dxlfhotch - Tumblr blog

dxlfhotch · 3 years

Note

I’ve been rewatching CM and god, what I wouldn’t give for them to bring TG back for this revival. I haven’t even watched seasons 12-15 yet because I’m in denial about him being gone 😭😭😩

omg I haven't watched it either xD I've been holding off watching s11e22, The Storm, for like a month I swear. Which, I know is going to be amazing but I also have heard it's the beginning of the end and I'm not readyyyyyyy.

I would give anything for TG to come back. A n y t h i n g. But idk what CBS feels is the appropriate amount of time to be blacklisted or whatever the hell they did 🤷‍♀️ despite how it would be so easy to write him back in, and the missed opportunities is already making my skin crawl.

Okay. This was going to be a quick answer, but I've been THINKING about this way more than I should lately, without ever having watched 12-15 but I feel like I know enough, and with all the projects I'm going to be finishing/starting soon I know I won’t have time to do anything with my ideas. So I'm just going to type this little beginning I have plotted out and maybe one day I'll make it into the fic I want it to be:

(I know you didn't ask for a hc/blurb thing but surprise you get one xD)

CW: Spoilers for season 11-15 that are probably inaccurate af, fighting, violence, bit of blood and injuries talk, some profanity.

((I legit have this all plotted out like a full season, and picture everything as shots and scenes and I know exactly how I would want to bring Hotch back.))

It would start in a small suburban town in Indiana, legit white-picket fence, middle of nowhere, off the grid town. With the most pedestrian name ever, we might as well call it Mayberry. Typical weekend morning, bright green grass and trees and summer sunshine lighting it all up, they still get papers delivered it’s that picturesque. And it’ll pan to all sorts of people on this street of nice, two-story houses, and finally zero in on not the man picking up his paper from his front porch, but the jogger slowing down that the man calls to next door, calling him a name we’ve never heard before -- but the jogger answers with that dark eyed squint and a nod... and it is Aaron Hotchner. Or the man who used to be Aaron Hotchner. He hasn’t gone by that name in years, WITSEC provided him and Jack with new ones.

His house isn’t even really decorated like a home, he’s been in enough over the years to know tell-tale signs of what a happy home should entail. Photographs, memorabilia, nostalgia tucked away in corners -- they don’t have that. He has a couple of photographs he keeps in his office, the only two in inconspicuous view being a photo of Haley and Jack when he was two years old, and a photo of his team the day he completed the FBI triathlon and they all showed up to support him. Everything else of their old life is in boxes in a storage facility in downtown D.C., under another false name that can never be linked back to them.

Mr. Scratch was a poor excuse for why he and Jack were still under WITSEC, but he hopes near daily that it was enough of a reason that no one would question why he didn’t return once that monster was dead. That no one smart enough to read between the lines would go digging for more reasons, or worse -- try to find him -- and they pictured him living a happy retirement very similar to the charade he is living now.

But Aaron Hotchner was never meant for retirement. No matter how easy and simple his days have been the past few years. It was only a matter of time.

He walks through his home that looks more like the insides of a Home Living magazine, to his kitchen which is bright and spacious and tiled white that he knows Haley would have loved, getting a glass of water from the sink and chugging it all in one go. It isn’t until he’s getting a second glass that he hears it. The faucet was supposed to have masked any disturbance, they were careful in when they moved, how they placed their feet, the slowness of the their approach -- but not enough.

Hotch keeps his shoulders relaxed, his spine still ram-rod straight but that’s just how he stands and it keeps tension ready at a moment’s notice. Keeps him on alert, which he needs as he takes slower sips of water and lets all his other sense shift to a heightened awareness. Knows this house like the back of his hand, even if he’s never allowed himself to consider it home, so he knows which floorboards creak and where all the furniture is strategically placed. Always prepared for something like this to happen, even if he never imagined someone would be so bold.

Their mistake.

With a careful tick of his head, peripherals his only guidance, he strikes before the intruder gets to. An iron grip and momentum that propels their face into the metal of the sink basin, shocking them that what their file was so misleading about their target. Retired FBI agent, almost 60 years old, living in Pleasantville with a picket fence and a vegetable garden. This should have been easy. The intruder is stunned by the blow, attempts a quick recovery where they lash out and get a few good body shots into the older man -- but he’s built like a brick wall, can take a blow and give it back twice as hard -- a few more precise hits and another crack of their face to the sink that shatters the bridge of their nose leaves the attacker slumping to the floor.

