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Forty Two
Aaron never minded working on his birthday.
Last year, Haley had woken him up early so they could have breakfast together before he went to work, and she’d presented him with his gifts - including a World’s Best Dad mug that she said was from Jack. He’d appreciated it at the time, of course he had, but he’d been in a rush, had eaten the breakfast she’d made and kissed her as he left, unaware it was his last birthday as a husband, the last one he had with a family.
The loss of his marriage and the thought of going back home to his empty apartment felt heavier today than it usually did, the weight of his choices heavy on his slumping shoulders as he tries to finish his paperwork before he leaves for the day. He was meant to have had Jack today, but the case they’d been away on had dragged on, and they’d arrived back in DC well after the little boy’s bedtime. Aaron had texted Haley to say he’d be late, sad that their relationship had come to this - practicalities and politeness - and she’d replied, assuring him that he could come pick Jack up the next morning. The relief had been immediate, the tight fist around his heart relaxing its grip at the thought of spending time with his son.
He blows out a slow breath as he closes another case file, and he sits back, rubbing at the ache forming between his brows as he considers whether he should just go home. He looks around his office and smiles at the small cake on his desk and the gift next to it. Penelope had organised it, presenting him with both of them when the team walked into the office, her smile wide as she told him the gift was from everyone. He can picture her corralling them all into signing the card and asking for suggestions on a gift, before settling on the World’s Best Boss mug, her smile tinged with mischievousness as she claimed it would match the one he had from Jack.
He couldn’t help but wonder how he could be good at being a boss or a father, let alone the best, when he felt so incapable of being either.
A knock on the door pulls him from his thoughts, and he clears his throat, “Come in.”
He’s only a little surprised when Emily walks in, her smile soft and a little unsure as she steps into his office, something hidden behind her back as she lingers in the doorway, nervous in a way he doesn’t think he’s ever seen her. Something had changed between them since Milwaukee; they were closer now, and he liked to think of her as a friend. Someone he trusted implicitly, none of the animosity he’d felt for her at the start anywhere to be found.
“I was just about to head out,” she says as she steps closer to him, “But before I did, I wanted to give you this.” She holds out a gift bag, clearly holding a bottle of something inside, and she smiles as he sits there frozen staring at it before she rolls her eyes and rests it on his desk, “It’s a birthday present, Hotch. Not a live bomb.”
He chuckles dryly and tears his gaze from the gift and looks up at her, “I didn’t get you anything for your birthday.”
She shrugs, “You don’t give to receive,” she replies, “Besides, consider it a housewarming gift too,” she adds, her smile turning wry, “I never did get you anything for your new place.” She says, and he nods, finally lifting the bag to look inside.
His smile fades when he pulls out a bottle of Macallan whiskey, giving way to shock, “I can’t accept this, it’s-”
“I’m not much of a whiskey person these days,” she says, cutting off his protest over the cost of the gift, something unreadable flicking across her face, “But I have it under good authority it’s one of the best.”
He raises an eyebrow at her, “Dave?”
She shakes her head, her smile briefly sad, “No, not Dave. Someone else,” she says, clearing her throat, the moment passing as the same smile he’d grown to be quite fond of paints itself across her face, covering over the cracks that had momentarily appeared, “Anyway, I thought you could do with a nice bottle for that rickety cart you have the nerve to call a bar at your place.”
He laughs and he nods, knowing her well enough to know she wouldn’t accept his refusal of the gift, and he slips it back into the bag, “Well, thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she says, smiling as she looks at the World’s Best Boss mug on his desk, “Although, maybe don’t drink it out of that,” she adds as she turns to leave, “Have a good night.”
“Thanks,” he replies, watching her go, finding himself searching for any reason to have her stay a little longer, the need to spend time with her overwhelming. “Emily,” he says, the use of her first name making her freeze in place before she turns to look at him, “You might not be a whiskey drinker anymore,” he says, tilting his head towards the cake on his desk, “But do you want to have some cake with me?”
He smiles when she looks back and forth between him and the cake, her lips pressed together before her eyes meet his, her smile wider than he’d ever seen it, a tinge of pink to her cheeks that might be his favourite birthday present yet.
“Yeah, I’d like that. Aaron.”
___
Forty Six
He sighs as he steps into the hotel bar, worn out after a long day but not tired enough to sleep yet. He’d spoken to Jack on the phone, had forced his enthusiasm for his birthday to try and match his son’s excitement, only to deflate the moment he hung up the call. For the first time in a long time, he’d had plans for his birthday, plans he’d been irritated to rearrange.
It had been Emily’s idea to go out for dinner, her smile shy as she suggested they go out just the two of them before they went back to his to spend the rest of the evening with Jack.
