Title: Untitled
By: lucyhale
Pairing: gen
Rating: PG
Summary: Non slash...non anything, really. Just had to write it down to get Mandy Patinkin out of my head so I could focus on the story I meant to be writing. This is my first attempt at writing this fandom.

***

The phone stayed conspicuously silent.

Garcia would normally call him up for a chat when he was back from a case. Nothing big. Small talk, welcome back, that kind of thing.

She didn't call that night, and he knew she knew. Maybe through one of the others, maybe she put it together or checked up on Carl's arrest.

Either way, there was no smiling, sing-song, safe voice giggling in his ear, flirting him up and down in that way they both liked because it was completely and utterly harmless.

The lack of a phone call was enough to put him in a low mood. Lower than he would have been otherwise, anyway. He turned on the TV and didn't watch it. Poured himself a drink and didn't drink it. Sat there and tried not to think of the bigger implications of everything that had just happened to him.

But there was a knock on the door, sometime around eight. He answered it half-hoping it was Garcia - only half hoping because if she did know, and she had to, then she would probably be more upset about it than he was. Still, she always managed to make him smile.

Jason Gideon stood there, and it took Derek a moment to remember how to react. "Something happen?"

Gideon held up a bottle and offered his small, sad smile.

Derek let him in.

He didn't ask until the bottle was open and he found two little used glasses high in his cabinet. "You here because you think I need this?"

Jason poured the wine. "I'm here because I think we need to talk things out, and this is here because I need a drink while we do that."

Derek took the glass he offered and studied it. Deep red. The bottle looked expensive. "I don't know what there is to talk out."

Jason was blunt, always, and that's one of the things Derek appreciated most about him. Besides, of course, his brilliant way of thinking ahead of whatever unsubs they went after.

"The last thing you wanted was for us to find out this thing about you. Now we have. Either you didn't want to face it or you didn't want our opinions about you to change. Either way, it's something you should face now while it's fresh. No good letting it fester."

Derek sighed.

Jason moved into the living room, leaving Derek to follow. He sat, sipped his wine, nodded a bit as if approving of the taste. And then he waited.

It was impossible not to talk to him. It had nothing to do with Jason being his superior. Nothing to do with the job at all. Jason had his respect, in a way Derek didn't give to a lot of people. His mother, maybe - strong widow, proud white wife of a black man back when that was dangerous, proud mother of three dark-skinned children - was the only other one he looked up to as much. And he wouldn't think of talking about this with her.

He sat down slowly. He sniffed at the deep red wine and took a small sip. He wasn't a big wine drinker, but this was sweeter than he expected. Actually really good. He took another drink, steeling himself.

Then he spoke.

"You know what I kept thinking of? Sitting in that police station while you and Hotch came in again and again with these questions, this info, always getting closer to everything I wanted to keep inside?"

Jason studied him. "What?"

"The case in Seattle. The bomber, the one hooked on that sci-fi book Reid was into."

Jason sat back.

Derek could tell Jason knew exactly what he was talking about. But he said it anyway. "The fact that you said I was someone you respect. Admire. You have no idea..." He took another drink, looking past Jason at the wall. "Not just because I'm still practically a rookie in this field and you're a legend. Not that. Just because..." Well, Jason was too smart not to realize - this wouldn't be a secret he was revealing. "Because I respect you so damned much. I could have been that punk thirteen year old I used to be, looking for any kind of positive feedback. And when I heard that, from Reid, then from you yourself..." He shook his head, almost smiling. "You've got no way of knowing how much that affected me."

Jason nodded. "I meant it."

"Yeah." Derek met his eyes at that. "I even felt like I earned it. And all I could think about this week was how that was going to change when everything came out. How everyone was going to look at me as a victim. Everything they knew about me would shift in view of this new info. I mean, it's the way we're all trained to think." He frowned suddenly. "Next time we get a case involving kids, involving some bastard molesting them. Hotch is going to look at me harder. He'll wonder if I should even be on that case, or if I'm too close to it."

