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When the delayed Dallas PD SWAT team burst through the door of the abandoned warehouse, Rossi was already firmly pressing on the unsub's back, handcuffing him. The rescued victim was a 27-year-old blonde woman named Amelia. Hotch untied the coarse rope binding her hands, the severe pain in his right rib forcing him to slightly hunch his shoulders. With one arm wrapped around his chest and the other gently guiding Amelia's back, he urged her toward the approaching police team. "Go."
Amelia hesitated as she glanced towards the door, then swept her eyes up and down the agent standing before her once more. Hotch could see that her hands were still trembling from fear and the lingering effects of adrenaline. He gently patted her shoulder, swallowing down his discomfort and straightening his back as best he could. "Go home, Amelia. You've been very brave, and I'm grateful that you found the courage to help me in that critical moment. I'll be fine. Now, go home with them." Amelia nodded, and only then did tears begin to roll down her cheeks once more. "Thank you, sir."
Hotch's gaze followed Amelia's retreating figure until she stepped out the door, unaware that Rossi had already finished handing over the suspect and returned to his side. The older man wrapped an arm around Hotch's shoulders, allowing the agent, who was once again hunched over in pain, to lean lightly against him. Without hesitation, he reached out to unfasten the man's bulletproof vest, along with his tie and the first button of his shirt. Hotch was breathing rapidly and shallowly, his lungs expanding only within a limited range, as if the act of breathing itself was causing him pain. "You okay?" Rossi asked as he guided him toward the door. Hotch moved forward with his support, and when no one else was paying attention, he didn't hide his agony: "hurts."
"The ambulance is right outside. you'd better hold on."
"I will. *Cough*, *cough*..."
The crowd passed by them as the team dispatched by the police station began to sweep through the abandoned warehouse, hoping to find more evidence about the suspect to solidify the fact that he would face justice. The warehouse wasn't large, but it had several walls partitioning the space, and the corners were cluttered with debris. The slanting evening sunlight cast shadows inside the warehouse, providing the unsub with ample space to hide. This trip wasn't part of their original plan. Rossi and Hotch's car had been on its way back to the station from the unsub's workplace when, during a team briefing, Garcia had uncovered this address, which matched the profile of a place where the unsub might have hidden victims and committed his atrocities. As it happened, they were the closest to the warehouse. The police station had immediately sent a team, but their proximity gave Rossi and Hotch a head start in entering the building.
Their unsub specifically targeted robust young individuals, regardless of gender. To overpower these victims who possessed some self-defense capabilities, they profiled the unsub as a similarly strong male, aged between 25 and 45. As Hotch was about to pass a pile of debris, the muscular unsub suddenly swung an iron pipe and leaped out from the front. The pipe struck heavily from the lower side, hitting his right rib with the force of a vehicle, instantly bending him over and knocking him to the ground. Rossi was positioned diagonally across from him. As he turned and raised his gun to aim at the unsub, the assailant had already lifted the iron pipe again. In a moment of urgency, Amelia rushed out from the other side of the wall and collided with the unsub. With her hands bound behind her back, she lost balance and had to fall with the unsub. The iron pipe slipped from his grasp, and the unsub pushed Amelia away, twisting his body to run towards the exit, only to be unexpectedly tripped by Rossi with a swift kick. By then, Hotch had already gotten up and freed Amelia from her restraints, while Rossi handcuffed the unsub, and the door was pushed open.
The iron pipe, which had been sent flying by the collision, now lay across their path. Rossi kicked it aside with a look of disgust, deliberately ignoring the clanging noise as the metal hit the ground and the heavy pressure it left on the tip of his toe.
