we're growing apart but we pull it together
Pairing: Aaron Hotchner and daughter!reader, Aaron Hotchner and Jack Hotchner Summary: Part 2 for you i would ruin myself
Making amends for past mistakes aren't always easy. But, sometimes all it takes for one to be away to be closer again.
Warnings: heavy angst, sadness, reader got seriously hurt, descriptive injuries, blood, gun mention, mentions of death, Haley's death, heavy guilt, self-blame, allusions to depression Author's note: Wow! It has been almost 2 years since part 1. Thank you all for the support in part 1. I can only write angst and is really bad at writing happy/positive ending. Leaving the ending of this part for your interpretation. This was bare minimum editting, please excuse any errors. ALSO! I just knew that x or / is used to indicate romantic pairing so thank you to anon who told me that. Disclaimer, Hotch and daughter!reader is definitely not in a romantic relationship or any sorts 😭 Word count: 3.1k
Hotch couldn’t sit still.
The weight of the last four hours was a physical thing, pressing the air from his lungs. Every time the double doors hissed open, he could hear the pounding in his ears, a glimmer of hope that someone will say anything, good or bad about his family’s condition.
“Aaron, please. Just sit down.” Emily's voice was low, the same plea she had offered countless times.
He'd been in these antiseptic environments before: briefing the family after a murder, waiting for the forensic report, standing over a victim on a cold slab. But being on this side of the glass was terrifying.
The outcome could be anything—life, death, a future shattered or salvaged—
No. He wouldn't let his mind go there.
“Family of Hotchner?”
He was on his feet instantly. He looked ready to cross-examine a suspect, not receive a medical report.
“Mr. Hotchner?” She waited for his curt nod before continuing, her tone measured. “Jack is stable. He’s got a fractured arm, some superficial bruising across his abdomen, and a minor cut on his face. Overall, he’s going to be fine. We’ll keep him overnight for observation, standard policy.”
Aaron let out a ragged, silent breath. The brief, sharp cut of relief was immediately chased by a deepening dread.
“I can take you to see him now.” She gestured toward a quiet hallway.
Hotch stopped her, the question a dry, cracking sound in his throat. “What about my daughter?” Jack was safe. Now, his mind was free to tear itself apart over her.
The doctor’s professional composure softened, transforming into a look Hotch recognized immediately - the careful, heartbroken empathy JJ used when delivering the impossible news.
“She’s still in surgery upstairs. Unlike Jack, she took the major impact due to her position in the car. A surgeon will come down to speak with you the moment they can.” She offered a small, strained smile. “Let’s see your son, Mr. Hotchner. We’ll take it one step at a time.”
What if the surgery fails?
What if the damage is irreparable?
What if— Hotch’s breath hitched, his heart plummeting to his stomach
What if I lose her, too? What if this is Haley all over again?
The spiral of guilt and worst-case scenarios was brutally interrupted by the high, bright sound of a child’s voice from the room the doctor had led him to.
“Daddy! Look, I got a blue cast!”
“Hey, buddy!” Hotch strode to the bed, his eyes rapidly scanning the visible injuries. The purple and sickly-yellow bruises scattered across Jack's skin made him wince, but the boy was already chattering excitedly about a nurse and a juice box.
“Are you okay? Does anything hurt?” He gently cupped his son’s face, careful to avoid the bandages and bruises.
Jack shook his head. “I’m okay, daddy.” He picked nervously at the edge of his dressing before his voice dropped, turning small and scared. “It was scary. We were spinning, ‘round and ‘round.”
The sound of his son's terror broke something inside Hotch.
“I know, buddy. I know. You were so brave. The bravest kid I know.”
“Where’s Sissy?” Jack’s eyes, wide and innocent, searched the room. “She said she’d come see me if I went to the fireman first.”
The question was a fresh knife twist. No one had spared him the gruesome update. “Jack, your sister…”
“She has blood like me, too, daddy! She was hurting bad, I think,” Jack pouted, the memory bubbling up. “I wanted her to go first, daddy, ‘cause there was so much blood on her shirt. But she promised I could use her Nintendo if I went first.” The words tumbled out, a frantic justification.
“You did exactly what you should, buddy. It’s okay now. She’s getting help.” Hotch’s voice was dangerously flat, a tremor of fury and self-loathing passing through him.
“I think I saw her crying, daddy. You gotta save her.” Jack was dissolving now, his chest heaving. The pulse monitor began a quick, insistent beep-beep-beep, mirroring the spike in his heart rate.