Jason considered that. "Maybe. He's careful. But if he does wonder, he'll come to me."

Derek drew in a breath and waited.

Jason's steady gaze stayed on him. "I'll tell him it's foolish to wonder. As many of those cases as we've had before, there's history proving you won't be too close to do your job. You get passionate: so does any good agent who works any case like that. He won't make you stand down, Derek."

"No." Derek felt the ease of a little of the tension that had been in his shoulders since...probably since landing in Chicago. Hotch would wonder, but he wasn't quick on the draw like that. He'd give Derek a chance, and Derek had no intention of falling apart in any kind of way. Ever.

"You think my opinion of you has changed."

He looked back at Jason. "How could it not?"

"You're right." Jason, solid as stone and always as impassive as he could possibly be, spoke in the same matter of fact tone he used to say anything. "Victims of this kind of abuse--"

Derek tensed again.

Jason noticed. "...can go two ways. They can move past it, use it to empower them. Become survivors. Or they can burrow in self-pity and anger, lash out at others, use their history like a crutch. The ones who learn to accept it and let it strengthen them...there's no way you can't respect a person like that. There's few things in the world more deserving of admiration."

Derek wanted to agree, to believe him and move on. But he couldn't.

He'd seen the moment Hotch's eyes had changed towards him. He felt the tense silence of the flight home. He knew things were different.

He wasn't superhuman in Reid's eyes anymore. Derek had never realized how much he liked playing the strong older brother to the kid until suddenly he was vulnerable in front of him.

Garcia hadn't called.

Things were different.

Jason took a drink in the silence. "You don't like being called a victim."

"No." That was easy to answer, at least. "I'm not one. I hate that word. I hate everything it represents."

"Why?"

"You profiling me right now?"

Jason smiled faintly, tilting his glass upwards in a sort of toast. "We are who we are."

Derek nodded, but looked away. "Victim. Makes it sound like everything I am now is about that. Like you have to look at me weighed against what that one man did. That's not fair."

"No."

Jason's easy, quiet agreements were intended to keep him talking. He knew that.

But he kept going anyway. If he'd be able to hash it out with anyone, it'd be Jason. Jason was the one of them who seriously tried to keep from digging into his life. The one who listened when he begged - begged, and he didn't beg anyone for anything - for them to stay away from the areas they were digging into.

That was something Derek wouldn't forget.

He talked, even though he wasn't sure where he was trying to go with it. "You know, I never let myself be called a victim of anything. Not my whole life. I could've played the race card, especially back when Gordinsky started targeting me. Or when that asshole captain at the bomb squad let every guy in the squad move up before he let me. I could've played the son-without-a-dad card. The mixed-race card, because God knows that shit wasn't easy. I could've used that messed up undercover assignment to move myself up. But I never did."

He could feel the warmth of the alcohol starting to make his blood run. Strong wine. That was probably deliberate.

Jason sat quiet, waiting. Wanting him to go on, and Derek didn't know why but he actually appreciated it now that he was talking.

"I knew the minute I'd have started shouting about Gordinsky targeting me because I was a poor black kid without a dad, I would've turned myself into nothing but a poor black kid without a dad. And I was never gonna let that shit limit me. What Carl did to me..."

He paused, drank.

Jason leaned in, filling his glass when he set it back down.

He shook his head, seeing himself in the past. Fucking camping trips, and his mother was so happy he had a man to model himself after. She'd been so relieved. He never let her know anything was wrong.

She'd find out now, of course. Another weight on his chest.

He sat back, rubbing his face. But when he spoke his voice was strong. "I meant what I told him. What he did to me didn't make me a victim. It made me what I am. It gave me the strength and the will. I'm the one who put the badge on my hip, though. I own that. And if I own that I have to own the bad things, too. And I do."

He frowned, taking the glass again and swallowing a gulp. "The worst thing, I let it go. Even after I knew that criminals like Carl Buford weren't happy with one victim. I knew in my head that he wouldn't have stopped. He'd have more victims. More boys. But I didn't let myself think about it. Even when..." He stopped.

