The Dream Journal

Summary: Curiosity gets to Hotch when he finds Garcia is in therapy and reads her dream journal, only to discover he is the main subject. Will he finally face his feelings? M for smut.

Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds.

"Hey Garcia, can I see you in my office?" Hotch asked as he poked his head out his office door. It had been a while since he saw the blonde sit and not fuss about with her heavy responsibilities.

"Hey Hotch, what's up?" she sat in the chair across his desk as he indicated and watched the handsome unit chief round his desk and sit opposite her. Immediately she could see his profiler face kick in and she wiggled uncomfortably in her seat under the studios gaze.

"I have been wondering how you have been coping with all the changes lately. I understand your workload has increased since the budget cuts. And with Kevin gone, I thought maybe you would need..." he trailed off. It had been six weeks since the explosive argument erupted from within Garcia's bat cave and overflowed into the bullpen. Hotch didn't get a chance to make out most of it, the substance of the argument almost entirely over by the time he moved down to break it up. But he did catch that Kevin couldn't take competing with another man in her life, so naturally he thought he was talking about Morgan. But Kevin had specifically looked to Derek and stated "And it's not even you" coldly before dropping his gaze to Garcia and declaring "I'm moving to Ohio and I won't be speaking to you again." She didn't even look angry, almost relieved actually.

It was all very confusing.

"I'm alright Hotch, really. The work is getting to me a little," he noticed, she wasn't as peppy as usual and missed more than a few group dinners. "but I can handle it and things were over with Kevin long before I even noticed."

He examined her expression. She didn't look hurt, regretful or mournful. Rather, she looked relieved as she glanced down at the composition notebook on her lap.

"What's that?" he indicated the notebook in question and noticed the new expression to register on her face, embarrassment?

"It's uh- uh it's my dream journal." She didn't even look up at him. Shame?

"Oh, why do you have it at work?"

"My therapist asked me to bring it to our appointment today. I was just returning from there when you called me in, sir." She could feel the heat of her blush start to rise in her cheeks. If he had any idea what was in this… his cough charitably broke her from that train of thought.

He was concerned, not because she was seeing a therapist, but rather that he didn't know it was still going on. When he and Haley divorced Garcia practically forced him (unbeknownst to the team) to see a therapist, same when she had died. And he made her go after she was stabbed and when the team thought Prentiss died. He felt extremely guilty on the last one. But as far as he knew she had stopped altogether about a year ago, a month or so after Prentiss returned.

"I didn't know you were still going."

"I started again a few months before the Kevin incident, sir."

Yet again, she sat there looking ashamed and not making eye contact. "Garcia, whatever it is that prompted you to go, I am glad you are getting help. You don't have to feel guilty for not telling me, though I wish you would. I know I am not the most easy to talk to or even to consider a friend but I do care about my team's welfare, I care about you."

She was shocked. It was moments like these, when you could see just how caring Aaron Hotchner really is, even in his practicality, that made her love the boss man, platonically she reminded herself. "Sorry sir. It's just, see I started to go—well, sir—" she was incredibly nervous, befuddled even.

He cut her off. "Aaron."

Great. "Well, Aaron. I'm not really comfortable discussing it right now, even with Morgan." She shrugged at Hotch's surprised expression. "But this." she patted the journal "It is helping. Whenever I have a dream, even a day dream my therapist has me write it down and how I feel about it or why I think I am thinking that way."

He wasn't convinced that was helping at all. What was going on with her? "Does Morgan have something to do with this?" he could hear the sudden anger in his voice and wasn't entirely sure where it came from.

"What? No. oh, no, no."

"Then anyone on the team?"

She didn't respond she just tried to look him in the eye and keep a straight face. Garcia was such an easy read, she wore he heart on her sleeve. But he could see right now she was trying desperately to protect it.

"Who is it?" he demanded, rounding his desk and kneeling in front of her. "I swear if someone has said something, or is doing something that makes you uncomfortable or guilting you into protecting—" his mind instantly wondered if she had caught JJ kissing Reid in the break room like he had a few months ago, knowledge of that would surely wear her down.

"No. No, sir-Aaron. Really, I'll be fine. I'll be fine." She knew her voice was shaky, and she hated that she couldn't just reach out and borrow some of that stoicism her boss so easily placed. Then again, he certainly seemed more emotional and protective right now… she had to remind herself he was a protective man by nature and not to let it get to her head.

"Penelope." He tenderly whispered it, not even giving himself a chance to stop his hand from stroking the hair out of her worried face. Over the course of the last few years she had come to mean more to him than he was aware, and her proximity was not helping his ability to repress his care for her.

She froze as his thumb traced along her hairline moving for his hand to cup her cheek. How many times had she imagined him doing just the same? How many times in the past several months, maybe even years, had she hoped he would look at her with the caring he now had in his eyes? But then, she saw that with that care was worry. And reflex shifted to flight.

She batted his hand away gently but suddenly and stood so abruptly she did not notice her journal fly into Hotch's lap as he had to scramble away to give her room to pass. She headed straight for the door saying she had better get back to work and practically ran back to her desk.

-Criminal Minds-

Hotch casually locked his office door and decided to return to his desk and get some paperwork done, trying to push what just happened out of his mind. But as soon as he sat down he realized it wouldn't work.

What on earth was he thinking? He had barely any physical contact with anyone on the team before. Handshakes when they met, the occasionally hospital bedside handholding. That was it. And then suddenly he is kneeling in front of her, touching her face intimately? Of course, she was beautiful. It was useless to deny that he didn't think her crazy outfits and odd manner of expression and it didn't make him smile. He had even once told her to not change, that he liked her as is. But could that mean more?

