lina reads and writes

“I hate this.” 

Aaron has to suppress a laugh, knowing his wife wouldn’t thank him for it at all, “I know you do sweetheart,” he sits on the edge of the bath, smiling at her as he watches her settle as comfortably as she can, “You’re sure you don’t want me to wash your hair?” 

She nods, “It can last another day or so,” she says, sighing miserably, “You can shave my legs for me though if you want, I don’t want you to mistake me for a cactus when we go to bed later.” 

He does laugh at that and leans forward to kiss her forehead when she frowns at him, looking nothing short of adorable with her hair pilled up on top of her head in a messy bun and her right arm in a bright white cast, currently wrapped in a plastic bag so it didn’t get wet, that ended just short of her elbow. 

“You make a beautiful cactus.” 

“Aaron.” 

He hears the warning tone in her voice but sees the smile she tries, and fails, to stop, and he leans forward to kiss her again before he pulls back. He looks at her arm, wincing as it hits the side of the bath as she hangs it over the side. Through the bag he’d diligently wrapped it in he could see the drawings from their kids. Brightly coloured scribbles from their 3-year-old and 18-month-old, and a dinosaur drawn by Jack. 

“Does your arm hurt?” 

She grimaces at the thought of it, her arm throbbing inside the cast and she shrugs, “It’s fine.”

She’d had worse, she knew that. But every other major injury had been a result of her job or protecting the people she loves, this was down to pure stupidity on her part and it made the broken bone all the more embarrassing. 

The worst part, she thought, was that Aaron had told her to not go onto the jungle gym at the park with the kids, and the bastard had been right. Thankfully, either through his love for her or fear she’d divorce him, he hadn’t mentioned it. As always he’d been nothing but supportive and loving, making sure their toddlers were extra careful around her, both of their daughters used to climbing all over her whenever they wanted. 

She watches as he grabs her razor, “Just don’t cut me, I’ve already got enough injuries.”

“I have done this before, you know,” he says raising an eyebrow at her, making her smile, any irritation at him that had been thrumming under her skin disappearing at the memory of him doing this for her when she was pregnant. 

The night before she was induced to give birth to Ivy she’d asked him to help her shave her legs, a slightly desperate look on her face that he knew was brought on by being almost 42 weeks pregnant and exhaustion that was bone deep. She hadn’t thought about it until they were ready to go to bed, both aware they would get little sleep due to the excitement and nervous anticipation of how everything was about to change practically vibrating in the air around them. He’d done it a few times before that, something that came about because he’d walked into the bathroom to find her crying because she couldn’t reach over her bump anymore. Whilst he had known it was something she was worrying about unnecessarily, and that she certainly wouldn’t care if she had freshly shaven legs when she was in labour, and neither would the medical staff, he did it without comment. 

When she had Hazel she hadn’t had the chance, the youngest Hotchner born four weeks early as opposed to her sister’s two weeks late, a keenness to be involved in everything that hadn’t come close to fading in the 18 months since she’d been born. 

Emily reaches out for him, trailing her fingers, and droplets of water, through his hair, “I know,” she replies, tugging him in for a kiss, “You’re the best husband I’ve ever had.” 

He shakes his head at her, turning around briefly to reach for his, very expensive, self-heating shaving cream, “I’m the only husband you’ve ever had.” 

She chuckles, and shrugs, “Then you’ve set the bar so impossibly high I guess I’m stuck with you,” she winks, and she watches him open the can of shaving cream and rub some into his palms, “Oh, your fancy shaving cream. You really must love me.” 

“You’re saying that like you don’t use it every time you do this,” he quips, indicating with his hands that he’s ready for her.  She lifts one of her legs out of the water and rests it on his thigh, the water making his jeans stick to his leg. He takes the weight of her leg in his hands and is gentle as he rubs the cream into her skin, taking as much care and concentration with the task as he does with everything.

There is something about it that takes her breath away, the intimacy of it making her heart swell in her chest, the warmth of his love for her mixing in with the heat of the bath and the cream he was massaging into her skin. It makes her cheeks flush and she has to bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself from smiling too widely, still shy about this, about how much she loves him, even after all these years. 

He’s silent as he shaves her leg, all of his concentration on making sure he doesn’t cut her skin, the only sound in the room the splash of the water as he swills the razor in the bath water. She smiles as he pays careful attention to her knee and her ankle, clearly remembering her instructions from when she was pregnant with Ivy. 

“You’re too good to me, do you know that?” she asks, smiling softly at him when he looks up at her, his hold on her still gentle, his eyebrows knitting together. 

“I love you in the way you deserve, Em, nothing more,” he says, pressing a kiss to her knee before he lowers it back into the water. He stands and kisses her, his hand on her cheek when he pulls back, “You deserve the world.” 

She presses her lips into a firm line, swallowing thickly to push down the emotions climbing up her throat, a fruitless attempt to stop herself from being overwhelmed by love for him, for the life they have together. The simple, beautiful life they had both fought for. The one she had died for. 

“I love you,” she says, leaning forward and stamping a kiss against his lips. 

“I love you too,” he replies, tucking some hair behind her ear before he stands up, his back cracking at the angle as he rounds the bathtub, “Now, I’d better do your other one so I don’t end up in bed with a hybrid of my wife and a cactus.” 

She narrows her eyes at him and splashes water in his direction in retribution, laughing when he yelps as bubbles land on his cheek.

___

“Mama fell,” Hazel says, her soft voice as she gently traces tiny fingers over her mother’s cast. Emily kisses the top of her daughter’s head and pulls her closer with her good arm. 

“Yes, baby, Mama fell,” she says, sighing at the memory. The accident had happened in front of the kids, and it had taken a lot of convincing from her and from Aaron that she would be ok, all three of them worried about their mother. They’d watched her like hawks ever since as if they were concerned she would just disappear. 

Jack was out with a friend, getting him to go was another thing that had taken some convincing from his parents, and Aaron was in the kitchen cleaning up from dinner, leaving Emily in the living room with Ivy and Hazel. They were all curled up on the couch, Emily sitting in the corner so her right arm was balanced on the arm of the couch on top of a cushion. Hazel was curled up into her side and Ivy was next to her sister, her small hand trailing up and down Emily’s, now smooth, calf. 

There’s a Disney movie they’ve all seen a hundred times on the tv and Emily sighs as she imagines the many different ways she’d kill an animated snowman if she had the chance as she idly plays with her youngest’s hair. 

“Mommy?” Ivy asks, drawing Emily’s attention towards her. She looks at her daughter and has to stop herself from smiling as the little girl furrows her brow, looking so much like Aaron that it makes Emily smile, the three-year-old looking every bit as stern as her father, “You do my hair?” 

Emily sighs, reaching past Hazel to run her fingers through her eldest daughter’s long and unruly hair. Ivy had been born with a head full of thick dark hair, something even the midwife had commented on. Emily had been determined to learn how to do fancy braids with her daughter’s hair ever since then. She’d never cared much about doing anything more than throwing her own up into a ponytail, but she wanted to do better for them. So she’d learnt. Watched videos on YouTube and asked Penelope for advice, the technical analyst delighted to help. 

Her heart twists in her chest at Ivy’s innocent question, the hopeful look in her eyes and the hairbrush and ties in her tiny hand she’d seemingly pulled from nowhere. Her wrist throbs in its cast, almost mocking her as the pain reminds her she can’t do this for her little girl. 

“I’m sorry sweet girl but my arm is hurt, remember?” She says, lifting her arm from the cushion she was resting it on, “I can’t braid your hair for you.” 

Ivy looks crestfallen as she sinks back into the couch, her lower lip close to trembling, and Emily feels awful. Guilt that she hadn’t realised existed before she became a parent flooding her veins, a voice in her head that sounded suspiciously like her mother that she was letting her daughter down. She wants nothing more than to do this for Ivy, to do something she’d done since her hair was long enough to braid, but she knows it will only make her arm hurt more. She hears her husband moving around in the kitchen and she has an idea. 

“Why doesn’t Daddy do it?” She asks, smiling as Ivy looks confused, her nose scrunching up. 

“But Daddy’s a boy.” 

Emily laughs and pushes some of the little girl's hair behind her ear, “I know he is, but you know what else Daddy is?” She asks, waiting for Ivy’s response which is a shake of her head, “He is very good at following instructions, especially from me. So I can sit here with Hazel and tell him what to do with your hair. He can even practise on me,” she offers, and then she tickles Hazel, the little girl giggling as she leans in closer to her mother’s side, “And Hazel if he needs to.”

Ivy’s eyes go wide and she nods enthusiastically, “Yes, Daddy do it.” 

Emily winks at her and turns to call over her shoulder, placing her hand over Hazel’s ear, the toddler’s other ear pressed into her mother’s shoulder “Aaron?” 

She has to suppress a laugh at the sound of clattering pans in the kitchen followed by the sound of her husband’s hurried footsteps. 

He’s slightly out of breath when he makes it to the living room, a slight frown on his face as he looks at her and their daughters, all lined up on the couch and looking at him expectantly. He makes a mental note to talk to her later about the tone of her voice when she calls for him, the urgency in it making him worry something was wrong when it clearly wasn’t. 

“Everything ok, sweetheart?” 

The matching smiles he gets from all three of them are enough for him to know he’s going to have an interesting evening. 

-x-

Tag list:

@ssa-sparks, @lukeclvez, @lyds102, @glockleveledatyourcrotch, @hotchnissenthusiast, @danadeservesadrink, @ssamorganhotchner, @emilyprentissisgod, @notagentprentiss, @thecharmingart, @paulitalblond, @hancydrewfan, @camille093, @whitecrossgirl, @moonlight-2-6, @rawr-jess, @florenceremingtonthethird, @jareauswife, @ms-black-a, @beebeelank, @aubreyprc, @zipzapboingg, @psychopath-at-heart, @criminalmindsgonewrong, @fionaloover, @kinqslcys, @prentissinred, @ccmattis-22, @denvivale317, @thrindis, @hotchsguccitie, @cmfouatslota77, @alexblakegf, @aliensaurusrex, @prentissxhotch, @emobabeyy, @victoiregranger, @stormyweatherth, @wanderingdreamer009, @ssablackbird, @luhwithah, @lex13cm, @prentiss-theorem, @dont-emily-me, @mrs-ssa-hotch, @jocyycreation, @itsmytimetoodream, @hotchnissgroupie, @controversialpooh, @capsshinyshield, @canuck-eh

Emily turns to follow where Penelope is pointing, her eyes meeting those of a man standing at the bar who she had never seen before. She smiles politely before she turns back to her friends, shaking her head at Penelope as she takes a sip of her beer. 

“Pen, I’m not interested in finding someone,” she says patiently, her eyes meeting JJ’s who hides a smile behind her own beer, “So please stop trying to set me up with strangers.” 

Penelope pouts, “You’re no fun, you haven’t been on a date since you got back from Paris,” she laments, like that in itself was the great tragedy of everything that had happened in the last year, “You need to get laid.” 

Emily takes another sip of her beer and hopes that the relatively low lighting of the bar they were in covers that her cheeks are tinged pink. She can feel Aaron looking at her occasionally, his eyes burning into her as he briefly stops paying attention to his conversation with Dave. She doesn’t have to look up at him to know the intensity of his gaze, or the promise it carried for when they were able to sneak back to his place later. 

“Who said I wasn’t getting laid?” She replies casually, spurred on by the pleasant buzz of alcohol in her system and the love she couldn’t bring herself to tell anyone about yet. She gets some satisfaction as Penelope coughs around a mouthful of her cocktail, and JJ pats their exuberant friend on the back, laughing along with Emily. 

“What?” Penelope exclaims, looking back and forth between Emily and JJ, “Did you know about this?” JJ shakes her head in response and Penelope looks back at Emily, “Tell us everything.” 

Emily shakes her head, her eyes flicking to Aaron’s, and she barely hides a smile before she looks back at her friends, “I’ve already said too much.” 

Secrecy was something she and Aaron had agreed on almost silently. Both all too aware of the things they’d been through together and separately, as well as just how precious their relationship was to each of them. It’s how they found themselves almost 7 months into this, more than half a year gone since their tentative first kiss, with only Jack and Jessica aware of the shift in their relationship. Emily was the happiest she ever remembered being, something that she thinks a year ago would have terrified her, sent her running as quickly as possible away, but now she relished in it. Allowed herself to let herself be loved in the way she’d always craved and to love him in the exact same way. She liked to believe they were each other’s prize, the destination after the most tumultuous of journeys. 

She knew they couldn’t keep it secret for much longer, that their plans - moving in together, kids, getting married - would mean that they needed to let other people in. A quiet end to this part of their lives together, ready to be replaced with something she knew would be even greater. 

Whenever the right time was, it wasn’t here in the bar local to Quantico, alcohol flowing through them all as they were surrounded by other agents. It had been Penelope’s idea to come here for a few drinks after work. A rare opportunity to have some fun after a long week. If Emily was honest she’d rather be with Aaron at his place, snuggled up against his side as they watched a movie with Jack, but she was happy they had come out, her boyfriend's promises of what they’d do when they got home still echoing around her head, sending a shiver down her spine. 

“You’re no fun,” Penelope replies, still pouting and Emily chuckles, draining the rest of her beer before she puts the empty bottle down on the table next to them. 

“That’s funny,” Emily says, her smile widening, eyes sparkling with mischief, “He thinks I’m a lot of fun.” She laughs as Penelope nearly chokes again and winks at her, “I’m going to the bathroom, I’ll be back.” 

She glances at Aaron before she goes, their eyes meeting in a brief and silent conversation, making her flash him a smile. 

I love you.

We’ll go home soon. 

She smiles to herself as she walks towards the bathroom, turning into the hallway that leads to them that was much quieter than the rest of the bar. 

“Agent Prentiss.” 

She groans to herself at the sound of the voice of a familiar agent, and she rolls her eyes before she fixes a fake smile on her face as she turns to look at him. Harry Grant was a known pest, and he had more than one complaint from female agents lodged against him, but his father was important in DC, a big name that she knows her mother would approve of.

Yet another reason she hated politics. 

“Agent Grant,” she replies politely, hoping she covers her slight disgust as he steps closer towards her, “It’s nice to see you.” 

He chuckles to himself as he steps closer again, “Please, Emily, you can call me Harry. All my friends do.” 

She hums in response, holding back a grimace as she smells the alcohol flowing off of him, “Well, Agent Grant, I should get going.” 

She tries to move past him but he places his hand on the wall next to her, blocking her from getting past him, “I was wondering if I could buy you a drink,” he says, making no effort to hide how he was looking her up and down, his eyes lingering on the shirt she’d worn specifically to drive Aaron a little crazy at work. She clears her throat as she takes a step backwards.

“Look, Agent Grant-”

“Harry-”

“Agent Grant,” she repeats purposefully, “I appreciate the offer,” she says, making it clear she absolutely did not, “But it’s a no.” 

His demeanour changes as soon as her rejection registers, her words finally sinking in, something she had seen countless times before. His eyes harden, the smile he clearly believed was flirtatious slipped away, and he glares at her. 

“You really do like to play hard to get, don’t you,” he comments stepping closer to her again, her back hitting the wall, “What does a guy have to do to get your attention?” He asks rhetorically, sneering at her, “Maybe if I was a fucking terrorist I’d have a chance.” 

