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It started as a dull ache in his abdomen. Easy enough to ignore, pushed to the periphery of his consciousness as he kept his head down, focused only on work and Jack as he knotted his tie. The loss of appetite that followed seemed to fit into his lifestyle, forcing himself to sip water as he worked. The headache he put down to lack of food and thought no more of it.
When the ache turned sharp and insistent it tugged at his mind, but they had a case, an urgent case and he needed to be there. So he stood and presented the case and ignored the flush of his skin, the sweat he could feel trickling down his back. He just needed a glass of water, just needed to excuse himself for a moment…
He heard his name being called in the ambulance, could recognise the sound of sirens as they wailed overhead. He wondered if this is what Reid had felt like; if dying really did feel like exhaustion finally winning out. He wondered if Emily felt herself slipping into nothingness, loss of senses so absolute it seemed eternal.
He knew it was a dream before he saw her. The colours were too sharp, too bright and saturated in his vision for her to be real. But Hayley was beautiful, her hair curled atop her head and a smile creasing across her eyes. She looked at him, eager and hungry as he was to drink her in, carve the image of her happy and whole and alive into his memories before it slipped away.
But it felt real when she touched him. Her fingers were warm and soft in his as she reached for him. He saw the sparkle in her eyes, tears threatening to fall, and he wondered if this was the first time he had made her cry from happiness instead of pain. As he slipped into the seat next to her he felt desperate, longing to stay and just look at her. Drink in all he missed in her absence, spend eternity apologising for damning her the minute he said hello.
If it wasn’t real, why could he feel the tears slip down his cheeks as he watched his memories flash with grainy tones in front of him? Why did the sound of her sniffing back tears next to him make him feel as though he was being stabbed again?
“It’s hard,” he said finally “And I’m alone”
“You’re not alone” and Hayley’s voice was her voice, echoing and strong through the theatre of purgatory. It cracked and flowed through the air, rising and falling as though the building itself breathed.
He watched as she watched, Derek heaving Jack onto his shoulders, JJ chasing him in a park with Henry, Penelope gifting him bright and colourful markers, Reid helping him with homework. And her; all the things he missed on the periphery. The way she tied his shoes, the candy she slipped to him when Aaron’s back was turned. The way he sought her out when he was sad, the way she chucked under his chin and ruffled his hair and let him be sad with her. She would come down to his level whenever he entered the bullpen, scoop him into a hug, because it was she that Jack always looked for.
When she left Jack had cried, sobbed into pancakes as they ate in a diner. She had managed to make it feel like an adventure, that she was going away to save the world, be superheroes for those in London because Aaron had America safely under his protection. He had liked that she made him feel invincible.
When he arrived the stabs of fear were through his abdomen. He smelt like the room from that day, copper and tin and sweat, the drench of violence and misery seemed to follow him like a raincloud, splotching his vision.
“Relax honey, I invited him” Hayley said, but he couldn’t. She had been so shielded from the danger, so woefully unprepared for the peril he put her in, the danger that enveloped her from the minute he slipped a ring on her finger and promised to love her forever.
“Man, she must go off like a tiger in the sack” Foyet commented, nodding towards the screen, an image of her profile, lashes long and curling, her smile serene as she looked at something unknown in the distance.
The anger felt like fire in his body, that he could comment on her, come close to her after he had torn his life to pieces, shattered bones and broken hearts and killed any chance he ever had with her. Fear had paralysed him, robbed him of anything left in his chest.
When Foyet shot Hayley in the gut he felt it. Like an electric shock through his system, it rendered him unable to do anything but watch as her blood slipped over his fingers, thick and hot and static as he pressed harder, willing it to stop.
Her acceptance was his misery, leading him towards the end of this, like headlights in the distance. He felt a desperate ache to hold her, cradle her in his arms again, feel her beneath his fingers and be warm this time, to pour his sorrow into her and be absolved.
He couldn’t bring himself to leave her. Following behind as the dress caught the light and shone, his vision blurring as he felt himself being tugged away, ethereal and unreal as if he had been hooked in the gut, dragged forcibly from her. He tried to memorise the curves of her, the way her hips moved as she walked, knowing it was pointless, that wherever he was going, she would disappear like cold breath in the morning, curling into nothing.
“Jack needs you more than ever” Hayley said, and he felt her next to him, somewhere in his peripheral vision, soft and hazy edges as she encouraged him. “So does she”
“I don’t know how to do this” He said and was unsurprised to find his voice come as a gasp, grief and fear wrung from him, torn from somewhere deep inside his chest. It still felt real when she touched him, her smile looked painful in its earnestness, her hope and belief in him that had always managed to propel him forwards.
“Happiness is a choice, so choose” she said, and her voice was loud and strong and clear as she pressed her wedding ring into his palm.
--
The first time he woke it was night, a fluttering of eyes in a room not quite black. The figure next to him was curled on a chair, jacket over their face. He could smell the slightest hint of her, jasmine and something citrus threaded over disinfectant.
