TURN AROUND, BRIGHT EYES
Every now and then I fall apart

Every now and then I get a little bit angry
and I know I've got to get out and cry.

TURN AROUND

Every now and then I get a little bit terrified
but then I see the look in your eyes.

Once upon a time there was light in my life but now there's only love in the
dark.

- Once again, partial lyrics to Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler.

Spencer Reid sipped his hot chocolate, wondering why he still felt cold. Well, cold, wasn't quite the right word. Cold was something that you got while walking outside without your jacket. Cold was something that you could cure with a cup of hot chocolate and a blanket. This was...different. This cold reached all the way to the bones, making every movement painful, every breath even.

"I don't feel good, I want my daddy!" he pouted, placing the mug in the car's cup holder. Daddy always knew how to make him better.

"It's okay, Spencer, you're safe here." A warm hand grasped his cold one, painfully tight.

Spencer could tell when people were lying. David sounded far too cheerful for one stuck out in the snow. "Daddy will be back soon. Want to build another snow man?"

"I'm going to find Uncle Danny!" He let go of David's hand and opened the van's door, unperturbed by the blast of icy wind that welcomed him.

"Spencer, no!" David's frightened voice was soon drowned by the howling wind.

Spencer didn't care what David said, Uncle Danny should have been back by now, and they couldn't go home without Uncle Danny. He ran down the icy asphalt, through the blinding snow, his heart pounding in his chest. "Spencer, I'm here...safe here...can't go anywhere."

David's voice grew fainter and fainter as he ran down the icy path, oblivious to everything around him. He may only be a 'little boy' but he was a smart little boy and he knew that Uncle Danny should have been back by now. He also knew that he had to get out of this painful cold, but that's all there was. No matter which way he looked. There were no road signs, no buildings, nothing but a frozen wasteland… and a distant voice on the horizon.

"Spencer! I want my son!"

"I'm here, Mommy!" He ran as fast as his short legs could carry him towards the voice, but the source could not be found. Voices were calling his name all around, but he couldn't see anyone. David was lost in the fog and his mother...Her voice took on a new pitch that sent shivers down his spine - shivers that had nothing to do with the frost gathering on his small cheeks.

"Danny, no! No please!"

A wailing noise pierced Aaron Hotchner's ears, leaving an alarming ring in its wake. He groped around in the darkness for the snooze button, only to hit..hair. But Haley didn't sleep on this side of the bed. What? He blinked his eyes open to see...damn it wasn't a nightmare after all. He had actually fallen asleep at Reid's bedside for...he glanced at his cell phone. 6 hours. Amazing.

"Danny!"

He lifted his head up, trying to conceal a yawn. It wasn't Haley's head that he had found in his slumber - of course it wasn't. It was Reid's - and that infernal noise was his mother sobbing at his bedside. A thin, blond, young man, not much older than her son, knelt beside her at a loss for words.

"That's not -" He stopped himself at the young man's vigorous head shake. He had no idea who 'Danny' was, but he doubted that she'd calm down once she realized that the man covered in medical equipment was her beloved son.

He stood to introduced himself. "Aaron Hotchner, or -"

"Hotch, I've heard a lot about you. David Armenta, Spencer's cousin."

"May I?" Hotch nodded in Diana's direction.

Hotch could have smiled at the relief on David's face as he got to his feet. He was clearly out his element trying to calm his aunt. He was no stranger to her moods, but it had always been his mom and Spencer who handled her...but Hotch? He knew Hotch dealt with crazy and hysterical all the time, perhaps he'd have better luck. "I'll just go get my mom."

Hotch gently pulled Diana away from her son, remembering Dr. Wilson's very strict warning about remaining calm and not touching equipment- the way she was laying on cords for example, would be frowned upon. He knew better than to think Diana Reid and calm would be a possibility, but perhaps he could get her away from hysterical. He wrapped his arms around the thin, almost emaciated, woman, hot tears pouring onto his shoulder.

He rubbed her back in soothing circles, his eyes on Reid and hers averted. He felt like he should say something to her but what? I'm sorry? - no, that would require more explanation than she could handle. Technically, he in particular had no reason to be sorry. He had figured out Reid's clue - he had in fact saved her son. It's okay? Well clearly it wasn't. Was there any comfort that he could offer to her? Any hope at all? Normally he would stick to the routine lines of 'We'll find him' or 'We'll find the man responsible.' But they'd found Reid and killed Hankel. There was nothing more to do, nothing more to promise. He kept his eyes on his motionless agent. What would Reid do? Reid would know how to handle her. Well of course he would, if he could handle the situation then it wouldn't even exist. That was rather the point.

"William? Where's Spencer?"

William? So, apparently they'd caught her on a bad day. A really bad day.

He opened his mouth to deny being William, but stopped himself. What would Reid do?

"The doctor called, he said Spencer was hurt."

The answer came to him as easily as 1, 2, 3. He would minimize her pain. He would protect her. "He's just sleeping, Diana. He injured his back, but the doctors fixed him up. You can see him in the morning. Just go to sleep, my dear. You can see Spencer in the morning."