She sucks in a breath, his insult hitting her square in the chest. It was difficult when she first returned from Paris, from the dead. She hated how people she would have once considered work friends, people she made coffee with and shared the elevator with, would stop talking as she entered a room. She’d never let it show, pushing past the hurt to pretend she hadn’t noticed, as if the silence that seemed to follow her everywhere wasn’t enough to choke her. She’d mentioned it to Aaron once and he’d apologised, horrified that he hadn’t been able to contain all of the information about Doyle and her mission with him like he had hoped to as if he could have buried it right alongside her. 

She’d kissed him to stop him, aware that they both apologised for so many things that were not their fault over the years. 

She opens her mouth to respond, unsure what she’s going to say, but she’s cut off by a booming voice, the words sharp and full of fury. 

“What did you just say to her?” 

Emily turns to look at her boyfriend. Aaron is standing just a few feet away, his face set sternly, his anger so clear she’s half surprised Grant hasn’t turned to stone. She takes the momentary shock that Aaron has created in the other man as an opportunity to step away, making it to her boyfriend's side in a matter of seconds. 

“Aaron, it’s ok,” she says quietly, her priority of not making this any more than it needs to be overriding the part of her brain that would usually tell her that the use of his first name would alone rouse suspicion. 

“It’s not ok,” he says fiercely, his hand ghosting her lower back as he glares at Grant, “He should show you some respect.” 

She smiles tightly at him, a silent request for him to leave it, and she looks back over at the other man, and she watches as he puts two and two together. Grant chuckles to himself, shaking his head as he plants his hands on his hips. 

“Oh, I see how it is,” he says, his tongue in his cheek as he steps towards them. Emily feels Aaron pull her slightly closer, his hand at her hip, “You won’t let me buy you a drink because you’re fucking your boss,” he sneers again, his irritation clear as he looks at Aaron, “I’d be careful with this one Hotchner, we all know she’s a whor-”

It happens quickly, and he doesn’t even have insult fully out before Aaron is on him. His hand fisted in Grant’s collar, pushing him roughly against the wall. He all but growls at him, his teeth bared.

“You’d better pick your next words very carefully, Grant,” Aaron spits out, tightening his hold on his collar, “Or I’ll make sure you regret them.” 

She’d seen this level of anger on his face before. Years ago now as she and Derek walked in on him punching Foyet even though he was long dead. It makes her burn from the inside out that he’s like this over someone simply insulting her. She thinks she should hate it, that the feminist in her should be screaming at him for protecting her like this. She knows she doesn’t need it, she’s always been more than capable of looking after herself, and she had been for longer than she should have. 

She doesn’t need it, but she realises that she wants it. Wants him to love her so fiercely that he’d risk everything to prove it. 

“Aaron,” she says, her hand gentle on his shoulder. The tension in him melts as soon as she touches him as if she was the balm he needed, the very thing that brought him back to himself, “Leave it,” she says, staring at him, “Please.” 

His jaw tenses but he nods, releasing his hold on the other man, but not before turning to glare at him once more, none of the softness he reserved for her and his son remaining in his eyes. 

Grant clears his throat and adjusts his shirt, straightening it out as if you couldn’t see the creases from where Aaron had gripped it. He shakes his head, skulking off back towards the bar.

“You fucking deserve each other,” he throws over his shoulder. 

They are silent for a moment before Aaron touches her, his hand on her cheek as he guides her to look at him, searching her for injuries even though Grant had never even touched her. 

“Honey,” she says, placing her hand on his, her fingers wrapping around his wrist, “I’m ok,” she assures him, “Are you ok?”  

She watches as he takes a couple of deep breaths and he nods sharply, a sure sign that whatever was on his mind wasn’t something he’d share here. It would be later when they were at his place just the two of them. She pushes some hair from his forehead and leans in to kiss him, a quick thing they both need. He pulls her closer, his arm banding around her back as they get lost in each other. She sighs into the kiss and is about to deepen it, her tongue licking across the seam of his lips when someone clearing their throat makes them pull apart. She bumps her head against his as she moves back quickly, grimacing as she rubs the spot on her forehead where it had connected with his.

“Ow, fuck…” she drifts off as she turns to see where the interruption had come from, her mouth falling open slightly as she comes face to face with the entire team. All of them, barring Penelope, look smug, smirks on their faces she can’t quite place. She feels Aaron freeze next to her, his arm around her waist tightening, “Shit.” 

“You guys were taking a while,” Dave exclaims, his smile wide as he looks at them both, “And Grant ran out of here like a bat out of hell.” 

“We wanted to check you were ok,” Derek adds, clearing his throat, smirking, “Seems like you’re more than ok.”

Aaron sighs and squeezes her hip, “Look, I get that this wasn’t the best way for you to all find out-”

“Oh this isn’t how we found out,” JJ says, “We’ve known for a long time.” 

Emily’s eyes go wide and she swallows thickly, thinking of the last several months, and how careful she thought they’d been.

“You…what?” 

“You do remember what we all do for a living, right Bella?” Dave replies, looking proud of himself. 

“Dave, I swear to God,” she threatens and he has the nerve to laugh at her. Aaron holds her slightly closer and presses a kiss to her temple, an action that only makes them all smile more. 

“Spence here,” JJ says, nodding towards Spencer, “Caught you sneaking out of Hotch’s hotel room a few months ago.” 

“5 months, 3 weeks and 12 days ago to be precise,” Spencer adds, clearing his throat and staring at the floor when she glares at him. 

“So you all knew?” Aaron asks, and she looks up at him, pleased to see he looks more relaxed than he had before the team appeared out of seemingly nowhere. 

“I didn’t!” Penelope exclaims, finally breaking out of the shock that had rendered her uncharacteristically quiet so far, “Why did no one tell me?” 

___

Emily sighs contently as Aaron pulls her towards him, her bare back against his chest. His warm embrace was welcome as the cool air in his bedroom against the sweat still drying on her skin. He’d been more desperate for her than usual. His hands pulling at her clothes as soon as they were in his apartment, as if he had something to prove. 

She’s idly thinking about how she’ll have to make sure her underwear is picked up from the kitchen floor before Jessica brings Jack home in the morning when she hears Aaron talking quietly. 

“I’m sorry.” 

She frowns and turns her head to look at him, their eyes meeting in the low light of his bedroom, “What for?” 

“For how I reacted earlier with Grant. For…” he drifts off and clears his throat, “I’m sorry.” 

She hears what he hasn’t said. How he always fears he’s one outburst away from turning into his father, as if that concern in itself wasn’t enough to stop it from happening. She presses a kiss to his cheek and rests her head back on her pillow, grabbing his hand from her hip and linking their fingers together. She lifts their hands and kisses his knuckles, her lips against scars left behind from when he’d last defended a woman he loved. His broken skin the final sign of love he’d been able to give Haley. 

“You have nothing to apologise for,” she says gently, kissing his knuckles again before she holds their joint hands to her chest, “He’s a pest, and someone needed to remind him to not be one.” 

“He’s more than a pest,” he replies, a touch of anger leaking into his voice again, “He called you a…” he stops himself from saying it, “He’s more than a pest.” 

“It’s not the first time someone has called me a whore, Aaron,” she replies softly, thinking of John’s reaction when she told him she was pregnant all those years ago. As if she was somehow more responsible for something they had both done. She smiles as Aaron holds her tighter as if his touch could fix everything bad that had ever happened to her. 

Sometimes, she thought it might. 

“That doesn’t make it right, sweetheart.” 

“I know,” she says, squeezing his hand, “But if it helps, he looked like he might shit himself when you pushed him into that wall.” 

Aaron chuckles and kisses the top of her head, “Weirdly, that does make me feel better.” 

“Good,” she replies, “Grant was right about one thing though,” she turns in his arms to face him properly, biting her lower lip to stop herself from smiling too widely, her cheeks aching with it.

He frowns, a line appearing in between his brows that she can’t help but press her thumb into, “What do you mean?” 

“We deserve each other,” she says softly, her eyes searching his. He smiles and nods, leaning in to kiss her, his hand on her lower back as he pulls her closer. 

She can’t explain why it feels like a bigger admittance than the first time she told him she loved him, but it does. As if the final part of herself she hadn’t realised she’d been hiding away is suddenly on display to him. He smiles at her as he pulls back from the kiss, his forehead against hers. 

“We really do.” 

-x-

Tag list:

@ssa-sparks, @lukeclvez, @lyds102, @glockleveledatyourcrotch, @hotchnissenthusiast, @danadeservesadrink, @ssamorganhotchner, @emilyprentissisgod, @notagentprentiss, @freesiasandfics, @emilyshotchniss, @thecharmingart, @paulitalblond, @hancydrewfan, @camille093, @whitecrossgirl, @moonlight-2-6, @rawr-jess, @florenceremingtonthethird, @jareauswife, @ms-black-a, @beebeelank, @aubreyprc, @zipzapboingg, @psychopath-at-heart, @criminalmindsgonewrong, @fionaloover, @kinqslcys, @prentissinred, @ccmattis-22, @denvivale317, @thrindis, @hotchsguccitie, @cmfouatslota77, @alexblakegf, @aliensaurusrex, @prentissxhotch, @emobabeyy, @victoiregranger, @stormyweatherth, @wanderingdreamer009, @ssablackbird, @luhwithah, @lex13cm, @prentiss-theorem, @dont-emily-me, @mrs-ssa-hotch, @jocyyreation, @itsmytimetoodream, @hotchnissgroupie

“I’m bored.” 

Aaron stops what he’s doing, and looks at his wife, his eyebrow raised as he smiles at her. She’s standing in the doorway to the room he was decorating, her arms crossed over her chest, partially resting on the top of her bump. 

He carefully places the paint roller in his hand down, laying it against the tray, and walks the short distance towards Emily and slips his arms around her. He smiles as she immediately leans into him, her bump pressing into his stomach. 

“Sweetheart-”

“I know, I know,” she says, cutting him off as she tilts her head up to look at him, “I shouldn’t be in here whilst you’re painting. But you have the windows open and it’s just a few minutes,” she looks up at him with wide eyes he both hopes their son inherits and also hopes he doesn’t, because it would just mean one more person in their home he couldn’t say no to, “I’m so bored. No one will let me do anything.” 

The team were around helping them build furniture and decorate. All of them bribed with the promise of pizza afterwards, although Aaron knew they didn’t really need it. They were happy for them, excited that there would be another member of the BAU family. 

“That’s because you’re busy literally growing our son,” he quips, and she raises an eyebrow at him. A silent warning that she had developed throughout her pregnancy that let him know he was close to pissing her, and her unpredictable hormones, off. “Ok,” he concedes, kissing her forehead, “Just a few minutes.” 

She beams up at him, her smile wide enough that her cheeks ache, and she kisses him. A quick thing stamped against his lips before she takes a few steps further into the room. 

“It looks so good in here,” she says, rubbing her hand over her bump, smiling at the sensation of the baby shifting under her skin, “Hard to believe this will be his room.” 

It was the relator who sold them the house who first mentioned this room would make a good nursery. It was next door to the master bedroom and faced over the backyard instead of the, slightly louder, front of the house where the street was. The realtor had a sparkle in her eye as she winked at Emily as she said it, which had made her stomach mix with a mixture of nerves and excitement. When they first moved in they decorated it as a regular guest room, both of them too anxious to decorate it any other way, worried it would tempt fate. 

It took a little too long for Emily to get pregnant. She’d been secretly worried, fear blooming in her chest as time went on, each negative test only allowing it to flower more, her hope wilting with each passing month. The relief and joy that had spread through her in equal measure when she finally saw a plus sign were so intense she’d burst into tears. Aaron had let himself into their bathroom, having only been standing just on the other side, ready to comfort her yet again, and she handed him the test because she hadn’t been able to form the words to tell him. 

They’d settled on a sage green colour for the walls, a nice soft colour Emily could picture herself staring at as she fed her baby in the middle of the night. The furniture, that Derek and Spencer were currently building under JJ’s watchful eye, was a light oak. Emily didn’t want to wish away the early days of it all, but she was excited for when the room would be full of brightly coloured toys and books. Hunks of plastic that made noise, clearly not designed by someone who had kids themselves, strewn across the floor. 

“Just two months to go,” he replies, kissing the side of her head as he places a hand on her stomach. 

“Uh, no using the word ‘just’ unless it’s your bladder being used as a trampoline, honey,” she replies, her smile only getting wider, “By the way, Pen is currently helping Jack with his homework, and I’m fairly sure I overheard her offering to teach him how to code.” 

Aaron groans, “I think I might have to set some ground rules about that.” 

She chuckles and pulls back to look at him properly, “Don’t be a spoilsport, Dad.” 

He shakes his head lovingly at her and leans in to kiss her. His intention is for it to be a quick thing, but she deepens it, her hands trailing upwards so she can run her fingers through his hair, holding him in place. He smiles into the kiss and pulls back a little, laughing when she chases him. 

“Em, everyone is in the house.” 

“I’m not saying we should fuck in here Aaron,” she says, stamping another kiss to his lips, “There’s a little bit too much of me these days to do that anywhere other than our bed with my mountain of pillows-”

“You’re beautiful,” he interrupts, his eyebrows furrowed slightly as she comments on her size as if anyone commenting on her looks, even her, in a negative way got underneath his skin. She smiles and kisses him again, her fingernails scratching at his scalp. 

“Thank you, honey,” she replies, “I’m not saying we should do that,” she repeats, “But we could make out a little.” 

Aaron smiles and fails to hide how it gets wider by clearing his throat. He’d never been one to tell her no, and he wasn’t about to start now.

“I’m sure I can manage that.” 

She narrows her eyes, but her response is cut off as he leans in to kiss her, his hands on her lower back as he pulls her as close as he can with her bump between them. She allows herself to get lost in him, in the way his hands shift up to her face. It never failed to amaze her how he would hold her like she was made of something delicate, his thumbs pressing into her skin where her dimples lay, as if they’d been made precisely for this. 

They lose track of time, the few minutes she’d claimed she’d interrupt him for passing them by as they explore each other in a way they had done countless times. He finally pulls back from here when he hears a creak on the staircase, the one floorboard he would never get fixed because it alerted him to someone being on the stairs. He smiles as she looks disappointed, her nose scrunching up slightly and he steps away. 

“Someone is coming upstairs sweetheart.” 

She pouts, something she would deny later, and steps backwards, her hand slipping from his ass the first moment she realised it had been there in the first place. 

“We’re done with the crib, but…” Derek drifts off as he looks at them, a smirk spreading over his face as he looks back and forth between the two of them. 

“What are you staring at, Derek?” Emily asks, frowning at him. 

“You two were making out in here weren’t you?” He asks, his grin widening, 

Emily isn’t sure she can explain why she feels embarrassed, why she can feel her cheeks burning, but she does, “No.” 

“What’s going on in here?” Dave asks, appearing behind Derek, the rest of the team also pouring into the room. “Were you two making out again?”

Emily groans, but before she can reply Spencer is speaking, his mouth working faster than his brain. 

“Based on the fact that Emily’s pupils are slightly dilated, and she’s breathing even heavier than she usually is at the moment, and the uh….handprint on Hotch’s back pocket, it’s fair to assume they have been.” 

“The handprint?” Aaron says, turning to look at the back of his jeans, sighing when he sees a handprint in the same paint he’d been using all afternoon right over the material of his jeans. He reaches for his wife’s wrist and turns her hand over, revealing the sage green paint on her skin, “When did that happen?” 

“I don’t know,” she replies, smirking as she shrugs at him, “I was distracted.” 

“Gross, Em,” Derek says, gaining their attention, and she rolls her eyes at the slightly disgusted look on their faces. 

