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They were getting nowhere fast with the case.
The team had been in Idaho for three days, investigating a string of attacks on couples, each one of them leading to the man dead, and the woman in serious condition in the hospital. There had been two more incidents since they’d arrived, a sign that the unsub - or unsubs - were devolving fast.
“The locals are getting antsy for the profile,” Dave says as he walks into the conference room they’d been assigned, casting a glance behind him through the glass walls they were being watched through.
“So are we,” Aaron says, his arms across his chest and his jaw tight as he stares at the board they’d put together, looking over information he’d seen countless times already to see if there was something, anything, he’d missed. “None of it makes any sense. There aren’t any patterns. The only thing the victims have in common is that they are straight couples, but apart from that, there's nothing. Different ages, races, and socioeconomic statuses.”
Emily sighs, sitting back in her seat as she shakes her head, “We don’t even know where they’ll strike next.”
“I think it will be the Irish bar where the first victims were attacked,” Spencer pipes up, almost thinking aloud, unaware he’d spoken until everyone is looking right at him. He clears his throat, “They seem to be going in a cycle of places where they attack. It appears random unless you’re good at recognising patterns,” the corner of his mouth twitches in a smile, “Like I am.”
Aaron turns to look at him, “And you’re sure?”
Spencer shrugs, “As sure as I can be.”
Aaron nods, turning to look at the board again, “Okay, so if we think that’s where they’ll attack, what do we do?”
“Obvious police presence might put them off,” JJ says, “We have to lure them in so we don’t risk anyone else's safety.”
“So we send in two people undercover as a couple?” Dave suggests, with a slight twinkle in his eyes that Aaron had learnt long ago that meant trouble.
“That could work, but who?” Derek asks, nodding towards the detectives watching them through the glass wall, “I don’t think any of them have the experience.”
“Then it has to be us,” Aaron says, looking back and forth between them all, pausing as he waits for a volunteer, unsurprised when Emily puts herself forward, a smile he could see through painted across her face.
“I can do it,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest, suggesting it before anyone else can, “I have the most experience undercover, and I brought something I could wear.”
It takes everything in him not to react, his jaw tight as he holds it all back, his refusal of her offer bitter on his tongue. Since she got home from Paris, they were closer than ever. She’d always understood him on a level very few people had, but since Doyle, since Aaron had to bury her in a grave he knew was empty, he finally felt like he understood her just as much. The mystery that he’d never quite been able to see through, her professional history that seemed just a little too neat, suddenly as clear to him as anything ever had been.
It started when she promised him that she’d come to him when she had a bad day, a request he’d made among lies that he only cared about how her recovery impacted her at work, worried that if he dug in a little too deep, he’d give away what he’d felt for her for years. He hadn’t anticipated that she’d keep that promise, but when she did, he told himself he’d do anything to help her. He’d shown up at her place the next day, tea and coffee and bagels in hand, and told her they were going on a walk. She’d frowned at him, but shrugged on her coat anyway, telling him that she preferred pastries to bagels.
The following Saturday, he came with croissants.
Since then, it had become something they did. A ritual of sorts that had transformed over weeks and months into something he held precious, time with her that he enjoyed, that he hoped helped her as much as it helped him. When he signed up for the FBI triathlon, she suggested they turn their walks into runs so she could help him train, winking as she told him the cycling and the swimming were things he’d have to face alone, but that she’d watch Jack for him while he trained.
He loved her. It was a name he’d refused to give how he felt for her for so long, the first seeds of it planted years before he could admit to it, watered by standing over a grave with her name on and the sharpness of her absence. It bloomed when she came back, when she did everything she could to pretend she still was who she was before, and he realised he’d love her no matter who she was.
She’d told him once that she hated that there was an assumption that she’d do exactly this, that she’d play a role she’d played so many times before. She’d spent so long being someone other than Emily Prentiss, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to do it anymore.
He clears his throat, and she looks up at him, their eyes briefly meeting, “Em…Prentiss, are you sure?”
