#the rest of the chapter being written like the Bible and then there's gideon | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

imagineaworlds · 4 years ago

Text

I Love You (Part Eleven) -- Aaron Hotchner

Written By: @desperately-bisexual

Request: None.

Warnings: Murder. Kidnapping. Literally everything Criminal Minds.

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Greenaway!Reader

Word Count: 11063

Timeline: Season 2 Episode 14. Right after part eight.

I guess I was somewhat relieved that Hotch and I let out some steam before going to the party, because his plans of what would come after had to come to a screeching halt when we were called into work for a case. Everyone was disappointed to be leaving so soon, but when the job called, we went. That was the deal. Always. So we all jumped in our cars and headed out to Quantico.

At the office, I went straight for the coffee pot and started to make a fresh brew. JJ, Garcia, and Morgan were all tipsy— if not drunk— and the best way to sober them up was coffee, food, and lots of water. So as I went to make the coffee, Morgan raided his secret stash of snacks, and Emily bought water bottles for everyone from the vending machine. By the time I got back to the boardroom with everyone’s drinks, Gideon was back from his night off and was sitting comfortably in his chair like he hadn’t left at all.

The team was all joking about Morgan’s dance moves, he was trying to deflect by pointing out yet again that Hotch and I were late to the party, and I deflected by asking where Gideon was. He told us that he had been at the Smithsonian with an old friend of his. I recalled Hotch mentioning something to me about Gideon going to D.C for the weekend, but I didn’t think he would just be lounging around in the Smithsonian all night. How the hell does one even go about doing that?

JJ stormed into the boardroom and brushed past me as I sat down next between Hotch and Morgan. She threw an image of a couple up on the TV for us and began to review the case for us. The Kyles had been killed in their Atlanta home shortly after the Super Bowl ended. They were at home, the TV turned on for the big game, until the Unsub broke into their home and killed them in their upstairs bedroom. The curious thing about this case, however, had to do with the police’s unusually fast response time. The Kyles were murdered during the game, and yet, the police got there before the halftime show even started. How?

“One of the Unsubs called the police from inside of the home to warn them that the other was about to murder the victims,” JJ explained. “According to the dispatcher, the first Unsub sounded terrified and was begging for the police’s help, while the other Unsub was telling him that it had to be done and he needed to hang up the phone.” She pressed a button on the TV remote and it pulled up a crime scene photo. “The second Unsub, identified as Raphael, was the one to kill the two victims. When the police arrived, both Unsubs were gone, but they had left this on the bed,” she pressed a button again. The TV showed us a zoomed in image of a bible page that the Unsubs had left at the crime scene. Yes, only one paragraph was specifically highlighted.

“Revelations Chapter 6, Verse 8,” Hotch said. “And I looked in behold a pale horse, and his name that sat upon him was Death, and Hell followed with him.”

“So they’re religiously motivated. Unsubs with a mission don’t usually stop their work after just one or two victims. They go on a spree that leaves a trail of blood in their wake,” I explained, turning away from the TV to get Reid’s back up on my statement.

He nodded. “Yeah, if these guys are using the bible as an excuse to murder, then they’re not going to stop until they think that they’ve cleared the world of all sinners. But sin is relative and fluid… So, technically, everyone’s a sinner.”

“That means they’re going to be looking for another victim and they’re going to kill them soon,” Morgan added.

Hotch picked up his copy of the case file, tapped it on the desk, sighed, and said, “Wheels up in thirty.”

We all let out quiet sighs. This was the job, though, right? It didn’t matter if we were ever promised time off, because the cases always had to come first. The Kyles were brutally murdered in their home while we were out having fun in a bar, and we were upset that we had to fly to Georgia? Something felt off about that to me… But I couldn’t shake the disappointment of not getting one more night alone with Hotch or even the chance to say goodbye to Jack before we would leave. All we could make time for was grabbing our go bags, changing in the bathrooms, then hopefully being able to call Haley on the plane and ask if we could talk to Jack. That was it. But at least we had that when the Kyles didn’t.

On the plane, before taking off, when I was sitting with Morgan in the back, Hotch came over to tell me that he had Jack on the phone. I excused myself to Morgan before going with Hotch over towards the cockpit where we were most likely to have enough privacy— Even though Gideon, Emily, and Spencer were already busy with looking over the case to spend time eavesdropping on me and Hotch.

“Hi, daddy,” Jack said over the phone.

“Hey, bud. Did you watch the game with mom?” Hotch asked.

“Yeah. We lost.”

“We sure did,” Hotch chuckled quietly. Jack didn’t know much about football. He was too young to know how the game was played or why certain things would happen, but he liked it because his dad liked it. “Listen, bud, we’re calling to tell you that we won’t be able to pick you up from school tomorrow. We’ve got to go save the world again.”

“Y/N can’t come get me?”

Hotch looked to me to respond, and I took the opportunity. “I’m sorry, little man, we’re both going to be gone.”

“Hotch, Garcia just sent the police call over,” JJ told us, taking a seat with Morgan on the couch as everyone huddled up.

We nodded in her direction to let her know we understood and that we were wrapping up our call with Jack. I leaned into Hotch slightly. “We’ll come see you when we get back, though, alright, little man?” I asked, squeezing Hotch’s shoulder. “We love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” Jack said.

“Hotch—” Morgan called.

I shooed my hand at him to tell him to be quiet for just another minute. Hotch hovered his thumb over the hang up button and told Jack ��goodnight” and “I love you” one more time before hanging up and burying his phone in his pocket. Hotch and I took seats separate from one another, yet still ensuring that we could see the computer screen. Garcia was waiting patiently for us to appear on her screen before playing the 911 call for us.

The operator answered the call first with the script that she had likely repeated over a million times for various reasons. After her opening script line ended, the first Unsub began speaking. He was calm, yet the fluctuations in his voice revealed a panic or a worry of some kind, but he didn’t rush his words like he was trying to get the cops to show up any sooner than the four minute arrival time they ended up making. He never mentioned Raphael until the end of the call when he finally admitted that Raphael was going to kill the Kyles. When the operator asked for clarification, the second Unsub’s voice could be heard controlling the first Unsub, telling him that he needed to hang up the phone. The first Unsub tried to refuse, but Raphael lowered his voice and used a more demanding tone that ended up working, and the call ended.

I asked Garcia to play the call again and Gideon asked what had caught my attention. When I told him that I was unsure and needed to hear it again to get a better understanding, he gave Garcia the go ahead. I tried to focus on the first Unsub. I knew that the rest of the team was going to be more concerned about Raphael, as he was certainly the disorganized one of the two, but there was something odd about the Unsub’s behavior in comparison to his voice in the call.

The first Unsub was calling the police, which meant that he wanted to help the Kyles somehow. He was arguing with Raphael, but he wasn’t running away, seeking out help from the neighbors, or even trying to physically stop Raphael. If the Unsub felt that he was in danger with Raphael, it would have made sense to call 911, sure, but why not run away? That was the odd part. His physical and verbal reactions to the situation were total contradictions of one another. Was he being forced to be there? Well, if that were the case, then Raphael wouldn’t have given him the chance to call 911. And it sounded like Raphael was standing right there when the first Unsub called the police, so why didn’t he stop it sooner? Did he want the cops to come? Did he want us to come?

The only way I could put together the pieces was to try and make some kind of connection with these guys. They were a typical dominant and submissive pair— or at least they should have been typical, but this was a moment that their dynamic slipped. Why? With me and Hotch, I liked to push back in order to rile him up, to force him into the dominant mindset where he would practically force me into being submissive. That was part of the appeal, part of the fun. If the Unsubs were dominant and submissive personalities, it could have been possible that the first Unsub was calling the police in order to rile up Raphael somehow. Perhaps it was a sexual aspect of the murders. But there was no sign of sexual assault against either victim. So, then… why… Why fight against the dominant and grow submissive when he gets stern if not to please themselves?

When the replay of the call ended, they all looked to me for answers, but I still didn’t have any. My role as the one who could find the smallest of details and make a point of them was failing me in that moment. These Unsubs had warped my definition of a classic dominant and submissive relationship for psychopaths. In past cases, they were almost always the same, but these Unsubs didn’t fit the bill. Something wasn’t right with them. I needed to see the bodies to know more about Raphael in order to know more about the submissive Unsub, too.

