Laryngitis Chapter 6
"So," Morgan stretched his legs across Garcia's pristine coffee table, "How do you think Mary Kelly's doing with Professor Jacqueline von Ripper?"
"I bet she's giving him the time of his life," Prentiss dipped her spoon into a half-gallon carton of chocolate-green pea ice cream.
"I hope she makes him dance, like a little whore over hot coals," JJ giggled vindictively, relishing her position as The Wickedest in the absence of Mary Kelly.
"Samantha?" Rossi gazed in adoration at Garcia, "Are you really Samantha?"
Garcia shied away from the discombobulated old man. She shivered in her armchair by the fire. She was feeling unsettled, her doubt and fear evident all over her taut anxious face. She could not bring herself to partake of the mirth in her living room. Every few seconds, a wave of guilt washed over her. No sooner would she repel one wave than she would find herself drenched in another. There was the guilt of drowning Morgan with toilet water and blasting Prentiss with roadkill. There was the guilt of turning Rossi into a blubbering idiot and invading JJ's intimate home life. Most of all, there was the guilt of betraying her dominant partner. As evil as he had become and as deranged as she had become under his influence, the submissive accomplice still loved and feared her dominant master. She missed him, he of the many names and many identities. When he was around, she felt freer to indulge her true self, be it Penelope or Garcia or Jane or Beezlebub or R. Sammy or d20.
"Are we sure she's not dangerous?" Garcia looked to her colleagues for reassurance.
"She's a well-respected criminology professor," Prentiss replied. "Newly tenured, loads of publications, rising star in the field...How dangerous can she be?"
"Hey Baby Girl, don't you worry about it," Morgan comforted Garcia. "Mary Kelly brought this down on himself. Let's look at it this way. We might be doing him a favor here. He might end up liking Professor Jacqueline von Ripper. We already know that she likes him. This might be just the spark they need to get things going between them. If all goes well, Mary Kelly could be reeling in a Halloween Honey to cuddle up with, if you know what I mean..." he wiggled his eyebrows lasciviously.
Prentiss tried to shoot Morgan a frown of disgust, but couldn't resist laughing in the middle of it. JJ chortled through a mouthful of chocolate-covered bacon. Rossi gazed in adoration at Garcia.
"What kind of freak writes 'XoXo' on her business cards?" JJ asked, shaking her head at the unprofessionalism of Professor Jacqueline von Ripper. "She scribbled all kinds of personal information on it too. I'm not talking about her home phone number and home address. Look," she pointed with her little finger, "She even wrote down her measurements!"
"Really? Let me see!" Morgan snatched the card out of JJ's fingers. "36-24-36...Go Reid!" he genuinely cheered on his erstwhile friend and current retaliatory target, forgetting for the moment about the atrocities of Master Mersenne.
"Give it here!" Prentiss grabbed the card from Morgan's fingers. "Oh wow...Go Reid indeed..." she murmured dreamily, suddenly struck with numerous carnal visions about the Page.
"'XoXo'," Rossi read from the card, shocking his colleagues with an emergence from the robot-induced trance. "I swear I've seen this handwriting before. Where have I seen this handwriting before? I know where I've seen this handwriting before!" he lurched up from the couch. "It...It...It looks exactly the same as the handwriting on the taunting notes from the recent Beltway murders! It's got the same spiral patterns at the ends of the curly descenders on 'g', 'j', and 'y'!"
"The Beltway murders?" JJ screeched, a horrible realization dawning upon her just as it was dawning upon all her colleagues. "The murders of professional young men, in which the victims were tortured with surgical instruments before their blood and cerebrospinal fluid were drained and their hearts and brains were ripped out of their bodies?"
"Oh God...Oh God...Oh God!" Garcia screamed in panic. "We sent an UnSub after Reid! We sent an UnSub after Reid!"
"Shit!" Morgan and Prentiss yelled together. "It can't be! It is! We sent an UnSub after Reid!"
"Come on, what are we waiting for?" Prentiss cried, failing to compartmentalize a single intrusive emotion. "We have to go! We have to help Reid! Now!"
