Chapter Text
02:00
Emily groans as she yawns, and then she rubs her eyes with the heels of her hands, cursing under her breath when she sees the smudges of mascara against her skin.
It was one of those cases that demanded even more urgency than usual. A kidnapping instead of a murder, a chance that they could save the victim, meant that they couldn’t stop what they were doing. They’d taken going to the hotel to rest in shifts, so their work could carry on, and they could give themselves as much of a chance as possible to find the victim alive. It was just her, Aaron and the local cops working the night shift in the precinct, and it was almost too quiet to concentrate, the usual din she was used to when she worked silenced by the late hour.
She suppresses another yawn, and Aaron clears his throat from across the room, their eyes meeting when she looks up from the files in front of her. He raises his eyebrow at her, a teasing look in his eyes that she would have once thought he was incapable of, as he repeats what he’d been telling her for a couple of hours now.
“Go back to the hotel. Get some sleep,” he says, his smile turning soft, “I’ll be fine by myself for the next couple of hours until Dave and JJ come back.
She shakes her head, “I should stay,” she says, pointing to the papers spread out across the desk, “There’s a lot to get through.”
And she wouldn’t sleep anyway. She never could somewhere new, a skill she’d once prided herself on, stolen by her time in hiding, when her ghosts would haunt every corner in each new apartment or safe house. She doesn’t say it outloud, doesn’t want him to worry about her any more than she already knew he did. It felt like he was the only one who understood her, to know what it was to try to put yourself back together even when all the old pieces of you didn’t seem to slot together anymore.
Somewhere along the way, he’d become her best friend. There were times when it felt like there could be more between them. Moments when she’d catch him staring at her a little longer than needed, or when his smile would make her stomach flip.
Sometimes, she just wanted him to kiss her and get it over with, to cross the line they’d been walking like a tightrope for months, for years if she was honest with herself.
She knew he’d never take that first step, that it would have to be her, but she wasn’t quite there yet, wasn’t the person she thought he deserved. The person she wanted to be.
“In that case,” he says as he stands up, nodding towards the empty cup in front of her, “Tea?”
She nods, ignoring the flip in her gut when their fingers brush as she hands the cup over, “Please.”
___
02:05
She leaves her hotel room the moment the time slips past 2 am, wearing her coat over her pjyamas and the sneakers she’d put in her go-bag for exactly this.
It had been months since she’d come home, months since Ian died, and she was no longer being haunted by him, but she still struggled to sleep somewhere unfamiliar. There was always something that kept her awake. A clunk in the air conditioning. A footstep in the hallway. It was all him, even though he was gone.
Sometimes she wondered if she’d ever be free of him.
She sighs as she steps outside of the hotel, pulling her coat tighter around her, the chill in the air a welcome distraction from her exhaustion.
“Emily?”
She jumps, her shoulders tense as she turns, sighing as she comes face to face with Aaron, “Jesus Christ, Aaron.”
“Sorry,” he says, wincing, his hands held up in an apology, “I wasn’t expecting to see you.”
She hums, narrowing her eyes at him, “Clearly, I wasn’t expecting to see you either,” she replies, a smile spreading across her face despite her heart still hammering against her rib cage, “What are you doing up at this hour anyway?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” he says, smiling tightly as he sighs, “You?”
It’s another reminder of how similar they were, of what they’d both survived. And it makes her shoulders relax, any lingering irritation aimed at him fading away entirely.
“Same,” she says, leaning against the wall behind them, “I…I always struggle to sleep somewhere new the first night.”
It’s strange to admit something new to him, something that would have once felt like too much suddenly simple. But he nods as if he already knew, because of course he did, and she feels stupid for never telling him at all. In the weeks that had passed since the case that had kept them up all night, he’d kept an even closer eye on her. She pretended she didn’t notice how often he checked in on her, allowed him to fuss over her in a way she’d tell anyone else off for.
It was enough for her to know that what she felt for him was far beyond anything she’d felt before, and it didn’t scare her anymore, or at least, it didn’t scare her as much as it used to.
He leans against the wall too, his shoulder nudging against hers as he smiles at her. “Same.”
She smiles at him, and they stare at each other for a moment, for a beat too long, an unspoken promise in the air between them before she clears her throat.
“I…I was going to go for a walk, try and tire myself out a little,” she says, looking anywhere but at him now, “Want to join me?”
Aaron beams at her as if she’d just asked him on a date, and she wonders if in some way she might have, but he nods and stands up straight. “I would love to.”
___
02:10
She’s only allowed to stay at the hospital because she flashes her badge at the nurse. She tells the rest of the team to go home, to get some rest, and she settles into the chair at Aaron’s bedside.
