A/N: This is my first attempt at a smut fic, so please forgive any awkwardness. Jekkah, whimsical-one, thank you both for your encouragement and support.
Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds nor make any profit from writing this. Though should the actual episode writers wish to borrow an idea, feel free. No credit is needed as long as Hotch and JJ get together.
Jennifer Jareau had always had a different sort of relationship with Aaron Hotchner than the rest of the team. They'd been friends for a long time now, nearly eight years, since shortly after she'd joined the BAU as their media liaison. Back then he'd been the senior profiler but not yet the Unit Chief and while always serious, he hadn't been quite as reserved as he was now. Through the years and his marriage and divorce, her long-term relationship, their sons, teammates coming and going and more stress and trauma than most faced in a lifetime, they'd always leaned on each other. While part of their closeness came as part of the job, stemming from how closely they worked together in prioritizing cases and handling the unit's image as a whole, a larger part of it was because they just clicked on a personal level. Each could tell when the other was stressed or upset; over time, they would finish each other's sentences or voice something the other was thinking and communication with a simple glance was almost as common as spoken. They naturally gravitated towards each other, circumstances often finding them sitting next to each other on the jet or at the war table and failing that, usually within each other's direct line of sight.
There were those who'd questioned their relationship over the years as being more than platonic. His wife, while initially friendly, soon grew suspicious and resentful of the blonde who was often calling her husband away at all hours to attend a case briefing and treated JJ to several tantrums over the last year of their marriage, conversations that she never told Hotch about. Her boyfriend hated the fact that she confided in her boss instead of in him; it hadn't helped that Hotch was the one to drive her to the hospital when their son was born and stayed with her until Will had arrived; he'd almost ended up being the one to witness Henry's birth instead of the baby's own father. Even perfect strangers often gave them a second glance: hotel clerks at check-ins, local cops on cases, restaurant staff. But despite all that it wasn't until she'd been forced to leave the unit that their relationship changed beyond strictly friends.
It started gradually. They would meet for coffee or lunch when he was in town, maybe with their boys at a local park and catch up with each other while the kids played; he kept her up to date with what was happening in the unit and she would talk about her work at the State Department as much as she could. With the thin line of boss and subordinate gone, they became closer than ever. Though they were still just friends at that point, it was the breaking point for her relationship with Will. He'd already been upset when he'd realized that JJ was as devoted to her job at State as she had been to the BAU, despite the forced transfer, and that she had every intention of returning to the unit as soon as Hotch could manage it. A final, ugly argument culminated in him moving out and getting an apartment closer to DC, where he'd joined the police force.
The first couple of weeks after the breakup were rough for JJ until a new routine was established and she and Will were able to settle into a partnership to raise their son. Through it all, Hotch had been at her side, ready to listen, offer advice and help wherever he could. Within a few weeks, Henry had settled into the new routine of joining Jack at his aunt's during the day and that, combined with the fact that JJ began taking the younger Hotchner on some weekends when Hotch was out of town on a case to give Jess a break, brought the two boys almost as close as their parents were.
The final change in their relationship came a few weeks after the incident that sent Prentiss into hiding. JJ had appeared on Hotch's doorstep late one night with a sleeping Henry on her shoulder and tears in her eyes. Wordlessly, Hotch had taken the little boy upstairs and laid him down next to Jack, then returned and sat her down on the couch. The moment his arm settled around her shoulder, she'd burst into tears, telling him in between sobs that Reid had come to her to grieve practically every night since the funeral; it was tearing her apart to not be able to tell him the truth. The burden of guilt over not being able to tell the team that Emily was alive was hard enough but adding in the role of comforter, especially to the one she viewed as a younger brother and who trusted her completely, was bringing her to her breaking point. Somehow in the course of the explanation and the crying, she'd ended up curled up on Hotch's lap with him holding her close and dropping the occasional light kiss to the crown of her head as she slowly calmed down.
When he'd seen that she was nearly asleep he'd picked her up and carried her to his bedroom for the night, with every intention of taking the couch for himself. But as he'd set her down, she'd woken up enough to cling to his arm and beg him not to leave, so instead he'd laid down and held her until she fell into a fitful sleep and then unintentionally dozed off himself.
The next morning had been momentarily awkward when they'd woken up next to each other until Hotch finally gave in to the urge that he'd been fighting for several years and kissed her lightly. Any fears of rejection he might have harbored were swiftly banished when she participated wholeheartedly. Anything further that might have happened was interrupted by the boys as they ran in and jumped on the bed. But despite its abrupt end, somewhere in that kiss they finalized the transition from 'close friends' to 'a couple' with only a very tiny ripple in the water.
The next few weeks were hectic for both of them in many ways but in between cases, diplomatic crises, check-ins with Emily, hand-to-hand combat lessons with Morgan and the boys, JJ and Hotch solidified their new status as a couple. To JJ's surprise, Jess was extremely supportive of the change; she knew that Haley's sister had likely heard some of the same suspicions that the late woman had expressed to JJ herself, but Jess was happy for them and for the fact that Jack had another woman's presence in his life. By the time Hotch and Rossi had finagled a way for JJ to return to the BAU (with full disclosure of their new relationship to the brass-thank God Strauss was on her leave of absence) and JJ had begun to take the required profiling classes, the two had practically moved in together. Rossi had been informed of their new status when the two men connived to get her back onto the team, but the others were so preoccupied with tracking down Doyle that they failed to register the slight changes in the behavior of their Unit Chief and the newest profiler. Even Garcia failed to register the changes in her best friend, though she did find out about the break-up with Will when JJ had her sign the forms authorizing her to pick up Henry at Jess's house when they were away on a case. It was a testament to how much the search distracted her that she didn't grill JJ for more information than was offered.
In all actuality, the changes in their behavior would have been more remarkable had the team noticed that the two actually seemed to drift apart in the office rather than become closer. They'd had several conversations about the need to keep their relationship out of the office as much as possible, not only for the sake of peace with the brass but for their own sanity as well. They even went so far as to deliberately break their old habit of sitting next to each other at the conference table and on the jet, so as not to distract the team. JJ did question him once as to why he never assigned her to accompany him anymore and his resulting explanation made sense on several levels: by pairing her up with Morgan or Rossi she was getting better exposure to the field work of a profiler than if he'd accompanied her, due to his protective tendencies and the need to avoid the appearance of favoritism. While he did assign her to accompany Prentiss or Reid on occasion, he trusted Dave and Morgan most to keep her safe in the field when he wasn't there. As to not making use of her skills in handling the media, that was so that the team, himself included, wouldn't fall back into old habits and deny her the field experience she needed in favor of her former role of press-wrangling, though he did promise to transition some of those duties back to her once she was more settled in her new role. She'd already begun splitting the work of shortlisting the cases down at home with him, freeing him up to handle the calls from the locals at the office and for more family time at home with the boys. All in all, things were going remarkably smoothly, until just before Valentine's Day…..