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Emily felt like she’d barely slept.
It was so late it was almost early by the time they made it back to the hotel, enough time to get a few hours sleep, to rest just enough that they could get straight back into it the next morning. Coffee and adrenaline fuelling their trip to New York, the seriousness of the case not lost on them.
She was grateful that the others now knew about her and Aaron, that they no longer had to sleep in different rooms when they were away on cases. She knew the small amount of time that she had with him, falling asleep in the arms of the man she loved, was the thing she needed. The very thing that could energise her in a way she could never have anticipated when they first got together.
It started shortly after Penelope was shot, Aaron checking in on her once the case was resolved. He’d told her since, that he realised during that case how much she looked after everyone else around her, and he found himself wanting to do the same for her. At first, it was just coffee, then dinner. Then he kissed her, a taste of finally on his lips as he showed her to her door.
They loved each other, had said as much, and were currently skirting around the idea of moving in together, trying to decide whose place was best. Things weren’t always easy, he had an ex-wife who was still coming round to the idea of him moving on quicker than she had anticipated. Their relationship was still partially secret at work, with only the team knowing about them.
Emily was sure Strauss knew, something about the way the woman looked at them sometimes tipping her off, but she didn’t want to pull at that thread. Still unsure of what the consequences would be.
When Aaron’s alarm woke them up, only a matter of hours after they had collapsed into the bed in their joint hotel room, Emily felt like she hadn’t slept at all. Groaning as he coaxed her out of his embrace, pulling her to her feet as he stood as well, a kiss to her cheek as he murmured something about starting the shower for them both, not enough time for them to shower separately before they had to head back to the field office.
Despite her attempts, he doesn’t give in to her advances in the shower, raising an eyebrow at her as she offers to wash his back for him, her intentions clear. He brushes her off with a smile and a quick kiss on her lips, a warning she thinks he intends to be stern when he tells her they don’t have time, and a promise that they’d have time later. He climbs out before her, wrapping a towel around his waist as he goes, giving her the extra few minutes she needs.
He’s standing in front of the bathroom mirror when she gets out of the shower herself, the hot water having left it covered in steam. She smiles as she wraps a towel around herself, watching him catch her eye in the mirror, winking at her as he draws a heart in the condensation left on it.
She chuckles and walks over to him, wrapping her arms around him from behind, her cheek against his shoulder.
“You, Aaron Hotchner, are a ridiculous man,” she tightens her hold on him, “and the worst part is no one would believe me if I told them.”
It had surprised her, what he was like when he was behind closed doors. When he didn’t have what often seemed like the weight of the world on his shoulders. All the parts of himself that he often hid from everyone were on full display to her. It felt like an honour, that she got to see these parts of him, that he trusted her enough to let her underneath his tough exterior. It always made her feel lighter, and she was grateful for it, a tiny bit of them in the middle of a case that made uneasiness gather in her chest, sure they were missing something important.
“I do have a reputation as a hardass to uphold,” he says, the smile on his face letting her know he’d done it on purpose. Something small, and slightly absurd, just to make her laugh. He turns in her embrace and wraps his arms around her, he leans down and kisses her, his hands pressing into her lower back, “you doing ok?”
She shifts her arms, linking her hands behind his neck. “I’m ok, I’ll just be grateful when this is all over with.”
“Me too, sweetheart,” he replies, kissing her forehead, “we should get ready,” he says regretfully, “Kate already sent me an update this morning.”
She doesn’t mean to react, knows she wouldn’t have if she’d had enough sleep or at least her first cup of coffee of the day, but she does. Her nose scrunching up before she can stop it. Aaron notices, as he always does, his eyebrow creasing slightly as his thumb traces over her skin through the towel she had on.
She’d brushed it off when JJ mentioned it, laughed at her joke about how Kate looked exactly like Haley, and replied with her own about Aaron liaising with her when she was at Scotland Yard. Then she’d seen how blatantly Kate was flirting with him, how she wasn’t even trying to hide it, and any humour Emily had found in the situation quickly disappeared. Jealousy she hated taking up residence in her chest, meaning she had to force herself to remember where she was, that they were in a federal building and she couldn’t just kiss him there.
Although, that hadn’t stopped her late the night before, pressing a kiss to his cheek after the first time Derek had openly challenged him, a tension in her boyfriend's demeanour that had her dragging him to an empty office, checking they were alone before she leant into him.
