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The Story of us | [A.H]

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x fem!Reader

WC: 23.9k

Warnings: Fluff, angst, tiny tiny tiny amount of smut. Canon is none existing. Family moments, slow-burn romance, workplace banter and teasing, grief and loss of a parent (terminal illness (not disclosed), hospice, mourning), vomiting, breakdown, hospital scenes (emergency c-section and labor complications), canon type cm cases, mental health struggles, very brief non-graphic breakup, lots of kisses, nothing directly explicit, but insinuated that they have sex (a lot), pregnancy and childbirth (but only the finding out and birth (mildly) is described)... Y/N and L/N very sparsely used when I couldn't move around it.

Summary: You and Hotch are desk neighbours in the bullpen, back in a time where Gideon was still unit chief. And the two of you were fairly new agents. Late nights turn into competitions and conversations about anything and everything, until eventually you find each other and flash forward: become the “mom and dad” of the BAU.

A/N: DANDADADAAAAAAAA!!!!! HERE IT IS!!! MY PRIDE AND JOY!! This has been one very long process and i'm so in love with the entire fic, even though I'm super duper tired and pulled way too many long nights writing.

Bon appétit!!!

Also I didn't have the strength to edit this, so hopefully my 2 a.m. writing skills haven't fucked me over completely. 🫣

Christmas came early for you this year, more precisely in September of the year 2000, when you first step into the bullpen of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit. There's a lingering scent of stale coffee and freshly printed paper in the air—either it will soon be your favorite smell, or the worst, only time will tell.

There's a constant buzz and popping sounds coming from the fluorescent lights overhead, already begging to give you a migraine if the Bureau doesn't change the tubes soon. Kill me already, you think as you look around, trying to spot Agent Gideon to announce your arrival for your first day.

At twenty-eight, you're fresh out of the Academy, a psychology degree in your toolbox, and one hell of an ability to spot lies through micro expressions, which initially was the reason your attending agent fast-tracked your resume from the bottom of the food chain and straight into Gideon's inbox.

Your transfer papers still feel warm in your hands as you spot Gideon coming toward you. He gives you a quick nod and a small smile before he reaches you.

"Ms. L/N," he stops in front of you. You can already sense that Gideon is a warm person from the cadence of his voice. "Welcome to the team." He extends his hand, and you shake it—it's the kind of handshake that speaks louder than words and says 'I already trust you to keep up'.

"Follow me." And so you do, crossing the bullpen until you reach an empty desk across from a dark-haired agent, hunched over a file and surrounded by several more. His tie is barely loosened, sleeves rolled up, and hair slightly tousled as if he has been running his hands through it in frustration. "That's Agent Hotchner," Gideon says. "He joined us last year. Good man, and the best ex-prosecutor we've managed to steal from the field office in Seattle. You'll be desk neighbors for the foreseeable future."

Agent Hotchner looks up from his file at the introduction and offers you a polite smile before he stands up and extends his hand. "Hotch. Welcome to the unit." He greets.

You shake his hand, wow, his grip is firm, and his hand is warm, you note at the back of your head as you introduce yourself. Gideon's smirk is almost imperceptible as he leaves the two of you, standing at the juncture where your desks connect, hands clasped longer than strictly necessary.

You quickly learn that he's thirty-five, joined the Bureau in '95 after he figured out that he'd rather be catching the killers than prosecuting them for the rest of his life. He's ambitious and plans to one day make director if everything goes to plan, methodical, the kind of guy who color-codes his case notes by the severity of the case, who never leaves a form half-finished, or leaves the office in the middle of writing a report.

And rumor has it that the director is already eyeing him for a leadership role in another unit, despite his current lag of seniority with the Bureau.

And you, your ambitions? Right now, you're just the new kid, hungry to learn and to prove you belong with the travelling profile team, and not just behind your desk from 9-5, scratching notes in the margins of old case files as you study the serial killers the team has already caught.

Neither of you knows it yet, but the rest of your lives just started.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

The first few weeks end up being a blur of consultations, training files and videos, observing and learning the rhythm of the unit. The way they speak, the way they move, how they work, basically studying their behaviour to the best of your current training.

Gideon leads the team quietly, mostly keeping to himself in his office and letting his agents run on their own. But he's always willing to lend an ear, or answer a question in a way that is so cryptic and so provocative that it leaves you no other option but to rework your theories and learn even more about the ubsubs. AND YOU LOVE IT.

And then there's you and Hotch, trading polite 'Good mornings', first thing, bringing each other a new cup of coffee from the kitchen if either of you were getting up, and occasionally asking the other for a second pair of eyes on a particularly annoying case file.

It doesn't take long for you to realize that you're both night owls when it comes to work. Cases pile up quickly around here, and not just on your desk, but every desk around the bullpen has a minimum of ten files stacked in the inbox at all times. And while the other agents head home by no later than eight, you and Hotch linger.

You don't plan it at first. It just sort of... happens.

On a late night in October—Gideon has finally deemed you ready to climb a step higher on your case clearances—you're working on your first active serial killer case, a serial arsonist from Oregon, trying to get to the bottom of his MO, reviewing victim statements, mapping timelines, trying to get inside the unsub's head before time runs out and he kills again.

It's not until you finally look up that you realize that the bullpen is empty except for the two of you. It's past midnight, and time has completely run away from you. You rub your eyes, feeling them get heavier and heavier the longer you're looking away from the file in front of you.

Hotch leans back across from you, pulls his arms over his head, and stretches himself as far back as he can. His back is stiff and protesting the many long hours hunched over his desk.

"You know you can go home, right?" He questions, cocking his brow at you. "Gideon's not keeping score about who's here the longest."

"Right, why are you still here then? Don't you have a girlfriend at home?" You retort, you know he can take your push back.

"Touché." He chuckles with a slight huff. Hotch's eyes quickly avert, glancing up at the clock. It's already 12:47 a.m., Haley is asleep by now, and there's no use in him rushing home with a bouquet from the nearest bodega open at this hour. She's used to it by now, it'll be okay, he tells himself.

So, you both keep working. The clock keeps ticking: 1:15, 1:44, 2:13. And finally, 2:30 a.m., you yawn so hard your jaw pops, you can't help but smile as you look over at Hotch, his lips slightly upturned as he tries not to giggle at your sudden burst of noisiness.

"Fine." You mutter in defeat, shutting the Bureau-stamped manila folder. "You win tonight."

"Win?" He looks up from his own file, almost looking confused.

"Yeah! You stayed later tonight. Tomorrow the loser buys coffee—aka me." You stand up from your chair, grab your bag from its usual spot on the floor under your desk, and head for the elevator with a small 'Goodnight, Hotch' as you try to hide the grin currently inhabiting your face.

The next morning, you show up at 7:45 with two coffees in a take-out tray—how you're up and awake after getting less than four hours of sleep, is beyond your knowledge. You place his cup in front of him, black and light roast, you noticed how he took it last week. And yours, almost identical, but with a slash of milk.

"And this is the loser buying?" He raises his brow at you, clearly finding your follow-through amusing.

"Rules are rules, Agent Hotchner."

"Call me Aaron." A small smile tugs at his lips; it's truly the first real one you've seen from him since you joined the BAU.

"Okay, Aaron." You smile back at him.

That night, the game starts, and from that point on, it's on.

The bullpen becomes your battlefield, quiet battlefield that is. No one notices your harmless competition at first. Gideon leaves at five if he can, always with a 'Don't stay too late, kids' on his way past your desks. Anderson waves goodbye around six, and the rest of the agents disappear sporadically sometime between the two, leaving the two of you alone, again.

But you and Hotch? You trade glances across the desks as the team leaves, already trying to figure out which of you will cave first.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

You're working on a case from Billings: three children kidnapped in the past nine weeks, all under ten, all taken from public parks between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. on weekdays, indicating that the unsub(s?) works a regular 9-5 job. No bodies yet, no ransom demands, no fingerprints, no witnesses who saw more than a dark sedan idling in the parking lot on all three occasions, and a single fresh bootprint near the swings from victim number two's abduction that doesn't match any of the visitors to the park during that time frame.

The photos in the file are the kind that make you feel completely hollowed out as you stare at cheerful, gap-toothed school portraits, birthday parties, one little boy in a Spider-Man costume holding his mother's hand as they went trick or treating last Halloween. And every time you look away, you feel like their eyes follow you, screaming at you, asking why you haven't found them yet.

You've been staring at the timeline from the first victim for forty minutes now, highlighter hovering slightly over the copy you made of the original, trying to force the unsub's pattern to reveal itself to you.

Your chest feels like someone parked their car on it.

It's around 11:30 p.m. when you finally blink away from the case—unable to take another glance at a freckled face with a snotty nose—you realize that Hotch hasn't turned a page in a while. He's watching you instead, elbows resting on his desk, chin resting on his steepled fingers.

He's looking at you, barely containing the fact that he's concerned about you. His eyes are soft, carefully trying to study you, find a clue, anything that can lead him to figure out what's bothering you.

"You okay?" He finally asks, coming to terms with not being able to profile you, yet.

"Just... I hate these ones." You swallow the lump in your throat, not realizing how dry your mouth has become.

Hotch nods once, slowly, understanding you perfectly. "Me too." A moment passes. "Do you want to talk through it, together?"

You do. God! Yes, you do.

You nod.

Hotch rolls his chair around the corner of the desks and straight into your space, stopping so close that your knees nearly touch under the desk. He starts spreading the evidence across the desk, moving pictures, reports, and interview logs into three distinct areas based on which victim the evidence is connected to.

"Okay," he starts, tapping the map in the middle of the desk. "All three abduction zones overlap, here." He circles the elementary school in the middle of the three parks, all exactly six miles away from it. "He has to be local."

"But the presumed comfort zone has a twenty-mile radius out from the school in each direction based on other similar cases," you counter, searching for the ruler, you know it's around here somewhere. Hotch hands it to you. You put it on the map and trace a straight line out from the school and circle the perimeter with a compass. "He's risking a lot of travel time with a live child in the car." You state, staring at the now visual preliminary comfort zone.

"Which means he's either extremely confident, or doesn't fit the regular profile for these types of cases. He most likely has a location nearby, where he holds the kids first." Hotch reaches for the highlighter at the same moment you do. You both freeze, then laugh.

"Sorry," he chuckles, but doesn't move his hand away, letting it linger for a moment as your thumbs and pointer fingers stay slightly interlocked with each other.

"By all means, Mr. Unit Chief-in-training," you tease him, letting him take the highlighter. Hotch told you last night, over a fairly sad and beige plate of leftover canteen food, that the director had approached him about becoming Unit chief of the National Security Branch. Which he had declined, arguing that, for one, he didn't feel that his time with the BAU was a closed chapter yet, and two, the commute to DC during morning rush hour was terrible, and he'd be seeing Haley even less than he already did.

Instead, the director had "offered" Hotch training courses in what it takes to be a Unit Chief—in Hotch's own words, it was more of a 'take the offer, or you're fired' kind of negotiation in the end.

"Not for years, hopefully." He snorts. Leaving it at that.

For the next two hours, the bullpen shrinks down to a tiny desk island, current inhabitants: 2.

You argue about possible stressors—job loss? Divorce? Death? It's hard to tell when a body hasn't shown up yet. You discuss whether the lack of a body could indicate that the unsub is sexually assaulting these kids, if he could be impotent, or simply isn't motivated by traditional dominance and "need" the kids for a bigger purpose—potentially trafficking.

You map possible locations within the perimeter, abandoned farms, storage unit facilities, and closed-down gyms on the edge of town, but quickly scrap those ideas, recognizing that most likely, he's keeping them trapped in a basement somewhere—or something similar.

Every time one of you hits a wall, the other is already there, ready to take over with a new angle.

At one point, you're both leaning over the same photograph of the third victim, missing for six days now, and despite your shoulders pressing together, neither of you does or seems to want to shift away from the other.

"Do you think she's still alive?" You ask, turning your head to look at him, the tips of your noses merely inches away from each other.

"I'll believe that, yes. Until we have a body, we'll keep searching for them all."

The clock on the wall ticks past 2:00 a.m. Your eyes are burning, but the fog around the profile is finally lifting, taking shape, teaching you more and more about what might drive this unsub to abduct children under ten.

You lean back in your chair, rolling your neck until it cracks.

"I can't, not tonight," you admit, mostly to yourself. "My brain's turning to mush, and I fear we're minutes away from me babbling pure nonsense." You smile at him.

Hotch looks at you for a moment, taking in the cloudy look in your eyes, the way you yawn every few minutes, the way you fiddle with the pen in your left hand, trying to keep yourself busy and awake.

He says your name softly. "You win this round." He leans back, looking exhausted, yet amused at the confusion slowly spreading across your face. "Coffee, tomorrow, on me. You take it black with a splash of milk still, right?" He questions.

You blink at him. You never told him that. And he certainly never has had to buy you coffee before.

"I pay attention." He winks before rolling back around to his own desk.

And as you get up to grab your coat, you can't help but glance back at him, still sitting at his desk, but instead of being nose deep in his own files, he's watching you as you leave, with an expression you can't quite place, but all you know, is that currently, a very taken man is making your chest feel full.

You have no idea that twenty-five years from now, this night, is still one of those you look back at with fond memories, realizing that it was the first time you let him see you vulnerable due to a case and the first time—of many—he rolled his chair over, just because you needed him close.

All you know for now is that the case still feels like it has no ending, that three children are still out there somewhere, waiting to be rescued. And for the first time all week, you finally believe that you'll bring these kids home, one way or another.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

The competition between you becomes your thing. Unspoken and at times a little ridiculous, but nonetheless perfect in its own sleep-deprived kind of way.

Some nights you win—or as you've come to believe, he lets you win—he trudges in the next morning with two coffees in hand, but is met by a steaming latte waiting on his desk, with a pink sticky note stuck to it saying "Loser" in thick, sharpie lines. On those days, Hotch just huffs, raises his brows, and tries to contain his giggles as he shakes his head at you.

Most nights, he wins, and you return every single time with a black coffee, trying all the different shops along your commute until you find the one you swear you hear him slightly moan at when he takes the first sip.

