Intertwined, Sewn Together
He’d pushed her out of the way.
The shot had been meant for her.
While Aaron is in surgery, Emily considers a change.
-x-
Hi besties,
This is one of those ones where I'm not entirely sure where it came from. I opened my laptop, thought "maybe it's time to write some Aaron whump" and 3k words later, here we are.
As always, let me know what you think <3
-x-
Warnings: Aaron whump, canon typical injury, mentions of blood
Words: 3k
Read over on Ao3, or below the cut
Fifty-three. Fifty-four. Fifty-five.
She keeps counting the tiles on the waiting room floor, going back to the beginning, starting in the corner furthest away from her each time, focusing on the task she’d set herself in a vain attempt to distract herself from why she was here. To stop thinking about the fact that she could still feel the warmth of Aaron’s blood on her skin even though she’d washed her hands more than once, her skin red raw from scrubbing it under water that was slightly too hot.
He’d pushed her out of the way.
The shot had been meant for her. The unsub had pointed his gun at her shoulder, but Aaron pushed her out of the way and was shot in the chest instead. A split-second decision that she knew he had made without thinking, his eyes wide with shock and pain when she fell to the floor with him. Her pants stuck to her knees with his blood as she crawled to his side, everything else around them fading away as she tugged off his vest with shaking hands, cursing the man who’d shot him and the armour piercing bullets he’d bought as she did her best to put pressure on Aaron’s wound while Dave called for an ambulance.
She’d climbed into the ambulance without thinking about the fact that there was still work to be done, that there was a crime scene that now needed to be cleared, and an unsub that needed processing back at the precinct. All of her focus had been on Aaron, on the man she loves, and the stupid decision he’d made in a split second.
He’d pushed her out of the way, and she might just lose him because of it.
One. Two. Three.
They’d been together for 6 months, and the team had known for half of that time. Aaron had become her solace after she came back from Paris. He understood what she’d been through, had been to the edge himself, and he didn’t expect anything more from her than she could give. It was refreshing, something she needed when every other relationship in her life seemed to depend on her pretending she was still someone she used to be, someone she was before she’d died in order to save her life. She’d got closer to him, had started to spend more of her time with him and Jack, and when she first leant in to kiss Aaron, a gentle press of her lips against his one night as they shared a pizza on his couch, it felt right, like everything in her life had been leading to him, to them.
The team found out about them after the bank. She’d saved Will’s life at the last second, had cut a wire because it was the last thing she could do. He’d told her he’d marry JJ if they made it out, and he’d smirked as he casually mentioned Aaron - or mentioned it as casually as someone strapped into a bomb could - letting her know he’d figured out what the team hadn’t, what she hadn’t even admitted to herself yet. That she loved Aaron, and if she made it out, she’d make sure she’d tell him.
When she did make it out, she’d sought Aaron out and sunk into his chest without thinking about their audience. He’d held her back just as tightly, had beaten her to it and whispered the three words against the top of her head that he usually kept for when he thought she was asleep at night, and it was only when she pulled back to say them to him that she remembered where they were.
Their friends, their family, had questions that they’d done their best to answer, but they’d both insisted they’d tell them more another time, that they should focus on JJ and Will on what turned out to be their wedding day.
She knew they were still getting used to the idea, that there were reservations about their relationship - mostly from Derek - that she worried today would only ignite further. Aaron’s instinct to keep her safe will have poured gasoline on the spark of doubt in them that already existed, and she worried about what it would mean for their future.
She’d always known their ability to continue to work together when they were together would be limited, that the blind eye Strauss had gifted them with so far would always have a time limit, but this had pulled Emily back into reality. The warmth of Aaron’s blood, the hazy look in his eyes as she begged him to stay awake, the wake-up call she should have seen coming.
She loved him, more than she thought possible, more than she thought she deserved to, and she didn’t want to risk losing him because he loved her in the same way.
Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty.
“Em?”
She looks up, her neck pulling because of how quickly she does, and she watches as the team filters into the room. They were worried, she could see it on their faces, varying degrees of success in trying to hide it from her painted in the fine lines around their eyes as she stands up, unable to stay still any longer.
“Hi,” she replies, ringing her hands together in front of her, “He’s in surgery. They think the bullet missed anything vital, but he…” she swallows thickly, feels the burn of his blood against her skin again, and she presses her lips together, “He lost a lot of blood. They said someone would come by with an update soon”
“Do you need anything?” Dave asks, and she knows he’d do anything for her right now, that if she asked for a drink he’d go somewhere else to get her one so she didn’t have to drink the crap that the hospital dared to call coffee.
