Aug 4, 2024
the hotchner siblings and their birthday posts
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the hotchner siblings and their birthday posts
various Christmases of the Hotchner family <3
hotchniss family group chat pt.1
nature vs nurture
a hotchner's future au fic. wordcount: 5.7k
emily is trying to be a good mother, but she never had a good example to learn from.
or
elizabeth comes to visit after ava is born
tw: mentions of pregnancy, mentions of trouble conceiving
Read on AO3, fanfiction.net or under the cut
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"There, there," Emily soothed, running her hand gently up and down her newborn daughter's back. Bouncing on the pregnancy ball, the only thing that had brought her any relief as she had neared fullterm, she had hoped that the familiar sensation would soothe Ava, as it used to when she was in-utero, but, so far, no dice. Emily persisted, though, switching up the position she held Ava in. She moved her daughter from her shoulder, unstrapping her maternity bra and holding Ava nestled against her chest, hoping the skin-to-skin contact, and the scent of her mother, might calm the crying child. Still, Ava went on screeching. Emily closed her eyes, breathing steadily out through her nose and tilting her face up towards the ceiling, determined not to cry. No, she had done enough of that in the past few days.
Getting pregnant had been a chore; she and Aaron, it felt like, were having sex at every opportunity and still, nothing happened for the longest time. Emily had been convinced she was infertile, and wouldn't even have been surprised, after all of the explosions, gun-shots, chairlegs and beatings she'd been through. After eleven long months of negative pregnancy tests, unwanted periods and disappointed tears, though, finally, those two little lines had shown up and a relief the likes of which she had never known flooded Emily's being.
She hadn't stopped crying since.
The littlest things could set her off, from Aaron accidentally ordering her the wrong takeout order to Jack winning one of his football matches. Towards the end of her pregnancy, he had actually banned her from attending games - by that point she was so big that she couldn't do much more than waddle, anyway, and standing for too long made her ache all over, so she didn't really mind all that much, but she still cried when Aaron told her.
That was a month ago, and, three weeks later, Ava made her squawking, mewling way into the world and it seemed that the phrase like mother, like daughter was all too true for them because she hadn't stopped crying since either, and everytime Ava cried, one of two things happened. Emily started leaking, either from her eyes or from her boobs.
As she bounced on the birthing ball and tried to breathe her way through the tears that threatened, she felt the hot trail of milk that slowly leaked out of her, and then she couldn't hold back tears anymore.
"Hey," Aaron said, rushing into the room armed with the diaper and wipes she'd sent him out for, "I was just checking on Jack, I'm sorry." He said, misinterpreting her tears, but Emily shook her head.
"Can you-you get me a t-towel?" She stutered her way through her sentence, the sympathy on her husband's face only making her cry harder, and, feeling useless, Aaron did the only thing he could, which was what she had asked for. He hurried into their en-suite, grabbing one of the microfibre towels, the good, soft ones, from the cupboard and came back to kneel in front of his wife and daughter. Lovingly, he mopped up the milk and then fastened her maternity bra back up for her, careful not to disturb Ava, who was still crying.
"Did you try her…?" Aaron asked, and then trailed off at the expression on Emily's face, the one that said she might rip his head off if he finished that sentence. "Of course you did. Sorry, sweetheart."
Emily, though, shook her head, "I'm sorry. I don't mean to take it out on you," She said, and supported Ava with one arm, making sure she was secure before reaching for Aaron. He understood and took her hand, helping her stand off of the ball and leading her to the bed, where Emily painfully lowered herself onto it, still tender from the birth, "Oh, please, close the door before she wakes Jack up."
Aaron had the same thought at the same moment, and was already turning as she made the request. "This won't last forever," he reassured her, making his way back to the bed and rubbing Emily's back in much the same way as Emily had done to Ava, trying to soothe her.