"C'mon, Baby Girl, you know where Reid's new apartment is," Morgan guided Garcia out the front door. "Calm down, Sweetie, you have to give us directions."
"OK...OK...Breathe, Garcia...Calm down, Garcia...Breathe," Garcia coached herself on the way to Morgan's SUV.
The other members of the BAU piled into the back as Morgan turned the key in the ignition and Garcia pointed out the way. Each was consumed with his or her own emotions, written across their faces like profiling terminology across the faces of UnSubs. Two emotions stood out - love and fear - love for their friend and fear for his fate. No matter how many volumes of toilet water Master Mersenne dumped on Derek Morgan, or how many masses of roadkill Master Dante dropped on Emily Prentiss, or how many gender-bending sexbots Sci-Fi Grand Master Asimov sent after David Rossi, or how many green-skinned sensual dances the Dungeon Master forced upon Jennifer Jareau, the evil vengeful young man was still their friend, colleague, and baby brother, and if Professor Jacqueline von Ripper wanted his heart and brain, then it was only her own heart and brain that she would lose this night.
"Good evening, Doctor," said Professor Jacqueline von Ripper, striking a titillating pose in front of the open doorway.
Reid whipped around, staring in shock at the frightening stalker who had finally tracked him down to his new apartment.
"Um...Hello," Reid backed away until he bumped into the couch.
"I want you to say my name like I'm saying yours, Dr. Reid," said the Professor, licking her dark red lips in a feline manner.
"Professor Jacqueline von Ripper?" Reid whimpered.
"Call me...Jaaaaaaack," the Professor drew out the name of her alter ego.
"Jack?" Reid whimpered again, inching himself towards the hallway that led out of the turreted living room.
"Maaaaaaary," the Professor drew out the name of her alter ego's final victim.
With a kick behind her, the breathtakingly beautiful woman shut the door and approached her trepidating victim. She was tall, at least 5'11" in her bare feet, and imposing in her sparkling black evening gown and sleek black trench coat. In her high heels, Professor Jacqueline von Ripper stood eye-to-eye with Reid. She was voluptuous as well, in that curvy shapely way that so many women would die for. She outweighed her gangly stickbug prey.
The Professor tossed her long wavy auburn hair away from her milky white arms. She fixed her mesmerizing gaze upon her victim. Her eyes were her most striking feature, standing out amongst her other perfectly sculpted facial features. The irises were of a color not usually associated with auburn hair. They were a rich dark color, red and brown and black all at the same time, in concentric rings that radiated from the pupils to the whites, which carried a unique bluish hue. Reid found them entrancing, until a new object emerged to capture his attention.
From her trench coat, Professor Jacqueline von Ripper pulled out a long-bladed hunting knife with deep serrations on one edge. In a few strides of her long legs, before Reid had time to grab his revolver from the coffee table, she bridged the gap between them and pressed the sharp metal blade against his jugular. Reid could feel his pulse against the deadly cold surface.
"Jack...Please...Let's talk about this," Reid stammered, searching this way and that with his eyes, not daring to move his head for fear of the knife. "I know I've been ignoring you, and I'm really sorry about that. You see, I've been pretty busy at work lately, and whenever I'm not at work, I've been busy with some...other...projects. I hope you'll forgive me for neglecting you. I'm all done with those other projects now. I have all the time in the world. I'm all yours."
"Oh, you bet you're all mine," Professor Jacqueline von Ripper grinned through her rows of blazing white teeth. "Before the night is over, every part of you is going to be all mine," she bore into Reid's terrified hazel eyes with her commanding multi-colored ones.
"Um...I've been a terrible host," Reid mumbled apologetically. "Can I get you something to drink?" he edged down the hallway towards the kitchen.
"Oh yes please, Doctor, I could use a stiff drink before we get down to business," the Professor hissed. "As a matter of fact, so could you..."
"Perfect!" Reid squeaked through a dry throat. "I just finished distilling my latest batch of liquor last night," he backed through the kitchen doorway. "I find that copper and iron impurities leached out of the distillation apparatus enhance the flavor of the drink. They add a hint of...blood..." he grabbed at an Erlenmeyer flask on the kitchen counter. "Here, why don't you try some of this?" he poured a colorless liquid into a wine glass, "Tell me what you think," he smiled nervously, his eyes seeking approval, his mind seeking escape.
