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Emily sighs in relief as Dave opens his front door, a smirk on his face as he looks her up and down before stepping back to let her in.
“Prentiss, you didn’t have to dress up like that just for us.”
She rolls her eyes as she walks into his house. The team had one of their regular pasta night that she’d had to miss due to a clash with dinner with her mother. Despite the fact she was a grown woman, Emily still felt the need to dress up a little more around Elizabeth than she did around anybody else. It’s how she found herself in a form-fitting black dress that cut across her shoulders, leaving her collarbone and a touch more cleavage on display than usual, something that had clearly driven Aaron a little bit insane before she left the house, giving her a boost of confidence she needed to deal with her mother for the evening.
She’d initially thought she’d miss out on pasta night altogether, but she’d promised the team that she’d come by afterwards for a much-needed drink with her friends and her fiancee before they all headed home.
“Shut up, Dave.”
His smirk widens and he tips his head towards the living room, “Aaron has been guarding a glass of wine for you since you text him to say you were on your way.”
“Fuck, I love that man,” she says as she starts to walk towards the living room, Dave just behind her.
There’s a chorus of hello’s as soon as she walks in, everyone pleased to see her, and she gives them all a wave, suddenly feeling incredibly overdressed now she’s with them, all wearing jeans and more casual clothing, instead of with her mother in a high-end restaurant. The brief wave of insecurity disappears as soon as her eyes meet Aaron’s, a flash of desire moving quickly across his face as she walks across the room to join him on the couch he was on.
“Hi sweetheart,” he says, stamping a kiss to her lips as she settles next to him, “How was it?” She groans, taking the glass of wine he offers her, and taking a big swig of it as his arm settles around her. He kisses the top of her head and chuckles, “That bad?”
“Let's just say, you’ll be grateful for my sacrifice tonight once you see what I’ve managed to talk her down from for the wedding,” she replies, having another sip of her wine as she leans slightly further into him, seeking out his warmth, the comfort he always gave her.
“I thought you were getting married here,” Spencer says, his eyebrows furrowed.
“Oh, we are,” Emily replies, “But every little thing is a battle,” she drinks some more of her wine, shaking her head as she remembers the conversation she’d been having all night, “Tonight it was about the dress and the tuxes for Aaron and Jack.”
Aaron frowns, the line in between his eyebrows that she loved making an appearance, “What was she going to have us wearing?”
“Trust me when I say you do not want to know, honey,” she says, placing her spare hand on his leg and squeezing the muscle there. “We should have just eloped,” Penelope clears her throat from across the room, her eyebrows raised at her friend as Emily smiles, “But I know we wouldn’t have got away with it.”
“No you would not,” Penelope confirms, winking at her, “Now, tell us, when are we going to try on dresses?”
Conversation flows easily, and any tension that had built in her chest from a few hours one on one with Elizabeth eases as Emily lets herself relax surrounded by the family she had found in the most unlikely of places. She finishes her glass of wine and pushes on Aaron’s leg to support herself as she stands to go to the kitchen to get some more. He grabs her wrist, his thumb running delicately over her pulse point.
“I’ll go get it for you,” he offers, and she smiles down at him. At the start of their relationship, she’d found it coddling, taking these small things he wanted to do for her, that he seemed to take pleasure in doing, as a form of control. She’d never been with someone who simply wanted to do things for her just because they did, with no ulterior motive. It took some time to get used to, to understand it was one of the many ways he showed his love for her. Tiny acts of service that she now wondered how she ever lived without.
“It’s ok,” she says, “Do you want anything?”
He shakes his head and squeezes her wrist once more before he lets go. She walks to the kitchen, well aware of where Dave keeps the wine, and she pours herself another glass. She hears footsteps approach and she looks up to see Derek walking towards her.
“Thanks for the offer of a drink, princess,” he jokes, his eyebrows raised as he steps past her to grab a beer from the fridge.
“Sorry,” she replies, placing the wine bottle back down on the counter and turning to face him, “I guess I’ve got a bit of tunnel vision tonight.”
He smiles, twisting the lid of the bottle in his hands, “That bad with your mother?”
“It’s better than it used to be,” she admits, crossing her arms over her chest as she sighs, looking down at the floor. “But it’s still not great.”
Since she’d got home from Paris both she and Elizabeth had been trying, the latter well aware that in the time she’d thought her daughter was dead she had lots of regrets. There were improvements in the relationship, but Emily had come to terms with the fact it would never be the one she truly wanted with her mother.
She looks back up to find Derek staring at her, his eyes fixed on her chest. She looks down and realises that crossing her arms had accentuated her breasts even further than the dress had, and she chuckles as she drops her arms.
