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He keeps getting interrupted.
Paperwork was the most boring part of his job, but one of the most important. If they got it wrong, if even the tiniest detail was missed, then it could be used as a technicality by a defence lawyer. An error that could lead to a dangerous individual being back on the streets, which was something Aaron didn’t want to weigh on his or anyone on his team's shoulders. He’d been there. Had felt guilty over mistakes he’d made before, and any assurances that he’s human, that he’s bound to make mistakes occasionally, would always fall flat.
He was reviewing casework, desperate to get the pile of files in front of him finished so he could go home and spend the evening with his wife and kids, but every time he was getting somewhere someone would knock on his door to ask a question. A distraction that could lead to a mistake that meant he found himself reading the same pages again and again, not making any progress as the clock ticked closer and closer towards his little girl’s bedtime.
He’d already sent Emily a text. Had let her know he was running late and to have dinner without him but that he’d be home before the kids went to bed. If he wasn’t away on a case, bath and bedtime were his jobs, now more than ever because of Emily’s pregnancy. Not only was she struggling to kneel on the floor next to the bath these days, but she was exhausted all the time. The four years that had passed since she’d had Mae were enough for her to have forgotten how rough pregnancy was, especially now she’d just tipped over into her third trimester.
He knew if he called her, if he told her he’d be even later than he thought, that she wouldn’t be mad at him. She’d say that she understood and she’d hand the phone over to Mae, would encourage the four-year-old to speak to him over the phone so he could at least say goodnight to her. Then, when he did get home, she’d kiss him hello and offer to make him a drink whilst he went to Mae’s bedroom to kiss her forehead and just watch her for a minute or two. Her face relaxed and her cheek pressed into the pillow as she hugged her favourite toy to her chest. Both she and Jack, and the little boy Emily was currently pregnant with, were a reminder that good things existed. That he had the life he once thought he’d never get a chance at again.
There’s a knock on his office door and he sighs, shaking his head as he calls out for the person to come in, his pen already placed down on his desk.
At this rate, he’d get home to everyone already in bed.
“You could look happier to see me,” Dave says, smirking at him as he leans against the doorframe, “I am your best friend after all.”
“Emily is my best friend,” he corrects, leaning back in his chair.
“She’s your wife.”
Aaron smiles despite his irritation at being interrupted, “She’s my best friend too,” he says, his smile getting wider when Dave furrows his brow, “Have you ever thought this might be why none of your marriages worked out?”
He places his hand on his chest in mock hurt, “You know, you used to be a lot nicer before you married Emily,” he jokes, and they both laugh.
“Is there a reason you’ve interrupted me?” Aaron asks, raising his eyebrow at him, “Or did you just come in to ruin my flow again?”
“I’ve finished last month's budget reports for you,” he says, pulling them from behind his back and placing them on his desk, “All you need to do is sign them.”
Aaron looks up at him, “I’m not going to unknowingly sign off on the department paying for your next book tour am I?”
Dave chuckles and shrugs, “Guess you’re going to have to see how much you trust me,” he jokes, “You should just go home, Aaron. The paperwork will still be here tomorrow.”
He sighs and nods, “I know. I wanted to make more progress than I have. Cruz has been breathing down my neck.”
“You’ve got two kids and a pregnant wife, who happens to head up his Counterterrorism unit, at home. He’s not going to begrudge you going home,” he looks at his watch, “Especially when it’s already an hour past the end of your day.”
Aaron knows he’s right, but old habits died hard. Even now he found himself getting sucked into work, although never as badly as he had when he was married to Haley. In some ways, he found that Emily's understanding of his job in the way she did helped, because if she ever asked him to take a step back it made him question himself, made him do as she asked of him. He wasn’t proud of it, wasn’t proud that Haley asking him had never been enough, but he knew it meant that he’d learnt from his past. That he hadn’t brought the mistakes from his first marriage into his second one.
“You’re right, I’ll-” he’s cut off when he hears his phone ring, the vibration of it against the desk loud in the otherwise quiet office. He frowns at the withheld number and picks it up, sending Dave an apologetic smile as he answers, “Aaron Hotchner.”
“Hi, Mr Hotchner, I’m Lisa, I’m an ER nurse at Stafford Hospital…”
Everything slows down around him, his chest stuttering as time moves like syrup, every second sticking in the back of his throat, making it hard to breathe as he tightens his grip on his phone, surprised he doesn’t crush it as the nurse confirms what he already knows she’s going to say.
“Your wife and children were brought in this evening after being involved in a car accident.”
___
Emily wasn’t answering her phone. It doesn’t even ring.
He calls her. Again and again and again and she doesn’t answer. Each time it goes straight to voicemail the sound of her voice on her personalised message makes him ache, his shoulders so tight as he drives he worries they may pop out of the joints.
He tries again, presses the speed dial in his car but it goes to voicemail again. Her voice ringing out through the speakers around him.
“Hi, you’ve reached Emily Prentiss, please leave a message after the tone and I’ll get back to you.”