Professor Jacqueline von Ripper lowered the knife to accept the wine glass. She gazed curiously at her prey from behind her heavily mascaraed eyelashes. She took a sip of the beverage and grimaced as the partially distilled moonshine burned her throat. The metallic flavor of blood intoxicated her, and she staggered against the counter, knocking over a crate of empty Capri Sun juice boxes into which the vile liquid would be poured for long-term storage.
"You don't like it?" Reid asked in mock disappointment. "Don't tell me you don't like it!" he assumed the evil persona that he had cultivated to fruition over the past month. "Here, have some more! I know you can't resist the taste of blood," he grabbed the woman around her throat, brought the wine glass to her lips, and forced a few drops of the liquid into her open mouth.
The Professor struggled, momentarily cowed by the change in demeanor of her intended victim. She wasn't used to victims who stood up for themselves, nor had she encountered victims who actively attacked her. In retaliation, she scratched at her victim's face with the long red fingernails of one hand while tightening the other hand around the knife. She pressed its tip against her victim's chest, where his heart beat visibly through the thin material of his button-down shirt.
"Don't tell me you don't like this!" Professor Jacqueline von Ripper poked a tiny hole in the shirt, threatening to nick the skin, and more, beneath.
"Oh, I like it alright," Reid unfurled his own toothy grin. "Don't you ever stop," he shifted his weight on his feet, turning his body until the blade lay parallel, rather than obliquely, with his chest.
Feeling a wanton sense of security in his new position, Reid did the one thing that he could think of to pull himself out of danger. He leaned forwards, breathing into the woman's captivating face, locking his lips around the woman's smirking mouth. The woman responded, unwilling or unable to resist her deep animal desires. She let him force his tongue into her mouth. She unrolled her own tongue, rolling it around in his mouth until she found herself squealing in pain. With his incisors, the evil man bit down upon the tongue of the evil woman until it bled profusely from every surface.
In a fit of disgust, Reid pushed the screaming woman away from him, into the nook between the refrigerator and the wall. While she sputtered fresh red blood from her mouth, he jumped out the kitchen window into the open dumpster below. It was a drop of only two stories, so he immediately popped up from his fall, unharmed and covered with rotting produce. Without checking the status of the UnSub, Reid climbed up and over the side of the dumpster. He ran for his life. He ran, dashing across streets and lawns and empty lots, until he arrived at an unfamiliar intersection, seemingly miles from his cozy apartment. He hailed a passing cab, relieved to encounter one at this time and place. He glanced furtively at the cab driver, indulging in a moment of paranoia before convincing himself that not everyone was out to get him. He gave the first address that came, by instinct, to mind. For Reid, it was a time of need, and he sought comfort and security where he had always imagined that he would seek them. He wanted his mommy.
"Fifty bucks," Hotch paid the cab driver as Reid shivered in the freezing night air.
It was the first truly cold night of the waning fall, and Reid was inadequately clothed in a torn shirt and days-old banana peels. He spit on the ground every few seconds, trying to clear the taste of blood from his tongue. It was no use. It did nothing to alleviate the whorish feeling that had creeped over him, minute by minute, since his unwanted intimate encounter with Professor Jacqueline von Ripper. He hadn't wanted to kiss the terrifying murderous amazon, but he hadn't come up with any other way out of the situation. The experience was yet another black eye that he would have to absorb and heal over time.
"Come on, Reid," Hotch guided the traumatized young man into his house. "Let's get you some clean clothes. Let's get you out of the cold."
Reid nodded, following his boss upstairs to the master bedroom, where Hotch brought out a pile of his own clothes for Reid to pick and choose from. Reid changed into a hooded sweatshirt and a pair of worn jeans. Hotch pretended to avert his eyes, but gave himself away when he snorted at Reid's Spongebob Squarepants boxers. He handed Reid a thick belt to hold up the oversized jeans. Reid washed his face in the bathroom, brushing his teeth and rinsing his mouth with Listerine, before joining Hotch downstairs at the kitchen table.
