Requests and asks are open
*All fics rated M/E are strictly 18+*
Multi-Chapter Fics
Someone You Love (WIP, on hiatus) - The story of two BAU agents in a canon-compliant (ish) retelling. Rated M.
The Wonder of You (completed) - Emily returns from Paris and finds her relationship with her boss forever changed. Rated M.
Short Fics & One Shots
Already Gone - You are cordially invited to the wedding of Aaron Hotchner and Beth Clemmons. Hotchniss angst with a happy ending. Rated T.
Couture - Emily buys a new dress, and Aaron can't take his eyes off her. Rated M.
Bespoke - Emily has a surprise for Aaron on their honeymoon. A follow-up to Couture. Can be read stand-alone. Rated E.
Life In Pink - Aaron and Emily try to celebrate their first wedding anniversary, but life doesn't always go as planned. Set in the Wonder of You universe. Can be read stand-alone. Rated T.
The Set Up - Aaron and Emily reluctantly agree to be set up on blind dates. Rated T.
Denique - Emily gets closer to Aaron and Jack after Paris, and an overheard conversation changes everything. Rated G.
Countdown - Rossi throws a New Year’s Eve party, and Aaron spends his night trying to avoid the one person he can’t stop staring at. Rated T.
“Oh,” she says softly, clearing her throat as she bites the inside of her cheek and attempts to read their reactions, “You know?”
Her father nods solemnly, the same look on his face he’d had when she accidentally broke a priceless vase when she was 9. It makes her feel like a teenager, like a kid who didn’t know any better, not like a woman just shy of her 23rd birthday.
Emily and Aaron's love story, and how they never let go of each other's hand.
-x-
Hi friends,
This is a birthday present for the lovely @prentissinred!! I am forever grateful that this fandom and our mutual love of these idiots brought you into my life <3 And, here's hoping we get to hang out again at some point this year.
Love you very much, and I hope you enjoy another instalment of young hotchniss!
-x-
Words: 5.2k
Warnings: Estrangement from parents
Read over on Ao3, or below the cut
September 1993
She feels anxiety spark in her chest the moment she turns onto her parent’s driveway, the oppressive nature of the forcing her to blow out a shaky breath even from the other side of the gate.
Even though she was living back in DC after finishing her masters she didn’t see them very often. Their relationship had always been strained, her resistance to be controlled like they wanted to control her, to fit perfectly into their lives, something she hadn’t grown out of once she left her teenage years like they hoped she would.
If she had a choice, she wouldn’t even be there this evening. She’d be at Aaron’s place, snuggled under a blanket on his couch as they ate Chinese food from the restaurant down the street from his apartment building. She’d be spending the evening with someone who loved her for who she was, not who they wanted her to be. But her dad had called her, something that was even rarer than her mother calling, and he’d asked her to come to dinner, an edge to his voice she didn’t remember hearing before, and her curiosity had won out.
She punches in the key for the gate without thinking about it. The number had always been the same, something that had driven every security professional her mom had ever hired crazy. It makes her smile as she thinks of her boyfriend, of how he’d still mention the code to the gate, his dry sense of humour something that never failed to make her laugh, and she shakes her head. She wishes he could be here with her and be by her side, but her parents didn’t know that they were together and, even though they’d been together for over a year, she didn’t want to tell them yet.
Part of it was a desire to protect him. He thought he understood how the world she had come from worked, that he’d figured it all out in the few months he worked for her parents on behalf of the FBI.
She frowns when the gate doesn’t open, and the small light under the number pad flashes red, she puts in the number again, making sure she pays attention this time, and the same thing happens.
“If that’s a sign I should just turn around and leave I don’t know what is,” she grumbles to herself before hitting the intercom, tucking her hair behind her ears as she waits for it to click through.
“Hello?”
She smiles softly at the sound of the housekeeper's voice, “Vanessa, hi, it’s Emily. The gate doesn’t seem to be working.”
“Miss Prentiss,” Vanessa answers, “I’ll open it for you now.”
“Thank you.”
The gate is almost agonisingly slow as it opens, but she takes the time to try and centre herself, sighing as she briefly checks her reflection in the rearview mirror. She makes sure her lipstick isn’t smudged, smiling softly at herself as she thinks of the gentle kiss Aaron had pressed against her lips before she left his place, and then she sits back in her seat and drives further up the driveway.
By the time she’s sitting in her parent's living room, her anxiety increases, mixed with the usual sense of irritation she had whenever she was here. This place had never been home to her, not really. They’d rarely spent more than a few months here at a time when she was young, moving from country to country based on her mother’s placements, so she’d never had a chance to settle, to feel relaxed here. Ironically, the longest she’d ever been here at one time was the summer between her undergrad and her master's.
The summer she met Aaron.
She’s pulled out of her train of thought as her parents walk into the room, and she stands up, hugging them both as they exchange greetings, and then she sits back down on the couch and they sit on the couch opposite.
“How are you, Emily?” Elizabeth asks as she sits down, “It’s been a while since you called.”
Emily smiles tightly, stopping herself from replying that phones called both ways, that she never called her either. Instead, she clears her throat, and takes some sort of twisted comfort in the fact she’d made out with Aaron more than once where her parents were currently sitting.
“I’m good,” she answers, using the skills they’d taught her when she was young against them, her ability to say so much by saying so little was one of the things they had passed on, one of the ways they’d so often have conversations without really saying anything at all. “I got confirmation I start the academy in January.”
She knew they didn’t approve of her decision to join the FBI and their reactions confirm it, the slight tightening of her mother’s shoulders and the way her father sits up a little straighter telling her all it ever needed to. They thought it was below her and had said as much, claiming that the education they had paid for could offer her so much more than the career she was choosing, but it didn’t deter her.
It was part of the reason she was hesitant to tell them about her and Aaron’s relationship. She knew they’d take it to mean that she was doing this purely because of him, that she was being led by her almost 30-year-old boyfriend to follow in his footsteps, and the thought of it drove her crazy, another reminder that they didn’t know her at all.
When had she ever done something because someone else wanted her to?
“I see,” her father says, clearing his throat as he looks at his daughter, “Is there anything else you need to tell us?”
She stares at them for a moment, her heart skipping a beat in her chest as she licks her lower lip, and she shakes her head, feigning innocence, “What else would there be?”
Her mother sighs and looks over at her father before she looks back at Emily, a flicker of disappointment that she was familiar with and something new, something she couldn’t put a name to.
“Emily,” Elizabeth says, clasping her hands together in her lap to stop herself from picking at her nails, a habit Emily had picked up from her when she was small, “We know about you and Agent Hotchner.”
For a moment, it feels like the air is sucked out of the room. She stares at her parents as she tries to think of what to say, already aware it is too late to deny it. She knows that they hadn’t been particularly subtle over the summer, and it wasn’t entirely a shock to learn that her parents had found out about her relationship with the man they’d hired to co-ordinate security at the house whilst they were away, but she’d wanted to tell them on her terms.
Emily had never been close to either of her parents, and she didn’t have a relationship with them where she shared details of her life when she didn’t need to. But she was serious about Aaron, the 15 months they’d been together now largely in secret some of the happiest of her life, and she knew it was time to come clean.
“Oh,” she says softly, clearing her throat as she bites the inside of her cheek and attempts to read their reactions, “You know?”
Her father nods solemnly, the same look on his face he’d had when she accidentally broke a priceless vase when she was 9. It makes her feel like a teenager, like a kid who didn’t know any better, not like a woman just shy of her 23rd birthday.
“Yes, Emily,” he says, “We know.”
The nerves she’d felt earlier as she walked into the house make themselves known again, making her chest tight and capturing the breath she’d sucked in, holding it in place, as she watches her parents look at each other before they look back at yer, both privy to something she does not yet know about.
___
He’d only popped out to get ice cream.
Aaron knew she’d be upset and irritated when she came home from her parents, she always was, and he realised he was out of any of the sweet food she liked so he’d gone out to get it. He sighs as he steps out of the store and sees that it has started pouring rain since he got there. He tucks the ice cream under his arm and starts to jog towards his building, grateful that he’d only gone to the place a block away. He frowns as he gets closer to his building, his pace increasing when he sees her sitting on the steps, seemingly unaware she is getting soaked to the bone.
“Em?” He asks, coming to a stop in front of her, sitting on the step next to her when she doesn’t react, not caring about the material of his pants sticking to his skin. She jumps slightly as he cups her chin to make her look at him, seemingly only just realising he was there, “What are you doing, sweetheart?” He asks, encouraging her to stand, his hand on her back, “You’ve got a key you could have gone in.”
She nods absentmindedly, rain dripping down the slope of her nose, her dark hair plastered to her skin, “Yeah, sorry.”
His concern only deepens, swirling in his gut as he leads her up the stairs, his hand never leaving her back as he almost drops the ice cream whilst he digs his keys out of his pocket, “Nothing to apologise for sweetheart,” he assures her, kissing the side of her head, “Let’s get you inside.”
She’s silent as they walk to his apartment and he doesn’t push her, worst-case scenarios floating through his mind as he unlocks his front door. He puts the pint of ice cream down on the side table and shrugs off his coat, letting it drop to the floor as he leads her to the couch. He pulls the blanket off the back of it and wraps it around her as he encourages her to sit down.
“Aaron, the couch I’ll ruin-”
“I don’t care about that,” he says, sitting on the edge of the coffee table, his knees on either side of hers as he reaches for her hands, wincing at how cold her skin is, “You’re freezing.”
She chuckles dryly and nods as he covers her hands with his, easily enveloping them as he tries to press warmth into her skin. She’d almost loved his hands, the comfort they gave her. They were one of the first few things she’d noticed about him, how large they were, how they made his cell phone look like nothing more than a child’s toy. She remembers the first time she held his hand, the first time she felt the strength she’d spent weeks imagining shifting under his skin as she led him out of a party her parents were hosting.
She’d kissed him that night, the first of many, the start of a new chapter of her life.
“Yeah, I guess I am,” she says, only now realising how cold she felt, shivering violently under the blanket she’d napped under more than once. She swallows thickly as her eyes meet his, concern and love swirling in his gaze and she blows out a slow breath, “My parents know about us.”
He raises his eyebrows, unable to control his surprise, “Oh,” he says, still rubbing his hands against hers, “I thought you weren’t going to tell them yet.”
He didn’t blame her for not wanting to tell them. He knew their relationship was difficult, that it always had been, and he never wanted to make her feel uncomfortable. He knew what it was like to have the parents you wanted, to not be able to share things with them. In a strange way, he thinks it’s one of the reasons he and Emily worked so well. They understood each other in a way so few people did, their childhoods wildly different yet painted with similar themes.
“I didn’t tell them,” she says, pressing her lips together and shaking her head, choking on a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob, “They already knew.”
They fall into silence and he watches her carefully, how she shrinks back into herself, her face turned to press into the blanket around her shoulders as she breathes in the scent of it, “I’m assuming because of your general demeanour it didn’t go well.”
She laughs and shakes her head, “No, it didn’t go well,” she looks at him, “They…they told me if I didn’t break up with you they’d cut me off. Take away the trust fund.”
“What?” He asks, his grip on her tightening, anger and irritation licking at his insides as he clenches his teeth. It seemed absurd, ludicrous that they’d threaten such a thing to their only child just because she dared to be happy in a way they didn’t understand.
She nods, “They think it’s best if I end up with someone more like me,” she says, shaking her head, “And they live in a world where money is at the centre of everything so…” she shrugs, “I guess that’s how they think they can control me.”
The silence is awkward for a moment as he tries to read her, tries to figure out if her demeanour is because she has to break up with him and doesn’t know how to. He knew exactly how much money was in that trust fund. She’d told him once, casually mentioning the millions of dollars she had to her name and how it paid for her rent, how one day she hoped it would pay for a house she would buy. Something she considered to be full circle, using the money that had meant she hadn’t ever had a home to get one.
“What did you tell them?” He asks carefully, making sure his voice is even and soft. He wouldn’t blame her if she made that choice. Haley had left him for a whole lot less than potentially losing her parents and more money than most people saw in their lives.
“I told them to go fuck themselves,” she says bluntly., her eyes finally meeting him, a desperate laugh escaping her chest as she shakes her head.
He laughs too, her responses shocking him as he shakes his head, “Em-”
“I literally said that to them,” she says, cutting him off, unaware he’d even started to speak, “I told them to go fuck themselves,” she repeats, biting the inside of her cheek to stop herself from smiling, “You should have seen my mother’s face.”
Aaron can’t explain the guilt that washes over him, hot and overwhelming as he looks at her, her hair still stuck to her skin as she sits wide-eyed in front of him, “Sweetheart,” he says carefully, unhooking one of his hands from around hers and cupping her chin, “I’d understand if…”
She feels her heartbreak as he drifts off, the words he hadn’t said hanging in the air around them, heavy and suffocating. She knows he means it, that he’d happily accept her breaking up with him because of her parent's ultimatum, and she shifts forward so she’s closer to him, one of her hands on his cheek.
“I’m not breaking up with you,” she says firmly, the relief on his face palpable, only making her ache more, “And it’s not even about us really, or you,” she says, “They would have done this no matter what, used this as leverage over me for my whole life if I ever did something they didn’t agree with. This way I’m free.”
“To be who you want to be.”
She smiles at how he’s phrased it, how he’s centred her in it and not himself or their relationship, “Yeah,” she says, pressing her lips together as she nods, “I can be who I want to be,” she blows out a shaky breath and rests her forehead against his, “I’ll have to move out of my place. Even if I could find a way to continue to afford it…I don’t want them to know where I live.” There were so many things she hadn’t even thought of yet, so many details she’d have to consider and change now she no longer had contact with them, but a place to live was her main concern, “I don’t know if you’re ready for a roommate-”
“Sweetheart,” he says, cupping the back of her head as he pulls back to look at her, “You practically live here anyway. I was actually trying to figure out how to ask you to move in.”
She raises her eyebrows at him, her eyes shining with tears he knows she’ll wait until they are in bed to shed, the comfort of his embrace and the safety of his bedroom the place where she could finally let go. “Really?”
He smiles at her disbelief, at the way she frowns at him and he nods, “Really. Just ask Dave, I’ve been asking him for advice,” he kisses her cheek and then stands up, encouraging her to do the same, “Come one, let's go get you in the shower and then into bed, I don’t want you getting sick.”
She nods and lets him lead her to the bathroom, her head against his shoulder as they walk together, both of them aware that they had so much more to talk about, but that it could wait.
In the morning, they find the melted pint of ice cream on the side table, and Emily doesn’t think she’s ever loved someone as much as she loves him when he goes to buy her some more.
___
January 1998
Aaron chuckles as Emily crawls under the covers of their bed, sighing loudly as she sits next to him and rests her head on his shoulder.
“Long day?” He asks jokingly, as if they hadn’t spent the whole day together, and he presses a kiss to her forehead
She hums as she raises her eyebrow, “I don’t know how you’ve worked with Gideon and Dave as long as you have.”
He smiles and tucks some of her hair behind her ear, making sure to stroke her cheek as he does so, “They aren’t that bad.”
She’d only recently joined the BAU, a decision that had been delayed by the Section Chief being unsure if she wanted a husband and wife working together on the same team. Ultimately, her track record, and what she’s sure was not a small amount of meddling from Dave, spoke for itself and her transfer from Counterterrorism was approved.
“Whatever you say, honey,” she grumbles. She watches as he clenches his hand in and out of a fist a few times, his brow furrowing as he suppresses a groan of pain. “Is your hand hurting?” She asks, already knowing the answer when he stops flexing his hand, a soft smile on his face that lets her know he hadn’t even realised he’d been doing it.
“A little,” he replies, playing down the ache in his palm like he always had, “It’s always worse when it’s cold.”
He was 13 when it happened.
He’d gotten in between his father and his mother and walked away with what he would later find out were two broken bones in his hand. He hadn’t been taken to the hospital, the injury treated instead by bandages, ice and a guilty smile from his mom as she assured him it would be fine. It was years later when he was in hospital for an unrelated injury, a sprained wrist he’d got during training at the academy, when he found out the bones had been broken all those years ago. The doctor who told him said that the bones hadn’t healed properly, and the persistent pain he’d felt for half his life would be permanent.
Emily knew about it, they had no secrets from each other, and he remembered the mix of sadness and anger in her eyes when he told her. How she’d looked outraged and devastated for the teenage version of him in equal measure. She’d asked if she could help, if there was some way she could make him feel better, and he’d told her massaging it made the ache go away.
She smiles softly at him as she reaches for his right hand and holds it between both of hers, she presses her thumbs in an upward motion on his palm. She makes sure her touch is firm enough to push out the tension but gentle enough that she doesn’t hurt him. She repeats the motion again and again, the ache dissipating as she does. As if she wasn’t only helping with the pain, but with removing his father’s violence and his mother’s indifference from his past, from where it lingered under his skin, and replacing it with her love and affection, two things she always gave him freely and without condition.
It was how they loved each other, how they’d built their life just the two of them.
She hadn’t spoken to her parents since the night they’d given her the ultimatum. She’d removed herself from any circle where they may overlap, no longer wanting anything to do with people who tried to force her into a box she had never truly fit into. She’d found a job in the few months between it happening and her starting at the academy. She worked as a waitress in a diner with bright pink seats and an exuberant owner, serving coffee and all-day breakfast to people who barely looked at her. Aaron would rub her feet when she got home from work and tell her she didn’t have to do it if she didn’t want to, that they’d get by on his salary for a few months if they needed to, but she’d been insistent, desperate to have something to do in the long days when he was at work.
They still went to that diner occasionally. It’s where they’d gone for lunch after they got married at city hall, neither of them wanting a fuss about something that simply felt like the next step for them. They’d left a generous tip when the owner refused to let them pay for their meal and left hand in hand, their hearts and stomachs full and their smiles wide.
She’d never for a second doubted that she’d done the right thing by refusing to give into her parents demands, but the life she’d built with Aaron was worth more to her than any of the money she’d lost.
They had a house together, a mortgage. They had bills and disagreements about the best way to budget, and it was so beautifully ordinary sometimes it made her ache.
“Is it feeling any better?” She asks, still concentrating on massaging his hand.
“My hand always feel better the moment you hold it,” he replies and she shakes her head as she laughs.
“You say the most ridiculous shit,” she says and she raises his hand to her lips to kiss his fingertips.
“And yet you married me anyway.”
She smiles as she looks up at him, “Yeah,” she says softly, kissing him, putting everything she felt for him into it, “I did.”
___
“I am going to kill Jason.”
Aaron clears his throat and raises his eyebrow at his wife, “Sweetheart,” he says, waiting until she stops pacing and looks over at him, her arms tight over her chest, “Maybe stop threatening our friend in front of the doctor?”
She clenches her teeth and looks back and forth between Aaron and the doctor standing next to the gurney he was sitting on, blood splattered from his forehead down his face and onto your shirt.
“Jason is your friend, not mine,” she corrects, “Especially after today.”
It was like it had happened in slow motion as she watched an unsub lash out at him, grabbing Jason’s gun from his holster and hitting Aaron in the forehead as they attempted to restrain him. Aaron had briefly lost consciousness. Every second he was out felt like a lifetime to her, everything else around them disappearing as she desperately tried to wake him up.
It wasn’t even close to the worst injury either of them had been on the receiving end of since they’d joined the FBI, but it didn’t make it any easier. She hated when he was hurt, hated the reminder that so much of her happiness was reliant on him, but she knew that was the price for love.
It was a price she’d happily pay for the rest of her life.
She knew Aaron felt the same way. She’d had her appendix removed shortly after they’d got married, and he’d been a wreck. It made her wonder what he’d be like when they eventually had a baby or two, something they both wanted when the time was right, and the thought of it never failed to make her smile. The image of her usually unflappable husband on edge as she brought their kid into the world something she couldn’t wait to see.
She wanted to build their family, to have even more of her husband to love, but whenever he suggested starting to try she put it off. No matter how much she wanted it, she couldn’t shift the feeling that she’d be like her mother. That the lack of maternal skills were genetic, and it wasn’t in her to be the mother she so desperately wanted to be.
Aaron smiles at his wife and reaches out for her, offering her his hand, “Come here, Em.”
She sighs and walks over, sitting on the edge of the gurney as she sandwiches his hand in between hers, squeezing tightly, “Need me to hold your hand whilst you get your stitches?”
He smiles softly, “Always,” he says, winking at her, “It will be good practice for when we eventually have a kid, anyone that’s half you will inevitably end up in a few scrapes.”
She chokes on a laugh and nods, unable to stop herself from smiling at the thought of their kid. Someone half him and half her with a scraped knee insisting that they were fine. All her anxieties disappear for a moment and she simply lines forward and presses a kiss to his lips.
She hums as she pulls back and squeezes his hand again, “That’s a lot of talk for a man who’s about to have his forehead stitched back together.”
___
June 2003
She relaxes the moment she parks on the driveway.
She wastes no time in getting out of the car, desperate to see her husband and their little girl even though she’d only been out for a few hours. Penelope had convinced her to go out for dinner with her and JJ, claiming it had been far too long since they’d last done so, and she’d agreed at Aaron’s insistence.
Emily smiles as she opens the front door, “Honey, I’m home,” she calls out, surprised when she’s not greeted by either Aaron or Evelyn. The four-year-old would usually run to her, her smile wide as she threw herself into her mother’s arms. She furrows her brows, “Hello?”
“We’re in the living room,” Aaron calls back and she smiles as she starts to walk towards them, looking forward to spending some time with her family.
It was strange to think it had almost been 10 years since she’d last seen her parents, since what she thought would be a normal, awkward dinner with them had turned into the ultimatum that had permanently torn them apart. She was proud of what she’d built from nothing, of the fact her daughter would never doubt that she was loved unconditionally like she once had, and she never looked back.
She smiles as she steps into the living room, her heart swelling in her chest as she stops in the doorway, her eyes fixed on Aaron and Evelyn. Aaron was sitting with their daughter in his lap, she was already dressed in her Spiderman pjyamas and had her hair in neat pigtails. She had Aaron’s hand in between hers and she was rubbing her thumbs up and down his palm, her tongue sticking out as she concentrates on what she was doing.
“What’s all this?” Emily asks as she walks over, sitting down on the couch next to them. She stamps a kiss against Evelyn’s forehead and then Aaron’s lips, “Hi.”
“Hi,” he replies, kissing her again, “Evie here is helping with my hand.”
She has to press her lips together to stop her smile from getting too wide, sure her cheeks would ache with it. She cups her daughter’s cheek and smiles at her as she looks up, “You’re helping Daddy, huh?”
Evelyn nods enthusiastically, “Just like you do.”
When she’d first found out they were having a girl she’d panicked, her fear that she would turn into her own mother seemingly coming to life. Aaron had talked her down just like he always did, comforting her with his love and patience like he had learnt to do that very first summer together. Every fear had been unfounded just like he said it would be, the moment she’d first held Evelyn she knew she’d do anything to protect her, to make sure she knew she was loved.
She’d never understood her mother less than when she’d become one herself. She thought about her more in the last few years than she had in the first few they’d been estranged. She wondered what her mother had felt when she watched her take her first steps, or the first time she said Mama. She wondered if she’d felt as nervous about her starting school as Emily felt about Evelyn starting in the fall.
It was a constant reminder of what she never had, and what she never would, but what she’d always make sure her little girl would never doubt.
“That’s so sweet, baby,” Emily says, kissing Evelyn’s forehead, “Why don’t you go brush your teeth and then Daddy and I will come up and read you a story in a little bit?”
She nods enthusiastically and jumps off the couch, running out of the room quickly, her pigtails flapping behind her. Emily waits until she’s out of earshot and she reaches for her husband's hand, linking their fingers together.
“Did she help with the pain?”
“Not at all, her hands are way too small,” he says, smiling at her, “But she offered and it was so cute I couldn’t say no.”
She chuckles and stamps a kiss against his lips, “Once she’s asleep I’ll do it for you.”
He hums and kisses her again, “Thanks, sweetheart,” he says, “Once it’s all better, I’ll thank you properly.”
She bites her lower lip and winks at him, “You’ve got a deal.”
It is the lovely @prentissinred's birthday on Friday, and as per usual I'm writing her some young Hotchniss.
There is a sneak peek below the cut, and it's slightly longer than usual since you'll have to wait until Friday for the rest <3
Her mother sighs and looks over at her father before she looks back at Emily, a flicker of disappointment that she was familiar with and something new, something she couldn’t put a name to.
“Emily,” Elizabeth says, clasping her hands together in her lap to stop herself from picking at her nails, a habit Emily had picked up from her when she was small, “We know about you and Agent Hotchner.”
For a moment, it feels like the air is sucked out of the room. She stares at her parents as she tries to think of what to say, already aware it is too late to deny it. She knows that they hadn’t been particularly subtle over the summer, and it wasn’t entirely a shock to learn that her parents had found out about her relationship with the man they’d hired to co-ordinate security at the house whilst they were away, but she’d wanted to tell them on her terms.
Emily had never been close to either of her parents, and she didn’t have a relationship with them where she shared details of her life when she didn’t need to. But she was serious about Aaron, the 5 months they’d been together now largely in secret some of the happiest of her life, and she knew it was time to come clean.
“Oh,” she says softly, clearing her throat as she bites the inside of her cheek as she attempts to read their reactions, “You know?”
Her father nods solemnly, the same look on his face he’d had when she accidentally broke a priceless vase when she was 9. It makes her feel like a teenager, like a kid who didn’t know any better, not like a woman just shy of her 23rd birthday.
umm requests for touching 10, 16, 24, 52 and make it slutty for me xo
of course bestie!!
The prompts are:
Touching 10/16/24/52: spooning at night / massaging them / whispering in their ear, lips touching the skin / gripping thigh
This...got away from me. Massively. And I am not sorry.
(This might actually be the smuttiest thing I have ever written so I am a little anxious about it!)
-x-
Precarious
She wondered if this was what madness felt like.
Words: 4k
Warnings: Smut, 18+
Read over on Ao3, or below the cut
She missed him.
It felt ridiculous really. She worked with him. Lived with him. Slept next to him. But she missed him. The want and need for her husband thrumming under her skin in a way she could no longer ignore.
It had been over two months since they’d been together. A quick fuck in the shower before they left for work that morning, taking some much-needed time between the two of them on a rare occasion when the kids were all still asleep. If she closed her eyes she could still feel the way he’d held her close, his wet skin slipping against hers as they tried to keep quiet. If she’d known it would have been their last time for a while, their longest dry spell since they’d together including after she’d had their two youngest children, she would have tried harder to convince him to stay in the shower for another round that morning.
His phone had distracted him, the ringing from their bedroom drawing his attention back towards work and the case that would end up with her dislocating her shoulder. Aaron had never been one to follow medical advice for himself, but if it was for her or the kids he followed it to the letter. Meaning, much to her irritation, when the doctor explained that ‘strenuous activity’ included sex she knew he’d take it seriously.
Emily had hoped that when her doctor gave her the all-clear they’d be good to go, but then Violet caught the flu at school. The five-year-old had been miserable, sleeping in between her parents for days, snuggled up into her mother’s side as she fought off the fever she inevitably passed on to both of her brothers.
Now everyone was better and back to sleeping in their own rooms, Emily was starting to feel frustrated. No longer distracted by the pain in her shoulder that had been worse than she’d admitted to Aaron, or her sick children, all she could think about was how much she really, really needed to have sex with her husband.
“Jack is distracting the hotchkins with his video game,” Aaron says as he walks into their bedroom, already undoing his tie as he walks towards their closet to change out of his work clothes, the very same thing she’d come in here to do only a few minutes earlier. She smiles at the use of the nickname Penelope had given their younger children as soon as she’d met Violet for the first time.
“Pen would be delighted to know you call them that when she isn’t around,” she says pulling her sweatpants over her hips before she sits on the edge of the bed.
Aaron chuckles, “Please don’t tell her, it will only encourage her to do it more.”
“Your secret is safe with me,” she says, smiling up at him as he continues to change. She doesn’t try to hide the fact she’s watching him, and can’t suppress her groan when he takes off his shirt, quickly replacing it with a t-shirt. He turns to look at her, his eyebrows furrowing.
“Are you ok, sweetheart?”
She briefly considers telling him, but she knows they won’t really have time. That both of them being upstairs would only lead to one thing - one of their children yelling for them.
“I’m ok,” she replies, forcing a smile she knows he sees through, “It’s just been a long day.”
He stares at her for a second before he walks over to the bed, sitting behind her on the mattress. He places his hand on her shoulder, the one she’d injured only a couple of months prior, and feels the tension in her whole body.
“Is your shoulder bothering you?” He asks, starting to massage her shoulder, and moving along the top of her back, his thumbs finding knots in the base of her neck.
She barely suppresses a groan, her head dipping forward subconsciously to give him more access to her skin.
“No, not my shoulder,” she breathes out, shivering as his familiar touch makes goose pimples spread across her body.
Aaron doesn’t miss the tightness in her voice, or how her body gets impossibly tense beneath his palms.
“Em-”
“Aaron, I swear to god you’ve got to stop touching me,” she snaps, every nerve hanging on by a thread, ready to snap if his hands so much as drifted any further down. She feels his hands fall away from her, and she sighs, guilt pooling in her belly at the hurt on his face, calming the fire of arousal that had started to build, “Fuck,” she mutters under her breath, reaching out for his hand and linking their fingers together, “I’m sorry. You haven’t done anything wrong. I’m just…a little on edge.”
He squeezes her hand in his and shakes his head, a silent promise that her apology was unnecessary. “Anything I can help with?”
She chuckles dryly, “Absolutely. If we ever find the goddamn time.”
