"Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, "It might have been."
Kurt Vonnegut
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Chapter One – Winter
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Haley was summer.
She was Jack at the beach for the first time, disbelieving that anything could be as endless as the ocean. She was hair turned golden by the hot sun. She was warmth and coming home to the sound of crickets' songs floating through the house through windows left open to coax in a stray breeze.
Haley was summer, and summer was ending.
After Haley, Jack asked to be read to. Hotch wasn't yet at the point where he could say no to his son, not when Haley's blood still stained his hands, and he'd have given him so much more than just a story if he could. But he couldn't, no one could, and so he read.
'Summer is over and gone,' they sang, he read without flinching, and the crickets in the grass outside Jack's open window mocked him by reading along. 'Over and gone, over and gone. Summer is dying, dying.'
He'd stop reading eventually and Jack would ask him why Charlotte had to die.
He never really worked out how to answer that.
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When Emily had begun at the BAU, she'd immediately pegged Aaron Hotchner as the kind of man who refused to allow himself to feel emotions. Everything, from his meticulously ironed shirts to his meticulously expressionless face, screamed 'I am seriously repressing some shit.'
And Emily was not the kind of woman who found that sexy. She didn't need her men brooding or damaged or grim.
As it turned out, she was wrong a lot when it came to this particular man.
Aaron Hotchner was many, many things—damaged and brooding were very likely two of those things—but emotionless was most certainly not one of them.
He laughed on the jet. It was one laugh, and she'd heard him laugh before, but there was something different about this one. She couldn't remember what it was about, only that Reid had caused it, and looked shyly delighted to have done so. She couldn't remember what day it was, or the case, or even what any of them were wearing on that particular trip.
She remembered the laugh, because it was startled and real, and they joined in because it was impossible not to.
She remembered the laugh because that was the day she realized he was exactly her kind of sexy.
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The first day of winter, she'd asked him offhand about a book. He'd answered without thinking, stating he hadn't read it.
"I don't find much time to read," he'd said to her with a tired smile from across his desk. She'd leaned back in the chair and smiled tightly and hadn't mentioned it again.
The next day, she dropped the book onto his files. "I believe," she said with a grin, and later he'd note that the book smelled of her perfume, "That you should always find time to read. It's one of the few things people should always find time for."
She'd left without another word and he found himself carrying the book home that night tucked in his hand against his coat. It found its way to the kitchen counter while he cooked dinner, and he paged through the first chapter curiously as the soup bubbled and Jack babbled about his day at school.
It found its way to the living room coffee table as Jack did his geography homework on the floor, his books and pens and maps strewn around him and making him look startlingly like Reid during a case. Hotch read the next two chapters on a whim while Jack patiently outlined each letter on his poster of the world in different coloured glitter pen.
It found its way, finally, to his bedside cupboard, and he stayed up almost irresponsibly late to finish it. He fell asleep with the book on his chest, and it slipped down the side of his bed to fall open on a singular passage when he awoke.
A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.
He handed her back the book that day and she was startled that he'd finished it already.
"I made the time," he said, and for some reason she flushed and looked down and away.
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It was the second day of winter, and the beginning.
She blamed it on the alcohol, but she was pretty sure it was entirely her fault.
They went out after a case, a horrible case—but weren't they all? —and even JJ was drinking quicker than usual, her blue eyes sombre. Morgan and Rossi both vanished within the hour, off to ply the women of the bar, and Reid vanished within the next, off to find a wall to hide against. She drunk one drink probably named after a sex position or weapon, and then drunk another because it stopped tasting shit after the fourth mouthful.
Then she went to find Reid, because he'd looked ill lately and she was a natural, secret, worrier. She'd never tell him that though.
"Drink this," she instructed him when she found him, as expected, curled up in a corner booth with a scotch and a book. He stared at the drink offered, and she held it up and watched his face waver through the pink liquid.
"It's pink," he stated bluntly, and took the glass. One eyebrow shot up. You learned that from Hotch, she thought with a silent laugh, followed by, I wonder where Hotch is, followed shortly once more by, don't go and find him, Prentiss, you're drunk.
"No shit," she said instead of walking away, and sat next to him heavily. "It tastes great," she lied moments after, even though it was mean, because he always looked so woeful when he was playfully sad, and she liked seeing that expression on him.
The pink vanished in a long swallow, and she tried and failed not to laugh as his throat worked to understand what he'd just consumed, his eyes widening. He choked. "That's awful," he spluttered, reaching for his scotch to chase it. Which, as she could probably warn him but wouldn't, would just make it worse. "Who drinks that stuff?"