Hotch got the idea before I could say anything, like he could read my mind or something. As he was giving everyone their assignments, he told me and Emily that we should head down to the morgue to talk with the coroner, and so that I could get a look at the bodies myself. Hotch told JJ to get more images of the victims and help sort out the victimology, and that Reid, Morgan, and Gideon were going to head to the crime scene to evaluate how Raphael managed to kill two people in under four minutes. When Morgan asked what Hotch would be doing, he answered that he’d be heading down to the police station to sort through old, unsolved cases because this wouldn’t be the first rodeo for a team like this with a very specific M.O and the ability to do it in four minutes.

It all sounded like a viable plan, and we all agreed to our assignments. JJ and Hotch sat together the rest of the flight to review victimology, while Gideon, Morgan, and Reid stayed at the large table to review the crime scene, and Emily and I sat together to look at photos of the victims. I managed to steal the laptop at one point, though, and listened to the 911 call repeatedly with headphones on. There had to be something else I was missing in there. I could sense it. And I just knew that if I gave it a little more time and attention, I would finally be able to put the pieces together.

At the morgue, Emily and I introduced ourselves to the coroner who had just completed whole autopsies on both victims. Emily asked for his professional opinion on what he saw while we were still talking in the hallway outside, but I asked if I could go in and take a look at the bodies for myself. The coroner shrugged and told me to go right ahead, knowing that it was probably just a waste of my time when he could just tell us everything we needed to know. But I just… I needed to see them for myself.

The coroner’s assistant was still cleaning up in the autopsy room when I walked in. Both victims were still laying on separate slabs, but they were covered with new, clean white sheets. The assistant acknowledged my entrance briefly before turning back to his work. I approached the bodies, starting with Mr. Kyle, and pulled away the sheet that was covering his body. The most obvious thing about him was the laceration on his throat, which was likely the cause of death. Looking down, his right arm had a gash running from his wrist to elbow, and his left leg had a similar cut from his crotch to just above the knee. All major arteries. All tactical. All precise. All straight, not jagged like you would expect from an unhinged Unsub like we presumed Raphael to be. Still, there were no bruises or scratches, either, which would have suggested that the first Unsub could have possibly held the victim down while Raphael cut him up. But there was no sign of a struggle. So they did this quickly and efficiently.

I covered Mr. Kyle up again and walked over to Mrs. Kyle to examine her, too. Her neck had been slashed, aswell, and there were identical cuts on her arm and leg. A submissive personality wasn’t likely to be this imitative, even if they were to entirely obey their dominant— which the first Unsub proved that he had doubts about his own loyalty. He wouldn’t have hung up the phone to just go upstairs with Raphael and follow along in a how-to-murder tutorial of sorts. No, Raphael did both of these. But he wasn’t chaotic, enraged, or disorganized, which were all telltale signs of a dominant personality. These murders weren’t abusive in any way. They were meticulous, but they weren’t brutal.

Emily came in with the doctor so that he could show her what they had been discussing outside. They discussed everything I already noticed, but there was something critical that he had overlooked. The cut on the neck was the last thing that Raphael did to the victims. The cuts on the arm and leg were deep and wide— so much so that one would bleed out within minutes if they were left unattended for too long— but they also looked older than the cut on the neck. Raphael must have made the cuts on the arms and legs of the victims while the first Unsub called the police with the intent of having the victims bleed out; but when they were put on a time crunch, Raphael slit their throats and they ran.

“Isn’t that what slaughterhouses do?” Emily questioned.

The coroner nodded, “Precisely.”

“So we’re dealing with Unsubs who have worked in a slaughterhouse.”

“This is rural Georgia… Everyone down here has worked on a farm where they need to have this kind of experience. If you’re trying to narrow down the suspect list based on that career choice, you’ll find that the list won’t shrink down too far.”

Emily sighed and looked at me. There weren’t many answers I had about narrowing the suspect list down, but I had an idea or two about the Unsubs’ dynamic now. And I was sure that I had figured out what happened last night when the Kyles were murdered. All that I needed to confirm my suspicions was Morgan, Reid, and Gideon’s analysis of the crime scene.

At the field office in Atlanta, everyone was already back from their assignments when Emily and I arrived. Hotch and JJ were sitting at a desk with stacks of files almost as tall as them, while Gideon and Morgan were watching a video on a computer, and Reid was examining a separate computer that they had found at the crime scene. Morgan called me over when he saw me and asked Gideon to start the video over. He asked me to just watch the video and tell them what I saw right off the bat— to go with my gut. My thing was to catch things at a first glance, and they really needed me to come through with that.

The first Unsub, the submissive, was sitting in front of a camera, hiding behind a hood in the shadows. We couldn’t see his face, and we could hardly tell his body shape. There was no real way of knowing what this guy looked like, but I knew his voice from the 911 call, and there was no doubt that it was the first Unsub. He was talking about the punishments for sinning. The world was plagued by disgusting creatures who enjoyed sin and invited it into the mundane world in order to prey on the innocent. They were just cleaning the world of these sinners through murder. The Unsub never directly said it, but I got the impression that he saw the sinners— their victims— as demons from Hell.

When someone started speaking from behind the camera, he started quoting another bible passage— just like they had left at the crime scene. But it wasn’t the first Unsub, nor was it Raphael. It was a third Unsub. After reciting the bible, the third Unsub said that we would all pay seven times. Seven victims. The Kyles were the first two, which meant that there were still five more to come. The footage of the first Unsub sitting in the dark cut out and dissolved into the recorded footage of the murders.

“Woah, wait,” I reached between Morgan and Gideon to pause the video. “Where did you guys find this?”

“The video was on that computer,” Morgan pointed to Reid, who was dusting off the fan of a laptop. “We found the computer itself sitting on a sofa.”

“The computer recorded this, not a camera?”

They both shook their heads and I continued the video. They Kyles didn’t seem to notice the computer or that anything was out of place as they stumbled around their bedroom, desperately trying to rid each other of their clothes. So they didn’t notice that a strange computer was sitting on the sofa in their master bedroom, and they didn’t notice that it was recording anything— even though the computer was in clear view and they would have seen it if it weren’t there before. So the Unsubs didn’t bring it with them. They couldn’t have if they had only just got into the house to have time to make the call and murder the Kyles. It was their computer— that was why they didn’t care about it.

As Mr. Kyle stood to take off his shirt, Raphael came into the bedroom, pulled Mr. Kyle to the ground, and started carving. Mrs. Kyle got up from the bed and started running to the bathroom so as to lock herself in and save herself. And then the video ended.

“So?” Morgan asked me.

“The first Unsub was the one who was willing to be filmed,” I started.

“What about it?”

“Well, normally, the submissives like to hide and just obey. The dominants are the ones who are the face of everything because they have the bolder, stronger personalities. But they decided to put the first Unsub on screen.” That was just another odd piece about their dynamic to add to the pile. Great. “And now there’s a third Unsub, which changes everything we know about these guys. The third Unsub, though… It’s something about him and Raphael, something that I noticed about how they talk. In the 911 call, Raphael says ‘he’ and the first Unsub in this video says ‘he’ as, well—”

“It could be referring to God,” Gideon interrupted.

I shook my head insistently, “No, I don’t think so. The third Unsub in this video says ‘we’, not ‘he’. If they were referring to God, all three of them would have said ‘he’, but they didn’t. I think that they were referring to the third Unsub this whole time. Raphael is the dominant but—” A realization hit me. “I actually… I think I might have a profile for them…”

“All three? Already?” Morgan questioned in shock.

“Yeah.”

“You’re sure?” Gideon clarified.

He knew that it was possible for me to have already built part of a case, but not the entire one— especially when we didn’t have more victims yet to compare victimology, and I hadn’t seen the crime scene. But I didn’t need to. I knew how these guys were operating. I knew their dynamic, or hierarchy, if you will. I had it.

“Uh… Guys…” Reid whispered, standing up from the desk he was working at. He moved away from the computer. “I think I figured something out.”

“What? What is it?” Gideon asked.

“Something struck me as odd while watching the video earlier,” he started explaining. “The computer, it belongs to the Kyles. The Unsubs didn’t put it there to film the murders.” That much I knew, but I didn’t get where he was going with it. “They, uh,” he looked back at the computer nervously, “they’re still watching. They hacked the computer.”

“Can they hear us?” I asked with wide eyes. The whole investigation could be going down the drain. If they were listening, they would know that we were onto them.

He shook his head, “No, but they can see everything.”

We all slowly moved towards the computer to get a look as it started beeping. Reid sat back down to see what was going on. Hotch and JJ ran over when Morgan whistled to catch their attention. The screen of the computer turned black, like it had been turned off remotely, then flashed the words: THE ARMIES OF SATAN WILL NOT RISE. And then the computer shut down entirely. Spencer cursed under his breath as he started fidgeting with all of the components of the computer just to try to turn it back on, but to no avail.