It was eerily silent in the ICU, save for the sound of beeping machines and raspy breathing from behind drawn curtains as Ethel Armenta hastily made her way down the rows of hospital beds, dreading what she was going to find.

"Danny! Danny, wake up!" The voice was groggy and half asleep but unmistakable. Diana.

She pulled back the curtain the nurse indicated. Diana was huddled in a man's arms...sleeping almost peacefully as he ran a hand through her hair. She breathed a sigh of relief and collapsed into a chair on the other side of the bed. "Oh thank God!"

"Ethel Armenta?"

"That's me, and you must be, no let me guess...Agent Hotchner, right?"

"You got me. How did you -?"

"Well I met Agent Morgan in the lobby, you don't look old enough to be Gideon, which leaves - well, you."

"I promise not to tell him you said that."

"Thank you." She inclined her head towards Diana. She wanted to say something else, but couldn't find the words past the lump in her throat. "I was so worried, I -"

"You're welcome."

Apparently words weren't needed, actions were what mattered and right now seeing Diana calm and not raving was everything she could have hoped for and more.

"Danny!" Diana suddenly jumped up from the floor, her frantic eyes darting around her, her eyes landing on her son. "Danny! He's dead! He's dead!"

"No! No, Diana, look. See the screens?" Hotchner turned her face away from her son and towards the screens. "That's his blood pressure, and his heart rate. See? He's not dead!"

"Danny's alive?!"

Ethel tried to keep her face neutral, tried more than anything to keep her chin up and her voice from shaking. It was no wonder that Diana had regressed. She could feel herself becoming lost to the memories, and she wasn't the crazy one. "Yes, he's alive." She was rather proud of herself. She'd only let a couple of tears escape.

Diana pulled herself out of Hotch's arms, reaching for her son. "Danny! Danny, wake up! He's cold, why is he so cold, William?"

"Um, well.."

In any other circumstance, Ethel may have laughed at the look of confusion on the man's face as he turned to her desperately searching for a response that would not cause a panic.

"He just arrived," Ethel answered, her voice shaking and lips trembling. "Diana, what day is it?"

"December 20."

"How old is Spencer again? I always forget his age difference to David." Ethel Armenta was a very good actress, her voice and body language giving away nothing but honest sincerity.

"He's four, such a smart child. Did you know he's already beating William at Chess? Isn't the right, William? He beat you yesterday."

"Only because I let him win." Reid winning at Chess when he was four? He couldn't beat Gideon, well then again neither could he.

"You did not! My little genius won all by himself!"

"If you say so." He had once advised Gideon not to reason with crazy. Well that had been a pyromaniac student with OCD but the same principle still applied.

"Go back to sleep, Dia. You've had a long day. We'll let you know when Spencer and...and Danny wake up." There was no mistaking the trembling voice, which Hotch suspected had just as much do with Danny as it did with Spencer.

Hotch put his arms around Diana. "Let Danny sleep, Diana. You can see them tomorrow. Come here." He outright ignored the eyebrows climbing into Ethel's hairline as he situated Diana in his lap and draped a blanket around her, holding her in his arms. He could only imagine Haley's reaction if a picture of this ever reached her eyes.

Ethel Armenta said nothing as Diana fell asleep against Agent Hotchner's chest. Diana was as calm as she'd been all night and for that she was grateful.

She turned her attention away from Diana and onto Spencer, Dr. Wilson's words ringing in her head and her heart sinking to her stomach. This had to be a nightmare. She reached out to her nephew's check, surprised to find it chilled but dry. From all the pain the doctor had described she had expected him to be grimacing or crying in his sleep, but he didn't look that way. He looked worried, but not in pain, if that made any sense. She sucked in a gulp of air as she felt her jaw starting to shake and her eyes welling up. She rubbed at her eyes.

Stop it, Ethel. You're here for Diana. You can't help her if you loose control yourself. Don't be ridiculous, Diana thinks he's Danny. She won't be alarmed by your tears. "He said you were fine!" she cried. "Dammit!" She bit her tongue in time to stop her nephew's name from leaving her lips. Damn him.

He's alive. Danny's alive.

Those words echoed in Ethel Armenta putting an ache in her heart so deep that it almost felt...real. Stop it, Ethel. You're not the schizophrenic one, you know that's not true. She clung to her nephew's eerily still body, that familiar chill radiating down her spine, having both nothing and everything to do with her nephew's condition.

"You said you were fine!" she cried, not removing her head from his shoulder, squeezing his limp hand.

Aaron Hotchner wrapped his arms around Diana, thankful that she had fallen asleep, thankful that he no longer had to whisper comforting lies. Hope was a double-edged sword, it was sometimes the only thing that family had left and yet the higher you rise, the harder you fall. He always tried to let the family down gently. He wished he had ear plugs, between both of the women's tears his ears felt like they were being assaulted. He felt like an intruder, an unwelcome witness to their grief. It made him feel...dirty. This was private, but he didn't dare wake Diana. He kept his eyes on her pale blue jacket, allowing Mrs. Armenta as much privacy as could be had. He carded his hands through Diana's tangled hair, much as he had for her son last night. Had it really only been a day? When was the last time the clock had crept on by like this?