"Do you remember Jack crying this much?" Emily dug around in Ava's blankets, finding her pacifier and once again gently tapping it against her infant's lips, but Ava wiggled her head back and forth as best as she could, and only mewled louder, rejecting the pacifier, "Okay, okay, I'm sorry, sweetheart, I'm sorry." Emily said, feeling tears threaten once more, and swallowing down the lump that had risen in her throat. She felt, not for the first time, at a complete loss, unable to determine what her daughter needed at any given moment. This learning curve was the steepest she had ever encountered, and Emily felt like she was faltering with every step she took..
She looked at Aaron with eyes that sparkled like glass, "She hates me," she said, with a sadness so profound that it made him gape at her.
"No, sweetheart, no," He wrapped his arms around them both, pulling his wife and daughter into his chest, "Don't ever think that."
"What's wrong with me," Emily sobbed, her words muffled by Aaron's chest, "that I can't even comfort my own baby?"
Between them, Ava was still crying, and Emily pulled out of Aaron's arms, making to stand up, meaning to pace back and forth in the hopes that a different motion might soothe her, but Aaron stopped her.
"Let me?" He asked, searching his wife's eyes.
Emily had been reluctant to let go of Ava, even to him, since she was born and she appreciated that he asked, even if he was her father. Of course she trusted him, but Ava was the most precious thing she'd ever seen, ever held, and to let her go for even a moment, even to her father, was like physical torment. Right now, though, after Ava had been screaming for almost two hours, the relief of being slightly further away from her noise overcame that pain easily, and she let Aaron gently lift the baby from her arms.
She watched as he nestled Ava into the crook of his elbow, holding her tight to his chest. She was a tiny baby, but she looked even smaller in Aaron's muscular arms, truly like a little doll. It made something inside of Emily ache.
"That's nature's trick," she commented, narrowing her eyes as she wiped her nose on back of her hand, frowning at him.
Aaron looked at her, halted his attempts at soothing their daughter to raise his eyebrows at her, the ghost of a smile playing around his lips, "What?"
"How good men look with babies." Even though Emily couldn't even think about having sex with him without wincing right now, something inside of her tugged at the sight of him holding the tiny bundle, comforting their child with soft words and looking down at her with such adoration, "Tricks you into having more."
Aaron smiled at her, showing his perfect teeth, then turned that smile down onto their daughter. Emily marvelled, not for the first time, at his patience. She loved Ava with everything she had, but she was ready to jam a screwdriver into her eardrum right about now, just for the bliss of the silence.
"She's brand new," Aaron was saying, "Being born is traumatic. Everything is new and big and scary," he rocked, side to side, creating a rhythm, "I know you don't like it right now," he wasn't talking to her anymore, but to Ava, "but you will. I promise you will."
Ava paused for a moment to look at her father, blinking bleary eyes at him, still unable, Emily knew, to see clearly. That, she thought, must be scary enough in itself.
"You know what used to work for Jack?" Hotch said, looking up at her. Tiredly, Emily raised her eyebrows at him. "A bath."
"See? Works everytime."
His fingertips stroked over their daughter's tiny, dark head, her hair wet from the water and plastered flat. She rested on Emily's chest, her tiny fist furling and unfurling against her mother's skin. The water was just the right temperature, a little cold for Emily, perhaps, but perfect for the baby, and her mother's heart beat steadily and surely beneath her ear, as comforting as it had been when she lived inside Emily's body.
"You're a genius," Emily whispered, smiling at her husband, the silence making her ears buzz. Ava's eyes had fluttered closed, along with her fist, and she didn't open them or unfurl them, but instead began a slow and steady breathing that told her parents she had, finally, fallen asleep.
There was a long beat of silence. Then Emily looked at him and said, "What now?"
Kneeling beside the bath, Aaron's shoulders started to shake as he tried to laugh silently, and Emily held Ava's head gently as she did the same, trying to keep as still as she could while giggling, so as not to disturb her daughter.
The next morning, Ava woke them with a cry, as had become the custom, as was normal for a baby her age. It was 5:30am. All in all, her parents had four hours of sleep between them. They tried to nap alternately, but realistically when one was awake, so was the other, and the morning was the same story, so when Ava's cries woke Emily, Aaron was up a few seconds later.