Hotch then told Reid to get the computer to Garcia ASAP, but we all had questions about how the Unsubs even did this. So the first resort was to call Garcia for answers. She told us that anyone could control a computer remotely, but it was usually done when a company would help you with tech support. Emily asked the big question of how the Unsubs could still have access after dealing with a customer, if he really was in tech support. She told us that it was entirely possible that the Unsubs could have left a Trojan Horse of some kind that continued to give him access and control of the computer.

“If you have that profile ready, we have to give it now,” Gideon told me. “They could be watching more potential victims right now. They could strike at any time.”

I nodded an agreement and the whole team started moving to the boardroom where we could discuss the profile privately. The lead detective and the local sheriff were both off handling the crime scene clean up, so we decided that it would be best to discuss and build the profile immediately, then JJ would just hand out a written version of it to every nearby precinct.

I stood at the board where we had pinned up all of the crime scene photos and evidence like the bible passage that had been left in the bedroom. Gideon, JJ, Reid, Morgan, and Emily all sat around the table, but Hotch was sitting on a waist high bookshelf in the corner with his arms crossed over his chest. They wanted me to start with the first Unsub, then the second, and lastly the third. Sounded easy enough.

“The first Unsub, the one who called the police the night of the murders, he’s our submissive—”

“But there are more than two Unsubs. How can they be submissive and dominant?” Gideon interrogated.

I sighed. Giving the profile sounded easy enough, but actually being able to do it without being interrupted every five seconds was going to be the challenge. “I’ll explain, I promise. The first Unsub is the submissive when it comes to the three of them. He was unsure about what they were doing to the Kyles, but he was quick to listen to Raphael when he told him to put the phone down. He also didn’t kill the victims—”

“How do you know that?”

“When I examined both bodies myself, I determined that both victims had been murdered by the same Unsub. The attacks were precise and aimed to kill painfully, but they weren’t disorganized like you would expect from a dominant—”

“So the first Unsub did kill them?”

“No. I think the third Unsub did. The first Unsub was concerned with calling the police, he wouldn’t have the guts to murder the Kyles himself, but he was also listening to a higher authority, like Raphael. Raphael was downstairs with the first Unsub while he called the police, which meant that he didn’t go back upstairs and kill the Kyles because he was busy commanding the first Unsub. Raphael is the dominant. The reason the first Unsub felt safe enough to call the police is because Raphael isn’t the one he’s scared of. It’s the third Unsub, the abuser. The abuser is the one who has the thirst for blood, and Raphael gives him the opportunity to do so because he keeps the first Unsub out of the way.”

“But wouldn’t the submissive have still been scared of Raphael because he’s the dominant?”

“No. They challenge each other because the Unsub sees it as a game of cat and mouse almost, it gives them a rush of sorts. The abuser is the violent one that the submissive doesn’t want to cross, even if it is just a game. Calling the police was a game for the dominant and submissive, but it put the abuser on edge, which was why he cut the victims’ throats.”

“Normally the submissives don’t like to play around with the dominants. They want to listen and obey out of fear of punishment for misbehaving. Why would they want to play just to get a rush out of it? How could you even come to that assumption?”

I gulped and looked at Hotch quickly. I couldn’t say flat out: “personal experience” because that would raise more questions than we had time for. But not giving them an answer would just discredit my profiles. “I, um…” I cleared my throat and shifted my gaze away from Hotch when I saw him glaring at me to tell me not to say anything. “Based on their behaviors. That’s how I know. The submissive was likely told by the dominant to film that video, but the abuser is the one who wants to get the word of God out to the world, so he interrupted and took over the commentary. The dominant allowed the submissive to call the police, but only let it get to a certain extent before stopping him. The submissive is trying to impress the dominant, but the abuser keeps getting in the way.”

“So the first Unsub is the submissive. He’s the organized one, but also the most apprehensive about their mission. He makes sure that they use forensic countermeasures— such as gloves— to make sure that they’re never caught. The second Unsub, Raphael, is the dominant. He’s also organized, but in a way that plays with the submissive’s behavior. He’s organized for the sake of their dynamic, but disorganized when it comes to the crimes. If he’s trying to give the submissive opportunities to prove himself, then the second Unsub is the one who likely has the technological knowledge to find the victims. The third Unsub is the abuser. He’s the one who wants to get the message out. He doesn’t care how they get there or what else happens with the dominant and submissive, he just cares that they kill the members of Satan’s army.” Reid explained all of that while pouring himself a coffee and moving up to the board to look through the evidence again.

“We get their dynamic. Great. But it doesn’t tell us anything about finding them,” Morgan commented, picking up another copy of one of the crime scene photos.

“Back to the drawing boards, then, with the profiles we now have,” Hotch ordered us.

Gideon and Morgan left to go review something about the crime scene or the video the Unsubs posted to the internet. Emily went to go see if she could help with that or figure out any connection to a farm using the knowledge we gained from the autopsies. Hotch, Reid, JJ, and I all stayed in the boardroom. As Reid sat back down with JJ, Hotch stood from leaning against the short bookshelf and walked over to the board I was standing at. We both turned to face the board and go through everything we knew.

“You need to be more careful when you’re talking about those kinds of things,” Hotch whispered under his breath, but just loud enough for me to hear. “They don’t teach that kind of thinking in the academy, and Gideon knows it.”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” I whispered back, pulling the bible page off the board. Forensics had already looked at it, but they didn’t find any fingerprints. “It’s just another profile.”

“A profile that you based on your own life. Don’t think I forgot about how you liked to play last night.”

“I said I was sorry, didn’t I?”

He sucked in a quiet breath past his teeth. “You’ll have to tell me again after this case.”

I was facing him instead of the board now, “Cat and mouse. See?” I smirked. My profile hadn’t been wrong and Hotch’s worry had been misplaced.

My smirk faded as JJ came up to us with a case file. “I think I found something,” she said, handing the file over to Hotch. “Since we couldn’t find any connections with unsolved cases, I started looking at it another way with Reid. We found this report. Someone called the police to report that there was someone watching and trying to get into the Kyles’ house. The witness was walking his dog, and on his way back to his car, he saw a man in dark clothing trying to break into the home.”

“There was only one man?” Hotch questioned. JJ nodded. It was curious that there weren’t three, if it were the Unsubs originally casing the house or even trying to commit the murders earlier. “And the witness?”

“Tobias Hankle. He lives about an hour from here.”

“He didn’t see anything about the suspect?” I asked.

“Nothing but the black clothes.”

Hotch sighed and scratched his stubble. “I mean, it’s certainly a long shot, but we’re not making much progress here. Why don’t you and Reid go talk to Hankle at his home and see if he remembers anything else about that night.”

“Okay,” JJ said, taking the file back from Hotch. Her and Reid collected their things from the table and headed out of the precinct together.

Hotch turned back to me, “You need to find a way to behave yourself during cases.”

“I was proving a point,” I told him.

“And every time you do, all I think about is last night—” He stopped himself. “Just…” He looked around the room just to triple check that we were alone. “Behave.”

“Yes, Sir,” I smirked again and turned back to the board.

The door to the room opened, “Agent Hotchner.” It was the lead detective on the case. He must have just come back from the crime scene. “We got another call. There’s been another murder.”

“Shit…” Hotch groaned.

We drove out to the new crime scene with the rest of the team. When we got there, the sheriff met us outside to give us a run down of what his men found. The Unsubs had called again, but this time only Raphael spoke, not the first Unsub, which was the first unusual thing about this crime scene compared to the last one. The next was the police response time, which was eleven minutes compared to the four prior. The last thing the sheriff told us was that the man who was dead in the upstairs bedroom wasn’t the man who lived in that house. He told us that the Douglas couple lived there, and that Mr. Douglas was away at work, while Mrs. Douglas was supposed to be at home. The man found upstairs was the local handyman, and Mrs. Douglas was nowhere to be found.

“Is he nude?” I asked about the male victim. The sheriff raised a brow at me and slowly nodded, “They were having an affair.”

“Y/N, Emily, go check the body since you guys saw the last ones,” Hotch ordered.

We hurried past our team together and skipped steps on the staircase in order to get to the top floor. The forensics team was just clearing out of the bedroom as Emily and I headed in, putting on the rubber gloves they supplied for us. Just as I had suspected, the victim was naked when he was murdered by our Unsubs. He was laying face down on the ground, but there was blood pooling from his neck, arm, and crotch, just like the other victims.

Emily noticed the computer sitting on the desk and held me back before I could step in front of it. “Don’t look at the camera,” she told me, pointing to the computer. I nodded and we stepped into its field of view together.

