Retribution, A Spencer Reid/Criminal Minds Fanfic

Chapter 47. Hide and Seek

Hotch felt raw inside

The day had accessed too many feelings that he normally kept under lock and key. Traveling the distance from joyful elation to pain-ridden abandonment had exercised emotional muscles he’d left to atrophy for far too long. His heart was ravaged and tired. It just made it that much harder to exercise control and concealment. Those were his weapons of choice that let him stifle the howling child within. Those were the source of his “I’m okay” mantra that helped him deny his pain.

But these two older men, watching him with such steady, sympathetic eyes, knew him too well. They wouldn’t let him hide any more.

The child resented them for taking away his last safe refuge…the silence of the past.

The adult understood their tactics, but was ashamed to admit how much damage still lingered inside him.

“I’m sorry, Aaron. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” It was a gentle, soothing croon accompanied by the protective pressure of Rossi’s arms. The elderly doctor saw it as love, but with a large portion of paternal guilt mixed in.

These two are both damaged in different ways. He sighed. That’s what happens when something goes awry in the timelines. That one, small wrinkle that put the death of one son and the destruction of the other’s spirit in some anomalous, temporal juxtaposition. The doctor shook his head at his own choice of words. Simply put, a child who was loved and wanted died. The body wasn’t strong enough to continue. But the soul felt the parents’ desire for a son and wouldn’t depart. THAT is the power of love. At the same time, the child who was unwanted was cursed with a body strong enough to survive his father’s abuse. I believe his spirit screamed its last and fled at the moment the other soul was seeking to stay.

Poor boy; he couldn’t know what he was getting into. NOT the family that wanted a son. It wasn’t the loving father who grieved that awaited him; it was the monster. Poor boy.

The doctor had no idea what, if any, pervasive force moved the workings of such things, but the longer he lived, and the more time he had to perceive the patterns, the more he believed in some enormous blueprint to which all existence conformed. Even being able to detect a hint of such a thing baffled and humbled him. It also made him periodically reconsider his decision to grant himself the abnormal longevity he’d attained. He felt like an observer of the master plan, but no longer a participant. Sometimes he wondered if he should allow himself to rejoin the current that moved between life and death and, maybe, life again. But then he’d encounter something truly marvelous; like this man’s soul that shattered and reformed itself, and he’d have no choice. He had to stick around to see what happened next. Often, what happened next couldn’t really be grasped in one lifetime. So the doctor stayed for another and another…. And so it went.

No ‘maybe’ about it with these two, though. Some glitch in the machinery separated them. Still, they managed to connect. Such a strong bond.

xxxxxxx

Rossi wished Aaron were smaller. His father’s heart wanted to scoop him up and hold him with a protectiveness the ferocity of which would give Aaron visceral confirmation of his father’s love and regret. But this wasn’t a child he held. It was a man who’d grown taller than himself; a man who held a position of authority and respect. A man who was strong enough and tough enough to be kind to others, but not himself.