Chapter Text
Nothing in Hotch’s career has made his heart drop into his stomach like bursting through the door of that cabin to find it empty.
It doesn’t remain in that number one spot for long, though, because only a few short minutes later, the sound of a gunshot somewhere in the cemetery they’re searching nearly stops his heart. It’s coming from nearby, so nearby that if they find Reid with a bullet in his head, he’ll have to live with the fact that they were just seconds away from saving him for the rest of his life. And he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to live with that.
Beyond a cluster of trees and bushes are two figures, one kneeling and one supine near a partially dug grave. He can’t process the sight—won’t process the sight—as his flashlight illuminates the two men in the graveyard. Hankel and Reid are different enough, even just in shape, that he should be able to tell who fired the gun and who took the bullet at a glance. Even so, it’s not until Reid lifts his head, bloodless face looming out of the dark like a lighthouse beam, that Hotch knows they…
What, won? Saved him? Can he say any of that when Reid is the one who told them where to find him, and then still had to be the one to shoot his captor? When “they’ve” saved Reid from death but not potentially career-ending trauma?
None of these are productive thoughts. Hotch is best with productive thoughts. He can deal with his feelings later. If later never comes, that’s for him to also never deal with.
“Reid?” He kneels by his agent-for-now, grabbing his arm as tightly as he dares when he doesn’t know what is and isn’t injured, ready to physically drag Reid away if need be. He glances down at Hankel, who is dead. He knows that immediately. Not by the hole in his abdomen but by his eyes—there’s something very particular about the eyes of the dead compared to the living. He’s never been able to place it, but he can tell by a glance that something is missing. He swallows and directs his attention back to Reid. “Are you alright?”
It’s a foolish question. Reid has spent the better part of forty-eight hours in that cabin, and they witnessed just a few minutes of the abuse he was subjected to there. God only knows what happened to him when they weren’t looking. Just from a cursory glance, both of Reid’s shoes and one of his socks are missing, and Hotch has to look away from his bare foot the moment he lays eyes on it. It’s alternately purple and red and not shaped quite right. Not that Reid’s face is much better, what with the blood matting his hair to one side of his head, but at least Hotch can see his eyes when he looks there; he can see they have that unplaceable thing that Hankel’s corpse is missing.
Reid’s only answer is a hiccup as the arm that Hotch isn’t holding onto flails out, hand landing on Hankel’s face, trying desperately to close his eyes. It’s harder than the movies make it look.
Enough is enough. There’s no need for Reid to torment himself like this, no need for him to try and gently close the eyes of the man who killed him less than an hour ago, even if Reid can only see and grieve for the man who revived him afterwards. Hotch pulls him carefully to his feet (well, foot. Reid, unsurprisingly, keeps his weight off the one that’s the wrong colour and shape.)
Hotch opens his mouth to ask that foolish question again and promptly gets the wind knocked out of him as he suddenly has an armful of sniffling agent. It’s not a hug, he thinks. Reid has collapsed into him only because he can’t keep himself standing. Hotch has only ever been good for physical support, never emotional. Today should be no different.
Then, Reid ducks his head into Hotch’s shoulder, surely smearing blood and tears and mucus onto his shirt. Hotch can’t bring himself to care, especially not when Reid chokes out a nearly inaudible “I knew you’d understand.”
(I choose… Aaron Hotchner. He’s a classic narcissist. He thinks he’s better than everyone else on the team. Genesis 23:4. Let him not deceive himself and trust in emptiness, vanity, falseness, and futility, for these shall be his recompense.)
Hotch had felt the briefest warmth, then, that Reid trusted the team to pick up on his message. He doesn’t know how to feel now, knowing that Reid had trusted him to pick up on the message. He doesn’t have time to grapple with that, first because they need to get Reid out of there and second because Reid abruptly goes limp, the soft, aborted cries stopping altogether.
Reid isn’t a heavy person, but Hotch still staggers back as he’s suddenly supporting all of Reid’s weight, just managing not to drop him.
“Hotch?” Morgan’s voice cracks over his shoulder. Apparently the sudden dead (please, no) weight has had a very visible effect on him.