We crouched down with our backs to the camera and started to examine the body. Same lacerations, same M.O., but no note. If they were supposed to be messengers from God, then why didn’t they leave anything from the bible this time? Were they scared of fingerprints? Were they in a rush? Why change up the M.O. just when their message was finally being heard?

I grabbed my phone and dialed Garcia. “Speak at once, mere mortal!” she announced in my ear.

“Hey, can you do me a favor? We’ve got another computer in this house with us, and we think it’s streaming right back to the Unsubs. Can you trace it?”

“If it’s connected to the internet, I sure can. I’ll call and let you know what I find.”

“Thanks, Garcia.”

“Now, be gone, mortal!” And she hung up.

I put my phone back in my pocket.

“There’s not much here that we don’t already know,” Emily said. “They didn’t change anything but the bible page. If they were having an affair, one would think that they would have at least ten different pages laying around about adultery.”

Morgan knocked on the door. “Hotch wants to talk outside with everyone.”

Emily and I pushed ourselves to our feet and carefully walked out of the room while making sure to not notice the computer. Garcia would call back in a few minutes with either good or bad news, and I was just praying that it was good news. We needed a new lead or these guys were going to keep getting away with murder.

When we got outside, Hotch asked us if there was anything of importance in the crime scene to take note of, and we both shook our heads. “Fine, so what do we know about these guys?”

“They called the cops, but this time Raphael did it. But why?” Morgan questioned.

“They saw that we were catching onto them because of the computer. We spooked them, so the dominant stepped in to protect the submissive this time around,” I answered.

But as I said it, I realized that it didn’t make much sense in the context of these guys. With me and Hotch, he got protective and defensive about nearly everything that had to do with me, but that was because there was a romantic aspect involved. Psychopaths and sociopaths don’t have the ability to love, and we had proven that the dominant and submissive’s game was to excite each other about the crime, not to protect each other.

I tried to take a step back to look at it from another angle. “Do we know what Raphael said on the phone?”

“‘Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and then that commit adultery’,” Hotch said. “Gideon says that they’re talking about Jezebel. The Unsubs knew that they were having an affair because of the computer again.”

Something was wrong about all of this still. Why did Raphael call, and why did he quote the bible when that was the third Unsub’s purpose? If the submissive wasn’t calling the police, and he wasn’t with the third Unsub out of fear of the violence, then where was he? And how did they take Mrs. Douglas all at the same time? None of the personalities were aligning, that was the problem. If they had, the timeline would have made sense, but it didn’t.

A thought struck me about what could have been happening, but I didn’t have Reid there to give me more information. He was still off with JJ at Tobias Hankle’s house, trying to collect any information about that night he witnessed someone trying to get into the Kyles’ house. But when it came to psychopathic submissives and dominants, they never switched roles. Not like this, at least, which was why something occurred to me, but I just couldn’t be sure without Reid. I didn’t have anyone there to back up or correct my theory. But I had to try, right?

“What if… What if we’re not even dealing with three Unsubs?”

They all looked at me. Hotch was the first to verbalize their confusion. “What do you mean?”

“I think that we’ve been looking at this all wrong. There aren’t three Unsubs. There’s only one.”

“How’s that possible?” Morgan questioned with a slight chuckle.

“Dissociative Personality Disorder— more commonly known as Multiple Personality Disorder.”

“You mean that there’s one Unsub who believes that he’s three different people?”

I nodded, “The submissive is the one that protects the host, but he got scared, so the dominant came forward this time to protect the submissive. The dominant is the mediator between the submissive and the abuser. He’s the one who tries to protect and entertain the submissive, while also encouraging the abuser’s behavior. The abuser, the third personality, he’s the true psychopath. He’s the one who wants to inflict the pain. Together, they make one man who is three personalities stuck inside of his mind that have been created for different purposes: protection, mediation, and violence.”

“They’re right,” Gideon said to all of us as he stormed out of the house with a bible page in hand. “I found this next to the telephone near the back door, which was unlocked.” He handed the paper to Hotch. “‘Power was given unto them over the fourth part of the Earth. To kill with sword, with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the Earth’,” he quoted from memory. “Raphael is one of the Archangels. Mrs. Douglas is Jezebel. You figure out the rest.”

“He thinks that he’s an Archangel sent by God to cleanse the Earth, that’s why he’s the mediator. He doesn’t want to see the innocent harmed, but he wants to see the sinners suffer. Mrs. Douglas is an adulterer, so he views her as Jezebel.”

“Yeah, well, if Mrs. Douglas is Jezebel, there’s an especially unpleasant death in her future,” Hotch commented.

“How do you mean?”

“Jezebel was eaten alive by dogs.”

My phone started ringing. I answered the call, “Garcia, please tell me you have some good news for me.”

“Unfortunately not, my pretty. There’s been another video uploaded to the internet.”

“You’re joking. Is it the handyman murder?”

“No. Worse. Did you guys have a missing woman you were looking for?”

“Yeah, Mrs. Douglas. Why?”

“Well, you won’t be looking for her anymore.”

“How come?”

“The Unsubs just released a new video of her… being eaten alive by a pack of dogs.”

I looked up at Hotch and Gideon, “We’re too late.”

“I’m sending the video to you guys now. Can you get to a computer?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.”

I started heading back inside and everyone followed me. I stayed on the phone with Garcia as we all marched back up into the bedroom where the computer was still sitting open. I didn’t care if this poor bastard saw my face. We knew that he couldn’t hear us, Spencer said so himself. I wanted this guy to see me. I wanted him to know that we were onto him.

I pulled up the video Garcia sent over and pressed play. It was the first Unsub on camera again— though, I supposed that if I were indeed correct, then it was our only Unsub on screen, but it was the submissive personality that was reading from the bible. He was reading a passage about Jezebel’s death, Mrs. Douglas chained up and gagged behind him. Just as he finished reciting it, the Unsub set the dogs upon her.

I went to turn off the video, but the sheriff, who had just entered the room to see what we were looking at, stopped me. We all watched as he stepped closer to the computer to get a better look.

He pointed to the dogs, “I know these dogs— I mean, I know the owner. Those dogs attacked someone a couple of months ago, and I would’ve impounded them, but the victim knew the owner and didn’t want to press charges.”

“Are you sure that those are the same dogs?” Gideon asked.

The sheriff nodded, “As God as my witness.”

“Who’s the owner?”

“Hankle. Tobias Hankle.”

“Wait,” Hotch stepped in, “Tobias Hankle?” The sheriff nodded again. “Shit,” he wiped his hands over his face. “JJ and Spencer drove out there to talk to him. He was the witness who called the cops to tell them that someone was trying to break into the Kyles’ house a few months ago. How far from here is Hankle’s home?”

“About an hour and forty-five minutes.”

“The sun will be down by then. Garcia,” Hotch called to her through my phone, “can you try to get ahold of Reid or JJ?”

“On it,” she hung up immediately to call them.

We all ran back to the cars. Morgan grabbed all of the bulletproof vests from the car before jumping in with us. Hotch immediately floored it with the sirens and lights on the second everyone was in our car. Morgan started passing out our vests, and we put them on as fast as we could, despite the hour and forty-five minute drive that we had ahead of us. I tried to call Garcia to see if she got ahold of either Reid or JJ, but the signal died just as we left the suburbs and started driving the forty-five minutes through middle of nowhere Georgia towards Atlanta, where we would then have another hour to drive out to Hankle’s house.

“Could you get through to them?” Hotch asked after he noticed that I put my phone away. I shook my head. “I shouldn’t have sent them out there. We should have made him come into the station for questioning.”

“You thought he was just a witness, Hotch. You can’t blame yourself.”

“I’m their supervisor. Their safety is my responsibility. I shouldn’t have sent them out there, he repeated as if it would change the situation we were in.

“Y/N’s right, Hotch,” Morgan said. “This isn’t on you.”

Hotch’s grip around the steering wheel tightened. He heard us and he knew that we were right, but he just couldn’t force himself to believe it until we would find Reid and JJ safe and alive.

It was an hour and forty-five minutes of driving to Hankle’s house. An hour and forty-five minutes of worrying about them. An hour and forty-five minutes of Hotch sitting in silence as he ran through every regret he had. And the worst part was, there was nothing I could do to ease his nerves or conscience.

When we arrived at Tobias Hankle’s home, everything suddenly started to make sense about him and the profiles we built. Emily and I had profiled the Unsub as someone who had experience slaughtering animals, and we weren’t far off. Hankle lived on a farm out in the middle of nowhere. There was a house up front, behind it a large barn, and just past that was a vast sea of tall crops that anyone could get lost in.