“You do realise I’m pregnant, right?” she quips, raising her eyebrow at them, “We’ve kissed before. We’ve done more than kiss-”

“Ok, Princess, you’ve made your point,” Derek cuts over her, placing his hand on Spencer's shoulder as he goes to guide him from the room, “Let’s get you out of here kid before they scar you even more than they did at the holiday party last year.” 

“That wasn’t our fault, Pen spiked the punch,” Emily calls after them, exchanging a smile with JJ as the team files out, leaving the two of them alone once again. Emily turns to look at her husband, “Sorry I ruined your jeans.” 

“Nothing to apologise for, sweetheart,” he says, still gently gripping her wrist, “We should go wash this off your hand though.” 

She lets him lead her out of the room, but she frowns, “I can wash my own hands, Aaron.” 

“I know,” he replies, kissing the side of her head, “But, if we go to our ensuite, we’ll be closer to our bed and your mountain of pillows.” 

She smiles, biting her lower lip as her body tingles, a shiver going down her spine that she knows her husband won’t have missed. 

“I love the way you think.” 

-x-

Tag list:

@ssa-sparks, @lukeclvez, @lyds102, @glockleveledatyourcrotch, @hotchnissenthusiast, @danadeservesadrink, @ssamorganhotchner, @emilyprentissisgod, @notagentprentiss, @freesiasandfics, @emilyshotchniss, @thecharmingart, @paulitalblond, @hancydrewfan, @camille093, @whitecrossgirl, @moonlight-2-6, @rawr-jess, @florenceringtonthethird, @jareauswife, @ms-black-a, @beebeelank, @aubreyprc, @zipzapboingg, @psychopath-at-heart, @criminalmindsgonewrong, @fionaloover, @kinqslcys, @prentissinred, @ccmattis-22, @denvivale317, @thrindis, @hotchsguccitie, @cmfouatslota77, @alexblakegf, @aliensaurusrex, @prentissxhotch, @emobabeyy, @victoiregranger, @stormyweatherth, @wanderingdreamer009, @ssablackbird, @luhwithah, @lex13cm, @prentiss-theorem, @dont-emily-me, @mrs-ssa-hotch, @jocyycreation, @itsmytimetoodream, @hotchnissgroupie

“Ethan Grant confessed.” 

Emily sighs in relief as Dave and Aaron walk into the conference room where they’d been set up the last few days. She turns in her chair, smiling briefly as her eyes meet her husband's. 

“At least we’ll be able to rescue the kids from my mother’s before we thought we would,” she says, grateful that the case had been local and they didn’t have a long drawn out flight home between them and seeing their children.

“Who needs rescuing there Princess, the ambassador or Jack and Violet?” 

Emily throws a nearby pencil at Derek, both of them laughing as he successfully dodges it as she replies, “Definitely Jack and Vi.”

Usually, they’d stay with Jessica, who considered the almost two-year-old Violet as much of a part of her family as Jack was, but she was sick so they had gone to stay with Elizabeth instead. It made Emily a little unsettled whenever they were with her for too long, nerves bubbling away in her stomach until she saw her children again. 

“Did he say why he did it?” Spencer asks, changing the conversation back towards their case, “The victimology still seems random.” 

It had been one of their main stumbling blocks in identifying the unsub. Ethan’s five victims had different genders, ages and races, nothing pulling them together apart from the fact they could all be considered to be in jobs of authority. Three teachers, a social worker and a police officer. 

Dave sighs as he sits down, leaning back in his chair, “He said he needed to get revenge,” he says, “That they needed to pay.” 

Emily tilts her head slightly, intrigued, “Pay for what? We already determined he didn’t know any of them personally.”

“They’d all had some kind of disciplinary at work,” Aaron says, sighing as he places the file in his hand down, “All overseen by the mayor's office.” 

“Where Ethan worked,” JJ says, putting the final pieces together. 

“He would have seen all of the documentation and clearly believed that the punishments handed out weren’t enough,” Emily adds, looking up at the board they’d set up. 

“But why did he think he got to make those decisions?” Derek asks, his arms crossed over his chest.

“He was a student at Élan school as a teenager,” Dave says, smiling tightly, “He learnt at a young age that punishment could be violent. It’s a lesson that's hard to unlearn.” 

“Élan school?” Derek asks, his confusion clear. 

“It was a behaviour modification school in Maine,” Spencer explains, “It closed down two years ago, it was part of what is now widely referred to as the troubled teen industry. All of the programmes have now been widely discredited for their methods to change behaviour.” 

Emily zones out, everything around her fading away as if she’s behind glass. Spencer’s further explanation is muffled as all she can hear is her breathing, loud and heavy as memories and emotions she has spent most of her life trying to suppress threaten to break free. 

Sometimes, she went months without thinking of those weeks in the wilderness. The memories hazy, as if she could pretend they happened to someone else. Other times it was clear, the memories razor sharp as they cut at her lungs, making it difficult to breathe. She still dreamt about it sometimes and she’d wake up shivering, cold she could never quite forget all but paralysing her. Aaron would always assume she had dreamt about Ian and she never corrected him, getting around telling him the one thing she had never been able to put into words with a half-lie. He’d always pull her into a hug and talk to her about their life together, tell her things she already knew about their kids until her breathing evened out. 

Aaron touches her shoulder and she jumps, bringing her back to the room, Spencer’s voice becoming clear again, almost too loud, as she ignores her husband’s concerned stare. She pointedly looks at the table she’s sitting at, sure if she was to look up someone would be able to tell something was wrong. 

“He isn’t the first person from a troubled teen school to turn to crime, he’s not even the first to commit a murder. Given the background, and what he went through it isn’t surprising he went after people he considered to be authority figures,” Spencer says, furrowing his brow, as they watch Ethan Grant get taken away by uniformed officers, “He was torn away from his parents by someone they themselves paid and then taken to an environment where the leaders, often ex-students themselves, could do what they wanted with little to no consequences.” 

JJ blows out a steady breath, her fingers twisting the ring Will had bought her when Henry was born. “I can’t even imagine what that was like.” 

Later, Emily would wonder what makes her say it. Why she tells them her most deeply guarded secret, something she hadn’t even told her husband escaping from the very depths of her being. Surprising everyone in the room, even her.

“I don’t have to imagine,” she says quietly. “I went to one.” 

It’s only when the room falls silent and everyone stares at her that her brain catches up. She briefly covers her mouth as if she could capture the confession. As if she could pull it back in. 

“Em…” JJ starts but trails off, lost for words. Emily’s eyes flick to Aaron and for once he doesn’t school his features, he doesn’t try to cover up his reaction. Confusion and surprise colouring his features in equal measure. 

“It wasn’t one of the schools,” she adds, clearing her throat as she looks down at the table, her fingers automatically picking at the cuticle on her thumb, “My mother she…” she fades off, her cheeks burning with shame she knows she shouldn’t feel, “It was a wilderness camp.” 

She doesn’t remember the last time she felt so exposed. Her chest gets tighter and she feels like she can’t breathe, like she might drown in the sympathy she does not want that she feels rolling off of her friends. 

“Princess-”

“We should go,” Emily says, standing up and looking at her husband, cutting across Derek before he can say anything. She already feels like she has shown too much and she wants to get out of here, to go somewhere that was safe, “We need to pick up the kids. They’ve been with my mother long enough.” 

The slight edge to her voice, the desperation she usually didn’t show, snaps Aaron into action, standing up to follow her from the room. 

“Of course,” he looks back at the team, seeing the same looks on their faces he knows he’s wearing too. The words he knows his wife didn’t mean to say hanging over all of them, “We’ll see you tomorrow.” Emily leaves the room, not even waiting for him to pick up his things, and he waits until he’s out of earshot before he glowers at the rest of them, “No one-”

“We’re not going to say anything, Hotch,” JJ assures him, interrupting what they all know would have been a threat to keep their mouths shut, “Just look after her, ok?” 

Aaron nods, “I always do.” 

  ___

She can feel it lingering between them. Her accidental confession makes the air in the car thick, the questions he would not ask burning her cheeks as he periodically looks between her and the road as he drives. 

They sit in silence until he stops the car on her mother’s driveway. He turns off the ignition and goes to open the car door, but she stops him, her hand on his knee as she gains his attention. 

“Don’t say anything to her.” 

He knows what she means without her saying anything else. She knows him well enough to know that even with his limited information, the words she’d choked out in front of the team, he wants more details. His mind overwhelmed with every interaction he’d ever seen between her and her mother as he tried to see if he’d somehow missed a sign that had been right in front of him the whole time. 

“Em-”

“Please, Aaron,” she says, squeezing his knee a little tighter, her blunt nails digging in through the material of his slacks, ‘I just want to get the kids and go home, ok?” 

It’s something else that makes even more sense to him now. Her total reluctance to ever leave the kids with Elizabeth if they could help it. He’d always assumed it was because she didn’t consider her mother particularly maternal, that their parenting choices were so different to the way she was raised. But now he wonders if it’s more, if there is a tiny bit of her that worries Elizabeth would attempt to do something similar if she thought Jack or Violet were misbehaving too much. Aaron knows, however, that if Emily genuinely thought that was a possibility she would never leave them with her mother. 

It felt ironic to acknowledge that Elizabeth was an excellent grandmother. She showered Jack and Violet with love, affection, toys and gifts as if money was no object, which for her it wasn’t. He remembered on Violet’s first birthday, Elizabeth got down on the floor with her, playing with dolls as if it was something she’d done countless times. 

He’d always put it down to guilt. Assumed that Elizabeth had seen what a wonderful mother Emily was, her daughter highlighting her own failures with nothing more than love and understanding for their children. Now he knows it was deeper than he’d ever imagined, that she was trying to undo something that could not be undone. 

“Of course, I won’t say anything, sweetheart,” he says, placing his hand over hers on his knee, linking their fingers together, “We can talk about it when we get home if you want?” 

The smile she gives him is noncommittal, and she climbs out of the car, moving so quickly she’s already knocking on her mother’s front door before he’s locked the car. 

It only takes a few seconds for the door to open, Elizabeth’s housekeeper greeting them with the same kind smile she always did, and they walk towards the living room in search of their children. Jack spots them first, jumping up from the couch and alerting Elizabeth to their presence as he runs towards them, abandoning the game he’d been playing with his grandmother. 

“Mom, Dad, I missed you!” 

He wraps his arms tight around Emily, and the combination of the hug and the use of the name he’d started calling her just before Violet was born helps ease some of the pain in her chest. Breathing comes a little bit easier as she hugs him back, leaning down to kiss the top of his head.

“Missed you too, sweetie,” she says as he moves past her to hug Aaron. Emily looks around the room, frowning when her daughter is nowhere to be seen, “Where’s Vi?” 

“Oh,” Elizabeth says as she stands from her seat on the couch, “You were a little later than I thought you’d be, so she fell asleep. I laid her down in your old room upstairs.” 

Any relief from seeing Jack is gone in an instant. The memories stirred up by the case, by the part of herself that she’d finally let the others see, paralysing her for a second as she freezes. Flashes of strangers standing at the edge of her bed, the very same bed her daughter was currently asleep in, visible in her mind like they were freshly printed photos, shining where the ink was still wet. Dark suits standing out against the purple wallpaper she’d always hated, her mother in the doorway with a look on her face that Emily had never quite been able to place, even after all of her years of training in profiling.

She shakes her head, desperately trying to rid herself of it, and she clears her throat, “She’s upstairs?” She asks, not missing how her voice cracks, or how Aaron clearly picks up on it too, his head snapping towards her so quickly she’s sure it must have hurt his neck. 

“Yes Emily,” Elizabeth replies, raising an eyebrow at her, “That’s where the bedrooms are.” 

She can’t bring herself to respond, to bite on her mother’s blatant attempt to bait her into a sarcastic response. Instead, she turns and leaves the room, heading towards the stairs in what is just less than a sprint, flashing a tight smile at the housekeeper who looks at her strangely as she takes the stairs two at a time. 

The wallpaper is still the same.

It’s the first thing she thinks as she opens the door to her old bedroom and switches on the light. Violet is fast asleep in the middle of the bed, laying with one arm thrown on the pillow next to her head, the exact same way Aaron slept. Emily walks over and pulls the covers off of her little girl, gently lifting her into her arms and holding her close, the weight of her a comfort that never seemed to fade. 

Violet stirs in her arms, rubbing her face against Emily’s chest, “Mamma?” 

“Hi sweet girl,” Emily replies, kissing the top of her head as she walks back towards the door, leaving the bedroom as quickly as she can, “It’s Mamma.” 

Violent snuggles in deeper into her embrace, still clearly mostly asleep, “Missed, Mamma.” 

Emily kisses her head again and then walks down the stairs, desperate to get home, to be somewhere she can feel safe so the tension in her chest can ease. 

“I missed you too,” she gives herself a moment when she gets to the bottom of the stairs before she heads to the living room, relieved to see Aaron had clearly encouraged Jack to pack up his and his sister's things in the few minutes she was gone. Emily looks up at her mother and plasters what she hopes is a convincing smile on her face, “She’s sleepy so, we should probably get home.”

Aaron places his hand on Jack’s shoulder, “Say thank you to your grandmother, Jack.” 

Emily can sense her husband’s irritation and wonders how his view of her mother will change when he knows everything. Once Jack is suitably distracted Aaron looks up at his wife and watches how she holds their daughter to her as if someone was planning on snatching her away, and his heart aches for the woman he loves. 

___

Violet wakes up on the way home, and it delays bedtime by over an hour. Jack goes to his room after giving both of his parents a hug, and Violet stays downstairs, eventually lulled to sleep as Emily paces back and forth in the living room.

Aaron briefly considers asking her if she wants him to take Violet upstairs, but he stops himself, knowing that what he was watching was as much for Emily’s benefit as it was for the little girls. 

“I was 16.” 

Her words come out of nowhere, her explanation not something he thought he would get so quickly, that it momentarily shocks him into silence. He stares at her for a few seconds, and he then clears his throat before he speaks. 

“Em, you don’t have to tell me-”

“I want to,” she says, “I really do but…I’ve never told anyone before,” she laughs bitterly and shakes her head, “I don’t know where to start.” 

As he looks at her, standing in their living room, their almost two-year-old daughter fast asleep in her arms, her mothers embrace the place she felt safest, and he can’t help but picture his wife at 16. Lost and frightened, her heart fractured by the things she’d already been through. Acting out in a way he knew was likely an unconscious cry for attention and affection from her own mother, but instead, she’d been hidden away. 

“Wherever feels right, sweetheart.” 

She stares at him for a moment before nodding, and she sits on the couch next to him, holding Violet close to her chest. She’s grateful he doesn’t offer to take the toddler from her, the weight of her daughter her anchor. A reminder of what she had now, despite everything she’d been through.

“I was 16,” she says again, her voice almost devoid of emotion, “It was just after Rome, and we were back in the US and…I was hurt. Not because I regretted it. I never could have…” she drifts off and holds Violet slightly tighter, something he sees from where he is sitting, “It was the right decision but I just felt lost. And looking back at it now I wanted to numb that,” she bites her lower lip, working a piece of dry skin off of it with her teeth, a nervous tick because both of her hands were busy holding their daughter, her cuticles safe for now, “So I drank, snuck out. Went to parties. Smoked,” she laughs bitterly and shakes her head, “Just about everything other than sex actually. I was put off that for a while.” 

Emily can’t help but think of when she told him about Rome and what had happened there. Another secret stitched into the tapestry of her life that she never thought she’d share. They’d been together a few months and he surprised her with the suggestion of taking a vacation somewhere just the two of them. He’d never been abroad, and she’d been just about everywhere - making them the perfect duo to travel together. She could see the places through fresh eyes as he walked the streets of cities new to him for the first time, and he could use her effortless ease at speaking other languages, her recommendations of where was good to see and places to eat. 