She shakes her head, “I’m okay, thank you.”
JJ walks over, empathy that Emily thinks might be the thing to break her shining in her eyes, and she unhooks Emily’s go-bag from her shoulder to pass it over to her, “I went to your room to get this for you,” she says, her eyes flicking to Emily’s shirt, to the darker patches on it, Aaron’s dried blood a grim pattern Emily knew she’d see when she closed her eyes for weeks to come, “I thought you might want to change.”
“Thanks,” Emily says, hooking her bag over her shoulder, trying not to think about JJ walking into the room she and Aaron had been sharing on this case, trying not to wonder if her friend had seen their pjyamas folded neatly and piled together at the end of the bed where Aaron had left them that morning. She suddenly needs space, wants to be anywhere other than her, and she nods towards the waiting room door, “I’ll go get changed now,” she says, looking at JJ, “If there’s any news-”
“I’ll come find you,” JJ promises, and Emily nods, reaching out and squeezing her hand, pressing her appreciation against her friend's skin before she slips by her and out of the room.
She isn’t sure if she’s grateful or not that there isn’t a mirror in the accessible bathroom. It means she can’t look at herself, can’t see what the others see, but it also means she makes quick work of getting dressed. She throws away her shirt and her pants, stuffs them into the trashcan because even though she’s worryingly good at getting blood out of clothes she never wants to see them again, all too aware she’d see Aaron’s blood, his life force, spattered all over them every time she looked at them. She lingers over a shirt of Aaron’s that she’d packed to wear as pjyamas before she pulls out something clean to wear, and she knows JJ has packed it, so she has options, so she could have part of the man she loves with her if she chooses it. She closes her eyes as she touches the soft material of his shirt, unsure how his warmth seemed to linger on it even though she’d stolen it from him weeks ago, and she blows out a slow breath before she finishes getting dressed. She makes a point of putting on another suit instead of something comfortable, needing the strength it gave her, an armour of sorts that she didn’t think she could be seen without right now.
As she walks back to the waiting room, she hears raised voices, Derek and Dave both in a heated discussion as they try and fail not to be heard by anyone other than the team.
“Are we really going to pretend what happened today was okay?” Derek asks, and she stops in the hallway, wants to hear what he has to say when he doesn’t know she’s listening, sure that his mistrust of her relationship with Aaron went deeper than he’d ever say to her face. “He jumped in front of a bullet without thinking about it.”
“I don’t think now is the time for this, Morgan.”
“Then when is?” Derek says, and Emily doesn’t need to be looking at him to know how angry he is, “When he’s in the goddamn ground because he made a stupid decison to protect her?”
The thought of it makes her gasp, has her covering her mouth with her hand, because what if she did lose him?
“Hotch would protect any of us,” Spencer adds, his voice lower and quieter than the others, “He has protected all of us before.”
“Yeah, but he jumped in front of a bullet for her, that’s worlds apart from turning a blind eye to subordination, which he’s also done for her in the past.”
She steps into the room after that and clears her throat. She gets a small kick out of the way Derek looks at her, at the brief flash of shame in his eyes as she stares him down, maintaining eye contact as she addresses the room.
“Did anyone come out with an update while I was gone?”
“No,” JJ says, her kindness cutting through the tension in the room, “No one has come out yet.”
Emily nods and finally tears her gaze away from Derek, and she sits down, sinking back into the same seat she’d been in when they arrived. “If he dies-”
“Em, that’s not-”
She looks up at Derek sharply, cuts off his attempt to cut her off with a look before she starts again, “If he dies, I can assure you that there is nothing you could think or say that would be worse than what I’d think about myself.”
There’s a moment of silence, a tension she hadn’t felt between them since she’d walked into the conference room at Quantico all those months ago, dead to everyone except JJ and Aaron, and then Derek nods.
Eventually, Penelope clears her throat, “So, what do we do now?”
Emily blows out a shaky breath and looks back at the floor, “Now we wait.”
She hears shuffling as everyone sits down, the scraping of metal chairs against the tiled floor as they spread themselves out, giving her as much space as they can. She’s grateful for it, for the support and the space, and she closes her eyes, clenches her jaw as she lets her eyes burn with tears she won’t shed yet, before she looks at the floor and starts to count tiles again.
One. Two. Three.
___
Once they are told Aaron is okay, that he’d made it through surgery, she sends the rest of the team back to the hotel.
