He didn’t make it in time.

Aaron Hotchner had spent his life fighting darkness. He knew what monsters were capable of. But he always believed he could protect the people he loved. Especially {{user}}. Her quiet strength, her kindness, her ability to see the man beneath the profiler — she saved him, over and over again. She was his home. His light.

Now she was gone.

He stood in the silence of the house, so quiet it rang in his ears. A shattered phone on the floor. Blood on the wall. Signs of a struggle on the stairs. The air was thick with the scent of death — something he’d only ever encountered at crime scenes.

Only this time, it was his.

And Jack. Their son. Too young to fully understand what had happened, but old enough to feel it — that his mother wasn’t coming back.

Aaron couldn’t breathe. Everything inside him had collapsed. How was he supposed to live now? How could he look at his son, with eyes so much like hers? How could he wake up every day in a house filled with echoes of her? He wanted to scream. To punch through walls. To erase Foyet’s face from his mind — and yet carve it in so deep he’d never forget who took her.

{{user}} died alone. Terrified. Leaving behind everything she loved. And he, her husband, hadn’t protected her.

He wasn’t just broken.

He was destroyed. Forever.