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She wakes up slowly, drawn back to consciousness by a warm hand skipping up and down her arm and a kiss on her cheek. She groans, turning her head to capture Aaron’s lips in a kiss, opening her eyes as she kisses him a second time, smiling as she pulls back to look at him. He’s already dressed, looking very different to the soft, rumbled version of him she’d fallen asleep next to, and she knows that only means one thing.
“A case?” She asks, her voice thick with sleep, and Aaron nods. He brushes her hair out of her face and tucks it behind her ear. She leans into the warmth of his palm and turns her head to look at the alarm clock on the nightstand, groaning when she sees it’s 6.30 am. “Serial killers really need to respect my sleep schedule a little more.”
“I let you sleep as long as I could. Garcia will call you soon, but I’ve got to get Jack to Jessica’s before I head to the office,” Aaron smiles at her and holds up a key, a small keyring of a black cat dangling from it, “You okay to lock up?”
Emily presses her lips together to try to contain her smile, still not used to how he made her feel, not used to how much she loved him after all these weeks. It had been seven weeks since their first date. Seven weeks of them, of what she thinks they should have always had. Only Jessica and Jack knew about them so far but they were planning on telling the team soon. She was more anxious about it than she thought she would be, but she knew they had to know - that she and Aaron were already edging towards having kept it from them for too long.
Their relationship felt precious. Something she wanted to protect and nurture without outside influence or criticism. It was something for them. Something that allowed her to be soft with someone in a way she thought she was no longer capable of, in a way that had been stripped from her years ago. She’d wondered if her and Aaron’s sharp edges would hurt the other, if despite their best efforts they’d tear each other apart, but it wasn’t like that. Their sharp edges seemed to slot together like puzzle pieces, like they were two halves of the same whole. He knew her in a way no one ever had, and she knew him in the same way.
If she was younger, if she was a romantic who life hadn’t kicked around more than once, she’d even think he was made for her.
Even if she didn’t believe in fate, she knew he was it for her, and she was it for him. They’d both fought for this - fought to be happy - and they were heading for a future that looked like the very thing she’d convinced herself she’d never get. A future full of love, and everything that came with it, even though they hadn’t said the words to each other yet. They didn’t need to say it. They both knew. His love for her was carved into the key he’s offering out to her, the trust that came with him giving her a key to his home - to the sanctuary and safety he’d clawed back after he had almost died here. His love for her was in the black cat keyring hanging from it, and she smiles as she pictures him standing in the store looking for exactly the right one, how he’d smile as he spotted it before he bought it just for this.
“Okay,” She nods and takes the key from him, stamping her lips against his, her fingers scratching at the back of his scalp as she holds him close for a second. “I’ll see you at work?”
“See you at work, sweetheart,” he says before he kisses her one last time and stands up, smiling when she groans, wrapping her arms around his pillow, “If you try to go back to sleep, I’ll send Jack in.”
She sighs playfully and closes her eyes, “Oh no, morning snuggles with your adorable son,” she says, unable to hide her smile. “What a terrible punishment.”
He chuckles, and it warms her from the inside out, finds a place to rest somewhere in her chest near her heart, “You asked for it.”
She smiles against his pillow as she hears the bedroom door open, quickly followed by the rumble of both of their voices and then the thundering of Jack’s feet. The door bursts open again, and seconds later, Jack flops onto the bed, his forehead pressed against hers.
“Emmy, wake up!”
She chuckles and pulls him into her arms, stamping a kiss against his cheek, “But I want to stay in bed.”
“But I have to go to school, and you and Daddy have to go to work.”
She has to press her lips together to contain her smile at his seriousness, and she looks over at Aaron, feels that familiar warmth again at the way he’s looking at them both. She makes a point of sighing dramatically before she nods, kissing his cheek again before she pulls back.
“Then I guess I’d better start getting ready.”
___
It’s a long, hard day.
She’s exhausted when she flops onto the bed in her hotel room, grimacing at the slightly lumpy mattress, and she sighs. She missed Aaron. It felt ridiculous because he was only a few doors down in his own room, but she missed him. They’d agreed to not share a room on cases, especially not until the team knew about them, but she’s itching to seek him out. Desperate to lay in his arms and fall asleep listening to his heartbeat, to allow the steady rhythm of it to soothe her as she tried to think about anything other than the conversation she’d had with a victim's wife today.
She’d volunteered herself to go and do the interview, happy to do it alone if it meant she got a bit of breathing space from her handsome, secret , boyfriend. He was always handsome to her, but there was something about watching him work that drove her crazy, something about the crease between his brows when he frowned as he concentrated that made her have to keep herself busy just so she didn’t reach out and press her thumb into it.
She didn’t think anything of it. She’d conducted countless interviews like it, had borne witness to many people's grief, but something about this woman’s openness, about the rawness of it, had cut into her from the start.
Sophie Robinson was a woman in her 40s who had lost the man she’d loved after only finding him a few years earlier. Emily knew better than most that she shouldn’t let herself see her reflection in victims or their family members, but she couldn’t help it. Couldn’t help but put herself in the shoes of the woman opposite her, the grief she was drowning in lapping at Emily’s feet as she sat in her living room, her home now a museum of the life she thought she’d get to have more of.
