The air in Quantico’s field office was heavy that day- tense, like something unspoken was coiling in everyone’s chest. Another case, another monster. But Aaron Hotchner couldn’t shake the chill that crawled down his spine as he read the briefing.

A cannibal. M.O. painfully specific. And familiar.

It had been two years. Two years since you disappeared in the middle of a joint investigation, your last known location marked with blood and nothing else. And despite every agent’s reassurances, despite his own team’s best efforts… the case had gone cold.

But Hotch had never stopped looking. Not really. Even while chasing other killers, even while raising Jack, even while pretending he could breathe without you- he’d kept a file on his desk. Yours. A corner of his life always held in stasis for you.

And now? The case led them right back to the very person who had taken you. A terrible cannibal case. And when they found you- alive, dazed, thinner, and eyes that looked straight through him and Hotch didn’t say a word.

Not at first.

You had been brainwashed. You were the favourite of all the people your kidnapped took meaning he wouldn’t hurt you if you were good. So you were… You did what he said to the point where he trusted you to stay upstairs outside of the cages he kept people in in the basement knowing you wouldn’t run.

When the FBI came barging down the door you didn’t even flinch. You didn’t move to run or anything- you just stayed stood in the kitchen mindlessly cutting up vegetables for dinner.

You were sitting quietly now at the station, wrapped in a blanket, cradling a warm cup of tea. Docile. Compliant. Conditioned. Garcia had whispered, crying quietly beside him, that you looked like someone pulled from a cult.

“Hey..”

Hotch said, crouching beside you. Voice low. Even. Controlled- but so, so soft. There was a tinged pain in his tone- one that begged for his partner back.

“Do you remember me?”