ONCE AGAIN I HAVE REPOSTED THIS STORY. I WANT LIGHT AND FLUFFY IN LIEU OF CHRISTMAS AND DAMMIT I AM GETTING LIGHT AND FLUFFY!!!

A/N: This is a strictly AU H/P story. I really hope you guys like it. I didn't know a lot about Hotch's background so I kept trying to dig to find out anything about him. Most of it is made up, but I do remember he had said that his Junior Year took place in 1987. That means he was born in 1970, which puts him as 39. I had been putting him at 1981 senior year, which would make him 48! So sorry TG! But there was the one episode where he was going through his Junior yearbook with Haley and it said 1987, so I put it down.

This is completely AU, and, completely in the past.

This is a response to Sienna27's TV Prompt, fyi. Also, this is very much inspired by Sienna27's Falling In Love With a Girl in the sense that it's snippets of a large timeline-ish. But I hope that you don't think I'm stealing it in any way because I'm making my Hotch and Emily very different from hers. If it's too close, however, I apologize in advance and I'll try to make adjustments where I can. It's a great story to read if you haven't! :)

Anyway. Enjoy.

TV Prompt #7:

Doppelgangland
Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Prologue

January, 1987
Creekview High School, VA

The new girl was sitting in his seat.

That was the first thing sixteen-year-old Aaron Hotchner saw as he walked into his high school cafeteria.

Of course, it wasn't technically 'his' seat, since it was all owned by the school. Still, he couldn't help the flash of possessive anger that had hit him when he saw the dark-haired girl sitting down at the table in the far-left corner of the cafeteria, quietly eating her sacked lunch with her head down, engrossed in a book that was sitting on her lap.

He slowly walked over to the nearly empty table, wondering what he was going to say to her. Should he politely kick her out or just flat-out tell her get the hell up?

And more importantly, what was she doing in his seat?

He wasn't exactly the most popular kid at school. His dad made sure of that. Not directly or anything, but rather, he made Aaron who he was. He made it so that whenever he came to school he didn't want to be around anyone. He kept his head down, sat in the back of class, barely spoke and rarely made any friends.

Which was why he sat alone at the lunch table. He wanted to be alone.

So when he walked up to the lunch table, he decided not to say anything. Instead, he opted for Plan C: put his tray of food down loudly, plop down on the other side of the table and glare at her silently until she moved.

But she didn't.

Instead, she just kept eating her dumb sandwich. She continued to read her dumb book, only looking down. The only times she moved her head up was to eat a bite of the smushed meal. Lunch meat, by the looks of it.

She was pretty, her dark hair in a messy ponytail. She wore dark make-up, purple eyeliner around the eyes, making her brown eyes stand out more. She seemed stoic, quiet.

Finally, after a few minutes, she looked up, and he refocused his glare full-force so that she would get his message to leave.

Instead, she did something very unexpected. "Are you gonna eat that?"

He flustered, caught off-guard. "I…"

She pointed to the small cookie on his tray, repeating her question calmly. "Are you going to eat that?"

Clearly this was not what he had been expecting.

Hoping that this would get her to finally leave, he shoved the cookie in question toward her. "Take it." He hoped she would pick up on the unsaid words added to that, 'and get out of here.'

She snatched the cookie up hungrily. "Thanks, man. I've been starving all day."

He couldn't help the way his eyebrows narrowed at that statement. He looked at all the candy wrappers and small baggies around her, chip crumbs still inside them. "You…"

She looked up from her book again, tilting her head to the side. "What?"

He shook his head. "Never mind."

She shrugged, turning her head back down to continue reading her book. He gave a silent exasperated sigh and looked upward. She wouldn't leave!

"Um—"

She put her book down, almost forcefully, startling him. "Look, I'm new here, so I don't know you. I know I must be some sort of mystery to this place or whatever, but I am so not giving you my number so you can go and tell everyone you scored with the new girl. So you can stop staring."

Wow. That had completely backfired on him. She thought he had been staring at her the whole time, not glaring! "I'm…I wasn't staring."

She raised a skeptic eyebrow. "Really? Then what was it? Social experiment? I look weird to you or something?"

He felt his face grow hot as he mumbled his perdicament. "Y-you're in my seat."

Her eyes widened with shock, and she hurried to get up. "Oh, sorry! I didn't know! You probably wanted me to get up, right?"

But as he watched her scurry to move, his eyes softened. "Don't. It's fine."

She paused, narrowing her eyes at him. "Really?"

He nodded, smiling. "Really."

He didn't know why he didn't let her move, but it seemed like something he had to do. He felt bad that he had been thinking those mean thoughts about her. He had vowed a long time ago that he would never be like his father. And here he was ready to yell at the new girl because she mistakenly took someone else's seat at lunch. He felt guilty.

His guarded façade seemed to fall away, if only slightly. She seemed nice enough, albeit a little odd, and he knew that she didn't exactly fit in here. It had been over a week and she'd already been kicked out of nearly every girls' table, and even one of the boys' tables.

Though he didn't really mind her company, the two fell silent again. She buried her nose back into her book, and he continued to eat until the bell rang.

As the two stood up to get to their classes, their eyes met again. She gave him a smile which he returned. "I'm Emily."

"Aaron."

She turned toward the crowd that the rest of the kids were filing into. "See you tomorrow, then, Aaron. Promise I won't take my seat as long as you don't check me out again."

And with that, she was gone. He couldn't help but grin at the odd turn of events.

This Emily was definitely something.

A/N: Okay. Basically, the AU is this: during some point, Emily goes to the town where Hotch grew up. I figure since Hotch said his mother was from Manassas, VA, he'd be living somewhere around there. Considering Emily's background, she could've wound up there at one point.

I know I've posted this story twice already, but I didn't like the whole dark approach it was taking. Also, it felt a little monotonous at times, and I think taking it slow would be a much better way to deal with this.

As always, you guys can always request certain flashbacks. Since it is an AU, we'll have a lot more leeway in the sense that there won't necessarily be the canon discrepancies.

Oh, and one little side note: in that episode, he says that it was the end of his junior year that he accidently stumbled into a play rehearsal and that's where he first saw Haley and he knew that he would marry her. Since I put this in January of his Junior year, this would be a couple months before then. So if there's anything you want me to do with that, let me know.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW!!! Gimme a Christmas Present! :)