A/N: I feel that this kind of chapter has been done many times before and I know a lot of the great post season 7 stories I've read have most certainly influenced my writing but I felt strongly inspired after episode 200 to have a crack at writing an epic about where their relationship went post Hit/Run. This chapter is somewhat of a test run, I want to see what reception I get first, so please read and review, I'd appreciate any feedback you can give me. Peace xx.

"Everyone who says hello,

will one day say goodbye,

sometimes without warning,

or without giving a reason why."
~Unknown.

Tuesday May 29th 2012, 9:37pm

"You… you were really going to leave without saying goodbye." he stammered, his voice wavering uncharacteristically as his dark eyes roamed the apartment over the brunette's shoulder.

"Garcia told me you had a case in Miam-."

"I came straight from the airport."

Her own soft brown eyes fell to the floor sheepishly as she shoved her hands in the pockets of her jeans and tried to come up with an adequate response. As hard as she tried, her mind just kept drawing blanks. His presence at her apartment was threatening to surface emotions she had been actively repressing over the last few weeks. And she'd be damned if she lost her control now.

"Why?" she asked earnestly, her voice barely above a whisper.

He sighed, frustration evident in his tired face.

"Can I come in for a minute?" he requested politely, despite knowing that he wasn't really going to take no for an answer. Not when he was about to lose her. He wasn't going to just let her walk away, not this time.

She folded her arms across her chest defensively, biting her lip, her eyes darting back and forth, seeming to focus on everything other than him.

"Emily" he pressed, impatience seeping into his voice.

"Yeah, yes of course," she conceded softly, moving aside to let him into her bare apartment.

Aaron Hotchner swiftly strode into her large living area, taking in how empty the space now felt with only a small sofa by the window and mahogany coffee table furnishing the room. His eyes lingered on the folded clothes on the couch, her small carry-on bag open beside it. She was packing. In her final stage of packing. That bag, it was the same one he had stowed next to his own every flight they had taken together over the past six years. Yet this time she was packing it for a different journey. A journey she was taking alone, without the team. Without him.

He swallowed hard, turning to face her.

"Four days ago you didn't even have a flight booked. Why aren't you giving us the time to say goodbye?"

She was running. He already knew the answer to that question. But he still felt compelled to ask it. His real question wasn't a why. It was a what. What was she running from? He wasn't sure she entirely understood herself. But he had to coax it out of her. If there was one thing he was certain of, it was that if Emily's departure from the States was without goodbyes, if she ran, then the chances of her maintaining relationships with them from across the Atlantic were minimal. She'd shut them out. She'd shut him out.

"Hotch, I've had a department dinner held in my honour, I've had Garcia organise two different team dinners and a girls night out in my honour. How much more of a goodbye do I need? I need time to go and get settled." she replied, her voice even. Her face was stoic, stuck in its mask, not giving away anything.

"Your appointment at Interpol doesn't commence until July," he retorted sharply, meeting her eyes with a piercing glare.

"Yes but-"

"And that's not what I meant by goodbye and you know it," he continued, stepping closer to her, his actions almost silently daring her to move away.

She closed her eyes, breathing heavily, trying to remain in control. Her fingers pulled at the soft cotton of her shirt just at her elbows.

This conversation was ridiculous.

She knew it, he knew it. They both knew it.

Since she rejoined the Bureau ten months ago, after Doyle's capture, they'd grown incredibly close. They had already been close before hand; despite their rocky start, they had bonded quite quickly over her time in the FBI. Her compassion and humour, her empathy and unique ability to read his moods and simply just know what he needed before he did, had made her a person he'd very much come to depend on. She was the one who single-handedly had pulled him out of his emotional slump after Haley's death. They had begun spending more time together outside of the office and she'd become a permanent figure in Jack's life. Yet it wasn't until after Doyle, after he knew the darkest moments that shadowed her past that their friendship really started shifting into something else.

He'd spent many restless nights over the past few months, wishing he hadn't let her say goodnight, wishing he would just take was right in front of him. They had been playing house every second night since her return, quite often more. She'd go round to his place after work and start rummaging up something for dinner. Depending on how late he was, she'd often help Jack with his bath. Get him settled. Once he finally was able to leave the office he'd come home to a cooked meal awaiting, a happy son already wound down and ready for bed. They would eat together, Jack would go to sleep. Then they would just sit and share a daily slice of normal; they'd watch TV snuggled up on the couch together or he'd read while she knit. Or they would just chat about the most mundanely trivial everyday things. And then each night at around ten-thirty she would say goodnight. He'd walk her to the door, they would hug, he'd hold her tight against him and she'd nuzzle her face into his chest, taking momentary comfort in the embrace and then she'd offer him a soft smile before disappearing into the dark of the night.

He wasn't an idiot; he knew she wasn't completely whole yet. He knew she found some sort of feeling of safety and contentment in his presence. But he also knew she had nursed some of the same lingering thoughts about what they could be, if circumstances permitted. He'd seen it in her eyes, felt it in some of the hugs they'd let linger on longer than they had meant to. Despite her need to heal, he held hope that she'd be able to go through that process with him by her side.

However at JJ and Will's wedding three weeks ago everything changed again. As soon as she had confided in him her desire to leave the BAU, to leave the States, all their emotional pretences were forgotten. There was chemistry between them. Something they both privately had acknowledged but simply had chosen to ignore. Hotch had already lost his family once to the Bureau and he hadn't been keen on starting another relationship where he'd be forced to make a choice between the two again. Emily on the other hand had joined the Bureau for a change of pace, a slice at normality… well however normal chasing serial killers could be. It had taken her quite a while to feel as though she'd earned her spot on their team, and so once she felt as though she belonged she decided she valued the job too highly to ever seriously consider throwing it away for a romance that held no certain promise.

