#tgos

Emily met you with a fresh coffee, made perfectly, and a sorrowful smile as you stepped out of the elevator on Monday morning.

“I shouldn’t have pushed you so much at lunch yesterday,” She sighed as she walked with you through the glass doors and into the BAU bullpen. You shrugged with a soft, forgiving grin as you raised the coffee cup to your lips, savouring the taste of the first few swigs.

“Don’t worry about it,” You giggled, nudging her with your elbow. She returned the grin and sat down at her desk, opposite yours. “But I appreciate the sucking-up coffee,” You teased, taking another hearty gulp of the drink.

“...Yo, where’s mine?”

You both turned your heads to Derek as he sat down at his desk with a joking smirk on his face.

“Did I upset you yesterday?” Emily asked him and his face dropped a little, becoming more serious and sincere within seconds.

“What? No,” He said. “Why? What did you do?”

You bit back a smile as you watched Derek’s face twist from concern to complete bewilderment, as Emily stared at him with an expressionless face.

“Emily, what’s going on?”

Emily’s teeth shined as she finally caved in and laughed, with her head tilting back slightly as her throaty cackle filled the air.

“Then I don’t need to buy you a coffee,” She muttered with a chuckle as she looked down at the file on her desk.

“Wh--?” Derek huffed. He glanced at you, but your head was also bowed down with your eyes engrossed in the papers on your own desk.

“Women,” Derek mumbled, shaking his head at Reid. Reid stared blankly at him for a moment, before shrugging - obviously missing the entire last five minutes to a thick book on his desk.

At midday, you snapped a file full of paperwork shut and stood up, allowing your legs to stretch before making your way over to Hotch’s office. The door was ajar so you pushed it open softly, finding Hotch on the phone at his desk with a serious expression. The kind of expression that was reserved for cases.

“Did you raise an amber alert?”

You silently cursed. An amber alert meant a missing kid, and you hadn’t worked a case involving kids yet. The last two years had been everything from teenage budding psychopaths to serials, but no missing or harmed kids. The youngest victim that you’d come across so far had been seventeen.

You stepped into his office, your feet soft and quiet on the floor as you stood in front of his desk. He glanced up at you through his eyelashes, the phone pushed to his ear by his shoulder as he motioned for you to set the file in your hands down onto the desk.

“We’re on our way,”

He ended the call and stared at you, searching your face for any tell tale signs of worry because he knew. He knew that this was this case which was going to cut you deep the most and the vow that he made two years ago echoed into his mind. He was really going to keep an eye on you for these next few days.

“How?” You asked, but it came out as a whisper. You cleared your throat. “How old?”

“Two,”

There it was. A similarity. Something that you could relate to, but not for the best reasons. You nodded slowly, closing your eyes for a brief second to compose yourself.

“Shall I call everyone into the briefing room?”

“Yeah,” Hotch nodded, still keeping his eyes focused on you as you turned to leave the office. “L/N...Y/N, before you go…”

You paused beside the door, watching him over your shoulder.

“I’m fine,” You exclaimed, but Hotch shook his head.

“No, not that. I’m sorry that I overreacted yesterday,”

“Don’t worry about it,” You managed a small smile, before leaving the office and allowing your face to drop into a mixture of panic and worry.

You hadn’t been in Iowa City for longer than an hour when your phone started to buzz in your pocket. Apologising to Hotch and JJ, who were about to enter the police department, you stepped aside the door and leaned against the wall, accepting the call.

“Hey, angel,” Garcia’s voice soothed over the phone speaker. You instantly felt a little calmer.

“Hey, you,”

“This case is gonna be hard on you, huh?”

“...yeah,” You sighed.

“Well, honey, if you need to talk, you know my number,”

“Thanks, Penny,” You said, sincerely, as you ended the call and took in a deep breath before briskly entering the police department.

The case was difficult. Extremely difficult.

As JJ had briefed the team in the conference room before you left, Abigail Taylor had been missing for three hours. She was two years old, with brown eyes and the same hair colour as you. She was last seen wearing a long sleeved lilac shirt, blue jeans and white sneakers.

