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"Please don't be mad…" Jack's plea came through lips slick with tears. Hotch could hear them through the phone. His eyes weren't even open yet and his groggy half-asleep brain barely recognized the fact that he'd answered the phone at all but he knew Jack was crying whether it was real or not. And in truth, it didn't feel real. It had all the qualities of a dream, and with Hank's weight on his chest, his shirt wet from drool and sweat, he flickered between tumbling back to sleep and opening his eyes.
He used to be so quick to wake, one small sound and he'd shoot upright and be ready to go but his body rarely engaged like that anymore. It didn't need to. His life was different now and emergencies weren't commonplace. All of the people who needed him were usually in the same place as he was.
"Mad?" Hotch asked wearily, playing along. "Why would I be mad?"
In the background, he could just make out the sound of a distant voice on a loud speaker. No, not a loud speaker, a paging system. It took him a minute to place the surreal quality of it, familiar as it was - a hospital. Why would Jack be in a hospital? That didn't make sense, and for one split second he wavered. This must be a dream. Jack was at school, maybe that was the sound he heard. They had intercoms too. They paged people too.
"Where are you, Jack?" he pressed, finding his voice.
"Please don't be mad," the boy was practically begging now, and he sounded so much younger than his fifteen and a half years. Fifteen and three quarters, he would correct. Hotch didn't care for playing that game - every time Jack tried to correct him, he removed a year. You mean fourteen? Dad. Oh, thirteen? You meant thirteen. Daaaaaaaaad. And so on. To Hotch he sounded like a little boy sitting in the middle of a big mess, ketchup on the counter or cereal milk on the floor, pleading for mercy from his stern and serious father.
Stern and serious but always gentle, so he couldn't really understand how big of a mess Jack thought he might be in if he was practically begging for his father not to be mad at him.
With alarm bells suddenly blaring in his ears, Hotch carefully slid Hank off of the top of him and sat himself up, rubbing at his tired eyes. He wasn't even sure what time it was. Today was his day home with Hank, and he had been just as tired and cranky at nap time as the usually pleasant toddler was so he figured there was no harm in both of them lying down. He had no memory after pulling the blanket up over them and singing a short lullaby to help the grouchy little guy on his chest drift off.
It had worked for him too, he supposed.
"I'm not mad…just tell me what happened." His voice was low and guarded.
"I did really good in Driver's Ed today, I passed my first drive test so Derek told me I could drive us home…" his words came in fast, too fast for Hotch's sleepy brain to really keep up or pick apart. He couldn't read between the lines, he couldn't profile his tone of voice, dammit he needed to wake up.
"Uh huh…" Hotch already hated where this was going, though, he did know that. There was an aching sense of dread gnawing at him now. He closed his eyes and a flash of crunched metal and shattered glass flooded his mind, snapping him fully awake. Driver's ed, drive us home…sirens, ambulances, blood.
"It wasn't my fault!"
"What happened Jack?" He was getting impatient now and Jack, in his frenzy, interpreted it immediately as anger. Why would he not? In all his years being alone with his father, he really didn't have much experience to draw on when it came to his temper. He'd heard stories from uncle Sean, and even some from Derek, but he'd never seen it and the idea of it erupting because of something he did was so terrifying that it made him panic. Hotch could hear his son's staggered panicked breath and he knew that if he said one more word it would push him over the edge, so he waited as patiently as he was able. He chewed on the roiling sense of dread like a cow chewing cud.
"Give me the phone, Jack," he heard Derek say and he closed his eyes, thanking God for one small mercy. Derek was there. Derek could read the situation. Jack huffed indignantly, a sound that was always accompanied by a dramatic eye roll, and handed the phone over with some reluctance. Like he had it handled, though they all knew he clearly did not. "Hey baby," Derek said, waving Jack off after slapping a wad of cash into his hand for the vending machine. He mouthed something quickly - get some sugar pronto - and turned his attention to the phone, away from Jack's teenage fuming.
"Please just tell me what happened."
"First of all, everything will be okay." Derek paused there, letting it sink in. He'd never lied to Hotch about that. Sure, he'd said he was fine more than once and that was maybe a stretch of the truth, but this statement was carefully curated. Everything will be okay. Maybe it isn't right this second, but it will be. Nothing permanent. Hotch breathed a small sigh of relief and nodded, as if Derek could see it. "We got nailed by a drunk driver goin' forty in a school zone. Two blocks from the school. Your car is totaled and my arm is fucked up good but Jack is okay. A few bumps and bruises, nothing serious. He saved our lives." He slipped that last part in there right when he knew that Hotch's heart was about to burst, right when he knew Hotch would need something good to grip onto as the waves of anger crashed over him.
"Derek…" Hotch's heart had stopped beating, he thought, or maybe the world stopped spinning completely, he really couldn't tell and it didn't matter which. Everything took on a hazy unreal quality. His vision narrowed to pinpricks and for a full second he thought he was going to pass out. The only thing that kept him blinking, kept him pulling in strained tight breaths was the toddler sleeping peacefully beside him.
The toddler who didn't have any idea how close he'd come to losing half of his family while he napped.
