A/N: Writer's Block

Two seemingly harmless little words unless you are a writer trying to put something legible and interesting together. But I continued to push through and the results are as follows. I hope it doesn't disappoint and that the block stays missing for a long time to come.

Then there are the reviewers; those wonderful, wonderful people who are so incredibly supportive. Thanks in abundance go out to Hazmatt, HGRHfan35, HPforever-after, babygurl0506 and Aisling N for your wonderful words and encouragements. I hope you haven't given up on me and this meets all expectations.

Rated M for sex scenes and mild coarse language.

PLEASE NOTE: This is NPH 17. If you aren't already following this series, I recommend that you make your way to my author profile page and start with NPH 1, as some or all of this will not make sense otherwise.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Criminal Minds at all, although they do own me and I do own Carrie and Toby, Chloe and India, Kelly and Brad and Ben.

Coming Home

The quiet of the house was a peace unsurpassed by anything in the last two weeks. There were no babies crying, no children clamouring for her attention, no adults dependant on her care to get by and no guests making far too much commotion for the occasion. It was simple, peaceful serenity.

Because everyone was asleep.

Chloe and India were snuggled in their cots in the nursery. Jack and Toby were sound asleep in Jack's bed; Toby offering a comfort that his best friend and 'brother' sorely needed after recent events. Carrie had retired to her room 5 minutes ago and Aaron was out like a light the moment his head had touched the pillow an hour ago.

And now her time was her own to decompress from the day. Though it was her own silly fault for offering to host the 'Welcome Home and Get Better Soon' combined party that Austin suggested they have when everyone returned from the hospital in Colorado so she really shouldn't complain. She'd only offered though because she had the biggest space to fit everyone in and though Dave's backyard space was bigger, the cooler weather and the threat of rain with sleet meant that her bigger indoor space was better.

Though the chaos had been just a little bit fun once she and Aaron had finally joined the party...

The Conversation That Started It All

Looking around the crowded cafeteria, Emily sighed tiredly. She was hungry enough to get food and take it up to sit with Aaron despite being royally scolded just yesterday for eating food he wasn't currently allowed where he could be tempted. He'd not-so-subtly suggested she find somewhere else to eat. And she couldn't take it outside today and eat on the lawn despite the cold because it was also raining again. So that left her struggling to find a seat in a busy room. At least she had her food already; though at the rate she was going, it would be cold before she got to eat it.

A flash of colour to her left caught her attention and she saw Austin waving at her vigorously from across the room. She smiled her relief and walked across the room. She'd liked Reid's fiancée the moment she'd met her and that liking had simply increased over time, through their wedding and their married life together. The woman was utterly perfect for the awkward boy-genius they all knew and loved; she ignored his awkwardness and built up the parts of him he needed to become the confident young man they all knew he could be. And her sense of fun and love of life was definitely rubbing off on all of them as she integrated well with everyone and lightened the often-heavy group atmosphere.

"Hey Em. I filched a chair for you as soon as I saw you."

She smiled and dropped with a tired sigh into the chair.

"Are you alright? You look like you're dead on your feet?"

She shook her head and muttered, "I've got a nurse ordering me to eat for my own benefit or else I won't be allowed back in to see Aaron, so let me eat please and then question me."

There was a momentary lull in the conversation and then Teresa turned to Brad and asked a question that relaunched the conversation they'd been having before Austin spotted Emily across the busy open area.

"So the doctors are absolutely certain that Kelly will walk again?"

He smiled and nodded happily. "There is no doubt in anyone's mind now that she will fully recover. It'll probably just take a little time but I'm guessing that is exactly what everyone is hearing at the moment."

Emily closed out the noise and concentrated on the food she was suddenly ravenous for. Damn that nurse and her know-it-all smile; she'd be smug as anything when she found out a single bite was all she needed to get her started and now she wished she'd bought more at the counter. When the second half of a sandwich appeared on her plate, she merely smiled slightly at Brad in thanks and continued eating. By the time she'd completely finished her lunch, she'd had her salad, Brad's sandwich half, the rest of Austin pumpkin soup and bread roll and the veggies on Kevin's plate that he wouldn't touch because they'd been steamed and not baked.

She settled back with a contented sigh as they all hid smiles of amusement.

"As to your question Teresa, I am dead on my feet. Between looking after Aaron during the day and looking after Jack when he has his nightmare's at night, I'm not getting nearly enough sleep. The nurse has said I can come back this afternoon after eating something but she doesn't want to see me tomorrow at all. I'm to stay at the B&B and sleep all day while Jack is being looked after by everyone else."

"Are you going to fight that? Cause I can back her up if need be."

She grinned at Brad. "Nah, I'll be a good little girl. I didn't think she was right about the eating thing until I started eating so I'm assuming she'll be right about the sleeping thing too. As long as I can be sure Jack is in good hands. And besides, I think Aaron's getting sick of my hovering."