However, the Iowa City PD knew that her father had taken her. Ian Taylor had picked his daughter up from her mother’s house at 10am, as per usual to their custody agreement, to take Abigail out for the day. Ten minutes after Ian had left, he had left a voicemail on Abigail’s mother’s phone - only one sentence, less than ten seconds long, but Abigail’s mother had called the cops as soon as she heard it and, due to Ian Taylor’s history, the BAU had been called to assist.

You tried your best to hold back the tears as the voicemail played in the conference room.

“Remember Michael Miller? You’ll never see Abigail again,”

“Michael Miller?” Emily had asked when the voicemail ended.

“Michael Miller was a man from Des Moines who killed himself and his son when his ex-wife started dating a new guy,” Reid said, matter of factly, as he pushed his glasses further up on his nose.

“Ian Taylor’s mental stability has been going downbank for the last few years. We need to figure out where he’s taking her,”

Hotch, true to his personal vow, had barely taken his eyes away from you since arriving at the Police Department. He watched you intently, noticing how rigid your shoulders were as your eyes scanned the files in front of you, reading up on Ian Taylor’s background.

JJ was just outside the conference room in the PD, trying to comfort Abigail’s mother, Tracy, but all the woman could do was lean forward and hold her hair in her fists, pulling it at it tightly in fear. She’d already got a small bald patch near her left temple from ripping her hair out at the root.

“This guy has some issues,” Morgan mumbled as he threw a file into the middle of the table. “He has a restraining order against him since 2005 from his first wife - he said that he’d kill himself if she didn’t take him back,”

“Well, according to the detective, Tracy Taylor was going to file a restraining order too for stalking, but decided against it so Abigail wouldn’t lose out on seeing her father,” Emily commented. “And Tracy refused to press charges when he assaulted her a month ago,”

You’d stopped reading the file and your eyes stared at the board in front of you, with the photo of Abigail hung neatly. You stared at it for so long that the image was swaying in front of your eyes, the colours blurring into one, until a black suit covered her up.

“L/N?” Hotch asked, his voice soft which caught the attention of the team. You blinked a couple of times, before looking up at his face.

“This isn’t about Abigail,” You mumbled. “None of this is about Abigail - she’s just a weapon that he’s using. Everything is focused around Tracy. He’s pissed that she’s moved on,”

The team stayed silent as you stood up, slowly walking over to the board. Next to Abigail’s photo was Tracy’s and your eyes focused on it.

“Ian stalked her, assaulted her, but Tracy didn’t press charges. She refused to let it affect her. So he took Abigail as the only way to hurt Tracy,”

“Prentiss, interview Tracy Taylor with JJ. Write down locations that were significant within her and Ian’s relationship, he may be revisiting old memories with her,”

Emily left the room with a nod. You remained in front of the board, piecing together bits of information in your mind as you stared at Tracy’s photo.

Your eyes narrowed as a question crossed your mind, and you turned back towards the table, leaning over to dial Garcia’s number into the phone. Hotch’s gaze was burning into you.

“Information superhighway at your service, my fluffy duckling,”

“Hey Pen,” You greeted.

“What do you need, sugar?”

“Ian Taylor’s bank activity,”

“Ah, no luck, my love. His account’s been untouched for three days,”

“No, I’m not interested in outgoing transactions,”

Morgan raised an eyebrow as he watched you.

“What do you want me to look for?” Garcia asked.

“Incoming transactions. There’ll be someone who sends cash to him, it’ll be a regular thing,”

“Okay...erm..let me--woah,”

“What?”

“You’re right. There’s an account than sends him ten thousand dollars every month,”

“Who’s the account registered to, Penny?”

“Simon Taylor,”

Reid and Rossi rushed off to interview Ian’s father, Simon, leaving Morgan, Hotch and you behind. JJ and Emily were still interviewing Tracy, Morgan was leaning back in his chair throwing a ball of paper in the air as he thought, and Hotch was sitting at the head of the table with his eyes completely focused on you.