It was a clean shot. The doctor had told them that, as if it had made watching him get shot any easier, as if it eased any of the guilt she felt over Aaron taking a bullet that had been meant for her. She was furious at him, so angry that he’d put himself in danger for her.
Mostly, she was angry over how much it scared her. How she’d frozen on the spot as Aaron fell to the ground, his hand against his shoulder as blood poured out between his fingers. She’d sat with him on the floor as Derek disarmed the unsub, her hand over Aaron’s as she put pressure on the wound, trying to focus on anything except the warmth of his blood as she yelled for someone to call an ambulance.
“Em?”
She looks up at the sound of his voice, croaky and rough from pain, and she sits slightly straighter in her chair, reaching for his hand without thinking, the warm press of his hand against hers a reminder that he was still here. That she hadn’t lost him before she’d ever really had him.
“Hi,” she whispers, purposely keeping her voice quiet, “Do you need anything? The nurse is just outside.”
“No, I’m okay.” He shakes his head and looks around, his eyes landing on the clock on the wall, “You should go get some rest, it’s late.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she insists, smiling when he looks at her, his attempt to be stern diluted by the pain he’s in, “I made a promise to a certain little boy that I’d keep an eye on you until he can see you tomorrow.”
He chuckles and then winces, “He’s such a task master.”
Emily hums, “I wonder where he gets that from,” she quips, and she watches him carefully, watches how his eyelashes flutter as he tries to stay awake, and something about it all - her own exhaustion, the lingering fear over almost losing him, and the strange intimacy that came with keeping vigil over someone's bedside in a hospital - has her being more honest than she has been in a long time, “You scared me.”
His eyes meet hers, clearer now, his eyebrows furrowing, “You don’t get scared.”
She sighs, and she reaches out for him, her hand hesitating for a second before she soothes the line between his brows with her thumb. “I do sometimes.”
He squeezes her hand, “Em.”
It was like he’d pressed everything they’d never said, everything that had followed them for months, into one single syllable. She smiles and leans down, kissing his cheek, enjoying the way he sucks in a breath when she does.
“Later,” she promises, “When you’re home”
He nods and squeezes her hand again, “Later.”
___
02:15
She wakes up to go to the bathroom.
She’s warm. Comfortable in a way she hadn’t been in a long time. Safe. He’s fast asleep behind her, his breath skipping across the back of her neck, and she has to sneak out from under his arm. She’s cold the moment she’s out of bed, shivering in her bedroom until she grabs his shirt from the floor, slipping it on and doing up a couple of buttons, lost in the smell of him still lingering on the collar as she walks the short distance to her ensuite.
They’d been on a handful of dates as he recovered from being shot. Simple nights just the two of them, where one would bring takeout to the other's place, and they’d watch a movie. On the second date, she asked him if he was ever going to kiss her, and his response was to do just that. After that, they’d almost exclusively watched movies they’d seen before, so it didn’t matter if they missed out on anything as they made out, his injury making it impossible to go any further.
He’d been given the all clear by his doctor just a couple of days ago, and he’d booked a table at her favourite restaurant as soon as he left the doctor’s office.
She invited him back to her place afterwards, and had smiled when he looked nervous, stuttering in a way she’d never known him to as he insisted he wasn’t expecting anything. She’d kissed him and told him that she was expecting something. They’d wasted too much time already.
She yawns as she flushes the toilet and washes her hands, casting a glance at herself in the mirror in the low light of the bathroom. Her hair was a mess, having air-dried after their shared shower, and she was swamped by his shirt, the sleeves going down past her hands, and the hem of it at her mid-thigh.
She looked happy. She was happy, and for the first time in a long time, it felt like something she was allowed to have.
When she walks back into the bedroom, he’s awake. He’s half sitting up, his back against the headrest, the new scar on his shoulder still red while the rest had long faded to silver, and he’s rubbing his eyes.
“Sorry,” she says, climbing into the bed, smiling as she settles next to him, “Nature called.”
He smiles, and he kisses her, his hand on her cheek as he keeps her in place, pulling back just enough to look at her, his fingers plucking at his shirt on her skin, “You look good in this.”
She beams at him and sinks her teeth into her lower lip, still shy about how she feels about him, even though she was sure it was written all over her face. She shifts so her knees are on either side of his hips, her smile stamped against his.
“In that case, I should leave it on.”
___
02:20
She wakes to the feeling of the bed shifting behind her, and to the sound of whispered voices.
“Is Emily asleep?” Jack asks, his foot catching against her back as he settles into bed between them.