With hands he’ll forever deny are shaking, Hotch reaches up and presses two fingers to Spencer’s carotid, even though he can feel him breathing. It’s faster than he would like, but it’s there, and it’s strong. “He’s okay, just unconscious,” he assures his other agent, whose hands hover over Spencer’s back like he’s afraid to touch him.
Gideon steps closer, reaching for one of Spencer’s arms. “Here, I’ll take—”
Hotch doesn’t let him finish the sentence, crouching down so he can hook one arm under Spencer’s knees, careful to keep the other supporting his back, then lifts him slowly. Sleeping people are heavy, and his ageing knees complain as he returns to a standing position, but he doesn’t blink.
A two-person carry is ideal. If a solo carry is necessary (which it isn’t here), the firefighter or pack-strap carry is acceptable. But the firefighter carry feels too impersonal, and the pack-strap carry wouldn’t let him see the rise and fall of Spencer’s chest as he begins to move. It’s not rational, and he’s always prided himself on his rationality, but everything feels like it’s been crumbling for the past few days. This aspect of him might as well join in the fall.
He’s hardly taken a couple steps when he starts to reconsider. He can feel everyone’s eyes on him. Carrying Spencer is one thing—he is unconscious, after all. Carrying him like a child, like his child, is another. And even though Spencer had seemed as close to physically alright as he could be before he’d passed out, who knows if he has injuries that Hotch is aggravating by carrying him so recklessly?
He crouches back down, hearing the team’s footsteps halt behind him. He means to set Spencer down just long enough to switch to the pack-strap carry, but the moment he loosens his grip, Spencer makes a noise he can only describe as complaint and moves closer, previously limp hands twitching against him. The only word Hotch can think of to describe that motion is cling.
That has nothing to do with why he stands back up without moving Spencer into a handbook-approved position. Definitely not. It’s only because Spencer’s movements assure him that he hasn’t done any additional damage to him by carrying him in this way. The way Spencer sighs and presses his face into Hotch’s neck when he starts moving again has even less to do with it.
Hotch is an excellent liar to everyone but himself.
The ambulance comes into view just as Hotch’s arms begin to burn. Reid is light, but he’s an adult man, and this kind of carry is not meant for adult men, especially not for those over six feet tall. Even the waiting paramedics look a bit thrown off as they drop the rails of the stretcher inside the vehicle.
Hotch sets him down delicately like he’s practising for when he’ll tuck Jack into bed every night he’s home. “I—I don’t believe he has any spinal or neck injuries,” he says like that explains it. “He was conscious, standing, and alert not long ago. Not for a very long time, but…”
One of the paramedics nods, wordlessly cutting off his sudden nervous rambling (more characteristic of the unconscious man than the one who carried him to the ambulance, Hotch thinks) and tries to rouse Spencer while the other prepares scissors. “I understand you only witnessed a few minutes of trauma?” he asks when his partner gets no response.
Hotch almost says no. It’s been days of nothing but. Thankfully, he understands before he embarrasses himself that the paramedic is asking about physical injury and whether there could be damage hiding beneath the inconveniently dark red sweater vest. He nods.
They cut it cleanly. It can maybe be repaired later if Spencer can bear the reminder of today. Hotch couldn’t. The white button-up underneath is pristine, aside from a few specks of dried blood on one shoulder that seem to have dripped down from the head injury and dirt caking both sleeves.
(They’d found Spencer by an open grave. Hotch had thought it bad enough when he’d believed Hankel had been digging.)
The paramedic with the scissors looks up. “Would you like to ride along?”
Hotch looks out the open doors of the ambulance. The LEOs they brought along and the rest of the team have gathered there by now. The LEOs stare at the ground like they believe they’re at a funeral, but the team watches closely as if they believe blinking will transport them to one. Hotch isn’t sure what he’ll do if someone asks to switch with him. Morgan is Spencer’s best friend, Gideon is his mentor, and JJ blames herself—he thinks he might be compelled to switch with anyone other than Prentiss, and maybe even then. Because what is he? The boss?