“What is it?” He asks, and she rolls her eyes at him, wondering how a man so intelligent, so excellent at what he did, could be so oblivious.
“She flirts with you,” Emily says, trying, and failing, to keep her voice even.
“No, she-”
“She does Aaron,” she says, cutting off his protest, “the others have noticed too,” she clears her throat, and carries on speaking before she can stop herself, “and she looks exactly like Haley.”
She regrets it as soon as she’s said it, cursing herself for it. She sees a series of emotions wash over in his face in a matter of seconds, and he settles on a small smile, one of his hands moving to cup her cheek.
“Em,” he says, making her look at him, “I love you, ok? Nothing is going to change that.”
She smiles at him, ignoring how her cheeks flush with his words, his love warming her from the inside out. She leans up to kiss him, needing to step on her tip-toes to do so since she was barefoot.
“I love you too,” she says as she pulls back, “so much.”
Their moment is broken by the ringing of his phone in the bedroom, and he sighs as he pulls away, going to answer it before it went to voicemail. They get ready quickly, sharing another kiss before they leave their room, their last moment of something close to normality before they almost lose everything.
___
Emily laughs as Cooper takes her words onboard, her ability to read him so easily clearly a surprise to him, and she turns to walk away when he stops her.
“Wait, let me do you.”
She turns back to look at him, her eyebrow raised at him. “Excuse me?”
“No,” he replies, his hands on his hips as he raises an eyebrow at her, “let me have a go at profiling you.”
She chuckles, thinking he’s joking, but she realises he’s serious and nods. “Ok, give it your best shot.”
He looks her up and down, makes a point of doing so, before his eyes meet hers again.
“You’re with the suit. Agent Hotchner,” he says, and her eyes widen in response, not expecting him to say that, and this time he laughs at her, stepping closer as he carries on, “I’d say it’s pretty serious.”
‘What…how did you know that?” She asks, her mouth open slightly in shock.
Cooper dares to smile at her before he steps closer again, now right next to her.
“I saw you kissing him in a meeting room yesterday,” he admits, smirking at her as she glares at him, a slight flush to her cheek as she realises they weren’t quite as alone as she had thought the day before when she pulled Aaron aside to calm him down.
“We-”
“Your secret is safe with me,” he says, winking at her, anticipating what she was going to say next, “although, I’d try and be more subtle in future.”
He walks off, a slight spring in his step, and she shakes her head before she follows him.
___
They spot the unsub in the crowd, almost losing him in the thrall of New Yorkers on the street, almost as unmoveable as the buildings around them.
Emily manages to break through the crowd first, taking off at a run ahead of Cooper, spotting the hooded unsub turning a corner into an alley.
She hears the shot before she feels it, hitting the ground as the sound still rings in her ears, everything slowing down as the pain spreads from her left shoulder, the warmth of her blood seeping through her shirt and jacket. She breathes out, the sound shaky, and hears two more bullets being fired in quick succession.
Time slows down as Cooper kneels down next to her, shouting into his mic that there was an officer down, that she’d been shot. She hears the panic of the team in her ear, Penelope letting out something close to a scream, but it starts to feel distant, Aaron’s barely restrained panic in his voice evident as he demands an update from Cooper.
She only realises she’d closed her eyes when they shoot open, pain spreading through her shoulder and chest to the rest of her body as Cooper presses down on her wound hard, his jacket in his hands.
“You’ve got to stay with me, Prentiss,” he says, in an attempt to keep their earlier playfulness in his voice, “your boyfriend will kill me if you don’t make it.”
She chokes out a laugh as she thinks of Aaron, of the life together that they were on the precipice of. A future they had discussed in earnest. Suddenly it felt blurry, just out of reach.
“Aaron.” She gets out, her voice just loud enough to be picked up by the rest of the team if his response over her earpiece is something to go by.
The last thing she hears before she passes out is his voice.
___
He leaves Derek in charge of the scene, the mere thought of seeing her blood on the floor, the life force he usually felt thrumming through her veins, his fingers against her pulse, too much for him to bear.
The team understands, or at least they don’t try and argue with him on it. Kate does at first, unsure why he’s abandoning his post just because a member of his team is hurt. He sees the moment it clicks, the moment she realises Emily isn’t just a member of his team, and she nods, telling him she’d call him with an update, a silent promise to give him as much time as he needs.
