“You know this sucks right?” Emily’s voice cuts through the silence between them and the way her voice is laces with slight irritation makes him laugh.

He looks at her, sitting in the tiny boat with a fishing spear in hand, a large hat on her head to hide her face from the sun.

“It’s supposed to be peaceful.” He counters and he watches in amusement as Emily rolls her eyes at him.

“Being on the lake is peaceful, looking at the water is peaceful, but hooking worms onto hooks and waiting for some poor fish to get caught is not peaceful.”

He only laughs again, shaking his head at the way she frowns at him. It had been his idea to get away for the weekend, to use Dave’s cabin in the woods to get away from the city. Emily had happily agreed, thinking they’d spend the weekend cuddling, having sex and going swimming. Only, Aaron had different ideas. He made her go hiking the day before, and as much as Emily enjoyed the sound of birds chirping and the silence of the woods, she hated the bugs, hated the lack of a bathroom when they were two miles from the cabin and she was close to peeing herself. He had made it up to her by making her come. A lot.

And that was the only reason why she had agreed to go fishing the next day, because she knew he would make it up to her once they were back inside. But she couldn’t deny how beautiful it was, sitting in silence and watching the soft ripples in the water, feeling the sun on her arms, and being with him. As Aaron was focusing on trying to catch a fish, she was focused on him, and on how handsome he looked, sitting there, calm, serene, a peacefulness about him he rarely showed anyone.

After about an hour and three fishes later (that he caught because Emily gave up) he rowed them back to the small dock that belonged to the cabin.

“You did good sweetheart.” He kisses her temple once she had gotten off the boat, his lips gentle against her skin.

“Yeah? You thought I would threaten you to get back inside?” Her teasing tone and slight smirk only makes him pull her closer to him.

“It did cross my mind.” He mumbles against her temple before she pushes playfully at him.

“Jerk.” There’s no malice in her voice. “Now let’s get inside and you can gut those things for dinner.” She can’t resist scrunching her nose slightly at the thought.

“Didn’t you spend summers in the mountain with your grandfather?” He laughs at her slight disgust as he carries the fishing spears and the small bucket containing the fish.

“I did, but then I grew up, and taxi rides and martini’s won out.” She grins at him over her shoulder before opening the door. “I think I’ll take a shower.” As she talks she peels her shirt off before turning back to him. “Want to join me?”

He doesn’t need to answer, only hurries after her as clothes get thrown across the living room.  

Afterwards Aaron gets dressed and begins cooking as Emily cleans up the mess in the bathroom and bedroom, changing the wet sheets and then gets dressed in one of Aaron’s shirts and a pair of tights before joining him in the kitchen. On the counter there’s a martini waiting for her, next to a glass of his scotch.

“Something smells good.” She says, ignoring the glass and instead stands next to him and he wraps his arms around her hip while effortlessly flipping the fish in the pan. His other hand sneaks under the hemline of the shirt she’s wearing as he gently runs his fingers along her skin just above her hipbone.

“Thank you for coming here with me.” He says quietly against her wet hair. “Even if it wasn’t exactly what you expected.”

She moves slightly so she’s standing in front of him, her chin resting against his chest as she looks up at him, her dark eyes soft and adoring as she smiles.

“It’s been perfect honey.” She isn’t lying, because getting to spend time like this with him was something that was precious, something rare. “We should try and do this once a year.”

“Oh yeah?” He tucks some of her wet hair behind her ear. “Maybe, some day we can even get a cabin like this of our own?”

“I’d like that.” She pulls him down for a kiss. “I’d love it, actually.”

“Me too.” He smiles softly against her lips before he turns his focus back to the food on the stove. Emily turns back around, rests against his side quietly for a few moments before she exhales softly.

“I think Jack would love that too. And his little brother or sister.”

When Aaron almost drops the pan she hides a smile by biting the inside of her cheek.

“Wait… you’re…?” His eyes are wide, surprise and joy that he doesn’t quite dare to show yet shining back at her. When she beams up at him and nods he wraps his arms back around her, pulling her flush to his front. “You’re pregnant.”

No matter how much he washed his hands, they weren’t clean enough. Dirt was still caked around his nails, stuck into his nailbeds, and his skin was bright red, scrubbed raw by cheap soap and water that was a little too hot. 

Every time he closed his eyes, he could see Billy Henderson in the dirt, could hear his cries as he pulled him out from under it. A wretched memory he knew would haunt him long after they left Arizona, another invisible scar that left him just as weary as his physical ones. 

He jumps a little when he hears a knock on the bathroom door, and he turns as it opens, unsurprised to see Emily walk in, entirely unbothered that this was the men’s bathroom as she locks the door behind her. It gives them privacy he so desperately desires, a few minutes where they can be Aaron and Emily, not Agents Hotchner and Prentiss like they had to be anywhere beyond the confines of this room. 

“I found a nailbrush,” she says, her eyes fixed on his hands as she approaches his, his skin clean and red raw. “Well, JJ gave it to me,” she says, smiling softly at him as she pulls his hands from under the running water, barely hiding a wince as the heat of it catches her skin. She smiles encouragingly as their eyes meet, “Maybe we aren’t as subtle as we think we are.”

They hadn’t been together long. It had only been a couple of months since their first date, and no one knew about them yet, or at least, it turned out, they did know, but they were waiting for them to tell them. She was grateful for their friends and their patience, and she hoped it would last long enough for her and Aaron to do things at their own pace. They were in love with each other, although they hadn’t said the words yet. They’d both been through so much. It had made them shy in a way that neither of them could be accused of in any other circumstances. The way they felt for each other was soft and light and filled all the spaces in their chests that they thought they’d long since lost. 

He chuckles dryly, “Maybe not.” 

She looks down at his hands again, at the tiniest amount of dirt that remained beneath his nails, and she holds her hand out, “Can I help?” 

Aaron nods and lets her take his hand, watching as she turns the water back on, careful to make sure the temperature is lower than he’d had it. She carefully brushes around his nails, making sure the bristles catch the remaining dirt, focused on the flecks as they fall into the sink below their joined hands. 