He shook the thoughts from his head before they could fully latch on and tried for the next half hour to get through his paperwork. If he could get ahead tonight and tomorrow, by the time Jack returns from his trip to visit his grandparents he might even be able to take a day off to take him to the zoo like he promised.

Five minutes. Ten minutes. Twelve minutes. That's how long it took him to realize he was staring out his office window lost in a lack of thought. It was no use trying to ignore it. What happened earlier with Penelope made no sense. She's suddenly in therapy and not telling anyone about it? Not even Morgan? And she's over Kevin? Already? He had been worried about her for weeks, weeks… he had been worried about her. And remembering how she left so abruptly his worry only increased.

He looked out to the bullpen and noticed that everyone seemed to have left already. That was a shame, because he had hoped to talk to her again before she went home, maybe ask her to coffee so they could talk this over, as friends. He hadn't been anyone's friend in a while, maybe even years.

And he needed to bring her the journal she forgot in his office. If he didn't do it tonight he would probably forget until he found it buried under a stack of paperwork a week into the future. He grabbed it, fully with the intention of bringing it to her office but only made it to his door before he found himself already flipping through.

He chided himself and snapped it shut, leaning his forehead against the closed door. He can't invade her privacy this way. He can't.

He was sitting on the sofa in his office, reading a random page before he knew how he got there. But he couldn't unread what he already did. It was nothing mundane. It was not about the team. It was about him.

Second dream tonight: He came in an hour late, which is right on time for everyone else. But suddenly he and I were sharing a hospital bed. He was bloody, I was bloody but neither of us was in pain. I don't know why, I hit him. And he kissed me. Then we laughed for ages about the dragon outside the window, and he grabbed my hand and skipped with me down the rainbow connecting the hotel (venue switch somehow) to the BAU offices. "Honey, we will be late for work."—Kevin said it in real life but it was still Hotch in my dream. I woke up just as confused as the night before. I wish these damn dreams would stop. I should ask Reid if there are some pills I could take.

'It wasn't much.' He told himself. 'just a dream. I have had dreams of her before too. It's natural, we are a team, or as she so often says, a family.'

But then he read another dream. This time there were no rainbows or dragons. It was dated a week before the argument with Kevin, so she would already have been in therapy for a while, and therefore more reflective in her writing.

This needs to stop. I can't even get myself to write half the things that went on in that dream, I don't do smut. Its not like I have never had a dirty dream before. Even with someone on the team. Derek and I have both admitted to the random wayward thought now and then in our sleep—usually after a long and lustrous flirting session. But nothing more than that, and usually then (or like in that one dream with Reid in it)its just a kiss, a grope or a straight jump to an understanding of being in the act. It's not this drawn out sequence where I can remember every inch of his skin, how it slid on mine, his smell, his filling me with- get a grip P! Even writing about it is getting me turned on, and poor Kevin is going to think it's all about him when I tackle him as he wakes up.

And that's not even the worse part. Yesterday I saw JJ kissing Reid in the break room, and it seemed to be getting a little heavy if you ask me. And I thought I would be mad, seeing JJ cheating on Will. But, she looked so happy and Reid well, he looked like a puppy in love, and so did she, a little. I kept thinking all day that maybe they are in love, maybe I missed it all these years. It was right in front of me. Reid liked her from the days of Gideon. JJ had made comments over the years about how much she cared for him, joked casually to him and me about how sometimes she wished he was the one to father Henry. But I didn't put stock in it until now. And it got me thinking, especially since the big part of the dream was how much I felt for Hotch in those moments, if they can do it, get past years of missing out and get through the work related drama of it… could I? I feel so guilty for thinking that, and worse—he'd never think of me that way. I am just tech goddess Garcia, and it's always going to stay that way, isn't it doc?

He couldn't read anymore. He had to calm himself for a moment. How the hell did this even come about? She's been having sex dreams, romantic dreams, about him?

He thumbed back through to the day of the argument with Kevin. He noted that she wrote a daydream down involving his own tongue in some choice places which stirred a physical reaction in him he had to work hard to suppress.

And God, just thinking about it nearly made me cum in my seat- GRRRRRR. FUCKING KEVIN! He just came in here like fifteen minutes ago and threw this journal down in front of me. He READ it that shit head! And of course he was jealous. That I do not blame him. But come on, I never said I was going to leave him, I wrote my guilty feelings about it… but all he could focus on was the other stuff.

He accused me of being in love with Hotch, asked me if the dreams or thoughts had ever happened before the journal. And yes, they did. Admittedly I had a little Hero crush of Hotch since I met him. He's fricken gorgeous, why wouldn't I have the occasional dream? But #1 he's my boss. #2 he doesn't like me. #3 even if he did he wouldn't do anything about it because of the team and #4 I don't even know anymore! And I'm not sure what that even means! AHHG. I am so fricken glad this is over now. For months the guilt has been at me but really there's even more the failing of this than that. I have been unhappy with him, for a long time. We don't belong together, and I knew that. Its why I started therapy to begin with… I feel totally lost in my own life and having the dreams start and in incredible frequency, I just knew I had to get my ass to a shrink because I am not handling life well right now from that combo.

Sometimes. Sometimes, I wish for—

That was the end of the page and he could see that the rest of the entry was likely removed, two pages had been torn out. Before he could give himself a chance to think on this he flipped through every page in a scan, not really reading but looking for names. The only dreams she wrote of where the ones with him in it, and they all seemed to be of this nature, or their friendship or how much she loves his son Jack.

And he really tried not to let his body get hung up on the few detailed descriptions he found in there. It did him no good to close his eyes and try to block the world out, all he could see where her curves, her blonde hair boucing as he rode her. He needed to get a grip but not where he his hand was currently placed and stroking.

The sound of a key in the lock of his office door made him snap to and hurriedly he managed to get it back into his pants before the door swung open to reveal- her.