i’m hancy! i’m 33 34 35 old enough in body, but considerably rumpled in spirit. she/her biperson (they is also fine). i don’t create 18+ content, but i do reblog it! asks, likes, and replies come from hancydrew. this is my fanblog! here’s what i love:
criminal minds - i’m obsessed with emily prentiss, but also i’m in love with aaron hotchner. i ship hotchniss and hotchgan
law & order svu/oc - i have shipped bensler for basically my entire life. pls for the love of god get them together on the show, it has been EIGHT-FOUR YEARS
9-1-1 - literally everyone??? but i love chimney and maddie so much, and obvi i ship buddie
ER - have loved this show forever, will love this show forever. susan lewis is an icon, i will weep for the marsan that never was until i pass away. the early seasons 90s aesthetic is unparalleled!!
other things - the office, gilmore girls, csi:ny, the x-files, uhhh definitely other stuff but i can’t think of them right now lmao
i also dabble in fanfic sometimes! see what that’s about here.
did you make it this far? good! my asks are always open :)
When Emily looks up, and sees him in the mirror, she thinks she’s mistaken, that she’s seeing a ghost of her past instead of the person who is really standing there. She turns so quickly that it hurts her neck for a second, and her eyes go wide, a surprised laugh escaping her lungs as their eyes meet and she comes face to face with Aaron Hotchner for the first time in years.
AKA photos of Thomas Gibson doing Reformer Pilates were put on the internet, and it sent this writer's brain into overdrive.
-x-
Hi friends,
Now, when I started doing Reformer Pilates a couple of months back, did I think I'd be using what I learnt as plot for a Hotchniss smut fic? No.
Should I have given my track record?
Yes. And that's on me.
Anyway, as you might have seen, pictures of Thomas Gibson doing Reformer have popped up on the internet and, unsurprisingly, I couldn't help myself.
As always, let me know what you think <3
-x-
Warnings: 18+, smut
Words: 4.3k
Read over on Ao3, or below the cut
She hadn’t been to a Pilates class since her break-up with Andrew.
She wonders if that is why she feels strangely nervous as she walks into the studio, if something about it all reminds her of her ex and everything they’d once had. She tries to shake it off, tells herself this is different - that it’s Reformer Pilates, not Mat Pilates - and that she needed to do this.
It was Penelope who had gently pushed her into finding something to do just for her outside of work. Between Voit and all the bullshit that came with him, the loss of Will, and her kidnapping, Emily knew she was struggling. She was smoking more than she had in years and was eating most of her meals from takeout cartons in her office. After finding her all but falling asleep at her desk one evening, Penelope told her that she needed to change something, her smile kind but sad as she said they couldn’t lose her too.
“Besides,” she’d added, her smile coy, “Maybe you’ll meet a guy.”
As Emily walks into class to find she’s the second to last person to arrive, the room full of other women ranging from her age down to some in their 20s, she doubts that. A tall woman in a matching workout set walks over, her smile soft as she greets Emily.
“Hi, my name is Grace, and I’m the instructor today,” she says, her stature matching her name as she all but glides over. “What’s your name?”
“Emily.”
Grace nods as she ticks her off the list on her phone, and then she gestures to the remaining Reformers, “Just pick any bed. Is this your first class?” She asks, and Emily nods, “I’ll explain everything when everyone gets here.”
Emily looks at the Reformer, her eyes wide at the equipment that looked more like a torture device than anything else, and she sighs to herself. For someone who had spent so many years chasing death, she did enjoy the irony in what she was now doing to avoid it.
She slips off her shoes and leaves them in the corner with everyone else's and sits on the bed, exchanging a polite smile with the woman next to her. The door to the studio opens again, and Grace smiles.
“Aaron, you were cutting it fine,” she says, “I thought you weren’t going to make it.”
When Emily looks up, and sees him in the mirror, she thinks she’s mistaken, that she’s seeing a ghost of her past instead of the person who is really standing there. She turns so quickly that it hurts her neck for a second, and her eyes go wide, a surprised laugh escaping her lungs as their eyes meet and she comes face to face with Aaron Hotchner for the first time in years.
He looked good. He’d aged like a fine wine, salt and pepper flecks of grey throughout his hair, that was longer than it had ever been when she’d known him, and similar grey in the slight beard he had. The lines around his eyes were a little deeper than they used to be, but he looked relaxed, his smile a little easier than it had ever been.
A familiar twisting in her gut, and a matching fizz in her blood, has her mentally chastising herself for deciding to come bare-faced to the studio, leaving her wondering if he thought the years had been as kind to her as she thought they had been to him.
There had always been something between them. A static in the air that she knew he felt too, something that pulled them into each other in a way that left her breathless whenever she thought about it. Life had always got in the way. They’d been kept apart by circumstance and sadness and loss, and for a long time he’d always been her biggest what if. The thought of what could have been between them was something that kept her awake more nights than she’d care to admit, especially in recent months since Will’s sudden death. There was nothing quite like a loss that made you reassess what you had and what you wished you had.
And now he was standing right in front of her, looking irritatingly handsome in his t-shirt, gym shorts and pilates socks. Her only comfort is that he looks just as shocked to see her as she is to see him, his eyes not leaving hers as they continue to stare at each other
“Aaron?”
“Emily?”
They speak in unison, and for a moment it’s just them, everything else slipping away as they look at each other, both frozen to the spot, but then Grace clears her throat.
“You two know each other?” She says, “That’s cool,” she adds, nodding towards the one Reformer left free, the one on Emily’s right, “Come on, Aaron, we need to get started.
Emily looks at him again as he settles next to her, their eyes meeting as they both nod, a silent agreement that they’d talk when they were done.
She does her best to focus on the instructions Grace gives them, but as the class goes on, she keeps finding her gaze drifting to Aaron occasionally, fascinated by how good he is at this. It was obvious this wasn’t his first class, especially since the instructor knew him, but as she sees him effortlessly stay in tabletop as she feels the ache already settling into her core, she wonders just how often he’d come here.
How long had he been home without coming to see them?
Why hadn’t he called her?
When the class is over, Emily thanks Grace but keeps her eyes on Aaron. As much as she doesn’t think he’d slip out without saying goodbye, or even hello, she doesn’t want to risk it. He waits for her at the entrance to the studio, his hands in his pockets as he presses his lips together in a tight smile.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” she replies, chuckling disbelievingly as she shakes her head at him. “What are you doing here?”
He smiles at her, that same relaxed smile she’d seen when he walked in reflected in the mirror, and she doesn’t know what she wants to do more - punch him or kiss him
“In Pilates, or DC?” He asks, smiling politely at Grace as she walks past them, her curiosity obvious as she tries to pretend she isn’t watching them.
“Both.” Emily replies, “You…you never said you were back. You could have called”
His smile fades, guilt flashing in his eyes, and he nods, “There’s a coffee place half a block from here,” he says, pointing over his shoulder, “My treat?”
She tries to pretend like she’s thinking about it, but she knows he sees through it, that he sees through her like she’s made of glass. He was one of the only people who’d ever been able to do that, and it makes her blood fizz again, a familar feeling building in her gut.
“Fine,” she says, “But you’re buying me a croissant as well.”
He smiles again and nods, pushing the door open and letting her walk through first, “You can have whatever you want.”
He starts by explaining the Pilates.
He’d injured his shoulder 7 months ago, and his physical therapist had recommended Pilates as a long-term plan to improve his strength and mobility. He’d started at Jack’s insistence and found that he enjoyed it, that it was one of the few exercises he could do without feeling too old to be doing it, and it was something just for him. As the months had gone on, he started to feel stronger and more agile than he had in years, and he carried on, delighted by his new lease on life as he slipped into his early 60s.
“Then why were you in a beginner's class?” She asks, furrowing her brow as she sips her coffee, “You clearly knew what you were doing.”
He smiles, and she realises she’s given away a little too much about how much she’d been watching him.
“The studio makes you do a certain number of beginner classes when you join,” he explains, “That was my last one before I can move up.”
If she believed in fate, she’d think this was it, because what were the chances she’d pick a class on the very last time he’d be going to it?
“So, you live here now?” She asks, and he nods, sighing as he leans in a little, his smile apologetic.
“Jack transferred to Georgetown,” he explains, smiling as he thinks of his son, “He preferred the programme there and is planning on doing his Master's there too. And I want to be close to him,” he says, clearing his throat as he looks down at the table between them, “I want to be closer to home.” They fall into a brief, uncomfortable silence, and he looks up at her. “I was going to call,” he says, and she chuckles in disbelief, “I mean it, I was going to. I just wanted to be settled first,” he explains, “I wanted to have more than an empty house and a membership to a Pilates studio.”
“We would have helped,” she says, “That’s what we do for each other.” She smiles, “Hell, Pen has been helping JJ and the boys move this week.”
He furrows his brow, “They’re moving?”
She blows out a shaky breath, “She couldn’t live there anymore. Not when…not when that’s where it happened.”
Aaron nods, and his smile turns wistful. “I can understand that,” he says, and then he looks at her again, “I was going to call.”
She stares at him, looks for any sign that he’s lying, and then she nods when she doesn’t find it. “Okay,” she says, “I believe you.”
He beams at her, and things feel easier after that, as if it hasn’t been years since they last went for coffee together. She realises just how much she’d missed him, and she buys them another coffee each so they don’t have to say goodbye yet, so this can last as long as possible. She tells him about work, about the job that seemed to be taking more from her than it ever had, and he listens because he gets it, because he’d once lived it himself.
Eventually, they slowly leave the cafe, and they stand in the street outside, neither one of them sure what to do or say.
“We should do this again,” she says, “Coffee that is,” she says, chuckling at herself, “I’m not sure Reformer is for me.”
He smiles, “I think you did better than you think you did,” he says, “But yeah, we should do this again.” His smile turns nervous, and he slips his hands into his pockets again, looking anywhere but at her, “Or we could go for dinner sometime?”
She hears what he hasn’t said, hears the years of everything they hadn’t said to each other wrapped up in his nervous question, and she smiles, deciding that for once, she was going to do something she wanted without thinking about all the reasons why she shouldn’t.
“It’s a date,” she says, repeating words she’d said to him years ago, their meaning completely different this time around, her smile getting wider as his eyes snap to hers, hope pressed into the flecks of gold she’d fallen for years ago.