“You didn’t do your research,” Hotch tells them, breathing a little heavy, opening up a drawer usually deemed for junk and pulls out zipties and an ancient looking cell phone buried deep at the back. “Sloppy. I expected more from him.”

The attacker kicks out Hotch’s knees in a fit of rage (at having his skill set insulted so), leaving them both crashing to the floor. They grapple and fight a bit more, knocking dishes from the counters and pots and pans to the floor from the grill top island, but Hotch is so well-trained in take downs he gets the slighter man pinned with only a split lip and a single hitch in breath. He barely broke a sweat. Knocks the guy out clean, two solid punches to his face, and he stops because he knows better. Has been there before, and they need to question whoever was sent to his house to kill him.

He’s barely off the floor, the intruder binded and stuck in a corner when Jack walks in from early morning soccer practice. Takes one look at the kitchen, his dad with blood in the corner of his mouth, and the guy all in black bound by zipties and already knows what happened. Sixteen, nearly as tall as his father now, he looks only mildly worried for all of two seconds until he sees that his dad has an old flip cell phone held up to his good ear, awaiting a connection with their handler in Indianapolis.

“... Does this mean we get to go home?”

The shot would pan back to Hotch, and he wouldn’t answer him, just tells the person on the phone to ‘patch him through, they have a situation’, and there would be no very obvious look in answer to Jack’s question. But all of us who know him, know the subtle changes in expression and the slight softening to that stern frown, knows what his reply would have been.

The very next scene would be the BAU. JJ and Emily walking at a brisk pace covering a debrief, since they basically run the department now. Everyone has been called in, everyone, retired and moved away and even the ones who cut all ties have been contacted. JJ has just gotten off the phone with Elle, who is working as a liaison in Rome and assured her that if anyone showed up in her home to attack her that they would be leaving in a body bag. But she appreciated the heads up.

In the bullpen it’s more like a family reunion than anything. Garcia has just gotten off the elevators, a flurry of color and blonde curls and bright as ever, Morgan and Savannah are trying to corral Hank and the twins (both girls and pure chaos now that they can walk) while still making introductions with the new team and their families, and asking if Reid or Rossi know anything about what’s going on as JJ gets there and asks for everyone’s attention.

“Not everyone is here yet, Kate and her family are on their way from upstate, Will’s getting the boys from school, and Alex and her husband are on a plane, but we need to get started as soon as possible.”

“What’s is going on, JJ?” Morgan asks, passing off one of the twins to Penelope who is in full baby fever mode despite what is obviously a very bad circumstance that has brought them all together. It’s a juxtaposition that has put everyone on edge. It doesn’t help when JJ and Emily look at each other as if in confirmation, trying to decide who is going to tell them.

“Okay, that doesn’t inspire confidence,” Rossi points out. “What happened?”

Emily sighs and makes a gesture for JJ to take the floor, since she has been on point for most of this.

The bull pen is silent in anticipation.

“Earlier this morning, Hotch was attacked in his home in Indiana,” she says, and whatever anyone thought was going on -- that wasn’t it. The shock across the room is like a bomb has detonated.

Rossi curses something out in Italian, looking down, and JJ immediately realizes how this all sounds. But doesn’t even get to backtrack as Reid looks completely devastated and Garcia like she’s about to cry and everyone else starts shouting questions at her.

“What happened to Jack?”

“How did they even find him? What the fuck is wrong with WITSEC?!”

“Is he okay?” asks Tara, the only intellectual who can see the panic now blooming on JJ’s face.

“Yes, yes! He’s okay, sorry, no -- Hotch is fine. The guy who tried to kill him... not so much, but he should be conscious soon so they can question him.”

“Jesus Christ, JJ,” Morgan says looking like he just aged ten years in the past 30 seconds. “Lead with that.”

“Sorry, I’m sorry. He’s okay, Jack is okay, they’ve been picked up. But... there’s a lot we need to be filled in on,” she admits, which quiets the room once more. “Apparently, the WITSEC had nothing to do with Mr. Scratch. There’s something much bigger and more dangerous going on, and he went under to keep us all safe. As well as himself, and Jack.”

“What is it?”

JJ makes a gesture with her hands splayed as she looks a little lost. “I only know bare bones, we have to wait to hear the specifics and get everyone somewhere safe.”

“You think we’re going to trust WICSEC after this?!”

Emily intervenes this time, “We have a plan, or... Hotch has a plan, I think. We’re just learning about everything as we go, he’s really the one that knows the most about it.”

“Then where is he?” Morgan speaks up again. “If he’s been pulled out, and we’re all in danger, why isn’t he here explaining this to us himself?”