Jesus. It was harder to talk about than he thought.

If anything chased Jason's respect away, it would be this.

He met it, though. He wouldn't be a victim of his own mistakes either. He'd own up. "I knew James. I go to that center every time I go home, and I knew him. I knew he was in the place I was in once. I tossed footballs with him. Told him stories about the unit. That kid looked at me like...like I made him see he could have a future. And in return?" He shook his head. He had been trying to not think about it. Of course, he'd always done that. Avoidance. "In return I gave him to Carl."

"Derek."

"No." He wouldn't let Jason voice his thoughts. Not until it was all out. "James is just the latest. It's been fourteen years since he had his hands on me. How many other lives did he ruin in fourteen years? How many kids are going to speak up when this trial starts? I have to own up to them, Jason. I'm responsible for every one of them. My whole fucking life revolves around protecting people from monsters, and I let the biggest monster I know go free for fourteen years." He laughed, bitter. "And the worst thing is if Damien hadn't died it would have kept going. I would have paid my visit and left. Same as every time. I wouldn't have done anything. How could it never occur to me to do something? I can't work that out."

Jason didn't speak when he fell silent. He just looked. Calm and examining, the same expression Derek saw on his face eighty percent of the time.

Derek drew in a breath. He set the glass down again, harder than he meant to.

Just sipping on expensive liquor talking about this made his stomach churn.

He dropped his head back against the back of the chair. "I own that, Jason. It's mine to make up for however I can. And I will. I'll testify. Statute of limitations ran out a long time ago, but I'm FBI and damned credible as a witness, and his past behavior will count. I'll get his ass thrown in jail. I'll look after James, and anyone else who speaks up. I'll keep that center going, whatever I have to do. I'll do my best to make up for my mistakes. And I'll find a way to live with it."

He looked at the dark red wine. Now that he was done he felt drained. Exposed. He hated that feeling. He'd had it in Chicago. He'd have it again, a lot more until the trial was over.

He was sitting in judgment, he realized. That was the problem. He'd been waiting for the CPD and the BAU to determine his fate in Chicago. Now he was waiting to hear Jason's judgment of him personally.

He'd always been the kind of man who took charge of his own life. Leaving things in other hands wasn't something he was comfortable with.

But he trusted Jason more than pretty much anyone else in his life. And what he'd done deserved to be picked apart and judged by the strongest mind he knew.

Jason cleared his throat suddenly. "It's interesting to me how hard it is for people in our field of study to apply what we know to our own lives."

Derek blinked. Waited.

Jason poured himself more wine. He gestured, but Derek shook his head. He set the wine down.

Derek kept waiting.

"Blind spots." He sat back, as studied as a professor. As if they weren't discussing ugly details of an ugly mistake. "We all have them, and usually about the things that matter most. A judgment call that gets six agents killed."

Derek looked at him, sharp. Jason never talked about that.

He went on, calm. "I think there's an element of ego behind it. I've absolved the guilty consciences of more than a few friends who've made similar mistakes, smaller and bigger. Yet it's in my mind that I should be above those same mistakes. I can preach about how inexact this science is, but when my own profiles go wrong I feel like it's me that failed, not the science."

Derek nodded. He knew the feeling well enough. Everyone who ever worked in law enforcement and had anything go wrong knew that feeling.

Jason reached out, taking the bottle and topping off Derek's glass. "Drink."

Derek obeyed the quiet order without thought.

Jason sat back. His fingers curled around the stem of his glass, a fingertip tapping the bowl of it delicately. "You've confessed your crimes and you want a sentence."

Derek shrugged. "In a way."

"You've got such a strong sense of what you are. Do you need my opinion?"

"I'd like it." Derek met his eyes. "Good or bad. Not because I enjoy condemnation or praise, but..."

Jason nodded, smiling faintly. "Because you respect me."

Derek drew in a breath. "More than anyone."

"Then here's my judgment."

He waited, his chest aching. The wine had relaxed most of his tension, but he couldn't shake the ill feeling he'd had for days.