He’d suggested Rome, a city he’d always wanted to visit, and she faltered. Aaron picked up on it immediately and asked what was wrong. Her secret had spilt out of her easily, just like this one was now, something about his presence, his unfiltered love for her, enough to make her feel comfortable to do so. He’d done nothing except hold her close and whisper everything she hadn’t known she’d needed to hear against her skin.

In the end, they’d settled on Paris, the city she later found out that he’d tried to avoid suggesting because it was the place she had gone to when she was officially dead to almost everyone but him. Her own personal purgatory, dulled by the months she’d spent there under a different name, brought back to life as they walked the streets together hand in hand. The final splashes of colour bursting back into life when he proposed to her in their hotel room on their final night there. 

“Mother warned me that there would be consequences, that I couldn’t just continue…doing what I was doing, but I either didn’t believe her or didn’t care,” she scrunches her nose up, trying to recall what 16-year-old her had made of the threats, “I never expected…I hadn’t even heard of those places yet,” she swallows thickly, “I was woken up in my room in the middle of the night to find two men standing at the end of my bed telling me I had to go with them. That room is still decorated the same way, did you know that?” 

He shakes his head, purposely keeping quiet as she talks, worried that if he interrupted she’d stop. That she would bottle all of this up again when she so clearly needs to get it out. Her reaction to Violet being asleep in her old room at Elizabeth’s house suddenly makes so much more sense, and his anger at his mother-in-law only deepens further. 

“At first I remember thinking that I was being kidnapped, which I guess in hindsight I was,” she laughs humourlessly, “But there had been threats before because of my mother’s job, most of them harmless, some of them credible,” she explains like it was normal like that in itself wasn’t horrifying. He stores the information away for later, “I’d been taught what to do, what to say, but then I realised my mother was standing in the doorway watching it happen,” her chin trembles with the force of the emotions. It feels like she was back there again, terrified and confused as she was torn from sleep in a place where she should have been safe, “They took me and I didn’t say anything. Didn’t beg for her to stop them. Didn’t ask where I was going. It’s like I was just…resigned to my fate.” 

Aaron closes his eyes as he blows out a breath, and he can’t help but picture it. He’d seen photos of Emily at that age, and not just the ones that Penelope had found from when she was in her punk rocker era. She looked young. She was young. A child who had made a decision only the year before that most adults would struggle with. 

“They flew me to Utah and I was left there in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of other kids and a few adults who barely looked old enough to run the place,” she runs her hand up and down Violet’s back again in a motion she knows is more comforting for herself than the already sleeping toddler,  “I’ve found out since it cost Mother about $50,000,” she scoffs, shaking her head, “I don’t know where that money went but it certainly wasn’t all on food and board.” 

She found out through her own research. The two months she spent in the Utah wilderness was something that neither she nor Elizabeth had ever acknowledged again. One of the many things they never spoke about, the foundations of their relationship too fragile to survive the tremors that discussing it may bring. 

“It was one of those wilderness therapy camps. We spent the vast majority of our time outside. Camping no matter what the weather was like,” she laughs bitterly, shivering as her body pulls a memory from that time. The way it had been cold, a chill down to her bones that she wasn’t sure had ever entirely gone away. It was one of the many reasons she loved Aaron’s warmth, how it flowed off of him at all times, as if it was a physical manifestation of his love for her, “I’ve never been able to face the thought of going camping since then.” 

Aaron’s breath hitches, his heart seizing in his chest as he thinks of when Jack came home from school asking if they could go camping. The young boy enthralled and excited by the stories his school friend told him about his recent vacation, spouting off ideas about them going camping as a family. At the time Aaron had seen something flash across her face, a momentary reaction she hadn’t been able to control. He remembers thinking it was apathy. That camping was something she simply wouldn’t do after a lifetime of vacations in expensive hotels. Something that just wasn’t her scene. Now, he feels guilty for something he couldn’t possibly have known, the ramifications of Elizabeth’s decisions all those years ago still rippling outwards, her attempts at motherhood a rock thrown in the ocean of Emily’s life, the ebb and flow forever moving towards the shore.

“Compared to some of the other places, to places like where Ethan Grant went, it wasn’t anything. I wasn’t…it was some shitty excuse for therapy once a week and helping to build cabins we weren’t allowed to use.”

“Don’t do that,” he says, and it’s the first time he’s spoken since she started, words he can’t hold back escaping. She furrows her brow, her dark eyes shining as they meet his. He reaches out and places his hand on her knee, desperately trying not to take it personally when she flinches a little, “Don’t minimise what you went through just because someone else had it worse. It doesn’t make your experience any less valid.” 

She clears her throat and she nods, “It was 8 weeks,” she carries on, as if the brief interruption hadn’t happened,  “Mother sent a car to pick me up and I was driven straight to the airport where she was waiting. She said I looked like I’d lost weight, and then we flew to Spain in silence,” she shakes her head. A tear finally falls onto her cheek, “When we landed it was like it never happened.” 

They fall into silence, the air thick with something neither of them can name. He waits her out to see if she’s going to say anything else, but as he watches her play idly with Violet’s hair, he knows she is done for now. 

“I’m so sorry that happened to you, sweetheart,” he says softly, squeezing her knee in a way that he knows usually provides comfort. 

He wishes he could do more, that he could say more. That he could take this trauma away from her. He wants to drive to Elizabeth’s house and give him a piece of her mind, breaking his long-term promise to his wife that he wouldn’t get involved in anything between the two of them, but he knows Emily wouldn’t thank him for it. She needed his love, not his anger, and he breathes deeply as he tries to control his own emotions about this new insight into the woman he felt nothing short of lucky to love. 

His empathy breaks her, making the tears she felt like she’d been holding back for years break free, breaching the dam she had built with the years that had passed and a determination to do more than people expected of her. She sobs, a noise cracking in her chest that she’s surprised doesn’t wake up Violet. Aaron stands up and eases their daughter out of her arms, gently placing the little girl in the armchair next to the couch and pushing her hair from her face before he is sitting next to Emily again. He pulls her into his arms and holds her tightly, an embrace she folds herself into as her tears immediately soak his shirt. 

He’s worried he’s done something wrong, that he’s upset her, and he’s about to apologise when she stops him, her words broken around the grief she was finally letting herself feel for her younger self. 

“No one ever…no one ever said that before.” 

She knows, in part, that is because no one knows. No one except her, her mother, and the people who ran the damn place she’d been in, and she knew apologies weren’t coming from those people. Even if Elizabeth now knew, if she’d seen the articles about what those places were like, she’d never say sorry. Never admit that she acted in the best interests of her public image, and not those of her daughter. It would be like opening Pandora’s box, a lifetime of hurt feeling in both directions inevitably coming to light in a way that would be irrevocable. 

The worst part was, she knew it wasn’t from a lack of love. Elizabeth loved her, just not in the way Emily needed or wanted and certainly not in the way she loved her own children. She loved the idea of her, the idea of what Emily could have been. 

Emily was content to let it be, not wanting to pick at old wounds any more than she already had today. She knows that in the coming days, she’ll have to convince Aaron of the same. Ask him not to bring it up with her mother, a request he will ultimately concede to because he had never been able to say no to her. She cries in her husband's arms, finally letting go of something she had held back for years. She was safe here. Safe in the home that they had created together, the place where Jack slowly stopped having nightmares about his mother’s murder, where they brought Violet home from the hospital and she finds herself grateful that he knows this about her. A weight that she was used to somewhat lifted from her shoulders, yet another thing they shared and helped each other carry. 

“Well,” he says, kissing the top of her head, before he wipes a tear from his own cheek, “ Then I’m sorry for that too.” 

She chokes on a noise somewhere between a sob and a laugh and pulls back to look at him. He wipes her tears away, touching her like she was made of something precious. 

“I feel bad that I never told you,” she says, her voice ragged, raw from her tears and her turbulent emotions, “I never knew how.” 

“You have nothing to feel bad about, sweetheart,” he says, tucking some of her hair behind her ear, “I wish I knew, but only so I could help you, not because I think you’ve kept something from me.” 

“Now the others know too,” she all but whispers, avoiding his gaze, her eyes fixed on his lap, “I don’t to tell them everything.” 

“Just say the word baby and I’ll make sure if they ever try and mention it to you they’ll be doing paperwork until they retire.” 

She laughs for real this time, the noise wet and catching in her chest, but it’s a laugh that makes him feel more at ease. 

“I think that’s blurring the lines between personal and professional, honey,” she replies, her smile shaking as she looks up at him. They both know their friends, their family, would only ever act out of concern for her, any intrigue born out of love. But she doesn’t want to tell them everything she’s told her husband, doesn’t want them to know this part of her. And she hopes they respect that. 

“I think we crossed that line when we conceived Vi in my office, Em.” 

She shushes him, and looks over to their daughter, relieved to see she’s still asleep, “I thought we were never going to talk about that.” 

He smiles in defeat and leans down to kiss her, stamping a second kiss against her lips before he pulls back. 

“Are you ok?” He asks, even though he knows the answer, her grief still palpable, flowing off of her like perfume. 

“No,” she answers honestly, her smile shaking as she feels briefly overwhelmed again. Old wounds reopened and vulnerable again. New scars would form, and she would heal like she always did, but this time she wouldn’t have to do it alone. “But I will be.” 

-x-

Tag list:

@ssa-sparks, @lukeclvez, @lyds102, @glockleveledatyourcrotch, @hotchnissenthusiast, @danadeservesadrink, @ssamorganhotchner, @emilyprentissisgod, @notagentprentiss, @freesiasandfics, @emilyshotchniss, @thecharmingart, @paulitalblond, @hancydrewfan, @camille093, @whitecrossgirl, @moonlight-2-6, @rawr-jess, @florenceremingtonthethird, @jareauswife, @ms-black-a, @beebeelank, @aubreyprc, @zipzapboingg, @psychopath-at-heart, @criminalmindsgonewrong, @fionaloover, @kinqslcys, @prentissinred, @ccmattis-22, @denvivale317, @thrindis, @hotchsguccitie, @cmfouatslota77, @alexblakegf, @aliensaurusrex, @prentissxhotch, @emobabeyy, @victoiregranger, @stormyweatherth, @wanderingdreamer009, @ssablackbird, @luhwithah, @lex13cm, @prentiss-theorem, @dont-emily-me, @mrs-ssa-hotch, @jocyyreation, @itsmytimetoodream, @hotchnissgroupie

November 2008

“I’ve never seen that dress before.” 

Emily smiles as she turns to face the doorway of the changing room, her eyes landing on her boyfriend standing there with his hands in his pockets. She looks back at the dress she’d hung on one of the lockers. 

“I bought it for a date with you,” she says, toeing off her shoes so she can start to get dressed, “Although after this it might have to go straight in the trash,” she nods towards the door, “Can you close the door?” 

Aaron steps further into the room and pulls the door closed, “Are you sure you’re ok with this?” 

She nods as she undoes her slacks and lets them fall to the floor, “I’m fine, I’ve dated worse people than the Viper,” she comments, smiling as he raises an eyebrow, “Present company not included of course.” 

He chuckles and shakes his head, “Thanks for the reassurance, Em.” 

She winks at him as she haphazardly folds up her slacks before working on the buttons of her blouse. She raises an eyebrow at him as he walks over and picks up her slacks, refolding them for her. 

“Are you ok with this?” She asks, handing him her shirt so he can fold it too, knowing that helping in any way would make him feel more useful. She watches him carefully as she pulls on her dress, barely hiding a smile as he pretends he isn’t watching her intently. 

“Why wouldn’t I be?” He asks carefully his hands on her shoulders as he encourages her to turn around so he can zip up her dress, “What guy doesn’t love sending his girlfriend out on a date with another guy?” 

She rolls her eyes and turns to look at him, “It’s not a date, Aaron. I’m going undercover for info,” she says, reaching up to cup the back of his neck, her fingers trailing through the short hair there, “And I won’t be alone, I’ll take Jordan.”

He groans, “Em-”

“You trust me, right?” She asks, and he nods, his eyebrows creasing as if not trusting her was ridiculous. As if he hadn’t spent the first few months they knew each other doing exactly that, “Then trust me on this.” 

Aaron nods and she smiles, rewarding him with a quick kiss, “Now, the sooner I go out there, the sooner we can go back to our hotel room and you can help me forget all about that creep.” 

He smiles at her and kisses her once more before pulling away, giving her space to finish getting ready. 

“Em?” He asks, and she hums in response as she slips on her shoes, “Don’t throw the dress in the trash.” 

She looks up and feels her body flush at the look in his eyes. The barely hidden hunger for her. She smiles and clears her throat. 

“Yes, sir.”

___

“He’s going to try to get into your head,” Aaron says as the elevator reaches their destination, the doors opening as they follow the guard out, “He will try and get the advantage with me by mentioning my lack of wedding ring,” he explains, and it makes her twist her engagement ring around her finger, a brief thought that maybe she should have taken it off disappearing as quickly as it occurred, “Then he’ll turn his attention to you.”

“So that’s why you brought me?” She asks, the final pieces of the puzzle she’d been trying to solve the entire drive to the prison falling into place. Aaron had told her about Karl Arnold. Explained how he found the box of rings, how the question of if eight rings meant eight fathers or four families haunted him. She knew it was one of the cases that had affected him more than most did, the thought of it, of someone so successfully destroying a family, crawling under his skin.

“Your presence will throw him off guard,” he says carefully, blowing out a breath before he explains what Karl will want from them, how he will try to unsettle them her. Aaron wonders if he’s made the right decision bringing Emily here with him, knowing it was partially because of the comfort he found in her presence. A selfish need to have her close that he couldn’t put into words. 

Emily hates that she jumps as a face she’d only seen on tv appears in her peripheral vision accompanied by a loud sound as he bangs on the glass separating them. A vicious man who had murdered over a dozen women purely because he could. She remembers watching the news footage of his trial, of the family members of his victims crying with relief when they finally got justice. 

She clears her throat, “Is that…”

“Garret Pain,” Aaron answers as she drifts off, well aware of what she was going to ask, “But it’s reinforced glass.”

She scoffs and briefly looks down at the floor, desperately trying to ignore the man throwing himself against the glass, all of the things being yelled at her. 

“That’s easy for you to say,” she says, her voice wavering just a little bit as she stares ahead, pointedly ignoring Garret’s behaviour, “He tore apart 14 women.” 

“I wouldn’t let anything happen to you, Em.” 

It’s a flash of her version of him, of them. Of the life they have that exists outside of these walls, this place where people who had done awful things were left to rot. It’s ridiculous, she thinks, that he believes he’d be able to stop the other man. That he’d do what so many other people hadn’t been able to. But she knows he’d do it, that he’d put himself between her and any form of danger. She appreciates it, and she smiles, any response cut off by the guard letting them through the reinforced door, and the beeping that echoes around her pulls her back into the moment. 

“Hello, Karl,” Aaron says as he approaches him, the door closing behind them. Karl stands up, his hands shackled and crossed in front of him. He smiles as if greeting a friend he hadn’t seen in some time, not the man who had caught him, who had stopped him from killing again. 

“Agent Hotchner. I wasn’t aware you were bringing a…” he drifts off, his eyes shifting between Aaron and Emily, “They just said two Agents.” 

“This is Agent-”

“Emily Prentiss,” he smiles, and she does her best to cover her shock. Her disgust. “I know all about you.” 

