the leg is healing slowly, but it is healing. (Or at least I think it is. I'll have to see what the doctor says tomorrow.) And I'd like to give a special thanks to maxandkiz for the shout out in her story.
Anyway, hoped you all enjoyed this chapter.