On his winning days, Hotch somehow always ends up bringing you breakfast, because he knows by now that you would rather sleep thirty more minutes than get up and eat.

The 'Good mornings' no longer feel like necessary politeness, but rather like two friends greeting each other for another, looong, day at work.

The nights become yours entirely along the way, the bullpen giving way to real conversations after midnight, that aren't just: can you take a look at this? Or, do you want anything to drink?

It starts innocently enough one evening when you're both nursing the terrible vending-machine coffee, which is sour, most likely because the machine hasn't been cleaned since the day it was installed in the corridor.

The bullpen is down to the two of you again, the floor dark except for the soft glow from each of your desk lamps.

You're working together on a case for Gideon, something about his two brightest agents working together on something important, or... something ;). You're both running on empty as you keep going through crime scene statements from the field office in Oregon.

Hotch's gaze drifts up from the legal pad he's been scratching notes on all evening as you rub your temples. You hope that you somehow, within the past hour, gained the ability to massage new knowledge into your brain. Because this case feels like you're looking for a needle in a needle stack.

His eyes don't stay on you for long; instead, they glide toward the corner of your desk. And there, half-buried under a stack of fabric analysis reports, lay your battered paperback of Persuasion.

The cover is soft from years and years of rereading, the spine cracked in all the places you love most.

He reaches over without asking and carefully pries it out of the stack. Hotch turns it over in his hands, like he's weighing a pound of meat in the grocery store.

"Jane Austen? In the middle of researching a firebug?" He says, voice low and a little rough from the many long nights and too little sleep. Although his words come as questions, you don't feel like he's judging you for your choice. "That's a new one."

You lean slightly back in your chair, rolling your shoulders until they pop. You look at him, trying to figure out where his sudden fascination with your reading material comes from.

"She's my reset button," you finally say, giving in to his questions. "When everything else feels like chaos, Jane somehow manages to put the world back in order."

He nods.

"I've read this one," Hotch admits, and it almost sounds like he's surprised at his own statement. He quickly glances up at you, waiting for a reaction, before flipping it open carefully, his thumb brushing the edge of a page you've clearly read a hundred times. It's annotated with several different pens and colors, indicating each time you returned to the story.

"You've read Persuasion?" You raise a brow at him.

He nods once, slowly. "Third year of law school. I couldn't turn my brain off after a criminal law final. So, I went to the library, found the most boring-looking book I could on the shelves at two in the morning." Hotch's lips pull slightly up as he sees the—fake—disgust/hurt crossing your features as he messes with you. "I started reading it to bore myself to sleep. Ended up finishing it at sunrise instead."

You stare at him for a moment, trying to picture a younger Aaron Hotchner, tired eyes, ruffled hair, college shirt, and maybe even sweatpants, curled up in his awful dorm room bed with a two-hundred-year-old love story.

The image is so unexpectedly soft and fuzzy that it makes something warm spread through your chest.

"So the stoic prosecutor is secretly a softie for second-chance romance." You try to tease him, but your voice ends up coming out softer than you meant to. In the end, you don't really want to tease him about it, because you're in awe of the fact that a man, yes, a man‚ read a "girly" classic, without complaining.

It doesn't take long for Hotch to huff out a quiet laugh and place the book back down. He doesn't push it back across the desk right away, just gently keeps his fingers curled around the edges.

"It's not the romance," he says, eyeing the cover. "It's the waiting. The way someone can walk away and still come back when the timing finally lines up. The idea that some things are worth the years in between."

There's something in the way he speaks about the story that changes the air between you, thickens it, makes it feel like the exact moment the wind stops blowing after a storm, the exact moment the sun peaks out after the rain. The exact moment you realize that you might be catching feelings for an unavailable man.

"Yeah," you manage, swallowing the lump in your throat. "That part always gets me, too."

Hotch looks up, meets your eyes, case files forgotten, no profile, no pretense. Just the two of you and the quiet that follows as you stare into each other's eyes.

"Some people are worth the wait," he smiles, so quietly you almost miss it entirely.

Your breath catches in your throat for a split second. You don't answer him, you don't have to, not now, maybe never, but the look in his eyes tells you everything you need to know, for now.

He finally slides the book back to you, fingers brushing yours for the briefest second as you reach out to tug it fully over the line between your desks. You curl your hand around the cover, feeling the contact buzzing in your fingertips.

Neither of you opens another file for a long time.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

It's no less than a week later. The bullpen smells like soy sauce and noodles. You're sitting cross-legged on the floor opposite each other, with your backs leaning against your desk's leg and whoever owns the desk next to you. Various boxes of—none authentic—Chinese takeaway surround you, everything from deep-fried meats, rice with curry sauce, noodles with some sort of sweet and sour sauce, and so on.

The food isn't exactly the greatest, but it was the best option at this hour of the night.

The conversation has drifted from case theories to anything but.

You nudge the carton of rice toward him with your chopsticks, hoping that he will eat the last of it, because it is actually awful and you don't want to punish your taste buds with it even more than you've already done. "Come on, Hotchner. You can't hold out on me forever. Worst first date. Go!"

Hotch groans and leans his head back against the desk. He closes his eyes for a split second, praying for strength, cause he knows you won't rest the case until he has told you exactly what went down. "Fine. It's Seattle ´95. I just joined the bureau, and Haley and I decided to take a break to test our relationship. A friend of a friend swore he'd found a perfect match for me. She shows up with a three-ring binder full of pictures. Not of her, but of her cat. Mr. Whiskers—"

"—No way!" You interject.

"Yes way!! Anyway, the binder starts with kitten pictures, then moves to vacation shots from a trip to the French countryside, then..." Hotch drags a hand down his face. "She proceeded to spend forty-five minutes describing the colonoscopy he had a week prior. In detail. I'm talking diagrams, recovery timelines, medication, specialty diet he went on afterward, vet notes. Everything! I ended up timing how long I could go without making eye contact with the waiter. The record was eleven minutes."

"Stop! Please! I can't breathe." You wheeze out, trying to compose yourself, but it's to no avail, so you press your forehead to your knees, trying to quiet your laughs down.

Hotch peeks at you through his fingers, grinning, hands covering his face. "Your turn! Don't think you can get out of telling your worst one!"

"Okay, Okay!" You wipe your eyes, "It's a bar here in Quantico, two years ago. Guy says he's a 'trekkie with a capital T.' He shows up in the red command uniform. Shirt, phaser, badge, the works. Greets me with a Vulcan salute and asks if I'd like to 'boldly go where no man has ever gone before...' to Denny's at 3 in the morning. Then he tries to pay for my coffee with replicator credits he printed in his mom's basement."

Hotch drops his head and laughs. "You win," he manages through uncontrained bursts of giggles. "At least Mr. Whiskers had personality."

"Mr. Whiskers had detailed medical records," you counter. "It's safe to say that you win this one with crazy Ms. catlady."

"Let's never speak of replicator credits or catladies ever again." Hotch points his chopstick at you before he leans over and steals the last few noodles, emptying another box.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

The child-abduction case from Billings, finally, finally, is blessedly closed. All three children were found curled up in the crawl space of the unsub's garage, dehydrated, in various states, but alive—all of them are alive. You sighed loudly and extremely heavily the second the news hit your inbox.

You've spent most of the time since the news broke searching up articles, watching videos of the police and field office agents breaking down the unsub's door, and several different news coverages, everything you can find on the ending of your first nightmare case.

It feels like the first real deep breath you've been able to take in the past two weeks.

You sit on top of your desk, cross-legged, one elbow on your knee, with your head resting in your palm, while the other hand stirs a cube of sugar into the cup of tea you're making.

Your shoes are kicked off somewhere under your desk—because you're a civilised person who doesn't put dirty footwear on the furniture.

Hotch sits across from you in his usual spot, leaning back in his chair, his head tipped back, and his eyes closed—it's been a long day.

His tie is wrapped around your head, something that happened around hour five after the team left, when you both had a sudden burst of insanity. The top button on his shirt is undone, and his sleeves are rolled as far up as he allows himself—which is to the elbow, like a normal person.

Hotch opens his eyes slightly, watching you as you lift your mug and take the first sip, burning your tongue in the process.

"They're really okay," you say, voice small and quiet in the massive expanse of the bullpen. "I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop." You admit.

He leans forward, now resting his elbows on the edge of his desk, and puts his head in his hands, looking at you. "They're okay, because we didn't stop," he says. "Because you didn't forget them, because you didn't stop."

You place the mug back down and slowly slide off the desk. It's almost as if you're thinking the same thing, because he stands up too, and you meet at the line where your desks meet and embrace each other. Needing the reassurance. Your arms wrap around his waist as his chin comes to rest on the crown of your head.

For a long time, neither of you speaks, you just stand there. Embraced.

"Thank you," you finally whisper, pulling your head out from under his chin to look up at him. "For not letting me fall apart on this one."

"You were never falling apart," his arms tighten slightly. "Everyone has that type of case that gets to them more often than not. And you tend to... feel everything. Mine are the ones about fathers and sons."

"Will you tell me about it one day?" You ask, sensing that there's something buried deep within his person, something he wants to talk about, but also something he fears will change the way people view him.

He nods. "Maybe someday."

It's not until an hour later, when you're packing up to leave, that you finally speak again.

"Why'd you really join?" You ask, unprompted.

"My dad was a lawyer," he states, stuffing the last of his things into his bag. "Old-school, 'justice is blind' type. Expected me and my brother Sean to follow him into corporate law, make partner by thirty-five, marry well, die respected." His mouth turns into a frown. "Then I watched a serial rapist walk away because his dad played golf with the judge. I was twenty-seven. Decided I wanted to stop them instead of arguing about whether they were guilty or not. That's the gist of it." He waves his hand in the air at the last part. "Your turn."

"My mom moved us to Ohio when I was a kid because her dream was to open a diner off the I-70," you pick at the label on your water bottle before packing it into your bag. "Open 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day, no fail except on Christmas and Thanksgiving. I saw and observed my fair share of truckers, cops, runaway teens, cheating husbands, and plotting wives, you know the works. I started waiting tables when I was twelve. Learned to read people before I even knew what algebra meant. The regulars had patterns: the way Mr. Henderson always ordered decaf after church, how Tammy, the night cook, flinched when men raised their voices. I figured out who was lying over time, who was running from something, who was one bad day away from becoming one of the very people we hunt. I thought... if I could understand why people turn into monsters, that maybe I could keep someone else from becoming the next scared person hiding in a diner bathroom, because their abuser tracked them down." You shrug, a little embarrassed. "I don't know, it sounds a little stupid when I say it out loud."

"It doesn't," he says. "It sounds like the reason we're both still here on a Thursday at 2 a.m."

Over time, you learn more and more about each other.

He tells you about summers on the James River, catching catfish with his little brother Sean, his mother's gardenias that smelled exactly like church on Sunday mornings.

You tell him about your mom teaching you to make pie crust with vodka, because it keeps it tender apparently, about the jukebox that only played Springsteen and The Beatles, because it was broken and you couldn't afford to have it fixed. About the night you caught a line cook stealing from the register and talked him into turning himself in instead of telling your mom and calling the cops.

You learn that he hates peas, but will eat them if they're hidden in a pie or casserole dish. He learns you secretly love cheesy 80's ballads and sing them in the shower like nobody's watching, cause they aren't obviously. You learn that he still has a worn copy of 'The Federalist Papers', which his father gave him when he was accepted into law school, even though they barely spoke before he died. He learns that you lost your mom in a car crash during college, but that she would send you care packages every month with your favorite homemade dishes and a note that always read: "Don't let the bastards get you down, honey."

Piece by piece, you trade small, sacred details of your lives over burnt coffee, like kids swapping baseball cards in the school yard, only these feel like they matter more.

Neither of you wants to admit it out loud, but somewhere between the midnight house, laughter, and brutal cases, your desks stop feeling like two separate entities and start feeling like shared territory.

It's not about who stays the latest anymore.

It's about who you want to stay the latest with.

By mid-December, you're both pretending to read your reports through before delivering them to Gideon's inbox and heading home, but really, you're talking about everything and nothing at all. The best pizza places in the D.C. area, whether aliens would be evil and turn into unsubs, and his terrible attempt at baking cookies last Christmas as an apology to Haley for not being home enough.

"I should go." You yawn, barely able to keep your eyes open.

He looks up. "Yeah. Me too."

Neither of you moves, neither of you wants to move.

"Truce?" You finally laugh, figuring your little competition was having a flare again.

Hotch just smiles and closes his eyes. "Truce. Coffee's on me tomorrow, though. No loser this time."

"Deal, Aaron." You grab your coat from the back of your chair and start heading home.

You've nearly made it through the first six months of your first year now.

The bullpen is once again dead quiet, and half the lights are off except for your two desk lamps that burn like two tiny campfires in the dark.

You're both still here, as usual, finishing a couple of overdue reports and sometimes even pretending to work before the silence turns into silly conversations.

You've won the last three nights in a row, meaning Hotch has shown up every morning with a coffee, exactly how you like it. But there's something about the past couple of days that has been feeling off about him. You don't know what it is, but it's not like him to leave work before 8 p.m.

Tonight, though, something's definitely off. He's been staring at the same page for twenty minutes now. Pen hasn't moved, not even jotting a tiny dot down on his pad by accident. His shoulders are rigid, and his jaw clenched like he's biting words back he doesn't want nor know how to say.

"Aaron." You say as you close your file.

He blinks, looks up from his own file, like he forgot you were there. "Yeah?"

"You've read that autopsy report four times now, and you still look like you want to set it on fire. What's going on? Talk to me." Your voice cracks slightly; you hope he didn't catch it, but you know better—he's a profiler, for Christ's sake, he notices everything.

He exhales through his nose and sets the pen down, harder than he intended to, you can tell by the slight surprise in his eyes at the sound. "I'm fine." He mutters, his words short and almost sounding clipped.

"You're the worst liar I've ever met, and we profile liars for a living, remember." You roll your chair around the corner of the desks until you're sitting beside him instead of across. Close enough to see the faint shadows under his eyes, the tension around his mouth, the stubble starting to show, which is the biggest indicator that something is definitely wrong—he never neglects his grooming habits, never. "Come on. It's me."