He was silently begging to know what was going on in your mind right now - what you were thinking, how you were feeling - and, if Morgan hadn't have been in the room, he’d have sat down next to you to take stock of you. But he was reduced to just watching you, to try and figure out your brain on his own, as you zoned out to try and piece together parts of Ian Taylor.

His father regularly sent him money. He couldn’t hold down a steady job with his mental instability, so someone had to be looking after him, and chances were that Simon Taylor would do anything to protect his son. Maybe even help him to avoid the cops and the FBI.

Reid and Rossi returned half an hour later with Simon Taylor walking closely behind them.

“He says that he knows nothing, but we’re keeping him here so he can’t help to hide Abigail and Ian,”

Your gaze landed on the photo of Abigail once again. You studied her face, her eyes, her smile - her bright, innocent smile that brought you back to the night before your third birthday. The night that you saw the spilled paint on the floor of the living room and you rubbed your hands in it, creating a mural of red handprints over the white walls of your house...then seeing your Mom covered in paint and your father holding a knife covered in paint, too. Why did Daddy paint with a knife? You use a brush! You shuddered as the memory faded.

“She’s just a baby,” You murmured. “She’s just a fucking baby,” Your voice raised a little louder as you stood up from your seat.

“L/N?” Rossi asked gently, but you shook your head at him. You walked over to the door of the conference room, yanking it open and shooting a glance to Hotch over your shoulder.

“Can you watch?”

Hotch nodded, wordless, as he followed you out of the door. You entered the interrogation room alone, Hotch watching from the other side of the glass.

Calmly, you sat down in front of Simon, watching him for a few seconds before you decided to speak. You understood him like the back of your hand within those few seconds. Rich, cold, calculating. A disconnect to the world that existed outside of the compounds of his family and his own comfort - but a strong protective aura radiated from him and you knew that it only concerned his son.

“Your son is planning to commit suicide,” You said, matter of factly. Simon, on the surface, appeared unsurprised and expressionless, but you saw a flicker of something fearful in his eyes. Maybe this time, his son will actually go through with it. Maybe this will be the day that he will lose his son.

“It wouldn’t be the first time, Miss…?”

“L/N. Agent L/N,”

“Agent L/N,” Simon’s eyebrows raised at your correction, as if he was shocked that you had dared to correct him, but he kept his face in that same expressionless stare.

“He’s going to kill himself and your granddaughter in his car,”

Simon watched you and, although his face remained calm, the nail on his right index finger had slowly begun to scratch the top of the table.

“Ian Taylor will poison himself and his daughter in his car. Do you know what happens when you breathe in too much carbon monoxide?”

Simon remained silent, although his back straightened up and he leaned forward - only by a mere few centimetres but a tell of interest nonetheless.

“When you inhale carbon monoxide, it combines with haemoglobin which formulates carboxyhemoglobin. This reduces the flow of oxygen. It causes seizures and, eventually, death,”

You leaned forward towards him, your eyes staring directly into his without so much as a waver.

“Your son, your precious flesh and blood, and your two-year old innocent granddaughter will slowly stop breathing. Their lungs will burn, they’ll throw up, they’ll barely be able to move. The blood vessels in their eyes will burst open. They’ll be unable to stop the process...and they’ll die,”

Simon gulped.

“At first, it’ll feel like they’ve got the flu. But then when they start convulsing and your son becomes terrified and wants to change his mind, he’ll be too weak to stop the carbon monoxide,”

You paused.

“Your grand-daughter will never go to school. She’ll never learn how to read. She’ll never live her life the way that we hope our children and our grand-children will live. She will never reach her third birthday. Why?”

“I don’t know,” Simon choked out. He closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them, they were glassy and remorseful.

“You know something, though, don’t you, Mr Taylor?”

“I saw them at midday. Ian came to the house with Abi, he said his car had broken down and that he needed to take my old land rover,”

“We need the license plate,”

“I didn’t see the news until after he’d left, but it made no sense. I thought it was Tracy being dramatic - trying to set Ian off or something,” He sniffed. For a moment, he stared at the table before giving you a pointed look, the tears quickly evaporating from the waterlines of his eyes. “How do you know what he’s planning?”