She nods, her smile still tight, “Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Okay,” he replies, “Then I’ll go with you.”
It’s something he says without thinking, something that draws a reaction from everyone in the room, from knowing smiles to raised eyebrows, but he stands by it. Knowing if she was doing something he knew she wasn’t comfortable with, he wanted to be there by her side.
She smiles at him, a quick thing, and it drowns out the rest of the team debating how convincing they’d be as a couple.
___
It all seems like such a good idea until she finds herself in the motel lobby waiting for Aaron. She runs her hands down the material of her dress, unnecessarily straightening it out, so she’s doing something with her hands other than picking at her cuticles.
“Emily.”
When she looks up at him, she knows she’s screwed. He looks more handsome than usual, something that she didn’t realise was possible. He’s taken off his tie and suit jacket as she’d suggested on their way back from the precinct to get ready, and he’s rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. Her eyes linger on his forearms a beat too long, and she shakes her head at herself, smiling at him when he makes it to her side.
“Hi,” she says, grateful that her voice is even, “You took my advice.”
He chuckles, nodding as he looks down at himself before looking back up at her, “Will I do?”
If she wasn’t aware of how unaware he was, how completely ignorant he seemed over how she felt about him, she’d think he was making fun of her.
She couldn’t remember when she fell in love with him. It must have started slowly, one tiny thing after another, until it felt as natural to her as breathing. In Paris, she’d missed him the most. Not only because the distance between them made her realise how much she loved him, but because she found herself daydreaming of a life that now seemed impossible, a life with him and Jack that was more out of reach than ever.
He’d been good to her since she came back. If anyone understood what it was like to face your monster and come out the other side a different version of yourself, it was Aaron Hotchner. He knew what it was to pick yourself back up off the floor and try to put the pieces of yourself back together, haphazard shapes sticking together in a way they hadn’t before, the new version different, but beautiful in its own right.
The first time she could admit to herself that she loved him was when they were in the park together and were training for his triathlon. She’d run with him, but had met Jack and Jessica in the park while he cycled, much preferring to spend time with the little boy she adored than climbing on a bike. When she spotted Aaron talking to a woman near their designated meeting point, she felt a churn in her belly that she hadn’t in years, the spit of jealousy burning her from the inside out as Aaron smiled at someone who wasn’t her.
She wanted him to be happy, she really did, but there was a part of her that couldn’t quite let go of wanting him to be happy with her.
“You look great,” she says, hoping he can’t see the flush in her cheeks under the awful fluorescent lighting.
“You too,” he replies, “You just happened to have this dress with you?”
She nods and presses her lips together, shrugging one of her shoulders, “Just in case.”
He sighs and puts his hands on his hips, “Em, if you don’t want to do this, we can change tactic-”
“No,” she says, reaching out for him, only realising what she’s doing when her hand squeezes his bare forearm, his skin scorching against hers, his muscles rippling beneath his skin. She clears her throat and pulls her hand away, “This is the best way of making sure no one else gets hurt.”
He looks like he’s going to argue, but he stares at her for a moment and then nods, offering his arm out to her so she can loop hers through it. “Then we’d better get going.”
She smiles and puts her arm through his, “Lead the way.”
When they arrive at the bar, she spots Derek almost immediately. He’s standing near the dancefloor, nursing a non-alcoholic beer, watching the two of them in the way he’s supposed to be watching those around them. The rest of the team is scattered around, all of them blending in effortlessly along with some of the local cops.
Aaron guides her to the bar, his hand skimming her back as he stays just behind her, making her breath catch in her chest. He withdraws at her reaction, an apology she doesn’t need or want in his tight smile as he puts some space between them, his desire to be a gentleman, to make sure she’s comfortable, outweighing everything else. He buys them drinks, and she sees how the bartender watches them, curious about the out-of-towners she’d never seen before, and Emily takes the opportunity to lean in closer to Aaron, to put her arm around his shoulders and whisper in his ear.