“Ok, Derek,” she jokes, “I know the girls look good in this dress, but Aaron will kill you if he walks in to find you staring,” she waits for a second, sees how his gaze doesn’t shift, and she suddenly feels a little uncomfortable, “And I might let him.” She clicks her fingers and it gets his attention, and she raises her eyebrows at him, “Are you ok?”
His eyes meet hers, something she hasn’t seen in a long time shining through them.
“What’s that scar on your…” he drifts off as if his brain has caught up with his mouth, as if he’s just realised what he was about to ask his best friend, but it’s enough for her to realise what he’s seen.
She looks down and realises the four-leaf clover on her left breast is on show, the neckline of her dress revealing it. She barely thought about it these days, and it had become as much a part of her as any other scar she had. The last time she’d thought about it in any true depth was her first night with Aaron, sure he’d find it ugly in some way. But he’d simply kissed it before sucking a bruise right next to it, a way of showing her she was now his, and not Ian’s.
“Oh,” she chokes out, suddenly feeling exposed in a way she didn’t understand as she tries to pull at the material of her dress to cover it, “It’s…Ian did it.”
She’d never got around to having it removed, or covered with skin grafts. At first, it was practical, the damage left behind by the stake to her abdomen the priority, but then she found her desire to remove it disappeared as the scar tissue settled.
“You never told us about that,” he replies, some anger seeping into his tone. She doesn’t take it personally, she knows it’s always the first emotion he reaches for when he doesn’t know how to feel, so she clears her throat and plasters on a fake smile.
“Well, I didn’t exactly feel like explaining that he branded me,” she says, reaching behind her and grabbing her glass of wine, taking a sip. “Plus, it’s not anyone’s business.”
“You never thought of getting it removed?” He asks, somewhere between judgemental and curiosity in a way that makes her want to scream.
“I did,” she replies simply, not feeling she owed him any further explanation. “I just never got round to it.”
“And Hotch doesn’t mind?”
She frowns at that, “Why would he?”
Derek shrugs, “It’s kind of like having an ex’s name tattooed on you isn’t it?”
For a moment she’s shocked, and she knows he realises he’s pushed it too far as soon as he’s said it, his eyes widening at his own comment. Anything to do with Ian, with that time in their lives, was a sore subject with Derek. Even now he struggled with it and she understood as much as she could. Aaron had told her about the comments he’d made in the immediate fallout of her disappearance as she tried to protect them from Ian, the things he’d said in anger as they realised the depth of her relationship with the man they were hunting.
That had hurt and stung in a way that had made Aaron initially regret telling her, even though she’d asked him to. But this was different, it sets off something in her brain that she doesn’t understand, making her feel like she was right back at the hospital in Bethesda. Able to stand by herself for the first time and looking in the mirror at the still red scar on her chest.
“Em, I-”
“Are you ok, sweetheart?” Aaron says, appearing in the kitchen, “You’ve been a while. Dave sent me to check you weren’t drinking all of his…” he drifts off, clearly picking up on the atmosphere in the kitchen, “Is everything ok?”
She snaps out of it first, placing her still mostly full glass down on the kitchen counter, “Yeah, everything is fine, honey,” she says, walking over to him, and she knows he sees right through it, his frown deepening at the way her eyes are shining, “Can we go home though? I’m pretty tired.”
Aaron looks back and forth between the two of them, desperate to understand what had happened in the few minutes his fiancee had stepped away to get herself a drink, but he stops himself from inquiring any further. Knowing now wasn’t the time to ask her questions.
“Of course,” he says, kissing her forehead and reaching out to squeeze her hand, sensing that she wanted a fast exit. “I’ll meet you by the front door? I’ll go get my jacket.”
She nods, her smile slipping off her face as he turns his back to head back to get his things.
“Em-”
“See you on Monday, Derek,” she says cutting him off, and walking away without looking back, sure if she did she’d either cry or say something she’d later regret.
In that moment, she isn’t sure which would be worse.
___
She hadn’t thought about it for so long, but suddenly the small scar on her breast is all she can think about.
The night after pasta night she wakes up from a nightmare she thought she’d stopped having, her skin burning and the smell of it hanging in the air. Aaron holds her, his embrace was the only thing that could bring her back, make her realise she was safe. The lingering smell of his cologne against his skin all the comfort she needed.
She wears turtlenecks to work even though it’s slightly too warm for them, and she finds herself covering up even in front of Aaron. He’s concerned, hurt even when she pushes him away from her and refuses to talk about what's wrong. He’s so understanding it almost makes her mad at him as he gives her the space she so clearly needs.