She’d done this for him once before. Instead of dirt from under his fingernails, she’d washed blood from his knuckles and face, watched as the bright red turned pink as it mixed with water and swirled in the basin in a bathroom he’d once shared with Haley. They’d been close to something back then. A false start brought to a quiet end as she did her best to make him presentable for his scared and confused son waiting outside, all while the body of his ex-wife lay in the next room. 

She’d mourned what they could have had for a long time, felt guilty for doing so when he was mourning the loss of someone he loved, when his son no longer had a mother. She was oddly grateful for it when Ian tore through her life, glad that she painted a lonely figure, that he had no clue just how in love with Aaron she was. Now she knew it had all happened how it should, that they’d found each other at the right time, when they could both finally allow themselves to be happy. 

She cleans his hands diligently, doing her best to ignore the way he watches her as she does so, his gaze as intent as hers. 

“All done,” she says, putting down the nail brush and switching off the water, grabbing some paper towels to dry his hands. She links her fingers through his once they are dry, smiling as she finally looks up at him again, “Billy will be okay.” 

He hums, as unsurprised to know she knew what he was thinking as he was when she sought him out in here, “Yeah,” he replies, shaking his head at himself, “If we’d figured it out sooner-”

“Billy is alive because of what we did today,” she says, reaching up to cup his cheek, running her thumb back and forth under his eye, “Because of what you did today. It might take him a while to be okay…but he will get there.” 

He nods, a short, sharp thing that tells her he doesn’t entirely believe her, not yet, but she doesn’t push it any further, and she won’t until they are home. 

“Thank you,” he says, squeezing her hand, and she rolls her eyes at him, her loving smile removing any bite from it. 

“You don’t have to thank me, honey,” she says, running her thumb back and forth over the heel of his hand, feeling brave for a moment, finding it here of all places after it had failed her so many times over the last few weeks, “It’s what you do…for the people you love.” 

He smiles, his first real one since she’d found him in here, and he leans in to stamp his lips against her cheek, the words he hadn’t said yet, that had sat on his tongue for weeks, finally slipping free. “I love you.” 

Emily had many things in life to be thankful for, a lot of things that would count her as lucky. It hadn’t always been that way, but as she got older and built her life up, she realized one day that she really was grateful for every part of her life, even the bad ones.

She had a stable and good career, she had friends that she loved and who loved her, she had a comfortable life. Most of all she had Aaron, and with Aaron came the family she had always wanted. She loved him in a way she had never loved another person, and she loved the life they had created together. He had the kind of qualities she not only wanted but also needed; he was an unwavering anchor that kept her stable even at the most stressful of times.

She wouldn’t say that her favorite thing about their life together was their sex life, but it was definitely up there. He had a tendency to make her forget about everything and anything; always attentive in the way he made her crave his touch when her mind was frazzled.

Like right now, days before thanksgiving and she was stressed both from work and from the fact that her mother would be joining them for the holidays. He didn’t tell her to calm down, instead he would leave lingering kisses against her bare shoulder in the evening, his stubble rough against her skin. Then he would tease his fingers along her stomach, warm and dry as he left goosebumps across her body.

“Come to bed sweetheart.” He mumbled against the nape of her neck before his teeth sunk gently into her flesh, making her mewl as her eyes drifted closed.

“I can’t.” She sighs heavily, still signing off on paperwork she decided to bring home. His lips curl into a smile against her neck as he brushes her hair away to continue to taste her skin.

“Yes you can.” He whispers before sucking gently on her earlobe. “Come to bed.”

She knew that it wasn’t a question.

So that’s how she finds herself with her hands gripping the headboard of their bed and Aaron’s head between her legs. His tongue flicks over her clit, making her bite her lip to keep from begging for more. When he hums, the vibrations against her make her thighs squeeze shut, trapping him between them. She feels his smirk against her wet folds and she gasps breathlessly.

“Don’t stop.” She breathes, her back arching and knuckles whitening as he flattens his tongue against her, applying pressure in that special way that never fails to make her fall apart.

When her thighs begin to tremble, he easily wraps his strong arms around them to keep her still for him. He hears her sharp inhale as he sucks on her clit and when her hips grind against his face he knows she’s moments from coming. He doubles his effort, sucking and licking over the sensitive bud as Emily squirms and moans louder and louder. By the time she’s coming he knows his fingers are digging into her skin hard enough to bruise as her hips rock desperately against his mouth.

He groans as she moans his name, her voice breathless and full of need as he makes sure to keep going until she’s slumping, cheeks flushed and breathing labored.

“You’re so fucking good at that.” She pants as he smirks up at her, his face shiny from her in a way that was almost obscene. She doesn’t care as she pulls him up to kiss her, a low moan rumbling in her throat at the taste of herself on his tongue.

“Turn around.” Aaron whispers against her lips as he pulls away, his dark eyes looking close to black as he licks his lips.

She gets on her hands and knees and hums lowly as she feels his warm hands on her body, at first stroking over her hips, then up her sides and then back down again. She can feel his cock against her thigh, the smear of him staining her skin as he leans over her and licks along her spine slowly, tasting the sweat on her body.

“Fuck me.” She breathes and he chuckles behind her. “I need to feel you.”

“You need me huh?” His voice holds a hint of smugness, raspy and low behind her as he pushes his tip through her folds, up and down, up and down.

“Aaron.” She warns and in response his fingers tangle in her hair and he pulls, not too hard, just enough that the dull pain in her hairline shoots down her body and her clit throbs.

“Tsk,” He clicks his tongue as he pulls her up until she’s on her knees, her back pressed to his chest. One hand trails over her breasts, down between her legs to playfully slap her clit, before finally wrapping around her waist to keep her close “is that any way to speak to your husband?” He feels her body shiver in response, knows how much she craves to have him like this.

“I’m sorry.” She gasps, her head falling back against his shoulder. “Please, fuck me.” She begs him and immediately she feels him push inside of her, making her groan at the familiar stretch of him.

He fucks her hard and fast, his hips snapping against hers as he keeps her pinned to him, one arm around her waist, the other between her legs. When she comes again he covers her mouth with his palm as he muffles his own groan against her neck. The way she clenches around him makes him come too, his cock throbbing inside her clenching walls.

