Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds.

Hello and welcome back! Thank you, as always, for such kind reviews – a much needed smile this week. As the story was left on a cliff-hanger, I won't say much more. Enjoy!

"Dr. Reynolds," Morgan heard Hotch's voice, lacking its strong authority though it was, as he crept down the stairs with his gun drawn. "Put down the gun, let her go."

"Why should I?" Dr. Reynolds demanded hysterically. "She's a traitor."

"No, she isn't," Derek called out. He descended the last few stairs and turned the corner, swinging his gun out at arms' length. Dr. Reynolds was holding Dr. Keyes in front of him, a gun pressed into her side.

"Put the gun down," Morgan repeated, noticing out of the corner of his eye that Hotch had sunk onto his bed again.

"Why should I?"

Again, out of the corner of his eye, Morgan saw Will put a finger to his lips while looking at Henry and motioned for him to get out of bed and hide underneath it but the three year old was too sick to do anything with a great deal of stealth.

"Don't move!" yelled Dr. Reynolds, still holding Dr. Keyes but swinging the gun to point towards Henry. J.J. let out an audible gasp. "If anyone moves, she dies."

"Okay," Morgan said patiently. "Okay, no one is going anywhere. Put down the gun."

"Why should I?" Dr. Reynolds repeated angrily, turning the gun towards Morgan.

"It's not her fault," answered Derek. "Everything that happened to you when you were young, it's not her fault."

"What do you know about what happened to me?" spat Dr. Reynolds.

"You'd be surprised."

"Surprise me."

Morgan knew he had to keep Reynolds talking.

"Your father was SSA Jared Antonov," he began. "And your mother died when you were only three. Your step-mother and step-sister bullied and abused you but your dad was never home enough to notice or do anything about it."

"She didn't abuse me."

"We saw the notes from the school counsellor, Joshua," Morgan told him. "We know about the abuse and the bullying."

"Oh yeah?" Joshua demanded and Morgan could sense the smallest hint of emotion in his voice, a sign that he was starting to break Dr. Reynolds into submission. "Did you see what else the school reports said?"

"Why don't you tell me?"

The ward was absolutely silent – Henry and Jack were frozen in fear and the members of the BAU knew not to disrupt the communication Derek was fostering.

"Did you take note, Agent," the emphasis made it sound like mockery. "Of how many days a year the school nurse sent me home?"

Morgan's silence prompted a sinister laugh.

"No? It was a lot."

"Why?"

"I was just a sick child," said Joshua. "Ear infections, colds, tonsillitis, bronchitis, chicken pox, strep throat, the flu … you name it, I got it at one point or another. I would beg the nurse to let me stay at school because there was no one to take care of me at home."

"Sophie was there, so were Lucy and Connor and Sara."

"Sara," laughed Joshua. "Sara didn't care about anyone but herself. In fact, she made fun of people like me. The smart ones who cared about homework and tried to be the best but always failed. She never cared about me and still doesn't now that she has her perfect job, her perfect husband, living in her dream house with her perfect children."

"What about Lucy and Connor? They cared, didn't they?"

"They were too young to care about me," Joshua said bitterly. "I was just a strange person who shut himself in his room and didn't talk at meal times. Besides, they became the new apples of my father's eye."

"And what about Sophie? All those times the school nurse called home, surely it was Sophie she spoke to."

"The conversations were always the same. 'How bad is he? Can he make it through the day? I'm in the middle of something important and it would be hard for me to come and get him.' Something important, my ass! She stayed at home and lived off my dad's hard-earned money. The nurse would tell her that no, I had a fever or I had thrown up and needed to go home and Sophie would sigh and then say she'd be there as soon as she could."

Joshua stopped for a breath. He was emotionally invested in telling Morgan his story, sharing it with so much conviction that it almost seemed as if he needed the world to know what he had suffered before he was silenced.

"And when we'd get home, I'd put myself to bed and go to sleep, thinking that when I woke up, my dad would be there saying everything would be okay, that I would feel better tomorrow. But he was never there. Did you hear me? He was never there. I remember how I used to stupidly hope that if he found out I was sick, he'd leave his investigation to make sure I was okay. I used to wish on every star I saw, every four leaf clover I held, that one day he would take a day off to stay with me."

"But he never did."

"I begged him to," Joshua recalled. "I told him I was going to get sick but he'd always say, 'Josh, I have a job to do. Sophie is home and she'll take care of you just like mom used to.' He actually thought that woman was my mother."

