She gazed at the coffee mug, the ceramic white shining in the light of the darkened office. It was plain, nondescript and told nothing of its owner. 'Just the way he would want it' she thought, smiling slightly in spite of herself. Moving around the desk, she hovered above the neatly stacked files afraid in case she caused an avalanche, that would be a great thing to have to explain to your boss "Yeah I came here to check out your stuff and ended up destroying it, please don't make me get a psych eval, honestly I'm sane!"
Looking at the neat desk she had to conclude that Aaron Hotchner was a mystery. Everything he did cloaked behind the mask of 'protocol' and 'line of duty'. Even after working with him for years she could barely read the man. He had successfully separated his personal and professional self…
Wait, that's not true.
She remembered his reaction to Hailey's death, what happened when she stumbled up him: bloody and just having beaten a man to death. That alone had been enough to shock her, to shake her ability to compartmentalise and make her see what happened when personal and professional lives crashed together. Seeing Hotch like that, the wild look in his eyes as Morgan told him it was over had made her realise that there was more to the man than she thought. He needed someone to help him open up, to move on. Maybe she wasn't the right person but there weren't many options, and she was sure Morgan, Reid or Rossi never thought of him in that way. That was just, for want of a better word, ew.
"Emily?" Hotch sounded surprised, closing the door gently behind him, "What are you doing here?"
"I just came to hand in my write up of the Myers case," replied Emily smoothly, handing over the report.
"Thanks," said Hotch, placing it on his desk, "Is everything alright?" His eyes darkened slightly with worry. Typical, worried about her and not himself.
"Yes," said Emily, injecting a little confusion into her voice. She should have known he would see through her lie. It probably never helped that the file showed signs of damage indicating it hadn't actually been done a few minutes ago. She was going to kill Morgan…
"Sorry, what?" asked Emily, coming back to the land of the conscious and realising Hotch was in the middle of saying something.
"I was just saying that we are due a few days leave and to make the most of it," repeated Hotch, smiling slightly at her dazed expression.
"I always do," she said with a smile, hearing him chuckle before turning his attention to his reports. Opening the door she descended into the bullpen, seeing Morgan throw a paper airplane at Reid.
"Actually if you decrease the volume of ink it should fly better, the ink, although to us weighs almost nothing, on a paper airplane can hamper flight quite significantly," said Reid, twirling the plane in his hands - Morgan had drawn smiley faces on the wings.
"Says the guy with three PhD's," teased Morgan, making another, being sure to add extra ink.
"Oh hey Emily, what did you want with Hotch?" asked Reid, noticing her presence for the first time.
"I had to hand in files and he said we were due some leave," replied Emily, sitting at her desk and seeing crumpled up bits of paper - no doubt prototypes for the planes Morgan was taking great delight in throwing at Reid.
"Did I just hear all the women in Quantico sigh in relief?" asked Morgan smugly.
"More like in resignation," interjected Reid, earning another plane from Morgan.
"Hey, no need to wound me like that Reid," retorted Morgan, grabbing his heart dramatically.
"No! No way! I did not just see you throw that at my junior g-man!" came Garcia's voice, walking through the door seconds later.
"It was Prentiss!" defended Morgan quickly, cowering slightly at the sight of their technical analyst.
"Well let me just pull up the CCTV and we'll see about that," said Garcia sweetly, poison lacing her words.
"What are you doing here Garcia?" asked Emily, drawing her wrath away from him.
"You. Me. Lunch. Now," said Garcia by way of an answer.
"If I refuse?" asked Emily, knowing she wouldn't but curious as to what the bubbly young woman would do. After Morgan's pay check had 'disappeared' for a few weeks they were all quite wary of her and her flamingo shaped pens.
"You know that dress you've wanted for ages but not really had anything to wear it to?" asked Garcia.
"Yes," of course she meant that tight fitting red dress she had had her eye on.
"It might be temporarily out of stock around about the time of your mother's birthday," threatened Garcia.
"I'm coming," said Emily quickly, much to Morgan's relief and Reid's amusement.
Sitting in the cosy restaurant, Emily poked her pasta with a fork, waiting for the thing to crawl off her plate and head for the hills. The place had good service but the food… the less said the better. Emily was sure that even she could cook something better than this - judging by what she did to her porridge that morning that was saying something.
"So, Emily I know what you're planning for our fearless leader come the holidays," said Garcia, taking a sip of her strawberry and kiwi smoothie. Her voice was so calm that it took Emily a few moments to realise what she had said.
"Excuse me?"
"I know that you plan to force him to 'unwind' and I want to help you," Emily caught the smirk lacing the word unwind and grimaced.
"Am I that obvious?" she asked, a slight blush forming over her cheeks.
"I only know because JJ told me," confessed Garcia, "She thought you could use a little help." As much as she wanted to kill the blonde media liaison officer she knew she was right. Emily had no idea how to do this bar going to Hotch's house and saying "Hi can I come in? Great, now how about we talk about your dead ex-wife and how I want to fuck your brains out." No, she could never, ever do that. Even thinking about it made her cringe.
"And you want to help how?" asked Emily, wondering where the technical analyst was taking this.
"Well… I was thinking about organising a little team night out," said Garcia.
"Meaning you already have," translated Emily, smiling a little at her friend's eagerness.
"I may have already okayed it with Jessica," said Garcia, a guilty look flashing across her features.
"So what are we going to do then?" asked Emily, feeling there was more to the plan than this. She was right.
"I've already ordered that little red dress for you," again the guilty look made an appearance.
"I'll pay you back," said Emily automatically, popping a ravioli in her mouth an grimacing slightly.
"Its fine, if our Boss man is happy then cost, in my opinion, is no issue," said Garcia seriously, taking a large slurp from her smoothie for emphasis.
"I can't believe you want me to seduce our boss," sighed Emily.
"No, not seduce. You need to get his interest and then he can make the next move. He has to make the first move," said Garcia, speaking like a general commanding troops than a friend organising a seduction.
"How will I do that?" asked Emily, not really liking where this was going.
"Well…" started Garcia.
A/N: Okay I have to say that this was initially going to be serious but my inner (hopefully good) comic couldn't resist. I've never written anything like this before and I hope you want me to continue, I'm quite enjoying it!
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Criminal Minds.
I apologise for any spelling and/or grammar mistakes contained within this chapter.
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