When they collapse they’re tangled together, sweaty and panting as Aaron wraps himself around her.

She didn’t think she’d ever been so full in her life. 

She groans as she tries to get comfortable on the couch, the cushion behind her doing nothing to ease the seemingly permanent ache in her lower back. She rubs a hand back and forth over her bump and smiles as she watches it shift, a tiny foot or a fist pushing against her skin from the inside out. 

“I know, sweet girl,” Emily says, grimacing as her heart burn climbs up her throat, “Mommy went a little nuts on the pumpkin pie,” she smiles as she listens to Jack and Aaron in the kitchen, their quiet conversation drowned out by the clattering of dishes as they clean up. “Daddy may have been right about that third slice.” 

She was due any day. Any twinge she had made her think she might be going into labour, that her little girl was finally ready to make her entrance to the world, but right now she seemed content where she was. A part of Emily had wanted the baby to come before Thanksgiving, in part so she could be a little more comfortable and not feel like she was going to burst at any given second, but also because she wanted her daughter here. She wanted her to be part of the celebration and to snuggle with her on the couch as Aaron and Jack fussed over them. 

“And to think, I was about to ask if you wanted another once.” 

She smiles as she looks up to find her husband leaning against the doorframe, looking deliciously casual in his t-shirt and grey sweatpants. “I think I might actually burst if I have a fourth.” 

He chuckles and walks over, dropping a kiss to the top of her head, “Do you need anything?” 

She shakes her head and tugs on his arm, encouraging him to join her on the couch, “Just you,” she says, resting her head on his shoulder as she wraps both of her arms around one of his. “Is Jack okay?”

“He’s getting ready for bed,” Aaron replies, smiling softly as he pulls back enough to look at her, “Want to know what he told me in the kitchen?” He asks, and she nods, “That this year he’s thankful that he’s about to be a big brother.” 

She feels tears press at the back of her eyes, a sensation she’d stopped trying to fight months ago, her ability to control her emotions left somewhere with her favourite pants back in her second trimester. 

“That’s so sweet,” she says, leaning into his hand when he wordlessly wipes a tear away from her cheek, “He’s going to be such a good big brother,” she says, placing her hand on her belly, “I kind of wish she was here already.” 

“I know,” he replies, kissing her temple, “But she’ll be here soon. And at Christmas, you two can sit here all day, and Jack and I will bring you your gifts,” he winks at her, “I think Jack might even be persuaded to help you open them.” 

She chuckles at that, and she nods, dragging his hand to her stomach so he can feel their little girl shift around too. There were moments when she couldn’t believe that this was her life, that she had a partner and a little boy she loved more than she ever thought possible, and a little girl on the way, a life she’d built from scratch with love and no small amount of Oreos. 

“You know how thankful I am for you, right?” She asks, tilting her head to look at him properly, still unsure how to tell him how much he meant to her, how much their life together meant to her, after all this time.

“I know, sweetheart,” he says, leaning in to kiss her, catching another stray tear against her cheek as he does so, “And I’m thankful for you too,” he smiles at her, “Jack and I would be lost without you.” 

She hums, but whatever she was about to say dies in her throat as the pain in her back gets worse for a few seconds, and she feels a dampness beneath her on the couch, the material of her leggings sticking to her skin. She chuckles and touches her belly again, feels the unmistakable tightness of her stomach that her body had been practising for weeks. 

“I think we’re about to have a whole lot more to be thankful for,” she says, and he smiles as he pulls back to look at her, playful curiosity painted across his face. 

“Oh yeah, what?” 

“Baby girl might be making a Thanksgiving appearance after all,” she says, sounding calmer than she felt, “My water just broke.”

His curiosity melts away into shock, “What? Your water broke?” 

Emily groans when the sun streaming in through the curtains hits her face. It’s too early, she shouldn’t be awake right now. It was Sunday, there was no reason for her to be awake at 6am on a Sunday. So what was it that woke her up?

The sudden smell of coffee fills her nostrils, followed by a sound coming from the kitchen.

“What the fu-” Her muttered words are cut off when she suddenly remembers the previous night, what she had done, or more like who she had done. Aaron Hotchner was in her kitchen right now, her boss. Fuck.

She scrambles out of bed and grabs her robe, making sure to tie it tightly around herself before she walks out to the kitchen. Sure enough there he is, Aaron Hotchner dressed in jeans and nothing else standing in her kitchen and making scrambled eggs. Double fuck.

“M-morning.” She says and he turns to her with a smile stuck somewhere between embarrassed and shy.

“Good morning.” He says before pushing a cup of coffee towards her, a packet of Splenda already beside it. “I didn’t want to just leave, that felt… weird.” He plates the eggs and pushes one plate towards her too.

“You… cooked?” Her eyes study him, her head moving to the side slightly. He looked different in the early morning light, different from the man that had bitten a bruise into her thigh only hours before. He looked almost…soft as the sunlight hit him just right.

“I don’t know if mixing eggs and milk together counts as cooking, but, yeah I did.” His voice breaks off her train of thought and when she looks at him, he’s smirking at the way she’s scrutinizing him. “You thought I’d leave.” He concludes for her and she nods.

“I guess, I thought you’d want to pretend this didn’t happen.” She takes a long sip from her coffee while Aaron shakes his head.

“Is that really the type of man you think I am?” He doesn’t seem offended, leaning over her kitchen counter and eating the breakfast he had cooked in her kitchen like this was normal, like they had done this a thousand times.

“No, but this complicates things. Doesn’t it?” She watches him smile, amusement shining in his dark orbs.

“It only does if we let it.” He finally puts the fork down and walks around the counter to stand right in front of her. “Do you want me to go?”

“No.” She says it too quickly and his shoulder relax somewhat. “Stay. We can talk.”

“Or,” His fingers feel hot against her skin when he carefully brushes some hair behind her ear before trailing down her side until he reaches the knot of her robe. “we can talk later?” His voice drops to a whispers and she sucks in a breath.