One thing they’d both always loved about their relationship was how much they understood each other, how much went unsaid. She sees the moment the penny drops, his eyes widening slightly as he fails to hide a smirk from her.
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” she replies, “I miss you. That’s all.”
He smiles at her, and leans forward to kiss her, his lips firm against hers, “I miss you too.”
She gets lost in it. Lets herself get caught up in the wave of his affection, in him. She can taste the decaf coffee they’d shared on the drive home from work on his tongue as it sweeps past her lips, and she’s only brought back to reality when she feels a groan vibrate through her chest.
“Aaron,” she mutters, her protests lost for a second as he chases her lips, “Honey, the kids are just downstairs. It’s almost dinner time.”
He pulls back, his eyes dark with lust, and she realises in that moment he’s wanted this just as much as she has. He’d always been better at hiding it, something he attributed to having to pretend he wasn’t attracted to her since the moment they met.
“I’d say,” he replies, leaning in to press his lips to the collum of her throat, “we have maybe 10 minutes,” he moves his kisses up to her jaw, “I can do a lot with 10 minutes.”
She moans, turning her head to capture his lips before he can kiss her cheek, her response in how fiercely she kisses him. How tightly she wraps her hands into his hair. He pins her to the bed, his familiar weight over her enough to make her almost lose her mind by itself. He grasps at her skin, his hand working it's way up inside her t-shirt, palming at her breast, muffling words about how perfect she is against her lips, before he moves back downwards, aware that time was of the essence even when he was drunk on her.
His hand slips below the waistband of her sweatpants, his warm skin scorching against hers. He’s barely pushing past her underwear, his fingers grazing her clit, when they are torn abruptly from the haze they’d fallen into.
“Mommy!”
They pull back from each other so quickly they bang their heads into each other, both groaning in pain as they sit up, his hand leaving her sweatpants just in time before their 5-year-old daughter bursts into the room, fury all over her face.
“What’s wrong, Vi?” Emily asks, thinking it is nothing short of a miracle that she isn’t breathless.
“Benny took my controller and he won’t give it back.”
Emily sighs, standing up and walking over to her daughter, “Benny is 3, honey. He doesn’t always understand what sharing is.”
Violet pouts, grumbling under her breath as she often did when it came to her younger brother Benjamin.
“It’s not fair.”
“I know, sweet girl,” Emily says, picking her up and heaving her onto her hip, “But he’s not doing it to be mean.”
Violet sighs but nods, “I’m hungry.”
Emily suppresses a smile at the fickle nature of a 5-year-old, how her previous upset was almost already forgotten.
“Me too,” she looks over at her husband, not missing how the bastard subtly wipes his hand on his sweatpants as he stands up, “Daddy was just about to start on dinner.”
“We’re not going out?” Violet asks, and Emily shakes her head, turning to leave the room so she could head downstairs to find out what her sons were up to.
“No, baby,” she mutters, “No one will be eating out tonight.”
___
If anything, the interrupted moment in their bedroom the night before makes her even more frustrated. They’d never got round to finishing off what they’d started, the night disappearing quickly as it always did into bedtime routines and the promise of ‘just one more’ story.
It wasn’t even like work helped because he was there. Looking far too sexy and serious in his suit as he sat at his desk. She’d never wished that her desk wasn’t facing his office before, but she finds herself just staring at him through the slats of the blinds, distracted by memories of how he’d fucked her, more than once, on the desk he was currently doing paperwork on.
She briefly thinks about going up to try and convince him that they should revisit their old ways again, but she knows he was better at resisting her at work ever since Dave had walked in on them in the supply closet. She growls to herself and grabs her mug off her desk, welcoming the brief distraction from her husband as she walks to the kitchen to get a coffee.
She reaches for the jug of decaf, knowing full well the last thing she needed was for there to be as much caffeine in her system as there was lust, when Derek approaches her, a sparkle in his eyes that she has no time for.
“You ok, Em? You seem a little on edge.”
“I’m fine,” she replies, ripping the top off of two packets of Splenda with more force than necessary.
He hums, watching her carefully, and she’s never been so frustrated to be surrounded by profilers all the time.
“Sure. That’s exactly how a fine person would say that.”
She sighs, knowing her irritation is unreasonable, and she stirs her coffee with force, “Just leave it please, Derek.”
“You not getting any or something? You haven’t been this wound up since before you and Hotch got together,” he comments, and she hates that she has a momentary reaction and that he sees it. “Oh my god-”
“Derek, I swear-”
“Is that what the problem is, you aren’t getting laid? Bossman holding out on you?”
She clenches her teeth, finally stopping stirring her coffee and she looks at him, “It has been…a little while. Between my shoulder injury, the kids getting sick and just…having a family.”
He leans against the counter, still smirking at her, but his eyes are softer, not so much of his previous teasing on display.
“He hides it better than you, but he’s frustrated too.”
She frowns, tilting her head slightly as she looks at him, “What do you mean?”
“Let’s just say he’s been sparring a lot more than usual down in the gym the last couple of months. And he’s even grumpier than usual.”
“He’s not grumpy,” she says, always ready to defend her husband.
“Yes. He is. And so are you,” Derek says, his mischief returning, “So, and I speak on behalf of the entire BAU when I say this, please make sure you do something about it,” he shivers slightly, his nose scrunching up, “It’s almost worse than when the two of you were pretending you weren’t in love with each other.”
She rolls her eyes and walks away with her coffee without further comment. She spends the rest of the day struggling to do paperwork and avoiding her friend’s amused gaze.
___
Emily stays behind after everyone else, including Aaron, leaves.
She claims it’s to finish her paperwork. Which was partially true, since she’d spent most of the day unable to focus, but she also just needs some space.
She gets caught in traffic and goes home via a drive-thru, and by the time she parks up on the driveway, she knows the kids will be ready for bedtime.
She’s confused when she walks through the door and finds it’s silent, a rare commodity in their home. She’s about to call out, to find where her family is, when Aaron rounds the corner, his finger to his lips as he silently shushes her.
“Where are our children?” She asks quietly, letting him help her out of her coat, his fingers trailing down her arms, “You didn’t sell them did you?”
He rolls his eyes at her, “No,” he replies, holding her steady as she takes her shoes off, “Violet and Benny are both asleep, and Jack is at a sleepover with his friends.”
She nods, remembering the evening her eldest had been looking forward to for weeks, “He’s going to be so tired when he gets back tomorrow. I can’t believe you got them to sleep.”
“I may have bribed them with a visit to the zoo tomorrow.” He says, shrugging and she shakes her head at him, but melts into him as he wraps his arms around her, his hand on her back, his fingers grazing the belt line of her pants. He leans in to kiss her, pulling back when he tastes salt on her lips, “Did you eat?”
She bites her lip to stop herself from smiling, “I may have come home via Mcdonald's.”
He shakes his head lovingly at her, his usual chastisement that she should eat healthier nowhere to be found.
“Good,” he says instead, kissing her again before he turns her, following her closely as he walks them to the stairs with his hands on her hips, “It will save us some time.”
He doesn’t stop touching her the entire journey to their bedroom, his hands on her hips and his lips attached to her neck. As soon as they are in their room, the door gently closed behind them so they don’t wake up the kids, she turns in his arms, kissing him fiercely as she lets herself get led to the bed, the back of her legs hitting it.
The tiny bit of control he has left snaps as she whimpers, and he reaches for the buttons of her shirt. Before he can consider undoing them slowly, teasing her like he had spent the evening planning to, she pushes his hands away, tearing her own shirt apart, the button scattering across the floor.
“Keen, are we?” He chuckles against her lips, pushing the now ruined shirt down her arms, letting it fall to the floor.
“Shut up and take your fucking clothes off,” she replies, already taking off her bra and reaching for the fastenings on her pants. He does as he’s asked, taking little care with his clothes for once, his desperation for her overriding any concerns about how everything would be creased.
She sits on the edge of the bed when she’s naked, and he smiles down at her, his body thrumming with want, and he leans down to kiss her, encouraging her further up the bed until they reach the pillows. He wastes no time in pushing her thighs apart, a sense of pride he knows she’d kill him for if he voiced it spreading through his chest when he sees how wet she already is.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he says, smiling up at her, shifting up to kiss her cheek, feeling the heat of her skin against him, “I’ve barely touched you.”
“Aaron, I swear to go-” She’s cut off as he swipes his finger over her clit, drawing sharp circles around her in a way that takes her breath away. “Fuck.”
He builds her up almost giving her no time to breathe, and if it was any other situation, if desperation for him wasn’t flowing through her veins, she would be embarrassed at how quickly she comes.
“So beautiful,” he mutters, kissing her neck, his fingers never stopping their small movements over her clit, not letting her come all the way back down, “So beautiful and all mine,” he says, kissing down her body, smiling as she twitches against him.
He presses two fingers into her and she can’t do anything other than whimper, her fingers tightening in his hair as he settles between her legs, his shoulders pushing her thighs further apartment. He moves his fingers in and out of her, always pressing in just the right places, slowing her back up as if she’d ever fully recovered from her orgasm just minutes before.
He places his other hand on her stomach, firmly holding her in place as she tries to roll her hips. She struggled to look at his hands sometimes at work. Couldn’t look at his fingers wrapped around a gun, the Glock always looking like a toy in his hands, without thinking about how easily he could take her apart.
Aaron kisses the inside of her thigh, sucking a mark near the apex of them, a token for her carry for days after this. He smiles as he feels her trembling, one hand buried in his hair and the other grasping the comforter below her, and he shifts just enough to lick through her, his tongue against her clit working in tandem with his fingers, increasing the pace in which he moves them in and out of her.
She feels it start to build inside of her, warmth sparking in her stomach, a fire spreading throughout her entire body, “Fuck, Aaron, baby, I’m going to-”
“Do it,” he mutters, barely pulling away from her so she can hear him, “come.”
She wouldn’t have been able to stop it if she’d wanted to, her entire body tensing, her thighs tight around his head as she does as he’s told her. It takes a few seconds for her vision to clear, and when it does he’s laying next to her, a smirk on his face.
“You look far too pleased with yourself,” she says, pulling him in for a kiss, tasting herself on his lips.
“I’m not done yet,” he replies, kissing her once more before he encourages her to lay on her side. He moulds his body behind hers, every part of her pressed up against a part of him. He grabs her thigh and lifts it, pulling it back to lay over his, and he groans as he notches against her, feeling the slick wetness he’d left between her thighs. “Shit, Em.”
“Please,” she mutters, sure that this was what madness must feel like, and she breathes out relief as he pushes forward, entering her slowly.
She groans at the sensation, the position making the usual stretch of him feel bigger than usual, as if he could push her to her limit.
“You feel so fucking good, sweetheart,” he says, his face buried into her shoulder, “Like you were made for me.” He starts to thrust, sure if he didn’t move he’d embarrass himself like he was a teenager having his first fumble with his girlfriend.
Emily gasps, reaching back for him, her hand grasping for something, anything to hold onto. She ends up tangling her fingers in his hair, and turns to look at him, ignoring the pull in her neck as she kisses him, wanting as much of him as she can get.
He grips her thigh tighter, enough that he’s sure there will be bruises from his fingertips tattooed across her skin the morning. A secret between the two of them beneath her clothes, evidence that she was his. He grunts as he starts to thrust harder, and she moans, pulling away from the kiss as she turns her head back, pushing her face partially into the pillow in an attempt to stay quiet. He reaches round and presses his finger against her clit, smiling into her neck as he rubs small circles against her and she barely conceals a whine.
“You’ve got to be quiet, sweetheart,” he whispers, his lips against her ear. His breath skips across her skin as his hand reaches for her breast, pinching her nipple, another assault on her senses that pushes her closer to the edge, “If they wake up we’ll have to stop.”
She whines again, lifting her hand to her mouth to cover it, sure if they had to stop she would go mad.
“Aaron,” she mumbles, her words muffled against her skin, “so close.”
He presses his forehead against the top of her head, suppressing his own groan as she gets impossibly tighter around him, both of them on the precipice.
“You’re fucking perfect,” he says, speeding up the circles he was drawing around her clit, “Let go, Em,” he whispers, his rhythm starting to falter as she comes around him, his name a whine against her palm. The way she clenches around him is all he needs to join her, coming deep inside of her as he smothers a growl in her neck.
They lay there for a moment, both trying to catch their breath, before she laughs, disentangling herself from him enough to turn to look at him, lamenting as he slips out of her. She kisses him, her hand on his cheek as she holds him in place, her forehead against his when she pulls back.
“That was…” she chuckles again, “Well, I’d say if that's what it’s like if we wait so long we should do it again. But I think I’d go insane.”
“Me too,” he replies, kissing her, pulling her impossibly closer, “I think it would drive the rest of the team crazy as well.”
She smiles, but it fades, turning into confusion, “What do you mean?”
“Derek said something to me today,” he says, smoothing her hair out of her face before he kisses her once more, standing to go get into the shower before they settled into bed.
“He said something to me too,” she replies, her body still buzzing in a way she’s unable to feel embarrassed, she stretches, her body aching in delicious ways as she follows him to the bathroom, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was trying to win a bet…” she drifts off, her eyes meeting her husband’s as it clicks in her head, “Oh that fucker.”
___
It doesn’t escape her how pleased with himself Derek looks on Monday. A smirk he doesn’t even try to cover on his face as all of the team looks at her and Aaron when they arrive, the rest of them rolling their eyes.
She catches him outside Penelope’s office, counting a pile of bills in his hand.
“I think I’ll take that thank you,” she says, snatching it from him, quickly counting through his winnings.
“Hey, that’s mine.”
She raises an eyebrow at him and hands him back half the money, pocketing the rest of it herself. “I think you’ll find Aaron and I did the work.”
He grimaces slightly, “Gross, Princess,” he says, scrunching up his nose, “And only because I encouraged you.”
She laughs, “Please, it’s like you don’t know me at all. I was, at most, a day away from mounting Aaron somewhere. Even if it would have counted as public indecency.”
He shakes his head, “It is Monday morning, Em.”
“What?” She says, smiling widely, finding joy in how scandalised he seems, “You don’t want to talk about my sex life anymore? You were more than happy to on Friday.” He shakes his head again and starts to walk away. “Thanks for the money, Morgan. I think I might put it towards some lingerie.”
He doesn’t look back, and she laughs, turning to find her husband standing only a few paces away from her. He smiles and winks at her before turning away and heading back to his office.
Congratulations on a well-deserved milestone my friend!! Touching #18 and #44 :))
Thank you friend!! <3
I hope you enjoy this!
The prompts are: touching 18: squishing the other’s cheek / touching 44: sitting on the other’s lap
-x-
Words: 1.1k
Warning: Alcohol consumption
Read over on Ao3, or below the cut
It was quiet, which was a rare thing for their house these days. Jack was spending the weekend with Roy and Jessica and Emily was on a night out with JJ and Penelope.
Aaron quietly closes the door to the nursery, making sure he doesn’t wake up Issac. It had taken over an hour to settle the 5-month-old, the baby clearly unsure where his mother was.
It was Emily’s first real night out since she’d had Issac, and she’d needed convincing to go at all. Gently encouraged by him and her friends as she left the house.
He’s just finished changing into his pyjamas, an old t-shirt and a pair of grey sweatpants, when he hears a knock on the front door. He makes quick work of walking down the stairs to answer it, not wanting his youngest to wake up just after he’d fallen asleep.
He looks through the peephole and smiles as he spots who is on the porch, shaking his head as he pulls the door open. Emily smiles at him widely, her eye slightly glazed from the alcohol she’d had that evening. Derek is standing next to her, an amused look on his face.
“I was the BAU cab service this evening,” Derek quips, “I think I have something that belongs to you.”
Picking them up was something Aaron usually did. Insistent that his wife and their friends weren’t getting into a cab when they’d been drinking. Tonight, one of Emily’s conditions for going out as he gently encouraged her out of the door was that he’d stay home with the boys.
“Hey…I don’t belong to anybody,” Emily says, stumbling slightly as she steps forward, a smirk spreading across her face, “Although he does technically own my-“
“Ok, sweetheart,” Aaron says, cutting over her before she can say something to embarrass herself in the morning, well aware from previous experience that Derek had a knack for remembering the things she often said when she was drunk. He reaches out for her and she all but falls into his side, her arm slinking around him as her hand slips down over the material of his sweatpants. “Let’s get you inside,” he looks at their friend, nodding at him, “Thanks, Derek.”
“Anytime,” he replies, a smile spreading over his face that tells Aaron that Emily may have already said something she’d later regret in the car journey home.
Aaron closes the door behind them. In the time it takes him to set the locks Emily is already halfway to the stairs.
“Sweetheart, where are you going?”
“To check on Issac,” she says and he smiles fondly at her, walking over to join her, his hand firm at her waist as he guides her towards the living room. She pouts, something he knows she would vehemently deny in the morning, “Aaron-”
“He’s fast asleep,” he replies, handing her the baby monitor so she can look at their son through the little screen on there. A clear image of the 5-month-old sleeping shining up at them in black and white, his little fist next to his head, “And we both know if he realises you’re home he won’t go back to sleep.”
She huffs, her finger tracing over the screen, “You’re right.”
“I might record you saying that and play it whenever I need to hear it in future,” he mumbles, and she looks up at him, her eyes narrowed.
“What was that?”
“I’m going to go get you some water,” he says, kissing the top of her head, “You stay here, I’ll be back in a minute.”
He makes quick work of going to the kitchen to get her a drink before he returns to the living room and places the glass of water for her on the coffee table before sitting next to her on the couch.
“Did you have fun?” He asks, unable to stop himself from smiling as she closes the distance between them, immediately climbing into his lap. She leans against his chest, and he wraps his arms around her to secure her.
“I did,” she replies, running her fingers through his hair, taking time to scratch her nails over his scalp, “And you Hotchner boys did ok without me?”
“We got by,” he replies, not wanting to mention how Issac had taken longer to settle down than usual, that he’d refused his bottle at first. He knew it had taken a lot to convince her to go out, to have fun with her friends, and he wasn’t about to try and make her doubt that decision. “We missed you though.”
She beams at him, the fact she was drunk and in the safety of her own home enough to undo any attempt to hide her feelings. She always seemed so surprised when he said something like that as if she was anything other than the linchpin that held their family together. As if she hadn’t brought him and Jack back from the brink when they needed it most.
As if she wasn’t their infant son’s favourite person on the planet by a clear mile.
“You’re so cute,” she says a hand on each of his cheeks as she squishes them together, her thumbs pressing into where she knew his dimples were.
He laughs, shaking his head at his wife before kissing one of her palms and gently removing it from his face with one of his hands, linking them together in her lap.
“I’ve been called a lot of things over the years, sweetheart,” he says, smiling at her, “Cute isn’t one of them.”
Emily frowns, pulling back to look at him with an affronted look on her face, “Our son looks exactly like you. Are you saying he isn’t cute?”
Aaron fights a laugh, knowing it wouldn’t go down well, and he clears his throat. “You’re right sweetheart, he’s very cute.”
“Exactly,” she says, leaning into him again. He presses a kiss to the side of her head and reaches forward to grab the glass of water he’d brought her. She groans, “I didn’t even drink that much,” she laments, “Not in comparison to how much I used to on girl’s night anyway.”
“Well you did have a baby 5 months ago,” he says, handing her the water, “It’s not surprising your tolerance has changed. Drink this.”
She takes a sip and rests her head against his shoulder, grasping the glass in her hand, “You take such good care of me.”
He kisses the top of her head, “That’s what we do, Em,” he says, “We look after each other.”
Emily and Aaron have loved each other since they were children. War might be the thing that finally brings them together, but it could also be the thing that tears them apart forever.
A Hotchniss AU, set in 1917 and beyond.
-x-
I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you so much for all of the love on this fic. Writing anything is like putting a tiny bit of yourself out there for the world to see so it's always nerve-wracking. Those nerves are 10 times as worse with an AU. People don't like them or are wary. And I am blown away by the comments, reblogs...anything this fic has received.
I want to say a specific thank you to @hancydrewfan and @ssa-sparks for letting me terrorise them consistently, and not just about this fic. @prentissinred for listening to my 3 minute plus voice note about this fic when I first got the idea, back when it was only supposed to be 3 chapters!! And last, but not least, @cloudlessly-light for always letting me bounce ideas off of you and send you random screenshots of scenes.
I love you all, and I hope you all enjoy this last chapter <3
-x-
Words: 5.6k
A list of warnings and tags can be found on the Series Master List
Read over on Ao3, or below the cut
April 1919
“Congratulations, Mrs Hotchner.”
She couldn’t fight the smile that immediately spreads across her face even if she wanted to, her hands curled around each other in her lap, her fingers twisting her wedding ring around her finger.
“You’re sure?” She asks, her voice cracking like it had when she’d found out she was having Mae but for an entirely different reason.
“Absolutely,” he replies, smiling kindly at her, “You’re pregnant.”
The last time she’d heard those words, she’d been terrified. Anxious and alone, grieving the husband she thought she would lose just after she got him. This time it’s different. She feels nothing but joy, excitement bubbling in her stomach, making it roll over for an entirely different reason to the nausea that had gripped her the last few days. Aaron was here, just on the other side of the door of the doctor’s office, waiting for her to confirm the news they were both hoping for.
It was planned this time. Not the happy accident that had brought them Mae, the very thing she realises had held her together whilst Aaron was away.
“Thank you, Doctor.”
She half listens to his instructions that she remembered from last time, eager to see her husband. To tell him face to face this time instead of writing a letter. To experience his instant response, instead of waiting weeks to hear back from him. She says a rushed goodbye to the doctor and heads out of the room.
As soon as the door opens, Mae spots her, the toddler escaping her father’s grasp as she walks over to Emily.
“Mama!”
“Hi my sweet girl,” Emily says, picking up her daughter and placing her on her hip. Mae grasps onto her, her tiny fist wrapping around Emily’s necklace as if they’d been separated for much longer than the 20 minutes she’d been in the doctor's office. She kisses the side of her daughter's head before turning to look at her husband. Aaron stands and walks over to them, a hopeful smile on his face. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he replies, his hand ghosting her lower back. He clears his throat. “She was asking for you the whole time.”
She looks down at Mae, smiling at how content she seemed. “Were you giving Daddy a hard time?” She meets her husband's eyes and smiles, “So, are you going to ask me?”
Aaron looks between his wife and the secretary who was sitting at her desk behind them. She’d made her feelings on him and Mae staying in the waiting room very clear, not so subtly letting him know usually husbands stayed at home. He knows she’s listening, her eyes flitting between her work and them.
He still wasn’t used to it. To being watched. Since he’d returned from Europe he’d learnt the true practicalities of being Emily’s husband for the first time. How they were watched, how there were expectations. Even though Emily hated it, and made that hatred clear, she was excellent at it. Measured and approachable in a way that Elizabeth had trained into her from an early age.
He clears his throat, his attention landing back on his wife, his hand hovering just above her lower back as he guides them outside, away from prying eyes. “So are you…”
She smiles at him as he drifts off, his discomfort clear, and she nods as they come to a stop, standing just outside the doctor's office.
“I’m pregnant.”
His response is to kiss her. His lips pressing into hers in an attempt to get across how much he loves her, how much he treasures her. Before Emily, he’d rarely been told he was loved. He had few memories of his mother, he’d been so young when she died shortly after having Sean, and his father had never been one to show affection. He knew Emily’s life had been similar. That her parents rarely displayed any emotions at all, let alone love or pride towards their only child. Aaron knew it was why he and Emily were so vocal about it, why they told each other, and Mae, often.
They couldn’t fix the past, but they could change the present. They could curate a different future for their family by actively choosing to be better.
“I love you,” he says as he pulls back, aware they were still in public and that they would have to wait until they were home, in their safe space, before they could celebrate properly.
“I love you too,” she replies, clearing her throat as her voice cracks. It hit her sometimes how closer she had come to losing this, to losing him and anything that came with their life together. She thought about it, how her life would have looked as just her and Mae. She would have made sure her little girl grew up knowing she was loved, that her father had loved her, but everything would have been tinged with loss. The colour slightly faded and the picture out of focus anytime they did something and he should have been there.
Mae fusses in her arms, protesting that she hadn’t had any attention for a couple of minutes in the way only a toddler could. Emily chuckles, bouncing her daughter slightly as she leans in to kiss her cheek.
“We love you too, Mae,” she says, smiling up at Aaron who kisses the little girl’s forehead before he pulls back, ready to start the slow walk back to the estate, both of them desperate for some well-needed time alone as a family.
“We do, princess,” he adds, “Although you may have to learn to share Mommy before too long.”
Emily shakes her head at him, forcing her smile to remain on her face. Even though it had been months since Aaron had returned, Mae still clung to Emily like she always had. An unbreakable bond that had formed in the time when it had just been them. Emily wasn’t ashamed of how much she enjoyed her daughter’s love for her, how she’d seek her out even if she were just across the room, but it didn’t mean she didn’t feel guilt when she saw something close to jealousy rush across her husband’s face.
She knew it was born from guilt from missing out on so much from the first several months of her life, nothing more. No matter how much she tried she couldn’t talk him out of it, couldn’t seem to assure him that Mae loved him no matter what. That they all needed each other.
“Sweetheart?”
She looks at him, not realising she’d drifted off, her mind elsewhere on things they couldn’t fix quickly, if at all, “Yes, honey?”
“Happy Anniversary.”
She smiles for real this time, her cheeks almost aching with it, “Happy Anniversary,” she replies, biting her lower lip as her smile transforms into a smirk, “Your gift better be good considering I’m giving you your second child.”
He shakes his head at her and he laughs. Mae joins in even though she doesn’t understand what’s being said, and the sound warms Emily from the inside out.
___
June 1919
Aaron wakes up suddenly, sucking in a deep breath as he’s thrown out of a dream based in what had once been his reality.
It takes a moment for reality to set in. For the acrid smell of gunpowder and the ever-present scent of death to dissipate, slowly replaced by the smell of home. Of his wife’s soap.
He reaches over to her side of the bed only to be met with cool sheets. He sits up and switches on the lamp on his nightstand, unsurprised when he looks over towards the door that led to Mae’s room and sees it’s slightly open, light streaming in from underneath.
He climbs out of bed and walks towards the room, gently pushing the door open just in case Mae was asleep. He’s met by the sight of Emily slowly pacing the room, holding Mae against her as she quietly sang a lullaby. The toddler was against Emily’s chest, her head pressing into her neck. The way Emily was holding her against her pulled her nightgown tight around her abdomen, her bump visible beneath their eldest.
“Is she ok?”
Emily looks up at him, a sleepy smile on her face that gives away how exhausted she is. Her first pregnancy had been tiring, but her mother had all but exiled her to her room until the gossip around her elopement had died down. It was different this time. There was Mae to look after, and events that she and Aaron couldn’t avoid even though they wanted to, and her exhaustion was almost bone-deep.
“She woke up crying,” Emily says softly, still pacing, “I think she still feels sick.”
Mae had picked up a cold form somewhere, unusual for the summer, and at first, it had scared her parents half to death. Both of them had needed reassurance from the doctor that their little girl hadn’t caught the flu that had been all over the papers and that she would be fine in a few days. It made the usually happy toddler grumpy, and she wanted nothing more than to be snuggled up in the arms of one of her parents.
He walks over to them and places his hand on Mae’s forehead, “Her temperature hasn’t gone up.”
“Thank God,” Emily mutters, “I think Doctor Reid would have thought I was crazy if I asked him to come up here again.”
“Considering he’s about 14 years old, I think he’d manage it,” he says, catching her smile as he, as usual, joked about how young the new local doctor looked. “Want to put her down? She’s asleep.”
Emily hesitates, a quick tightening of her hold on Mae as if he’s going to take her from her arms, “I…I don’t like leaving her when she’s sick.”
Aaron freezes, taking a step back from them both. “When has she been sick before?”
He hates that he has to ask, that he doesn’t know something as simple as this about his own daughter, and familiar guilt climbs its way up his throat.
Emily stares at him for a moment before she clears her throat. She continues pacing when Mae starts to fuss even in her sleep.
“She had colic when she was a newborn,” Emily says, avoiding his eye contact, “She was sick on and off the first 6 months of her life.”
He frowns, his eyebrows knitting together as fury he knows she doesn’t deserve burns in his chest.
“I was here when she was 3 months old. I was here.”
“For two nights, Aaron,” she replies tightly, not wanting to argue with him, “She was in a good phase then.”
He breathes out slowly, clenching his jaw tightly on the inhale to calm himself down, “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
She sighs and briefly presses her face into Mae’s loose curls, desperately seeking a sense of peace that she usually found in Aaron.
“I didn’t want to worry you.”
“Didn’t want to worry me, I’m her father.” He half shouts, his voice getting quieter throughout his sentence as if he’d forgotten briefly that there was a sleeping toddler n the room.
“And you weren’t here, Aaron,” she says harshly, the words escaping before she can stop them, “You weren’t here and I was. And I did it all by myself.” She watches as the fight drains out of him, his face falling as her words sink in, and she sighs, tears pressing at the back of her eyes as she shakes her head. She huffs out a laugh, the sound catching on a sob, and she looks back at him, “It isn’t your fault, Aaron. But it isn’t mine either. I made decisions for our family to protect us all - you included. And I won’t apologise for that.”
For a moment he stares at her, and for the first time, he thinks he can see the impact his absence had on the woman he loves. She looks torn open, as if memories of her time alone, a new mother wrangling a sick baby whilst her husband was fighting a war on a different continent, were haunting her.
He steps towards her, reaching out and pulling her into a hug, Mae and their unborn child sandwiched between them.
