Chapter Text
1992 - BOSTON
Boston in the fall of 1992 felt alive in its melancholy, the rain turning the world beyond the glass into a blurred watercolor of crimson leaves and streetlights. The soft rustle of turning pages blended with the occasional creak of the polished parquet floor underfoot, while green-shaded banker’s lamps cast pools of warm, focused light over long wooden tables. Students hunched in quiet concentration, their notebooks filled with hurried scribbles, the weight of midterms pressing down like the gray clouds outside.
Aaron Hotchner pushed open the heavy oak door, a gust of cold, wet air following him briefly before the door sealed it out again. Rainwater glistened on the shoulders of his charcoal coat, which he removed with precise care. At twenty-four, he moved with the quiet authority of a man who had already decided the shape of his future and refused to let anything disrupt it. His tailored suit beneath the coat was immaculate, the leather briefcase in his hand gleaming from years of disciplined use. He looked far too polished, too composed for just another Harvard Law student.
The night concierge with a thick Boston accent glanced up from his desk. “You again ? Thought the rain might keep you home tonight.”
Aaron met his gaze evenly, offering a small, courteous nod. “Good evening Sir.” he replied simply, his voice low and steady, carrying the faint trace of a disciplined cadence. He didn’t elaborate, he never did. Instead, he wiped his shoes meticulously on the mat before proceeding, each step measured.
He knew every inch of this place. He came at the same hour every day, claimed the same table in the far corner where the light was best and the distractions minimal. The other students had learned to recognize him, the tall, dark-haired young man who carried himself like the courtroom already waited for him. Whispers followed sometimes, that guy never seems to sleep but Aaron paid them no mind.
He set his briefcase down with a soft thud, unbuttoned his coat, and hung it precisely on the back of his chair. Three fountain pens were removed from an inner pocket and laid parallel on the table, their alignment checked twice with the tip of his finger. Only then did he remove his watch, placing it face-up beside the pens where he could monitor the minutes without it interfering with his focus.
He opened a thick volume of case law, the pages whispering as they turned. His movements were economical, almost ritualistic. Sleep had become a distant acquaintance these past months, four, maybe five hours a night at best but Aaron thrived in the quiet discipline of it. Perfection wasn’t a goal, it was the baseline. He cross-referenced footnotes with the precision of a surgeon, his brow furrowing slightly as he absorbed every nuance, every precedent that might one day tip the scales of justice.
A student nearby dropped a pencil, the sound sharp in the hushed hall. Aaron’s head lifted briefly, his dark eyes scanning the room once before returning to his text. He straightened a stack of his own notes, ensuring the edges aligned perfectly. In that small gesture, in the way the lamplight carved shadows across his focused features and highlighted the quiet intensity in his posture, there was something magnetic, an unyielding sense of purpose wrapped in quiet control.
The heavy oak doors of swung open again with a rush of damp night air and in stumbled Emily Prentiss, twenty years old and moving as though the autumn storm itself had chased her inside. Rain poured from her dark hair, soaking the shoulders of an oversized blue sweater that swallowed her frame and hung nearly to her thighs.
She clutched a big canvas bag against her chest, its straps threatening to slip from her wet fingers while her cheeks flushed from the cold dash across campus. Unlike the composed figure already settled in the far corner, Emily arrived like a sudden burst of chaotic energy into the hushed sanctuary of turning pages and creaking parquet.
Her brain always raced several steps ahead of her hands and feet, brilliant synapses firing on international treaties and criminal theory while her physical world lagged behind in delightful disarray. Papers exploded outward in a fluttering cascade, lecture notes, dog-eared articles and handwritten outlines scattering across the parquet like startled birds. A few pages even drifted under nearby chairs. Emily froze for half a second, then let out a long, exasperated sigh.
“Seriously?” she muttered, the word carrying just enough volume to draw a couple of glances.
A nearby male student, probably a sophomore buried in his own textbooks, leaned down to help gather the nearest sheets. “Here, I’ve got some of them.”
Emily straightened up, pushing wet strands of hair behind her ear with one hand while gesturing expressively with the other, her movements fluid and unfiltered. She flashed him a quick, genuine smile that lit up her rain-dampened face, the kind of easy laugh already forming at the corners of her mouth. “No, it’s okay. My life just enjoys embarrassing me on a regular basis. Thanks though, you’re a lifesaver in the middle of this disaster zone I call organization.”
She laughed softly at herself, the sound bright and unrestrained, echoing gently beneath the green lamps. There was no guarded reserve in her yet, no careful walls built from years of profiling monsters in the dark. She wore her emotions openly, the self-deprecating humor sparkling in her eyes, the animated wave of her hands as she continued speaking while crouching to retrieve more pages. “I swear, I had everything perfectly sorted this morning. Then my brain decided to reorganize all my notes on post-Cold War diplomacy while I was supposed to be watching the weather. Very classic me.”
The student chuckled and handed her a thick stack. “Double major, right? International Relations and Criminology? I’ve seen you in seminars. You’re the one who argues circles around the TAs.”