Hotch immediately lowered the bed rail, sitting on the edge of the mattress and pulling his son carefully into his arms. “I know, I know. You’re safe now, buddy. I’ve got you.” He gently eased Jack back onto the pillows, holding him close.
“She’s gonna be okay, right, Daddy?” Jack sniffled, his voice thick with fear and exhausted tears.
Hotch held his son and stared at the pale wall, the promises Jack needed to hear dying on his tongue. He couldn't lie. He wouldn't.
“I hope so, buddy.”
It was well after the clock had rounded into the late evening before a doctor finally appeared from the recovery wing.
“Mr. Hotchner.”
Hotch didn’t stand; he simply turned, his face a mask of exhaustion and raw tension.
“Your daughter is out of surgery. She’s stable.” The doctor, a calm, middle-aged woman, spoke slowly. “We did have some complications. We had to perform a splenectomy.” She watched his reaction closely.
A complication. A piece of her gone.
“She’s breathing without assistance, but we are keeping her lightly sedated. It’s safer for her not to wake up in pain or agitated. We’ll monitor her closely overnight. Would you like to see her now?”
Hotch swallowed the fresh wave of guilt.
With Jack finally having succumbed to sleep and Emily volunteering to look after his son, Hotch followed the doctor upstairs.
The sight that greeted him in the ICU cubicle wasn’t just a shock; it was a physical blow. His daughter lay in the center of the vast, too-white bed, utterly limp and motionless. Her skin was a map of vivid bruises; tubes snaked from her arm and mouth; and dried, reddish-brown blood was matted into her hair. The only evidence of life was the relentless, rhythmic beep of the heart monitor.
“Hi, honey.” The two words came out as a desperate, choking sob.
He reached for her hand, his own trembling. The thin, still warmth beneath his fingers instantly dragged him back to the single moment he’d spent a lifetime trying to outrun.
Haley.
He squeezed his eyes shut against the phantom memory: the terrifying, lifeless stillness of his wife, his children's mother, on the floor of their living room.
He had to double-take now, to see the faint, rhythmic rise and fall of his daughter's chest, to confirm that this was not that nightmare. That she was still here.
“I’m sorry. God, I am so sorry,” he whispered, the words a rough, tearing confession into the sterile air. He gripped her hand so tightly it was less a hold and more a fervent, panicked prayer.
“Please, please don’t take her away from me,” he begged, his voice cracking. He wasn't speaking to a God he believed in, or the doctors, or even his daughter—he was arguing with the unforgiving hand of fate that had already stolen so much.
“Don’t take her away. I’ll do better. I’ll be there for her and Jack. I swear I will.” His shoulders shook with the depth of the sobs he was fighting to keep silent.
He leaned his forehead against the rail of the bed, his grip on her hand the only thing tethering him to the room. The silence stretched, thick with monitors and unshed tears.
“I should have been there,” he finally rasped, “I should have protected you.”
The harsh, rhythmic beep of the monitors had finally lulled him into a fitful slumber in the uncomfortable visitor’s chair. He was dragged back to consciousness by the faint murmur of voices.
He forced himself to sit up, rubbing the exhaustion from his face. Then he froze. The nurse was addressing y/n, and y/n was answering.
You are talking.
He could hear her voice.
“y/n?”
Her face was still turned away, but he heard the soft, raspy voice—slowed and strained, but unmistakably hers. It was the voice that used to excitedly babble about school projects or cartoons whenever his schedule allowed him to be home. The nurse offered a quiet, professional nod and slipped out.
When she turned to face him, Hotch’s breath hitched.
The angry swelling on her cheek was giving way to a sickening palette of yellowish-brown and deep purple. Her left eye was nearly swollen shut, a raw, livid cut arcing above her brow, contrasting starkly with the waxy paleness of her skin.
“Dad…” she rasped.
“I’m here, honey. You’re okay. I’m right here now.” His voice was thick with emotion.
She offered a tiny, weak smile, trying to adjust her position. A sharp grimace immediately seized her face as the pain in her ribs and back flared.
“Easy, slow movements, honey. I’ve got you.” He carefully reached out.
“Would you like more water?” he asked, desperate to fill the silence.
“I saw you, while I was sleeping,” she murmured, her eyes fixed on the hospital blanket she was fiddling with. “I must have been dreaming because you were there, Dad.”