Aaron sits down first, something she’s sure is an attempt to gain some control of the situation. She sits next to him, and she lays the files on the table, not missing how Karl looks at them, his eyes fixed on the manila paper that held the photos she did not want to show him. He brags about his fans, about the posts on the website that brought them here, the admirers who alerted him to the case they were working on. She hates his demeanour, how he’s so calm as he talks about the questions he is asked. 

When she reaches over to grab his notebook from him he sits up, leaning in to smell her, something that sends a shiver down her spine that she won’t give him the pleasure of seeing. Aaron cuts in, leaning between them as he picks up the notebook and hands it to her, his fingers briefly lingering over hers in a way she knows is on purpose. It’s an apology for bringing her here, a silent sign he was there with her. 

She isn’t sure which she needs the most. 

She places the notebook down with more force than necessary, “Maybe later,” she says, clasping her hands together on the table in front of her, “Your admirer is taking wedding rings. Just like you.” 

“But maybe not for the same reason,” Aaron adds, staring Karl down.

“Like how you took all of mine,” Karl says, looking between Aaron’s face and his hands, “You took mine, but I see you lost yours,” he looks over at Emily, tilting his head as he stares at her left hand, her engagement ring catching the dim light of the room, “And you have one,” he smirks, “It’s a shame really, all the good ones are always already taken.” 

“Eight rings. Four families,” Aaron says, getting even tenser as Karl’s attention keeps landing on Emily. “Or was it one ring for each family?” 

Emily wants to reach out for him, to place her hand on his leg to provide the comfort he would never ask for, but she knows she can’t. Karl would latch onto anything he considered a weakness, especially if he figured out they were each others. She flexes her hands slightly, just enough to stop herself from touching Aaron, and sits by as he and Karl go back and forth, each refusing to back down as they discuss why they are here. It’s only when Karl asks to see the photos, his eyes fixed on the folder in front of her again, that she speaks up, directing Aaron out of the room for a moment of privacy. 

She makes a point of taking the folder with them, holding it to her chest as if doing so would delay the inevitable, as if she is protecting what little innocence Lucy has left. She wants to be furious as Aaron insists they need to show Karl the pictures, to use the dead child that was buried in her own backyard, a place where she should have been safe, as a bargaining chip. She has to stop herself from asking how he would feel if it was their daughter, a fictitious child that didn’t exist yet, knowing it would be nothing short of cruel to say that to him when they were both just doing their jobs. 

She rarely struggled with the distinctions between Aaron her boss and Aaron her fiancee, the lines so blurry now she barely remembered what they were like before. But right now she hates that it’s him asking her to do this. 

“Look I…” she hesitates, looking down at his tie to avoid his gaze, her eyes fixed on the tie pin she’d bought him for his birthday, “I’ve never done this before.” 

“And you don’t have to now.” 

Emily sighs, and she knows he means it. He’d pull her out of this situation if she asked him to. He’d switch tactics. But she knows this is their best chance, that whilst she can’t save Lucy, or the other victims, she can help stop this from happening again. 

“Yes, I do,” she says, smiling tightly at him. He nods, and their eyes meet. She sees all the love and adoration for her that he could barely keep boxed up these days swimming in his eyes. If it wasn’t for Karl watching them, his gaze burning into her through the glass and the gaps in the bars, Aaron would reach out for her. Link their fingers together and squeeze as a promise for later, when he’d just be back to being the man she loved. 

“When I feel he’s ready to talk, I’ll leave the room. You get him talking. Stay on script, we need to figure out his motivations.” 

She nods, clearing her throat and she blows out a breath before she follows him back into the cell. Karl stands she they re-enter, his hands no longer cuffed, and Emily carefully lays out some photos from the scene, making sure to exclude any pictures of Lucy. She interjects occasionally as Aaron describes the events to Karl, who doesn’t even try to cover his enjoyment. The thrill he gets out of hearing how these innocent people were murdered would be obvious to anyone, not just those trained to see it. She stops him from grabbing the file, pulling it back towards her as she stops him from pulling out the photos of the bodies. 

Aaron’s phone rings, and he looks down to see Derek’s name on the screen. He looks at Emily and nods before he answers it, both of them knowing that a call means only one thing - the unsub has struck again. She sits up a little straighter as soon as she’s alone with Karl, an expression fixed on her face that she knows her mother would be proud of in order to cover how she really feels. Karl tries to get a rise out of her, and asks if they’ll be notified of any other posts on his website, so she takes a deep breath, and does what she knows Aaron brought her here for. 

“Your case was one of the first ones I studied,” she lies, watching the intrigue flash across his face, hooked in by his own ego, “I’ve been fascinated ever since.” 

“With my case?” He asks, raising an eyebrow at her. 

“With you,” she replies, smiling at him in the way that had always worked for, the guys she’d used it on before more sleazy than dangerous. Her old ways of getting free drinks in bars when she was underage and couldn’t buy them herself now used to coax information from a serial killer, from an abuser. She chuckles, the fake one she’d always used at parties, and she tucks some hair behind her ear. 

“I can show you what I did to the children.”

“Tell me.” 

Karl pauses for a moment before he leans forward, “Children are so very precious, don’t you think, Emily?” He asks, smiling at her. “Clean.” He looks down at her engagement ring before looking back at her face, “I suppose you and your fiancee will want some one day.” 

She simply stares at him, not acknowledging his comment. Not wanting him to even think about Jack or any children she and Aaron may have, the very thought of it enough to make her stomach turn. She’s never been more grateful for the way she was raised, her political training proving its worth no matter how much she hated it. 

“But children need guidance. Especially the girls,” he says, and she feels goose-pimples spread down her back, things they had assumed about him, that his profile had shown them, finally confirmed. 

“Why?” She asks, staring at him, not wanting to let him know how much he was affecting her. 

“Girls have so much more to lose than boys,” he adds, “It’s a fact that the female body can handle so much more pain than a male body.” 

“What did you do to them?” She asks, even though she knows the answer.

“I showed them what men, their fathers and brothers, are capable of,” She hears the door click again and Aaron walks back in, his arms crossed over his chest as Karl carries on, “It never failed to surprise me how little the fathers fought death once their children were dead.”

“Karl, I never thought you’d be this honest,” Aaron says, staying where he was behind them. 

“It takes an honest woman to make a good man, and let's face it, she’s prettier than you,” Karl says, smirking at Aaron, “Which, I guess you know. Considering you’re the one who put that ring on her finger.” She tenses and she flicks her eyes to Aaron, watching as he briefly crosses his arms a little tighter. Karl laughs at the two of them and leans back in his seat, “You think I didn’t notice? You smell like each other. And not just the kind of scent you pick up from sitting in a car on a long drive. It’s what families smell like. People whose lives are so intertwined it takes someone like me to unpick them bit by bit.” 

Emily looks at Aaron and he nods at her, seeing her silent request in her eyes before she turns back to look at Karl, her hands once again linked in front of her. 

“Karl, do you know why you killed all those families?” She asks, and he tries to deflect, sensing he’s losing the control he so desperately craved, but Aaron stops him, and tells him in no uncertain terms that his motivations are different to their current unsubs, “Motivations you learnt from your father.” 

“You really did do your research on me, Emily.” 

“You’re also filled with extreme self-hatred.” She adds, the facade she’d worn here all day finally slipping away, her true feelings shining through.

Karl tenses, the first sign of frustration he’d shown in all of their time here, and he looks at Aaron, “I can see how you ended up engaged to her, it must be distracting working with someone so beautiful. Tell me, Agent Hotchner, was your wedding ring from your ex-wife even off your finger before you started fuc-”

“You forced those men to watch their children die. And here's why you are what you are.” 

“What I wouldn’t do to you-”

Aaron takes one step forward, and she stops him in his tracks with nothing but raising her hand, and she carries on as if Karl hadn’t interrupted, “By killing those fathers last you were killing your own father, and ultimately yourself, over and over again.”

They fall into silence and she tilts her head at him, allowing a self-satisfied smirk to spread over her face, and she falters for a second, something they hadn’t considered before crossing her mind.

“Aar-Hotch,” she turns to look at him, ignoring Karl smirking at her slight slip up, “For him, it was all about the fathers, with this unsub it’s all about the girls. If we apply that same logic…” 

“It’s something we hadn’t considered.” 

“It’s rare.”

“What’s rare?” Karl says, irritation at no longer being the centre of attention obvious. 

“The killer is a woman,” Emily says, and she stands up, gathering the photos together and placing them back in the file, “I’ll call Morgan on the way.” 

“On the way, where?” Karl asks, sitting up in his chair, “Where are you going?” 

“This was a red herring,” she says, looking back at him as the guard prepares to open the doors, “We no longer need your help. You can tell your admirers on your website that they were wrong.” 

“Although you won’t have much of a chance,” Aaron says, picking up his briefcase and following Emily to the door, “I have a technical analyst poised to take down your site as soon as I am out of this prison.” 

He calls after them, held back by a guard as he’s chained up again, and they ignore him and the yells of the other inmates. As soon as they are in the elevator she breathes out, her lungs aching with everything that had happened in the last few hours. 

“Em-”

“Not now,” she says, shaking her head, her lips set in a firm line, “Later, when we’re at home, ok?” 

He clearly disagrees, but he nods, “Ok.”

___

“Garica said the website is down,” Aaron says, placing his cell phone down on the kitchen counter. He looks over to where Emily is sitting on the couch, and she barely acknowledges him, “She said she also set up an algorithm that will prevent other ones from being created. Karl Arnold should eventually disappear into insignificance.” 

“Good,” Emily says, clearing her throat as she nods, “That’s good.” 

They fall back into silence and he feels tension in the air that he isn’t used to here in their home. 

“Do you want a drink?” He asks, and she shakes her head, “Em-”

“He said he wanted to show me what he did to those children,” she says, swallowing thickly, his choice of words swimming around her head ever since they’d left the prison after her rushed call to Derek about the unsub being a woman, “Not tell me. Show me.” 

Aaron blows out a shaky breath and walks over, joining her on the couch but not sitting as close to her as he usually would, “Sweetheart, I’m sorry.” 

“Please don’t apologise to me,” she says, slightly firmer than she intended to, “I know we did what we had to today but…it doesn’t make me feel any better. And it doesn’t make me any less angry at you as my boss for putting me in that position.” 

He nods and he watches her closely, itching to reach out for her as he sees tears shining in her eyes. 

“How can I help?” 

She chuckles humourlessly, “Maybe just be my fiancee for the night?” She asks, shrugging as the words sound ridiculous even to her own ears.

Aaron nods again and pulls her towards him, relieved when she doesn’t shy away from his touch, tucking herself neatly into his side. Sergio shifts from his place on the armrest, stretching before he walks over, settling into Aaron’s lap. 

“I can do that,” Aaron promises, kissing the top of her head as he runs his hand up and down her arm, “So this boss of yours,” he starts, hiding a small smile in her hair, “He sounds like a complete jerk.”

She laughs around a sob, shaking her head as she wipes a tear from her cheek, “Yeah, he can be,” she says, reaching for his hand and squeezing it, “But he’s hot so he mostly gets away with it,” she jokes and he laughs into the top of her head. They lapse into silence for a moment before she speaks again, her heart still heavy in a way she knows will take a few days to shake off, “Tell me something good.” 

He holds her impossibly closer, “We don’t have work tomorrow, so we can do whatever we want.” 

The relief is palpable. Some time away from work with the man she loves is exactly what she needs. She turns her head to kiss his neck, lingering there to feel his pulse. 

“So, we can just stay here all day, have lots of sex and order in incredibly unhealthy food?” 

He hums, acting as if he has to think about it, “I’m sure if it will make you feel better, I can manage that.” 

She pulls away to look at him, narrowing her eyes, “You’re lucky I love you,” she leans in and stamps a kiss to his lips, offering him a half smile before she pulls back, “I could go for that drink now.” 

Aaron smiles and kisses her before he stands up, disconnecting himself from her and lifting Sergio to place in her lap before he walks towards the kitchen.

“Whatever you want, sweetheart.” 

-x-

Tag list:

@ssa-sparks, @lukeclvez, @lyds102, @glockleveledatyourcrotch, @hotchnissenthusiast, @danadeservesadrink, @ssamorganhotchner, @emilyprentissisgod, @notagentprentiss, @freesiasandfics, @emilyshotchniss, @thecharmingart, @paulitalblond, @hancydrewfan, @camille093, @whitecrossgirl, @moonlight-2-6, @rawr-jess, @florenceremingtonthethird, @jareauswife, @ms-black-a, @beebeelank, @aubreyprc, @zipzapboingg, @psychopath-at-heart, @criminalmindsgonewrong, @fionaloover, @kinqslcys, @prentissinred, @ccmattis-22, @denvivale317, @thrindis, @hotchsguccitie, @cmfouatslota77, @alexblakegf, @aliensaurusrex, @prentissxhotch, @emobabeyy, @victoiregranger, @stormyweatherth, @wanderingdreamer009, @ssablackbird, @luhwithah, @lex13cm, @prentiss-theorem, @dont-emily-me, @mrs-ssa-hotch, @jocyycreation, @itsmytimetoodream, @hotchnissgroupie

“The food here is terrible.” 

Emily smiles and a wry chuckle escapes her. She looks at her husband next to her for a second before she looks back at Elizabeth. 

“It is a hospital,” she says, “It’s not exactly going to be Michelin star quality.”

Elizabeth scoffs, rearranging the sheet of her hospital bed over her lap, eyeing it like she was in a five-star hotel. 

“It’s the best hospital in DC, the President would come here if needed,” Elizabeth replies, raising her eyebrow, “You’d think there would be standards to maintain.” 

Emily feels Aaron place his hand on her knee, gently squeezing the joint through her pants before she places her hand over his, linking their fingers together. 

“Well, I’m sure you’ll make your feelings known.”

Elizabeth hums, a disapproving noise Emily was achingly familiar with, something she’d almost found herself missing in recent months. It makes her chest tight, a flash of what used to be filling the room. 

“You remind me of my daughter Emily,” Elizabeth says, a smile that could be described as fond spreading over her face. Emily feels Aaron squeeze her hand tightly, his thumb rubbing over her pulse point, and she thinks it’s probably the only thing that keeps her grounded, “She’s a better mother than I ever was,” Elizabeth meets Emily’s eyes, and she finds herself missing the judgement she’d seen there for as long as she could remember, sure it was better than simply not being recognised, “Do you have children?” 

It was slow at first. Small signs Emily could now see they had missed, hindsight both a blessing and a curse after Elizabeth’s diagnosis. It was the opposite of how Emily’s father had died when she was in college, a heart attack taking him in the middle of Thanksgiving break. This was slow and gradual as her mother disappeared in front of her. After it became clear that Elizabeth could no longer live alone, and that living with them wasn’t something that would be right for any of them, she moved into a nursing home. She’d signed everything over to Emily, including power of attorney, and declined sharply, as if on some level she’d been waiting for it all to happen. 

The nursing home had moved her to the hospital after an issue with her heart. Emily was off work, spending half of her time at the hospital and the other half at home with Jack and Hazel, desperately searching for some normality as they waited for the inevitable end. 

Despite how long it had been, how she was now used to seeing her mother like this, it still hurt. It still stung that she didn’t recognise her, that she didn’t remember the kids - the grandchildren she adored. 

“Two,” Aaron answers for her, and Emily isn’t sure she’s ever loved him more, “Jack, he’s 12, and Hazel, she’s 4.”

Emily looks around the room, all of the drawings Hazel had done for her grandmother adorning the walls. Splashes of colour and scribbles that were supposedly pictures of them brightening up an otherwise dreary room. She wonders if her mother ever thinks about where they are from, if she wonders what child drew them for her, or if she was simply too far gone to think that way. 