But nobody objects. They all know what he really is.
Hotch nods wordlessly. The doors to the ambulance close—he’s not sure who moves to do it, he seems to be losing time—to give them some privacy while they unbutton Spencer’s shirt, no longer to check for hidden injuries but just to attach the electrodes.
(Hotch averts his eyes. Spencer changes in the stall when he goes to the gym downstairs. He’d want to be seen even less, now. He should leave, he thinks, making no move to do so).
He keeps his gaze turned firmly away as they check Spencer’s heart rate and pulse ox and blood sugar and blood pressure and whatever else they’re supposed to do when somebody passes out, on top of everything Spencer has already suffered. He hears the occasional tsk in response to a reading, but none of the sounds he hears are the ones he’s come to understand mean their victim won’t survive the trip.
The ambulance must start moving at some point, but he’s hardly aware of it, all his focus devoted to staring at some point over the shoulder of the person monitoring Spencer’s vitals. If he looks down, Spencer will be embarrassed when he wakes up. If he looks down, if he admits to caring enough to want to watch, he won’t wake up at all. He’s always being punished for something.
“Do you know what this is from?”
Finally, reluctantly, Hotch looks down. The paramedic is gesturing at Spencer’s injured foot. His gloved hand reaches out to press against the swollen skin, delicate as anything, but Spencer hisses through his teeth and flinches away anyway. Hotch wants to shout over it, but that’s at least a seven on the GCS, and it settles his nerves a little even if he hates to see his agent in pain.
“No, I don’t,” he says, then swallows. “Is it…is it bad?”
(He remembers one of his first cases as lead agent. Kicking in the door to the UnSub’s house just a minute too late. He remembers the teenage girl on the floor, the handle of the knife sticking straight up out of her sternum. She had grabbed Hotch’s forearm as he knelt next to her. “Is it bad?” she’d demanded, pointedly not looking. “Is it bad, is it bad?”
He had told her to close her eyes. She had not opened them again).
Spencer isn’t dead, he reminds himself. Not anymore, at least.
“We won’t know until we can do a proper examination,” the paramedic says apologetically, pressing against the bruising again and then withdrawing when Spencer’s leg twitches again, hands raised like the man on the gurney is awake to see him surrender.
And then, suddenly, he is. Mostly.
Spencer’s eyes open halfway several times before finally opening completely, and even then they flutter. Finally, they stabilise, dazed and tired-looking but open.
“Spen—” he cuts himself off at first like he’s going to switch to Reid. But there are only three people here other than him. Two don’t care what he calls his agent; the third might take comfort in the name. “Spencer? Can you hear me?”
Two slow blinks. Spencer wets his (probably bone-dry) lips. “Haw…Hotch?”
“Yes, good job.” He finds Spencer’s freezing hand and squeezes it. After a moment’s consideration, he rests his other on top and rubs carefully, trying to bring some warmth back into the limb. Georgia is one of the warmer states, but it’s frigid tonight, like even the weather has been frozen in fear for their agent. “Are you alright? What hurts?”
Spencer closes his eyes. For a moment, Hotch fears he isn’t going to open them again and spends the few seconds before they slide open debating the risks of trying to shake him back awake. “M’head,” Spencer mumbles. “Foot. And…ribs.”
Hotch glances up at the paramedic before him, who doesn’t react. Clearly, someone more together than him had informed both him and the one driving about the CPR. “Good, that’s good.”
Spencer scrunches his face up. Is it? The expression reads. He’s clearly still out of it. The confusion twists into a grimace, and Spencer reaches clumsily up to rub at his chest. When his hand comes into contact with bare skin, he gasps and sits bolt upright, looking at his still-clothed arm and grabbing the inside of his elbow.
Hotch lifts his arms, ready to catch him if he topples forward. “Is your arm hurting?” he asks carefully. “Can we see?”
“No!” Spencer says, then lays back down. “I mean, no, no, it’s not hurting. My—my arm is fine.”
It’s very clearly not. Spencer’s breathing is so rapid it whistles between his teeth, and he cradles his arm protectively over his chest. Hiding something. What, Hotch has no idea.