“He left Tracy a voicemail,”

“What? A voicemail? Can I hear it? You might have got this all wrong, you know. My son would never hurt his daughter,”

“The plate, Mr Taylor,” You said as you grabbed a small notepad and a pen from the inside pocket of your jacket, sliding them across the table to him. Simon scribbled the digits down and slid the paper back towards you. You left without another word, Hotch following quickly behind you as you flopped the notepad onto the desk in the conference room.

“Ian’s switched vehicles. Put an APB out on this plate and call Garcia,” Hotch commanded. Morgan grabbed the paper and left the room, his phone already dialling Garcia’s number.

-----

angel list [taglist form not applicable to this fic, please message me to be tagged]

The sun streamed through the park, flecks of gold glinting through the bare branches of the winter trees, casting a warm hue over the barren bark. Hotch had already begun a warm-up jog around the park, the sound of his breath and the rhythm of his steps draining out the voice in his head, telling him that this was a bad idea.

He hadn’t allowed himself to think about Beth, but now he had to. He couldn’t ignore last night anymore - he’d had to stop himself from kissing you. Twice. He was not the kind of man to string a woman along, but he did have feelings for Beth. Sure, they weren’t a patch on the pining he felt for you, especially as he spotted you jogging over to him with a shy smile on your face, but they were there.

“Morning,” Hotch said softly as you both slowed your jogs to stand face to face. The blood had begun rushing through your body and you had a sneaky feeling it wasn’t just the exercise making your heart rate increase. Your cheeks felt warm, which you blamed on the cold Virginia air, although in another life you may have admitted that it was caused by seeing Hotch smile at you like he did two years ago.

“Morning,” You said warmly.

You both took off for a few laps of jogging and then finished with a sprint. As you both leaned over, panting, Hotch began chuckling.

“What?” You gasped out, and Hotch shook his head, but that adorable smile was still lingering on his lips.

“I’m surprised you didn’t challenge me to a race,”

You burst out laughing, the sound coming out a little strangled from your lack of oxygen. “What, so you could lose again?”

“Hey! I didn’t lose every time,” He countered with a grin. “Maybe I was just letting you win,”

“Sure you were, Hotchy,”

The nickname came out as natural as anything, but it caused both of you to freeze up for a second as you stared at each other.

Hotch had missed hearing that, far more than he’d ever realised...and you? You couldn’t believe that the nickname had just slipped out like that, like nothing had ever happened - like you hadn’t just spent the last two years avoiding him. Was it normal for things to slide back into place so beautifully?

“Coffee?” He asked, his voice straining a little and he tried to hide it by clearing his throat. You nodded, still a little breathless but this time you admitted to yourself that your lack of breath was caused by seeing him covered in sweat.

The cafe was so warm compared to outside, and Hotch motioned for you to grab a table whilst he ordered the drinks. You grabbed a small table in the window and flopped down into a seat, awarding Hotch with a dazzling smile as he brought two steaming mugs towards you.

You weren’t expecting him to forget your order, but the fact that he still remembered it brought a little more heat into your cheeks.

“How’s Jack?” You asked after you took your first sip of your drink. Hotch smiled broadly at the mention of his son, his eyes coming to life.

“He’s doing great! I can’t believe he’s turning six this year,”

“Really? He’s growing up so quickly,”

“I know,”

“Come on, Hotchy. I know you’ve got a recent photo of him,”

Aaron smiled to himself as he grabbed his phone from his pocket, unlocking it and showing you a photo of Jack taken last October, on his fifth birthday. You grinned and fawned over the photo, giggling at how cute he looked whilst he was cuddling what looked to be a new toy, and Aaron’s heart swelled as he watched you.

“He asks about you sometimes,” Hotch admitted, and your eyes snapped from the phone to his face in surprise. You handed the phone back to him, still maintaining eye-contact.

“He does?”

“Yeah. He wears the keychain on his backpack to school,”

“Bless his heart, that’s so sweet,”

“I know,” Aaron smiled. “He used to ask how you were on a weekly basis. He hasn’t asked a whole lot since…” He trailed off, internally wincing at the realisation that Beth was also in the heart of his son.