Hotch glances at the clock.

"No one else is here. Spill." You try again.

He rubs a hand over his face, and for a long, very long, minute you think that he's about to shut you down, to tell you to keep your nose to yourself, maybe even go as far as telling you it's none of your business—Hotch would never go that far, not with you.

Then he leans back in his chair and stares at the ceiling. You don't know if it's a strategic move or just his subconscious way of trying to avoid confrontation.

"Haley ended it," he says, voice so low, so dead, that you almost miss it. "Last week."

Haley's name lands between the two of you like a brick being thrown through a window. You know, Haley, you've seen the framed photo he kept on his desk—come to think of it, it recently disappeared. Why didn't he say anything?—You've met Haley.

Haley, the high-school sweetheart, Haley, the prom-queen, Haley, the future-Mrs.-Hotchner.

"I'm sorry," you finally speak, because it feels too small and too big at the same time. You don't really know how to react. You're sad for Aaron, really sad, but you also know exactly how many hours he spends in the office compared to at home. So you completely get Haley.

He gives a tight shrug, trying to seem casual, but it doesn't come off that way. "We'd been together since we were sixteen. She waited while I attended George Washington, waited through law school, waited through the Academy, through Seattle. She said that she couldn't keep waiting for a life that never really started." His voice cracks, catching on the last word; he clears his throat like it never happened. "The hours here... they're worse than in the field office. Before you started with the team, I came home around 3 a.m. and left again by seven, before she even woke up. Sometimes I'd forget to call to tell her I would be home late. She said I was married to the job." Hotch lets out a laugh. "She isn't wrong."

You don't say anything, not yet; he has more he needs to get off his chest, you can tell. You watch him pick up the pen again, roll it between his fingers like he needs something to do with his hands to keep himself focused.

"She wanted kids," he continues, this time quieter. "A house with a yard and a dog. Normal things, really. And I kept telling her soon, soon, soon, after the next case, after I make supervisor, after, after, after." He finally looks at you, his eyes glaze over in a way you've never seen before. He's always so strong; you're usually the one on the brink of tears. "Turns out 'after' never comes."

Your chest aches for you. You reach out without thinking and cover his hand with yours on the desk. He flinches, just barely, stops rolling the pen, and lets your fingers stay, your thumb gently brushing the back of his hand in a, hopefully, calming motion.

"You're allowed to be upset, Aaron."

"I'm not upset, I'm angry," he admits. "At her for giving up on us, at myself for—" he trails off, "for letting it happen. For choosing this over my partner." He gestures vaguely at the files, at the bullpen, at the life. You know he isn't referring to you, but it stings a little as he says it, knowing that you're a part of this. "I don't know how to be anything... anyone else anymore."

"You're not alone in that," you say, exhaling softly. "Half this unit is allergic to normal. Doesn't mean it makes us broken and unlovable. Just... a little complicated."

Hotch huffs out a tiny laugh; it doesn't quite reach his eyes, but at least he didn't look sad for a split second. "Complicated. Right."

Silence settles between you. Your thumb brushes a last time across the back of his hand before you pull away, rolling your chair backward toward your side of the desks.

He clears his throat, which stops you in your tracks, and sits up straighter. "Anyway. That's... that's why I've been..." He waves at his untouched—now cold—cup of coffee and the unread pages of the autopsy report.

"Thank you for telling me."

"You're easy to talk to. Dangerously easy, do you drug my coffee in the mornings or something?" He jokes, meeting your eyes, finally letting the real Aaron break through.

"Dangerous is my middle name," you deadpan before sending a quick wink in his direction. He bursts out laughing, and you follow quickly after.

When you both come back down to reality, Hotch glances at the clock. "You should go home. Get some sleep."

"So should you."

"Truce?" A asks after a beat.

"Truce," you agree.

You both start packing up, very slowly, neither of you wants to leave, not yet. When you reach the elevators, he holds the door open for you.

"Hey," you smile, turning to him as the doors slide shut. "Tomorrow, the coffee's on me."

He looks at you for a moment before softening with a grateful expression.

"I'd like that," he says.

And just like that, as the elevator starts its descent, you and Hotch leave the office before midnight for the first time since your first day sitting across from him.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

You make it all the way to the women's restroom on the fifth floor—the one no one uses and especially not after 5 p.m.—before you crack.

The door swings behind you before shutting completely—you definitely pushed it open too hard—and the fluorescent tube lights flicker once as the automatic censor turns them on.

You take the stall farthest back and lock yourself inside, hang your bag on the hook, close the seat, and crawl onto the toilet. You draw your knees to your chest, praying that if anyone actually comes in, they won't notice your hiding spot.

And that's when everything hits, all at once.

The hospice doctor's voicemail from earlier, the one you didn't get to listen to until now, two hours later, because you were in a meeting.

"We need to talk about whether your father qualifies for continuous care still... costs could increase significantly..."

The email from their accounting department lay untouched in your inbox, because you're already hemorrhaging your savings on uncovered medications and day rates on his room alone.

The consult file on your desk that's due tomorrow, but you haven't touched yet, because every time you try to read the victimology, your eyes fill and the words blur, leaving you unable to map the profile.

The way your dad didn't recognize you for a full ten minutes yesterday when you went for a visit, he just stared at the ceiling and called you "Linda,"—his sister's name, who died in 1987. Most days, he remembers you, but the days he doesn't hurt, hurt more than you want to admit.

Your chest starts hitching before you can stop it, and you press the heels of your hands into your eyes, like it's physically possible to shove the tears back in. Still, they come anyway—hot, messy, silent at first, but then end with those awful choked noises you can't swallow, the ones when you've been crying too long and can't catch your breath.

You're terrified that you're going to lose your job if anyone finds out how badly you're drowning. That you won't be able to finish another profile or report ever again.

You're terrified of losing your dad, terrified of not being there with him when it happens, terrified of being alone, orphaned. You're not ready, and you'll never be.

You're terrified that the last real thing he said to you, before he started slipping, was 'Don't spend all your savings on me, honey,' and you lied and told him you wouldn't.

You cry until your throat is raw and your sleeves are soaked and your ribs hurt from trying to keep it quiet as physically possible. You count the ceiling tiles—twenty-seven—and try those Bureau-recommended breathing exercises that were attached to your welcome package. But they don't work when the bad thing is real life, and not a case you can close and happily forget.

Eventually, the storm passes—somewhat—leaving you shaky and hollowed out, barely able to stand on your legs—Great, Bambi, it is for the rest of the day, you think. You exit the stall and splash cold water on your face. Your eyes are swollen, nose red and running. You look like you have the wildest case of seasonal allergies... or like someone who's been crying in a federal building—which is exactly what you have.

You rummage around your bag and dig concealer out, dab it under your eyes, praying it'll cover the worst of it. You tell yourself you can do this. You're a profiler—in-training. You can compartmentalize. You work with cool people, people who've stared down serial killers at gunpoint; you can survive one more day of pretending everything is fine.

You practice a smile in the mirror, but end up looking like a corpse pretending to be alive.

Your phone buzzes in your pocket as you're about to push the door open and emerge back into reality. You almost ignore it, but something feels weird, which makes you answer.

"(Y/N)? It's Dr. Singh. I'm sorry to call so late. Your father's asking for you, and I promised to relay the message. He's lucid tonight. If you can come–"

"—I'll be there in thirty." You cut her off, your voice only wobbles a little. You hike your bag further up your shoulder and head out, walking out of the bathroom, slightly hurried, but as if nothing happened.

You don't see Hotch standing at the far end of the hallway, half-hidden by the vending machines, holding two fresh—awful—coffees he came up to deliver, worried about you, when he noticed you'd been gone a little too long.

He watches the restroom door swing shut behind you, watches you swipe under your nose one last time before you enter the elevator with a spine that is entirely too straight and with a smile too bright for you to be okay.

He makes it his mission to figure out what's going on with you, the same way you kept 'pestering' him about his bad day.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

A few weeks later, the hospice parking lot is still dark when you pull in. The sky is just starting to fade into that bruised-purple color it gets before sunrise.

You sit in your car for a minute, gripping the steering wheel, knuckles turning white, telling yourself you can do this. You've done this before. You've done it every morning for weeks.

One more time. You can do it one more time. You tell it to yourself every morning before work.

Inside, the night nurse gives you a small smile and waves you through as she's doing the handover to the next shift.

The hallway always smells the same—antiseptic, instant oatmeal, and something faintly sweet that you've decided is hopelessness trying to be kind to you, but is definitely spilled orange juice that dried before it got mobbed up completely.

Room 214 is dim; the bedside table lamp is turned on. Your dad is awake, eyes open, staring at the ceiling like he's waiting, waiting for something you can't see.

You pull the chair next to his bed closer and take his hand in yours. It's cold. Lighter than yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. Every day, you never expect how much his health has declined compared to the day before.

"Morning, Dad." You greet softly.

He turns his head slowly, and for one heartbreaking second, his eyes focus on you—really focus. Not like usual, when he's there, but not really there at all.

"There's my girl," he rasps, voice shaky and lower than a whisper. A small smile tugs at his cracked lips. "You're too pretty to be up this early, honey."

You laugh, it sounds a little wet, but thankfully, he doesn't seem to notice. "Had to beat the awful D.C traffic," you joke. "How'd you sleep?"

"Like a dead man," he says, then winces, seeing the pained expression crawl into your eyes. "Bad joke. Sorry, kiddo."

"Don't be sorry. If anything, you're allowed bad jokes, dad." You squeeze his fingers, hoping it comes off as reassuring and not pitying.

You talk about nothing important, because everything important hurts too much right now. You tell him the Reds won last night—they didn't, but he won't know, and what's a little white lie when you're putting a smile on a dying man's lips.

You tell him about the stray cat that keeps visiting the dumpster behind your apartment, the one you've considered adopting, but can't bring you to, because you're never home.

He tells you the nurses have started sneaking him extra Jell-O and that the ceiling tiles above his bed look exactly like the 1965 Mustang he and your mom still drove when you were born.

You pretend his breathing isn't getting shallower with every passing minute.

At 6:45 a.m., he starts to drift off, eyes fluttering shut, fighting to stay awake. You lean in and kiss his forehead, tasting salt and the lingering aroma of the hospice soap. "I love you, dad," you whisper, trying not to wake him up. "I'll be back tonight, okay? We'll watch that awful game show you really like."

He manages a barely there nod, already half asleep.

You stand in the doorway to his room for a moment longer, memorizing the rise and fall of his chest under the thin blanket, barely keeping him warm. Then you force yourself to turn away, needing to get to work.

Dr. Singh is waiting by the nurses' station, arms folded, expression trying to stay gentle, but you sense the seriousness in her stance. She touches your elbow as you pass. "Can we talk for a minute?"

Your heart drops straight through the floor. You already know what's coming, but you follow her into the family room anyway—the one with the faded couch and the box of tissues that never seems to empty.

She closes the door behind her and sits down in a chair opposite you. "I'm sorry to do this when you're on your way out."

"It's okay," you lie.

She's close enough that you can smell the coffee on her breath and the hand sanitizer she reapplies after every patient she visits. "The latest labs came back overnight," she folds her hands and leans slightly forward. "His kidneys are failing faster than we expected. The infection isn't responding to anything we have left." She pauses, lets the information settle. "Realistically, we're looking at days. Maybe three to five if we're lucky. A week would be... optimistic at best."

The words land exactly like you knew they would, but hearing them spoken out loud still knocks the air out of you.

Days.

You stare at your hands resting in your lap, watching them slightly begin to shake. You twist the silver ring he gave you when you graduated college, the one that used to belong to your mother.

"Is he... suffering?" You question, voice coming out small and on the brink of tears.

"We've increased the morphine. He's comfortable. Most of the time he's not in any pain at all—he's just... slipping away peacefully, if that makes sense to you." She reaches over and covers your hands with hers. "You've done everything right. He knows you're here; he talks about you every time he's awake." She smiles, trying to reassure you.

You nod, because speaking feels absolutely impossible. Tears blur your vision now, turning the room into watercolor streaks.

"Call anyone who needs to be here to say goodbye," she says softly. "And take care of yourself, too. You've done so much for him; you don't have to be strong every second you're here. It's okay to not be okay." She reassures.

You wipe your eyes with the tips of your fingers. "Thank you."

She walks you to the door. "We'll call if anything changes, day or night. No matter what it is."

You step out into the hallway, pull your coat tighter around you, almost as if it alone can hold you together. The morning sun is finally breaking through the windows. You stand in the hallway for a long time, breathing in the antiseptic air as you try to make the world feel solid beneath your feet once again.

Then, you take one last deep breath, square your shoulders, and walk out to your car. You start the drive to the Academy—because right now, putting one foot in front of the other is the only thing you know how to do, the only thing that seems easy to do right now.

You badge yourself in on autopilot, through the several security checkpoints, until you sit down at your desk. It feels like it takes an hour alone just to make it to the bullpen, the bullpen who's already half-alive—phones ringing, printers printing, Anderson probably running another errand for section chief Strauss... because of course he is, he's the biggest teacher's pet you've ever met.

Your desk is exactly how you left it last night, except there's a fresh coffee waiting in front of your monitor with a post-it note stuck to the to-go cup in Hotch's neat block handwriting:

Latte, two sugars, thought you could use something a little sweet. — A

You drop your back beneath your desk and sink into your chair before you wrap both hands around the cup like it's the only thing able to warm your cold, cold soul.

The coffee tastes like nothing—Which probably isn't true, but to you, you taste nothing.

Hotch looks up from his desk, eyes flick over you once, twice, cataloging everything your body language tells him: red-rimmed eyes, trembling fingers, the way you're sitting too slouched as if you've given up, like you'll shatter if anyone as much as blinks at you the wrong way.

"Morning," he says softly, tempted to ask questions, but sensing that you need time, how long he doesn't know, but you need time to just be.

"Morning." Your voice is gravel-rough.

He waits, giving you an opening to talk, giving you the opening you always take, to tell him what's going on. But you don't take it. You just open the first file in the pile stacking up in your inbox, and stare at the words. Although they refuse to form any coherent sentences in your head right now.