The two sojourned over steaming cups of hot chocolate.
"I can't believe it," Reid spoke hesitantly. "I can't believe what came over me this past month. I can't believe I did all those things to my friends and colleagues. You wouldn't believe it if I told you," he cast his sad puppy dog eyes downwards in remorse.
"I already know," Hotch replied. "It's my job to know," he smiled warmly, somewhat amused by the whole situation.
"I want to explain," Reid insisted anxiously, seeking absolution from the one friend that he had not yet alienated, "Let me explain. At first, I just wanted to get everyone back for making fun of me. I was fed up with people constantly making fun of me for just being myself. I was tired of people talking about me behind my back. I've had to deal with it my whole life, and I was sick of it. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted revenge, not just a simple prank, but an elaborate scheme to really disrupt their lives for a weekend. I couldn't help myself...I lost control of my own impulses. There were moments when I felt guilty about the whole thing, but then I remembered how ashamed and angry I felt when the other kids bullied me in high school. I decided that I was going to stand up for myself, just this once," he swirled the tiny marshmallows in his cup. "I was like an UnSub, digging up my own damage and taking out my own rage on people who didn't deserve it. I know that they...you...were only having a little fun with me..."
"And we were wrong to do it," Hotch interrupted. "It's one thing for one of us to snicker a little during one of your...special moments, but it's quite another for us to gang up on you like we did. It was unprofessional among colleagues and flat out wrong among friends. I'm sorry for my part, Reid, and I'm sure that everyone else would apologize too."
"No, Hotch, I'm the one who should apologize!" Reid argued. "My revenge was totally out of proportion with the initial stressor, don't you think?"
"Not at all!" Hotch laughed. "I found your schemes really clever! I heard Morgan and Emily whispering about them in the stairwell one day. They were discussing something called the 'Omniscient Plumber 3000' and something else called the 'Inferno'. I eavesdropped from the flight of stairs above them and recorded their whole paranoid conversation on my cell phone. Later, in my office, I was able to piece together the details of the schemes."
"You don't think that my revenge was too much?" Reid asked in surprise.
"Well, it was elaborate, what with taking over their bathroom and kitchen appliances," Hotch replied. "But I don't think it was too much. The schemes were disgusting and perverted, but when it comes down to it, they were totally harmless. There was no lasting damage from them. In fact, I'm glad to see this side of you, Reid. I wasn't sure if it even existed. We all have another side that's capable of things that wouldn't normally cross our minds. This might sound silly, but I guess we all have a dark side. I know I do," he swirled his own marshmallows.
"I know you do," Reid spoke the truth, even if it cost him something to say it, "And I know that you're afraid of it. Like me, you're afraid of your own mind. Look at the UnSubs we deal with on a daily basis. What separates us from them? Why is it that we can control our damage and our rage, but they can't? And at what point do we also lose control of ourselves? How far can we be pushed? What are we capable of?"
Hotch nodded in silence, agreeing but not contributing, so Reid continued.
"Maybe it's not my place to say this, but since I'm invading your house and wearing your clothes tonight, I might as well make myself completely at home," he smiled his tiny nervous smile. "I know we haven't really talked, not about anything but cases, since what happened with...Haley..." he checked Hotch's face for the signal to stop. "What happened over that whole Foyet case...That's not you, Hotch. You've been silent all these months, tearing yourself apart over Haley's death, questioning yourself about your own capabilities, even doubting your own basic goodness. I'm not going to talk you out of your guilt, because you're the only one who can deal with that. In the end, everyone else can forgive you, but you won't be able to find a moment of peace until you've forgiven yourself. Forgiveness comes from two directions, as you already know. I'm only going to remind you that you're still you, Hotch. You're still Jack's dad, and you're still our unit chief, and you're still the one that we kids look up to, even old geezer kids like David Rossi. The side of you that's you, your true self that will always be you, outweighs any other side you might have. I know that, because I've had to deal with the same problem. I think it made me a better person, a better profiler, better at realizing my potential, all without taking away my true self. I did it alone, and I can see that you would also prefer to do it alone, so I'll pick this second to shut up once and for all."