“Since Beth,” You said, and you smiled reassuringly, although it felt sickly. “I’m glad you found someone. You don’t look hurt anymore,”

“I don’t?”

“No,” You hummed. “You look completely different to the man I met. I’m just happy for you... that you moved on,”

“I’m not sure if I did,” Hotch whispered, more to himself than to you, but you caught it.

“You haven’t moved on from Haley?” You asked, your eyebrows furrowing, but the familiar sight of a brunette woman approaching your table with a grin on her face stole your gaze away from Hotch.

“Not Haley,”

“Surprise!” Beth chirped as she stopped beside Hotch, and he stood up to kiss her lips softly, holding her in a warm embrace.

“What are you doing here?” Hotch asked her. The small smile that he had on his face, the one that you knew was reserved especially for her, made your stomach turn.

“I managed to get the weekend off and I wanted to surprise you,” She said, pecking his lips. She turned towards you and gave you a warm smile. “Y/N, right?”

“Yeah. Hey, Beth,” You gulped, hoping that she wouldn’t detect the annoyance within the fake grin that you’d plastered onto your face.

“It’s a good job that he sticks to his routines. I didn’t have to call his house first, he’s here every Saturday morning,” Beth giggled. You tried to keep your jaw fixed in place but you felt it slacken slightly as Hotch cast a guilty glance towards you.

“It’s a nice place,” He mumbled softly, and Beth giggled.

“I’m just gonna grab a coffee and see if I can get another chair,” She smiled, but you shook your head and stood up, offering her yours.

“It’s okay, I’m heading back now,”

“What? Are you sure? I don’t want to interrupt you both,”

Well, you already have, Beth, you thought - but, damn it, you couldn’t hate her. She was too nice.

‘No, no, it’s okay! You enjoy your time together!” You smiled. “Catch you later, Hotch,”

Hotch watched you leave, wishing that he could have found a way to tell you that he’d only visited the cafe every Saturday just in case you had ever decided to turn up after a jog. He’d have found a way to invite you to sit down with him, talk about Wyoming, hear that you’d broken up with Jamie. He’d sort of gotten that today - you’d sat down with him, but you’d never dated Jamie in the first place and Hotch was in a relationship now.

But he’d still go to the cafe every Saturday. Just in case.

You welcomed the brisk wind that clawed at your burning cheeks as you walked back to your apartment, head full of emotions and thoughts. You partially blamed Emily for how stupid you felt right now - she was the one who’d put it into your head that Hotch could have had feelings for you, and you found your fingers dialling her number the minute that you set foot into your home.

“It’s eight-thirty on a Saturday morning, L/N,”

“Exactly. It’s far too fucking early to be freaking out like this,” You burst out, and you could literally imagine Emily’s brows furrowing at you right now.

“What’s happened?”

“Hotch called,”

“I knew he would,” Emily chuckled. “So...?”

“We went for a jog. We went to the cafe,”

“Like you used to, yes…?” You could hear the excitement in Emily’s voice and you needed to shut it down.

“Beth turned up,”

Emily was silent for a moment.

“You’re kidding,”

“I’m not. Surprise weekend off,”

“Shit,”

“I know, Em. One minute, everything feels great and I’m looking at a photo of Jack, then I’m telling Hotch that I”m glad he’s happy and moved on--”

“Why would you say that?”

You paid no attention to her question as you carried on ranting.

“--then he tells me that he’s not sure that he’s moved on, and then I’m trying to comfort him about missing Haley but he said he wasn’t talking about Haley, and then poof! Beth waltzes in all happy as shit, kissing him and he’s smiling at her and---”

“Y/N! Stop, stop! Stop,”

You immediately shut up, your chest rising and falling quickly as you catch your breath.

“Let’s rewind. He said that he wasn’t sure if he’d moved on?’

“Yeah,” You mumbled. “But he said he wasn’t talking about Haley so I have no idea what he was talking about,”

“Oh my God. It’s you! He was talking about you, Y/N!” Emily exclaimed. Your fingers held your phone tightly as you processed what she’d said, blinking several times in shock.