At this point in the conversation, it was taking every ounce of willpower Hotch had not to look at his son. He knew all too well the emotions that went along with being a single parent to a little boy who wanted him to stay home when something was wrong. He very rarely sympathized with unsubs but he was beginning to understand why Joshua Reynolds had chosen to act the way he did. It didn't make it right, of course, just … relatable.

"Is that why you decided to poison our children?" Morgan asked. "Why you snuck into their schools and put cupcakes contaminated by a manipulated strain of avian flu into their lunchboxes?"

"I didn't do it to hurt them!" Joshua exclaimed. "I did it so people like you," he glared at the bedridden agents. "Would remember what's important in this world! It's not the job or the fancy office; it's not even the justice that comes from putting bad people in prison. These are your children!"

"And we take care of them." Morgan shot back, anger filling his voice.

"No, you abandon them. All of you have."

Joshua looked down the ward again and Morgan realized what he was going to do.

"Aaron Hotchner," Joshua said with contempt, repositioning the gun so it no longer pointed at Morgan but was embedded in Dr. Keyes's side. "You've been leaving your son since the day he was born. You missed doctor appointments and soccer games and school plays. Even when he wasn't well, you left him with his mother. And then his mother died because of what you do and poor Jack was left with his aunt!"

"I took time off when he got sick this week." Aaron fought to control his voice. Showing emotion would only justify Joshua's taunting.

"Because his aunt was away! Tell me, if Jessica hadn't been on vacation, would you have stayed with Jack? Would you?"

"I …" Hotch found this incredibly hard to answer because the truth was, he likely wouldn't have stayed home. That's why Jessica was there – to help take care of Jack – but that in no way meant he didn't care about his son.

"Exactly." Joshua didn't wait for a fuller reply and he shifted his attention to J.J. "And you, you leave your son and husband alone all the time."

"We decided that's what work best for our family." Will spoke up.

"Shut up," growled Joshua, digging the gun further into Dr. Keyes's side to remind everyone that he was still holding her hostage. The doctor yelped unconsciously but Joshua didn't seem to notice.

"Your boy could barely sit up before you were leaving him," Joshua continued. J.J. didn't answer but maintained eye contact with him.

"I tried to make you stay home with your children; I tried to make you remember what's important!" Joshua shouted. "But you didn't. Instead, you went to New Mexico and left Penelope Garcia to baby-sit your sick kids."

"That's not true," Morgan rebuked. "Hotch stayed home with Jack."

"Were you not listening?! He didn't have a choice and he even had to ask Agent Jareau what he should do – should he even bother to take the day off? What if a case came in?"

"So you made our children sick so to see if we would do the right thing and stay home with them." Aaron said coldly.

"You failed the test," Joshua spat. "You are no better than my over-worked, over-zealous father who couldn't even take one day off to stay home with his sick son."

"So what did you do next?"

"I had to punish you," said Joshua simply. "I had to make you stay home and I had to make you suffer for your selfishness."

"You made us sick as well."

"Yes."

"What about Garcia, Reid, and me?" Rossi asked. "Why did you think we needed to be punished?"

"You're no better than Agents Hotchner and Jareau," said Joshua dismissively. "You all care about these children – some as godparents, some as adoptive aunts and uncles – but none of you stuck around long enough to take care of them. I watched it unfold over and over again; you cared but you always left. You abandoned them. It was then that I realized this epidemic of selfishness is worse than I thought, that the attitude of the Behavioural Analysis Unit is endemic, extending beyond simply parents. More drastic action needed to be taken."

"So you dosed them all while supposedly administering a vaccine for avian flu," Morgan filled in. "Except for Rossi. You poisoned him last night while taking a blood sample."

"I admit Agent Rossi was a last-minute decision but he deserves to be in that bed. He left just like the rest of them."

"Why not Will?" asked J.J. "He's also Henry's parent."

"He's not a member of the BAU," Joshua replied. "And while he did leave Henry with Agent Garcia on Wednesday morning, from my observations he is normally a loving and dedicated father who puts his child before his job."

"And what about Emily and me?" Morgan asked.

"You two have the least significant connection to Jack and Henry. You both also know what it's like to have parents who didn't care. Maybe that's why you subconsciously choose not to become so personally invested with Jack and Henry."

Morgan had to admit he and Emily hadn't factored that as a reason for why they were poisoned but it was true to an extent. He could remember times growing up where he was sick and alone.

"How long do you want us to wait?" an agent in SWAT gear asked Emily.

"Wait for the signal," Emily hissed, watching Morgan talking with Joshua through a pair of binoculars. "Just make sure you have a clear shot."