Yet after the wedding, things had changed. While the thought of her leaving the team made his insides church for an entirely different set of reasons, one of the first things that dawned on him was that without the Bureau, there was nothing stopping him from chasing what he wanted. And Aaron Hotchner was a man who didn't give up on the things he wanted.

And that determination was the one thing she had feared the most in exposing her choice to him. It was the one thing that held serious potential to make her reconsider, to convince her to stay. And she knew she needed to get out, she needed to get away. She wasn't whole. She needed time to regroup, to truly grieve Doyle and to let him go. She needed time to find herself again. Away from the team, away from him. They had had their 'date', breakfast after the wedding, but it had definitely felt more professional than personal, as she spoke of the opportunity Interpol was offering her and the need she felt for a fresh start. But after that morning she had seemed to recoil inside her shell. She spent most of the following weeks avoiding him both at work and outside of the office. He'd try to catch her at the coffee cart at work, he'd call her with the pretext of Jack wanting to say goodnight at around eight pm, and he'd even paired them together in the field until her resignation had gone through. Yet the harder he pushed, the further she withdrew, and he knew she was slowly slipping through his fingers.

And now here they were; he'd caught her in the nick of time having sped across the motorway off the back of a case. In three and a half hours time she was going to be boarding a flight to leave him, indefinitely.

"I was going to call you at the airport" she confessed, her eyes snapping open as she backed up to lean against the wall, needing something to support her, and a little bit more space between them.

However he wasn't giving up that easily. He moved closer, his eyes soft; hurt swimming in those dark orbs as he looked over her. His large gun-calloused hands found her tiny waist and he heard her breath hitch as he felt her body tense.

"I know you feel it. Don't fight this. Don't run," he pleaded, his tone sounding shockingly uncharacteristic even to his own ears. His thumbs gently ran up and down her sides and he felt her body slowly begin to relax. She looked at him, shaking her head in resistance as he moved closer, his body resting almost flush against hers. She closed her eyes again, unable to stop the hot tears that began to trickle down her face. She pushed her hands against his chest, trying to push him away.

"Aaron don't make this harder than it already is," she whispered as her tears begun to fall freely and she continued trying to worm out of the embrace.

But he wouldn't budge. His grip on her tightened and his dark eyes hardened as he took in her pained expression, and felt her form now shaking uncontrollably under his hands as she began outright sobbing.

"Don't do this," he pressed, taking a hand off of her waist to tilt her head up to look at him. She kept her eyes firmly shut, shaking her head softly as she sobbed.

"Please just g-" she pleaded.

"No" his voice was stern, thick with emotion. He brought his hand back to her waist pinning her once again. And then he lowered his mouth down to hers and caught her soft lips, kissing them passionately, sucking hard on her lower lip as his tongue slipped into her mouth. He ran his tongue along the roof of her mouth and then felt her begin to respond, for the briefest of moments. But just as he thought he was finally getting somewhere she started to shake more in his arms and pulled away. She pushed violently against him, trying to use all her force to get free. He caught her wrists, trying to stop her volatile movements.

"Let me go!" she screamed, her knee coming up between his legs in a last desperate attempt to get away. His training allowed him to foresee the move so he was able to release his grip and back away to dodge her. He looked at her as she slumped onto the floor, her sobs hysterical as she curled up into a little ball. Against the vast empty space of the room she looked so tiny, so fragile. He moved to kneel down and hold her.

"Don't," she begged between a sob, her cry stopping his movements just before he reached her.

He stood up again, watching her feeling overwhelmingly helpless. His whole world, his future, slipping away from him, right in front of his eyes. His body was frozen, he felt a deep pain constricting his chest, panic was setting in.

"Em-"

"Please just go," she repeated, the plea muffled into her legs, almost lost within her sobs.

"I can't… I'm... I'm in love with you" he whispered, the words escaping his lips before he had time to stop them.

She remained in her same position, still crying as she cradled herself in the little ball she'd made. He wondered if she'd even heard him. He stood there watching as after what felt like an eternity her body started to calm and her sobs seemed to lessen. Yet even when she finally seemed composed, she stayed in that same position, refusing to look up at him.

"I know" she finally whispered, making his chest tighten further.

After another minute she finally looked up, resting her head against the wall behind her, her knees tucked up to her chest. Her face was red, her eyes puffy, but her expression read blank. She met his eyes, as her clutch around her knees tightened.

"I need you to leave" she said evenly, her stoic unreadable mask once more adorning her face.

He looked at her incredulously, his usually stoic face anything but as a wild mix of emotions danced across his rugged features. He opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it, when no words would come. His eyes stayed locked onto hers, challenging her to break, to give him something, anything: anger, disappointment, frustration. But he got nothing. She'd put her wall up. She was pushing him out. She was choosing to run. He stayed frozen for several minutes, as the reality of the situation settled on him. As he realised he couldn't control this, he couldn't control her.

And then the anger washed over him, and he knew it was time to leave. Her eyes stayed trained on him and he opened his mouth once more to say something but again, he found himself utterly lost for words.

He turned on his heel and strode out of the apartment, not pausing even for a moment to look back, slamming the door shut behind him.

Little did he know that if he had turned back, he would have seen her break out into a fresh wave of tears, as the grief of what she'd just lost consumed her.