“What?”

“For a profiler, you’re dumb,” She scoffed, chuckling.

“But...but...but we weren’t even a thing, Em. We were nothing, it was just a kiss and then a huge misunderstanding afterwards - how can it be me?” You chuntered, feeling flustered as you rubbed your forehead.

“You don’t need to be a thing. You don’t need to be with someone to fall in love with them, Y/N,”

“I know that,”

“So…?” Emily encouraged you, but you stayed silent. She sighed. “So he fell in love with you and he’s not sure if he’s moved on from that,”

“That’s crazy,” You coughed. “It’s not me. He didn’t fall in love with me in Wyoming,” You began to laugh at the stupidity of Emily’s claim.

“Get dressed. We’re going out for lunch,” Emily changed the subject.

“Fine,” You huffed.

“You’re right, by the way,” Emily smiled. “He fell in love with you way before Wyoming...Be ready by 11,”

-----

angel list - please message me to be tagged in this story as my taglist doesn't include this fic

You had time to call home before you were supposed to be meeting everyone at Billy’s bar. You stared at the clothes in your closet until they were just blurs of fabric, your mind racing into overdrive.

“Pen, help me,” You started a snapchat video, going through some possible outfits and sending it to Penelope. Your phone dinged a minute later.

‘The jeans and the halter top!!’

Penelope was right, of course, as you slipped the clothes over your body and stared in the mirror at the way they hung over you, showing off your figure comfortably. You fixed your hair and rushed out of the door, grabbing a leather jacket on the way out.

Billy’s was busy when you arrived. Everyone was already inside, and you made your way over to the booth they’d claimed with a big smile on your face. The team welcomed you, and you could have sworn that Hotch’s eyes lingered over your chest just a little too long to be a glance, but you ignored that familiar knotting feeling as you sat down next to Emily. You gave her a warm smile as she handed you a drink.

“Not that I’m complaining,” Morgan took a gulp of his drink. “But why are we out tonight?”

“Call it team bonding,” Emily winked, and you giggled as discreetly as you could. You all lifted your glasses for a cheer, clinking them in the middle of the table until you felt a hand on your shoulder.

Hotch couldn’t drag his eyes away from you. He had no idea why the feeling was coming on so much stronger than it had before - maybe it was the jacking off every night - but he couldn’t peel his gaze from your chest, your lips, your eyes. Every part of you, his eyes has wandered over it. Then a storm crashed straight over his head as he spotted Jamie appearing behind you.

His brain told him to get up and walk out, but he was trapped in the booth. He smiled through gritted teeth.

“Jamie!” You smiled, standing up to give the man a huge hug. Alec walked over from the bar and you enveloped him in a hug too, trying to keep your breathing under control. Here it was - the truth was about to stare Aaron Hotchner directly in the face. It was too late to run now.

“Hi everyone,” Jamie smiled at the team, before grabbing Alec’s hand. “This is my boyfriend Alec! Alec, this is the BAU team from the FBI,”

“Ah! You all work with Y/N! It’s great to meet you!”

Hotch’s mouth turned dry like sandpaper.

Alec. Boyfriend. Jamie’s boyfriend.

“That’s so cute!” Penelope smiled at them both. She shot you a glance before settling her eyes back onto Jamie. “How long have you two been together?”

“Four years,” Jamie grinned, and Alec kissed his cheek giddily.

You focused your eyes anywhere other than in Hotch’s direction.

Hotch could feel his jaw go slack. His eyes were wide.

Boyfriend. Four years.

You hadn’t dated him at all.

Wyoming.

Alec and Jamie squeezed around the table with the team, and they spent half an hour being their usual bubbly, comedic selves - telling the team stories of their lives with full theatrics, which brought giggles and chuckles to life until Morgan did a spit-take, soaking the side of your face with beer as he gasped for breath in between laughter.

“Oh. My. God,” You burst out, standing up. The beer dripped down your cheeks as you laughed, excusing yourself to the bathroom. Hotch was watching you from the bar as he waited to order a round, and decided to forget his turn as he snuck off into the crowd, following you.

