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The darkness hung heavy. He hadn't bothered to open the curtains. Or turn on the lights.
Why bother? They wouldn't bring light.
Nothing could light this up.
The refrigerator hummed loudly in the quiet apartment, the only sound that kept him company. Not her laughter. Not anymore. Not after the vows that had once tied them together had been broken.
Thanks to him.
He rolled the glass in his hand and tipped it back. The sharp scent of oak and something smoky rose from it—charred wood and caramelized sugar.
The first swallow burned its way down his throat. Heat bloomed in his chest after the sip, a slow warmth spreading through his ribs.
He gripped the glass with such intensity his arm trembled slightly.
No amount of pours could make him feel the warmth of her skin against his one more time.
His fingers ran through her hair, softly, as his lips slowly, intensely caressed hers. Warm and soft. His tongue finding its way to hers like a silent oath—to consume and taste her, every part of her.
"Mmhm, okay, if this is your way to make it up for being away, you'll have to apologize more often," she murmured against his lips, pleased, between kisses.
He chuckled mid-kiss, moving her closer by the waist with his other hand.
"A few kisses is all it takes, huh?" he teased playfully.
She giggled. Her laughter never failed to make his heart squeeze. It was so vibrant and melodious that he was sure no instrument could achieve such beauty.
"Oh, shut up. Who said I'm settling for just a few kisses?"
Her body heat radiated against him. Her soft skin. The steady drumming of her heartbeat against his chest. The subtle way her body reacted and leaned into him. The sight of her flushing under his touch.
Their bodies fit together, silently accommodating—like two pieces of a puzzle that had always belonged to each other.
She was the anchor that steadied his ground. He had made many decisions in his life, but marrying her was one he would thank every day of their lives.
"Till death do us part," he had vowed.
Only that… they had been torn away.
Stupid. Damn it.
His responsibility had been simple. Be her husband. Give her the love and care they had built together since high school. Have a family. Raise Jack. Share a life.
He had failed.
Completely.
How had he managed to lose the best thing he had?
If he counted the times—the ways he had neglected her, her needs—he would lose track quickly enough. Leading the BAU was not easy. Facing jet-black darkness every day…
But he had allowed it to absorb him. Swallow him whole. Strip him away from the man he had once been.
Leaving nothing more than a shell of the man Haley had met.
A shadow.
A vague outline of the man Haley had loved—
but not the man himself.
Not the man she had needed.
He slammed the glass onto the counter and pushed it aside, as if he could shove the guilt away with it—the stone sitting in the pit of his stomach.
The room felt too small. Suffocating. His shirt, though it fit him perfectly, seemed to cut off his circulation, tighten around his neck, the fabric rough against his skin.
He caught his breath.
Aaron Hotchner—always trying to save someone else. Offering grim solace to the families of the dead. Giving closure to their uncertainty. Helping them understand that someone cared about the horrors their loved ones had faced.
That their stories mattered.
Yet by immersing himself in the lives of others—burying himself in files, in the minds of disturbed men—he had left nothing for his own family to hold on to.
No one for the woman he loved to rely on.
No presence for his son.
Worse than that.
His pride hadn't allowed him to do the most rational thing: protect them. He had put his selfish need to catch the Reaper above everything else.
Be a hero.
Save the day.
He had gone all-in.
How had that worked out for him?
That burning in his chest. That ache and pressure in his lungs when he found himself wishing to hear her voice.
When he would wake up and, for a brief moment, could swear her body was lying beside him—
Only for reality to punch him in the gut.
It couldn't be helped that his whole body— hands, feet, arms, chest, stomach, heart— ached, yearning to reach for something that would not come back.
He had done that to himself.
To them.
Prentiss stands outside his office door, fingers hovering over the handle, and for a moment she hesitates.
The office was silent. Too silent.
Everyone else had gone home already. Except for him.
They had solved a case earlier. A family annihilator. What a sick cruelty, that the crimes they had peeked into reminded him of the derailed man who had snatched his family from his hands.
Hotch had insisted on working late. With the excuse of finishing paperwork.
But Prentiss had seen through it. A year.
A year had passed since... Since Haley was murdered by Foyet. He couldn't pretend it wasn't talking a toll on him. The anniversary of her death.
She's rehearsed this visit in her mind a dozen times, but none of it fits the reality of standing here.
She knocks.
The lock clicks, and he appears in the doorway, every bit as composed as she knows him, but something in the set of his shoulders tells her otherwise. He studies her with a look that makes her feel like an intruder and a confidant at the same time.
