#hey hey queue queue

“Well, it just doesn’t make sense.” She looked back at him from the bulletin board. “Why Johanssen would stay in Cheyenne, I mean. With everything he went through as a teen, you would think getting out of here would be the first thing on his mind.”

Hotch raised a singular eyebrow and turned back to his pile of paper. “Yeah, well, some people don’t think like that, Prentiss. You should know that, we’ve seen it time and time again.”

Emily sighed as a response and took down the newspaper clippings detailed the horrors the unsub had gone through in his adolescence. She muttered a curse when the pin holding up a photo of a victim stabbed her finger. 

“So why did you do it?”

“It?”

Hotch nodded. “Leave Morgan. I gave you orders to stay together. Morgan’s reckless, he’ll push unsubs like this one,” he scowled at the board, “too far. That’s why I paired someone with him. Johanssen was far too unstable to be dealt with by one person. So why did you leave?

“I-”

There was a long pause as they stared at each other. Hotch nodded, waiting for an answer. Rather than answer, Emily stared at the dark circles under his eyes. They were a shade far too dark to just be from one sleepless night. 

“When was the last time you slept?”

He rolled his eyes and shifted his weight so he was leaning on the desk. “What does it matter? And you’re just trying to change the subject. Why did you leave?”

“I don’t know, Hotch! Is that what you want to hear? That I don’t know why I left Morgan?” she exclaimed, eyes hardening. “Because I don’t. We were looking for a ruthless killer, you’ve seen the victims. I felt it was best to be more than cautious when checking the rooms. Morgan went forward, I turned into a different room. And then there were shots.”

Hotch’s scowl somehow etched deeper into his face. Both of them were running on adrenaline and caffeine, the tiredness had long since fogged their brains. There would be an apology tomorrow morning, with soft words and gentle touches extending an olive branch. But he didn’t care right now. Right now, all he wanted to do was let out his frustration.

“Shots that led to Morgan being in the hospital. What would you do if one of them had hit Morgan in the head, killing him?”

Emily fought to keep the tears of indignation she felt bubbling to the surface back. She was not going to cry right now. 

“Jesus, Hotch, don’t you think I feel bad already? Morgan is my partner, do you think I want him to be shot?”

The walls seemed to be closing in on them, and Prentiss could barely breathe. 

“Sure seemed like you did tonight.”

That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Emily had to leave the room.

“I’m leaving,” she told him, her voice wobbling a little. 

Hotch shook his head, regret not having reached him yet, and said the first thing that came to his mind, “Of course you are. That’s all you know how to do.”

Halfway out the door, she stopped, his words catching her off-guard. “What?”

“You leave Morgan now. You move all the time. You left after Doyle-”

“That’s not fair!”

Hotch was far too gone to stop at this point. “You can’t stay in one place for too long. The only constant in your life is this job, and that’s only because it’s always on the move.”

The door slammed on her way out.

Hotch collapsed into a chair, and his head fell into his hands. “Nice one, Aaron. That’s how you’ll get the girl, point out all her flaws and make it worse on an already horrible day.”

He scoffed and mussed his hair. The mess of the room loomed over him, and he stood up with a heavy sigh to clean some more of it.

Light footsteps sounded behind him, but he was far too engrossed in the menial task and his sulking to care. He reached up to grab a case file but paused when a soft voice floated in from the doorway.

“Did it really bother you when I left all those times? When I moved?”

Hotch spun on his heel and found himself staring into the same tired brown eyes that had been challenging him minutes prior.

“Well, yeah. Of course it did, Emily,” Wanting this shell of Emily gone, he joked, “I liked that apartment of yours.”

She did laugh, but it felt far more forced than natural. “Actually?”

His tone softened and he took a seat. “Actually. You shouldn’t have left Morgan,” she nodded in agreement, quickly swiping at her eyes, “but any of us would have done the exact same thing. I don’t blame you. I’m just tired and frustrated and I took it out on you. I’m sorry.”

She gave him a light smile, taking the seat next to him. “It’s okay.”

The look she gave him was rather indecipherable. Rather than dwell on it, he continued in his explanation. “And I don’t begrudge you for leaving after Doyle, especially since I helped you with it. Your life was in danger, and I wouldn’t have had you do anything else.”

Emily nodded, taking in his words.

“I don’t know, Prentiss. You just-” he interrupted himself with a sigh, rethinking his words. “You’re just gone all the time. You might actually be here, but you aren’t. Not really. And all I want to do is fix that. Because I just- I just want you to be happy. And I can’t help you be happy when you aren’t with me.”

“Aaron…”

Once again, he was too far gone to stop. “And I don’t know how to help you. That’s your issue. You are so afraid of getting hurt again that you keep anyone from getting close enough to help.”

Chapped lips were pressed onto his. Purely on instinct, his eyes fluttered shut and he reached a hand out to pull her even closer. Their lips moved in harmony, almost as if both of them had dreamed of this exact moment.

Emily pulled away first, and his lips chased after her, hungry for more. She stopped him, needing to breathe, by placing her forehead on his and laughing breathily.

“Is this close enough?”

Rosie made a gurgling noise, and JJ’s face brightened. “Hey, hun! Ready to eat?” 

