Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first time it happens, they haven’t been together long.

It isn’t the first time he’s slept over at hers, but it’s still new enough he has to think about the layout of her bedroom if he gets up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, his shins bruised from walking into her dresser more than once. At first, he isn’t sure what has woken him up. He groans when he checks the time, blinking to clear his vision in the darkness of the room.

That’s when he hears it, a pained whimper from the woman pressed up against him, her grip on his shirt tightening, her nails digging into his skin through the thin material.

“Em?” He asks, switching on the lamp on the nightstand, “Are you…” He trails off when he realises she’s sleeping, her face screwed up in distress as she mutters something he doesn’t quite hear, whatever monster she’s fighting in her dream making her fold in on herself as she twists in his arms. His heart feels like it’s in a vice, wound tighter together with guilt and sorrow as she whimpers again, “Oh, sweetheart.”

He was no stranger to nightmares himself. He’d wake up sometimes, his breath caught in his chest as he felt the blade of Foyet’s knife, or the warmth of Haley’s blood against his skin, his knuckles aching, scars that had long since healed about to burst open. At first, he’d barely slept when he got back from the hospital. His apartment quiet even though it had never been the home he’d shared with Haley and Jack, and every sound he heard was Foyet coming back to finish the job. Sleep only found him when he was away on cases. Cheap, lumpy mattresses more of a safe space than the place he lived. He’d still wake up from nightmares though, unsure if he’d actually screamed or if he’d imagined it. The echo of his dream following him into consciousness, his past only ever one step behind him - its hand stretched out to pull him back in.

When Jack came back home, the house Aaron had bought with Haley now a wretched tomb instead of the place he’d once found sanctuary, he had nightmares too. His brain filling in the gaps of all he’d heard when he was lying in the chest in his father’s office, his monsters real and tangible when he would wake up screaming for the mother he’d never get to truly know.

Aaron gathers Emily closer, easily sitting up with her in his arms. Despite his instinct to do so, he doesn’t hold her any tighter, doesn’t want to restrict her movement as he holds her lightly to his chest. The last thing he wants to do is make her nightmare worse, to add to it, so he sits there and rubs his hand up and down her back, repeatedly pressing kisses to any part of her face that he can reach, murmuring against her skin the entire time as he slowly draws her back to him.

“You’re okay.”

“You’re safe.”

“You survived.”

She wakes suddenly, tense and stiff in his arms as she pulls herself out of his embrace, her eyes wide as he willingly lets her go, “Em, sweetheart, it’s just me.”

She looks at him, her eyes wild and shining, her chest heaving as she looks around, her gaze finally locking on him, “Aaron?”

She sounds so ragged, so unlike her, that it takes everything in him to not reach out and touch her, well aware from experience that it needed to be her who initiated any physical contact.

“Yes, baby,” he says, painting on a soft smile he does feel connected to, the expression misplaced in the heaviness of her bedroom but hopefully reassuring, “It’s me. It’s Aaron.”

She sinks into him, her forehead against his neck as she breathes him in, her chest shuddering so hard he feels it, the stutter of her ribcage against his palms as he pulls her closer.

“Fuck…I…” she trails off, her words stuck in her throat, her grip on him tightening as he tucks her against his chest, feels the shiver of her shoulders even though her skin is warm to the touch.

“I’ve got you,” he says, kissing her forehead, her temple, anywhere he could reach again, “I’ve got you.”

She shifts, curled up in a way he’s sure must be uncomfortable, her cheek pressed against his chest so she can feel his heartbeat, “Can you…can you talk?”

“About what, sweetheart?” He asks, desperate to help her in any way he can.

“Anything,” she breathes out, “Please just…anything. I need to…”

She doesn’t have to say anything else, doesn’t have to tell him that she just needs to think of something other than the cold warehouse floor where she’d almost died. Where she had died. He says the first thing that comes to mind.

“Did I tell you that Jack’s teacher pulled me aside today?”

She huffs out a shaky breath and shakes her head, “No.”

“Well,” he says, resting his cheek on top of her head, his hand still moving in soothing circles on her back, “Apparently, a new kid called Caleb was being bullied by someone else in their class, and after Caleb was pushed in a puddle by this kid, Jack jumped in after him.”

She chuckles breathlessly and pulls back to look at him, her eyes still shining, sticky tracks smudged down her cheeks, “He jumped in?”

Aaron hums and nods, wiping her cheeks, “The teacher had to tell me because he had to change into his spare clothes. She wanted to explain why the clothes he went to school in were covered in mud.”

She closes her eyes and shakes her head, “He’s a sweet kid,” she says, pressing her forehead against his.

“He told me he wanted to make sure Caleb was okay, and that he knew he had a friend.”

She smiles and kisses him, her lips against his for just long enough to press the taste of her tears against his, “Like father, like son.”

He kisses her, his hand around the back of her neck as he holds her in place, his nails scratching at her scalp when he feels her now even breath skip across his face, “Want to talk about it?”

She shrugs, her lips pressed together as she swallows thickly, “Not really.”

He nods, understanding more than most, and he encourages her to sit against him, her side against his chest as she snuggles back into him, “Want to hear more about what Jack got up to today?”

He feels her smile against his neck, a silent answer before she whispers her response, “Yes please.”
___

At first, she thinks the baby has woken her up.

She groans, her hands automatically drifting to her stomach, the curve beneath her palm making her smile just like it always did. She was enjoying the changes to her body, loved that she actually looked pregnant now and not just like she’d had a big meal, but she could do without the frequent trips to the bathroom. She’s about to quietly chastise the baby, whisper her usual half-hearted annoyance to her son about being woken up because he’d kicked her bladder, when she realises he hasn’t woken her up at all.

Aaron tightens his grip on her even in sleep, his arm heavy over where her waist used to be, his hand in a fist around the covers lying over her. He’s murmuring something she can’t quite catch under his breath, his body tense as he pulls her closer, protecting her from whatever it was he could see in his dream.

The first time she’d had a nightmare in front of him, she’d been embarrassed. She’d pressed her face against his chest as he told her all about his son, now their son, and apologised, cutting him off halfway through his story about Jack’s obsession with the sharks at the aquarium. Aaron had kissed her, his lips still just about touching hers when he told her she had nothing to apologise for, that he knew all too well how it felt to be haunted by a dead man.

She knew he was telling the truth, but it was confirmed just a few days later after she woke up to him knocking on her hotel room door in the middle of the night, breaking their rule of never on cases less than six weeks after they’d set it. His eyes had been wild and shining when she’d opened the door wearing one of his shirts, something she’d stolen to try and settle herself that night, already too used to sleeping next to him. She’d known what had happened without him saying anything, the look on his face, the half-crescent indents in his palms gave him away immediately. She’d pulled him into her room and locked the door behind them and led him over to her bed. He’d curled up against her, his head against her chest in a way that made him seem like a little boy, an image distorted by his large hand grasping at her waist, his thumb and little finger skimming her ribcage and her hipbone.

In some ways, she hated that they had this in common, that they each knew what it was like to stare into the abyss and have it stare back, but in another way, one that felt entirely selfish, she was glad he understood. Sure that she would never have been able to let herself fall apart in front of someone who didn’t understand as he did, the knowledge that he knew what it was like was enough to let her let him pick up all the pieces of her and slot them back into place.

He was, after all, the only one who knew where all the pieces went.

She rests her hand over his and eases it away from the comforter, sandwiching it between the two of hers as she lifts their hands to her face, first pressing her cheek against his knuckles before she starts to kiss them one by one. Focusing on the scars she doesn’t need to see to know where they are, evidence of when he’d torn himself apart for vengeance for the last woman he’d loved.

She draws him back to her, feels his grip briefly tighten before he tenses behind her, his breath harsh and fast against the back of her neck.

“You’re okay,” she says quietly, unwrapping one of her hands from around his to switch on the lamp on the nightstand, still squeezing his hand tightly with the other, “It was just a dream.”

“Em?”

She hums and sits up, scratching her nails across his scalp as she encourages him to look up at her, “It’s me, sweetheart,” she assures him, “It’s your Em.”

She usually called him honey. It was the first nickname she’d tried on him, the taste of it as sweet as the nectar it was named after, as sweet as the smile on his face when she called him it. She only ever called him sweetheart in moments like this, when he looked afraid as if he’d somehow lost everything again, because it always made her feel better when that’s what he called her.

He slides towards her, only sitting up enough to rest his head on her chest, his cheek against her breast as he places his arm over her bump, his palm resting where he knew their little boy kicked the most. They lay in silence for a little while, her nails scratching idle patterns on his scalp as his breathing slowly returned to normal, the warmth of it fanning out against her skin.

“You know,” she says eventually, resting her cheek on top of his head as she wraps her arms around him, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this was just an excuse to press your face against my breasts.”

He laughs, a broken sound that cheers her up nonetheless. He turns his head just enough to kiss the closest bit of skin he can, his lips catching the edge of the brand left behind by a man who had once killed her.

“You’ve got me,” he says wryly, his voice cracking still, “I can’t believe you saw through my plan.”

She smiles and kisses the top of his before she rests her cheek against it again, wanting him as close as possible. They turn serious again, as they always did on nights like these, and she whispers, “Want to talk about it?”

“No,” he replies, and she knows it’s because she’s heard it all before, that it was nothing new, so she seeks out his hand, linking their fingers over where their son rolled beneath her skin.

“Jack told me he had some ideas for how we could decorate the nursery today.”

She feels his smile against her skin, feels the way he clears his throat, their tradition something they both held fondly. It had started that first night when she’d been torn from sleep, unfocused and panicking as she asked him to talk about anything and he’d spoken about Jack. It was something they carried on doing, idly talking about the little boy, even if it was something the other knew, until they felt better or fell asleep. She knew that soon enough their son would be in the mix too, that they’d talk about him as well as his older brother. A much needed reminder of what they’d survived everything for, what they had now they’d fought their way here.

“Oh yeah?”

She hums, “Apparently,” she says, smiling as the baby kicks, “He thinks the baby will like dinosaurs.”

He chuckles, his laugh already sounding more like his own, and he tilts his head to look up at her, his smile soft and his eyes looking like nothing short of the future, “I guess I’d better find some dinosaur stencils for the walls then.”

She leans down to kiss him, ignoring the crick in her neck, and smiles as she pulls back, “Yes, I think you should.”

Chapter Text

Aaron smiles as the alarm on the nightstand goes off, the sound immediately chased by his girlfriend’s groan, her face pressed against his neck before he even has a chance to switch it off.

“Morning sweetheart,” he rasps out, his voice thick with sleep and misuse. He hides his smile in Emily’s hair when she grumbles, curling herself around him until she is practically lying on top of him. He kisses the top of her head and runs his hand up and down her back. His fingers drift beneath the hem of the shirt she’s wearing, one that used to belong to him, and he gives himself a moment to revel in the softness of her skin, of the feel of her pressed against him before he had to go back to pretending she was just another member of his team.

They’d been together for almost 6 months, a hesitant kiss she’d pressed against his lips one night after dinner turning into what they had now. A loving relationship they both treasured, something they knew was it for both of them, the happy ending they both deserved after everything they’d been through. At first, the secrecy was practical. Something that served them well as they got used to the change in their relationship. Both of them keen to make sure they had a solid foundation before anyone else became involved, before anyone else’s opinions could test the strength of what they’d built around them.

As time went on, it got harder to figure out how to tell the team, their family, about them. Jack and Jessica knew and were both happy for them - Aaron still remembered the glint in his ex-sister-in-laws eyes when he told her, an edge of I knew it to her smile that reminded him so much of Haley that it made him ache. Jessica had told him since that Haley would be happy for him, that before she and Jack had gone into hiding she’d told her that she was sure he was seeing Emily then. That she was furious that she couldn’t even be mad if she was right because Emily was nice and annoyingly beautiful. It strangely felt like approval from his ex-wife, the knowledge that she’d known there was something between him and Emily before he’d admit it to himself easing the last piece of guilt he’d felt for loving someone else.

Telling the team felt like nothing short of opening their relationship to criticism. Overall he knows they’d be happy for them, but any change to the team dynamic always came with difficulties and he wasn’t naive enough to believe there wouldn’t be any issues or strong opinions.

“I should go back to my room,” he says, kissing her head again when she whines, shaking her head against him, pulling back to look at him, her eyes bleary as she opens them, a pout she’d deny later painted across her face.

“No,” she replies, leaning up to kiss him, her hand on his cheek as she holds him in place, only leaning back enough to speak, “Stay.”

The way she looks at him, nothing but adoration and happiness shining in her eyes, makes him consider it. Makes him think about quitting his job there and then and staying in his hotel bed with her forever. He shakes it off, smiling as he kisses her, his hand hooked around the back of her neck.

“I’d love to sweetheart,” he says, scratching lightly at her scalp, the shiver he causes travelling down to his palm on her back, “But eventually the others would come looking for us, and I don’t think this is the best way for them to find out about us.”

She hums but nods, stamping a kiss against his lips one more time before she pulls back, rolling her neck as she sits up, “We should tell them soon, only if it means I no longer have to wake up at the crack of dawn so you can sneak back to your room.”

He smiles as she flops back down onto the bed when he stands up. She grabs the pillow he’d been using and hugs it against her chest, her face pressed into it as her eyes drift closed. He leans down and kisses her temple, “I set your alarm for you,” he says, and she turns her head to capture his lips in a sleepy kiss, “I’ll see you downstairs for breakfast.”

She hums, gripping his chin to kiss him again before she lets him go, “Love you.”

“Love you too.”
___

She was going to kill him.

First, she was going to make sure he was okay, then she was going kiss him and tell him she loved him, and then she was going to kill him.

It was only supposed to be an interview. He’d left the precinct with little fanfare, throwing her a smile no one else saw, and she focused on victimology, keen to solve the case as soon as possible so they could get home and go back to being Aaron and Emily rather than Hotch and Prentiss.

She’d loved the secrecy at first, loved the edge it added to everything, but now she wanted more than anything to share the news with their friends so they could move forward together. She’d run it over in her head over and over again, predicting their reactions from what she assumed would be Penelope’s delight to Derek’s distrust. She’d imagined telling them at Dave’s, pasta night now a permanent fixture in their diaries, Aaron’s arm around her waist as they answered every question thrown at them.

She hadn’t pictured this - her reaction to a call from Dave saying Aaron had been hurt - to be what gave them away. It had happened quickly, her eyes wide as she demanded what was wrong with him, why he needed to be taken to the hospital, his first name slipping past his lips as she snatched Derek’s phone from him and asked Dave a barrage of questions, anger mixing in with her frustration to make her stomach churn when she finds out Aaron had been injured after being pushed down a flight of stairs when trying to apprehend the interviewee turned apparent unsub.

As soon as she realised she’d given their relationship away she’d cursed herself, and her boyfriend for making her love him so much, and she couldn’t help but wonder when he’d snuck under her defences like he had. When he’d rendered them entirely useless and left her so vulnerable.

Even though she’d seen the shock on the team's faces, watched as it registered bit by bit, she was grateful that they hadn’t asked any questions - a luxury she knew they wouldn’t afford her as soon as they knew Aaron was okay. She drives to the hospital, shaking off JJ’s offer to take her, her hands tight on the steering wheel as she drives just over the speed limit.

When she makes it to the waiting room Dave is already there, a knowing smile on his face that makes her clench her teeth.

“Don’t,” she says through gritted teeth, and the bastard’s smile gets briefly wider as he stands up and pats her on the shoulder.

“Wouldn’t dare, Bella,” he says, squeezing her shoulder, “He’s okay,” he assures her, “He’s getting the results of his x-ray and then he should be free to go,” his smile turns into a smirk, “You might have to convince him to take some painkillers but I’m sure you have your ways.”

She glares at him, “Dave I swear to God-”

“Em?”

She turns at the sound of Aaron’s voice and relief washes over her as she walks over, throwing herself at him with little thought about their friend standing just a few feet behind them. Her hands land on his cheeks as she pulls him in for a series of short, sharp, kisses full of frustration and love and everything in between. She’s talking at him every time she pulls back, a stream of consciousness she breathes against him in between kisses.

“I love you.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“I love you so fucking much.”

“As soon as you’re better I’m going to kill you.”

It’s only when she hugs him, her arms tight around his middle, his response a wince even as he wraps his arms around her, when her brain catches up with her and she pulls back just enough to look at him, finally looking over him for injuries.

“I’m okay, sweetheart,” he says, “The worst of it is a few cracked ribs.”

She huffs out a breath, her hands delicate at his sides as she nods, “Okay, let's get you back to the hotel.”

He frowns, “Em, no there’s still paperwork-”

“You’re hurt,” she says firmly as she cuts over him, irritation licking at her insides as she finally turns to look at Dave, her arm still around Aaron’s waist, “Dave can take care of things at the precinct, can’t you Dave?”

He nods, clearly attempting to hide a smile as he walks over to them, “Of course. I’ll also arrange for the jet to pick us up tomorrow,” he smirks, “Give you a chance to rest up.” He clears his throat when Emily raises her eyebrow at him, “I’ll also make sure the others give you some space. Although, I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to hold them back once Garcia finds out.”

“Oh God,” Emily groans, her free hand pressed against the bridge of her nose, “I forgot about Pen.”
___

He didn’t have to be good at his job to know she was mad at him.

She looks after him when they get back to his hotel room, forcing him to take painkillers before she orders room service for them, determined that he isn’t going to do anything for the rest of the day other than relax. He doesn’t miss her intake of breath when she helps him take off her shirt, how her gaze lingers on the already dark purple bruises littering his abdomen.

He waits her out for a couple of hours and lets her sit stiffly next to him on the bed, her arms crossed as she switches between TV channels to seek out something she deems suitably trashy. It’s only when he hears the rest of the team get back to the hotel, their voices muffled in the hallway as they split out into their rooms.

“Sweetheart,” he says, and she hums, her gaze still fixed on the TV, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” she replies, her jaw visibly tight, “My boyfriend threw himself down a flight of concrete stairs today when chasing a would-be serial killer, and could have seriously injured or killed himself. What could possibly be wrong?”

He sighs, his gaze fixed on her profile as she continues to stare at the TV, “Em-”

“I’m just so angry at you,” she says, shaking her head as she finally turns to look at him, idly picking at her cuticles as she does so.

He frowns, reaching out for her hand as concern churns in his gut. He rarely compared the two women he’d been lucky enough to love, but this felt familiar, and her frustration at his job, their job forces old arguments with Haley to the front of his mind.

“I had to go after him. You know that.”

She practically growls at him, wrenching her hand out of his as she crosses her arms over her chest, “I’m not angry at you for doing your job, Aaron. I’m angry at you for making me love you this much.”

The moment she says it she wishes she could take it back. She folds in on herself, feeling more exposed and vulnerable than she has in a long time.

He sighs, “Sweetheart-”

“It would destroy me if I lost you,” she cuts him off, her jaw tight as she wills herself not to cry, “I’ve…I’ve never loved someone like that before and it makes me furious. And terrified”
He stares at her and reaches out, barely covering a wince as the movement pulls at his ribs when he tucks some of her hair behind her ear, “It terrifies me too.”

She laughs humourlessly, shaking her head at his simple confession as she wipes a stray tear from her cheek, “How do you bear it?”

He links their hands together, sighing as he encourages her closer, “I just tell myself that loving you is worth whatever comes afterwards, whether that’s in 5 years or 50.”

She bites her lower lip, the smile she can feel burning in her cheeks feeling wrong given the day they’ve had, but she can’t help herself. She kisses him briefly before she rests her forehead against his.

“Let’s aim for 50, okay?” She says quietly, closing her eyes as she lets herself imagine it, a future stretched out ahead of them where they had a home together, where they were married and had more kids. A life she’d always secretly wanted but thought was beyond her until she’d let herself love him.

He nods, his forehead knocking slightly against hers, “50 years it is.”

Chapter Text

Aaron smiles as Jack presses his face against the window of Jess’s car and he returns his son’s enthusiastic wave as the car pulls off the drive and disappears from sight. He sighs contentedly and closes the front door, cursing himself under his breath when he checks the time on his watch. He was running late.