“Later sounds good.” She swallows harshly and nods, giving him permission to tug on the strap. When he pushes her robe of her shoulders and his eyes darkens she realizes that she’s completely naked. It felt more real this time, standing in front of him bare in the early morning hours than it had been in the dead of night.

“You’re so god damn beautiful.” His palm is scolding against her waist when he pulls her closer to him, his other hand cups the back of her head, his fingers tugging gently on her dark hair.

She isn’t sure where they’ll go from here, all she knows is that it’s the start of something. Something exciting, something that she doesn’t want to run from.

She wakes up curled around him. 

It isn’t the first time, or even the second. She’s lost count of the number of times they’ve done this, careful not to put a label on anything while simultaneously assuring the other that they weren’t seeing anyone else. It was a fine line they were talking like a tightrope, both too afraid to leap, to commit something that already felt more important than she thought it should.

It wasn’t the first time she’d woken up in Aaron’s arms, their clothes strewn across the room, the drag of his fingers down her arm making her shiver as she remembers his touch from the night before, but it is the first time they’ve done this on a case. And it’s certainly the first time she’s been this hungover. 

The promises of ‘never on a case,’ and ‘this won’t bleed into work’ had gone the moment it became clear they’d be staying in Vegas for the night. They’d had dinner with the team, and as the team split off to go to bed, or to go out, they were careful to make sure it didn’t raise any eyebrows when it was just the two of them left. 

The night was hazy. A blur of tequila and kisses and him. Her head is pounding when she wakes up, and his clearly is too. He brings her a glass of water and asks how she is, if she’s okay after the night before. Something about the way he asks it strikes her as odd, a look in his eyes she can’t place because she’s too hungover and because she’s never seen it before. She doesn’t have time to ask him if he’s okay because he heads back to his room, dropping a kiss to her lips before he leaves her in bed with a headache and more questions than she cares to count. 

Then none of it matters for a while. Spencer stays in Vegas, and JJ goes into labour, and Emily’s problems with her boss, turned friends-with-benefits, turned man she’s not so secretly in love with, fall by the wayside for a few hours. They go to the hospital, meet Henry, and sit in someone else's joy for a while, and on the way out, she asks Aaron if he wants to come over for a drink, now a little more aware of how strangely he’s acting around her now her head has cleared a little. He doesn’t hesitate to accept her offer and smiles, his hand lingering on her back in the hospital elevator in a brief moment when they are alone, and he tells her he’ll follow her to hers. 

He makes it there just a couple of minutes after her, and she waits for him. He kisses her when he gets out of his car, her apartment building one of their safe spaces. When she kisses him back, she tastes uncertainty on his lips, and it’s like a poison, bitter on her tongue as she wonders if this is the start of the end of them before they ever really became anything at all. 

“I can’t believe JJ’s a mom,” she says as they walk into her apartment, hoping he doesn’t catch the wistful tone to her voice, the barely covered longing that never failed to make her ache, “She’ll be a good one.” 

“You will too,” he says, clearly speaking before he thinks, his eyes going wide before he clears his throat, “One day. If you want to be.” 

It’s the same strange behaviour from when they woke up in Vegas, a kind of skittishness she usually couldn’t accuse him of, and her patience with it runs out. He’d been here countless times. He’d stood naked exactly where he was standing and seemed less out of place than he did right now, and she furrows her brow, crossing her arms over her chest as her offer of a drink is forgotten. 

“Aaron, what’s going on?” 

“I…”He sighs and runs his fingers through his hair, something he only ever does when he’s on edge, “I think we should talk about last night.” 

She frowns at him, “What about last night? The sex?”

“No, not the sex, Em,” he says, his brief frustration melted away by his ever-present instinct to be a gentleman, “Unless you want to talk about the sex…” he drifts off as she raises an eyebrow at him, and clears his throat, “I meant I think we should talk about the other thing.”

“What other thing?”

It’s his turn to frown, as if he can’t quite believe she doesn’t remember, his confusion carved into the line between his eyebrows that she liked to soothe as they lay together in his bed or hers, a type of softness she thinks could kill her one day. 

A type of softness she’d die to protect. 

“We should talk about the fact that we got married,” he says matter of factly, and it hangs in the air between them, heavy and sweet with a chaser of a promise she can’t quite dare to believe. 

She chokes on a laugh, thinking he’s joking, but it dies in her throat, catching on memories that hit her square in the chest, stealing her breath as she covers her mouth with her hand. Freshly recovered moments replacing the darkness each time she blinks, painted on the back of her eyes in bright technicolour.

Her kissing him, the three words she hadn’t dared to say when sober pressed against his lips

Him saying it back, his eyes giving the game away before he trips over half slurred words, the two of them passing the taste of tequila back and forth. 

The hotel chapel. 

The fucking Elvis impersonator. 

The vows. 

She gasps, and she looks up at him, swallowing thickly before she replies, her stomach rolling with emotions she can’t name, and a few she doesn’t dare to. 

Emily’s in the kitchen when she hears her phone ring. 

She curses under her breath, picturing it where she left it lying on the arm of the couch, and she shakes her head at herself. 

“Mommy is so tired she’d leave her head somewhere if it wasn’t attached, sweet boy,” she says, peering down at her two-month-old son strapped to her chest. She smiles at the sight of him, all chubby cheeks and enviable eyelashes as he sleeps against her, clearly worn out from keeping her and Aaron up all night. She kisses the top of his head and takes a moment to breathe him in, muffling a yawn as she hears her phone ring out in the next room, “You’re lucky you’re so cute,” she mumbles to the baby, “Otherwise I wouldn’t take this lack of sleep so lightly.” 

She yawns again as she walks to the living room, idly thinking of hunting down whoever said ‘sleep when the baby sleeps’ and giving them a piece of her mind. She picks up her phone and furrows her brow as the screen comes to life, the first signs of anxiety rolling in her stomach when she realises she’s missed a call from Aaron. 

