"Now I know what you're afraid of…"

The gun's snub nose dropped, leveling its aim at Hotch. Training the obscene hole in the center of its muzzle on him.

"NO!" He turned away, cowering from the bullet he knew would follow; the smug laughter he knew would come next; the pain and shock and fade-to-death after that.

"NOOOO!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXx

Hotch buried his face in his hands and listened to Rossi harangue him about spilling his guts.

Weird terminology…spilling one's guts…Not the most persuasive way to encourage someone to talk. But Dave wouldn't leave him alone.

He didn't know how to start. Rossi seemed to think it was a matter of where to start. But it wasn't.

Hotch knew what he'd seen and what it meant. He just didn't want to admit it. Giving it breath, letting the words take flight would confirm the worst part. He'd tried to deny it for months and months and months. He'd buried it so deeply he could function on a daily basis without anyone the wiser.

But the images that the unsub had dredged up and customized for his own pleasure and Hotch's torment made it impossible to ignore anymore.

Hotch didn't want to say it. Didn't want Rossi to know. Or anyone for that matter. Wished he could dig it out of his own brain and crush it beneath his heel. Smudge it into the pavement so it was nothing more than a smear that would wash away in the next heavy rain.

But it was there. Part of him.

And now someone else knew, too.

Hotch had expected Peter Lewis to commit suicide-by-cop. He'd been counting on it. Wanted it. And that was another thing he had to keep hidden now. Lewis knew the secret terror the Unit Chief kept under strict control. So Hotch had wanted him dead.

Lewis knew it. Knew how much the Unit Chief wanted to be sole guardian of his own terror. He knew that and the thing Hotch really feared. Lewis carried knowledge of the worst of Aaron Hotchner away with him. Laughing all the way.

Hotch stared straight ahead. No point in covering his face. He couldn't hide from himself now. He'd wanted a man to die because he didn't want anyone knowing the soft, yellow spot of cowardice deep in his own soul. He was scared. Not of his team dying. Nothing so honorable.

And not that he might have shot one of them himself. Again, nothing so altruistic.

What terrified Hotch was the way they'd been shot. Where they'd been shot. In the neck. Each and every one.

Just the way Reid had been so many months ago when they'd encountered a nest of corruption worming its way through a Texas town's law enforcement. Hotch hadn't told anyone how deeply the sight of his youngest agent's blood, pumping out of his nicked jugular had affected him.

He hadn't let anyone know how his heart sped up, slamming against his ribs for days afterward whenever he saw Reid's neck swathed in gauze and surgical tape.

Every time since then, when Hotch had strapped on his flak vest, he'd felt the naked vulnerability of his neck poking out, beckoning for a bullet.

And because he was afraid for himself more than for his team…and because there was someone smirking in jail who knew it, too…Hotch felt like a coward.

For the first time in his life. Openly, horribly…a coward.

And he couldn't tell Dave. And he couldn't bury it back down inside.

And he couldn't live with it…