"Don't shut up, Reid," Hotch looked Reid in the eye, "Don't you ever shut up. We still need your blabbing for cases. But I wouldn't ever verbalize 'old geezer kids like David Rossi' in front of certain people. I don't know what Dave might do to you if he heard that. I mean, what he might to do you if he recovers from the trauma of Robot Samantha."
Reid laughed, paused in mid-laugh, searched his boss's eyes, found what he was looking for, and resumed his laugh. Hotch, true to his true self, was never going to respond directly to Reid's truth-telling, but Reid could see that Hotch had accepted it, would consider it, would find the truth stamped all over its truthy surface. That was enough, for now and for always.
"Daddy?" a small face peeked around the kitchen doorway, "Who are you talking to? Is that Spenny?"
"Yeah, Jack, c'mere," Hotch patted his lap for Jack to climb into. "Sorry, Reid, that's your operation codename in the Hotchner Household. It all started when Jack called Garcia 'Penny'. 'Penny' for Garcia turned into 'Spenny' for you. I couldn't do anything to prevent it. Events spiraled out of my control. 'Penny and Spenny'...It's quite a tongue twister if you say it really fast."
"Penny and Spenny, Penny and Spenny, Penny and Spenny, Penny and Spenny, Penny and Spenny, Penny and Spenny, Penny and Spenny," Reid found himself agreeing with Hotch's truth-telling.
He accepted the charming nickname and leaned forwards to greet Jack.
"Hi Jack," Reid said.
Sensing a lingering whiff of evil from the reformed man with the now-repressed dark side, Jack grabbed the man by the nose and squeezed until the man turned red in the face.
"Argh! Hotch! Make it stop! Make it stop!" Reid screamed helplessly.
"Jack, no!" Hotch summoned his disciplinarian voice, "Jack, bad!"
In Jack's five-year-old brain, the orders registered correctly. He stopped and patted the man on his sore nose.
"Sorry, Spenny," Jack said, handing Spenny a plushy triceratops as a peace offering.
"Be careful with that, Reid," Hotch warned sternly. "That toy has removable eyes. Take care that you don't choke on them."
Reid glared at Hotch through mock-angry puppy dog eyes. He snuffled at the toy, wondering if it was an unwritten law of the universe that all triceratops toys had removable choking-hazard eyes. The ringing of a cell phone broke his reverie.
"Hotchner," Hotch answered.
A cacophony of loud multi-vocalized screaming made its way through the cell phone.
"You apprehended an UnSub?" Hotch spoke into the phone. "OK...Uh huh...At Reid's apartment...Professor Jacqueline von Ripper...The Beltway murders...Spiral patterns and curly descenders...Alright, got it. Blood on the floor...Not human blood...What kind of blood...Oh, you don't know...Cherry jello in the bathtub...You thought it was coagulated blood...Until Dave ate some...Oh sorry, it was Morgan who ate some...He couldn't resist...It was like the jello was calling to him...OK then. Apartment trashed...Windows broken...Dark attic lair dismantled. Garcia punched the UnSub...Emily did kungfu...JJ tried to set the woman on fire...Morgan did nothing...Oh sorry, Morgan, you kicked down the door...Dave's getting better by the minute...He's only mentioned Samantha twice in the past five minutes...Oh, he thought the cat fight was sexxxxxxxay...I feel dirty just saying that. Do you need me to come in...What do you mean what kind of question is that? Oh right...You can't find Reid...The UnSub doesn't know where he is...You think she's lying? Do you want to talk to Reid? He's right here with me, at my house."
A cacophony of loud multi-vocalized sighing made its way through the cell phone. Hotch handed the cell phone to Reid.
"Hello?" Reid squeaked timidly.
"Hey Reid," said Morgan, "Sooooooo happy to hear your voice! Are you OK? Did she hurt you? Did she use her spinal tap needles on you? Oh my God, don't tell me she used the retractors on you!"
"Spinal tap needles?" Reid squeaked in utter horror, "Retractors?"