“Really?” He asks, and she nods, closing the gap between them to stamp a kiss against his cheek, the press of his stubble against her lips enough to make her breath catch in her chest.
“Really,” she replies as she pulls back, “Call me,” she quips, raising her eyebrow, “And we’ll figure out a date.”
“Okay,” he says, and they exchange goodbyes, neither one of them really wanting to be the first to turn away. She eventually turns and heads down the street, furrowing her brow as her phone rings from her purse. She laughs when she sees his name on the screen, and she answers, turning to look back at him standing in the spot she’d left him, “How does tonight sound?”
“Tonight sounds perfect.”
She’s smiling so widely the entire drive home that her cheeks ache, happiness pressed into her dimples as she climbs out of her car and starts to plan what she wants to wear on the date she thinks she’d been waiting years for.
The date she’d been waiting decades for.
Her eyes catch a photo of her, JJ and Penelope hanging proudly on her living room wall, and her smile slowly fades away as she realises she’s going to have to tell them about this.
Fuck.
Penelope was going to be so goddamn smug.
___
There’s a part of her that is worried the date will be awkward. That the shock of seeing each other will dissipate throughout the day, and that reality will set in by the time he comes to pick her up at the time they’d agreed upon.
She booked the restaurant. If there was one thing she knew the Prentiss name was good for in DC, it was a last-minute reservation on a Saturday night. She’d text him the name of the place and said they could meet there, but he insisted on coming to her place first to collect her, the part of him that was still a little old-fashioned winning out.
The moment she sees him on her doorstep, wearing a suit with a tie she’d bought him as a birthday present years ago, flowers in hand, she knew she had nothing to worry about. When he smiles at her, it’s like no time has passed at all, and when she slips her hand into his in the car as he drives them to the restaurant, it’s as if she’s done it a thousand times, not like it was the first.
They talk about anything and everything over dinner. He tells her about Jack, about the girl he was in love with and the career he was planning. She tells him about the team, about the members he knew and the ones he didn’t. Each one of them a part of the family he’d once overseen what felt like a lifetime ago.
When they get back to hers, she wraps her hand around his as they stand on her porch, and she focuses on the press of her palm against his, how it feels like their fingers slot together perfectly as if they were made for each other.
“Want to come in?” She offers, tilting her head towards her front door, hoping her intention is clear, feeling shy about it in a way she doesn’t entirely understand. He smiles and wraps his arm around her, tugging her closer. The press of his body against hers makes her breath catch in her chest.
“Are you sure?” He asks softly, and she leans in, resting her forehead against his, her eyes flickering closed as his breath skips across her cheek. “We only bumped into each other this morning. I don’t want you to look back and think we moved too quickly.”
She shakes her head, and her nose nudges against his. “Aaron, I think we both know we’ve wanted this for years,” she smiles, and he does too, his eyes shining with something she knows is love, “If anything, we’ve gone way, way too slow.”
He laughs, and he’s the one to lean in to kiss her, to break an almost 20-year-long embargo they’d imposed on themselves. She sighs into it, her shoulders relaxing as she wraps her arms around him, pulling him in impossibly closer. She rests her forehead against his when the kiss comes to an end, and she presses her lips together, chasing the taste of him left behind on her skin.
“You’re right,” he says, his attempt to sound a little smug diluted by how breathless he sounds, by the way he grips her hips like she’s the only thing anchoring him to the ground, “We waited way too long to do that.”
“We should go in,” she replies, nudging her nose against his before she pulls back, nodding towards the house across the street, “Otherwise we’ll give my neighbour Ethel a hell of a show.” She quips, and his eyebrows shoot up his forehead, and he looks over, distracted just long enough by the twitching curtains in the front room of the house in question for Emily to dig her keys out of her purse and open the front door. She pushes it open and expects him to be just behind her, but when she turns to look at him, he’s standing there and staring at her, frozen on the spot. “You okay?”
She briefly realises she hasn’t made sure that this isn’t too fast for him, and she feels guilty, shame flaming in her gut until he briefly shakes his head.
“I’m okay,” he says, smiling at her, “I just can’t believe we’re finally here.”
“Me neither,” she replies, her voice quiet, as if she were worried that if she spoke too loudly, if the universe or whoever was listening realised she finally had everything she’d ever wanted, it would get taken away from her just as quickly as she’d got it.
She wraps her hand around his again and encourages him towards her, kissing him again as he steps over the threshold to her home, a shared stride towards the future she liked to think they’d earned.
As soon as the door closes behind them, any hesitation from either of them disappears. He pulls her against him, and she drops her purse, leaving it forgotten by the front door, the contents spilt out against the hardwood. His hands are everywhere, tracing up and down her body, drawing out gasps from her as his fingers skim the hem of her dress.
She isn’t idle. She wraps her arms around his neck and scratches her nails against the base of his scalp, smiling into their kiss as he groans against her. She lets him lead them deeper into her house even though he’d only ever been here for a few minutes when he picked her up for dinner, but she’s too distracted to think, too focused on the size of his hands against her waist, until she feels the smooth wooden top of her dining table against the back of her thighs as Aaron deposits her on it.
She giggles, pulling away from the kiss, breathless, to look up at him, “Aren’t we a little old for sex on the dining table?”
“I’ll be fine,” he quips, “I do Pilates,” he adds, and he smiles as he leans in to kiss her when she raises an eyebrow at him, his lips gently pressed against hers before he pulls back, “Do you trust me?”
It’s a strangely sobering moment in amongst everything else, the way they’d been drunk on each other disappearing in an instant as their eyes meet, everything they’d never said in the air around them.
She nods, and her response feels like three little words wrapped up into one.
“Yes.”
He beams at her, and the seriousness passes as quickly as it had appeared, and then he’s kissing her again, his hand on her cheek as he holds her in place. She hooks a leg around him, determined to maintain some kind of control, and she tugs him in closer, using the opportunity to start to unbutton his shirt. She slips it down off his arms, vaguely hearing the swoosh of it as it hits the floor.
She isn’t sure who takes off her dress, whether it's her, or him or both of them, but suddenly she’s looking at the scars on his chest and abdomen that she’d imagined for years, and he’s doing the same with her. White and silver lines now as flat as they’d ever be that had once been pink and raised. Signs of what they’d survived now part of their topography, part of themselves that they barely paid attention to these days unless an anniversary of a death, or something close to it, rolled around.
“You’re beautiful,” he says, reaching out to trace the four-leafed clover she’d never had covered in the end, the fingers tracing the outside of the brand left by another man, warm and comforting as they steal the breath from her lungs.
She looks up at him, and she reaches out, running her finger over his thickest scar, smiling softly when their eyes meet.
She wasn’t sure who had stolen more from them - time or themselves - but she wasn’t going to waste another second.
“So are you.”
She kisses him, her arms around his shoulders, bare skin touching bare skin, and she sits as close to the edge of the dining table as she can, rolling her hips against his as he slots between her thighs. His fingers skim up her legs, the warmth of his skin against hers in contrast to the cool table beneath her leaving her senses in disarray, everything too much and too little all at once.
Then he touches her, his thumb a whisper against her clit as he pushes her underwear to the side, and she doesn’t recognise the sound that comes out of her. She clings to him, her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his back, and she throws her head back, her eyes closed as she gives in to it.
As she gives in to him.
He pays close attention as he touches her, focusing on what draws soft sighs from her and what pulls out moans. He looks at her like she’s a fine painting and he’s the painter doing everything he can to focus on the details most people would miss.
It’s a pressure that builds low in her gut, a feeling she thinks she might drown in as it starts to press against her lungs until suddenly the dam bursts, her breath catching in her chest as she moans a sound somewhere near his name as she slumps forward, her forehead against his shoulder. She slowly comes back to herself, her senses returning one by one.
The harsh sound of her breath.
The smell of him.
The feel of his skin against hers.
The reassuring words he’s murmuring against her temple as he runs his hand up and down her back.
“Fuck,” she breathes out as her vision finally clears, sitting up a little as she looks him up and down, her eyes briefly lingering on his pants before her eyes meet his, her hands already reaching out for his belt, “You’re wearing too many clothes.”
They get his pants and his underwear off together, and she’s still trying to catch her breath, her lungs stuffed full of pleasure, when her chest catches as she sees the size of him for the first time, a question she’d always had finally answered. She kisses him, her hand wrapped around him, smiling against his lips when he groans against hers.
He steps closer again, and both of them groan as she widens her legs a little and he catches against her still sensitive skin. She pulls back as she wraps her legs around his waist, her forehead against his as she purposely keeps eye contact as he pushes forward, wanting to remember the look on his face for the rest of her life.
“God,” he says, his eyes drifting closed for a moment as he purposely stays still, committing it to memory just as much as she was, “You feel so good, sweetheart.”
“So do you,” she replies, her breath catching again as he kisses her cheek and then her neck as she grasps at his back, “You feel so fucking good.”
She rolls her hips against his, desperate for him to move, and he does, pushing his hips against hers as they start to move together, the creak of her dining table something she barely registers as they pull pleasure from each other as if they had done this before. As if they knew how to unravel each other because they’d stitched the other together in the first place. Time starts to drift around them, everything else but the two of them slipping away as they lose themselves in each other’s skin.
She feels the same pressure building in her gut as before, and she pulls back just enough to speak, “Close,” she breathes out, “I’m so fucking close.”
He nods, one of his hands slipping from her hip to her clit again, drawing a gasp from her as he runs his thumb back and forth over it, smooth skin, that would have once been calloused from holding a gun, firm against hers.
She falls over the edge, and he falls with her, her name grunted against her lips as his grip on her thigh tightens just enough she knows she’ll have a bruise in the morning. A tattoo of pleasure against her skin that she knows he’ll be here to soothe, his lips against the marks he’d left behind as he offered soft apologies she didn’t want or need.
All she wanted was him, and she knew the feeling was mutual.
She kisses him despite them both still being breathless, and she holds him close, not wanting him to pull away, not wanting this to end.
She chuckles breathlessly when she finally breaks the kiss, and rests her forehead against his, their skin sticking together with sweat. “Okay,” she breathes out, “Maybe I could get on board with Pilates.”
please write Emily's sister is actually her daughter fic
It is SO tempting
(For those of you not on twitter, I tweeted this:
Hypothetically, on a scale of 1-10 how insane would it be to write something where Emily’s mystery sister is actually a baby she had when she was 15 that her parents raised as their own)
More insane thoughts below the cut
But imagine it being written through the lens of Emily telling Aaron. They are about to start trying for kids, she knows she'll be asked about previous pregnancies so she tells him.