“Yeah, buddy, she is,” Aaron replies, his voice low and comforting, “So we need to be quiet, okay?”
She knows she could fall asleep again, can feel it pulling at the edges of her consciousness, but she feels more drawn to them, knowing there was only really one reason Jack would be climbing into bed with them in the middle of the night.
“I’m awake,” she says, turning over to face them, shaking her head at the apologetic smile Aaron throws her way. She smiles at Jack and pushes his hair from his face when he settles between them properly, his head on Aaron’s pillow. He has dried tear tracks on his cheeks, his skin flushed and slightly warm. “Bad dream?”
He nods, leaning into her touch as he shifts closer, “Bad dream.”
Jack wasn’t the only one who was prone to nightmares; they all were. Sometimes it was her who would wake up gasping, her hand over the scar on her abdomen, her skin burning with a phantom ache she wasn’t sure would ever go away until Aaron held her close, his warmth replacing everything else. Sometimes it was Aaron, only soothed as she drew it out of him, her fingers soft and gentle against his face, her nails scratching against the first signs of his beard that he’d shave every morning despite her protests, as she sang whatever song came to mind.
“I’m sorry, baby,” she says, using the sleeve of her pyjama shirt to wipe his cheeks, “Want to tell us about it?”
He shakes his head, “No.”
Aaron smiles at her over Jack’s head, and he wraps his arms around both of them, “You know what always helps when I have a bad dream?” He asks, even though they already knew the answer, his smile widening when Emily rolls her eyes.
“When Emily sings to you,” Jack replies, and she’s met with their matching smiles, and she knows she’s already lost.
“Okay,” she sighs, suppressing her smile as she runs her fingers through the little boy’s hair again, “But close your eyes.” Jack does as he’s told, and Emily looks at Aaron over his head, playfully narrowing her eyes, only to be met with a wider smile. “Any requests?”
“The sun song.”
“Another Beatles fan,” she quips, winking at her boyfriend before she starts. “Little darlin'
It's been a long, cold, lonely winter.” She sings until he falls asleep, his head on her pillow by now, and when she stops, she notices Aaron looking at her, his smile soft and his eyes shining, “What?”
“Nothing,” he says, leaning over the little boy between them to kiss her, “I just love you, that’s all.”
She beams at him, still not used to it after all this time, “I love you too.”
___
02:25
She was too wired to sleep, the excitement from the day still thrumming in her veins as she wandered the halls of the house she knew one day soon would be as familiar to her as the back of her hand. A place she one day wouldn’t believe she once had to think about walking around.
They’d fallen in love with it the first time they saw it, hand in hand as they followed the realtor around the house they could see themselves turning it into a home. They put in an offer that night, and within the week, they’d signed the paperwork, and it was theirs. A place they’d grow together, a place they’d add to their family, the realtor's comment about the bedroom next to theirs being the perfect nursery still ringing in Emily’s ears, the hope of it all still echoing around the hallways that now belonged to them.
She smiles as she hears his familiar footsteps, the sound muted by the socks he must have dug out of one of the countless suitcases and boxes scattered throughout the house. She turns to look at him, her smile widening as he hands her a cup of tea, the smell of chamomile in the air.
“Thanks, honey,” she says, kissing his cheek as she takes it from him, “Sleeping somewhere new is always weird the first night,” she says, leaning against him as he wraps his arm around her, “Even when it’s good like this.”
“I know,” he replies, kissing her temple, “But one day, this place will feel so familiar you’ll forget you ever struggled.”
She hums and pulls back to look at him, “Until we have a baby and they keep us up for an entirely different reason.”
He smiles, lost in the thought of it for a moment before he nods, “I can’t wait, though.”
“Me neither.” She leans against him, caught between the warmth of him and the future they were planning. He takes her cup of tea and places it down on the nearby coffee table, the dust sheet still lying over it, and he takes her hand, his other arm wrapped around her as he starts to sway side to side. She laughs, “What are you doing?”
“Dancing with the love of my life,” he replies, and she raises a brow at him.
“It’s almost 2.30 am,” she says, and he shrugs, winking at her as he pulls her closer.
“I’d dance with you anywhere, any time,” he says, and she rolls her eyes at him lovingly, resting her head against his chest as he continues to sway with her. They slip into contended silence, dancing to the beat of each other’s hearts rather than music. “Marry me?”
For a moment, she thinks he’s misheard him, or maybe fallen asleep standing up, and that she’s dreaming, but then she looks at him, sees the hope and nervousness in his eyes, and she knows there could only ever be one answer.
“Yes.”