By eight, Gideon stops by your desk to drop off the Atlanta consult you worked on last week, asking for a few revisions to the profile with a: "Need these by noon."

You nod.

He hesitates, too, sensing that something is up. He glances at Hotch, with a subtle shrug and a look that's asking all the questions Hotch doesn't have the answers to.

Hotch just nods back, signalling that he has it under control—he doesn't. Gideon lets the two of you be.

Later in the morning, you're proofreading the same paragraph over and over when Hotch's chair rolls from his own side of the desks and into your peripheral vision.

"Hey," he whispers, keeping his voice so low that no one outside of your desk bubble had any chance of catching the conversation. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." It comes out snappier than intended, but honestly, you have very little control over your emotions lately, and Hotch is so... so comfortable to be around that you can't help it.

"You don't look fine."

"I look how I look. I'm here, I'm working. I'm fine!" You flip to the next page harder than necessary, your emotions getting the better of you.

He doesn't move. "You missed the staff meeting."

"I was in the restroom," technically true; you were hiding in a stall trying not to hyperventilate. "Is that illegal now?"

He leans his side over your desk, face popping into your field of vision. He doesn't take your hand, but you can tell he wants to, that he wants to squeeze it, to reassure you, to let you know that everything will be okay, even though he doesn't know what's going on. "Talk to me."

"There's nothing to talk about." The words come out like venom. You barely manage to soften as you turn your attention completely to your file. "I just need to get this done."

"You're shaking." He states, studying you.

You glance down, your left hand is indeer trembling around the pen. You drop it on the desk, curl your fingers into a fist, and crack your knuckles. "I said. I'm fine, Agent Hotchner." You spit at him.

His eyebrows shoot up at the use of his last name. You never call him anything but his name anymore; you rarely use Hotch, only when mentioning him around the other team members.

He lowers his voice further. "Whatever it is, you don't have to carry it alone. I'm here to lend an ear if you need it."

Something inside you snaps like a rubber band pulled too tight.

"I'm not some victim you need to profile, okay?" It comes out loud enough that the agents at the cluster of desks right next to yours glance over, confused that Batman and Robin apparently are 'fighting'.

You drop your volume but not the edge. "I don't need rescuing. I need to finish this damn consult before Gideon decides I'm useless, not cut out for the job. So please! Just. Back. Off."

The bullpen goes quieter than it has any right to at nine-thirty in the morning.

Hotch's face doesn't change, but something appears to shudder behind his eyes. He gives a single, tight nod. "Understood." He says and rolls his chair back to his desk.

He doesn't look at you again for the rest of the day.

The rest of the day is a special kind of hell. Its own kind of nightmare that you can't seem to wake from.

You power through the consult revisions, finally feeling like you're making progress—if that's what you can call it. Every keystroke feels like dragging nails across your own skin. You skip lunch, because the thought of food makes you nauseous. You drink more coffee that tastes like nothing. Answers a few emails in short, brittle sentences.

When Agent Damien asks if you want to join the afternoon run to the food trucks, you bite out "Can't" so harshly that he, for once, doesn't try to pester you into joining. He just leaves you be.

The floor has mostly cleared out by six. You, too, are packing up, movements jerky when Hotch appears again, coat draped over his arm.

"I'm heading out," he says, his tone neutral. "You need a ride?"

"I have a car." Your voice is flat.

He nods, like that was the answer he had expected. "Just... text me when you get home, please."

"I don't need a babysitter, Aaron."

"I'm not offering to babysit," his voice is concerningly calm, but there's still an edge of steel underneath it. "I'm asking you to let me know that you made it home safely, because you're clearly upset, and I don't want to read your name in the headlines tomorrow morning. Humor me, please."

You want to snap again. Instead, the fight drains out of you all at once, leaving you swaying for a bit, not really knowing what to say.

"I'm sorry," you whisper. "I didn't mean to—"

"I know." He cuts you off, steps closer, and lowers his voice so it feels more intimate. "Whatever happened this morning, whenever you're ready. I'm here. No judgement. No profiling. Just... here. But ripping my head off won't make you feel any better; it'll only delay whatever explosion you clearly need to have."

Your eyes start to burn. You nod once, faster than intended, before the tears can fall in front of him. You don't want to cry in front of him, don't want him to view you any differently.

He hesitates, then reaches out and squeezes your shoulder before walking toward the elevators.

You watch him leave, throat tight, guilt and grief tangled together so thoroughly that you can't tell which is which and which of them you're feeling the strongest right now.

You wait for a moment, then grab your bag, shut off your desk lamp, and head down to the parking lot through the back stairs.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

The bullpen is a ghost town, and it's just you and Hotch once again. The case files in front of you blur into meaningless ink on paper as your thoughts drift toward your father.

You're both quieter than usual tonight, the tension from your snap three days ago still lingers like a bruise neither of you wants to touch. He hasn't pushed the matter since, and you know that he isn't holding a grudge, but you keep catching him watching you when he thinks you're not looking, trying to read you, trying to figure out what's going on.

You're not ready to tell him, tell anybody—maybe never.

Your phone vibrates under a few scattered files, and when you finally find it, the words: HOSPICE, slap you straight in the face. It feels like your heart stops, then lurches into your throat, all the while a pit is forming in your stomach.

You grab the phone and stand so fast that you nearly tip your chair over. Hotch looks up at the sudden noise.

"I'll be right back," you mutter, already halfway out the door.

Hotch just nods, eyes narrowing slightly, but he doesn't say anything.

You make it to the hallway and lean against the wall by the vending machines, the ones out of sight from the glass doors into the bullpen, before you answer with a voice you barely recognize as your own. "Hello?"

"Hi (Y/N), this is Dr. Singh." Her tone is soft, a little too soft, you think, it's the kind of soft that can only mean bad news, really, really bad news, so you brace yourself, crossing your fingers. "I'm so sorry," she starts. "Your father passed about ten minutes ago. It was very peaceful, he was sleeping and his heart just... stopped." You can tell she's trying to lessen the blow by her phrasing.

But the world still tilts, everything blurs, and it feels like you've had your skull bashed in with a sledgehammer. You slide down the wall to a crouch, phone still pressed to your ear. You hear the words, but not really processing them.

Passed. Peaceful. Stopped.

They play on loop.

"Are you there?" Dr. Singh asks gently when you don't answer her.

"Yeah," you croak out after another few silent seconds. "I... thank you for calling." You blink back tears, trying to keep yourself composed enough to get through the rest of this call.

"Do you want to come in now? We can talk about next steps—"

"—I'll... I'll call back later. I need a minute." You cut her off."

"Of course. Take your time. I'm on the night shift, so you can send me a message if you'll be stopping by tonight." She reassures.

You don't answer her, just hang up. The phone slips from your hand and clatters on the tile. You don't bother looking at your screen—it's probably cracked from the fall.

Your stomach churns, acid burning up your throat, and before you know it, you stumble to your feet and lurch toward the bathroom down the hall. You barely make it to a stall before you're retching into the bowl. Whatever comes up mostly consists of bile and the very healthy diet you've had the past twenty-four hours, of coffee, and the skins of the few grapes you managed to keep down.

Your hands shake so hard that you have to grip the porcelain to keep yourself from collapsing headfirst into the bowl.

When you finally stop, you sink back and slide to the floor, knees pulled to your chest, back against the stall wall. The sobs come fast and violent, tearing out of you like something wild.

You press your forehead to your knees, trying to muffle the sound, but it's no use. You're breaking, and there's no one here to see it, and somehow that makes it all feel ten times worse.

You don't know how long you're sitting in the stall—minutes, maybe ten, maybe twenty, maybe an hour. The tiles are cold through your slacks, cold enough that your shivers now come from the cold and not from your emotional outburst. Your throat is raw, eyes swollen shut, and burning. You don't hear the footsteps outside until there's a soft knock on the door into the bathroom.

"Hey," you hear Hotch's voice call out, low and steady, like he's cooing at a scared animal. "You in there? I saw your phone on the ground and—"

"—Go away," you sob, the words coming out muffled against your knees. "Please, Aaron. Just go."

He doesn't. The door creaks open, and you hear the click of his shoes on the tile as he comes closer and closer to the stall you're in. Then he stops. You don't look, but you know he's there, that he's standing just outside the stall, and if he were to push the door open, that he'd see you curled into yourself, face streaked with tears, shaking as if it's physically impossible for you to stop.

You don't want him to see you like this.

"Talk to me," he says quietly, so quietly it almost sounds like he's... begging? "What happened?"

"I said, go away!" It comes out half-scream, half-whimper.

Hotch ignores your request once again. You hear his palm as it touches the door, pushing it slowly open. You curse yourself for not taking the time to lock it while you were face deep in the toilet bowl. You peek at him from behind your knees as he crouches down in the opening once the door is fully open. The jacket of his suit brushes the probably filthy and germ-ridden floor. He lays his hands, palms up, on his knees, like he wants to grab your hands and hold them, but isn't sure if he should, or if he's allowed to.

"I'm not going anywhere," he says. "Not when you're in this state. Not until you tell me what's going on."

You shake your head at him, tears flowing silently down your cheeks faster and faster. "You can't fix this, Aaron."

"Maybe I don't need to try to fix it. Maybe I just want to be here, because my friend is hurt and too stubborn to ask for help."

You choke on a sob, press your hand over your mouth, trying to hold it all in. He waits, silent, patient, waiting for you to make this next move. His presence is so solid in the stall that it almost feels unbearable.

Finally, the words claw their way out.

"My dad died." Your voice breaks on the last words. "His doctor at the hospice called. He's gone.

Hotch's face softens, grief and understanding in his eyes. He doesn't say 'I'm sorry' or any of the useless things people say when you're grieving. Because in truth, it's bullshitt, and none of it works when you're in such a deep state of pain, that the only thing you feel is misery.

Instead, he shifts to sit beside you on the floor, shoulder barely touching yours, trying his best to ground you without crowding.

"Tell me," he says. "Everything or nothing at all. Just... talk, please."

And you do. It spills out like blood for a stab wound: How you've been drowning in hospice bills and the guilt of feeling like you're not visiting him enough. How you've been terrified every day this week of getting that call. How you're not ready to be alone in the world without the man who taught you how to tie your shoes and believed you could be anything you set your heart on.

You tell him about the doctor's warning three days ago, the days-to-a-week timeline, how you thought you'd have more time—prayed... begged ...for more time. You tell him you're falling apart, and you've been hiding it because you're supposed to be strong, supposed to be a profiler, not a complete mess who throws up in the bathroom stalls at work.

He listens, doesn't interrupt, doesn't flinch when your voice cracks and breaks or raises when you get angry with yourself, or when you start crying again halfway through.

When you're done, you're shaking even harder, so hard your teeth chatter.

He reaches out then, slowly, giving you time to pull away if you aren't ready yet. You don't. His hand finds yours, gently unwrapping your curled form; he's warm, and he pulls you into him. You let him, collapsing against his chest, your face pressed into his shirt as fresh sobs rip through you.

His arms come around you, one hand cradling the back of your head, pushing you closer to him, the other rubbing slow circles on your back.

"I've got you," he murmurs into the crown of your head, over and over, until the words start to sound real to you. "You're not alone. You don't have to be alone. "I've got you."

You don't know how long you stay like that, him holding you together on a bathroom floor, his tie is probably ruined from all your tears, your hands are fisted in his jacket like it's the only connection keeping you from falling apart completely.

Eventually, your breathing evens out, and the sobs slow to hiccups.

"I don't know what to do," you whisper, uncurling one of your hands to wipe your eyes.

"You don't have to know right now," he says. "You just have to let yourself grieve right now. And when you're ready, we'll figure out the next steps. Together."

You pull back, just enough to look at him. His eyes are warm, no trace of judgment. "Why are you doing this?" It comes out as a whisper.

"Because I know you'd do the same for me," he says, simple as that. "And because I care about you."

The words hit harder than they should've. You nod, wipe your face with the back of your hand on instinct, before letting him help you to your feet. You sway, dizzy from the crying. Hotch keeps a hand on your elbow and the other around your hips, steadying you.

"Do you want me to drive you to the hospice?" He asks. "You shouldn't be alone tonight."

You feel the need to argue, to tell him that you need to do it alone, that this is your war to fight, but the fight's gone out of you. "Okay."

You make your way back toward the elevators, Hotch pops into the bullpen quickly—leaving you in the hallway with a blank and emotionless stare in your eyes—he grabs your coat and bag, and slings it over his shoulder before meeting you and calling for the elevator.

The drive to the hospice is quiet, not even the radio is turned on.

Hotch keeps one hand on the wheel, while the other rests on the console between you, palm up, in case you need something to hold. You don't take it, but you steal glances at it the whole way there.

When you walk into Room 214, the lights are dimmed to almost darkness. Your father is still in his bed, sheet pulled up to his chest, and his hands folded, like he's simply resting. Someone has brushed his hair and turned his head so he's staring toward the ceiling. It feels unnatural because he always sleeps on his side.

You stop in the doorway, legs unwilling to move, to walk up to him, to acknowledge that this is, in fact, real. Hotch rests his hand gently on your shoulder, giving it the smallest of squeezes.

"Remember, I'm right here," he murmurs close to your ear.

You take the first step slowly and carefully cross the room until you reach his bedside. The chair is still pulled close to the bed from when you moved it this morning. You sink into it and reach for your dad's hand—it's so cold now, no give in his fingers as rigor mortis has started by now, and worst of all, no answering squeeze.

The reality slams into you all over again.

"Daddy," you whimper, the word breaks in half as your whole world feels like it is crumbling around you.

You fold forward, forehead pressing to the back of his hand, shoulders shaking so hard that you hear the bed rail rattling. The sobs are loud, animalistic, and nothing like the tears that flowed earlier in the bathroom.

You curl over him, like you can shield him from what's already happened, like if you hold onto him tight enough, that you can pull his soul back into his body, that you can warm him back to life again. Your tears soak the sheet, forming a small puddle where your head is resting. Your fingers clutch his like you're drowning, and he's the life ring keeping you afloat.