Hotch tilted his head, his brow furrowed with confusion. “You saw me in your dreams?”
She nodded. “Right after the accident, I think.”
“Honey… that wasn’t a dream. I was there. I got to you right before they put you in the ambulance.” He tried to soothe her.
“But it felt so real,” she insisted, her tone faint but determined.
“You held my hands. It was warm and rough, just like yours. I missed it.” The last words were barely a whisper, a stark, painful admission.
The air drained from Hotch’s chest.
How long had she felt this distance?
“I’m sorry, y/n,” he started, the familiar words already tainted by repetition. She immediately cast her eyes down.
“Look at me, honey,” he asked softly. When she remained fixed on a loose thread of the blanket, he gently took her chin, his thumb brushing a bruise, forcing her to meet his gaze.
“I’m truly sorry for leaving you,” he began again, his voice raw. “I know I have said it so many times, and I don’t care how long it takes for you to forgive me, but honey, I am sorry.”
He scooted his chair closer, the gap between them too wide, too symbolic. “I failed you. I failed to be a good father. I was supposed to be there for you and Jack, to protect you, but I failed.”
His voice hitched, the tears he’d held back since seeing her limp figure finally blurring his vision.
He swallowed hard, plunging deeper into the unforgivable abyss of his guilt.
“I failed to be a good husband, and now your mother is dead because of it.”
“Please forgive me. I’ll try harder. I’ll try harder to be a good father—for you and Jack.” She remained quiet even after his many attempts for forgiveness.
He interlocked his fingers with hers, an almost desperate, pleading grip. “Honey, please…”
She broke her silence then, her voice flat, devoid of fight. “What does it take, Dad?”
He grasped her hand tighter. “What is it, honey? Tell me.” But her fingers remained slack in his, a broken connection.
She drew a slow, shuddering breath, exhaling the words as if they were a crushing weight.
“What does it take… for you to love me?”
The question was a physical blow, silencing every word he had prepared, shattering his carefully constructed world. He hadn’t realized her mind had equated his absence with his love.
“Honey—no. What are you talking about?” he stammered.
She didn't answer his question. Instead, she offered the cruelest self-assessment.
“Perhaps if I was one of the victims, I would have gotten your attention.” The tone, flare, and absolute void of emotion in her voice carved a knife into his heart.
She forced a broken, empty closure. “It’s okay. They needed your help, right, Dad?” I needed you too were the unspoken words.
I was hurt—I needed you to save me.
She pulled her hand from his. The simple motion felt like a door slamming shut, leaving his own hand cold and empty.
“I’m tired, Dad.” She turned her bruised face away from him, retreating into the lonely silence of her own pain.
“Y/n, please… I—please don’t—” Hotch’s voice was a choked plea.
Her shoulders began to shake, tiny spasms against the pillow as she fought back the tears.
“I—I understand, Dad. It’s okay,” she whispered, the attempted understanding sounding more devastating than any anger. Words he had heard before.
The recitals—he remembered. You said exactly the same thing.
He wants her to be angry at him, and right now she’s just dejected.
“No—no, honey. I’m here for you now, okay?” He was weeping freely now. He reached out, his hand hovering over her arm, desperate to hold her and close the distance between them.
She shook her head. “Go to Jack, okay? I’ll be okay.” She furiously wiped the tears from her good eye.
“Jack’s okay, sweetheart,” he assured, leaning in, his argument ready. “Emily is with him. I- I want to be with you.”
She shook her head violently. “Dad, please.” Her plea was raw, not for comfort, but for release.
She craved his embrace, but his sudden, panicked presence felt like a cruel spotlight on months of absence. She needed distance to breathe.
“I need to be alone, please,” she gasped. “Jack needs you more. I’m fine. Promise.”
No, you’re not! Don’t do this, Y/n—don’t push me away! Hotch wanted to scream the denial, to fight his way back into her world.
He wanted to force the forgiveness, to hold her until he could fix the mess he had made.
But then she turned her head, her gaze heavy with a terrible, premature resignation.
“You can’t solve this right now, Dad. Not here. Not now.” Her voice was steady, chillingly mature. “There are real victims who need you. I… I will always be here.”
The statement ripped through his composure. The fact that she saw their relationship as a case he needed to solve, his attention as a temporary assignment, and her recovery as merely an administrative pause, like paperwork stacking in his office, was the final blow to his guilt.