He’s on edge until they let him see her, relief flooding through him when the doctors tell him that she made it through surgery, that she was going to be ok.
He sits next to her hospital bed, his hand wrapped around hers as she sleeps off the anaesthetic, his thumb tracing over her wrist, her pulse reassuring. Her skin was paler than usual and she was hooked up to too many machines for his liking, blood and medicine being delivered by wires, a cannula in her nose giving her oxygen to help her breathe a little easier.
He wants her to wake up, to see her beautiful dark eyes before he has to leave, the time he could allow himself this, to be a worried boyfriend, almost at an end now he knows she’s ok. Responsibilities he could not ignore for much longer.
“Hotch?” He turns to see JJ standing in the doorway, a regretful look on her face. “There’s been some developments.”
He sighs, nodding at her before he turns back to Emily. He squeezes her hand and stands up, gently brushing her bangs to one side so he can kiss her forehead before resting his own against her, his eyes squeezed as tightly as her hand in his.
“I love you,” he says, hoping she can hear him despite her slumber, that she knows he’s there, “I’ll be back as soon as I can ok?”
Aaron pulls back, and is grateful to see JJ isn’t looking at them, that she’s giving him as much privacy as she can. He walks away from the bed, his hand leaving Emily’s at the last possible moment, and he clears his throat to get JJ’s attention, the pregnant agent offering him a tight smile.
“JJ, can you-”
“I won’t leave her side,” she finishes for him, her hand briefly squeezing his arm, a quick show of affection, which he knows is more for her best friend’s boyfriend than her boss. “Now, you go save the city, she’ll still be here when you get back.”
Aaron nods and throws another look back towards the woman he loved before he left the room, the feeling that this wasn’t quite over yet settling over him, his skin itching with fear.
___
The first thing Emily feels when she wakes up is pain, her shoulder and chest burning with it. She groans as she opens her eyes, blinking against the bright light in the room, she looks around, trying to shift in her bed, wincing as the pain shoots through her shoulder again, her good arm pressing into it, feeling the roughness of the immobiliser against her skin.
“Damn it.” She whispers, breathing out as the pain settles down again. She realises she’s alone, JJ standing just outside of her room on the phone, her words muffled by the closed door.
She wishes Aaron was there, knows that he likely was earlier, that nothing could have kept him from her side when her life was on the line. Now she was ok other things came first, the case a priority he couldn’t put off.
JJ walks back into the room, forcing her phone into her pocket, a wavering smile on her face.
“Hey, you’re awake,” she says as she sits down next to Emily’s bed, “how are you?”
“Sore,” Emily replies, purposely underplaying it, “what’s going on?”
Initially, her question is one of interest, wanting more than an update on what they had found out whilst she was unconscious, but JJ’s reaction has fear catching in her chest, her heart rate increasing on the monitor she was attached to.
“JJ…”
“Emily,” JJ says, reaching out and placing her hand over her good one, “the team has it in hand, there’s nothing you can do from here.”
“JJ, tell me what the hell is going on.”
Her friend stares at her for a few seconds before she sighs. “There was an explosion,” she says carefully, her words even, “Hotch and Kate were caught up in it.”
For a moment, everything stops. The ticking of the annoying clock on the wall, the feel of JJ’s hand against hers, even in the pain thrumming through her body. There’s nothing except fear and preemptive grief for the man she loves.
Everything comes back all at once, and she tries to sit up, grasping at the IVs in her arms, uselessly trying to remove them as if she knew what she was doing before JJ stops her.
“Emily-”
“No,” she stutters out, groaning as she moves too sharply, pain radiating throughout her body, “I’ve got to go, got to find him.”
“Emily, no.” JJ says, her voice as firm as she’d ever heard it, her eyes boring into Emily’s, “you got shot today, you have to stay here.” She squeezes her hand, trying to press some reassurance into her skin, “Derek has gone to the scene, he won’t let anything happen to Hotch, you know that.”
Emily nods, settling back into the bed, blowing out an unsteady breath as she does so, panic filling her lungs as she does so, the cannula tickling at her nostrils delivering her oxygen doing nothing to help.
“What the hell happened?” She asks, trying to steady herself, knowing if the nurses caught her like this they’d likely sedate her, and she didn’t want that. Didn’t want to miss out on any news about him.
“The SUV they were trying to get into blew up. Kate was closer, Hotch is thrown clear from the vehicle.”