“We need to be convincing,” she says, no small amount of satisfaction rolling through her when she feels him gasp as her breath skims across his ear, “So you have to act like you’ve touched me before, okay?”
He turns his head, and she pulls back just enough to look at him, taking the opportunity to run her fingers through his hair, “Okay.”
She smiles at him and winks as he presses a drink into her hand, “Let's go look around.”
As time goes on, they get a little more comfortable being so close to each other. Eventually, she leans into it, lets herself enjoy his proximity, does everything she can to commit it to memory while she also does her job, keeping an eye on anyone who might be watching them. She tries to step away and smiles when his arm tightens around her on instinct, his eyebrows pulling together as he frowns at her.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” she says, squeezing his hand, wondering when she started holding it, “I’ll be back in a minute.”
It’s easy to tell herself the way she kisses his cheek is for show, not just because she has the opportunity, and she’s walking away before she can see how he reacts, let alone have the chance to study it. She’s halfway to the bathroom when she realises she’s being followed, when she knows that the footsteps behind her aren’t an accident, or someone else innocently looking for the bathroom too. She casts a glance over her shoulder and sees a man she’d already made note of, someone who had been watching her and Aaron all evening.
She curses under her breath, realising she’d left her purse with Aaron, too distracted by how he was making her feel to remember that her gun was in there, but then he’s there, turning the corner. His eyebrow furrowed as he looks at the man between them, looking every bit as intimidating as ever, even with her purse over the crook of his arm.
“Sweetheart,” he says, his voice loud so she can hear him over the loud din of the music in the bar. He gets the attention of the man who had followed her into the empty hallway, too, his eyes narrowed as he tries to pretend he wasn’t following her, “You forgot your purse.”
She smiles and walks towards him, shifting past the man between them as she makes it to Aaron’s side, making a split-second decision she knows will buy them the precious seconds they need until the team join them out here too.
“Thanks, honey,” she says, one hand taking the purse from him, and one on his cheek, “What would I do without you?”
She’s kissing him before she can tell herself it’s a bad idea, her lips slanted against his, the taste of the scotch he’d been nursing all night passing from his mouth to hers. For a moment, one of the longest in her life, he doesn’t react, doesn’t move, his arms limp at his sides, but then he’s wrapping them around her, pulling her closer as they both briefly get lost in a kiss that was supposed to be a cover.
She hears movement behind her, the reality that they weren’t alone, that this wasn’t real, snapping her back into reality as quickly as she’d left it. She unclips the opening of her purse and is about to snap away from Aaron, to break the kiss she’d spend a lifetime playing over and over in her head, when she hears thundering footsteps, followed by a sea of familiar voices.
“Arms in the air, you’re under arrest.”
She sucks in a breath as she pulls back from Aaron, her fingers pressed against her lips as she watches Derek shove the unsub against the wall, his cuffs already in his hands as a local cop pats the man down to remove the weapons he is carrying.
“Well,” Dave says, smirking as he looks back and forth between the two of them, “Do we need to give you two a few minutes?”
She glares at him, “Shut up, Dave.”
Derek casts them a look as he leads the unsub away, and Dave follows him, winking at the two of them as he passes them, “Hotch, want to help clear this place out?”
Aaron nods, his brain seemingly back online, a smudge of her lipstick still on his lips as he clears his throat, casting her a look and an apologetic smile before he follows the older man out.
“So,” JJ says, her lips pressed together in a barely contained smile, “That was interesting.”
“JJ, I swear to God,” she says, pinching the bridge of her nose, doing her best to recentre herself, as if her whole world hadn’t been knocked off its axis by a kiss that had been a strategy more than anything else, “Can we not?”
JJ hums, but she nods, squeezing Emily’s arm on the way past, “Okay, but you know Pen is going to hear about this,” she says, chuckling when Emily narrows her eyes, “And you might want to fix your lipstick before you head back out there.”
Emily groans, and wipes her lips, scrunching her nose when a smudge of lipstick stamps against her skin.
It was going to be a long flight back to DC.
___
As soon as she’s home, she pours a large glass of wine.