She’d been home from Paris for two months, and every day he felt them getting closer to tripping over the line they’d been walking like a tightrope for years. Closer to jumping together, hand in hand as they fell into the very thing he once thought he’d never get to have. When she was in Paris, dead to almost everyone except him, he told himself when she got back that he’d be whatever she wanted, that he’d put aside all their maybes and almosts if all she wanted was a friend.
From the moment she walked into the conference room, things had been different between them, as if they both knew they’d already wasted enough time. She was the one who asked him out, had shown up on his doorstep after Ian was dead, her smile tight as she told him she had nowhere to go, both of them actively ignoring that it wasn’t necessarily true. They’d built up to where they were now, forming their relationship on their already strong foundations of mutual trust and the love they had both felt for much longer than either of them would care to admit.
They were taking it slow, a mutual promise that they’d get there soon, tethering them together. They hadn’t kissed yet, hadn’t gone any further than tentatively holding each other’s hand, both of them nervous and shy like they were characters in one of the romance novels she pretended she hated.
“Aaron, over here”
He looks up at the sound of her voice and smiles, relaxing the moment he sees her. “Hey,” he says as he walks over, joining her in her spot at the bar, “I didn’t know you were down here.”
She hums and shrugs her shoulders, her lips pressed together, “I didn’t want to go to bed yet,” she says, “I struggle to sleep in new places.”
He nods and reaches out for her, only hesitating for a moment before he rests his hand over hers, “Me too.”
He wants to ask more, wants to encourage her to say more, to share the burden he’d happily carry with her, but she smiles, forces it to spread across her face even though it doesn’t reach her eyes, and she rests her hand over his, sandwiching it between both of hers.
“Anyway,” she says, “It’s your birthday. I should buy you a drink.”
He hesitates only for a moment, but he knows now isn’t the time, that she would tell him when she was ready, “Okay. Thanks, Em.”
“Whiskey?” She asks, holding her hand up to get the bartender's attention, and Aaron shakes his head, knowing he’s made the right call when she looks relieved. He makes a mental note to get rid of the whiskey in his apartment, the remnants of a bottle she’d bought him when they were different people worth so much less to him than she was. “Although, I should get you more than a drink.”
“A drink is perfect,” he says, squeezing her hand again, “I have everything I want right here.”
She blushes, her cheeks bright pink, just like they were years ago when they shared his birthday cake in his office, and she shakes her head, “So…” she clears her throat, “Whiskey?”
He shakes his head, “I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
She smiles, her real one, and she sinks her teeth into her lower lip in an attempt to control it, “ Beer?”
“Beer it is.”
___
Forty Eight
He wakes up to the sound of his cell phone ringing.
He groans, rolling over onto his side to check the time, groaning again when he sees it’s 5 am. He’s reaching for his phone when the ringing stops, and he presses his face against his pillow, determined to get some more sleep before his alarm pulls him from bed in an hour. His phone chimes twice on the nightstand, and he reaches blindly for it, the brightness of the screen forcing him to squint as he reads his texts.
Can you let me in? I forgot my keys.
Stupid baby brain. Your kid is ruining me.
He frowns and turns to look at the other side of the bed, his hand coming to rest on the cool sheets instead of his wife.
He climbs out of bed, his exhaustion forgotten, and heads down the stairs. He furrows his brow as he unlocks the front door, and she walks in, already talking as she hands him a box of doughnuts.
“I know, I know,” she says, stepping past him into the house, shrugging off her jacket to hang up on the hook on the wall, revealing the tightness of a t-shirt that used to belong to him pulled taught over her stomach, “Doughnuts are a little too stereotypical since we’re cops and all, but it was all I could get at this time of day.”
He looks back and forth between her and the doughnuts, his confusion only made worse by his exhaustion, “Why were you out getting anything at 5 am?”
She frowns at him, “It’s your birthday,” she says as if it’s obvious, her arms crossed over her chest, “You deserve something nice to start the day.”
He sighs and looks her up and down, his eyes fixed on her bump as he presses a hand on her back, “You’re pregnant, sweetheart. You need…” he drifts off as she raises an eyebrow at him, a silent warning to not say whatever he was about to say, and he clears his throat, guiding her towards the living room, “Why don’t we sit on the couch and eat these?”
“I like the sound of that.” She hums and leans in to kiss him, and he smiles when he tastes sugar on her lips, a sign she’d taste tasted one of the doughnuts on the way here. She grunts when she sits down, the baby pressed against her lungs briefly before she gets comfortable, and raises an eyebrow at him in warning again before he smiles and joins her, tugging a blanket from the back of the couch over their laps. He opens the box of doughnuts and smiles at her when he sees only five, a smudge of glaze the only evidence that a sixth had ever existed. Emily clears her throat and looks anywhere but at him, her hand on her bump, “Baby girl got hungry on the way home.”