By lunch time, they were both yawning.
"Kids are hard," Emily whined, resting her chin on Aaron's shoulder as she curled her fingers around the mug of coffee she had been reheating and trying to drink since 7am. Ava, blissfully, was taking a nap in her swing, a song that Emily already knew would be haunting her dreams playing for the seventh time in a row. Unfortunately, it seemed to be the only one that Ava found appealing and so, like all new parents, they were putting up with it until further notice. Or until the batteries ran out.
"Yeah," Aaron agreed, just as sleepily, as Jack came bounding into the room with an energy his parents couldn't possibly hope to match.
"Grandma's here," he announced, and they both stared at him in confusion. Impatient, he repeated, "Grandma's here! In the car!"
"My mom?" Emily said, frowning in confusion.
"Has to be. Highly doubt it's mine, or he'd be screaming in terror since she's been dead for twenty years." Aaron replied, standing up from the barstool. There were milkstains on his t-shirt, Emily noticed, and, looking down at her own, she saw that she, too, was covered in them. She also noticed a stain that looked suspiciously like milk-sick, but didn't inspect it too much. Instead, she grabbed a hoodie from the pile of laundry she had been meaning to get to for four days, and tugged it over her head, trying to make herself look at least half presentable.
"Can't we send her away?" Aaron suggested, half-heartedly, already aware of how much of a losing battle that would be.
"It's better if we just let her in, let her see the baby, and then, once she's had her fill, we won't have to see her for about five years. Hopefully." Emily asserted, attempting to fluff her hair in the microwave's reflection before giving up and tugging it up into a bumpy ponytail, fastening it with the hairtie that had been around her wrist.
The doorbell went and they both turned as though it were the cock of a gun.
"I'll get it," Aaron groaned, and Emily shot him a grateful smile, heading straight into the living room to where Ava was in her swing and Jack was sitting at the dining room table, drawing.
"Jack," she said, walking over to him and putting a gentle hand on his hair, stroking it, lovingly, "Don't take too much notice of anything Grandma says, okay?"
Jack looked up at her with curious blue eyes, but she just smiled at him, a smile that fell from her face as soon as she heard the tell tale click-clack on her hardwood floors, the soundtrack of her childhood, the noise that ominously announced the approach of her mother.
"Emily, my darling," Elizabeth swanned into the room, arms open wide, like the loving and affectionate mother she never had been, and enveloped Emily in a hug that felt all wrong and unfamiliar. Over her shoulder, she caught Aaron's eye, and he just shrugged as she furrowed her brows at him, "How are you?"
Shoving her away, Elizabeth held her at arms length, "You look tired."
"I just had a baby, mom," Emily said, deadpan, not at all shocked that the first words out of Elizabeth's mouth could be classified as an insult.
"Oh, yes, my first grandchild," Elizabeth clapped her hands together and Emily ground her teeth together.
"Second," she corrected, wrapping her arm securely around Jack's shoulders.
"Oh, of course, of course," Elizabeth waved a hand, as though to waft away her earlier words, "Jack, how are you?"
Her tone was as it had always been with children; formal and awkward. Jack looked from Elizabeth up to Emily, who gave him a small smile, a reassuring nod and a gentle squeeze into her side.
"I'm okay, grandma," he said, politely, "How are you?"
"Dying to meet my granddaughter," as tone deaf as ever, Elizabeth beamed at Emily, who felt something like possession curl in her chest as she saw the hungry look on Elizabeth's face, and she knew, she had known, the strange ownership Elizabeth already felt for Ava, a child she hadn't even met yet. She wanted, then, to send Eliazabeth away, to keep Ava for herself. She opened her mouth to speak, unsure of what was about to come out of it, but Aaron beat her to it.
"She's over here," he said, from behind her mother, and Elizabeth turned on her heels. Emily followed, right behind her.