Emily frowns slightly. “You saw it?”
“Garcia found the footage.” JJ answers, and Emily looks down at the floor, sees JJ’s bag next to her.
“You have your laptop?” She asks, and JJ nods in response, “I want to see it.”
“Emily-”
“I want to see it.” She repeats, her voice firmer this time, no room left for argument. “Or I’ll get out of bed and get it myself.”
She knows it’s cruel, playing dirty so her friend does what she wants, but she needs to see it. To see that he somehow walked away from it, knowing she won’t believe it until she sees it with her own eyes.
JJ sighs as she leans down and grabs her laptop, muttering under her breath that Aaron was going to fire her if he found out she’d shown Emily, but she does it anyway, bringing up the footage on the screen before passing the computer to Emily.
If she sees the tear that escapes Emily’s lash line as she watches him get thrown through the air, JJ doesn’t acknowledge it.
___
The next time she wakes up, she isn’t even aware that she had fallen asleep, and she curses herself as she opens her eyes, angry that she hadn’t been able to stay awake.
She breathes a sigh of relief when she sees Aaron sitting where JJ had been earlier, his eyes fixed on the floor and his familiar hand wrapped around hers. She can see the blood on his shirt, the cuts on the parts of his face that she can see, and it makes her ache for an entirely different reason than the ever present pain in her upper body.
“Aaron.” She says quietly, and she frowns when he doesn’t react, seemingly not hearing her. She squeezes his hand and he jumps, his eyes flitting to hers, relief loosening some of the tension in his shoulders.
“Emily,” he breathes out, wincing as he leans forward in his chair, pressing his lips against hers, “how are you feeling?”
“Sore,” she replies, her eyes searching his, “you?”
He flashes her a tight smile. “The same.” His poor excuse for a smile fades, and he brings their joint hands to his lips, pressing a kiss against her knuckles. “I love you. So much.”
“I love you too,” she replies, and she does her best to squeeze his hand in hers, “JJ showed me the footage,” she doesn’t miss how his eyes harden, anger filling them quickly, “don’t be mad at her, I threatened to get out of bed if she didn’t.”
“Em-”
“Please tell me you got checked out by a doctor before you came in here,” she says, knowing him better than she knew herself, “I don’t want to have to get Derek to drag you to one.”
He barks out a noise somewhere between a chuckle and a sob. “Yeah, I did. Several bruised ribs, a couple fractured ones. Acoustic trauma to my ears.”
She holds his hand a little tighter, smiling shakily at him when his eyes meet hers again. He looks sad, broken in a way she knows she will tell him all about eventually, once he’d gone through it in his own mind.
“We totally should have had sex this morning.” She says, and it makes him laugh, then wince as the movement pulls at his injuries, “what? It’s true,” she quips, a corner of her lip turning upwards as she successfully distracts him. “Look at the state of us, we won’t be able to have sex for weeks, Aaron.”
He shakes his head at her and kisses her knuckles again. “I’m just glad we both made it, I was…” he drifts off, clearing his throat, “I was so worried I’d lost you.”
Her smile trembles as she nods. “I was worried I’d lost you too,” she squeezes his hand. “Kate?” she asks, the way he closes his eyes the only answer she needed. “I’m so sorry, Aaron.”
“I tried so hard to save her.” He says, smiling sadly, and she knows that’s true, knows that she didn’t have to be there to understand it’s the truth.
He wasn’t the kind of man who wouldn’t have tried everything. Too stubborn to let anything go without giving it his all.
“I know.”
He stays with her until she falls asleep, and she feels like things are going to be ok for the first time since they landed in New York.
___
Cooper comes to visit her just before she’s released from the hospital. She raises her eyebrow at him when he walks in with a gift bag, pulling a bottle of scotch out of it as he places it in front of her, smiling at her reaction.
“Not a gift you typically buy someone in hospital.” She says, smiling at him.
“Well, you don’t exactly buy another man’s girl flowers,” he replies, his hands in his pockets, “especially when that man scares the shit out of you.”
Emily laughs, wincing when it jostles her shoulder, and she sees the look on the man’s face, something too close to guilt for her liking.
“Thank you, for saving my life.” She says, “the doctors said you did a good job until the EMTs got there.”
He laughs derisively, “Well, it was the least I could do since you got shot, I should have got there first.”
She rolls her eyes at him, “Come on, it was just bad luck,” she replies, “it could have just as easily been you.”