The black SUV we were riding in slid a bit on the loose dirt path beneath us. The sheriff spread his men out with different assignments, and Hotch did the same for us. Hotch sent me and Morgan to the barn, while Emily, Gideon, and Hotch were all going to check the large house. The sheriff handed one walkie to me and one to Hotch for emergencies.

“You stay with me. The entire time. Got it?” he clarified with me as we started running around the house and towards the barn. I nodded and turned on my flashlight.

We approached the two large doors of the barn and we pressed our backs against the outside walls, just beside the hinges. He held up three fingers and slowly started counting down. When his hand was in a fist, we both pushed our backs off of the walls, turned around, and kicked the doors in. We headed in with our guns and flashlights raised, but we stayed silent as we moved through the dark.

Morgan pointed his flashlight at the carcass of a dog and looked up at me to make sure that I saw it. I nodded. Three dogs killed Mrs. Douglas on the video. One down, two more to go. We continued on through the barn, and I found the next dog. Only one more left. We kept moving and I found the stable to the left where Mrs. Douglas was mauled and eaten alive. The last dog was in there. Each of them had been shot, they hadn’t started eating each other or any other cause of death imaginable for them. Shot.

“Did Hankle kill them after he was done with them?” I questioned while peeking into the stable to take a look at everything. There was no trace of Mrs. Douglas. No bones, no flesh, no limbs, just blood. Blood everywhere. On the wood of the stables, on the mattress that had been put in there, on the hay beneath the mattress. So much blood. But nothing else.

“FBI!” someone called from the stable behind us.

Morgan and I turned with our weapons raised, my finger on the trigger. When I saw JJ staring back at us with her own weapon raised, I lowered mine. She was looking around frantically, not realizing that it was me and Morgan who had found her. Morgan tried to lower his weapon, too, to show that it was just him and that she was going to be alright, but she was still in a panic and couldn’t put two and two together.

“JJ, it’s just us— Morgan and Greenaway,” Morgan said, taking careful steps closer to her.

She slowly lowered her gun, but she still looked at us with wide eyes. “Tobias Hankle is the Unsub.”

“Yeah, we know. Y/N, call an ambulance.”

I stepped away to talk into the comms in order to call for an ambulance. No one on the team responded, so I tried the walkies that the sheriff handed to me before we split off. I called for an ambulance again, and one of the dispatchers responded that they were already sending one, but it was still a few minutes away. I lifted my wrist again for the team comms to ask if anyone had eyes on Reid, but Emily responded to say that the house was cleared and empty.

“JJ,” I turned back to her, “where’s Reid?”

“I… Um…” She held her head in her palms like she was trying to remember where she last saw him. “We said that we were going to split up. He went around the back, but he never came in.”

Morgan was already on his toes and running out the back of the barn to go find Spencer. I tried yelling after him to tell him to wait up, but he was gone. He was the one who wanted to stay with me and make sure we didn’t split off, but the second he heard that something was wrong with Reid, he was only focused on finding him. Knowing that I couldn’t leave JJ to chase after him, I offered her my hand and we headed out of the barn and towards the cars to wait for the ambulance. Emily, Gideon, and Hotch were talking on the porch of the house with the sheriff about what they found in the house. I opened one of the car doors for JJ and let her sit down while I stood by.

“They just… They tore her apart,” JJ whispered. “There was nothing left of her…” She looked at me. “I had to kill them. The dogs. They were still hungry, even after all of that… And when Reid didn’t come in after hearing the gunshots, I knew that something was wrong, but I was too… I was too paralyzed to go looking for him…”

“This isn’t your fault, JJ. You didn’t know. No one did.”

“We shouldn’t have split up. I told him that we shouldn’t’ve, but he didn’t listen to me.”

The ambulance’s sirens and lights made an appearance for the first time down the road as they came speeding up to the house. I helped JJ back to her feet and led her over to the ambulance just after it parked. The EMTs jumped out of the vehicle and opened up the back so that JJ could sit down again while they checked on her. When she was in safe hands, I took a step away and looked back at the barn to see if Morgan was back with Reid yet, but there was no sign of either of them.

“Morgan!” I called out, running back over to the silent barn. When he didn’t respond from inside, I called over to Emily, and she ran down from the porch to meet me. “Morgan ran into the field to find Reid. They’re not back yet.” She knew what that meant as well as I did, so we started running. We headed around the barn and to the edge of the field. “Morgan! Reid!” No response. “Morgan!” Still nothing. I looked to Emily and we nodded to each other before running into the field together. “Morgan! Reid!” Nothing but the sounds of me and Emily pushing through the tall stalks of wheat. “Derek! Spencer!” Maybe calling them by their first names would catch their attention. Just maybe. “Derek!”

“I’m over here,” he said just to my left. He didn’t scream, but he didn’t whisper it either. He sounded like he had meant to scream, but he seemed defeated somehow. Emily and I changed directions to find him standing in the middle of the field on a small path, his head lowered. “He’s not here,” Morgan whispered, kicking at some of the rocks. “There’s drag marks and blood. But there’s no Reid.”

“Hankle took him?” Emily asked.

“That son of a bitch…”

I walked up to Morgan and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. He looked up at me, anger glossing over his eyes. “There’s nothing we can do about it tonight, Morgan,” I told him. “We won’t find him running in the dark like this. We’ll just get turned around ourselves.”

“They’re right,” Emily backed me up. “We need to regroup and profile Hankle if we’re going to find Spencer.”

Morgan nodded understandingly. Emily and I were right. Running around like headless chickens wasn’t going to do Spencer any good, even if Hankle hadn’t taken him and he was just lost. We would send out a search party in the morning, and I was sure that Hotch and the sheriff already closed down every road out of town. If Hankle took Reid, he wasn’t going to get far. But we all just needed to collect ourselves and catch our breaths. We had JJ, and she could help us profile and find Hankle. We were all set to catch him soon. Morgan just needed to hold onto faith.

The three of us headed back to the house. Gideon and Hotch were inside, and JJ was finishing up with the EMTs. No trip to the hospital for her, which was good. She spotted us arriving from the field and pushed past the medics to talk to us. She asked if we found Reid, even though he clearly wasn’t with us. When Morgan walked past her without a word and I couldn’t look at her, she guessed, but Emily finally told her the truth.

I didn’t say another word to JJ before walking past her, too, and heading into Tobias Hankle’s house to talk with the rest of the team about what they found. They were all standing in a computer room on the first floor on the left side of the building. There were more computers and monitors in that one room than I had ever seen in Penelope’s office— and that was saying something. Some were vintage computers from the 80’s, others were brand-spankin’ new. But what mattered was that Tobias Hankle did have all of the computers to watch his potential victims, and he had the technological knowledge to use them in order to hack people. With so many computers and not enough Garcias, she would have to come down to Georgia to help find Reid. This was going to be all hands on deck.

Hotch and Morgan caught me walking into the room before turning back to all of the computers. “I’ve already called Garcia. She’ll be flying down here first thing in the morning,” Hotch said to me, though not facing me. I called it, didn’t I? “Everyone should try to get some sleep. There’s nothing we can do until morning when we can look for Reid and get Garcia here.”

“No,” I insisted, “we need to search this house and figure out if there’s any clue as to where he took Reid.”

“Everyone’s exhausted and shaken up. We won’t be able to build a clear profile with whatever we find.”

“I don’t think that’s the right call—”

“But it’s my call,” he raised his voice, turning to me again.

I doubled down. Emotions were high— especially for him and JJ. They were both putting the blame on themselves, and it was stressing them out. JJ was dealing with it by going into panic mode, while Hotch was handling it with anger. He wasn’t going to listen, but I wasn’t going to just sit around or fall asleep, not while Reid was still out there with that psychopath. He needed our help, and we all knew the statistics of kidnapping victims making it past the first few hours. Reid’s life was on borrowed time, and we needed to find him one way or another. So I turned and stormed out of the computer room to start looking through the bedrooms upstairs.

Hotch was right about one thing, though. We all needed rest and to calm down, and even though my eyelids were growing heavy as my adrenaline began to subside, I wasn’t about to give in. I felt like I was going to topple over on the stairs or pass out in the first bedroom as I walked in, but I just tried to focus my vision on one thing and figure out what I could learn about Tobias Hankle and the other personalities he had fighting for dominance in his mind.

