The Long, Lonely Road Ahead

The following events take place after Hotch’s divorce but prior to JJ’s giving birth.

Yes, I know it’s a Mary Sue in some ways, but it was fun to write, so I’m throwing it out there for you to read and see what you think.

The Long, Lonely Road Ahead

Chapter Ten

Half an hour later, I was showered, dressed, and my hair was dried and put up in a knot on the top of my head. I’d managed to retrieve my duster from the wreckage of the Starbucks yesterday before Pen and I had left, so I put it on, grabbed my purse, and with a kiss on Pen’s cheek, I went outside to meet Aaron. He was waiting in his SUV outside, so I hopped in and we drove away.
“Hi,” I said, as he pulled away from the curb.
“Hi,” he replied. I wanted to kiss him, but he seemed very serious and withdrawn, so I refrained. We drove in silence.
“Where are we going?” I asked after a moment.
“We’re going to my house, if that’s okay.”
“Oh, yes,” I said, and he flinched a bit at the lust in my voice.
“We’re just going to talk, Terra,” he said, his voice flinty. I cringed a bit inside, but tried not to feel rejected. “I think there are some things I need to know before we go any further.”
“Okay,” I said in a small voice. I turned to look out the window as we merged onto the freeway. The world looked a little empty and cold today, I didn’t know why.

When we arrived at his house, he led me into the kitchen and gestured for me to sit at the table.
“No Christmas tree?” I asked him.
“No. I don’t have time for a tree. And with Jack with his mother, there’s really no point,” he said. “Tea? Or coffee?”
“Tea’s fine. Orange Pekoe would be great.”
“Coming up.” He moved around the kitchen, making tea and I watched him as he worked. He was wearing a sweatshirt that said “FBI Academy” on it in yellow on navy, and a pair of faded blue jeans. It almost didn’t look right on him, I was already used to him in a suit. He placed a cup of tea in front of me, along with a litre of milk and a bowl of sugar. “Or did you want honey?”
“No, this is fine,” I said, adding a little milk to my tea. I sipped carefully. He sat opposite me and sipped his black tea.
“So,” he started.
“So,” I said.
“Did Garcia tell you about the connection we made between your tattoo and that of Darrel Hollowfield?”
“She did.”
“When did you get your tattoo?”
“What you really want to know is what’s my connection with the Blackhawk militia and do I still have a connection?”
“Yes.”

“When I was six, my mother left my father and moved my brother, Brian, who was just a baby at the time, and me to Northern California. My parents had always been a bit rebellious… paranoid, even… but she met Darrel at some event they’d gone to and I guess she fell in love. We lived in the compound until I was seventeen, at which point my father, who had spent all his life savings hiring a competitor, managed to stage a rescue. I was really ready to go at that point, even though the militia and the compound were all I knew. They tattooed me when I was twelve, when I earned my sharpshooter certification.”
“When you were twelve?”
“I’d been trained with guns, knives, whatever was at hand, since I was little. I knew how to use them, clean them, take care of them… and I was trained in hand-to-hand as well. At twelve, all members of the militia take a test and if they pass, they get branded. It’s a rite of passage.” I shrugged and sipped my tea. “When we left, I never looked back. I was so damn glad to get out of there.”
“Why? What happened to you there? Garcia told us that Darrel, your mother’s boyfriend, abused you…”
“Yes.” I sipped tea for a bit. He didn’t push, but just looked at me from across the table, his face so very serious. “What is you want to know, exactly?”
“Did he sexually abuse you?”

“Yes. He did pretty much everything a man can do to a girl from the time we arrived at the compound until the day I could fight back—when I was fifteen. And he wasn’t the only one. My mother would sometimes leave him to follow some other guy, and they were always the same. They would drink, beat her, and then turn to me or Brian. Sometimes both.”
“My god. I’m so sorry, Terra.” He looked shocked and almost grief-stricken.
“In your line of work, I’m sure you’ve seen worse,” I said and he shook his head.
“I’ve seen all sorts of horrific things, you’re right, but it’s all awful. There’s no way to measure the crimes against one person against the crimes against someone else. What happened to you was a disgusting abuse of trust by an adult towards a child who depended on him for everything. He robbed you of your innocence and your childhood, in more ways than one.”
“Hey, I’ve had the therapy, don’t worry about me. I’ve come through some seriously dark days and I’m still here, eh?” I shrugged. “Did Pen tell you he killed my mother?”
“What? No!” He seemed even more shocked, if that was even possible.
“Yeah. He said it happened about six months ago.”
“That was probably the stressor that set him off,” Aaron mused for a moment. “He said he killed her?”
“He said that she couldn’t hack it any more. That she was a pathetic bitch. And that when she died, the militia threw him out.”
“That would do it,” he said. “And he went from abusing one or two victims, to needing many victims in order to feel powerful.”
“He loved power,” I said with a sigh. “He was such an asshole.”