“I know,” he says, kissing the top of her head, grateful when she leans further into him, “And I don’t want you to,” he pulls back just enough to look at her, his hand cupping her cheek, “It’s just…”
“Complicated,” she finishes for him, smiling sadly at him. She leans forward to briefly touch her forehead to his before her eyes meet his, “Did you have one of your dreams again?” The only answer she needs is the way he holds them a little tighter, the tension in his body saying more than he ever seemed to be able to put into words, “Come on,” she says, pressing a kiss to his cheek, “Why don’t we all go and sleep in our bed?”
Aaron doesn’t need convincing, and he follows her to their room, switching off the light in Mae’s as they leave it. She gently lays Mae on the bed before climbing in, and he follows suit. He lifts Mae onto his chest and the toddler curls up on it, her forehead against her father’s neck, and it makes him smile, the familiar weight of her against him one of the few things that could calm him. Emily curls up against his side, laying so she looks at their daughter, her eyes fixed on her little red nose, the way she looked miserable even in sleep.
“You don’t have to do it alone anymore,” Aaron whispers as he kisses the top of Emily’s head, almost as if he was worried if he spoke too loudly the words would carry even more weight, “I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere.”
It’s a promise that she knows he can’t keep. None of them could. The world seemed to be getting bigger, with endless opportunities and dangers at every turn. She could have lost him, and the worry that left behind was like a phantom, always following her. Just one step behind.
He couldn’t promise it, not really, but the fact he meant it was enough.
“I know.”
___
“God I hate these parties.”
Aaron chuckles at his wife, looking around the room as he does so, “I have to admit, I always thought you exaggerated these things,” his eyes fall on his mother-in-law on the other side of the room. Elizabeth was working the crowd effortlessly as if she was made for this. On some level, the thinks, she was, “If anything you underplayed things.”
“I told you,” she replies, rolling her eyes at him for his comment about exaggeration, “It’s all just so…false,” she grimaces, her hand pressing into her belly, mostly hidden by the cut of her dress.”
He looks down at her, “Are you ok?”
She groans as she meets his eyes, “I feel sick again. It barely affected me when I was having Mae, this time I’ve felt awful the entire time.”
“Do you want me to go find some tea for you, I know that helps.”
She smiles at him, reaching out and wrapping her hand around his briefly, a small token of affection they could gift each other in the circumstances they were in.
“That’s sweet, but you’d have to hassle Dave. And he’s busy with everything that’s going on.”
Aaron smiles before he places his now empty glass down, “Firstly, you’re Dave’s favourite person on the planet, so he’d drop literally everything for you. Secondly, since your mother made me Head of the Estate, I’m his boss now.”
It was something Elizabeth had decided when Aaron returned. She refused to give him his job back as caretaker and promoted him to Head of the Estate. Emily knew it was to save face with the people she knew more than anything, her daughter being married to the man in charge instead of the caretaker was an easier story to sell, but she was grateful for it. It was her mother’s way of showing she’d grown to accept her relationship and her family.
“Ok,” she concedes, her stomach rolling again, “That would be lovely actually.”
He leaves her side with another squeeze of her hand, and she watches him go until he disappears out of sight.
“It’s been a while, Emily.”
She suppresses the groan that threatens to escape her as she turns her head to find Ian standing in front of her. He’d been watching her from a distance all night and had clearly waited until she was alone to approach her.
“Ian, nice to see you,” she lies with ease, her society smile painted across her face, “Mother tells me congratulations are in order,” she says looking past him to his wife, a young woman called Chloe, “A wedding and a baby since we last saw each other. You do move fast.”
For the first time in a long time, she’s grateful for the way she was raised. For the conversations she can have entirely in subtext, allowing her to say something without ever saying it. Ian’s face falls for a second, fury she’s sure his wife is all too familiar with flashing across his face.
“Yes,” he replies curtly, “A son. We’ve called him Declan,” he looks her up and down, his eyes lingering on her stomach, “And I hear you’re having another one.”
“Yes, we are, due at the start of November.”
He chuckles, although there is no humour in it. “Maybe one day my son can marry your daughter,” he says, smiling at Emily in a way that makes her stomach churn, “We can finally have that Doyle/Prentiss bond we missed out on.”
“My daughter’s surname is Hotchner,” she replies, staring him down, “And I’m not promising her to anyone. She can make that decision for herself when she’s old enough.”
“Maybe it will happen naturally then.”
“I don’t think so,” she says cooly, not letting any of her anger show despite her raging hormones, “I’ll teach her better than that.”
He steps closer to her, clearly forgetting their surroundings, but before he can say anything, she feels a familiar hand on her back. Ian takes a step backwards, swallowing thickly as he does so.
“Rossi is bringing your tea for you,” Aaron says, his voice tense, before he looks at Ian, “I don’t believe we’ve met officially. I’m Aaron Hotchner, Emily’s husband.”
He puts his hand out to shake Ian’s and she watches with no small amount of Glee as he clearly squeezes Ian’s hand harder than necessary.
“Ian Doyle,” Ian says, clearing his throat before he takes a step away from them, “I should get back to my wife,” he looks at Emily, “Always a pleasure.”
She waits until he’s gone, no longer in hearing distance when she looks at her husband, “How much of that did you hear?”
He shrugs slightly, a smirk appearing on his face, “None of it.”
She furrows her brows in confusion, “None of it?”
“You guys were on my bad side,” he explains, pointing at his damaged ear, “But I knew whatever he was saying it couldn’t be good.”
___
September 1919
“Emily, I know you were resistant to help last time-”
“And I am this time too,” she says, stopping her mother from continuing, raising an eyebrow almost to challenge her, “I’m fine.”
“You’re about to have two children under the age of two,” Elizabeth says, staring at her daughter and son-in-law from across her desk, “And Mae is always under your feet because you insist on coddli-”
“If you tell me I’m coddling her again I’m leaving,” Emily threatens, cutting her mother off again, her temper rising. She turns to look at Aaron, his eyes soft as she meets them, and she sighs, taking a second to calm herself, frustrated that after all this time her mother was still able to get a rise out of her, “We’ll be fine Mother. Aaron’s here now and…you know I want things to be different for my children.” Elizabeth stares at her as they come to a stand-off they’d had countless times since Emily had announced her first pregnancy. Elizabeth nods, and Emily takes the chance to ask the question she’d come here to ask in the first place, “I wondered if Mae could stay with you on your side of the house when the time comes,” she says, placing her hand on her bump.
Elizabeth looks surprised and looks at Aaron, “And where will you be whilst all of this is going on?”
Emily swallows thickly, “He’s going to be with me.”
Elizabeth looks up at Emily, her eyebrow raised, “What do you mean?”
“He’s going to be in the room with me when the baby is born.”
Elizabeth sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose as she leans back in her chair, “Emily-”
“Before you tell me it’s not the done thing, I know,” she cuts over her mother, “But nothing about this has been ‘the done thing’ over the last couple of years,” she says, her irritation starting to show. Aaron reaches out and links his fingers through hers, a rare show of affection in front of her mother. She sighs, blowing out a steady breath. “He’s missed so much when Mae was small, I don’t want him to miss any of it this time. Not any of it.”
Elizabeth looks between the two of them, shaking her head as she leans forwards, her hands linked together on her desk, “You’d have to clear it with the midwife.”
“I have,” Emily says, “I already spoke to her about it. She was there when I had Mae and she said she’s happy for him to be there, barring any complications that would require the doctor.”
She knows her husband well enough to know that if something did go wrong, if the doctor was called, he wouldn’t leave her side willingly. That he’d have to be dragged out of the room. She hopes it won’t be an issue, that it’s something they wouldn’t have to live through.
They’d been through enough.
“You’ve thought everything through,” Elizabeth quips, her eyebrow raised.
“I always think everything through,” Emily replies, an edge of petulance entering her voice that only her mother could bring out in her. There’s a beat of silence, and then there’s laughter. Both her mother and her husband laugh in tandem, something she’s never heard before as if they are sharing a joke she isn’t privy to. “What’s so funny?”
“Oh sweetheart,” he says, squeezing her hand as he shakes his head at her, “I love you so much, but that is the funniest thing you’ve ever said.”
___
November 1919
“I’m huge.”
Aaron smiles at her, walking the short distance to where she was sitting on the couch they kept in the library. He hands her the book she’d requested and sits next to her.
“You’re beautiful,” he places his hand on her stomach, smiling as the baby shifts beneath his palm, “I’ll never get over how this feels.”
“Same,” she replies, placing her hand over his, a wistful smile on her face, “I remember when I first felt Mae moving. I didn’t really know what it was at first but when I figured it out, I’d spend hours just sitting here feeling her move,” she smiles shyly at him, “It sounds stupid, but it made me feel strangely connected to you.”
His smile falters as it always did when she mentioned her first pregnancy, a mix of guilt and flashing in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he says, something he’d said countless times since he’d come back to her, “I wish…I don’t know what I wish,” he shakes his head, smiling as their baby kicks, “I can’t wish I didn’t go because if I hadn’t you would have married someone else. Mae wouldn’t be here, and neither would this little one. But I’m sorry.”
She catches his chin and makes him look at her before she cups his cheek. Familiar love scatters across her face, wetting her cheeks like tears.
“I think about the same thing,” she admits, smiling as he turns his head to kiss the palm of her hand, “And I never really believed in anything, you know that,” she says, smiling as fond memories of the two of them having to be separated at church, the pair prone to giggling during the sermon when they were young, “But I do believe that we were always meant to end up right here. Together.”
“Me too,” he says, kissing her palm again. The baby kicks, hard, and he laughs, “He’s got a strong kick.”
Over the last several months they’d gone back and forth, switching between referring to the baby as a girl or a boy as they saw fit. The closer she got to giving birth, her due date now just days away, she felt familiar nerves start to build. Concerns that people would feel disappointed if she had a daughter, a burden Emily was all too familiar with.
“Mother seems insistent it is a boy,” she says, looking down at her belly, “I think she’ll be disappointed if it isn’t.”
“I won’t be,” he replies simply, as if he’d been waiting for her to say something, and she looks up at him so quickly her neck hurts.
“You won’t?”
“Mae is a mini you, I’m imagining another little girl would be too,” he replies, shrugging one shoulder, “I’ve wanted to spend my life surrounded by you ever since we met.”
She tries to laugh, but a sob escapes instead, and she wipes at her cheeks, “You are the corniest man on the planet, Aaron Hotchner,” she says, shaking her head at him, “And I am so lucky you’re mine.”
He leans in to kiss her. She smiles against his lips, keeping her hand on his cheek to hold him in place.
“I’m the lucky one.”
___
“It’s a girl.”
It’s the second time she’s been told that, but it’s no less special than the first. Relief floods through her as her baby is born, her daughter, and her small cries fill the room.
“A girl?” Aaron says, his voice full of wonder, he presses a kiss to Emily’s head, holding her closer as she relaxes into him, “Did you hear that, sweetheart? Another girl.”
“Is she ok?” She breathes out. She tries to sit up a little but Aaron holds her still. He’d been sitting behind her throughout the entire time she pushed. His chest against her back, his legs spread so she could rest as comfortably as she could against him. Her steady foundation as her body was pushed to its limit.
“She’s perfect,” the midwife says, holding her up so they can both see her.
“She’s so small,” Aaron says, wanting nothing more than to hold her, to protect this new life that was yet to know any of the horrors of the world.
“Mae was smaller,” Emily says as she’s handed the baby, smiling down at her before she rests her head on her husband’s shoulder to look up at him, “Not by much. But she was.”
“I can’t imagine her this small,” he replies, reaching out to stroke his knuckle down the newborn's face, not caring that she hadn’t been cleaned yet, “I just can’t picture it,” he looks at the time on his watch, briefly disconnecting his arm from around her, “It’s past midnight, so her birthday is November 11th.”
He doesn’t have to say the rest, to tell her that their child had been born on the one-year anniversary of the war that had almost torn them apart had ended. The war that had brought them together. Some days, she hates that it’s such a big part of their story, that she knows that without it they wouldn’t be here, holding their newborn daughter whilst their toddler slept just down the hall under the watchful eye of her grandmother.
“Sorry it wasn’t your birthday,” Emily breathes out, “I know you were secretly hoping for that.”
He shakes his head at her, leaning down to kiss her again, “I’m just glad she’s here and that you’re both ok.”
She nods and smiles up at him, “Want to hold her?”
He doesn’t need asking twice, and she gently hands over the baby, smiling as he holds her so delicately, as if she was made of glass.
“Hi, princess,” he says, laughing through his tears as he looks at her, wanting to memorise everything he can, “You look so much like your mommy and your sister. Which means you’re beautiful, just like them.”
Emily laughs, the sound turning into a wince as she feels a contraction coming on, “I’m definitely not beautiful right now.”
“You’re always beautiful, especially just after you’ve given birth to our little girl,” he replies, turning his attention back to her, concern building in his chest as he watches pain flash across her face. He looks at the midwife, “Is she ok?”
“She’s just fine, Mr Hotchner,” the midwife replies, “this is just all part of the process. You focus on that baby of yours and your wife and I will handle the rest.”
Emily nods at him, confirming that she was fine, and he looks at his baby, who was now calm and staring up at him with wide eyes, and he feels fully at peace for the first time since he’d made the decision that changed all their lives.
___
“We need to name her.”
It was mid-afternoon, their daughter was now half a day old, and they were curled up in bed as a family. Elizabeth had come by in the morning, delighted to meet the new addition, and if she was disappointed that she had another granddaughter, she mercifully didn’t show it. She’d left Mae with them, the toddler fascinated with her baby sister, and the four of them enjoyed their first few hours together as a family.
“I named Mae,” Emily whispers, not wanting to wake the newborn lying on her chest, she smiles up at her husband, “You should name her.”
He looks past his wife and his newborn daughter to the toddler sleeping half on top of Emily, her head resting on the opposite shoulder to their newborn. She’d loved meeting her sister, but had refused to leave her mother’s side once she’d made it there. She’d been anxious at being separated from Emily as soon as her labour started, prolonged distance from her mother was not something that had happened very often in her short life. Aaron loved their bond, the unbreakable force of it, but in his worst moments he envied it. Fury he couldn’t direct anywhere but at himself for missing out on so much of his oldest’s life.
He looks back at the baby and smiles, a name immediately coming to mind.
“Daisy,” he says, stroking his finger over the baby’s cheek, marvelling at how soft her skin is.
She thinks of the day everything between them changed. How she’d sat in amongst the daisies that morning, unaware that by the end of the day, she’d be suggesting they get married. She thinks of the pressed daisy in his first letter to her, the one he had planned to leave behind with no explanation, that she now had in a frame alongside their wedding photo. A flower as simple yet as beautiful as their love for each other.
She thinks of the letters, the dozens of letters they exchanged whilst he was gone. Daisies drawn in the corners of each envelope from him. Now organised with the ones she’d send in response. A catalogue of their love together bound together with twine and the time that had passed.
“Daisy,” Emily repeats, tasting the name in her mouth, imagining herself saying it for years to come. For the rest of her life. She smiles, her cheeks aching with it, “Daisy Elizabeth Hotchner.”
“You like it?” He asks, a shake to his voice he hadn’t expected as she nods. She reaches out for him with the hand that isn’t securing Daisy to her chest and she cups his cheek, guiding him down for a kiss.
“I love it,” she replies, kissing him again before allowing him to pull away, “I love you.”
“I love you too,” he says, pushing some hair behind her ear, staring at her with such adoration she thinks she should be embarrassed, but she isn’t. Because she feels the same way about him.
They lapse into silence, a comfortable blanket laying over them, their future clear for the first time since she’d burst into his old home, anger flowing off of her like love did now.
“Aaron?” She says quietly, and he looks at her, his eyes meeting hers as he pulls her and therefore their daughters into his arms, making sure he has all of his girls in his embrace.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
She smiles at him, the mischief he had fallen in love with as a boy flashing through her eyes and he knows what she’s going to say a second before she says it.
“You know daisies are weeds, right?”
Aaron shakes his head, an amused smile breaking over his face. He kisses her, putting all the love he can into it, knowing he could live one hundred years and never be able to put it into words.
She always said he’d saved her. From a marriage she didn’t want with a man she could never love, from the life her mother had always forced on her. But she’d saved him. Gave him a reason to make it home, a beacon of light to guide him even in the darkest of moments.
They’d saved each other, and he knew they’d spend the rest of their lives doing the very same.
It still surprised her when she thought about how easily they had fallen into a relationship.
A Young Hotchniss fic.
-x-
This is a birthday present for my dear, dear friend @prentissinred. I love you very much and am so pleased our favourite idiots in love brought us together. Thank you for being you <3
I know you love Young Hotchniss, so I hope you enjoy this!
-x-
Words: 3.1k
Warnings: None
Read over on Ao3, or below the cut
She’d been intrigued by him the moment he arrived on his first day at work.
Emily was home for the summer between her undergrad and her masters, preparing to go Yale for a year whilst she figured out what to do with her life. She spent the early days of her break avoiding her mother, something she had become quite skilled at over the years.
On Aaron Hotchner’s first day, she’d, quite literally, walked into him. Her coffee had spilt all over his white shirt, her vicious hangover enough to dull her usual quick reflexes. He’d been good-natured about it, despite his obvious irritation, and from there a friendship between the two of them had formed. In the weeks that followed he’d snuck her past her mother more than once, never judging her for being drunk, or asking where she was getting served since she was still underage.
She found him fascinating, something about how serious he was enough to draw her in. He was handsome, his jaw and nose all made of sharp edges, contradictory to his soft eyes and smile that she could pull out of him even at the most inopportune of moments.
She flirts with him all the time, and he flirts back when it’s just the two of them. A sparkle in his eyes that makes her chest feel full of emotions she doesn’t want to name. She overhears him telling one of the other security personnel that he’s newly single, that his long-term girlfriend had broken up with him just before he took this job, and any thoughts she may have previously had about not going any further than harmless flirting disappear.
She watches him from across the ballroom. She’s at the back of the room, leaning against a wall and hoping she doesn’t get seen. Her mother had forced her to come, insisting that she mingles with people she doesn’t like. Instead, Emily watches Aaron from across the room.
He looks good in his suit, just like he always did. He commanded the team he was part of, despite not being the leader, a natural authoritative air about him that meant people listened to him. His eyes meet hers across the room and she winks at him, something that makes him shake his head at her. She finishes her drink and pushes herself off the wall, crossing the room to speak to him.
“Agent Hotchner,” she says as she approaches him, her smile wide and eyes sparkling.
He smiles at her, clearly trying to hide it and failing, the dimples she finds herself itching to press her thumbs into carved deep into his cheeks.
“Miss Prentiss.”
She pretends to act wounded, her hand over her heart, “Miss Prentiss,” she exclaims, “so formal.”
Aaron shakes his head at her, his eyes flicking around the room to keep an eye on his colleagues.
“I am here in a formal capacity.”
She can’t explain her need to spend time with him, the almost primal desire to dig beneath his serious exterior. To mess up his hair and crease his always perfectly ironed clothes. It feels like the last several weeks have been leading up to this moment between them, and she doesn’t want it to pass them by. An idea forms in her head and before she can talk herself out of it she’s already talking.
“Well, that’s good,” she replies, leaning in closer, “because I need you in a formal capacity.”
He turns serious immediately. His brows creasing in a way she knows will one day form frown lines around his eyes. The mere thought of it, the way she wants to see it, to still know him in years to come makes her stomach flip.
“What do you mean?” He asks, his confusion clear.
She tilts her head backwards, indicating a man standing several feet behind her. A man she doesn’t know, a random guest of her mother’s.
“See that guy?” she says, watching how he looks past her, his eyes narrowing as he spots the man in question before he looks back at her and nods.
“You know him?”
She doesn’t correct him but doesn’t confirm it either. Shrugging slightly, her breath catching in her throat as he shifts closer as if he was ready to protect her from anything.
Aaron doesn’t move for a moment, his eyes flicking back and forth between her and the man before he nods again. He reaches out for her, his hand at her back as he leads her out of the room, the heat of his palm less than an inch from her skin. He talks into his microphone, letting the rest of the team know he is with her.
Later that night, when she leans in to kiss him and he enthusiastically responds, she can’t find it in herself to feel bad for the lie by omission that had led them there.
____
18 Months Later
“Hi, sweetheart” Aaron calls out as he walks into their home. He makes sure that the door is locked behind him before he turns to look back at the open-plan apartment, frowning when he can’t see his girlfriend anywhere. “Em?”
“I’m here,” she replies, sitting up from where she’d been laying on the couch, a tired smile on her face as she looks at him. Aaron laughs and walks over, abandoning his briefcase on the kitchen counter on his way. He leans over the couch and kisses her before he rounds it to join her. He smiles at the sight of newspapers spread all over the coffee table.
“Apartment hunting going well?”
“Don’t laugh at me,” she grumbles, immediately leaning against him as he sits next to her, both of her arms wrapping around one of his, her hands grasping at his tricep, “It sucks.”
He kisses her forehead, smiling against her skin, “I know it sucks. Why do you think I settled for this place?” He asks, pulling back to look at her, “It was the first one I saw that was affordable and not in a completely terrible area.”
Emily smiles up at him, cupping his cheek to pull him in for a kiss, her thumb pressing into his dimple.
“It would be easier if you weren’t insistent on splitting rent down the middle,” she says, only pulling far enough away to speak, stamping another kiss to his lips, “I can afford more.”
Aaron sighs, shifting slightly back from her. It was a conversation they’d had countless times since they’d decided it was time to move. His apartment had served him well in the couple of years he’d lived there, but it felt like the right time to move. He wanted something slightly bigger, and in the few months Emily had been officially living with him it had become clear the apartment wasn’t quite big enough for two people. Which felt ironic when he considered that his initial plan had been to live here with Haley.
“Em-”
“I know, I know,” she says, smiling softly, not wanting it to turn into an argument again, “We do everything equally.”
“Except for the cooking,” he quips, and she scoffs, pinching lightly at his skin as he laughs again.
“I think we both know it’s safer that I don’t cook,” she replies, laying her head on his shoulder, “And I do the cleaning.”
It still surprised her when she thought about how easily they had fallen into a relationship.
At the start, she’d tried to convince herself it was just sex, that it was all it ever could be, but it had quickly developed into more. For the first time in a long time, someone cared about getting to know her. Aaron remembered every tiny thing he learnt about her. As if he was collecting facts, storing them away for a day when he’d need them. She felt the same pull to learn everything about him too. Content to lay in his arms, their naked skin pressed against each other, as he told her stories from his childhood. That summer had gone so quickly that it almost gave her whiplash. She’d prepared herself for a goodbye that never came, finding herself feeling nothing but relieved when he said he wanted to try something more long-term with her. That the fact he was about to start a new work placement and that she was about to go to Yale, didn’t concern him if it didn’t concern her.
So they’d made it work.
She visited him in DC whenever she could, never telling her mother that she was in town so she could spend every second with Aaron. He’d visit her in New Haven. Her tall, slightly mysterious, FBI boyfriend an interesting talking point to any of her friends that they’d bump into on the rare occasion they left her apartment. Throwing clothes on so they could go get food, his arms wrapped around her from behind as they stood in the grocery store trying to find the cheapest bottle of wine.
He made her happy, and she knew she did the same for him. Moving into his place when she graduated from Yale seemed like the only real option, the only thing she truly considered. Her mother had been less than impressed when she found out about them, although when she looked back on it, letting her find out when Aaron showed up at graduation might not have been the best plan.
“Anything standing out to you?” He asks, looking over at the pile of newspapers. She groans and presses her forehead into his shoulder.
“The only thing that stands out to me is that rent is extortionate for what you get in this city.”
He chuckles, pressing a kiss to the top of her head, “I’d live in a dumpster with you.”
“I thought we were already doing that here,” she deadpans, laughing and squirming away when he tickles her in retribution for her joke. She had never truly liked the apartment they lived in, but it had him in it, so because of that it felt like home. She smiles up at him, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, “I’d live in a dumpster with you too,” she replies, kissing his jaw, “And at this rate, that’s what we might literally end up doing,” she picks up a paper and passes it to him, grimacing as she does, “Look at the price of that. For a studio. It’s absurd.”
Aaron frowns as he looks at the photos of the apartment in question, “It is small,” he replies, smirking at her, “At least we don’t have any secrets, it wouldn’t be possible to keep them in a space like that.”
She’s grateful that he misses how she freezes, his focus on the paper in his hand giving her the second she needed to gather herself.
At first, she’d thought nothing of the lie by omission that had led to them being alone that first night. It didn’t cross her mind the next morning when she woke up in her bed, Aaron half on top of her as he slept. It didn’t as she snuck him out of the house, unable to stop herself from kissing him again. She only thinks about it months later when he tells the story of how they got together to a friend of his in front of her, his hand wrapped around hers as he mentions the man at the party that had changed everything in passing.
She never knew how to bring him up, how to tell him that what he clearly considered a part of their story was a fabrication. They’d sacrificed much for each other. She’d given up a job opportunity. Nothing about Europe seemed appealing without him, so she’d said no without a second thought.
He’d given up Haley.
Emily still remembered it happening. It was her first visit back from Yale and they’d been desperate for each other. Tearing at each other's clothes as they barely made it to the couch the first time before they eventually moved to his, now their, bed. Aaron had convinced her they needed food and ordered pizza. She’d slipped on a shirt of his as she heard a knock on the door, opening it without looking through the peephole only to be met by his ex-girlfriend. Time had slowed down as Haley looked her up and down, shock in the blonde’s eyes that turned to misplaced fury.
Emily was sure that would be it, that he’d want Haley back and she would be nothing more than a blip in his story. She’d quickly got dressed as he spoke to Haley in the next room, unable to stop herself from overhearing his ex-girlfriend say that she wanted him back, that she regretted leaving him. Emily still remembered the fear, the bitter pre-emptive heartbreak as the door opened behind her. She expected to turn to see a sympathetic look on his face, an apology that she didn’t want to hear. But instead, he looked confused, his eyebrows knitting together as he asked her why she was packing her things. He’d told Haley it was too late, that he loved her now.
It was the first time he’d said it.
“Are you ok, sweetheart?”
She looks at him and swallows thickly. All of a sudden, even though she’d kept it to herself for a long time, she finds herself desperate to tell him. The words escaping her before she can stop them, overwhelmed by the need to show him this part of herself. Something she had kept hidden since she was young, effortlessly being whoever those around her needed to be.
Aaron had only ever wanted her to be herself.
“I have to tell you something.”
Aaron frowns at her, concern flooding through him, his body freezing with it. She’s looking down at her nails, picking at her cuticles, and he puts his hand over hers to stop her. He links their fingers together and lifts her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles.
“You can tell me anything.”
She smiles shakily at him and blows out a breath, “You know the party you worked at for my mother?”
“The one that happened the same night that you jumped me?” He asks, smiling at her, his humour an attempt to calm her. “I remember it well.”
She narrows her eyes at him, briefly forgetting her point, “I seem to remember that you made the first move.”
“We remember those early days very differently,” he replies, rubbing his thumb over her wrist, a movement they both found comforting, “So the party?”
Her smile fades as she remembers why she’d started the conversation in the first place. “Yes, the party,” she says, holding his hand tightly, “I implied that there was a man there that I didn’t want to see and…it’s not true,” she says, watching his face for a moment before she carries on, her words speeding up as she does, “I have no idea who he was. I’d never seen him before, or since and I really just wanted to spend time with you-”
“I know,” he says, cutting over her, stopping her in her tracks.
For a moment, she doesn’t react. Simply staring at him with her mouth still slightly open as his words sink in.
“You…” she drifts off, her eyebrows furrowing as she continues to stare at him.
“I know you didn’t know that man,” he says, smiling at her, “His name is Jeffery Filburn by the way,” his smile turns into a smirk, “In case you ever wondered.”
There’s another pause, another moment of silence as she simply blinks at him, lost for words for the first time since they’d met.
“How long have you known?” She asks, her eyebrows furrowing, confusion turning her to stone, her eyes fixed on his face. He shrugs a little, acting like it was no big deal, like this thing she’d thought was a secret from the start hadn’t been slowly weighing her down.
“Since the day after,” he says nonchalantly, and it snaps her out of it, causing her to gasp in outrage.
“The day after?” She exclaims, frowning at him, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“To be fair, sweetheart,” he says, raising an eyebrow at her, “I don’t think you’re in any position to question me about keeping it a secret.” Her only response is a half-hearted glare, and he puts his arm around her, pulling her into his side. “I thought it was sweet that you wanted to spend time with me. And I wanted to spend time with you.”
She groans, hiding her face in his chest, “This is so embarrassing,” she complains, “How did you find out?”
“I looked him up,” Aaron replies simply, “I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I hadn’t.”
“And you don’t mind?” She asks, lifting her head just enough to look at him, scrunching her nose up slightly, “You’re not mad?”
Aaron shakes his head, reaching out and tucking some of her hair behind her ear. He’s gentle with her, just like he always had been, treating her like she’s made of something precious. He leans in to kiss her, pressing his love into her skin. Her cheek. Her nose. Her lips.
“I’m not mad,” he assures her, “As long as you’re not.”
“I’m not mad,” she says, smiling up at him, ignoring the embarrassed flush to her cheeks, the way her skin burned with it, “But maybe we just promise not to keep anything from each other from now on. No matter how…silly or small it might seem.”
He kisses her again, “Agreed,” he says, winking at her, pleased when it makes her roll her eyes at him, the last bit of seriousness in the air dissipating.
He looks at her, focusing on the beauty that had first drawn him to her, something he had quickly learned was much more than skin deep. She’d changed his life, made him happier than he remembered being in a long time, bringing out a part of him that he thought had been torn from him in his childhood. Anger and fear replaced by the love and joy she had brought him. He could never be mad about it. Not for a second.
