Our story

Humming

{The first day back}

Jason 

Hotch is back and looks like hell. I thought I told those kids to keep an eye on him and make sure he took care of himself. They all seem to have failed in that. I had Spencer and Penelope get some rest themselves, but they went over to stay with him from time to time. 

"Aaron, can you come here for a second?" He walks over and I have him walk into my office. 

"Is everything alright Jason?" Aaron asks and I motion for him to sit down in one of my chairs. He does so and I shut the door and sit on my desk. 

"Are you alright?" 

"What? I'm fine Jason." He says and I sigh.

"You look like hell Aaron. You can't be doing okay at the rate you look." 

"I'm fine Jason." He says and stands up. He opens the door and walks out of my office and I just hope to god that he's alright. I mean the guy looks like a walking corps and I can't seem to understand why he doesn't talk to someone about it. I sigh and go back to work.

{Three hours later} 

I walk over and I go to get more coffee and pass Aaron and catch a then of a tune that he seems to humming. Wait since when did he hum openly in the Bullpen. I know he does in his privet office or at home, but not in the Bullpen area.

"Gideon are you alright?" Emily asks and I nod. 

"I'm fine, I was just confused." 

"About Hotch's humming?" She asks and I nod. "He's been doing that all day. I don't know what he's humming, but it seems to be more than one song. None of us know what they are or what they are from." She says and JJ walks over and shakes her head.

"Sorry, I couldn't get enough of it to get a song." JJ says and Emily sighs. I don't understand what they are talking about. 

"What?" 

"I was trying to see if I could have my phone pick up enough of the tune to pull up what song he's humming. And maybe find out what other songs he's been humming all morning." She says and I nod. 

"You could just ask him."

"I don't think he knows that he's doing it though." Morgan says.

"It's quite likely." Penelope says and I nod.

"Ya, but it's nice to see that he's not so stone cold and willing to relax a bit as he gets back into working again." Spencer says and I nod. 

"I'm guessing that he's not aware that he's doing so. He hardly ever hums aloud. Only when he's at home or in his office. Never in the open like this though, so it seems like he's more out of it that any of us thought." 

"How do you know that?" Morgan asks.

"Before you kids joined the BAU, Aaron was working with David on cases and I would join them at his house if he would let me. He had a habit of humming while cooking and both David and I would just sit there and listen to him do so." 

"He's never just invited us over dinner." Emily says and I chuckle. 

"No I can imagine that he hasn't done that for you all. He doesn't go home as early as he used to when he was just a rookie. It seems like before David left and Aaron got the promotion, he would go home and would be more open to having people over for dinner and humming around people." 

"Do you think that he takes care of himself now that he goes home so late, or if does go home?" JJ ask and I shake my head. 

"No, I don't think he does. Morgan when you came back and told us about his self hatred when anyone of us gets hurt and he hates that the 'failed' us, he has a hard time expressing himself. He lost a few friends in the field when he was a rookie. He shut down and shut everyone out after all of that." 

"Oh god." Penelope says and I see her shift closer to Morgan. He places an arm around her and I sigh.

"He broke only once during a case though. You would have though losing friends in the field would have made him break, but it never did. No he almost broke when David and him were on a case with a mostly entirely new team. They were blitzed and got knocked out. When they both came too, Aaron got the shit beat out of himself and David fought to get over to help him while they waited on the rest of their team." 

They all seem to glance in the direction of said man who is sitting in his office humming as he fills out stacks upon stacks of paperwork. They turn back to me and they all look as if they want me to continue. 

"David put up so much of a fight that they were just going to shoot him instead of beating him and then killing him like they normally would. When one of them pulled out a gun to shoot David, Aaron managed to get free and beat the one holding the gun until he was pulled off and repeated the process with everyone of the unsub's in the room. After that he went and helped David up and they got out of there as their team showed up. He never left David's side after that case until David decided to write books instead. I remember when they got back and Aaron came over for the night to stay because he didn't want to go home." 

"When did he stay over?" Spencer asks.

"When you kids were off in college still. You all would have most likely have still been in college when this happened. He started college while still in high school and after enough time of being in college he went to the academy and was taken out after being there for only two years." Spencer you had just Graduated from you third year of college." 

They all seem to nod and look back at Aaron and he seems off in his own little world. I get the coffee I came to get and go back to my office. 

Emily

I look over at Hotch's office and he seems to be saying something, but I don't see him holding a phone. Though he could be just not holding his desk phone while talking with someone. Though he's never done that unless we were on a case and we couldn't see Garcia's face on a computer screen. 

The others seem to also notice this and I try to ignore it and just finish my paperwork and then turn it into him but Spencer takes it from Morgan and I again. "Reid!" 

"Huh?" Reid asks.

"Our paperwork. Give it back."

"No, I want to know what Hotch is doing right now and why he's acting so different in the office today. It's not him and I don't know if I like this behavior or if we should be cautious of what's going on." He says and I nod.

"That's understandable, but I still would like to do my own work though." He just shakes his head and finishes it up and hands us our paperwork back and we all get up to go and give it to Hotch when we meet up with JJ.

"Curious?" JJ asks and we all nod. Garcia walks over with her paperwork and we all walk in and he looks up at us and motions to his desk and we set things down. We all then leave and shut the door again. We wait to see if he goes back to what he was doing but he seems to be off in his own little world. 

We all sigh and get ready to turn back when we hear the sound of his humming again and mumbled word or two. None of hear what was said, but we stay to try and figure it out.