Hotch moves to stand behind you, one hand resting lightly on your back, letting you know that he's there. He doesn't try to hush or fix you. Doesn't tell you that you'll be okay. He just stays.

After a while—minutes, maybe even an hour—your cries turn to ragged breathing. You stay hunched over your dad, cheek against his knuckles, afraid that if you let go, he'll vanish in a puff of smoke. Instead, you turn your head and stare up at him—he looks peaceful, like he's sleeping, you think.

Dr. Singh appears in the doorway, quietly and apologetic. She grabs Hotch's attention and gestures for him to follow her into the hallways. He hesitates, looks at you, and then leans down.

"I'll be just outside the door," he says softly. "I'm not leaving."

You don't speak, just nod against your dad's hand.

In the hallway, Dr. Singh keeps her voice low. "I know this is an awful time, but there are some decisions we need tonight or first thing tomorrow morning: funeral home arrangements, whether he'll be transported, clothing, personal effects..." She glances at you through the open door to the room, still bent over the bed. "She's in no shape to handle any of this right now."

Hotch nods, throat a little tight as he too glances into the room.

"Technically protocol says next-of-kin only," Dr Singh continues, "but as her boyfriend, if you can sign for—"

Hotch's ears go hot.

"—Uh, no, we're not..." he stops and clears his throat, cheeks slightly flushing. "We're not together. Just... colleagues. Friends. Close friends."

"Oh! I'm so sorry, I assumed..." Dr. Singh's eyes widen, and she winces slightly at her mistake. "You came in together, and the way you appear to know what she needs in a time like this... I shouldn't have—"

"It's fine," Hotch says quickly, maybe a little too quickly. "Really. I'm happy to help however I can. If there's anything I'm legally allowed to sign for her tonight to take pressure off her, I will."

"Thank you! There are a few consent forms for the release of the body and property. They only need a responsible adult, not necessarily kin. After that, I can try to work around the rest until she's ready." She exhales, relieved that she doesn't have to put any more stress on you for now.

"I'll sign whatever you need."

Dr. Singh gives him a tired, but grateful smile. "You're a good man, Mr. Hotchner." Hotch knows he should've been concerned at the use of his name, but on the other hand, he did have to sign the two of you in, in the visitor's log, so perhaps the doctor just looked at his signature.

He glances back through the door. You're still folded over your dad, completely still, and he hopes that you're sleeping.

"I'm just trying to be the person she needs tonight," he says, still glancing at you.

He goes back into the room, kneels beside your chair, and rests his hand carefully on the back of the chair and the other on your thigh. "Hey," he whispers. "I'm going to take care of some paperwork so you don't have to think about it right now. Okay?"

You don't answer him, but you turn your face just enough that he can see the glassiness in your eyes. It's the smallest movement, but it's enough for him to understand that you trust him with this.

Hotch checks his clock at 2:17 a.m. and decides you no longer can stay bent over your father's body. At least not for your own sake.

Your breathing has gone slow and slightly even, forehead still pressed to his hand—he's impossibly cold now. You're not crying anymore, you're just... gone, exhausted, stuck to the vinyl chair.

Hotch crouches beside you and brushes a strand away from your damp cheek. "Hey," he whispers. "Sweetheart, we have to go." You know you should react to the nickname, and he knows he shouldn't have said it. But it felt so right.

You don't move.

He tries again, this time softer. "You need sleep. Real sleep."

A tiny, broken sound escapes you. You shake your head violently, a choked 'No' ripping out of you as you curl closer over the bed, arms locking around your dad’s still hand.

He hates this part. He's seen it done enough times on cases to know it won't go down easily. Hotch slides one arm behind your shoulder, the other under your knees, and gently starts to lift you away from the chair and bed. You start thrashing, although weak, frantic, and grief-fueled, you manage to knock your elbow against the bed rail with a metallic clang; your shoe scrapes the floor as you try to plant your feet.

“No, please, don’t make me, I’m not ready, I’m not—” The words fracture into raw sobs.

He has to use his full strength to lift you away. You fight harder than he thought possible for someone so hollowed out, fingers clawing for the sheet, legs kicking once, nearly hitting him, body arching back toward the bed with a desperate, broken cry the moment the contact breaks.

Your head lolls against his chest only because exhaustion finally wins, but you still reach a trembling hand toward your father even as Hotch pulls you fully into his arms.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, over and over, voice cracking as he cradles you tight against him, carrying you out past the nurses’ station like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Dr. Singh meets his eyes, gives him a sad, grateful nod. Your face is buried in his neck, fists clenched in his shirt, the fight gone out of you, but the sobs still tearing free in waves.

In the parking lot, the air is cold enough to bite, although it's April and should be warming up. He settles you into the passenger seat of his car and buckles you in—it somehow feels too intimate and not intimate enough. He tucks your coat around you like a blanket, hoping it'll keep you warm. You're asleep before he even starts the engine.

When he pulls up outside your building, you stir, but don't wake up. And he's happy that you don't, because explaining how he grabbed your address from your file after he first noticed something being off with you is a lot harder than just carrying you upstairs.

He comes around and lifts you into his arms. Hotch carries you up the three flights of stairs because the elevator is still broken, despite your landlord promising all of the tenants that it would be fixed within a month—it's now month three. Your keys are in your coat pocket. He fiddles around for them, trying to keep you up with one arm, and when he finally finds them and unlocks the door, he shoulders the door open and steps inside.

The apartment is exactly what he expected, and yet it's also much, much worse.

Take-out boxes are stacked on the coffee table. Unopened mail is in teetering piles around the living room and kitchen. Laundry spilling out of the hamper, like it's trying to escape. A week's worth of coffee mugs stacked in the sink, probably on the verge of growing mold.

The air smells stale, like windows haven't been opened in over a month. It's not you, you're not like this, it's the physical evidence of someone who's been barely surviving, while fighting to keep someone else alive.

He doesn't flinch at the mess. He just carries you past it, through the living room, and into your bedroom. Hotch lays you on the bed and kneels to tug off your shoes, careful not to wake you up. You curl onto your side almost immediately, knees to your chest in a fetal position, still fully dressed.

Hotch pulls the quilt at the foot of your bed up and over you, brushes your hair back, and whispers, "Sleep." And your face smoothes into something almost peaceful.

He stands in the doorway for a long moment, observing you, watching the rise and fall of your shoulder, then closes the door halfway—so he can hear you if you wake—and turns back to the disaster zone that is the rest of your apartment.

He can't leave it like this. Not tonight.

He starts quietly by tying up the trash, placing the first bag near the door. Then he continues with the kitchen, rinses and washes the mugs, placing them on a dry tea towel to dry the rest of the way, and wipes down the counters.

He finds a laundry basket of clean clothes and folds them along with the clothes that never made it off the drying rack and stacks them on the dining table.

He opens the window a few inches to let in some air to chase out the staleness. And every so often, he pauses outside your door, listening to make sure you're still asleep.

By 4:45 a.m., the place isn’t perfect, it's far from it, but it’s livable. Trash is waiting by the door—three bags it turned into—dishes are clean and drying, and mail is in one neat pile while all the colorful advertisements are in recycling, ready to be taken out too.

The couch is clear except for a single throw blanket and a few pillows.

He sits down just to rest his eyes for a minute.

You wake slowly, the way you do when your body has forgotten how to rest properly. The room is dim, curtains still drawn, but the light that sneaks around the edges is soft and golden.

Your eyes are swollen and your throat raw from all the crying yesterday, your chest aching like someone parked a truck on it overnight.

And for one terrifying second, you forget exactly why you feel like you've been run over and then backed right back over.

Then it slams back into you, the call, the bathroom floor, your dad’s cold hand, Hotch carrying you out like you weighed nothing to him.

You sit up a little too fast, and the room starts to tilt. You’re still in yesterday’s clothes, shoes off, quilt tucked around you, but you don’t remember going to bed last night.

The apartment is quiet. A little too quiet.

You shuffle to the bedroom door and push the cracked door open further.

The first thing you notice when you emerge from the bedroom is the smell. No gross and sour take-out stench, no stale coffee. Just the faint smell of dish soap and the smell of cold air.

You step into the living room and stop dead in your tracks.

It's so... clean?

Not spotless—Hotch clearly didn't have the energy to scrub baseboards at four in the morning, but there's no doubt that he would've done it if he had. Every surface is clear, trash gone, dishes done, laundry folded with a post-it note slapped on top saying 'clean :)' in his handwriting.

Even the throw pillows are straightened.

And then you see him.

Hotch is asleep on your couch, clearly too long to lie comfortably on the two-seater. His shirt is a little rumpled, tie loosened, and half-hanging off his neck like a limp snake. One of his arms is flung over his eyes, while the other is dangling off the edge. Shoes are lined up neatly next to the couch, like he had meant to leave, but got too tired and simply couldn't. You notice the faint shadow of stubble starting to grow along his jaw as he lets out the softest snore you've ever heard.

Something warm flutters awake in your chest, right beneath the crushing weight of grief. It’s not happiness—Oh, God no. You don't know if you'll ever be happy again—but it’s close to peace.

Gratitude so sharp it almost hurts.

You stand in the doorway for a long time—just looking—blanket wrapped around your shoulders, watching him breathe. He cleaned up your chaos while you slept. He stayed when he didn’t have to. He held you together when you shattered. He's done so much for you these past twenty-four hours, and you feel like you haven't done anything in return for him at all.

The flutter grows, spreads, becomes a quiet ache behind your ribs that feels a lot like falling—slow, inevitable, and terrifyingly falling.

You pad across the room on bare feet, careful not to wake him, and crouch beside the couch. Up close, you can see the faint tear tracks dried on his own cheeks—he cried too, sometime during the night, when he thought no one would know that he too felt your pain.

You reach out for him, hesitate, then brush the back of your fingers lightly across his cheekbone. Just once, barely there, needing to feel him, to know that this man is real.

“Thank you,” you whisper to the sleeping room.

His breathing hitches, eyes fluttering but not quite opening. You stay crouched there a moment longer, memorizing the way the light falls across his face, the way safety feels when it’s shaped like Aaron Hotchner asleep on your couch after the worst night of your life.

Eventually, you stand, pull the throw blanket from the floor—you recon that he must have dropped it during the night—and drape it carefully over him. He sighs in his sleep, shifts onto his side, and settles again.

You linger another heartbeat, then head to the kitchen to start coffee—two mugs, black for him and one with a splash of milk for you, two sugars for you—because the least you can do is make sure he wakes up to something a lot nicer than how you've been treating him the past couple of weeks.

The flutter is still rooted deep in your chest, like the first tiny green thing pushing through the earth after a long and harsh winter.

By summertime, the bullpen is like a hotbox, and every time someone opens the glass doors, waves of hot air drift through, making it miserable to work.

Gideon is gone more than he's there these days, and whispers about a leave of absence are circling like smoke around the office. The team is in shambles lately, most of the travel team is suspended for misconduct during their last case, morale is down, and everyone looks like they hate their jobs.

But the work keeps coming, and the team keeps working despite everyone's lackluster enthusiasm to finish their cases in a timely manner.

You, somehow, are... lighter.

Not healed—because some holes never heal, and this one will never heal—but grief has settled from a constant jabbing pain, into a dull, manageable ache, and it gets better week by week. You feel like you can breathe without doing counting exercises. You can laugh at Anderson's terrible knock-knock jokes without feeling guilty five seconds later.

And Hotch, Hotch has been the constant you needed through it all.

He still brings you coffee every morning, even though the 'who stays latest' competition officially ended last month. You still find sticky notes on your files in his handwriting—"Victim #3's timeline is off by six hours, check page 14"—when he notices new things in M.O. and victimology, or gives you a second pair of eyes when you ask for help. Or on the mornings, when grief over your dad's death creeps too close, he simply tells you to take a moment for yourself and that he'll hold the fort down while you're gone.

He never mentions the night he cleaned your apartment, or the fact that you cried into his shirt until there was nothing left for you to cry out. He just… shows up. Every day. Without fail.

Tonight is a Thursday, almost midnight. The rest of the floor is dark. You’re both still here, because of course you are.

You’re cross-legged in your chair, hair twisted up with a pencil, eating cold lo mein straight from the carton. Hotch is across from you, jacket off, sleeves rolled high, tie abandoned hours ago. There’s a smear of highlighter on his cheek that he hasn’t noticed. And you're not planning on telling him, because he looks way too cute when he's a little messy.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” you say, waving your chopsticks at the geographic profile spread between you. “But the comfort zone is shifting north. He’s getting bolder.”

He leans forward, elbows on his desk, studying the map like it owes him money. “You’re not wrong. Look at the dump-site-to-victim-residence distance. First two were under four miles apart. Last one was eight. Either he’s escalating, or he moved.”

“Or both,” you say, mouth half-full. You're not exactly charming, and your mother would roll over in her grave if she heard you speak with food in your mouth. But he looks up and smiles, before he reaches over, plucking the carton from your hand to steal a bite.

You let him.

You always let him now. Sharing food feels like nothing after he had to wrangle you off a dead body like one of those working dogs resource guarding their dead handlers.

Somewhere in the last few months, the boundaries blurred between you. You touch his arm when you pass him files. He brushes imaginary lint off your shoulder during briefings when you sit next to each other. You hang out together on days off, fall asleep on each other's couches after working on cases together at home, and wake up with blankets draped over you.

He keeps a spare toothbrush in your bathroom 'just in case,' and you keep one in his. You have an extra tie of his folded in your desk drawer because he spilled coffee on his favorite one during a stakeout, and forgot it in your car when you drove him home.

No one in the unit has said anything yet, but everyone's eyebrows climb into their hairlines on a near-daily basis as they observe your desk island.

Tonight, the air conditioning is struggling, badly. You fan yourself with a case folder. “It’s a million degrees in here.” You complain

Hotch stands, stretches, and shrugs out of his jacket. “Rooftop?”

You’re already moving as the words leave his mouth.

The rooftop door sticks—it always does—and he has to shoulder it open for you.

The evening air is warm but better than the stale office. D.C. glitters slightly in the distance, barely visible, but there. You both lean against the ledge, shoulders almost, but not quite touching.