“Reid,” he says, sliding reluctantly back into Unit Chief Hotch. “Where else are you injured? Be honest. I promise you, your life is more important than anything you’re trying to hide.”
Spencer says nothing for a long time. Finally, he gives one jerky nod and slips his arm out of the sleeve so his shirt hangs off his side.
Hotch sucks in a breath. Spencer squeezes his eyes shut as the paramedic lifts his radio and speaks into it.
“Discovered five marks from injection of an intravenous drug.” He speaks lowly, but there’s no privacy in an ambulance. Another voice crackles over the radio, and he answers, “no, they’re fresh. You were drugged while you were being held?”
The first sentence makes Spencer cover his face with his hands. The second, directed at him, makes him nod jerkily.
“Okay, alright? Do you know what with?”
Spencer shrugs. “Made things stopped hurting. Made me dream. Vivid.”
The paramedic relays this, then looks back up at Spencer. “Would you like an ice pack for your foot until we get to the hospital?” he asks carefully.
Spencer flinches at the tone like he knows he’s shifted from agent injured in the line of duty to frightened victim in the paramedic’s eyes, but he nods anyway, letting his hands slip away from his face to rest by his sides while the paramedic retrieves a gel ice pack.
He clearly wants them to believe he’s asleep again when the paramedic turns back around, but when the ice pack touches his swollen foot, Spencer tenses like he’s trying not to yank his leg away. And unconscious people don’t try to do anything.
Hotch doesn’t call him on it. He just watches him, never letting go of his hand, until he really is asleep again and the ambulance has stopped moving.
Hotch doesn’t remember getting from the waiting room to Spencer’s bedside, but it must happen because it’s like he blinks and he’s holding his now-warm hand, waiting for him to stir. The rest of the team is still outside, playing rock-paper-scissors to decide who gets to see Spencer wake up. Most of them, anyway—Prentiss and Gideon were sitting out to let Spencer’s best friend, the person who’d been separated from him, and the woman who’d watched him (temporarily) die figure it out amongst themselves.
The door opens. Hotch turns, expecting to see the winner of their game (in poor taste, maybe, but they have to take levity where they can get it) and tenses when he sees someone on the hospital staff entering. Not because he expects them to be carrying any bad news—his fingers have been pressed against Spencer’s radial artery this entire time, monitoring him even though there’s a machine doing it for him, and he’d know if something was wrong. He has to perform now, is the thing.
There’s no reason to do it in front of the team anymore. They’ve already seen him carry their youngest member like a child to the ambulance—whatever stone-cold image he’s been fooling himself into believing they have of him has shattered. It would have either way tonight, and he’s glad, at least, that it collapsed under the relief of finding Spencer alive rather than the despair of finding his corpse.
The woman entering smiles warmly at him. “Has he woken at all?” she asks, checking monitors. Hotch averts his eyes, dodging the reminder of where he is and what’s happened.
“No. Is that an issue?”
“Not at all,” she says. “His vitals are still strong; it should be any time now. He’s just tired, I bet. Once he’s awake, you can just press that button there and we’ll come to check on him, but we don’t anticipate needing to do anything beyond bring in some ice chips.”
Hotch nods. He’s been told all of this before. And that Spencer’s foot is broken in three places—minor breaks, but painful ones that they can’t give him any medication for until they know what he was dosed with and how it interacts with whatever they plan to give him. It was almost certainly Dilaudid, given what they know about Hankel, but since they also know the man used just about whatever he could get his hands on, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
The only thing he hasn’t been told is…
“Do you know why he passed out?”
The woman frowns. She’s looking at Spencer’s heart monitor when she does, and for a moment Hotch’s own heart jolts, but he settles himself. The reading hasn’t changed. She’s reacting to him. “I was told he woke up not long after,” she says. “He was dazed, but coherent. Was there anything about it that concerned you specifically?”
“No,” Hotch says, which is mostly true. There had been a paralysing moment after Spencer had gone limp where he’d been terrified that he’d missed some grievous injury, had maybe aggravated it when he helped him to his feet. “I’m just…”
“The not knowing,” she cuts him off, not unkindly, nodding. She looks at the man in the bed, who could be simply sleeping if not for the blood down the side of his face. “Two days?”