"Now that you've made your point," Morgan said. "What are you going to do?"

For the first time, Joshua looked unsure of himself. Morgan took the opportunity to press harder.

"You've made this deadly form of avian flu and its antidote," Morgan urged. "What are you going to do with it?"

"I didn't say anything about an antidote."

"But you did make one."

"How do you know?"

"Because," Morgan answered. "Jack and Henry are innocent. They've done nothing wrong apart from having a parent in the BAU and as mad as you are about the way their parents are prioritizing their commitments, you have no reason to let them die of avian flu. Murdering two innocent little boys is not what you set out to do."

There was a brief pause.

"Jack and Henry are innocent, as is Dr. Keyes," Morgan continued. "You have no reason to kill them which means you must have an antidote."

"Henry and Jack might be innocent enough," snarled Joshua. "But what about their parents?"

"You grew up without your mother and your father was never around but you said it yourself – you begged him to stay home. You still loved your father even though he left you with Sophie all those times you were sick. You wouldn't take Hotch and J.J. from Jack and Henry and sentence them to that sort of life."

Another pause. Joshua was struggling for words and Morgan knew he'd hit on the truth – Joshua had never been in this to kill anyone. He only wanted to make them suffer.

Joshua pressed the gun further into Dr. Keyes's side and the doctor, who was pale and sweating profusely, squeezed her eyes closed, anticipating the worst. She was caught off guard when a minute later, the gun was pulled away from her side and she was shoved towards Morgan. Morgan caught her and quickly stepped in front of her. In those few seconds, Joshua had dropped the gun onto the desk and pulled a loaded needle from his pocket. He popped the top off and held it above his own bare forearm.

"Whoa!" Morgan exclaimed. "Don't do it, Josh."

"Why not?" Joshua demanded. "I know how this works. If I give you the antidote, you're going to arrest me and I'm going to spend the rest of my life in prison."

"Are you sure you don't want us to move in?" the SWAT leader asked Emily.

"Not yet."

"Joshua, put the needle down."

"Give me one good reason I should." Joshua was persistent and Morgan chose to draw on the profile they had built.

"You thrive in showing that you can control things no man should have power over – life and death, sickness and health. You want the world to see that you have the power, the skills, and the ability to make people fall before you but that's not where you get your real high. After all, anyone can make people fall. It takes a real genius to make them rise up again and that's what you can do. You've created something deadly but you've also made something even more powerful than death – you've created a way to defeat death. You wouldn't throw so much power away by taking your own life."

Morgan waited to see if he'd gotten through to Joshua, the tension building with every passing second.

"Do the right thing and we can help you," added Derek.

"The antidote is locked in the safe in my lab in Atlanta," Joshua said at last. "The combination is 4663."

As he said this, he pushed the plunger on the needle down and the liquid entered his veins. It only took a split second for him to slump to the ground and Morgan holstered his gun quickly and hurried to his side.

"Do not shoot, I repeat do not shoot!" Emily said into her walkie-talkie. "All agents move in!"

Will hurried towards Morgan and Dr. Keyes as they bent over Joshua.

"He's unconscious," Dr. Keyes said, springing into action. While she, Morgan, and Will tried to resuscitate Josh, J.J. and Hotch quickly got out of their beds – it was faster to unhook the IV than to try to take it with them – and hurried to their children.

"Shh," Aaron soothed Jack. "Look this way."

At that moment, the front door of the house burst open and they could hear boots thundering all around the main floor. A team of SWAT agents poured down the staircase.

"Get an ambulance!" Morgan shouted. As a few of the SWAT team surrounded Joshua, who still being worked on by Dr. Keyes, the others hurried down the ward, securing the area. Emily followed a few paces behind.

"Is everyone alright?" she asked, frantically running towards Hotch and J.J.

"We're fine," Aaron answered, holding Jack tightly. "Is he …"

"Alive," Emily replied. "An ambulance is already outside and Chief Strauss is on the phone with Atlanta to get the antidote up here as soon as possible."

"Thanks, Emily. You and Morgan did a good job."

Emily smiled soberly.

"There was a lot at stake," she said.

Two hours later, the SWAT teams had cleared out, Joshua had been taken to the nearest hospital, and another doctor from the Center for Disease Control – Dr. Arnold – had finished administering the antidote.

"You should begin to feel the effects within twelve hours," he announced with a warm smile. "But it will take at least a few days before you begin to feel like your normal selves. This flu strain was a nasty one and your bodies have been through a lot of trauma because of it."