I turned on the bedroom light to help me see and to hopefully help me stay awake. I started with the desk, taking a seat at it to help rest my legs for a moment. He had papers stacked neatly everywhere, but they were all old school assignments from, like, fifth grade. The kind of assignments parents would put on the fridge when they were proud of their kid’s achievements. The kind of assignments that Hotch and I put on the fridge when Jack would bring home an A+. Tobias still had them sitting prominently in his room, however. Why? He was in his mid-thirties. Why hadn’t he gotten rid of them or at least stored them away yet?

I rubbed my eyes and opened one of the drawers. There were toys hiding in there. Little green soldier men and knucklebone— things that a kid would stuff in his drawers after his parents would yell at him to pick up his room. I knew because that was where Jack hid his toys when he was too lazy to put them away and I would have to find them and do it for him later so that he wouldn’t lose them. The only two toys Jack took everywhere with him, though, were the red dinosaur and the green Hot Wheels car. Tobias had similar behavior to Jack in that regard. There was only one stuffed animal on his bed, while the others were neatly placed on a shelf, and the toys in the drawers, and the school assignments on the desk. Tobias’s first personality, the submissive one, was a child. He still saw himself as the young, innocent boy that he was when he was in fifth grade or so.

“What are you doing in here?”

I nearly fell out of the chair at the shock of Hotch sneaking up behind me. After I yelped, I saw that it was just him leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed and his face all broody like he was mad at me. He wasn’t wearing his vest anymore, like I was. He was back in his suit jacket and tie, yet he still looked somehow disheveled.

I caught my breath and calmed my racing heart while turning back to the desk. “I’m helping,” I told him, busying my hands with looking through the assignments on the desk.

“I told you that you need to rest.”

“Is Morgan resting? Is Gideon resting? Are you going to rest?”

“Morgan’s already making a pot of coffee…” Hotch admitted.

“Good. I’ll take one.”

“No, you won’t. You need to sleep.”

“I’m fine,” I insisted, smiling over at him to prove my point.

He rolled his eyes. “Your eyes are sunken and half open. You’ll fall asleep at that desk before you can find anything of use.”

“Oh, yeah?” I challenged. I grabbed the stack of papers and opened the drawer again to show him what I had found. “Tobias’s submissive personality is a kid. That’s why he called the cops but was so quick to listen to Raphael.”

Hotch came over and took the papers from me to get a proper look for himself. He flicked through each page, licking his fingers every time he wanted to flip to the next one. “So what does this tell us about where he took Reid?”

I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head slowly. It was good information for a profile, but it wasn’t going to tell us anything about where Tobias took Spencer. Tobias’s submissive personality wouldn’t have been the one to make that decision. He might have known a place, but he wouldn’t have recommended it. Wherever he took Reid had to have been somewhere either Raphael or the abuser personality knew about and knew that no one would be able to find. A stack of school papers, some toys in a drawer, neatly placed stuffed animals, and a perfectly clean room weren’t going to give us the answers we absolutely needed.

Hotch crouched beside me and gently put his hand on my arm. “JJ and Emily are taking the couches downstairs. You need to sleep at some point.”

“No, I don’t.” I couldn’t believe he was already back to this. Spencer was out there somewhere, waiting for us to find him. There wasn’t any time to sleep.

“Yes. You do. You’re not weak if you're just taking care of yourself.”

“I know that.”

“Do you? Because you’re not acting like it. You keep doing reckless things that impact your safety and health all in the name of this job, Y/N. You’re acting like you need to keep proving yourself. You don’t. You’re human if you need to sleep, take a break, cry, feel things— whatever. You’re just like the rest of us and no one’s going to look down on you for getting some rest when you’ve worn yourself out.”

“He needs me, Hotch.”

“He needs us. The best way we can help him is by being on top of our game. You can’t keep going like this. Just take the bed and sleep for a few hours.”

“I don’t want to sleep in this creep’s house.”

“Is that what this is about?”

I nodded. It was part of the reason. While I wanted to help Reid in any way I could as fast as I could, if Hotch was going to send me to bed, he had to know that it wouldn’t be in that house. I would have rather slept on the grass just out front. Anywhere but in that psychopath’s home. It was too unnerving to think about sleeping in one of the beds since all of the couches were taken. It was just too odd.

Hotch grabbed my hand, “Come with me.” He pulled me to my feet and started leading me down stairs and out of the house.

We passed the computer room where Morgan and Gideon were half asleep while trying to find what they could, and JJ and Emily were in the living room, laying down on the couches and talking to each other quietly as they began to wind down for the night. Hotch opened the front door and continued to guide me outside, past the porch, past the grass, and over to the black SUV we had brought.

Hotch let go of my hand so that he could pull the trunk open, then kneel inside so that he could push the backseats down flat to create more space in the trunk. He grabbed the vests that he, Emily, Gideon, and Morgan all peeled off themselves once they knew that there was no threat around the farm, and he threw them up to the front seat. I started pulling all of the velcro straps apart on my vest and pulled it off my body before handing it to Hotch, and he threw it up front with the others.

The trunk was officially cleaned out, but I didn’t understand what for until Hotch told me to climb in. I raised a brow and chuckled. He sat down in the trunk and patted an empty space beside him before telling me to climb in again. My eyes stayed on his as I gave in and crawled in beside him. I turned around to face the open back of the car and sat down, my legs stretched out in front of me. I sighed and let my eyes fall shut just to find a moment of peace and clarity.

It was so quiet and so relaxing. No one would have ever guessed that a place like it would have been home to a psychotic serial killer. But that was how it always went. It was always the person neighbors least expected who always turned out to be the most violent. Tobias was just a boy who didn’t get the help he needed, and so his mental stability spiraled and he became the violent murderer we discovered him to be. Living in seclusion on a farm like that, where the only thing you could hear for miles was the chirping of crickets, it would make anyone go insane after so long. But just spending a night there in the car, with Hotch at my side, it didn’t seem so bad. I couldn’t forget that Reid was out there all alone with Tobias, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was letting him down by giving into the idea of sleep, but I could at least find enough peace in the cool wind passing by the car that I started to grow more tired. We would help Reid in the morning, just as Hotch promised.

“Is this better?” Hotch asked me quietly. I nodded and laid down flat on my back with my eyes shut. I shivered as the wind passed by again. “Are you alright?” he asked, noticing right away. I turned onto my side, now facing Hotch, and pulled my knees up slightly to trap some warmth around my body. He caught on quickly, so he took off his jacket and laid it over me. I instantly felt at home in the strangest of ways, but I didn’t question it because it just felt so nice. “I love you,” he whispered, resting his palm on my thigh.

I put my hand over his, “I love you, too.”

#criminal minds #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds imagines #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fanfic #aaron hotchner #aaron hotch x reader #aaron hotch hotchner #aaron hotchner imagine #aaron hotchner imagines

48 notes · View notes

pastorcowboy · 6 years ago

Text

Testing of faith part 1

Matthew Series: Ministry of Jesus

Matthew 14: Lessons in Faith part 1

Matthew 14-17 are interesting. In Matthew 13 we have Jesus do some heavy teaching. In Matthew 18 we have Jesus do some heavy teaching. Yet, in-between these chapters are lessons in faith. In university I was told that word appearances should not be taken too deeply. Yet, the word faith is seen 18 times in the old testament and 238 times in the new. Different versions of the Bible use different words, so I get that word use is depending on the version. However, Matthew clearly talks about faith more than the other gospels. John does not use the word “faith”at all. What is your understanding of faith?

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard of people walking away from God because of an incident. There seems to be two things going on right at the beginning of chapter 14. Clearly the faith of John the Baptist was tested. We know John was in Jail. In Matthew 4, Jesus had just been tested in the wilderness by the devil. When he heard about John being arrested, he retreated to a deserted place. Crowds followed him and he had compassion for them.

Here in chapter 14 we read that Jesus is told about Johns death. He tries to retreat to a deserted place again, but the crowds followed him. Again, Jesus has compassion for them. I get the feeling that Jesus is still being tested by the Devil. What is different this time is that Jesus is not alone. His disciples are with him. To me, it’s like Jesus now plays the ministering roll to his disciples.

This story of Johns death is gut wrenching. Herod, so as not to look bad, has John killed. Why had he not done it before? I believe deep down he knew that is adultery was wrong. I believe that the faith of Herod is tested and he failed. Jesus faith is tested yet again. This time it’s with the death of a friend, but he never falters. Now, in chapter 14 we see the faith of his disciples is being tested. I also believe we are witnessing the faith of the religious community too. Things have clearly changed.

Matthew 14:13 “When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns.”

Luke 4:13 “When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.”

