(This is a piece that comes between "For Now and Forever" and "Haunted Hotel" and tells about Hotch's epiphany where Emily is concerned. There will be more in this time span to cover the few days between FN and FE and Apocalypse Now. Enjoy)
LATE MAY 2008
YOU CAN COUNT ON ME…
Hotch didn't even undress before crashing on the bed. All that mattered was that Dave was going to live. Thoughts of calling Hayley, Strauss, and the various other's who'd called his phone in the last nine hours never even entered his mind.
All he wanted to do was sleep and forget about what he'd seen. How Dave had looked at him when he'd ran up to his side. Saw his friend overcome by the heat and smoke before he could get the door opened.
Thank God the window had been blown out. Thank God Dave hadn't fastened his seatbelt. Thank God he'd been able to pull Dave out before the man had been more seriously injured. Dead.
As it was, the older man was facing weeks of painful healing and therapy. He'd never be physically the same again—but he was alive, and that was all that mattered.
The burns on Hotch's hands were a small price for him to pay for his friend's life.
His head hit the utilitarian pillow that was characteristic of all generic hotel rooms, and he closed his eyes, praying he wouldn't see the flames again.
Instead, big, dark eyes popped into his mind. They were soft and vulnerable, tear-filled, and frightened. He'd never seen them quite like that.
Never wanted to see them like that again.
He'd held her tonight, felt her trembling as she cried.
Realized for the first time that Emily wasn't the consummate agent, perfectly composed at all times, able to handle all things that came her way, that he'd thought her to be.
Instead, she was just like him. She chose to find a quiet corner before she broke down. She felt she had to hide any weakness from the team—from him. Felt that she always had to be strong in order to belong to the team. Never show weakness, never need someone to lean on.
At least—never show it to him, not to him.
He remembered overhearing her and Dave talk on the plane about life once, about how it was a terrible thing to happen to a person. Heard her talking to Derek about thinking like monsters. Heard her talk to JJ about having children someday. Heard JJ tell her it would be a good idea. He'd heard her ask Spencer after the rocket trick if Hotch actually did have a sense of humor.
After that one case, her attempt to talk to him about taking that teenage girl home with her, she'd never tried to share anything personal with him. And it was his fault.
All of it.
In retrospect, his behavior was perfectly clear to him. His mistrust, his antagonism, his cold severity to her—all of it shouted how uncomfortable she'd made him from the very beginning. Tonight had made that even more than perfectly clear. She'd crept away to the hospital chapel to sit and cry, alone, away from the team.
Most likely away from him. He'd known, just seeing her all alone and vulnerable, that he was the one responsible for keeping them from knowing each other.
All Emily Prentiss wanted from him was respect on the job. Her words, calm, resigned, slightly defensive if you knew what to look for. She'd basically told him she didn't even know if she wanted to be his friend.
That had disconcerted him, at first. Then she'd cried, harder than he'd ever imagined she could. Clinging to him. Depending on him. The man she didn't even want as a friend. All she'd been through that day flashed through his mind. She'd shot that kid, she'd been scared for Detective Cooper, she'd been worried and terrified for Dave—someone she'd apparently been growing pretty close to over the last few months—and how could he expect her to just be able to deal with all that with no help from anyone? Instead, she'd taken care of the rest of them.
Had he really cared that little about how she'd felt?
And her—did she really think that the only value she brought to the team besides her mind was the care she took of everyone else? When had anyone else ever realized that Emily needed someone to lean on once and a while, too?
Hotch couldn't remember ever seeing her vulnerable until today.
Even that bastard Joseph Smith hadn't gotten her down—she'd been injured, yes, but she'd done her job. And he'd admired that. Admired the fact that she'd stood her ground with all of Strauss's machinations, as well.
He'd seen her worried, too. Worried about Reid, Penelope, even worried about JJ. But she'd always done whatever she had to do help them. Just like tonight. He thought about how she'd cared for all of them in the waiting room. How Dave's brother would only speak to her, how she'd sat and held his hand after the doctors had told them Dave was going to be all right. How Penelope and JJ had both cried, clinging to Emily's hands tightly.
He wondered if the team even realized how much they depended on Emily Prentiss?
He hadn't. And he called himself exactly what he was for that—a cold, ruthless bastard.
But who was there when Emily needed someone to lean on? Derek? Dave? Neither one of them was the kind of man a woman like Emily would need.
Hotch made a vow, as his eyes drifted closed, that he'd be someone Emily could count on, if she'd let him. If she'd let him, he'd be so much more.
Now all he had to do was find a way to convince her to give him the chance.