Desiderium: longing for something that has been lost

Chapter 37

"loss is nothing else but change, and change is nature's delight" -- marcus arulius 

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Quantico

March 17, 2008

2:08 pm

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Hotch carried one last box out to his car, pausing to glance back at the empty house. He had been floating, in a sense of bewilderment for the past few days, ever since Haley had taken Jack and just...left. 

He understood. He did, he really did. 

But he couldn't reconcile his heart, with logic. And it still hurt, no matter how many times he explained it away to anyone who would listen. 

He had hoped they would stay together, through thick and thin, through it all, through every hardship.

He pushed the box into the already overfull car. 

It had been a naïve dream.

With Emily's help, (oh was it emily now?) he had found an apartment, just a short commute away from Quantico. She had also offered to help him move in, not wanting him to be alone as he dismantled his former life. 

He had refused, choosing to rather face this alone. She had nudged him gently, called him a stubborn fucker and drove off. He had smiled after her, long after her lights had disappeared into the distance and he shook himself back into reality. 

Which was now, which was this. That he, Aaron Hotchner, was on his way to being divorced. He would, like any good divorcee, visit his son, every two weeks, and then watch said son form a grudge against him for not being there. 

It just wasn't fair. 

He grabbed the steering wheel, white-knuckling it, as desperation flowed through him. 

He promised Haley, that he could be a father, that he could love Jack like a father should, and he promised himself that he would have that father-son bond that he himself only could dream about when he was a child.

He would be the father he never had. 

And here he was. 

He laughed, bitterly aware of the tears on his face. 

Bitter irony. Bitter, bitter irony indeed. 

He had to sit outside, his heels kicking against the warm pavement, as he carefully tucked his emotions back into place, before lugging the first set of boxes up three set of stairs. 

He fumbled for his key, the feeling of it new and unfamiliar, and he missed his old key, the one stained with memories. 

It was dark inside, and quiet, and he felt his heart finally break. The boxes in his arms sagged and he struggled to support them. 

Arms snaked under his, picking up the drowning weight from him, sharing the load between the two of them. He glanced up, blinking away the tears, hastily, and stared into the soft eyes of Emily Prentiss. He smiled at her wearily, and she helped him bring in his things, dumping them on the counter. 

"You came anyway." He felt relieved, the familiarity of her presence, refreshing him and bolstering him. 

She laughed. "Of course I came, did you really think that I would let you do all of this by yourself?" 

He shrugged, and she looked at him, her joking expression replaced by one of sorrow. "Hey, listen Hotch, I'm really sorry." When he didn't answer her, she hopped up on the counter. "So you want some help decorating this place?" She spread her arms. "I was thinking that we could get some new stuff for you, you know kind of spruce the place up."