𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐟 𝐨𝐟 𝐇𝐞𝐫

fourteen

Author's note: This chapters a long one so let me know if it's too long because I'm never sure what's an optimum length. Hope you enjoy <3

Warnings: discussion of Lou and Hotch's families, (nothing worse than has been revealed so far). <3

...

It was a couple of weeks later, and Hotch and Lou had just returned from seeing Sean. They'd spent the morning fixing the door that, in his haste and panic, Hotch had broken to get to Lou. She'd held the new hinges —ones that wouldn't ever jam or seize— in place whilst he'd drilled them in. She didn't feel so fearful, now that she'd been forced to face it. She told him such as they pulled the door shut and he smiled and said he was glad. Then they'd gone to see Hotch's brother. Hotch had been quiet the whole time, quiet on the way there, quiet on the way back, quiet now they were home. Lou had talked for the both of them, stepping out of her comfort zone for him. But Lou didn't mind: he was always there for her.

She'd read to Sean for the majority of the visit. They were reading The Great Gatsby for what must be the hundredth time. They both loved that book; back when conversation was taken for granted, every one of the long talks Sean and Lou had seemed to return to that book and its tortured beauty. It was only when she was discussing it by herself that Lou agreed with Daisy when she said 'that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.' When she was younger, Lou used to argue with that line every time she read it, a girl should be smart and brave and loud and brilliant. She used to think of Daisy as naive but, as she read —stumbling and tripping over her words because her voice was so unaccustomed to talking for such a long period— she wondered if perhaps Daisy was wiser than she pretended to be. Because only someone who knows too much wishes to know less. Lou was saddened by the realisation that The Great Gatsby would forever be tainted by the memory that Sean was not himself. Lou wasn't even sure if he could hear her or not. She wasn't even sure if she was reading for him or for herself. Or, more likely, it was for Hotch. More than once, she automatically reverted to signing the words but she forced herself to persevere and, after a while, her voice sounded calmer and more even than it had done in a long time.

The whole time, Hotch stood looking out of the window with his back to his brother. Lou pretended not to notice as, every so often, he brought his hand to his face. She pretended she didn't see the slight shake to his shoulders or the subtle tremor to his hands. What Lou didn't realise was that Hotch wasn't sad for his brother —Sean was buried far too deep in his heart— he was angry. Angry with himself. He had to focus on her voice, on her every word, to stop himself from erupting right there and then. It didn't diminish his anger but it helped him contain it every time she'd talk to Sean. Is it like you remember? She'd ask him, forgetting for a bitterly blissful moment that she would get no reply.

Lou was watching Hotch from her kitchen doorway while she waited for the kettle to boil. She was making tea because tea made everything better. Tea was something to do when you didn't know what to do. Hotch was standing by the sink with his back to her, gripping the counter so hard that his knuckles gleamed white against his skin. His posture reminded Lou of her father's on the rare occasion that he did get angry. It held the same deadly potential and unspeakable capability.

Lou couldn't remember what it was that had made him so furious that day. For a long time she'd just accepted that it was her fault but now she knew that wasn't true: she was a child and he was an adult. Nothing she could have done would warrant his hands on her skin. Lou's mother was out that day. Only years later did Lou realise her father didn't know if Grace was coming back or not. Lou and Avery had been fighting, rolling around on the floor, kicking and screaming and hissing like cats. They weren't hurting each other, because even in the naivety of youth they knew not to. That would always be the difference between the Louvain daughters and their father. It was when they tumbled into a bookcase, knocking a vase down from the top shelf that everything went wrong. The vase shattered against the hardwood floor and that sound seemed to be the very catalyst for her father's rage. The two girls were frozen —Lou on top of Avery, pinning her sister down— in horror. Lou never heard her father coming. In fact, it was so unusual for him to move from his chair, so unusual of him to touch her, that Lou thought the hand that yanked her back belonged to someone else. A stranger. An intruder. Although it was not the eyes of an intruder that glared at her with such venomous hatred, her father was a stranger to her in that moment. Lou's entire body turned to stone. She held her breath for as long as he gripped the collar of her shirt because she had known one sound, one movement, one breath, was all it would take to make him hurt her. He had never physically hurt her before and, even then, all he'd done was grab her shirt. That was it. But she saw in his eyes that he wanted to do more, that he was very capable of strangling her with his bare hands. Even Avery, loud and bold and argumentative Avery, was quieter and stiller than she had ever had to be for the entirety of her seven years. She saw it too. Both girls would never forget it. They heard no waver in his voice as he told his daughter, stop your fucking screaming or I will give you something to scream about. And then he left. He left his daughters, seven at the time, alone in a house of broken glass. But they were safer then than if he had stayed. Lou, much like the vase, shattered as soon as she heard the door shut behind him, only then free to breathe. Avery, older than she should be, caught her sister in her arms and held her very tightly, whispering the words to the lullaby that their mother stopped singing when they were four. Three green bottles standing on a wall...