I feel these four chapters are telling us something. All through Matthew so far, he is building our faith. His readers are told the old scriptures. They are told of prophesy. They are given connections for Jesus to be the Christ. Teaching is given on what your faith should look like (a mustard seed). Now Matthew is testing your faith through a series of stories. He is showing us what faith looks like when it’s weak and when it’s strong. What does weak and strong faith look like to you?

Psalm 106:24 “Then they despised the pleasant land, having no faith in his promise.”

Psalm 116:10 “I kept my faith, even when I said, “I am greatly afflicted.”

Matthew 13 ends as many great chapters in the Bible do.

Judges 21:25 says “In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.”

Malachi 3:18 “Then once more you shall see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.”

Matthew 13:58 “And he did not do many deeds of power there, because of their unbelief.”

Nothing is written in Matthew by accident. All the chapters are linked together by themes. At the end of chapter 13 Matthew puts out a primer of unbelief. It is for you, me, and the people in the stories. We are like everyone else. Our faith and unbelief will vary from day to day and moment to moment. The people in these stories are not bad examples. I have met many people who claim to have great faith. Greater faith than the people in the Bible. Matthew is training us to be good Christians. That means our faith is not to be taken lightly.

What does lightly mean? That means we are not claiming to have cornered the market on faith like the religious rulers. On the flip side we have to trust in the Lord. Jesus is the bench mark. We won’t hit that mark as some claim. Yet, it’s something to strive for. Grow in faith. Learn in faith. Challenge God to make your faith stronger. The stories in Matthew 14, if read properly, will challenge you. They will also comfort you by the humanness of these people trying to understand. Put yourself in the place of these people.

Read Matthew 14. Also read Hebrews 11. For extra fun try reading Judges 6:11 to the end of chapter 8 (the story of Gideon).

1. There are moments in time that change us forever like 9/11. When you hear of a death or tragedy and it moves you. Here in the beginning of Matthew 14 we find Herod having a party. If you notice right before the party, Matthew gives us some interesting background. I love this soap opera like story. I have noticed that Jesus picked on the Pharisee religious rulers all the time. John obviously picked on the rulers too. I can’t say why this story is here. It’s like it’s insight into the life of Jesus. Yet, here we are seeing Johns final moments being played out.

I called this chapter Lessons in Faith. What is faithful about this little inside story of Herod and John. Matthew opens this chapter with a question: who is Jesus? Herod ponders if this is John. In a way, the question is also who is John? How about what is going on around here? Something has caused a stir in this period of time. They say Jesus was tested in all things. Maybe his faith was tested at this point. We must remember he was 100% human and 100% God. To be helpless and faithful at this time must have been tough on Jesus.

So, John pledged an allegiance to God and was killed. Herod pledged an allegiance to his daughter and had to kill John. Jesus is forced to see death, feel death, and experience real human grief. For a god, it must have been hard. Jesus could have reacted. He could have toasted Herod. He could have lashed out and took over, yet he prays.

Matthew 14:14 “When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick.”

Exodus 33:19 “And the LORD said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.”

2. A lesson in faith comes in many forms. To have the power to kill your enemies is tempting. If the Father in heaven gave you a mission, do you have the faith to stick to it no matter what? In the Christian world, things rarely go the way we plan. Yet, God’s will prevail. John is dead, and Jesus is struck by grief. He leaves to a solitude place to pray and grieve. Then God draws the crowds to him. What to do? Faith comes through patience and knowing when to act. Prayer does two things. One it gives us perspective. Secondly, it gives God time to move. Jesus realized that John was gone but the work of the kingdom was still here waiting. He did the only thing a loving God would do: he felt compassion for them in his time of distress.

The faith of Jesus is strong at this point. It’s cool, because it shows the poise and strength of the savior. We need him to be like this. It’s interesting that so many people get caught up in the loaves and fish in this next story of the feeding of five thousand. Yet, here is Jesus, by faith feeding the needy while grieving. The disciples have little compassion for Jesus and start panicking. Faith is tested in both Jesus and the disciples. In the Old testament we see the Israelites grumble for food. In this narrative the people say nothing. The disciples notice and grumble to God. Jesus notices and says feed them. Faith is displayed in different ways.

Matthew 14:19 “Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.”

Exodus 16:2 “In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron.

3. Right after the feeding of the five thousand we have two verses that are sad. Jesus found out John was killed and tried to go pray. Then the crowds came and he felt compassion to tend to them. Then he prayed over them and the food. Quite possibly he helped gather and clean up. Quite possibly he taught them just had he done several times before. After serving I am exhausted. After my mom died I was drained. I bet Jesus was spent. In verses 22-23 Jesus sends the disciples on the water. He disperses the crowds and it says finally, he was alone.

You have to wonder what God the Father was doing. It does not say, but did God bring testing of faith to Jesus in the form of a storm? Is the Father in heaven testing the disciples? I do think there was time between Jesus walking on the water towards the disciples and his alone time. It says the boat was far out to sea. That sea was about 13 miles across.

Suddenly there is Jesus getting up and walking on the water to help his disciples in a storm. Jesus has enough faith to walk on water. So, did Peter until the wind picked up. We always look at the miracle. Rarely do we see the inside story. The faith of Jesus is solid on water and in a storm. In Matthew 17 Jesus will comment on the faith to move mountains. Here in chapter 14 Jesus has the faith to walk on water. You and me, and the disciples don’t have that kind of faith. Is this chapter about miracles and death or faith?

Matthew 14:31 “Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

Psalm 9:10 “Have faith in the LORD your God and you will be upheld; have faith in his prophets and you will be successful.”

4. I would like to point out a few extra things about this chapter. One, is that after the boat incident Jesus is found healing and curing the crows again. There is no rest for God. I think we forget that. It says God rested on the seventh day. People think God needed a vacation. It’s more likely that it was finished. The Job was done. Here the job is not done. There are always sick, poor, and lame. There is always work to do as a Christian.

Secondly, is Bible time. We assume too much in the Bible. Time is not back to back. There are gaps all through the Bible. Nowhere do we see that more than in the gospels. It says in Matthew 13 that Jesus was in Nazareth. It’s a hike from Nazareth to Gennesaret. It’s also a fair hike from that place to Jerusalem in chapter 15. These are incidents and stories. In a way, time is not involved. Yet, we think it is. On the other hand, I think this chapter 14 is in time. I feel Jesus is being tested back to back. Just remember that most of the Bible does not use time as a factor. It’s about the message.

As a side note. Jesus is worn down in the testing in Matthew 4. I seriously wonder if the Devil is trying his best to wear Jesus down by having his ministry go none stop in chapter 14.

Matthew 14:35 “After the people of that place recognized him, they sent word throughout the region and brought all who were sick to him.”

Jerimiah 32:27 “"Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh; is anything too difficult for Me?"

What it all means?

Matthew 14 is the beginning of a sandwich of stories about Jesus. In a way, it gives us an insight into being with Jesus in ministry. We see his heart. We see the hearts of the religious rulers and the disciples. This is not just a story. These are real people that live real lives. There is a song called “what if God was one of us” by Joan Osbourne. Matthew uses these chapter of 14-17 to say “what indeed.”

How would church react today if Jesus came back? Have we learned? I doubt it. People are people. We give the disciples a hard time for their seemingly lack of faith. Would it really be any different for us? Could we have the faith to walk on water. I have heard Pastors say we could. Maybe? I think they miss the point. Isn’t it more about Jesus having God like faith. He will be there for us. He can do anything he puts his mind to. It’s not about moving mountains or walking on water. It’s about strong faith in the Lord.

Finally, this chapter means we need to grow in faith. The disciples are us. If we fail to have strong enough faith to feed five thousand. We have faith enough to get out on the water, but fail when we sink. What happens then? Jesus holds out his hand and picks us up like he did for Peter. Stop looking at power and miracles. This is a faith section. Faith in God rather than faith in ourselves. There is a difference.

Matthew 14:27 “But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

Isaiah 48:12 “Listen to Me, O Jacob, even Israel whom I called; I am He, I am the first, I am also the last.”

#testing #faith #matthew #god #bible #jesus

2 notes · View notes

jessahmewren · 7 years ago

Text

Miles between us and miles to go. Chapter 4/6

Written for @thexmasfileschallenge Day 11: Sleigh Ride

-0-0-0-

Scully glanced at Mulder as soon as the nurse left the room. She fretted with the edge of her hospital gown nervously. Her eyes were frenetic, anxious.

“Get me out of here, Mulder.”

He regarded her cautiously. “You know I can’t do that.” Her sudden change in mood made him uneasy. “You have to stay here to get better.” It was hollow and placating and he didn’t believe it.