The granddaughter in question was stirring, her lullaby having finished, and Emily, supporting herself on the arm of the sofa, knelt slowly down beside the swing and fiddled with the buttons until the song began again.
"Oh," Elizabeth looked down at the tiny bundle, as Emily put gentle fingers on Ava's tiny hand, lowering the arm that had been raised to cover her little face. "She's beautiful," Elizabeth whispered, "Emily, she looks just like you."
And Emily thought that might be the nicest thing her mother had ever said to her. She beamed with pride, staring at the tiny girl in the swing.
Before Ava, Emily was the type of person to say that all newborns looked the same. If somebody had shown her a photograph of Jack at one week old, and Henry at one week old, she was certain she wouldn't be able to tell them apart, regardless of how much she loved them both. Ava, however, was a different story entirely. Ava was the most beautiful newborn she had ever seen, with a shock of dark hair and eyes that were already the same deep brown as both of her parents and therefore, Emily assumed, likely to stay that way. Her pale little eyebrows arched angelically over her eyes, and, already, her eyelashes were shockingly long - the abundance of hair her daughter already had accounted for the heartburn Emily had suffered with throughout the second and third trimester.
She gently pulled back her finger and Ava once again lifted her arm to cover her face, fussing a little in the chair, unhappy about being disturbed.
"She won't stay settled for much longer," Aaron said, knowingly, "Elizabeth, can I get you a drink?"
"Yes, tea." There was no please, and Aaron raised an eyebrow at Emily, who just tilted her head, apologetically, and widened her eyes. He understood her even without words.
Let's just get through this.
"Mom, I wish you'd told us you were going to drop by," Emily said, as Aaron lef the room. The scolding was barely disguised, but Elizabeth either didn't hear it or chose to ignore it. She sat herself down on the sofa, but Emily stayed on the carpet beside Ava, wanting to be the closest one to her when she inevitably started crying, wanting, if she was honest with herself, to pick her up before Elizabeth tried to reach for her.
"I'm your mother, Emily, I don't need an announcement," Elizabeth waved away her words, and then added, "Or an invite." She pursed her lips with disapproval, clearly telling her daughter off in not as many words. Emily immediately felt the need to make excuses, a reminder that even as a grown woman, she hadn't escaped the effect her mother always seemed to have on her, of making her feel like a misbehaving child.
"We're just, we weren't having guests during these first two weeks," Emily said, tiredly, folding her own hands in her lap, "The house is a mess, we're all so exhausted. We've just been settling in with the baby-"
"Nonesense," Elizabeth let out a sharp laugh as Aaron entered the room with her tea, and Ava jumped, her grandmother's laugh effectively ending her nap. Startled, she began to cry as Elizabeth continued, seemingly oblivious, "I was on a plane to Munich two days after giving birth to you."
"Yes, mother, I know," Emily said, tersely, as she reached her hands into the swing, unbuckling the baby and fastening them securely around Ava. She lifted her out of the chair, immediately pulling Ava to her chest. Emily made soothing noises, picking up the pacifier Ava had spat out and putting it into her own mouth as she adjusted her daughter in her arms.
"You shouldn't do that, you know," And here it was, Emily thought, as she met Aaron's eyes over Elizabeth's head, the real reason they hadn't invited her; the unsolicited advice she was about to give that would make Emily's blood boil, because, really, who was Elizabeth to give anybody parenting advice, let alone the daughter she hadn't raised?
Neither Emily nor Aaron prompted her to continue, as he passed Elizabeth her tea and Emily stared, intently, at the babe in her arms, pretending she hadn't heard her mother at all, but Elizabeth went on, anyway.
"Pick her up as soon as she cries, I mean-thank you, Aaron, dear," She took the tea from him and immediately set it down onto the coffee table. Aaron frowned, picked it up again, set a coaster beneath it, and set the mug on top of the coaster. He wiped at the ringmark with his hand, aware of how crazy it would drive his wife, "You're teaching her bad habits."