He of course knows her sister. She's different than Emily. More what her parents wanted her to be, as if they took their second chance at parenting a little more seriously, but she's nice and kind to him, even if she is a little cutting towards her older sister sometimes.
A little too Elizabeth for Emily's liking.
When Emily tells him, it makes sense. Questions he hadn't known to ask, answered.
Emily loves her daughter, she always has, but she isn't sure she likes the person she's been raised to be.
There was never a situation in which she would have been able to raise her little girl, so she can take having a little sister who is hard on her at time, a little sister who had parents that she wanted.
Yesterday was 15 years since Emily ‘died’ and I’m thinking…what if I wrote something where she makes it past the anniversary without thinking about it, and she feels very weird about the fact she didn’t think about it when the memory of it used to paralyse her.
(This is definitely not based on personal experience to do with forgetting the anniversary of my leg breaking and my life changing forever as a result)
as if waking up in evil daylight savings time wasn’t bad enough. there is darkness around me and i am plagued by the tortured thoughts of emily prentiss.
He was chatty during sex. It surprised her the first time. He’d muffled words of admiration against her skin, saying more to her in a few minutes than he had the entire first month they’d known each other, and she’d loved it. Every word a brush stroke of colour as he let her know how he saw her, the image coming to life bit by bit as he learned what made her sigh and gasp.
It was no different now that they did know each other, now that they had done this countless times. In some ways, it was more special, more important to her, because she’d always been told she was beautiful, but he made her feel exquisite. Like a work of art that only he got to see.
-x-
Hi besties,
I'm going to walk in slowly and stay quiet so we don't spook ao3 after it's been down on and off the last couple of days.
It's been a while since I wrote some smut, so here you are. And since I am incapable of writing smut without some kind of plot...it got away from me.
As always, let me know what you think <3
-x-
Warnings: smut, 18+, discussion of scars
Words: 4.2k
Read over on Ao3, or below the cut
She never thought she’d be someone who actually enjoyed working out.
She’d always done it. Keeping fit was a key part of the career she’d chosen. It allowed her to keep herself and her colleagues safe, allowed her to chase down suspects and make it to the sides of victims without feeling a burning in her lungs or her legs. It was something she did because she had to, but because she wanted to.
That all changed after Ian had almost killed her. After he had killed her, for all intents and purposes. At first, it frustrated her how quickly the simplest of exercises would tire her out, how the walk down the hallway in the hospital would make her breathless. As time went on, as she recovered and got stronger, she marvelled at what she could do, at what her body could do. It felt like nothing short of a miracle that she’d been torn apart and sewn back together and that she’d come back from it, that she was stronger than she had ever been, and suddenly she found herself looking forward to exercising, to some time that was just for her.
In Paris, working out had been her salvation. She found more in that than she ever had in a church, her sanctuary in a gym membership she had under a false name, one that allowed her to go to any number of gyms across the city so her habits couldn’t be tracked. It had stuck with her when she’d come home, something she didn’t want to give up now that she enjoyed it, and it centred her on the bad days. Gave her something to focus on other than how different her life looked from how it had since Ian had torn through it and her.
Making that choice, and sticking to it, had also, unexpectedly, given her Aaron, too.
On some level, Emily knew they likely would have ended up where they were now anyway, but maybe not as quickly. He told her he was going to train for the triathlon and didn’t know where to start, and without thinking, she offered to train with him for the running, drawing the line at swimming and cycling. It sparked something between them, something she thought she’d lost when Ian died. The few dates they’d gone on before, the few nights they’d spent together, were a distant memory that might as well have happened to someone else.
Sometimes, she thinks they might have done.
They’d made their way back to each other. It had been months now, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d ever been so happy, if she had ever been this happy. She loved him, and he loved her, and everything else they were figuring out along the way.
She’s thinking about him, and their date that night as she finishes up her workout in the gym in Quantico, her muscles aching pleasantly as she throws her towel into her bag and heads for the bathroom. She looks at herself in the mirror as she washes her hands, grimacing when she realises she likely won’t get out of washing her hair when she gets home, and she’s about to head back out through the gym when she hears a familiar voice.
“Did you see Prentiss?”
She rolls her eyes at the sound of Agent Moore’s voice. He was on the counterterrorism team and thought he was God's gift to women. There had been many a night or FBI fundraiser when she’d had to, politely but firmly, let him know she wasn’t interested. She’d noticed him in the gym with another agent from his team, Agent Thompson, and she’d done her best to avoid them both, trying to pretend that she hadn’t noticed them staring at her on and off throughout her session.
“Yeah,” Agent Thompson replies, sucking in a breath through his teeth, “Such a shame.”
Agent Moore chuckles, “Doyle did a real number on her,” he replies, “Remember when she used to be the hottest one here?”
She feels her cheeks go warm, embarrassment burning her from the inside out as she looks down at her abdomen, the starburst of scar tissue from where Ian had impaled her on display, peeking out from beneath the band of her sports bra. She hadn’t even thought about it, hadn’t considered throwing on a shirt for her workout, and all of a sudden, it’s clear why they’d been staring at her at all.
“I mean, she’s still got the face,” Thompson says, “It’s a shame about the body.”
“I wonder if Hotchner makes her wear a shirt,” Moore says, and she can picture the smirk painted across his face, can hear it in his voice as she stands frozen just on the otherside of the wall.
Thompson chuckles, “You saw him in the changing room without his shirt that one time, remember? He’s not exactly got much going for himself either.” He says, and it almost makes her step out into the gym to confront them, to tell them that they aren’t even half of what he is, but she knows he wouldn’t thank her for it, that in her attempt to defend him, she might embarrass him instead. “Maybe they’re well-suited for each other. Damaged goods and all that.”
Moore laughs, “You’re right, I wondered what she saw in him, but maybe he’s the only one who can look at that and not feel sick.”
She feels something crack inside of her. The confidence she’d quietly built brick by brick until she no longer thought about her scars starts to crumble, letting the self-doubt and hatred she’d dammed behind it start to spill through. Her scar itches and burns in a way it hasn’t in months, and she feels rooted to the spot, unable to move until they’ve gone, not wanting them to see that she’d heard them, let alone let them know they’d upset her.
She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.
Eventually, when they move on to the topic of other women in the office and head for the showers, she grabs an old t-shirt she forgot she had at the back of her locker and pulls it on before she leaves, desperate to be anywhere but the place that until today had brought her nothing but peace.
___
She tries to get over it.
She gets home, has a shower, gets ready for her date with Aaron while looking at herself in the mirror as little as possible, and she does her best to pretend she’s okay.
Aaron, of course, notices something is wrong almost immediately. He notices the tension in her shoulders as he wraps his arms around them. He sees how she flinches when he leans in to kiss her, her smile tight and a little too reminiscent of the time she was fighting an enemy he didn’t know existed.
He waits until they are back from dinner to ask. He knows her well enough to understand that she needs to sort through whatever has happened since he saw her in the office a few hours ago by herself first. He’d never begrudge her that, because he knew he was the same way too, that he needed to work things through on his own before he took it to anyone else. It’s one of the reasons they worked so well, one of the reasons he could see forever with her.
When they get back to her place after dinner, he pours them a glass of wine each as he encourages her to sit on the couch, and she smiles at him, looking as relaxed as she has all evening, as he looks comfortable in her kitchen, as if he belonged wherever she was.
“You okay, sweetheart?” He asks, and she smiles, nodding as she takes the glass of wine he offers her before he joins her on the couch.
“Yeah,” she replies, “I was just thinking how good you look in my kitchen.”
He chuckles and leans in to kiss her, only pulling back just enough to speak, “Well, I’m sure I’ll look even better when I’m making you breakfast in the morning.”
He’s stayed over countless times, and she’s stayed at his place just as often, but the implication makes her smile slip from her face, and her scar burns. The words Thompson and Moore had exchanged about her rolling back and forth in her brain as she tries and fails to ignore them. They’d pulled on the thread of an anxiety she thought she’d tied up neatly, something she thought she’d got over, but all of a sudden it feels like it’s unravelling. All of the confidence she’d gained in recent months tangled up and abandoned on the floor, liable to trip her whenever she tries to stand.
Aaron falters too, cursing himself internally, and he shakes his head, “Sorry, if you’d rather I went home-”
She shakes her head and reaches out for him, wrapping her hand around his before she lets him spiral even just a little, guilt for letting him doubt himself heavy on top of everything else sitting on her chest.
“I always want you to stay,” she replies, “I just…” she drifts off and shakes her head, “Fuck, I don’t know how to say this without it sounding ridiculous.”
“You’ve never sounded ridiculous,” he says, squeezing her hand, his eyes warm and soft when she looks up to meet them. “Well, apart from when you’re debating with Derek if a hot dog is a sandwich or not.”
“It absolutely is a sandwich, no matter what he says,” she replies, her smile getting wider when his does, and then it fades as she remembers why she’s upset in the first place.
“You can tell me anything,” he assures her, placing his glass of wine down and taking hers too so he can tug her closer, letting her settle against his chest, “You know that.”
She nods, because she does know that, and she sighs, looking straight ahead at a photo of the two of them and Jack that she’d framed and hung on her wall, the only thing in the entire apartment that didn’t look like it was part of a show home.
“When I was working out after work…Thompson and Moore from Counterterrorism were there, and they must have thought I had left because they started talking about me,” she swallows thickly, trying to ignore the embarrassment climbing up her throat for letting the opinion of two men she didn’t like let alone respect upset her so much, “I wore something where you can see my scar,” she explains, and she looks up at him, sees how his jaw gets tight as he puts the pieces together himself, protectiveness pressed into the way he tightens his embrace on her, “The things they said…” she chokes on a dry laugh, “Well, lets just say they weren’t complimentary.”
He wants to know the details, but he also doesn’t, sure they’d make him see red and do something he’d later regret. He settles on kissing her temple and pulling back to look at her, tucking some of her hair behind her ear as she looks at him with shining eyes.
“They are idiots,” he says, his voice tight, barely controlled, “Do you want to tell me what they said?”
She thinks about what they said about him, too, and she shakes her head. She knows firsthand how long it took him to be okay with the damage Foyet had left behind on his skin, remembers how much she’d reassured him the first night they’d spent together, months before Ian had hurt her in ways she hadn’t thought she’d be able to recover from.