"Do we need to stay in quarantine?" J.J. asked and the doctor nodded.

"You're not contagious or a threat to public health," he answered. "But for the sake of tracking your progress, we would like you to stay here until we feel comfortable sending you back to your own homes. Dr. Keyes has opted to stay with you and I will be joining her."

"And so will we," Morgan added from the side, Emily nodding next to him.

As the doctors returned to their desk, Morgan went over to Hotch.

"You okay?" he asked, sitting on the end of his bed. Aaron sighed and Morgan nodded.

"I suspected as such," he said before Hotch had even uttered a word. "He was pretty rough on you."

Aaron nodded.

"It wasn't true, you know that."

"Some of it was."

Morgan frowned.

"You're a good father."

"Do you think I would have stayed home with Jack if Jessica hadn't been away?"

"What?"

Hotch repeated the question that had been weighing on his mind since the SWAT team arrived.

"Hotch, you and Jessica take care of Jack the best way you know how. You might not have stayed home but you certainly wouldn't have left him with someone who didn't love and care about him as much as you do."

"Does it make me a bad father to leave him sometimes?"

"No." Morgan's answer was firm. "Not even remotely because even though you leave him sometimes, you always go home to him. You are not like Jared Antonov and Jack is not going to grow up to be like Joshua. There is too much love in this family for that to happen to him or Henry or any other child that comes along."

Hotch smiled a thin smile.

"I suppose you're right."

"I am right," Morgan corrected. "Get some rest, Hotch. I'll stay with Jack."

"Thanks."

Derek nodded and stood up. As Hotch rolled onto his side, he saw Derek approach Jack's bed.

"Hey Jack," he said quietly. "Do you mind if I snuggle with you for a while?"

Jack shook his head and the last thing Aaron saw before closing his eyes was his son nestled into Derek's strong arm.

Recovery was slow, there was no doubt about it.

"How can they be eating so much already?" Hotch mumbled as a few beds down, Reid, Garcia, and Rossi readily at their lunch. Only a day had passed since the antidote was administered but already those three were showing marked improvement.

"You remember what Dr. Keyes explained," Emily said with a gentle smile. She was perched on the edge of J.J.'s bed and J.J. was looking as nauseous as Hotch was at the idea of food. "Joshua gave you two a higher dose than the others."

"At least Jack and Henry are on the mend," J.J. glanced over at the two boys who were on Henry's bed, Derek sitting between them with a picture book open. Dr. Arnold and Dr. Keyes had warned that the boys' prognosis could go one of two ways: it would either be very slow because of how sick they were or it would be remarkably fast because of the resiliency of their young immune systems. Everyone was relieved when the latter proved to be true.

"Is there any word on Joshua's condition?" Hotch asked, simply to get his mind off of food.

"The doctors confirmed he gave himself a lethal dose of his own strain," Emily told him. "He's still alive but he's rejected treatment. The doctors think he'll die within the week."

"Is there any word on how he knew about Jessica being away and all the details of our latest case?"

"Kevin did some investigating and found evidence that he tapped the phone lines. Pretty advanced stuff, apparently. He's working on writing a new code for against phone hacking or something like that. I didn't understand it all."

"Did he always plan to commit suicide?" J.J. wondered and Emily nodded.

"They found a note in his safe that said he was finally going back to the only family that loved him. The four numbers that made up his combination spelled 'home'. The note and the antidote were the only two things in there."

Aaron sighed.

"Do you think they'll be okay?" he asked, looking at the boys once again. "After everything they've been through because of us?"

At that moment, Morgan impersonated Papa Bear letting out a humongous sneeze and both boys dissolved into giggles.

"I have no doubt," J.J. chuckled, and even though Hotch still had reservations – Joshua's words, as deluded by rage though they were, would continue to make him think for some time – he had to agree and smiled. What Morgan had told him the day before was true. There was too much love in this family, too much reliance on each other, for anyone to fall through the cracks and together they were more resilient than whatever gruesome images or horror stories crossed their paths at work or otherwise.

It took another three days before everyone was allowed to go home and Dave, fully recovered, drove Hotch and Jack back to their apartment.

"To bed," he said to Aaron as soon as the door had been locked behind them. Hotch didn't argue – he was still fighting a low grade fever and felt like he'd been put through the wringer three times over – and went to his bedroom. His bed was still unmade from when he had been taking care of Jack and he fell into it with an exhausted sigh. There were few things Hotch hated more than being sick but try as he might to fight it, his eyes began to drift closed.