He never called in the middle of the day. He was too busy, and she knew that, never begrudging him for getting caught up in a job she understood the draw of. He did send countless texts, would check in on her, Zachary and Jack and ask for updates as if it had been weeks since he’d seen his sons, not just hours or a couple of days if he was away on a case. She’d send photos of her and Zachary during the day, and then Jack after she picked them up from school, all of them captured with wishes that he was with them, or comments about how he was missed. He’d reply and send photos back, shots taken at his desk or in precincts around the country, but he never called unless he was back in his hotel room for the night.

He never called. 

She’s angry at herself for not answering the phone, sure that if she’d had it with her, she wouldn’t be feeling like this, dread wouldn’t be pooling in her lungs, preemptive fear and grief threatening to drown her because she had no idea what Aaron wanted, or why he’d call in the middle of the working day. They’d have spoken, and she would have chastised him for freaking her out, and they would have carried on with their day. 

He never called. 

She presses the button and raises the phone, closes her eyes as she tries to calm herself down, tries to assure herself that her exhaustion was making her jump to conclusions. It’s a thought that dies out as quickly as it had sparked in her gut, extinguished by the sound of her husband’s voice as the voicemail starts to play. 

“Hi sweetheart,” his voice is strained, a tightness to it that she hadn’t heard in years, something that sounds like pain in the edges of it, “I just…I wanted to call to say that I love you. And the boys,” he coughs, barely covering it, sucking in a breath as he does so, the sound momentarily dipping out as he clearly pulls the phone away from his face to cough again, “I love you. I’ll see you later.” 

The voicemail ends, and the silence that follows is overwhelming, the fist of it wrapping itself around her throat and choking her, her ears ringing as she plays the voicemail again, and again. 

She sucks in a breath, feels the sharpness of it catching against her lungs when a voicemail comes through. Her finger hovers over the button on the screen, tries not to look at the picture of herself, Aaron and the boys she has set as her wallpaper, a moment of happiness frozen behind glass. She couldn’t explain the dread she feels if she tried, but it spreads through her like wildfire, stoked by instinct and the concern that she had too much now that she’d never been able to shake off. 

Maybe the universe was finally ready to even the score, ready to take the happiness she’d only just learnt how to trust away from her. 

The phone doesn’t ring when she calls him back. She tries again anyway, paces the living room as she repeatedly hits callback on the screen, using her other hand to rub soothing circles on Zachary’s back, something she knows is more for her than it is for her sleeping son.

“Come on,” she says, his name pushed through gritted teeth as she groans when his phone doesn’t ring again, and this time she leaves a voicemail herself, “Aaron, call me back when you get this, please. I’m…I’m worried. You…you can’t just leave a voicemail like that. Call me. I love you.” 

She tries to call Dave next. It rings, but he doesn’t answer. Same with JJ and then Derek, and Emily is about to go to the office, baby strapped to her chest and all, and demand someone tell her what the hell is going on, when her phone rings. Despite her willing it to ring for the best part of 20 minutes, it makes her jump, her heart in her throat as Dave’s name flashes across her screen. 

She feels her already frayed nerves start to unravel, the threads of them pooling around her feet as she finally stands still, worried she’d get tangled up and trip if she took another step. She takes a deep breath and answers the phone, not wanting to miss another call when she thinks she might have just missed the most important call of her life. 

“Dave,” she says as she answers, the shake in her voice undeniable even to her, “What the hell is going on?

She’s on his doorstep only a few days after finding out that he’s back in DC, no longer in victim’s protection, Jack taller than her. He’s just as handsome, but now he had specks of gray in his hair and in his beard. She had always liked when he let his beard grow.

“Emily.” He says her name like a prayer, standing in the doorway to an apartment filled with boxes still to be unpacked. “You’re here.”

“I-” For a moment she feels stupid for just showing up, but he’s looking at her with the same fondness she remembers. “I heard you were back.”

“We are.” He wants to tell her everything, he wants to thank her for everything. She was the person who gave him his life back. Instead he just looks at her, tries to see any evidence of the injuries he knows she sustained when Scratch attacked the team, when he took her. He can’t see any traces of a bruise, but he knows that the mental toll was way worse than the physical one. But now Peter Lewis was dead and Aaron was back in the only place he had ever really called home. “We’re home.”

At that she smiles and finally she hugs him. It’s too tight, it’s too intimate but she doesn’t care anymore. They didn’t work together, they didn’t have a reason to pretend that they didn’t feel something more than friendship towards each other. He hugs her back just as tightly, his arms wrapping around her and pulling her close.

“Can I buy you dinner?” She asks once they break apart and Aaron smiles. It’s funny how sometimes things that had seemed so hard was suddenly so easy.

“Sure.” He says as he carefully brushes some hair behind her ear. “Friday?”

“Friday.”

So they go to dinner and it’s like something falls into place. They talk about anything and everything. Her time in London, Reid going to prison, Jack’s soccer, about what it meant that they were back in the same city.

When the check comes he snatches it away from her and gives him a playful glare when she tries to argue.

“I was supposed to buy you dinner.” She muses and he simply shakes his head.

“We both knew that wasn’t happening. A gentleman pays on the first date.” He watches as her eyebrow arches at the word date.

“Oh so this is a date now, is it?” She stands up from the table as she smiles at him

“It always was.” He stands up as well and helps her with her coat. “A date we’ve been waiting for, for a long time I think.” His words falls against the back of her neck and she shivers from the feeling.

“Yeah. You’re right.” She takes his hand as they walk out of the restaurant, his warm palm feeling right against hers as his fingers intertwine with hers.

He doesn’t let go of her hand until they’re outside of her apartment, his heart beating in his chest, her cheeks a faint blush of pink as she looks up at him almost shyly. He had imagined kissing her probably a thousand times. He had wondered what she tasted like, what she felt like in his arms. And now he realized that he wouldn’t have to wonder anymore.

“Thank you, for dinner.” The words are spoken quietly as she looks up at him.

“Thank you for asking me out.” He muses with a smile as his hand gently cups her cheek. His thumb brushes against her cheekbone and he watches as her eyes flutter closed for a moment.

“Aaron?” She whispers after a few seconds of silence when he still doesn’t lean forward, her nerves getting the best of her.

“Yes?” His breath falls against her face as he speaks.

“Kiss me.”