“No,” she replies, “Not yet,” she adds, scrunching her nose up as she lets her hand fall to her abdomen.” “The worst part is I didn’t even think about it,” she says, looking down at their linked hands, finding a sense of comfort in how well they seemed to fit together. If she were someone who believed in soulmates, someone who didn’t know exactly how hard they’d both fought to make it to each other, she would think that the spaces between her fingers had been made to fit his. “It will be a long time before I do that again.”
He’s half tempted to find a way to get the other men fired right now, but he knows that’s not what she needs or wants. She didn’t want to be protected, but loved, even if she still didn’t know how to want or ask for that.
“You’re beautiful.”
She smiles, a smudge of sadness pressed into her dimple, and she shrugs, “Honey, you’re my boyfriend. You’re supposed to say that.”
“I’ve always thought you were beautiful,” he replies, reaching out to cup her cheek, to press his thumb into her dimple to wipe the sadness away, “Even when I was married to someone else, way back when we first met.”
She raises her eyebrow at him, “You mean when you hated me?”
“I didn’t hate you,” he replies, smiling when she does, grateful that he’s been able to distract her, no matter how briefly, “But you’ve always been beautiful, sweetheart, and you always will be.”
She presses her lips together, and she wonders if it should bother her that he’s made her feel better already, that the tiniest bit of reassurance from him has made her feel lighter than she has since she overheard the awful things their colleagues had said about her. She thinks if it were anyone other than him, it would bother her, but she loved him, and he loved her, and she wished she’d told him straight away, that she’d let herself be comforted by him the moment he arrived instead of trying to deal with it herself.
It was a slow process, learning to let yourself be loved.
“Do you want me to do something about Thompson and Moore?” He asks, his jaw tight with anger she knows he’s trying to control, “I can report them to-”
“No,” she says, cutting him off as she cups his cheek, “I just want to forget about it.”
He shakes his head, “They shouldn’t talk about you like that, about anyone, but especially…”
She kisses him to distract him, but she gets lost in it. She takes her time with it, tastes the wine he’d poured them on his tongue before she pulls back, feeling more confident than she had all evening, emboldened by the way he saw her, instead of being shamed by the way others did.
“Show me?” She asks, her nose nudging against his, smiling when he raises an eyebrow, but leans forward to taste her smile anyway, as addicted to her as she was to him. “I want to think about how you see me, not how they do.”
“You want me to show you how beautiful you are?” He asks, gripping her tighter, his palm burning hot on her hip through the material of her dress. She nods in response, and he grins. He has them both standing before she can really register it, losing her footing for a second before he wraps his arm around her waist, guiding her to the bedroom with his lips pressed against her neck as he whispers praise into her pulse.
He was chatty during sex. It surprised her the first time. He’d muffled words of admiration against her skin, saying more to her in a few minutes than he had the entire first month they’d known each other, and she’d loved it. Every word a brush stroke of colour as he let her know how he saw her, the image coming to life bit by bit as he learned what made her sigh and gasp.
It was no different now that they did know each other, now that they had done this countless times. In some ways, it was more special, more important to her, because she’d always been told she was beautiful, but he made her feel exquisite. Like a work of art that only he got to see.
Her dress is off before they make it to her bedroom, left somewhere in the hallway for one of them to trip over in the morning on the way to make breakfast. He leads her towards the bed and encourages her to sit on the edge of it, looking at her with such reverence that it makes her suck in a breath, her skin tingling with want and anticipation. He leans over her, encouraging her backwards so her elbows are against the comforter, and then he stamps a kiss against her lips.
He presses a kiss against her cheek, her chin, her neck, her collarbone. Each press of his lips against her skin a stamp of love. She sucks in a breath when he kisses the scar on her breast, and she arches her backas his hands trail up it, unclasping her bra and pulling it off, throwing it to another corner of the room before he sits up enough just to look at her.
She tenses the moment he looks at the starburst of scar tissue beneath her ribs. He draws a finger back and forth over it, feeling the peaks and troughs of it, as he settles over her, his face level with the spot where she’d been torn apart and pulled back together. She can barely feel the way he’s touching her. The scar was still numb, and she knew it might always be, as if a part of her had actually died that day, a part of her she’d never get back.
“It’s beautiful, just like the rest of you, and you know why?” He asks, looking up at her, his chin resting low on her stomach. He smiles when she swallows thickly and shakes her head, sucking in a breath as his breath skips across her skin. “Because it’s made of you.”
He kisses the scar before he moves on, trailing his lips and tongue down her body, stopping to kiss the tiny scar just above he belly button, the remaining evidence she’d once had it pierced as a form of rebellion when she was a teenager. He carries on, sighing contentedly as he reaches her underwear, pausing only to hook his fingers into them, smiling when her hips twitch at the warmth of his skin.
She adjusts her weight on her elbows as he kneels in front of her, her throat tight as he smiles at her, his fingers skipping up the inside of her legs, following how her muscles tense as he reaches her inner thighs.
“Aaron.” She moans as he presses his thumb against her, unable to find it in her to be annoyed about the way he smirks when he dips into her to wet his finger before he withdraws to draw circles over her clit, “Fuck.”
He shushes her, one hand on her stomach to keep her still as she hooks her legs over his shoulders, “Relax, sweetheart.”
She chuckles, but her response is lost somewhere in her throat when he licks through her, the scrape of the start of his stubble against her thigh enough to make her mind go blank, everything other than him forgotten. She grasps at the comforter, fistfuls of expensive cotton scrunched up in her palms as she rolls her hips against his face, her heel digging into his shoulder as she hooks him in place, as if there was anywhere he’d rather be than between her thighs.
He builds her up slowly, using his knowledge of her against her as he makes a point of drawing it out. He finally gives in when she whines, a sound she’d deny if he pointed it out, her heel pressing into his shoulder so tightly he’s sure he’ll still feel it in the morning. She moans his name when she tips over the edge, her hips twitching against his face.
She laughs when her senses return to her, as the tingling in her limbs starts to wear off, and she kicks at his shoulder when he kisses her inner thigh, smearing herself against her skin as he chases the shiver he causes. He catches her foot and presses his thumbs into the ball of it, smiling as her breathing returns to normal, and she looks him up and down, seemingly only just realising he was still fully dressed.
“You’re wearing far too many clothes,” she says, shifting up the bed as he stands, tilting her head as she watches him undress, her eyes catching on his scars as they are slowly revealed. He carefully lays his shirt and suit over the arm of the chair she keeps in the corner, and she chuckles, “So your suit gets carefully hung up, and my clothes are in all corners of the room?”
He smiles as he joins her on the bed, looming over her as he settles between her thighs, “Your underwear, as pretty as it is, doesn’t need dry cleaning.”
She beams at him and reaches between them, delighting in briefly having the upper hand as he gasps when she pumps him up and down, his forehead landing against her collarbone as she twists her wrist, “It’s expensive underwear.”
“I’ll buy you more,” he mutters, lifting his head to look at her, catching her lips in a kiss as she guides him into her. They both groan at the familiar stretch, and she throws her head back, exposing her neck to him as she wraps her leg around his hips, “Fuck, Em,” he says, kissing her throat, feeling the pulse of her in every possible way, “You feel so good.”
“You do too,” she replies, rolling her hips against his, grateful when he takes the hint and he starts to move, stealing the breath from her lungs as he thrusts against her, “So good.”
He pulls back to look at her and links their hands together next to her head. He watches as her eyelashes flutter, as she tries to suck in a breath, choking on his name instead, as he reaches between them with his other hand, pressing his thumb against her clit.
“You’re so beautiful, sweetheart,” he says, leaning down to kiss her again, pressing the taste of her against her tongue, making her moan as she wraps an arm around him, holding him impossibly closer.
His praise makes her blood fizz beneath her skin, and she tightens around him, encouraging him to carry on, to shower her in praise, her name mixed in with every descriptor he can think of, each of them lost to the air around them or pressed against her skin like a tattoo. She feels him suck a bruise alongside one of them, a mark she’d wear with pride, one she’d press her finger against in the morning to chase the feeling of him.
It’s the final thing to tip her over the edge, the final assault on her senses that clears her mind entirely of everything other than him and her and the way they loved each other. When she comes, it's quieter this time, a sound that she gasps against his neck as she pulls him over the edge too, her name a prayer on his lips as he comes inside of her.
They lay like that for a few seconds, both of them getting their breath back, before she encourages him up just enough that she can kiss him, her arms hooked around his neck as she holds him in place.
“I love you,” she says, smiling as their eyes meet, “Thank you.”
“You never have to thank me, sweetheart,” he says, kissing the corner of her lips, “I love you too.”
They clean themselves up. He insists she uses the bathroom first, and then kisses her as they cross paths in the doorway of the ensuite. When he comes back into the bedroom, she’s sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed, wearing his shirt, only a few of the buttons done up, and she smiles at him, holding out the two glasses of wine they’d abandoned in the living room, throwing a wink in his direction when he raises an eyebrow at her.
“I’ll pay for your dry cleaning,” she quips as he joins her on the bed, her eyes lingering on the scars on his chest and on his arm. She thinks of what she’d overheard Thompson and Moore say about him, and a flash of anger rolls through her, fury that they’d ever see him as anything other than the work of art he was, “You’re beautiful too,” she says, trailing her finger over his thickest scar, the one right over his heart. The scar that was made of him. She smiles when her eyes meet his, his confusion painted across his face, “You know that, right?”
He shrugs and settles against the headboard, encouraging her to lean against him, “If you say so, sweetheart.”
“I do say so,” she replies, handing him his wine, “Why don’t we just agree that we’re both beautiful and leave it at that?”
He turns his head to kiss her, and he nods, tucking her hair behind her ear, “I think I can agree to that.”
I Knew You'd Linger Like a Tattoo Kiss - French Kisses
A series of unrelated one-shots and mini fics about the many types of kisses Aaron and Emily share.
-x-
Hi besties,
This mini-fic fulfils the prompt 'French Kisses', and this is for to the lovely @hancydrew who gave me the idea for this one!
Just something very soft for us all on a Sunday evening as we face another week ahead <3
As always, let me know what you think <3
-x-
Words: 1.2k
Warnings: None!