"Drunk co-eds," she answered cheerfully, and turned to sweep her gaze across the bar. "Want another? My treat."
"Please, no. Hotch is over there, by the dartboard. Watching JJ be aggressively competent at darts."
Ice dropped down her spine even as there was an oddly warm thrill in her stomach at the sight of Hotch, his suit jacket off and sleeves almost temptingly rolled up, smiling and taking the offered dart from JJ. "I wasn't looking for Hotch," she lied again, because it seemed to be the night for it, and Reid couldn't tell.
It was a sign of how messed up she could be that sometimes she lied just to make sure she still could. Working with profilers tended to encourage paranoia like that.
"Uh huh," Reid said with an uncharacteristic edge of sarcasm to his tone. "You should have another. If you're sufficiently intoxicated, he won't let you walk home alone. Well, he won't let you walk home alone anyway, but if you're drunk he'll walk you all the way to the door."
She turned to eyeball her friend as he gazed down glumly into the depths of his empty glass. "You hate scotch," she said finally, taking the glass from him and sliding it across the table, leaving a sticky trail of condensation in its wake. "And how many have you had?"
"More than Hotch, less than you," he answered just as quickly, and stood. "Want another? And when I say another, I mean something that isn't quite so… incandescent."
That wasn't actually what he was asking. He wasn't asking would you like another drink, or rather he was, he was just layering it over the unspoken are you going to take my advice.
"How many drinks until what you're suggesting sounds like a good idea?" she asked instead, and leaned back to let him sidle past out of the booth.
A careless shrug was his answer.
But he bought her the drink anyway.
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When he went to find Prentiss and Reid to bid them goodnight, he found them both in the state of what Rossi would politely call 'absolutely wankered.'
"Oh dear," Rossi himself said happily, appearing behind Hotch and bringing with him a noticeable waft of whiskey and perfume that Hotch was at least eighty percent sure wasn't his. "Well, we could just pour them both into a taxi and hope for the best."
"I'm fine," Reid protested, and attempted to stand. Then, just as ineffectively, attempted to fall. Hotch would only call it an attempt because halfway through falling down, he seemed to become aware that he was falling, and tried to stop. This resulted in him, half-leaning over, frowning really hard as though he was concentrating on something very important.
And then just kind of… slumped. Onto Prentiss. Who completely failed to catch him, and instead just laughed helplessly at him as he slid the rest of the way to the floor and blinked sadly up at them, the BAU's very own inebriated genius.
Hotch was proud of his team, every day. And they just kept doing things to remind him of that.
"Good lord," said JJ from somewhere, followed by, "I'll take Reid. Rossi, you should…"
"Go and find my date and vanish from here before I'm given babysitting duties." Hotch turned before Rossi was finished talking, and the man was already gone. Morgan smiled, nodded as though he was about to offer a solution, and then vanished just as quickly.
"Oh well," JJ said brightly. "I'll still take Reid. Hotch, Emily only lives a few blocks from here. I don't suppose…"
Emily stood, with considerable more success than Reid had. Judging from the thump and the yelp from her knees, Reid had just failed at doing so again, and possibly head-butted the table. "I am fine," she enunciated clearly, and picked up her coat. Hotch watched as she put on the coat, just as easily, and wrapped her scarf neatly around her neck with fingers that didn't fumble, despite the red flush to her cheeks and the impressively large amount of beer bottles on the table that he knew for a fact weren't Reid's.
It occurred to Hotch in that moment that he was very likely getting the best of this deal.
"Good," he said, and reached out as though to take her arm and help her out of the booth out of instinct. She quirked a curious eyebrow at the gesture, and he changed it to brush his fingers over the elbow of her coat, brushing away imaginary lint.
They both shivered at the touch, and he felt it through her arm.
"You won't mind me walking you home then," he added, and his voice was far lower than he'd intended it to be.
When she nodded slowly and stepped out to follow him, he could have sworn he saw Reid smile.
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Her head was spinning until they stepped out into the cool air and the silence of the night, and then everything turned sharp and real.
They walked in silence. Neither spoke. The stars glinted ahead, brighter than usual as though the chill of the coming winter was giving them strength, and their breath fogged in front of their faces.
Hotch hunched his shoulders into his coat, and tied a scarf around his neck, and she curled her fingers in her pockets and imagined twining them through his hair. The cars they walked past glistened, their windows just barely frosted at the edges and everything felt… clean.
New.
It felt like the start of something.
"You don't have to walk me all the way up," she said outside her door, and watched his gaze trace her posture as though gauging her level of sobriety. Then it traced her again, and there was something darker in the look.