"Bad habits?" Emily frowned, casting Elizabeth a glance, swaying her hips on the spot, a state that had become second nature to her already, "Mom, she's a week old."
"Nonetheless, if you let her manipulate you like that, you'll regret it," Elizabeth raised her eyebrows, with an air of superiority, as she brought her tea to her lips and Emily found herself wishing she would scald herself, but instead she just blew on her tea, "Give into her now and you'll be doing it for the rest of her life."
Emily bit her tongue, exhaling, hard, through her nose. She found Aaron's eyes, and, seeing the upset there, he turned to Jack.
"Hey, buddy, why don't you take your colours upstairs for a bit and let the grownups talk, huh?" Jack, who liked to spend most of his time in his room anyway, shrugged and gathered up his crayons and paper, obeying his father almost immediately. As soon as he was out of earshot, Emily raised her eyebrows at Elizabeth, feeling triumphant.
"See that?" She said, "Does it look like we let Jack walk all over us?"
Elizabeth, though, shrugged, "Perhaps his mother knew, as I do, the best way to raise a child. Sometimes you have to let them cry it out, Emily, look I'll show you. Here, here," Elizabeth advanced and before Emily could protest, she was lifting Ava's tiny body out of her arms. Something inside of Emily wanted to snap, as Ava wriggled in midair, and a maternal instinct so primal and violent rose to the surface with a velocity so shocking that it scared her. Emily only just managed to restrain herself, clenching her fists and her jaw, in time to hold herself back from physically attacking her mother, reminding herself over and over that Ava wasn't in any danger.
She caught Aaron's eyes over her mother's shoulder, and knew her own were panicked, even as she tried to maintain her calm.
"Let's just put you down here. Your mother is going to spoil you, isn't she?" Elizabeth spoke to her granddaughter in the same tone she used with Jack; a matter-of-fact, business-like tone that one might use with employees or colleagues, but certainly not grandchildren. As always, it grated on Emily. It was the tone of her childhood, and she didn't like it any better now than she had back then. "I mean, really, Emily, who knows more about raising children, you or I?"
"Emily has been raising Jack since-"
"Oh, pish, children are different to babies, Aaron, you know that," Elizabeth cut across him, curtly. Emily squeezed her fists at her side, eyes on Ava, who was wriggling in the swing, crying openly now. Elizabeth, though, folded her arms pertly across her chest and fixed Emily with a stare. "See? It's not hurting her to have a little cry, is it, Em? And it's not hurting you, either."
Emily, though, begged to differ as she felt the familiar ache in her breasts that always accompanied her daughter's cries. She sighed, heavily, and stepped forwards, unable to listen to Ava cry without at least trying to comfort her.
"Mother," Emily said, trying her hardest, and surprisingly succeeding, to keep her voice level as she reached back into the swing and lifted her crying daughter out of it, "My daughter is a week old-"
"Well, regardless-" Elizabeth began, but Emily spoke over her, still keeping her voice level. All too aware of how her own moods could affect the child in her arms, she tried to maintain what little sense of calm that she had right now, but felt on the edge of an eruption.
"No, mother," she said, levelly, "Ava is one. Week. Old. She is a baby." She emphasised the word, as though to remind her "She does not understand what it meant to 'manipulate'," Emily added a little extra venom to the word, even as she stroked a gentle hand down her infant's back, "She didn't ask to be born. We made that choice, Aaron and I, we brought her here. She didn't know hunger or pain or anything uncomfortable until I decided to have her, because I selfishly desired a baby. And we are her only source of comfort in a world she doesn't understand yet. Why the fuck would we deny her that?"
Elizabeth flinched at the curse, but Emily didn't back down, her eyes blazing, a stark contrast to the care with which she held her child. From where he stood, a few paces behind Elizabeth, Hotch looked on, approvingly. He had been about to step in when Emily proved that he didn't need to; she had been dealing with Elizabeth her whole life. Even now, emotional and full of post-partum hormones, she didn't need him to fight her battles.