There’s a slight knock on the door before they can carry on, and they both look up to see Aaron standing there. She doesn’t miss how Cooper stands a little taller, his back straight.
“Agent Hotchner,” he says, and she rolls her eyes at how professional he sounds, wondering to herself what he would make of the Aaron who had drawn a heart on a bathroom mirror only days ago when it was just the two of them, “I just thought I’d come say hi before the patient gets sent home.”
“Thank you, Agent Cooper,” Aaron says, shaking his hand, clearly squeezing his hand a little too tightly even from where Emily was standing, “for everything.”
Cooper bids them both goodbye, throwing a comment at Emily about stopping by the next time they were in town, and she watches as Aaron watches him leave, his gaze never leaving the other man.
Once they are alone he looks back at her, and she rolls her eyes.
“What?”
“Men.”
___
She’s almost relieved when she’s told she isn’t allowed to fly, knowing it was the only thing that would convince Aaron he shouldn’t either, his own discomfort not enough for him to follow his own medical advice.
Emily rolls her eyes when Dave arrives in her hospital room, car keys in hand, commenting that he was the one who had drawn the short straw to drive them home. She and Aaron walk slowly to the car, neither complaining when Dave carries their bags, both painfully aware that they were incapable of doing so themselves.
Aaron sits next to her in the back of the car, choosing the middle seat so she can lean her injured shoulder against him, trying to make sure there would be minimal movement in it throughout the journey ahead of them. She breathes a sigh of relief as both of their seat belts click into place, her head leaning against Aaron, feeling peace wash over her as he rests his cheek against the top of her head.
“You two ready to go back there?” Dave asks, and her eyes meet his in the rearview mirror, a playfulness that annoys her without him saying anything shining in his eyes.
“Good to go, Dave,” Aaron answers, a hand on her tight, gently squeezing at the muscle, a silent request for her not to bite at Dave’s silent attempts to wind her up.
“Excellent,” Dave replies, pulling the car away from the hospital entrance, “if you kids behave back there I’ll buy you a happy meal each when we stop.”
“Shut the fuck up, Dave.” She exclaims, Aaron’s smile barely concealed in her hair.
___
When they make it back to his apartment it feels like it has been years since they had last been there. They chose his place over hers, a silent agreement that neither of them would be up to taking the stairs several times a day.
The moment they are alone, Chinese food Dave had insisted on buying them on the kitchen counter, Aaron wraps her in a gentle hug, something she returns fiercely, her one free arm wrapping around him tightly.
Something about being back in a familiar setting, the feeling of home that she knew had more to do with the man wrapped around her than it did the apartment they were standing in, makes her let go. The emotion she’d been holding back for days escaping, a sob aching in her chest as it breaks free.
“You’re ok, love,” he says, his ragged voice giving away that he was crying too, “we’re both ok.”
She nods against him and pulls back, pressing a gentle kiss against his lips. “I know, I love you.”
“I love you too,” he replies, kissing her before pulling back, his arm around her waist as he leads her to the dining table, encouraging her to sit down, “you should eat so you can take some more meds.”
She hums as he brings the containers of food over. “As long as you do too.”
“Deal,” he says automatically, placing her favourite dish in front of her, and opening the cardboard container for her so she didn’t have to attempt it with one hand. He tucks into his own food, eating with such ferocity she wonders how much he’d eaten in the last few days whilst she was still in hospital for observation.
“Can I try some of your food?” She asks, knowing he would never deny her anything.
“Of course, open wide.” He says, offering her a fork full, laughing at her as she scrunches her nose up at him, “come on, sweetheart, it’s not like you can do it yourself,” he says, a smile on his face as he tilts towards her good arm, her hand already in use as she digs into her own food.
She rolls her eyes and leans forward, eating the food without further comment, the smug smile on his face making her shake her head. They fall into silence for a while, content just to eat.
“Aaron?” She asks, and he doesn’t react, and she sighs sadly, knowing he hasn’t heard her. She puts her container down and reaches out for him, her hand on his thigh. He looks at her and smiles sheepishly.
“Sorry.”
“No need to apologise, honey,” she replies, “I was just going to ask, do you think you can help me wash my hair when we’re done,” she grimaces, “I still smell like hospital.”
He nods at her, “I think between us we can manage that.”
She smiles in agreement, and knows that together they can do anything.