It takes her a week to reach out to a doctor. Derek’s rushed but genuine apology in the bullpen kitchen, which she accepts with a quick nod and a tight smile, floating around her mind as she makes an appointment.
She hadn’t thought about it for a long time, but all of a sudden she wants it gone.
___
She doesn’t think she’s ever been so happy to be home, her shoulders sagging as she walks into their house after a long case. She drops her bag near the front door and walks to the kitchen, determined to pour her and Aaron a drink as he got the mail from the mailbox. Jack was away with Jessica, so they had a rare night at home just the two of them ahead.
She feels lighter than she has in days, comfortable with the decision she has made, and she knows she has to talk to Aaron about it. It’s her decision to make, but she wants him with her every step of the way, his support and love always unwavering. The cornerstone of her life that she knows her very foundations would be shaky without.
“Em?”
“In the kitchen,” she calls out, smiling at him as he walks in, a pile of letters in his hand, “Anything interesting?”
“Bills, flyers from that pizza place you love,” he says, going through the pile, his eyebrows creasing slightly as he pulls out a letter, “This one is for you,” he says placing it down on the counter. “It’s from a doctor.”
He slides the letter across the kitchen counter, and she sighs as she sees what it is. It’s from the doctor she’d spoken to about her scar revision, his specialism on the outside for everyone to see, and she sighs.
“I thought your doctor said everything looked great at your last check-up,” he says, his concern obvious and she smiles sadly at him.
He came to her appointments with her, something she appreciated after going to so many by herself in Paris. They were less frequent now, getting further apart as time went on, the scar on her abdomen and the damage that Ian had left around it as good as it was going to get.
“It’s…it’s not that scar,” she admits, her tongue sticking out briefly to lick her lower lip, “It’s the clover. It’s a consultation to see if I can get it removed,” she hates the silence, the look on his face as he tries to figure out what to say, “I was going to tell you tonight,” she adds, giving him a half smile, “The damn letter beat me to it.”
Aaron finally finds his voice, clearly choosing his words carefully, “I didn’t realise you wanted to get it removed.”
She looks down at her hands, twisting her engagement ring around on her finger to stop herself from digging at her cuticles.
“I didn’t,” she says honestly, clearing her throat as she looks back up at him, “Not until recently.”
He stares at her and sees the array of emotions that spread across her face, and he knows as much as he wants to know everything, to understand what he’s so clearly not been privy to, he has to let her do this at her pace.
“Want to talk about it?” He asks a question that he’d repeated so often over the last two weeks as he’d watched her turn in on herself. The relief he feels when she nods is palpable, releasing the tension in his shoulders that he had carried ever since he found her upset in Dave’s kitchen, her mood so different to how it had been when she left him in the living room.
She’d made him promise not to ask Derek about it, not that he’d have had the opportunity. The other man avoiding him at seemingly all costs since pasta night.
Aaron rounds the counter and pulls her into a hug, one that she returns just as fiercely, her hands tightening in fists in the back of his shirt. He kisses her forehead, before he pulls back, smiling softly at her.
“Come on, let's go sit down,” he says, his hand on her lower back as he leads her to the living room.
They sit on the couch, both turned inwards so they are facing each other. He waits her out, please he’s managed to get to this point after two weeks of waiting.
“I need you to promise me that you won’t get mad at Derek,” she says, biting the inside of her cheek as their eyes meet.
“That alone makes me feel like I should be mad at him,” he replies, and she rolls her eyes in response, opening her mouth to argue with him so he puts his hand up, “Ok, I promise.”
She smiles gratefully at him, and he knows he’s done the right thing despite the fact all of his protective instincts are battling it out in his head.
“When I went to get some more wine at Dave’s, Derek ended up in the kitchen with me. And…he saw the scar on my chest,” she says as evenly as she can, her lips in a tight line, as she watches him sigh, his eyes closed as he starts to put the pieces he’d been searching for together, “I hadn’t even thought about it when I picked my outfit that evening, I hadn’t thought about it in so long,” she laughs bitterly, shaking her head at herself, “And he didn’t know about it until then.”
She presses her hand to where the scar is laying under her shirt, massaging the area lightly. Trying to push out a phantom ache she knows isn’t real, a cruel trick from her brain that had re-occurred since her discussion with Derek.
“What did he say?” He asks, ensuring he keeps his voice even despite his annoyance at the other man already building.
She smiles sadly, looking down at her lap and back at her ring before she speaks again, “He asked why I’d never had it removed, what you thought of it,” she flashes her eyes back up at him and sees barely controlled anger flash across his face. She wonders for a second if she should say the next part, but she doesn’t want to keep secrets from him now she’s figured it all out in her own head. “He uh…he equated it to having an ex’s name as a tattoo.”