“Just about.” Or just over. Time has been flowing strangely, Hotch thinks, giving Spencer’s limp hand a quick squeeze to remind himself that however long it’s been, it’s over. The worst part is, anyway. It feels like it’s been a lifetime since they touched down in Georgia, and it feels like it’s been five minutes.
“After two days of that,” the woman says. “I think anybody would be relieved to be safe. I think their body would be, too. All the adrenaline that was keeping him up probably left the moment there wasn’t a need for it anymore.” She smiles softly. “I don’t think there’s anything you need to be scared about, there. But do let us know if you have any concerns. That’s what that button is there for.”
Hotch nods and turns sharply away to hide his face, even though his performance is well and truly shattered. His eyes burn.
He thinks about Illinois just over a year ago. About kicking Spencer in the stomach, which had definitely hurt more than the younger agent had insisted. He remembers thinking, as rhythmic as the repeated kicks, he’ll never trust me again, but he’ll be alive. He’ll never trust me again, but he’ll be alive. He’ll never—
And then, somehow, he had, even though he’d barely trusted Hotch at all when he’d joined. He hadn’t taken it personally—it was clearly instinctual. Stepping a little too close too quickly towards Spencer, raising his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose when the rambling got to be a little too much, watching Spencer flinch a little too hard at the movement. He’d quickly become more aware of how quickly he moved around Spencer, kept his movements slow and unambiguous, wondering who had put that fear of men into him. Thinking he’d never be the one to prove him wrong, but he could at least avoid proving him right.
And then. Apparently, he’s so safe that the trust is instinctual now. Maybe Spencer has terrible self-preservation instincts. Or maybe all the work he’s put into being as unlike his father as he can has paid off.
The door opens again. There’s no privacy in a hospital, either. Hotch wipes his traitorous eyes with his free hand and turns. He’s not surprised it’s JJ in the doorway.
“Hi,” she says quietly. “I think they let me win.” Her face twists, and Hotch finds himself wishing hospital rooms had mirrors so he would know what part of his expression to fix. Not that there’s any point to it after his performance at the cemetery. “Are you…?”
“It’s been a long couple days,” he says, gesturing to the chair on the opposite side of Spencer’s bed. She’s not going to join him without permission, he knows.
Even with permission, she drags her feet. Her hand goes for Spencer’s free one, but it falters halfway, and she drops it into her lap, pinning it to her leg with the other like she doesn’t trust it not to act of its own accord.
“You know that nobody blames you, right?”
JJ looks up and nods.
“And that it wasn’t your fault?”
JJ chews on her bottom lip. “I don’t—I’m the one who—”
“Who tried to stop me from running off.”
Both of them jump in their seats.
“Spence!” JJ says, leaning forward like she means to tackle him before thinking better of it and leaning back. “We were so—I’m so sor—”
“Don’t,” Spencer cuts her off, propping himself up in bed with his free hand. The other slips out of Hotch’s grasp as he sends his boss an apologetic glance. Whether it’s for fainting on him or clearly having been awake with his eyes closed for at least the last minute, Hotch doesn’t know, but he doesn’t fault him for either. “I’m sorry. I made the choice to run off, and I could have gotten you killed too.”
His eyes trace up her arms to the bandages wrapped around her forearm. His hand raises to touch them delicately, face twisting, blaming himself for her pain as much as she blames herself for his.
“Nobody needs to be blaming themselves,” Hotch says before either of them can continue this back-and-forth. “We’re all just happy you’re both okay.”
JJ glances at him, then back at Spencer. Her hand lifts, finally, shakily, and rests on top of Spencer’s. “It’s really…” She swallows. “It’s really nice to see you awake. We were so scared.”
Spencer squeezes. “Me too.”
Hotch doesn’t know if Spencer is talking about fear for himself or fear for JJ if he’d heard the chaos at the barn. It’s possible he didn’t know she was still alive until he saw her at the cemetery. If he saw her before he collapsed, that is.
