Farewell, Sweet Kate
A/N: So, it's pretty obvious what prompted this. Sigh.
I have high (really high) hopes that Jennifer Love Hewitt will actually return to play Kate in the twelfth season. If only because it would be easier for her to return to CM than to pilot a new show. If those plummet...oh well.
I'm looking forward to a smaller team, too. I'll admit that. I sincerely doubt they will be casting someone in her place, since last year Erica Messer said something along the lines of 'only casting Jennifer because she knew her previously, that they weren't actively casting someone new'. So I don't think we're getting a new female agent in the bullpen.
But I wouldn't object to that either. I'd welcome her with open arms, if she happens to come.
Anyway. I wanted to write more for Hotch/Kate, so here this is. Because I wanted to follow the scene, I made it that Kate is still married and pregnant (Bummer to the first, yay to the second) and Hotch is just entertaining one sided feelings.
Here goes.
He knew, before she entered his office, what she came to say.
He felt it as she asked if she could come in, as she pulled out her chair and clutched a sheaf of papers to her chest.
In the conversation she made, the decisions she was making now that didn't include him, or the team.
He respected them. He thought it was a very admirable choice to make, to stay at home at least for the first year. She wanted what was best for her new child.
He knew that if he ever had more children—which was doubtful, but still possible—that he'd like to do something similar.
If I have more children, I could see myself stepping down again, letting Morgan up to the plate.
So he was happy for Kate, happy that she wanted to do this, and happy that he could let her.
He wasn't happy that she was leaving them. Him.
He wasn't happy that she was leaving him.
In a way, they weren't as close as she was with some of the others on the team. In many ways, he'd been closer to Prentiss and Elle.
But Kate had brought something this year, a new light he hadn't realized he was missing, and now that it was about to be turned off again, he felt his life dull down again. Readjust to the darkness. He mentally prepared himself for the new rigmarole of interviews, but wondered if he'd even bother.
There had been many presences on the team throughout the years. Kate was, perhaps, the one he found he couldn't replace.
But who knew what the future would bring.
He wasn't one to initiate physical contact, but when she started to push her chair back, he immediately pushed his and met her in the middle for a hug.
Her rounded stomach was between them, but he made sure to pull her as tight as possible to him.
And he said goodbye.
And as he watched her leave, walking slowly down through the bullpen, he hoped, wished and prayed—though he wasn't normally a praying man—that one day would see her return through those same doors.