Derek Morgan was many things, but most of all he was a man of action. Men of action did not sit like lumps on a log waiting for the storms to hit, or in this case: hospital waiting rooms. Normally injuries within the team occurred during a case, applying even more pressure to find the unsub. Normally only one person stayed at the hospital to wait for news. But as Morgan saw Hotch wheel Diana Reid into the waiting room, complete with wrinkled shirt and bed head, he knew without a doubt, that none of them were ready to take on another case.

"So, you've met?" Hotch nodded towards the man sitting across from him with his head between in his hands.

"Yeah we've met," both voices answered with fatigue and apathy. Morgan had no doubt that had the meeting been anywhere else, the young men may have gotten along quite well. They would have spoken of sports and girls, even work perhaps. But there was nothing but an uncomfortable silence of David trying to clear his head and Morgan stumbling over empty words of comfort. He had eventually given up completely.

Hotch sat down next to David, his hands in his lap despite the paternal urge to offer some attempt at comfort. As far as he was concerned, the team was family and that extended to David, but whether or not David shared the same sentiment was doubtful. "I know this is hard."

"You have no idea," was David's predictable response. He offered a weak smile. It was not only weak. It was a front to feign stability where there was none. How many times had he seen the same on Reid's face when he denied the nightmares that had plagued him? These two could have easily passed for brothers.

"You're right." The team, in so much as they were personally involved with this case, had begun to cast themselves in the roles of the victim's family. But in taking the sidelines to watching Diana Reid and the Armenta family fall apart, it was becoming clear just how wrong they were. They were still able to think of the case from a law enforcement view, David had no such perspective. He didn't see a genius agent in that bed. He saw his cousin: no more, no less. "But I know Spencer well enough to know that his primary concern right now would be for his mother. Right now, she thinks that I'm William. She also thinks that Spencer's name is Danny. So I need to know -"

"No!" David jumped up from his seat, seeming to forget his gratitude towards Hotch from the moment of their meeting. "No, you don't! You don't need to know anything!" The feigned smile was gone replaced by a look of loathing.

"David - Mr. Armenta, I don't mean to pry, but if I'm going to help your aunt -"

"Help?" David snarled. "Where was your help when Spencer -?" He stopped mid pace, pulling at his hair. "We don't need your help! Don't get my wrong, I'm glad you calmed Auntie Dia down but-" He shook his head, wiping at the tears he had thought had been exhausted.

"Believe me, we would have helped him in a heartbeat if we had known what was happen-"

"So you didn't even see -?"

"Listen, Mr. Armenta, all I want to do is help now that we are here. I understand if you don't want it, but Spencer needs calm. Diana will not stay calm if she realizes that Spencer is not Danny. We need her to think that he's Danny and to do that, I need to know who Danny is. I don't want to upset your mom. She was in tears when Danny was mentioned. I thought, maybe you could tell me -" He paused, seeing David shake his head, hugging himself against memories that were best left buried.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to pry -"

"Then don't!" David snarled. "You people make me sick, you don't have the right to - I'm not an unsub you can break for information. It's private, okay! I don't want to talk about it, or think about it. Just leave."

"I'm sorry." David was right, this Q&A was beginning to sound too much like an interrogation. "I don't mean to cause you distress, but Diana thinks I'm William and I'm guessing William would know who Danny is."

"Was," David corrected, his eyes on his laces.

"Was," Hotch conceded. Well at least now that explained Ethel's breakdown upon hearing Hotch insist he was alive. "Did Diana have another child or husband before -?" No, that didn't make sense, Ethel's grief had seemed too acute to be coming from someone with no immediate emotional connection.

David shook his head vigorously.

Hotch had a bad feeling in his stomach. He had been hoping that Danny was someone who had died before David was born, someone whose story he would know without any personal memories, but judging by David's distress, he'd been wrong.

"No." His voice was steady again. "No, it was only ever William and Spencer."

The light bulb clicked on in Hotch's sluggish brain. He could have kicked himself for not seeing it sooner. "He was your father, wasn't he?"

David didn't need to answer. He had taken his seat again, the palm of his hand pressing into his temple as if to ward of a headache, no doubt caused by the excess tears.

"I'm sorry."

"Yes, my dad and her brother." David stood to leave, biting his lower lip, his eyes darting between the double doors and his sleeping aunt.

"Go, your mother needs you. I can take Diana to a hotel room with my team. Agent Morgan will stay here, if you need anything, he's your man."

David nodded his assent, disappearing behind the double doors without a word.

With David out of hearing range, Morgan turned to Hotch. "You spoke to Dr. Wilson." It wasn't a question.

"You know the rules."

"I do."

"I'll see you tomorrow, then."

Morgan sat down, his eyes on the door through which David had just retreated. Being left alone with Reid's family was punishment for his failure that afternoon, he was sure of it. Well if that was the case, then it was well earned. The detective may have been the one to spill the story to Reid, but he should have seen that Reid was detoxing, should have been able to hide the knife. Could have, should have, would have...It was no use, what was done was done. Right now his family needed...something. He wasn't sure what yet, but whatever they needed, they would get. He would make sure of it.