It was date night, the last before Emily gave birth to their daughter, and Aaron was looking forward to some already rare, about to be even rarer, alone time with his wife. She was exhausted and incredibly uncomfortable, and despite his offer that he would go and get her favourite food for dinner and bring it home, Emily was insistent on going out, her smile wry as she explained that she wanted to dress up and go to a restaurant before she became their daughter’s own personal restaurant.

He walks upstairs and into the bedroom, smiling at the sound of Emily’s humming, the nameless tune only slightly muffled by the closed bathroom door. He steps towards the closet with the aim of picking out what to wear that evening but he’s stopped in his tracks by the sound of a pained yelp replacing the humming followed by a loud curse.

“Fuck.”

He’s moving before he can think about it, bursting through the bathroom, entirely prepared to find his wife in labour, “Em, is it time…” he trails off at the sight of her sitting on the edge of the bath, one of her feet propped up next to her. She’s wearing one of her maternity bras and he can see a flash of her matching underwear, the majority of it hidden by her bump. His eyes drop to her hand, her razor glinting in the bathroom light, and the small smear of blood on her ankle.

“Damn it,” she grumbles, not looking up at him, “I can’t get a good angle on this,” she huffs, her bangs briefly flying upwards, pushed around by her irritation, “She’s in the way.”

He smiles at her and opens the medicine cabinet, grabbing the small first aid kit before he offers her a hand and encourages her over to the toilet, quickly pushing the seat closed so she can sit down, “You don’t have to shave sweetheart,” he says, kneeling on the bathroom floor and tugging her injured ankle into his lap, dabbing at the small cut that had already stopped bleeding, “You’re 9 months pregnant.”

“I do know that,” she grumbles, grimacing at the slight sting of the antiseptic wipe he traces back and forth over her ankle, “But it’s date night.”

He can’t help but smile up at her, love threatening to burst out of his chest at the slight pout on her face, “I know it is, baby,” he says, squeezing her ankle, his smile getting wider when her eyes meet his, “But you don’t have to do this for me.”

“I wasn’t doing it for you,” she replies, furrowing her brows, her arms crossed over the top of her bump, her hand instinctively soothing the spot where she can feel their daughter’s heel pressing up from inside of her, “I was doing it for me,” she says, sighing when he frowns, closing her eyes so she’s not looking at him when she carries on, embarrassment burning in her cheeks, “I just wanted to feel good about myself.”

At first, she’d loved the changes to her body, a soft smile on her face every time he’d catch her looking at herself in the mirror, her shirt tucked up under her breasts as she ran her hand up and down the curve of her belly. As the months went by and she got more uncomfortable, as her body started to feel less and less like her own, she struggled. She was self-conscious in a way she didn’t remember being since she was a teenager, and no matter how much Aaron told her that she was beautiful, no matter how much he made it clear how much he still wanted her, it didn’t help. All she’d wanted this evening was to go on a date with her husband and feel attractive, and it felt like a battle she had already lost because of her inability to get a good angle around her bump to shave her damn legs.

“Em-”

“I know it’s silly,” she says, clenching her teeth, irritation building in her chest in tandem with the tears burning in her eyes.

“It isn’t silly,” he says, leaning forward to press a kiss to her knee, smiling up at her, “I was going to offer to shave them for you.”

She frowns at him, her eyebrows pinching together as she tilts her head, “What?”

“If it will make you feel better,” he offers, “I can shave your legs for you.”

She hums thoughtfully, narrowing her eyes ever so slightly, the offer as tempting as it was adorable, “Do you know what you’re doing?”

He beams at her, his dimples carved out deeply in his cheeks as he stands up and kisses her forehead, “I’ve been shaving my face for thirty years-”

“A true crime against humanity-”

“I think I can figure it out,” he says, carrying on as if she hadn’t interrupted him, her love for her beard well established. He smiles as he picks up her razor from where she’d abandoned it on the side of the bath and a towel that he lays on the floor at her feet, “I’ll even use my fancy warming shaving foam.”

She presses her lips together, her upset at being unable to do this herself gone in an instant, chased away by his love for her. “Okay fine,” she says, smiling as he starts to fill the basin next to the toilet, “But be careful of my ankles. And my knees.”

He’s as gentle as ever with her as he carefully wets her left leg and then rubs shaving foam into her skin. She watches as his face pinches together with concentration, an expression she only used to see when he was hunched over paperwork or case files as they worked, as he drags the razor up her leg and then swirls it in the basin next to them before he repeats the action again and again. He dries her skin carefully with the towel, and she sighs contentedly as he switches over to the other leg and she places her hands on her bump, rubbing a soothing circle over where the baby was moving.

“How are my girls doing?” Aaron asks, smiling up at her before he returns his attention to her right leg.

“We’re okay,” she smiles, “She’s kicking a lot. I think she’s excited for date night.” She feels insecurity flood through her again as she thinks about their date, “Although that’s because she doesn’t have to figure out what tarp of a dress she has to wear tonight.”

He squeezes her knee at the self-depreciation in her voice and presses his lips together, “Em, you look gorgeous no matter what.”

She chuckles humourlessly, “On our first date I wore a dress I think would get me arrested for indecent exposure in some countries,” she grumbles, a smile flickering across her face as he raises his eyebrow at her, “Now everything that fits me could be used to cover the Potomac…or to hold the trash of our entire neighbourhood.”

He suppresses a laugh, knowing she’d be mad at him even though she’d been the one to make a joke, “You’d be beautiful in anything,” he says, repeating his earlier sentiment, a smile flickering across his face, “Even a trash bag.”

“If I’m pregnant much longer that might be my only option,” she replies dryly, tilting her head down to look at her bump, her skin shifting as her daughter moved beneath it, “You, Little Miss Hotchner, are being evicted in the next 7 days if you like it or not.” She was counting down the days to her scheduled induction but she hoped she’d go into labour naturally beforehand. She was as keen to no longer be pregnant as she was to meet her little girl, to see her face and smell her skin and feel the weight of her against her chest. It was something instinctual that she couldn’t fight if she wanted to, her impatience when it came to having her baby increasing with every passing day since she had hit full term. She looks at her husband, “It’s not just because I feel…not like myself. I wish she could just be here already. I want to hold her.”

“I know sweetheart,” he says, smiling at the explanation they both know is unnecessary. They often said that they could read each other's minds, something their friends often joked about too. So much between them didn’t need to be said, their understanding of each other primal, like something they’d both been born with. Something that had laid dormant until they met and got to know each other. Until they fell in love with each other. “You’ve made a good home for her,” he says, placing her razor down on the counter as he finishes his task, inspecting his work closely to make sure he hasn’t missed any areas, “She’s warm and cosy and safe,” he smiles as their eyes meet, “And that’s exactly what she’ll be when she’s in our arms too.”

He dries her right leg and he drops a kiss on her knee and then her thigh. He smiles against her skin when she gasps at the unexpected sensation, something she feels instead of sees. He switches over to her other thigh, leaving a trail of kisses until reaches the seam of her underwear, a small strip of it visible over her hip, his love a gentle tattoo against her skin.

“You’re beautiful,” he says again, kissing her bump, smiling when the baby kicks, “You too princess,” he stands up and kisses Emily soundly on the mouth, his hands on her cheeks as he holds her in place, “I love you.”

She hums, her hand tangling into his hair as she pulls him back in, fire catching in her blood, the first sparks of it flickering where the ghost of his kisses against her thighs still lingered. It never failed to amaze her that he could make her feel like this. That no matter what he could make her feel beautiful and sexy and desirable.

“I love you too,” she smiles and kisses him again, “Thank you for shaving my legs,” she says, her cheeks warm with embarrassment she doesn’t understand, “You did a good job. I might ask you to carry on doing it even after she’s here,” she jokes and he smiles before he leans in to kiss her.

“I’ll do whatever you want me to do,” he replies, barely pulling back far enough to speak, “You know that.”

She sinks her teeth into his lower lip, familiar desire licking at her insides again, “Maybe we should just stay here.”

He smiles and helps her up his hands in hers as she settles against him, their daughter pressed between them, “Let’s still go for dinner,” he says, kissing her, smirking when she pouts in disappointment again, “And then come back here for dessert.”

She beams at him and runs her fingers through his hair, “You’ve got a deal.”

She goes into labour at the restaurant, her waters breaking before they even get their appetizers. Aaron is grateful that he already had the hospital bag packed and ready in the trunk of the car, pleased that they didn’t have to go home to get it to then immediately leave for the hospital.

When their daughter is born in the early hours of the morning, bright pink and wailing as she’s passed into Emily’s shaking hands, her smile is wide as tears stream down her cheeks. Aaron tells her that she’s never been more beautiful and he takes a picture of them both the moment they are alone. Despite her exhaustion, and the remnants of the make-up she’d put on for their date night caught in her bottom lashes - the removal wipes the nurse had given her not quite catching all of it - and her hair stuck to her forehead with sweat, when he shows her the picture she can’t help but agree with him.

Chapter Text

His shoulders slump the moment he switches off the car engine. The case he had just got home from had dragged on a few days too long, the unsub eluding them in a way that frustrated him, when all he wanted was to be at home with his wife and kids.

Emily was still on maternity leave, the 8 weeks that had passed since Evie had been born both a blur and stretched out around them, a baby bubble full of bliss and exhaustion that he hadn’t wanted to leave. He’d been back at work for a few weeks, but he’d been able to avoid going on cases until now, Strauss’s patience and understanding lasting longer than he thought it would. Before he left, Emily had assured him that they’d be fine, her smile soft and sleepy as she swayed back and forth with Evie against her chest, trying to get her back to sleep.

He’d called every night around Jack’s bedtime. Even if he was still in the precinct instead of his hotel room he’d find an empty hallway or a quiet corner so he could have a moment of home. A reprieve from the violence he’d chased and surrounded himself with his entire life, and a much needed reminder of what he’d been able to build out of the ashes of what had burned down around him more than once. The sound of Jack and Emily’s voices, and Evie’s cries and coos in the background, enough to ground him until he could see them again.

He knew he’d be too late to say goodnight to Jack, that the little boy would have already been tucked up in bed by Emily, safe and secure and loved - everything Aaron had promised Haley in her last moments that he would be. Aaron had never really been sure what he believed in. He’d seen too many awful things, things most people couldn’t even imagine, he struggled to accept that there was a divine being who would let them happen, but if there was something, anything, after this life he hoped Haley was looking down on them and smiling.

As soon as he opens the front door to his house more of the tension seeps out of his chest, his shoulders loosening as the warmth and the scent of home washes over him. He smiles at the sound of his wife’s singing floating out from the living room as he takes off his shoes and jacket. He unceremoniously dumps his go-bag in the foyer, something he knows Emily will chastise him for later, because he doesn’t want to be apart from them for a moment longer than necessary.

He stands in the living room doorway, his shoulder resting against the frame as he watches Emily pace back and forth with Evie held securely against her chest. She’s in a pair of his sweatpants, the pant legs rolled up so she wouldn’t trip, and one of his old t-shirts, a pattern of milk stains strewn across it. Her hair is piled on top of her head, a messy bun that has flopped to the side slightly, and he can picture her adjusting it multiple times throughout the day. She looks beautiful, impossibly gorgeous with her cheek resting on Evie’s head as she sings to her. It was something they’d learnt soothed her back when she was pregnant, that Evie’s kicks would quieten down at night when Emily sang to her.

“Duérmete mi niño, duérmete mi amor
duérmete pedazo de mi corazón.
Este niño mío que nació de noche
quiere que lo lleve a pasear en coche.”

He knows he won’t spook her, that not only would his wife have heard the front door open and close but that she would have seen him out of the corner of her eye as he stepped into the doorway. She was permanently aware of her surroundings, a hangover of when she was at Interpol and then being hunted down by Ian that she would never shake off. He makes sure to keep his voice quiet, aware that not only was she tired but she would kill him if he woke up Evie after she’d worked so hard to calm her.

“Spanish tonight?”

She smiles as she looks up at him, her lips pressed against Evie’s head when she nods, “We did French last night.”

She’d told him from the start, when the idea of a baby was nothing more than hope and joy fizzing beneath their skin, that she wanted their kids to know as many languages as possible. She was teaching Jack how to speak French, eagerly helping him with homework since before she and Aaron were even a couple, and she was determined Evie would be multilingual from the start.

He smiles and walks over, wrapping his arms around them both as he encourages her as close as he can with Evie between them. Emily leans into him, her lips against his jaw as he sighs contentedly.

“Hi,” he says, pressing his face into her hair breathing her in as she snorts against him, shifting back just far enough to look at him.

“I haven’t washed my hair in days,” she says, scrunching up her nose, “It can’t smell great.”

“You always smell great,” he replies, his hands drifting to her lower back, “I missed you. All of you.”

“We missed you too,” she says, smiling at him, “Hi,” she adds, seemingly realising she hadn’t said it yet. She leans forward and presses her lips against his, leaning into it for a second before she pulls back, “Welcome home,” she whispers and his smile gets wider and he kisses her again, chasing the comfort she always brought him. She frowns slightly as she pulls back, her hand rubbing circles on Evie’s back to keep her asleep, “Are you okay honey?”

He sighs and clears his throat. Part of him doesn’t want to bring work into his home, doesn’t want to poison the air with it, but he knows lying to her is useless, that she’d see right through him in a second like he was made of glass. She knew him better than anyone had ever known him, better than he knew himself, and he’d lost the will to keep anything from her years ago.

“I’ll be okay,” he says, his lips pressed together as he clears his throat, “It was just a tough case, that’s all.”

She hums for a moment before she steps back, pressing several kisses in a row to the top of Evie’s head before she adjusts her hold on her, “Here, take the baby.”

He smiles, amusement dripping from every pore as he does what she’s asked, never one to argue about time with his baby girl, “I’ve got her.”

Emily smiles as she lets go of Evie, “Now, stay here and hold her, she’s magic,” she says, kissing the top of Evie’s head before she kisses his cheek and then the corner of his lips, “And I’ll go get you a drink.”

He sighs, “Em, I just got home I should be looking after you-”

“Quiet you,” she says, no malice in her voice at all as she raises her eyebrow at him, “Hold the magic baby and let her make you feel better. I’ll be back in a minute.”

He doesn’t argue as she disappears from view, shaking his head with amusement as he’s left alone with his little girl. He looks down at Evie, who is still asleep, her round cheek pressed against his chest in such a way her mouth is slightly open, drool dripping down onto his suit jacket.

“Mommy drools on me when she’s sleeping too, Evie girl,” he says, kissing the top of her head, breathing in the scent of the baby shampoo Emily had spent what felt like hours agonising over. Her focus switching back and forth between two bottles as they both stood in the baby aisle in the store, his world famous patience with her being tested to its limit, “Only the prettiest girls get to do it,” he paces around the room, not because he needs to but out of habit more than anything. Standing still felt wrong these days after two months of pacing and swaying as they tried to get her to sleep, and it made him restless. It had led to Dave gently making fun of him as he paced back and forth at work with a case file in his hands, something he hadn’t even realised he was doing until it was pointed out to him.

“Jack will probably want to go to the zoo this weekend,” he says, talking just for the sake of it, knowing another thing that had soothed her from the start had been his voice, “We’ll take you too. Mommy will cover you in sunscreen, she does that - you get used to it - and put a big hat on you and you’ll sleep in the wrap against her chest the entire time,” he smiles at the thought of it, and makes a mental note to ensure he has enough storage on his phone, well aware that he’ll take as many photos as possible so he could look at them when he was at work, so he could scroll through photos of Emily, Jack and Evie to remind him of what he had now when he couldn’t be with them, “I think you’ll like the polar bear the best when you get bigger.”

He could picture it now. Her a wild thing who would run away at any given opportunity, making him consider baby reins for the first time, something he’d grimaced at whenever he saw a parent using them, because she would be like Emily to her very core. Wilful and beautiful and determined to run around because she could. He can’t think of anything better than Saturday afternoons at the zoo with his wife and kids. Of being pulled between Jack and Evie’s favourite exhibits, and those of any other kids they might be lucky enough to have, until he and Emily were run ragged by them. Soft and tired smiles on their faces when they climbed into bed, a toddler between them, as they’d claim never again even though they knew they’d do the very same thing the next weekend.

It was normal. Achingly and beautifully so, and, for the first time in his life, it was something he was allowing himself to have.

He smiles and kisses Evie’s head again, the last remaining bit of tension leaves him, his chest lighter for it, and he hears his wife’s footsteps approaching.

“See,” she says as he looks over at her, a cup of tea in one hand and a glass of scotch in the other, a smile on her face as she watches him rest his cheek on top of Evie’s head, “She’s pure magic.”

He hums, nodding as he holds his daughter closer and winks at Emily, “Just like her mama.”

She rolls her eyes just like he knew she would, her cheeks tinged pink at the compliment, and she walks over to him, her lips catching his cheek as she chastises him in a way they both know she doesn’t mean, “Sap.”

They settle onto the couch together, Evie in Emily’s arms and her in his, Jack safe in his bed upstairs, and Aaron knows there is nothing in the world he’d rather come home to.

Chapter Text

Her appearance had always been the first thing people complimented her on.

When she was young, she was always told she was pretty. She’d stand hidden in a corner at her mother’s parties, wearing a puffy dress she hated. Her mother’s friends would say she was such a pretty thing, the compliment aimed more at Emily’s parents than herself, as if her worth was based on what she looked like and that her mom and dad deserved congratulations for it.

As she tipped into being a teenager, it changed. The word gorgeous thrown around like confetti by men old enough to be her grandfather, a look in their eyes she learnt to hate before she truly understood its meaning.

It was a word that stuck around, one that got mixed in with sexy as she continued to get older. Compliments that partners would grunt against her neck as they came, the words slowly losing their meaning as time went on.

Beautiful was a word that was used, although rarely in comparison to the others, and it was the one she struggled to believe the most. It was something she associated more with how she looked when she was all dressed up for an event, her body poured into a custom-made dress and her hair and makeup perfectly done.

Emily knew she was sexy, that she could turn it on and make just about anyone fall to their knees, but she didn’t think she was beautiful. She could be made to look beautiful, but no one had ever made her feel that way in her own right.

Until Aaron.

Sweet, kind, wonderful Aaron who told her she was beautiful when she was fresh out of the shower, her face clean of makeup and her hair damp and curling at her neck whilst she wore a baggy t-shirt and leggings. It was a compliment he’d pass out at all times. He’d tell her if he found her sitting on his living room floor playing with his son, a Batman mask covering half of her face, her laugh ringing out around them. Or he’d press it against her forehead when she would read to him in French or Spanish or whatever language he asked for, her intelligence something he said made her even more beautiful to him.

She felt beautiful around him, the sexiness she’d always prided herself in not diminished by it but heightened, an ease to it she’d never experienced before. She felt no need to hide anything from him, content to let him sit in the bathroom with her when she dyed her roots, rolling her eyes whenever he said he thought she’d suit grey hair, and it made being with him so easy she often wondered if it was too easy. It was a feeling she slowly got over as they moved through their relationship, and it was all but gone by the time he proposed to her, a ring she’d called beautiful as he showed her for the first time taking permanent residence on her finger.

She sighs contentedly as they walk back into their home, her shoulders relaxing as Aaron guides her into the house, one hand on her back as he uses the other to close and lock the door behind them.

“You okay, sweetheart?”

She hums and turns to look at him, stamping a kiss on his lips before she rests her hand on his shoulder, using him to steady herself as she takes off her shoes.

“I’m okay,” she replies, kissing him again once she is barefoot, “Tonight was fun,” she says, sinking into his embrace, taking advantage of their height difference as she tucks herself against him, his chin resting on top of her head, “Exhausting,” she quips, earning a chuckle from him, “But fun.”

“I’ve got to say, if that was what your mother called an engagement party I can’t help but wonder what the wedding will look like.”

She groans, pressing her face against him before she pulls back to look at him, her arms hooking around his shoulders, “May I go back to my original suggestion of eloping?”

He laughs and kisses her, his hands slipping from her waist to her back, “If I thought you actually wanted that sweetheart, I’d do it in a heartbeat,” he says, kissing her again, “But I know you want our friends and families there,” he smiles when she blushes, the embarrassment at wanting something so girly never something she could outrun, “And from a selfish point of view, I want to see you in a white dress that’s almost as beautiful as you.”