She shivered.
"No," he said quietly. "I don't."
But he did.
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It was the first time and it was entirely his fault.
She was gorgeous in the moonlight. She was pale skin framed by dark hair, and her eyes were endless. He never had a chance.
He walked her to her door. When she held it open, neither of them spoke.
When she closed it behind him and turned, he already had his hands on her hips, drawing her forward against his body. She was warm and cold all at once; her skin hot under his fingers when he slipped them into her shirt, and her cheek cool against his as she pressed her lips to his ear and just breathed.
He took her to bed and neither of them spoke because there weren't words for this.
He took her to bed, and then he took her apart and himself alongside her.
"This is my fault," he told her once, as the yellow light through the window caught her skin as she moved above him.
"Entirely," she agreed, and dragged her nails gently against his skin.
He never regretted it.
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It didn't change anything between them at work. He was still ridiculously professional; she was still compartmentalized. They didn't linger about each other. When one of them found themselves at the wrong end of a gun—and that happened far too often but never became less frightening—the other didn't give them away.
The team found out anyway.
Spencer was the first and she wasn't surprised because of course he was.
"How was Hotch last night?" he asked smugly, the night after, and she considered tipping his coffee into his lap.
"Want details?" she replied instead, and he quickly changed the subject.
She was pretty sure Rossi was next because two weeks later she sneezed and Hotch said bless you, and that, bizarrely, led to David fucking Rossi lifting his nose out of his report, raising an eyebrow and saying ahh in the kind of revolutionary tone that suggested he'd just won money.
Her phone beeped two hours later.
Bossman: Come to dinner tonight.
She replied with a pert message that both agreed and hinted at the possibility of what he could do after that dinner. It was cocky. It was brash.
She was mortified as soon as she sent it.
He didn't reply.
He brushed by her while she was refilling her coffee, and she only realized it was him because only he could move so quietly that she hadn't noticed he was there until their elbows were knocking together.
"Pass a mug, please?" he asked politely, and in the same tone of voice continued with, "Come to dinner, and I'll show you what I intend to do after."
Then he smiled and her throat went dry.
Well, shit.
"In way over your head, Prentiss," she muttered after he'd ghosted away, but she was grinning anyway.
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The first snow of the season and they were out in it because Emily was actually insane and Hotch couldn't say no to her.
"Where do the ducks go when it snows?" Jack asked glumly, examining the frozen pond.
"Australia," Emily said, ducking to fiddle with her bootlace and giving Hotch the opportunity to examine the curve of her leg. Just her leg. He coughed and averted his gaze quickly, earning himself a glance from her as she frowned at him suspiciously. "Clever them. Aaron, you're dressed for work."
He looked down at himself. "I'm… dressed," he protested, smoothing a hand down his tie. "I didn't realize we were going for a romp in the snow."
Jack bounded away, eyes intent on what could possibly be a duck—but which Hotch knew was just a shadow shaped like a duck just to tease the kid—and Emily tucked her hands behind her back and smiled sweetly at him.
He didn't trust that smile an inch.
"What?" he asked, looking down at his suit again, and looking up just in time to receive a face full of snow. He shook it out of his eyes with a gasp at the icy touch, and found her inches from his face and grinning like a cat.
"Oops," she murmured against his mouth, and kissed him. Once, and twice, and then one more time.
Then she shoved him into a snowdrift.
He didn't get up immediately despite the cold, because sitting there with her laughing and Jack joining in, he realized that he'd felt like this before.
And it was terrifying.
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"He smiles more now," Reid said one day, glancing across the jet to where Hotch and JJ had their heads together over a case file.
"Guess Rossi finally succeeded in getting the stick out," she replied, turning his attention back to their chess game.
Reid put her into check, and shrugged. "Nah," he said, tapping on the board with his long fingers. "He's… happy. You are too."
She took his knight, sensed the game was probably nearing a defeat for her and rolled her eyes. "What are you, my shrink?"
Checkmate. What she liked about Reid was that he was never smug about winning, or bitter about losing. He just took what came to him and made what he could of it. "Your friend," he said softly. "Who is very happy for you."
She didn't reply that that, because what the fuck could she say?
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One night a week of them having dinner out became two. Became three.
Became her coming home to his house and sitting at the kitchen table with Jack talking about homework while he cooked for them both.
And that became her staying after to watch a movie with them until Jack went to sleep.
Somehow, eventually, that became her carrying Jack to bed while Hotch folded the covers back for her to slip his sleepy son in between the sheets. Hotch watched as Jack linked his arms dreamily around Emily's neck as she leaned over him, brushed his lips against her cheek and murmured guh'night.