Whether or not he went fully to sleep he didn't know but he was awoken by the sound of dishes rattling. Aaron opened his eyes, searching for the clock, but was met instead with the sight of Jack pushing a small tray onto his bedside table.

"What's that, buddy?" Aaron asked, noting Dave was hovering in the doorway.

"Lunch," Jack told him.

"You didn't have to do that, Jack."

"I know," said Jack simply. "I'm taking care of you, just like you took care of me."

Aaron smiled and sat up, propping his pillow behind his back.

"Well, Dr. Jack," he said. "What's your course of treatment?"

"We need to take your temperature and then you have to take your medicine."

Hotch accepted the thermometer from his son and handed it back to him when it beeped.

"What's it say, Jack?" Rossi asked, entering the room.

"Nine nine dot six."

The number in mind, Dave shook two Tylenol tablets from the bottle into his palm and then let Jack give them to Hotch.

"Thank you," Aaron said, swallowing them.

"And now you need to eat your lunch," Jack told his father. Food was still not Hotch's favourite thing but he ate as much as he could and then Jack decided he needed a nap.

"And what are you going to do?" Aaron asked Jack.

"Uncle Dave and me,"

"Uncle Dave and I," Hotch corrected.

"Uncle Dave and I are building Captain America a city from Lego. He has to protect it from Red Skull. He's trying to make it into a Hydra weapon factory."

"Very cool," sighed Hotch, stretching out again. "Thank you for lunch, Jack."

"You're welcome."

Jack ran off and Dave smiled at his friend.

"Sleep," he said. "I'll stay until you're better."

"Thanks, Dave," Aaron mumbled, already half asleep.

Three days later, everything was back to normal. Hotch was fully recovered and Jack was eager to go back to school. At work, the bullpen was lively and jokes were flying between the desks as they waited for their morning briefing.

Across town, David Rossi stood outside a hospital room, staring through the glass window in the door. On either side of the door was an armed police officer.

"He's nearly gone," a nurse told him, coming out of the room. "It won't be long now."

Dave nodded and once the nurse had walked away, pushed the door open. The room was dark and the only sound was slow beep of the heart monitor. Joshua Antonov looked to see who his visitor was.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, moving his hand slightly and causing the handcuffs to clink against the metal handrail.

"Showing you that the BAU is not what you think it is." Rossi said, draping his coat over the visitor's chair and sitting down. He pulled a key from his pocket and undid the handcuff.

Joshua looked at Rossi, rubbing his now-free wrist.

"Thank you," he whispered.

Rossi didn't respond and the room was silent until Joshua's eyes slid closed and the beeping of the monitor slowed and then eventually became a steady buzz.

As the nurse and doctor came in to declare their patient deceased, Rossi picked up his coat and left the hospital.

Aaron left his office, heading for the conference room, when he met Dave coming up the stairs.

"And?"

"Gone," Rossi answered. "About an hour ago."

Hotch nodded.

"Why him?" he asked curiously.

"Because I had to prove to him – or maybe to myself – that even after everything we see, all the messed up people and all the pain and suffering, there is still a shred of humanity somewhere inside all of us. I know what it is to be alone because of the BAU. I didn't want him to be alone."

Aaron nodded thoughtfully and both agents proceeded to the conference room for their next assignment. It was a grisly one, a serial rapist in Idaho.

"Wheels up in thirty," echoed around the table as everyone stood up.

In his office, while packing his briefcase, Hotch glanced at the photo of Jack on his desk. Impulsively, he pulled out his phone and dialled Jack's school.

The receptionist found Jack and put him on the phone.

"Daddy?"

"Hi Jack," Aaron said. "I just want you to know that I have to go away today but Mr. Will is going to pick you up from school. You're going to stay with him and Henry until I get home."

"I know, you told me this already."

Aaron smiled.

"I know I did. I'll call you before bedtime, okay?"

"Okay."

"I love you, Jack."

"I love you, too, Daddy."

Hotch hung up the phone and picked up his go bag.

"Everything alright?" Rossi asked as Hotch locked the door.

"Yes," Aaron answered. "Let's go."

Your thoughts are very appreciated, thanks!

And that, my friends, concludes Reliance and Resilience. Sorry I couldn't get an epilogue in, things began wrapping up much quicker than I anticipated but I sincerely hope you enjoyed the story. In many ways, the story matches up with a lot of lessons I've learned over the past two years and I must thank you for sticking with the story for so long. There was an overwhelming sense of "coming home" to this piece of writing and I have you to thank for creating such an amazing fandom to foster such a feeling.

Happy reading and writing,

StoryLover18