She feeds Sergio and changes into a pair of sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt. She’s only just sitting down, TV remote in hand, when there’s a knock on her door. She doesn’t have to answer it to know who it is.
The team had made comments about the kiss the entire flight home. She watched as Aaron grew tenser and tenser, his jaw tight enough she was surprised it didn’t shatter, until he eventually told them shortly and sharply, to drop it if they didn’t want a lifetime of paperwork when they got home. She was grateful for it, but it stung in a way she hadn’t expected, his apparent embarrassment over their kiss enough to make him angry after some lighthearted teasing from their friends.
She needs space, time to readjust after a kiss that meant more to her than it did to him, but she knew she had to talk to him, that she couldn’t turn him away even if she really wanted to. She smiles as she opens the door to him, standing back as he walks past her into an apartment that only felt like home when he was in it.
“Do you want something to drink?” She offers, watching as he paces back and forth, a nervousness she wasn’t used to seeing in his frame. He shakes his head, but remains silent, barely looking at her for more than a few seconds at a time as he continues to pace, “What are you doing here, Aaron?”
He finally stops, and he looks at her, achingly beautiful in casual clothing that he wishes were his, and he sighs, “I wanted to apologise.”
“For what?” She asks, furrowing her brow, her arms tightly crossed over her chest.
“For the…” he trails off, feeling nothing short of ridiculous for how nervous he was, everything he’d rehearsed in his head on the drive over gone the moment he’d stepped over the threshold into her apartment, “For kissing you.”
She chuckles humourlessly, “Well, I kissed you first,” she says, shrugging, “And we both know I’ve done worse than kiss someone undercover.”
He sighs, hating how defeated she sounds, how self depcirating, “Em-”
“Is that what the problem is?” She asks, as she swallows thickly, the sharp edges of the pieces of it all as they fall into place, cutting at her throat, “You just think you’re just one guy in a long line of people who I’ve flirted with for the job-”
“No, of course not.” He says, cutting her off, finding his confidence somewhere in amongst his confusion as she jumps to conclusions, thinking the worst of him because she’d come to expect it from everyone else.
“Then what is it?” She asks, throwing her hands up, “Because I can’t think of why else you’ve been acting like kissing me is the worst thing that’s happened to you lately.”
“Because I wanted to do it properly,” he half yells, only realising he’s raised his voice when her eyes go wide, stunned into silence by the confession that had been lodged in his chest since her lips touched his. If he’d had it his way, he’d have taken her aside and told her then, or kissed her without an audience, but they need to do their job, the work that had brought them together in the first place, and he hated that it had taken priority. “I wanted to take you on a date, and argue with you about who was paying. And then I wanted to walk you home and kiss you on your doorstep. Not in a hallway in a bar that smelt like urine with the team and a guy who wanted to kill us watching.”
She stares at him for a moment, her mouth hanging open, and he doesn’t know what to expect, what he wants her to say or do.
Then she bursts out laughing, taking them both by surprise.
“Sorry,” she says, shaking her head, pressing her hand against lips he hadn’t stopped thinking about for hours, “That is…the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me,” she clears her throat, “You…you want to be with me?”
He nods, “More than anything,” he says, “I just wasn’t sure you wanted to be with me.”
She shakes her head again and walks towards him, stopping when they are close enough to feel the skip of each other’s breath across their faces. She reaches up, hesitating for a moment before she pushes some of his hair from his face, smiling when he leans into the touch.
“For two people who are excellent at what we do for a living, we suck at this,” she says, her voice low, quiet. As if she were worried that if she spoke too loudly, she’d wake from a dream.
“I don’t know,” he says, resting his hand on her back, his skin warm, scorching her through the material of her shirt, “I think we’re pretty good at it,” he smiles at her, “The kissing part anyway.”
She presses her lips together, wetting them with her tongue for a moment before she beams at him, “Oh yeah?”
He nods, his eyes flicking down to her lips, “Well, you know what they say, practise makes perfect.”
This time, he leans in first.