Even if it had started with a situation she’d created. Something she’d curated. Designed with the same care she’d always shown him. The care he hoped he’d be able to bask in forever.
“I love you,” he says, his hand on her cheek, tracing her soft skin.
She beams at him, “I love you too.”
-x-
I'm sure the swifties have realised this was inspired by Mastermind ❤️
Emily wasn’t surprised that she’d started to sleep with one of her professors, but she was surprised that she’d fallen in love with him.
A Hotchniss AU.
-x-
Look, I think we all knew this was going to turn into a series. I have a few ideas for other chapters for this fic, but please send me an ask if there is anything in particular you want to see!
-x-
Words: 5k
Warnings: Smut, so 18+ only
Read over on Ao3, or below the cut
He takes her to a restaurant far away from campus.
It makes her smile, his nervousness at being seen even though she was no longer a student of his clear even though this had been his idea. Emily doesn’t mind though, knowing that if there was a bigger chance they’d be seen by someone he worked with he wouldn’t be holding her hand as they wait to be seated, his thumb delicate as it rubs back and forth over her wrist.
“This place is nice,” she comments as she looks around, resting her head against his shoulder.
Aaron looks down at her, a lopsided smile on his face, “Dave recommended it.”
Emily chuckles, “Of course he did,” she squeezes his hand, “Did you tell him it was for a date?”
“Yes,” he replies, politely smiling at the hostess as they are shown to their table, “I may have left some details out.”
He doesn’t miss the slight disappointment that flits across her face, the way she tenses slightly as he pulls a chair back for her to sit down. They were walking a fine line, and he knew it, and technically, since her graduation from her undergrad a couple of weeks before, they weren’t doing anything either of them could be penalised for, but he still felt so unsure.
He knew he felt more for her than he should, he’d known that since the start, and he knew they’d have to talk about it sooner rather than later if they were going to carry on with this. The lines blurring day by day.
She clears her throat to dislodge the momentary hurt she’d felt at his admittance, knowing now wasn’t the time to address it, and she smiles when he kisses her temple before he sits in his seat opposite her.
She picks up the menu and starts to look through it, “You aren’t going to be one of those guys turned off by me eating an actual meal are you?” She asks, smirking when he furrows his eyebrows at her, his confusion clear. “I’m not going to have to order a salad and pretend I’m full?”
“That's a thing?” He asks, looking at the menu himself, trying to stop himself from thinking how beautiful she was, how the dark red material of her dress made her skin even more alluring.
“Oh it’s absolutely a thing,” she chuckles, “Trust me.”
Aaron looks up at her and smiles, his eyes trailing down from her face, her carefully applied make-up and curled hair enhancing her features, down to her chest. The hint of cleavage that gave a taste of what he knew lay beneath.
“Well, trust me when I say there is nothing you could do that would turn me off,” he says, leaning forward as he drops his voice, smiling when her cheeks flush slightly, “Not a single thing.”
She clears her throat again, narrowing her eyes at him, frustrated at herself for letting him have such an effect on her with just his words. She was used to having the upper hand with him, but she liked this more than she’d care to admit.
“Well,” she says, smiling at him as she looks back down at the menu, “That is good to know.”
Dinner passes by, filled with good food, wine and conversation. They forget the complications that surround them and just enjoy each other's company. By the time dessert rolls around, a shared brownie in the middle of the table that he takes one bite of before allowing her to finish, the conversation takes a more serious turn, shifting towards his divorce, the ex-wife he’d only previously mentioned in passing.
“She still lives around here,” he says, taking a sip of his wine, “In our old house.”
“Why did you guys break up?” She asks without really meaning to, her curiosity winning out. Her eyes widen as she realises what she’s asked, “Shit, Aaron I’m sorry you don’t-”
“It’s ok,” he assures her, his hand over hers on the table, “We got married young, and ultimately wanted different things. The topic of kids came around and she wanted them immediately, I wanted to wait until I was slightly more established in my career…it was hard to get past.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, unsure what else she could say, “I can imagine that was hard.”
He nods in response, finishing his wine, “It wasn’t easy, but I think it was the right thing for both of us. A part of me will always love Haley, we grew up together, but that didn’t mean we were right for each other.”
She watches as he contemplates what he has said, and she smiles sadly at him. She was glad to know this about him, another piece of the puzzle that was Aaron snapping into place. She sees his internal battle, how he desperately wanted to move on, to make the conversation light again, so she does it for him.
“Well, I for one am kind of glad you were single when we met,” she says, smiling when he frowns at her, and she shrugs, “You never would have fucked me in that bathroom if you were married, you’re far too straight-laced. And then we wouldn’t be here.”
Aaron smiles and shakes his head at her. He leans in, lowering his voice again so only she would hear him, the look in his eyes enough to make her breath catch in her chest.
“Not too straight-laced to make you come, twice, just minutes before your graduation ceremony.”
She flushes at that, her tongue pressing into her cheek in an attempt to stop herself from smiling, not wanting to give away how much he affected her.
“That wasn’t my fault,” she says, shrugging as she takes the last bite of her dessert, “You looked sexy in your regalia.”
He smirks at her, but she can see he’s not unaffected, a familiar tension in his body as he stares at her. He gets the attention of a passing waiter and asks for the bill, his eyes returning to Emily’s almost immediately.
“I still have wine to drink,” she says, pointing to her glass that was half full.
“Then drink up,” he replies, the heat in his eyes enough for her to feel over the table. He leans in again and she does the same, close enough so she can hear his low whisper. “Because after this I’m going to take you back to mine, and fuck your brains out.”
Emily has to suppress a moan, taking a large swig of her wine to swallow it down, “Well,” she says, not missing the breathless nature to her voice, “It’s a good thing I’ve already graduated then, isn’t it?”
___
He insists on paying, which makes her crazy, a wink and a smile thrown in her direction when he says she can pay next time. The implication of it, the promise that they would do this part of whatever they were again, is enough to placate her.
She smiles as he grabs her hand when they get out of his car, walking together into his building and then his apartment. This felt different than what they had done before, more intimate. No risk of being discovered, just the two of them behind closed doors.
Emily looks around his apartment, her smile widening as she looks at the simple decor. Organised and almost clinical in nature, similar to how he kept his office at the college. She wonders how long it would take him to notice if she switched some of his books around on the shelf.
All further thoughts of messing with him disappear as he crowds her back, gently slipping her purse strap off her shoulder, taking it from her, and depositing it on the couch. He’s warm, just like he always was, the heat of him permeating through his shirt and the thin material of her dress. He wraps his arms around her, his hands on her stomach as he pulls her back to him so they are pressed together.
“Drink?” He asks, his breath skipping over her ear and down her neck, causing her to shiver in his embrace.
She feels his smirk as he kisses her throat and she turns in his arms. She bites her lower lip, something he had mistakenly told her drove him crazy, causing her to use it against him at any given opportunity. She shakes her head slightly as she wraps her arms around his neck.
“Then what do you want?” He asks, his gaze fixed on her, his eyes as intense as she’d ever seen them. This would be a turning point for them and she knew it, taking whatever they had been doing for months to the next level, something she knew she shouldn’t want.
Instead of answering she grins widely at him, leaning in to press her lips against his. He responds immediately, his mouth opening for her as he licks against the seam of her lips, tasting the groan she lets out as he deepens the kiss. She digs her fingers into his hair, holding him in place as if he wants to pull back.
She tries to lead him to the couch, the feel of his hands wandering down he’d back, the way he was grabbing her ass, enough to make her desperate. The need for him overrides anything else.
He pulls away from the kiss, smiling at her in a way that makes her stomach flip. He kisses her again and smirks as she chases it.
“Not here,” he says his hands on her hips, “I want to fuck you in my bed,” he lifts her, and she complies without really thinking, her legs wrapping around his waist, “Show you everything I’ve dreamed of doing to you in there since the first time I laid eyes on you.”
She whines, not embarrassed by the desperation in the noise because she knows she can reduce him to this too, that he wants her just as much as she wants him.
He carries her to his bedroom, taking the time to kiss her neck, his teeth nipping at her pulse point in a way she knows will leave a bruise. She expects him to dump her onto the bed, to bounce on the mattress slightly as she regains her bearings, but he doesn’t. The tempo changes between them, the intense passions switching to something different for a moment as he lays her down gently, and puts her on the bed like she was made of something precious.
Like he wasn’t just about to make good on his earlier promise to fuck her brains out.
Her eyes meet his and she sees the passion there, the hunger for her, and she grins at him. She curls her hand around the back of his neck and pulls him in for a kiss, her tongue swiping through his mouth. It resets the fire, and she feels his desperate hands at the back of her dress, unzipping it quickly and pulling the material off of her, the cool air of his bedroom making goose pimples spread out across her skin. He pulls away from her and encourages her to shift her hips just enough so he can pull her dress off entirely, and he groans when he realises she’s now just wearing her bra.
“No underwear?” He asks, his voice hoarse as he looks at her, his pupils almost blown with arousal. She smiles as she looks him up and down, the obvious tent in his pants the only ego boost she needed.
“Seemed pointless,” she explains, resting on her elbows so she was partially sitting up, “You always ruin them anyway.”
He frowns, leaning back down over her to kiss her, before trailing down her neck and chest, pushing the cups of her bra down to pay attention to her breasts, the bar of metal in one of her nipples.
“I’ve never torn your underwear,” he comments against her skin, reaching underneath her to unhook her bra.
“That’s not what I meant,” she says breathlessly, shifting just enough that pull the straps down her arms, his fingers making her shiver as they drag down her skin.
He groans again at her words, the sound vibrating through her chest in a way that makes her laugh. He licks at her nipple in response, grinning as her laughter falters.
“You’re going to be the death of me,” he says, his lips against her skin again as he travels downwards, kissing her navel in a way that makes her jump slightly.
He watches as her muscles ripple under her touch. It stokes a fire in him, makes pride thrum under his skin as he realises he can do this to her without even really meaning to.
“No, I won’t,” she replies, the bite of her retort lost in a moan as he palms the inside of her thighs, spreading them further apart as he settles between her legs, “Who would I have incredible sex with if you died.”
Aaron smirks at her, his eyes meeting hers before he returns his attention to between her legs, his tongue pressing against her clit as if it was magnetised to it. He groans at the taste of her. He somehow always forgot how amazing she was, how addictive.
“Oh, shit,” she exclaims, her legs immediately tensing around his head, her fists grasping at the sheets on his bed.
He’s relentless, using his knowledge of her, of what he had learnt about how to take her apart over the last several months, against her. She moans breathlessly as he inserts two fingers into her, pressing just on the right spot before he removes them, repeating the motion again and again until she was sure he was trying to kill her. He’s still licking through her, insistent and focused as if he was a starved man, and she hooks one of her legs around him, her heel pressing into his shoulder.
“Aaron, I’m-”
He sucks her clit into his mouth and it cuts her off, her thighs clamping around his head. She tips over the edge, her body tensing beneath him. His palm is flat against her belly as he holds her in place, her thighs shaking. She expects him to stop, but he carries on, increasing the pressure on her clit, the speed of his fingers inside of her.
“Oh, fuck” she shouts, unable to do anything other to reach down and grab at his hair, both wanting more and wanting to pull away.
He smiles against the inside of her thigh, nipping at her skin as he relentlessly pushes his fingers in and out of her. His eyes fixed on how his skin shines with her, and he knows he could do this forever. That he could never get enough of the feel of her. The smell of her.
The taste of her.
She comes again, much quicker this time in a way that makes her body heavy like lead and lighter than air at the same time. He licks at her again, and she shudders. She laughs, pushing him away from her with a shaky hand, her body feeling like jelly.
“Fuck, too much,” she gasps, her thighs twitching around him.
Aaron grins at her, wiping his mouth and chin in a way that would embarrass her if her brain was working. He undresses quickly, dumping his clothes on the floor next to hers before he joins her on the bed. He presses his face into her neck, his lips against her, biting at her pulse as it continues to hammer under her skin. She places a hand on the back of his neck to hold him in place. She turns her head, her nose pressing into his cheek before he turns to face her.
She smiles at him, moaning when she leans in to kiss him, tasting herself on his lips.
“You want to stop?” He asks, barely pulling away from the kiss to speak. It makes her smile because she can see the strain on his face, the tension in his shoulders. The heavy weight of him between her thighs, pressing against her, bumping into her clit in a way that made her twitch. But she knows he means it, that he’d stop if she wanted to.
“Absolutely fucking not,” she replies, kissing him fiercely, her tongue licking into his mouth, “I need you, please.”
He grins at her, his hands gentle but firm against her skin as he manoeuvres her onto her side, her body pliant from the pleasure he’d already given her. He lays down behind her and presses his chest into her back, groaning as she rocks her hips back into him. He grabs her thigh, his fingers tight enough to bruise, and pulls her leg back to rest over his.
Emily gasps as he notches against her clit, her hand reaching behind her for him, her blunt nails digging into his scalp. As he pushes into her she moans loudly, too far gone to think of his neighbours, her free hand only able to grasp at the pillow beneath her head.
Aaron groans into her ear, resting his forehead against her temple as he pauses, and waits for her to adjust to him. She pushes back into him and he starts to move, thrusting into her at a pace that was slower than he had done before. There was no chance they could get caught, no danger of someone walking in on them, and he wanted to take his time with her. Take her apart bit by bit and put her back together.
“Jesus, Aaron,” she stutters out, “you feel so good.” She moans when he thrusts slightly harder for a moment, her words spurring him on.
“You feel fucking amazing,” he says, his lips pressing into the top of her head, “incredible. Like you were made for me.”
She feels warmth spread through her that has nothing to do with what he was doing to her, and she turns her head, ignoring the pull in her neck, and kisses him. Forcing her tongue into his mouth to stop herself from doing something stupid like telling him she was in love with him.
He cups her breast, his fingers playing with the nipple bar he was obsessed with, and she moans, disconnecting from the kiss.
“Shit, I’m close,” she breathes out. Her body felt like it was ready to burst, every nerve about to catch fire, and she tenses when his hand trails down her body, sure it would be too much. But he’s gentle, swiping soft circles around her clit in a way that makes her whine.
Aaron groans into the back of her neck as he feels her clench around him, and he thrusts into her a little faster, close to losing control himself. All thoughts of taking this slow, of dragging it out any further, disappear, the need to take her apart again overwhelming him.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” he croons, kissing her shoulder, “Let go.”
She screams his name as she does, her body tensing around him, and she reaches out for him, grasping his hand tightly and linking their fingers together. He’s only just behind her, his rhythm losing its pattern as he speeds up, coming inside of her only seconds after she tipped over the edge herself.
For a moment, the only sound is their breathing, ragged and uneven as they both try and recover, but then Emily starts to laugh, turning her head to kiss him again, her smile so wide their teeth clash.
“That was incredible,” she says, laughing again, “I think your bed has overtaken your desk as my new favourite place.”
Aaron smiles at her, kissing her before he pulls away, standing as he walks to the bathroom to grab a towel. He cleans himself off and walks back out to the bedroom, his smile widening as he sees she’s still laying in the same position, curled up as if he was still behind her.
“You ok?” He asks, walking back over to the bed and sitting next to her. Emily nods and flops onto her back, blowing out a long breath.
“I’m fucking fantastic,” she says, looking up at him, “I don’t think my legs work anymore though.”
She rolls her eyes at the flash of male pride that flashes across his face. Any fake annoyance is dissipated the second he presses a kiss on her cheek before he uses the towel in his hands to gently clean between her legs, careful not to make her any more sensitive than she already was.
He takes the towel back to the bathroom, disposing of it in the laundry basket, and he smiles when he returns to find her under the covers.
“Are you going to use the bathroom?” He asks, pointing over his shoulder, and she shakes her head so he turns off the light.
“Not right now,” she replies, snuggling up to his side as soon as he climbs into bed, “In a bit, I want to do this first,” she says as she rests her head on his shoulder and throws an arm and a leg over him, burrowing into him.
Aaron kisses the top of her head and pulls her a little closer, “We can do this as long as you want.”
Emily smiles to herself, knowing that she wanted to do this forever, but that it likely wasn’t practical. That whatever this was between them would eventually fizzle out, the new semester when she’d be back as a master's student, and he’d be back at work, looming ever closer. It felt like a blessing and a curse that she wouldn’t be in his classes anymore. A blessing because if someone was to now find out about them, they weren’t breaking the rules, there was nothing anyone could technically say. A curse because she wouldn’t have an excuse to visit his office hours anymore, their trysts against the cool wood of his desk a thing of their past.
“You know what I’ve just realised?” She asks, banishing all other thoughts from her mind, and just enjoying the time she had with him, “This is the first time we’ve ever done this completely naked.”
Aaron laughs, “To be fair, we never quite had the time before.”
She hums in response and moves closer, all but laying on top of him as his arms automatically wrap around her.
“We have time now,” she says, her face pressing into his neck, his pulse still thundering slightly.
“We do,” he replies, clearing his throat in an attempt to stop himself from saying anything he might later regret, knowing his feelings for her were far more than they should be, “Are you…going to lay on me all evening?” She nods against him, and he chuckles, “Can I ask why?”
“First of all, you’re comfortable,” she says like it was obvious, “And secondly, if you think I’m sleeping in the wet spot you’re insane.”
He feels something close to pride fill his chest, and she notices, playfully pinching at the skin of his ribs.
“It’s your mess,” he says jokingly, his laugh getting louder when she scoffs in outrage, resting her hand on his chest to look up at him.
“Yeah, and whose fault was that?”
His response is to kiss her, any further argument disappears as they once again lose themselves in each other.
___
She wakes to the feeling of his hand running up and down her back, his skin scalding against hers. She groans as she presses her face into his neck, desperately seeking out the last remnants of sleep. She feels his chuckle more than she hears it, the rumble of it vibrating through her body as he kisses the top of her head.
“Not a morning person, then?”
She pulls back just enough to look at him, her eyes barely open. She groans as she takes him in, frustratingly handsome even first thing in the morning, his hair rumbled and his eyes sleepy. Emily presses her forehead into his chest, and Aaron tightens his hold on her.
“How do you look so good first thing?” She asks, snuggling in further, chasing his warmth even though it had never stopped enveloping her.
“I was about to ask you the same question.”
She scoffs, and lifts her head to look at him again, “I know for a fact I’m still wearing last night's make-up, so don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying,” Aaron says, wiping his finger under her eye, and gathering some of the smudged eyeliner that was there, “You’re always beautiful.”
She chuckles, cupping his cheek and pulling him into a kiss, “I could get used to hearing that.”
Later, he wouldn’t be sure why out of all the moments they’d had, all the times they’d skirted around the issue, this was the time he said something, but he does. The words he has been holding back for months were set free, as if they’d been caged in his chest.
“If you want me to, I’ll tell you every day.”
He cringes slightly at his own words, making a mental note to stop listening in on his co-worker's lectures on romantic literature, and he watches as she sits up, holding the sheet to her chest as she furrows her brows.
“Aaron…”
He sighs as he sits up too, his hand on her thigh over the sheet, “I think we both know this has turned into more than just sex, Em,” he says, laughing humourlessly as he shakes his head at himself, “If I’m honest, I think it might have always been more, and I’d like to…have more with you.”
“Like a relationship?” She asks, finding her voice. “Like a boyfriend/girlfriend type thing?”
“Yes, sweetheart. Like a boyfriend/girlfriend type thing.” He laughs, nodding as he squeezes her thigh. She continues to just look at him, her expression unreadable, and her silence spurs him on, “I know you’ll still be on campus and a student, but you’ll be doing your masters, you won’t be in any of my classes. We won’t be breaking any rules.”
She stares at him, unsure how hearing exactly what she’d wanted to hear for months could make her feel so lost. She can feel her heart hammering in her chest, and she wonders if he can hear it.
“Aaron,” she says, reaching out for him and cupping his cheek, his stubble rough against her skin, “If we do this, us, I won’t be your dirty little secret,” she says, sounding more confident than she felt, “I’ve been there before and…it’s not what I want.”
“Em-”
“And I know it’s complicated, I know that people will have something to say, but…” she trails off and scoffs, the warmth of his hand through the thin material of the sheet enough to make her shiver, “I’ve grown up surrounded by people who always have something to say, even if they never actually put it into words. I’m used to it. I refuse to hide away and pretend we aren’t together.”
The look on her face, the hurt shining in her eyes makes him want to ask questions, to find out who had hurt her enough that she’d think the same of him, but he shakes it off. That was for another time, and he knew he’d only get the answer if she wanted him to.
“Sweetheart,” he says, rearranging them so she was sitting in his lap, pulling her as close as possible, “I wouldn’t ask that of you.”
She furrows her brow, searching his face for a lie she doesn’t find, “Really? Because…It won’t be easy. I’ll still be on campus, and even though I won’t be in your class anymore it won’t take a genius to figure out how we met.”
Aaron kisses her, a quick thing stamped to her lips before he moves to her cheek, tugging her further into his embrace.
“I know,” he replies, tucking some hair behind her ear, “But you’re worth it. I think we could be too, if we tried.”
She bites her lip to force herself to hold herself together, tears she refused to shed pressing at the back of her eyes.
They were being naive, she knew that, and she knew he did too. Things wouldn’t be as simple as either of them wanted them to be. But she was so tired of denying herself the things she wanted, of pretending that sitting here with him having a lazy Saturday isn’t what she’d been idly thinking about for months now.
Despite her concerns and her reservations, the ones she can see reflected in his eyes, she nods. A laugh peels free from her as she does so, her forehead against his.
“Ok,” she agrees, “Then yeah, I think we should give it a go.”
His smile widens, and he kisses her, putting everything into it that neither of them would say yet.
“Excellent,” he says, kissing her again before he dislodges himself from under her, “In that case, I’d better make my girlfriend some breakfast,” she goes to get out of bed, to follow him, but he stops her, “No you stay there, I’ll bring it to you.”
She nods, biting her lip to stop her smile from splitting her face open, and she watches his retreating figure. She settles down into bed again, pulling the sheets tight around her and his pillow into her embrace to remove the chill he had left in his wake.
“Girlfriend,” she mutters to herself, testing it out on her tongue. She was Aaron’s girlfriend. She closes her eyes and lets it settle over her, settling further into his mattress, until a thought washes over her, making her sit upright. “Shit.”
“What? Sweetheart, are you ok?” Aaron asks, a series of small crashes in the background before he appears back into view, a frying pan in his hand.
“Yeah,” she sighs, laughing humourlessly, “It’s just struck me that if I introduce you to my mother, at some point I’ll have to explain how we met.”
A fresh start. That’s what she needed. Not the turn of a page, or a new chapter, but a brand new book.
She left everything behind, and just hoped that she had better things ahead.
A Hotchniss College AU
Words: 2.3k
Warnings: This chapter contains brief references to miscarriage
Full list of warnings and previous chapters can be found on the Series Master List
-x-
I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who has read, interacted and enjoyed this fic. It’s been so much fun to write, but I’m never quite sure how an AU will land, so thank you, THANK YOU, for all your love and support for this version of them.
A special thanks to @ssa-sparks, @hancydrewfan, and @prentissinred who have all let me just talk at them about this fic for MONTHS. You are all just the best and I couldn’t do it without you.
And also thank you to @cloudlessly-light for helping me figure out what to do with Emily’s career in this!
I hope you all enjoy this last chapter! <3
(Sorry if tumblr is being weird on desktop with the formatting- it's fine on mobile <3)
Read over on Ao3, or below the cut
Summer 2006 - Arlington, VA
Emily groans as she lifts a box onto the kitchen table, smiling at the photo on top. It was from her and Aaron’s first holiday season as a couple. The photo was taken Christmas Eve, the day they’d had Jack, the little boy squished between them and his smile wide.
“Emily, I can’t find my tie.”
She shakes her head. He certainly wasn’t little anymore.
“It’s down here sweetie,” she replies, shouting up the stairs, “Where you left it last night.”
She hears the familiar footfall of her step-son as he runs down the stairs. She can’t help but smile when he comes into view, his nerves evident in the way he held himself, his shoulders tense. He smiles sheepishly at her as he grabs the tie off of the back of one of the chairs at the kitchen counter.
“Thanks, Emily,” he says, looking at the box she has in front of her and noticing it’s full of his things, “Keen to get rid of me?”
She narrows her eyes at him, her glare only making his smile wider. “Of course not,” she says, “But moving sucks and you have two houses with your stuff in, moving to college is hard enough as it is so I thought I’d get a head start.”
“You’re very good at packing,” Jack comments as he roots through the box, “I forgot I’d need some of this.”
She hums as she smiles at him, “Moving as much as I did when I was a kid has its benefits.”
He chuckles, and looks around the kitchen, “Where’s Dad?”
“He had to go into the office, he’s just finished that big case so had some files to submit, but he’ll be back soon I promise. He wouldn’t miss today for the world.” She assures him, squeezing his arm.
It was strange sometimes, to think that the little boy she met had grown into this young man next to her. He was taller than her now, the same height as his father. He towered over Haley, something that he took great joy in reminding her of frequently.
“I’m glad he won,” Jack says, opening the fridge door, always on the hunt for food, “Because it was on TV it would have been embarrassing if he hadn’t.”
Emily laughs at the typical teenage reaction, “And, you know, a serial killer has been sent to prison for the rest of his life.”
Jack shrugs his shoulders, “That too.”
After Emily graduated from college her and Aaron, alongside Haley and Jack, moved to DC, a return home for all of them that suited them well.
Over the years, Aaron worked his way up to state prosecutor, a job that kept him busy but that he enjoyed. A goal he had set himself during the trial against Ian for his attempt on Emily’s life, wanting to help people the way that prosecutor had helped Emily. Finally getting her justice after she’d been so let down by the system previously.
It was a big part of her decision to be in the system herself. Social work had never been something she would have considered before everything with Ian, but it was the only thing that felt right afterwards. Her natural empathy and her talent for picking up languages made her a popular choice, and she now worked for the state, creating and maintaining policies that would have protected her when she was younger.
Their friends often joked that they were a power couple, and that no criminal in the DC area had a chance with them around.
The sound of a door opening cuts off any further conversation, the thundering of tiny feet on the upstairs landing and then the stairs themselves making both Emily and Jack smile.
“Here comes trouble,” Emily comments, winking at the teenager before turning to look at her daughter as she runs at her at full speed, catching the four-year-old and lifting her onto her hip before she could crash into her legs, “Morning Ellie.”
“G’Morning Mama.”
Eleanor Grace Hotchner was, according to Aaron, 100% Emily. He often joked that he wondered if he’d been involved in the process at all, or if Emily had somehow cloned herself. Their little girl her double in just about every way.
“You sleep ok?” Emily asks, pressing a series of kisses to the little girl's cheek, laughing as Eleanor leans away from her slightly, a smile on her face as she nods.
“Jack’s big day!”
Emily looks over at Jack, who was halfway through eating a handful of dry cereal he’d clearly found in the pantry.
“Yes sweetie, it’s Jack’s graduation today,” she says, kissing her daughter on her head before she passes her over to Jack, her eyebrow raised as she takes the cereal box from him, “Why don’t you two go sit down and watch TV, and I’ll get your dad to make us all breakfast when he gets here.”
Jack holds Eleanor close, their bond something that had been instantaneous since he first held her, despite their 14-year age gap. He bounces her on his hip, making her laugh as he leaves the kitchen.
“Come on Elly Elephant,” he says, making her giggle, “Let's go watch some cartoons.”
Emily shakes her head as she watches her children go, sighing as she once again laments how quickly the years had gone by.
___
“Em, we have five minutes and then we have to go.”
Emily rolls her eyes at her husband’s insistent tone, opening the door to their ensuite to find him standing just on the other side, his hands on his hips. She walks out to the bedroom to join him, finishing clipping on the earring she had been adjusting.
“Honey, we’re fine. The school is 10 minutes away at most. The ceremony doesn’t start for another hour,” she turns so her back is facing him, and he wordlessly zips up her dress for her, his fingers sliding up her spine in a way she knew was unnecessary. She turns to look at him, smiling as she loops her arms around his neck, “We definitely don’t have time for that though.”
Aaron smiles at her as he pulls her closer, his hands on her lower back. He leans down and kisses her, his lips gentle against hers.
“Later?” He asks, and her smile widens before she leans in to kiss him again.
“Later,” she confirms, pulling back to look at him, her fingers idly playing with the hair at the nape of his neck as she cups his cheek with her other hand. “You ok?”
Aaron sighs, his lips in a tight smile as he nods. He wraps his hand around her wrist, his thumb rubbing at the thin scar she had there, a reminder of the surgery she’d had to fix it, of the metal that laid just beneath the surface. She often wondered if the way it would ache in the cold was a phantom memory, her brain remembering how it felt when he’d slammed it into the wall, his hand tight around her throat.
Sometimes she still woke up and could feel that too. Only brought back to the present by her husband, the way he would invade all of her senses. Make her forget that she’d ever been touched by someone else.
She had a lot of scars from that time, the one on her wrist just happened to be the only visible one.
“Yeah, I am. I just can’t believe he’s graduating high school,” he replies. It was strange to think that Jack was now only a couple of years younger than he and Haley had been when they had him. The years had passed by faster than he’d anticipated, and sometimes he missed the days when Jack was young and hung on his every word. “It feels like only yesterday he wanted to ask you to be his girlfriend.”
Emily laughs, “I know honey,” she replies, her fingers trailing through his hair, “But Harvard isn’t that far away, and you know he’ll come back as often as he can,” she smirks at him, “He’ll miss Haley’s cooking too much.”
He chuckles, “Speaking of which, don’t think I didn’t notice one of her lasagnes in the fridge.”
“She offered,” she shrugs, “You know she can’t say no to Ellie.”
