Penelope wondered if anything could possible get any worse. It had been a horrible day right from the start, and now at the end, she just wanted to crawl into bed and sleep the weekend away. However, she was still waiting for the team to come back so that she could talk to Hotch. He had said that there was something important that they had to discuss, and so here she was, twiddling her thumbs as she awaited their return.
Finally, though, she heard voices going past her door and knew that there was a light at the end of her tunnel. Standing quickly, she grabbed her purse and scurried over to the door, opening it to look around. Derek and Reid were gathered around Kate's desk, while JJ and Rossi were talking about something in the doorway to his office. Which meant that Hotch was alone, and she could possibly get out of there in the next twenty minutes if all went well.
Heading over to his door, she reached up and knocked softly, waiting to hear his low voice beckon her inside. "Just head right in, Kitten, he's expecting you," Rossi called out, and she smiled and waved to him before doing just that.
The lamp on his desk haloed his head and she smiled a little wider as she took a seat in front of his desk, waiting for him to speak. Hotch's pen glided across the paper in front of him effortlessly, and Penelope found herself staring at the motion. The scrutiny must have gotten to him, since he looked up and met her eyes before she had a chance to look away, and she blushed deeply as her eyes darted away. "You said that you wanted to see me, Sir?" she asked softly, still looking down at her lap.
A long silence stretched out as she waited for him to say something, anything, and she began to fidget in the chair, wondering what was going on. "Sorry, I just wanted to get this final thought down before it escaped my mind. I've been a little distracted while on this case."
"Is it about my job performance?" she asked, knowing that she had been a bit distracted in the last few months. But it had been hard to adjust to the third change in personnel in as many years, and while she did like Kate, she wasn't Emily, and she wasn't Alex. There were things about the other two women that she missed immensely, and she couldn't keep that regret from bleeding into her interactions with the newbie.
There must have been something in her voice that caused him to react, as she heard the pen drop to the desk. Looking up, she saw that he was watching her with the same intensity that she had shown him moments before. She bit her lip as she shrugged a little, and he shook his head. "No, this has nothing to do with your job performance, Garcia. I have a more personal request to ask of you. I'm certain that it's gotten through the office grapevine that my relationship with Beth has come to an end."
She nodded before she could think twice about it, and then blushed guiltily. "Yeah, it was sort of the take of the day."
"That's okay, I know how people love to talk."
"I defended you, Sir, the best that I could. The others, they don't understand what's happened to us, how much pressure we're under." A warm smile flickered over his face before he settled back into his more taciturn look. "Do you want me to ruin her credit? Or perhaps make it look like a painting she authenticated is actually a fake? Name it, and I will carry it out."
Hotch shook his head a little before bowing his head. As she watched, his shoulders started to shake a little, and then he burst into a full laugh. It was so good to hear his mirth, since it seemed like it had been so long since she had experienced that from him, and so it was very easy to join him in that. "Oh, Penelope, I don't need something quite so serious. I just need you to set up a read receipt on the next few emails that I'm going to send her. I made the mistake of gifting her with my grandmother's cameo brooch, because I thought we were going to get married. I really want to keep that piece of jewelry in the family, and I'm willing to pay to get it back. I'm not so certain that she's going to read said emails, so I need to have some proof on my side that she did receive them before I resort to a certified letter."
Penelope relaxed instantly upon hearing those words drop from his lips, and she grinned as she nodded. "That is probably one of the easiest requests you've ever given me, Hotch. And if you want to follow me, I can get that set up for you before you even leave the office tonight."
He nodded and they stood up together. Slinging her purse back over her shoulder once more, she followed him out onto the narrow hall and back towards her office. Looking out over the bullpen, she noticed that everyone on their team's desk lamps were off, and she sighed at once again being the last to leave. "Looks like it's just us left," Hotch said lowly in her ear as she unlocked her door, causing her to jump. There was something electric about the caress of his lips against her skin, and she fought to keep from shuddering as she turned the knob and let them in.
"It does," she managed to stammer out as she dropped the purse onto the floor next to her, taking a seat in her chair and booting up her personal computer. As she kept her gaze on the monitor, she drew in a deep breath through her nostrils as he rested his hands on her shoulder. It was a familiar touch, one that she hadn't realized she'd been missing in her life until she was feeling it. "So, what client do you use for email, Aaron?"
"Aren't you just going to assume that I use my professional one?"