"I'm sure Aaron's not sick of you at all and we'll make sure Jack is well looked after. In fact, I'll keep him for the day and take him in to entertain Reid. He's going a little stir-crazy stuck in bed as he is so Jack will probably be a welcome distraction."

"Thanks Austin; if you're sure it won't be too much for you, I know Jack would love that."

"Are you kidding me? I love the little guy to pieces and it'll be good practice for me for when I can talk Reid into having kids."

Everyone laughed at that and the conversation turned to when everyone would be released from the hospital.

"You know what we should do right?" Austin suddenly said. When everyone looked at her blankly, she laughed and continued, "We should have a combined welcome home and get well party in a couple of weeks. I just don't know exactly where."

Emily chewed it over in her head and then sighed when she noticed the gleam in Austin's eyes. "My place is really the only viable option. I mean, Dave's backyard is bigger, but a few weeks from now we won't want to be outside and I guess since I have more children to coral than anyone else, that should also be taken into consideration. How many people are we talking about?"

Austin bit her lip and shrugged. "I was thinking it could just be all of us and our immediate families. And nothing too fancy; just something casual and fun and without a set finish time, just in case someone wants or needs to leave early. Then you can kick everyone out when you're ready because you're the hostess. So what do you think?"

I Should Say NO…

"You boys know better than to run!" Emily shouted after Jack and Toby as they bolted down the hall past her.

"And you know better than to shout in the house," came Aaron's amused response from behind her right before he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back into him. She pushed her hips back into his as he nuzzled her neck, sighing in delight at the contact even as she thought about breaking it for his benefit.

"And you both know better than to engage in questionable activities in front of me," Carrie said as she appeared in the door of the kitchen. "Either quit it or take it upstairs and I'll greet everyone when they arrive."

"No we'll…"

"We'll be quick," Aaron interrupted.

She shot him an amused look as he took her hand and hauled her upstairs behind him. She looked back at Carrie at the top of the stairs and saw the younger woman laughing softly. Then she was being pulled around and into their bedroom and was being kissed senseless as she was walked backwards. Her knees hit the bed and Aaron gave her shoulders a light shove, overbalancing her enough that she landed on her back.

"Aaron we can't."

He raised an eyebrow as he peeled off his shirt, causing her breath to catch in her throat as she took in the now mostly faded cuts and bruises on his muscled torso. "Do you have your period?"

She frowned slightly as he got to work on the button and zipper at the top of his jeans. "Ah, no, but we can't…" she gasped as he pushed the jeans and his underwear down in one extremely smooth and sexy move to reveal the perfect length of him swollen and eagerly springing towards her. The inner muscles in the wall of her femininity started screaming at her to shut up and submit while her brain struggled to hold on to the reason why they shouldn't be doing this.

"Okay, so no period. Come on Emily; unless you give me a decent reason why we shouldn't have absolutely incredible mind-blowing sex in the next 30 seconds, we will be having sex."

She stared up at this man she'd married and wondered if she'd ever really known him as he ran a hand down his chest and cupped himself. She knew she should be saying no for a very good reason but as he gently squeezed and released his hand around his manhood, she couldn't for the life of her remember what that reason was.

The 'Aha!' Moment

"Well Em? I'm waiting."

She pulled her eyes away from his groin and stared into his warm brown eyes. The cells in her brain had completely scrambled and turned into fizzy nothingness in her head and trying to think about what Aaron could possibly still be waiting for was utterly useless.

He could obviously see this because he shifted his hands to his hips and smiled gently. "Should I ask the question again?"

"Huh?"

He chuckled deep in his chest, drawing her eyes back down to the masculine contours she knew so well…and the fading scars and bruises that reminded her of why she should stop this now despite the utter need screaming through her body.

He opened his mouth to rephrase the question but she beat him to it.

"We can't do this because you're still recuperating. I can clearly see that your scars and bruises are fading and nearly gone, but you had cracked ribs and you still get crippling headaches if you overexert yourself. So even if we could work around your ribs, which by the way is extremely doable, this would definitely come under the category of overexertion. I would have to leave you here resting miserably with the pain and though I might have achieved satisfaction in time, I would be walking around with a bucket-load of guilt over having caused the man I love more than any other such excruciating pain. So that's why we can't do this."

He felt a thrill of joy rush through him as she finished her so-sincere declaration of her love for him. Pushing thoughts of how truly lucky he was to the back of his head, he realised that he wasn't going to get what he desperately wanted in that moment unless he was very, very sneaky.