“I’m surprised that you’ve come through this the way you have,” he said, finishing his tea and getting up to put the mug in the sink.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, many victims of sexual abuse either hate to be touched, or they become incredibly promiscuous,” he said, leaning against the counter. “But you seem to be neither.”
“I’ve had my phases,” I admitted, “but my father was really good with me and he helped me enormously. He really helped both of us get through the darkness and heal.”
“He sounds like a good man.”
“He was. He died last year of cancer.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You’ve had a lot of tragedy in your life.”
“Mmm, true. I call them my Nietzsche moments. You know… Whatever doesn’t destroy me makes me stronger?”
“That makes sense,” he said, nodding. “You’ve kept up your training?”
“Yes. I like the feeling of being in control, so I work at the hand-to-hand stuff a lot. It’s my gym routine these days. I’ve got this ex-Navy Seal I work out with. He’s pretty good, but he usually can’t take me.” I smiled at the thought. “And I like to hunt sometimes. I never usually shoot anything—I use a bow and arrow for that—but I like the stalking part. And I own some guns. In Canada, unless you hunt, you have to have a permit just to take your gun to the range, eh?”
“I know. It’s not a bad idea,” he said. “Now that Darrel’s dead, maybe you don’t have to be so strong any more.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I’m not trying to analyze you, Terra, but it seems to me that you’ve been keeping all of this going because you were making sure you could never get hurt by Darrel again. With the possibility that he could, at any time, come back into your life, you made sure you would always be able to defend yourself against him. But it finally happened, and now he’s dead. And you fought back against him, just as you meant to do.”
“But I lost!” I cried out and the sound of my voice seemed to echo through the room. “I couldn’t take him down!”
“You would have, if you hadn’t been distracted with saving other people. You were willing, in the end, to sacrifice yourself for a room full of people you’d never met,” he said, his dark eyes soft.

“I didn’t mean that at all! I thought I could do both—get them out and kill Darrel. But I couldn’t! I couldn’t! He got the jump on me and if you hadn’t come and shot him, I wouldn’t be here now! He was going to kill me, Aaron!” I started to cry. Aaron took me in his arms and held me close while I sobbed. “I can still feel his hands on my throat… Oh my god, he was going to kill me. I knew he was going to do that someday. And he almost did!”
“But he didn’t. I’m here for you, Terra.”
“I know, you saved me. You saved me, Aaron. I couldn’t do it. I wanted to kill him, but he was too strong. He was always too strong,” I sobbed, and he held me, rocking me gently.
“Shhh, it’s okay. It’s all over now.”
“Geez,” I laughed and sobbed at the same time. “You’d think after ten years of therapy and thousands of dollars spent, I’d be better able to deal with this kind of shit.”
“You never know what’s going to come back up when you go through something as traumatic as this,” Aaron said. He sighed. “I see it all the time. You were held hostage, which is one thing, but the man who held you hostage was your abuser for years, and that’s something else altogether.”
“I know. Merry Christmas to me, eh?” He laughed, but it sounded bitter. “Well, you got what you wanted. Was there anything else you needed to know about me?”

“When you got into the car this morning, you were… well, fairly flirtatious.”
“That’s not a question,” I told him, wiping my tears away. I found a tissue and blew my nose. “What’s the question?”
“I’ve got a couple of days off this Christmas. Would you spend them with me?” he asked, and I almost laughed, he looked so earnest.
“I’m seriously damaged goods, Aaron. Everything you’ve just heard should tell you to stay the hell away from me.” He stood up and went back to leaning against the counter, looking at me very carefully. There was a pause as he gathered his thoughts.
“I think,” he began, his eyes very dark in the dim light of the kitchen, “that we are all damaged in some way. I’ve done this job for years now, and I’ve seen the very worst that humanity can do to each other. I have to get into the heads of the men, and sometimes women, who commit the most horrific crimes any person could possibly imagine. Am I affected by what I see? Of course I am. I understand what it means to have been abused as a child. I’m not undamaged either. All I can say, Terra, is that maybe we need to reach out to each other as humans who feel, strongly, and who can care for each other in some way. We need that connection to each other… and maybe, just maybe, it might help to counter some of that damage.” He held out his hand; I stood and took it. I looked into his eyes and then we kissed.
“I’m willing to try if you’re willing to try,” I whispered and he smiled slightly, then bent to kiss me once again.
“Good,” he said. Still holding my hand, he led me out of the kitchen and up the stairs to the bedroom.