"Listen, man," Morgan continued, "We're all really sorry about sending Professor Jacqueline von Ripper after you. We're all so very very sorry. We didn't know that she was an UnSub...We really didn't! There's no way that we would've sent her after you if we had known!"
"Yeah, Master," Garcia cried in a neverending tsunami of guilt, "I'm so sorry!" she blubbered uncontrollably.
"Garcia, Garcia!" Reid tried to calm the nearly-hysterical woman. "Three things, Garcia! First, you don't have to call me 'Master' anymore. Second, I'm sorry for brain-washing you, and making you love and fear me, and making you complicit in all these horrible pranks. Third, I forgive you for sending Professor Jacqueline von Ripper after me. Oh wait, four things! Fourth, please tell me that you won't beat yourself up over this...Although I won't complain if you feel the need to bring me cookies every once in awhile."
"Oh thank you, Master...I mean, Reid!" Garcia replied happily. "I promise that I won't beat myself up over this, but I still have to apologize for betraying you in the end. I was afraid that they'd send David Rossi after me at my apartment. He still thinks that I'm Robot Samantha. He's mostly recovered. He's able to say other things now. He was the one who figured out that Professor Jacqueline von Ripper was the Beltway UnSub. But he still hasn't stopped gazing at me like he's obsessed with me. He just does it less often. It's still super creepy. Oh!" she remembered something, "And I'm also sorry for progamming R. Sammy to chase you around your apartment with Rossi's semen sample!"
"What!" several voices demanded in disbelief.
"It's a long story," Garcia said loudly to drown out the cacophony of shock, "I'll tell you guys later. Hey Reid, are you staying at Hotch's house tonight? If not, you can always stay at my apartment."
"He's staying with me tonight," Hotch leaned into the phone.
"OK, great!" Garcia chirped like her usual cheerful self.
"Can I talk to Morgan again?" Reid asked.
"Yes, Master Mersenne?" Morgan answered.
"Um...I'm sorry about the Omniscient Plumber 3000, Morgan," Reid apologized.
"Apology accepted, Pretty Boy," Morgan handed the phone to Prentiss, knowing what Reid had in mind.
"Yeah, Master Dante?" Prentiss answered.
"Emily...Um...I'm sorry about the Inferno," Reid apologized.
"Apology accepted, my Page," Prentiss handed the phone to Rossi.
"Samantha?" Rossi answered.
"Dave...Um...I'm sorry about R. Sammy," Reid apologized.
"Apology accepted, Sci-Fi Grand Master Asimov," Rossi said. "Reid, can I ask you for a favor? Can you bring R. Sammy around sometime? To my house? We can have dinner together, the three of us - you, me, and R. Sammy. After dinner, we can all..."
"Hey Spence!" JJ ripped the cell phone out of Rossi's fingers before he could slide down the slippery slope back to Samantha.
"JJ...Um...I'm sorry about The Game," Reid apologized, "And sorry to Will too, for dragging him into it."
"Apology accepted, Dungeon Master," JJ said. "Not for William LaMontagne though. He told me to thank you for the most romantic weekend that we've ever had together. Personally, I'm going to pretend that the whole thing never happened. I don't want to encourage him. You should see the huge ego that he's developed as Prince William in his charming human fiefdom. Little does he know that he's just another lowly green-faced ogre like me."
"Oh, and Reid?" JJ continued shyly. "Sorry, from all of us, for making fun of you that day."
"Yeah, Geek Boy," Morgan snatched the phone out of JJ's fingers. "We can't promise that we'll never make fun of you again, but we promise to do it individually next time. We'll all wait our turns. Sharing is caring."
"Just remember one thing, Morgan," Reid warned his friend. "Don't dish it if you can't take it. I learned that from a wise old accomplice of mine."
"Did you just call me old?" Garcia demanded angrily.
"No, no, no!" Reid backtracked desperately. "I learned that from a beautiful supergoddess of mine."
"Much better, Young Padawan," Garcia purred. "I'm hungry," the goddess declared, "IHOP, anyone?"
"Yeah!" several voices clamored for the Rooty Tooty Fresh 'N Fruity.
"Reid, Hotch, IHOP?" Prentiss asked.