"Don't worry about us, we're at the hospital, it's all good. They're gonna pop my hinky shoulder back in place here in a sec and we'll hop the next train home."
"Don't be ridiculous. I'll come pick you up in your truck. Let me just drop Hank off at your mom's…"
"You aren't allowed to drive my truck," Derek warned with a smile. Hotch huffed.
"You totaled my car, I think the embargo on my being allowed to drive your truck is officially lifted…"
"Not a chance, Aaron. Besides…I uh…neither of us is really in the mood to be back on the road tonight…if ya feel me."
Hotch huffed again, but he understood it plainly. It wasn't about him driving Derek's truck, that was just a convenient excuse to save some face. Hank grumbled something in his sleep beside him and Hotch acquiesced, letting the topic of how they would get home slide off the radar. Derek clearly had it covered.
"Did you get the driver's information?" he asked, because this…this part he could control. His anger was so far barely held in check, and he would be able to channel it into something useful.
"I told Detective Shannon to get it all over to you. Said you'd handle it. We weren't the only car he hit, the asshole went through our front end and t-boned Mrs. Dixon. She's okay, before you ask, Jack probably saved her life too. Your engine block slowed him down enough that he didn't kill her. You make sure he gets nailed to the wall though huh?"
"On it," Hotch muttered, because it was all he could do and he understood that. He was helpless and had to admit it. Something terrible had happened to the people he loved while he was at home napping and there was some twisted irony in the way that always seemed to happen to him no matter how vigilant he thought he was. The illusion of control would forever be his constant companion, no matter how many lessons flew in his face.
While Derek and Jack sat at the hospital, Hotch made a few phone calls…with probably a little more intensity than was strictly required. No one had died. Nothing catastrophic had happened. Maybe he didn't need to call in every favor he'd ever been owed in the state of Illinois. Maybe he didn't have to go so far up the food chain. Maybe he was being irrational because he was afraid and it would be hours before he could see Jack and Derek walk through the front door.
Maybe all of that was true, but it didn't stop him and he didn't feel bad. Nothing catastrophic had happened, and for that the guy was lucky, nothing more. What he'd done should have had much different results - however lenient the judge might be based on the outcome was up to them, but that didn't mean Hotch was going to lighten the charges. He intended to prosecute to the full extent of the law.
And he felt entirely justified. The guy was blowing almost twice the legal limit at the same time school was getting out. He was plowing through a school zone in his Chevy Impala without a care in the world. "Imagine if he'd gotten past Jack's car and into the mess of students walking the next block down," Hotch said, his tone a chilled warning. Imagine how many teenagers would have died. The guy was lucky that he didn't kill anyone, but he picked the wrong guy's family to put in the hospital.
In that moment, and not for the first time, Hotch had become vengeance personified.
Derek, meanwhile, was miserable and finding it harder and harder to maintain his cheery disposition for Jack's benefit. The kid was shaken, no he was terrified, and he needed Derek to be a version of himself that he was really having trouble keeping hold of. His shoulder was sagging precariously at his side, his forearm tucked against his chest to try and keep it in place while he waited and tried to breathe shallow and slow. He told Hotch they'd be done soon, but the reality was that they weren't enough of an emergency to warrant immediate care - neither of them was going to die from their injuries. One hour turned into two hours which turned into three hours.
In the end, it wasn't all bad. It left them a lot of time to sit and visit, to get to know each other in a way they didn't get a lot of time to. They drove to school together every morning and came home together every evening, but that didn't leave them a lot of time to actually talk - it was more chitchat about what the day would hold, what they hoped Hotch would make for dinner, funny stories from whatever sports practice Jack had been at that afternoon. It didn't leave them a lot of time for the kind of heart to hearts that Derek wanted to have with Jack as he inched his way toward proposing to Hotch. It was on all of their radar, it wouldn't be a surprise, but he wanted to do it. And he wanted to do it with Jack's blessing, but he had to spend some time really talking with him, impressing on him that he wasn't just Derek. He was dad, too.
So, this time together spent in the hospital was perhaps a blessing in disguise. A really painful and irritating (and expensive) surprise.
"Is he mad at me?" Jack asked, eyes brimming with tears as he sat and stared at his Coke and his Snickers bar. Derek shook his head.
"Nah. He's just worried. I would be too, if it was you two in this mess. We can grab some pizza and ice cream on the way home, it'll soften the blow. He's never stayed upset when ice cream was on the table."
"He's gonna freak when he sees my face…"
Derek squinted under the harsh lights at the gauze taped to Jack's cheek. Yeah, he thought. He's definitely gonna freak about that. They'd stopped the bleeding but he was going to need a fair amount of stitches on his cheek, on his shoulder, in his hairline. He might not be badly injured but he looked like a kid who got hit with the spray of a windshield blown apart nonetheless. He was white as a ghost, lips pale and almost gray. His hands were shaking in a way that made Derek nervous.
"Jack, open that soda and take a drink kid. Now."
"Huh?" Jack asked, his voice slow, his blinking slow, everything slow. Derek winced and with his good arm, he indicated the sweets in Jack's lap.
"Eat. You gotta get some sugar in you before you pass out. That's the last thing we need."