"She cannot, does not know how to, 'manipulate' me." She said, with a finality. Elizabeth looked on with disapproval, her lips pursed, "And if she wants me to hold her every goddamn minute of the twenty-four hours in a day, then I'll bloody well do so, mother. Even if that does mean 'spoiling' her."
Ava was squawling now, truly screeching, and Emily sighed, heavily, her eyes blazing when she looked at her mother, "And thank you, for this."
She stalked from the room, Ava's cries growing more faint as she stomped up the stairs. Aaron watched his wife go, and then turned his gaze on Elizabeth, who looked at him, her finely stencilled eyebrows raised.
"Did I say something wrong?"
Shortly after that, Elizabeth made her leave. She looked pretty put out as she stalked down the garden path, Aaron waving to her from the door. He really wanted to slam it on her, but knew that Emily would appreciate him trying to keep the peace. She had been arguing with her mother her whole life, it was an integral part of their dynamic. It would be a whole different story if he started to argue with Elizabeth, too, and he knew Emily wouldn't appreciate it, so he bit his tongue and made nice on her behalf.
But he did breathe a sigh of relief when he closed the door and she was gone. It was like a dark cloud was lifted from the house.
He looked up the stairs, and softly called out, "Emily?" As he began to climb them.
Ducking his head into Jack's room, his son looked up at him from the carpet with a smile. He lay on his stomach, kicking his legs back and forth as he drew pictures.
"Hey, buddy," Aaron said, "You okay?"
"I'm okay," Jack nodded, "Did grandma leave?"
"She did," Aaron nodded, stepping into the room, "Yeah, I don't think we'll see her for a while."
"Good," Jack said, then looked thoughtfully down at the paper in front of him. When he met Aaron's eyes again, it was with the sort of startling clarity that a seven year old shouldn't have, "She makes Emmy sad."
Sad, nod mad. Not even after he'd heard Emily's raised voice towards her mother did Jack think badly of her. Perhaps, Aaron thought, not for the first time, profiling skills could be inherited, afterall.
"Emmy is okay," Aaron said, reassuring him, "She's just tired."
As if on cue, Jack yawned, and then Aaron did, too.
"Ava doesn't sleep good." Jack pointed out, matter-of-factly, and Aaron smiled.
"Not yet, but she will," as he said it, he hoped it was true, and then turned, "I'm going to check on Emmy, okay?"
"Okay." Jack said, turning back to the drawing. Aaron looked at it, and saw that it was a bassinet, holding a tiny little person with a pink bow. He smiled, love for his son sharp in his chest, and pulled the door as he stepped out into the hallway and made his way to the master bedroom.
"Em?" He said, softly, as he pushed the door open, half expecting to find both of his girls asleep, since he couldn't hear Ava's cries. The bedroom, though, was empty. He frowned, and called to her again, "Em?"
"In here." The soft call came from the bathroom, was barely audible, and Hotch followed her voice, stopping in the doorway at what he saw.
Emily, fully clothed, laying in the bath with Ava on her chest.
"I didn't think it would work without the water," she whispered, eyes downcast on her daughter's head as she stroked a gentle finger over Ava's crown, "But I got in anyway, just to try it. I was going to turn on the water, but she stopped crying almost instantly."
With a smile, Aaron settled himself down onto the toilet lid, clasping his hands in front of himself as he looked at his two girls. Emily didn't look particularly comfortable, but he knew better than to ask to take Ava right now, knew that she was bringing Emily as much comfort as Emily was bringing her.
Instead, he asked, "Are you okay?"
Emily waited a moment before answering, and Hotch saw the tension in her brow as she tried to find the right words. Eventually, she inhaled, slowly, and let all of the air go before answering him, "She just infuriates me."
"I know," he nodded, completely understanding, "I know. She always manages to say the wrong thing."
"It's not even that," Emily began, "I mean, yes, you're right, she does that, too, but it's more than that." She shook her head, started to say, "It's stupid-" but Aaron cut her off.