Emily’s cheeks pinked again, but she accepted the compliment with a playful shrug, stacking the rescued papers with hurried but affectionate care. “Guilty. My mind just goes too fast sometimes. It’s brilliant at connecting dots on global policy but terrible at keeping actual paper dots from flying everywhere.” She blew a stray lock of wet hair from her face and grinned, revealing the lively, unpolished spark that made her presence feel like a warm contrast to the steady rain drumming against the tall windows.
From his corner table, Aaron Hotchner had looked up at the commotion, his dark eyes registering the scene with quiet observation. Every table seemed occupied by clusters of determined students, their green-shaded lamps forming islands of focused light amid the scent of old books and the occasional creak of the parquet floor. Only one spot remained, the far corner table where a solitary figure sat in perfect, unyielding composure. She approached without hesitation, her wet hair leaving faint trails on her shoulders.
“Is anyone sitting here?” she asked softly, her voice carrying a note of hopeful politeness.
Without lifting his eyes from the heavy volume before him, Aaron Hotchner answered flatly, “Yes.”
Emily paused, glancing pointedly at the empty chair across from him. “Really?”
“Me.” he clarified, still not looking up, his tone leaving no room for negotiation.
A brief silence stretched between them. Emily’s lips curved into an amused smile, the kind that came easily to her unfiltered twenty-year-old self. With a small act of quiet rebellion that felt strangely satisfying, she pulled out the chair and sat down anyway. Aaron’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, he did not like disruptions to his carefully ordered space but he said nothing.
They did not speak at first.
Instead, the contrast between them unfolded in small, telling gestures beneath the warm glow of the green lamps. Emily kicked off her soggy sneakers under the table with a sigh of relief, wiggling her socked feet freely, Aaron noticed immediately, his gaze flicking downward for a fraction of a second before he deliberately turned his eyes back to his notes. She flipped through her scattered pages with furious speed, a whirlwind of turning paper, while he methodically turned his own pages with deliberate, almost reverent slowness. When she absentmindedly chewed on the end of her pencil, brows furrowed in concentration, he grimaced inwardly at the faint sound but remained outwardly impassive.
Her heavy textbook slipped from her lap and thudded to the floor. Before she could react, Aaron reached down and retrieved it in one smooth motion, handing it back across the table.
“Thank you.” She said, offering him a warm and raw smile.
“You’re welcome.” he added after a beat, the awkward silence that followed thick with unspoken awareness.
Later, as Emily wrestled with a dense French text, she let out a frustrated sigh, her hands gesturing vaguely in the air as if trying to coax meaning from the words. Aaron’s voice broke the quiet without warning, low and precise, his eyes never leaving his own work.
“Second paragraph.”
She frowned, looking up sharply. “Excuse me?”
“Your translation.” he said, reaching over just enough to indicate the line with a single finger. “You’re translating volonté politique too literally.”
Emily stared at him for a long moment, surprise flickering openly across her expressive face. “…You speak French?”
“Enough.” Aaron replied simply, already returning to his book as though the exchange had never happened. He never elaborated on his skills, they simply existed, tools in service of his relentless discipline.
The hours slipped by in that charged silence until the head librarian made his final rounds, his voice echoing softly through the vast hall. “Library’s closing. And with the storm outside, the metro’s down. Looks like y’all are stuck here for a bit longer.”
Emily leaned back in her chair, brushing damp hair from her eyes as she regarded the man across from her. “So…”
Aaron continued reading, his posture unchanged.
“You always ignore strangers?” she asked, a playful lilt in her voice, hands moving expressively as she spoke.
“Usually.” he answered after a measured pause.
“Good.” Emily replied with an easy laugh. “I hate small talk.”
At that, Aaron finally lifted his eyes to meet hers fully for the first time. The directness of her response caught him off guard, not with attraction, but with genuine surprise. She wasn’t offended, she found it genuinely amusing. The corner of his mouth did not smile, but something shifted in his steady gaze.
They spoke then of deeper things, the storm outside mirroring the quiet intensity building between them. “Why law?” she asked, her chin resting on her hand, curiosity shining openly.
Aaron considered the question for a long time, his fingers resting on the edge of his closed book. “Because rules only matter if someone enforces them.” he said at last, each word deliberate and weighted with quiet conviction.
Emily nodded, turning her gaze toward the rain-streaked windows. “I study diplomacy. Because rules don’t stop wars.”
A thoughtful silence settled over them. For Aaron, closing his book with deliberate care was a significant gesture, he was interested, drawn not to fleeting charm but to the sharp, unapologetic mind that matched his own intensity.
When the worst of the storm finally eased enough for them to leave, they stepped out together into the persistent drizzle, coats pulled close and footsteps echoing on the wet pavement. They walked the same path for several blocks, the city lights of Boston reflecting in puddles around them. At the crossroads where their routes diverged, Emily offered a casual wave. “See you tomorrow.”
“You don’t know that.” Aaron responded automatically, his voice even.
She smiled, bright and unafraid. “You’ll be at the library, that’s for sure.”
With that, she turned and walked away. Aaron remained motionless for a long moment, watching her figure disappear into the rainy night, something he had never done before.