He hooks his finger under her chin and encourages her to look at him, “You and baby girl can eat them all,” he says, leaning in to kiss her, resting his hand over hers on her bump, “I already have everything I could ever want for my birthday.”
She hums as she picks up one of the doughnuts, “So I guess I should return the Rolex I bought you,” she quips, laughing when he leans in to kiss her again, tasting the glaze directly from her lips, “Stop it. I’m trying to eat.”
“Never,” he jokes, kissing her once more, “You’re delicious.”
“And you’re delirious,” she replies, holding up the box for him, “Eat your doughnuts, otherwise your very pregnant wife went out on a 4 am adventure for nothing.”
He salutes her, smiling when she rolls her eyes, and he picks one up, “Yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t call me ma’am.”
___
Fifty
He’s as quiet as he can be as he sneaks back into Emily’s hospital room, wincing as the door clicks a little loudly behind him. He turns to look at his wife, scrunching his face up as she smiles at him, their daughter bundled up against her chest.
Hazel Hotchner, the newest member of their family, had come into the world three weeks early, determined to join them as soon as she could. It had probably been the scariest couple of days of Aaron’s life, but now, as he stares at his wife and his newborn little girl, who had been born just after midnight on his birthday, he thinks he might never have been happier.
“Look, Hazel,” Emily says, smiling at him before she looks down at the newborn fast asleep on her chest, “Daddy is back.”
“I spoke to Jess,” he says, walking over to join them. “She said Jack and Vi are excited to meet their new sister.”
Emily smiles sleepily at him, her almost forty-eight-hour labour quickly catching up with her, “She’ll bring them later?”
He nods and sits on the bed, wrapping his arm around her and encouraging her to rest against him, “After Jack is done at school,” he says, kissing the side of her head, “Apparently, Vi is going to make me a card, so I think we’ll get home to glitter all over the floor tomorrow.”
“That’s sweet,” she chuckles, picturing their almost two-year-old covered in glitter, and she looks up at him, “I’m sorry this is how we ended up spending your birthday, honey.”
He shakes his head and encourages her to look at him, “Sweetheart, this might be the best birthday I’ve ever had,” he says, and she scoffs, “I mean it,” he says, looking down at Hazel, “She’s definitely the best birthday present ever.”
Emily hums and passes the baby to him, “Well, don’t expect me to outdo this next year,” she says, wincing as she tries to get comfortable, “Or ever again. My uterus is officially closed for business.”
He laughs and holds Hazel against his chest, dropping a kiss to the top of her head, breathing in her newborn smell, “I think we might be getting a little old anyway.”
She scoffs, the sound lost to a yawn as her eyes drift closed, “Speak for yourself, old man,” she quips, yawning again, “I am so tired.”
“Get some sleep,” he says, kissing her cheek before he gets up from the bed and settles into the chair next to it, “Hazel and I will be right here.”
She opens her eyes to look at them, her smile sleepy and warm, “Love you.”
“Love you too,” he replies, watching her until her eyes drift shut, and then he looks down at Hazel, at the tiny new life fast asleep on his chest, a world of possibilities stretched out ahead of them.
“Oh god,” Emily says, her eyes going wide as she sits up with more strength than he thinks she should have, making him jump because he thought she was already asleep, “Your birthday party.”
He frowns at her, “My what?”
“Your birthday party,” she says, scrambling to look at your phone, “It’s a surprise, Pen and I have been planning it for weeks, but obviously we can’t go now-”
“Em, sweetheart,” he says, holding Hazel against his chest with one hand as he reaches the other out for his wife, calming her by linking his fingers through hers, something that had worked since before they were them, “I’ll sort that,” he assures her, squeezing her hand, “I need to call them to tell them about the newest Hotchner anyway,” he says, smiling when she starts to relax, “I’ll tell them we won’t make it, and that they should celebrate her instead.”
Emily chokes on a sound somewhere between a laugh and sob, “But it’s your 50th,” she says, “It’s a big deal.”
“I already have everything I could ever want,” he says, and she rolls her eyes at him, wiping a tear from her cheek as she lies back down.
“You say that every year.”
“And I mean it every year,” he says, “And if you really want to, you can throw me a party when I turn 60,” he looks down at Hazel, “And when this one turns 10.”
“You’ve got yourself a deal.” She laughs at that, the sound catching in her chest as she shakes her head at him, “By then, we really will be old.”
He winks at her, “Speak for yourself.”
___
Sixty
He’d forgotten about the deal they made when Hazel was barely a few hours old until Emily brought it up a few months before his birthday.
She asked him if he wanted a party, a conversation over breakfast one morning as she drank coffee out of a World’s Best Boss mug that was once his, before she went to work from an office that also used to belong to him. He’d agreed to the party, mostly because he’d never figured out how to say no to her, an issue that was only made worse by her grey hair and the glasses she knew distracted him. It was only as he found himself getting ready for his birthday party, staring at himself in the mirror in their bedroom, that he doubted his decision. Focused on his grey hair and his chest that was wider than it used to be, his body softer than it had been most of his life.
