A BAU Beginning

 I wrote this more than 7 years ago; haven't looked at it since until today. Sarah is an auto-biographical character and this was the most honest I had ever been in my writing at the time.

“Hello Sarah, this is Aaron Hotchner. It's been a long time since Compass Coffee. Now I'm the one who can't talk to anyone on my team. I'm hoping I can talk to you. Can we arrange some place to meet?”

I read these words on my e-mail around 9 at night. It's a good thing I check my e-mail three times a day. I wasn't sure what could have happened if I didn't find it in time. I wasn't even sure how long it had been since I met the man. I was not about to let go of a chance to get to know any of them better. So I replied.

“I thought it was time to renew connections. If you can come over tonight or tomorrow, I live at the Dahlia Apartments on Georgia Ave, apartment #14. We can talk perfectly at peace. Well, for my part anyway. Our phone number is 614-203-9877. Call if this works...just to let me know when you're coming.”

Thirty minutes later I heard that phone ring. It was Hotchner saying he was almost here. His voice was tired. I assumed it was as much to do with what he wanted to talk about as whatever case he had just come home from. When he knocked on the door, I walked up and opened it. I was right, he did look tired.

“Come on in.” I told him as I pulled the door open wider. He walked in and immediately sat at the dining room table. “I have some coffee made, I always keep coffee around. I hope you're alright with either milk or hazelnut flavoring though...” I stopped and stared at him. “I'm not a sycophant or whatever the word is. I just don't have guests very often.”

“I can understand that.” Hotchner replied, smiling weakly. “I'll have some hazelnut coffee, sure.”

I pulled two dark green mugs out of the cupboard and brought them full of coffee, to the table. Hotchner sighed. “I suppose it's me to say what's going on in my life, that has me so completely distressed?”

“I suppose so.” I answered softly. “I really don't know how to address you, so I'll call you Hotch...”

“Why don't you know how to address me?” Hotchner asked blindly.

“I don't remember addressing you by name. Normally I would simply say 'sir' because you're in a position of authority. But that's problematic because you are not my superior.”

“Why not just call me 'Aaron'?”

“Because I don't think anyone has ever called you that. And I don't like assuming familiarity.”

“Alright, 'Hotch' works I guess. Why do you think I'm here?”

“Best guess, an unsolved case is haunting you and it turned really personal.” He glared at me. “I know, I answered that too flippantly. Last time I saw any of you, I was about to spend 5-7 weeks in NYC with my mom. The days blur together for me after a while so I really don't know how long it's been; how much of your cases and lives I've missed out on. What I'm trying to say is can we put aside profiling each-other and lay as many of our cards on the table as we can?”

“Easily Sarah.” Hotchner replied. “And you were right. One unsolved case has come back to haunt me. I won't give you details on the killer Foyet or how he came to my attention. But I'm an obsession of his now. Haley and Jack are in, basically witness protection, so he can't hurt them. But that leaves me even more isolated than I already was.”

“You can't live your life in the present moment always dreading the outcome of the future.” I told him plainly. “I know this better than most. No matter how it ends, the best victory or defeat comes in how you live your life til that day.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean living through hell is a choice until it comes. I've gone from not caring about my day to day life because visions of fanciful futures were in my head, to not living any sort of life worth talking about because I knew the dark future that was coming. Eventually I realized that even if I was right, and all hell was going to break loose, I had no reason to live so self-contained and defeated before that defeat actually arrived. Now maybe I'm way off base, but it strikes me you could learn similar wisdom.”

“No, once again you're spot on. But it's harder than you might think to follow that advice.”

“May I ask you a personal question?”

“Of course.”

“Did you used to feel as alone at the BAU as you do now?”

“Why do you ask me that?”

“Being in a position of both strength and authority, you might feel inclined to seize and cling to that perception now that the other...I'm sorry, I don't mean to be sounding like a shrink.”

He stared at me for thirty seconds. “You stopped yourself from casually referring to my family. Why?”

“Maybe my perception is colored from my own experiences but it strikes me you have another family. The original 'blood is thicker than water'.” I told him calmly. He stared at me. “That saying didn't originally mean 'family is more than friend'. It was 'the blood of battle is thicker than the water of the womb'. After the civil war, soldiers on both sides found that they had little in common with their families who expected them to get over the battle return to normal life, as if literally nothing had happened. They found friendship and a sense of family with other soldiers...even those who had been on opposite sides.”

“What is it that you're trying to tell me?” Hotchner asked bluntly.

“I'm trying to say you have a family here and now: your team. But don't let go of Haley and Jack. No matter how this thing with Foyet ends, when it's gone, don't be alone. And, perhaps in conflict with my use of the saying, don't be a solider who can't come home to civilian life.”

“Alright, that makes sense I guess. But why would your experiences cloud your judgment?”

It took a minute for me to answer that. “Because when I was younger I retreated into my own mind to find friends who understood me. My family life was not worth talking about and the few friends I had at school knew nothing about it. In fact with very few exceptions no one ever asked and no one was a close enough friend that I would confide in them. When things in my life got better, when I was finally able to live with my dad and not my mom, the friends in my head were no longer healthy. Actually they probably hadn't been for a long time. I mean they were no longer welcome and no longer quiet. But their presence was the world I knew and it was hard to break out of something that had felt familiar for so long. When I sought real people to be friends, who I couldn't predict and couldn't control, which were really good things by the way and I knew it, I found I didn't have the social skills needed to make new friendships. I was even more out of place and awkward as an adult than I had been as a youth. It took meeting Spencer that day on Kansas Avenue to show me I had people who could understand me, not something I'd considered before. Or better, who could accept me without needing to understand.”

“How come you're so knowledgeable?” Hotchner asked me shortly.

“I thought I just answered that.” I told him casually.