She smiles, her teeth sinking into her lower lip as she shakes her head, her eyebrow raised, “Almost?”

Aaron nods, hooking his arm around her shoulders as he leads her to the kitchen, “Almost,” he repeats, kissing her forehead, “Nothing is as beautiful as you,” he says, and she leans in to kiss him, chasing the compliment by tasting it on his lips. When they make it to the kitchen he unwraps himself from around her, “Wine?”

She smiles and nods, taking a seat at the breakfast bar, “Yes, please.”

She loves that he knows her well enough to know she wants red without asking, pouring them a glass each and placing hers on the counter in front of her, “Can I ask you something.”

She takes a sip of her wine and hums contentedly, “Always.”

“Your mother said something earlier when we were talking to her friends,” he says carefully, and she blows out a slow breath, already knowing where this was going, the conversation they’d been privy to fresh in her mind, “She said she hoped any kids we have don’t get the ‘Prentiss curse.’ What does she mean by that?”

She sighs, taking a gulp of her wine before she answers, “She means my nose.”

Despite the lifelong insecurities rolling in her gut, the way his eyebrows shoot up his forehead and his mouth falls open in disbelief makes her choke on a laugh. She reaches out and wipes wine from the corner of his mouth, the sip he’d taken half inhaled in shock.

“What?” He asks, the closest to stuttering she’d ever known him to be, “I…what?”

She nods, her lips pressed together as she shrugs, “I have my dad’s nose,” she explains, her fingers itching to reach up and cover it when he looks at it intently, the bridge of it tingling now as it always did when it was the centre of attention, “Mom has always pointed it out,” she smiles tightly, “Actually, when I was 18 she asked if I wanted a nose job for my birthday.” What she thinks will lighten the mood only seems to deepen his horror, his scoff so loud she’s surprised his chest doesn’t ache with it, “Honey-”

“But you’re beautiful.”

He says it so earnestly that she can’t help but smile, her lips pressed together as she does her best to make sure he doesn’t think she’s making fun of him, “Thank you, baby,” she says, reaching up to run her fingers through his hair, “That’s sweet, but she’s not exactly…wrong.”

“Yes she is,” he demands, imploring her to believe him, “I love your nose. I love everything about you.”

She feels her cheeks start to burn with embarrassment again, “Aaron-”

He rests his elbows on the kitchen counter, cupping her face in his hands as he brings his face close to hers, his breath skipping across her skin, “I mean it,” he says, kissing the tip of her nose, smiling when it make sher scrunch it up, “It’s beautiful just like the rest of you,” he kisses the bridge of it now, “And I hope all our kids end up with it so they can be just like their mommy.”

She stamps her lips against his before she pulls back, love for him and their life threatening to burst free from her. She smiles, “I hope our kids get your eyes,” she says, cupping his cheek, “And your dimples.”

“We both have dimples.”

She smiles widely, her cheeks aching with it as she leans in to kiss him again, “Yeah, but I prefer yours.”
___

Emily relaxes on the couch and smiles as her husband passes her a glass of wine, “Thanks, honey.”

He sits next to her, hooking his arm around her shoulders, “How was work?”

She grunts, taking a sip of her wine in response before she speaks, “Long.”

He chuckles and kisses her temple, “Bad?”

She shrugs, “Just long,” she turns to look at him, smiling as she reaches up to run her fingers through his hair, scratching her nails across his temples, his hair more grey there these days than anything else, “For someone who hates politics I sure have ended up in a job with a whole lot of it.”

It had been almost two years since she’d become Unit Chief, and there were times when she felt like she was still getting used to it. She missed being involved in cases, in doing the work rather than the strategy of it all, but the move had been right for their family. Jack was away at college and about to start med school, their daughters - Isla and Evelyn - were teenagers now, and despite their insistence that they were independent now, Emily knew from experience they needed her now more than ever. Her own mother’s absence in her teenage years had led to some decisions that changed the course of her life, and she wanted to make sure she was there for her little girls even though they weren’t so little anymore.

Isla was 15, almost 16 - her birthday just weeks away, and Evelyn was 13. They were both beautiful in every sense of the word. They were smart, stubborn and kind, and she was proud of the girls they were and the women they were becoming.

Aaron smiles and tucks some of her grey hair behind her ear, leaning in to kiss her, “I’m not sure if this helps, but you’re really good at it.”

She chuckles and shakes her head, but she’s cut off from responding when she hears a familiar groan of disgust from the doorway, “Please tell me you are talking about work or something, and not anything gross.”

Emily and Aaron both look over at Isla, smiles on their faces as she walks into the room, “You’re safe,” Emily assures her, her smile getting wider when Isla leans in to hug her as she steps past her, “Hi honey.”

“Hi Momma,” she says, squeezing her before she sinks into the armchair next to the couch. She’d never entirely grown out of calling her Momma, the name slipping free randomly when it was just the family at home, and Emily hoped she never would, “How was work?”

“It was fine,” she replies, watching her daughter carefully as she curls up in the armchair, her focus on her nails as she picks at her cuticles, a nervous habit she’d picked up from her, “Are you okay?”

Isla hums and tucks her dark hair behind her ears, “I want to talk to you guys about something.”

Emily feels herself tense, worse-case scenarios spreading through her as she tries to relax, Aaron’s hand heavy and warm on her thigh an instant comfort, “You can talk to us about anything, you know that.”

Isla nods, “I know what I want for my birthday,” she says, her confident expression not matching her demeanour. She blows out a slow breath, “I’d like a nose job.”

They fall into silence and Emily chokes on a sound she can’t name. Aaron’s only reaction was to squeeze her leg tighter, “What?”

Isla clears her throat, her jaw tight before she speaks again, “I would like a nose job,” she repeats, staring at her parents as they continue to stare back at her. She sighs, “Mom, you must get it,” she says, “It’s your nose.”

By the time she had Isla, she’d got over her remaining insecurities about it, each one of them killed off by her husband and his insistence on telling her how beautiful she was. His compliments about her nose always paired with a kiss to the tip of it. Both her girls looked exactly like her, nose included, and it was only when she saw it on their faces that she truly saw the beauty in it.

“No,” Aaron says, finding his voice, a stern edge to it he rarely used with the kids.

Isla scoffs, “No?” She repeats, her arms tight over her chest, “We’re not even going to talk about it?”

“No,” he repeats, and Emily sighs, already knowing how this is going to go when Isla stands up.

She looks at them in a way only a teenager could, her stubbornness, that she’d inherited from both of them, shining out of every pore. She storms off and runs up the stairs, her thundering footsteps punctuated by the slamming of her bedroom door. Emily sighs and turns to look at her husband.

“Honey-”

“You can’t possibly think that’s a good idea, Em.”

She rolls her eyes at him, a bite of annoyance in her lungs as she responds, “Of course I don’t think our 15-year-old getting a nose job is a good idea, Aaron. I just think there may have been a way to have that conversation that wouldn’t have ended with a slamming door.”

His shoulders slump and he sinks back against the couch, “I know,” he says, sighing as he squeezes her thigh, “I’m sorry I just…” he shakes his head, “I can’t imagine any of you thinking you’re anything less than beautiful.”

She smiles and leans in to kiss his cheek, “I know you can’t,” she replies, kissing his cheek again, “I’m going to go and talk to her okay? Maybe you could make an apology hot chocolate or something?”

He nods, “I’ll get the expensive stuff from the back of the pantry.”

She winks at him before she stands up and heads upstairs, pausing to knock on her daughter’s door before she walks in.

“Come in,” Isla says through the door, her exasperation clear even before Emily pushes the door open. She’s sitting in the middle of her bed, her favourite childhood teddy bear, a threadbare thing called Harold, hugged against her chest, “You know, most of my friend’s families don’t talk this kind of thing through,” she says as Emily sits on the edge of the bed, her smile tight, “They just let it simmer until it becomes a full-on argument.”

Emily chuckles and shifts closer to her daughter, “Well, I guess that’s one of the perks of being raised by two behavioural analysts,” she jokes, knowing it was more than that. She and Aaron had both been raised in homes where nothing important was said. Where people spoke but didn’t talk and she was determined to make sure she raised her kids differently, “Honey-”

“Don’t tell me I’m beautiful,” she says, cutting her off, her smile sad as she looks down to avoid eye contact, “You’re my mom, you’re supposed to think I am.”

She hums and cups Isla’s chin, making her look up at her, “I am your mom,” she says, wiping away a stray tear from her daughter’s cheek, “But that doesn’t make me wrong. You’re beautiful, baby,” she says, wrapping her arm around her shoulders and pulling her close, “But that’s not the only thing you are. You’re smart and you’re funny, and you’re an amazing person,” she tilts her head to look down at her, “You’re 15, baby,” she says, smiling when Isla chokes on a laugh, “Everyone feels insecure when they’re 15.”

Isla scoffs, “You felt insecure?”

She can’t help but laugh, “If only you knew sweet girl,” she says, kissing the side of her head, “I was a bit of a mess when I was a teenager.”

Isla hums, her smile turning mischievous, “Aunt Penny showed me the photos from your punk phase.”

Emily rolls her eyes, “Of course she did,” she says, her smile fading as she turns serious again, “I can’t stop you from doing anything when you’re an adult, honey,” she says, running her fingers through her hair, “But when you’re still a kid, I’m not going to let you do anything you might later regret.”

Isla’s eyes drift closed and she looks down, “Mom-”

“And I hope that you start to see yourself like your dad and I see you before you even get close to being able to make that choice,” she says, hugging her to her chest, taking the opportunity to kiss the top of her head, “You’re beautiful just as you are.”

She huffs out a breath against her collarbone and sits back, “Were you ever… self-conscious about it?”

Emily nods, “Yeah, I was,” she says, scrunching her nose up when she thinks about it, “It took a long time to get over, but I’m glad I never did anything to change it,” she says pressing a gentle kiss to the tip of Isla’s nose, chuckling when Isla pulls back from it, her face screwed up in confusion, a blush Emily knew all too well simmering in her cheeks. “Otherwise, I would never have been able to feel as happy and proud as I do every time someone tells me you and Evie look just like me.”

Isla nods, some of the tension in her shoulders disappearing, “Thanks, Momma.”

“Anytime,” she says, kissing her cheek, “Now, if you want we can go back downstairs. Your dad is making us hot chocolate.”

Isla’s eyes sparkle, “The nice stuff we got in Europe this summer?”

She nods and offers Isla a hand as she stands up, her heart swelling in her chest when she links her arm through hers instead, “Nothing but the best for his girls when he’s apologising for overreacting.”

Isla smiles, “Maybe I should suggest getting cosmetic surgery more often.”

“Isla.”

Chapter Text

Emily tried to avoid one-on-one time with her mother as much as possible. It was easier to do since she’d had Samuel, the 18-month-old and Jack both excellent distractions for Elizabeth when she came over to the house, her love for her grandsons obvious whenever they were together.

On her worst days, Emily envied her mother's relationship with Samuel and Jack. The easy way she showed her love for them, the affection Emily had to earn when she was young given away as if it was free. It was nothing but proof to her that Elizabeth had always been capable of it, but had prioritised different things when she was young.

She’d tried to get out of lunch with her mother, not entirely in the mood to be her best self after a rough night with Samuel. He was sick, the 18-month-old refusing to sleep and crying if he was anywhere but in her arms, so she and Aaron had barely slept as they took turns to soothe him. She’d almost called her mom to tell her she couldn’t make it, but Aaron had encouraged her out of the door, reminding her if she didn’t do it now she’d just have to rearrange it after a week of building herself up to it. She’d kissed him goodbye, whilst grumbling about his need to always be so damn sensible, and she’d made her way to her mother’s favourite restaurant.

The first thing she does when she arrives is order the biggest coffee she can, wanting to make sure she is as alert as she possibly could be. She’s barely sat down for 5 minutes when she hears her mother’s voice echoing around her.

“Emily,” she exclaims, stamping a kiss on each of Emily’s cheeks as she stands to greet her, “It’s good to see you,” she says, frowning as she pulls back, “Are you okay? You look exhausted.”

She suppresses an eye roll and clenches her teeth, wondering if it is too early to order a glass of wine, “Thanks, Mom,” she says as she takes her seat again, “Sammy is sick so we had a rough night.”

“Oh no,” Elizabeth says as she sits down, “Is he okay?”

Emily nods, “He’ll be fine, it’s just a bug Jack brought home from school. He’ll be okay in a day or two. He’s all about me when he’s sick though,” she says, unable to pretend she didn’t enjoy all the extra snuggles from her toddler who was seemingly always on the go these days, “So Aaron tried to help but I was up most the night.”

Elizabeth raises her eyebrows, “Well, if you didn’t coddle him so much he’d manage just fine I’m sure.”

She sucks in a deep breath and smiles tightly, knowing that the only way to stop herself from biting at the bait offered to her was to change the conversation. “How are you, Mom? How’s work?”

Her technique works, just as it always did, and she sits back and half listens as Elizabeth talks about work and the embassy. She checks her phone to make sure Aaron hasn’t attempted to contact her, and she smiles at the picture of Samuel and Jack that she has set as her wallpaper, the two of them giggling at something Aaron had said.

“You’ll never guess who I saw - Steve Clemente.”

Emily frowns, “Who?”

Elizabeth rolls her eyes, “Really, Emily. You’ve met the man at my Christmas party the last few years. He’s the President over at Primrose Academy.”

She hums and nods, “Of course, sorry,” she replies, sipping her coffee, “I remember now.”

“Well, I was able to get Samuel on the list for their Preschool programme,” she says, opening up her menu, missing the confusion that passes across Emily’s face, “We’re a bit late but this is why it pays to know people.”

“Sammy is 18 months old.”

Elizabeth sighs, “It’s like you’re being purposely obtuse today,” she says, shaking her head as she looks back up at her, “I know how old my grandson is, Emily. But the waiting list for these programmes is 2 years. It’s a very prestigious school.”

Emily presses her lips together and swallows thickly, preparing herself for an argument, “I appreciate the effort, Mom. But we’re not going to be sending him to private school.”

Elizabeth’s head snaps up, her eyebrows furrowed as she looks at her daughter, “Excuse me?”

“When the time comes we’re going to send him to the same preschool Jack went to,” she says, looking around for the waiter, the idea of a glass of wine with lunch more appealing than it had ever been, “It’s a great school.”

Elizabeth sighs, “Emily, Samuel has the benefit of the Prentiss name-”

“He’s a Hotchner,” she corrects, her smile tight as she stares at her mother.

“What?”

“Sammy. His surname is Hotchner, not Prentiss.”

“You’re being obtuse again, I know that too. But you seem to be ignoring the benefits your son has purely from who we are.”

The waiter chooses that moment to walk over, his smile kind as he starts to ask what they want to drink, a question Emily answers before he’s finished asking.

“Wine, please. A large glass.”

The waiter clears his throat, looking back and forth between the two of them, “Any particular one, ma’am?”

“Whichever one is closest.”
___

She smiles as she steps into her house, the tension automatically seeping from her shoulders the second the warmth of home washes over her. She hears cartoons coming from the living room and she walks in to find Jack sitting on the couch, his focus on the television.

“Hey sweetie,” she says as she leans over the back of the couch and kisses the top of his head, “Are you okay?”

He nods, barely looking away from his favourite show, “Yeah. How was grandma?”

“She was…” she scrunches her nose up and blows out a breath, “Grandma,” she smiles at him, “Where are Daddy and your brother?”

“Upstairs,” he replies, “Dad is trying to get Sammy to nap,” he shrugs at her, “It wasn’t going very well.”

She laughs and leans down to kiss his head again, “I’m going to go see if I can help,” she says, pushing his hair from his forehead, “We’re upstairs if you need us, okay?”

“Okay, Mom.”

She heads upstairs and smiles as she steps into the nursery, love spreading through her chest as she’s met with the image of her husband pacing back and forth, their grumpy toddler in his arms.

“Come on, buddy. You’ll feel better if you nap.”

“No,” Samuel grunts, rubbing his face against Aaron’s chest.

“Daddy’s right,” Emily says from the doorway, both of them looking at her at the same time, matching expressions on their faces, “You’ll feel better if you nap.”

“Mama!” Samuel exclaims, his lower lip pushed out in a pout as he reaches out for her, scrambling in Aaron’s arms.

“I’ve got you, baby,” she says, lifting him into her arms and kissing the top of his head, “Mama’s got you,” she looks up at her husband, “You’ve been giving Daddy a hard time whilst I’ve been gone?”

“Only you have the magic touch, it seems,” Aaron says, kissing the top of her head and then her lips as she tilts her head up, “How was lunch?”

She groans and runs her hand up and down Samuel’s back, “It was as expected,” she grumbles, turning her attention back to their son who was already a little calmer, “You want to get some sleep, sweet boy?”

“Not tired,” he complains, and Aaron hides a smile, a look in his eyes that lets her know exactly what he’s thinking.

He gets that from you.

“Well, I am,” she says, kissing his head again as she walks towards the loveseat in the corner of the room, “Why don’t we all just sit down for a little while.”

“‘kay,” he says, pressing his face against her neck as she sits down. She rests her cheek against the top of his head and rubs circles on his back, knowing it is a surefire way to get him to fall asleep.

Aaron joins them, his arm around her shoulders, and he pulls her closer, “Want to talk about it?”

She hums, “She mentioned getting Sammy onto a list for a private preschool.”

Aaron frowns, “He’s 18 months old.”

She chuckles, “That’s what I said too,” she replies before her smile slips away, “I made it clear that isn’t what we want but…” she blows out a shaky breath, “But then she made it clear she didn’t agree.”

He tightens his grip on her, his lips against her hairline as he blows out a slow breath, an obvious attempt to keep his cool, “What did she say, sweetheart?”

“She said I’m risking my kid's futures for the sake of being stubborn.”

He clenches his teeth and sighs, stamping a kiss against her head before he replies, “That’s not true, Em.”

“I know,” she sighs, shaking her head a little as she looks down at Samuel, the little boy halfway to sleep already, “At least I think I do,” she looks up at Aaron and offers a half-shrug, “I don’t know. I hated going to private school, and I want something different for the boys. But we could afford it,” she licks her lower lip, “Hell, we could afford to send half a dozen kids to private school all the way through to high school if we want to,” she raises an eyebrow at him when she watches something spark in his eyes, “Down boy,” she jokes and they share a smile, “We could afford it but…that doesn’t mean we should do it, does it?”

“Of course not, sweetheart,” he says, tucking some of her hair behind her ear, “We know what’s best for our children, not your mother, or an old friend of hers, but us,” he smiles softly, “And if we want to send Sammy and Jack to public school, or all half a dozen of them,” he winks when she rolls her eyes, “Then we will. And we can change our minds in the future if we want to. But you aren’t doing them a disservice or depriving them of something because you want them to have a different experience to you.”

She nods, leaning forward and pressing her forehead against his shoulder, “I know,” she says, believing this time, and she blows out a slow breath, “I just never felt like I could be myself at those places,” she says, “All that mattered was getting good grades and being the best,” she sighs contentedly when he kisses the top of her head, “I never want the boys to think that’s all they are good for.”

“They won’t,” he assures her, kissing her head one more time before he encourages her to look up at him, “You’re an excellent mom, Em,” he says, his smile growing as hers does, “Our boys are lucky to have you.”

She stamps a kiss against his lips, “They are lucky to have you too.”

He smiles and looks down, shaking his head slightly when he sees that Samuel is fast asleep, “He’s sleeping.”

She hums and looks at her son, his nose bright red and sore from where he’d been rubbing his fists against it, “Poor baby, was he okay whilst I was gone?”

Aaron nods, “He was fine, he missed you - but he always does when you’re not here,” he runs his fingers up and down her arm, drawing a soothing pattern as they silently agree to stay sitting there with their son for a while, “So, about this half a dozen kids-”

“Aaron.”

Chapter Text

Emily yawns as she pours two cups of coffee. She wraps her hands around her cup, lifting it to breathe in the aroma, desperately hoping the smell alone would wake her up before it cooled down enough to take a sip.

She smiles as she looks over at Jack, his elbow on the kitchen counter and his cheek resting on his palm as he swirls his spoon around in his cereal, pushing tiny pillows of wheat around his bowl. She kisses the top of his head, her smile widening when he looks up at her.

