Love Remains The Same Chapter 1, a criminal minds fanfic

Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds, or Love Remains the Same (Gavin Rossdale). Which is sad, because then I'd be rich... rich enough that I wouldn't have to write in my free time.

AN: I dedicate this story to my friend Ilena2 (I don't actually think that's how her name is spelt. Anyways, she knows who she is. I hope. You should, you're smart, you'll figure it out.) Anyways, it's for her, because she asked me to. I hope the rest of you like it. I hope my friend likes it... A review would be nice.

The day was dragging on, as if time had decided to take a break and rest for the day. Though the incessant ticking of the clock above his desk followed the usual passage of time, every time he looked at the clock only minutes had passed. Minutes that felt like hours dragged into Aaron Hotchners day, and fuelled the throbbing of the headache that pressed behind his eyes, and temples. There was no case that they had to solve, and his team had been in Quantico for three days. Though they knew that going out as a group would possibly lead to a call out, they had decided to have a night together. This was his moment. His chance to finally talk to Emily alone and maybe tell her of the turmoil that filled his heart.

A thousand times I've seen you standing
Gravity like lunar landing
You make me wanna run till I find you

Haley had left him more than a year ago, and if he were honest she had stopped loving him long before that. Though he had held on to the last, bitter moment, he had let her go. He'd loved her desperately once. However, that was when he was a teenager. As they had grown up, and gotten older that love had changed. His job, their child, and eventually what she saw as his betrayal all played a factor in that love being lost.

Then, he'd found Emily Prentiss. She had been in his life before Haley had left his, but once Haley had left, he'd shut his heart down, and closed the world off. Slowly, as he'd learned to open up, she was there, like a beacon for his lost soul. The flagrant lines of love song floated through his mind, "You're a candle in the window on cold, dark winter's night." And he finally understood what the writer of the song had been feeling when those words had been penned. At one of his life's darkest moments she had been there, calling to him.

I shut the world away from here
Drift to you, you're all I hear
As everything we know fades to black

He'd been meaning to tell her of his feelings for some time. Either losing the courage at the last second, or being interrupted by another suitor to her heart, he'd never gone through with it. Like a moth to a flame he was drawn to her, her passion for life and the job infectious, but unlike any moth being drawn in he was well aware of being burnt by the flame. It's not that he didn't trust Emily, with all his life he trusted her, which was part of his problem. He'd been burned by blinded love once, which was one time to many as far as he was concerned. Naivety had led to him believing that he and Haley would be together forever, we was determined to open his eyes the next time around.

Truthfully his eyes were open. Open all the time, and he always saw her, smiling, beautiful Emily. But with a backdrop of crime and anguish that he hated. Warring emotions in one field of vision was very confusing, and conflicting, especially when it contained something so pure, Emily, compared to violent crime.

Half the time the world is ending
Truth is I am done pretending

The paperwork on his desk was complete, reviewed and revised, and he was passing the time staring out his window. His team, more his family than friends, were all gathered in the pit. Reid sat at his desk, doing more physics magic, which brought a smile to Aarons face as the other five of them giggled with laughter. JJ, Emily and Garcia were huddled together, no doubt discussing shopping plans, or how cute Henry was. Morgan and Rossi were trying to convince Reid to show them the trick, but Reid was going on about a magician's code of silence and what not. The sight warmed his heart, and quelled the whispers in his head that rang out in Strauss' voice. She had it in for him, and she went at him threw his team, something that he did not appreciate.

"Hey-O Boss man." Garcia's voice dug him out of his reprieve and he looked into his doorway. There, in all of her techno colour glory, she stood smiling at him. "It's five o'clock; we are ready to hit the road."

"Okay, thanks." He stood quickly and straightened his desk as she walked away. Looking through his window once more, he saw his team getting ready to leave, bags and jackets in hand. They were going straight out for dinner, and then some scheme that Morgan and Garcia had planned.

I, never thought that I
Had anymore to give
You're pushing me so far
Here I am without you
Drink, to all that we have lost
Mistakes we have made
Everything will change
But, love remains the same

In his government issued SUV he wondered what would happen tonight. He knew that laughter would abound as the alcohol flowed, the jokes and snide comments would also flow freely, all covered in a thick layer of love. A moratorium of work and intra team profiling had been placed over the night, and Aaron wondered what they would talk about. Elle had been right those five years ago, even when they weren't talking about work, they were talking about another case, another crime, another killer. He knew it was because it was what they were good at, but it wasn't who they were.

It had been far too long since they had been out together as a group, and Aaron had missed the camaraderie that being together evoked. Anything that brought them all closer together was a good thing in his mind.