Jason met his gaze, steady. Honest, and Derek expected nothing less. "I think you're one of the most decent people I've ever met. I'm glad to know you."

Derek let out that breath. He waited.

Jason sipped his wine.

"That's it?"

Jason nodded. "That's it. You've outlined the mistakes you've made. You own up to things most people would dismiss. You accept your past and your present and make the best of them. You're a strong man, Derek. Strong in a way I didn't realize before Chicago."

Derek was having a hard time remembering to breathe. This was too much. His capacity to take compliments from Jason Gideon was apparently very limited even in normal circumstances.

These weren't normal circumstance. It actually hurt him to hear it.

"I admire you. I respect you. It hasn't changed. And no, Derek. You're not a victim. Not in my eyes."

Derek stood up and went back to the kitchen.

Setting his glass on the counter, he stood for a moment. He had nothing to do in there. No reason to have gotten up. Just an inability to sit there, to hear those words.

Made no sense. Why should he avoid the good when he faced the bad so readily?

He stood braced on the counter for a long minute. There was no sound from the living room, but that was Jason - he wouldn't follow Derek when it was so obvious he had run away.

It was strange. He'd come close to breaking down when he was facing Carl after so many years, but he hadn't. He'd held it in, in that place in the back of his mind where it had always gone.

For some reason, he was as close to losing it right there in his kitchen as he had been facing his abuser.

He breathed in, breathed out. Deep and controlling. Pushing everything inside where it belonged. He ignored the hot feeling in his eyes, the hitching of his breaths.

He wouldn't do it then, with Jason there. If he was going to shed tears over this whole mess he would do it later. Alone. When there would be no one but himself there to think less of him.

Forgiveness was so fucking painful.

He reached out, grabbed his glass and drank a healthy amount. The alcohol warmed its way down his throat, settling his frayed emotions enough that he felt safe to straighten up and go out to face Jason.

Jason hadn't moved. Sipping his wine, waiting, and that sort of silent, grave strength was just so fucking welcome right then.

"You hungry?" Clumsy attempt to disguise his little trip to the next room, and Jason would see past it. But it gave him some kind of shield.

Jason looked over. "Actually, I am."

Derek managed a smile. "There are menus in the kitchen. I, uh..." He was able to smile more sincerely, his mind going back to his sisters. "I don't cook."

"I do." Jason stood up, casual again just like that. "Let's see what you've got."

Derek followed him back to the kitchen, leaning against the door frame with a crooked smile as Jason opened empty cupboards and his bare fridge.

"Milk and eggs." Jason sounded amused. "There's really not much I can do with that. You don't even have butter. How do you cook the eggs?"

"I don't." Derek smiled and moved in, glancing at the few lonely items in his cupboards. Not a lot besides the cans of protein shakes and a few dusty protein bars.

Jason looked at him. "Don't tell me."

"Breakfast of champions." Derek grinned.

Jason stared. "Raw? You have heard of salmonella, haven't you?"

"Raw eggs have been a staple in the diets of guys like me for a hundred years. I figure if most of them lived through it, so will I."

"Guys like you. Muscle junkies. Insane." Jason shook his head and shut the fridge. "Alright, we're going to the store."

"You really came over here intending to cook me dinner?"

He smiled, squeezed Derek's arm as he moved past. "No. But there's nothing like the foreignness of domesticity to settle raw nerves. Come on."

Of course, Derek obeyed.

As he was locking the front door to his apartment, his cell phone rang.

He saw the number on the screen and his stomach gave a little churn. "Hey, beautiful."

"Evening, studly."

"Calling a little late tonight, huh?"

"Why didn't you tell me?"

He shut his eyes.

But she kept on, warm and soft in his ear. "Why in the world did you not tell me you played football? Do you have any idea how incredibly sexy that is?"

He glanced at Jason, mouthed Garcia's name. Jason smiled.

Derek returned it, feeling better suddenly than he had felt in a while.

Because hell if things didn't seem like they'd actually be alright.

***