A hand clasped your wrist just as you were about to enter the bathroom, and you spun around to find Hotch standing unusually close to you, his breath warm on your face as he towered over you.

“You didn’t tell me,” He muttered softly.

“I know,”

“I thought th--for two years I--” He cut himself off, the words unable to form a coherent sentence as he realised how close he was to you.

His mind wandered back to the night in Wyoming - the way you kissed him and held his jaw so tenderly, the way your lips moulded against his like you were made just for him. He could have had that. He could have had that all night.

You were thinking the same thing and you could swear that he could hear your heartbeat, smashing and banging out of your chest. The way he kissed you, the few seconds of pleasure before he pushed you away - you could have had that all night.

Both of you seemed to be thinking the exact same thing as the distance between you began to close slowly - inevitably, you’d hoped - but you both stopped mere centimeters away from touch, realising the same thing.

It couldn’t happen now.

“Shit,” You whispered, taking a step back and glancing down to the floor.

“I’m an idiot,” He sighed, taking a step back too and rubbing his eyes. He looked at you with a pained expression, and you imagined that your face mirrored his.

“I guess we draw a line under this now,” You bit your lip, and the simple action clouded Hotch’s judgement for a moment as his eyes darkened. He stepped forward again, holding the side of your neck tightly as his eyes searched yours before flicking down to your lips as he leaned in, feeling your shallow breaths huff against his mouth.

The group of drunk women pushing past you into the bathroom caught your attention and your face turned away slightly, breaking the entire moment. Hotch dropped his hand away from your skin and turned his back, walking back over to the bar. You rushed into the bathroom to dry off your face.

When Hotch went home that night, he could have kicked himself as he replayed the night over and over again in his mind. He didn’t even jack off like usual, how could he? All he could think about was how he’d jumped to a conclusion in Wyoming, and he’d moved on since without gaining any closure on what happened. Well...he was trying to convince himself that he’d moved on since.

His throat felt tight with guilt as the look on your face followed him when he closed his eyes - the look that you had when he told you that he regretted kissing you the morning after the fallout in the hotel room. He only regretted it because he didn’t want another man to be hurt by his actions, but that wasn’t even a possibility. Now, he only regretted shoving you away from him. That kiss? He wanted it again and again.

“Stupid,” He grunted to himself as he thought about Jamie and Alec, and how the way you’d been acting since the fallout was beginning to make sense. He’d guessed that you were the type to build a barrier when you felt betrayed, and his irrationality in Wyoming had caused a rift between you and the team, not just you and him.

Before he managed to fall asleep, he had a moment of clarity as he thought about New Years Eve - when he saw your sunshine again, even though his girlfriend was standing right in front of him. You could distance yourself all you wanted, but he would always see that light around you. No matter what.

--

The next morning, you woke up to find Emily snoring away on your couch, and you snapped a picture, grinning. You started the coffee machine and she woke up with a grunt, rubbing her eyes as she adjusted back to the realm of the living.

“Morning,” You chirped, only to be met with a pained scowl. Man, she really hated mornings.

“What happened with you and Hotch last night?” She asked, her voice croaking as she stood up to collect the hot coffee that you’d made for her.

“Nothing,” You shook your head, and Emily’s eyes narrowed at you over her mug.

“Come on, Y/N. You both disappeared after Morgan spat his drink on you,”

“Nothing happened, Em. Seriously. He couldn’t really say anything to me, but we just agreed to draw a line under everything,”

Emily’s eyes narrowed further.

“You’re leaving something out,”

“Nope,” You said, popping the ‘p’.

“You are. That’s your tell!”

“I do not have a tell,”

“We’re profilers. You have a tell, and that was it,”

“I say nope like that all the time!”

“Y/N,”

“Urgh, stop,”

“Y/N…”

“Shut up,” You grumbled, but Emily’s shit-eating grin infected you and you cast a smirk as you sipped on your drink. “I think he tried to kiss me,”

“What?!”

“Twice,”

“But…”

“Beth. I know,”

“He’s been with her for almost a year now,”

“I know, Em,”

Emily was silent as she drank her coffee, and your apartment stayed quiet until you’d both drained your coffee.