She knew there were framed drawings from Hazel, and from Jack from when he was younger, in Elizabeth’s home office. Brightly coloured and crudely drawn and mixed in among photos. Cartoon drawings and paintings of their home right next to a photo of Aaron and Emily from their wedding. It was physical proof of how much Elizabeth had changed since becoming a grandmother, or maybe how she’d always been capable of such care and had simply chosen not to portray it when Emily was young herself. She had no memories of anything she ever made for her parents being out on display. No paintings hung up on the fridge. No poorly made mugs leaking coffee out onto a desk simply to see a wide smile on her face. 

She loved that her children would remember Elizabeth as a loving grandmother, as someone who listened to their endless stories, someone who shipped them gifts from anywhere in the world after an offhand comment about something they liked. In her worst moments it made her jealous, made her wish her version of her mother was the same as theirs and she hated herself for it. 

“I bet they are beautiful,” Elizabeth replies, smiling at them and Emily swallows thickly before she nods.

“Yeah, they are.” 

___

Aaron had never been more frustrated at the DC traffic. His nerves fraying even further as the minutes ticked by, highly aware of the fact his wife was alone at the hospital sitting at her mother’s bedside. When he arrives he barely puts the car into park before he is out of it, just about remembering to lock it as he walks away. 

The walk to Elizabeth’s room was familiar now. Hallways they’d walked almost every day for weeks that he was sure he could navigate with his eyes closed. Aaron sighs sadly as he turns the corner, finding his wife sitting out in the hallway, her elbows on her knees as she leans forward. 

“Em?” 

She looks up at him, her lips set in a grim line, her eyes shining with tears he knows she won’t let herself shed. 

“It happened about 10 minutes ago,” she says, looking back at the floor. He walks over to join her, sitting in the seat next to her, “It was a stroke. And she’d signed that DNR so…” she clears her throat, shaking her head at herself, “I held her hand. Not that she knew who I was anyway.” 

“She would have known she wasn’t alone, sweetheart,” he says, placing his hand on her back. He’s grateful when she sits up straighter and leans into his side, her head resting against his shoulder, “She would have known she was loved.” 

Emily nods, a sound neither of them can place escaping her, “Yeah, I guess she would have.” 

Aaron kisses the top of her head and holds her closer, the arm of the chair digging into his side in a way he doesn’t care to stop.

“I’m sorry I didn’t make it in time,” he whispers against her hair, and she shakes her head, pulling back to look at him as she smiles sadly. 

“It’s ok, I know you would have been here if you could,” her smile twitches slightly, and she shrugs her shoulders, “Besides, we spend most of our lives just the two of us, I guess it’s fitting it’s how it ended too.” 

Aaron doesn’t know what to say to that, how to respond, so he simply kisses her forehead, “Want to go home?” 

“Can we just sit here for a little while?” She asks, swallowing thickly, her chest full of grief she doesn’t know how to process even though she’d known it was coming, “As soon as we leave here there will be so much to do and I…can we just stay?” 

He nods and tucks her back into his side, rubbing his hand up and down her arm, “We can stay as long as you need to, sweetheart.” ___

As soon as she’s in the house, and Jessica has left, Jack hugs her. His arms tight around her middle and his face against her chest. She hugs him just as fiercely, rubbing circles on his back before he pulls away so they are looking at each other, almost face to face after his last growth spurt. He has a sad look in his eyes that she had seen countless times. 

It felt strange to think this was something Emily shared with her son now - the loss of a mother, despite how different the circumstances were. Emily had decades with Elizabeth, albeit most of them tumultuous. Jack had Haley taken from him when he was young. His memories of her were few and far between. Most of the images he had of her had been painted by Aaron and Jessica. Stories that they told him again and again until it seemed as if he remembered them himself, pairing the descriptions of his mother with the hazy memory of how it felt to be loved by her.

“Mommy?” 

She looks past Jack and looks at Hazel, the little girl’s wide dark eyes shining, “Hi sweetheart.” 

She walks over and leans down so she can pull Hazel into her arms, the weight of her daughter against her comforting as she holds her.

“Aunt Jessie said Grandma died,” she says quietly, and Emily holds her tighter before she walks over to the couch, sitting down and keeping Hazel in her embrace, “Is that why everyone is sad?” 

Aaron sits down next to her, Hazel sandwiched between them, “Yes, sweetheart, and it’s ok to be sad.” 

Emily flicks her eyes to her husband, knowing his comment wasn’t just aimed at their daughter, before returning her attention to Hazel. Jack joins them, sitting on Emily’s other side, resting his head against her shoulder as she wraps her arm around him. 

“Do you understand, sweet girl?” Emily asks, running her hand through her daughter’s hair, tucking a wild curl behind the little girl's ear. 

“Grandma has gone to be with Jack’s other mom?” She asks, her eyebrows furrowing as she tries to process what she’s been told, what they’ve been preparing her for weeks, “And that means she can’t come back.” 

“That’s right,” Aaron says from her other side, his arm around the two of them, “But it’s important to remember your grandmother loved you very much.”

Hazel nods, her confusion and sadness clearly mixing together as she turns to look back at her mother, “Did she like the picture I drew her?” 

The way her little girl’s voice cracks makes Emily’s heart fracture even further, her daughter’s grief something she could latch on to, something she could try and help her through so she didn’t have to process her own yet, her relationship with her mother far more complicated than Hazel’s. She thinks of the neatly folded-up drawing in her purse, the piece of paper that she never got to hand over as she got to the hospital having arrived in the middle of a medical emergency. She’d never lied to her children, never anything beyond the childhood fantasies of Santa and the tooth fairy, but she sees no benefit in the truth here. A small lie something that can bring her daughter a tiny bit of comfort. 

“Yes, baby,” Emily says, pulling her daughter closer, her eyes meeting her husband’s over the top of her head, “She loved it.” 

___

Emily feels some of the tension in her chest ease as the door to her mother’s home office closes behind her. 

She’d always found funerals strange, how they catered so much more to the living than they did the dead. Her mother hated them too, often saying no one ever said what they actually thought at them, the truth shrouded in pointed comments and false niceties. It was ironic, Emily thought, given that was how Elizabeth had lived most of her life. 

It was only once her dementia was more advanced that Elizabeth started to be more outrightly honest. All of the social trappings she’d been part of her whole life, the very same ones she’d raised Emily in, fell away quickly, leaving her as if they had never been there at all. Emily had sat and listened as her mother talked about her daughter, not realising who she was talking to. She listened as her mother sounded proud, told her about her career and her family, how she’d made something of herself.

She hated that this is what it had taken to hear what she hadn’t realised she’d always needed. That her mother had lost everything that had made her her in order to say all the things Emily had spent a lifetime convincing herself Elizabeth didn’t feel or believe. 

Emily steps further into the office, the noise from the wake dulled by the heavy wooden door. She sighs as she looks around the room, piles of paper on every surface, the usual regimented tidiness her mother had always lived by nowhere to be found. It was almost like it was a physical manifestation of Elizabeth’s decline, everything left out in the open - waiting for Emily to file it away, to put everything back in its place. She reaches for a photo on the desk, pulling it from amongst the paperwork spread around it, and she smiles. It’s a framed photo of Emily in her hospital bed just after she’d had Hazel. Jack was next to her, cuddled up to her side as he held his newborn sister. Initially, Emily hated the photo, seeing only her dirty hair piled up on her head, the bags under her eyes, and the clear exhaustion that was visible even through the camera. Now she loved it. She could only see the happiness, the tender way she held Jack to her with one hand whilst her other was cupping Hazel’s head, providing additional support as the newborn slept in her brother's arms. 

She wondered if this is what Elizabeth had seen all along. If that was why she’d insisted Aaron print a copy after she saw it. If she’d seen the happiness that she knew Emily had been seeking most of her life. 

There’s a knock at the door and then it opens, and Emily turns to see her husband walking into the room to join her, followed by a short burst of noise from the wake before he closes the door behind him. She smiles tightly at him, pressing her lips into a firm line to stop them from shaking. 

“Are the kids ok?” She asks quietly, not looking as she places the frame back on the desk. She curses as she knocks a pile of paperwork onto the floor, files of paper spreading everywhere. “Fuck.” 

Aaron is across the room in a second, kneeling down as she does to help her tidy up what she’d knocked over. 

“They are ok,” he assures her, carefully rearranging some of the files, “Jack is showing Reid a game on his phone, Hazel is asleep in JJ’s lap.” Emily nods in acknowledgement, her eyes fixed on the papers she was gathering, “I’m mostly worried about you.” 

She freezes for a second, her entire body seizing up before she clears her throat and carries on, her fingers shaking as she reaches for a piece of paper in between them. Aaron stops her, his hand meeting hers halfway, linking their fingers together. 

“Aaron-”

“You haven’t given yourself a minute to just…stop since she died.” 

“There isn’t time,” she says, gathering the last of the papers as she stands up, “Look at this place,” she exclaims, placing the files back down, “It’s a mess. And then we’ll have to list this place to sell it, and that’s without thinking about her properties abroad…” 

She drifts off, her eyes fixed on a colourful piece of paper on the desk, previously covered by the files Aaron was still picking up. She picks it up, her eyes narrowing as she looks closer. The picture, clearly drawn by a young child, was a house with three stick figures standing outside, the smallest one in the middle. 

“I don’t remember Hazel drawing that one,” Aaron says, now standing up behind her and looking over her shoulder. 

“Me neither,” she says, frowning as she turns it over. She sucks in a breath and it feels like it catches in her chest, sticking on every rib as she reads the messy words on the back clearly written by a child, the letters mismatched and different sizes.

Emily Prentiss, aged 5. 02/23/1976

The laugh that leaves her borders on hysterical, and she shakes her head, gripping the drawing she’d inexplicably found in amongst her mother’s medical insurance papers and the deeds to the house even tighter. The paper creases ever so slightly as she turns it back over and looks at the drawing she had no memory of doing. 

Her laughter turns into a sob, and it hurts. Her chest heaving with it as her spare hand covers her eyes, the grief she had held back since her mother died finally breaking free. 

Aaron’s arms are around her in an instant, pulling her into his chest. He carefully takes the drawing from her, making sure it doesn’t get damaged, and she settles against him. She places her hands on his back, grabbing fistfuls of his jacket, and her face on his chest. He feels her sobs vibrate through him, and he holds her tighter, fiercely kissing the top of her head as he cups the back of it, holding her as close as he possibly can. 

“I’ve got you, sweetheart,” he says, kissing her temple again, “I’ve got you.” 

He holds her as she finally let's go. As she finally feels everything she’d been keeping in for weeks and months. Years if she was honest for herself. Grief for losing her mother twice - once with her diagnosis, and the other when she died. Grief for a relationship that was never what she needed or wanted, for a version of her mother that had existed nowhere but in her imagination. 

“She was my mom, Aaron,” she stutters, her words muffled by his shirt and her emotion.

“I know,” he says soothingly, his fingers buried in her hair, “I know she was,” he encourages her to move back from him just enough so he can look at her. He wipes his thumb under one of her eyes, wiping away a tear and a smudge of mascara, and he doesn’t have to look down to know he’ll have a matching stain on his white shirt, “I’m so sorry, Emily.” 

She nods, her chin trembling as she wipes at her cheeks, “I wish things could have been different,” she says, her voice wavering, “I wish we could have actually talked to each other instead of…being polite like we were for years,” she looks at the drawing Aaron had carefully placed on the desk and she points at it, “I shouldn’t have to find out how much she cared because of a piece of paper she kept for 40 years,” she chokes out a noise somewhere between a sob and a laugh, “I shouldn’t have to find this after she died.” 

“You deserved better,” he assures her, cupping her cheek and pressing a kiss to her forehead, “And you are doing better,” he says, smiling softly at her, “Jack and Hazel never doubt for a moment how much you love them.” 

She presses her forehead against his and stamps his lips with a kiss, “They know you love them too.” 

They lapse into silence for a moment, the only sound the low murmuring from the other side of the door. 

“Want to go back out there?” He asks, and she shakes her head, her forehead knocking against his before she presses her cheek against his chest. 

“Not yet.” 

“Ok, sweetheart,” he says, resting his cheek on top of her head, “Not yet.” He runs his hand up and down her back and looks at the drawing she’d done when she was just a little older than Hazel and it makes him smile. He tries to picture her, tries to think of what she would have been like at the time. If she was as quiet as Hazel could be sometimes, or if she’d always been as outspoken as she was now. “You know what’s crazy?” 

“What?” She asks, letting herself relax in the comfort of his embrace, in the safety he always provided. He removes one arm from around her and picks up the drawing, turning it over to look at the words she’d written on the back all those years ago. 

“Your penmanship hasn’t improved at all in 40 years.” 

She laughs, loud enough that if someone from the wake heard it he’s sure they’d deem it inappropriate, and she pulls away to shake her head at him, a watery smile spreading across her face. 

“How is it you always find a way to criticise my paperwork?” 

He shrugs one of his shoulders, “Maybe one day it will sink in.” 

She shakes her head again and her smile gives way to an adoring look. She leans in and kisses him, the taste of her tears on both of their lips. 

“Thank you,” she says, her chest tight as she’s once again overwhelmed by emotion, “For loving me enough to make me laugh on a day like today.” 

He kisses her once more before pulling her into a hug again, something she gratefully returns. 

“You don’t have to thank me, Em. Loving you is the easiest thing in the world, no matter what day it is.” 

Usually, she’d call him ridiculous. She’d roll her eyes and call him out for being cheesy, but she can’t bring herself to. Instead, she lets herself enjoy it. 

A week later he frames the drawing for her and puts it in their home office along with drawings that Jack and Hazel had done for them. 

When she looks at it, she thinks of her mother, and she smiles. 

-x-

Tag list:

@ssa-sparks, @lukeclvez, @lyds102, @glockleveledatyourcrotch, @hotchnissenthusiast, @danadeservesadrink, @ssamorganhotchner, @emilyprentissisgod, @notagentprentiss, @freesiasandfics, @emilyshotchniss, @thecharmingart, @paulitalblond, @hancydrewfan, @camille093, @whitecrossgirl, @moonlight-2-6, @rawr-jess, @florenceremingtonthethird, @jareauswife, @ms-black-a, @beebeelank, @aubreyprc, @zipzapboingg, @psychopath-at-heart, @criminalmindsgonewrong, @fionaloover, @kinqslcys, @prentissinred, @ccmattis-22, @denvivale317, @thrindis, @hotchsguccitie, @cmfouatslota77, @alexblakegf, @aliensaurusrex, @prentissxhotch, @emobabeyy, @victoiregranger, @stormyweatherth, @wanderingdreamer009, @ssablackbird, @luhwithah, @lex13cm, @prentiss-theorem, @lavenderhoney94, @mrs-ssa-hotch, @jocyycreation

Join my tag list here!

November 2008 

He’s woken up by a kick to his shin. 

It startles him, shocking him awake as opens his eyes to an unfamiliar room. He looks at the alarm clock on the nightstand, the numbers bright against his tired eyes. 

3:32 am 

He’s kicked again and he turns to look at his girlfriend. She’s twisted in the cheap hotel bedsheets, her face screwed up as she fights off something in her sleep. She whimpers and his chest gets tight, the sound familiar to him, something that haunted his own nightmares. 

It had been months since Colorado. Months since he’d had to listen to her being beaten and do nothing about it. They’d barely been together for a few weeks at the time, their relationship still something just between them. The second they were alone after she got out of the compound he’d held her tightly, accidentally pressing on injuries he’d later map out. Permanent memories he knew he’d never be able to shake. Each mark on her skin something he blamed on nobody but himself. 

