Chapter Text
The drive from Quantico was quiet in the way only post-case silence could be.
Not peaceful.
Not relaxed.
Just exhausted.
The jet had landed a little past midnight after four straight days in Michigan working a case that had hollowed everyone out in different ways. Morgan and Garcia had bickered softly over the phone while they unloaded. Rossi had looked ten years older walking through the terminal. JJ had hugged Emily a little too tightly before heading home to Will and Henry.
And Hotch had watched Emily carefully through all of it.
She had been holding herself together with sheer discipline since the second victim.
A little girl.
Eight years old.
Not the unsub’s primary target, but collateral damage in a domestic abduction gone catastrophically wrong. Emily had been the one to find her hiding in a closet during the raid on the family home. The girl had survived, but barely, and something about the sight of her—small and trembling and trying not to cry because she thought crying would make things worse—had struck directly through Emily’s professional armor.
Hotch knew why.
He knew the exact moment it had happened, too.
Emily had walked out of that bedroom with the child wrapped in a blanket against her chest, speaking softly in Spanish because the girl had stopped responding in English. Her face had been calm for the officers around them.
But Hotch knew her.
He had seen the fracture behind her eyes.
Since then, she had carried herself with mechanical precision. She worked the profile. Interviewed witnesses. Slept little. Ate less. Every time someone asked if she was okay, she gave the same dry little smile and said, “I’m fine.”
Which meant she absolutely was not.
Now, as he drove through the dark streets toward his house, Emily sat curled in the passenger seat beside him, asleep.
Or more accurately—she had finally lost the fight to stay awake.
The city lights slipped softly over her face in passing streaks. Her head rested against the window at an awkward angle, dark hair partially obscuring her features. One hand remained loosely curled in the sleeve of her coat like she needed something to cling onto.
She looked exhausted.
Not simply tired.
Worn down.
There were faint shadows beneath her eyes. Her lips were parted slightly in sleep, the tension finally gone from them after days of being pressed into hard professional lines. As she slept, she looked small somehow. Vulnerable in a way Emily Prentiss rarely allowed herself to be.
Hotch loosened one hand from the wheel long enough to quietly lower the heat vent toward her.
She shifted faintly but didn’t wake.
He glanced at the dashboard clock.
2:17 AM.
He should wake her when they arrived. Emily would insist she could walk inside herself. She would insist she wasn’t fragile. Would probably tease him for treating her delicately.
But when he finally pulled into his driveway twenty minutes later and turned off the engine, she didn’t stir at all.
The silence inside the car settled heavily around them.
Hotch looked at her for a long moment.
The glow from the streetlights spilled dimly through the windshield, catching against her lashes and the soft curve of her cheek. Her breathing was slow. Deep. Completely unconscious.
She needed this.
She needed sleep.
He remembered the way her hands had shaken after the raid, before she’d shoved them into her pockets. Remembered her staring too long at the little pink sneakers abandoned in the hallway. Remembered waking in the hotel at three in the morning to find her side of the bed empty because she’d gone to sit in the bathroom alone so she wouldn’t wake him with her nightmares.
Something inside him broke for her.
Carefully, quietly, he unbuckled his seatbelt.
“Emily,” he murmured once, very softly, testing.
Nothing.
She stayed asleep.
Hotch exhaled through his nose, faintly amused despite the ache in his chest.
Then he got out of the car and walked around to her side.
The night air was cool against his skin as he opened the passenger door slowly, making sure not to jostle it. Emily shifted faintly at the movement, brow furrowing, but she didn’t wake.
“Hey,” he whispered.
Still nothing.
God.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her this exhausted.
One careful hand slid behind her shoulders while the other moved beneath her knees. For a second he hesitated, making sure he had her securely.
Then he lifted her.
Emily made a soft sound of protest—not truly waking, just reacting instinctively—and immediately curled toward his warmth. Her face pressed against his shoulder. One hand bunched weakly in the fabric of his coat.
Hotch nearly melted on the spot.
“Easy,” he murmured against her hair. “I’ve got you.”
Her breathing steadied again almost instantly.
He shut the car door quietly with his foot and carried her toward the house.
The porch light cast a warm glow across the entryway as he unlocked the front door one-handed. Inside, the house was dark and still. Jack was asleep at Jessica’s tonight, which Hotch was suddenly profoundly grateful for, despite how much he missed his son. No noise. No lights. No interruptions.
Just quiet.
He carried Emily down the hall slowly, careful not to jar her.
She was warm against him.
Heavy with sleep in that trusting way people only became around those they felt truly safe with. Emily was fiercely independent, almost aggressively self-sufficient sometimes, but moments like this revealed the truth beneath it all. The exhaustion. The trust. The quiet reliance she rarely verbalized.
Hotch entered the bedroom and nudged the door shut behind him.
The soft bedside lamp cast amber light across the room as he laid her carefully on the mattress.
Emily stirred immediately at the loss of contact, brow pinching.
“No,” she mumbled sleepily.
Hotch’s heart twisted.
“It’s okay,” he said softly. “You’re home.”
Her eyes fluttered halfway open for less than a second. Dazed. Unfocused.
“Hotch?”
“Yeah.”
She relaxed instantly.
It was such a simple thing.
Such complete trust.
He brushed a strand of hair back from her face gently. “Go back to sleep.”
Apparently okay with the demand, Emily made a soft sound and sank back into the pillows.
Hotch smiled faintly despite himself.
Then he carefully removed her shoes.
Emily barely reacted as he eased her coat off and draped it over the nearby chair. She sighed and instinctually lifted her hips as he eased her pants off of her. Removing her shirt and bra was a lot easier; though it did take some effort to slip one of his academy t-shirts on in their place.
She barely moved, except to shift when he tugged the blankets back; and when he settled them over her shoulders she instinctively curled deeper into the warmth.
For a long moment, he simply sat beside her.
Watching.
The case weighed heavily in the quiet room now that there was finally space to feel it. He knew tomorrow would probably be harder for her than today had been. Emily tended to survive crises in the moment through sheer force of will. It was afterward, in safety and silence, that things caught up to her.
He knew because she had once admitted it against his shoulder at three in the morning.
“I’m good during the emergency,” she’d whispered. “It’s after that kills me.”
Hotch gently ran his fingers through her hair.
Emily shifted toward the touch immediately even in sleep.
God.
He loved her so much it physically hurt sometimes.
Not in dramatic ways.
Not loudly.
In these quiet moments.
In knowing exactly how she took her tea after difficult cases. In memorizing the cadence of her breathing at night. In understanding the difference between Emily being irritated, angry, hurt, or overwhelmed from a single glance.
In carrying her to bed because she was too exhausted to make it herself.
His thumb brushed softly over her temple.
“You don’t have to hold everything together all the time,” he murmured quietly, though she was asleep enough not to hear it.
Or maybe she did hear him.
Because her face softened.
A tiny exhale escaped her.
Then, without waking, Emily reached weakly across the blankets until her fingers found the sleeve of his coat.
Holding onto him.
Even asleep.
Hotch looked down at her hand gripping his sleeve and felt something warm and aching spread through his chest.
Carefully, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
Emily made a tiny sleepy hum.
And that was it.
That tiny sound nearly undid him completely.
In quiet and efficient movements, he stripped down to his boxers. Then he turned off the lamp, slid carefully beneath the blankets beside her, and immediately felt her move toward him instinctively. Her body curled against his chest, seeking warmth and comfort without conscious thought.
He wrapped an arm around her securely.
Outside, rain had begun tapping softly against the windows.
Inside, Emily continued to sleep deeply.
And Hotch held her through the night.