Chapter 11

Aaron watched his wife continue her crazy quest to clean the kitchen. Once she had finished the cabinets and rearranged everything in them she started on the drawers. Her eyes still were blank and her face void from all emotion as she worked.

He tired to convince her she was indeed pregnant but she refused to believe him.

"Will you at least stop long enough to eat something?" He asked frustrated.

"I'm not hungry." She insisted.

"You need to eat Chrisy. The baby needs nourishment."

She continued to ignore him and kept working diligently. He shook his head and got up and looked in the refrigerator to see what he could whip up and hopefully entice her to eat something.

"Yuck! That's going to need cleaned out too." She said looking over his shoulder.

He closed the door and gave up for the time being.

"Hotch! We're back." Emily called from the other room.

Aaron walked in to see his son putting down his things and he looked tired. He could tell he hadn't had much sleep last night. Aaron went straight for Jack and bent down to hug him.

"Did you get any sleep buddy?"

"Not much. I kept having bad dreams. How's mommy?"

"She's in the kitchen. Jack she doesn't look like herself. She is all bruised up."

Jack put his head down on his father's shoulder and hugged him again. Aaron held him tightly as Emily began to tear up at the sight.

"Jack why don't you take your things upstairs to your room?"

"Ok."

Once Jack was out of earshot Emily turned to Aaron.

"He has a lot of questions. Garcia and I didn't know how to answer them so we told him to talk to you."

"I'm sure he does. Can you stay here with Chrisy while I take him somewhere to talk?"

"Sure."

"I have to warn you, she's not herself. She seems to have blocked out everything that happened and she's on this strange cleaning frenzy."

"We'll be fine."

"She's pregnant Emily. Please don't let her do anything that could hurt the baby."

"Oh Hotch." She sighed. "I don't know what to say. Congratulations seems strange for this situation."

"It is a strange situation." He motioned for Emily to follow him.

The two walked into the kitchen so see Chrisy still working like a dog. Emily blinked away the tears when she saw Chrisy's beat up face.

"Chrisy I'm going to take Jack out for a bit so Emily is going to hang out with you while we are gone." Aaron said.

"Can you grab some more cleaning stuff while you're out?" She asked.

"If we go by a store."

He gave Emily a shrug and walked out of the kitchen to get his son and go have a talk with him about all of his questions.

Aaron parked the car as the two arrived at the park. The two rode in silence until they had arrived and Jack let the first question out.

"Daddy what is rape?"

Aaron turned to his son. "It's bad Jack."

"I heard the medic say over the radio that mommy was raped. What did that bad man do to her?"

"Do you remember when you walked in on your mommy and me making love?"

"Yes."

"Rape is doing the same thing to someone when that other person doesn't want them to."

"Mommy said making love is beautiful and wonderful."

"It is Jack when the two people who are doing it both want to do it with each other. The man who did this to your mom forced her to do it when she didn't want to with him."

"So when you and mommy make love it's beautiful and wonderful because you love each other but it was rape when Mason's dad made mommy do it. He hurt her."

"Yes."

"Why would he want to hurt mommy?"

"I think he thought he was in love with her and because she didn't love him back it made him very angry."

"Was he the one who was leaving flowers on the car? Mommy said that whoever was leaving them had the wrong car."

"Yes."

"She lied to me."

"She was trying to keep you from being afraid."

All of the strange events that had happened were beginning to make sense now. The little boy began to cry remembering all of them.

"Is he in jail?"

"Yes he is."

"Good. I hope he stays there forever."

"Me too."

"Is mommy going to be alright?"

"Right now she doesn't remember what happened. She's going to act strange for a while but I plan to take her to a doctor to help her work through everything. It's just going to take time."

"Ok."

This was never a conversation that he wanted to have with his son but yet here he was. Once Jack stopped crying Aaron ran his hand over Jack's hair.

"Is there anything else you want to talk about?"

"Not right now."

"Promise me that you will ask me anything that you need to about this alright?"

"I will. Can we go home now?"

"Sure."

Aaron and Jack walked in the door to find Chrisy passed out on the couch and Emily wide eyed with horror. Aaron shook his head and sighed.

"She was cleaning like a lunatic then she walked in here sat down and was out like a light." Emily said.

"How long has she been asleep?"

"Only about twenty minutes. You were right when you said that she has blocked everything out."

"I'm taking her to see a therapist tomorrow. I hope that she can get through to her."

Emily got up and gave Jack a hug and then made her way to the door. She knew this was going to be a long road for this family to go down and it was going to get rough.

Chrisy still refused to eat anything as Aaron sat out supper for everyone. Jack said very little to his mother. Her battered face was hard for the boy to look at. Aaron decided it was best to not tell Jack about Chrisy being pregnant. He didn't want to get his son's hopes up if she ended up miscarrying.