Her physical injuries had faded months ago. The bruises gone. Her ribs and broken skin healed. The memories were another thing altogether. 

She still had nightmares often. They were usually brought on by being somewhere new, a frequent side effect of their work, and it wasn’t unusual for her to wake him up on their first night away on a case. 

He sits up to wait it out, knowing from experience that touching her would make it worse. His attempts to comfort her would become part of the nightmare, his gentle touch twisted by her subconscious. Her mind turning it into Cyrus’s violence. 

It only takes a couple of minutes, but it feels like an age before she sits up sharply, heaving in a breath that sounds like it barely fills her lungs. 

“Em, sweetheart,” he says quietly, not wanting to startle her. She turns to look at him, her eyes wide, searching for him desperately. 

“Aaron?” 

“It’s me,” he assures her, reaching out and placing his hand on her shoulder, grateful when she doesn’t flinch, “I’m right here,” he gently squeezes her skin, “I’ve got you.” 

She nods absentmindedly before fiercely wiping at her cheeks, disposing of tears that she was furious at herself for. She leans into him, pressing her face into his neck, and he holds her tightly. He kisses the top of her head, holding her impossibly closer as he feels her hot tears against his skin. Her fear burning his skin as his guilt rises back up. Bitter sorrow on his tongue that he hadn’t been able to save her from this. 

“Cyrus?” He asks, and she nods against him. She shifts closer so she’s in his lap, needing to be as close to him as possible. 

“I’m sorry for waking you up,” she says before she pulls back just enough to look at him, her eyes shining, “I didn’t mean to.” 

“Sweetheart you have nothing to apologise for,” he says, pressing a kiss to her forehead, “Want to try to go back to sleep?” 

She shakes her head, “Not yet,” she replies, holding him a little tighter, she looks over to the television on the wall, “Maybe we can watch some TV?” 

Aaron nods, reaching for the remote and switching it on, “I think it’s a bit late to watch that crap you usually like.” 

“Firstly, the Real Housewives isn’t crap,” she replies, squeezing him a little tighter, “Secondly, it’s on Oxygen from midnight to 5 am.”

He chuckles and switches to the channel she’s not so subtly asked for, placing the remote back down as the show he wouldn’t even know existed without her. 

She falls asleep in his lap, something he cannot understand given the yelling on the show on the tv, and he stays up until the sun rises, holding her against him. 

___

“Can we keep him, Emmy?” 

Emily crouches down next to Jack, and she scratches the kitten in his arms behind the ears. She smiles as the kitten purrs, settling deeper into the little boy’s arms, the black fur standing out against Jack’s red coat. 

They’d been in the park all afternoon. Aaron was meant to join them but had been called to work by Strauss, even though it was a Saturday, for what was supposedly an urgent review. It felt strange to think she would have once felt awkward spending time with Jack alone, that she felt unsure of her place in his life. 

Now it felt natural. As if loving him and Aaron had always been a part of her. 

They were about to leave the park, Jack’s energy fading fast, when she first saw what she initially thought was a toy dropped by another child by a bench. As she got closer she realised it was moving. Jack had run towards it, overtaking her and picking it up before she could even figure out that it was a kitten and that she hadn’t just let him pick up a rat. 

“He might already have a family, honey,” she says, leaning down to crouch next to him. She fights her smile as Jack pouts. She stands up and leans down to pick up Jack, the kitten between them both, “Why don’t we take him to the vet, see if he belongs to anyone and go from there?” 

“How would the vet know?” Jack asks as she walks back towards the car. He was constantly curious these days, wanting answers to questions all the time. 

“They put tiny little chips in pets so if they get lost they can be found,” she explains, looking down at the kitten to check he was ok, smiling when she sees he is fast asleep, and she briefly thinks about how much trouble she’ll be in with her fiancee if he comes home to find out they now had a cat. 

“Chips like potato chips?” 

She laughs and shakes her head, expertly digging her car key out of her pocket and unlocking the car with Jack still in her arms, “No, sweet boy. Like a little computer chip,” she places him in his car seat and fastens him in. She scratches the top of the kitten's head, feeling her heart swell in her chest as he purrs, and then she looks back at Jack, “Be gentle with him, ok?” 

Jack nods and, very carefully, holds the kitten in his lap as she closes his door and gets in the car herself. She looks at him in the rearview mirror and has to bite her lip to stop her cheeks from aching from her smile at the sight of the two of them, already the best of friends. 

She was in so much trouble with Aaron if the kitten didn’t have a chip. 

___

She calls Aaron from the vet. 

Jack was distracted by the kitten and the veterinary nurse as she walks away enough for the little boy not to hear her. Aaron is confused at first, worried something is wrong, until she explains what happened. That they found a cat, and he would have to go to the shelter if they didn’t take him in. 

She can practically hear the wheels in his head turning, and she can picture the expression on his face, how he’d be pinching the bridge of his nose. She sells it as something Jack wanted, but Aaron knows as well as she does that she’s already fallen in love with the tiny kitten. Aaron agrees, won over by the tale of woe she had spun, and he says he’ll come home via the pet store with some supplies. 

As soon as they get back to the apartment Jack settles the kitten onto the couch, showing the same gentle care he had displayed since he first held him. She feels slightly ridiculous when it makes her think of what he’d be like with a younger sibling, something that had almost constantly been on her mind since they’d agreed she’d stop taking her birth control a few weeks ago. 

“How about ‘Daddy?’” 

Emily clears her throat to stop herself from laughing, smiling fondly at Jack as the kitten sleeps on the couch next to them. Ever since she’d told him that they could keep the kitten, Jack had been reeling off ideas for names, each more ridiculous than the last. 

“We can’t call him Daddy, Jack.” 

“Why not?” 

She reaches over and scratches at the cat's fur, “Because that’s Daddy’s name.” 

“Daddy’s name is Aaron,” Jack replies, frowning at her. 

“You’re right,” she says, running her hand through his hair, “But I still think we should go with something else.” 

Jack sighs and furrows his brow further as he thinks about it again. The look on his face reminds her of Aaron when he’s working, a tiny crease in between his eyebrows. She wonders if it’s something any children they have will do too, if she’ll get to see all these traits she loved of his on a child they shared together. 

“Dinosaur?” 

She laughs, “Better than Daddy,” she says, tugging Jack into her side, “But why don’t we go for something a little different? Like…Sergio?” 

Jack’s eyes go wide, excitement shining in them as he looks back between her and the cat, “Sergio!” 

“It suits him, huh?” She asks, kissing the top of the little boy's head. 

“You’re good at naming things, Emmy.” 

She chuckles, and any response is cut off by the door opening, and she looks up to see Aaron walking in, his arms full of bags from the pet store. She unsuccessfully hides a laugh as one of the bags falls to the floor, shocking Sergio awake. The cat runs across the apartment quickly, the flash of black fur the first Aaron has ever seen of their new pet. Aaron raises an eyebrow at her, and she smiles. 

She was definitely in trouble. ___

“I can’t believe I went to work for an afternoon and I came back to us having a pet.” 

Emily smiles, burying her face against his chest before she tilts her head up to look at him. He holds her closer to him, keeping her warm and safe in their bed. She curls further into his side and he runs his hand up and down her back. Sergio was asleep on Aaron’s chest, curled up in a ball, very content with his new home. 

“Come on,” she says, reaching up to scratch at Sergio’s head, “Look at that face. What was I supposed to do?” 

Aaron hums and kisses the top of her head, “You definitely owe me.” 

“And I will pay you back in sexual favours soon honey,” she says with a yawn as she settles back down against him, “But another night, I’m exhausted after chasing your son around all day.” 

He chuckles and continues to rub circles on her back, a surefire way of making her fall asleep quickly. 

“Just imagine how much more exhausting it will be when there are two of them.”

She hides a smile in his t-shirt. Hope coloured everything in their lives at the moment, and she found herself more excited for the future than she had been in a long time. 

“Worth it,” she mumbles, her body getting slightly heavier against him. 

“How did you come up with the name Sergio anyway?” He asks, looking at the kitten still sleeping on his chest. “Did Jack suggest it?” 

“Nope, it was all me,” she says, “If it was up to Jack he’d be called Daddy.” 

Aaron laughs, “What?” 

She hums, getting sleepier by the second, “He wanted to call him Daddy,” she mutters, “But I suggested Sergio. I think it’s a good name.” 

He doesn’t miss the edge to her voice, how, despite her obvious tiredness, she seems defensive. As if she worries his query is nothing short of making fun of her, when it couldn’t be further from the truth. It was yet another way they were similar, a memory of him suggesting it as a name for Jack hitting him in an instant. A moment that felt like it was from a different life.

In some ways, he supposes, it was. 

“It’s a great name, sweetheart,” he assures her, before he kisses the top of her head again, “Now go to sleep.” 

___

She never understood why some cases hurt more than others. Why some of the things she saw immediately crawled under her skin and took root, seeds of horror burrowing in deep. She finds herself unable to tear her eyes away from the cards and flowers on the front porch of the Downey’s home. Condolences mixed in amongst small tokens of affection and teddy bears.

“Prentiss?” 

She turns and sees Aaron looking at her, his eyebrows creased together, concern splashed across his face. 

“Sorry,” she says, stepping towards him and making her way towards the backyard by his side.

“It’s ok,” he replies, his hands twitching to reach out for her, “Cases with kids are hard.” 

“Yeah,” she replies, briefly looking over to where the family had been buried, before she follows him to where the rest of the team were standing. 

“What have we got?” Aaron asks, turning his attention to Derek. 

“The mom and the boys were shot, they were carried out and she was dragged. The little girl, Lucy, she was drowned.” 

“Changing the MO is strange,” Aaron says, turning to look at the gravesite briefly, “Was there anything missing?”

“The mother’s wedding ring,” Emily says, “Just like with the Willliams family.” 

Aaron’s phone rings and he checks the screen, seeing Penelope’s name flashing on it, and he answers.

“Garcia-”

“Virginia Supermax prison has been in touch to inform us that an inmate has informed them that he has details about these cases,” she says, speaking before he can even greet her properly, her words tumbling out of her like she couldn’t control them, “Apparently he has a fan website and someone posted about the murders in the forum and he’s seen it. He wants to…offer his insight.”

“That means we have a leak,” Derek sighs, shaking his head. Aaron looks up at JJ, his face stern.

“JJ-”

“Already on it,” she says, walking towards the local cops, her shoulders tense. 

“Who is the prisoner, Garcia?” Emily asks, drawing everyone’s attention back to the call. There’s a beat of silence, Penelope’s hesitance clear even over the phone. 

“Garcia-”

“It’s Karl Arnold.” 

-x-

Tag list:

@ssa-sparks, @lukeclvez, @lyds102, @glockleveledatyourcrotch, @hotchnissenthusiast, @danadeservesadrink, @ssamorganhotchner, @emilyprentissisgod, @notagentprentiss, @freesiasandfics, @emilyshotchniss, @thecharmingart, @paulitalblond, @hancydrewfan, @camille093, @whitecrossgirl, @moonlight-2-6, @rawr-jess, @florenceremingtonthethird, @jareauswife, @ms-black-a, @beebeelank, @aubreyprc, @zipzapboingg, @psychopath-at-heart, @criminalmindsgonewrong, @fionaloover, @kinqslcys, @prentissinred, @ccmattis-22, @denvivale317, @thrindis, @hotchsguccitie, @cmfouatslota77, @alexblakegf, @aliensaurusrex, @prentissxhotch, @emobabeyy, @victoiregranger, @stormyweatherth, @wanderingdreamer009, @ssablackbird, @luhwithah, @lex13cm, @prentiss-theorem, @dont-emily-me, @mrs-ssa-hotch, @jocyycreation

“Em, we need to go.” 

She groans in response, checking herself over in the mirror one more time, and she hears Aaron chuckle as he walks into the ensuite of their hotel room. He wraps his arms around her, pulling her back against him as he kisses her temple, his eyes meeting hers in the mirror. 

“Can we just stay in here?” she asks, placing her hands over his, linking their fingers together over her abdomen, “Sleep some more,” she raises her eyebrows suggestively, “maybe make out a little.” 

Aaron chuckles again, “I thought you said this was the worst motel you’d ever been in,” he says, moving his hands to her hips as he turns her to face him, “Something about me being more comfortable than the bed.” 

They’d been in a small town in Ohio for five days, and the whole team were getting frustrated at feeling like they were getting nowhere. All of them missing their homes and their families. Emily and Aaron were grateful that the team now knew about them, having come clean about their relationship just a month prior, because it meant they could openly share a room. In the four months since they first got together, they’d snuck into each other's rooms, leaving early in the morning so they wouldn’t get caught. Now they got to wake up together and get ready side by side as they did back home where they spent more and more of their time at his place. 

She smiles, nodding as she wraps her arms around his neck, “I stand by it,” she leans in to kiss him, her lips quickly stamped against his, “I guess we’ll just have to solve this case and go home, your bed is much better than that piece of crap in there.” 

He smiles at her, not addressing the fact that she’d just referred to his apartment as home before he kisses her once more before stepping back, “You ready to go?” 

She nods in response and steps past him back into the bedroom, “At least if we are here another day or so I’ll get out of the event my mother is hosting this weekend.” 

The mention of it makes him falter slightly. She’d been complaining about it for weeks, the mere thought of spending an evening with her mother, surrounded by people who said so much but talked so little, enough to make her go a little crazy. Which is why he had hesitated in telling her the very thing he was about to bring up. 

“About that,” he says, stepping up behind her as she secures her gun and badge, “Your mother called me.” 

She freezes, her body tensing as his words register, and she turns to look at him, one of her eyebrows raised, “What? When?” 

“A couple of days ago,” he admits, clearing his throat as he watches her eyes widen, a humourless chuckle escaping her. 

“You spoke to her a couple of days ago and you’re only just telling me?” 

He blows out a breath, placing his hands on his hips, swallowing down the irritation that sparks in his belly. 

“We’ve been busy.” 

She scoffs, shaking her head at him, “We spend pretty much all of our time together, Aaron. Are you seriously telling me you haven’t had the chance to tell me you spoke to my mother?” She crosses her arms over her chest and clenches her jaw, the familiar defensiveness climbing up the back of her neck as it always did when her mother came up, “What did you even talk about?” 

“He asked me if I was coming with you on Saturday,” he says, and she feels her mouth go dry, the white lie she’d told him weeks ago that she couldn’t have a plus one echoing around her head. 

“Aaron-”

“Apparently you told her I was busy that night,” he cuts over her, his expression stern, his annoyance clear, “Which is funny, considering you told me I wasn’t invited.” 

She sighs and closes her eyes, gathering herself for a moment before she looks back at him, “I didn’t want to expose you to that part of my life.”

“I’ve met your mother before.” 

“But not as my boyfriend,” she replies, raising her voice a little more than she intends to. She blows out a steady breath, “She’s hard work, Aaron and…she always finds a way to belittle everything I do.” 

Emily hates how adolescent it sounds, how her mother can still make her feel like this, even through Aaron, but she can’t help it. Defiance she thinks she will never outgrow spreading through her chest. 

“I deal with sociopaths on a daily basis, Emily. I think I can handle your mother.” 

On any other day, the comparison would make her smile, but she doesn’t understand how this has gone so south, why he seems so offended, “Aaron…what is the big deal? I’m sorry I lied, I know I should have just talked to you about it, but it’s not a problem. I probably won’t make it now anyway.” 