“You’ve always been so impatient.” He mumbles, voice low and teasing and then she’s pulling on his tie and he’s kissing her. She tastes like red wine and right and within moments he’s wrapping one arm around her and pulling her against his chest. It’s been years of longing, years of fighting what they knew was inevitable.

They were making each other nervous. 

He tells her that he hasn’t felt like this in years, and she isn’t sure she ever has. He brought it out in her. Made her feel like the lovesick teenager she’d never had the chance to be. It was embarrassing and liberating and everything in between all at once. 

She waited him out, let him ask her out even though she was desperate to take that next step with him, practically vibrating with the need to jump over the line they’d been walking like a tightrope for years. She knew it was important to him, that he wanted to do things the right way, so she let him. 

She smiles when he finally asks her. She stamps a kiss against his cheek, chuckling when he asks her if that was a yes, his smile nervous and his cheek warm against her lips. 

He shows up with flowers, smiling at her as if she’d hung the moon in the sky herself, as he explains that he picked out ones that wouldn’t be poisonous to Sergio. 

It’s a perfect date, in a perfect restaurant with the man who she thinks may be perfect for her. 

He takes her home, his smile soft and full of something she isn’t afraid to call love, and she asks him in to her place, nervousness bubbling in her chest as she suggests they have a drink. They sit on the couch and talk, slowly edging closer and closer to each other until her legs are over his lap and his hand is on her knee, drawing idly patterns with his thumb that make her shiver in a way that has nothing to do with the cool air in her apartment. 

When they finally kiss, it feels like coming home, as if she’d been missing something she wasn’t aware had been missing, something that slips into place the moment she presses her lips against his. 

If she were more of a romantic, she’d tell herself that everything they’d been through - together and apart - had led to this. That the cruelty of fate, or the wrath of God or the universe that they’d endured was all for this, all for the quiet epilogue they both deserved. It was a nice thought, almost sweet, but she knew they deserved more credit than that. They’d fought to make it here, had been torn apart at the seams and sewn back together, and they’d chosen to carry on. 

It was never fate. It had always been them. 

When the kiss comes to an end, their last first kiss, she smiles at him, sucking in a breath that catches in her chest as their eyes meet. 

“I think we should have done that a long time ago,” she whispers, not wanting to talk too loudly, to break the gentle moment she knew she’d always look back on as the moment they began, “Or maybe now was exactly the right time,” she reaches up and runs her fingers through his hair before her hand finds it’s spot on his cheek, “I’m not really sure.” 

“Me neither,” he replies, turning his head to kiss her palm, “I think it’s the right time and years later than it should have been all at once.” 

She hums and leans in to kiss him again, their second, unable to stop now that she’d started, “I’m just glad you kissed me. I was starting to think I’d have to take my dress off to get my point across.” 

He chuckles, “You could still do that if you want,” he quips, winking at her as he squeezes her knee, his pointed effort to not let his hand drift any further north enough of a signal that he didn’t expect anything from her that she wasn’t comfortable with. “Besides, I think you kissed me.” 

“Hi, it’s me. I know that you’re probably mad…” He hangs before he can finish listening to the whole message. It’s too painful, the sound of her voice like a dagger slicing through his heart.

24 hours earlier

At first he can’t put his finger on what it is that’s bothering him. It’s subtle, a feeling of something not being right. But they were hunting down an international terrorist so that was to be expected. When he finds out about Ian Doyle and Emily’s past, his Emily, that feeling suddenly makes a little more sense. He never blamed her for not telling him about her time working for Interpol, he knew that a lot of her work there was classified. He never blamed her for going undercover, or that a part of him knew that maybe Emily did love Ian in some way. 

He never blamed her for any of it, because it wasn’t her fault.

But then she’s gone, one second she’s in the bullpen and the next there’s not a trace of her anywhere. And the next 24 hours is like stepping into his own worst nightmare, a nightmare he had already lived through once. 

 For that, he does blame her. 

 Because this was a decision she had made on her own. She hadn’t trusted him with it. A part of him knows that she went after Doyle alone to protect him, to protect Jack, to protect her chosen family. But that doesn’t matter now. Now it was too late. 

 They had been too slow. 

 He had been too late. 

At first it doesn’t seem real, watching her lying on the concrete floor, broken, bruised, cuffed. It can’t be real, he can’t go through this again. He doesn’t hear Morgan’s voice as he attempts to keep her alive, he doesn’t notice the EMTs or Dave holding him as he falls to the ground. 

 He can’t hear or feel anything. All he sees is her. 

Hours later he’s standing outside the entrance to the hospital, empty in a way he had never experienced before. He looks down at the phone in his hand, the voice message still there, still not listened to.

“Hi, it’s me. I know that you’re probably mad…” He can’t listen to it, the sound of her voice makes it feel like he’s tearing apart at the seams and he hangs up just as a warm hand lands on his upper arm.

 “Aaron.” 

 He pockets his phone before turning to see JJ standing there. She looks just as broken as he feels.

 “I’m so sorry.” She whispers, tears rolling down her cheeks. It’s not enough, she knows it’s not. Nothing would ever be enough. 

But then she’s hugging him, and he clings to her. She cries for her best friend and the pain she can’t even imagine Aaron is feeling. He’s crying for the love of his life being gone. Already grieving a life they would never get to have. 

Two weeks later he’s sitting by the kitchen table, the apartment dark. He looks around, watches the pictures of them on the wall, flowers he had watched her try to keep alive were now dry and turning brown. It was silent, something he wasn’t used to anymore, because she would always play music when she was home. But the thing was, this apartment doesn’t feel like home anymore.

He takes a sip of the scotch in his glass, the amber liquid no longer burning as it slides down his throat and only leaves a bitter warmth behind. The cellphone lays on the table in front of him, almost taunting him. For a moment he wants to throw it against the nearest wall. Maybe breaking something would make him feel better. But that voicemail that he had yet to listen to was the last piece he had of her.

After a few heavy moments he finally reaches for it. The tears burning in his eyes make the screen blurry as he pushes the button to finally listen to the last words she’d ever say to him. He wonders if things would have been different, if she would still be there, if he had picked up the phone that day when she had called only a few minutes before Ian Doyle captured her. If he could have somehow changed her mind about trying to go at it alone. If only he had answered.

