what she looked like — aaron hotchner x reader (part two of two)
summary they came home from New York and Aaron went back to normal. she didn't. and by the time he noticed, most of her things were already gone.
prompt – part two, distancing, insecurity, garcia, aaron genuinely convinced she's leaving, hopeful ending
warnings – angst, body image, insecurity, emotional distance, aaron terrified
word count – ~5k
note – "i'd rather you said it than i came home one day and there was nothing left" stop it right now I really hope you all like it :)
He went back to normal the moment they landed.
That was the thing. That was the part that made everything harder and easier at the same time — the way Aaron Hotchner stepped off a jet from New York and went back to being the version of himself she knew. The hand at her back in the parking lot. The quiet you okayin the car. The way he looked at her at a red light like she was the most interesting thing in his immediate vicinity.
Said yes and fine and tired, just tired and let him touch the small of her back and told herself it was nothing. The case. Four days of pressure. A woman who looked like his ex wife and a hotel bathroom at eleven pm and all of it catalogued under things that felt significant at the time and weren't.
She told herself that for approximately forty eight hours.
Then she started moving her things.
A cardigan from his armchair. Her dry shampoo from his bathroom cabinet. The book from his nightstand. The spare charger from his kitchen drawer.
She told herself she was tidying. Being practical. Taking up less space in a life that hadn't asked for all of her.
She knew it wasn't tidying.
The photograph stayed on the bookshelf. She wasn't ready for that one yet.
He made her favourite dinner on Wednesday.
She came over after work — the rhythm of their week, the domestic pattern of a year together — and the smell hit her in the hallway and she stood there with her keys in her hand and thought about New York. About the almost smile. About eleven minutes on a phone call she hadn't been part of. About Kate Joyner's blonde hair in the field office lighting.
She walked into the kitchen. Smiled.
Ate the dinner. Said the right things. Left at ten with a reason she'd manufactured on the drive over.
He didn't say anything about it.
"I can't," she said. "I have a thing."
He looked at her. The almost-profiler look — the one he tried not to fully deploy on her.
"A call," she said. "Garcia needs something."
"Garcia can wait thirty minutes."
"It's fine. I'll grab something from the cafeteria."
He held her gaze. She held it back with the composure of someone who had been practising.
She went back to her desk and ate a granola bar and stared at her screen and told herself she was being careful. Practical. Less of a weight.
Garcia found her on Friday.
Not in her office — in the bathroom on the third floor, the one nobody used, which was why she'd chosen it. She was standing at the sink doing absolutely nothing except staring at her own reflection when the door opened and Garcia came in and looked at her and immediately looked concerned.
She hadn't planned to cry. She hadn't cried since New York — had been very specifically not crying since New York — and the combination of Garcia's voice and the bathroom light and a week of carrying something alone made it happen before she could stop it.
Garcia crossed the room and put her arms around her immediately. No questions. The specific warmth of someone who led with love and asked later.
She stood there and cried into Garcia's shoulder and didn't say anything for a while.
"Okay," Garcia said eventually. Soft. "Okay. What happened."
"New York," she said. Into Garcia's shoulder. "Something happened in New York."
"No." She pulled back. Wiped her face. "Not — no. Not like that. He just—" she stopped. Found the words. "He didn't act like we were together the whole case. Not once. And I know the job, I know how he is when he's working, I know it wasn't intentional."
Garcia was looking at her with the expression that was pure empathy, no performance.
"But Kate didn't know," she said. "She was interested. You could see it. And he never gave her any reason to think there was something to stop. And I kept thinking—" she stopped. Her voice was doing the smaller thing. "JJ said she looked like Haley. In the elevator. Before we'd even gotten inside."
Garcia's expression shifted. "Oh."
"She didn't know I was behind her."
"And then I was in the hotel bathroom looking at myself and I just—" she pressed her lips together. "I've gained weight. Since we started. And I kept looking at myself and thinking about Haley and Kate and what they looked like and what I look like now and whether—"
Garcia reached out and took both her hands.
"Whether he wanted someone more like them," she said. Quietly. Just the fact. "Whether I was something different that worked for a while and now there was someone familiar and I was—" she stopped again. "Replaceable."
Garcia squeezed her hands very hard.
"You listen to me," Garcia said. "You are not replaceable. You are not a phase. You are not—"
"I know," she said. "I know that's what you're going to say."
"I know it's probably true." She looked at their hands. "I just can't feel it right now. I keep taking my things from his apartment and I can't stop and I don't know what I'm going to do when there's nothing left to take."
Garcia was quiet for a moment.
"He called me this morning," Garcia said. Carefully. "He didn't say what was wrong. He just said you've been distant and he doesn't know how to reach you." A pause. "He sounded scared. I've never heard him sound scared. Not like that."
"If you're going to do something," Garcia said quietly. Not pressuring. Just honest. "Don't let him find out from an empty bookshelf."
She thought about the photograph.
He was waiting when she got there.
Not at her apartment — at his. She'd gone there without deciding to, the way her car went places when her brain wasn't fully in charge of the directions.
He opened the door before she knocked.
He'd been watching for her. She understood that immediately — the quality of someone who had been standing close to the door for a while.
He looked at her face. At her eyes, still slightly red from the bathroom.
The apartment was quiet. The photograph was still on the bookshelf. She looked at the gap beside it — where the other things had been, the small accumulation of a year that she'd been quietly dismantling.