Aaron sighs, and he wishes he’d never brought it up, that he’d waited until they were back in DC, but he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it since he’d spoken to Elizabeth. The insecurities that had been sparking in the back of his head since he’d first woken up next to Emily catching fire, every concern he had about their relationship suddenly bigger.

From the moment he’d kissed her it had confirmed what he’d known for years. That he loved her, that he had been in love with her for much longer than he cared to admit. For weeks he’d held it back, not wanting to spook her. Only whispering the words against her skin after she was asleep. She’d caught him out a couple of weeks ago, still awake as he murmured the words. She’d turned in his arms and asked him to repeat them, and smiled at him as he did. She’d kissed him and fallen asleep in his arms, her smile still present on her face. 

It was only the following morning he realised she hadn’t said it back. 

He’d tried again a couple of times since, and her response had always been similar. Something he wanted to believe was love shining in her eyes as she hugged or kissed him, an edge of desperation to it that he could never place. 

“Maybe this all just means you’re not as serious about this as I am.” 

Her mouth drops open and she scoffs, shaking her head at him, “Are you fucking kidding me?” She exclaims, “I’m not serious about us because I didn’t invite you to some shitty event my mother is hosting?” She throws her hands up in the air, her cheeks warm with the annoyance she can’t keep in her chest, “I practically live with you.” 

“And yet you don’t want me to be a part of that part of your life?” 

“It’s not that-”

“Then what is it?” He demands, his voice stern in a way it rarely was with her. 

She doesn’t know how to put it into words, how to express to him that she felt like, no matter how he felt, she had to protect him from that part of her life. Even though he could handle himself it would give him an insight into something she didn’t want him to see. The part of herself she wishes she could give up entirely. 

“I-”

There’s a knock at the door, and Derek’s voice follows it, “Sorry to interrupt, but we need to get going.” 

Emily stares at Aaron momentarily before turning to the door, “We’re coming.” 

“You can’t run away from this, Em,” Aaron says, and she freezes on the spot, clenching her hands at her sides. 

“No,” she replies, flashing him a look, “I can’t, but we have work to do.” She opens the door and the cool air from the hallway hits her she walks out into it. She clenches her teeth, her jaw so tense she’s worried it could fracture, and she hears someone behind her clear their throat. 

“Trouble in paradise?” 

She turns to look at Derek, the playfulness slipping from his expression as their eyes meet, “Shut up, Derek.” She makes a point of bumping his shoulder with hers as she walks past him. 

“Em, I was just kidding-”

“We have work to do,” she repeats, cutting over him as she continues to walk away, “The sooner we get it done the sooner we can go home.” 

___

Things are tense between them all day. 

Slightly barbed comments back and forth, the rest of the team exchanging concerned looks as they finally make progress with their case. 

They track the unsub to an abandoned building just down the block from where the first victim had been found. She ends up in the SUV with just Aaron on the way to the scene, both of them silent and staring straight ahead, the weight of their crossed words that morning still heavy in the air. 

When they arrive they both get out of the car and start securing their bullet-proof vests, and the usual concern she feels when they are about to walk into danger makes her stomach roll. Their jobs came with risks, they both knew that, but that risk seemed so much more significant since they’d got together,

“This guy is probably going to be hostile,” Emily says, looking at him as he velcros his vest into place. The other SUVs pull up behind them, and the rest of the team start to leave the cars. 

“He’s devolving, but we’ll be careful,” he replies, smiling tightly at her as he pushes his earpiece in, and Emily does the same.

She winces as she immediately pulls her earpiece back out, feedback from her microphone still ringing in her head. 

“Son of a bitch,” she says, drawing the attention of Aaron from next to her as the rest of the team approaches them, “My mic is broken.” 

“Prentiss’s comms are down, so she’s with me,” Aaron explain to the others, making sure his earpiece was secure as he adjusts his bulletproof vest. 

“I don’t need babysitting-”

“You’re with me,” he says firmly, cutting over her harshly. She tries to argue again but sees the fear brewing in his eyes. Concern for her peeking out from underneath his work persona and the annoyance he clearly still feels from their argument that morning. 

“Ok,” she concedes, feeling the team's eyes burning into her, “I’m with you.” 

The team splits up. She and Aaron take the top floor, Derek and Spencer the one below, and JJ and Dave the first floor. 

She hears movement as they walk down the hallway, someone's poor attempts at being quiet echoing around them. Aaron looks back at her, and they have a silent conversation as he tilts his head towards the room they’d heard the noise coming from. He goes in the room first, and there's a beat of silence before all hell breaks loose. 

Two gunshots happen almost simultaneously. 

The unsubs bullet hits Aaron right in the centre of his vest, knocking him backwards into the wall. Emily’s bullet hits the unsub, killing him instantly before he falls to the ground. 

“Shit,” she says, sighing as she holsters her gun, “He was more prepared than we thought we would be,” She says, and there is no reply, she turns to look at Aaron. He was still against the wall, his hand pressed into where she’d seen the bullet hit his vest, probably winded from the speed of the shot. “Are you ok?” 

“Em…” 

He pulls his hand away, and she feels dread flood her entire body as blood seeps out of the visible hole in the dark blue kevlar. 

“Oh my god,” she exclaims as she makes it to his side, attempting to catch him as he slides to the floor. She hits the ground next to him, her hand pressing into his abdomen where the blood was pouring from. He groans in pain and she looks at him, her eyes meeting his, “You’re ok, honey, you’re ok,” she clears her throat, pressing down harder into the wound, “Aaron’s been hit we need help,” there’s silence, and she frowns, wondering why she doesn’t get a response. 

“Your comms aren’t working,” he reminds her, his voice ragged, every breath full of effort and pain, “Mine have been knocked out.” 

“Shit,” she says, looking around them, desperately wondering what to do, “They’ll have heard the shots,” she says, not sure which one of them she was trying to assure, “We need to get your vest off so we can put better pressure on the wound.”

He nods, and she pulls the velcro off, ignoring how her hands shake, how her vision goes blurry with tears she refuses to shed. He yells out in pain as she pulls the vest off of him, throwing it away without a second glance. 

“I know it hurts, I’m sorry,” she says, pushing her hands firmly against the bullet wound, his shirt soaked with blood, “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s ok,” he replies, and she shifts between looking at his face and the door they came through, hoping someone from the team would arrive to help them soon. She feels him touch her face, and she looks at him, the feeling of his fingers against her skin achingly familiar, “I love you, Emily. I-”

“We’re not doing this now,” she replies, leaning down to press her forehead against his for a second, kissing him briefly before she sits up a little straighter, the angle pulling at her neck, “We aren’t saying goodbye because you’re going to be ok.” 

She feels the words she’s been pushing back for weeks aching to escape, but she doesn’t want it to be like this. She doesn’t want him to think that her love for him was nothing more than an admission made of fear. 

“Em-”

“Prentiss, Hotch?” 

She looks over to the door and sees Derek and Spencer rush through the door, their guns lowered as they see the unsub on the floor behind them. 

“Aaron got hit,” she says, her voice surprisingly steady as Derek kneels next to her, Spencer on Aaron’s other side. 

“The bastard must have had armour-piercing bullets,” Derek says, “We need an ambulance,” he instructs before nodding, and Emily knows he’s had a response through his earpiece that one was on the way, “You just have to hold on a little longer Hotch,” Derek says, an encouraging smile on his face, “Or Prentiss here will kill you herself.” 

The laugh that leaves her is ragged, and it catches on her ribs, threatening to choke her as it fills the air around them. 

“Exactly,” she says, “See even Morgan knows-” she cuts herself off as she looks back at Aaron’s face, his eyes drifting closed, a stream of blood trailing from his mouth down to his ear, “Aaron, I need you to wake up,” she pauses for a moment and her desperation mounts as she doesn’t get a response, “Aaron.” 

“Reid, I need you to take over from Prentiss,” Derek says, standing up as Spencer nods, placing his hands over Emily’s on Aaron’s abdomen. 

“What, no-” Emily exclaims, her hands slipping off of Aaron as Derek hauls her upwards, pulling her back, “Let go of me, I need to-”

“You can’t help him right now, ok?” Derek says, all too close to her as his breath skips over her, holding her close as if she was going to bolt if he let go even a little, “The ambulance is here, JJ is bringing him up.” 

She hates that she can’t hear any of what is being said by the team and that she feels reduced to this. That all she can do is stand there, Aaron’s blood on her hands, dripping onto the ground beneath her as she sags against Derek. 

“I love him, Derek,” she says quietly, her voice low enough that only he hears her. The EMTs enter the room, quickly followed by JJ and Dave. 

“I know you do, Princess,” Derek replies, and he kisses the side of her head, comfort she doesn’t want but cannot fight as she watches the paramedics work on Aaron, “He knows too.” 

She hopes she hasn’t lost the chance to tell him. 

___

The first time he wakes up he fights the intubation. 

The surgery had been long, minutes feeling like hours as she sat in a waiting room, her leg bouncing up and down as she repeatedly counts the tiles on the floor. Something, anything, to keep her mind off of the fact that she just might lose him. 

As soon as they find out that he made it through surgery, nothing short of a miracle according to the doctor, she sends the rest of the team back to the motel, claiming she’d be ok. She wasn’t entirely sure that was true, but she wanted to be alone with him and she knew he’d hate for anyone other than her to see him like this. 

All she can do is stand back as the doctors try and calm him, more people than she cares to count as they flood the room once she presses the call button. She can almost feel it in her own throat as they pull the tube from his, the phantom sensation haunting her. A ghost of a memory of when she’d woken up alone and confused, dead to everyone who knew her. He isn’t awake for long, the anaesthesia in his system still winning the battle. It’s only when a nurse taps Emily on the shoulder and looks at her with a kind smile as she passes her a tissue that she realises she’s crying. 

It reminds her of the moment she’d been alone with Dave once the ambulance arrived at the hospital. How he’d pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped at her cheek, quietly telling her she had blood on her skin. 

When she’s alone with him again she takes her seat back by his side. Now, with the intubation gone, it almost looked like he was sleeping normally, the same slack expression on his face that she loved to see on the rare occasion she woke up before him. He always slept facing her, as if even subconsciously he wanted to make sure she was the first thing he saw when he woke up in the morning. 

Emily reaches out for his hand. His skin was cold, something she knew logically was from blood loss, but it still shocks her just like it had when she first walked into his room. He was always so warm. Heat and love and forever radiating off of him whenever he was near, a comfort that she hadn’t known could exist before him. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, her eyes fixed on his sleeping face, “I know I was…I shouldn’t have lied to you,” she shakes her head at herself as she thinks of their argument, how it felt so stupid now, “I’m so…I’m so afraid of being happy,” she admits, her vision blurring as her eyes fill with tears, “I don’t think I’m very good at it and you make me happy, Aaron. And it scares the absolute shit out of me because I don’t know what I would do if I lost you,” she chuckles bitterly, the irony of that statement given her surroundings not lost on her at all. 

She still remembered the moment she realised she was in love with him, that the secret feelings she’d been harbouring for her boss were much more than the crush she’d told herself it was. It was a moment far too similar to this for her liking when she found him after Foyet had attacked him. She hadn’t held his hand then, she couldn’t have no matter how much she wanted to, her thumbnail in between her teeth to stop herself. 

Any feelings she’d had for him had been buried so deeply inside of her after that she sometimes allowed herself to pretend they weren’t there. She told herself that she drove him to and from work when he first got back because it was the right thing to do. That she covered his medical bills that his insurance didn’t because he was her friend. She’d found out since that he’d felt the same way, that he’d loved her too. 

Then Aaron had buried her. 

They came close to something more than friendship just before Doyle had torn through their lives, but it was fleeting. A flash of hope that she’d worried had died out entirely, embers on a fire that had never been able to fully ignite. 

The first time he kissed her, it felt like everything had been leading up to it. As if everything they’d both been through, no matter how rocky, had somehow forged their path to each other.

She loved him, but she hadn’t said it. Not because she didn’t feel it, or because she didn’t want to, but because the words didn’t seem enough. They came nowhere near explaining how she felt about him, how he’d taken up so much more of her heart than she thought possible. 

It was terrifying having so much of her happiness dependent on him, on the life they were building together. 

She sighs as she rubs her thumb over the heel of his hand, hoping to press some of his usual warmth into his skin. She looks down at their joint hands, marvelling as she always did at how they fit together. 

“I…I love you, Aaron,” she says, something in her chest easing at the admission, “I love you so much that it terrifies me, and I hate that it does but…” she drifts off, unsure what she’s even trying to say, her nerves fried from seeing him hurt, from fear. 

From relief that he was going to be ok. 

“Em?” 

She looks up, and her eyes meet his, “Aaron.”  She stands up and sits on the edge of his bed, leaning in to kiss him, “I’m so glad you’re awake.” 

“What happened?” He asks, his voice rough. 

“You were shot,” she explains, swallowing thickly, adjusting his hospital gown to do something, “It was…close.” He’d coded in the ambulance in front of her, an image she knew she wouldn’t ever be free of. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, squeezing her hand, and she chuckles, shaking her head as tears flood her eyes. 

“Why are you sorry? You didn’t ask to be shot.”

“I’m sorry I scared you.” 

She blows out a shaky breath, lifting their joint hands to kiss his knuckles, “I’m ok,” she promises him, “Much better now you’re awake.” 

Aaron smiles sleepily at her, his eyes hazy from pain medication, “I love you too, by the way.” 

She freezes, her eyes wide in a way that makes him smile wider, “You…you heard that?” 

He nods, tugging at her hand just enough that she knows he wants to kiss her. She leans in and presses her lips to his, grateful that she could, that he was still here. 

“If I’d known me getting shot would have made you finally admit it,” he mumbles against her lips, pulling back to look at her, “I would have done it weeks ago.” 

She huffs out a breath, “Aaron.”

“Too soon?” 

She chuckles dryly, “Far, far too soon. It might always be,” she pushes some of his hair from his forehead, her fingers trailing against his skin, “I’m sorry for this morning.” 

“Me too,” he says, squeezing her hand. 

“We’ll talk about it when you’re better?” She offers, knowing there are still things they needed to discuss. Insecurities they both needed to air to move forward in the way they both wanted. 

“Ok,” he agrees, and she feels the last bit of tension in her chest ease, “We do have to figure out one thing though.” 

She frowns, tilting her head slightly at him, “What?” 

He grins at her, a smile she knows is fuelled by pain medication and a desire to see her smile, “How to convince your mother I didn’t get shot just so we don’t have to go on Saturday.” 

“Aaron.” 

-x-

Tag list:

@ssa-sparks, @lukeclvez, @lyds102, @glockleveledatyourcrotch, @hotchnissenthusiast, @danadeservesadrink, @ssamorganhotchner, @emilyprentissisgod, @notagentprentiss, @freesiasandfics, @emilyshotchniss, @thecharmingart, @paulitalblond, @hancydrewfan, @camille093, @whitecrossgirl, @moonlight-2-6, @rawr-jess, @florenceremingtonthethird, @jareauswife, @ms-black-a, @beebeelank, @aubreyprc, @zipzapboingg, @psychopath-at-heart, @criminalmindsgonewrong, @fionaloover, @kinqslcys, @prentissinred, @ccmattis22, @denvivale317, @thrindis, @hotchsguccitie, @cmfouatslota77, @alexblakegf, @aliensaurusrex, @prentissxhotch, @emobabeyy, @victoiregranger, @stormyweatherth, @wanderingdreamer009, @ssablackbird, @luhwithah, @lex13cm, @prentiss-theorem, @lavenderhoney94