"It's not stupid," he said, earnestly, "It's not stupid, Em. Talk to me."
She fixed him with a stare, then, and he knew he was the person she trusted most in the world, knew she would lay down her life for him, that she would trust him to do the same for her, but there were still aspects of her life she hadn't completely shared with him yet, and her childhood was one of them. He knew the basics, knew the bones of the sore relationship she had with her mother, but the rest of it, the intricate details that patterned together to illustrate her tapestry of hurt, she kept closer to her heart than she should, close enough that it still huirt.
"She rushed to see Ava," she started, slowly, "She tried to tell me how to parent, tried to tell me what's best for my baby, because she has Ava's best interests at heart," Aaron scoffed and Emily rolled her eyes, "Or, she thinks she does." Again, she shrugged, "I don't know. I suppose I'm… jealous."
"Of Ava?" Aaron kept his face impassive, working hard to understand where she was coming from.
"Yeah," Emily touched her nose to her daughter's head, breathing in the evolutionarily enticing scent of baby that made her head rush and her heart swell, "Seems my mom cares more about her than she ever did about me." She looked up at Aaron, desperation in her eyes as she realised what she'd admitted out loud, "And, of course, I want people to-I want you to love her more than you love me, but-my own mother?" Her brows sloped down, confusion mingling with all of her other emotions, and he saw a twinge of guilt there, too, "Why couldn't she have loved me as much as she loves Ava?"
Aaron knew how much it took for her to say that; everything. Even before Ava, Emily couldn't admit how much she had craved her mother's love, as a child and into her adult years. She never spoke of how it hurt, Elizabeth's indifference, but he knew. He'd seen it in the way she still searched for her mother's approval, even as she simultaneously pushed away from her. He'd seen it in the way she always sent Elizabeth birthday and Christmas cards, even though she never got those in return. He'd seen it when Emily was in labour, when she cried out for her mother, and then made no mention of it afterwards.
He nodded. Even if nobody else would have understood, he did. He understood everything about her, everything she let him in on. He made it his mission to understand her, to help her.
"It's not crazy," Aaron said, shaking his head, "And it's not selfish. And it doesn't make you a bad mother, or mean you love her any less," At this, he exhaled, a short laugh of air, "God, no one could accuse you of not loving her, Em. I saw you when your mom took her from you. I thought we were going to be cleaning up a murder scene."
Emily raised one eyebrow, thinking back on the primal instinct that had grasped hold of her, "We almost were," she muttered, darkly, and Aaron laughed, again.
"See," he said, "You love her. You love her like a mother should. You're not the one who's wrong here, Em." His tone turned serious, as did his eyes, as he implored her to understand, "Your mom is. Every child deserves a mother who loves them as much as you love Ava, as much as you love Jack."
At this, she looked up at him, craning her neck, which was growing sore against the porcelain of the bath. There was an innocence, a sadness, in her eyes that he knew was much more to do with her exhaustion than it was to do with her interaction with Elizabeth. Her lack of sleep and her influx of hormones were catching up with her, and her bottom lip wobbled, adorably, when she spoke.
"I love them so much," she said, her voice cracking, "I just…I don't want to be like her."
"You're not," Aaron replied, instantly, shaking his head and, standing up off of the toilet seat, he reached down to take Ava from her chest. Emily didn't protest, and Ava didn't stir. Aaron leaned back, balancing her, instead, on his own chest. Supporting her with one hand, he offered Emily the other and she hauled herself out of the tub.
"Come on," he told her, "You should sleep while she sleeps."
"I won't be able to sleep," Emily said, sadly, even as she yawned, as widely as Jack had.
"Sure you will," Aaron pressed a kiss to her temple as they walked towards the bed, "Sleep now. We'll continue the fight against generational trauma tomorrow."
Emily punched him, lightly in the ribs, "Shut up," she said, but she was smiling, and she lay down as he pulled back the comforter for her. "I love you."