Confused and in no position to argue, Jack did what he was told and Derek relaxed. At least he was better at listening than his father. If this had been Hotch, he would have insisted he was fine, that Derek should eat the candy in fact, and with the last moment before he passed out he would have done everything in his power to assure Derek he was good to go. Jack was easy. Jack listened. Jack did what he was told.
And that allowed Derek to settle in and relax a little in the moment of silence Jack eating afforded him. Just a few seconds to think.
"Do I have to go to school tomorrow?" Jack asked with a mouth full of candy bar.
"Hell no," Derek scoffed, noting briefly that color had returned to Jack's features. He motioned for the kid to hand him the candy bar, he wanted a bite more than just about anything in the world right then. Jack shared gladly. "I'll get them to give your dad whatever class work you need, you can stay home the rest of the week. Anyone wants to say something about it, they'll have to come through me."
"You're my dad too," Jack said quietly. Derek missed it at first, was about to continue with his comments about homework and teachers when he stopped abruptly.
"What?"
"You keep saying your dad, your dad…yeah I know he's my dad…but you are too. You could just call him Aaron."
"I didn't think…" he started, emotion welling painfully in his chest. Jack rolled his eyes.
"Well that's stupid. I always thought you were smarter than that. I keep hearing all the time that you have to basically be some kind of genius to work in the BAU, but Profilers are seriously some of the dumbest people I've ever met."
"Oh you got jokes now huh? Maybe I will make you go to school tomorrow."
"Wasn't a joke, dad…" Jack muttered under his breath, and Derek couldn't even respond. His voice hitched in his throat and he really wished he could blame the tears in his eyes on painkillers but they still hadn't been back to give him the damn things even though they'd promised repeatedly to do so. He was raw-dogging the pain and now this emotional blast was going to take him out. At least, for the moment, it took his mind off of his shoulder.
Finally, he found his voice. "Thanks kid," he whispered. Jack snorted.
"Whatever." The look on his face and the sound of his voice were sincere and sweet, even if his words were surly. He couldn't be too sincere, he couldn't be too serious, he was still a kid. These kinds of things were delicate. Derek, realizing he'd been bested, smiled and closed his eyes.
"Screw you then."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
They settled in and watched some mindless TV for a few minutes while Derek focused on anything but the immense and spreading pain in his side. He probably had a few bruised ribs to go with his dislocated shoulder. Mrs. Dixon, he'd heard, had a broken leg…at least he'd be walking out of the hospital once it was all said and done. He could be grateful for that…but he was going to take time off anyway.
He and his son had almost died.
"I meant what I said," Derek said quietly when he heard Jack start to cry again. "To your dad." He paused, sucking in a painful breath. "What I said to Aaron. You saved our lives. Your quick thinking saved us and Mrs. Dixon. Probably a lot of people, if you really think about it."
Jack sniffed and swiped at his eyes with his palms, shaking his head miserably. "I didn't even think I just…did it. I panicked. I thought we were gonna die."
"Well thanks," Derek replied. "Once we get Aaron a new car, I'll take you out for a re-do. Unless you wanna give my truck a shot…"
"Thanks, dad, but I don't know if I want to drive again for a while…"
"I feel you. That was scary. Most people never experience something like that in their lives. But you can't let it stop you from driving okay? You did everything right, we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. That was his fault though, not yours."
"Then why do I feel so bad?"
"Well, for starters…you are your father's son." He meant that one. Jack was like Hotch in too many ways. "Lemme tell you something right now, kiddo. You can't carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. You ain't built for it, none of us is. This one hurts, but we're gonna be okay and we're gonna let it go. Got it?"
"You got really hurt."
"What, this? Come on now. I've had worse. Hell, this one time Aaron was driving…" he began, but was cut off by a nurse coming in to give him a shot of something powerful before they set his shoulder. Jack sat patiently and waited for them to finish, to promise they'd be back as soon as it had kicked in, before speaking up. He wanted to know the rest of the story.
"What happened?" he asked when they were alone again, when Derek was sitting there silently, patiently. The look of confusion on Derek's face was almost funny.
"What do you mean?"
"You said this one time my dad was driving…"
Derek chuckled a little slowly and shook his head. "Oh yeah. You should ask him. He's lucky the Bureau let him drive their vehicles. Guy's an absolute menace on the road."
"You're kidding. My dad?!" Jack asked, his eyebrows practically shooting up into his hairline. Derek laughed at the sight.
"Hell yeah kid. He might look all buttoned up tight but get him into a high speed chase and you'll see a completely different man. He's scary. Believe me…he's been responsible for a lot more than a dislocated shoulder."
"But you always let him drive."
"That's cos he'll puke all over everything if he doesn't drive. Made that mistake once, ruined my favorite leather jacket. I'll take the injuries over another vomit fest."
"Are you serious?!"
"As a heart attack, kid," Derek muttered, blinking slowly and almost happily. The drugs were kicking in, his shoulder didn't hurt anymore, and it was only a matter of time before the doctor came back. He was ready, and Jack could hardly wait to get home.
He had a lot of questions. They were definitely going to need a lot of ice cream for this one.