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“Are you okay, Emily?”
She has to suppress a smile as she exchanges a look with Aaron across the small room they’d found themselves in, their eyes meeting over the top of Jack’s head where he was sitting on the gurney with her. She runs her fingers through his hair and smiles as she looks down at him, the concern and guilt shining in his eyes making her ache.
“I’m okay, sweetie. Just like I was when you asked a couple of minutes ago,” she says, winking at him as she tickles his belly, drawing a laugh out of him, “It’s only my ankle. I’ll be okay,” she looks at Aaron again, swallowing thickly when their eyes meet, “I’ve survived worse.”
When Emily woke up that morning, full of excitement about a day off spent with Aaron and Jack, she would never have guessed that she’d end up in the emergency room. And she certainly would never have guessed it would be because she would fall over as she ran around in the park with Jack. She’d been practising soccer with him because he asked, and she’d never quite figured out how to say no to him, and she’d turned too quickly, her ankle giving way under her as she fell to the ground.
If she’d been by herself, if Jack and Aaron hadn’t run over like she’d just taken a bullet, she would have just limped back to her car and sat with her ankle elevated in her apartment for the rest of the day, hoping that the pain would subside. Aaron had insisted that he bring her to the hospital to get her checked, just in case it was broken and not sprained like she was sure it was, and the matching concerned look in his and his son’s eyes was enough to make her give in with little argument.
Jack, it turned out, wasn’t the only Hotchner she had trouble saying no to these days.
The way she felt about Aaron had snuck up on her, catching up with her until it walked in step with her, the hand of it reaching out to grab her throat until she felt like she couldn’t breathe because of everything she had pushed down over the years. When she looked back on it, she knew she’d been in love with him when she found his apartment empty and a patch of his blood on the floor, although she did not have a name for how she felt then, too afraid to think it, let alone say it out loud. She knew she was in love with him when she was in Paris, when being away from him felt like she’d left part of herself behind. Her heart somewhere in DC, and then apparently Pakistan, as she laid dead to almost everyone apart from him. Every small moment, every time one of them smiled just a second too long at the other, gone and buried right along with her.
When she was in Paris, she’d told herself again and again that she’d talk to him when she came back. She knew he felt the same way for her, had vague memories of him holding her hand and whispering a confession against her knuckles when he came to visit her in Bethesda. When she was still in so much pain, everything bled into each other, dreams and nightmares and reality all merging into one. She knew his visit was real, that her brain hadn’t made it up to comfort or torture her - she wasn’t sure which would have been worse - because he’d never kissed her before, had never pressed his lips against her skin and made a promise that he’d get her back. She knew her brain couldn’t make that up, because she’d spent hours trying to imagine how it would feel before and since, desperate as she laid there with her eyes closed as she tried to picture a life when he would be lying right there with her.
She hadn’t felt ready to say something yet. She still felt unsteady at times, like the ground beneath her was shaking and could give way at any moment, and she wanted to be the best she could possibly be for him - to be the person he deserved. He’d been through so much, and so had Jack, and the last thing she wanted to do was to add to their heartache.
Things had shifted again recently after her promise to let him know when she was having a bad day. He’d shown up at her place the following day, Jack with Jessica on a weekend for once, and asked her what she needed help with. As soon as he saw her apartment had more boxes than furniture - the few belongings of hers that had ended up in storage and hadn’t been sold in the wake of her death - he all but invited himself in to help her unpack. He went with her to buy flatpack furniture and helped her build it, and she fell impossibly more in love with him as he stood there confused by the instructions and the Allen keys that were too small for him to hold properly with his giant hands. It felt like a turning point, like she was finally back on even footing, and he’d helped her get there with nothing more than his kindness and his close to unrelenting knowledge of her.
When she fell in the park, her ankle twisting beneath her as she cried out in shock more than pain, she’d seen the look in his eyes. Love and adoration he’d been terrible at hiding as he watched her play with Jack, suddenly turning into abject fear. She knows it was why she’d given in to coming to the hospital, because, if she was honest with herself, if their roles were reversed, she would have done the same thing.
When he helped her walk back to the car, she’d tried to focus on the pain in her ankle, not the feel of his hand on his waist as he guided her. She tried not to think about his thumb and little finger, and how his hand was so big they skimmed her ribcage and her hip, making warmth spread out from his palm through the rest of her body. It made her blush, made her feel nothing like the confident grown woman she was, and if she didn’t love him so damn much she thinks she’d hate him for it.
“It’s my fault you got hurt, though.”
Even though it’s Jack talking, even though his sweet voice is full of guilt, she’s looking at Aaron, and she can see the guilt in his eyes, as if he’s back in another hospital somewhere in Boston, having to make a decision to save her life.
