The Agent and The School Teacher

Chapter Fifteen: I'm Not Haley

After watching a movie we put the kids to bed, Charlotte and Sadie in Charlotte's room, and Jack in Sadie's room. I was in the living room, getting the couch ready for Aaron. I tucked the sheets into the cushions before spreading the blanket over it and grabbing some pillows from the closet.

"Are you sure this is ok?" I asked him. "You're really helping me out here, it doesn't feel right to make you sleep on the couch."

"This is the central point of the apartment," He stated, "If anything happens anywhere in the house, this is the place best suited for me to be able to hear it." I nodded. "Elizabeth, are you alright?"

"No." I said honestly, pushing my hair back with both hands. "I just wanted my life to get back to normal. Just go to school, teach, spend time with the girls but what do I get instead? Nightmares and an ex-husband who, after four years of being gone, decides to make an appearance. I just, what did I possibly do to deserve this?"

"Nothing." He assured me, putting his hands on my shoulders. Much like the night he had stayed in my hotel room, his tie and jacket were gone, his shirt was unbuttoned, and his sleeves were rolled up. It wasn't until this time that I realized that, in this state, he was more relaxed than I had ever seen him. "You don't deserve this."

"Then why do these things keep happening to me?" I whispered. "First the shooting, now Ben, it's like history is repeating itself. Its like every bad thing that's ever happened to me is coming back to remind me that I'm never going to escape it. That, just when I think that I'm happy, and life is good, something happens to bring me back to the times when it wasn't and..." I sighed. "I'm sorry, I'm sure the last thing that you want is me dumping all of my crap on you."

"No," He said, pulling me over to the couch and sitting me down before sitting down beside me. "Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Deflect attention from yourself." I thought back to his profile at the park. "Its like, you always feel that you have a responsibility to be there for the people you encounter, but you never let anyone be there for you. Why is that?" I looked down at my hands in my lap.

"You're the profiler," I said quietly, "so you tell me." He sighed, nodding.

"I think it's because of your father." I furrowed my eyebrows, looking up at him. "I know him, and I don't have to be a profiler to know that he is one of the most selfless men in existence." I nodded in agreement. "But I think, somewhere between adolescence and now, you have confused being selfless with completely neglecting yourself in every regard. That is also why I think you have such negative thoughts about what happened with your husband, because you, Elizabeth Bartlett, who doesn't have a selfish bone in her body, can't possibly understand how someone could choose themselves over their family. That just continues to feed into your self neglect because, since that moment, you tell yourself that you never want to make the same mistake that your husband did, so you never let yourself think about you. Similarly, its possible that you don't trust people to be there for you because the last time you did, he let you down."

"Please stop." I said, putting a hand on his arm.

"I'm sorry-"

"No, its ok. I asked you to do it, but just...please stop." He nodded, sitting beside me silently as I buried my head in my hands.

"Can I tell you a story?" He asked. I sat up, looking at him. I didn't know where he was going with this, but I nodded. "My wife..."

"Aaron..."

"No, its ok. Just listen." I sighed, but nodded again, leaving back into the couch. "She depended on me. Just like Ben I was her husband, I was the father of her children, and she depended on me to be there for her and for Jack. But I let my job get in the way, and much like you, she found herself raising Jack on her own because I wasn't around to help her. So, she left, and I didn't blame her. I'm sure she felt a lot like you do about Ben. But then, she and Jack became targets for an Unsub, and we reconnected, and I told her that we could be a family again, and that i would spend the rest of my life trying to make up for my mistakes. But I didn't get the chance to do that, because that same unsub killed her." I met his eyes and could see the tears forming in them.

"I'm so sorry." I whispered, putting a hand on his shoulder. He shook his head.

"I'm telling you this, because if she were still alive, and we didn't manage to work things out...there is no doubt in my mind that she would be just like you. A wonderful mother, who is selfless, because that is who she is, but also because she doesn't trust anyone to be there for her after the last time, and I am going to tell you what I would've told her in that situation..." He sat up on the edge of the couch, putting a hand on my knee. "Do not let the idiotic mistakes of a lost man keep you from having the things that you deserve." The tears spilled over onto his face, and I found myself instinctively reaching up and wiping them away.

"Don't compare yourself to Ben, Aaron." I said. "He left because he was weak...because he enjoyed his addiction but you...you were committed to a job that was made to help people."

"Does it really matter what the problem was?" He asked. "Either way, Ben and I, we had families that were counting on us to be there and we let other things get in the way of that. Now, I'm not saying that you should forgive Ben, because I know I don't deserve Haley's forgiveness but...what I am doing is I am asking you to let me be there for you. Because you deserve that. You deserve someone that you can count on, and I am not going to make the same mistake twice."  I paused, furrowing my eyebrows. He stopped. "What? What's wrong?"

I stood up, standing beside the fireplace.

"Aaron...you know I'm not her, right?" I asked. He furrowed his eyebrows.

"What are you talking about? Of course I do." I just shook my head, trying to collect my thoughts.

"Its just...the way you're talking about her, it...it almost sounds like you're looking at me as a stand in for the things you wish you'd done for her. That's exactly what you said, actually."

"Well, I didn't...I didn't mean it like that."

"I just want to make sure that you understand that I'm not Haley-"

"I know! Obviously I know that you're not Haley, you could never be Haley! I know!" I jumped as his voice came out loud and harsh. It was clear by the look on his face that he hadn't meant it, but that didn't stop it from upsetting me. Not what he said so much as the fact that he yelled at me. "Elizabeth-"

"Goodnight, Aaron. Thanks again, for staying." I turned, walking up the stairs to my bedroom without another word.