Emily blows out a shaky breath and rubs the heels of her hands over her eyes as she pulls the covers around her. She pulls the neckline of the t-shirt she’s wearing, Aaron’s t-shirt, up over her nose to breathe him in. She closes her eyes and tries to trick herself into thinking he’s there with her, slowly but surely falling asleep.
___
She hums to herself as she makes dinner, smiling as she hears Jack giggling in the next room.
She’s distracted by the doorbell ringing, and she turns down the heat on the stove. She pops her head into the living room on her way past and smiles at Jack as he turns to look at her, his favourite game in hand.
“Dinners almost ready, honey. Dad will be home soon.”
He nods, “Okay, Emmy.”
She walks to the front door, pulling it open without checking who is on the other side, and she smiles when she comes face to face with Derek, her happiness at seeing her friend almost immediately replaced with confusion. “Hi, what are you doing here?”
He blows out a breath, and she can almost feel the shudder of it, can see the pain in his eyes, “Em…”
She looks down, sees blood on his shirt, and she gasps, “Whose blood is that?” She looks past him to his parked car, sees JJ in the passenger seat and she sucks in a breath, “Where’s Aaron?”
Derek sighs and steps towards her, but she steps back, shaking her head, “Em-”
“No,” she says, her throat dry, the hammer of her heart in her chest so strong she thinks it might shatter her sternum from the inside out, “No.”
Someone screams, and she thinks it might be her.
___
She sits up and sucks in a breath, she sharpness of it sticking in her raw throat, the scream that had pulled her from her nightmare turning into a cough. She hugs her legs against her chest and presses her forehead to her knees, desperate to try and calm herself down, but it doesn’t work. She can barely breathe, pulled under by fear and grief, and it pushes her to her feet. Has her grabbing the keycard for her room and heading out into the hallway, the cool air in comparison to the warmth of her room doing something to bring her back to herself.
She hesitates for a moment at his door, briefly remembering their deal about not sharing rooms on cases, but when she closes her eyes, she can see the blood on Derek’s shirt in her dream, and she knocks. The relief she feels when she almost immediately hears him get out of bed is palpable, pulling a gasp somewhere from deep in her gut, and tears spill down onto her cheeks.
He pulls the door open, his eyes sleepy and confused, and she throws herself at him, wraps her arms tightly around his middle and buries her face in his chest.
“Em?” He asks, holding her tightly, tugging her back into his room so he can close the door before he pulls back just enough to look at her, his hands on her cheeks as he looks her up and down, “Sweetheart, what’s wrong? What happened?”
“I…” she chokes out, and she shakes her head, burying her face to his chest again, something close to a sob escaping against his t-shirt, the vibration of it passing from her to him.
He holds her tightly, something fierce in his grasp on her as he runs his fingers through her hair and kisses the top of her head, “I’ve got you,” he says, kissing her head again, “I’ve got you.”
She grasps him tighter as he tries to pull away, “ No .”
It’s what she’d screamed in her nightmare, the rawness of it the same, and it makes her hold him even tighter.
“I’m right here. I’m not going to let you go,” he promises, pulling back just enough to look at her, “Let’s just sit down, okay?”
She nods, and she can see how the desperation in it worries him, how it adds to the concern already swimming in his eyes, and she clings to him as she lets him lead her through his room. She half expects him to take her to the bed, but he doesn’t. He leads her to the chair in the corner instead and encourages her to sit on his lap. She curls up against him and presses her face into his neck. She places her hand over his heart and feels the rhythm of it, lets the steady beat of it start to calm her down, to soothe the last remaining bits of fear left behind by her nightmare. He comforts her the entire time. His lips against the top of her head and his hand on her hip under the t-shirt she’s wearing, the warmth of his skin drawing her back to herself.
She isn’t sure how much time passes when she eventually speaks, her forehead still pressed against his neck, “I’m sorry.”
Aaron kisses her hairline, “You have nothing to be sorry for, sweetheart,” he says, his smile soft and reassuring when she tilts her head to look up at him, “Want to talk about it?”
“I…” she clears her throat, “I had a nightmare. You were…” she drifts off again, and she knows she doesn’t have to say anything else, that he already knows. Even in the short time they’d been together, they’d woken each other up with a nightmare. Taking it in turns to soothe and comfort. To bring the other back to them with soft touches and kisses as they talked them through it.
They took it in turns to be the strong one, something she knew they’d been doing for long before they ever even kissed.
“The interview today?” He asks, and she chokes on a laugh, because of course he knew, and she nods.
“Yeah, the interview today,” she says, finally pulling back enough to look at him properly. She smiles when he immediately wipes tears from her cheeks, “She said she wished she found him sooner,” she presses her lips together to try to stop the shake in them as she reaches up to run her fingers through his hair, “I guess it hit a little too close to home.”
He grabs her hand and links their fingers together, dragging their joint hands to his lips to kiss her knuckles. “I think I’ll always wish we’d found each other sooner, Em,” he says, furrowing his brows at himself, “Or, figured it all out sooner, I guess, but we have our whole future ahead of us. There’s so many good things waiting for us.”
She wants to tell him that she loves him, but she doesn’t want to remember this night when she looks back on the first time she said it, doesn’t want to think of this hotel and it’s shitty mattresses and the nightmare that had torn her from sleep. Instead, she presses her forehead against his and sighs happily.
“I’m looking forward to it,” she says, stamping her lips against his, “All of it.”
He nods, his forehead knocking against hers, “Me too.”