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 Eight

I sat in that little room for about five hours, whiling away the time by counting things, opening the boxes and bags and poking through them, and taking little cat naps when I was sleepy. Being a hostage is terrifying coupled with long periods of boredom, it turns out. I thought about the time I’d spent that morning with Aaron and let myself relax, as if I weren’t in imminent danger. And then things changed. I heard a couple bursts of gunfire, followed by a lot of screaming, and then swearing and shouting. More gunfire. I stood up in my closet, my ear pressed to the door, trying to hear what I could. More screams, more gunfire, and then quiet. A set of footsteps running down the hall. I jumped back from the door when someone rattled the doorknob. Darrel appeared in the doorway, his shirt and pants spattered with blood.

“Come on,” he said, hauling me out of the storage room by my arm.
“What’s going on? What have you done?” I asked as he dragged me back into the main store.
“You’re going to save me,” he said, his eyes wild. “You’re my ticket out of here.” I looked around the store. The four men he’d brought with him were dead, gunned down, I could only assume, by Darrel himself. Of the twenty or so hostages they’d taken, five were dead and the others were injured in some way.
“What the fuck did you do?” I gasped and he turned on me.
“Shut up! Shut up! I didn’t do anything! It wasn’t my fault! Ahmed started shooting and then that guy grabbed his gun…” He pointed to my barista friend, now dead on the floor, his body riddled with bullets.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit… Darrel, you’re a complete fuck-up, y’know?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re a complete idiot.”
“Don’t call me that!” he yelled, shaking me and then throwing me against the coffee bar. He raised his gun and I charged him, knocking him backwards and onto the ground. He dropped his gun when I hit him around the middle, and we landed with me on top of him. I started punching him in the face and the neck, his hands up to try and stop me completely ineffectual.

“You! Are! A! Complete! Fucking! Retard!” I yelled at him as I punched him. “You killed my mother, you asswipe!” I turned to the last remaining Starbucks employee. “Go! Get the fuck out of here! Get everyone out of here!” He stared at me for a second, and then ran to open the door. Anyone who could walk helped anyone who couldn’t out the front door while I wrestled with Darrel. While I’d been distracted momentarily with saving the hostages, he’d grabbed my hands and head-butted me in the chest. I fell back and off of him, and he landed on top of me. I put up my legs to push him off, and got him in the balls, but he didn’t even seem to notice.

“You ungrateful little fuck!” he screamed. “Everything I did, I did for you and your bitch of a mother!” He had his hands around my throat and I flailed at him, trying to get him off of me, but the world was going grey around the edges. I couldn’t breathe… I was losing it… got to get him off… couldn’t move… I heard a loud bang and then I could breathe again, suddenly, but Darrel fell on top of me.

“Get off, get off, get off!” I screamed, pushing at him, and he rolled off of me. That’s when I noticed the bullet hole in the centre of his forehead. “Shit, shit, shit!” I scrambled backwards, away from him, and turned to bolt, when I saw Aaron Hotchner standing behind him, his gun still out where he’d used it to kill Darrel. “Oh, thank god!” I exclaimed, and flopped back down on the floor, suddenly exhausted.

“That was Darrel Hollowfield, I presume,” Aaron asked.
“Yep,” I said, rubbing at my throat. “Thank you so much for arriving just in the nick of time. I was just about dead there.” He bent down and helped me up, holding me closer than a FBI agent rescuing someone from a hostage situation probably should.
“I’m not going to ask you anything I probably should ask you. Not right now, anyway. But we will have this conversation and you will answer my questions,” he said, as he walked me to a nearby ambulance. He looked me in the eyes, his face incredibly serious and not a little angry. “There are things I should have known going into both this situation and this relationship, and I will want answers. Is that clear?”
“Um, sure,” I said, sitting down on the edge of the ambulance.
“Good. Take care of her,” he told the paramedics and then he left. I let the paramedic ask me some questions about my physical condition, and then he cleaned up my hands and face.
“You’re going to have some serious bruises, particularly around your windpipe,” he told me, “and we have to take you to the hospital to make sure there’s no internal damage.”
“I’m fine. I also don't live here, and I don’t want the hassle of having to deal with your medical system,” I told him. “So I’m not going to the hospital, thanks anyway.”