"No, none for me, thanks," Reid replied. "I've got work to do here. You should see Hotch's pathetic Halloween decorations. All he's got are a few cobwebbed bushes and a skeleton hanging from a tree. The skeleton isn't even glow-in-the-dark. I'm going to have to stay up all night just to get the house into shape."
"Stay up!" Jack clapped happily. "Spenny and Jack, up all night for Halloweeeeeeen decorations!"
"Gotta go, guys," Hotch said. "Reid is starting to brainwash my son. We'll deal with the Ripper case on Monday."
"Yeah, see you on Monday," several voices said, "Don't let Reid get too close to your son, Hotch. Reid's a Child Luddite..." Garcia added.
With that, Hotch hung up the phone and downed the cold remnants of his hot chocolate.
"Who's up for Halloween decorations?" the mommy asked the children.
"We are!" Jack and Spenny squealed in unison.
"To the garage!" Hotch led the way out the back door.
Hours later, just before the Sun rose upon All Hallow's Eve, the astronauts at the International Space Station glanced out a porthole and spied the blazing brilliance of the Hotchner Homestead many miles below. Every surface of the unassuming two-story house had been covered with blinking orange lights, cobwebs, jack-o-lanterns, spiders, crows, scarecrows, skulls, skeletons (glow-in-the-dark and regular), black cats, ogre masks (green-faced and regular), and disembodied limbs crawling through upstairs windows. The front lawn was a graveyard of fifty headstones, and at least twenty ghosts in white sheets hung out of the big oak tree near the sidewalk. An inflatable life-sized witch figure greeted trick-or-treaters on the brick path to the front door. Speakers completed the effect, booming with ominous thunder or screeching with howling laughter or cawing with distressed raven cries. The astronauts shrank, shaking, into their zero-gravity sleeping bags and sipped at their zero-gravity Pepto-Bismol bottles. The decorators argued over who got to be Galileo Galilei and who had to be Tycho Brahe for Halloween.
"Wasn't Tycho Brahe the one who cut his own ear off?" Hotch asked Reid.
"No!" Reid rolled his eyes at his boss's ignorance, "That was Vincent Van Gogh, the artist. I'm talking about Tycho Brahe, the astronomer, the one who lost part of his nose in a swashbuckling duel."
"I see," Hotch considered solemnly, "I don't want to be him," he decided.
"You have to be him, because I'm Galileo," Reid insisted.
"Can't I be a different astronomer?" Hotch tried to worm his way out of his inevitable fate. "What about Copernicus?" he suggested hopefully.
"No!" Reid rejected the foolish idea. "Galileo and Tycho Brahe are my two favorite astronomers. I will accept nothing less than us playing Galileo and Tycho Brahe for Halloween."
"Well..." Hotch found no viable escape route, "What do I have wear as Tycho Brahe?"
"A ruff," Reid affixed a 10-inch-wide corrugated ruff around Hotch's unwilling neck. "A bushy blonde beard with bushy blonde mustache," he attached the hair to Hotch's unwilling face. "A giant necklace," he adjusted a fake gold chain with a geo-centric model of the universe over Hotch's unwilling shoulders. "I believe this is also known as 'bling'," he labeled the atrocity. "And finally...A prosthetic nose made of possibly gold or possibly silver or possibly copper," he taped a thick appendage of foil to Hotch's unwilling nose. "Since we don't know which metal served as the material of Tycho's nose, we're going to pretend that he used all three," he colored part of the nose gold, part of the nose copper, and left the remaining part alone to create the illusion of silver. "Maybe he had three prosthetic noses, each of a different metal," he stepped back to admire his decorations, without even noticing Hotch's Patented Death Glare.
"Here, take a look," Reid held up an ornate mirror, one that Tycho Brahe would have been proud to own.
"Yeah, Daddy, take a look!" Jack encouraged while jumping up and down over the bed.
Hotch took a look. He grunted, signaling that all was well with the ridiculous costume. He turned towards Reid with fatalistic defeat in his eyes. He supposed that he was finally meeting his comeuppance, for unprofessionally making fun of Reid that one time at work.