“It’s not your fault, honey,” she says, still looking at Aaron for a moment before she looks down at Jack, cupping his cheek as she strokes his soft skin. “These things happen. And I’m okay,” she leans in, whispering theatrically so Aaron can still hear her, “When the doctor comes back and says we can go, we should ask your dad if we can get ice cream on the way back to your place.”
She knew there was no way Aaron would let her go home tonight, even though she was still sure she had only sprained her ankle, and she couldn’t bring herself to care. Somewhere along the way, she’d stopped wanting to be alone, the silence she’d once found comfort in now a prison she wanted to escape.
Jack’s eyes go wide, and he looks over at Aaron enthusiastically. “Dad, can we get ice cream? It will make Emily’s ankle feel better.”
Aaron chuckles and shakes his head from where he’s sitting in a chair just a few feet away, “You two could convince me of anything.”
A knock on the door stops the conversation going any further, and the doctor who’d taken her to get an x-ray only 30 minutes previously confirms she has just sprained her ankle. He gives her a brace for her ankle and gives her instructions on how to rest it, and then tells her she’s free to go. Aaron insists on going to get the car to get it as close to the entrance as possible, and Jack goes with him, both of them determined to look after her, and for the first time since she met them at the park, she’s alone. It makes her itch, the throbbing in her ankle beneath the brace vibrating throughout her entire body to the point where she can almost hear it, and she’s grateful when there’s another knock on the door.
“Sorry to disturb you,” a nurse says as she walks in, her name badge letting Emily know she’s called Amy. “The doctor asked me to give you this.” She hands over a prescription slip. “It’s just for some anti-inflamatories; they should help with the pain.”
“Thank you,” she says, pushing the slip into her pocket, “I kind of forgot how much it sucks to sprain something.” It wasn’t the first time she’d done it, but it was the first time in a long time, and the irony of her doing it while wearing sneakers in the park when she could chase after criminals in heeled boots with no issue was not lost on her.
“Well, I’m sure that boyfriend of yours and his adorable little boy will help look after you.”
She chuckles, but is interrupted when Aaron and Jack come into view, a wheelchair ahead of them, and she raises her eyebrow at them, “I’m not getting in that.”
“Come on, Emily, I’ll push you,” Jack says, his smile wide, and when she looks up, Aaron is smiling too, although his has more of a teasing edge to it.
“Yeah, come on, Emily. We’ll push you.” He says, his dimples carved out deep in his cheeks, and she sighs, shaking her head at them both. She smiles at Amy and thanks her before she stands up.
“One day, I’m going to have to figure out how to say no to the two of you,” she grumbles, barely covering a wince as she takes a step. Aaron walks over and hooks his arm around her again, helping her over to the wheelchair she’d tried to claim she didn’t need.
“Well, just pretend we’re at work - you never seem to have a problem with it then,” he quips as he helps her sit down, answering her scoff with a wink, “Right, Jack, let's get Emily home.”
They both push her towards the exit of the emergency room - one hand on each handle - although she knows Aaron is doing most of it, and it’s only when they are in the car that she realises she didn’t correct Amy’s assumption that Aaron was her boyfriend, and she wonders if everyone can see what they have between them.
___
She lets them fuss over her.
He knows it must be driving her crazy, she’d never been someone to like being looked after, let alone coddled, but she lets them. She sits there as Jack insists she doesn’t move, bringing her snacks and drinks she doesn’t ask for, an icepack on her ankle that Aaron had pulled from the freezer the moment they got back to his place. They watch movies, Jack sandwiched in between him and Emily, and he orders pizza for dinner. He lets himself get lost in the fantasy of having this all of the time, of having her here all the time, and he likes to think he’s not too far off it being his reality.
He’d loved her for a long time, for much longer than he thinks he has had the right too, and until recently, he thought he’d lost his chance with her. That they’d end up missing each other, the right person at the wrong time, the stuff of the tragic romance books Haley used to love to read come to life.
When Emily was in Paris, when she had a grave he visited even though he knew it was empty, he told himself he’d be whatever she needed him to be when she came home. All the missed opportunities and almosts between them, not important if she just needed him to be a friend.
So that’s what he did. He stood back when she needed him to and helped when needed that too, even if she didn’t know herself. In the last few weeks, things felt like they had been before she went away. They were nervous around each other again, pink tinges to their cheeks as they caught the other staring at them. It felt like, after everything, they were almost there. Like all they needed was for one of them to take the final step, to grab the other's hand and jump over the edge together - knowing no matter what, they’d have each other.
“Is Emily going to stay tonight?”
Aaron smiles at his son as he climbs into bed and he nods, “Yes, Jack. She’s going to sleep in my room and I’ll sleep on the couch.”
He hadn’t had that conversation with her yet. He’d got as far as convincing her to stay the night; they’d briefly gone to her's on the way home from the hospital to grab a bag of her things as well as Sergio - who was currently hiding away somewhere in the apartment - but they hadn’t discussed anything any further. He’s sure she’ll argue taking his bed, but he wasn’t going to have her sleep on the couch with a sprained ankle.