“Eat your breakfast, kiddo. Don’t play with it.” She says, kissing his head again before she steps away, peering down the hallway when she hears her boyfriend emerge from his bedroom.

“But it’s boring.”

She hums, “I know it is,” she says, passing Aaron his cup of coffee when he joins them, leaning into his side when he wraps his arm around her waist and stamps a kiss against her cheek, “But it’s a weekday cereal. The fun kind with the marshmallows is for the weekend,” she adds, the rules that Aaron had established a long time ago second nature to her now, and Jack nods before taking a bite of his breakfast, his grimace drawing a smile from both the adults in the room. Emily turns to look at Aaron and kisses him, “Morning.”

“Morning,” he replies, kissing her as he squeezes her hip to step past her to make himself breakfast, “You didn’t have to do breakfast.”

She shrugs, “It’s pouring cereal and milk into a bowl, Aaron,” she says, avoiding his gaze when he looks at her like she’d hung the stars themselves, his love for her still too much for her to take sometimes, “Besides, even if it was making a three-course feast I don’t mind, you know that.”

They’d been together 4 months, and it still surprised her sometimes how easily they’d all slipped into each other's lives. The broken pieces of them all slotting together perfectly, as if they were always meant to be that way. She’d worried at first about her place in Jack’s life, she was careful, never wanting to overstep, but he’d pulled her in, desperate to spend time with her whenever possible. He asked for her at bedtime and when he had the flu the month before he’d fallen asleep pressed against her, not Aaron. Part of her was uneasy about it, worried Aaron would think she’d pushed things too far - but he only ever looked at them with a glint in his eyes she knew was love, as if he was seeing a future where they had this every single day. She knew that because she saw the same thing. Her future mapped out properly for the first time in years with Aaron and Jack and whoever else may come along down the line.

He smiles at her, “You didn’t pour me any.”

She rolls her eyes playfully and walks over to him, her arms around his middle, her cheek against his shoulder, “Sorry, honey. I only pour cereal for the cute boys,” she says, winking as she catches Jack’s eye, a smile breaking out across her face when he laughs. She kisses Aaron’s shoulder, “I am not excited about a day of paperwork.”

“Me neither,” he says, turning his head to kiss her temple, “But at least we’ll be able to come home tonight. Have dinner with Jack, snuggle up and watch a movie.”

She looks over at Jack and sees that he’s distracted by drinking the leftover milk out of his bowl, so she leans in and presses her lips against Aaron’s ear, careful to make sure only he can hear her, “Throw in some making out and you’ve got a deal, mister.”

He places his hand on her hip and squeezes, his palm warm through the material of her shirt, “It’s a date.”

She presses her lips together to contain a smile, her heart skipping a beat at the way he casually referred to his apartment as their home. She barely went to her place these days, only to get more clothes. Even Sergio spent his time here too - his new favourite place to sleep curled up around Jack.

She hums and steps away, gratefully accepting the bowl of cereal he presses into her hands. Jack finishes his breakfast and jumps up, placing his bowl in the sink before he runs off to get ready for school. She takes his seat at the breakfast bar and starts to eat, blowing out a slow breath as she looks at her watch.

“I should leave soon if I want to get there before you,” she says, “So we don’t create any suspicion.”

Only Jack and Jessica knew about them, something the former took a lot of delight in. He enjoyed the secrecy of Aaron and Emily’s relationship, claiming that it made him feel like a spy, an innocent comparison that had stolen Emily’s breath away when he’d first made it. The secrecy was practical at first whilst they figured everything out between them, but there was safety in it now. A protection of sorts they’d built around themselves that she wasn’t entirely sure she was ready to give up. She’d always been a private person, but this felt precious. Like something she wanted to keep safe even from their friends. Her fears about their reactions sometimes kept her up at night, sure that it would be too good to be true to expect all of them to take it well.

“We don’t have to tell them until you’re ready, sweetheart,” he says as if he’s read her mind before leaning in to kiss her, “I’m happy to take your lead.”

“Thank you, honey,” she leans in to kiss him, once again overwhelmed by everything she feels for him, and she smiles when she pulls back, her grip gentle on his chin, “Jack’s right.”

“About what?” He asks, his eyebrows furrowing at the abrupt change in conversation.

She scrunches her nose up, “This cereal is boring.”
___

There’s a team briefing as soon as everyone has arrived. Emily ends up sitting next to Aaron, a coincidence she loves and hates in equal measure, the distraction it creates enough to make her fade in and out of the conversation around her. She can smell his cologne, can practically feel the warmth that followed him radiating in the gap between them, and it takes all her concentration to not lean in towards him.

She’s sure she should hate that he has this power over her, that he’s left her so exposed, but she can’t, especially because she knows she has the same power over him. It felt ridiculous sometimes how much they loved each other, but she liked to think that they deserved it. That everything they’d gone through had led them to this, a rocky path that was now even under their feet - the view of what was to come clear and spread out right in front of them to the horizon.

“Are you okay with that Prentiss?” He says, drawing her out of herself. She snaps her head towards him and narrows her eyes at the subtle smile on his face, the spark in his eyes that only she can see. Bastard. He takes pity on her and repeats himself, “You’re okay to go with JJ to see the DCPD downtown? They need some help with some case files.”

She nods, “Of course. Hotch,” she covers a smile by clearing her throat and she looks over at JJ on the other side of the table, “Shall we go?”

JJ nods and stands up, “The sooner we go the sooner we’ll be done,” she says, gathering her things, “We can even stop at that coffee place on the way back.”

Emily nods and she stands too, along with the rest of the team, all of them ready to get started with their day. She turns to Aaron and smiles, “See you when we get back.”

“See you when you get back,” he says, and he leans forward to kiss her, his lips stamped against hers for only a couple of seconds, a kiss she returns because of the same habit that started it in the first place. It’s only as he pulls back, as the room around them falls into stunned silence. Emily stares at him, her eyes wide before she blows out a breath and looks down at the floor.

“Well, shit.”

“So,” Dave says, his grin wide as they look over at him, “Aaron, are you kissing all of us goodbye? Is this something we can opt out of, or is Prentiss special?"

Aaron groans, his fingers pressed against his forehead, “Dave-”

“How long has this been going on?” Derek asks, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyebrows pinched together in something that looks a little too close to anger for Emily’s liking.

“Four months,” she replies, shifting closer to Aaron, her arm skimming against his, seeking out the comfort that followed him around like a shadow.

“Four months?” Penelope exclaims, loud enough Emily is sure it’s heard out in the bullpen, “What…why…how?”

“Can I remind everyone that we’re at work?” Aaron says, his attempt to be stern falling flat as everyone looks at him with a raised brow.

“You should have thought about that before you kissed your secret girlfriend,” Dave replies, his smile turning into a smirk when Emily glares at him.

“Dave I swear to God-”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Spencer asks, cutting off Emily’s threat, his eyes filled with realisation, as if he was putting some pieces together in his head. Tiny moments he’d observed and filed away over the last few months, countless interactions that separately didn’t mean anything, but all together meant the evidence had been in front of them all along.

“Something to be ashamed of?” Derek asks, and Emily feels Aaron tense next to her, his shoulders tight, and she sneaks her hand into his, linking their fingers together and squeezing.

“No,” she replies firmly, staring at him for a moment before she looks around at their other friends, “We’re both private people. We’ve both been through a lot,” she says, swallowing thickly, feeling braver than she thought she would, “And right now I don’t think we owe you any more than that.”

Derek looks like he’s going to argue again, but he’s cut off by Dave, “We can accept that. For now. But the next family dinner at mine is when our understanding runs out.”

Aaron nods, “That sounds good to us,” he clears his throat, his Hotch mask slipping into place, “But for now, we have to work.”

The team nods and filters out of the room, and Aaron squeezes Emily’s hand as she steps away, guilt thrumming under his skin now they are alone, “I’m so sorry, sweetheart, I know you didn’t want them to know yet.”

She shakes her head and runs her thumb back and forth over the heel of his hand, “Never apologise for kissing me,” she says, smiling softly, “Now they know…I’m glad.”

“Really?” He furrows his brow and she wants nothing more than to lean forward and kiss the crease between his eyebrows until she soothes it away, but she knows she can’t, not here, and that for now, she’d have to do with holding his hand.
“Really,” she says, feeling more at peace with it than she thought she would, “And now I get to tell everyone you’re mine.”

He smiles, his eyes sparkling with everything he couldn’t say here, and he squeezes her hand, “Love you.”

“Love you too,” she replies, looking over her shoulder to see JJ and Penelope standing in the hall, both of them doing a terrible job of pretending they weren’t watching them, “You do owe me for something though.”

He frowns, “What?”

“The intense questioning I’m about to go through,” she sighs, and she turns back to look at him, letting him know she’s mostly joking with a soft smile.

“JJ won’t be too bad.”

“No,” she says, “She won’t. But if you think Pen hasn’t already thought of a way she can justify coming with us, you’re kidding yourself, honey.”

Chapter Text

Aaron is woken up by his girlfriend’s wracking cough.

It makes him wince, sure it must be painful, and he sits up, blearily reaching for the lamp on the nightstand with one hand and for her with the other. He rubs soothing circles on her back as the room is bathed in low, warm light, and he winces again at the way she sucks in a breath. Emily coughs again and presses her hand against her sternum, her ribs aching with the movement. Her entire chest ached, a kind of pain that went hand in hand with the pounding in her head.

“Fuck,” she chokes out when she finally gets her breath back. She turns to look at Aaron and clears her throat, grimacing when it feels like she’s swallowed razor blades, and she offers him a shaky smile, “I’m okay.”

“Clearly,” he hums and leans in to kiss her forehead, concern flicking in his gut at the temperature of her skin. He looks at her nightstand and sees the empty glass he’d filled with water when they went to bed, “Want me to go get you some water?”

She nods against him, “Yes please.”

He smiles and kisses her forehead, “I’ll be right back sweetheart.”

She groans in response, purposely ignoring the laugh he fails to cover, and she slumps back onto the bed, her arms wrapping around his pillow as she buries her face in it, desperately hoping that the comforting scent of him would make it past her blocked nose. She grumbles when it doesn’t, cursing whoever she’d caught the flu from, no longer able to deny that she was sick like she’d been trying to the last couple of days.

She only realises she’s drifted off to sleep when he wakes her, his hand gentle on her shoulder as he smiles at her, offering her a glass of water and some meds. She takes them gratefully, not missing how the corner of his mouth turns upwards when she takes the Tylenol without argument.

“I’m sorry,” she says, placing the glass down on her nightstand before she curls up around him when he climbs back into bed.

He frowns and tilts his head to look down at her, “What for?”

“I should have just gone to mine,” she replies, “We haven’t been together long enough for you to see me like this.”

It had only been two months. Two happy, joyful months stuffed full of more love than she’d felt in her entire life, the home she’d been looking for found with the man she’d loved longer than she would care to admit and his son. With anyone else, she’d worry it was all going too fast. She’d have run in the other direction if anyone other than Aaron had told her they loved her before they’d even left her apartment for their first date, but she’d said it back without thinking.
She didn’t want to run anywhere anymore unless it was towards him and Jack anymore.

He chuckles and kisses her forehead, wrapping his arms around her to tug her closer, encircling her with his embrace as if that alone could make her better, “What? So I could lay here all night worrying about you?” He quips, smiling when she rolls her eyes at him, “I want to look after you. I love you.”

She pouts, allowing her headache, sore throat and the warmth of his embrace to let her settle into the pull of self-pity, “Even when I’m all gross?”

“You’re never gross,” he says, leaning in for a kiss, laughing when a cough rips free of her chest and stops him. He rubs a hand up and down her back and settles for kissing her forehead instead, “But yes, even then.”

She groans and buries her face in his neck, pleased when smelling him from the source works, when the scent of him, of home, somehow makes it through her blocked nose, “I love you too.”
___

The moment he has to wake Jack up, instead of finding him in the kitchen already dressed for school, he knows he’s caught the flu too. He sits on the edge of Jack’s bed and winces at the feel of his forehead.

“Oh buddy, I think you’re going to have to stay home from school.”

Jack groans, “My head hurts,” he says, his lack of argument about not going to school, something he loved, enough of a sign of how horrible he was feeling.

“I know,” he says, pushing his hair from his forehead, “Want to go lay in the big bed with Emily whilst I get some medicine to make you feel better? She’s still not very well either.”

He was hoping that she wouldn’t be going to work either, was a conversation he was yet to have with his girlfriend, who was still lying in his bed and insisting that she was going even though she’d barely slept. Jack nods and Aaron stands up, offering his son his hand to help him out of bed. They walk the short distance to the master bedroom hand in hand, and Aaron hides a smile when Emily sits up in the bed, pretending she hadn’t fallen asleep again in the few minutes he’d been gone.

“One more for the sick bed,” he says, letting go of Jack’s hand so he can clamber onto the bed.

“Oh, sweet boy,” Emily says, opening her arms up for Jack as he makes it to her side, gathering him against her chest and kissing his forehead, “I’m sorry you’re sick.”

“Why are you sorry, Emmy?” He asks, furrowing his brow as he looks up at her, “It’s not your fault.”

She smiles at him and runs her fingers through his hair, his innocence, the way he looks at her with such adoration, immediately ridding her chest of the guilt that had started to build there at the thought of making him sick, “It’s just not nice to see someone you love not feeling very well,” she says, looking over at Aaron, smiling when their eyes meet, “That’s all.”

He nods and rests his head against her chest again, curling up into her embrace, seeking out the maternal love he’d been robbed of at such a young age, “Daddy says I can’t go to school, so if you’re sick too you can’t go to work, right? So you’ll stay home with me?”

Aaron, barely, covers a laugh and she looks up at him, briefly narrowing her eyes, a silent well played in the air around them before she looks back at Jack curled up in her arms, and she realises there were much worse ways to spend her day than cuddled up with the little boy she already loved as her own.

“Yes, sweetheart,” she says, kissing the top of his head, her eyes drifting closed as she breathes him in, “I’m going to stay home with you.”
___

He finds himself watching the clock, impatiently waiting for the day to come to an end so he can go home to Emily and Jack, his skin almost itching to see them.

He’d offered to stay home too, feeling guilty that his girlfriend would otherwise be looking after his son whilst she was sick herself, but she’d waved him off. Assured him that she didn’t mind and that they’d be fine, an honest smile on her face as she winked at Jack and told him to pick out some movies for their day snuggling on the couch. Every time he thought he couldn’t be more in love with her she proved him wrong, his chest swelling with it as he watched her encourage Jack to take the cough medicine she herself had dubbed disgusting in the middle of the night, taking her dose without even flinching to let his son know it would be okay. He kissed them both on the forehead before he left for the office, and he left them under a pile of blankets on the couch, snuggled together in one corner as Emily whispered to Jack that, despite the flu that had hit them both hard, they’d have a fun day.

He’s trying to focus on his paperwork, irritation thrumming under his skin every time he looks at the clock to find only a few minutes had passed, but it feels pointless, all of his attention on the updates Emily would send him every now and again. The most recent one was a photo of her and Jack, the little boy fast asleep against her, his mouth open and his cheek pressed against her chest, and a teasing caption to go along with it.

Bad news - I think he’s taken your place as my favourite Hotchner.

“You should go home.”

He looks up to the door of his office and finds Dave standing there, his hands in his pocket as he leans against the door frame and smirks at him. Aaron sighs and looks at the clock, “It’s only 2 pm, Dave. I can’t go home yet.”

“Why? Because you’re being so productive sat here wishing you were at home?” He says, raising his eyebrow, his smirk somehow deepening when Aaron opens his mouth to respond, cutting him off before he can even attempt to deny it, “Go home. I’ll deal with Strauss if she says anything.”

It’s Aaron’s turn to raise his eyebrow, “I won’t ask what that means because I’m not sure I want to know.”

Dave chuckles, “That girlfriend of yours is rubbing off on you,” he says, his voice full of nothing but affection for them both, “Go home. No one is going to hold looking after your family against you.”

Aaron smiles, the thought of Emily as part of his family one that still warmed him from the inside out, a reaction he hoped would never fade, “I guess not,” he says, nodding as he stands up, his decision made as he packs some paperwork into his briefcase, his smile turning into a smirk as he looks at his friend, “And your encouragement of course has absolutely nothing to do with the wager going around about what time I’d go home today?”

Dave’s eyes briefly go comically wide before he clears his throat, scratching at the back of his head, “You know about that?”

“Reid copied me in on the email,” he replies, his smile getting wider when Dave rolls his eyes, “I believe 2 pm was your slot.”

Dave scoffs, “Damn kid is a genius but can’t use technology to save his life.”

Aaron laughs and pats him on the shoulder as he passes him, “If you need me for anything-”

“I’ll be sure not to call,” he says, nodding towards the elevators, “Go. We’ve got it covered here.”

Aaron nods appreciatively and heads out the door, smiling to himself when he sees the way the rest of the team roll their eyes at Dave, mumbling to themselves as they dig into their pockets for their wallets. He texts Emily to say he is on his way home as he gets to his car.

At first, her lack of response worries him, even though logically he knows it means she’s asleep, but he can’t relax until he makes home and finds her and Jack both fast asleep on the couch, the DVD menu of the little boy’s favourite movie playing on a loop on the TV. Aaron smiles at the sight and walks over, crouching down to kiss Emily’s forehead, and then Jack’s, before he stands up straight. He sneaks a photo of the two of them, unable to help himself even though he knows Emily would kill him if she ever found out. Then he carefully tries to unwrap her arms around Jack, intent on putting him in his bed for now so they’d both be more comfortable. He smiles when Emily tightens her hold, her eyebrows furrowing as she barely opens her eyes, her lids seemingly glued together with sleep and just generally not feeling great.

“It’s okay, Em,” he says, running his hand up and down her arm, “It’s just me.”

“Aaron?” She slurs, blinking to try and open her eyes properly, “You’re home?”

He feels his heart swell when she refers to his apartment as home and he nods, “I’m home. I’m just going to go put him in his bed okay? Then I’ll be back.”

She nods and kisses the top of Jack’s head before she lets go of him and Aaron lifts him into his arms. He carefully walks down the hall and slips Jack into his bed, desperate to make sure he gets the rest he needs, and he tucks him in, ensuring his favourite toy is within reach before he kisses his forehead and leaves the room. When he makes it back to the living room, Emily is sitting up, rubbing her eyes and groaning.

“What time is it?”

“Almost 3 pm,” he says as he joins her on the couch and wraps his arm around her.

She leans against him immediately, her body heavy against his as she yawns, “You left work early?”

He kisses her temple, “I left work early.”

It sits in the air around them, the importance of him doing it, the lessons he’d learned from past mistakes, unspoken but not ignored as they sit there in silence.

“Honey?”

He runs his hand up and down her arm, his lips still against her temple as he hums, “Yes, baby?”

“If you ever show anyone the photo you took, I’ll kill you.”

Chapter Text

“Motherfucker,” Emily winces as she pulls away the antiseptic wipe she’d pressed to her skin the moment it touches her split lip, the pain lancing through her. She grits her teeth, her hand tight on the edge of the countertop, her short nails scratching against the worn laminate as the pain passes. She blows out a slow breath and looks at herself in the mirror, grimacing at the cut in the middle of her lower lip, her skin torn open by the butt of the unsub’s gun.

He’d been better prepared than they thought he would be, and he’d been waiting for them, hiding behind a door she’d walked through as the team swept his house. He’d jumped out, briefly pointing his gun at her before he chickened out of shooting her, a look of panic on his face as he realised she wasn’t alone. He’d lunged at her, hitting her square in the face with his gun as he attempted his escape. She’d cried out, alerting the rest of the team to where he was and Derek caught up with him quickly.

Aaron had come running into the room, his eyes wide as if he had found her with a bullet in her vest, or worse, and she assured him she was fine, rolling her eyes at her boyfriend as he gently held her face in place. A hand on each cheek as he inspected her split lip. He’d tried to insist that she went to the hospital, something she was able to talk him out of, and as soon as they made it to the precinct she’d found the first aid kit and slinked off to the women’s bathroom, keen to clean up her injury and briefly escape Aaron’s hovering.

She sighs as she hears the door open and she looks in the mirror again, unsurprised to see him standing behind her, “This is the women’s bathroom.”

