Desiderium: longing for something that has been lost

Chapter 16

"Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under all the weight of all the lives i'm not living"---jonathan safran foer

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Las Vegas 

February 20, 2008

1:45 am

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hotch.

Why him, why his name carved in awful letters on a bloody corpse? 

hotch. 

He had a family, he had a son. He had to protect them, be there for them, be the best father he could be, he...

Hotch!

Rossi looked at him, his dark eyes surveying him carefully. "You alright? You kind of zoned out on me there." 

The sounds came rushing back to him, and all of sudden he remembered that it was one, no, almost two in the morning and they needed to wrap this whole thing up before they all went off the deep end. 

"I'm fine Dave. Let's head back to the station." He stepped out from the scene, and stopped. "Did we get a name yet?" 

"Yeah, our guy is one Frank Lewis. Garcia's running his name through any and all databases, she'll have everything on him soon enough." 

"Good, that's good." 

They walked in silence until they reached the SUV. Rossi walked around to the drivers side. "You take the passengers side, Aaron, you look tired." 

The drive passed in a comfortable quiet until Rossi let out a quiet sigh and glanced over at Hotch. "You know we need to address that right? He's getting personal now."

Hotch sighed. "It's not personal, I talked to him over the phone, I made a deal with him and he's retaliating by trying to strike where it hurts. He's not doing anything. Why would he? It doesn't fit the profile anyway." 

Rossi shrugged. "He could view getting one of us as a more feasible route to get what he wants, a kind of a twisted trade in his mind."

Hotch leaned his head against the window. "Even if it came down to that, he'd never fully agree to a full trade, he's too obsessed with this fantasy." 

The car hummed in silence for a bit. 

Rossi spoke up again, his voice quiet. "It bothers you, doesn't it."

"What?"

"Your name, on the victim." 

"I think anyone would have their concerns, yes." 

Rossi laughed, "But what about you Hotch?"

Hotch shifted in his seat. "Yes." 

"Why?"

"Why? Because we're dealing with an unknown variable here, and quite frankly that scares me. I don't know what he's capable of, nor am I all that eager to find out. So yes, seeing my name, my nickname actually that no one outside of this unit and my family knows of, on a dead's man chest was mildly alarming, Rossi." 

Rossi pulled into the station. "I know you think that sometimes I can be an arrogant prick sometimes, and granted, maybe I can be,  but I want you to know that I'd take the bullet for you, if it meant that your son having his father come home for dinner." He turned off the car. "Don't push away your feelings completely Hotch, they make us who we are."

Hotch looked at him, "Didn't know you dabbled in the therapy sessions."

"I'm an old sentimental man who's tired and desperately needing some sort of sleep, what can I say? Even I come out with some good ones now and again."