Before Spencer gets a chance to say anything clarifying, JJ’s phone chimes from her pocket. Sorry, she mouths, slipping her hands away from Spencer to take it out. He shakes his head, a smile twitching its way onto his face as she reads the incoming message.
JJ doesn’t smile. The minuscule beginnings of one that had begun to bloom on her face fall away. “Uh—Morgan got a call from the detectives back at Marshall. They found—” She stops, glancing at Spencer.
“I would like to know,” Spencer says, then glances at Hotch. “Um—if that’s okay?”
“You’re a member of this team, and you’re entitled to information about the investigation. JJ?”
(Hotch wonders if the relief that makes Spencer exhale so bodily has more to do with the first part of his statement than the second. It doesn’t matter—he won’t call him on it.)
JJ swallows. “They found two 100mg bottles of Dilaudid in Hankel’s pocket. One was full, one wasn’t.” The sentence hangs. The implications need no elaboration. “I, uh, I should go get a doctor.” She rises from her chair hard enough that it slides some distance across the floor and flees.
“There’s a—” The door shuts. “—call button.” He should have pressed it when Spencer woke, as instructed. He supposes, selfishly, that he didn’t want to be interrupted.
Spencer starts speaking before Hotch even thinks about asking him what’s going through his head. “Dilaudid is several times more potent than Morphine.”
“Reid—”
“It’s drugstore heroin and he gave me it!”
“Reid,” Hotch says carefully. “He dosed you…five times? Now that they know, there’s medication they can give you to make the withdrawal easier, and hopefully that will be all you need to get past.”
“I only remember three,” Spencer says, nearly a whisper. He looks at his elbow, and when he sees the cluster of track marks, he shoves his arm under the blankets with such force it must have sent pain shooting through his bruised wrists. He doesn’t react to the pain, though, putting his hands in his hair and yanking on it like he thinks he deserves more. “Hotch, I want it,” he sobs.
“Spencer—”
“I’m glad I passed out. If you’d found those bottles with me nearby I don’t—I don’t know what I would have done. I—I want it. It made it go away.”
“We won’t let you,” Hotch says. Spencer only sniffles, so he rephrases. “I won’t let you.”
That makes Spencer look up. His eyes are huge and bloodshot. “And how are you going to do that?” he asks before looking back at the bed.
He doesn’t need to think about his answer, even though maybe he should. “With your foot the way it is, you probably shouldn’t be going back to your apartment immediately, anyway—”
Spencer’s head shoots back up. “Please don’t leave me here. Please—I can’t be in a hospital. I—”
“What? I have a guest room, Reid.”
Spencer blinks at him. Once. Twice. He scrubs furiously at his eyes like it’ll stop the tears that are beginning to pour down his face in earnest. “You have a son.”
“Yes?”
“What if I—”
“Did you not hear what I said? I won’t let you.”
Spencer sniffles and scrubs his face, then nods. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Mm.”
The door creaks open. Morgan’s head pokes around the corner. “Hey,” he whispers. “JJ used her magic powers and they made an exception.” There are several other voices behind the door.
Spencer ducks his head. “I—I’m not exactly at my—”
“They’ve seen worse than tears, Reid,” Hotch says. He tries very hard not to think about the image of Spencer’s lifeless body, still shackled to the chair, on the floor of the shack. There’s no chance because it’s burnt into his retinas, but at least there will be a thousand more, better images of Spencer to replace it with.
The silence stretches. Finally, Spencer nods.
Hotch turns back around to face Morgan, who is politely averting his gaze. “Alright. Tell them to come in.”
The door flies open, and the remaining five members of their team pile into the room, which is meant to hold a maximum of three. There’s very little space for them, especially when factoring in the enormous teddy bear Garcia carries with her, but nobody seems to mind. The overlapping voices are difficult to distinguish, but the message of heart-stopping relief is well communicated regardless.
Spencer tires quickly, but falls asleep smiling this time, even though his face is still red and blotchy. Something in the world rights itself.
Even if Spencer doesn’t know it, he has an army at his side to face whatever is coming.