Criminal MInds - Hotch/Garcia - #25 Façade
Title: Axis
Author: avferreira
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Characters: Aaron Hotchner; Penelope Garcia; JJ; Derek Morgan; Emily Pentiss; David Rossi; Spencer Reid
Pairings: Hotch/Garcia
Prompt: 025. Façade
Word Count:
Rating: T
Warnings: Character Death
Summary: They had been friends once; now, she had no idea what they were, or what she wanted them to be.
Disclaimer: None of the characters here represented are mine.
Hotch didn’t say a word when Penelope showed up in the hospital without warning. As soon as JJ called her in tears to tell her what had happened, she grabbed her go bag and took the first flight out of Quantico. Nothing was further from her mind than telling him she was coming.
She sat next to JJ, who leaned against her shoulder. Derek stopped pacing and came to sit on the other side of her. He leaned back against the wall, and covered his face with both hands. She rubbed his knee softly.
Emily came in with four cups of coffee, which she handed out to the others. “Didn’t know you were here, PG, you want mine?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think coffee is a good idea for me right now. I’m already too jittery. Where’s Rossi?”
JJ tilted her head towards the double doors. “He went in there, to try and find out how things are going.”
"It’s been hours,” Morgan said. “And no one will talk to us.”
“It’s a good sign,” Hotch said. “If… there were any complications, they would’ve come and told us by now.”
A few moments later, Rossi came out. One of the nurses had told him the doctors were still operating on Reid, and that was all he knew.
It was another hour before a doctor walked towards them. He told them the surgery was over, but that the damage was extensive, and Reid had lost a lot of blood. Though his condition was stable, there were no assurances as to his recovery, and nothing more anyone could do, but wait and see.
Hotch suggested they all went back to the hotel to get some rest, and Morgan immediately shook his head. “I’m staying until he wakes up. Someone needs to be here.”
Prentiss sat down next to him. “I’ll stay too.”
“You’re right. We’ll get some sleep, and then two of us will come and replace you. Call me if there’s any news.”
Penelope didn’t say a word when Hotch carried her bag into his room. Her arms were around his neck as soon as the door was completely closed. He dropped the bag and pushed her against the wall. It was over quickly, for both of them.
Later, lying in bed next to him, both wide awake, she tried to remember how many times they’d done this, turned to each other for comfort after something bad had happened. Her thoughts kept turning to Reid, and to what might be happening at the hospital, but she forced herself to try and remember.
The first time was right after they caught that creepy psychologist in Portland. Since then, it had happened maybe a handful of times per year. Generally, it was him that came to find her, or called her to meet him. She found it painfully curious that Kevin had always been so fixated on Derek, when Hotch was the one she’s never been able to say no to.
She had only gone to him three times, all in the last year. The first time had been when JJ was taken from them. The second time had been after they were told at the hospital that Emily was dead. The simple fact that she had been the one who had to seek him out on that occasion, should’ve been a red flag telling her things weren’t as they seemed, but she had suspected nothing until Emily came walking into that conference room.
That had been the third time, odd as it seemed. At first, she had been too relieved and too happy that Em was safe to really feel anything else. After Doyle had been killed, though, the anger had risen within her and driven her to Hotch’s door, and he had taken both pain and pleasure with the gratefulness of a penitent man.
Garcia had long rationalised this thing between them. She wasn’t a profiler, but even she could tell the two of them were opposite poles of the axis around which the team’s balance was maintained. There were times when one of them would call her to ask about something, and she knew it wasn’t about the information that they could’ve looked up themselves, but about touching home, and making sure she was there for them, in an unconscious game of Marco Polo.
The team needed them, and to some extent the team needed them to keep a façade of semi-invulnerability. So they would let the team to see the cracks in their masks when things became too much; they allowed one or more of them to comfort them, and bounced back swiftly to their usual personas. And if they happened to bounce back too swiftly, if the wounds had been a little too deep, they would seek out each other’s company and the relief of not being strong.
Still, no amount of rationalisation kept away the guilt. She suspected this was true for both of them. She’d seen it slowly eating away at their relationship. They had been friends once; now, she had no idea what they were, or what she wanted them to be.
Hotch’s phone rang. He reached for it, while she sat up, anxious. “It’s Prentiss,” he confirmed.
He answered the call and listened intently. Finally, he asked, “How’s Morgan?” He nodded. “Take a cab; I don’t want either of you driving tonight. Emily! Do I need to make it an order?”
He hung up and turned to her. Shaking her head, she got out of bed and rushed to the bathroom. She heard him calling Rossi and covered her ears; she didn’t want to hear the words. She kept thinking she should be crying, she should be feeling something other than this wave of panic that threatened to submerge her.
He came into the bathroom, and hugged her. “Penelope…”
She tried to push him away, but he held her firmly. “No. Don’t you dare. Don’t you Penelope me like that makes up for everything.” She gave up on the struggle and leaned against his chest. “Tell me he’s okay; tell me he’s going to be fine. If you could me Em was dead, then you can tell me Spencer is going to be fine.”
“He’s going to be fine,” he said, his voice hollow, his tone mechanical, and the obliging lie pierced through her in a way the truth couldn’t have.
She looked up at him, and the pain in his eyes was her undoing. The tears came, thick and cloying, barely allowing her to breathe. “I want him back,” she said, between sobs, “I want my baby genius back.”
He pulled her closer, and held her, rocking her softly until her sobbing subsided and she could no longer tell if the tears streaming down her face where her own or his. Then, they made their way back to bed. They made love gently this time, kissing and touching, and holding each other until they both drifted off to sleep.
She woke up startled a while later. Carefully, she got out of bed and opened her toiletry bag. She poured herself a glass of water, and was about to pop one of the pills out of its blister when she heard him get up.
He was staring at the pills in her hand, as if he thought they were something more menacing than birth control. “With all that happened, I forgot,” she said, “ but it’s only been a few hours past my usual time, so it should be alright.”
He placed his hand over hers, and kissed her on the forehead. “What if I don’t want it to be alright?”
The anger flared inside her, searing hot. It felt good, pushing away the coldness Em call had filled her with. “Reid is not replaceable!”
He nodded, traced the shape of her face. “I was right behind him, then JJ tripped, something silly, a loose floor block, I think. I stopped to see if she was okay, and then the bomb went off. It was just a few seconds, a few feet.”
She looked at the pack in her hand. This was it, then, the point where she had to decide what she wanted them to be. She leaned against him and closed her eyes and, after just a few seconds, she let the pills slip to the floor.