“Alright let me rephrase that; why do you care so much?”

“Because Spencer brought me out of a very dark pit and you seem to be in one also. Whatever other diagnosis or label might fit me, I am not autistic. I have too much empathy for people. Enough that some people thought I was as empathic as counselor Troi on Star Trek. My specific word choice and slightly literal interpretations are because of conditioning, how I grew up. It's a learned behavior not a genetic or mental flaw. I really didn't mean for this to be a counseling session on either of our parts and I'm sorry.”

“No it's, alright.” He told me in a slightly sad voice. “But I have another question for you, unrelated to anything we've said yet.”

“Then please ask it.”

“Why did you say I could come by if I came tonight or tomorrow? Why not meet halfway?”

I couldn't help smiling at that remark. I hoped it was taken as a kind smile not a laugh at irony or such. “I still live with my dad, even though he and I lead separate lives. He's actually off visiting a friend right now. If you came today or tomorrow, I wouldn't have to ask his permission. Besides which, I assumed you'd not want anyone, either my dad or strangers around for this. I was right there wasn't I?”

“Don't take this wrong,” Hotchner began slowly. “but why am I getting the feeling your knowledge of us is greater than you're indicating?”

“I thought we had stopped profiling each-other.” I told him in as casual a voice as I could. “And it's understanding not knowledge. I don't know very much about any of you. But I think I understand you well enough, even from the little contact we've had. I'm not claiming any of this is on point and I don't know until you respond how close I am. I understood Spencer after only meeting him twice and he understood me, not through knowledge or experience but from having similar perspectives and emotions. Also, you have my cell phone number now, so that should make communication and connection a lot easier. And before you ask, my mom doesn't have good internet connection and while I was there I didn't want a reminder of this life. There really is no greater sorrow than to recall in misery a time when we were happy.”

“That was meant to explain why you've fallen off the map the last few months.” Hotchner mused.

“Yeah, that.” I answered simply. “And that the proverbial rabbit hole of my life is a lot deeper than even Spencer believes. I didn't realize how oppressive it was living under my mom until I moved here and lived with my dad. I was old enough to drink and she still didn't want me making any decisions on my own, even about my own anti-psychotics. Or something as simple as drinking coffee with artificial hazelnut sweetener at a coffee and bagel place. She made a spectacle in front of our friends about how 'disappointed' she was that I would make that choice. Apparently while she couldn't be expected to read my mind and see what I'm thinking, she could also claim to know what I meant by what I said, to justify her reactions to my words. SHE is why I have such specific word choice and virtually no inflection in my tone. I went back for a visit however long ago it was and nothing had changed, except I had a clean slate for measuring what was, or rather should be considered normal. Because of which I could no longer take everything in stride.”

“I honestly don't know what to say.” Hotchner told me.

“Like I said, I really didn't plan on this being a counseling session. Or I wanted it to be me listening to you if it became one. If you trust me on nothing else I say from this day onward, trust me on that.”

“You make it sound like you're planning on disappearing again?”

“I'm not planning on it. But barring any of you calling me in for some unknowable reason...I don't think there's any reason to keep going on like this.”

“Sarah, how long has it been since you've spoken to anyone about...what you just told me.”

I had to give him the point for both perception and gentleness. Given everything I'd asked him to be a part of, even by admitting this stuff. “I never told anyone in NYC about it. I've told other members of my family, but they either don't believe me, or don't know how deep the rabbit hole goes. As I wrote in my poetry 'if they believe that all is well, then they at least are free'. So I never pressed the issue. I've told a couple of people hereabouts, professionals you know? But there's never enough time to explain anything I say, so I never go deep enough to fix or heal anything, or for my thinking, to make it worth going down this lane at all.”

“I'm sorry but I have to ask...If it's as bad as you say...if it was as bad as you say...”

“I'll never officially say anything again.” I told him shortly. “There's nothing anyone round here could do about it, and I would rather forget about it all over again. I mean the biggest concern my counselor has is whether I'll ever be able to forgive my mom. But that's the freaking easy part. Not just because I was raised a Christian. For a victim to forgive an offender is not done based on whether the offender deserves it, or even desires it. Hell will freeze over before my mom will stop talking as if this is ancient history and I need to live in the present and/or move on. It's done because the victim needs it. I can't forget about it a physical sense. Believe me I've tried. I just re-fuse to let it dictate my life anymore.”

“Are you saying if we dwell in the past there will be no future?” Hotchner quipped.

“I'm saying that being a schizophrenic or whatever is actually wrong with me isn't what needs to be corrected or fixed in my life. I've learned to live both with and under it for the most part. The best analogy I can think of is being a homo-sexual a few decades ago. People tried to either suppress it or correct it. I don't see anything wrong with it in the first place. I use what I learned while being so introspective and secluded to show empathy, build bridges of communication and see things others either wouldn't notice or would have disregarded. My greatest strength is that I don't rush into things and I always try to consider others before myself. And for whatever reason, I owe that to my mom and my invisible visitors.”

“You've helped more than you know. Thank you, for trusting me with all this.”

“Aaron, thank you for being patient with me. And you're right. The last time I spoke to anyone about this, I hadn't remembered most of it. Please, don't tell anyone else the more personal parts of what I've said. I'd rather tell them myself if it ever comes to that.”

“Easily Sarah. I better be getting home.” He drank the mug of coffee in one pull and stood up. “I'll show myself out. Good night, but hopefully not goodbye.”

“I hope not as well.” I told him cordially.

“You have a really calming way of disarming a person.” Aaron Hotchner told me with a soft smile. “Or maybe the other way around.”

I heard the door close behind him and went to the kitchen and took my evening medicine. It was the weirdest feeling in the world, not knowing what I even wanted to do next.