"Chrisy please eat something." Aaron pleaded.

"I'm not hungry. I think I'm going to take a shower." She said and got up from the table and headed upstairs.

Once Chrisy left the room Jack dropped his head and began to cry. Aaron's eyes welled up again and he got up and went to his son and kissed him on top of his head.

"She's not my mommy."

"I know she's not acting right Jack. It might take a while to get her back to normal."

"I'm scared daddy." He cried louder.

"So am I buddy." Aaron confessed.

Another long night passed with Chrisy up most of it pacing around the house and looking for things that needed rearranged. She cleaned off the shelves in the living room and moved all of the nick knacks around and alphabetized the books on the book shelf.

Aaron sat up listening to her wanting to comfort her wishing she would cry, scream or break something, anything to show some sort of emotion but there was just nothing but the blank empty look in her eyes and face. It was killing him to watch her be this way. He had no idea how to help her.

The next morning Jack stayed home from school again. He hadn't gotten much sleep again with Chrisy being up most of the night making noise. Aaron needed to figure out what to do with him while he took Chrisy to see the therapist.

Fortunately the team hadn't been called away on a case so that left Penelope free to take Jack for the afternoon. Aaron waited for Chrisy to get dressed to leave. She didn't want to go anywhere but Aaron insisted.

"I don't want to leave the rest of this house unfinished." She said looking around.

"Get your shoes on." Aaron huffed dropping them in front of her.

Chrisy put them on slowly and got up and followed her husband out to the car.

"Where are we going?"

"I'm taking you to see a doctor."

"What for?"

"You need to talk to someone about everything that happened."

"Aaron I don't need to talk about anything. Nothing's wrong."

Aaron just shook his head and opened the car door for her to get in. He had a feeling this wasn't going to go well.

After flipping through every magazine in the waiting room Aaron got up and began to pace around. He wanted to be in there but the therapist told him it was better if they talked alone. His eyes were heavy because he hadn't slept much.

"Aaron." A voice said causing him to turn.

"How did it go doctor?" He asked.

Seeing the waiting room was empty she motioned for him to sit and she took a seat next to him.

"Chrisy is in complete denial of the entire situation. She is refusing to acknowledge that she is pregnant. Her behavior is obsessive."

"She has been on a cleaning frenzy."

"She's trying to gain some sort of control right now even though she doesn't know what she's lost control of. Aaron I'm afraid I can't do anything to help her until she has some sort of emotional break."

"So what am I suppose to do? She won't eat, she hasn't slept. I haven't slept. Our son is scared."

"I know this is hard. You have to take care of yourself and sleep regardless if she does or not. Encourage her to eat and make sure she goes to see her OBGYN. Once she has that break then we can make her better."

"How long is this going to take?"

"I wish I had an answer. It could take some time."

Aaron ran his hands through his hair completely frustrated. This should be one of the happiest times in his life having a new baby with Chrisy and giving Jack a brother or sister. This is when they should begin discussing names and deciding where to put the nursery. He looked up at the doctor helplessly.

"How long until I bring her back?"

"We'll give it a few more days then try again. Hopefully by then she will have that break. Please call me if you have any questions or concerns."

"I will."

Aaron sighed when he looked over and saw Chrisy open the glove compartment of the car and begin to clean it out. She didn't say a word to him about what the therapist tried to talk to her about.

"What sounds good for lunch? I thought we could stop and pick something up before going home." He asked.

"I'm not hungry." She answered not looking up from the mess she was shorting. "Why do we still have all of these expired insurance cards in here?"

"Chrisy, you haven't eaten anything for two days. You have to be hungry!" Aaron said irritated.

"No I'm not."

He scrunched his lips from frustration and drove on to their home not getting anything for lunch. He knew exactly what she was doing and why what he didn't know was how to get through to her.

Chrisy paced around looking for something else to move around in the house as Aaron watched. He knew he needed to get her to eat something so he went to the kitchen and pulled out the ice cream and then went to get her and led her to the table and sat her down and opened up the carton and scooped up a bite and put the spoon up to her lips. She stared back at him blankly.

"Don't you want a bite?"

She opened her mouth and let him give her the bite. He watched as she moved it around and then swallow. He sucked in a relieved breath and scooped up another bite and lifted it to her. This time she turned her head away from it.

"It doesn't taste good."

"Try another bite just to make sure." Aaron pressed.

"No." She said cupping her hand over her mouth.

"What is it?" Aaron asked.

"I'm going to be sick." She said quickly jumping up and heading to the bathroom.

He set down the spoon and got up to follow her and find her hunched over the toilet gagging and throwing up forcefully.

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