Who is the Victim Here
I would love to hear your opinions and look to working further on the story.
I do not own or have connection with the "Criminal Minds" program or its characters.
Chapter Thirty-Three.
At the house, Brian gets out and checks the go bags that Sean mentioned. There are three of them, one with adult male underwear, one with disposable diapers and one with cloth diapers. He knows that Aaron wears diapers but not if he wears disposables or the cloth kind. He asks, "Aaron what kind of diaper do you wear?" Aaron just grunts in reply. He decides to take both bags into the house. He comes back out to the van to get Aaron from his car seat. He looks at the pouting man and asks, "Do you want to walk in or should I carry you?"
Aaron answers, "I'll walk." The men go into the house and Brian heads to the dining room to set the table up for changing Aaron's diaper. Since he doesn't know which bag yet, he takes both bags into the room. Heading back to the living room for Aaron, who still seems in a little shock in being back there, Brian gently touches him to prod him to the dining room.
"Come on Aaron, let's change your diaper." Aaron balks.
"No."
"Aaron, you have been in a wet diaper for many hours, it isn't good for your skin. Allow me to change you please."
"No Brian, not you."
"Aaron, I am our oldest living friend and we have known each other for what seems like forever. The first time I met you, you were wearing a diaper. I couldn't help to take care of you then but I can now. Please don't let male ego cause you to get a rash foolishly." Aaron lets out a sight of frustration as he goes with Brian to the dining room. He sees both bags and looks quizzingly at Brian.
"I didn't know which one was yours." Aaron went to one and opened another pocket that held four bottles in it and in the other bag there was crackers, and snacks with sippy cups. "Ah, I should have checked out the other pockets I see." The men smile as Aaron takes down his pants and gets on the table. Brian gets Aaron's diapering stuff out and proceeds to clean the man and put a dry diaper on him. After redressing the men go back to the living room, Brian brings two bottles with them and goes to sit on one end of the sofa. He looks up at Aaron who is in a quandary because he is hungry but doesn't want Brian to feed him.
"I did this before at the park, come on and let me help get some nutrition in that body." Aaron's stomach rumbles loudly in reply. Aaron sits down and leans back into Brian's waiting arms. Brian puts the nipple of the bottle in his mouth and Aaron closes his eyes and begins to suckle greedily on the bottle. Brian begins to hum the same song that he had done on Memorial Day. Aaron put his hands to Brian's mouth and opened his eyes. Brian takes the hand from his mouth.
"You don't want me to hum? Last time you seemed to like it. I know Kathy used to sing it to the kids. Is that why you don't want me to hum it, too many memories? Let me hum the song to you; I know last time you were comforted by it." Aaron was not really sure he wanted to feel that safe in Brian's arms and be comforted like that but decided to let Brian hum the song, it did make him feel good. Brian begins to hum again.
When the bottle was done, Brian removed it from Aaron's mouth who said, "Still hungry Brian." He spoke in a very young voice.
"Then it is good I have another bottle for you," which he proceeds to put in the man's mouth and Aaron falls asleep while on the second bottle and Brian just kept holding and humming to the man.
Meanwhile our agents are on the plane talking about why Hotch would have done this rash action. Rossi has been trying to get Angie on her phone to let her know where they are and about Hotch. Sean has been sitting in the back of the plane listening to them and looks up at the agents. He goes to the laptop to open the email and saw the picture.
He says, "You need to see this," as he points the screen to the agents.
Spencer says, "Is that mommy?" As he enters toddler mode by seeing Angie like that. Emily takes Spencer away while the others check out the email.
Rossi says, "Well that explains why I can't reach her and why he left abruptly."
Morgan says, "But it doesn't explain why he didn't let anyone know. He knows that he is not supposed to do things alone. I mean we know that he is pretending to be a baby but legally that is his role. He chose to be dependant which means no doing things by yourself."
Emily comes back over and says, "I got him calmed a little, but he has definitely entered toddler mode."
Sean gets up and goes to the boy who grabs him tightly and puts his head in the man's shirt. Sean goes to the diaper bag and gets one of Aaron's bottles out. He takes Spencer to the sofa and sits down with him offering the bottle, which Spencer takes readily.
Sean looks up at the others staring at them and says, "He doesn't take the bottle often and only since the doctor's office. Sometimes it is the best way for him to relax enough to sleep which should bring him back to adult mode. He rarely wakes up in toddler mode." There are several faces of understanding staring back at him.
Rossi says, "How did you know about this email?"
He answers, "Just before I got on the plane, I received a call from Brian." Emily perks up. "He said that our missing man was there."
"Hotch is there! exclaim the others.
"Yeah, Aaron is there and he told Brian that this email is why he was there. I told Brian to feed him and have him rest until we get there. We need to find Angie. Aaron, I think, believes that the man who tortured him took her to torture him some more. We need to remember that this man twenty years ago raped Kathy and Angie and last February, he raped Aaron. This man is capable of doing anything to her."