For a while, you just breathe. Enjoying the faint chirping of crickets, the wind rustling, and natural silence.

“Thank you,” you finally say quietly.

He glances over. “For what?”

“For the last three months. For… everything.” You pick at the label on your water bottle. “I don’t know where I’d be if you hadn’t—”

“—Hey.” He bumps your shoulder with his, gently. “You don’t have to thank me. I’m exactly where I want to be.”

Your heart does a slow, traitorous flip. You tell yourself it’s just gratitude, gratitude that he helped you through the worst time in your life, gratitude that you have a friend to turn to when in need—despite being an asshole about it in the beginning (but let's not talk about that).

He keeps talking. “Besides, you’ve been pulling me out of my own head since the day you beat me three nights in a row last November. Fair’s fair.”

You laugh, softly. “I still say you let me win night two. Ain't no way your brother called you for help at nine p.m. to move an antique wardrobe he found in the newspaper.”

“I absolutely did not,” he says, mock-offended, but he’s smiling that full smile now—the one that reaches his eyes and makes tiny lines appear at the corners. You’ve started cataloging those smiles like they're evidence in an unsolved case—which technically they are, because you still haven't locked down the answer to why Aaron Hotchner rarely smiles.

Silence settles between you; it feels comfortable and familiar.

Fireflies blink lazily over the parking lot below. You shiver a little in the breeze. And without a word, he shrugs out of his suit jacket and drapes it over your shoulders.

It smells like him. You love the smell of him.

You pull it tighter. “You’re going to freeze.”

“I run hot,” he says, and the way he says it—quiet, matter-of-fact, eyes on the skyline as if it's no big deal—makes heat pool low in your stomach for reasons you refuse to examine.

You stand there like that for a long time, city lights flickering, his jacket warm around you, the space between your bodies shrinking inch by inch until your pinky brushes his against the railing.

Neither of you moves away.

Neither of you names it yet.

But something tender and inevitable is growing in the quiet spaces. In the way he always saves you the last sip of coffee in the pot, in the way you know exactly how he takes his tea when he’s sick, in the way your hands find excuses to touch and linger.

It’s still just friendship, you both tell yourselves.

For now.

You've been with the BAU for nearly a year now.

The bullpen is almost empty, save for a few agents still complaining about paperwork due that they could've finished hours ago if they didn't stand at the damn coffee machine and chat all day. But they quickly leave.

Gideon has been locked in his office all evening, door cracked just enough for the occasional frustrated sigh to leak out.

You and Hotch are the last ones standing—as usual.

You’re both on the floor now, backs against the front of your desks, case files spread around you like a thick crime-scene carpet. You’ve been arguing good-naturedly for forty minutes about whether the unsub is devolving or just getting sloppy.

“He’s devolving,” you insist, flicking a photograph toward Hotch. “Look at the overkill on the last victim. That’s rage, not control, in the way we saw on victims one through five.” You point out, gesturing at the pictures of the other victims lying in a half circle in front of you.

Hotch catches the photo mid-air and sets it down carefully next to the other victims. “Rage can be controlled. He staged the body perfectly. That takes discipline.”

His knee is touching yours. Has been for the last twenty minutes. Neither of you has moved away.

You reach for the same file at the same moment. Your fingers collide, stay there, overlapping on the manila folder. The air between you goes suddenly, electrically still.

He doesn’t pull back. You don’t either.

You’re close enough to count the flecks of gold in his irises, close enough to see the tiny scar on his upper lip you’ve never noticed before. His gaze drops to your mouth for half a heartbeat—so fast you almost miss it—then flicks back up, something unreadable flaring behind his eyes.

Your breath catches.

The moment stretches, until the door to Gideon’s office bangs open so hard the hinges bounce it back off the wall.

Gideon strides out, coat half-on, briefcase in hand, clearly intending to leave without a word. He stops dead when he sees the two of you on the floor, hands still touching, faces inches apart, the entire room vibrating with something neither of you has said out loud yet.

He stares for three full seconds.

Then he throws his head back and groans like a man who has reached the end of his patience with the entire universe.

“Oh, for the love of God, just kiss already!”

You jerk apart like teenagers caught behind the bleachers. Hotch's ears go scarlet, and you feel your own face ignite.

Gideon points a finger between the two of you, coat flapping dramatically. “I have watched you two moon over each other for months. Months! I am old. I am tired. I have unsubs writing manifestos in blood, and I do not have time for this level of sexual tension in my bullpen. Kiss, date, do whatever it is you children do these days... just stop making it everyone else’s problem!”

He doesn’t wait for a response. Just spins on his heel, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like “finally” under his breath, and storms out.

The glass doors swing shut behind him, and you hear the ding of the elevator.

Then... silence.

You risk a glance at Hotch. He’s staring at the floor, jaw working like he’s trying to decide whether to laugh or die of embarrassment. His hand is still halfway reaching for the file you both abandoned.

You start laughing first, mortified and unstoppable. He follows half a second later, the low, surprised sound he makes when something actually catches him off-guard.

“Oh my God,” you wheeze, pressing both hands over your burning face. “He did not just—”

“He absolutely did,” Hotch smiles, voice strangled.

You peek through your fingers. He’s looking at you now, something soft and stunned and hopeful in his expression.

The laughter fades, but the air stays as charged as ever.

You swallow. “So… Gideon’s not subtle.”

“No,” Hotch agrees, quieter. “He really isn’t.”

Another beat. Your heart is hammering so loud you’re sure he can hear it.

He shifts, just slightly, closing the small distance Gideon’s outburst created. His voice drops to almost a whisper.

“Would it be… completely inappropriate if I took his advice?”

Your breath stalls. The world narrows to the few inches between you, the warmth radiating off him, the way his eyes search yours for permission.

You manage the tiniest shake, giving him the go-ahead.

He leans in slowly and carefully, giving you every possible second to change your mind.

You don’t.

The first brush of his lips is barely there, warm, trembling just enough for you to feel it against your lips.

He smells faintly of coffee and the soap he always uses.

The second is surer, his lips settling over yours with certainty, the softest pressure that makes your breath catch in your throat. You taste the lingering trace of peppermint on his tongue when your mouth parts under his, feel the faint rasp of growing stubble along your upper lip, the warmth of his exhale mingling with yours.

His hand cups your cheek, thumb sweeping slowly across your skin, calloused thumb stroking once along your cheekbone; his other hand threads into your hair, fingers spreading at the nape of your neck like he’s anchoring himself to you. The kiss deepens just enough for the world to tilt, your pulse roaring in your ears, your toes curling hard inside your shoes, every nerve lighting up at the gentle, deliberate slide of his mouth against yours.

When you ease apart, it’s only a breath. Foreheads still pressed together, noses brushing, the air between you warm and a little shaky. The lines are definitely blurred beyond return.

When you open your eyes, he’s smiling, happier than you’ve ever seen him.

“Hi,” he whispers, voice rough.

“Hi,” you whisper back, grinning like a complete idiot.

From somewhere down the hallway, you’re both almost certain you hear Gideon’s ghost mutter 'about damn time'.

You start laughing again, muffled against Hotch's shoulder this time as you lean forward into his chest, and he laughs too, arms wrapping fully around you, holding you close on the bullpen floor like he never wants to let go.

And he doesn’t.

Not for a very long time.

That first kiss doesn’t fix anything, but it changes everything.

After Gideon’s dramatic exit, you and Hotch ended up staying on the bullpen floor another hour, kissing slowly and carefully like teenagers who’ve just discovered the concept, talking in whispers, laughing every time one of you remembers Gideon’s exact phrasing. When you finally stand up, knees stiff, files forgotten, he walks you to your car with his hand at the small of your back like it always belonged there.

You date quietly at first, almost secretly, because neither of you trusts the Bureau rumor mill and because the newness feels too precious to share with anyone but the two of you.

He picks you up on Saturdays when you’re both off rotation. You go to tiny diners outside the Beltway where no one knows your names, or to the Smithsonian after closing because one of the night guards owes him a favor from back in his prosecutor days.

You sit on benches in front of the Hope Diamond and argue about whether it’s cursed. He brings you coffee in bed on Sunday mornings and reads the parts of the newspaper aloud while you steal the comics section and draw little hearts in the margins next to his name when he’s mentioned in an article.

You learn the small, sacred things about him:

He hates surprises but loves planning them for you.

He keeps a spare tie in your glove compartment now—officially 'in case of emergencies'.

When he’s exhausted, he falls asleep with his head on your chest and one arm locked around your waist like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he lets go.

He says your name differently when you’re alone, much softer, almost like a whimper.

December brings the first snow, and the first time he says “I love you.”

You’re in his apartment, stringing popcorn for a tiny, lopsided Christmas tree because neither of you had time to get one before all but the small apartment-friendly ones were the only option left.

You’re on the couch, legs tangled, the Muppet Christmas carol crooning in the background.

You prick your finger on a needle and mutter a curse. He takes your hand, kisses the tiny drop of blood away, and just says it, as natural as breathing: “I love you.”

You freeze, popcorn garland half-finished in your lap. He looks suddenly terrified, like he’s broken some unspoken rule in the relationship guide.

You tug the garland carefully aside, crawl into his lap, and kiss him until neither of you can breathe.

“I love you too,” you whisper against his mouth. “So much it scares me.”

He exhales like he’s been holding that fear in for months and tightens his arms around you. “Good. We can be scared together then.”

January of 2002 is brutal, back-to-back cases, forty-eight-hour consult marathons, but you survive it the way you survive everything now: together.

You fall asleep on each other more often than not, steal kisses in the elevator when no one’s looking, and leave each other notes in case files.

“Meet me on the rooftop at midnight. Bring the good coffee. –A”

“Only if you bring the blanket. –Y/N”

Valentine's Day falls on a Thursday. You both have to work, but he leaves a single red rose on your desk with a sticky note: Dinner. 8 p.m. Wear the black dress. Trust me.

You do.

He takes you to a hole-in-the-wall Italian place in Alexandria you’ve never noticed before. Halfway through tiramisu, he slides a small velvet box across the table.

Your heart stops, and you panic slightly.

He sees your face and actually laughs a tiny chuckle. “Relax. It’s not that. Yet.”

Inside is a delicate silver key.

“To my place,” he says quietly. “I want you to have it. I want… I want this to be official. You and me. No more pretending we’re just really good friends who occasionally make out in the parking garage and have sex in our time off.”

You stare at the key like it’s made of large sparkly diamonds.

“Aaron…”

“If it’s too fast—”

“—It’s not,” you cut in, voice cracking. You lean across the tiny table and kiss him in front of the entire restaurant. “Yes. A thousand times, yes.”

He smiles against your mouth, relieved and giddy and so in love it shows on every line of his face.

Later, back at his apartment—well, kind of your apartment now, too, in every way that matters at least—you hang your coat next to his on the rack, put your hairbrush next to the comb in the drawer, and fall asleep tangled together under the same blanket that used to live on your couch, the one he slept with the first night he saw your apartment.

Outside, snow falls softly and quietly over Virginia, covering the city in a hush that feels like the world permitting you to finally be happy again.

You are a couple now—no, almosts, no, hesitations.

Just you and Hotch against the world, desk neighbors turned lovers, building something together.

And you both start to feel like coming home at night isn't something so terrible to do at all.

The years blur in the best way possible.

September 2002

The inn’s garden is small and perfect, and the late-summer roses still cling to the trellises; the air is warm enough to carry the scent of honeysuckle and fresh-cut grass.

Forty white chairs are set in uneven rows on the lawn; fairy lights are already strung even though the sun won’t set for hours. Someone’s old jazz standard drifts from hidden speakers; it’s Ella Fitzgerald, the song you and Hotch danced to in his apartment the first night you ended up admitting you were in love.

You wait in the bridal suite upstairs, heart hammering so hard you’re sure it’s visible through the lace bodice of your dress. Your mother’s veil—now shortened—falls in soft waves over your shoulders.

And when you catch your reflection, you almost don’t recognize yourself: eyes bright and cheeks flushed. You look so... happy.

Downstairs, Hotch stands beneath the arbor in a charcoal suit that fits him like it was invented for his shoulders (A/N: to the people who get this reference, I love you).

His hands are clasped behind his back to hide the slight tremor, but you can see it from the window, the way he keeps rocking forward on the balls of his feet, the way he can’t stop staring at the inn door like the moment you appear might be a dream he’s terrified of waking from.

Gideon—wearing an actual suit and tie for once—clears his throat at the head of the aisle, after your walk, and begins.

His voice is steadier than anyone expected until Hotch repeats “in sickness and in health,” and it cracks on the last word. Gideon’s eyes go glassy instantly; he has to pause, press his lips together, and fan himself with the printed vows like a southern belle.

A ripple of soft laughter moves through the guests, but no one’s eyes are left dry.

You reach for Hotch, and he takes your hands like they’re made of glass. His palms are warm, trembling just slightly, and the stunned, luminous smile never leaves his face during the entire night.

When Gideon finally says, 'You may kiss your bride,' Hotch doesn’t wait for the words to finish. He cups your face with both hands, rushing closer, thumbs brushing the corners of your mouth, and kisses you like he’s been starving for it.

It goes on long enough that his friend Rossi—you've met him once and heard the stories of the few cases the two had together before Rossi retired from the BAU—lets out a low, appreciative whistle.

And Andi Swan, the newest BAU agent, fans herself dramatically with her program, and Gideon throws his hands in the air with a triumphant “I told them to kiss eighteen months ago! You’re welcome, people!” And you know that that will be his go-to line when it comes to tales about the relationship he 'basically made possible'.

Hotch finally pulls back, but only far enough to rest his forehead against yours. His eyes are shining.

“Hi, Mrs. Hotchner," he whispers against your lips.

"Hi, Mr. Hotchner," you whisper back, and the grin that breaks across his face is the same one he’ll wear in every photograph for the rest of your lives.

Behind you, forty people cheer, Ella keeps singing, and the mountains hold their breath, and you know—without a single doubt—that this is the moment every late-night bullpen, every shared highlighter, every quiet 'I’ve got you' was leading to all along.