Haley was without a doubt one of Eleanor’s favourite people, a connection that hadn’t surprised any of them. She was a fixture in their lives, and only lived a couple of streets away. After she’d saved Emily’s life, purely by being in the right place at the right time, they’d become friends, and she’d even come to their wedding.
It was odd, sometimes, for Aaron to remember that Haley was once someone he thought he would spend his life with. Even stranger again to think that, in some way, he had, just not as his partner as he would have once thought.
“At least Ellie will still be here for a long time,” Aaron grumbles, the mere thought of his little girl being old enough to graduate high school when she was only just about to start kindergarten in the fall enough to make him frown, “And any others we might have.”
Emily’s smile falters slightly, a common reaction when he brought up the prospect of other children. Eleanor hadn’t been their first pregnancy or even their second. The two losses they’d gone through before still made her sad when she thought about them, pre-emptive grief at the thought of going through it again enough to make her wonder if she even wanted to try. Until she had Eleanor she was convinced what had happened in Rome had caused long-term damage, and had cried herself to sleep in Aaron’s arms more than once. Begging for forgiveness he would not give her because she had nothing to be sorry for.
She loved Eleanor with every part of her, but pregnancy had been rough on Emily. Her sickness, which could only be remedied by some specific chewing gum that Haley had recommended, mixed with her constant anxiety that something would go wrong had meant it wasn’t enjoyable at all.
She wanted another child and had dreams of a little boy that was the perfect mix of her and Aaron, but the fear choked her and made her freeze every time he mentioned it.
“Aaron-”
He leans forward and kisses her cheek, his hold on her briefly tightening, “I know love,” he says, kissing her again, “At your pace, ok?”
She nods against him, pulling back and offering him a shaky smile, “We should get going.”
Aaron smiles at her and links his hand through hers, leading her out of their room and down the stairs. As they approach the living room, they hear the tv is on, the news clearly on the screen.
“George Foyet was charged with 12 counts of murder, but state prosecutor Aaron Hotchner claims he may have killed up to 36-”
“Jack,” Aaron says, catching his son’s attention from his cell phone and tilting his head towards Eleanor who was playing with her toy dinosaurs, “Please turn that off.”
Jack looks between his little sister and the tv, cursing under his breath as he grabs for the remote and turns it off. “Sorry, Dad.”
“It’s ok,” Aaron says, checking his watch, “We really should get going.”
Emily detaches herself from her husband and walks over to Eleanor, “Come on sweet girl,” she says, smiling at her, “Let's go.”
Eleanor stands up, one of her dinosaurs still in one hand, and grabs her mother’s hand with the other.
“Aunt Haley’s there?” She asks, her excitement clear.
“Yes baby,” Aaron replies, opening the front door, sharing a smile with his wife, “Aunt Haley is there.”
“Then let’s go!” Eleanor demands, pulling Emily towards the front door.
Emily laughs, gladly following her daughter, “You heard the girl,” she looks at Jack, sees the nerves on his face that she had seen the first thing that morning again, and she reaches for his hand too, linked in between them both, “Come on sweetie, the sooner we go, the sooner we’ll be home.”
It was a mantra she’d shared with him since he was small and she first found her footing in his life. It was something she’d said to him to get him through dentist appointments, or visits to the doctor. His first day at his new school when they moved to DC. Their home, and the one he had at Haley’s, his safe space.
“Yeah,” Jack smiles, squeezing his stepmother’s hand, turning and smiling at his father as he places a hand on his shoulder, “We’ll be home soon.”
___
Red Onion State Prison, VA
He was counting down the days, every day of his sentence seemingly longer than the last. It had been almost 13 years and he still had 7 left until he would even be considered for parole.
Each day, he hated her a little more. He could feel it consume him, overtake the place he once felt love for his son who now called another man daddy, his conviction of attempted murder enough to make Chloe take him from him entirely.
There’s rapping on the cell bars, and he looks up, smirking at the guard he hated almost as much as he hated her.
“Doyle,” the guard sneers, stepping aside so a man in an orange jumpsuit can step into the cell, meet your new cellmate.” He steps back, pulling the bars back across and smiling at them from the other side. “Get to know each other, you’ll both be here a while.”
Ian watches as he walks away before looking back at his new cellmate. The man was tall, skinny and had shaved his head, and he wonders what on earth this man could have done to end up in a high security prison, looking on the surface of it incapable of a crime that would have landed him here.
Then his eyes meet his, and he sees it, the same fury he feels, anger that nowhere to go, and he smiles.
“Doyle, is it?” The man says, offering him his hand.
“Ian Doyle,” he replies, shaking his hand. “And you?”
The man smiles, clearly amused by the fact he didn’t know his name.
“It’s nice to meet you, Ian. I’m George Foyet.”
-x-
The Way Home’s sequel, Home, is coming soon in January 2023
summary: hotchniss. emily's apartment gets broken into. read on ao3
wc: 4.3k
tw: hurt comfort. a break in. a few curse words
a/n: @sequinsmile-x i love you this is for you <3
〰
Her head feels heavy. The pounding in it has gotten worse since she’d left the jet, the sounds around her duller than usual, a pressure in her skull. Emily winces at the brightly lit hallway as she makes her way to her apartment door. She looks up. The light bulb that had been burned out when she left for the case is on now, having clearly been replaced.
“Great,” she mutters under her breath as she looks for the keys, her purse a mess as always.
She lifts her head, keys in one hand, and stops. The door is slightly ajar, not wide enough to let the light from the hallway in, but clearly unlocked and open. Emily’s brows furrow, her eyes narrowing as her hand automatically reaches for her gun. The keys hit the carpeted flooring of the hallway with a soft thump.
The door gives way under her light push, her feet making almost no sound as she steps into her apartment. It’s dark, and Emily listens to the sounds around her intently, all of her instincts on high alert. The silence around her is almost deafening in its heaviness; a thick fog in her head only intensifying the thudding of her heart in her ears and dulling out all other noises. Emily releases a shaky breath and whips out her phone to use the flashlight.
She checks the rooms quickly, and when she finds no one in her apartment, she finally turns the lights on. The place is a mess: all of her belongings are strewn across the floor, broken chairs and ripped cushions lying awkwardly in the middle of the living room. The still unpacked boxes are torn apart with their contents in piles on the floor, glass shards from the shattered mirror around them.
“Fuck,” Emily whispers, tucking her gun into the waistband of her pants behind her back.
She doesn’t have a lot of things - everything was sold after she’d “died”. Her clothes, her jewelry, her books. Her mother didn’t keep anything. The things she wanted safe Emily had conveniently “forgotten” at Aaron’s place a couple of days before she ran. He’d found the small box with old photos and a couple bracelets and necklaces that were clearly hers at home, after searching her apartment with the team. At the time, he knew something bad had happened, but he was powerless to stop it. The box nestled amongst his sweatshirts felt like an accusation.
Emily cried when he told her the box was safe. He’d held her hand in the hospital, her words not making sense, her tears never stopping. He wanted to talk to her about so many things but she was delusional, barely awake, and for the first time in months he felt scared and lonely. They had become close, their friendship evolving and deepening that led to both of them tiptoeing on a precipice of something. Something serious and terrifying but something they both wanted.
And then she died. And Aaron ran.
He had given the box back to her after the trial. Her eyes went wide with recognition of what he’d done for her: saved her most precious possessions, her memories. Things that would always remind her of who she is and what she has been through when she’d need it. Emily knew she loved him then, loved the sweet and kind man under that impenetrable stern mask.
She wasn’t sure he loved her back. There were times when he’d look at her a little too tenderly, with something in his eyes she’d never seen in them before, something she was hesitant to call reverence, too well aware of the fact that it would have been too good to be true. They’d been close for a long time, but that was it. They were friends, nothing else. Emily was starting to think that was all they would ever be.
She really wished he was here right now.
Emily shakes her head, her fists clenching to soothe the tremor in them. Her bedroom is the worst of the whole place; even her bedding is on the floor and torn apart. She makes her way to the safe in the wardrobe, and her heart leaps to her throat at the sight of it, sure to suffocate her. The safe is wide open, the lock on it clearly opened without the code, just by using pure force. Emily can hear her heart thudding in her ears as she bends down to pick up something glinting from the floor, her breath hitching when she realizes it’s an earring.
“No…” she breathes out, her hand feeling inside the safe for the jewelry she keeps there, trying to assess the damage.
That’s when she hears a noise from the front door.
Her door is wide open.
Aaron’s brows furrow. He knows she’s been home for at least 15 minutes, so why would her door be open? That can’t be good.
His gun is in his hands and drawn in seconds, two bags he has been carrying now on the floor. Aaron is sure the thudding of his heart can be heard outside the building; the loudness of it sure to carry through the walls. His eyes squint against the bright light in the hallway, his ears ringing from the way they’re straining to hear anything from within the apartment. Anything that can tell him where she is.
He knows he’s in too deep. Emily holds his heart - and has been holding for some time now (months, years, he’s not sure) - in her hands, calloused fingers with bitten down nails handling it carefully, keeping it warm. Keeping the fire within it alive. There are days when Aaron isn’t even sure he has a heart in the first place, but the sight of Emily’s smile reminds him that yes, he does. He doesn’t know how she managed to reach through him with her wise words and kind smiles and melt him with a single flip of her hair.
He knows he never wants her to stop.
It goes both ways, too, Aaron thinks as he can barely breathe from the fear for her safety taking up all the space in his chest, the space where his lungs should be, filled with air. Right now it feels as if they’re filled with sand, wet and sticky. He’d lost her once. He’s not sure he can survive that again.
Glass crunches under his feet and Aaron winces. If there’s an intruder in the apartment they have for sure heard that. The sound of footsteps has Aaron turning to his right and raising the gun higher, ready to attack whoever it is, but as he rounds a corner he’s met with a gun pointed at his head.
He’d recognize her scent alone, but he doesn’t need to: Emily’s wide eyes stare at him from behind the barrel, her hands steady. Aaron would think she was unaffected if he didn’t know her so well, if he couldn’t see fear in those eyes. The eyes that have brought him so much peace.
“Em,” he says, releasing a breath. “It’s me.”
As Aaron tucks his gun into the waistband of his pants he can see her hands shake. Her gun lowers, but remains trained on him.
“It’s okay,” he continues, stepping closer. “It’s just me.”
Emily nods, still shaking, and breathes a sigh of relief. Aaron covers her hands with his own, his warmth immediately making her grip on the weapon loosen. Eventually he takes it and puts it down onto the coffee table, his hand returning to holding hers.
“Sorry,” she murmurs as her panting subsides. “Sorry, I…”
Aaron shakes his head and tugs on her hands, pulling her into a hug. Her palms find their place on his chest, her chin hooked over his shoulder. He can feel the tension leaving her muscles as his hands stroke her back lightly. The scent of her and the bandage across her forehead and temple mix together, surround him, and Aaron resists the urge to bury his nose in her hair when he hears her speak.
“I’m okay,” Emily says quietly. He wonders if she’s saying it for him or for herself.
“Good,” he replies, letting her go. As they separate, they both look around awkwardly. “What the fuck happened here?”
“Someone broke in. I came here and…” she shakes her head, her lips pursing as she looks at the floor. “Wait, what are you doing here?”
“You forgot your bag in the SUV,” Aaron tilts his head towards the entrance. “How’s your head?”
“It’s okay. I’m okay.” She pauses, rolling her eyes when she sees his raised eyebrow. “I’m serious. I’m fine. Thank you for the bag. You can go now, I’ll see you in the morning.”
“If you think I’m leaving, you’re wrong,” Aaron says firmly. “We need to call the police.”
“We’re the police, Aaron,” Emily says without any real bite to her words. At his silence she nods, not having it in her to argue with the increasing pounding in her head. “Okay.”
“Did they take anything?” he asks as he dials 911.
Emily sighs and nods mournfully, looking at the floor as she sits down onto the couch. “The bracelet.”
It barely takes him a second to understand what she’s talking about. Aaron sits down next to her, his thigh against hers as Emily drops her aching head into her hands.
He’d given it to her on her birthday. A silver chain with delicate emeralds on it. It screamed her name when he saw it in the store as he was getting his watch fixed, and he couldn’t not get it. She’s had it for half a year before he saw it in the small box left between his sweatshirts. That was the first time she’d taken it off since he’d clasped it on.
When he saw it on her wrist again, all he wanted to do was catch it in his hand and kiss her pulse, feel her life underneath his lips.
He didn’t.
“I’ll get you another one.”
Emily lifts her head and smiles at him sadly. “It won’t be the same.”
Aaron hears what she hasn’t said, hears how her voice wavers.
“Maybe it will be better.”
Emily looks at him for several long moments, her face serious. Before she can reply, two policemen walk in through the front door, looking around confusedly. Emily stands and Aaron does too, his hand landing on her lower back, warming her even through her shirt as she’s being questioned. She tries not to smile as she feels his quiet presence next to her.
“Sir,” one of the officers addresses Aaron once they’ve finished with the questions, “can your girlfriend stay with you tonight?”
“Of course,” he replies, his hand pressing into her lower back more firmly. Neither of them protest against the new relationship status they’ve been assigned. “I’ll take her to mine.”
Emily doesn’t react. She stares at her wrist where the bracelet is supposed to be, looking shaken. When the officers are gone, Aaron turns her to him by the shoulders.
“Em,” he says quietly. “We’re going to mine. You need to take some painkillers, change your bandage and at least try to sleep, okay?”
She nods, pushing her hair behind her ears as she shrugs his hands off, never the one to accept coddling. “Is Jack home?”
Aaron tenses. “Yes,” he says and quickly adds, “but he’ll be absolutely delighted to see you.”
“I can just stay at a hotel, Aaron.”
“No,” he answers. As if it’s that simple. As if it doesn’t do anything to her heart. As if this situation and this thing between them is simple. “Let’s go.”
He grabs her hand after she nods, and Emily looks around her trashed apartment for the last time on their way out.
Jack is asleep when they get to Aaron’s. Jessica doesn’t look too surprised to see Emily, only smiles and exchanges whispered goodbyes as she leaves, the sound of the door closing making Emily jump slightly. It seems to snap her out of the trance she’s found herself in back in the car. The ride was silent, spent with her looking out of the window, an expression he couldn’t read on her face. He kept glancing in her direction only to be met with that same blankness edging into resignation that seemed to have settled over her very being.
Even now, as she toes off her shoes and shrugs off her coat, Emily is silent. There’s no doubt in Aaron’s mind that her head hurts like hell; she has to be feeling the aftermath of that concussion now. His heart pangs with guilt he isn’t sure how to stop feeling as he watches her get hurt again and again.
“I’ll be right back,” he says quietly, a small smile on his face as Emily looks at him. “Just going to check on Jack.”
“Okay,” she replies, wincing. “Can I shower first? I need to wash the hospital off of me and get out of these clothes.”
“Of course,” Aaron answers as he moves to hang their coats. “The towels are-”
“I know,” Emily smiles. “I remember.”
Aaron nods, clearing his throat, and disappears into the hallway. She sighs, dropping her bag onto the couch to dig out her pajamas and toiletries, her vision blurring slightly. A big coffee stain from that morning comes into view with the pajama top, and Emily simply drops it back into the bag resisting the urge to scream.
“You’re still here.”
There’s confusion in his tone that would be almost endearing if the day wasn’t currently catching up to her at a furious pace. Emily shields her aching eyes with a hand as she answers.
“Yeah, I, um,” she swallows, “do you have anything I could sleep in?”
Emily could swear she saw Aaron swallow. He covers his momentary shock well, walking into the kitchen and taking a glass out of a cupboard.
“Of course,” he repeats. “You go shower, I’ll bring you your painkillers and something to wear.”
“I can do that myself.”
“I know.”
There it is, that simple tone again. After a couple of seconds of staring at him, Emily nods, too tired to argue, and heads into the shower. Hot water feels good on her tired muscles as Emily looks at her dirty, blood-stained clothes on the floor of his bathroom, making a mental note to throw them out once she’s done.
“Emily?”
She jumps slightly, the shake to her head making her groan.
“Just a minute.”
A minute later she’s opening the door to see Aaron in sweatpants and a t-shirt, looking incredibly casual and domestic, like something from another life. From her long-forgotten dream, the one that used to haunt her in Paris; real events mixing with terrible things her brain had conjured, dreams merging into nightmares. Aaron often went from looking peaceful and relaxed to a cold silhouette on the floor.
He smiles at her, holding up a glass of water and painkillers from her bag, a sweatshirt thrown over his shoulder. Emily misses how his eyes travel over her wrapped in a towel, her hair wet and curling over her shoulders.
“Thank you,” she says as she takes the tablets and water from him, downing them in one go. She stops, looking at him expectantly when he doesn’t move, just keeps staring at her forehead. Emily clears her throat.
“Yeah,” he clears his too. “I’ll get you a fresh bandage.”
She smiles as she tries not to let a spark of hope catch fire.
Aaron is back and knocking on the bathroom door in less than 5 minutes.
Emily opens the door, and his breath hitches. Even in her bloody clothes, standing like a lost lamb in her own apartment she had looked somehow put-together, confidence that he’s well used to still there underneath her skin. It’s long gone now; she’s barefoot, dressed in his clothes, with blood still seeping from the long gash on her temple. He can’t speak, wouldn’t know what to say if he could. Aaron’s eyes dart over her face, the cuticles she keeps picking at. He’s not sure she’d ever let anyone see her this distraught.
“Are these from my bag?”
Her voice kickstarts his brain.
“Yes,” he says, putting the clean bandages and wipes on the counter. “I also have antibacterial cream.” Aaron smiles when Emily looks confused. “I’ve got a hyperactive kid in the apartment.”
She smiles back and immediately winces, her hand flying up to her cut as if attempting to hold her head together. Aaron steps closer involuntarily, his hand mirroring her movement.
“Thank you,” Emily breathes finally. He’s much closer to her than before. “I can do this part myself.”
“I can help.”
“No, I-”
“I want to.”
Emily’s eyes bore into his as she’s losing the staring contest. Finally, she sighs, grimacing, and tilts her head back and to the side, allowing him access to her injury. Aaron takes a deep breath as he eyes close, his hands getting to work while his brain is trying not to get distracted by her skin, her hair, her smell. Her lips.
There’s a prominent bump on her temple, the skin around the cut swollen and tender to the touch. Emily hisses as he prods at it with his fingers, her face scrunching up slightly.
“I’m sorry,” Aaron says as he takes out an antibacterial wipe. Emily shakes her head, her eyes still closed, and he watches her lashes twitch. The silence hangs over them again, the only sounds disturbing it being their breathing. He sucks in a breath, but before he can say anything he’s interrupted.
“If you even think about apologizing again, I’ll kill you,” Emily mutters, wincing again as he wipes the blood away. “It wasn’t your fault in any way.”
Aaron’s brows furrow, and he glares at her even though she can’t see him.
“I can hear you glaring at me. You know it doesn’t work.”
Emily opens her eyes at that, a small smirk on her lips. He can’t help but smile a little too, her amusement somehow infectious even in the situation they have found themselves in. Her being hurt again, him being forced to deal with the ever-present guilt that comes after. Rinse and repeat.
“I don’t think it ever has.”
“No,” her eyes close again. “It hasn’t.”
Aaron’s hand pushes her hair away from the wound as he puts a colorful bandage on top of the plain white one, his fingers ever so tender. Emily blinks a couple of times when he’s done, gratefully smiling at him in silence as she inspects herself in the mirror.
“Good job, nurse,” she says quietly. “And Jack has good taste. I love Batman.”
“Yeah,” Aaron chuckles. “Sorry. I don’t have any others.”
“It’s fine,” Emily waves her hand as she bends down to pick up her clothes from the floor.
“If it helps, Jack says he helps him heal faster.”
Emily smiles as she exits the bathroom, leaving him watching her go. “I believe him.”
They order pizza. As they eat it on the couch, Emily keeps running her fingers over her wrist where the bracelet was supposed to be, her gaze somewhat vacant. Aaron has to clench his fists to stop himself from touching her. Hugging her close and keeping with him. Preferably forever.
“You okay?”
Emily turns to look at him. “Yeah,” she swallows, looking back down, “just thinking.”
Aaron slides another painkiller over to her as she winces for the fifth time in ten minutes. “What about?”
She offers him a grateful smile. “I’ll have to find somewhere new to live. Again.”
“Em-”
“I know it’s not a tragedy,” she says, lifting her hands, palms turned to him. “And surely not for someone like me. But I’ve only just…”
She sighs, dropping her head onto her hands, her elbows placed on her thighs.
“Got used to that apartment?” he helps softly.
“Yes,” Emily replies with a sigh. “And to being here again. It’s…difficult.”
“I’m sorry. It can’t be easy,” Aaron states seriously, and Emily lets out a humorless chuckle. “You know we’re all here for you.”
“Yeah,” she answers, and it’s weak, unsure in a way that makes concern fill his chest.
“I’m serious. And it’s okay to be upset about this, Emily. Even for you.”
She looks him in the eye, and he finds that frustration mixed with a hint of laughter is somehow a good look on her.
“Fine, I believe you. Even for me.”
Aaron knows they’ll talk about it later. He can let it go for now.
He smiles. “Good. Now, sleep.”
Emily nods, standing up. “Get me a blanket and I’m good.”
“What?” he says, clearly confused. “No.”
“What do you mean no? I’m sleeping on the couch.”
“No,” he says again. “You’re taking the bed.”
“I’m not taking your bed,” Emily says, rolling her eyes, and immediately regrets it. “No way.”
“Yes you are,” he stands up too and turns to leave for the bedroom. “We’re not discussing this further.”
Her mouth gapes. “What? You’re not my boss right now, you can’t do that.”
“Yes, I can. This is my home. You’re injured, Emily,” he says, turning to look at her. Her name falls from his lips pained, but oh so tender.
“This barely hurts! I don’t want to kick you out of your own bed.”
“Jesus,” he mutters, taking a few long steps towards her. “Why are you always so stubborn?!”
Emily opens her mouth to answer, outrage written all over her face, but his hands come up to cup her face and then his lips are on hers.
Everything stops.
Her brain quiets. All she can hear is the beating of her own heart. His warm palms gently hold her face, his thumbs skating over her cheekbones in such a way it makes tears press at the back of her eyes. Emily can sense the way he’s holding back, afraid to hurt her or scare her off, so her hands snake up his back, over his shoulders until she has them in his hair. Aaron groans as she tugs on a few strands, and she gasps into his mouth. He releases her immediately, afraid of causing her more pain.
“You alright?” he pants.
“Yeah,” she replies, equally breathless, and leans in for a second kiss.
He keeps it brief but just as tender, not having it in him to stop now that he’s started. Finally, he pulls back, still holding her face, and looks her in the eye.
“Now,” Aaron says quietly, “will you just take the bed? You’re tired and hurting, and I don’t want you to sleep on the couch.”
“Okay,” she chuckles, still breathless in a way that makes him dizzy with happiness. “But we’re both sleeping in it.”
He sighs, his relief evident. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
Emily wakes up to Aaron stroking his fingers up and down her back, his hand having made its way under her sweatshirt during the night. He leans down to press a kiss to her head once he realizes she’s awake, and Emily bites her lip to stop herself from smiling. Leaving a soft kiss on his chest in return, she looks up, their eyes meeting.
His hair is messy, mussed from sleep and flopping over his forehead. Her hand itches to brush through it. Aaron is looking at her with so much emotion on his face her breath hitches, and Emily leans up to press a kiss to his lips. His hand winds up in her hair immediately, fingers stroking her scalp as delicately as the night before.
“Morning,” she whispers as they part.
“Morning. How’re you feeling?”
Emily can’t help the shiver that runs through her at the gravel in his morning voice. “I’m okay. You?”
“Better than ever.”
Aaron says it with such sincerity she can’t stop the smile that blooms on her face. “Yeah?”
He nods, his face becoming serious. “Emily, I-”
“Is this why you didn’t correct those officers last night? When they assumed we were together?”
If he’s surprised, he covers it well, his fingers still drawing circles on her scalp. “Yes. Didn’t have the heart to do it.”
Emily lays her head back down on his chest, biting her lip. “Me neither,” she says and pauses. “What now?”
Aaron gently lifts her off him and comes to lie on his side so they are face to face. His hand tucks some hair behind her ear, fingers dancing lightly over her cheekbone as he does it. There’s amusement in Emily’s smile, as if she’s not used to affection being given to her so openly and freely. He supposes she isn’t.
“I’d like to explore…this,” he gestures between them. “If you want to.”
Her smile is almost blinding as she leans forward and kisses him, relishing in the ability to do so. “I want to.”
His answer is lost in the kiss as he meets her stroke for stroke, his hands pulling her closer. They kiss for what feels like ages, ending with Emily pressed into the mattress, her lips swollen, her hair wild, Aaron’s weight as a reminder of the shift between them on top of her.
“Unfortunately, I have to go,” she pants. “Handle the apartment situation.”
“No.”
It’s spoken into her neck, right against her skin. Emily smiles.
“Yes. I don’t even have a toothbrush here.”
Aaron lifts his head, his famous glare on his face.
“I’ll get you a fucking toothbrush, Emily. Stay.”
She looks at him, and in that moment she knows she’ll do anything he asks of her. Pressing a long kiss to his lips, she says,
A fresh start. That’s what she needed. Not the turn of a page, or a new chapter, but a brand new book.
She left everything behind, and just hoped that she had better things ahead.
A Hotchniss College AU
Words: 2.8k
Warnings: This chapter contains details of hospitalisation/injuries.
Full list of warnings and previous chapters can be found on the Series Master List
Read over on Ao3, or below the cut
He never should have let her leave.
It’s all Aaron can think as he paces the hospital hallway, waiting for Emily’s surgery to be finished. He had too much energy, too much anger thrumming through his veins to sit still. His emotions all swirl together until he can’t unpick them, a messy knot of feelings that leave him unsure of who he’s angry at.
Ian.
Himself.
Emily.
He loves her. Loves her in a way he wasn’t sure he had ever loved Haley, his relationship with each of them was as different as they were.
He keeps playing the conversation in his apartment the night before over and over in his head. How she’d broken up with him, how she’d run away and straight into danger to avoid talking it through. She’d hurt him, cracked his heart in a way he didn’t think she was capable of, but he knew now wasn’t the time, that there were bigger issues to deal with. So he pushes it down, forces those emotions deep in his gut, left in spaces created by a childhood that had never given him what he’d needed.
Emily was the most important thing right now.
She’d barely slept throughout the night, despite the sedatives and pain killers the doctor had given her. Her fear, the reality of what she had experienced at the hands of a man who once claimed to love her, pushed past the medication in her system. She’d kept waking up, her eyes wide in fear, bright red from the burst blood vessels from where she’d strained to survive, as she struggled to breathe, her throat raw as she called out for help that she was sure wouldn’t come.
But Aaron had never wavered. He’d stayed up all night, his hand in her hair as he soothed her, forcing her to look into his eyes as he reminded her she was safe now, that he was there.
He never should have let her leave his apartment.
His cell phone rings, and he jumps, his nerves shot as the sound is loud in the otherwise quiet hallway. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and answers, breathing out a slow breath in an attempt to calm himself.
“Hello?”
“Aaron, it’s Haley,” she says, her voice calming, soft. Almost unnatural given the circumstances they’d all found themselves in only hours before, “I’m still at yours, the police just came by. They got him.”
Aaron closes his eyes as he sits down, relief feeling heavy as it forces him down, his spare hand running down his face.
“Thank god,” he murmurs, “Did they say anything else?”
“They’ll come by the hospital within the next day or so, interview Emily and take some photos of her injuries,” Haley replies, clearing her throat. He can hear the TV in the background, Jack’s favourite cartoon clearly on the screen, “How is she?”
Aaron sighs, swallowing thickly, “She’s in surgery, her wrist was shattered. It was a rough night she kept…she kept dreaming about it.”
Haley winces, her sympathy for Emily clear, “Well, you stay there as long as you need to, I’ll take Jack home later. And we’ll figure everything out.”
“Haley-”
“I was wrong, when I said you needed to get your priorities straight,” Haley says, cutting him off, “I was jealous. You’re a great dad and I know you’d never put anything above Jack. And…” she laughs at herself, and he imagines her shaking her head, “I just kept asking myself if you would ever have fought off someone like you did for her for me. And…I was jealous. I’m sorry.”
“Haley, it’s ok.”
“No, it isn’t,” she replies, and he thinks it’s the most honest conversation they’ve had in years. “I always knew you’d move on, that you’d find someone else. I just…I didn’t expect the first person you found after me to be the one you probably should have been with all along.”
Aaron chuckles humourlessly, warmth sparking in his chest at his ex’s words. Tension he wasn’t even aware had been in his chest eases, her apparent acceptance of Emily’s role in his life something he didn’t know he’d needed.
“She doesn’t believe in that kind of thing,” he says, “Soulmates.”
Haley laughs, the sound catching, almost turning into a sob, “Well, if I remember correctly, neither do you.”
He opens his mouth to reply but is cut off by the call of the doctor saying Emily’s name. So he stands, desperate to see her as soon as he can.
“Haley, I’ve got to go,” he says, any further words caught in his throat. His gratitude for her saving Emily, for her understanding. His love for her that would never truly fade. Everything he’d never been good at explaining to her threatening to overwhelm him, “I…”
“I know, Aaron. It’s ok,” She replies, “I know.”
He nods, even though she can’t see him. “Thank you.”
It’s just two words. A platitude he’s probably exchanged with her countless times over the years, an automatic response to kindness that he rarely thought about, but it feels like the end of something. The final closing of the book that they’d both been hesitant to close, held open by the vague thoughts of what could have been.
He hangs up and looks up at the doctor, who looked significantly younger than Aaron had expected him to, and he smiles apologetically for keeping him waiting.