“Em, call me back, please,” he begs, ignoring the voice in the back of his head telling him this might be the last time he hears her voice, that this will replace whatever she’d said to him when they left for work that morning in their separate cars, “I’m…please answer the phone. I love you.”
It’s familiar. Too familiar. His hands tight on the steering wheel as he’s desperately trying to get to the woman he loves. Fear greeting him like an old friend as it breathes down his neck, its hand about to reach out for him and grab him by the shoulder. He tries to tell himself that it’s okay, that she and the kids are fine, but he can’t stop thinking that she hasn’t answered her phone.
She would answer if everything was okay. She’d call him if everything was okay.
He doesn’t remember a second of the journey by the time he makes it to the hospital. He flashes his badge at a security guard who tells him he can’t park where he’s pulled up, not caring if it’s an abuse of power. Every single cell in his body vibrating with fear and pre-emptive grief and guilt. He should have been with them. If he’d just gone home when he should have he would have been with them.
He walks up to the desk in the ER, grateful there isn’t a line of people. He’s already speaking to the nurse before she looks up at him, all of the details he had spilling out of him in a second, words tripping themselves as he desperately gets them out.
“I got a call about my wife - Emily Prentiss, she’s pregnant. And my children Jack and Mae Hotchner. I was told they were in a car accident.”
“Okay,” she says, looking at the computer, “Let me just check my system for them…” She drifts off as she types, and he hates how good he is at his job. Hates that he sees the very brief furrowing of her brows before she smiles up at him, “Did you say Prentiss?”
“Yes,” he replies, his voice barely recognisable even to himself.
“I’m sorry sir, I can’t see that we have any patients in the ER with that name, and I can’t see your children’s names either.”
He grips the counter, his fingers pressed against cheap wood as he holds himself up, “What do you mean they aren’t on the system?” He demands, shouting at the young woman in front of him even if he doesn’t mean to, his desperation reaching an all time high. He finds himself wishing he’d taken up Dave’s offer of driving him here so that he wouldn’t be alone for this.
“It could mean a couple of things, it could mean they’ve already been discharged,” she swallows thickly, “Or, I’m so sorry but it could mean-”
“Dad?”
He turns around so fast at the sound of his son’s voice that he pulls his neck, but the pain that flares in it barely registers. All the anger and grief floods out of him in an instant the moment he sets eyes on him, on them, standing just a few feet away. Emily is standing next to Jack, her arm around his shoulders and the other arm securing Mae to her hip, the little girl’s face pressed against her neck. The only visible sign of injury is a bandage on Emily’s forehead, the stark white of the material a sight that is a little too familiar for his liking.
“Oh my God,” he breathes out, making it to their sides in a few seconds, pulling them into his arms. His whole world in his embrace before he pulls back, dropping a kiss to Jack’s forehead and then turning to kiss his little girl’s and then finally his wife, “I thought…you didn’t answer your phone.”
“I know,” she says, unwrapping her arm from around Jack’s shoulder to cup Aaron’s cheek, her skin warm against his, “I’m so sorry baby. It was broken in the crash. Couldn’t even get it to turn on,” she looks over at the desk, a flash of irritation in her eyes, “And they wouldn’t let me call you myself.”
“And you’re…” he looks her up and down now he’s closer and then at the kids, looking for cuts and injuries that weren’t there.
“We’re okay. If I’d been in the car alone, if I wasn’t pregnant, I probably wouldn’t have come to the hospital,” she assures him, her hand slipping down to his neck, her thumb tracing back and forth over his jaw, “We all got looked at. We have some bruises from the seatbelts, and I hit my head on the steering wheel. But the doctors were happy to discharge us.”
“You’re okay?” He asks, breathless, as if he’d run all the way here. He places his hand on her bump and the baby moves, the breath Aaron sucks in rattling back and forth between his ribs, “And the baby?”
“He’s okay too,” Emily assures him, adjusting her hold on Mae. She turns to look at her, obvious fear shining in their daughter’s eyes and she tickles her to draw out a laugh, “We saw baby brother on the screen, huh?”
Mae nods, her excitement at being a big sister overtaking everything else, “We saw his peni-”
“They said everything looks good. Told me what to look out for that would mean I had to come back in, and I have to arrange a check up with my OBGYN in a couple of days. We got new pictures,” Emily says, cutting over her toddler, not missing the poorly hidden smiles of amusement from some of the people sitting in the waiting room, and the horror on some of the other faces at a four-year-old knowing the anatomical terms for intimate body parts. She presses her lips together and looks at her husband, “I can show you when we get home?”
“As long as the doctors are sure everyone is okay,” he says, “Maybe I should talk to someone, ask them to look at you all again.”
She smiles, passing over Mae so he has the comfort of their little girl in his arms, and he takes her willingly, stamping his lips against her forehead as he holds her close. She melts into his embrace, exhausted by the stress of what had happened, and he runs his hand soothingly up and down her back.
“Honey,” Emily says, reaching for his hand, linking their fingers together so she can squeeze his palm against hers. “We’ve all been cleared. We’re okay. I promise. Right, kiddo?”
Jack nods, “Right,” he smiles at his Dad, “Can we get pizza?”