Read over Ao3, or below the cut
She remembered that as she haphazardly packed a small bag full of all the belongings she had, and as she boarded a plane with a passport with a fake name, watching Paris disappear into the clouds, she told herself she’d never come back.
She used to love Paris. It was one of her favourite places in the world, a place that, when she was younger, felt more like home than her parents’ house in DC ever had, but the shine had been taken from it during the months she spent here when she was dead to almost everyone she knew. She’d walked the cobbled streets she used to wander down with nothing but time on her hands, like she was a ghost. A shadow of the person she’d once been as hours dragged past her like syrup, thick and unwieldy as she slipped into a routine that allowed her to be as invisible as possible.
It tainted all the memories she’d had of it in the before. Before Ian, before he tore through her life twice, before he destroyed her sense of self twice. Paris became her prison of sorts. A place she’d healed, a place she’d learned how to live in her body that had been irrecoverably changed. A place she’d barely slept for months, worried Ian would appear from the dark corners of her room and finish the job.
A place she thought she’d forever associate with all of those things, right up until Aaron gently suggests it for their honeymoon.
She knows just by looking at him, by seeing the understanding painted across his smile, flecks of it caught in the dimples she loved to press her thumbs into whenever they kissed, that he’d move on to another suggestion if she said no, no questions asked. He’d go to the next place on the list she’d asked him to compile.
Planning a honeymoon with someone who had barely left the country when you’d lived almost everywhere was harder than it might seem.
She’d told him more than once that she missed her Paris. The one she’d loved when she was young, the one she’d gone to and lived in under her own name. She knows that’s why it’s the top of his list, not because he wants to see it any more than he does anywhere else, but because he wants to give her back what she’d lost.
Her initial reaction is to suck in a breath. It shudders in her chest, catches on anxiety she thought she’d buried long ago, and by the time she can really think about it, he’s already moving on, crossing Paris off the list he’d compiled and suggesting Venice before she can say anything.
“Paris sounds good,” she says, unaware she’s going to say it at all until he looks at her, just as surprised as she is, his eyebrows furrowed.
“Em-”
“I mean it,” she says, resting her hand on his thigh and squeezing, smiling as she imagines it, the thought alone of showing him around, polishing her memory of the city, “You’d love Paris,” her smile deepens, her teeth sinking into her lower lip as she teases him, “Besides, you love it when I speak French.”
He hums, and he kisses her, his hand on her cheek as he holds her in place, “That is true,” he says, nudging her nose with his before he kisses her again, “But I don’t want you to say yes just because you think I’d like it there,” he says, placing his hand over her’s on his thigh, smiling when he feels the press of her engagement ring against his skin, “I want you to want to go too.”
“I do want to go,” she says, sounding more sure than she thought she would, “I want to love it again, and what better way to do that than to go with you?”
He stares at her, skirting on the edge of breaking their longstanding promise not to profile each other, but he nods, seemingly satisfied with what he sees, with the honesty laid bare in her eyes.
“Paris it is,” he says, beaming at her, and she kisses him again, tasting the joy and excitement on his lips.
“Paris it is,” she repeats, resting her forehead against his, “I can’t wait to marry you.”
“I can’t wait to marry you either.”
___
As soon as they land in Paris, she knows she’s made the right choice.
The beauty that she’d lost in the long months she’d been in hiding, the shine that had been dulled and scratched as she tried to simply survive, starts to come back as she watches him experience a city she loved for the first time. He’s enthralled by it. Relaxed as they walk down cobbled streets hand in hand, his grip always a little tighter whenever she spoke in French to anyone local.
He wraps his arm around her waist as they half stumble out of a restaurant, his lips against her ear as she laughs, unsure if she’s more drunk on the good wine they’d had with dinner or on her husband.
“You’re very handsy in Paris,” she says, smiling into a kiss as he turns her in his arms, chuckling as she hears a French man curse at them as they are briefly in his way, a comment about fucking tourists, that she thinks would have once embarrassed her, but now only deepens her joy. She smiles at Aaron as she guides them out of the way, finding herself pressed between him and the wall of the restaurant they’d spent the evening in. She tugs him closer, her fingers hooked into his belt loops as she pulls him into a kiss, “I like it,” she said, humming as she kisses him again, “I love it.”
He smiles, and he leans in to kiss her, his hand next to her head on the wall as he deepens the kiss, tasting her contented sigh from the source as he licks his tongue through her mouth.
“You know what I love?” He asks as he pulls away, looking way too smug for her liking at how breathless he’s left her, and she tilts her head, reaching up to push her hair from his forehead.
“Me?” She asks, winking at him as he beams at her.
“Obviously you,” he replies, stamping his lips against hers again, pulling back just enough to speak, “But what I was going to say is, I love French kissing my wife in France.”
She laughs, a bold, bright thing that peels out of her chest and passes into his, and she places her hands on his cheeks, pulling him in for another kiss. Her thumbs press into his dimples as she deepens the kiss, chasing the taste of the wine they’d shared on his tongue.
“If we go back to the hotel,” she says, rubbing her thumb over his lips, wiping away the smudge of lipstick she’d left behind, “We can do more than just French kiss.”
He grabs her hand and tugs her away from the wall, “Then let's go to the hotel,” he says, coming to a stop, his eyebrows furrowed as he remembers he has no idea where they are, “Do you know the way?”
She smiles, and she nods, running her thumb over his wedding ring as she starts to lead him in the other direction, “Yeah, I know the way.”
listen, the olympics did not go as well as expected for my country and i am not to happy about it, but this was just the loveliest bit of love and softness to keep me from burning a flag and storming the white house
All the Dreams You Never Thought You’d Lose - Part 3
The panic is familiar, an old friend wrapping its hand around her throat as she tries and fails to calm herself down, her throat immediately dry as she continues to stare at the box of tampons, wondering how she’d managed to get herself into this situation again.
Emily, Aaron and an accidental pregnancy.
Part 3 of 3
-x-
Hi besties,
I really cannot get across how much the love for this has meant to me!! If you like this format - almost collections of short blurbs within the same fic - let me know and I'll do more.
Let me know what you think of this last part <3
-x-
Warnings: accidental pregnancy
Words: 2.5k
Read over on Ao3, or below the cut
She wasn’t due for another week.
It’s what she tells herself repeatedly all day, the thing that convinces her she isn’t in labour yet, that she’s being plagued by the same practice contractions she’d been having on and off for close to a month. When her waters break, a trickle consistently leaking from her more than the rush of water that TV and movies had always prepared her for, she wishes she’d taken up Aaron’s offer of staying over every night when she was this close to her due date.
They’d kept their promise of taking things slowly, or as slowly as they could with a baby girl on the way and a little boy in the middle of it all. They still lived separately. They had their own places, and the baby had a room in each of them, although she wasn’t sure how often the baby would spend a night away from her in the weeks and months to come. She’d stayed at Aaron’s a few times, and he’d stayed at hers, but they’d never gone any further than sharing a kiss and sleeping next to each other in the very literal sense. More than once, she’d woken up with Jack in bed with them, curled up around her, pressed against his little sister, seeking out comfort after a nightmare made up of memories. His monster a man made of flesh and blood, with a name he’d carry with him long after the tangible memories he had of his mother would fade.
It felt like she’d woken up with a family one morning, ready made and waiting for her, the broken pieces of them all slotting together as if they were made for each other. It was overwhelming, a change she hadn’t seen coming, even though she thinks she should have.
She and Aaron had never been very good at just being friends. If they were, she wouldn’t be about to have his baby.
She blows out a slow breath and pulls her phone out of the pocket of her sweatpants, and she calls Aaron.
“Hi sweetheart,” he says, “I was just about to call you.”
“Hi,” she replies, doing her best to cover the tension in her voice, to pretend she wasn’t in pain, but she knows it’s useless. “I’m in labour.”
She hears a clatter in the background as he drops something on the counter, “You’re in labour? Are you sure?”
She hums, “As sure as someone who has never done this before can be,” she says, sounding calmer than she feels, “My waters have broken.”
“Okay,” he replies, “I’ll take Jack to Jess’s place and then come pick you up,” he says, “Will you be okay until then?”
She nods, and then remembers he can’t see her, “I might get in the bath, the nurse said it might help. You have your key?”
“I do,” he says, blowing out a slow breath, “Baby time.”
She chuckles, the sound catching on a sob, “Yeah.”
___
“Now, remember what I said?”
Jack nods, his grip on Aaron tight as he sits on his hip, his excitement outweighing his usual nervousness around this many strangers, “I have to be gentle. She’s little.”
“Very little,” Aaron says, adjusting his hold on his son as he weaves through groups of other excited fathers and family members in the hallway of the maternity wing in the hospital, “And we have to be gentle with Emily too, okay?”
Emily’s labour had been long. He’d been shy at first, unsure how to act around someone he’d only officially been in a relationship with for a month when she was going through something so vulnerable. She’d simply rolled her eyes at him when he offered to leave the room when the nurse said she needed to examine her, her quip and exasperated tone as she told him off enough for the nurse at the end of the bed to cough to cover a chuckle.
“You saw me naked when you put the baby in there, don’t get shy now.”
Almost an entire day passed between them getting to the hospital and their daughter entering the world, passed quickly from a nurse's hands into her mother’s. Aaron had held them both, his arms wrapped around Emily, whose arms were around the newborn, his lips against the temple of the woman who, only weeks ago, he would have sworn was simply his friend. If he thought he loved her before, he loved her infinitely more as he watched her hold their little girl against her, a look in her eyes that made him wonder if they’d somehow have always ended up here, one drunken night together or not.
He knocks on the door to her room before he enters, waiting for her to say he can come in before he enters. Jack gasps as soon as he sees them, the dark shock of the baby’s hair sticking out from the tiny hat Emily had brought for her to wear, a peak of her face visible from behind the blanket she was wrapped up in.
Emily looks up at them and smiles, beautiful in her exhaustion, and she beckons them over with a slight nod of her head.
“Hi Jack,” she says, her voice low, a sure sign the baby was asleep, “There’s someone here who wants to meet you.”
Jack is quiet in his awe, as quiet as Aaron has ever known him to be, as he lowers him onto the bed. Jack crawls over, as careful as he’d promised, as he sits next to Emily, his eyes wide as he looks at his little sister.
“She’s so pretty.”
Emily chuckles and casts a glance Aaron’s way as he joins them, his arm around her shoulders, “Do you want to know her name?” She asks, and Jack nods enthusiastically. “Jack, this is Stella.”