It’s only when she’s alone with him in his room, her hands sandwiched around one of his, that she finally lets herself cry. She presses his hand against her cheek, and tries not to focus on the coolness of his skin, on how she has to hold it there herself. She knew his skin was cooler than usual because of the blood loss, that his usual warmth would return soon, but it doesn’t make it any easier, doesn’t stop the guilt she’d felt all evening from rolling in her gut.
She watches him closely, her eyes fixed on his face as she watches for the tiniest twitch in his brow. The first time he wakes up, he isn’t lucid. He’s asking where she is, seemingly unaware she’s the one who is right there with him, and she rests her forehead against his, hunched over his bed as she soothed him back to sleep, reminding him how loved he was, even though he’d have no memory of it.
When he wakes up for real, his hand twitching in hers as he frowns before he opens his eyes, she notices in an instant. She stands from her spot next to his bed and kisses his knuckles, sitting on the edge of the bed, careful not to jostle it as he looks over at her.
“Hi,” she says, reaching out to straighten the cannula in his nose that is delivering him oxygen, “Welcome back.”
“Hi,” he replies, his voice rough from the tube he’d had down his throat for hours, “You okay?”
The absurdity of it makes her laugh, and it catches in her chest, rattles around inside her ribcage as she shakes her head at him. She distracts herself by reaching for the cup of water next to his bed, remembering just how thirsty she’d been after her surgery, and she holds the straw to his mouth so he can take a sip.
“I’m fine, you’re the one who was shot,” she says, hearing the crack in her voice as she puts the water cup back down. He squeezes her hand as firmly as he can, and his concern for her breaks through past the pain and the medication, and she sighs, squeezing his hand back as she offers him a half shrug, “I will be fine now I know you are,” she leans in and pushes his hair from his forehead, takes the opportunity to stamp a quick kiss against his, unfettered by his breath that had seen betters days and the smell of antiseptic that lingered on his skin, “When you’re feeling better, we’re going to have a conversation about you jumping in front of a bullet for me.”
He nods, his forehead knocking against hers as he tries to kiss her, uncoordinated as his lips catch the corner of hers, “I didn’t think about it,” he says, honest and unbidden, and she isn’t sure if its because of the medication, or because of how much he loves her, or if it’s both, but it makes her ache, “I just did it.”
“I know, honey,” she says, swallowing thickly as she tries to push everything back down, “That’s what I’m worried about,” she runs her fingers through his hair, straightens his cannula again even though she doesn’t need to, and she blows out a shaky breath, “I don’t know if I can do this anymore,” she adds, talking outloud without really meaning to. It’s only when she sees the flash of panic in his eyes, hears the way he sucks in a painful breath, that she realises what she’s said, how he’s taken it, “Oh, honey, no,” she says, lifting his hand and kissing his knuckles again and again, pressing her love for him against the scars he had from seeking out revenge against man who’d killed the woman he’d loved before her, “Not that. Never that. You’re stuck with me forever.”
He smiles softly at her, “You’re stuck with me, too,” he says, “So, if you’re not breaking up with me in my hospital bed,” he says, and she rolls her eyes as he smirks at her, “What did you mean?”
“I think it might be time for me to leave the FBI,” she says, running her knuckles back and forth over his cheek, “Clyde has been offering me a job in DC ever since I turned down the one in London. Maybe it’s time I took him up on it.”
He frowns, “Em-”
“We’ll talk about it,” she promises him, “When you’re feeling better, and I’m sure you’ll actually remember this conversation,” she says, “But I think it’s time we don’t work together anymore. I don’t want to end up in a situation again where I know you’ve put yourself between me and a man with a gun just because you love me. And I don’t want you to have to be sitting here, feeling just as shitty as I do because I’ve done the same as you.”
She didn’t want to imagine a world without him, or her future without him by her side, but it was the reality of their jobs, and they’d both been through too much, had been too close to the precipice both together and apart, to pretend it wasn’t a potential reality. She knows that if something were to happen when she wasn’t there, if she got a call from Dave or JJ to say Aaron had been shot while she was working somewhere else, that she’d blame herself. That she’d question whether there was anything she could have done to stop it if she had been there, but she knew she had to do what felt right, that she had to figure out what she could live with if the worst was to happen.
He nods, his eyes drifting shut a little, and she knows he’ll fall asleep again soon. “We’ll talk about it?”
She kisses him, a promise stamped against his dry lips, and she smiles when she pulls back, “We’ll talk about it,” she says, “Now get some sleep, honey. You need it.”
He hums, clearly trying to fight the pull of it, “You’ll be here when I wake up?”
She nods even though his eyes are already closed, and she kisses his knuckles, keeping a tight grip on his hand as he falls asleep.
“Always.”