“Family of Emily Prentiss?”
Aaron nods, “Yeah, I’m her boyfriend.”
The doctor nods at him, “I’m Doctor Reid, the surgery was a success. I’ll take you to her now.”
It was time to start afresh.
___
“Em?”
She can’t breathe.
She feels frozen in place, her body paralysed as she tries to break free but can’t, her limbs heavy as she tries to move.
She can’t breathe.
“Em?”
She feels a hand on her shoulder, a tight squeeze that she knows she should find comforting, and another in her hair, pushing back strands from her face.
“I’m right here, you’re ok.”
She can’t breathe.
She gasps as she wakes up, precious oxygen burning her throat as she sucks it in, her heart thundering against the inside of her chest.
“Em, sweetheart.”
She turns her head a little too sharply, her eyes meeting Aaron’s, immediately feeling a little calmer when he smiles encouragingly at her. The bruise around his eye, left by Ian what felt like weeks ago, not days, is starting to fade. A patchwork of colours spreading down his cheek.
He has a hand on her shoulder, and another on her head, his thumb gently stroking at her forehead as he soothes her, bringing her back to the present and out of the nightmares she knows she’ll be having for weeks.
That she knows she’ll have forever.
“Aaron?”
She winces at the sound of her own voice, at how much it hurts to speak, but he nods, leaning down to kiss her cheek.
“Sorry to wake you up,” he says, his thumb continuing with its delicate movements against her skin, “But the police are here,” he explains, tilting his head towards the hallway outside her room. She follows his line of sight and looks through the window, spotting the officers, one male and one female, on the other side of the glass, “They want to talk to you.”
She’d already spoken to one officer. A kind woman who had taken photos of her injuries, documenting them in detail so charges could be brought against Ian.
She’d felt awful, exposed in a way she hadn’t in years. Photos taken of the injuries that she still hadn’t been able to look at in the mirror in the bathroom adjoining her hospital room, not wanting to see the damage Ian had left behind.
Emily looks back at him and bites her lip, nerves she can’t explain flooding through her, making her lightheaded in a way that overtakes the medication in her system.
“Now?”
Aaron sits on the edge of her bed and wraps his hand around her good one, the other one tightly bound in a cast. The plaster covering the fresh scar from surgery underneath, a permanent reminder of something she’d rather forget left behind on her skin.
“I can tell them to come back,” he says, and it makes her smile because she knows he would. That he’d march outside and tell the police officers to leave, and not let them back until she was ready. She shakes her head slightly.
“Let's do it,” she rasps out, squeezing his hand in hers, “Get it done.” Aaron nods, leaning forward and kissing her forehead before he stands, but she holds his hand even tighter. “You’ll stay?”
Aaron smiles at her, “I wouldn’t leave even if you wanted me to.”
She flashes him a tight smile, the double meaning of his words not lost on either of them. She knew they needed to talk, that they couldn’t just pretend she hadn’t broken up with him, but it wasn’t the right time.
Aaron lets the police officers in and takes his place by her side, perched on the edge of her bed, his shoulder pressing into hers. A reminder that he was there, that she had him. Had the safety he provided her.
“Miss Prentiss,” the male officer says as he walks in, “I’m Officer Anderson, and this is my colleague Officer Seaver, and we need to ask you a few questions. I’m sorry it’s whilst you’re still here, but the sooner we can get your statement, the sooner we can press charges against Mr Doyle.”
She feels Aaron tense next to her, the muscles under his shirt rippling through the thin hospital count she was wearing, and she knows his barely restrained anger that he’d failed to hide from her was close to the surface.
“Look at her,” Aaron says, gesturing at her neck, the bruising that just seemed to keep spreading, “What other evidence do you need? She can barely speak.”
“Aaron,” Emily says, placing her hand over his, grabbing his attention as she links their fingers together, “It’s ok,” she turns her attention to the police officers, “He can stay right?”
“Of course,” Officer Seaver replies, “Whatever makes you feel more comfortable.”
Emily looks at Aaron and his eyes meet hers, barely concealed fury that she was having to relive this so soon swimming in them. He swallows thickly, and nods curtly, keeping his mouth shut so he didn’t say anything else. He clasps her uninjured hand between both of his.
“What do you need to know?”
___
“He was going to kill you.”
Emily is almost asleep when he says it, his words and the crack in his voice are enough to tear her completely from slumber. He’s sitting in the chair next to her bed, both of his elbows resting on the mattress as he holds her good hand in between his. He has their joint hands held up, his lips against her knuckles, her skin warm against his.
As if he was trying to remind himself she was still there.
She hadn’t missed it, his subtle reaction when she told the police that Ian had threatened to kill her, to leave her body somewhere for Aaron to find. After the police left he’d been quiet, his eyes wide as he watched her carefully.
“Aaron-”
“He was going to kill you,” he repeats, his words harsher this time, and he immediately regrets it, wishing he could take them back, his fear and his anger battling it out in his chest, “He was going to kill you and…”
Emily looks at him, his eyes closed and their hands still pressed against his face, and she reaches out for him with her other hand, the hard material of her cast gently knocking against his head as she pushes hair from his forehead. It gets his attention, and he looks up at her, his eyes shining with tears that don’t surprise her but make her ache regardless.
“I’m ok, honey.”
He laughs humourlessly, a single tear leaving his lashline as he shakes his head at her.
“No, you aren’t,” he replies, looking at her, his jaw clenched as he tries to stop himself from completely losing control, “Look at you, Em.” Her injuries were still hard to look at, somehow still getting worse, but he forced himself to look. As if they were reminders of how he had failed to protect her, even though she didn’t want his protection, “If Haley hadn’t been there…a couple more minutes at most and you would have been dead,” he shakes his head again, “You’re not ok. And I’m not either.”
She nods slightly, her eyes burning with tears that press at the back of them, “I know,” she replies, “I’m so sorry.”
“Fuck, no that’s not…” he leans forward, his head pressing into their joint hands again briefly before he stands up, resettling on the edge of her bed as he looks at her, “I don’t need an apology from you, Em. None of this was your fault.”
“I never should have dated him,” she says, wincing as she swallows, “I only did it because I knew my mom would hate everything about him. He was…different to everyone else I’d ever known. ” she looks down at the sheet over her lap, “Maybe I deserve it.”
“No,” he replies immediately, releasing one hand from around hers to cup her chin, gentle as he makes her look at him, not wanting to cause her any more injuries, “No,” he repeats, “You didn’t deserve any of this. He’s the one in the wrong, and he’ll pay for everything he’s done to you.”
She smiles at him, her chin wobbling as she does so. She dreamt of it sometimes, the first time she met Ian. Watching as a spectator as it all unfolded. Screaming at herself, seemingly from behind broken glass, unseen and unheard, desperate to stop something she wishes she could undo.
She couldn’t change it, couldn’t reverse the decisions she had made. And she didn’t know if she would. Knowing that everything had ultimately led her to Aaron. The man she loved, the man she wanted forever with.
Something she felt she could now allow herself now her monster was captured.
“I love you,” she says, the words escaping before she can stop them, unbidden and honest as she looks at him. He stares at her, his mouth slightly open, and she carries on before he can speak, “And I’m sorry, I was scared and…I’m sorry.”
Aaron leans forward and kisses her, the first proper one they’d shared since she’d left him in his apartment.
“I love you too,” he replies, kissing her again before pulling away, “And we’ll talk about the rest when we get home.” She nods, but scrunches her nose up, her discomfort clear, “What is it sweetheart?”
“I don’t know if I can live there anymore,” she explains, smiling sadly at him, “I’ll always think of him. Of what he put us through.”
Aaron nods, understanding what she meant. In the one hour, he had left her side since she’d been admitted to the hospital he’d walked past where she’d been attacked. Her vomit still dried on the sidewalk. It had him nauseous himself, knowing that in a different circumstance it was where he could have found her body.
He’d mentioned it to Jason on his way in and exchanged a small smile with the man as he left again as he found him power washing the sidewalk.
“Then we find somewhere else to live.”
He says it like it’s obvious like it’s simple, and it takes a moment for her brain to catch up, and she frowns at him. “Aaron, no I can’t have him drive you from where you live.”
“He isn’t,” he assures her, standing and encouraging her to shift over in her hospital bed, making enough room so he can slip in next to her, their shoulders overlapping as she snuggles into his side, “I don’t think I can live there either.”
She looks up at him, her eyebrows still creased together, “I don’t want you to have to leave your home.”
Aaron smiles at her, reaching out and tucking her hair behind her ear, “You’ll call me ridiculous for saying this,” he says, his dimples appearing on his cheeks, “But for me, home is wherever you are.”
Her smile breaks out across her face, so wide it actually hurts, pulling at abused muscles in her neck she didn’t know she had, but she doesn’t care.
“That is ridiculous,” she replies, kissing his jaw before resting her head on him, her face in his neck, “And If you ever tell anyone I said this, I’ll deny it, but you’re my home too.”
Aaron kisses the top of her head, hiding his smile in her dark hair, “Your secret is safe with me. So we’ll find somewhere? Together?”
She nods, her chest aching with something other than pain for the first time in days. Joy and hope bubbling up, so fierce she swears she could burst open.
“Together.”
They lapse into silence, and Emily sighs against him, her breath skipping across his skin. “What is it, sweetheart?”
She presses her forehead into his skin, whining as she does so.
“I hate moving.”
-x-
The last chapter, the epilogue, will be posted next week. <3
Emily wasn’t surprised that she’d started to sleep with one of her professors, but she was surprised that she’d fallen in love with him.
A Hotchniss AU.
-x-
This is a present for a very dear friend of mine. One of my absolute best friends actually. You are the nicest, most talented and most incredible person although I know you won’t believe that! I am forever grateful we found each other in this very specific corner of the internet. The world was falling apart around us all, and we both independently turned to fanfiction, for a very niche, non-canon couple, as a distraction. And we found each other and our little group of friends and I cannot imagine my life without you in it!
I love you, I treasure you, and one day there won’t be whole oceans between us and I will give you the biggest hug in the world.
So, this is for you. I know you’re proud you’ve turned me, the girl who initially only wrote fluff, into the angst-ridden monster everyone has to deal with today. I like to think you’d also be proud you managed to get me to write the spiciest smut I ever have, just to celebrate you!!
Love you <3
-x-
Words: 3.2k
Warnings: 18+, Smut. Professor/Student relationship. Age gap.
Read over on Ao3, or below the cut
When she thinks about it, Emily is almost surprised it takes her until her senior year to start sleeping with one of her professors.
She knew that was primarily to do with the fact not one of them had piqued her interest, all a little too old for her liking, and certainly not worth the ramifications of getting caught.
That all changed on the first day of her final year of her undergrad. Her focus on her Criminal Psychology class diminished the second Professor Hotchner walked into the room. He was much younger than the other teachers they’d had, clearly only a handful of years out from having qualified himself. He was handsome, the cut of his jawline capturing her attention across the classroom, but it was his seriousness, the way he commanded a room, that fascinated her the most. An urge to mess with him, to make him untidy almost immediately pulled at her gut.
Despite her inability to concentrate in his class she still did very well, her intelligence enough to get her through as she fantasised about him as he discussed the markers of a sociopath.
The first time they had sex was in a bathroom in a bar. Something she called luck meant they’d ended up in the same place that night that she’d taken advantage of. He’d been alone, nursing a glass of scotch as she slipped away from her friends and got chatting with him, ignoring the flicker in her belly when he remembered her name even though he must have hundreds of students in his classes.
Her eyes flicked to the band of paler skin on his left hand, and she’d later find out he was freshly divorced. That he’d gotten married when he was her age, but his relationship with his wife had soured, meaning he was now 32 and single again.
Emily could never deny that she’d made the first move, her hand sneaking onto his thigh as she playfully smiled at him, but as she reminded him frequently, he didn’t exactly stop her. His protests were present, but weak, stopping entirely as she led him towards the back of the bar.
She had thought that would get it out of her system, that the slightly drunken sex she’d had with him that night would quench her curiosity, but all it did was set it alight.
She knew it was the same for him.
The cold light of day meant he’d pulled back from her at first, apologetic and insisting nothing could happen between them again, that it was inappropriate. But he seemed just as drawn to her as she was to him, and it was only a couple of weeks later that a genuine stop-off at his office hours led to her pressed up against his desk.
It was a bad idea to carry on, and she knew that, but she did anyway. Sneaking away to see him whenever she could, sure she could never get enough of him.
She was now only a few weeks off from her last ever finals, graduation only around the corner, and every time she thought about what that meant, that whatever this was between them would change or end soon, it made her chest ache.
They never spoke about their relationship, if you could even call it that, was kept within the four walls of his office. A secret they both knew they should be more ashamed of than they were.
Occasionally, she let herself get carried away with the fantasy of it. That someday they’d have more, the kind of family she’d never been a part of. She’d find her mind taken over by thoughts of having to explain to her mother how she and Aaron had met. If she truly let herself get carried away, laying in the bed he’d never been in, she’d find herself thinking of a home. A marriage. Of a teenage girl with his eyes and her attitude, yelling at her that she couldn’t say anything to her about her boyfriend being older, because she’d fucked her college professor.
Emily wasn’t surprised that she’d started to sleep with one of her professors, but she was surprised that she’d fallen in love with him.
___
Aaron was in trouble, and he had been from the first moment he’d noticed Emily Prentiss.
This job was his fresh start, his divorce from Haley still sharp if he thought about it. He’d noticed Emily on his very first day, sitting in the back of the classroom but somehow still catching his attention.
She was beautiful, captivating, and as he would soon learn - insistent. He’d kept a wide berth from her at first, knowing his attraction to her was inappropriate. She was just shy of 10 years younger than him, and she was his student.
He had been doing a pretty good job of it until they ended up in the same bar, the alcohol in his system making him question why he’d ever tried to stay away from her. His control snaps as she places her hand on his leg after an hour of talking as if they were just a man and a woman who had met in the bar with no complications, her dark eyes boring into his.
When he woke the next morning he swore he could still taste her. Marks she had left behind on his neck, and scratches on his shoulders enough to let him know what had happened in the bathroom was not a dream.
Aaron’s first reaction was one of panic. Hyper was aware that it was wrong, and he’d done his best to remain professional after that. He’d pulled her to one side after class one day, ignoring the disappointment he saw flash across her face as he apologised, and said it couldn’t happen again.
It, of course, did.
She’d come to his office, with a genuine question about an assignment that there was no one else she could ask about, and it had taken all of five minutes for them to end up tangled together. Their mutual attraction too much to ignore.
He knew he should have stopped it months ago, that he was the one who was in the position of power here, but he couldn’t. His body paralysed every time he thought about it, whenever he almost told her this had to be the last time. Her smile disarmed him every time, the way she looked when he took her apart.
He wanted more of her, all of her.
It had gone beyond the physical. He’d never been very good at separating sex from emotions, and he found himself wanting to be in her company more and more. She made him laugh and made him feel relaxed in a way he hadn’t experienced since the early years of his marriage. He found himself looking at her across the classroom, never surprised to find her looking at him too.
It was stupid to start sleeping with a student. It was nothing short of idiotic to fall in love with one.
She was graduating soon, and every time they had time alone together, he had to stop himself from asking her out. From taking what they had from trysts in his office to something more, something that existed outside of what they’d built.
There’s a knock at his office door, and he’s not surprised to see Emily walk in dressed in a summer dress, a wry smile on her face as she steps over the threshold.
“Professor Hotchner, I just wanted to have a quick chat about extra credit,” she says, the door still open and a sparkle in her eye that has him raising an eyebrow at her.
“No one else is here, Emily,” he replies, and she beams, pulling the door closed behind her and dumping her bag in the corner of the room, “Someone blocked out the last couple of hours of my office hours so I had to stick around.”
Emily hums in her throat, walking over to him, sitting on the edge of his desk, “I wonder who did that.”
His hand automatically lands on her thigh just above her knee, as if magnetised, the need to touch her as natural now as breathing.
“Someone who likes to rile me up,” he responds, and she laughs, shifting so she moves from his desk to sit in his lap, her arms tight around his neck.
She leans in, smiling as her breath skips across his face, relishing in how he holds her a little tighter, his control clearly on a knife edge.
“Oh, I’ll do more than rile you up,” she replies, biting her bottom lip, “I missed you yesterday.”
He hadn’t been in class the day before, and she’d found herself feeling disappointed.
“I had a meeting, and had to get a sub,” he explains, his hand shifting up her back, stroking at her exposed skin.
She presses a quick kiss to his lips, “Well, Professor Rossi is nowhere near as fun to stare at as you are.”
“You’re meant to pay attention in class, Em, “ He pulls her impossibly closer and she laughs.
“Not my fault that all I can think about when you’re teaching is how it feels when you fuck me on your desk.”
She smiles, and she sees the moment his self-control snaps. He leans in, his lips against hers whilst his hand buried itself in her hair, holding her in place as his tongue licks into her mouth. She wraps her arms around him, pulling him close as he stands, lifting her at the same time and stepping towards his desk.
He places her on the dark-coloured wood, never breaking their kiss as he does so. His hands roam over her body, grasping at skin that was familiar to him. He pulls away from her and kisses down her neck, biting at her collarbone as he passes it.
She chuckles, already breathless, “Keen, are we?”
“For you, always,” he replies, licking at her skin.
Her hands aren’t idle, pushing desperately at his jacket so it hits the floor before she moves to his belt buckle. She undoes it quickly, reaching for his zipper before he stops her, his hand over hers as he pulls back enough to look at her.
“Your turn.”
She smiles wickedly at him, surprised he’d remembered their deal from the week before. She still had slight bruises on her knees from where she’d knelt on the floor for him.
He leans in and kisses her quickly, before trailing down her neck again, pushing the straps of her dress down her shoulders, pressing his lips into the newly revealed skin. He pulls her dress down just enough to expose her breasts, and he moans when he realises she isn’t wearing a bra. He leans forward and presses his forehead to her chest, his breath skipping down the valley of her breasts.
“You’re fucking perfect,” he says, the timber of his voice vibrating through her skin, “so perfect.”
“Please,” she moans, her whole body already shaking with want even though he’d barely touched her.
The first time they’d done this, the anticipation set her on edge, waiting to find out if he was everything she had thought he would be. Now she knew. She knew what he was capable of, how successfully he could take her apart, and it somehow made it worse. Knowledge almost a curse as she waited for him to send her over the edge.
Aaron mercifully does as she asks, kissing both of her breasts before he moves on. He pays close attention to her pierced nipple, licking at the small metal bar that drove him crazy. Leaving him distracted and half-hard as he looked at her across the lecture hall, all too aware of what she looked like naked. What she looked like when she came apart.
Emily raises an eyebrow when he kneels in front of her, feeling powerful at the sight of it. She shifts her hips, tilting them so he can reach up under her dress to pull down her panties. She gasps at the feel of his skin against her thigh, his eyes never leaving hers as he throws her panties over his shoulder without a second glance, the black lace lost to the room.
He traces his hands up the inside of her legs, pushing her thighs wider apart as he reaches them, shifting so they are heaved over his shoulders. She places her hands behind her on the desk, bracing herself as he leans forward. She looks down, the sight of his head under her dress enough to undo her right there. He still doesn’t do anything, and she can feel her patience hanging on by a thread.
“For fuck sake, please-”
Aaron licks through her, and it cuts her off, her words lost to a groan she can’t control. She’s glad it’s after hours, that the neighbouring offices would be empty by now, and she doesn’t have to try to be quiet for once.
He pulls back enough to kiss the inside of her thigh, his grip on her skin as he holds her legs apart tight enough to leave bruises.
“Delicious,” he says, right before he dives back in. He licks through her like a man who was starved, never letting up even for a second. He slips two fingers inside of her, pressing just in the right place. It had been like this from the start, as if he had a manual for her body, aware of the intricate details of what could shatter her into pieces.
If she could think about anything other than how good he was making her feel, she’d worry he would suffocate, his movements against her relentless.
“Fuck,” she chokes out, her nails scratching at the wood of his desk, “I’m going to-”
“Do it,” he mumbles, and it’s enough to tip her over the edge, her thighs clamping around his head as she comes.
He stands, gently lowering her legs from over his shoulders, and cups the back of her head, his forehead against hers as her breathing starts to even out.
“You ok?” He asks, his voice thick with desire, and she nods in response. He leans in to kiss her quickly, and she moans when she tastes herself on his lips.
She shifts forward on the desk and stands, her legs slightly shaky. He turns her, pressing her into the desk and crowding her from behind. The heat of him against her back and the cool wood of the desk against her exposed skin makes her already shot nerves go haywire. The feel of him enough to make her moan before he even makes a move to touch her again. He chuckles as he kisses the back of her shoulder.
“Desperate are we?” He murmurs, and she wants him so badly she can’t bring herself to tell him to fuck off. To threaten him with revenge the next time they do this, even though there shouldn’t be a next time.
There shouldn’t be a this time. This never should have happened at all, but she didn’t want to stop. And she knows he doesn’t want to either.
She hears him unzip his pants, the sound loud in a room that was quiet apart from their heavy breathing, and she tilts her head back so it can rest on his shoulder.
“Fuck, Aaron,” she says, his first name slipping past her lips as he lines himself up with her, “please.”
He enters her quickly, the feeling knocking the air from her lungs as she leans forward, her hands on his desk, sure to cause more damage to the wood than she already had. Scratches from their past encounters now too many to count, a pattern across his desk she knew he’d struggle to explain to anyone who cared to look.
“Holy shit,” she curses, her entire body feeling like it was on fire as he stills inside of her.
“Fuck,” he says, resting his forehead against her shoulder, “you’re fucking amazing.”
“Move,” she chokes out, forcing her hips backwards in a way that makes them both moan, “fucking move.”
He doesn’t need asking again, looping his arm around her, his hand pressing into her stomach
as he starts to move. He isn’t gentle, and neither is she, both giving as much they take as they lose themselves in the feel of each other.
He pulls her upright so her back is pressed against his chest, the change in angle enough to make them both moan. She turns her head to kiss him, the action lost as they both groan into each other's mouths.
“Close,” she mumbles, her body starting to shake again, grateful for his hold on her so she doesn’t fall face first into his desk.
“Me too,” he grunts, one of his hands snaking down to circle her clit, making her body jolt, his touch gentle against her sensitive skin. He moans against her neck as she clenches around him, “That's it,” he says, “come for me, Emily.”
She tips over the edge again, this time taking him with her, both of them grasping at each other as they reach their mutual high.
She tries to catch her breath, her head leaning back against him as he kisses her neck, his lips travelling down her shoulder. He’s muttering praise against her skin, and it’s enough to make her skin tinge pink for a different reason than the arousal still sparking in her blood. Something close to embarrassment catching in her chest, even though this man had seen her naked more times than she could count.
“That was amazing,” he mutters against her, his arms still around her.
“It always is,” she replies, whining softly as he steps back, slipping out of her. He watches as she readjusts her dress, a content smile on her face as she turns to look at him, leaning against the desk.
He kisses her shoulder again before he steps away completely, reaching into his desk to grab her some tissues so she can clean herself up. And he looks at her in a way she doesn’t remember anyone ever looking at her before.
He stares at her, everything he knows he cannot feel thrumming through his skin, and she raises an eyebrow at him.
“What?”
He can’t stop himself, the words escaping before he can stop them, something deep down he knows he shouldn’t say.
“I’d like to take you to dinner sometime,” he says seemingly out of nowhere, his voice breathless, clearing his throat, carrying on with a joke he knows she’ll appreciate so he feels less exposed. “Maybe fuck you somewhere other than my office.”
She chuckles, stepping towards him, her hands running up his chest before they connect behind his head. She kisses him, and it’s significantly more tender than any others they’d shared. She shouldn’t agree to it, she knows that. Anything that would make this more complicated than it already was should make her run in the other direction.
She smiles at him, capturing his chin in her hand, holding him in place so she can kiss him again, her tongue briefly licking into his mouth before she pulls away.
She should say no, should stop this now just like she should have months ago, but she doesn’t want to. All too aware this is what she’d wanted for longer than she should have.
She wishes they’d met earlier, that they’d had more time. Meeting him here, at the end, was cruel even by the universes standards.
A Hotchniss on the run AU, told in 3 parts
Part 3/3
Series Master List
Words: 2k
Warnings: Major character death, canon typical violence, references to trauma/PTSD, criminal activity
Read over on Ao3, or below the cut
He sighs as he watches the final flames die out, the smell of smoke and burning permeating the air, catching in the back of his throat.
The building was derelict, an old warehouse in the middle of nowhere. A place that had once been the workplace of hundreds of people was now a shell, all but burnt to the ground.
“Agent Morgan?”
Derek turns, fixing a polite smile on his face as he greets the local fire chief, reaching out and shaking his hand.
“Cheif Johnson,” he says, casting a look back at the warehouse, “what are your findings?”
“The fire does seem to have been started on purpose, but it spread much faster than anyone could have predicted,” he sighs, looking at the building himself, “whoever was is unlikely to have been able to escape, even if it was just lit as a decoy like you and your team suggested.”
“Have you found the bodies yet?”
Chief Johnson shakes his head, “Not yet, but my men will let you know when they do.”
“Thank you,” Derek says, waiting until the other man is no longer looking at him before his smile slips off of his face, sighing as he looks back at the warehouse. “Damn it Hotch.”
___
Three Months Earlier
“Are you sure it was him?”
Derek groans as he clenches his fists at his sides, his eyes stern as they meet Spencer’s.
“Positive,” he chokes out, “he looked at me, he hesitated. It was Hotch.”
“And you said he was with a woman?” JJ asks, her eyebrows furrowing as she leans back in her chair, looking around the conference room at the rest of the team.
“Yes, I have no idea who she was though,” Derek replies, sitting down at the roundtable.
“I do,” Penelope says as she walks in, plugging her laptop in so it connects to the large screen in the room, a picture of a brunette woman appears on the screen, “Her name is Emily Prentiss.”
“How did you find this?” Dave asks, his expression somber.
“I tracked the CCTV,” she explains, “once Morgan said he saw Hotch I followed them until I found a decent image, then I put her picture through the database.”
“Would she have any idea what he’s done? Is there a chance she’s in danger?” Derek asks, and he turns sharply to look at Dave when he laughs.
“Danger? Come on Morgan, this is Hotch we’re talking about.”
“He killed a man.”
“Yeah, who killed his son and ex-wife,” Dave replies, any further comment cut off by Penelope.
“She’s not in danger,” she says, stopping the familiar argument from going any further, “her file is heavily redacted, with a bit more time I’ll be able to break through, but what I do know is not only is she drop dead gorgeous, but she’s an ex-Interpol agent presumed dead, her car was found burnt beyond recognition. She killed her target without getting the order.”
Derek sighs, falling into silence before he looks back at the technical analyst. “Now we’ve seen them, can we continue to track them using your programmes?”
Penelope clears her throat, hesitating before she answers. “Yes, but-”
“Then do it, we need to find them.”
“Morgan,” Dave says, sighing, “Do we really need to do this? We found him by chance, no one knows she’s alive. We could just leave them to it.”
“He killed a man,” Derek repeats, holding his hand up to stop any further protests, “regardless of his reasoning, that is what happened and then he ran. We need to find him, it’s the right thing to do,” he looks at the screen, the photos of Aaron and Emily next to each other, “that’s what he taught us.”
___
She’s packing furiously, the few belongings they had thrown haphazardly into their bags. He watches as the tension rolls off of her, her shoulders tight with it.
“Em-”
“We’ve got to get going, Aaron,” she says, cutting over him as she continues to throw things into their bags, “You said yourself they’ll find us.”
He sighs, reaching out for her, his hands on his shoulders as he turns her around, pulling her into a hug she immediately melts into.
Aaron often wondered how long she’d been like this. Strong, fiercely independent almost to a fault. He thought it must have been longer than she had been on the run. She’d told him about her childhood, how she’d always felt alone. Their secrets spilling out to each other in cheap motel rooms across the country, trying to take in as much of each other as possible.
Despite his best efforts he had fallen in love with her. She made him feel like he had during the early years of his relationship with Haley, something he was sure he wouldn’t ever be able to replicate.
“They aren’t going to in the next five minutes,” he says, guiding her to sit down, gathering her into his side, “you can take a minute to breathe.”
She leans her head on his shoulder, “Are you sure they just won’t leave it be, just…let us go?”
He wishes he could console her, that he had less confidence in the people he would have once called his family. But he knew them, he’d trained them. They knew how he valued honesty, the morals he used to structure his life around spreading to all of them as they worked together.
There was an irony, he thought, to the fact he had created his own downfall.
“They are very good at what they do. They know me, they’ll find us again.”
She smiles sadly at him, her hand reaching out for his, linking their fingers together to comfort herself as much as she wanted to comfort him.
“You have a lot of faith in them.”
“Yeah,” he chuckles dryly, shaking his head, “they used to work for me.”
Her lips curl upwards even further, a spark of mischief setting off in her eyes. “You have a lot of faith in your ability as a team leader.”
Aaron narrows his eyes playfully at her, “I was very good at what I did,” he replies, tugging her even closer to him, “I would have even been able to keep you in line.”
She laughs and wraps her arms around his neck, kissing him quickly, “I don’t think there is a universe where you could ever dream of keeping me in line Agent Hotchner.”
Their laughter fades, the air around them becoming thick again. “So what do we do now?” He asks, his thumb running back and forth over her wrist.
“We carry on running until we have nowhere else to run,” she answers, flashing him what she hopes is a reassuring smile.
She knows she’s failed when he tries to do the same before he leans in and kisses her desperately, putting everything they cannot, and would not, say into it.
___
The days pass by quickly, a sense of inevitably in the air. She hates it, that the closest thing that had found to peace was gone, shattered as quickly as they had created it.
