Reconciling the Hotchners | 2

17. Target all along

⚠️Trigger Warning: Discussions of abuse, dismemberment and torture.⚠️

Emily was right. Aaron couldn't be involved in solving his wife's disappearance. He wasn't an FBI Agent anymore. He specifically wasn't a BAU profiler anymore.

When he got home from the BAU office, all he wanted to do was distract himself. He and Jack played video games. He spent a little over an hour coloring with Avery. When Toby woke up from his nap, Aaron spent an hour reading to him. Unfortunately, no matter how hard he tried, his mind kept wandering to Y/N.

Any normal husband would do everything in their power to help find their wife, but Aaron? He had been told to go home and spend time with his kids. What kind of husband would let himself just sit around entertaining his kids while his wife endured torture?

After 24 hours of waiting, Aaron exhaled as he stood up off the couch. Toby had fallen asleep 25 minutes ago and Jack was entertaining his sister. Dialling Jess' number, he waited for her to come over. All he needed was to convey the worry and panic in his voice for Jess to immediately agree.

When she arrived, she saw that Aaron had been crying. It killed her to see him so upset, and she knew he'd tell her when he was ready.

"Thank you so much for looking after them." Aaron wrapped his arms around his ex-sister-in-law.

"Don't thank me, just go." Jess briefly smiled before letting Aaron leave the house.

30 minutes later, he arrived at Quantico, getting a badge. He entered the BAU bullpen and quickly caught the attention of Emily, who was talking to Anderson near her office.

"Hotch, what are you doing here?" Emily pulled Aaron into her office, her eyebrows furrowed.

"I need to help." Aaron insisted.

"Aaron-" Emily exhaled.

"I can't just sit at home and do nothing, Emily. We may not have been on the best terms recently, but she's my wife. I promised her that I'd be by her side until the day we die. Not helping you and the team find her would be breaking my promise." Aaron warned.

"...alright. You can help us figure out who took her, but leave everything else to us." Emily nodded.

"I wouldn't expect anything else." Aaron nodded, following Emily to the conference room. The moment they walked inside, the room went silent. Half the team looked at him with pain in their eyes.

"Tara, Luke." Aaron nodded to the two Agents, who shook his hand.

"SSA Matt Simmons. Y/N spoke very highly of you and your career with the BAU." Matt smiled, introducing himself.

"It's good to meet you, Matt." Aaron smiled back.

"Okay. Is this everything?" Aaron gestured to the portable board filled with images, names and other information.

"Yes. To catch you up to speed, this is what we know so far. 4 missing women over 3 weeks, Teresa Stuart, Miriam Smith, Samantha Jones and Barbara Kelton. The only common denominator between the women is they look like Y/N and they're all married. Each woman was found dead 24 to 48 hours after being taken. Their bodies were...dismembered and dumped in the bushes near public places - a park, the local pool, etc. Their cars and phones were found outside their homes." Penelope started.

"The M.O. is blunt force trauma to the back of the head to knock them out. They're taken to an unknown location and presumably held without access to food, as the M.E. noted that each woman was malnourished." Rossi continued.

"An inspection of the body parts revealed that the women were tortured with various methods not limited to; knives, leather belts, tasers. The inspection also showed that each women was possibly restrained, held down or hung from something, indicated by the harsh ligature marks on their wrists and ankles." Matt continued.