You’re married.

And Aaron still looks like he can’t quite believe you said yes to him when he proposed.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

2003

Fairfax, Virginia

The search takes four months, forty-three open houses, and one near-breakup—not really, you were both being dramatic—over whether 'good bones' is real-estate speak for 'you’ll be sanding floors until you’re sixty.'

You’re both stubborn, both exhausted from cases—both promoted to the travel team one month apart—and both secretly terrified of choosing wrong, because this will be your sanctuary away from serial killers and psychopaths.

Then the realtor unlocks the gate at 127 Oakridge Lane, and you know the second the gravel crunches under your shoes, that this is it.

It’s a 1930s red-brick colonial set back from the street, white trim peeling just enough to feel loved instead of neglected. The wrap-around porch creaks under your weight in the most comforting way; a massive, hundred-year-old oak spreads its branches over the front yard like it’s been waiting for children who haven’t been born, yet.

Inside, the hardwood floors glow honey-gold in the late-afternoon, the fireplace still smells faintly of the last family’s Christmases, and the kitchen—God, the kitchen—has windows on three sides that turn the whole room into a sunlit heaven every morning.

You stand at the farmhouse sink—hands braced on the porcelain as you look into the backyard, imagining growing old here—when Hotch comes up behind you, arms sliding around your waist, chin resting on your shoulder.

“This one?” he asks quietly, like he’s afraid to jinx it.

You nod, throat tight. “This one.”

You close on a Thursday in May, sky so blue it hurts to look at. The moving truck is late, so the house is mostly echoing emptiness and stacked boxes labeled in Hotch's neat block letters and your chaotic scrawl.

Sunlight pours through the bare windows of your now-empty apartment, dust motes dancing like confetti.

Hotch scoops you up without warning, one arm under your knees, the other behind your back, and carries you over the threshold bridal style, even though your jeans are streaked with paint, and you’re both laughing too hard for it to be dignified.

The front door swings shut behind you with a solid, final click that feels like the house exhaling in welcome.

You don’t make it past the foyer before he’s kissing you against the wall, hands already tugging at the hem of your T-shirt, your legs wrapping around his waist like muscle memory.

Boxes topple somewhere down the hall; neither of you cares.

That night, you christen the kitchen island while the pizza you ordered goes cold on the porch, because you "forgot" to open the door when the delivery guy knocked.

The next morning, the sun wakes you in the master bedroom, pouring through east-facing windows you didn’t bother to curtain yet, and you make love on your mattress on the hardwood floor because the bed frame is still in pieces.

By Sunday, you’ve claimed the wide-plank stairs... twice, the claw-foot tub, the window seat in the library that overlooks the oak, and the backporch swing that squeaks in the most perfect rhythm.

Somewhere between the third and fourth room, Hotch starts laughing into your neck, breathless and delirious. “We’re going to need to buy furniture eventually,” he gasps.

You bite his shoulder, grinning. “Later. Much, much later.”

By the end of the first week, the house smells like coffee, fresh paint, and sex; every corner holds the echo of laughter and the imprint of two people finally, finally being home.

The oak tree shades the front yard like it’s keeping your secret, and every morning the kitchen windows flood the room with light.

You hang your mother’s lace curtains in the dining room first, just so the house knows it’s loved.

And every night, when Hotch pulls you into his chest in whatever room you’ve ended up in, he whispers the same thing against your hair:

“Welcome home, Mrs. Hotchner.”

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

2004 - 2005

The BAU is still small enough that every new face feels like it rearranges the gravity in the room.

Derek Morgan arrives first, in the spring of 2004, all swagger and leather jacket, straight from the Chicago PD. He shakes Hotch's hand a little too hard, like he’s testing whether the stories about the grumpy agent are true.

Gideon waits exactly one week before dragging him to the coffee station and launching into the tale of how he's the reason you're married today: the empty bullpen, the unbearable tension, the night he finally lost patience and bellowed, “Just kiss already.” And after that day, Morgan’s go-to greeting becomes a cheeky “Morning, Mama Hotch,” usually followed by him ducking whatever office supply you lob at the rascal's head.

Penelope Garcia blows in that summer like a glitter bomb, pink boa trailing behind her after Hotch manages to snatch the black queen away from the web of hackers interfering with government websites, and onto the team. Gideon barely lets her set down her bedazzled laptop in her tech cave before he’s steering her toward the round-table room, eyes gleaming.

Ten minutes later, she bursts out, finds you at your desk, and squeals so loudly the windows nearly rattle. “You’re the desk-neighbor soulmates! The sacred ‘kiss already’ origin story! I have shipped you since the academy rumor mill got to me a few weeks ago!” She throws her arms around you, then, without hesitation, around Hotch too, who's emerged from his—new—office next to Gideon's. He freezes mid-sentence, arms half-raised, before awkwardly patting her sequined shoulder. From that day on, she declares herself your joint fairy godmother and threatens to make couple T-shirts if she doesn't see you kiss, just once, before the year is over.

Thankfully, she does—although it's by hacking into the bullpen cameras and watching tape from the night before when you were both staying late, again.

Fall brings Spencer Reid and Jennifer Jareau within weeks of each other. Spencer is drowning in a cardigan two sizes too big, clutching three PhDs and the conviction that Gideon can read minds.

JJ is calm on the outside and vibrating on the inside, terrified of choosing the wrong photograph for the press packet. Gideon corners them together in the hallway on their very first day, blocking escape with his whole body, and delivers the performance of his life: sweeping gestures, pregnant pauses, the whole thing.

Spencer turns the color of a ripe tomato and starts reciting workplace-romance statistics under his breath. JJ just laughs, delighted, and by the end of the month, she’s slipping you lists of baby names “for future reference” with a perfectly straight face, because to her, babies are the most wonderful thing in the world.

Elle Greenaway is last, late 2005, striding in like she already owns the bullpen and everyone in it after helping the team on the Seattle strangler case. Gideon waits until she’s halfway through her first official BAU case file, then plants himself on the edge of her desk and launches into the now-legendary retelling—complete with slow-motion reenactment of his dramatic exit and a claim that the overhead lights flickered for cinematic effect.

Elle listens with one eyebrow arched, arms folded, then looks across the room at you and Hotch—who are pretending, very badly, not to hear any of this—and deadpans, “So your entire marriage is because an old man lost his patience?” Hotch mutters “Don’t encourage him” into his coffee, but the corner of his mouth betrays him.

By the third round, with every new hire, the story has grown mythic: wind machines that definitely do not exist, a single heroic tear rolling down Gideon’s cheek, the faint sound of angels singing when your lips finally met.

Each time he tells it, you and Hotch trade the same long-suffering glance across wherever you're standing together—the one that says we will never live this down and we don’t actually mind. Gideon catches the look every single time, grins like a proud, meddling father who knows exactly what he did, and keeps talking anyway.

Because the day he stops telling the story is the day he admits the team has outgrown him, and none of you—no one—is ready for that yet.

So you let him have it. You let them all have it. The whistles, the teasing, the running slideshow Garcia keeps threatening to present at the next holiday party.

You and Hotch just reach for the same highlighter—on purpose—like you’ve done for years, fingers brushing, and smile the tiny, secret smile of two people who know the real story is quieter, slower, and infinitely better than any legend Gideon could invent.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

September 2006

Exactly six years after you join the BAU. You’re both still raw from Oregon, a case that ended with a twelve-year-old girl alive and a father who will never come home.

You come back to your home hollow-eyed and quiet, sleeping in snatches, waking from nightmares you don’t talk about.

Two weeks later, you’re late. Not just late; late enough that your body feels foreign, breasts tender, exhaustion bone-deep in a way no case has ever managed.

You buy the test on your lunch break, hide it in your purse like contraband, and take it in the restroom on the third floor because you can’t wait the fifteen minutes to get home.

You sit on the closed toilet lid, timer on your phone ticking down three endless minutes, and when the second pink line appears, and you feel the world tilt sideways.

You drive home in a daze. Hotch is already there. He took the afternoon off after you texted, “Can you be home early?” with no explanation, worried that something was terribly wrong.

He’s in the kitchen in sweatpants and an old T-shirt, hair still damp from the shower, making coffee like it’s any other Tuesday.

You walk straight into his arms without a word. He stiffens for half a second, sensing the tremor in you, then folds you in tight.

“What is it?” he asks against your hair, voice low and treading carefully.

You pull the test from your pocket and press it into his hand.

He looks down. The little plastic window is face-up, two unmistakable lines staring back at him. His breath stops. You watch the color drain from his face, then flood back in a rush. He stares so long you start to worry.

“Aaron?”

He drops slowly, like someone cut his strings. One knee hits the tile, then the other, until he’s kneeling in front of you. His hands find your hips, tentative, reverent, and he presses his forehead to your stomach. The first sound he makes is half-laugh, half-sob, muffled against your shirt. Then the tears come, the same tears you saw the night he asked you to marry him, and the morning you said “I do.” He wraps his arms fully around your waist and holds on like you’re the only solid thing in the universe.

“We’re having a baby,” he whispers, voice cracking on every word. “We’re… God, we’re having a baby.”

You thread your fingers through his hair and let your own tears fall into it.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

May 23, 2007, 3:14 a.m.

Thirty-one hours of labor, twenty-eight of them back labor that leaves you sobbing into Hotch's shoulder, certain you can’t do this. He never leaves your side, phone turned off so the world can't disturb this perfect moment in his life, and never stops whispering “You’re so strong, I’ve got you, just one more,” even when his voice is hoarse, and his shirt is soaked with your sweat and tears.

At 2:56, the doctor says, “One more big push,” and you find strength you didn’t know you had. And Grace Hotchner comes out screaming, red-faced and perfect, a shock of dark hair plastered to her tiny head, your nose already visible in miniature form.

The nurse lifts her onto your chest, and Hotch's hands shake so violently that he almost can’t hold the scissors. When he finally cuts the cord, the snip sounds like the loudest thing in the world.

They place her on your chest; she's so, so small. She stops crying the instant she hears your heartbeat, tiny fist curling against your skin with a grip the nurse actually gasps at. “That’s the strongest newborn grasp I’ve ever felt,” she laughs, a little teary-eyed herself.

Hotch is crying openly now, leaning over the bed rail, one hand cradling your head, the other resting on Grace’s back like he’s afraid she’ll disappear if he lets go. His forehead presses to yours, tears mingling with yours.

“Hi, Gracie,” he whispers, voice raw. “Hi, baby girl.”

She blinks up at him with unfocused eyes and squeezes his index finger with that iron grip. Something in his face breaks open—wonder, terror, love, you can't pinpoint which it is, or if it's all at once. All you know is that you feel the exact same.

He doesn’t let go of either of you for the next forty-eight hours. He sleeps in the vinyl chair with Grace on his bare chest, skin-to-skin, her tiny breaths syncing with his.

When the nurses try to take her for routine checks, he follows, hovering like a Secret Service agent. He changes the first diaper with the concentration of someone who only just learned what a diaper is and cries again when she falls asleep on him mid-burp, mouth open, one fist tangled in his collar.

You watch them from the bed, exhausted and euphoric, and think: this is what the Oregon case took from that little girl’s father, and this is what we get to keep.

Grace Hotchner, eight pounds three ounces, the strongest grip in Fairfax County, and already wrapped impossibly tight around both your hearts.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

2010

You’re thirty-eight, and Hotch is forty-five. Grace is two weeks shy of three, obsessed with dinosaurs and convinced she’s going to be a paleontologist-slash-princess when she grows up.

One Sunday night, you’re both in the kitchen cleaning after she's been put to bed, you washing sippy cups, Hotch drying, the house quiet except for the soft hum of the dishwasher.

You catch him watching you over the rim of his coffee mug, as he pauses to take a sip, that familiar, thoughtful look in his eyes.

“We should give her a sibling,” you say, before you lose your nerve.

He sets the mug down very carefully. “You sure?”

“I’m sure I don’t want her to be an only child. And I’m sure I want another one who looks like you.”

He crosses the kitchen in two strides, cups your face, and kisses you like the conversation is already settled.

It is.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

In late 2010, labor starts... politely... at least for the first twelve hours, then turns vicious.

Contractions come hard and all over the place, and progress stalls at seven centimeters.

Grace had been fast; this baby is stubborn as hell. Thirty hours in, your blood pressure spikes, the fetal heart monitor starts its frantic dance on the monitor, and the room fills with quiet and urgent voices.

The OB says the words no one wants to hear: emergency C-section.

They wheel you down the hall under the bright hospital lights that make your head spin. Hotch walks beside the gurney in paper scrubs, one hand wrapped around yours so tightly your fingers go numb.

His face is pale, jaw locked, but his voice never wavers as he keeps reassuring you, even though you can tell he's terrified. “You’re doing so well, sweetheart. I’ve got you. We’re almost there.” He chants it over and over, like a prayer.

In the OR, the spinal takes forever to kick in; you’re shaking, terrified, tears leaking sideways into your hair. Hotch sits by your head, forehead pressed to yours behind the drape, still whispering the same words against your temple.

When the pressure starts, it feels strange, impersonal, like someone rummaging in your insides, without you feeling anything at all. His grip tightens, and he counts every second out loud with the anesthesiologist.

At 3:19 a.m., you hear it: the thin, furious wail of a newborn who is deeply offended by the cold sterility of the OR. The doctor lifts him over the curtain. He's tiny, red, fists pumping like he’s ready to fight the world already.

Benjamin Hotchner, seven pounds eleven ounces, a shock of black hair sticking straight up, just like his sister, and lungs that clearly work perfectly.

They clean him, swaddle him, and place him on your chest while they’re still stitching you up. He’s warm and a little slippery.

His eyes blink open and fix on you with startling intensity—just like his dad staring down an unsub, you think to yourself.

You start crying so hard that the nurse has to steady him in your arms.

Hotch leans over both of you, taking over for the nurse standing beside you, one big hand cradling Ben’s entire back, the other stroking your hair. His voice is wrecked. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known,” he whispers against your temple, lips brushing the skin there again and again as he kisses you, like he can’t stop. “Thank you. God, thank you. For giving me so much!”

