xvi. Mudslide
It turns out that Penelope Garcia is her blessed savior and provider of everything she wants to know but couldn't ask, because one night, after a few too many Mudslide cocktails, Garcia giggles and leans in and whispers, "So, who do you think is hotter, Hotch or Derek?"
JJ lets out a loud bark of laughter and leans dangerously far back on her bar stool. "Just thinking about Derek's muscles gets me off! But Hotch has that dark, brooding, mysterious thing about him. Seriously, the man went on a month-long beach vacation a few years back and somehow came back worse than when he left?"
Weeks into her new position and she is still trying to get used to hearing them call him Hotch. She's still trying to get used to her new life. Unbeknownst to JJ or Garcia, the reason he came back worse is sitting with them.
She takes a sip of her too-sweet drink and pretends to be drunker than she is when she slurs, "Isn't Hotch married? I swore I heard that redhead from the third floor lamenting that he was married."
She means for the comment to bring a few giggles from Garcia and JJ, but suddenly the mood turns somber. She catches on quickly, like she always does, like she's been trained to do. "Or not?"
Garcia clears her throat and lowers her voice. "Hotch was married. He was together with his wife Haley for like 20 years, since high school. Haley died in a car crash, kind of, last year. She was drunk and there was a sharp turn in the road. They found her car at the bottom of that cliff. They still don't know if it was suicide or not."
That was not even in the top ten scenarios that she had expected to hear. She knows that he had been legally married back in St. Lucia. Given, she didn't know it until after she had been discharged from her mission there, but she learned that his divorce had begun its early proceedings then.
She didn't feel bad for what they did. Now she does. She feels sick. She didn't bother keeping tabs on Aaron Hotchner after she left D.C. with only a late-night voicemail to his work phone to go on that shitshow of the Doyle mission.
Garcia must see the despondent look on her face, so she takes her hand, as touchy-feely as usual, and she soothes, "It's not your fault, you didn't know."
"No, no, you're right," she agrees. She didn't know. She doesn't know what she's supposed to do with this information, but more than anything, she wants to wrap him in her arms and promise to never leave him. But that would probably end up being a lie; she doesn't have a good track record for sticking around.
No wonder he hates her.