If only.

“Hi, it’s me. I know that you’re probably mad, and you have every right to be. I’m not going to tell you not to be angry, but what I want you to know is that I love you. I love you with everything I am. I just… I love you and I need you to remember that, no matter what happens.”

The sound of her knock breaks the stillness. It’s firm, two taps, a far cry from the uneven fluttering in her chest that hasn’t stopped since the shots rang. Hours later she’s still thrumming, strung tight like a wire, the muscles under her skin unable to loosen, to unlock, even after a scalding shower and multiple assurances that he’s fine.

Her head doesn’t quieten. The fear is always louder.

Her heart lurches when the door whooshes open. Cool air skims the skin above her knees, and Emily is suddenly struck by how this looks—knocking at her boss’ door in the inky quiet of midnight, pajama shorts on her hips and desperation carved in the set of her jaw. Not a carnal kind of desperation, but desperation all the same, winding her body taut under thin cotton nighties. 

To his credit, his gaze doesn’t dip down. His brows, though, do knit in familiar concern. 

“Emily.” He says. She’s never Prentiss now, she notices. Never when she doesn’t strictly have to be. “Everything okay?”

Sure it is. Yeah, it’s okay. The unsub is in cuffs. They’re going home tomorrow. He crumpled down to the floor but he got up again. Everything is fine.

She hasn’t stopped trembling since. 

“Yeah.” Emily swallows thickly. Everything’s just fine. Just let her body soak up some of the warmth that always flows from him, and she’ll be in tip top shape. Just let her feel him in the space that’s always between them.

Just—

Just let them stand on opposite thresholds, feet just shy of the edges.

Hotch eyes her with no small amount of tenderness. Just this, Emily thinks; the rise of his chest under his t-shirt, his pulse beating in the hollow of his neck. She doesn’t need the softness in his gaze, or in his voice as he murmurs, “It’s late.” 

As he says it, he edges back. Cracks the door wider. Emily doesn’t think before she takes the invitation—and extends it further before she can feel it. Arms around his neck, his cheek next to hers, the sharp vortex of his inhale forming in her ear.

Idiot.

She jerks back, her mouth dry. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. God, I—”

“Shh.” His hand blazes heat through the nape of her neck. Thumb under her ear, fingertips slipping into her hair, he stops her from edging further back. Her resistance is weak. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

Emily digs her palms into her eyes. She still sees him there, crumpling to the floor, two rips in his vest where the bullets lodged. Probably bruised, the EMT said about his ribs. You’ll need an x-ray.

“Are you?” She asks, swallowing against the tremble in her voice. Jesus, she needs to get it together.

Hotch strokes a line down the pearl at the base of her neck. “Yes.” He murmurs, though she can hear the strain if she focuses. “They’re just bruises, Emily.” 

This time.

It’s all she can think about. They’re so, so fragile—each of them. No matter how much they lift and shoot and train, it’s all for naught. Their skin splits like butter under a hot knife, their bones crack easy as chalk. 

It’s laughable. They’re paper thin, puppets on strings.

Even him.

She doesn’t feel the tears until he tugs her hands away from her eyes, two gentle fingers locked around each of her wrists. Her cheeks are cold with them, dampened and slick when Hotch swipes dry paths with his thumbs.

“Hey, hey.” He whispers, as carefully as he’s wiping her face. “Emily, don’t—don’t do this to yourself. I’m okay, I am. Please don’t…” 

Emily’s chin jerks. She steps back, her shoulders hitting the wall. “I’m sorry.” She chokes out. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

“Honey, please.”

It shudders through her, his voice desperate. Her chest tightens, vision blurring; she feels herself go limp, the tears burning hot and spilling down her cheeks, pooling right in his palms. He’s saying something, whispering pleas, reassurances. I’m sorry. Why’s he sorry? 

He had never been a fan of long distance relationships. He had done it with Haley while working for Scotland Yard for a short time, he had done it with Beth when she lived in New York. What he had come to find was that he didn’t like it, he didn’t like phone calls and Skype and Face Time and then not being able to touch the woman he loved.

But with Emily, it somehow worked. Maybe because he knew that now that they were finally together he wasn’t going to be stupid enough to let her go. She was in London, still running Interpol, but she was moving back soon.

Only soon wasn’t soon enough.

He and Jack had visited her over New Years, by some miracle he had been granted the time off and they had spent almost two weeks together. They spent Valentines apart, only a short phone call when Aaron was getting ready for work and Emily was already at the office. The team had a case and by the time he got back to the hotel in the small town they were working in, it was too late to call her again. So not only was the long distance killing him, but the time difference only made it worse.

But they had gotten into a routine, Emily texted him first thing when she woke up, Aaron texted her back around seven hours later. If they had time they would Face Time at least once, and if not they would at least say good night before she was going to bed.

Only, today he had only gotten her good morning text. At first he didn’t think much of the fact that she didn’t reply to his text like she normally did, she was probably busy with work. But by the time he was sitting down to eat lunch and he called her, it went straight to voice mail, which was odd. Emily never turned her phone off. He anxiously watches the British news to make sure there wasn’t some huge catastrophe going on. There wasn’t. He waits another ten minutes and then calls her again. It goes to voice mail and his eyebrow furrows.

“Have you talked to Emily today?” He asks Penelope when she walks into his office later that afternoon. He knew the women spoke or texted every few days.

“No sir.” She says too quickly, her eyes big and her posture a little straighter than normal. If he hadn’t been so distracted thinking about Emily he probably would have noticed the lie written all over her face.

It’s one of those rare days when the whole team actually gets to leave the office at a decent time. He calls her again as he walks to his car, this time his call comes through but she doesn’t pick up.

“God damn it Emily.” He’s losing his mind, because this wasn’t like her. No matter how busy they were, they always made time for at least a text message. “Pick up.” He calls one more time but the same thing happens. His stomach twists uncomfortably.

