A/N:
First of all and as usual a heartfelt thank you for the (many) story alerts, for favoring this story and most of all, of course, for reviewing the second chapter: Mydnyte Houre, charleantheresas, romiross, HGRHfan35, angry penguin, radioactive460, greengirl82. My life is upside down right now and I hope you forgive me for not responding to each review individually. Be assured that I appreciate your support all the more! As I said before – I hope you stick with the story and come back to read and review again. :)
Some of you had interesting ideas who Hotch called. It will be more or less revealed in this chapter (and perhaps doesn't come as such a big surprise), albeit I still don't give away the name. Those of you who already watched 6x17/18 (and I guess this is the majority) will recognize the reference in an instant.
Rating due to the mention of a possible sexual abuse of a major character in this chapter, although the emphasis is put on possible here and there is no explicit description. It's important for the storyline and to explain Hotch's motivations. There will be more explanations in the next chapter. I can't say more without giving spoilers away. Since this is a sensitive subject, though, I don't want to offend anybody.
Disclaimer: I own some things but definitely not Criminal Minds. CBS does. I just borrow the characters from time to time and promise to give them back unharmed. In this chapter I also borrowed parts of scenes from 6x18 that, of course, don't belong to me either but to CBS.
Present day...
The sun is relentless. A searing hot circle in the middle of a cloudless sky, burning their skin.
Hotch thinks about the recording, about the strange arousal mixed with jealousy he felt listening to it, until the arousal turned into something else at one point.
His hand twitches, urges to eventually draw the gun and pull the trigger. He never would have thought that bloodlust is a word associated with him. But right now he almost tastes the blood on his tongue. Ian Doyle's blood.
He doesn't call it revenge, although he knows that basically that's all it is. An eye for an eye or rather – Doyle's life for what he did to Prentiss.
It sounds much better to call it poetic justice.
One week ago...
Hotch stopped the recording. It was dark outside and rain was pouring down. Time to go home was long overdue, but he wasn't able to leave his office. Not until he had heard everything – as painful as it was. No, not painful, annoying, infuriating.
Don't do this, he thought futilely. He was already in the thick of things.
Perhaps she is drawn to the dangerous type. The concern suddenly was there; Hotch couldn't stop himself. Perhaps she gets off on dangerous situations, needs the thrill. He knew that it was immature and childish to try and turn her into someone she most likely never had been to satisfy his inner need to punish her. She had only done her job; undercover assignments sometimes come with very special job descriptions. She had adapted to the circumstances and not lived out some secret fantasies.
He took a deep breath and hit play again.
It was no video, just an audio recording, but he wasn't able to stifle the imagination when more moans from Prentiss and Doyle filled the room.
"Ian." Her voice. Strained. "We can't..."
Hotch was aware that it was only a recording, that he was listening to the past. Nonetheless he felt the urge to pull Doyle out of the car and away from her. The fact that he was doomed to be a passive listener made him sick and furious.
"You taste so good!" Doyle's voice. The need in it no longer suppressed. "I want to feel all of you."
"Ian, don't...," she almost sounded a little afraid now, albeit on the edge of anger at the same time. Apparently she wanted to stop him without enraging him. Judging from what Hotch could hear, though, it didn't work. Ian Doyle isn't a man who stops, because someone tells him to.
The rustling turned into a tussle. Doyle was still panting, but her hisses had a more desperate quality. As if she physically tried to hold him back and didn't succeed. How could she? Ian Doyle was extremely physically fit, more than just in good shape. Even if Prentiss was a fighter, against him she wouldn't have stood a chance. And she was alone with him, with no-one around who could have helped her.
Present day...
"What changed your mind?" he finally asks Hotch, now that they are about to kill Doyle. "You told me back then that you aren't able to break your oath. What happened that you're so willing and eager to do it now?"
Hotch has no intention to tell him. No-one knows about the recording and no-one will. He listened to it once and then destroyed it.
His rage about Prentiss' seeming betrayal is long gone. He understands it all these days. Why she couldn't tell him or the team; why she went after Doyle without their help. Knowing something and being there, right in the situation, even if it only was a recording, are two entirely different things. He felt Doyle's malice when he listened to the recording. He saw in his mind's eye what Doyle did to her and will never forget it. So he knows that Prentiss had no choice. She wanted to save them, spare them the confrontation with this vicious man. She had no choice back then – just as he has no choice now.
One week ago...
"How close did she get to him?" It had been Hotch who had spoken first, after they had studied incredulously the photos. A rhetorical question. The pictures had given it all away.
"She was his type," JJ had stated with her best matter-of-fact voice. It was a case like any other, she had told herself, even if it was anything but.
Hotch had closed his eyes, as if he could block out the images in this way.
The fight between Doyle and Prentiss still was going on and more than once he had considered stopping to listen to the recording, but he didn't out of a sense of duty. There could be a hint about Doyle's whereabouts and he couldn't risk letting this chance pass by. He could let someone else listen to it. Then again he wanted to spare Prentiss the humiliation. At least that's what he told himself.
His eyes snapped open when he heard Ian's voice, impatient and rough with lust, "Come on, Lauren. Don't make such a fuss!"
The next sound was too muffled. It could have been a desperate laughter, a suppressed scream, anything. Still the fight wouldn't stop, clearing up Hotch's last doubts that Doyle was forcing himself on Prentiss against her will. He had to listen helplessly while his agony turned more and more into rage. The final words of the recording were crystal clear. Her voice. "No! Stop!" Then a hiss, bodies colliding and... nothing, just static.
No-one, well except perhaps Morgan, had said it out loud, but they all had been so quick to judge about her that they never had thought it to be even remotely possible that her undercover relationship hadn't exactly started by her own choice. When Hotch ejected the CD his hands shivered.
And in this moment he decided that Ian Doyle had no right to live. Just like Foyet he had forfeited this right.
His hands stopped to shiver; his breath slowed down again.
Aaron Hotchner knew what he had to do.
To be continued
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