Reid strutted down the hallway in his glorious Galileo costume. He wore a long gray beard with long gray mustache over his face and a cape of stars and moons over his back. He brandished a tiny old-fashioned spyglass against his left eye. Hotch stared at Reid with jealousy in his glare. He could not help noticing the lack of both bling and prosthetic rhinoplasteries.
"And yet it moves...And yet it moves...And yet it moves..." Reid muttered under his breath, imitating Galileo's legendary defiance of the Inquisition. He ignored the fact that in the end, under duress, Galileo had recanted his heliocentric theories. "And yet it moves...And yet it moves...And yet it moves..." Galileo muttered.
"Me, me, me!" Jack said, "Can I put on my costume now, Spenny?"
"Sure!" Spenny helped Jack into his costume.
For Halloween this year, Jack played an astronomical object to be observed and theorized over by the two sagacious astronomers. He was a comet. He wore a huge glow-in-the-dark halo over his back, with a long LED-covered tail flashing behind him. Each time he pressed a button, the comet tail produced space noises - whoosh, zing, and zoom, with buzzing static sprinkled in for realism.
"What's my name?" Jack asked as Hotch picked him up and spun him about the room, sending the comet tail flying into the air.
"Galileo?" Hotch looked to Reid for an answer.
Reid considered the ponderous question. He thought about his favorite comets, the ones that he had grown up observing through his huge Celestron telescope.
"Hmmmmmmm...Comet Shoemaker-Levy...Comet Hale-Bopp...Comet Hyakutake..." all the names sounded too nerdy, even to Reid. "Halley's..." he stopped abruptly, realizing that he had mispronounced the name with a flat "a", as he always did.
"Mommy?" Jack brightened at the name.
"Haley's Comet it is," Hotch nuzzled his son with his freakazoid nose. "Haley's Comet you are and always will be..." he trailed off as he headed towards the kitchen for breakfast. "Reid, blueberry pancakes and scrambled eggs OK with you?" he asked casually behind him.
"Yummy," Reid mumbled childishly.
He followed Hotch and Jack down the stairs to the kitchen. Hotch made breakfast while Reid and Jack competed to see who could bug their eyes farther out of their heads and who could puff their cheeks farther out of their faces. They held a snorting competition. On all counts, Jack was declared the clear winner.
Over breakfast, an important decison was reached. It was decided that Tycho Brahe was too ashamed of his horrible costume to leave the house in the evening, which meant that Galileo would have to take Haley's Comet trick-or-treating. Tycho Brahe would stay home and man the house to distribute bales of candy to the brave and the few who were not frightened away by the excessive Halloween decorations. When Galileo returned with Haley's Comet, the astronomers and astronomical object would head up to the roof deck of the Hotchner Homestead, where Galileo would pass down his craft to all willing listeners. And thus would Galileo assimilate Haley's Comet into his Cult of Dorkology, and thus would Haley's Comet grow up to realize his sky high potential.
When he finally shed his swashbuckling astronomer persona, a man would stare up from his warm down sleeping bag into the cold glittering heavens. He would listen to the children as they huddled together for warmth, whispering softly about celestial spheres and constellations and Polaris the North Star. There was no telescope to aid them, not even a tiny old-fashioned spyglass, for it was an unwritten law of the universe that a budding padawan astronomer must always begin with the naked eye beneath the naked sky.
Even without a telescope, the man would see, clearly for the first time in many months, far into the past and far into the future. He would see a time when he would sit his son on his lap and tell his son about the mother and the father - how they met, how they laughed, how they loved. The son would see the side of the father that the mother had longed for him for see, and the father would not hesitate to reveal it. It was his true self, the one that believed in love and love alone, and all it had taken was a wise old master in the guise of a brilliant young man to guide him back to it.
Such events comprised the future, near as the rising of the Sun upon a miraculous new day. For now, the man lay in silence. Thoughts came to his mind, but he did not pursue them. Like Halley's Comet, they flew away into the heavens, leaving behind only a lingering feeling of peace.
Such feelings were hard to come by on this pale blue dot in the void. They were to be savored, as the man would savor them, without ever speaking them out loud.
Master Post