The other worries on his mind filled him with dread. He was a man of his word, and he would keep his promise to himself and talk to Emily tonight. Alone, and privately so as to ensure that he would truly say what was on his mind. He wasn't normally a coward, but he lacked a certain amount of courage when it came to his feelings and sharing them. It had been so long since he'd felt this way, and because he'd written himself off as a man unworthy of love, he wasn't sure he was ready for the changes that would come with a relationship with Emily.

Find a place where we escape
Take you with me for a space
The city bus sounds just like a fridge
I walk the streets through seven bars
I have to find just where you are
The faces seem to blur
They're all the same

Dinner had been magnificent. The food was incredible, the talk had been boisterous and loud, and they had all had a lot of fun, as far as he could tell. Now they were at some small hidden bar, and in a weird sense of déjà vu, they had separated. JJ and Garcia were hustling some poor suckers at the dart board. Garcia luring them in with her weirdness, and JJ going straight for the triple-20. Men were fools for good looking woman. He should know.

Reid had found a group of people who were just as fact retaining as him, and they shared statistics and facts about shows he had seen, but couldn't remember anything about. Morgan, in his usual fashion had been asked to dance, and had gone willingly surrounded by several young ladies.

He, Rossi and Emily had stayed at a high bar table, watching the group unfurl and disperse to whatever means of poison called to them.

"I know we aren't supposed to profile tonight, but what does this say about us? The three of us are sitting around while the others are having fun?" Aaron asked, speaking slightly louder than usual, hoping that his friends had heard. Emily was sitting close to him, a fact that he was enjoying immensely. He could feel the heat coming off of her body, and smell the light traces of perfume she was wearing, and realised that he was leaning slightly towards her. He didn't bother to correct his posture.

"I don't know about you two," Rossi began in his guru mountain voice, "but about me it says, 'you're too friggen old for this.'"

Aaron and Emily both laughed as Rossi smiled and took a sip of his single malt scotch. Aaron had barely touched his dark draft of ale, nursing the tall glass in his hands, allowing the cold liquid to calm his nerves. Looking at Emily, he waited for her answer, wondering what she was thinking. She just smiled at him and turned away, again watching their friends at various sections of the bar, enjoying themselves.

Their conversation was full and jovial for a few more minutes, as Rossi slowly drained his glass and glanced at his watch. The entire time Aaron had been stealing his nerves, and each second fought himself to make his move.

"Well kids, it's been fun. But I need to go home. I'm not as young as I once was." Rossi stood from his stool and looked at the rest of the team, a fond smile on his lips. "You remember Dallas don't you Aaron?"

He groaned inwardly, he did remember Dallas, not too well, but he did remember. "Parts."

"What happened in Dallas?" Emily's auburn eyes searched first Rossi's face then, the fell onto Aarons, and they stayed connected. Swallowing thickly, he was about to respond when Rossi patted his shoulder and laughed.

"Before that story comes out, I'll take my leave. Good luck Aaron." The laugh that was thinly disguised by the words did nothing to settle his nerves as once again he was staring Emily in the face. The cool glass was no longer helping him.

"Uh, nothing really all that important." He was trying to be evasive with his words, refusing to say anything more about the subject. But as she placed her hand on his forearm, and gave him a devastating smile, he couldn't help but swallow again. He looked at her hand on his arm, and dragged it up her arm. She was wearing a red, sweater type thing, and he couldn't help but admire the color. Red always looked good on her.

"Come on, you can tell me." Her voice was soothing to him, and he decided that if he at least told the story he could paint the right light on it, rather that if she got the story from Rossi.

Half the time the world is ending
Truth is I am done pretending

"I tell you this only because I know you'll keep it to yourself." He knew that she would, because he trusted her more than he would care to admit. It was the same kind of trust that he had with Haley at the beginning of their relationship. The absolute trust in another that they wouldn't take your heart and squash it under their heels.

"Of course you can trust me Hotch." She squeezed his forearm and he had to wrestle down the urge to take her into his arms and kiss her senseless.

"It was one of the first cases I worked. Also one of the first cases were they sent us out with a partner. In the beginning of this unit, it was always one guy going out on the road to help. But it was looking to be a bad case in Dallas. They weren't murders, but the unsub was kidnapping woman, raping them and then painting their faces as clowns."

He laughed at the words on of the detectives floated through his head, "I'll never look at a clown the same way." They had laughed then too, knowing that eventually that would run off.