Scully looked at him with impassively, and just for a moment, a shadow passed over her face. “I’m not getting better, Mulder. I’m never getting better.”

He swallowed, his face softening. Scully was a coiled spring on the verge of exhaustion. “It’ll take time.”

Scully lay back on the bed, the too-soft mattress absorbing most of her frame. “What if I don’t want to,” she breathed. It was almost imperceptible, a whispered confession.

Mulder got up, crossing to her quickly. “What do you mean ‘if you don’t want to,’” he asked her darkly. “Do you think you’re the only person who cares whether you live or die? Look at me, Scully.”

“Go to hell.”

“Scully,–“

“I said go to hell! Or have you already joined me there?” She sat up in the bed, livid, her eyes aflame and her muscles taut. “Fuck this,” she said abruptly, and swung her legs to the other side of the bed. In a swift motion she reached for the needle in her arm. The nurse had secured it so it was harder to tamper with, but that didn’t stop her from trying.

Mulder anticipated her intention a split second before she moved. He crossed and grabbed her a little too roughly, pinning the offending arm behind her. Her lithe body twisted in his grip, her extensive training taking over. Mulder turned her around to face him and she looked up, defiant. Scully’s body was pressed against his, her breathing rapid and her eyes wild. “What gives you the right!” she spat as she twisted away from him. “It’s my life, Mulder. Mine. And I get to decide what to do with it.” She stood there in her bare feet glaring up at him, panting quietly against the wall of the empty room.

“You’re right,” Mulder heard himself say, although it pierced him to the very core of his being. “It is your life. But I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you.”

That seemed to get her attention.

“When you were returned to me, Scully, and your mom and sister took you off life support,” he paused, his throat tightening, “I didn’t want to live.” He started walking toward her, his arms spread. “I didn’t want to live in a world without you in it. And the night I sat on my couch waiting for that call, waiting to learn if you would live or die, I had resolved not to.”

She looked up at him with large, wet eyes, her previous ire gone.

“You saved my life by simply living.” He swallowed. “And I can’t let you give up.”

She looked at him then, dimly remembering events from a lifetime ago. She dully realized that to kill herself was to kill him too. It only served to make her feel worse for her actions.

“I love you Mulder,” she said through her tears, “but I’m sorry I’m not dead.” Her eyes were vacant, fixed on a distant point, and she slid down the wall to rest in a sitting position. She brushed her hair away from her face with a shaky hand. “I really, really am.”

Mulder watched Scully where she sat folded on the polished floor. Her knees were bruised, and she rested her forehead on them. He knelt on the floor in front of her.

“I’m not,” he said in the stillness. He wrapped his hand around her upper arm and pulled her close. He kissed the top of her head, and she didn’t resist him. Indeed, she seemed to melt into his arms as if she were buckling under her own weight. “Don’t give up on me Scully,” he said into her hair. “It gets better. It’s just going to take some time.”

-0-0-0-

Hotel Monaco

Bethesda, Maryland

6:15p

Mulder used his FBI credentials to gain access to Scully’s hotel room on the 9th floor.

He walked down the richly lit hall, passing identical doors with identical brass handles. A few room service trays lay at the thresholds, impressing the lush maroon carpet with their burden of dishes. Mulder slid the keycard and stepped inside.

It smelled of cleaner and antiseptic. The lights were low and the bed was made. He suspected Scully had done that before…everything. She was tidy to a fault. In the corner he spotted her suitcase and proceeded to unzip it. It was small and from the contents within, it didn’t look like she had planned to stay long. He placed it by the door.

A glass of water stood on the nightstand. A Gideon bible lay open next to it. The television was on, an old movie with the Ronette’s Sleigh Ride played over the voices of laughing children, a grim contrast to the sadness that loomed over everything the light touched.

After unconsciously avoiding it, he found his way into the bathroom. He had read the report and knew this was where she’d been found. Had it not been for the dry cleaning, he might be visiting Bethesda on an entirely different errand. The young man delivering her clothes became alarmed when he heard what sounded like struggling and couldn’t get an answer at the door. He had housekeeping open it and found her in the bath, nearly drowned.

The bathroom had been impeccably cleaned. No one would have ever guessed what had transpired there nearly a week ago, although the room still remained off limits to further guests. He glanced quickly at the tub in the middle of the room, then looked away. Mulder gathered the trifles scattered there and turned his back on it.

On the floor of the closet there was a small overnight bag containing, among other things, a gun. It wasn’t her service weapon from the Bureau, but her personal weapon of a similar make. He checked the full clip and tucked it into the waistband of his jeans. There was also a pantsuit in the closet. He left it.

Mulder grabbed the few things he thought she might need and left.

-0-0-0-

“Dana Scully is not progressing.” Dr. Barrett Johansson took a pen from his pocket and scribbled a quick signature on a passing clipboard. “She is not eating and is making little attempt at communicating. I also suspect her violent tendencies will only escalate if she is left in low-security. For these reasons, I am moving Dana Scully to Tier 1 status. She’ll be in complete lockdown until further notice.”

Sara Marshall watched the doctor’s sleek, bald head punctuate the air as he walked briskly down the hall. She felt helpless to stop what was clearly a poor decision. She tucked a loose strand behind her ear. “That’s not true you know, about communicating. She is accepting visitors,” she called after him. Or one visitor, Sara mentally amended. Dr. Johansson gave her an annoyed look before stepping onto the elevator.

Sara felt sick, but was instantly glad she’d swapped shifts with another nurse so that she could pull a double. Dana wouldn’t make it a day in lockdown. Further isolating her would push her completely over the edge. She would try again, or she would simply starve herself until the doctors began eating for her (which would only drive her deeper into depression).

Didn’t the doctors know that this wasn’t about food, but control? she thought.

Sara knew that suicide was all about reasserting power. Dana didn’t need life thrust upon her in the form of medical intervention. She needed to know that she has the power to get better. Frustrated, she passed off her last few patients to a fellow nurse and went directly to Dana’s room.

She wasn’t in bed. Dana sat in the high-backed vinyl chair on the far side of the room. The room was dimly lit, and through the blinds the ambient light from the city threw jagged slashes of light across her face. “Where’s your visitor?” Sara asked the seated woman.

“He’ll be back.” A non-answer. Sara eyed the plastic chair. “Do you mind if I sit down?” Dana favored her with a slightly bemused expression. Sara placed her clipboard on the foot of the bed and positioned the orange chair several feet between them.

“How do you think you’re doing,” she probed carefully.

Dana looked at her, both indifferent and annoyed. “Physically, I’m fine.” When Sara didn’t say anything, she added, “I still think about dying, if that’s what you mean.”

Sara nodded. “Yeah. Well, that part gets better,” she said quietly. And then she pushed a wide, ornate bangle bracelet up her slender arm, exposing her left wrist. In the low light, Scully could see the silvery-white scars glowing. She swallowed.

“So why’d you do it,” Scully asked quietly. Sara looked at her with genuine understanding. “Same reason,” she said.

Not the same reason, Scully thought, but she let it go. She looked away instead. Sara looked at her, her eyes suddenly steel. “They’re going to lock you up Dana, and I can’t stop them. They think it will help you. It won’t.” She stood. “You can’t go back and redo things. All you have is now. Do the best you can with that.”

“Get some rest, Ms. Scully. And eat tomorrow, or they’re going to put a tube in your stomach and put you in restraints.”

Scully looked up at her, slightly stunned. “And when your friend gets back, tell him I want to see him.”

-0-0-0-

Bethesda Medical Center

8:01pm

Mulder hefted the small duffel and walked purposefully down the hall, past the nurse’s station. He rounded the corner with a clear path to Scully’s room, only to find her nurse standing there. She stepped partially into his path, stopping him.

“Agent Mulder, can I have a word with you?” Mulder nodded curtly, and she led him to a small conference room connecting the two wings of the psych unit. “What’s this about?” His intense eyes shone with obvious concern and barely restrained urgency.

Sara cut right to the chase. “The doctor is moving Dana to Tier 1 status. Non-compliant and critical. They’re relocating her to the maximum security wing tomorrow morning, Agent Mulder. She won’t be allowed any visitors.” Mulder’s jaw tightened. He knew what maximum security meant, even if it was in a hospital setting. And he knew exactly what had to happen. He looked at Sara Marshall, searching the nurse’s face.

“Will you help us?”

-0-0-0

#the x files #txf #xf fanfic #angst #dana scully #fox mulder #thexfmasfileschallenge #msr #oc #tw: suicide mention

7 notes · View notes