“I know,” he replies, stepping further into the bathroom before he turns and locks the main door behind him, ensuring it would just be the two of them, “I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

If it was anyone other than him, she’d be annoyed. She’d feel coddled, like he was trying to control her, like he didn’t think she could look after herself. But she knew that wasn’t the case. This was how he showed love, acts of service that she was still getting used to even 8 months into their relationship. She always wondered if it was a reaction to everything that had happened with Haley. If the way he loved those around him had changed to reflect what he saw as the mistakes of his past, the guilt that weighed so heavily on his shoulders she could sometimes see it. How he’d get physically smaller when he woke from a nightmare, his shoulders slumping as he curled in on himself, his expression so boyish he looked like Jack, fear and regret shining in his eyes as she tried to draw him back to her. Her forehead against his and her hand curled around the back of his neck to hold him in place as she told him everything good that she could think of.

She flashes a smile at him, grimacing when it pulls at the split in her lip, “I’m okay, I promise,” she says, turning to look at him, “It just stings, that’s all.”

He steps towards her, an urgency in his touch when his hand finds her waist that makes her smile, “Have you managed to clean it?”

She shakes her head, “Not yet.”

He leans forward and kisses her cheek as he squeezes her waist, “Get up on the counter.”

She playfully raises an eyebrow at him, a mischievous spark in her eyes that lets him know what she’s going to say before she says it, “I don’t think now is really the time.”

It’s Aaron’s turn to roll his eyes, “Not for that sweetheart,” he says, stepping back to give her room, “So I can clean your lip for you.”

She does as he’s asked, pushing herself up onto the counter before she passes him the first aid kit, “Come on then, Nurse Hotchner. Let's get this over with.”

He reaches for an antiseptic wipe and encourages her to spread her legs enough for him to get as close as possible, something they both know is unnecessary but it makes warmth spread in her chest, the love she had for him always growing, every single thing he did something that made her fall impossibly more in love with him.

“This is going to sting,” he says, his voice soft and gentle as he waits for her to nod in acknowledgement before he wipes it back and forth over her broken skin. She winces and he does too, the hand not cleaning her lip finding her waist, squeezing her skin to provide distraction and comfort in equal measure, “I’m sorry sweetheart.”

She places her hand over his on her waist, encouraging him to let go so she can link her fingers through his, “It’s not your fault, honey,” she assures him, running her thumb back and forth over the heel of his hand, “We both know I’ve survived worse than a split lip.”

He tightens his hold on her hand and disposes of the used wipe, “I know,” he says, raising her hand to kiss her knuckles, “We both have, but it doesn’t make seeing you get hurt any easier.”

Emily knew she wasn’t any better than he was, that the mere thought of him getting hurt was enough to make panic climb up her throat, her ability to breathe tied up with his. Their lifelines wrapped around each other like vines, so intertwined she wasn’t sure how she’d cope if she ever lost him. It scared her. Her reliance on him, how much she loved him, how important he was to her. But she knew it was worth it. Whether she had him for 5 years or 50. Being loved, and loving him like this was worth whatever pain that would follow.

“I know,” she says, reaching up and running her fingers through his hair, “I still don’t think I’m over that unsub coming at you with a knife a few months ago.” He’d barely been hurt. She knew that, the knife drawn across his skin in a way that hadn’t even needed stitches. But that hadn’t stopped the way her chest had constricted at the sight of blood blooming on his white shirt. A grim pattern that reminded her of unpacking his clothes from a plastic bag when he was in a hospital bed after Foyet. Back when he wasn’t hers and she was finally coming to terms with the realisation that she was in love with him, that the feelings she’d been harbouring for months weren’t just a simple crush on her boss. She leans forward to kiss him and frowns when he pulls back, her eyebrows furrowing, “I want a kiss. I was hit in the face with a gun today,” she says, and she knows if it wouldn’t hurt she’d pout, “I deserve a kiss.”

Aaron smiles and tucks her hair behind her ear, his knuckles lingering against her cheekbone as he speaks, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

She squeezes his hand and hooks one of her legs around him, holding him in place even though they both know he could step back if he wanted to, “You never could.”

He sighs, his resolve already crumbling, his inability to say no to her something they were both more than aware of, “Em-”

“Besides,” she says, cutting him off, not wanting to let him come up with another reason not to kiss her, “I thought the Hotchner rule was you had to kiss something better,” she bites the inside of her cheek to stop herself from smiling, “How will it ever heal without the final step to the process,” she cups his cheek, “Especially since we have no Batman bandaids to hand.”

Thanks to Jack being adventurous, a trait Aaron encouraged, delighted his son wasn’t afraid of life and of living it after everything he’d been through, she’d watched her boyfriend tend to a lot of scraped knees and elbows. Tumbles from playground equipment and falls from his bike treated with antiseptic wipes, Batman bandaids and a kiss, in that order. It never failed to make her picture Aaron doing the same to a little girl or boy who was half her and half him, their face slightly out of reach but their laugh the same as his as he pressed a bandaid to a tiny knee. She wanted it so much it made her ache. The life she’d always wanted but never thought she’d get finally on the path in front of her, the road ahead clear and easy for the first time in her life.

Aaron groans, and she knows she’s won. He leans forward and kisses the corner of her lips, and then he switches to the other, purposely avoiding the split in her skin, and he smiles widely at her when he pulls back, “There you go,” he says, kissing her knuckles, “All better.”

She shakes her head at him, “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

He hums and leans in to kiss her forehead before he encourages her off the counter, his hands on her hips, “We should get out of here,” he says, his smile wide, his dimples making a rare appearance whilst they were on a case, “Before the others get the wrong idea about what we’re doing in here.”

She laughs, and then immediately grimaces, her hand coming up to press against her lip, “Damn it.”

“Sorry-”

“Please don’t apologise for making me laugh,” she says, squeezing his hand before she steps away, reaching for the lock on the door, “You should never be sorry for making me happy, okay?”

He nods, leaning in to kiss the corner of her lips again, giving her one last moment of them before they would get another chance at home, “Okay. I love you.”

She lifts their joint hands and rests her cheek against the back of his, smiling when he strokes her skin with his knuckles, “I love you too,” she replies, turning to open the door and stepping out, immediately ignoring the smirks Derek and Dave throw her across the room.

“One last thing,” Aaron says as he steps out of the bathroom too, purposely ignoring how it deepens their friend's enjoyment of the situation. She turns and looks at him, her eyebrow raised, “If you think I’ve been over the top with this, just wait until Jack sees you’re hurt.”

She groans, remembering how Jack had reacted when she’d cut her foot accidentally on a glass he’d broken, a shard she and Aaron had somehow missed still on the kitchen floor. He’d barely let her do anything, insisting she stayed on the couch. His expression as serious as his father’s as he presented her with a cup of tea he’d made with water straight from the faucet. It was the worst cup of tea she’d ever had, but also the best, and she’d drunk every last drop as he sat pressed up against her.

“You Hotchners are lucky I love you so much,” she mumbles and he chuckles, letting his hand ghost over her lower back before they step apart and walk towards the others, ready to wrap everything up so they could leave.

“We really are.”

Chapter Text

Emily yawns whilst she waits for the tea kettle to boil, exhaustion deep in her bones as she rolls her neck, her fingers massaging away the tension that had crept up it throughout a long night with very little sleep. She and Aaron had spent the night trading off pacing the nursery with their six-month-old son in their arms. Oliver’s aching gums and low fever making it impossible for him, and his parents, to sleep for longer than an hour at a time. 

It made her ache that there was very little she could do to make him feel better, his pained cries cutting straight through to her heart. At first, she insisted that she was fine whenever Aaron offered to take it in turns to help with Oliver overnight. Not only because she was no longer with the BAU since she had their little boy and therefore wouldn’t be called away for a case like Aaron could be, her move to Counterterrorism something that had happened when she returned from maternity leave, but nursing was one of the few things that seemed to calm Oliver down other than letting him rub his sore face against her chest or neck. So it made sense to her that she was the one who stayed up with him, her body and brain weary as she’d eventually sit in the chair they kept in the nursery, her little boy finally asleep against her chest as the sun started to rise. 

She’d finally relented to Aaron’s constant offers of taking it in turns when he found her and Oliver in the nursery, both of them crying in exhaustion and frustration. He’d eased the baby out of her arms and told her to go to bed, and by the time Aaron settled Oliver and quietly walked out of the nursery he’d found her fast asleep on top of the covers, her arms wrapped around his pillow.  She had to admit that he was right, that she felt less on edge now she’d been getting some rest the last couple of nights, even if it still wasn’t a deep sleep. The sound of her little boy’s cries through the wall and her husband’s absence in the bed with her both ensuring she’d never quite trip from dozing into sleep. 

Sleeping without Aaron in their bed was something she’d got used to when he was away on cases, the space in their bed no less empty just because he wasn’t there, but she was used to it. Trying to sleep without him next to her when he was just a room away, the deep timber of his voice travelling through the wall as he soothed their son, was something else entirely. It made her ache for him, it made her miss him. It felt entirely ridiculous when the warmth of him was still lingering on their sheets, and the only thing that stopped her from getting out of bed and joining them in the nursery was her bone deep exhaustion, her limbs heavy and made of lead against the mattress until it was her turn to be with Oliver. 

She yawns again when the tea kettle finally comes to a boil and she pours the water into her mug, blowing out a breath that puffs out her cheeks as she watches her tea start to brew. As she places the kettle back down she hears Aaron’s familiar footsteps on their hardwood floor, a sound followed by the smell of his cologne and the feel of his arms wrapping around her as he tugs her gently against his chest. 

“Hi,” he says, kissing her temple as she leans against him, sighing contentedly as she places her hands over his on her abdomen. She turns her head to kiss his cheek, her lips catching the edge of his jaw as she settles in his embrace. 

“Hi,” she says, turning in his arms and smiling sleepily at him, “I put on a pot of coffee for you,” she says, stamping her lips against his, “It should be done in a minute.”

He groans happily and kisses her, “You’re amazing. I’m going to need all the coffee I can get today.”

She hums and leans against his chest, “Just be grateful you can have coffee,” she grumbles, both of them aware that her irritation wasn’t aimed at him or Oliver, just her lack of sleep in general, “I have to drink this stupid caffeine-free tea and hope the taste is enough to trick my brain into thinking it will keep me awake.” 

He hides a smile into the top of her head, knowing he’d be in trouble if she thought he was making fun of her, and he stamps a kiss against her hairline as he runs his hand up and down her back, “I’m sure you could have one cup of coffee if you wanted to sweetheart.”

She pulls back and looks at him, her eyebrow raised as she presses her lips together to try and suppress a smile, “Our kid barely sleeps as it is, and when I go and feed him in about 20 minutes you want me to give him breast milk laced with caffeine?” 

He sighs and tucks some of her hair behind her ear, “Fair point.” 

She hums and leans against him again, her cheek on his shoulder as she breathes him in, “Did Jack get off to school okay?” 

“He did,” Aaron says, turning his head to kiss her temple, “He told Jess that Ollie is sad because his teeth hurt, but that it’s not his fault.” 

She smiles, her dimple pressed against the material of his suit jacket at their eldest’s repetition of what they’d told him when he asked why Oliver was crying all the time, “He’s sweet.” 

Aaron nods and he half expects her to pull away, to drink her tea and allow him to pour himself a coffee before he makes them breakfast, but she doesn’t. She stays pressed up against him, her grip on him tightening if anything, and he furrows his brows, “Are you okay, sweetheart?” 

Emily sighs and tilts her head to look up at him, her smile sad as she presses her lips together, “I’m okay. I’m just tired,” she shrugs, “And I miss you I guess.” 

He frowns, concern for his wife sparking in his gut, and he places his hands on her shoulders, gently encouraging her backwards just enough to be able to look at her properly, “I’m right here, baby.”

She feels her skin tingle at the rarely used nickname between them. He usually called her sweetheart, a term of endearment that meant more to her than she ever thought it could, the way it sounded as it tripped off his tongue and into the air always enough to warm her from the inside out. She called him honey, the smile he’d give her whenever he heard it as sweet as the nectar the nickname came from. Baby was a term they used sparingly, one that only came out when one of them was struggling with something, and she immediately knows there was no point in trying to hide how she was feeling even if she wanted to. 

She stopped wanting to hide her feelings from him a long time ago. 

“I know,” she says, her hands on his elbows as she holds him in place, not wanting him to pull back any further, “I know you are. I just miss you. Either you’re away on a case, or when you’re here Ollie needs one of us and we end up sleeping alone,” she shrugs, her cheeks burning with embarrassment as she finally admits it all out loud, her admittance of it making it feel no less ridiculous, “I love him so much-”

“I know you do,” he assures her, cupping her cheek, “I know that.” 

She smiles tightly and nods, “I want to spend one night with you uninterrupted. And have sex,” she groans, “Fuck I miss sex,” she smiles when he does, her cheeks burning for an entirely different reason when his grip on her tightens, a familiar look flashing in his eyes, “But I mostly just want to fall asleep in your arms and wake up still there in the morning after a full night's sleep.” 

Aaron smiles at her and steps closer to her, trapping her between the warmth of his body and the counter behind her. Her hands drift up to cup the back of his neck, the movement driven by habit, and she runs her fingers through the short hair at the base of his head. 

“I miss you too,” he says, stamping a kiss against her lips, “Why don’t we ask Jess to take the boys one night this week,” he suggests, smiling when she blows out a breath, her mouth open to argue with him, but he cuts her off before she can come up with even one reason to turn his idea down, “She always offers, she loves them you know that. And she always used to help Haley and me with Jack when he was teething. So she knows what she’s doing. A night just the two of us would be good for us both,” he tucks some of her hair behind her ear, “It might be good for all of us.” 

She hums, the mere thought of it already making happiness fizz in her skin. The idea of spending time with him, precious one-on-one time that was the cornerstone of their relationship - of their family - already wearing down any attempt she may have made at arguing with him. 

“That does sound nice,” she says, tugging him closer, her teeth sinking into her lower lip, “Just, you and me…and our bed.” 

“It sounds perfect,” he replies, pressing her against the counter, smiling as a shiver runs through her at the contrast between his warmth and the cool marble of the countertop, “Just like you.” 

She rolls her eyes at him and tugs him in for a kiss, one hand on the back of his head and the other on his cheek as she holds him in place. She sighs as she sinks into it, into him, and he takes advantage, his tongue sweeping through her mouth as he deepens the kiss. She moans, her nails scratching at the back of his head as he holds her impossibly closer to him, his hands firm on her lower back as he moulds her body against his, a familiar feeling neither one of them would ever get enough of. He’s about to lift her onto the kitchen counter, to encourage her upwards so he can get even closer, aching to feel her legs wrapped around his hips, but they are cut off as soon as his phone rings and Oliver cries almost in tandem. 

Emily groans as they pull apart, her tongue immediately chasing the taste of him on her kiss swollen lips as he steps away to grab his phone from the counter behind him, leaving cool air and frustration in his wake as he answers the call. 

“Duty calls,” she grumbles, sounding just as annoyed as she feels and she nods, stamping a kiss against his cheek as she passes him to go get Oliver. She’s upstairs and in his nursery in seconds, her heart aching at the tears rolling down his red cheeks and the way he was tugging at his ear, “Oh my sweet baby boy,” she says, hauling him up into her arms and kissing his cheek, the warmth of his skin another squeeze around her heart, “Are your nasty teeth hurting again?” 

He cries and presses his face against her neck and she soothes him as best as she can, her lips against his dark hair as she hums, her hand running up and down his back as she tries to calm him down enough to be able to feed him. He’s quietening down, his cries turning into whimpers, when Aaron walks into the room, his smile soft and his hands stuffed into his pockets as he watches them, “That was Garcia. We have a case.” 

Emily nods and sighs sadly, “Rain check on our night alone?” 

He walks over and wraps his arms around them both, stamping a kiss against her forehead and then Oliver’s, “I’ll talk to Jess about taking the boys this weekend, okay? I should be back by then.”

She smiles and tilts her head to kiss him, her smile getting wider when Oliver grunts, his displeasure at his mother giving someone else, even his father, attention someone he’d made clear since he was just a few weeks old. 

“It’s a date.”

Chapter Text

Emily yawns as she paces the living room, and she looks down at her still wide awake one-month-old daughter and sighs. 

“Evie,” she says, stamping a kiss against the newborn’s head, her heart aching when she gets a despondent whine in response, “You need to sleep. You’ll feel so much better for it,” she kisses her head again before adjusting her hold on her, making sure the baby is secure against her chest, “We both will.” 

Evie had been a bad sleeper from the start. She would only fall asleep if she was in either Emily or Aaron’s arms, and even when she was sleeping it was never for very long. The paediatrician had told them that Evie had colic, and that it would go away within the next couple of months, but it in no way made it any easier to deal with when they were in the trenches of it. When she’d cry endlessly and they could do nothing but attempt to soothe her and rock her to sleep. 

It had been made harder by Aaron’s return to work a few days ago. He’d had more time off than they’d initially planned. Emily’s labour had become very scary very quickly and she ended up having an emergency c-section. The recovery from it had been, and still was, brutal and she was grateful that Aaron had been able to stay home with them a couple of weeks longer than they thought we would. He’d offered to take some more time, especially since she still couldn’t drive anywhere, but Emily was insistent that he went back to work. Not only was she starting to lose patience with her husband and his sweet, but persistent, hovering, but she wanted to prove to herself that she could do this. That she could be Evie’s mom and look after her baby girl all by herself. 

She feels Evie’s breath even out across her skin and she sneaks another look at her, sighing in relief when she sees she’s fast asleep. She carefully walks over to the couch and sinks down onto it, clenching her teeth to keep in a groan when her c-section scar pulls so she doesn’t accidentally wake up Evie after spending close to 45 minutes getting her to sleep. She gently rests her cheek against the top of her daughter’s head and closes her eyes, taking a moment to enjoy the first piece of quiet in the house all day since just before Aaron took Jack to school. 

She’s just about to reach out for the TV remote, to put on a show with the sound switched off, when her phone rings, the sound of it making her jump and curse at the same time. She picks up her phone from the couch next to her and lovingly shakes her head when Evie doesn’t even flinch. 

“Sure, if I put you down you notice, but the phone ringing? That you sleep through,” she says, her brow furrowing when she sees it’s Jack’s school calling before she answers, “Hello?” 

“Hi, this is Miss Teague, Jack’s teacher. I’m sorry to call you, I tried your husband first but it went through to voicemail.”

Emily hums and purposely keeps her voice low so she doesn’t wake up Evie, “He’s at a prison visit today. Is Jack okay? I’m not allowed to drive at the moment but if he’s hurt I can call his aunt-”

“No, he’s okay,” Miss Teague assures her, “He’s a very proud big brother by the way, Evie is all he’ll talk about.” 

Emily smiles at that, love blooming in her chest so quickly that it makes it momentarily hard to breathe. Before they’d even started trying for a baby she’d been worried what Jack would think, whether he’d want a sibling or worry she’d love a baby more than him, but he’d been excited from the start. He’d asked a lot of questions throughout her pregnancy, and she’d assured him at every possible step that she loved him just as much as she loved the baby. Something he’d often reply to with a furrowed brow and a look that could only mean ‘ duh.’ 

“I’m hoping that the love lasts when she’s big enough to steal his toys,” Emily jokes, anxiety simmering low in her gut as she bites the inside of her cheek, “If he’s not hurt, is everything okay?” 

“I’m only really calling to make you aware of an incident today. I’ve made it very clear to Jack that he isn’t in trouble, but I thought it was worth flagging so you can have a conversation with him too,” Miss Teague says, and Emily furrows her brow, her anxiety only getting worse at the cryptic explanation. Jack wasn’t a kid that got into trouble. He was polite and well behaved and somewhat of a teacher's pet, and she was endlessly proud of him. Prickly warmth spreads up her back and across her chest as she tells herself that this could be the start of a delayed reaction to having a new baby in the home. That he wasn’t getting enough attention and was starting to act out at school to make sure he got some, “Another boy in class fell over and banged his head during recess, and Jack made it to his side before I did. And he…” Miss Teague drifts off and clears her throat, and it almost sounds like to Emily she’s trying to cover a smile, “He kissed him on the forehead to make him feel better.” 