It takes a moment for her words to register, for the meaning to settle over him, and he clenches his jaw, sure it could break with the force of it. He finally understands why she’d started this conversation the way she had.
“He said what?”
“Aaron,” she says, gaining his attention, “You promised.”
He shakes his head and sighs, “I know. I know I did, but, how dare he say something like that. Like you…chose this. Like you asked for this to happen to you.”
“I know he’s wrong,” she says, reaching out and putting her hand over his, the cool band of her engagement ring against his skin enough to talk him down, “I know, and he does too. He’s apologised and I’ve forgiven him, and whilst it will take a little bit for me to be okay with him I will get there. I don’t need to you fight my battles for me,” she says, smiling softly when he sandwiches her hand between the two of his, “I just need you to be here for me now.”
He nods, blowing out a steady breath, “Ok,” he says, squeezing her hand between his, “If you’re ok with it, why are you thinking of getting it removed?”
She sighs, unsure how to put it into words, how to explain what had been on her mind ever since her conversation with Derek. How she felt like she was right back at the start but somehow there with the perspective she had now. The knowledge that she got everything back, and more. That she’d found love in the most unlikely of places and, despite everything, was the happiest she’d ever been.
“Every time someone sees it they’ll think of him,” she says, smiling sadly, “And I think I’m ready to close that chapter.”
“I don’t think of him, sweetheart. All I see is you.”
She smiles genuinely at that, shifting closer to him on the couch to cup his cheek with her spare hand, leaning in to kiss him briefly, pulling back to look at him.
“I know, honey, and I know you’d never expect me to do anything. And I’m not doing this for you, or Derek. Or even Ian,” she says, unexpected tears flooding her eyes, “I’m doing it for me.”
There had been freedom in keeping the scar the last couple of years. Of having it there as a reminder of what she had endured, what she had survived. But now there would be freedom in having it removed, making a positive change for herself going forward. What had happened would always be a part of her, and she knewthere would be moments to come that also took her back to that warehouse in Boston. But she also knew that if there was anyone who understood that it was the man sitting next to her. Their pasts different but similar enough that they could help each other. Beacons of light they could each reach towards when the storms of their pasts reared their ugly heafs.
He pulls her into a hug, his arms tight around her as she sinks into his embrace, seeking out the comfort he never failed to provide her. He kisses her temple before he puts his hand on her head, his fingers tangling in her hair to hold her in place.
“I’m proud of you sweetheart,” he says, kissing her temple again, and a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh escapes her as she pulls back just enough to look at him.
“Don’t say that,” she says, hooking her arms around his neck, “You’ll make me cry.”
He wipes away a tear that was already on her cheek, not bothering to comment on the fact she was already crying.
“It’s true. You’re the strongest person I know.”
She beams at him, her cheeks warming with the praise, “Thank you,” she replies, “And not just for saying that, but for giving me space. I know the last couple of weeks can’t have been easy.”
“You don’t have to thank me for loving you, Emily. There’s nothing difficult about that.”
She chuckles, tears falling onto her cheeks as she shakes her head at him, “For fuck sake, Aaron.”
He kisses her cheek, tasting the salt on her skin and settles back into the couch properly, making sure she’s secure in his lap.
“Are you ok?” He asks, pushing some hair behind her ear.
“I will be,” she answers eventually, pressing her lips to his jawline.
“I’ll come with you to your appointment if you’d like,” he offers, his hand trailing softly up and down her arm.
She nods, “I’d like that,” she admits, smiling at him, “If we can get the time off work.”
“I’ll make sure we do, and for the procedure itself,” he replies, leaving no room for argument, “I have a feeling Derek will be doing a lot of my paperwork in the next few weeks.”
She groans and raises her eyebrow at him, “Aaron…”
“I promised not to get mad,” he says, a playful glint in his eyes, “I said nothing about there not being consequences.”
She narrows her eyes at him, biting her lip in a failed attempt to stop herself from smiling. She could talk him out of it if she wanted to, she knew that, but she stops herself. Knowing she’d get a bit of a kick out of watching Derek realise he couldn’t talk himself out of it.
“Well, as long as it’s just the paperwork.”
Aaron laughs before he kisses the top of her head, “Oh sweetheart, the paperwork is just the beginning.”
Emily shakes her head, hiding her smile in his chest as she reaches for his hand, tangling their fingers together.
“You’re a ridiculous man, Aaron Hotchner.”
“Yet, you love me anyway.”
She holds him tighter, grateful that she has him. That she has this life the two of them have built. There was comfort in it, just as there was in the fact she knew he felt the same.
“Yeah,” she replies, lifting their joint hands to her lips to kiss his knuckles, “I really do.”