"Anyways we were at 17 victims before we got a good solid lead. All of the women described the same man. Curly red hair, large lips, and kind of heavier set, and all had been raped in the dark." She had an incredulous look on her face as he kept telling the story, matching what they had been thinking at the time. "Anyways, 17 victims in, and finally someone had the bright idea that we were indeed looking for a clown."

She gave him a single laugh, and he smiled her hand still on his forearm, "That isn't even the best part." Her eyebrows rose and she just continued to stare at into his eyes, making him feel even safer telling her the story. "We finally found him, when we got into his house, he had pictures of the victims all over his walls, and he was dressed as a clown. The big oversized shoes, red curly hair, and a large outfit if it was clown, he was wearing it. When we got him cleaned up, he was a tall lean man, with brown hair and normal sized lips." They laughed together, and he was slowly starting to feel better about his ideas to tell her of his feelings.

"Anyways, Rossi and I did the interview, we asked him 'Why did you do these things?' he gave us the most honest, serious look, and said in a very calm voice, 'I thought the world needed to smile more.' I've got to be honest; it was the funniest thing I had ever heard in my entire life." Even now, all these years later he was still laughing.

"So, what does this have to do with being old and partying?"

"After we booked him, the local cops invited us out for a few drinks, and some fun. Well it turns out the story had floated through all of Dallas PD, and tons of cops showed up all dressed as clowns. We'd had a lot to drink, and a lot of fun, anyways when we woke up the next day we were in the hotel room, Rossi was dressed like a clown, and somehow, please don't ask because I really don't remember, my face was painted like a clown"

"Oh my god, really?" Her words sounded incredulous and she was laughing.

"Yeah, and it wouldn't wash off. I found out on the train back home, that Rossi had painted my face, and had laced the paint with permanent ink. It took three weeks to wash off."

She let go of his arm and clapped her hands together and was laughing. The sight and sound caused him to laugh, a deep and throaty laugh he hadn't felt himself make in a long time. After several seconds, when she had finished laughing at him, she rested her arms on the high table and leaned towards him.

"Have you exacted your revenge?" Her voice was a secretive whisper, and he felt himself drawn closer to her, once again inhaling the scent of her perfume. A soft vanilla scent mixed with some cinnamon. He couldn't remember anything that had smelt better in his life.

"Not yet. I don't believe that going blow for blow with David Rossi is exactly a good idea." He winked at her, and she winked back, causing a tower of nerves and shivers falling down his back. His entire body tightened when she was near, and he had to flex his muscles to stretch them out.

"Good point."

So far this evening had played out fairly well according to his plan. But as they had been sitting at the table, inclined toward each other heads bent together to listen so words didn't have to be shouted across the table. He'd noticed that his team had been shooting them glances every now and then, probably profiling their actions, and whispering about them, but he found that he didn't care; he liked sitting this way with her.

"Emily, would you like to dance with me?" He'd blurted the words without really thinking about them, and quickly wished he could recall them back. He could feel the blush rising in his cheeks, but that quickly left him as she slid off her stool, and simply smiled at him.

He all but jumped off of his and offered her his hand. Her soft hand slipped into his, and he had the strange feeling that her hand belonged in his. Though he skin was smooth, her palm and fingers had rough calluses from all the range training and practise they did. Hands joined together, they weaved their way onto the crowded dance floor, and soon were moving together.

Aaron could feel the loud heavy beat of the music all through him, and though they were by no means alone, his entire world was focused on the music and the woman whose body was desirably close to his. When he wasn't looking her in the eyes, he scoured over her frame taking her in. Her grey pants clung to her hips and thighs accentuating her small waist and toned legs. The red sweater was skin tight, and if she moved the right way, a small stretch of smooth porcelain skin was revealed along the length of the waistband of her pants. He was mesmerized by that sight, and had to stop himself from openly staring at it.

Suddenly the tempo of the music changed, and in an unfashionable move a slow song came on over the speakers. Panic welled in him, but then the calm cool side of him tampered it down and his body moved of its own volition. He pulled the hands that hadn't let go of each other since she'd first grabbed his close, and wrapped his other arm around her waist, holding her tightly against him. He could feel her hand on his back, her fingers gripping his shirt.

Her head was against his shoulder and he could feel her warm breath play against his neck. As he rested his chin against her hair, he could smell her perfume mix in with her shampoo and he inhaled deeply filling his lungs with the way she smelt.

He didn't know how long they had been moving like that, held together by each other's arms, and again his body was working without conscious though. Slowly, he trailed the hand that had been holding hers up her arm, and up to her cheek. At first, he touched her lightly, not knowing how she would react to his actions. He'd been told by both Morgan and Rossi that she had a thing for him, and that fact had been the last straw on his feelings back, as he decided that she needed to know the turmoil he was in.

