Against Protocol (Aaron Hotchner X Reader)

chapter seven: lost in thought

Just as you stepped out of the elevator the next morning, the BAU was bustling with agents. Being greeted with flashes of manila folders and the familiar sound of keyboard clacks was a comforting reminder from the numbing thought of Hotch's conversation with you last night.

You surely hadn't fallen in love with Hotch, you assured yourself, but knowing how his familiar touch could easily become foreign once he moved onto someone new — someone more permanent—was rather unnerving.

You couldn't tell if you hated him or hated how good he could make you feel.

A pressing, new case assured that both you and Hotch would be too preoccupied to confront any restless feelings that arose, but that didn't seem to ease your tensions.

You looked into Hotch's office as you set down your bookbag, watching the pen in his hand as he studied his papers with great deliberation. His forehead rested on the pads of his fingers, eyes glossing over the words intently on his page as he scribbles away at something.

Hotch seemed to be handling it well. Of course he was. He always handled things well. He was always so miraculously put together.

JJ calls out the team, knocking you out of your watchful gaze. You follow behind her, trailing the rest of the team into the briefing room. Hotch and Rossi arrive last, closing the door behind them.

"We're going down to the Charleston Correctional Facility today. Death row inmate Charles Sanders is set to be executed tomorrow morning, but new evidence just came out that he might've raped and killed more girls that prosecuted for. Five girls, to be exact."

"What new evidence?" Derek asks, stirring his coffee as his eyebrow raised in intrigue.

"This," JJ announces, pointing to the screen.

Photographs of a wilted notebook with handwriting scrawled across journal pages like chicken scratch light up on the projector. There were detailed accounts of murders upon murders, with every movement precisely planned in blue ink.

"This is Sander's detailed personal journal just recently found from a private storage unit that was auctioned off to the public. The journal has everything except where the girls were buried."

"Charleston PD is calling us in to investigate thoroughly detailed accounts of murders?" Prentiss restates questionably. "Why do they need the BAU on this?"

Rossi's face swiftly turns to Hotch, prompting him to answer.

"Sanders was one of the earliest profiles I've ever worked on," Hotch reveals, carefully contemplating the words on the screen.

"And?" Derek questioned. "You've worked hundreds of cases. What's different about this one?"

"During this case, I created a profile, a different one from the other agents. I said if we kept looking, we'd find more girls. Charleston PD dismissed my profile and only sentenced him for the five known murders," Hotch explains reluctantly. "After that, I had no jurisdiction, and they forced me to leave, but Sanders requested to talk to me before I had left that day."

The team looks on in fervent interest.

"I agreed. He told me I was right; there were more girls, but the court didn't believe his confession. They had no evidence, and they thought Sanders was just trying to appeal his death row conviction for longer." Hotch sighs, the worry lines on his forehead appearing as his frustration became visible. "He made it clear the moment I walked away, I'd be giving up on those girls. And I did. I walked away."

Rossi cuts Hotch before he spiraled into a bout of self-loathing and regret. "But you didn't walk away. They forced you out, there was no more evidence, and you had other cases to work on. There was nothing else you could've done. You can't keep blaming yourself for those girls."