It hurt just as much as it healed.
She stayed again that night and he undressed her with the kind of care one took with something precious.
"Being very cautious tonight, aren't you?" she asked when his head was against her thigh and her body was shaking. "I'm not going to break, Aaron."
He wasn't quite as confident in her immortality as she seemed to be.
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She was the first, and it was an accident.
He was in front of the fire, wearing the clothes she described fondly as 'comfy' and which she'd never tell him how much she liked because of the way they clung to his ass and legs.
He was wearing his reading glasses and she'd also never admit how much she liked that either. She had to have some cards to play.
Instead, she walked into the room, tilted his head back with one hand cupped around his cheek, and kissed him wordlessly.
"What was that for?" he asked when they broke apart, flushed and dark-eyed.
"Because I love you," she said, and then blinked.
She hadn't meant to say it.
"Oh," he said. His glasses had slipped down his nose some. She fought the urge to push them back up for him. He didn't answer, just kissed her again. Pulled her into his lap. He didn't seem sorry she'd said it, although he didn't say it back, even as they rediscovered each other in the glow of the fire.
And nothing really changed beyond that.
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He asked her to spend Christmas with them. She accepted.
"Emily is going to come over for Christmas dinner, after Jessica and Grandpa go home, okay?" he asked Jack, and Jack looked at him strangely from the picture he was drawing.
"Of course she is," he said matter-of-factly, and went back to his work.
She came and she brought a ridiculous bobble hat for him, a book of heroes for Jack, and the oddest sensation of home.
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Time passed and brought with it change. For once, very little of it was bad.
She became so used to Jack slipping his hand into hers when the three of them walked together that even when Aaron and his son weren't with her, she caught herself looking down for him at the crosswalk. Time brought with it a bed that wasn't empty anymore, and her seriously considering introducing Sergio to Jack just so her poor cat wasn't on his own so much anymore.
Time brought with it the first flush of lust which turned to something more like love, which quickly and almost too soon settled into something that was almost… normal. Family. Dishes together and teaching Jack to count and sometimes, sometimes, thinking of the future.
It started with sex and became waking up with a heart beating against her back to remind her she wasn't alone.
She finally relaxed.
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Emily was winter.
She was a red scarf pulled tight around a pale neck, laugh cutting off into a sharp fuck as she stepped out of the SUV into the bitter December wind. She was shivering on a case because her coat was a shade too thin, and smirking while she declined the offer of taking his. She was a gasp as the blankets slipped from his shoulders during sex, exposing them both to the cold air of the bedroom, dark hair splashed across light sheets under him.
She was always at his back, even without checking, and he was fearless with her beside him.
She was all poise and cat-like confidence, and he tumbled gladly into loving her.
She was suddenly a part of his life like she'd been there all along, curled up in front of the fire with Jack and a book and reading to him in a way that suggested she'd been waiting for this moment and was satisfied with its timely arrival.
He stood in the doorway to listen and waited for the whip to fall. Aaron Hotchner was many things, but lucky in his loves was not one of them.
But if he could be, just once, he hoped it would be now.
Nobody, of the hundreds of people that had visited the Fair, knew that a grey spider had played the most important part of all, she read slowly, and she seemed unaware that the child in her arms was long asleep. No one was with her as she died.
They carried Jack to bed together and then he found comfort from the chill of her words in her body and her mind.
"I love you," he said for the first time this night, as he moved within her while snow flurried against the windows outside. He knew snow against the windowpane would always remind him now of this moment. It had taken him a bit longer than her to stop being scared of this, but he'd gotten there eventually.
He found that he didn't really want the season to end.
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Spring was announced by the arrival of flowers.
Emily stepped into her apartment at the end of this winter, and found those flowers.
More precisely, one flower. A purple lilac.
She'd asked Reid about them once, and while she had done so the remembered scent of them was thick in her memory.
"Purple lilac?" he'd asked. "Oh, they have tons of meanings. They're generally the first flower to bloom when the temperature rises, symbolizing spring. But mostly they're used as a reminder of a first love."
"Oh?" she'd asked, looking out the window to the frozen world. In the dead of winter, it sometimes seemed like spring would never come. "Interesting."
Reid kept on because that's what Reid did. He just kept talking until his words stopped her heart. "Actually, they're also used a symbol of confidence. Confidence from the giver of the receiver's returned affections. Kinda creepy actually, huh?"
Emily didn't know how to answer that.
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When spring finally came, so did the lilac. When spring finally came, Lauren Reynolds died, and Emily Prentiss with her.
When spring finally came, it ended.