Whatever Emily had expected her to say, it hadn’t been that, and she chokes on a laugh that she covers with a cough, love for her son and his gentle kindness overwhelming her, the waves of it extinguishing any flames of anxiety that had been sparking in her chest, “He did what?” 

“He kissed him on the forehead. He said that you do it for him and his Daddy when they are sick or hurt,” Miss Teague repeats, that same smiling tone to her voice again, “As I said, he’s not in trouble, I know it was done with good intentions, but I reminded him that we keep ourselves to ourselves and that we don’t touch anyone else in class without their permission. Even if it is to make them feel better.” 

Emily presses her lips together and nods even though Miss Teauge can’t see her, and she feels something close to embarrassment burning in her cheeks, “Yeah, I…” she clears her throat, “We’ll make sure we tell him the same thing.” 

If anyone on the team ever heard about this she knew she’d never live it down.

___

When Aaron gets his phone back he checks it and immediately sees two things - a missed call from the school and a text from his wife saying everything was fine, but to call her when he has the chance. 

He calls the moment they are in the car, worried enough despite Emily’s reassurance that he doesn’t even try to fight Dave on driving back to Quantico. Emily answers almost immediately, her voice low and quiet.

“Hi, honey.” 

He immediately feels calmer, and not just because she sounds relaxed - something she wouldn’t be if something was wrong with Jack - but because she was his safe space. She could make him feel better with nothing more than a smile and the sound of her voice, her presence enough to calm him even in the worst of circumstances. She’d joked once, just after her maternity leave started, that he’d have to flick through the photos of her in his favourites folder on his phone when he needed to see her now at work, and he’d found himself doing it more than once since he’d come back just a few days ago. He’d sit in his office, his phone in his hands as he looked at photos of her and the kids to remind himself why he did his job at all - so he could make the world a slightly better, kinder, place for them. 

“Hi sweetheart,” he says, casting a glance over at Dave who smiles from the driver's seat at the use of the term of endearment, “Is Evie asleep?” 

“Yes,” she replies, sounding tired and happy in equal measure, “And I’ve been nap trapped on the couch for over an hour now. It’s pure bliss.” 

“Well, I have to head back to the office for a while, but I’ll be home as soon as I can. What did the school want, is Jack okay?” 

Emily chuckles, “Yeah, he’s okay. We are going to have to talk to him about…how some things are just for at home and not school though.” 

He furrows his brow, “What do you mean?” 

He listens intently as Emily tells him about what Jack’s teacher had said, his attention only drawn away for a moment when he hears Dave choke on a laugh when she says Jack had learnt it from her, the car quiet enough that he picks up on bits and pieces of her end of the call. Of all the things Aaron had thought she was going to say, this wasn’t one of them, and even though he knew he had to speak to his son he was proud of him. Despite everything he’d been through, Jack was kind above all else, and he’d immediately tried to comfort a classmate in a way he liked to be comforted. 

“We can talk to him later,” Aaron says, smiling as he clears his throat, lowering his voice even though he knows his friend will hear regardless, “This may mean you have to tamper down on the forehead kisses you know.” 

“Never,” she replies, her response immediately followed by Evie crying, “Little Miss Hotchner is up, I should feed her.” 

“Give her a kiss from me.”

“On the forehead?” Emily jokes, and he laughs, “Love you. See you later.”

“Love you too, sweetheart,” he replies and he hangs up before he blows out a slow breath and turns to his friend, “Okay, how much of that did you hear?” 

Dave smirks at him, “Enough to know that you and Bella are never beating Garcia’s allegations of you two being the ‘cutest couple of all time.’”

___

Emily sinks into bed next to Aaron. She snuggles up against him, her head on his shoulder as she looks at Evie fast asleep with her cheek pressed against his chest. 

“I think I fell asleep in the shower,” Emily grumbles, unable to stop herself from smiling when Aaron chuckles against the top of her head. She tilts her head to look up at him and kisses him, sighing contentedly as she does it one more time before she settles back down, “She’s lucky she’s so cute. Otherwise, I’m not sure I could deal with the lack of sleep.” 

“I’m sure that’s exactly why she’s so cute. Nature's way of making sure we forget about how hard this part is when we decide to do this again in a year or so.” 

She looks up at him again, “Let’s keep all talk of more babies to one side until my doctor signs off on me lifting something heavier than our current baby, okay honey?” 

He kisses her, “Yes, sweetheart,” he smiles at her, an edge to it that lets her know he’s thinking about something else entirely. 

“Are you okay?” She asks, reaching up to cup his cheek, her thumb tracing back and forth over his jaw, the first signs of his beard rough against her skin.

Aaron nods, “I’m fine. I just keep thinking about Jack,” he says. Their conversation with him had gone well. They’d explained what the teacher had told them and made sure he knew that he wasn’t in trouble, but that he had to be more mindful in the future. He’d nodded and asked if he could play his game and the evening then carried on as normal. 

“He was okay, Aaron.”

“I know,” he assures her, turning his head to kiss her palm, “I know he was. But…when I found out Haley and I were having a boy…I never expected I’d be having to tell him he was being too gentle with his classmates,” his smile turns sad, the corners of it twisted by the ghosts of his past, “I used to get in trouble for fighting when I was his age. It was all I saw at home. And when I first held Jack I knew I’d make sure that wouldn’t be his life.” 

It takes all of her self control to not start crying, her usual sadness for the boy her husband never got to be made worse by her hormones. She sits up and rests her temple against his, her hand linking with his over their sleeping daughter’s back. 

“You have made sure that isn’t his life,” she says, turning her head to kiss his forehead, to try and kiss away the hurt of the past that he’d never entirely outrun, “That boy is the sweetest, kindest kid I have ever met. And I am so lucky to even be the tiniest part of that,” she pulls back to look at him, his eyes shining as they meet hers. She looks down at Evie and squeezes Aaron’s hand, “We have some pretty adorable kids, huh? Inappropriate forehead kisses and all.” 

He chuckles, the sound wet as it catches in his chest, “Yeah. We do.” 

She leans in and kisses him, smiling into it as she tries to show him everything she didn’t quite have the words for in the press of her lips against his. When she pulls back she rests her temple against his again.

“If all of our kids are this adorable, I’d have a hundred of them,” she says, and he laughs. It wakes up Evie, and his expression is apologetic as Emily lifts her from his chest, her eyebrow raised at him as she soothes their daughter and admonishes him at the same time, “Let’s just stick with two for now though.” 

Chapter Text

It’s late when she gets home. The house is dark apart from the porch light, and despite her exhaustion, it makes her smile. Aaron would always leave it on for her when she was working late at the office or when she was travelling back from a case. It was one of the many small traditions of theirs that she adored, a physical manifestation of the love they had for each other and their family, a literal beacon of light to guide her home after a long day or a long case. 

She sighs as she switches off her car’s engine and she looks at herself in the rearview mirror, the bags under her eyes accentuated by the low light. Work had been relentless lately. Case after case after case that meant she’d had very little time with her husband and children. It left her feeling weary, worn down to the bone as she dragged herself through long days just to get to spend fleeting moments with Aaron, Jack and Violet. She loved her job. She knew the worth of it and that what she did made a difference, but she sometimes wondered why she did it all. The fear that she was turning into her mother despite her best efforts was never far behind her, always there and ready to reach out and wrap its hand around her throat. 

She makes sure that she’s quiet as she steps into the house, ensuring she doesn’t wake anyone up as she carefully closes and locks the front door behind her. She hangs up her coat and leaves her bag near the front door as she tells herself she’ll take it to the laundry room in the morning, the few extra seconds it would take to walk there now too much to even think about taking. She slips off her shoes and tucks them into the rack before she heads upstairs, desperate to even just see her kids, even if she can’t speak to them because they are sleeping. 

She sneaks into Jack’s room first. He’s fast asleep, tangled up in his comforter with his mouth hanging open and his favourite toy hugged against his chest. She smiles to herself, her teeth sinking in her lower lip in an effort to contain it, and she walks over to his bed. She expertly re-arranges him so he’s no longer tangled in his covers, a skill she’d learnt when she first started dating Aaron and stepped into the important role in Jack’s life that came with it. Back then, he’d wake up from nightmares most nights still. He’d call her Emmy and cry against her neck as Aaron held them both close, his own tears landing on the top of Emily’s head as he berated himself for causing his son’s heartbreak. Misplaced guilt she knew her husband carried to this day no matter how often she told him what happened with Haley wasn’t his fault. 

Jack slept better these days. He still had his favourite toy, and the nightlight they all pretended he didn’t need, but his nightmares were rare. They’d only happen around birthdays and the anniversary of Haley’s death. Now, when Jack would appear at their bedroom door and seek Emily out he’d call her Mom, the title that still made her heart soar even now, and he’d slip into bed between the two of them, content to fall asleep between his two remaining parents as he mourned the one he lost. 

She sits on the edge of his bed and leans down to kiss his forehead. When she pulls back she runs her fingers through his sandy hair and smiles when it flops back down over his forehead, the longest pieces almost reaching his eyes, and she makes a mental note that she needs to book him a haircut soon. 

“Love you, kiddo,” she whispers before she kisses his forehead again and leaves the room, once again careful as she pulls the door closed behind her. 

Violet’s door isn’t closed all the way, so it’s easier to sneak in without risking waking her up. The two-year-old had recently transitioned to a toddler bed from a crib, something that had made Emily sadder than she thought it would, and the little girl was prone to wandering into her parent's room in the middle of the night. She was also prone to slamming doors shut behind her if she had to open them in the first place, so they left both her door and their door open so she could sneak in without waking them and Jack up unnecessarily. 

Emily smiles as she settles on the edge of Violet’s bed, and she gently tugs the toddler's thumb from out of her mouth before she adjusts the covers around her. Violet was all her. It was something she’d been told since the moment her daughter was born - their similarities clear from the very second Aaron first set eyes on them together. As Violet’s personality developed, the comparisons only grew greater. Everything she’d always been taught were bad traits of her own - her stubbornness, her supposed wildness, her desire to understand everything around her - seemed nothing short of extraordinary when she saw them in her little girl. Loving her daughter had allowed Emily to love parts of herself that she never had before, and it was part of motherhood that she hadn’t been prepared for. 

“Mommy loves you, sweet girl,” she whispers, and she leans in to kiss Violet’s forehead, taking a moment to breathe in the comforting smell of her no-tear shampoo before she pulls back. When she leaves the room, avoiding the squeaky floorboard just outside of it, she leaves the door slightly open again, sure she’d wake up in the morning to find her daughter curled up against her side. 

She isn’t surprised when she finds Aaron fast asleep too. He’s curled up on his side, facing her side of the bed, with his arm laid out in front of him as if she’s right there with him. She knew she did the same thing too - that when she slept in hotel rooms across the country, or even on the rare occasion she was in their bed alone, she’d curl up on her side as if he was right there with her. So used to him being there, so used to wanting him there that she didn’t remember what it was like to want to sleep alone. 

She gets ready for bed quickly, the need to be wrapped up in his embrace almost overwhelming now she’d seen him. She does a shortened down version of her skincare routine and brushes her teeth and then she climbs into bed next to him, not caring that in the morning he’d have something to say about the clothes she’d left just short of the hamper on the bathroom floor. She slips in amongst the sheets and immediately feels a sense of calm washing over her, the knot that had formed in her chest over the last day or so finally easing now she could smell him, now she could feel the warmth of his body. She reaches for his hand and links her fingers through his before she tucks it under her chin, his arm heavy and warm over her hip and against her chest. She kisses his knuckles and then lets her eyes drift closed, ready to finally sleep, but then he squeezes her hand, and shifts closer to her. 

“You’re home.”

The sound of his sleepy voice, the rasp to it that was just hers, makes her smile, and she turns in his embrace, “I’m home,” she replies, resettling so they are sharing her pillow, her nose brushing against his, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up.” 

“‘m not sorry,” he replies, his words half slurred and his eyes obviously bleary in the shadowy light of the room, “Means I can do this.”

He leans in to kiss her, his lips barely catching hers until she turns her head a little so she can kiss him properly. She smiles into it, kissing him one more time before she hums and pulls back, her forehead against his as she lifts a hand to run her knuckles back and forth on his cheek.

“Maybe I’m not sorry for waking you up,” she jokes, kissing him again, smiling to herself when his sleepiness makes him more uncoordinated than usual, “I could always do with a kiss from you.” 

He turns his head and kisses her hand, “Long case.” 

She sighs, “Long case.” 

“Come ‘ere,” he says, encouraging her into his embrace, and she goes willingly. She slots herself against him, her cheek against his chest and her head tucked under his chin as she hooks a leg over his waist, desperate to be as close to him as possible, “Want to talk about it?” 

“Not right now,” she replies, kissing his chest through his t-shirt, “Besides, you should go back to sleep,” she says, kissing his chest again, “I really didn’t mean to wake you up.” 

“I’d wake up any time for you,” he says as he kisses the top of her head, and it makes tears she doesn’t expect well in her eyes, his love for her so overwhelming still at times that it would steal the breath from her lungs.  “Love you,” she says, blinking to push the tears away because all she wants to do is fall asleep in his arms, “So much.” 

“I love you too.” His hold on her tightens and she knows he’s more awake now, that she hasn’t done a good job at covering up how she’s feeling, “Em-”

“In the morning,” she says, pulling back to look at him, her lips pressed together as she tries to stop them from trembling, “I promise. Just…all I want to do right now is fall asleep with you. I’ve missed you.” 

“I missed you too,” he says, tucking some of her hair behind her ear, “The kids did too.” 

She chokes on a sound between a sob and a laugh, “I missed them. All of you,” she shakes her head at herself, “I think I need a vacation or something. I feel…”

“Worn out,” he finishes for her, because he knows, of course he does, because it used to be his job before it was hers. 

“Yeah,” she breathes out, “And like I’m letting them down or something.” 

He leans in to kiss her, more force behind it now he is fully awake, and he holds her in place when he pulls back to look at her, “You could never let our kids down, Emily,” he says, once again knowing what she’s talking about without her having to go into detail, “You’re the best mom in the world. And I won’t ever let you forget that,” he wipes away a tear she hadn’t even realised had escaped and he smiles, “And on top of being the best mom in the world, you’re a superhero. To them and to me.”

She shakes her head at him and leans in to kiss him before she settles back against his chest, “You’re sweet,” she sighs, “Maybe we should go on vacation. Get away from it all for a little while.” 

“Maybe we should,” he says, rubbing a hand up and down her back, “Just you, me, Jack and Violet,” he kisses the top of her head, “But we’ll discuss it all in the morning after you’ve had some sleep.” 

She hums and closes her eyes, her face half pressed into his shirt as she breathes him in, warm and happy and safe as she starts to feel herself getting lulled to sleep by the circles he’s drawing on her back. “Promise me one thing?” 

“Anything.” 

“That no matter what we won’t go to Disneyworld,” she grumbles, her eyelids now too heavy to open, “I cannot think of anything less relaxing.” 

He chuckles, “I promise, sweetheart,” he kisses the top of her head as she goes heavy against him, “Whatever you want.” 

Chapter Text

“Aaron, slow down.” 

He smiles as he casts a look at her in the rearview mirror, his smile only getting wider when he sees she’s not looking up, all of her focus on their newborn son in his car seat. She’d insisted on travelling in the back of the car with Lucas, not wanting him to be out of her sight for the journey home. He wasn’t even two days old yet. He was tiny and practically swimming in the lion covered onesie Emily had dressed him in and he was fast asleep. Emily was watching him intently, her finger clasped in his tiny fist, and Aaron knew she was excited to get him home. 

Even if she did keep telling him he was driving too fast.

“Em, sweetheart,” he says, “I’m already driving almost 10 miles per hour below the speed limit,” he adds, waving apologetically as a driver in another car beeps their horn as they overtake, “Any slower and I might get a ticket.” 

She looks up and their eyes meet in the rearview mirror briefly before his focus is back on the road, “Sorry,” she mumbles, smiling when she looks back down at Lucas, her chest tightening as she takes in the slope of his nose, his tiny pursed lips. She still felt overwhelmed by it all. Overwhelmed by her love for him, for all of her Hotchner boys. It was hard for her to get her head around the fact that two days ago he was still inside of her, rolling in her belly like he had for months, and now he was here, his tiny fist wrapped around her finger even in sleep, and she could barely remember what life was like before she’d seen his face, “I know I’m crazy. If that helps.” 

“You’re not crazy,” Aaron replies, sighing contentedly as they finally pull onto their street, “You’re his mom and you gave birth 36 hours ago,” he smiles as he parks on the driveway, unclipping his seatbelt so he can turn and look at them properly, “You’re just being protective.” 

She hums, her teeth sinking into her lower lip as she looks up at him, “I feel crazy. Before you came to get us this morning I cried because of how cute he looks in his outfit.” 

Her inability to control her emotions had been, her least favourite part of pregnancy. She’d taken the changes to her body in her stride, had loved to stand sideways and look in the mirror as she studied the flatness of her belly turn into a curve before it gave way to her eventual bump. It was only towards the end, when she struggled to breathe because Lucas was pressed up against her lungs whenever she sat down, and when she could no longer deny that she was waddling not walking, that she started to wish the remaining days and weeks away. The hormones had driven her crazy from the start. 

She’d always prided herself on her ability to control her emotions, something she’d always been able to do around everyone. Aaron had quickly become the exception to that rule when they first started dating. If she was honest with herself, he’d been the exception long before that, somehow able to see past her carefully constructed walls, using the cracks left behind by everything she’d endured to see through them - to see through her. Pregnancy had done away with her walls entirely. Left her feeling exposed as she’d jump from happiness to anger, to tears in a matter of minutes. Her only reassurance in any of it was Aaron. He’d been there to hold her together when she needed him to, or to throw a glare at Derek if he gently made fun of her for crying over a sandwich and her inability to eat cold cuts. He’d tell her that everything was fine, that everything was normal but it didn’t help when she felt like she was losing her mind, losing who she was before all of this. 

“You’re being hard on yourself, sweetheart,” Aaron says as he opens his car door and then hers, smiling softly as he offers her a hand, “You just had a baby.” 

“I know,” she huffs as she takes his hand, her teeth clenched together as she stands up, discomfort rolling over her like a wave, her body aching in ways she didn’t know was possible, “God,” she grumbles, holding onto the car door as she straightens up, “He’s so lucky he’s cute,” she blows out a breath, “I don’t think I’ve ever been so uncomfortable.” 

She knew that wasn’t quite true. That the pain she’d gone through when recovering from what Ian had done to her was unlike anything she’d ever experienced, but this was different. She’d never gone through a major physiological event and then immediately been expected to look after someone else, to have their needs rely almost entirely on her, and she was as exhausted as she was happy. 

“Once we get you inside I’ll get you one of your icepacks,” he says, smiling at her as he reaches past to unclip Lucas’s car seat, “That might help a little.” 

She hums and presses her lips against his temple, “You’re the best,” she says, reaching out to take the car seat from him, frowning when he stops her, moving Lucas further away, “Honey-”

“You can have him when we get inside, okay?” He says, winking at her, “You’ve carried him in and out of the house for the last nine months, now it’s my turn.” 

She narrows her eyes at him, but as soon as she takes a few steps she knows he’s right, knows that she’s going to likely need his help to get up to the porch anyway, so she walks into the house without any further complaint. She sighs contentedly as soon as the smell of home washes over her, her hand drifting to her soft belly as she thinks about the last time she was here. Contractions rolling through her every eight minutes, her hand on her bump as Aaron guided her out to the car. 

“Is Jess getting Jack from school later?” She asks, turning to look at Aaron as he steps into the house, Lucas’s car seat in one hand and her hospital bag in the other. 

Aaron nods as he walks into the living room, “He’s excited to see Lucas again. When I took him to school this morning he was all he’d talk about.” 

She chuckles and leans down to unclip Lucas from the car seat the moment Aaron sets it down on the coffee table. She kisses his forehead before she rests him on her chest, “Your brother is obsessed with you sweet boy,” she kisses his temple again, “Let’s hope it lasts when you’re big enough to borrow his toys.” 

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Aaron laughs and leans in to kiss her, “Why don’t you sit down? I’ve got a surprise for you.” 