He beams at her, looking between Emily and Aaron before he looks back at his sister, “Hi Stella, I’m your big brother.”
___
She was exhausted.
Stella refused to sleep unless she was in Emily's or Aaron’s arms, and Emily didn’t remember the last time she slept for more than 30 minutes at a time.
She’d sent Aaron home. She wishes she hadn’t, wishes she could have been brave enough to let him stay like he wanted to, like she wanted him to. A part of her she couldn’t ignore still wanted to prove that she could do this in part by herself, like originally planned, that she could look after her daughter without any help, but as she tries, and fails, to put Stella down again, she starts to cry herself.
“Damn it,” she says, blowing out a shaky breath as she stamps a kiss against the top of her newborn’s head, “Mommy is so stupid, baby,” she says, “I’m sorry.”
She sits on the couch and tries to calm herself down, remembering everything she’d read that told her if she was stressed, the baby would be stressed too, and she picks up her phone. She smiles at the picture she has of her, Aaron and the kids saved as her wallpaper, something that a nurse had taken for them when they were still in the hospital.
He answers on the first ring, “Are you okay?”
Her answer is a sob, and she shakes her head, “I’m sorry,” she says, “I should have just let you stay. She won’t settle, and I’m just…”
“I’ll be right there.”
She’s confused when she hears the key scratch in her lock, not even two minutes later, and she looks at the door, frowning as Aaorn smiles at her as he lets himself in, “Did I fall asleep or something?”
He shakes his head, noting her panic as she looks down at Stella in her arms, her relief when she sees she’s okay palpable, “I was outside in my car.”
She furrows her brow, “You left over an hour ago.”
He settles on the couch next to her, reaching out for Stella, “I wanted to be close if you needed me.”
She lets him take the baby, and she smiles at the sight of them together, “What if I didn’t call?”
He shrugs and settles Stella against his chest, “I have a blanket out there. And a pillow.”
She laughs, the sound taking her by surprise as much as it does him, “We’re idiots,” she says, shaking her head as she shifts closer to them, “We can’t take this slowly. I want you with us all the time, you and Jack.”
He smiles at her and leans in to kiss her, his lips catching the corner of hers, “I want to be with you all the time, too.”
“We’ll find somewhere for us all to live?” She says, yawning as she rests her head against his shoulder, “Somewhere new.”
He nods and kisses the top of her head, “Yes,” he says, “But first, you should get some sleep. We’ll be here when you wake up.”
___
Emily yawns as she climbs into bed, sighing contentedly as she snuggles up against Aaron, casting a glance over to the bassinet just a few feet away, “Do you think tonight will be the night she’ll sleep through?”
Aaron hums and kisses the top of her head, wrapping his arm around her, “We can only hope.”
“I’d go for just a couple uninterrupted hours,” she says, tilting her head to look up at him, “Did Jack go down okay?”
Aaron nods, “We might wake up with him in the bed, though.”
She smiles and stamps her lips against his, her hand flat against his chest over his heart, “I don’t mind.”
They were all staying at his apartment these days. Her place was bigger, but his was home to a little boy who had already had so much taken from him. They didn’t want to move him once to her place, to then move him again to whatever house they ended up in.
“Do you know what today is?” He asks, his first opportunity to have a busy day of raising two kids, one of them a newborn. She furrows her brow as she tries to think and then shakes her head. “Today is one year since…” he drifts off and looks over to the bassinet where Stella is sleeping, and she smiles as she catches on, her teeth digging into her lower lip as she tries to contain it.
“I can’t believe it’s been a year,” she says, unendingly grateful that a night of tequila had made her brave enough to kiss him, to spend the night with him in ways she’d imagined far more than she’d admit to herself even now. They’d had one night together, and even though they’d spent countless nights sleeping next to each other since, they hadn’t gone any further than kissing. Stopped by silly notions of going slowly, then her discomfort in late pregnancy and postpartum recovery. She feels shy in a way she hasn’t in years, shy in a way she certainly hadn’t been on the night that started it all, “My doctor gave me the all clear today.”
He furrows his brow, “The all clear?” He asks, and she simply raises an eyebrow at her, “Oh…I see,” he clears his throat, a hand on her hip as he holds her closer, “I don’t want to rush you into -”
“I don’t think we could call a year since our last time rushing, honey,” she says, leaning into kiss him, making a point of letting it linger, “We won’t have long until she wakes up.”
“I need to shower,” he says eventually, swallowing thickly as she looks him up and down, his damp hair a giveaway of his white lie, and she smiles.
“Me too,” she says, squeezing his hand before she gets out of bed, meeting him in the doorway of the ensuite before she comes to a stop, “Aaron?”
“Yes, Em?”
“If you get me pregnant again, I’ll kill you.”
___
Two Years Later
She’s more anxious than she has been in a long time. It fizzes under her skin, makes her bounce nervously from side to side as she stands in the bathroom, wondering if three minutes had ever lasted so long. She can hear Aaron and Stella in the bedroom, the toddler's voice loud despite the early hour, talking at Aaron about anything and everything as he hums along, just as distracted as Emily had been when the little girl woke them up just 10 minutes ago.
She has to stop herself from turning to look at the test on the counter behind her, determined to wait until the timer on her phone counts all the way down. It was the first time she’d ever got to do a pregnancy test and hope for a positive result instead of being scared of it, and she wanted this feeling, the nervous joy and hope, to last as long as possible.
They’d been trying for a little while, but not long enough that she’d started to give up hope just yet. She’d told herself a long time ago she’d never test until she was late, and until yesterday, she never had been. She’d given it one more night just in case, taming down the treacherous hope flooding her lungs, and when she’d woken up this morning and her period still hadn’t arrived, she knew it was time. She left her fiancé in bed with their toddler and smiled at him, throwing him a wink that he knew the meaning of before she stepped into the bathroom.
She wished things had been plainer sailing for them since Stella had been born. She wished that the ghosts of her past hadn’t come back to haunt her, forcing her to tell Aaron about Laren Reynolds, a woman she had once been, while hoping it wouldn’t make him fall out of love with the woman she now was. With him and the team on side, Ian wasn’t as much of a threat as either one of them thought he would be. His death as he tried to escape capture quiet, almost pathetically so, and she wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t gone to Aaron. If their life together, if Stella and Jack hadn’t forced her hand into sharing a burden that had once felt like hers alone.
She’s sure, whatever would have happened, it wouldn't have ended up here.
She jumps when the alarm on her phone rings out, and she quickly silences it, blowing out a shaky breath before she turns around, her eyes closed as she gives herself another moment in the before.
When she opens her eyes, she gasps, picking up the test as she smiles and chokes on a sound she can’t name.
“Well, shit,” she says, and there’s a knock on the door before it opens. She turns, and her eyes meet Aaron’s, and she knows she doesn’t have to say anything.
this story frickin ruled. it cured my reading apathy and it made my hair shiny and i know you *didn’t* write it for me personally?? but personally i am pretending you did
All the Dreams You Never Thought You’d Lose - Part 2
The panic is familiar, an old friend wrapping its hand around her throat as she tries and fails to calm herself down, her throat immediately dry as she continues to stare at the box of tampons, wondering how she’d managed to get herself into this situation again.
Emily, Aaron and an accidental pregnancy.
Part 2 of 3
-x-
Hi besties,
Thank you so so much for all the love on part 1 - it's genuinely blown me away a little and really motivated me to get this part finished for you today.
Part 1 was all Emily's POV, this part is Aaron's. The 3rd and final part will be a mix of the two <3
Please let me know what you think, the final part will be up in the next couple of days.
Thanks again for all the love, you've all made fanfic girl very happy <3
-x-
Warnings: accidental pregnancy
Words: 2.5k
Read over on Ao3, or below the cut
At first, he thinks she’s mad at him.
It had been instinct that had forced him to stand between her and the Reinmans, the need to protect her and the baby from them as they stared at her bump as they were led away, overriding everything else. It’s a moment, a flash of a thing, but it’s enough to give away what they’d been hiding for months now, the penny finally dropping for their friends and teammates as he stands close enough to her that his hand skims her belly.
The reactions are mixed, from surprise all the way to anger. Derek glares at him, and Emily glares back, unsure why her friend was angry over something that had nothing to do with him. They give them the basic details, explain it was as one time thing, that they would raise the baby together, and then they leave it at that, making it clear that the rest was their business and no one else's.
Aaron’s worried she’s mad at him for letting it slip until she asks if he wants to come over for dinner when they land. It was becoming a regular thing, an excuse to spend time together as they tried to strengthen their growing friendship, a foundation they’d used to raise their daughter on solid ground.
A little girl. He was going to have a little girl.
He’d gone to the appointment where they’d found out, and he’d seen Emily’s initial reaction, happiness mixed with fear that he knew came from her complicated relationship with her mother. She didn’t want to talk about it, so he didn’t force it, happy to have whatever parts of herself she was happy to share. Even if at this stage it was simply her favourite Chinese restaurant and beer she was only buying for him.
“I realised today that I never thanked you for believing me,” she says, her hand on her stomach, sitting next to him on the couch, their shoulders almost brushing as she traces her thumb back and forth over where he’s sure she’s feeling the baby move.
“For believing you about what?” He asks, his curiosity replacing his relief that she wasn’t mad at him for giving the game away, for his reaction to the unsubs letting their friends know her baby was his too.
“That she’s yours,” she says, looking up at him, something he can’t name in her eyes, something close to sadness or reflection as she thinks about part of her past that he doesn’t know about yet, “It would have been easier for you to believe she isn’t. So thank you.”
He frowns and reaches out for her, squeezing her knee, feeling oddly shy about it even though she was carrying his little girl, “You never have to thank me for that, Em.”
She nods, her lips pressed together tightly as she sucks in a shaky breath, her vulnerability something he knew was a privilege to see.
A privilege he didn’t take lightly.
___
He asks more than once if she’s sure. It wasn’t his idea to take her to see Karl Arnold with him, far from it, but she insists, saying she knows it’s the best way to get information from him.
He almost turns around and takes her home the moment they step into the high-security wing, and he hears the way the prisoners leer at her. Her hands in tight fists at her sides as she does everything in her power not to press her hand against her stomach in an attempt to not draw any more attention to it. As if her sweater did anything to hide it.