Slipping his fingers off of her cheek down to her chin and lifted her head. Slowly she raised her eyes to his, and in them he saw a myriad of emotions, and questions. She swallowed, he swallowed and he saw her eyes drift close and his did the same as he leaned towards her and lightly placed his lips against hers.

The soft, chaste kiss was incredible, and a warning flag shot up in his mind. He shouldn't be kissing her. But it was such a nice thing. The touch lasted no longer than a few seconds, and when he pulled back he wanted nothing more than to pull her back to him and repeat the action for a lot longer.

When he finally opened his eyes, she was looking at him, a slight smile turning up one corner of her mouth, and a million questions written all over her delicate features. Her auburn eyes had darkened to a deep mocha color, and in them he could read the same things he was feelings. Longing, desire, passion and a whole host of other synonyms' floated there. Wither he had projected his own feelings onto her, he wasn't sure, but he liked what he saw, and everything in him was shouting at him to run.

While he had been busy kissing her the music had once again taken up the fast paced tempo it once had, and his fight or flight had kicked in. He'd wanted the woman in his arms for so long, and now that she wasn't running from him he wasn't sure. Though his assurances from his friends told him that she wouldn't run, he had half expected her too. Haley, the only other woman he had kissed had run from him, and he wasn't sure why Emily had stayed.

Flight won out, and he dropped his hands to the side and tried to take a step away from her. He got nowhere as there was a wall of people pressing them towards each other. The urge to run grew strong each passing second as they simply looked one another in the eye. His calm cool demeanour lost, he turned and muscled his way out of the dance floor. Without saying a word to Emily or a goodbye to the rest of the team, he moved as fast as he could without calling attention to himself, and left the bar.

So much more to say
So much to be done
Don't you trick me now?
We shall overcome
So all that's left is praying

Once outside in the fresh air, everything that had happened in the last five minutes crashed over him, the flight left his body and he wanted to rush back in, and once again take her in his arms. The transformation of emotions was incredible, and had left his body shaking with the rollercoaster they had just shot him through.

Turning quickly, he started towards his apartment, knowing that he had had far too much to drink to drive responsibly. He swore loudly causing a few bystanders to look at him and start to whisper. Berating himself for being a coward he sulked off, hoping that he hadn't just ruined his chance, but knowing that he probably had. Not more than a hundred feet away from the bar, he heard the door open. Deciding that it would be foolish to turn to see if she had followed him, he kept his head down and his feet moving forward.

But we, should have had the sun
We could have been inside
Instead we're over here

"Aaron!" Her voice called his name, and he stopped, hope filling his entire being. He wouldn't have followed him, and he wasn't sure why she was.

He turned and she was slowly walking towards him. The look on her face wasn't murderous revenge, or some other horrible thing, instead he saw the compassion that she so often showered on the victims that they tried to help. He stopped moving and waited the long seconds it took her to reach him.

When she got to him she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his head down to hers and kissed him. He was reeling from the kiss, and slowly, his hands moved once again to her hips.

Half the time the world is ending
Truth is I am done pretending
Too much time too long defending
You and I are done pretending

He pulled away first, and looked deep into her eyes. "What was that?"

She kissed him softly again, and pulled away, a large smile spreading her cheeks, and lighting her eyes. Though he was beyond confused, he couldn't help but return her smile, and wrapping his arms more tightly around her waist.

"I know your scared Aaron." He was, more than he wanted to admit. Not for himself, he stood to be hurt sure, but he didn't want to hurt her like he'd hurt Emily. The team would kill him, but more importantly he would kill himself. She'd always been there for him, and he knew that he hadn't done the same thing. "Yeah, but she still followed you." The little voice in his head reminded him and he gripped her tighter. She had followed him.

He started to say something, but her finger on his lips stopped him. "Shut up." He nodded her finger still on his lips. He would do anything she asked right about now. "I know that you are scared of letting yourself be loved." She did know him better than he thought. "I won't hurt you Aaron."

She leaned up and kissed him again, her hand cupping his cheek. Returning her kiss, he basked in the fact that she was still there. He didn't know what would become of them, what the future had for them, but he knew that as of this moment he wanted to stay this way forever.

I, oh I,
I wish this could last forever
I, oh I,
As if we could last forever

Love remains the same
Love remains the same

AN2: For those of you that noticed, Hotch never did tell her how he felt, which I thought was the best way to end. Anyways, there is a second chapter to this. If you want to read it, please let me know.