“Well. The ball is in his court, now,” Emily sighed, and you nodded. A moment passed before she curled her lip. “But let’s not tell Penelope about that part,”

“Agreed,” You nodded. “She has far too many plans for things like this,”

“She loves it,” Emily chuckled. “This is the first time that there’s been some kind of fraternizing drama since Rossi’s dating days,”

“Em! We’re not fraternizing,”

“Not yet,” She winked, and you shook your head, albeit with a smile, as you left her alone in the kitchen to take a shower.

Emily stayed at your place until around six p.m. Before she left, she held your hand gently.

“Can I ask you something?” She said, her face sympathetic and kind as she waited for your reaction.

“Sure,”

“Why didn’t you actually tell him that you weren’t dating Jamie?”

“I don’t even know anymore,” You sighed. “I didn’t really get a chance to in the hotel room, it was just such a switch of emotion,”

Emily nodded, watching you intently.

“...and then, the next morning...he said that he regretted kissing me. I just thought, like, what’s the point in telling him now? He already regrets it. It’ll make no difference. Then I thought about how he’d feel if I told him that he’d got it all wrong, and it was so stupid, but I didn’t want him to feel ashamed. You know? I didn’t want him to feel bad,”

“Everyone feels ashamed sometimes,”

“I know. I just wish I could stop it,”

“Why?”

The simple question caught you off-guard, and you stared at her open-mouthed, trying to find an answer.

“Why do you always want to fix everyone?” Emily pushed. You took a deep breath.

“I guess no-one fixed me. My mom, she...she wasn’t great. She was, for a while, but then--” You paused to try and push back the tears that had started to brim in your eyes. “But then she wasn’t, and I had to grow up quickly. Then when she died, my innocence died with her. I couldn’t fix her, and no one could fix me...so I try and fix everyone else,”

Emily nodded, and she gave you a warm hug as she allowed the conversation to end there.

---

Over the next month, things had really fallen back into place. Your relationships with the team had begun to form back into their concrete bonds. Spencer was the most difficult to bring round. His trust in you had chipped away slightly from your distance. You tried to bring the Wednesday night bonding sessions with him back into both of your schedules, and on the first Wednesday, you ended up spilling the entire story of Wyoming and Hotch. He listened intently, and didn’t pass any comment on the situation, but he offered you a small smile as you explained why your barriers came up. He understood, just as you’d known that he would - afterall, he did the same thing sometimes.

The following Wednesday, he took you to a bookstore that you’d never heard about and you spent three hours there, curled up in the reading corner, arguing about philosophy. Afterwards, you insisted on getting Thai take-out, and ended up staying the night at his place as you both sat on the couch, munching on the food and talking about anything and everything.

Spencer wasn’t much of a talker, but he’d always found comfort in you and enjoyed talking about random, niche subjects with someone who wanted to understand and learn from him. At the same time, he didn’t know everything, and he enjoyed hearing you talk about things in life that he hadn’t quite figured out yet.

You were extremely surprised to hear Hotch’s voice in your ear at 7am on the first Saturday of February.

When your phone rang, your mind settled straight into ‘agent mode’ as you answered it with sleep still in your eyes.

“Y/L/N,” You croaked.

“I’m sorry, did I wake you?”

You coughed as you sat upright in bed, feeling like a giddy teenager. You cursed mentally at yourself as you shook your head, before realising that he couldn’t see you through a phone call.

“No, it’s okay. What’s wrong? Is there a case?”

“No, no, there’s no case,”

“Oh,” You said, surprised. The phone went silent for a moment and so did you.

“Do you want to go for a run?” He asked, somewhat meekly, and your eyes felt like they were bulging out of their sockets.

“...yeah,” was all you could get out, and you quickly ended the call as you raced to find your exercise gear, knocking over several ornaments in your bedroom and nearly head-butting the bathroom door.

“It’s fine,” Hotch convinced himself in the mirror. “She’s just one of the team, just a friend. It’s fine,”

Was it really fine to feel butterflies at his age over going for a run with a woman whilst he was seriously dating someone else?

------

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