#ksascriptt

Present Day

21 February

A certain numbness he had learned to recognize had taken over his body. The nine days that had passed felt like an eternity, and each one left Aaron with a new spew of emotions and memories that wrecked him over and over again. He could hardly stomach the sound of your name anymore, the pictures of you on the mantle — it made him feel sick. Every reminder of what he failed to do made him coil in on himself in the hopes he could disappear.

The recollection of every single memory he held of you was a mental photo album, trying to cling to every detail about you. Who would know of the tiny things that made you who you were if you were never there to tell them? It would be as though you never existed. But now it was a stark reminder of the information he held that he couldn’t ever let go of. What was he supposed to do when he smelled a perfume that was similar to yours, or saw records for a band you would rave about? How could he move on from knowing so much about you that he knew your middle school best friends full name and your childhood stuffed animal? There wasn’t a storage unit to shove them, no shelf for those details to collect dust on like the real photo albums you’d kept in the closet.

Aaron had shed more tears in the past three weeks than his whole life before that. And somehow, through that, he had to be a father. He had to be a parent while he tried not to forget your voice. He had to care for Jack while he picked out the suit he would wear at your funeral tomorrow. Nothing could have prepared him for that five years ago, because he never thought it could happen to you. And somehow, he felt a little stupid for that. How could it not have happened to you, in your like of work?

It was dark, somewhere close to four in the morning. He had hardly slept, if at all, busy staring at the emptiness of his bed in the moonlight cast through the window. It hadn’t been made or changed since you’d awoken the morning you died. Aaron hadn’t slept enough to mess it up, but there were always a few more tear stains on your pillowcase than you left. He had touched so few of your things since that day, since the day you left your home to meet death itself. The top dresser drawer was still open, you always forgot to shut that one. The lid of your perfume still sat on your bedside table, even though the bottle was in the bathroom. Because when he was tired, grieved, desperate enough, he could almost think you were still home. But you weren’t. Maybe it was Aaron’s false hope of hearing you getting ready just one more time.

He had yet to return to work, there hadn’t hardly been any cases worth hearing of — not when the only file he could think of was yours. The five other departments working the case somehow gave him enough sanity to stay away from the office. Truthfully, he couldn’t bring himself to come up with a profile or even track down the group that you’d surrendered to. If only he knew that you did it for him.

Aaron sat on the chair in the corner of your shared room — the chair you’d loved so much that he’d been convinced to move it into the bedroom. Now sitting in it felt wrong without you giggling in his ear, saying something about how comfy it was before you sat on his lap to pepper his face with gentle kisses between laughs as he pinched your side for it. The soft fabric made his throat ache as he clutched your sweater that had been absentmindedly tossed on the arm, as though maybe flesh and a beating heart would replace the empty blue sleeves.

Dark eyes turned watery and red at the memory, because that’s all you were now — a memory. There would never be another night spent together, another day with Jack at the park, not even another argument. God, he’d have done anything for just another few moments.

The night had consisted of a lot of arguments, disagreements that nobody could get the breath to calmly dissect. You were afraid, of course, but you were sure of what had to happen. Aaron had begged, pleaded, and yelled for you to just go into witness protection instead of handing your life over to some cultist group of sociopaths. You told him, “Everybody has to do things that don’t seem right.”. You’d decided that this was just one of those things. You’d let Jack sleep in the bed with you and Aaron, snuggled between the two of you as Aaron held you both. Both of you had woken up early, letting Jack sleep as you spoke in the kitchen.

“Honey, please, I can’t- you can’t do this. We still need you,” he tried, choked up and eyes more pleading than they’d ever been. How could he convince you to live just a little longer? Did your lack of fighting back the knowledge of your death say something? Was that what you wanted?

“You don’t get it, it’s… it’s what has to happen, okay? You know I love you and Jack so much,” you replied, eye bags prominent and telling of the fear and exhaustion that enveloped you. But he couldn’t understand why you wouldn’t let him save you, why you didn’t try to save yourself just a little more. At some point, Aaron’s arms supported you more than your own body, his entire being nearly engulfing you. He wished maybe you’d somehow merge together, anything to make sure you would wake up again.

And when he realized that an hour after that conversation that your body had gone cold on the sidewalk, he felt a little nauseous. The man who’d put the bullet through your temple was dead now, but his employer had alerted the team of your whereabouts — he couldn’t bring himself to see you. Tomorrow would be the first time in ten days that he would get to see you in the flesh, even if that flesh was chilled and pale where you lay in an open casket. It never seemed right that a reunion wouldn’t have both people breathing, though.

His mind was racing, incapable of staying focused on one thought regarding you for more than a few minutes. The biggest question he really held was that of why you had been so okay to die, willing, even. With a pinching migraine he’d been unable to rid himself of, Aaron finally let a stray tear slide down his cheek as his eyesight crashed upon the picture of you, him, and Jack together cooking dinner. It was one you’d looked at a thousand times before getting it printed and framed, and now rarely could he gaze at it without a sinking feeling in his chest.