It’s a good question, and everyone looks expectantly at the two women leading the informal briefing.

“Will he come back at all?” Reid asks, speaking up for the first time. It’s been years, that’s a long time to rethink a life like the BAU, and everything it entails.

JJ takes a deep breath. “He’s... in--”

“Out-processing.”

Hotch is at the back of the room. Everyone turns to him, even JJ and Emily look surprised to see him so soon. ((But we all know the CM cinematography love that kind of return shot, so I’m catering to it. For situational parallels if nothing else. Imagine the gif sets.))

“I pushed it as fast as they could go, but WITSEC always drags their feet.” The familiar drone, dry barely-there-humor, breaks whatever spell that had been over the room at the sight of the old Unit Chief. Disbelief and relief and stunned surprise litter every expression, and although Penelope looks like the first to say something, her words change course just as she opens her mouth. Because Hotch is still in civilian clothes, a duffle-bag over his shoulder he used as a go-bag for decades, and beside him with a bag of his own with messy dirty blonde hair is--

“Oh my God, is that Jack!?” she near sobs, the teenager smiling at her in a way that looks so much like Haley, and she goes to hug him first with the boy meeting her halfway. “You’re so tall! And so grown up, look at you!” There’s definitely tears and the team converges on the Hotchners all at once. Reid hugs Hotch first, as tight and bone-crushing as that night in Atlanta all those years ago, followed soon after by Rossi who looks like he might shake the man but just hugs him tight and plants an absurdly embarrassing kiss on his cheek that finally cracks Hotch’s expression into something like a smile. Everyone hugs, everyone, Savannah calls him Aaron instead of Hotch because that was how he’d introduced himself all those years ago, the twins wave shyly and he shakes hands with the newer members that never got to meet him but have heard very tall tales about him for years and years.

(And y’all, it would be the best damn scene and I would sob like a baby watching it.)

Morgan would be the one that would hold back and let the others go first, but it would also be the most profound when Hotch goes to shake his hand and the other man uses that to pull him into a tight hug of his own.

“I’m glad you can still hold your own,” he’ll tease with nearly no heat behind it. Hotch hears it for the caring that it is.

“Like hell I would let that happen twice in my own home,” he assures him.

Everyone settles down, and Emily leads some finer points of what’s going to happen with everyone in the next few hours. Days. Weeks, even, because there’s no knowing what is going to happen next. Hotch observes her, and there HAS to be a shot where she glances over to him and they share a look of understanding -- because she is Unit Chief now, and he approves of what he sees.

But she turns the floor over to him, and Hotch explains what’s going on.

((I’m going to leave the finer points out about the case and the unsub, mostly because I haven’t finished ironing them out yet and I hope once I watch the remaining season I will be able to much more easily))

But at SOME POINT in the briefing, when Hotch is explaining what happened with the assassin in his home and how he apprehended him, and Emily maybe interjects with the injuries sustained and that they are still waiting for the man to regain consciousness. Penelope will 100% lean over to where Jack is sitting beside her and say without flinching, “Your dad is such a bad ass.”

((I also plan on bringing up Reid was in prison in this scene but it will be more humorous than anything because of Hotch’s reaction, stay tuned on that one. Again I’m not there yet))

((and where I’m taking them is also a secret because I need to do research and it will be so damn cool, but Hotch has everything completely planned out -- like he does. Goes as far as asking the few who question him “Secure enough for you?” when he drops where they will be staying and the protection they will have. Full blown mic drop moment.))

“So gather all of your belongings that you have here. Secure pets and homes, call the kid’s schools, whatever you need to do,” Hotch informs them, stepping back into his old shoes as team leader without even meaning to. But no one tells him to stop. “We need to be in the air ASAP, the jet is being prepped as we speak so we need to move on this.”

He leaves it at that, and everyone doesn’t move. Watching, waiting, smirking a little bit (Penelope, maybe even Reid), until he gives in.

“Wheels up in 30.”

Garcia giggles so much she near cackles with it. “Oh, I just got goosebumps!” And by Emily’s smirk and Morgan’s shared grin with Reid, a million watts between them, everyone is up and moving and pulling out cell phones to get their affairs in order.

Rossi sidles up to Hotch at that point, also openly smirking that they got him to say those four time-honored words. “Welcome back, Aaron.”

And Hotch, well -- he looks around the room at the family he had to leave behind without any hope of seeing them again, and feels every hardened edge in his face and demeanor soften. Before he looks to Dave and tells him what’s been going through his head ever since he walked back through the doors of the BAU.

“It’s good to be home.”

((END SCENE))

96 notes · View notes