“Are you real?” the croak came from his throat before he could stop it. He saw them twitch, a shoulder move before the warm embrace of morphine rocked him back to sleep.
When he woke again he could feel it, the pain of consciousness the reminder that this was real, that what he had seen and heard and touched was not. Hayley slipped away like sand through his fingers as the beep of a monitor anchored him to reality. He heard the scratch of the pen next to him and saw Garcia, inexplicable with wild blonde hair and a print so vivid and coloured he wondered if he was still dreaming.
“Where’s Jack?” he asked, feeling the scratch of his throat, the swelling from a tube recently removed. When he shifted up the bed he felt a painful tug below his skin.
“With Jessica, shall I send for him?” She said and her voice was wild and happy and hitching with tears he saw her blink back. She looked so relieved at his consciousness, her body relaxing from the tension it seemed to have been resting there for days. He wondered if anyone had told her. If she was aware that he was here, had been hurt, had been in danger. A vicious part of him wondered if she cared. He wanted to tell her, hear her voice through time zones, stiff and thick with sleep and see if it still felt like the sun.
“Yes, and I need my phone, I need to call…”
“Alright Pen, I couldn’t find doughnuts, but I found coffee. It's shit coffee but…”
And there she was.
Emily was wearing a suit, she had obviously been wearing the suit for days. Her hair was snarled into a ponytail atop her head. Flecks of mascara dotted her cheeks, she looked a little peaky, like she was operating on very little sleep.
“Oh thank god” She said when she saw him. Shoving the cardboard cups of coffee into Penelope’s hands she threw herself on him before he could react. He grunted in pain, the weight of her causing his stitches to stretch. She jerked, made to move away from him, stopped by his hands on her shoulders. Aaron didn’t remember wrapping his arms around her. She was light against him, hesitant to sink into his embrace, he felt the fear of hurting him.
“Okay, I’m going to call the team and Jessica and let them know you’re okay” Penelope said, her voice fading in the background as he pulled her harder into him, ignoring the twang of pain shooting through his stomach. When the hospital door clicked shut she sat up, her hands still on his hospital gown.
“You fucker” She hissed, her fingers squeezing his shoulder. He saw the anger fall over her face like a mask, hiding the concern between her eyebrows. “I was so worried.”
“How did you know?” he asked, reaching a hand to cover hers, confirm that this wasn’t a fever dream, she was really here and with him, filling the room with her presence, luminous like the sun.
“Dave called me. Fucking frantic and said you had collapsed, that they had to do surgery.” Her voice hitched as she brushed her eyes, tears collected on her fingerprints. “You can’t do that to me.”
“I didn’t… It wasn’t.. intentional” he said, still foggy from the anaesthetic.
“Bullshit. I bet you were feeling it for days and didn’t say anything” She said, holding her gaze on him until he looked away. “I knew it. You have to take care of yourself, Aaron. Jack needs you”
He was convinced she would vanish from his peripheral vision, that she would evaporate like steam and be revealed as a delusion, brought to bring him comfort in his pain.
“I need you” She whispered. It curled into his consciousness, settled deep within his memories, her soft voice melding with Hayley’s dreamlike one, bleeding together into the chasms of his soul. He closed his eyes, tears unbidden swelling in the corners of his eyes.
When she cupped his cheek he believed it. Her palm was soft, fingertips calloused as she gently wiped a tear from his cheek. He felt his body relax, comfort and warmth spreading through him like wildfire, chasing the morphine away as the greatest source of his relief. She smelt of jasmine and oranges, and the vaguest hint of air travel. She still reminded him of the sun, warm and blazing through his system as he drank her in, closing his eyes and feeling himself sink into the pillows.
When she kissed him he thought he had fallen back asleep. Her lips were softer than he had ever imagined they could be, pressing gently against his lower lip, her thumb still stroking his cheek.
“So choose”
It echoed around his head like a challenge, brassy and loud as he felt her begin to pull away. He captured the back of her head with a hand, digging his fingers beneath her ponytail, holding her to him. The briefest doubt flashed white beneath his eyelids, still not entirely convinced she was real, not some spectre on the edges of his vision. But when he parted his lips and felt her match his movements he knew she was. That she was the only real thing in the world, the feel of her as she moulded her mouth to his, let her hand drift to his neck, feeling his pulse beat against her fingers.
“Oh finally” The voice from the doorway made them both jump, Aaron wincing as pain lanced his stomach, remembering where he was. Emily turned to Penelope in the doorway, her hands clasped in front of her, smiling hard enough to scrunch her eyes shut.
“Should have known it would take one of you nearly dying to get it together. Sir, Jack’s here. I have to call the team again, JJ owes me money” She said and she left with a laugh as Jack came barrelling in like a hurricane, excitement and nerves and joy filling the room as he climbed on the bed, threw himself into Aaron with such a force of love.
From the periphery of his vision, he watched as Emily slipped her hand into his, smiling like the setting sun.