He'd noticed. She could see it in his face — the specific expression of a man who had been walking around his own apartment cataloguing absences and hating what they suggested.
"Sit down," he said. Quiet.
She sat on the sofa. He sat across from her — not beside her, the deliberate distance of someone giving room — and looked at her with the expression that was doing everything at once.
"Tell me what I did," he said.
"Tell me what I did," he said again. Certain. The energy of a man who was done waiting.
"Is it the age gap?" he said. His voice was careful. Controlled in the way that meant it was costing him something. "Because if I've made you feel like—"
"Then is it me. Physically. Because I know I'm not—"
"I know I'm not what I was and if that's something that's changed for you—"
"Then what is it." His voice cracked slightly on it. Just slightly. Barely there. "Because you've been taking your things for a week and I've been watching my apartment get quieter every day and I—" he stopped. The jaw. The thing running underneath. "I found the space where the photograph was this morning."
"I put it in my bag," she admitted quietly. "I was going to — I don't know what I was going to do with it."
He looked at her for a long moment. Something in his face she'd never seen before — the specific expression of a man who had already arrived at a conclusion he didn't want and was bracing himself to have it confirmed.
"If you're going to break up with me," he said. Very quietly. Very controlled. The most controlled thing she'd ever heard him say. "Then do it. Please. Just — do it. Don't take one more thing and leave me trying to figure out when the last thing goes." His voice was steady but his eyes weren't. "I'd rather you said it than I came home one day and there was nothing left."
"I'm not asking you to stay if you don't want to," he said. Still quiet. Still controlled. Still the most unguarded she'd ever seen him. "I'm asking you to tell me. Because I can handle it. I can't handle — this. The disappearing. I can't—" he stopped. Pressed his lips together. "I've been going to sleep every night this week not knowing if tomorrow is the day there's nothing left and I—"
"I'm not breaking up with you," she said.
She looked at him. "I'm not. That's not — I wasn't. I don't want to break up with you."
He held her gaze. Reading. The profiler in him measuring the truth of it.
"Then tell me," he said. Barely above a whisper now. "Please. Tell me what this is."
She looked at him across the coffee table. At the jaw, the careful expression, the contained fear of a man who had been walking around a quiet apartment counting absences and terrifying himself with what they meant.
"JJ said something in the elevator," she said. "In New York. Before we got inside."
"She said Kate looked like Haley." She held his gaze. "I was standing behind her."
"And then the whole case—" she stopped. Found the thread. "You didn't act like we were together. I know the job. I know how you are when you're in it. I'm not — I know it wasn't deliberate." She paused. "But Kate didn't know. She was interested and you never gave her any reason to think there was something to stop and I kept thinking — if nobody there could tell, maybe that means something. Maybe it means I'm not—"
"And then I was in the hotel bathroom at eleven pm looking at myself and I—" her voice went somewhere smaller. "I've gained weight. Since we started. And I kept looking at myself and thinking about what Haley looked like. What Kate looked like. Both of them so — and then there's me. And the eleven years. And maybe what you wanted was someone like them and I was just something different for a while and now there's someone familiar and I'm—"
Pressed her lips together.
"Replaceable," she said. Quiet. Just the word.
The apartment was very still.
He stood up. Crossed to the sofa. Sat beside her — close, the way he sat when proximity was the point — and took her face in both hands the way he always took her face. The hold she'd memorised. The careful deliberate touch that was both of them and nothing else.
"In New York I was in it," he said. Quiet. Certain. "Fully in it. And I didn't do the things I should have done and I am sorry. I should have been there. Even in the case. I should have been there." His thumbs moved across her cheekbones. "Kate is a colleague. That is all she is. That is all she has ever been."
"And you—" he stopped. Something moving across his face. The unguarded version, the one the BAU never saw. "You are not a version of anyone. You are not a phase. You are not something I chose because you were different and you're not something I'm going to put down when something familiar comes along." He held her gaze with the full weight of it. "You are the thing I come home for. You have been for a year. Do you understand that?"
Her throat was doing the thing.
"The weight—" she started.
"Don't," he said. Gently. Firmly. "Don't."
"I have never once—" he stopped. His jaw moved. "I have never once looked at you and seen something to compare to anything else. I look at you and I see you." He held her face. "That's it. That's the whole thing."
She looked at him for a long moment.
The thing in her chest that had been sitting there since the elevator in New York — since JJ's sentence, since the hotel bathroom mirror, since eleven minutes on a phone call and an almost smile that wasn't for her — she felt it shift. Not gone. But smaller. The specific way things got smaller when someone you trusted looked at you and said something real.
"Go get the photograph," he said quietly.
"Go get it," he said again. Quiet. Certain. The tone that closed subjects.
She reached into her bag.
Put the photograph back in the space where it had been.
She stood there looking at it for a moment — them at Rossi's dinner, her laughing, him looking at her with the expression she'd been falling for since before she had words for it.
His arms came around her from behind. His chin on her shoulder. Both of them looking at the photograph.
"Don't take your things," he said. Into her shoulder.
His grip tightened. The way he held things when he'd been close to losing them and was recalibrating around the fact that he hadn't.
"And next time," he said quietly. "You tell me. Even in a case. Especially in a case." A pause. "You are always the exception."
She put her hands over his where they were crossed at her waist.
Outside it was dark. The apartment was warm. The photograph was back on the shelf.