“Hey,” she says, and her voice sounds too loud.
“Hey,” he replies, and the single word is carefully measured, controlled. There’s a pause, and she realizes neither of them knows what comes next.
He steps aside, letting her in, and she crosses the threshold, acutely aware of every little detail, the slightly rumpled jacket on the chair, the faint scent of coffee lingering in the air, the emptiness that isn’t just physical.
“I… wasn’t sure if... asking if you're okay was appropriate,” she admits, because honesty is easier than pretending he's fine.
“You don’t have to.,” he murmurs, but there’s a tightness to his jaw that betrays how much he feels it anyway.
She glances around, and everything feels fragile. The office is the same, but it’s not. It’s heavier, like the walls have absorbed the tension of his body, the fear, the uncertainty.
She wonders if she's overstepping, wonders if he even wants her there, wonders if she even knows what she's supposed to do.
The silence hangs heavy between the two. There’s so much to say but she ends up saying nothing at all.
He gestures, offering her a seat she doesn't know if she even wants, and she accepts it, feeling as out of place as a trespasser.
He perches on the edge of his chair, maintaining the distance between them like a protective shield.
His gaze is steady but distant. This isn’t going to be a comfortable conversation.
"Hotch..." Prentiss starts, but what is there to say? That she's sorry? That she understands? That she knows he's blaming himself. For all of it. That he did everything he could.
Everything she's never said to him. Not about that dreadful day
.
She conveys them in her eyes instead.
In her need to check up on him.
The sound of her watch ticking in her wrist was the only thing breaking the silence.
"You didn't have to stay late and come here. Really". He mutters.
"I wanted to. I had to." The sound of her watch, a metronome of time passing too slowly.
His throat feels tight and he wants to stand up, move away, find something to do other than sit here with the weight of her unspoken concern and the unspoken emotional burden of his.
But she knew it. The pain, all of it. The guilt. Her life also stained by such losses.
"How's Jack?" She asks, knowing if it was hard for him... how much it would be for the kid.
The mention of his son… Something flickers in his eyes, a crack in his carefully constructed exterior.
His shoulders tense minutely, and when he speaks, his voice is even, carefully devoid of any emotion.
"Jack is… adjusting," he replies, and she hears the word he doesn't say: struggling.
Her shoulders slump a fraction. At the mention of such admission. Of course it was not easy for Jack.
"I'm sorry."
The apology hangs heavily in the air, and for a moment he looks like he wants to shrug it off, to make a joke or brush it away with a wave of his hand. But instead he sighs, a deep, weary sound, and he rubs a hand across his face.
"It's—" He starts to say, but he can't finish the sentence. It's not fine, it's not okay, and somehow her presence is making the truth of that harder to avoid.
"It was difficult for him," he finally manages hoarsely. "It still is."
"He doesn’t talk about her much," Aaron says, voice low—almost raw. "But sometimes, I catch him looking at old photos on my phone when he thinks I'm not watching."
He stops, jaw tightening like he's holding back more than words.
"He asks if she'd be proud of him. If she'd like the school here. If she'd… still know his favorite color." His breath hitches—just slightly—and Emily sees it: the father who carries his child’s grief like a second shadow.
"And I don’t know what to say," he admits quietly. "Because how do you answer for someone who isn't there? How do you give a kid certainty when all you have is memory?"
The air thick with all that’s lived and lost. And in that moment, it hits her—not just that Jack is hurting—but that Aaron is grieving too. Not just Haley.
But time.
Normalcy.
The life they were supposed to have and never did.
Their home. A home he had dreamed of having and now, couldn't return to. That was no more.
That had vanished as Haley's breath had left her body.
And yet here he sits, trying to rebuild it all with hands still shaking from fire and fallout.
She doesn't reach for him.
She doesn't offer empty comfort.
But her presence says: I see it. A silent understanding.
And maybe—for now—that's enough.
He doesn’t say thank you—not in words.
But the way his shoulders ease just slightly? The almost imperceptible softening around his eyes?
It’s acknowledgment enough.
And then—a miracle—he leans back in his chair, just a little less rigid than before.
“Jack started soccer last week,” he says suddenly—the shift so quiet it could be mistaken for irrelevance if she didn't know him better.
But she does know better.
This is trust dressed as small talk:
an offering disguised as casual news—an olive branch wrapped in cleats and grass-stained knees and Saturday mornings under gray skies where life keeps happening despite everything that came before it.
She lets herself smile—small, warm—and let silence stretch again… softer this time.
Because some things are not possible to communicate with words anyway.