The way Karl looks at her makes Aaron furious, the anger he’d inherited from his father thrumming in his veins as he pulls out a seat for Emily so she can sit down, something he knows the man sitting opposite them doesn’t miss.
Emily plays her role perfectly, even if it did make her feel uncomfortable, her disgust at the situation, at what he was asking her to do when it came to the pictures of the victims, obvious whenever they stepped out of the interrogation room. It’s the first time since she told him off for putting his life on the line after Foyet that their personal and work lives have felt so intertwined, threads tying themselves up in knots as he questions again if bringing her here was a good idea.
“I can show you what I did to the children.” Karl offers, his smile as twisted as he was, as Emily doesn’t react, keeping her cool in a way Aaron can only admire.
“Tell me.” She says, tilting her head curiously, and Karl pauses for a moment before he leans forward just enough that Aaron finds himself standing even closer to them.
“Children are so very precious, don’t you think, Emily? Whoever your baby daddy is, he’s lucky,” Karl says to her, smiling when glares at him, her jaw tight in defiance as she refused to let him get to her, “Isn’t he Agent Hotchner?” Aaron stares him down as he tears his gaze from Emily, his eyes flicking to Aaron’s bare left hand before he returns his attention to Emily, “Tell me, are you having a girl? They need so much more guidance than boys.”
It tips Emily over the edge, the horrors he was implying enough to make her analyse Karl in a way that had him furious. All it takes is a comparison to his father to have him crumbling as he angrily spits out threats and half-admissions as Emily carries on, which makes them realise they were chasing a red herring, that the killer wasn’t related to him at all.
Aaron is relieved by it, desperate to get Emily away from here as soon as possible, but it’s short lived, torn from under his feet as Karl mentions Foyet, bringing any sense of peace that Aaron had been clinging onto to an end.
___
She finds him in his old bedroom.
He doesn’t notice her coming in, doesn’t hear her footsteps or her hand on his shoulder as she crouches next to him, a feat that in normal circumstances he’s sure should be beyond her at this stage of her pregnancy.
“Aaron, honey”, she says, her hand on his cheek as she makes him look at her, each syllable of the nickname she’d never used before painted with desperation, “We need to go.”
He looks back at the floor, at the spot he’d found Haley’s body, the place she’d been until just a few minutes ago when the medical examiner took her away. “I need to clean up all the blood. Jack can’t see it.”
She sucks in a breath and squeezes his shoulder, “We can figure that out later,” she says, her voice gentle, calm in a way he’d heard her speak to victims before, “No one will be coming in here for a while. Jack needs you, but first, we need to clean you up.”
She stands first, and he follows, letting her lead him to the bathroom down the hall, her hand on his back as she guides him through a house she’d never visited before. He leans against the counter with his hip, ignoring his reflection in the mirror he remembered Haley picking out, worried about what he’d see. Emily starts to run the water, letting it get warm before she reaches for his hands to tug them under the stream. She picks up a bar of soap and lathers it in her palms before she rubs her skin against his, removing the blood that stained his skin, Haley’s blood mixing in with that of the man who’d killed her, bright red giving way to pink as the water washes it away.
“I don’t know what to do,” he says, unsure why he’s saying it, if he’s hoping she’ll have the answer for him. She looks up at him for a moment, not stopping the way she’s cleaning his skin, then she looks back down, her focus on avoiding the broken skin on his knuckles for now, not wanting to hurt him more than he’d already been hurt.
“Well, first, we’re going outside and getting an EMT to look at you,” she says, “And then you’ll get Jack from JJ and take him home to your apartment,” she adds, knowing this place could never be home again, “And everything else, we can figure out as you go.”
He nods, his jaw so tight he thinks it might shatter, feeling exposed in a way he hadn’t since he was a kid. He’s glad she’s the one to see it, someone he knew he could trust with the very worst parts of himself.
“Will you come with us?” He asks, unaware he’s going to until he does. To her credit, she only pauses for a moment before she nods, washing the last of the blood away from his hands.
“Of course.”
___
One more case. That’s what she’d told him, her smile soft and aimed at him as she promised him this would be the last case before she went on maternity leave. He knew it was more about him than her, that she wanted to make sure he was ready to be back at work after Haley’s death before she stayed home, but she wouldn’t be talked out of it.
It’s something he regrets the moment Derek calls to tell him the car she’d been in had been run off the road.
She’d told him she’d be fine, and he’d listened to her despite his instincts, still walking the fine line between being her boss and the ever growing feelings for her he struggled to ignore. She was only supposed to transport a prisoner with the lead detective, something they’d all done countless times before.
The guilt is overwhelming as he makes it to the hospital, brandishing his badge as he insists on seeing her, barely acknowledging Derek before he sends him back to work the case. He finds her sitting in a side room, both of her hands on her bump, a bandaged cut on her arm, and a black eye already forming.
“Hi,” she says, her expression similar to the one she’d worn the morning they woke up together. He walks across the room and sits on the edge of her bed, grabbing her hand and squeezing, chasing the warmth of her palm against his, “I’m okay. We’re both okay.”
“I should never have let you go.”
She chokes on a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh, and he isn’t sure who she’s trying to comfort when she replies, “I think you know as well as I do that no one lets me do anything.”
He shakes his head at her, “If something had happened…”
His breath catches in his chest, stuck on everything he hadn’t allowed himself to feel for months, feelings he’d told himself were one sided, that he couldn’t afford to feel if they were going to raise their little girl together as they’d planned. In normal circumstances, being in love with the woman who was carrying your baby would be acceptable, expected even, but he didn’t want to complicate it any more than it already was. Not with a dead ex-wife and a grieving little boy to consider.
“I know,” she says, squeezing his hand, her strength not quite what it usually was, her attempt to hide her pain not quite working on him, “But we’re okay, I promise. Giant bruise across my belly aside.”
“Will they let you go soon?”
“They are coming back with some pictures of baby girl and my paperwork, then you can break me out of here.”
He hums, “We’re going straight to the hotel. No arguments.”
She smiles and nods, “No arguments.”
He sleeps fitfully in her room, slumped over in the chair he’d pulled from the corner, ready and waiting in case she needed him.
___
After the crash, things between them change.
She helps with Jack, spends time with them both as the little boy adjusts to what his life looks like now - including the fact he has a little sister on the way. It’s easier to tell him than Aaron thought it would be, and he’s grateful that Jack is too young to have too many complicated questions about the situation, unsure if he knew any of the answers himself.
“Do you need anything?” Aaron asks as he walks back into his living room after putting Jack to bed, smiling when he sees Emily sitting there, rubbing soothing circles on her bump.
“We’re okay,” she replies, her smile wider as she winces, “Although your daughter is kicking my ribs.”
He walks over and holds his hand out to touch her bump, hesitating for a moment, “Can I…”
She rolls her eyes at him and grabs his hand, resting it on the spot where their little girl was moving the most, “She’s yours too, Aaron,” she says, laughing when the baby kicks against his hand, “We really need to think about names. She’ll be here soon.”
“Do you have any ideas?”
She scrunches her nose up, “Nothing that seems right,” she says, “How did you come up with Jack?”
He chuckles as he thinks about it, “It took a long time. Haley kept suggesting names of serial killers.”
“And you settled on Jack?” She raises an eyebrow at him as she tries to sit up a little straighter.
“Admittedly, we didn’t think it all the way through,” he says, helping her move. When she’s comfortable, he pulls back, only realising he’s as close as he is when he feels her breath across his cheek. Time slows down as their eyes meet, neither one of them moving as they stare at each other, once again at a crossroads, “Emily-”
“Don’t,” she whispers, turning her head away, “Please don’t.”
“Don’t what?” He asks, and she scoffs as she looks back at him, her eyes shining.
“Don’t look at me as if you love me.”
It takes him aback, makes him freeze in place for a moment before he realises he needs to be the brave one this time, “I do.”
“You’re only saying that because I’m having your baby.”
“I’m not,” he insists, “I’ve felt like this for a long time,” he squeezes her hand, unsure when he’d reached for it, “I’m not saying we get married tomorrow, or any time soon, but I don’t want to pretend this…us…is only about her.”
She sighs, “We have so much to consider. The baby, Jack…the team.”
“We can take it slow,” he says, reaching out to cup her cheek, a flicker of hope sparking in his gut when she leans into the touch, “One day at a time.”
It feels like an age before she nods, turning her head to kiss his palm, “I…I love you.”
He kisses her, pulling back just enough to speak. “I love you too.”
The panic is familiar, an old friend wrapping its hand around her throat as she tries and fails to calm herself down, her throat immediately dry as she continues to stare at the box of tampons, wondering how she’d managed to get herself into this situation again.
Emily, Aaron and an accidental pregnancy.
Part 1 of 3
-x-
Hi besties,
This one has been a long time coming as it's taken me a while to decide how I'll write it.
This was originally something I intended writing back when I hit 400 fics and now it's my 513th so I've decided it's an extended 500 fic celebration.
I wanted to do something a little different, so each little snippet of this fic is 500 words exactly. There will be 5 per chapter and 3 chapters overall.
As always, please let me know what you think!
-x-
Warnings: accidental pregnancy
Words: 2.5k
Read over on AO3, or below the cut
The first thing she notices when she wakes up is how warm she is. For a moment, she sinks into it, sighs contentedly as she almost lets the warmth and the comfort lull her back to sleep, but then she realises she’s not alone in bed, that the warmth she was enjoying was radiating off the person lying behind her, his arm heavy across her waist.
That’s when she notices she has a headache too.
She doesn’t have to turn her head to know who is behind her, and she knows she’ll smell his cologne on her sheets for weeks to come, no matter how much she washes them.
They’d come home from Texas and gone straight to a bar, Penelope’s idea of course, and Emily hadn’t taken much persuasion. For once, Aaron hadn’t either, the weight of the case they’d come back from almost visible on his shoulders, the tightness in his jaw obvious from all the way across the other side of the jet. She’d been delighted that he was coming with them, all the while trying to tell herself she hadn’t been jealous when Meghan Kane had flirted with him so openly.
He offered to take her home as the evening wrapped up, his intentions pure, his desire to be a gentleman overriding everything else, and she accepted, offering him a drink before he left to go home himself. She kissed him first, that much she did remember, and he’d hesitated, asking if she was sure before she kissed him again instead of answering, her inhibitions lowered, the need to know what it would feel like to be with him finally winning out, the alcohol they’d had the excuse she’d been waiting for, something they could pin this on in the morning even though neither of them were that drunk.
