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.
Please, read and review. Or at least vote on this story. I know you’re out there…

The Long, Lonely Road Ahead

Chapter Sixteen

Aaron looked floored.
“You have children? You said you weren’t the type to have children. You told me…”
“I know what I told you. And I’m not. I wasn’t then either. I was fourteen for fuck’s sake! I was married, against my will, to a man twice my age, who raped me repeatedly until I got pregnant. Then I was kept from harming myself until I gave birth. And then he did it again. I couldn’t conceive immediately the second time, or I might have more than two kids! Lucky me,” I muttered. “When my Dad rescued me from the compound, I didn’t want to think about my daughters. I hadn’t bonded with them or anything, anyway. Mothers aren’t allowed to bond with their children in the Militia.”
“That’s barbaric,” Prentiss said. Pen was just staring at me, open-mouthed, tears flowing down her cheeks.
“Yeah well, it is what it is. When I was in my early twenties, I got a letter from my mother, asking me to come visit her. We would meet in a small town near the compound. I’d take a hotel room, and she and the girls would come visit me there. I don’t know how she smuggled them out. Sometimes I snuck in. It’s not that hard, as long as you’ve got someone on the inside. She told my girls that I was their sister, that she was their mother. It was just easier.”
“And you’ve been back… how many times?” Morgan asked.
“I go back for a week, once a year. I’ve been doing this for… oh, probably fourteen years.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep.” I sighed again and chewed on a cuticle.
“Hold on…” Aaron said, putting a hand to his temples. Yep, he’d figured it out. Damn. “If you were married at fourteen, because the militia marries girls to older men at fourteen…”
“Sometimes younger,” I interjected. Prentiss made a disgusted noise.
“And your daughters are… what? Twenty and…”
“And about eighteen. Samara will be nineteen in a couple of months.”
“Then they’ve been married off already, I assume?” Aaron looked at me, astonished.
“Yes,” I sighed again. This made me exhausted. “To answer your unspoken question, I’m a grandmother at the ripe old age of thirty-five.”


Morgan let out a laugh. “You’re kidding me.”
“Nope.” I spread my hands wide. “I’ve got three grandkids already, and I’m sure I’ll have more soon. Last I heard, Ruth was pregnant again.”
“Hotch…” Morgan said, and it was clear he was dying to say something, but the look on Aaron’s face was enough to stop him. Aaron stood up and walked out of the room. I put my forehead on my hands on the table. I needed a nap. Rossi got up and left the room, heading after Aaron. I felt a hand on my back.
“Terra…” Pen said, rubbing between my shoulder blades. “There’s more.”
“How can there possibly be more?” I asked, my voice low.
“We think your mother is still alive,” Reid said, the remote now in his hand. A picture of my mother appeared on the screen. “This was taken two months ago by the DHS, at least four months after Darrel Hollowfield left the compound.”
“What?” I sat up, staring at the screen.
“She’s alive, Terra,” Pen said. “I’m not saying you should go visit her or anything, but she’s alive. That piece of scum Darrel didn’t kill her.”
“But he told me… If he wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him,” I said, swearing under my breath.
“Who were you looking for online today?” Morgan asked me again. “We know you were looking for something… or someone when you went online today.”
“I wasn’t looking for anything,” I said, looking him in the eye. “I was just surfing the ‘net.”
“Terra…” Pen began.
“Pen, you didn’t.”
“I did. Keystroke for keystroke.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“Shit.”
“What’s going on?” Reid asked.
“Then you know what I was looking for.”
“I do. And you didn’t find it.”
“I didn’t. That doesn’t mean I won’t.”
“What is going on?” Morgan demanded.
“Tell them, Terra. It’ll be easier if you just level with them.”
“No.” I sat back and folded my arms across my chest. Aaron and Rossi came back at that point. Morgan stood up in frustration.


“We can have you arrested,” he snapped at me. “But we don’t want to have to go that far. Just tell us what you were looking for.”
“What do you think I was doing?” I replied.
“We think you’re searching for information on these three men,” Aaron interjected, the remote now in his hand. Three photos came up on the screen. “Matthew Shaum, your husband. Franklin Rosewell, one of Josiah’s chief lieutenants. And Josiah Herald, the leader of the Blackhawk Militia.” His dark eyes bored into me and I shuddered. “I’m assuming your intention is to find them outside of the compound, hunt them down like animals, and kill them.”
“That’s an interesting assumption.”
“Do you deny it?” he demanded.
“Why should I deny it? Don’t you want these men to be punished for what they’ve done?”
“What have they done? Tell us,” Rossi said, his voice reasonable.
“What I want is for them to be brought to justice, yes,” Aaron said. “What gives you the right to act as judge and jury?”
“I’m the victim here! Me and my children, and my mother… I’m protecting my family! Wouldn’t you protect Jack if he’d been abused for years by a megalomaniac? You can’t tell me that if Hayley took Jack to live with a cult you wouldn’t do everything within your power to get him back, to make the bastards pay for what they’d done to him?!” I shouted.
“What did they do to you?” Prentiss asked. Aaron stood, his eyes locked with mine and I knew I was right. No matter how much he believed in justice, he would do anything to protect his child. Anything.
“What didn’t they do?” I asked, sliding back in my chair. I opened the can of cola in front of me and took a sip.
“What we need, Terra, is proof of the atrocities going on within the compound. Up to this point, we’ve had no hard evidence of what’s been going on there for decades. No one ever talks about it. But you… you can tell us what went on. You can help save your daughters, and their children. You can help save all of the innocent people who are within the compound’s walls. Don’t you want to help them?” Rossi asked. I sighed.
“Of course I do. But what the hell can I do? Josiah and the rest will just deny anything I say. It’s my word against the word of a bunch of brainwashed sheep,” I said, swigging some cola.
“You need to eat something,” Aaron said, pushing my sandwich towards me. I pushed it back.
“I’m not hungry,” I muttered and he shook his head. “What did they do to me? I’ll tell you, but I know it’s not going to do any good.”
“Just tell us. We’ll do what we can from there,” Prentiss said.