She grabbed the jar of food and the small spoon and held a scoop out to her daughter. Emily snorted as the baby turned away from it, with the air of a renowned food critic finding a meal not to her taste.

“Open wide! Come on, eat your dinner!” JJ’s coo barely coated her frustration

“It probably tastes awful.”

JJ scoffed. “It doesn’t-” she interrupted herself and looked at the brown mush with a slight frown. “Okay, I’ll give her that. It is pretty bad. But it’s good for you!” Her voice sweetened at the last sentence in an attempt to appeal to Rosie.

The baby wasn’t impressed.

Sensing her wife’s frustration, Emily moved over and ran her fingers through their daughter’s hair. “Hey, honey. If Mommy promises to eat one bite, will you eat your dinner?” Then, with a show of telling Rosie a secret, she bent down and whispered, “Don’t tell her I said this, but she’s kind of hot when she’s mad.” “I hate you. Don’t taint her mind like that.” 

“She’s seven months old! You think she understands what I’m saying?” JJ ignored her, turning back to the child. She knocked some of the food already in the spoon back into the jar and held up the remaining for Rosie to see. With an incredibly fake looking smile, she put the spoon in her mouth.

“See? Yummy! Chicken and gravy! So good!” 

Rosie seemed appeased, but JJ turned her face away for a moment and blanched. Emily laughed and sat back down, watching her two girls affectionately.

“Want a bite?” The blonde held another spoonful out, and, this time, Rosie took it.

“Thank god,” she sighed.

Emily shrugged. “I was having fun.”

JJ rolled her eyes and smiled brightly at Rosie as she opened her mouth for another scoop. “Of course you were- you relish in chaos.”

“Putting that on my business card, thank you very much.”

JJ held the jar in front of her face and put it back down to get another spoonful. “Only two more bites! You’re doing so good!”

Rosie gave a single-toothed grin at the praise and ate the scoop JJ held out for her.

“You’re really losing your touch, Jareau,” Emily teased. “No theatrics? No fancy gimmick? I can’t believe this. No wonder Ro didn’t want to eat it.”

“You are really, truly, the worst,” she replied through a smile as the last of the baby food was eaten. 

Rosie opened her mouth for more, but Emily shook her head. “Sorry, babe. That’s all you get.” She swept the little girl out of the chair and was handed a pacifier.

“I have a couple of calls I need to take, can you put her to bed?” 

After forty minutes of struggle and the formation of an aching pain between Emily’s eyes, Rosie was finally changed, bathed, and dressed. They were standing over the crib in the nursery lovingly decorated by Morgan and Penelope. Well, mainly Morgan. Penelope just told him where to put everything.

“Hey, it’s my favorite time of the day! Bedtime!” Emily told her daughter as she placed her in the crib. Rosie was not as enthused and began to wail. “Oh, no, no, no, it’s okay. You’re okay.” The baby wailed even louder as Emily picked her back up. Grabbing a pacifier from the dresser, she cradled her to her shoulder, rubbing her back soothingly. She rocked gently, praying the gentle movement will cease the crying.

It did not. “Come on, Ro. It’s okay,” Emily said as the crying grew louder. She winced slightly as the pain in her head grew. 

“Do you want me to sing? That always works when JJ does it.” Emily was struck with the horrifying fact that she did not know any nursery rhymes. “Uh- Hush little baby, don’t say a word. Mommy has a headache and your crying hurts.” The sound of JJ cackling came from down the hall. “Are you guilt tripping our daughter into falling asleep?”

Emily leaned her head onto Rosie’s slightly and shushed her. “Nothing else is working.” “Didn’t you just say that she wasn’t old enough to understand what we were saying?” “Shut up,” Emily snapped, but there was no real menace behind her words.

JJ smiled and held her arms out. “I can take her if you want.” “Rosie, it’s okay, baby,” Emily patted her back gently again and shook her head. “No, it’s okay. You struggled to feed her, I’ll struggle to get her to sleep.” “Okay, but I did not struggle to feed her!” Emily laughed lightly. “You had to eat the food for her to even think about it!”

“That’s fair enough, but I entirely blame you. You suggested it to her.” “Hey. ‘She doesn’t understand us,’ remember?”

Caught up in their back-and-forth, neither of them noticed the disappearance of the wailing. JJ shook her head and leaned into the doorframe. “She’s smart, she knows what she’s doing.” “Then she’d be a Spencer Reid type-a kid if she understood something like that.” “Why wouldn’t we want a kid as smart as Spence?”

Emily raised her eyebrows. “I love that kid, I really do. But the world doesn’t need more than one of him. Isn’t that right, Ro? Oh.” She stopped rocking as she finally took in the silence of the room.

Their eyes met over the top of a wispy head of hair, and they moved in unison. JJ turned off the lights as Emily gently placed the sleeping baby into the crib and turned on the baby monitor. She shot her wife a look as she came to stand next to her in the doorway.

“Nice job, you bored her to sleep,” she whispered to the blonde, who was staring trance-like at the sleeping form of their daughter.

“I remember when Henry was this age. I cried and cried when he wanted to feed himself and he was old enough to know when it was bedtime,” she smiled slightly and looked at the woman beside her. “Is it wrong for me to wish that they never grow up and I can keep my baby forever?”