The Seduction

He sighed softly and moved to sit beside her on the bed. Leaning forward, he gently shifted her hair back from her face and stroked his fingers through her hair slowly as an idea formed in his head. As it solidified, he smiled as her eyes drifted shut and a soft sigh of pleasure came from her plump, red lips. He continued to feather his fingers through her hair, watching as her entire body relaxed under his touch. When he was certain she was somewhere else and not prepared to argue in a hurry, he shifted his touch from her hair to her face and gently traced her bone structure. She really was exquisite, particularly when she was so relaxed like this and it wasn't often that he had the time to indulge like this.

He leaned forward and stole a tender kiss that she responded to immediately and with more than a little heat. But he knew she still wasn't ready to let go without a fight yet so he pulled back and slid his hands into her hair and cradling her head, urged her to sit up. She did so slowly, her eyelids sliding up to reveal glazed brown eyes that watched him lazily. He stole another slow kiss as he shifted to straddle her thighs and continued to comb her soft, thick hair. He loved the textures that made her the woman she was; she was, to put it simply, perfect. He shifted to trail his fingers down her neck and around to the back of her shoulders, kneading the silky skin he found there. As she moaned, he drifted his fingers over her shoulders and down her arms.

He knew she was feeling just as deprived and starved for this contact as he was. Sex had ceased from the sixth month of her pregnancy; the pain the sexual contact caused her hadn't been worth his own release. Then the twins had been born and his breakdown had occurred and now more recently the plane crash that had nearly claimed them all. So in the last six months, they'd come together a total of 7 or 8 times in between his cases and when all the children had been asleep. And though the intimacy in the relationship was still high, it had mostly been lacking from the bedroom, their couplings far too desperately rushed to be considered worth mentioning. This time, he was intending to slow things down and reclaim what they'd lost somewhere along the way. Even if it meant the party started without them. This was far more important. She was the most important part of all.

He continued to kiss her slowly, leisurely almost as he stroked the bare skin he could reach and as he stroked, he felt her hands come to rest lightly on his chest, her fingers stroking with a butterfly's lightness across his skin. He ignored his body's urgings and kept the pace slow and easy and after a while she must have figured out that he wasn't going to touch her where her clothing was because she leaned back from his touch and pulled her top over her head. She tossed it to the side as she sought his mouth out anew, attempting to deepen the kiss and press in closer. He ignored this move on her part and kept his movements the same, his kisses equally light. He drifted his fingers in from her shoulders and down her chest, stopping at the edge of the lace on her bra and drifting down her midriff and around to her side before gliding lightly up her arms again with the same pace. It was killing him to go so slow, but as he felt her bra give at her own movements, he somehow thought it wouldn't be too much longer before they both got what he knew they both wanted.

To Hell With It

She couldn't actually remember being quite so turned on before in her entire life. She knew in the back on her mind that this wasn't the case at all, but in this moment here and now, it felt like she'd been dying her entire life for this. Concern still jumped up and down, screaming to be heard, but the noise was fading under the pleasure of having Aaron's full attention focused solely on her for the first time in months. This was not to say he was ever divided in bed between her and some outside source of concern; just that when you were in a hurry because someone might come home or wake up from a nap at an inopportune moment, or you had to be quiet so as not to affect anyone else around you, it took away a lot of the intimacy and connection that she was feeling here and now.

The palms of his hands brushed over her newly bared and still incredibly sensitive breasts and she moaned as the pleasure of this so-simple touch sent lightning shooting down to her core. The realisation of just how deprived she'd been, that such a simple touch in a place that didn't normally do so much for her, snapped the last ounce of self-control she had, silencing completely that little voice that said she could be about to cause Aaron pain.

Yeah Baby!

Without breaking her contact with Aaron, she eased up enough to undo her jeans. The realisation that she would need to practically peel off her jeans, that they were too tight to just slip out of without standing up almost made her sob with desperation as she tore her mouth away from his and stood.

These jeans were an older pair that had once been baggy on her figure. But now with her fuller shape, a remnant from her pregnancy she'd realised she might not be able to fully lose, the jeans hugged her figure lovingly; which was great when she was standing up and Aaron was admiring her ass and not so great when she wanted to get the pants off in a hurry.

With the desperation to be skin to skin hazing her vision and causing her body to shake in anticipation, she staggered slightly as she tripped over some piece of clothing already on the ground. As she pitched forward, a moment of clarity gripped her mind and she felt amusement that not only was Aaron about to have his wicked way with her, but she was now prepared to do whatever was necessary to help him accomplish this.

Then she was in his arms, her head pillowed on his shoulder as his arms cradled her close.

"Easy love. We have all the time in the world for this. Carrie is perfectly capable of handling our guests and at any rate, we had an hour before they were due to arrive."

"I wish they weren't arriving at all now," she muttered rebelliously as she lifted a hand to stroke his cheek.

He grinned and turned his head, placing a light kiss to the centre of her palm. "Relax into this and don't rush it. It'll happen and to hell with the rest; they can just bloody well wait."