"We love you, too, mommy."
taglist: @hopefulfangirl24 @thebewingedjewelcat @platypus-whit-boots @luhwithah @cvtsbutcut3 @acetheticlytired @ccmattis-22 @duchessas @scorpiofangirl1109 @natasha-barton @lil-koala @themetaphorgirl @sequinsmile-x @emobabeyy @my-mummy-dust @section-chief-prentiss @canyouhearmyfear @psychicmuffinpandasludge @loriprentiss @bingetvcarls @thenerdthatwrites @daffodil-heart
Part of the Hotchner's Future AU.
fic #1 for my Graduation Celebration
Emily and Aaron's kids catch them in a...compromising position. The kids are disgusted, Aaron thinks it's kinda funny, Emily is in a panic. Aaron is right.
wordcount: 3.4k
based on a prompt i recieved a while ago by a sweet nonny to write this based on the Modern Family episode 'Caught in the Act'. I had fun writing it nonny, thanks for the prompt <3
read on ao3 or fanfiction.net
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It was kind of a myth in the Hotchner household.
Even before she and Aaron were ever together, Emily never really knew the benefit of having a saturday off. In their line of work, a 'weekend' didn't really exist; if there was a serial killer out doing their thing, the BAU didn't get a weekend.
Then, for Aaron, Jack came along, and any window of leisure time he had grew narrower still, especially after Haley's death when he became a single father juggling parenthood and his work, and then their relationship, too.
There was a brief period of time somewhere in their early years of dating, probably when Jack was around six, and during the occasional weekend they magically weren't working, when those weekends fell on Jessica's weekend to have Jack, or holiday's Haley's parents would take him on, when they infrequently got a day off together. Even before they tied the knot, they used to refer to it as marital bliss.
Staying up late together, talking about everything in the midnight hours, sleeping in late, breakfast in bed and sex.
Lots of sex.
Early on in their relationship, they were, for lack of a better word, feral for one another. It became somewhat unbearable for their friends to be around, occasionally.
But sex leads to babies. Three babies, actually. Three babies who were very much loved and wanted, but who followed in Jack's footsteps and continued to absorb the limited time that Aaron and Emily got to themselves. That time was all but nonexistent by the time Alex, their final baby, came along.
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taglist: @hopefulfangirl24 @thebewingedjewelcat @platypus-whit-boots @luhwithah @cvtsbutcut3 @acetheticlytired @ccmattis-22 @duchessas @lucreziaq2001 @scorpiofangirl1109 @natasha-barton @lil-koala @themetaphorgirl @sequinsmile-x @emobabeyy @my-mummy-dust @section-chief-prentiss @canyouhearmyfear @psychicmuffinpandasludge @loriprentiss @bingetvcarls @thenerdthatwrites @daffodil-heart
Honestly I’d read anything about girl mom Emily 😭 ava and livie my beloveds!!!
you're such a sweetheart I love you!!!! i love those girls so much too ❣️ I miss them, I have to write some more for them.
I have a budding idea about Emily being at home with the three young kids and feeing Touched Out when Aaron gets home but we'll have to see if she grows into anything
GOOD CRAZY
A Hotchner's Future AU fanfiction.
Jack is expecting, yet somehow it's Aaron and Emily who are in crisis.
Chapter 1/3
read on ao3 or fanfiction.net
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taglist: @hopefulfangirl24 @thebewingedjewelcat @platypus-whit-boots @luhwithah @cvtsbutcut3 @acetheticlytired @ccmattis-22 @duchessas @lucreziaq2001 @scorpiofangirl1109 @natasha-barton @lil-koala @themetaphorgirl @sequinsmile-x @emobabeyy @my-mummy-dust @section-chief-prentiss @canyouhearmyfear @psychicmuffinpandasludge @loriprentiss @bingetvcarls @thenerdthatwrites @daffodil-heart
send me in some hotchners family au prompts <3 i wanna write some fluffy one-shots before i get into something longer and more stressful again x