Pen appeared at that point and she hugged me fairly thoroughly.
“I had to tell them about your past,” she told me as she hugged me. “I’m sorry.”
“Naw,” I said. “It was bound to come out sooner or later. This is just sooner.” I laughed. She raised her eyebrow at me and I shook my head. “You know I was seeing Jesse before, right? Well, I didn’t have to tell him anything, because he was a typical clueless male.” Dr. Reid came wandering up while I was talking to Pen, and he interrupted.
“Typical clueless male?” he asked.
“Her last boyfriend,” Pen told him. He nodded in understanding.
“He never really asked me any questions. I mean, I’ve kept up my skills, eh? I hunt sometimes, and practise my hand-to-hand at the gym, but he just thought I was into what I was into. He didn’t ask. Two and a half years together, and he just didn’t ask.” I shook my head ruefully.

“But Hotch doesn’t need to ask,” Pen said softly and Reid frowned.
“Hotch? What’s he got to do with this?” Reid asked. Pen rolled her eyes.
“No, Aaron didn’t need to ask, even though he did ask and I lied to him. He knew I was lying. Damn behavioural analysts,” I said and Reid looked at Pen, then at me.
“Ooooh,” he said, finally cluing in.
“Talk about clueless males,” Pen said, patting his hand. “Since this whole thing started, he’s done a couple of searches on you and your mother.”
“I assume he’s found out more than I would like,” I said.
“Not as much is out there as you might think,” Pen said, and I raised my eyebrow at her. She winked and I smiled.
“Ah,” I said.
“I missed something,” Reid said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Pen told him.
“Mom’s dead, by the way,” I told Pen and her face crumpled.
“Oh, Terra, I’m so sorry,” she said, hugging me again.
“Darrel killed her,” I added and she pulled back. “I’m so incredibly glad he’d finally dead.”

“So Darrel Hollowfield was your stepfather?” Reid asked.
“He wasn’t really, no. He was just a guy my mother shacked up with for a while. She’d leave him sometimes and go with some other guy, but eventually he’d convince her to come back to him and she’d go.” I shrugged. “About six months ago, she died. Now he didn’t tell me outright that he killed her, but he certainly implied that he finally beat her to death. If Aaron hadn’t killed him…”
“He would have killed you,” said Agent Prentiss, as she joined us. “You’re one of the few hostages who has any idea what happened in there. The few who are left alive are in shock. They don’t understand why Hollowfield took them hostage in the first place.” She looked at me closely. “He tortured them, didn’t he?”
“Hmmm, yes. He was a sexual sadist, the fucking bastard,” I said, rubbing at my throat. It still hurt like crap. “He loved to make people so scared they shit themselves, and then he’d rape them or make them suck him off, or whatever he wanted.”
“Are you okay?” Prentiss asked.
“Um, no. Of course not,” I said, looking at her like she was nuts. “I mean, I will be, but not right now.”
“Of course,” she said. “Do you think you could come and give a statement?”
“Sure,” I said with a sigh. Another long night.

I talked to the police and to the FBI, and gave statements to anyone who asked who wasn’t linked to the media. The media were all over the place, but I hid from them as best I could. I didn’t want my face plastered all over the news and linked to Darrel Hollowfield in any way. I sat on the curb, a blanket over my shoulders, a cup of hot tea slowly going cold in my hands, and snow beginning to fall gently over everything. I was freezing, but I didn’t seem to be able to get up and deal with it. Hours after the ordeal was over, the sun was beginning to come up and Pen came to get me.
“We’ve got to go home, Terra,” she said, helping me to my feet. “Come on, my car is over here.”
“What about Aaron?” I asked, as she lead me to her car. She helped me into the passenger seat and then got in herself.
“Hotch isn’t going home any time soon, Hon. He’s got a lot of cleanup to do. I’m sure he’ll call you tomorrow,” she assured me as she drove us back to her place. Once there, she set me up on her couch, covered in blankets and wearing a pair of her fuzzy socks to keep my feet warm, and then she went to bed herself. She fell asleep quickly—I could hear her soft snoring coming from the other room. I, on the other hand, had a hard time wiping away the images from the ordeal I’d just been through. I could still feel Darrel’s hands on my throat as he choked me, see his sneering face when he told me my mother was dead… taste his cock in my mouth. I started to sob, and just when I thought I was going to cry forever, I finally fell asleep.