She furrows her brow but smiles, her teeth sinking into her lower lip as she tilts her head curiously, “Mysterious.” 

“Need help sitting down?” 

She sighs and nods, holding Lucas against her as Aaron helps lower her sit down, “I really thought you having to help me on and off the couch would be something that went away when I was no longer pregnant.” 

He kisses her forehead before he stands up straight, “I’d help you forever, you know that,” he smiles, “You two wait there, and I’ll be right back.”

Emily chuckles as she watches him go and she kisses the top of Lucas’s head, “Daddy is saying that like it wouldn’t take me a week to get up by myself right now,” she kisses him again, her eyes drifting closed as she breathes him in, the sweet newborn scent she knew would fade too quickly for her liking addictive, “You’re worth it all though sweet boy.” 

“Close your eyes.” 

“They are already closed.” She’d roll her eyes if they were open, but instead she calls back to her husband, “Hurry up before I fall asleep.” She listens intently as Aaron walks into the room and places something on the table, whatever it is heavy as it clunks against the wood, “Can I open them yet?” 

“Yes,” he replies, sinking onto the couch next to her, “You can open your eyes.” 

She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting to see when she opened her eyes, but it wasn’t a charcuterie board. It was beautiful. Full of her favourite soft cheeses and cold cuts, some of them arranged to look like roses, fruit and crackers. She chokes on a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob as she tears her eyes from it to look at her husband, and the nervous look shining in his eyes makes her heart clench in her chest. 

“Aaron…” 

“I know it’s stupid,” he says, clearing his throat as he shifts closer to her, his arm around her shoulders, “But-”

“It’s not stupid,” she replies as she cups his cheek, Lucas content and still fast asleep on her chest, “Not stupid at all.”  Apart from her lack of emotional control, not being able to eat whatever she wanted to as a close second on her list of least favourite things about being pregnant. As soon as her first trimester was over and the nausea eased off she was hit with cravings that were almost exclusively for food she was no longer allowed to eat. She’d lamented to Aaron more than once about how she really really wanted charcuterie. She’d cried about it more than once too, swearing him to secrecy over the fact she’d sobbed over brie and mortadella, “Where did you get it?” 

“I made it myself,” he says, smiling when she chuckles in surprise. He shrugs one of his shoulders and leans in to kiss her, his thumb catching a stray tear as it slips down her cheek, “We already had the board and I went to that store you like to get everything after I left the hospital last night.” 

“Well,” she says, her eyes flitting to the board again as she kisses him, “If you ever decide you need a career change I think you could do this for a living.” 

“I don’t think there's much of a business in the charcuterie board world,” he mumbles against lips, tasting her smile. 

She hums and kisses him again, barely pulling back to speak, “You might be surprised,” she kisses him again, “Can you get me some?” She asks, finally pulling back as she nods down towards Lucas, “I’m trapped.” 

“Of course,” he stamps a kiss against the corner of her lips as he leans forward to plate some up for her, making sure to get her favourite things before he settles back down next to her. He attempts to pass her the plate but frowns as he thinks about the logistics, one of her hands under Lucas as she holds him in place and one on his back, “How do you want to do this?” 

She crunches her nose up and looks at the food, her stomach growling at the thought of it all, “Will you judge me if I say you hold him whilst I eat that entire board?” 

“Never.” He chuckles and leans in to kiss her, his nose bumping against hers before he takes Lucas from her, the baby barely grumbling as he’s passed between his parents. 

She almost cries as she eats, groaning in delight as she closes her eyes, “God I love you.” 

“Now Lukey,” Aaron says, smirking as he talks to the newborn asleep on his chest but looks at his wife, “Mommy is talking to the cheese and cold cuts right now, but she loves us and Jack too. Don’t worry.” 

“Shut up,” she jokes, and she narrows her eyes, reaching out to wrap her hand around Lucas’s foot, unable to bear being separated from him for more than a few minutes at a time, “I can love more than one thing.” 

Chapter Text

Emily groans as the alarm wakes her up, the sound mixing with her husband’s laugh as he reaches over her to switch it off, his hand landing on her hip as he settles back down and pulls her closer. He presses his chest against her back as he kisses her cheek, breathing her in as she hugs his arm to her chest.

“Morning sweetheart,” he mumbles, his voice hoarse from sleep. Rough and deliciously hers as he kisses her cheek again. 

“Morning, honey,” she hums and turns her head to kiss him, her lips briefly stamped against his before she pulls back to smile at him. He was gorgeous first thing in the morning, rumbled by sleep and their sheets, his face as relaxed as she ever saw it in the safety of their bed. She kisses him again, unable to stop herself, as she presses a quick, gentle, kiss against his lips before she rests her head back on her pillow. Somewhere along the way, in amongst all the kisses she and Aaron shared - the gentle hesitance of that last first kiss, the passion filled kisses as they grasped at each other's skin, the comforting ones they’d exchange when the other was sad or hurt - this kind was her favourite. The kind they exchanged without thinking, a stamping of her lips against his or his against hers that they’d shared countless times, a soft hello or goodbye, or anything in between, that she now couldn’t imagine living without. “Do we have to get up?” 

He chuckles, huffing out a breath over the top of her head, “Unfortunately.” 

She grumbles and turns in his arms, letting him help her without complaint, before pressing her face against his chest as she snuggles in impossibly deeper, not quite ready to leave the sanctuary of his arms and their bed. As soon as they got up, they’d be pulled in different directions. They’d get the boys ready for daycare and school, Aaron would take Issac and Emily would take Jack, and then they’d go to work - him to the BAU and her to Counterterrorism where she’d moved to when they got married. 

Outside of here, of their bed, there was so much to be done. Here they could just be Emily and Aaron. They weren’t Mom and Dad, or Prentiss and Hotch. They weren’t unit chiefs. They were just them, all expectations left at their slightly ajar bedroom door, the light from the hallway filtering into their room. 

“I’m so tired,” she says, her voice muffled against his t-shirt, “Let’s just stay here all day.” 

He hides a smile against her hairline and rubs a circle on her back, “We could do that. The team could survive without me,” he says, his smile getting wider when she groans against him, the way she lightly pinches his back letting him know she knows he’s making fun of her, “Your team will be fine too,” he kisses her forehead, “And the boys can fend for themselves. 8 months old and 7 are the perfect age to learn how to-”

“Okay,” she says, chuckling as she pulls back, “I get it,” she runs her fingers through his hair, smiles as it flops back down onto his forehead, “I just miss you… this… that’s all.”

He stamps a kiss against her lips before he rests his forehead against hers, “I know. Me too,” he tucks some of her hair behind her ear, “Why do you think I set the alarm for this time every morning?” He kisses her again, “So we can do this.” 

She presses her lips together to try to contain her smile, love for him blooming in her chest, the flowers of it taking up space where her lungs should be and making her breathless.

“You are so-” She’s cut off by the baby monitor crackling to life, Issac’s familiar cry coming down it a second behind his actual cry from the next room. She sighs and stamps her lips against Aaron’s, taking what she can from it until she’s here with him again at the end of the day, and then she pulls back, sitting up and getting out of bed, “Duty calls.” 

He winks at her as he climbs out of bed too, and she smiles before she heads out of their bedroom, ready for another day of her beautifully ordinary life. 

___

Emily hums a nursery rhyme as she paces back and forth in the nursery, Issac in her arms, his face pressed against her neck as she rubs circles on his back. She feels his breathing even out as it skips across her skin, and she tilts her head down, smiling softly when she sees he’s fast asleep. She kisses his temple and whispers her love for him in every language she knows before she lays him in his crib, taking a moment to look at him, to admire his features - her nose, Aaron’s lips and furrowed brow. He was perfect. Perfect and beautiful in a world that was anything but, and she’d do anything to protect him and Jack from it. 

She runs her fingers through Issac’s dark hair, “Goodnight, sweet boy. Mama loves you.” 

She’s quiet as she walks out of the nursery, pulling the door closed gently as she steps out into the hallway. She smiles as Aaron steps out of Jack’s room at the same time. Divide and conquer was their rule with bedtime when Aaron was home from a case. They would take it in turns with each of the boys, would swap between singing Issac to sleep and reading Jack a story each night. Then they’d head downstairs and share a glass of wine whilst watching a movie or just snuggling on the couch. 

When Aaron was away on a case, Jack would help her with Issac. He’d splash his toys in the water in front of him whilst Emily bathed him, drawing out sweet giggles from his little brother. Then she’d put Issac to bed and then Jack. She’d occasionally fall asleep in his twin bed with him, would wake up a couple of hours later with a cric in her neck and her eldest son’s drool on her shirt. She loved the simplicity of it, the softness she never expected to experience, and it made her happier than she ever thought possible. 

Aaron wraps both of his hands around one of hers, sandwiching it between his, squeezing gently as he tilts his head towards the stairs, “Glass of wine?” 

She kisses his cheek, the first signs of his stubble rough against her lips, “It’s like you read my mind.” 

He insists she sits down, patting her on the ass as she goes, a cheekiness to his smile that felt like it was just hers and the boys when she playfully shakes her head at him. He’s with her within a couple of minutes, a glass of red wine in hand as he sits on the couch with her, his arm around her shoulders as he passes her the wine. 

“Thanks, honey,” she says, smiling at the purple staining at the corner of his lips, a sign he’d had a sip of the drink on the short walk to the kitchen. She leans in to kiss him, tasting the wine on his lips, and she hums as she pulls back, “Oh, my favourite.”

He chuckles as she takes a sip of the wine and passes him the glass, “Me? Or the wine?” 

“Both,” she replies, throwing her legs over his lap as she leans against his side, scratching at the nape of his neck with her spare hand, “Definitely both.” 

The rest of the evening passes by quickly. The time melting away around them as they simply enjoy each other’s company. They talk about their days, about the things they missed by no longer working together, and about the boys. She tells him a story Issac’s daycare teacher told her, a second-hand version of events about their little boy laughing repeatedly at peek-a-boo. Aaron sees the tension in her frame as she tells him, the guilt pressed into her smile and her dimples because she doesn’t need to say that she feels bad she wasn’t there. He already knew, had held her hand and kissed her forehead whenever she cried about feeling like a bad mom because she wanted to work, her worries about becoming her mother never too far away, the weight of them pressing down on her chest. 

She did the same for him too. Returned the affection he gave away easily, gave it back to him just as simply whenever his monsters came calling. Whenever he told her he felt guilty about what happened to Haley, or whenever Jack would forget a little bit more about the woman he got his eyes from. 

She’s half asleep, her eyes slowly drifting shut as she’s lulled into it by his fingers trailing up and down her arm, when he kisses her temple, “Bedtime?” 

She hums and nods, chasing his lips to stamp a kiss against them, “Bedtime.” 

They get ready for bed around each other, the routine a dance of sorts they’d perfected years ago. He slips past her, his hands on her hips as she does her skincare routine, so he can grab his toothbrush. She smiles at him in the mirror as she brushes her teeth too, winking at him before she spits into the sink, kissing his jaw as she mumbles against his skin that she’ll meet him in bed. 

She sinks into bed, lets the scent of him on their sheets wash over her as she pulls the covers around her. She shivers at the cool press of them against her skin, but then he’s there, warm and hers and chasing away the cold. 

“You’re comfy,” she mumbles, tucking herself against his side, her face pressed against his neck, “And warm.” 

He runs his fingers through her hair, lightly scratching at her scalp as he holds her in place - as if there was anywhere else she’d rather be than right here with him, “So that’s why you keep me around?” 

She pulls back just enough to look up at him, “That,” she says, kissing him quickly, “Among many other things,” she yawns, “I’m so tired. Today was a long day.” 

He smiles and hooks his finger under her chin, encouraging her to kiss him. She hums into it, her forehead resting against the bridge of his nose. “Ready to do it all again tomorrow?” 

She nods and kisses him, her lips briefly against his before she pulls back to smile at him, “Always.” 

Chapter Text

It was a habit, one which had started months ago when they first started trying for a baby. She’d wake up, take a pregnancy test, set it on the side, carry on getting ready for the day, and then try and tell herself that it was okay when the result came back negative. She’d smile sadly and shake her head at Aaron as she stepped back out into their bedroom, the test already in the trashcan as he pulled her into a hug and told her they’d be okay no matter what. It was something she desperately wanted to believe as time went on, something that was harder to accept as the months slipped by, and the ticking of her biological clock was so loud she could barely hear anything else.

She wanted a baby with him so much that it hurt, an ache in her chest that would only get worse as he tried to hide his disappointment from her. A quick flash in his eyes before he fixed on a comforting smile to look after her, as if he forgot that she’d been trained to read people in the exact same way he had been.

It’s a habit. So when she takes the test one morning - Aaron away to help do some training in the Boston Field office instead of waiting on the other side of the door like usual - she has to do a double take when she sees the second, faint, line on the small strip on the counter. She sucks in a breath and holds it up to the light, the second line sharper with the light behind it, and she covers her mouth with her hand, capturing the joy that feels nothing short of preemptive before it can escape. She roots through the drawers to find a better test, sure she won’t believe it until she sees the word pregnant flashing up at her from a small digital screen, and she curses herself for not having any. She hadn’t bought any more of them since the last time she’d taken one, the words not pregnant a punch in the gut she hadn’t wanted to repeat. 

“Mom!” 

She’s pulled out of the trance she’d found herself in by Jack’s yell up the stairs. She wipes her cheeks, completely unaware that she’d started to cry until she pushes them away, and she blows out a shaky breath. 

“Yes, sweetie?” 

“Are you almost ready?” He replies, “I’ll be late for school if we don’t leave now.” 

She chokes on a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh at how sensible he is, and she finds herself thinking about what he’d be like as a big brother. How seriously he’d take the role and how much she wants to make him one. She looks at herself in the mirror and wipes her cheeks again, grateful that her make-up hadn’t shifted, and she smiles at her reflection, that same preemptive, treacherous, hope swirling in her gut as she clears her throat.

“I’m coming now, honey.” 

She doesn’t think she’s ever been more grateful for her ability to hide what she’s feeling from everyone - everyone except Aaron - because she manages to act like it’s any normal morning with Jack. She laughs and jokes with him on the drive to school despite her focus being on gripping the steering wheel so she doesn’t place her hand on her stomach. As soon as he gets out of the car, rolling his eyes at her in a way Aaron said was all her as she tells him to be good, she calls in sick to work. 

She doesn’t remember the last time she’d done it, doesn’t think she ever has whilst at the BAU, but she avoids the teams questions when they text her to check she’s okay, claiming she’s got a temperature and that she just needed a day of rest and then she’d be fine. She only idly thinks about one of them telling Aaron, that someone might reach out to him even though he’s away to ask if she’s okay, but she pushes past it. The need to know if she was pregnant, if the test she’d taken that morning was correct, overriding everything else. 

She goes to a pharmacy on the way home. She spends $50 on pregnancy tests and does her best to ignore the amused look on the cashier's face, her cheeks red with embarrassment she doesn’t entirely understand when she puts a packet of electrolytes on the counter too. She doesn’t remember a moment of the drive home, her eyes flicking to the CVS bag full of ClearBlue boxes at every traffic light she comes to a stop at. 

It’s only when she’s staring at five positive tests on the bathroom counter, the word pregnant flashing up at her from each of them, that she finally allows herself to believe it. 

The happiness is overwhelming. It’s sharp and unfamiliar and steals the breath from her lungs, and she blows out a shaky breath, desperate not to fall apart - to let herself truly drown in the joy of it all - until Aaron comes home. She places her hand on her belly, lets her thumb flick back and forth just below her belly button, and sighs. 

“What a week for Daddy to be away, huh?” She says outloud, clearing her throat to get rid of the shake in it. She smiles to herself, sinking her teeth into her lower lip to try to contain it even though no one was around to see it, and a plan starts to form in her head. “But this means I get to tell him all about you.” 

___

It’s a long two days. 

She wants to tell him, is desperate to tell him, but she doesn’t. It’s never been harder to keep a secret, and she can’t help but wonder how she used to make a living by keeping secrets, how something that was once second nature to her now feels close to impossible. She keeps it to herself when they speak on the phone each night and are in almost constant contact via text. She wants him to know, but she wants to see his face when she tells him, wants to see the realisation press into his handsome features, to see it settle into the lines she loved to trace with her fingers as they laid in bed together. 

He asks her if she’s okay, because, of course, Dave had let him know she’d called in sick. She assures him she’s fine, tells him the rest had done her good. It’s the first time she’s lied to him since they became them, because she’d barely slept since she found out. Excitement tingling under her skin, making her restless as his side of the bed felt emptier than ever. 

By the time he gets home, it’s late. Jack is in bed, only placated by the promise that when he wakes up in the morning, his Dad will be home, and Emily is selfishly grateful for it. She wants to tell Aaron alone, for this to be something just for the two of them. They had so little that was just for them. Their time alone precious and rare and about to become even rarer. 

She’s sitting up in bed when she hears the front door open and close. Nervous excitement makes her stomach roll, mixing in with the nausea that had been present since she’d found out she was pregnant - something she was sure was psychosomatic because of how quickly it had come on. She’s wearing a t-shirt of his, letting the smell of him lingering on the soft material calm her nerves, and she imagines herself wearing the same one in a few months, the material gathered around her growing bump. She waits as patiently as she can, her hands twisting in front of her, the cool metal of her wedding rings knocking against her skin.

She listens as he walks around downstairs for a few minutes. She knew his habits as well as she knew her own. He’d always start by doubling checking the door and the alarm, then he’d take his go-bag to the laundry room and head to the kitchen to put any dishes she’d hand-washed and left to dry away. She smiles at the thought that there won’t be a wine glass on the side this evening, and she wonders if he’ll notice, if he’ll think about the reasons why she wouldn’t have had one. 

When he gets upstairs, he stops off in Jack’s room first. She feels her lips shake, the ripples of her nervous excitement travelling down to her chest and finding it’s home there, settling in her lungs and around her heart as Aaron walks past the spare room - soon to be nursery - and then into theirs. 

“Hi sweetheart,” he says, smiling the moment he sees her, his shoulders visibly relaxing at the sight of her in their bed wearing his t-shirt, “I missed you.” 

She smiles as he walks over, reaching out for his hand and tugging him close for a kiss as he settles on the edge of the bed, “I missed you too.” 

He smiles into the kiss and rests his forehead against hers. “I could fall asleep right now.” 

“Me too,” She chuckles, only half-lying, and kisses him again before she pulls back. “Get ready for bed,” she says, stamping her lips against his, hoping he can’t taste the excitement on hers, “Then we can sleep.” 

As soon as he closes the ensuite door behind him, she’s on her feet, the hem of the t-shirt she’s wearing falling about mid-thigh. She waits. She stands there and listens as he moves around the room, and she knows the moment he’s seen it. The small box she’d left on the counter next to his sink making him come to a stop, the room around him falling into silence. She presses her lips together as the door bursts open, and he walks back into the bedroom, his chest stuttering with a breath that never quite seems to catch in his lungs, his hands gripping the tiny baby onesie she’d bought and nestled in amongst two of the positive tests she’d taken. 

It had looked small when she’d bought it, and she’d felt nothing short of insane when she stood in the store with tears shining in her eyes as she thought of her baby wearing it, but it looks even smaller in his hands. His hold on it so gentle that it almost slips out of his grasp, his thumb trailing back and forth over the words she’d had embroidered on the onesie. 

Mini Hotch. 

“Em…” He trails off, his word lost to a gasp, his breath still not quite catching properly as he steps towards her, tears shining in his eyes. 

“You can get pretty much anything put on one of those, you know,” she says, not trying to escape the shake to her own voice this time, letting herself sink into it now he was here with her, his love the very thing that always kept her afloat, “I couldn’t decide what I wanted it to say, but then I thought all I’ve ever wanted is to have more of you.” 

He swallows thickly, tears splashing down onto his cheeks, happiness burning tracks into his skin. “You’re…”

She nods, and her laugh catches on a sob, the sound sticking to her ribs as she steps towards him, “I’m pregnant. We’re having a baby.” 

It’s the first time she’s said it out loud, and it breaks whatever tentative hold she had on her emotions. It does the same for him too, and he somehow ends up on the floor in front of her, kissing her stomach before he rests his cheek there, the onesie balled up in his hand around her back.