She shook her head vigorously. "Dude, you are so not the stupid type. Rossi, well, I had to teach him the ins and outs of why it doesn't do to have personal mix with professional when those pictures that he and Erin took were almost sent Bureau wide. Luckily, he only got so far as sending them to me."
There was a long pause, and then Hotch was clearing his throat. "He…also texted some to me. I figured it was a joke at the time."
"Oh, thank God I wasn't the only one that saw them. But I so did not realize Erin was quite as flexible as she is. Or that she liked handling a whip. She does look damn good in black patent leather, though."
Hotch choked as he sucked in a short breath before letting out a hacking laugh, his hands tightening around her shoulders almost painfully. "I know! I mean, I knew that they were adventurous, but there were things that I wasn't really certain I wanted to know about their sex life. I couldn't quite figure out who that woman wearing a mask in two of those pictures was, though."
It was her turn to choke on her breath, and she pursed her lips to keep from spilling the one secret that Erin had begged her not to tell. "I have no idea, Hotch, and if you press me any further, I'll have to plead the fifth."
"Duly noted. So, anyway, I use Gmail for my private email correspondence." Nodding, she quickly called up the client and then passed the keyboard back to him so that he could sign in without her knowing his password. "Here," he said once he had finished, and she took the keyboard back and began to tap at it furiously as she wrote a script for her to track his emails.
"All right, now comes the part where I ask you to trust me. I'm going to store your login information on my computer for two weeks. Do you think that will be enough time for her to get back to you?"
Hotch came around to sit on the open corner of her desk. "If I didn't trust you, I wouldn't ask you to do this for me, Penelope." She nodded, feeling her eyes grow large as he leaned in. And then, instead of the kiss on the lips that she had thought she was going to receive, he brushed his lips against her forehead. It was a tender gesture, and she sighed as she let a silly smile spread across her lips.
"That's good to know, Boss Man," she finally whispered before saving the information and then rooting around in his contact list. A few of the names surprised her, and she surreptitiously copied Gideon's information so that she could forward it to Reid later on. "Where did you put her? I thought her last name was Clemmons?"
"It is. I had a fit of pique when we broke up and renamed her. Look under W, for Wicked Wench."
"That's it, you've been hanging around me way too much, Aaron. That is so something I would say." She looked up at him and caught the wink he threw her way. Feeling her cheeks flush once more, she focused on the monitor and found her name in the contact list and added the tag to her coding program. "All right, it's all set. I'll just login in every other day to check if she's sent you anything or if she's read the email you've sent."
"Perfect. Thank you so much for doing this for me, Penelope." He went to kiss her forehead once more, and she moved at the wrong time, so they ended up kissing on the lips instead. It was a nice kiss, as far as they went, and she didn't protest when his arms closed around her neck, holding her close as the kiss lingered on.
"Well, that was unexpected," she whispered when she finally broke the kiss, smiling up at his face to let him know that everything was all right.
"It was." He seemed breathless and flustered, exactly the way that she felt, and they began to laugh in unison as they stood up. It was nothing to step into his warm embrace, breathing in the spicy scent of his aftershave. "Um, would you like to head out for a nightcap? Maybe not drinks, but coffee or something?"
It didn't take her long to make up her mind. "I'd really like that, Aaron. There's a fabulous little diner that I found a few weeks ago, when I was all Kummerspeck over my breakup with Sam."
"Kummerspeck?" he asked as he picked up her purse and handed it to her.
"Yeah, it's this great German word that literally means grief bacon. In other words, the overeating we do when we're emotional." He nodded and she shrugged a little as she slid her hand into the crook of his elbow, letting him lead her out to the elevators.
"This is going to sound odd," he said once the door to the elevator slid closed on them, and she glanced up at him, awaiting the question he wanted to ask her. "And I don't want to think that this would be a rebound fling. But, would you like to go out on a date sometime soon?"
A warm feeling spread out in the pit of her stomach as she gave him a small nod. "I think that I would, Aaron. After all, it would mean that I could get a few more of those wonderful kisses from you." He quirked any eyebrow up at that, and she grinned widely. "I mean, if you want to kiss me again, that is," she teased.
"Hmm, I'll have to think about that one, Penelope," he said before leaning down and kissing her deeply. "Yes, I think that I will want to kiss you again."
"Good," she replied before letting her head come to rest against his arm, a contented sigh slipping from her lips as she contemplated how people could get under your skin, until you didn't realize you'd been missing them all along when they were gone. And now, with Aaron here and in her arms, she hoped that she'd never be missing him again.