As the sheriff approached, Hotch's muscles instinctively tensed. Rossi, sensing the shift, tactfully withdrew his arm from around him, allowing their leader to straighten up and shake hands with the sheriff, briefing him on the situation. Outside, the light was fading, and the red and blue police lights overpowered the waning orange hues of the sunset, casting a glow on Morgan and Prentiss in the distance. They had arrived with the SWAT team and were now dispersing the onlookers to maintain order. Prentiss glanced back and gave them a thumbs-up, to which they nodded in response. After she turned away, Rossi nudged Hotch toward the other side, urging him to hurry along. "Alright, Aaron, leave the rest to them. You need to take a look." With Rossi there, he wouldn't let the man who had been stubborn for the past 14 years miss out on immediate medical attention. Besides, Rossi didn't need to look to know that Hotch's back teeth were nearly ground to dust from the tension.
The paramedic had the injured agent half-seated against the wall, a flashlight clenched between her teeth, its cold white beam sweeping over the shirt drenched in cold sweat. After obtaining consent, she unfastened the fabric, exposing the injury site where the skin had already turned a vast, bruised purple, resembling a rose pressed into ashes. The elder naturally noticed Hotch's brief pause as the paramedic touched the hem of his shirt, but Hotch merely nodded under her inquiring gaze, allowing her to reveal the startling scars to her and Rossi. Rossi silently admired the paramedic's professionalism, though her eyes betrayed the curiosity anyone would have upon seeing such a sight. She did not inquire about the origins of the scars, though Rossi suspected that if she had, Hotch would not have hesitated to provide a vague outline. As for whether these marks still haunted him with their memories—perhaps they did, but the many experiences of recent years had taught him to bury them deep, turning them into yet another impenetrable secret.
Rossi crouched beside Hotch, one hand clasping the man's unnaturally cold palm, feeling the sudden tightening grip as the paramedic's gloved fingertips brushed against the edge of his ribs. Under the intense beam of the flashlight, another set of marks emerged above the bruises, which Rossi had initially overlooked. Against the backdrop of Hotch's numerous injuries, they seemed almost insignificant. They were short, uneven knife scars, distinct from the nine long, meticulously designed marks left by Foyet. These scars appeared wider due to the tension of the skin, clustered horizontally between the right ribs, with the lines becoming more erratic the lower they went. Their orderly arrangement told Rossi they were deliberate, not the result of any accident. Suddenly, he remembered the paramedic glancing up at Hotch briefly before pulling open the shirt covering the trauma. It reminded him of a case they had worked on years ago, where Hotch had theorized that such scars on a victim were more likely self-inflicted than the work of an unsub.
Rossi's mind suddenly became like a projector, displaying images of an underage child holding something sharp. It was his professional instinct at work, and he hated that he couldn't turn it off. Rossi felt the pressures of life stripping away the child's hope. He was still struggling to survive, but no one cared, ultimately driving him to seek a brief respite from the pain in this way—a distraction, perhaps even a means to regain a sliver of control. The paramedic's fingers continued to move, and Rossi noticed their brief hesitation as they brushed over the scars. The voices of the two people beside him reached his ears, but he wasn't listening. His thumb unconsciously rubbed the inside of Hotch's wrist, where a pulse raced too quickly. In the image, the child lifted his shirt, and as the blade moved between the ribs on the right side, the sharp sting of the blade spread through Rossi's heart like an electric current, pulling him back to reality.
"Your 6th to 7th right ribs may have a linear fracture. Given that you mentioned a metallic taste in your throat when coughing, there might also be a lung contusion. I can provide a simple bandage for now, but I strongly advise you to visit the hospital as soon as possible for further examination."
Hotch said thank you, and the paramedic turned to retrieve the necessary items from the first aid kit placed nearby. Meanwhile, Rossi averted his gaze from the scars that pained him so deeply—no matter what kind they were—and his lifted eyes met Hotch's. The image of the child seemed to merge with that of the younger agent. Rossi thought he knew this man's past, but now he wasn't so sure. Hotch's wide eyes reflected Rossi's decades-late sorrow and anger. He lowered his gaze, his lips pressed tightly together. It wasn't that he was unwilling to share with the elder man he almost regarded as a father figure, but the pain in his chest, the paramedic leaning back in, the police team handling the scene nearby, Morgan's loud shouts, and the flashing police lights made him only want to whisper a plea:
"Not now."