Aaron chuckles, the residual panic still simmering in his gut, but he clears his throat and nods, wanting more than anything to just get his family home where he could keep them safe, “Yeah buddy,” he says, ruffling his hair, “We can get pizza.”
___
“I have a feeling we’ll wake up with both of them in our bed,” Emily says as she walks into their bedroom, groaning as she sits down, her body aching in more ways than it usually did these days, “But they are both asleep.” She turns to look at Aaron. He’s sitting on the bed too, an arm's length away, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, “Honey-”
“What happened?”
She sighs and swallows thickly. They hadn’t spoken about it, not whilst the kids were with them. An unspoken agreement that they’d leave it until they went to bed. Neither one of them wanting Jack and Mae to relieve it when they were awake, when it was likely they would in their dreams.
“It was low impact,” she says, shifting towards him until their thighs touch. The guy behind us wasn’t paying attention, he was on his phone,” she reaches for his hand when he tenses and links their fingers together, “He went into the back of us at a red light. He’d already been slowing down because he saw it go yellow, he just missed it going red.”
“He could have killed you.”
“He rear-ended us.”
He all but growls, “He was being careless.”
She makes him look at her, her hand cupping his chin as she forces him to turn his head, “Something that I made very clear with a lot of colourful language Mae might start repeating during breakfast tomorrow morning.”
Aaron sighs and kisses her knuckles, “What were you doing in the car anyway? I didn’t know you were going anywhere.”
She presses her lips together, giving herself a moment before she answers the question she’d been dreading all night, well aware of what his reaction would be, “We were bringing you dinner.”
His eyes go wide, the internalised anger she expected flashing in his eyes, frustration she knows he’s sending inwards for not being home on time written in the tension in his jaw. What she doesn’t expect, what she doesn’t see coming despite knowing him better than she knows herself, is the way he bursts into tears. A sob caught in his chest that sounds like it hurts, cracking his ribs from the inside out, the sharp edges of them catching on scars that were already scattered across his skin. Like he’s tearing himself apart from the inside out in the same places another man once tore him apart from the outside in.
“ Aaron ,” she breathes out, barely getting a second before he leans forward and presses his face against her neck, his tears burning her skin. She holds him close and turns her head to kiss his forehead. She blows out a shaky breath, seeing him this upset enough to tip her over the edge herself, “We’re okay-”
“I know you’re okay, Em,” he chokes out, tears leaving tracks on her neck, his words muffled against her collarbone as his misplaced anger turns into the grief he couldn’t shake off, “But I keep going back to that moment when I didn’t know that you were. It felt like…” he drifts off and chokes on the rest of his sentence, “It felt like my world was ending. If I lost you…”
She pulls back so she can look at him, and she presses her forehead against his, her hand curled around the back of his head as she holds him in place, “Sweetheart,” she says, the nickname he usually used for her slipping free, “I’m right here,” she says, reaching for his hand to place it on her chest, making a point of breathing in and out deeply so he can feel the rise and fall of it, “I’m okay. The kids are safe and asleep in their beds,” she shifts their joint hands to her bump and she smiles when the baby kicks, “Baby boy is kicking up a storm as always. We’re right here. You didn’t lose any of us. This isn’t like what happened with Haley,” she reaches up and wipes a tear from his cheek, “We’re all right here.”
He chokes on a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob. He shakes his head, making it knock gently against hers before he pulls back to look at her, “Sometimes I think you know me a little too well.”
She shakes her head and squeezes the hand still pressed against her bump, “I’m your wife. I don’t think it’s possible for me to know you too well.”
“I’m so-”
“I don’t want to hear any apologies,” she says, wiping his cheeks again, “Not for staying at the office late. Or for crying. You have nothing to apologise for, okay?”
He nods, resting his forehead against hers, “Okay.”
They wear a door open just down the hall, and then the thundering of Mae’s tiny feet against the hardwood floor. When she opens their door and pokes her head around it she has tears shining on her cheeks, her lips trembling as she steps into the room.
“Mommy, Daddy, I had a bad dream.”
Emily shifts back from Aaron just enough to make room for the little girl, “Come here, baby. Do you want to sleep in our bed tonight?”
She nods as she climbs onto the bed, settling herself onto Aaron’s lap, “Yes please.”
Aaron smiles and kisses the top of her head, “Well, since you asked so nicely.”
Mae looks up at him and frowns when she spots his damn cheeks, “Are you sad Daddy?”
“I’m okay, baby,” He sighs and runs his fingers through her hair, exchanging a quick look with Emily before he returns his attention to his little girl, “I was just scared because you, Jack, Mommy and baby brother could have been hurt.”
She moves so she’s level with his face, all but standing in his lap now, his hands on her waist as he secures her in place. She kisses his forehead, making both him and Emily smile, and then she pulls back, “We’re okay.”
“I know, princess,” he kisses her forehead in return and encourages her to sit back down, “Are you okay to get comfortable in bed whilst Mommy and I get ready?”
She nods and then tilts her head curiously, waiting until both her parents are standing up before she speaks, “Daddy?”
“Yes, Mae?”
“What’s a douche canoe?”