She knows she could leave him, he suggested it at least once a day, but she can’t. Can’t return to the lonely life she had been living before him. She can’t leave him to be caught, knowing it would happen without her.
The end was coming, lingering on the horizon for them like a ghost. A dawn they never wanted to see.
“What are you thinking about?” He asks, his hand running up and down her bare spine. She was all but laying on top of him, wanting to soak in as much of him as she could.
She raises her head, resting her chin on his chest so she could look up at him. “I think…I think I might be in love with you,” she says, her voice wavering. And despite everything they’ve told each other, the things they’d admitted they’d done, this feels like the biggest divulgence of all. The words are heavy in the air. “And I can’t,” she chokes out, “we can’t. This…I know the way this ends,” she says bitterly, shaking her head at herself as she wipes a tear from her cheek, “and it’s not with us happy and together somewhere.”
She finally looks up at him, not sure what she’d find. The adoration in his eyes surprises her, and makes her breath catch in her chest. It makes it worse, she thinks, that he clearly feels the same way too.
“I think I’m in love with you too,” he says, pulling her in for a kiss, “I like to think, in another life, where we made different choices, where less horrible things happened to us, we might have had a chance.”
She chuckles dryly, biting her lower lip to stop herself from crying. “I like to think that too.”
She kisses him, and as he rolls them over, pressing her into the motel mattress, she lets herself get lost in it. She imagines a life for them where they could have this forever.
___
It’s Aaron who spots the SUVs, the familiarity of them making his heart drop into his stomach. He rushes into the gas station where she was buying snacks for them, having been waiting outside for her.
He finds her in the candy aisle, something that would usually make him smile. “Em-”
“Do you want M&M’s or peanut butter cups? Or…” she turns to look at him, her smile slipping off her face when she sees the tension in his. “Aaron?”
“They are here,” he says, nodding over his shoulder, and she looks outside to see the lineup of SUVs, people she doesn’t recognise but knows he does interviewing people on the opposite side of the street.
“Shit.” She says, pulling at his arm to move him out of the way of the window. “We need to do something, distract them so we can get out of town.”
She looks around the gas station, there’s a desperation to her gaze that has him grabbing her hand, linking their fingers together as he squeezes. He wants to remember how it feels to have her hand in his in case this was really the end of it all.
“I have an idea,” she says, her head tilting towards the gas canisters, “but I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
___
They slip past the team, something he knows he would never have been able to do without her, her past as a spy coming in handy for what feels like one last time.
The warehouse she drove them to is abandoned, an old factory where clothes were once made, somewhere that used to be the almost derelict town’s main place of work.
“Are you sure about this?” He asks, watching as she pours gasoline on the ground, the smell burning the back of his throat. She looks up at him, blowing out a steady breath as she drops the empty canister on the ground.
“No,” she chokes out, “Not at all,” she reaches for him, her fingers idly fixing the collar of his polo shirt, “but I’ve disappeared before, I can do it again.”
Aaron hears sirens, in the distance, slowly getting louder as the people chasing them make their final approach. It strikes him as odd, and a small part of him wonders if it was the team sending him a warning, giving him one final chance. He watches as she gets out the book of matches she’d taken from the motel when they checked out, removing one of them from the packet.
“Em-”
He says it so softly, it makes her choke on a noise she is sure was once meant to be a laugh. She knows what he wants to say, it’s written all over his face.
“Don’t,” she says, cutting him off, her hand drifting to his neck, her thumb at his jawline, “don’t say it,” her smile shakes despite her attempts to stop it, “I know,” she says, her voice wavering, “me too.”
He smiles down at her and nods, his hand at her cheek, his thumb tracing her lower lip.
“You ready?” He asks, his voice soft. Almost too gentle for the moment they found themselves in. She smiles up at him, pressing a kiss to his thumb.
She wanted him. This. She didn't need anything else.
Part 2 of 2.
-x-
Based on two prompts I got from anon, which are:
“I just want to relax in your arms” and “I could just stare at you forever” “Creep”
I am still so nervous about writing smut, so I hope you all enjoy this
-x-
Words: 3k
Warnings: Mature, smut
Read over on Ao3, or below the cut
“I don’t think I’ve ever stayed in a hotel like this before,” Aaron whispers to her, his arm around her shoulders as he looks around the foyer, clearly taken aback by the grandness of it. Emily laughs, leaning in further against him.
“It’s definitely a step up from where we stay on cases,” she replies, leading him forward as they are called up to the desk, she smiles at the woman on the other side, “We have a reservation under Mr and Mrs Hotchner.”
Aaron squeezes her a little tighter as she smiles up at him. She had no plans of actually changing her surname, not legally, but it didn’t mean she didn’t get a kick out of using it when she booked the hotel.
The woman checking them in types on the computer and smiles at them, “Ah yes, the Prestige Suite.”
“No that’s-”
Aaron’s protest is cut off by his wife, who simply squeezes his hand to stop him, “Yes that’s correct, thank you.”
“I’ll just get your keys organised Mrs Hotchner.”
As soon as she’s out of earshot, Aaron pulls Emily a little closer, “The Prestige Suite?” He asks, raising an eyebrow at her as she smiles up at him.
“It’s a special occasion,” she replies before she turns back to get the keys.
It makes her laugh how uncomfortable Aaron seems with the concierge who takes their bags up to their room for them, and she actually has to cover her mouth as he tips him far too much, the young man’s eyes almost bugging out of his head.
Aaron looks around the room, his eyes falling on the bottle of champagne that had been left for them.
“This place is really nice,” he says, and she smiles as she walks over to him, her arms wrapping around him, “How much did this cost?”
She shrugs, “Consider it a gift.” She leans in to kiss him, “I’m going to go change,” she says against his lips, kissing him again as she tries to turn away, chuckling as he pulls her closer, grasping at her hips.
“Why?” He asks, his hands drifting to her back under her jacket, the heat of his skin obvious through the thin material of her camisole, “I like this,” he kisses her, “You look beautiful in white.”
She smiles, her teeth sinking into her lower lip as she tries, and fails, to control it. “Well,” she replies, leaning in to whisper to him despite them being alone, taking satisfaction from how he shivers at the feel of her breath across his ear, “In that case, I think you’ll like what I have on underneath.”
Aaron groans, and she chuckles as she pulls back, kissing him once more before she disentangles herself from him, throwing a wink at him before she turns. She grabs her bag from the bed and walks towards the bathroom, aware of his gaze on her, burning into her back until she closes the door.
She changes quickly, careful to hang up the suit to ensure the fabric didn’t crease. She kicks off her heels, aware that Aaron liked their height difference, that he enjoyed being able to envelop her in his embrace. She smiles as she pulls one of his dress shirts out of her bag, slipping it on over the white and lacy lingerie set she’d bought specifically for this. She checks herself once in the mirror, before she opens the door, not surprised to find Aaron still standing exactly where she’d left him.
His mouth drops open as he looks at her, his eyes looking her up and down, “Okay,” he says, swallowing thickly, “I prefer this over the suit.”
Emily smiles at him as she crosses the room, kissing him as soon as she’s close enough, she kisses him twice in quick succession, before pulling back, a wicked grin on her face as she takes a step backwards, intending to get on her knees, her hands reaching for his belt. Aaron stops her, his hands firm, but gentle, at her hips, sliding under the material of the shirt she wore.
“Aaron…” she says, drifting off, her head tilting in confusion.
“Today is all about you,” he says, cupping her cheek, leaning in to kiss her but stopping just short of her lips, “Consider it a gift.”
She chases his kiss, standing up onto her tiptoes as she does so, her arms tight around his neck as she anchors herself to him. He smiles against her lips, and she takes the opportunity to lick her tongue through his mouth, swallowing his groan as he holds her impossibly closer, his hands grasping at her skin as he walks them both towards the bed. Emily feels the back of her legs hit the bed, only registering it for a moment before she’s pushed back onto it, Aaron following as he continues to kiss her, his hand ghosting down her side.
She gasps, breaking free from the kiss when he traces his fingers along the line of her underwear, his calluses rough against her skin, sending a familiar shiver down her spine. Aaron kisses her neck, his words slightly muffled against her skin.
“Were these expensive?” He asks, still tracing over the skin of her lower stomach, occasionally skipping onto the white lace material. Emily knows why he’s asking, he has a habit of ruining her underwear, in more ways than one, and despite the desire thrumming through her bloodstream, she has the sense to answer.
“Yes,” she replies, frustrated at herself for how breathless she sounded, that he could still reduce her to this by barely touching her, even after all this time, “They were more expensive than the suit, so don’t-”
She’s cut off by the sound of ripping material, the cool air hitting her as he throws the scrap of material that used to be her underwear over his shoulder, a smug grin on his face.
“I’ll buy you a new pair.”
“You’d better,” she replies, her annoyance lost as he drags his fingers through her, paying brief, but close, attention to her clit before he continues. She grips tightly at his shoulders, the material of his suit jacket fisted in her hands. “Oh, fuck.”
He builds her up slowly, taking his time as he took her apart as if he had a manual. As if he had written the damn thing. She yells out his name as she comes, groaning as he holds her down the bed with his hand splayed on her belly.
She’s just coming back down, her vision clearing when she feels him kiss her cheek. She chases his lips, kissing him deeply before he’s moving again. He kisses down her throat, slowly making his way down her body, worshipping her and torturing her in equal measure with his touch. He pays special attention, just like he always did, to the brand mark on her breast, the large scar that starts just under her ribcage. The now healed skin still feels numb, but it always tingled under his touch.
“Aaron,” she breathes out as he kisses her lower stomach. He pulls back, making sure he’s kneeling on the ground between her legs before returning his attention to her. She feels his hands on her thighs, pushing her legs further apart. The cold metal of his wedding ring against her skin makes her smile, and she sits up, resting on her elbows as she looks down at him. She’s about to make a comment, quip about the fact he was clearly trying to kill her, when he licks through her, cutting her off as they groan simultaneously, “Shit, Aaron.”
He kisses her inner thigh, “You taste delicious sweetheart.”
The praise, mixed with the way he immediately licks through her again, makes her throw her head back. He takes her apart quicker this time, her body already so close to the edge, and she collapses onto the bed as she comes, her arms giving out as pleasure flooded her body.
“Holy shit,” she breathes out, her words caught in her chest, desperately trying to catch her breath.
“Are you ok?” He asks, and she jumps slightly, unaware that he had moved, rejoined her on the bed as he smiles down at her, his hand pushing hair from her forehead.
She nods, “I’m fucking great,” she replies, pulling him down by the lapels of his jacket, groaning as she tastes herself in their kiss, “take your fucking clothes off.”
Aaron kisses her once more before he stands, shedding himself of his clothes quicker than she’d ever remembered seeing him do so before. She laughs at him when he almost trips over his suit pants, giddiness from the fact she was married to him, that he was her husband, and the fact he’s just made her come, twice, making her feel light like she could float away.
He turns sharply to look at her, his eyebrow raised as he gets back on the bed, crawling over her as he rakes his fingers up her sides, his hands caging her ribs as he tickles her, making her laugh again.
“What are you laughing at?” He asks, his attempt to be stern lost to the sparkle in his eyes, the way his hair was ruffled.
Emily smiles for what felt like the hundredth time since she’d woken up that morning, and she runs her hand through his hair, her hand secure on the back of his head, “My husband.”
Aaron surges forward and kisses her again, and she shifts, planting her feet on the bed as she makes room for him. He kisses down her throat, his teeth briefly biting at her skin.
“What do you want, Emily?” He asks, his tone commanding in a way she had found attractive much, much longer than she would care to admit.
“You,” she replies, the word lost to a groan as he pushes forward, entering her in one motion.
Aaron all but growls as he rests his forehead against her collar bone, his body tense as he stills.
“Fuck, Em. I love you.”
“I love you too,” she replies, lifting his head to kiss him, encouraging him by moving her hips against his, tasting the moan he lets out as she does so.
They easily fall into the rhythm they’d long established, well aware of what the other needed, wanted. She can feel her legs trembling as she reaches the edge, and she knows he feels it too, because he reaches in between them, his thumb at her clit. She grips his shoulders, no material there this time to protect his skin from her nails, and she’s sure there will be red tracks left down his back.
She comes again, her body spent as she feels her climax trigger his, her hands soothing up and down his back as his breathing calms down. He tries to move off of her, but she holds him in place, her legs wrapping around him as well as her arms.
“Em,” he rasps out, his voice torn open by pleasure, by love, “I’ll crush you.”
She hums, smiling up at him as he rests his forehead against hers, “I don’t care, let's just stay here a minute.”
Aaron places a hand next to her head, pushing some of his weight through the mattress, and she rolls her eyes at him.
“I’m enjoying being married so far,” she says, pushing hair off of his forehead, “We should have done this a long time ago.”
He laughs at her, pressing a kiss to her cheek before he rolls off of her, pulling her with him so she’s pressed up against his side.
“Well, what do you want to do next?” He asks, his hand trailing up and down her spine, lingering at the clasp of her bra.
She sighs contently, “I just want to relax in your arms, but there’s a very nice tub in the bathroom. Then we should order room service, have some more sex, sleep, then have sex again” she replies, tilting her head up so she can look at him, “but I don’t think I can move.”
He looks so smug she almost regrets saying it, but then he kisses her before he stands up, briefly leaving her feeling cold before he leans down and picks her up. She shrieks, something she would later deny, as he heaves her against his chest.
“Aaron,” she chastises as she wraps her arms around his neck, securing herself to him, “Your back.”
“It will be fine,” he says, carrying her toward the bathroom, his lips against her neck, “Your plan is perfect.”
___
She’s sated and half asleep in his arms, his hand tangled in hers as she plays with his wedding ring, twisting it back and forth on his finger.
“Em?” He asks, his lips against her forehead, his spare hand tracing up and down her bare back. She hums in response, and she can feel him smile against her skin, “Are you happy?”
It takes a second for his question to register, and her eyebrows crease together as she looks up at him, shifting so her eyes meet his.
“What? Of course I am,” she smiles, reaching out to cup his cheek, “I’ve never been happier.”
He smiles, but there is still some uncertainty in his eyes. “If you change your mind, and you want the big ceremony, let me know. We can do it.”
Emily sits up just enough to look at him properly, her hand on his chest as she steadies herself.
“Aaron, honey, this…this was exactly what I wanted,” she says, her thumb stroking at his cheek, “I’m your wife, that’s the whole point of a wedding, and that’s all I’ve wanted since I realised I was in love with you,” she kisses him quickly, her soft smile turning mischievous as she pulls back from him, “Besides, if we’d had a big traditional wedding day, chances are we’d have got back to our hotel after and just crashed, whereas this way we were able to have incredible sex all afternoon.”
He shakes his head at her but laughs, kissing her once before she settled back onto his chest.
“You’re right.”
“I always am,” she replies snuggling into his side, “now let me get some sleep. We won’t have much time in the morning before check out and I want to check out that tub again,” she looks up at him, raising her eyebrow when she sees he is still staring at her. A soft look in his eyes that he reserved for just her and Jack. “What are you staring at?”
“My wife,” he replies, the words immediately making her flush, “I could just stare at you forever.”
She smiles despite herself, sure her cheeks should ache with how much smiling she had been doing all day.
“Creep.”
___
“Who do you think will notice first?” Emily asks, looking at Aaron as the elevator travels up to the floor that was home to the BAU.
The weekend passed them so quickly that it almost felt like it hadn’t happened. The rings on their fingers and the way her heart swelled in her chest whenever he called her his wife her reminders that it had happened. That it hadn’t been some vivid dream.
“Dave,” Aaron replies without even thinking about it, “And he’ll claim he knew we were planning on doing it.”
Emily laughs but shakes her head, “You’re so wrong, it’s definitely going to be Pen,” she says, “It’s like she’s got some kind of homing beacon for the slightest of changes in our relationship,” she smiles as the doors open, “I’ll bet you $20 it’s Pen.”
He places his hand on her lower back as he guides her out of the elevator, “You’re on.”
They walk out onto the floor, the rest of the team already crowded around the desk, and Penelope looks up and walks over towards them.
“Hotch, Emily - we’ve got a case,” she says, a little too much glee in her voice given the time of day, “I’ve set up the round table room we were just…” she drifts off as she gets close to them, staring at Emily’s left hand, gasping as she grabs it, “Did you get engaged?”
The rest of the team looks over, Penelope’s words registering with them all as they walk over. Different questions thrown at Emily and Aaron all overlapping.
Emily smiles up at Aaron who groans, before she looks back at her friend, “Not exactly-”
“Oh my god,” Penelope shouts, her eyes drawn to Aaron’s hand as he gets his wallet out, reaching into it to get out a $20 for his wife, “Did you get married?”
Emily exchanges a look with her husband, gleefully taking the money from him before she looks back at the team, their friends, who all looked a mixture of shocked and confused.
“Yes,” Emily says, tucking the $20 into her purse, “we did.”
The questions are immediate, some furious, and Aaron puts his hand up to stop them, his Hotch mask slipping into place for the first time in days.
“We have a case.” He says, and Emily watches as the rest of the team looks at him like he’s lost his mind.
“Oh,” Penelope chokes out on a laugh, crossing her arms as she looks back and forth between the couple, “We aren’t going anywhere until you tell us all about it. Explain. Now.”
Emily exchanges a look with her husband before sighing. “Ok, fine, but at least let me get a cup of coffee first.”
Derek shakes his head, blocking her path to the kitchen and exchanging a smile with JJ. “Oh no, coffee is for people who didn’t elope over the weekend.”
Emily groans as she reaches for her husband’s hand, linking their fingers together, her thumb running over his wedding ring.
She wanted him. This. She didn't need anything else.
Part 1 of 2.
-x-
Based on two prompts I got from anon, which are:
“I just want to relax in your arms” and “I could just stare at you forever” “Creep”
Both appear in part 2
-x-
Words: 3.4k
Warnings: None for this part, part 2, however, will have smut.
Read over on Ao3, or below the cut
Emily sighs with relief as she watches the time on her computer click over to 5 pm. The weekend starts with little fanfare as she turns around in her chair to look at the team, smiling as she sees similar relief on all of their faces. Penelope is sitting on the edge of Spencer’s desk as she often did on Friday afternoons when they were in the office, her attention span waning as two days off drew near, the youngest member of the team the easiest to distract. Emily shakes her head at the pack of cards in between them, and she wonders if Aaron had looked down from his office to see members of his team playing poker during the working day, if he had simply just turned a blind eye.
“What’s everyone doing this weekend?” Penelope asks her enthusiasm as present as ever.
“Henry has been going on and on about the new exhibit at the museum,” JJ says, smiling despite the resignation in her voice, “Will and I are going to take him tomorrow.”
“Oh, Jack has been asking to go too,” Emily adds, “You’ll have to let me know what it’s like.”
“What about you and bossman, Em?” Penelope asks, always keen for an insight into their lives, no matter how small, “What are you doing?”
“Just the usual weekend things,” Emily replies, smiling softly, “Jack has soccer, and then we’ll take him for lunch at this diner he’s obsessed with.”
“The place with the coffee you hate?” Derek asks, his eyebrow raised, a teasing smile on his face that came out whenever they spoke about Jack. Her inability to say no to the young boy she loved as her own was well known amongst the team.
She groans, “Yes, but he likes the pancakes,” she smiles, “Aaron will just have to make me coffee at home.”
“Em?”
She turns to see Aaron standing outside his office, leaning over the railing with his briefcase in hand, and she wonders how long he’s been standing there.
“Hi, ready to go?” She asks hopefully, and he nods in response, making his way down the stairs. She stands quickly and grabs her bag, looking at the others as she gives them a quick wave, “See you all on Monday.”
“Have a good weekend you two,” Penelope calls after them, immediately distracted again by Spencer and his insistence that it was her turn in their game.
As always, Aaron keeps a respectable distance from Emily until they are alone in the elevator, his hand pressing into her lower back as they wait for the short journey to the ground floor.
“Just the usual weekend things?” Aaron says, an eyebrow raised at her in amusement when she looks up at him, “You are worryingly good at lying sometimes.”
She smiles brightly at him, and she leans in to kiss his cheek quickly, aware they were almost arriving at their destination, the elevator slowing as it reached the parking garage.
“It’s like you forget I used to be a spy.” She replies, and she winks at him as the doors to the elevator opens. She walks out towards their car, his gaze burning into her back as she goes.
___
One Month Earlier
It was Jack who’d told her.
A whispered, half-asleep, confession as he drifted off after the second story he’d convinced her to read to him.
“Daddy wants to marry you, he said you won’t be an evil stepmother like Cinderella’s.”
Emily can’t say she was surprised. They’d been together for a couple of years, they lived together in a house they had bought, the first place she had ever been able to truly call home. She wanted to marry Aaron, to be his wife, and she wanted to call him her husband. Her answer would only be yes.
But weeks had passed with nothing said or done, and she found herself going mad with it. Like the thought had been dangled in front of her and torn away, even though Aaron had no idea Jack had said anything to her about it, even though Jack didn’t remember.
She takes a deep breath as she pauses outside of his home office, a glass of scotch in each hand, and she walks in, smiling at him the second he looks up.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
“Thought you could do with a drink,” she says holding the glasses up as she walks over, putting one in front of him, “You’ve been in here a while.”
“Sorry, Em, these budget reports are taking forever.”
She smiles down at him, her hand briefly running through his hair, her nails blunt against his scalp.
“Do you have 5 minutes?” She asks, not wanting to lose her brief window of bravery, the voice in the back of her head telling her to just talk to him about it louder than ever. Aaron smiles at her and pushes back from the desk, making room for her to climb into his lap.
“For you, always.” He replies. It was something she knew he learnt from his divorce, the ripple effects of the breakdown of his relationship with Haley still clear even now.
He always had time for her, for their relationship.
She beams at him as she sits down, curling up into his lap as she takes a sip of her drink. He wraps an arm around her to secure her to him. She turns her head so she can look at him, and she takes another sip of her drink, the burn in her throat going some way to take away from the unexpected anxiety.
“I know you’re planning to propose,” she says, her smile widens when his grip tightens on her, his head turning so fast to look at her that she’s sure he must have hurt his neck, “Jack told me,” she explains, answering the question he hadn’t asked.
He sighs, shaking his head slightly as he leans his forehead against her temple. “I didn’t even get the chance to buy the ring yet.”
“I don’t need that Aaron,” Emily replies, cupping his cheek to encourage him to look at her properly, “I just want to be married to you,” she smiles as she gently strokes at his jaw, his stubble poking at her skin, “I don’t want the fuss of an engagement, or a big wedding my mother will talk us into, I just want to be your wife.”
“Em.”
She can see it on his face, the doubt. The worry he’d be taking something from her, the big wedding and celebration he’d had with his first wife. She kisses him, a quick thing stamped against his lips, and she pulls back just far enough to speak.
“I mean it,” she whispers, her nose pressing into his cheek, “we should…just go get married.”
He looks like he’s going to argue, a protest on the tip of his tongue, but he stops himself, smiling at her.
“Ok,” he agrees, closing the small gap between them to kiss her, “What are you thinking?”
She bites her lower lip, a useless attempt to stop her smile from getting any wider. “You, me, and Jack, at the courthouse. Jessica should be there too, she can be a witness and then take Jack home. And then we should go to a hotel…celebrate.”
He laughs as she winks at him at the end of her sentence, “You’ve really thought about this.”
“Ever since Jack first mentioned it a few weeks ago.” She replies, and he groans, resting his head against her temple again. She chuckles and runs a hand through his hair, “What?”
“He didn’t even last a day before telling you.”
___
Emily steps back from the mirror, taking in her appearance one last time as she straightens out the bottom of her jacket, making sure it was laying flat.
She’d settled on a suit for the wedding, not wanting the fuss of a dress, especially since they were simply going to the courthouse together. It was white and fitted, a purchase she had been proud of when she bought it only a week after her discussion with Aaron in their home office. She had paired it with a simple white camisole, and her white Louboutin’s, the splash of red on the sole matching her lipstick.
She’d spent the last month teasing Aaron with clues about her outfit, wanting the surprise of it to be the only aspect of a traditional wedding that they had. She can’t help but smile as she looks herself up and down. This wouldn’t have been how she’d pictured her wedding day when she was young, sure that she’d end up marrying someone her mother approved of, a big ceremony she didn’t want marking the start of the next phase of her life.
This would be different. Something intimate, simple.
There is a knock at the bathroom door, “Em, are you almost ready?” It makes her smile, and she looks at herself once more in the mirror.
This would be perfect for them.
She turns and opens the bathroom door, her smile widening as her eyes meet Aaron’s. He looks her up and down, taking a step back so he could take her in properly, an adoring look on her face.
“Sweetheart…” he says, drifting off as if he was lost for words. When they first got together, she sometimes found herself feeling almost uncomfortable with the way he revered her, his love for her so clear it took her breath away. Now she was used to it but never got bored of it. Desperate for more of his love, addicted in a way she had never anticipated she could be. “You look beautiful.”
She beams at him, her smile so wide she’s sure her face would split open from it, and she feels her cheeks blush slightly, her skin burning with it. She looks him up and down, taking her time to do so. He was wearing one of his suits he usually wore to work, with a new tie she’d bought him as a gift. Aaron had checked more than once that she didn’t want him to dress up anymore, saying he’d be happy to buy something new, but she’d refused.
She had fallen in love with him when he wore one of these suits, it only made sense that she’d marry him in one too.
She takes a step towards him and kisses him softly, careful not to print her lipstick on him. “You look pretty good yourself.” He reaches for her, his hand about to land on her hip, and she steps back, shaking her head at him, “I’d like to at least get to the courthouse before we get a mark on his suit.”
Aaron holds his hand up in understanding and quickly kisses her again, “You’d best keep Jack away from you then, I made him change but I swear he manages to get dirt on himself no matter what.”
Emily steps past him and into the bedroom, chuckling as she does, “Do you have the rings?”
He pulls a box out of his pants pocket, opening it to reveal twin platinum rings inside of it. The one intended for her had a line of diamonds set back into the band, a compromise between her and Aaron that satisfied his need to buy her something more classic, and her insistence she didn’t need an engagement ring, that she wanted a wedding ring that wouldn’t snag on gloves at a crime scene. They’d discussed it animatedly in the jewellery store, to the amusement of the girl who worked there, finally settling on what they had chosen.
“Got them,” he confirms, snapping the box closed and putting it back in his pocket, he offers her his hand and smiles at her, “Ready to go get married?”
She returns his smile and closes the gap between them, linking her fingers through his.
“I’ve never been so ready for anything.”
___
“This is taking ages,” Jack says, resting his head on Emily’s shoulder, snuggling into her side as best as he can in the plastic chairs they were sitting in. She was sitting in between Jack and Aaron, one arm around the little boy, and her hand tangled up with Aaron’s. A purposeful move to ensure she didn’t pick at her cuticles, a nervous excitement thrumming under her skin.
Emily laughs and turns her head, kissing the top of his head, “I know, baby,” she says, leaning back to look at him, “They did say it would be a little while though, Saturday’s are their busiest days.”
“We’re going to the diner afterwards, right?” He asks, and it makes her smile widen.
She knew it wasn’t disinterest from the boy that was leading to his questions, just the attention span of a child who was reaching his limit. He was just as excited about the wedding as Emily and Aaron were, even more excited that it was a secret, something just between them.
“Yes, we’re going to the diner afterwards,” she confirms, wondering to herself what her mother would make of her having her wedding lunch in a diner where they made smiley face pancakes. “Even if they won’t recognise you in your nice suit instead of your soccer uniform.” she jokes, winking at him as he giggles.
“Applicants Hotchner and Prentiss?” The Judge says as he walks out of his chambers, a kind smile on his face. Emily feels Aaron squeeze her hand and she returns the affection before they stand together.
“That’s us,” Aaron says
“I’m Judge Crane, if you’d like to follow me,” he says, leading them into his office, smiling at Jack as he follows Emily and Aaron, Jessica’s hand on the young boy’s back to guide him,
“Well hello, young man,” Judge Crane smiles down at him, “Am I helping your parents get married today?”
“Oh, I’m not-” Emily starts, about to explain the very thing she had countless times to strangers since she and Aaron got together, but Jack cuts her off, a wide smile on his face.
“My Dad and my Emily,” he says, making all the adults in the room smile and Emily feels tears pressing at the back of her eyes.
“That’s lovely,” Judge Crane replies, looking up at Jessica, “If you two could stand at the back?”
“Of course,” Jessica says, her hand on her nephew’s shoulder as she guides him towards the back of the room.
“Now, let's get this show started,” Judge Crane says, standing behind his desk as Emily and Aaron stand on the other side. Aaron passes over the paperwork, and the judge looks over it, reading quickly, a sure sign he did this countless times a day. “I need to see some ID,” He adds without looking up, and Aaron and Emily both get their driving licenses out, already prepared for the question. Judge Crane takes them and briefly looks over them, before handing them back. “Ok this all seems to be in order, so let's get going.”
Aaron takes their driving licenses and pockets them both, before he reaches out for Emily’s hand, facing her as she turns to him.
“We are here today to participate in a marital union, acting in conformity with the laws and regulations of the Commonwealth of Virginia,” Judge Crane says, reeling it off like it was just a normal day, which, Emily supposed, for him it was. “Since it is your intention to enter marriage, please join hands and respond accordingly, Do you,” he checks the paperwork again, making Aaron exchange a smile with his soon-to-be wife, “Aaron Hotchner, take Emily Prentiss to be your lawfully wedded wife to have and to hold from this day forward? Do you promise to be faithful to her, to love, honour, cherish, and respect as long as you both shall live?”