Rossi has Garcia look into where the email came from and if there was a way to find what camera took the picture.
They finally land in the private strip outside of town. Sean calls Brian on his cell phone but there is no answer. They all look at each other with questions. He then tries calling on the house phone.
"Hello."
"Hello, Brian, it is Sean. I tried you on your cell phone but there wasn't any answer."
"Yeah, that phone is not very close to where I am."
"Where are you?"
"In the living room on the sofa with Aaron sleeping on me."
"I see, we just got into the airport, can you pick us up?"
"If I do then I have to leave Aaron alone, let me see if I can get someone else to come and pick you up."
"That sounds good and we don't want to leave Aaron alone. Call me when you get someone."
Brian goes on the phone to have a friend get the van to come and pick the agents up.
A man by the name of John comes in the red van and Stuart comes in a pick-up truck behind to the airport to pick up the agents. Sean takes the keys to the van and thanks John who leaves with Stuart with the all the go bags and the stroller in the pickup. The agents get in the van, David in the passenger seat, Spencer in his seat and Emily and Derek take up the sofa seat in the back, JJ and Garcia stayed back in Quantico to provide back-up should the agents need it. Arriving back at the house, the agents get out and take the bags from the pick-up and say thanks to the men for their help. Sean comes into the house and sees his brother sitting up on the sofa having just awakened from his nap. A great sigh of relief at the sight followed by a spurt of parental style anger at him.
"Aaron, what were you thinking coming here without telling anybody? I should spank you until you can't sit down for a month. But I am just glad you are safe." He goes to hold him tightly and Aaron stands up to do the same.
"I am sorry that I upset you Sean, but I saw the picture on my e-mail and I just couldn't think of anything but getting here. The note said to come to Kathy's place, which is here. I should have waited for you, told David or Derek, but I wasn't sure that you would bring me here and I had to come."
"You're damn right I would not have. You should be in the apartment ready to be put in your crib for bed. Let the others find and rescue Angie."
"I can't do that Sean. I am her hero and she needs me to come to her rescue. If I can't do that for her than I will never be able to do it for anyone else. Do you understand that Sean?"
"No, I don't. You need to be safe. That man wants to hurt and torture you and taking Angie helps him do that. You are the one who is in danger. Why can't you see that?"
Brian breaks in to the men's conversation saying, "He can't see that Sean." Sean looks at him.
"What are you talking about?"
"I have known this man a lot longer than you have been alive. I used to watch him stand up in front of people three times his size to protect people twice his size. He never backed down and he never accepted that just because they were bigger that they were better or stronger. He allowed himself to be beat up and hurt so that others weren't. That is who he is and to ask him to stay behind to be protected is not going to happen. Not by the man that I always known. I was once one of those bullies that he placed himself in front of. He weighed about 45 pounds to my 80 pounds, but he was not going to allow me to hurt my intended victim. It was a few years later that we became friends."
"Are you saying that it was okay for him to steal my van and come here?"
"No, he should have told you. I am saying that you cannot hide him from this kidnapper; he has been doing that himself. When was the last time you actually saw your big brother." Sean looks at Brian and then looks back to Aaron and realizes that is exactly what he is seeing, the man who had been hiding for five months is standing tall and strong before him.
Aaron looks at Sean and says, "I know that it is late, Sean, but we need to find a way of locating Angie. I want to head out in the morning and so we need to figure out where she might be. Spencer." As he looked over to the man and saw all the amazed and pleased looks of his agents who actually see their leader standing before them. "Let's focus people. Spencer, I want to start a geographical profile of the area between the D. C. area and here. She is in that area. Derek, I want to you to explore your contacts about getting some satellite help in locating her signature. Tell them who it is for, she probably has higher clearance than you do, if you need passwords for her, let me know. Sean, you go and fix some snacks and drinks. Emily, you and Brian talk about where the kidnappers might be here in town; check empty houses, warehouse, whatever you might think that they may be at. David …"
David breaks in, "I think you and I need to talk in private." Aaron looks at him with some trepidation but nodded his head. "Let us get busy people. Spencer, you will not work for too long. You will get ready for bed in one hour and call Garcia to get help on the geographics of the area." Aaron and he went to the den to talk more about the situation and how to locate Angie. As well as Aaron's actions of not having his team come with him and trusting that if he had they would have started to look for her hours earlier.
A few hours later, just after midnight, Spencer had created a geographic of where the barn that Angie might be held and Derek used his friend who can search by satellite to narrow it down to a further place where Angie and the group has a working profile of where to find her as well as where the unsubs might be in the town. There is no way to check it out that night so they go to bed to wake fresh and capable in the morning. Spencer had gotten dressed in his sleeper earlier and was now changed and put to bed by Sean as he was becoming more toddler mode each minute. Aaron was dressed and already put to bed an hour earlier by his brother. He didn't want to but fell asleep at the table while looking at the map that Garcia had sent to the laptop. The others went to the other beds that were around the house and Brian went home.