In the afternoon, the hospital room is quiet except for the soft beep of monitors and the squeak of your bed when you shift. Hotch is asleep in the recliner pulled up next to your bedside, still in his scrubs, Ben is asleep on your chest under the hospital blanket, tiny fist curled around the necklace Hotch gifted you after Grace was born—You kept telling him that he didn't have to, that it was way too expensive, but he had insisted that not even diamonds could do justice telling you just how much he loves you.

The door creaks open slowly. Grace pads in, wearing her dinosaur pajamas and light-up sneakers with Garcia in tow, hair a wild halo from hanging out with the entire team, and most likely sleeping, flopped against them like a lazy little cat.

She climbs up the bed rail like a monkey, eyes huge.

You brace for jealousy, for tears, for anything, not knowing how a child should react to no longer being an only child.

Instead, she leans over, studies her brother with grave three-year-old seriousness, then looks at you.

“He’s cute,” she announces in her bossiest big-sister voice. “Can we keep him?”

Hotch wakes at the sound, and his daughter bracing her feet on his thigh to lean even further over the bedside. His eyes are bleary and soft as he comes to.

You meet his gaze over Grace’s head, both of you starting to laugh, tears streaming again because the relief is too big to fit inside normal emotions.

“Yeah, baby,” Hotch says, voice thick from sleep. He reaches out with the arm closest to Grace and pulls her into his arms. “We’re keeping him.”

Grace lays her head on his shoulder, sticks her—slightly sticky, you never get used to how quickly kids get sticky—hand out for you while curled into her dad's side. You take it at the same time as Ben stretches his tiny arms with a yawn too big for a newborn body.

And just like that, your family of three becomes four. One exhausted, stitched-up mom, one slightly stunned and besotted dad, one very proud big sister, and one brand-new human who already has all of you wrapped around his perfect, furious little fist.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

Life settles into a rhythm, as the kids grow older, so steady it almost feels unreal.

5:45 a.m.

The alarm never gets the chance to go off. Hotch is already sliding out of bed, careful not to jostle you, pressing a kiss to your temple, forehead, whatever part of your face is closest to his lips as he wakes.

He’s done it every morning without fail since Grace was born.

You hear the soft pad of his feet down the hall, the creak of the third stair, the low hiss of the coffee maker starting, before he comes back upstairs to get dressed. Ten minutes later, the scent of coffee drifts upstairs, and you smile into the pillow because it means the day has officially begun, and he’s still taking care of you first.

6:30 a.m.

The peace lasts exactly forty-five minutes. Then the thundering of small feet announces Hurricane Grace. She bursts through the bedroom door like her only mission is to create a Grace-shaped hole in the middle, hair wild from sleep, wearing mismatched princess pajamas—because she can never decide which pair to wear.

“MOM!!!!! I need triceratops pancakes, and I need them NOW.” Ben is half a step behind, dragging his—once blue—stuffed elephant that Auntie JJ gave him, it's now gray and threadbare by one ear, rubbing his eyes with a chubby fist.

Hotch emerges from the hallway and scoops them both up in one motion, one under each arm, and carries them downstairs, pretending to be a caveman who just found his next meal, while they squeal and kick.

You follow more slowly, tying your robe, already smiling at the chaos.

The kitchen is pure chaos.

Hotch is at the stove, flipping dinosaur-shaped pancakes you once made the mistake of buying from the frozen aisle in the grocery store, and now is the only breakfast food the kids will eat.

Grace is perched on the counter, “helping” by pouring half a bag of chocolate chips directly onto the pan—she's chocolate coating them, if you ask her.

Ben stands on a chair, banging the spatula like it’s a drum solo in between Hotch needing it to flip the pancakes. There are banana chunks on the floor. There’s syrup in someone’s hair. And Hotch meets your eyes over the chaos and mouths 'coffee' or 'Help me'; somehow, the two look dangerously similar when mouthed from afar.

You hand him a mug with one hand and steal a kiss with the other.

7:15 a.m.

Shoes, backpacks, lunchboxes, the eternal hunt for the left sparkly sneaker.

You and Hotch move like a well-oiled SWAT team. He buckles Ben into the car seat while you braid Grace’s hair in the driveway, both of you trading kids mid-sentence:

'Don’t forget show-and-tell!'

'He has swim diapers in the blue bag!'.

Drop-offs are a blur. Grace sprints into school, shouting goodbye without looking back; Ben clings to Hotch's leg until the preschool teacher peels him off with promises of play-dough.

You watch Hotch crouch to Ben’s level, smooth his hair, kiss the top of his head, and something in your chest still flips every single time.

Then it’s the two of you in the car, Quantico-bound, hands linked over the console, debriefing the morning like it’s your version of foreplay now—which honestly, it's starting to be.

Who has the 9:00 a.m. consult, who’s picking up dry cleaning, whether Garcia can babysit Friday night so you can finally have some mommy and daddy time.

He still traces idle circles on the inside of your wrist at red lights.

You still feel it everywhere.

Evenings

Soccer fields, dance studios, and the occasional emergency room visit for split chins or swallowed Lego pieces.

You sit shoulder-to-shoulder on tiny bleachers as often as you can—which is nearly a perfect score still, except for one game where you were on a case.

Hotch's arm drapes along the back of your seat, fingers playing with the ends of your hair while Grace scores her first goal and Ben cheers so loud he falls off the bottom row.

Recitals mean Hotch in a suit outside of work with glitter in his hair because Grace insisted on doing his makeup backstage. You keep the photo on your desk forever.

The kids love every time he's "forced" to wear a suit outside of work, because he looks so sad, they once told you. Which, first of all... evil. And second, you love, because the tiny demons don't know that he's pretending to be miserable and secretly loves dressing up for stuff with them.

After bedtime—two stories, three drinks of water, one monster check under the bed—the house finally quiets. You spread case files across the kitchen table like you once spread them across bullpen desks and floors, only now there are crayon drawings mixed in with crime-scene photos and a half-eaten dinosaur pancake on a plate nearby.

Hotch sits beside you, tie gone, sleeves rolled, reading glasses low on his nose. His hand finds your knee under the table, the same way it has since 2001.

Sometimes you work until 2 a.m.; sometimes you abandon the files entirely and end up slow-dancing in sock feet to whatever’s playing in the radio, foreheads pressed together, swaying more than dancing.

The team folds into your life like they were always meant to be there.

Penelope shows up on Saturday mornings with rainbow sprinkles and her laptop, teaching eight-year-old Grace how to code her own choose-your-own-adventure game while you and Hotch sneak a nap on the couch.

Morgan spends an entire blistering July weekend in your backyard building Ben the most elaborate treehouse known to man—complete with a tire swing and a rope ladder.

He teaches Ben to throw a perfect spiral, and you later try to teach him to stop aiming at Morgan’s head.

Reid reads bedtime stories in English, Spanish, and—once, memorably—Latin, when Ben requests “the dragon one with the big words.”

He still blushes every Thanksgiving when Gideon—retired now, but omnipresent in your lives—launches into the “kiss already” saga with new embellishments like a crazy old man; lightning flashes, swelling orchestral music, the whole works.

Reid hides behind his pie; Grace and Ben chant “Tell it again, Grandpa Gideon!” until Hotch threatens to revoke pie privileges for the entire table.

Years later, when the kids are old enough to ask why Uncle Spencer turns red every holiday, you’ll just smile and say, “Ask your father—he was there.”

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

2015

Mateo Cruz accepts the Deputy Director position on a Wednesday. By Friday afternoon, the Director’s office has made it official: you’re the new Section Chief.

The announcement email goes out at 4:17 p.m.; the bullpen erupts in cheers loud enough to rattle the windows. Hotch pretends to scowl from his office doorway, arms folded, muttering, 'Great, now I have to salute my own wife,' but the corner of his mouth keeps betraying him, because he couldn't be prouder of you.

You stay late for the ceremonial handover, shaking hands, signing the last of the paperwork that makes it real. And when you finally pull the car into the garage, it’s past 10:00 p.m., the house is dark except for the porch light, which Grace still insists on leaving for the 'porch fairies'—you'd hoped she would outgrow it by not, because it brings the electrical bill up by unnecessary amounts.

Hotch is waiting just inside the mudroom door, jacket off, sleeves rolled high, tie already loosened like he’s been pacing, not caring to change out of his work clothes yet.

The second the door clicks shut behind you, he’s on you.

One step, two, a lot of steps, and your back meets the bedroom door before you even realize you made it upstairs.

The new brass nameplate on your credentials folder digs into your palm; he plucks it from your fingers and tosses it onto the dresser without looking.

His hands slide up your sides, under your blazer, pushing it off your shoulders and letting it drop to the floor.

“Section Chief Hotchner,” he says, voice low and rough, lips brushing the shell of your ear. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to say that?”

You start to laugh, but it turns into a gasp when he presses you harder against the door, mouth finding the spot just below your jaw that still makes your knees weak after all these years.

His stubble scrapes; his fingers thread into your hair, tilting your head back so he can kiss down the column of your throat he’s mapped a thousand times and somehow never gets tired of.

“Aaron... the kids—”

"They're with Will and JJ," he quickly answers before he continues. "My boss,” he growls against your pulse point, and the possessive, reverent way he says it sends heat flooding straight through you. “Say it.”

You’re already breathless. “I outrank you now, Unit Chief.”

He makes a sound that’s half-laugh, half-groan and kisses you properly then. His tongue slides against yours like he’s been thinking about this all day. One hand splays across the small of your back, the other cups your jaw, thumb stroking over your cheekbone with that same stunned tenderness he had the night he proposed.

You fist your hands in his shirt, pulling him closer until there’s no space left, until the only thing in the universe is the heat of his body and the way he keeps murmuring “my boss, my boss” like a prayer between kisses.

When you finally break apart, you’re both breathing hard, foreheads pressed together, noses brushing. His eyes are dark, pupils blown wide, lips swollen and curved in a grin that’s pure mischief and pride.

“Bed! Section Chief,” he says, voice gravel-rough. “That’s an order from your subordinate.”

You laugh and let him push you down on the bed.

Turns out outranking one Agent Hotchner has some very compelling perks.

And he spends the entire night proving he’s more than happy to follow your orders.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

The team has made it official without ever actually voting.

You are Mom.

Hotch is Dad.

There is no escaping it.

It starts small.

Penelope bursts into the bullpen at 2 a.m. with new surveillance footage and yells, “Mom, Dad, you’re gonna want to see this!” She freezes, horrified, but you and Hotch are too tired to correct her, so you just wave her over.

From that day on, the nicknames stuck.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

Grace is thirteen, all long limbs and sarcasm and her father’s intense eyes. Ben is ten, fearless, missing two front teeth, and convinced Uncle Spencer can actually talk to aliens.

The house is loud and messy and perfect: drawings taped to the fridge next to family photos, Hotch's running shoes by the door next to Grace’s cleats, your wedding photo on the mantel between Ben’s first-grade portrait and a framed newspaper clipping of your promotion with the headline “BAU Power Couple Still Unstoppable.”

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

Reid skids into your office holding two mugs. “Mom, I made you coffee exactly the way you like it because Dad said if I didn’t, he’d make me redo all the geographic profiles from the last ten cases.”

You take the coffee without looking up from the budget report you’re murdering. “Tell Dad his threat worked.”

JJ corners Hotch in the hallway. “Dad, Grace texted me—she got accepted early decision to Georgetown. She wanted you to hear it from family first.” Hotch's eyes instantly go soft and watery; JJ pats his arm like she’s done this a hundred times—she has.

Tara is presenting when Luke raises his hand.

“Question for Mom: Can we get approval for the extra surveillance hours?”

You don’t even blink anymore. “Ask Dad, he controls the budget this quarter.”

Hotch, without looking up from his tablet: “Approved, but only if you two stop calling us that in front of the Director.”

Everyone, in perfect unison: “Yes, Dad.”

Emily—who swore she would never—slips once on a case in Kansas City: “Dad, the ME’s office is stonewalling us.”

Aaron just sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I will call them. Again.”

Garcia over comms during a tense takedown: “Be careful, children, Mom and Dad are watching, and we do NOT want the lecture if someone gets shot.”

You and Hotch exchange the weary, fond look of parents whose kids just said “shit” in front of the neighbors.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

Some nights, when the kids are asleep and the house is quiet, you and Hotch sit on the porch swing you installed the year Ben was born. He wraps an arm around your shoulders, pulls you into his side, and you watch the stars come out over the same oak tree that shaded your first family photos.

“Still think Gideon was right to yell at us?” you ask, tracing the wedding ring you’ve worn for eighteen years now.

Hotch laughs and presses a kiss to your temple.

“Best thing he ever did.”

And you sit there, two kids asleep inside, careers that have saved lives countless of times and broken your hearts in equal measure, a house that always smells faintly of coffee and children, and you know—without doubt, without hesitation—that every late night, every loss, every terrifying leap brought you exactly here.

Home.

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

Grace and Ben think the whole mom and dad thing is hilarious.

Grace, now eighteen, texts the BAU group chat from college: “Tell Dad that Grandpa Rossi's carbonara recipe is trending on TikTok and people are calling Dad the ‘Hot FBI Dad’.”

≻──────────────⋆✩⋆──────────────≺

The team is sprawled across their desks after closing another case, this one a little too brutal, even for them.

You and Hotch are the last to pack up, as always.

Penelope yawns, slings her bag over her shoulder, and calls out: “Night, Mom. Night, Dad. Don’t stay too late making out on the conference table.”

Morgan, Reid, Tara, Luke, and JJ chorus “Night, Mom and Dad!” as they file out.

Hotch waits until the elevator doors close, then looks over at you, deadpan.

“We’re never living this down, are we?”

You hook your arm through his, lean your head on his shoulder as you walk toward the elevators.

“Nope. And honestly? I kinda love it.”

He presses the down button, then drops a kiss to the top of your head.

“Me too... Mom.”

You elbow him in the ribs. He laughs and pulls you into the elevator.

The doors close on the two of you, Section Chief and Unit Chief, Mom and Dad, twenty-four years after Gideon yelled at you to kiss already, still stupidly and perfectly in love.

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