He’d taken her apart slowly, with a dexterity she thinks shouldn’t have surprised her. She wonders if having a taste of something she couldn’t have properly was worth it. If she could look at him in the sharp-edged suits he wore to work and call him Hotch after she’d gasped his first name when they tipped over the edge together, her own name whispered against her chest as he shuddered against her.
She wonders what she should do, whether she should move or how she’ll slip out of his grip without him noticing, but he wakes up too, his grip on her tightening for a moment before he sucks in a sharp breath and sits up. She does the same, holding the covers over her chest, covering a bruise he’d sucked into her skin as she clears her throat, her cheeks warm as everything hits her all at once, the consequences of what had seemed like a good idea last night laid out in front of her in the cold light of day.
“Hi.” He says first, an apology she doesn’t want or need already painted across his face when she turns to look at him.
“Hi.”
___
It’s the case that plants the idea in her mind, a seed she doesn’t notice at first, as she’s lost in thought about a little boy who’d killed his brother, and a family that had been broken as a result.
Aaron checks in on her before they board the jet home. He’s kind as he pulls her aside, his concern a nice distraction as she tries not to look at his hands, tries not to remember how they felt pressed against her bare skin, and she says she’s okay, even though she’s not sure it’s true.
They’d agreed it was a one time thing, that nothing could come of the stolen hours they’d had together. Things had been awkward for a day or two, but then it all went back to normal, their friendship seemingly unaffected.
She should have known it was too good to be true.
When she gets home, exhausted by the case and the day she’d had, she goes straight to the medicine cabinet in her bathroom looking for Tylenol to stave off the headache she’d felt building all day. It’s only when she’s immediately met with the sight of an unopened box of tampons that it hits her square in the chest, the seed of doubt she’d already had blooming in her chest, the flowers of panic pressing against her lungs as she covers her mouth with her hand.
It all falls into place. Her exhaustion, the nausea she’d told herself was because of the case they’d been on. The soreness in her breasts that she thought was because her period was due soon. The panic is familiar, an old friend wrapping its hand around her throat as she tries and fails to calm herself down, her throat immediately dry as she continues to stare at the box of tampons, wondering how she’d managed to get herself into this situation again, after decades of being so careful that ex-boyfriends had mocked her for it.
“Shit.”
She goes straight to a pharmacy. There are more options than there were the last time she’d done this, a whole aisle dedicated to a test that had only just been invented when she was 15 and terrified. She buys several different tests as well as some candy and toiletries she doesn’t need, hoping she’ll somehow hide her main purchase from the teenage cashier.
Taking the test is easier than it was last time, and the wait is nowhere near as long. She sees the results start to appear on the tests lined up on her bathroom counter before she’s even finished reading one of the pamphlets, a row of pluses and two lines and a single word in digital boxes telling her what she already knew, something she can no longer deny.
She was pregnant. With her boss's baby.
She picks one of them up, her hands shaking as she tries to look closer, as if the result would somehow change, and she blows out a shaky breath.
“Fuck.”
___
She knows she has to tell him.
The moment she decides this is something she wants, something that she can have this time, she knows she can’t keep it to herself. Not only because he was her boss, and practicality insisted that she needed to tell him she was pregnant, but because he deserved to know.
He was a good man, and he deserved to know he was going to be a father again.
She takes her chance when she overhears him telling Dave that Jack was with Haley for the weekend. She goes to his place, the ultrasound photo she’d had taken that day burning a hole through her purse and against her side.
He’s confused when he opens the door, his eyebrows furrowed as he tilts his head, “Emily?”
“Hotch,” she says, clearing her throat and shaking her head as she corrects herself, “Aaron,” she says, “Can I come in?”
He nods, stepping back to let her pass, “Is everything okay?”
“I…” she drifts off, the way she’d rehearsed this on the drive over gone, her mind blank as she remembers how badly things had gone when she’d told John the same thing over 20 years ago, “I have something I need to tell you.”
“Okay,” he says, watching her carefully before he nods over to the couch, “Want to sit down?” He offers, and she smiles and sits, “Do you want a drink? I have some of that beer you like.”
“No,” she says, firmer than she intends to, shocking both of them, “I’m okay.” She adds, and he sits with her, the distance between them careful, as if anything less would make them cross a boundary they promised they’d maintain. She knows there’s no way of mincing her words, of saying what she needed to say gently, so she just says it, changing both of their futures in just two words. “I’m pregnant.”
His concern turns into shock, his eyes wide as he looks her up and down, his eyes lingering on her stomach before his eyes meet hers, “You’re…”
She smiles tightly and reaches into her purse, pulling out the copy of the ultrasound she’d bought him, “It’s yours.”
He takes the ultrasound and their fingers brushing as he looks at the grainy black and white picture, his expression unreadable as he studies it, “And you’re…”
“Keeping it,” she confirms, her lips pressed together as he looks back up at her, “You don’t have to be involved if you don’t want to be-”
“Who said I didn’t want to be,” he says, furrowing his brows, “I…I’ll help.”
“I don’t need help,” she insists, although she isn’t sure it’s true. “I thought you should know, that’s all.”
He nods and reaches over, grabbing her hand, touching her for the first time since the morning they woke up wrapped around each other, “I’ll help.”
His earnestness makes her suck in a breath, and she nods, relieved and grateful in a way she hadn’t anticipated.
“Okay.”
___
She stays after everyone else leaves the hospital. No one on the team says anything, and she’s grateful for it, that she doesn’t have to think of a reason why she doesn’t want to leave his side.
She isn’t even sure how she’d put it into words if she were asked.
He was her friend. The father of her baby - the baby no one but them and her doctor knew about yet - and the man she was worried she was falling in love with.
There was a moment when she was standing in his apartment, just feet away from where she told him about the baby, staring at a drying pool of his blood, when she’d almost thrown up. The metallic smell in the air mixing with the feeling she couldn’t allow herself to name as she realised he was missing. Everything she felt for him, everything she tried to pretend she didn’t feel for him, climbing up her throat, threatening to force its way out until she swallowed it back. She didn’t think about anything other than calling Penelope, grateful that she remembered to call him Hotch, not Aaron, when her friend answered.
When he woke up, the team all around him, and his eyes met hers, she briefly worried he’d give them away. That he’d utter the secret they were keeping, his usual sharpness lost somewhere between the pain he was in and the medication in his system, but he immediately asks questions about Foyet instead.
After he talks to Haley and to Jack, and sends them away, the team eventually leave too, forced home by their exhaustion. Worn out by coming straight from Canada, from the things they’d seen there, to this. It was enough to make them dead on their feet.
“I guess there’s no use in asking you if you’ll go into hiding?”
His question takes her by surprise. She thought he was asleep still, but when she looks at him, her attention drawn from the book in her hands that she’d barely been reading, he’s looking at her in a way that makes her think he might have been for a while.
“No,” she says simply, “There isn’t.”
“I…I don’t know if I can keep you safe.”
She smiles and lets her book drop to her lap, and she reaches out to him, putting her hand on his arm, “I can keep myself safe. And the baby.”
He nods, his eyes shining in a way she pretends she doesn’t see, “I’m sorry.”
“For what? Knocking me up in the first place? Or getting attacked by a sociopath in your own home?” She quips, “Because neither of those things are your fault.”
He chokes on a laugh before groaning, “Don’t make me laugh, it hurts.”
“Sorry,” she says, squeezing his hand again, “We’ll figure it all out, I promise.”
He nods, and she isn’t sure if it’s because he agrees, or if he has faith in her that she’d never quite had in herself.
___
By the time he’s back at work, the team know she’s pregnant.
They don’t know Aaron is the father, despite Penelope’s best efforts to find out who it was, and Emily is grateful that, for now, some of her secrets are still hers. She knows it’s inevitable that they’ll find out. She and Aaron were going to raise the baby as friends. There would be handovers and appointments, and his name on the baby’s birth certificate, but for now, all they knew was that she was having a baby.
And, that might be all they ever know if she ends up killing Aaron for his stupidity.
Derek has to stop her from following Aaron into the house Call was in, offering himself up as bait without second thought about his own safety. All Derek does is hold out a hand to stop her, casting a glance down at her still flat stomach, and she’s frozen in place, her jaw tight as she hears a gunshot ring out from inside.
She keeps it together on the drive back to Aaron’s, and she follows him in, lets the door shut behind her.
“Aaron-”
“Don’t,” he says, his jaw tight as he cuts her off, “Just…don’t.”
She stares at him for a second, anger swelling in her gut as she crosses her arms across her chest, ignoring his request. He wasn’t her boss here. He was her friend. The father of her kid.
And he was an idiot.
“You could have died,” she says, staring him down when he turns to look at her, “You just…walked in there-”
“I was doing my job-”
She scoffs, “That isn’t the job,” she half shouts, closing her eyes and shaking her head at herself as she tries to calm down, “You put yourself in danger. What about Jack? He’s going to need a father to come home to.”
He furrows his brows, anger pooling in the line between them, “Now hang on a minute-”
“And what about me?” She asks, throwing her hands up, “What about the baby?” She adds, shaking her head, furious at herself for the tears she feels gathering in her eyes, “You can’t just do that, okay? You’re mean to…” She drifts off when her voice cracks, and she looks away, “You said you’d be here to help me,” she wipes her cheek and looks back at him, “And you can’t do that if you’re dead. So I need you to get your act together.”
She watches as the fight drains out of him, his shoulders slumping as he nods, “I’m sorry,” he says, “You’re right, I just…”
He drifts off, and she closes the gap between them, pulls him into a hug that he returns, his arms tight around her.
“You’re not alone, Aaron.” She says, swallowing thickly, closing her eyes as she presses her cheek against his chest, hearing his heartbeat from the source before she pulls back to look at him. “You’ve got me.”
Jesse Ball, The Divers' Game // Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights // Richard Siken, Crush // Yelena Moskovich, A Door Behind A Door // vidhic0re on Pinterest (I don't believe they post anywhere else!) // Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena // @lucidloving, "The Last Person to Know You" // Red – Same Disease // Hera Lindsay Bird, "Mirror Traps" // @lucidloving, "You Only Want to Hold My Hand, Right?"
wanted to do some lighting studies, and of course what better inspiration for it than the x files. first two were done in procreate, 3rd in heavypaint, 4th in infinite painter