He gets home and it’s quiet, which he doesn’t expect. Jack should be home from school by now. It’s too quiet, too still, and his hand automatically reaches for the gun in his holster.

“Jack?” He calls out but there’s no response and his already anxious mind starts to race. But then there’s a scent, a scent he could pick out anywhere, wafting suddenly in the air. He walks through the apartment and toward his bedroom with determined steps.

For a few seconds he just stares at the figure standing in his bedroom, two large suitcases beside her. He thinks he’s imagining her, he has to be, because Emily was in London, she was not in his bedroom.

“You’re home early.” She’s grinning like an idiot, enjoying the look of shock on his face. “Surprise?”

Before he knows it he’s closing the distance between them and pulling him against his chest, walking so quickly that they lose their footing and land on the bed with Emily laughing.

“You scared the hell out of me.” He mutters against her neck “You can’t do that to me.”

“I wanted it to be a surprise. I’m actually shocked that Garcia didn’t break.” She hugs him tightly against her, feeling him press kisses against her neck.

“Garcia knew?” He lifts his head to look at her, one hand cupping her cheek. When she breaks into another grin he can’t help but to smile too.

“The entire team did.” She laughs at the look on his face. “I made them promise not to say anything.”

“I swear Em, you can’t do that. I’ve been going crazy all day, I’ve been worried.” He flips them around so she’s straddling him. “Stop laughing, it’s not funny.” He mutters when she chuckles above him.

“I won’t do it again.” She promises him and presses a kiss to his lips. “Because I won’t need to.”

“What do you mean?” His hands tighten on her waist, his brown eyes locked on hers.

“I’m moving back, today.” She watches as his entire face lights up. “No more long distance, I’m home.”

“You’re home.” He breathes, stuck somewhere between stunned and exhilarated.

“Unless your offer to move in together is off the table?” She teases and he gently grabs a hold of the back of her neck to pull her closer.

The apartment was empty without him. 

It made her grumpy. Irritable in a way that only served to annoy her further every night when she curled up on his side of the bed, her face buried in his pillow as she wondered to herself when her happiness had become so reliant on his presence. 

As soon as she makes it home from work, she slumps on the couch and tugs her phone from her pocket, leaving it on the arm so she can answer it as soon as it rings. He was due to call her soon, to update her on his day, and so she could update him on hers. It wasn’t the same as snuggling up to him on the couch and sharing a bottle of wine and a meal they’d made together, but it would do while he was away. 

They’d met three summers ago when he worked briefly on her mother’s security detail. Emily had found herself drawn to him immediately, found something endearing in his almost terminal seriousness and slightly ill-fitting suits, two things she could tell from the off that he wore like some kind of armour. She knew he’d been drawn to her too, pulled in by her smile and her determination to ruffle him up a little, the summer she’d been dreading with her mother suddenly looking up. 

She told herself at first that it would just be for a few weeks, that whatever it was between them was temporary, but even that first night, when they kissed, but she should have known it never could have been. Not with him. 

They’d made it through a year of long distance when she was doing her masters, and they’d been living together ever since she graduated in an apartment that was theirs but had once been his. She loved him. She loved her life and her job.

She was happy, which was something she once thought she’d never get to be. Something she’d found in herself and in him, and in the life they were building for themselves. 

She smiles when her cell phone rings, and she answers it on the second ring. “Hi, honey.” 

“Hi,” he replies, “Sorry it’s a little later than usual, I only just got back to my hotel.”

She checks her watch and furrows her brow, “It’s nearly 11 pm for you.”

He hums, and she hears his bed rustle as he sits on it, the sheets he’d complained about for days crinkling beneath him, “We lost track of time.” 

He was in London for a month, working on a programme to improve relations and information sharing between the FBI and Scotland Yard. She was proud of him for being chosen to take part, but she missed him, and she was counting down the days until he’d be home. 

She clenches her jaw, and something she refuses to call jealousy flashes in her gut, “You and Detective Joyner?” 

She can practically hear his stupid, handsome smile down the phone as he replies, “Among many other people,” he replies, endlessly diplomatic in a way she found as irritating as she did charming, “You have nothing to be jealous of, sweetheart.” 

“I’m not jealous,” she mumbles, but she doesn’t even believe herself, and she blows out a slow breath, screwing up her nose as she admits to something she had planned on keeping to herself, “I uh…I looked her up. She looks like Haley,” she feels her cheeks burn with embarrassment, and she shakes her head at herself, “Sorry…thats….sorry.” 

“Don’t apologise,” he says, “And even if she does look like Haley-”

“She looks exactly like her.” 

“That doesn’t matter because I love you,” he says, ignoring the way she’d grumbled as she cut him off.

“I know,” she says, resting her head on the back of the couch, “I know you do. She’s just…your type, that’s all. I’m being silly.”

“You’re never silly,” he assures her, “And you’re my type, Emily Prentiss. No one else.” 

She blushes, her cheeks warm again as she shakes her head at him, even though he can’t see her, “You’re my type too,” she replies, “I miss you. This reminds me a little too much of when I was in New Haven, but at least then I could drive down to see you whenever I wanted. I don’t think I’m made for long distance anymore.”  

“Me neither, and I miss you too,” he says, “I’ll be home next week.” 

She hums, “Good. I don’t think I’ll let you go anywhere else ever again,” she quips, and he laughs down the line, his beautiful, goofy laugh that she loved more than he could ever grumble about, “At least not without me.” 

She was used to being the one who left, not the one who was left behind. She’d moved around so much when she was younger that she’d never really made connections, never had foundations strong enough to have somewhere that felt like home. Not until he’d handed her the tools she’d never had before - unconditional love in one hand and unrelenting faith in the other - and helped her figure out how to build them herself. 

“Sweetheart, there’s nowhere I want to be other than by your side,” he replies, and he clears his throat, “I’ll take you out for dinner when I get back. To that French place you like. We can go for a walk down the mall afterwards.” 

She hears the slight nervous shake in his voice that he barely covers, his attempt to be casual adorable, and she thinks of the ring she’d accidentally found in his sock drawer when she was doing laundry a few days ago. She smiles, already knowing what her answer will be, even though he hasn’t asked the question yet.