Even with a mental to-do list in his mind, Aaron couldn’t bring himself to move. Tonight the house would be full once more with the Wake, people gathered that all reminded him of you. Rossi and JJ were coming early, noon or so, to help set up (the demand for him to let them help made him smile for the first time since they were alerted you were gone). There was a neatly pressed black suit on the bed, and it seemed simple, he always laid his suits out when he was getting dressed – but the reason for having to wear that suit tonight, and another tomorrow? It was an aching in his throat he found himself unable to press down.

✦ ⎯⎯ㅤִㅤ୭ ୨♡୧ ৎㅤִ ⎯⎯ ✦

It was seven pm, and the house was more crowded than in his worst nightmares. But he found solace in some of the people that came to mourn. Jack rarely left his side, and the team was always there to bail them out of any uncomfortable conversations. The worst conversation that he couldn’t be bailed out, though, was his meeting with your parents. A somber looking woman with a smile kinder than he knew how to handle and a man who couldn’t break the steady stream of tears flowing into a neatly trimmed beard. This was Aaron’s second time meeting your parents (the first was at your wedding), neither them or you two had the time to fly across the country anymore to meet. It wasn’t right, parents should be met over dinner or at holidays, not the night before their child’s funeral where they reminisced in every reflection from the world of you.

A gentle hug had been issued to both of them, Aaron’s heart faltering at the details from you he saw in both of them. Your mothers nose, your fathers eyes, but neither of them could ever bring quite the same joy into his life. Words that could hardly be spoken above a whisper were exchanged before Jack ran back over, excited to meet his grandparents once more — there’d been video calls and letters, but only a few visits. His mind was a powerhouse of emotions right now, standing in the kitchen where he could almost swear you were holding him, humming a gentle tune while you soothed him. It was as though you really were still saying, “It’s okay, Aaron, tomorrow is a new day.” But he knew you weren’t, because why else would every friend and family member see your wedding ring on a chain around his neck?

Tomorrow was in fact a new day, but he didn’t want it to arrive. Seeing your body in a casket surrounded by flowers until you were lowered into the ground wasn’t the new day he was looking for, because it would solidify the fact that you were gone forever.

Aaron Hotchner wasn’t big on breakups. Really, nobody was. But you? God, you hated them — the self deprecation you felt sinking into your bones was enough to break them all apart.

So when Aaron broke up with you, were you surprised?

The signs were all there for a week. It wasn’t a long-term relationship by any means, four months yesterday and a year and a half of friendship, but it stung. When he slowly stopped talking to you, the hand holding and sweet messages dwindled down, you knew what was coming. You knew that either you had to push him away or cling to him for dear life. You chose the latter.

He’d said, “you obviously like me a lot more than I like you,” and, “you don’t deserve to be in a one sided relationship.” So sweet, really, he’d apologized so many times. And you’d smiled along, nodded and told him you saw it coming. Because, that was the truth; but it was also the truth that you’d already spent the past four nights crying over him and would spend the next two weeks doing so as well.

you hadn’t heard jack opening the door and running towards you, but he was quick to be at your side when he saw you. abbot was far more experienced with PTSD episodes, but he knew you already had underlying anxiety, apparently since you were a kid is what he’d figured out. “hey, hey, can you look at me, kid?” the man spoke softly, gentle enough to ease your reeling brain into the words.

“i’m here. you’re okay,” he consoled you, one arm looping around your back as he fell seated to the ground, resting his prosthetic on the ground with a sigh. his hand gently gripped your wrist and pulled it away from where you had clawed through some of the skin on your collarbone.

in some ways, the touch was grounding, comforting. maybe it was what you needed. but that didn’t suppress the choked sobs that tore through your throat. “i- i don’t.. jack, please-“ you hiccuped out, breathing uneven as you shook next to him.

jack knew better. he didn’t stop you from feeling it, not really, but his presence was a welcome cut through the harshness of the episode and the small touch reminded you of what you had now. a connection they had found quickly, that was real. “it’s alright, honey. you’re gonna be okay. you gotta breathe for me.”

his head rested against the railing, eyeing his watch as the end of your shift quickly approached. your body shook harshly and he had to pinch his eyes shut, hating how someone so young, so kind, could deal with the burden that nobody should have to face. but jack let you feel it there, and he knew you would talk after.

✦ ⎯⎯ㅤִㅤ୭ ୨♡୧ ৎㅤִ ⎯⎯ ✦

rlly long rant warning if u don’t wanna read it stop here

hii!! so a few notes. for one, this fic is not quite done yet and has reached nearly 3k words, which for me, is quite a bit. secondly, this has some somewhat dark themes emotionally and will sadly be represented kinda inaccurately. i honestly can’t find the energy to make everything super realistic so im sorry in advance lol. then lastly, because i’m sure some people who have read my avengers fic may ask, ‘why are both readers missing an eye?’ well, that would be because 1. i wanted to and it fits-ish and 2. because its a personal touch i throw in related to my own life!! because i am self indulgent!! (i battled cancer for 6 years and had many eye problems in my right one)