“I love you.” 

Keeping it a secret feels worth it in that moment, the rumble of his love for her, for them, vibrating through her everything she’d wanted it to be.  She hugs his head against her, his fingers trailing through his hair. She can feel his tears against her skin through the t-shirt; she pulls back to look at him and wipes his tears from his cheeks. She kneels down with him, lovingly rolling her eyes and batting his hands away as he tries to help her. 

“I’m at most 5 weeks along, honey,” she says, kissing his cheek to capture his tears as she settles so they are nose to nose, “It’s going to be a while before I need help on and off the floor.” 

“When did you find out?” He asks, kissing her cheek, stopping her tears in their tracks. He’s looking at her like she’s hung the stars herself, like she’d scattered them across the sky just for him to look at, and in that moment, she feels like she might have

“A couple of days ago,” she says, running her knuckles down his cheek, chasing his dimple as he smiles at her in shock, “It was hard to keep from you, but I wanted to tell you in person,” her chin trembles, “I didn’t believe it at first. I went a bit crazy and took a lot of tests.” 

He hums, “Two doesn’t seem that crazy.”

“Well,” she says, smiling when he kisses her palm, “There are three more positive tests in the drawer.” 

He laughs, and she joins in, and she wraps her arms around him, breathes him in as he hugs her back just as fiercely. She doesn’t know how long they kneel there on their bedroom floor, the soft carpet brushing against her knees as Aaron occasionally kisses her forehead, cheeks and nose. 

“We should get up,” she says, “You were ready to fall asleep not that long ago.” 

He pulls back to look at her, his eyes looking like pools of honey as they shine with tears, and she secretly hopes that their baby ends up with his eyes. He smiles, his dimples carved out deeper in his cheeks than she thinks she’s ever seen them, and he cups her face, his thumb tracing back and forth over her jawline. His hand slips down to her belly, his palm flat and warm against it as he chokes on a noise that sounds like forever. 

“I’m not tired anymore.” 

Chapter Text

Whenever she imagined her wedding when she was younger, it never looked like this. She always pictured it as a big affair, something her mother would have more of a say in than she would. The guestlist largely made up of friends of Elizabeth, the dress something Emily would have liked but not loved, a compromise she would have taken as a win because she knew her mother wouldn’t have loved it either. A society wedding through and through that would have led to a life that would have bored her as much as she’s sure the man she’d have married would have. 

She never imagined this, never thought her wedding would be small and intimate, hosted in the backyard of her friend's home, and that she’d wear a dress she bought off the rack. She never thought she’d find friends who would become family and a partner she’d love more than she ever knew was possible. The kind of love she’d only ever read about and scoffed at in books she pretended she didn’t like. 

It was better. Infinitely better, and she had to keep reminding herself that it was real, that after everything, she’d finally made it here - dancing with her husband on the evening of their wedding. She couldn’t say if any of their guests were still there, she knew her mother had already left - her genuine happiness for her daughter mostly outshining her distaste for the simplicity of the wedding. Emily couldn’t even really say if the music was still playing. All she knew was that she was with him, swaying back and forth on the makeshift dancefloor in Dave’s backyard, their clasped hands trapped between them as they danced to a tune she was sure must be Aaron’s heartbeat.

“You okay, sweetheart?” 

She pulls back to look at Aaron, her husband, and she smiles, leaning in to stamp her lips against his, a kiss that’s more of a smile pressed against a smile than anything else. The only thing that made her even happier was how happy he was, joy flowing from him like a cologne as he smiles more than she’d ever known him to before. 

“I’m more than okay,” she says, leaning in to kiss him again, “I’m…”

“Perfect?” Aaron finishes for her, his smile turning into a playful smirk, and she rolls her eyes at him, “Finally, you come round to my way of thinking.”

“You’re being sappy again,” she says, squeezing his hand, and his smile only gets wider as he leans in to kiss her, his smile pressed against her cheek as they continue to sway.

“I just married the love of my life,” he mutters against her skin before he pulls back, “I’m allowed to be sappy today.” 

She hums as if she’s thinking about it, as if she’d deny him anything today, and she nods, her teeth sinking into her lower lip, “I think I can allow that.” 

He laughs, the silly, goofy laugh that she loved more than he hated, and he kisses her again, another smile pressed against a smile before he speaks, “I’m so glad we finally made it here.” 

She nods and rests her forehead against his, “Me too.”

They’d been engaged for over two years. They never intended to have a long engagement, it’s something she’d wanted the moment she said yes, her lips pressed against his and her arms around his neck as she said she wanted to marry him as soon as possible. 

Things had changed when she found out she was pregnant just a week later, and their priorities shifted. They’d considered eloping, but Emily wanted to get married with their friends present. She wanted to celebrate her and Aaron’s love with the people closest to them, and if she was honest, have champagne at her own wedding, so they waited. They waited until their little girl, Violet, was born, and then they waited a little more. Life and love and everything in between had got in the way, and before they knew it, over two years had passed and Violet was 18 months old. Emily had never believed in everything happening for a reason, but as she’d walked down the aisle earlier that evening with Violet on her hip as they walked towards Aaron and Jack, she couldn’t help but think that everything had turned out exactly like it should have. 

Even if she had still ended up not being able to drink champagne on her wedding day. She was five months pregnant and excited to meet the little boy growing beneath her skin, the final piece of their family. Aaron had asked her if she wanted to postpone the wedding again when they found out she was pregnant, but she’d said no, joking they’d never find time to get married with three kids if they’d struggled when they had two. 

Plus, she couldn’t pretend she didn’t get a bit of a kick out of how her being a visibly pregnant bride had scandalised her mother. 

“I think it’s almost someone’s bedtime.” 

Emily and Aaron turn at the sound of Jess’s voice, and they sigh sympathetically at the sight of Violet in her arms, wiping at her eyes as she pouts, exhausted and clearly trying to pretend she wasn’t. Jack is standing next to Jess, also looking worn out by the excitement of the day, the tie he’d worn long gone and likely left somewhere in Dave’s yard for one of the staff he’d hired to find. 

“Come here, sweet girl,” Emily says, reaching out for Violet and kissing the side of her head as she settles her in her arms, “You excited to spend the night with Aunt Jessie?”

Violet shakes her head and presses her face into Emily’s neck, “Stay Mama.” 

Emily exchanges a look with Aaron, and she smiles, kissing the top of the toddler's head, “You’ll have fun, baby,” she says, looking down at Jack and winking, knowing he loved to be in on helping with Violet, “And Jack will be there too.” 

“We’ll have fun, Vi,” Jack pipes up, reaching for his sister’s hand and beaming as she wraps her fist around two of his fingers, “And Aunt Jess makes the best breakfast.”

Violet grumbles but nods, and Emily kisses her cheek, “I love you, sweet girl,” she says, kissing her cheek again, “Say goodnight to Daddy.”

As soon as she passes Violet over to Aaron, Jack has his arms wrapped around her waist, and she hugs him back, dropping a kiss to the top of his head. 

“I’ll look after Vi, Mom,” he says, pulling back to look at her, and she runs her fingers through his hair, sucking in a breath to make sure she doesn’t burst into tears, her love for the little boy who had become hers overwhelming, “I promise.” 

“I know you will, sweetie,” she says, hugging him tightly, “Love you.” 

“Love you too.” 

Aaron says goodbye to the kids, too, and they watch them leave, smiling when Violet is already asleep in Jess’s arms before they even leave Dave’s backyard. Emily hums contentedly as she looks around, wondering when their guests had dwindled down to just Dave, JJ and Will, but she shakes it off, turning back to look at Aaron. 

“More dancing?” She says, wrapping her hand around his again, and he squeezes her hand, worry flashing in his eyes as he looks her up and down, his gaze lingering on her belly. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to go?” He asks, “It’s our wedding, we can leave when we want.” 

“Not yet.” She smiles at the offer and she cups his cheek to hold him in place as she leans in to kiss him, resting her forehead against his briefly before she encourages him to start dancing again. 

“You’re not tired?” 

She laughs, “Oh, I’m exhausted,” she says, squeezing his hand when worry flashes in his eyes again, “But I don’t want this to end quite yet. Don’t worry though,” she winks at him, “Soon enough I’ll let you whisk me away to our hotel so you can have your way with me.” 

He hums, “And by that you mean eat leftover cake in bed?” 

“You know me so well,” she says, unashamed in the way she giggles when she steals another kiss, another smile against a smile. 

“Well,” he says, pulling her closer, “You are my wife. It would be sad if I didn’t know you.” He stamps his lips against her cheek. “How long do you want to dance?” 

“With you?” She says, pulling back to look at him. “Forever,” her smile gets wider, her cheeks aching with it as she doesn’t even try to hold back a laugh when she hears Dave mutter under his breath from just a few feet away, completely unaware he’d been so close by. She smirks at their friend, knowing his grumbling was nothing but good-natured, and then turns her attention back to her husband. “Or at least until Dave throws us out so he can go to bed.” 

Chapter Text

They rarely had the chance to just exist. 

There was always something going on. There was always a soccer match on a Saturday morning, or an invitation to a night out from Penelope. There were always chores and things to do around their, new,  house.  

There was always work. Their jobs were hectic, the nature of their work as unpredictable as it was busy, and it took up more of their time than she thinks either she or Aaron would like. She saw it in his eyes sometimes, saw the guilt that would linger there if he told her he’d have to stay late, and she knew it was a hangover from his marriage to Haley, a lingering fear that he was repeating the mistakes of his past and doing damage to their marriage, too. It was something he struggled with even more now that she no longer worked for the FBI. She’d started to work for Interpol again shortly after she and Aaron became official. It was the right choice for them, not just because of the rules they’d broken to be together in the first place, but because she didn’t feel like herself anymore after everything with Ian. The job change had been what she’d needed, and it had allowed her to be the partner she knew Aaron deserved. 

She grimaces as another wave of nausea rolls through her body, and she sips her ginger ale, hoping it will settle her stomach even just a little bit, and she smiles, her hand low on her still flat belly as she rubs her thumb back and forth below her belly button. They’d only known she was pregnant for a few days, and the disbelief hadn’t quite worn off. The feeling that this wasn’t real, that she’d wake up from a dream alone and in Paris, dead to almost everyone, still lingering under her skin, making her itch in a way she hoped would never fade because she never wanted to take any of this for granted. 

Life was about to get even busier, and she couldn’t wait. 

She loved their beautifully hectic life; she wouldn’t want to change it for anything, but when she had the chance to spend a lazy day with her husband, it was an opportunity she always grasped with both hands. 

Jack was away at camp for the weekend, so they had the house to themselves, and Emily intended to make the most of it. 

“You okay, sweetheart?” 

She turns to look at him, smiling at his slightly rumpled hair and the sleepy look in his eyes. They’d got out of bed hours ago to make breakfast, and they’d been snuggled on the couch ever since, wrapped up around each other as they watched movies they’d seen countless times before. She hums and sips her ginger ale again before she puts the can down on the coffee table and lies back down, snuggling up against him again, her back against his chest. 

“Your kid hates me, I think,” she grumbles good-naturedly, turning her head just enough to stamp a kiss against his lips, “I feel like crap.” 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, his lips against her neck as he presses a kiss there, “Is there anything I can do?” 

“I’ll be okay,” she says, reaching for his hand and placing it over her stomach, “It will all be worth it in the end.” He kisses her neck again, and she can feel his smile against her skin when it makes her shiver. “Don’t get any ideas, mister,” she says, tilting her head to look at him, “Sex is what got me into this mess in the first place.” 

He chuckles and kisses her neck again before stamping his lips against her cheek, “We should tell Jack soon,” he says, thinking out loud more than anything, “He’s going to notice you’re sick.”

“When he gets home?” She offers, smiling as she thinks about it. Jack had been asking for a baby brother or sister since before she and Aaron had even discussed it themselves. He’d asked her when they told him they were together, his expression hopeful as he asked if it meant he’d be a big brother one day. She still laughed when she thought about it - about the look of panic that had flashed in Aaron’s eyes at his son’s question, about how he smiled at her when their eyes met over Jack’s head. 

She’d always wanted this, had always wanted to be part of a family like the ones she always used to look at with envy, and now she had it, and it was everything she always knew it would be and more. 

“He’ll be so excited,” Aaron says, and she nods, humming in response as she settles back against him. 

“I got him a t-shirt,” she says idly, twisting Aaron’s wedding ring around his finger, “It says ‘big brother’ on it,” he pulls back to look at her, love and adoration she still wasn’t quite sure she deserved painted across his face, the way he felt about her stitched into every fine line and his dimples. It makes her blush, but not with embarrassment, but joy because she knew she looked at him the same way too. “I saw it in the store and couldn’t resist. I thought we could give it to him when we tell him.” 

“He’ll love that,” Aaron replies, kissing her shoulder and then her neck, smiling when she rolls her eyes at him, “I love you.” 

She captures his chin to hold him in place, to stop him from tickling her neck again, and she kisses him properly, putting everything into it that she hoped one day she’d find the words for. Nothing ever seemed to be enough, never seemed to capture just how much she did love him, three little words were all she had, but inadequate for how she felt. 

“I love you too,” she says, kissing him again before she pulls back, “Now, let's watch another movie.” 

He salutes her and grins when she rolls her eyes again, and then he reaches for the remote. “You take our lazy days very seriously.” 

“Well, we are about to have even less of them,” she says, getting as comfortable as she can while he flicks through the movie options on the screen, “I don’t think a newborn would make this any easier.” 

“Worth it though, right?” He asks, even though he already knows the answer, and she squeezes his hand and lifts it to kiss his knuckles. 

“ Totally worth it.” 

Chapter Text

The engagement party was, of course, her mother’s idea. 

Emily agreed to it, too excited at the prospect of marrying the love of her life, too distracted by the new, unfamiliar weight of her engagement ring on her finger to think of all the reasons she’d usually say no. By the time she thought about why she didn’t want an engagement party - a realisation that had hit her around the same time her mom told her the guest list had got bigger again - it was too late. Plans had been made, caterers had been booked, and half of the political elite of DC had been invited, and she knew it was easier to just let it happen than try to argue. 

It’s how she finds herself in a brand new dress - white at her mother’s instance - and very uncomfortable heels at an engagement party she was sure had more guests than her and Aaron’s actual wedding would. 

For the first time since Aaron proposed, the idea of a wedding makes her stomach roll in an entirely new way. It forces nausea up her throat as she thinks of the spectacle her mother would turn their wedding into if she got the chance. Any excitement, any anticipation she had felt over the idea of marrying him disappears as she thinks about a day that is supposed to be about her and Aaron’s love for each other turning into something different entirely. 

It makes her think of how she’d been paraded around as a kid, how she’d turned from someone people looked at with playful adoration to someone who was a prize to be won. How she would be shown off in her nicest dresses to be told how pretty she’d turned out by her mom’s friends before she really understood why it creeped her out so much. Her hatred of it all had grown with her, had manifested itself in behaviour her mother always saw as rebellion rather than a justified response to being made to dance with men old enough to be her father, and these days she hated it more than ever. 

It was a part of her life that Aaron understood and took in his stride. He was good at it. He’d smile and laugh at the right times, would tell anecdotes from work that were appropriate for such an audience, but still interesting. And he could dance. The very first time they’d danced together was at JJ’s wedding. Back when their relationship was still new but still enough for her to know she wanted to stay. He’d twirled her around Dave’s backyard, never stepping on her toes or leading too fast. When she asked him about it, he told her his mom had taught him, that she’d said any southern boy worth his salt should know how to dance, and somehow it had made Emily fall even more in love with him. 

“Champagne?” 

She turns at the sound of his voice and smiles as her eyes meet his, sighing contentedly when she sees a glass of champagne in each of his hands. He offers one out to her, his eyes somehow sparkling more than the drink itself, and she thinks her cheeks might burst open as her smile gets impossibly wider, everyone and everything other than him disappearing around her. 

“My hero,” she quips, making a point of letting her fingers linger over his a moment longer than necessary as she takes one of the glasses from him. She looks around the room as she sips her drink, sighing as she watches Elizabeth greet her guests, people who Emily could name but had never spoken to beyond polite conversation at other events her mom had hosted. “This is…something.” 

Aaron wraps his arm around her and pulls her against his side. His hand settles on her hip and squeezes before he runs his thumb back and forth over her hipbone in an attempt to soothe her, “Your mom sure knows how to throw a party, doesn’t she?” 

She hums and turns to look at him. “She sure does,” she smiles tightly and drinks the rest of her champagne in one go, blowing out a sharp breath after she swallows and puts the glass down on a passing waiter’s tray. She looks at his still full glass, “Are you going to drink that?”

He smiles at her, love and affection pressed into his dimples, making them look impossibly deeper, and he clears his throat as he passes it to her, “It’s all yours, sweetheart.” 

She leans in and kisses his cheek, letting her lips linger against his skin for a moment before she pulls back, his glass of champagne now in her hand, “You’re the best fiancé ever.”

They’d always been careful when it came to showing each other affection in front of other people, especially Elizabeth. It felt like something private, something theirs, and as much as she wanted to kiss him properly right there and then, she didn’t want to share that part of their lives with so many strangers. Somewhere along the way, in between events just like this hosted by her mother or an FBI charity gala, a kiss on the cheek had become the way they’d remind each other how much they were loved. A simple press of a pair of lips against a cheek would suddenly mean everything they couldn’t say until they were home. 

I love you.

I’m here. 

We’re in this together. 

Aaron smiles as he leans in to kiss her cheek to return the affection, and he squeezes her hip, a promise of later in his touch, before he pulls back to look at her, “You okay? We can leave if you want to.”

She knows he means it. That he’d take her home if she so much as hinted at that being what she wanted, consequences be damned. It makes her chuckle, and she shakes her head, reaching for his hand so she can run her thumb back and forth over the heel of his hand.

“We can’t leave, honey,” she replies, smiling sadly as she looks around the room, “This is our engagement party after all.” Her smile gets wider when she spots the team and Jack, all of them laughing and having fun, and she turns back to look at Aaron, “We can’t leave.” 

He nods and squeezes her hand, “Let's go dance,” he offers, smiling when she presses her lips together, her love of dancing with him something he knew about all too well. “We can forget about everyone other than us for a little while.” 

She sips her champagne and puts the glass down before she squeezes his hand, “Lead the way, Mr Hotchner.” 

She relaxes the moment she’s in his arms. They are as close as they have been all evening, with one of his hands on her lower back and one of hers around his neck while the others are linked. Her cheek brushes against his with every step they take, and it calms her down, the skip of his breath across her face a reminder of earlier mornings and late nights as they curled around each other in bed. 

“We could always elope,” he says eventually, and it makes her suck in a breath, something close to hope settling in her lungs as she pulls back from him, her head tilted curiously as they continue to sway on the dancefloor, “So our wedding can be what we want it to be, not what your mom or anyone else wants it to be. Just you, me and Jack on a day we choose.”

She presses her lips together, “I didn’t say anything about that.” 

He shrugs, “You didn’t have to,” he says, his smile bright and beautiful, and if she didn’t love him so much, she thinks she’d hate him for knowing her so well, “If you don’t want to-”

“No, I…” she trails off, looks around them to make sure that they are still alone enough that no one will overhear them, “I’d love to. That sounds perfect but…” she clears her throat and looks over at the team and then her mother, “I’m not sure everyone would agree with that.” 

“If they say anything about it, I’ll deal with it,” he says firmly, “If it’s what you, what we want, I’ll talk to anyone who has an issue with that.” 

She smiles and bites the inside of her cheek in an attempt to contain her smile, “You’d really do that?” She asks, playing with the hair at the base of his head, “You’d piss off all our friends and my mom so I can have the wedding I want?” 

“The wedding we want.” He nods and leans in to kiss her cheek, his lips actually catching the corner of her mouth, before he pulls back, “I’d do anything for you.” 

“I’d do anything for you, too,” she replies, beaming at him, her chest so warm and full of love she wonders if he can feel it, if the warmth flows off of her like a fire flickering in a cold room. “Can we do it soon?” 

He smiles at her and kisses her cheek, letting his lips linger there as he pulls back just enough to speak, his lips catching her ear, “I’d marry you tomorrow.”