“I do,” Aaron says, all of his focus on her, on the future they were about to embark on. She feels her heart swell in her chest, as if it had to grow to make more room just to fit all the love she had for him inside.
Judge Crane turns to Emily, “Your turn,” he smiles kindly, “Do you, Emily Prentiss, take Aaron Hotchner to be your lawfully wedded husband to have and to hold from this day forward? Do you promise to be faithful to him, to love, honour, cherish, and respect as long as you both shall live?”
“I do,” she replies, her voice shaking as she does. She chokes out a sound that is a half laugh, and a half sob, shaking her head at herself for how her happiness was spilling out of her like this, her tears warm against her cheek.
Aaron reaches out and wipes them away, successfully ignoring the tears on his own lashline.
“Do you have rings?” Judge Crane asks, and Aaron nods at him, disentangling one of his hands from Emily’s to reach into his pocket, pulling out the box he had checked he had with him almost a dozen times since they left their house.
He takes both of the rings out, the weight of them familiar in his hand, a ghost of a memory of a past life, a time when he had done with someone else.
This time, he knew it would last forever.
“Aaron, as you place the ring on Emily’s finger, please repeat after me: This ring I give in token and pledge, as a sign of my love and devotion. With this ring, I thee wed.”
He smiles at her as he does it, his hand gentle as he holds hers, slipping the metal down her finger, the line of diamonds catching in the light.
“This ring I give in token and pledge, as a sign of my love and devotion. With this ring, I thee wed,” he repeats, and this time his voice breaks. Emily smiles at him, reaching out and wiping tears from his cheek, returning the favour from just a minute before.
“Your turn, Emily.” Judge Crane says, and Aaron hands over the ring and she takes it from him.
She’s grateful that if he notices it, which she has no doubt that he does, Aaron doesn’t draw attention to how her hands shake as she slides the ring onto his finger, her voice surprisingly even as she repeats the same words back at him. Emily looks over to where Jack and Jessica are standing, sharing a smile with the latter as she sees her wipe a tear from her own cheek.
Judge Crane stamps the paperwork in front of him with such ferocity it makes Emily jump, the loud noise briefly bringing her back to earth as she shares an amused smile with Aaron, turning to look at the man in front of them.
“I need you to sign these,” he says, handing each of them a pen. They briefly separate from each other, both leaning down to sign the pieces of paper in front of them. Judge Crane picks them back up and smiles at them. “According to the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, I now declare you husband and wife.”
Aaron leans in and kisses her, the action lost in her wide smile, their first kiss as husband and wife a clash of teeth and happiness in equal measure. She vaguely hears a small cheer from where Jack and Jessica are standing, quiet applause as the two of them clap, but it’s faint, as if behind a glass wall. All of her focus on her husband.
She pulls back from him, her hand on his cheek and she smiles, leaning in to stamp another quick kiss against his lips.
“I love you,” she says, her hand still on his cheek.
“I love you too,” he repeats, kissing her again.
“Congratulations,” Judge Crane says, the tone of his voice, and the smile on his face, telling them he wanted them out of his office.
“Thank you,” Aaron says, squeezing Emily’s hand as he leads her out of the office, hearing the judge call out for the next couple as soon as they are out of the door.
“What now?” Jack asks as soon as they are in the hallway, looking up at them.
Aaron wraps his arm around Emily, his hand at her hip, and he squeezes. “We’ll go for lunch,” he says, leaning down to kiss her, unable to stop himself, “and then we’ll go from there.”
A fresh start. That’s what she needed. Not the turn of a page, or a new chapter, but a brand new book.
She left everything behind, and just hoped that she had better things ahead.
A Hotchniss College AU
Words: 2.5k
Warnings: This chapter is about Emily's experience in Rome, so mentions/discussion of abortion and pregnancy
Full list of warnings and previous chapters can be found on the Series Master List
Read over on Ao3, or below the cut
The panic was familiar. Visiting her like an old friend, leaving nothing but fear in its wake.
Her period was only two days late, but as soon as she realised she stopped breathing for a moment, and it felt like she was right back in Rome six years prior, buying tests with money she had stolen from her mother.
There was a rational explanation, she knew that. That it was likely because finals were coming up and she was stressed, but she couldn’t shake off the thought. The worry that she might be pregnant, again, was firmly planted in the back of her head. Taking root and blooming, staying in place like a stubborn weed, prone to grow back no matter how many times she tried to pull it up.
She hadn’t told Aaron, and was avoiding him. Muttering nonsense about needing to study when he asked to see her, like it hadn’t always been her who insisted they did it together.
Emily was worried if she told him, she’d have to tell him everything else. Why her fear was so sharp. That she had been here before. That she had made a decision she wasn’t entirely sure she wouldn’t have to make again.
She’s only just taken the test, relief flooding through her when only one line is staring back at her, familiar cramps pulling at her belly that let her know her body has a sick sense of humour, when there is a knock at her front door.
Emily knows it’s him without having to check the peephole, pulling the door open to reveal her boyfriend on the other side.
She’d missed him, even if the last few days apart had been entirely her own doing.
“Hi,” she says, flashing him a smile.
“Hi,” he replies, “can I come in?”
She nods and steps back to let him in, watching as he walks past her. She closes the door and turns to face him, the tension in the air making her feel awkward, something she hadn’t felt around him since the first time she’d met him. She clears her throat and walks past him, sinking into her couch as he continues to look at her.
“Em, have I done something?” He asks, sounding as uncertain as she had ever heard him, and it makes her head snap up to look at him, her eyes narrowing slightly. “You’ve been avoiding me,” he explains and it makes her sigh, guilt making her stomach churn, “If I’ve done something you’ve got to tell me, so I can fix it.”
“You haven’t done anything, Aaron,” she says, hoping to stop him from spiralling any further.
“It must be something,” he replies, sighing, “You just pulled away and I don’t-”
“It isn’t you, it’s me,” she says, only realising how it sounds after she’s spoken. He chuckles humourlessly, shaking his head.
“I’ve heard that one before,”
“Aaron-”
“If you’re going to break up with me, can you just tell me? Rather than drag it out.”
She stares at him, “That’s not it at all,” she sighs, her head in her hands, “you didn’t do anything.”
“You can tell me, Em,” he says, sounding slightly desperate, “I want to help. Whatever it is.”
Her heart feels like it’s in her throat, and she has to remind herself she isn’t 15 anymore, and he isn’t John. Even if he had never said it, Aaron loved her, she knew that.
This was different, no matter how similar it felt.
“I thought I was pregnant,” she says quietly, closing her eyes as she finishes, the words escaping without her really meaning to say them. She sighs, running her hand over her mouth for a second, “I’m not, by the way. The test is in the bathroom if you want to see for yourself, and I think my period is about to start anyway.”
“You thought you were pregnant?” He asks, and the only response she is capable of is a nod, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know how to,” she replies carefully, knowing it wasn’t a lie, it just wasn’t the whole truth.
Aaron sighs, and he shakes his head at her. “You should have told me, Em. I would have been there for you, you didn’t have to be alone.”
“I…” she drifts off, her eyes fixed on him, and she realises she doesn’t want to hide anything from him anymore. All the reasons she had for keeping things to herself, for not telling him about what had happened in Rome, disappear in a second, his concern for her, for her wellbeing, her overriding thought. She didn’t have to tell him, but she wanted to. She clears her throat and blows out a steady breath. “I was alone last time.”
It takes a second for her words to register, for the meaning behind them to sink in. She sees the moment it does, the way his eyes widen ever so slightly, his adam’s apple moving as he swallows.
“Last time?”
She nods, looking at her joint hands in her lap, her fingers twisting together as she tries to not pick at her cuticles. She feels the couch shift next to her, and she sees him in her peripheral vision, keeping a suitable distance from her, as if he was worried she’d run away at any sudden movement like a frightened animal.
She wasn’t entirely sure she wouldn’t.
“Yeah,” she breathes out, “last time,” she bites the inside of her cheek, the words difficult to say even now, after all these years, “I’ve been pregnant before.”
She’d barely acknowledged it over the years, stuffing it into a box in her head that gathered dust, something she rarely liked to revisit.
She’d said it out loud three times. Once to John, who had been awful, his words still hurtful even now. Once to Matthew, who had saved her at the cost of himself. Once to the doctor who had saved her in an entirely different way.
“Was it…was it Ian’s?”
He wasn’t stupid, the fact she didn’t have a child, that he once was faced with similar choices, meant he would know what had happened, what decision she had made.
She chuckles dryly and turns her head to look at him, shaking her head. “No, it wasn’t Ian’s,” she replies, understanding why that was the assumption he would make, why the truth wasn’t something he’d consider, “It was when I was in Rome.”
Aaron frowns, and she can the thought process cross his face, the memories of what little she had told him about Rome flooding to the surface. He never forgot anything about her. From the smaller things to how she liked her coffee, or that she couldn’t bear to eat before 7 am, to the bigger things, the parts of her she had let him see.
“Sweetheart…you were 15 when you were in Rome.”
She nods again, biting the inside of her cheek to ground herself. “Yes, I was,” she looks back down at her hands, “you wanted to know what happened-”
“You don’t have to tell me,” he says cutting across her, his hand reaching out for hers, squeezing it tightly in a way she found comforting, “not if you don’t want to.”
She smiles softly at him, one corner of her mouth flicking upwards, “I want to,” she assures him, “I just…I don’t want you to think badly of me.”
“I never could.”
He sounds so sure, so sincere, it makes her feel lighter, the tightness in her chest easing the slightest amount.
“I didn’t have many friends growing up,” she starts, smiling sadly, “We moved a lot, so I was always the new kid. We got to Rome and Matthew and John, you remember my mother mentioned John?” She asks, waiting for him to nod in response, “Well, they were American and their parents also worked in politics so we were naturally drawn together. Matthew was…kind and sweet,” she smiles as she says it, remembering how her friend used to be, “And John…well John was an asshole, which apparently is my type if you consider my next boyfriend was Ian.”
Aaron raises an eyebrow at her, a half smile on his face and she grimaces slightly, something close to a chuckle stuck in her throat.
“Or should I say, it was my type until you,” she flashes a smile at him before it fades, “I was 15 and desperate for people to like me, and I ended up pregnant. I knew the second my period was late, I just knew.”
She still remembered the fear, the way she had to cover her mouth with her hand to stop the sobs she barely suppressed from escaping, worried she’d alert someone else in the public bathroom where she’d taken the test.
“Did your mom ever know?” He asks, but she can tell by the look on his face that he already knows the answer.
“No, I never told her,” Emily replies, “I couldn’t. I still can’t. If she knew I’ve had an abortion I…I think it would ruin whatever we have left of our relationship. I told John and he yelled at me. Like I fucking planned it or something, and then I told Matthew and I had to stop him from going after John,” she shakes her head and chuckles, “John would have snapped him in half,” her smile fades slightly, “Matthew is the one who found a doctor for me, he held my hand. I had someone there, but he was just a kid too and it ruined him…I don’t think I’ve ever felt as alone as I did then.”
Aaron is silent for a moment, before he hooks a finger under her chin and makes her look at him, nothing but affection for her shining in them.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” she all but whispers, leaning in towards him, all of her nerves feeling stripped raw.
“You have nothing to be sorry for, Em,” he says as he pulls her into a hug, his arms wrapping tightly around her, “nothing at all,” he kisses the side of her head, “I’m sorry that happened to you.”
She shrugs, her shoulders barely moving in his tight embrace, “It was a long time ago.”
“It was only six years ago,” he says, and she feels him tense, his entire body stiffening next to her. She pulls back from him, and frowns as she looks up at him.
“What is it?”
“What happened to you in Rome, it would have been around the time we found out Haley was pregnant with Jack.”
She nods, “It’s one of the first things I thought about when you told me about him,” she says, tilting her head at him slightly, “Did you two consider…” she drifts off, wondering if she was overstepping, her place in his son’s life still tenuous, her relationship with Haley tense at best.
“We did,” he answers, “we considered all our options, and did the best thing for us,” he tucks her back into his side, his arm running up and down her arm, “and you did the best thing you could do for you.”
“I’ve never regretted it,” she says, half expecting a challenge, some kind of reaction to her still being so sure in her decision, but he doesn’t even blink, “I wish it didn’t have to happen, that I’d made different choices before that, but I know I did the right thing.”
“Can I ask you something?” Aaron asks gently, and she nods against him, “If you were pregnant now, what would you want to do?”
She freezes, clearing her throat as she tries to recover, “I don’t know,” she answers honestly, “I really don’t know.”
Aaron is silent for a moment, and she can’t bring herself to look up at him, worried about what she’d see.
“Well,” he says, kissing the top of her head, “I would support whatever you wanted.”
She pulls away and looks up at him, her eyes meeting his. Once again she sees nothing but honesty, and something she is sure is love. She kisses him, her palm against his cheek as she puts everything into it that she still can’t quite bring herself to say. She pulls back and puts her forehead against his.
“Can we go to bed? I’ve barely slept in days.”
“Of course, sweetheart,” he says, standing up and offering her a hand to help her do the same, linking their hands so they can walk towards her bedroom. They go about their nightly routine, brushing their teeth as they stand next to each other, a toothbrush she bought specifically for him next to hers on the counter.
They climb into bed, and he wraps his arms around her. He kisses the top of her head and whispers a thank you into her hair, a thank you for trusting him. As if she could do anything other than that.
Eventually, his hold on her loosens ever so slightly as his body relaxes whilst he falls asleep. His arm was heavy across her waist, his chest pressed into her back. The safety of his embrace was still there, somehow even sweeter when he wasn’t conscious. As sure a sign as any to her that what he felt for her ran deep, that even now he could protect her from harm.
“Aaron?” She whispers, and when she gets no response she turns her head just enough to get a look at him, her nose gently brushing his cheek. She smiles at the look on his face, the slack to his jaw as he slept, a softness that felt like a privilege to bear witness to. She reaches back and gently strokes his jaw with her knuckles, the feeling of the stubble growing there rough against her skin.
It makes her smile widen slightly, her feelings for him, the words she had swallowed down for weeks, finally bubbling over. Breaking free in the safety of her bedroom, the sanctuary she found in his arms. In him.
“I love you,” she whispers, “I love you so much it scares me a little bit.”
She feels immediately lighter after saying it, her lungs filling a little easier than they had done all day. It was another admission she’d made tonight, this one somehow feeling more substantial, even though he wouldn’t have heard it.
She turns so she settles back into his arms, shifting so she hugs his arm to her chest, wanting him as close as possible.
She falls asleep promising herself she’ll tell him properly soon, look into his eyes as she admits how she feels. She can almost picture the slow smile on his face, the way he’d say it back immediately.
It’s less than a week later as she cries herself to sleep alone in her bed, the smell of him still on her sheets, and she finds herself wishing she’d been brave enough to tell him.
Hi, I was watching 4x17 and an idea popped into my head: Have you ever thought about how Emily would react if her daughter had a problem like hers in Rome?
We know why she didn't talk to her mom about it, but emily in any story, as a mom she's extraordinary.
You are a fabulous writer and you have such a beautiful way of representing the hotchner/prentiss family that I immediately thought of you for that idea.
Ok...I haven't been able to stop thinking about this in days. Thank you so much for giving me this idea, and I hope that you'll think I did it justice <3
-x-
Parallel
Words: 3.1k
Warnings: Teenage Pregnancy, Abortion. These subjects are the entire theme of this fic, so please keep that in mind.
Read over on Ao3, or below the cut
Emily hated using time at home, the time she liked to reserve for her family, to do paperwork. There was so much of it at the moment, between her role as Section Chief and the class she ran at the academy, that she had no choice. It’s how she finds herself in her home office on a weekday, playing catch up as Aaron entertained the kids.
Florence, Ren as they had called her from the days just after she was born, was 17 now, so she largely entertained herself. Between her homework, the AP classes she was taking, and the time she spent with her boyfriend Blake, Emily felt like she rarely saw her. She knew was home this evening, had seen her car out front when she got home, and she was looking forward to spending time with her.
Benjamin, their little Ben, was 11. The child they hadn’t expected, the test coming up positive when Emily was sure she was past being able to have children - her lack of a period initially put down to the menopause starting. Aaron always said their son was her through and through, fiercely caring but fearless. He still loved spending time with his parents, something Emily cherished, knowing from experience that was something the teenage years would take from her. Like they had with Florence, and with Jack who was now away at college.
She hears a knock on her office door, and it makes her roll her eyes slightly.
“You don’t have to knock,” she yells, wondering which member of her family was seeking her out, “you can just come in.”
“Mom, can I talk to you?” Florence asks, closing the door to the home office as she walks in. Emily nods as she finishes up the paperwork she’s on, wanting to ensure she can give her daughter her full attention. “Promise you won’t get mad.”
“Well I can’t make that pr-” Emily chuckles as she puts her pen down but cuts herself off as she looks up, her daughter’s distress immediately obvious. Florence loved doing her hair and make-up, expressing herself through her appearance in an entirely different way from how Emily had at her age. Her dark hair, usually in its natural waves around her shoulders, shiny and sleek, was thrown up in a bun on top of her head, tendrils around her face. Her face was free of make-up, and her eyes were red, the skin underneath scrubbed raw, a clear sign she’d been crying. She was in sweats and a t-shirt, her arms tight around herself as if she was holding herself together. “Ren, honey, what’s wrong?”
Emily stands quickly and rounds the desk. Florence throws herself at her the second she’s by her side, her arms tight around her as she buries her face in her mother’s shoulder, her hands tightly fisting in her shirt. Emily’s concern heightens even further. Her usually reserved daughter, who had always been much more like Aaron on that front, didn’t do this. She always came to Emily for advice, for help, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her break down like this.
She wraps her arms around Florence, one hand buried in her hair and the other rubbing comforting circles on her back.
“I’ve got you, sweet girl,” she says, kissing the side of her head, her daughter's sobs only increasing, “I’m here.” She looks over to the couch they keep in the home office, only a few paces away from them. “Let’s sit down, ok?”
Florence nods, but barely detaches herself from her as they make it to the couch, curling up into Emily’s side in a way she hadn’t since she was a little girl. Emily knows she won’t get anything out of her until she’s calmed down, so she sits there, whispering words of comfort against her daughter's forehead as she cries in her arms.
Emily isn’t sure how long they sit there, but she’s grateful that neither Aaron nor Benjamin seek her out, aware that Florence had sought her out for a reason. That whatever this was, whatever was wrong, was something she didn’t want to discuss with someone else.
“I’m sorry,” she says against Emily’s neck, pulling back as she sniffs, wiping at her cheeks.
“Sweetheart, you have nothing to be sorry for,” Emily says, wiping another tear from her cheek, “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
Florence’s lower lip trembles, “I…I’m scared you’ll be mad.”
It was another red flag for Emily, her anxiety ramping up even further. Ever since she was small, Florence had always been fearless, something Aaron said she got from her. It had started when she’d learnt how to walk, immediately trying to run and jump off of things, making her parents follow her around with a close eye.
“Ren, whatever it is we can figure it out, ok?” She says encouragingly, and Florence sniffles, looking down at her lap as she squeezes her eyes shut.
“I’m…” her voice cracks and Emily reaches for her hand, squeezing it tightly, “I’m pregnant.”
For a moment, Emily is sure the world comes to a stop. Everything narrowed down to this moment, the devastation in her teenager's eyes, her words reverberating around them.
It was everything she had never wanted for her children, to experience what she had gone through at such a young age. She’d always tried to make sure they talked about sex in a positive way in their home, birth control was something they had discussed as soon as it felt appropriate.
She sucks in a breath, her only visible reaction, and it’s enough to calm her, to put her own feelings aside, nothing more important to her in that moment than her little girl.
“I was being so careful, I promise,” Florence continues, her words tripping over each other, everything she has clearly been keeping caged in her chest pouring out, “I’ve been on the pill since you took me to the doctor, and I made Blake use a condom every time, but…one broke and I thought it was ok but…” she trails off, her words dissolving into sobs again. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh sweetheart,” Emily pulls her into a hug, shushing her as she tries to calm her down again, “You don’t have to be sorry,”
Florence pulls away enough to look at her, “I told Blake and he broke up with me,” she says through her tears, “He just fucking broke up with me, like I mean nothing. Like this isn’t half his fault.”
Emily clenches her teeth, fury flooding through her veins in a way it hadn’t in years, her anger so palpable she could feel it thrumming beneath her skin.
“He doesn’t matter right now,” Emily says, forcing out the kindest words she could about the teenager she had never been a big fan of anyway, “You’re all that matters to me. How long have you known?”
“A couple days,” Florence replies, wiping at her cheek again, her tears constantly falling, “I don’t want to be pregnant, Mom. I don’t want a baby.”
“Well, you have options,” Emily says calmly, memories of her own past, those lonely days in Rome leaving a bitter taste in her mouth, “You don’t have to continue with the pregnancy if you don’t want to.”
Florence fiercely shakes her head. “I don’t want to, I looked it up. There’s a clinic about 30 minutes away.”
Emily blows out a steady breath, the thought of her daughter, scared and alone and looking up abortion clinics a little too close to home.
“Ok, I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to be honest with me.” Emily says, squeezing her daughter's hand tightly, waiting until she nods in response, “Is this what you want? Or is it because of how Blake reacted?” She asks carefully, “Because if you want to have the-”
“No,” Florence says, shaking her head fiercely, wiping at her cheeks with her spare hand, “I already decided I didn’t want it, he just didn’t give me the chance to explain before he dumped me,” she sobs again, and Emily has never been more sure she wants to find a teenage boy and give him a piece of her mind, “I don’t want a baby, Mom, I’m 17. I want to go to college, and become a lawyer and…I want you and Dad to be proud of me.”
“Honey, we’d be proud of you no matter what,” Emily says automatically, the words easy because they were true, “So you’re sure?”
“Yes,” she replies, “I’m sure.”
Emily smiles tightly and nods at her, “Ok. So we’ll need to take you to a clinic, they’ll do a couple of tests to confirm you’re pregnant, and then we’ll go from here. Depending on how far along you are it could be taking a few pills,” she pauses, waits for Florence to nod in agreement before she carries on, “We need to tell your dad first.”
Any of the tension that had leaked out of the teenager's body at sharing her secret with her mother returns in a second, her eyes wide.
“Mom, no, please he’ll be so angry.”
Emily cups her cheek, stroking gently at her skin. “He’ll be angry, love, but not at you,” she knows that’s true, that all of her husband’s fury would be directed at the teenage boy who had broken their daughter’s heart, and let her down when she needed him the most.
She was sure she’d have to convince him not to kill him, although she wasn’t entirely convinced she wasn’t going to do it herself yet.
“He’ll notice something is wrong, you know we can’t get anything past him. We don’t have to tell anyone else, but we can’t lie to him.”
On some level, it felt selfish. Because she knew she needed Aaron to know for her sake as well as their daughter’s. This wasn’t something she could bear alone. Florence needed her support, but Emily needed Aaron’s.
Florence nods eventually, “Can you tell him?”
“Yes, honey. I’ll tell him.”
___
Aaron’s reaction is exactly what she expects.
His fury is immediate, and completely aimed at the teenage boy who had sat at their dining table only a week before. She had to tell him to calm down, her voice at a whisper as she thought of Florence fast asleep just up the hall. He understood and took a deep breath before he turned into the man he always had been. Stoic and supportive.
The following morning he’d hugged Florence the moment she walked into the kitchen, his arms wrapped tightly around her, something she returned just as fiercely.
Benjamin knew something was going on, the mood in the house was clear even to him. They explained that Florence was sick, and that she’d be off of school for a few days. He ran to his room to get her his favourite teddy, a battered-looking thing that was barely in one piece.
She took it gratefully from him and hugged her little brother, the only person who was allowed to call her Flo, before Aaron drove him to school.
It takes a couple of days to get an appointment at the clinic, and they were some of the longest days that the Hotchner household had ever experienced.
Emily holds her daughter’s hand tightly as they make the short journey from the car to the clinic, never wavering in her support. Aaron is just behind them, glaring at any protesters they pass, channelling all of his anger into his expression as he practically dares them to say anything to them.
Emily never leaves Florence’s side once, providing the support, the love, that she would never admit she’d craved from her own mother all those years ago.
___
Emily tucks Florence into her bed, securing the comforter around her like she hadn’t since she was small. Florence lets her, basking in the comfort from her mother, the help she’d given her over the last few days.
“You have your heating pad,” Emily says as she sits on the edge of the bed, “and I’ve put your painkillers in your bathroom if you need to take any more in the night, ok?” She gets a nod in response, the pain clear on her daughter’s face, and she smiles tightly, “Like the doctor said, it will hurt for a few days, similar to your period.”
“Thanks,” she says, holding Benjamin’s childhood teddy close, her fingers playing with the frayed fur.
“If you need anything just come to our room,” Emily says, and Florence nods in agreement. She leans forward and kisses her daughter’s forehead, and she goes to stand, only to be stopped by the teenager's hand grabbing hers.
“Mom, how do you know so much about all of this?” Florence asks carefully, her eyes searching her mother’s. “You just…seem to know a lot.”
Emily sighs, closing her eyes briefly as she tries to gather herself. It was the conversation she never wanted to have. Aaron was the only person who knew, and she’d wanted it to stay that way. But she found herself wanting to tell her, a grim thing that they had in common now, the one thing she wished she would never have to share with her daughter.
“Well,” she says, looking at Florence, “it happened to me too,” she watches as the girl’s eyes widen slightly, and she reaches out for her their hands linking together on the comforter, “I was a little younger than you, and a little further along.”
“Mom,” Florence breathes out, “That’s…what did Grandma say?”
Emily chuckles mirthlessly at that, “I didn’t tell her,” she replies, “she never knew.”
“So you were alone?” Florence asks, sadness flooding her eyes as it had so frequently over the last few days.
“I had a friend with me…but yes. I was alone.”
Florence sits up, pulling Emily into a hug, her arms wrapped tightly around her. “I’m sorry that happened to you, Mom.”
“It’s ok sweetheart,” Emily replies, turning her head to kiss her daughter’s temple before she pulls away to look at her, “It was a long time ago.”
“I’m really glad I have you,” Florence says, her lips trembling a little, “I’m glad you’re my mom.”
Emily doesn’t know how to reply to that so she simply hugs her again, having to slowly breathe out to stop herself from crying when Florence’s arms wrap tightly around her.
“I love you.”
“I love you too, Mommy.”
Emily stays until Florence falls asleep, stroking her hair like she did when she was little. Days she yearned for now, when things were simpler and everything could be fixed with a hug and assurances of her love. Emily sneaks out of the room, gently closing the door as she blows out a shaky breath.
She can hear Aaron in Benjamin’s room, gentle reassurances to the young boy that his older sister would be ok muffled by the wall and closed door. Emily walks to the master bedroom, her legs feeling heavy as she goes. She sits on the edge of the bed and heaves in a breath, her lungs not quite filling correctly.
A sob escapes her before she can stop it, her hand coming up to cover her mouth to muffle it, not wanting to wake up her daughter or worry her son. She can’t control it, the emotions she has pushed down, her little girl’s feelings the most important thing to her over the last few days, suddenly flooding out of her, breaching the dam she had hidden them behind. Her own sadness that her daughter was going through this was successfully ignored as she ensured that she had the support she needed. The support Emily had so desperately craved herself when she was in the same situation.
“Em, is she-” Aaron cuts himself off as he walks into the bedroom, his eyes meeting hers as she looks up, the image of him blurred by the tears she had choked back since Florence had fallen asleep in her lap that first night. He closes the door behind himself and walks towards the bed quickly, “Oh, sweetheart.”
He sits next to her and immediately pulls her into his arms, and she shifts so she can press her face into his neck, her hands grasping at his shirt.
“I’m sorry,” she chokes out, her words barely discernible against him.
“You have nothing to be sorry for, Emily,” he says, fiercely kissing the side of her head as he rubs comforting circles on her back, “Nothing at all.” The only response she is capable of is another sob into his neck, and Aaron holds her a little tighter. “You’re ok, I’ve got you.”
She cries until she feels like she can’t anymore, everything she hadn’t allowed herself to feel all coming out at once.
“I wanted better for her, Aaron.” She says as she pulls away, another sob escaping, “I wanted her to have better than I did.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” he says, his finger under her chin so he can tilt her head to look up at him, “she does have better, she has you for a mother,” Emily chokes on a sound that was halfway between a sob and a laugh, and he furrows his brow at her, “It’s true.”
“You have to say that, you’re my husband,” she replies, wiping at her cheek, her tears burning her skin.
“Emily, she came straight to you,” he says firmly, but carefully, his love for her as apparent as it always was, “she came to you because she knew she could, because she knows you love her. That’s all we can do for any of them.”
Emily nods before she leans into him again, her forehead pressed into his shoulder. “It doesn’t make it feel any easier.”
“I know it doesn’t,” he strokes his hand up and down her back, “I know this must have been hard for you,” she tenses in his arms, and she knows he feels it, his hold on her getting firmer.
“I told her,” Emily replies, looking up at him, “Ren asked me about it, asked why I knew so much…so I told her.” It surprises him, and she can see it. His eyes sparkling with it, his own emotions about the last few days hidden just below the surface. “It felt like the right thing to do.”
Aaron simply nods at her, “Do you want to talk about it?”
She knows what he means. If she wants to talk about the last few days, the similarities to her own experiences when she was a child. The differences. How this felt like a fresh wound on top of an old one.
“Not yet,” she answers, smiling tightly at him. “But soon.”
He accepts it, just like he always did, and he leans forward to press a quick kiss to her lips before he hugs her tightly again.
“Everything will be ok, Em.”
Her slight smile is hidden in the material of his shirt, and she breathes him in. The comforting scent that always reminded her of him, of home. Of their family.