She had already internalized his abandonment as her own fault, her own lack of importance.
His hands dropped back to his lap.
“Okay, Y/n. Okay,” he whispered. He pushed his chair back slowly, the sound loud in the quiet room paired with the both of them crying.
“I’ll be right downstairs. Call me the moment you need anything at all. Anything at all, honey. ”
He couldn't leave without a final plea, “I love you, honey. So—so much.”
He didn't wait. He didn't risk waiting for the silence, or worse, for an answer she wasn't ready to give.
—
“I’m sorry, Hotch, no offense, but you look horrible,” Emily’s low voice cut through the strained silence of the waiting area. She slid a warm paper cup of coffee onto the table beside him.
He knew she wasn’t wrong. He was past tired. His mind had spent the night in a dark corner, methodically cataloging his failures.
How many times had his children truly needed him, and he hadn’t been there?
How long had it been since he simply held them?
What does it take to undo the damage of a life spent elsewhere?
He had only dared to return to his daughter's bedside after the nurse assured him she was back asleep, her unconscious form safer, easier to be around.
A nurse entered the room, checking the vitals. “Hmm… her temperature is slightly higher,” she noted, concern in her voice.
Y/n’s temperature spiked rapidly as hours passed and the medical team are working urgently to bring the heat down. Her whole body was slick with feverish sweat, the monitors beeping furiously.
“Help her, please!” Hotch begged.
As the team worked, a piercing gasp tore from her throat. Her eyes remained shut, but a shriek escaped: “N-no Dad!”
“I’m here, honey. I’m right here,” he rushed forward, capturing her hand, pressing it hard against his chest.
“Mom! Mom—I’m sorry! No—Mom!”
Shaking her head furiously against the pillow, she cried, “He’s gonna kill you, Mom! Mom, run! Take Jack and run, Mom!”
Hotch’s eyes squeezed shut in white-hot pain. This was no delusion caused by the fever; this was a vivid, exaggerated reliving of the worst night of their lives.
“N-no Dad! Dad, he has the gun! Don’t let him shoot, Dad- no!”
Hotch was openly weeping again, his tears falling onto their joined hands. “I’ve got you, honey. No one is going to hurt you, promise,” he murmured, though he knew the promise was useless against a memory.
“Don’t take him away, please don’t shoot him!” she thrashed against the restraints of the bed.
Then, the words that shattered him completely.
“Shoot me!”
Hotch crumpled. His hold on her hand went slack as he bent over, sobbing uncontrollably next to the bed.
How could she do that? How could she ever, even in her feverish memory, choose to sacrifice herself for him?
“D-dad, I love you! Don’t leave me, Dad,” she cried, still trapped in the hallucination.
“I’m sorry, I won’t ask too much. J-just don’t leave, please.”
Hotch was full-blown sobbing now, the ache in his heart a physical weight.
“Don’t go, Dad! Stay, please.” Her voice was frantic.
“Stay with me, please.” She begged again, the words cutting deep. “Don’t go to Pakistan, please. Not you too, Dad. Don’t leave us, please!”
The mention of the overseas assignment was the final, devastating confirmation of his failures.
“Stay, Dad, stay!” she wailed. “I’ll be good, I promise I won’t ask too much, just don’t go on the plane. I need you here—I just need you to stay!”
“Agent Hotchner.” The doctor’s calm voice cut through the chaos. She crouched beside him, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. “We’ve administered a sedative to bring her heart rate down. In my experience, what y/n needs right now is the simple, undeniable assurance that she’s not alone.”
Gaining a fragile strength, Hotch rose and leaned over the bed. “Not leaving you again, honey,” he vowed.
The nurse quietly lowered the bed rails, a silent permission. Hotch eased himself onto the mattress, carefully maneuvering around the tubes and bandages, and gathered his daughter into his arms. The feeling of her slight, feverish body against his felt both agonizingly fragile and perfectly right.
“I’m here, baby. I got you. Shh… it’s okay,” he murmured, kissing her burning forehead.
Sensing his anchor, she instinctively pressed closer. “Don’t leave me, Dad,” she whimpered, her voice fading under the sedative.
“Not leaving you, or Jack, again, honey. Shh… I’m not going anywhere,” he whispered, his vow sharp with guilt. He tightened his hold. Her small, broken figure finally settled into stillness.
He began to rock them both, humming a slow, forgotten tune from her childhood.
“I got you now, honey. I got you,”