“I like having Emily and Sergio here,” Jack says as he lays down, snuggling under the covers. “I wish they could be here all the time.”
Aaron chuckles and leans in to kiss Jack’s forehead. “Me too, buddy,” he admits, “I love you.”
“Love you too, Daddy.”
Aaron kisses his head again before he stands up, “You can read your book for-”
“Ten more minutes and then I have to turn the light out,” he says, “I know.”
Aaron lovingly shakes his head as he leaves the room, wondering when his son started to seem so grown up, and he pulls the door closed behind him. He finds Emily exactly where he left her, on the couch with her foot propped on the coffee table on a cushion, a fresh icepack lying on top of it.
“Do you need anything?”
She turns to look at him and smiles, “Maybe some hot chocolate?”
He smiles, “Coming right up,” he says, briefly distracted by her smile, by how the room seems brighter because of it, before he heads to the kitchen to make them the hot chocolates. The water has never taken longer to heat up; every second he’s not sitting next to her feeling like an age. When he’s done, he walks back over, passing her drink to her waiting hands as he joins her on the couch, “I put extra marshmallows in yours, you deserve it.”
“Thanks,” she says, her fingers lingering over his a second longer than necessary as she takes her drink, “I should have sprained my ankle weeks ago if this is the treatment I get.”
He chuckles at that, “I’ll just give you the marshmallows - there’s no need to fall over first.”
She groans as she sips her hot chocolate before she puts it down, “It’s so embarrassing. I run after unsubs in heeled boots all the time,” she grumbles, scrunching her nose up as she crosses her arms over her chest, “I can’t believe I sprained my ankle in fucking sneakers.”
The petulance he won’t address drips from her voice, making her adorable and vulnerable in one swoop, love for her flooding his gut as he places his drink down too. “It happens to the best of us.”
She laughs humourlessly, “Yeah, right.”
“I mean it,” he says, clearing his throat as he smiles at her. “I once sprained my wrist falling off the jungle gym in the park. It was my left wrist too, it made things very difficult for a couple of weeks.”
Her eyebrows shoot up her forehead. “Wait, really?” She asks, laughing when he nods his head, “How? When?” She looks down at his hands. “How did I not notice?”
He swallows thickly as his smile fades, his joy over her joy disappearing as he remembers why she didn’t know. “It…it was when you were…”
She sighs and presses her lips together, her eyes drifting down to the couch to avoid his eye contact, “Oh,” she says, smiling tightly at him when she looks back up, “Well,” she adds, clearing her throat, “It’s probably for the best - I never would have let you live it down.”
It isn’t true, and they both know that. She’d have fussed over him too. Would have shown up with casseroles that he could easily reheat to keep him and Jack fed, and she would have insisted on driving him to work like she once had before. But it’s what needs to be said in the moment, an attempt at brushing away a painful reality neither one of them wanted to relieve right here and now.
“Thank you,” he says eventually, smiling when she furrows her brows at him, “For letting us fuss over you all day. I know it can’t have been easy.”
She smiles, her teeth sinking into her lower lip while she looks at him, as if she’s trying to contain it. “I…” she starts, clearing her throat before she shifts a little closer to him, “It was easy, actually,” she says, scrunching her nose up, her cheeks tinged pink as their eyes meet. “I think I quite like being looked after by you.”
It feels like the moment he’s been waiting for, the moment they’ve both been waiting for, and he knows he’ll have to be the one to grasp it. She’d always been the bravest one of the two of them, fighting everything, including love and affection, with her teeth bared as if she was stuck in an enclosure of her own making. As he leans in, he can’t but hope that he’s passing her the key, that he’s helping her escape, helping her finally give in to everything she deserves and wants.
The press of her lips against his is soft. Somehow softer than he’d imagined, and she curls her hand around the back of his head, holding him in place as if he’d rather be anywhere other than right here with her. Eventually, he pulls back, his forehead resting against hers, and she’s smiling at him, her tongue peeking out to lick her lower lip as she tries to catch her breath.
She lets out a sound that sounds like a laugh, like joy and love and everything between all wrapped up into one beautiful package and she shakes her head, her nose nudging against his before she kisses him quickly. Then she laughs again, an actual laugh this time, and he can’t help but join in, his hand on her cheek as she pulls back to look at him properly.
“What is it, sweetheart?” He asks, the nickname escaping without thought, as if it had been caught in his throat for weeks waiting for this moment. She beams at it, her smile bright and beautiful, and she shakes her head and shrugs at the same time, overwhelmed by everything that had led them here.
“Nothing,” she says, reaching out to straighten the collar of his polo shirt before her hand moves to his neck, her palm warm against his skin, “I was just thinking that maybe I really should have sprained my ankle weeks ago.”