He’d been fine; he hadn’t thought about his age or the next big milestone coming up until a comment from another one of the dads at school when he picked up Hazel, a man he’d never met before mistaking him for his little girl’s grandfather. She’d promptly corrected the stranger, seemingly enjoying the way it made him feel awkward as she pointed out that Aaron was her dad, and Aaron had shaken off the apologies, claiming it was fine when it felt like anything but.
“Hazel,” Emily calls out, half in the bedroom, half in the hallway, “Put your shoes on, we’re going to be late.”
“But Violet doesn’t have her shoes on,” Hazel calls out from somewhere else in the house, and Emily shakes her head, her eyebrow raised as her eyes meet his, as if she didn’t know exactly who both of their daughters had taken after.
“Then tell her I said she needs to put her shoes on too,” she replies, “Five minutes and then we need to go, we can’t be late for your and Dad’s party,” she blows out a breath as she lets the bedroom door drift closed, “Are you almost ready, honey?” She asks, “Pen will kill me if we’re late.”
He nods, but continues to stare at himself in the mirror, fixated on the lines on his face and the grey hair at his temples, “I’m ready.”
“You look very handsome,” she says, but her smile fades when he doesn’t respond, and she looks at him curiously, tilting her head as their eyes meet in the mirror, “Are you okay?”
He smiles and turns to look at her, desperately hoping she won’t see through him, that he could just get tonight over with, “I’m fine.”
She presses her lips together and looks him up and down, “Do you really think that’s going to work on me?”
He sighs and scratches the back of his head, “I was hoping it would for once.”
She smiles and reaches for his hand, squeezing it as she tugs him towards the bed so they can sit down. “What’s going on?”
“I thought you said we were going to be late.” He says, trying to deflect, sighing when it doesn’t work, and she simply raises an eyebrow at him, “I…I guess I just wasn’t expecting to feel so old.”
“Honey-”
“And I’m so grateful for the party, and everything you and the kids have done today,” he says, running his thumb back and forth over her pulse, chasing the comfort it had brought him for years, “It just feels…” he shakes his head at himself, “Sometimes I wonder how good a dad I can be for the girls when I’m so much older than all of their friend’s dads,” he says, “It felt different with Jack because I was younger,” he smiles sadly, “I don’t think any of Hazel’s classmates will have a joint 10th and 60th birthday party with their dad,” he chokes on a bitter laugh, “Their grandfather maybe.”
She frowns and puts her hand on his cheek as she encourages him to look at her, “Where has this come from?”
“One of the dads at school this week…he thought I was Hazel’s grandfather,” he says, smiling sadly when she looks outraged on his behalf, “Don’t worry, she very much put him in his place.”
“Good,” she hums and strokes her thumb back and forth over his cheekbone, “He was an idiot.”
“Was he?” He asks, shaking his head at himself, “I am old enough to be the dad of most of the other parents in Hazel’s class, Violet too,” he swallows thickly, “And it makes me worry that…I can’t be what they need.”
“Our little girls, all of our kids, are lucky to have you,” she says, “You’re an amazing dad.”
“But what if something happens to me? What if I’m not here to walk them down the aisle when they get married?” he says, so focused on the thought of it that he misses how her breath catches in her chest, “I…for the first time in my life, I actually feel old, Em. And I don’t know what to do.”
She makes him look at her again, and he sees the unshed tears in her eyes, “We just live our lives, Aaron,” she says, her chin trembling as she says it, “And we do our best to pretend we have any control over it. You know what happened with Will…” she drifts off, clearing her throat as a tear finally falls onto her cheek, “And he was, what, 48? It doesn’t mean anything. And our kids…they love you because you are you, not because of how old you are, okay?” She says, and he nods, resting his forehead against hers, seeking out the strength she always seemed to have an endless amount of. “Plus, you’re not allowed to die. Ever.” She adds, wiping a tear from his cheek, “I forbid it.”
He laughs, and he thinks he’s never been more in love with her. It’s what they did for each other. They made each other laugh when they needed it, and they comforted each other. They shared everything, including the strength they passed back and forth like candy, happy to give it to the other when they needed it the most.
“I’m sorry,” he says, pressing his lips together as he pulls back to look at her, “I didn’t mean to bring the mood down.”
“Don’t apologise,” she says, stamping her lips against his, “Plus, I’m sure I’ll have a breakdown when I turn 60,” she smiles, running her knuckles back and forth over his cheek, “So it will be your turn to calm me down.”
He nods and leans in to kiss her, a promise whispered against her lips, “You’ve got yourself a deal.”