She gaped at him for a moment at the use of his language before giving in to a bubble of laughter. The laughter dammed in her throat as she felt his hand slide inside her jeans to trace along the top of her panties. Her breath hitched a moment before his mouth claimed hers in a kiss she more than matched.

Somewhere in the kiss, he got her out of the rest of her clothing and laid her back on the bed. He continued kissing her as if he too couldn't get enough of the action while his hands continued tracing over her body. She moaned and writhed under him, completely oblivious to what might be happening in the rest of the house; he had well and truly achieved his intended goal if it had been to have her mindless and boneless underneath him. Particularly when he hadn't even gotten to the best part.

"I have this desperate desire to kiss the entire surface of your body but your lips are a drug I can't find the strength to put aside. How do you do that?"

She swam up from her foggy mind at the realisation that he was talking to her and tried to focus on the question and how best to answer it.

"Perhaps only you have the answers to that one beloved heart; after all, you know how I see myself."

"Mmm, very true. I can't fathom in this moment how you couldn't possibly see yourself as a beautiful, entirely too desirable woman. And your lips; if I could write poetry I could finally do your lips justice."

She smiled up at him and tugged his head down. "Your kisses are like poetry and you're doing just fine in the justice department for me to be happy with this interruption in what you've started. So bring your lips back here and we'll write poetry together."

He grinned at her as he kissed her again and slid his hands down her sides. She really was beautiful and where all she saw was leftover baby-body fat, he saw a greater expanse of skin he could lavish his hungry attentions on.

Somewhere in the kissing and the touching, he rolled her up on top of him and slid into her secret depths, where heaven was constantly being recreated and the pull of flying called him on to greater heights as she moved around and over him. He lifted his hands to cup her face and she pulled back slightly from the kiss, her eyes staring deeply into his as they moved as one unit. What he saw in her eyes would have brought him to his knees if he'd been standing and as it was, it was the catalyst that threw him over the edge and into blissful oblivion. And as he soared off the edge of the precipice, he was aware that she followed him, her eyes still locked with his as they cried out in the ecstasy of the moment.

The Party

Silence fell in the open dining area as the noises from the upstairs bedroom escalated and all eyes turned to Carrie. She blushed red at the pointed stares, but took a moment to reassure the children that nothing was wrong before she looked round at the gathered adults and shrugged.

"I told you; they're upstairs reconnecting. They obviously don't feel they need to hide what they're up to."

"They're connecting all right," Derek muttered as he wished strongly for a pair of earplugs and took a long pull on his beer. Jordan whacked his arm and told him to behave and Teresa suggested brightly that they go into the living area and put on some music despite the deep red staining her own cheeks.

Austin liked this idea and suggested dancing could also be fun. The children of course thought this was a brilliant idea and fully supported the move to the adjoining area by urging the adults to move faster. Soon the house was filled with music, and the sounds of the spectators urging on the dancers.

It was another hour before Emily and Aaron appeared in the opening to the large open living area. A slow song had pulled almost everyone out onto the floor; Austin perched on Reid's good leg and he was slowly moving the chair back and forth as they gazed into each others' eyes. Even Toby, Jack and Henry were pretending to be doing a slow dance, though they kept spoiling it by pulling faces at each other and dissolving into giggles. Carrie stood against the wall near the blanket placed on the ground for the three babies to lie on and smiled fondly as she watched the boys closely. Kelly and Brad were sitting on a couch and generally ignoring what was going on around them as they talked quietly with each other.

They accepted the teasing and good-natured grumbling over their obvious lateness to a party they were supposed to be hosting with grace and joined in the dancing. The music was turned down to a more comfortable volume for everyone to enjoy and some people moved off the 'dance floor' to strike up conversations. From the dancing they went to sit down to dinner and conversation that meandered through topics ranging from the crash and their various recoveries to what they were all intending to do for Christmas. Then there were cards and small gifts to be given out followed by dessert.

Despite the energy on display across the afternoon, the truth of the matter was that half the group were still recuperating and so by 9, the party broke up in favour of everyone getting an early nights' sleep.

Aftermath

Unable to sleep after seeing everyone either off or into bed, she'd settled onto the bench seat at the picture window facing the backyard as she recalled her time spent with Aaron that afternoon with a near constant smile. The knowledge that for all they'd done and there was not a moment of pain in his head had almost driven the knowledge of their guests from both their minds and if it hadn't been for the volume of the music drifting through the house from the living area, they probably wouldn't have left the room for the rest of the day.

Truly feeling as if her family had all safely come home and that life was finally back on track, she pushed up off the bench and headed off to bed and the man she intended spending the rest of her life loving with everything she had.

End-

A/N: With luck the next piece won't take as long as this one did to come out. :s

Please review with the conveniently placed link right under these words. I love to know what you think and it makes me type faster and update quicker (and hopefully it'll help keep the block away too).