After a long writer's block, and another long time trying to come up with things and actually write them down, here I am back to give you some hotchniss. I was rather sad when I saw no new works related to the season 13 premiere [ Wheels Up - 13x01 ] because this episode basically made this otp canon. So yeah, since nobody is writing it, I might as well do something about it. This might be 3 chapters long or more - probably more but I can't promise - about the 6 weeks the BAU had of "vacation". I hope you enjoy it!
Thanks to my greatest supporter and beta, Hannah! You, me and our psychic linguistic skills lol
Disclaimer: If I owned Criminal Minds, Emily would have said "I love Jack AND Hotch". But she said she won't betray the both of them, so turns out I'm not so enraged anymore :P
"You start a question, and it's like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others..."
-Robert Louis Stevenson-
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I
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The first week, she lies in bed.
She cries between her long hours of apparent sleep, overlooks her meals until that ulcer comes back to haunt her and she finds herself bent over the basin. It's self-destruction, matter-of-factly. And she is very aware, but there's no absolute way to fix how she is feeling right now.
Amidst those periods of uneven slumber, Emily Prentiss finds her body covered with a film of perspiration – countless times, or at least she doesn't bother with numbers anymore. She's shuddering - trembling, aching - her legs tingle inwardly and she chews her bottom lip until it draws blood, a metallic tinge spilling some sort of sensation back into her.
Wheels up, wheels up. A chanting breath within tells her that it's just a nightmare, that it wasn't even real back then.
Curling up in bed, the raven-haired woman pulls the sheets closer to herself, wrapping them around her slim body as though it can bring warmness to her depths once again. She's not scared, she is just coping, as painful as it is and devastating as it sounds.
It's probably Friday when Mark arrives and she does not have the decency to pick him up at the airport – she forgets, just how she's been 'forgetting' about him at all recently. Then she sees it in his eyes, sees that she might as well draw the line. Because he is worried sick, because he is sorry for her and somehow she's sure she saw honest pity for the way she tries to escape from his gentleness.
Wheels up, wheels up. She whispers the last night of the week, when there are actual arms around her – and she can't feel safe just yet. There's confusion, a resigned exhale.
She does not need him, she needs him.
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II
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The second week, she gives up.
Gives up on the so longed them that hasn't been there for a great amount of time – probably from the beginning. She's not lying in bed anymore, she's a quarter herself again, though most of the fractures are still to be rebuilt. But she will make it, obviously, she is a Prentiss woman after all.
That's what her mother tells her when they meet for dinner together, one of the few traditions she made sure to carry on ever since she landed on US soil. Nursing a glass of red wine, the older woman offers her a trip – 15 days to wherever she wants, all expenses paid. Emily is grateful for the gesture, but she's more than done covering up her bruises with moves that revel on acquisition.
Eventually, she blurts out that she sent Mark away and to her upmost surprise, there's no surprise but her own. Not even that characteristic startle that rouses whenever her dearest relative listens to innovations or updates. She's afraid of asking, afraid that she knows the truth herself and that she's running from this ever tempting acknowledgement.
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II
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It's still the second week, but she's decided to give it a chance.
That's why she packs in a hurry to London, picks up random clothes, folds them inside the bag and simply takes the first plane without making anyone aware of her rushed departure. She's not going to see Mark or Clyde or anyone else that has been continuously reminding her of everything she wants and everything she does not have.
And the Queen's land is as cold as she remembers, it's home though she adores to forget about it. There's still a pub down the street, a café nearby in which she can enrage the pain whenever something hits the internal wound. Above such inns, there are a multitude of spacious parks, with the leaves slowly changing from vibrant greens to muted reds with the passing of time, contrasting against the gloomy London skies.
Feminine hands are safely tucked inside her charcoal coat's pockets, a ponytail and neatly trimmed bangs remarking her presence whilst she takes steps to nowhere in particular.
I've watched Jack grow up. A loud horn jolts her back to the exterior, her unyielding posture giving nothing away as she apologizes with a shake of her head and a rush in her walk.
The former Interpol chief regrets every word, regrets every damn give-away she allowed to slip out when that son of a bitch hadn't really done any physical harm to her. Worrying her bottom lip, she wanders away on the pavement, half conscious of the tears burning her high cheek bones, of the wind enveloping her in the terrible sensation of solitude.
Cream, white, blue and rose fill the corner of her eyes, perfectly polished glass almost begging her to watch the contents behind it. It's an instinct, it's a slight tilt of her head towards the object. There it is.
I've watched Jack grow up. If only anyone heard that, if only anyone ever noticed that she's been the one to apparently detach from those little dimples more publicly than others. If only they knew the truth, if only they knew the past in which they'd be the things she would more than eventually come back home to until the monster of her nightmares dragged her into the abyss.
Her dark orbs bore into the little thing, it's the tiniest detail, one she could never forget even if so she wanted to. It's a set of fluorescent stars that they made sure to paste on his ceiling. It's Haley and Hotch and Jessica and her and everyone that ever mattered to him.
She can't move for longer than she wants to, she can't even find any rationality or strength. She's stuck at a crossroads, one in which she is sure of what she wants and, moreover, certain about what she'll cause with it.
I've watched Jack grow up, I will not betray him or his father. And the delight in Peter's somber features reminded her of that flicker painting Ian's blue pair when he mentioned how they were alone while she was there with him, years ago now.
It's the last thing she is capable of mustering before her presence is just a ghost, before she's vanished from the past and present collapsing into a future she's not yet ready for. It's a hollow promise she whispers to herself, desperate and remorseful and hopefully conscious because there's half bottle of liquor sitting on her nightstand.
I will watch Jack grow up.
I am thinking about creating "smut fridays" * insert thinking emoji here * Tell me what you think!
And tell me what you think about this work (pleaseeee).
See you guys next chapter