Alrighty! I know this is last minute…but that's just how I role I guess. Never fear, PandaMeetsSquirrel, I would not let you down! So your prompts were "Because you loved me" by Celine Dion, a kiss in the rain, whipped cream, roses (not red), and the pairing was Emily/Hotch; I used all of them. This idea came to me when I was listening to 'life in a northern town' and while this fic has NOTHING to do with that song…..idk I guess I just figured on sharing that. And I hope I did Hotch justice in this fic. I'm trying to keep them super close to the way they are on the show. I hope you like it! BY THE WAY…this is AU now considering the events currently taking place on the show.
Disclaimer: I don't own this amazing series….or the characters or anything pertaining to it.
Life had gone by so fast. The last ten years had seen them through a lot of tension, troubles, tears, joy, and happiness. But looking out into the backyard from the window seat in their foyer, Emily Prentiss was gently haunted by all of those memories. Some blissful, some dark, but all in all…she would have done it a thousand times over again.
They swayed slowly at first, caught up in the moment of each other as a band played in the background. Their wedding night had been a blur but that one dance. The soft, gentle tenor of the singer's voice sounded like angels harking from on high.
"We did it." She remembers whispering into his ear, like a clandestine secret, as they held each other on the dance floor. Words like, for all the wrong that you made right, passed by as if they were in some drawn out fairy-tale; a fairy-tale that they surely wanted to lose themselves in. For every dream you made come true, for all the love I found in you….but he was twirling her carefully now, letting her glide away from him before closing the gap. It all seemed so surreal, so ridiculously out-of-this-world that Emily couldn't stop the laugh that sang into the air as he led her around the floor. It was their wedding song; their song! She just couldn't get over it; how happy, how relieved, how right everything seemed. Somewhere in the background she heard Garcia squeal in delight and Morgan with a light, dog whistle which, she recalls, made the corners of Aaron's mouth twitch into a small smile. It was just like him, to hold in a smile even on their wedding night. But the song was over too soon for her liking, and she'd spied Rossi beginning to tap his champagne glass; resulting in the entire room following his lead. And they had kissed, passionately if only to stop the clanging of silverware against glass; but privately doing so because they finally could.
White rose petals fell from the sky like a light snow; so gentle, so fragrant, so glorious. She could hear them as they fluttered by her ears, and feel them as they pattered down onto her head. But Hotch had whisked her away into the back of a black limousine. He had a tendency of doing that, whisking her away at the opportune time. Emily remembers teasing him about that, lightly hitting his chest with the back of her hand before they rolled the window down and waved to those that had attended their reception. The smiling faces of Rossi, Morgan, Garcia, JJ, Reid, Seaver, and yes, even Strauss met them as they drove away.
"How much do you want to bet that Garcia's already hounding Reid about proposing to Seaver?" Emily joked lightly as she removed her veil once more from her head and placed it on the seat. Ashley had caught the bouquet before they left and Emily was pretty sure that agent hadn't even been paying attention.
"I give it two days before Reid and Seaver make a deal to pretend to be engaged just so Garcia will leave them alone."
"Two days?" she asks, raising a brow at him skeptically.
"If they can hold out that long." He gives her this look that is so un-Hotch-like that they both burst in to laughter. "I love you." He says quietly, his eyes pinning hers with a warm smile.
"I love you too." And it only takes a second for them to fall into each other's arms.
That night, in Prague, was definitely the night Claire had been conceived. They had barely managed to get through the door before letting go of their sophisticated demeanors and making love like they hadn't in God knew when. By the time their honeymoon was over, by the time they had even left the room, Emily and Aaron knew more about each other than humanly possible. Not just in the physical sense, but in the sense that they needed one another to survive, to cope, and to go on. Emily hadn't realized how much she could depend on a person, because her entire life had been different chapters of running away. But the very thought of ever doing that to the man sleeping beside her wrenched her heart in such a physical way that she started to cry. He was comforting her before she knew what was going on, his eyes staring into the depths of her soul as she confessed some of her greatest fears, and promising that no matter what happened, they would be together until their last breaths.
"You know I'll never leave you." He'd said it with such certainty, such tranquility and finality that their entire marriage would surely be based upon that promise.
It wasn't what their job normally entailed, it wasn't what they were 'defined' as doing. But somehow, Strauss had managed to put them on security detail for a White House cabinet member being targeted an unknown killer. Reid, not surprisingly, had been the one to figure out what the obscure writings on the walls of each crime scene had been about; a twisted form of the very Secretary's campaign slogan. And just like the DC Sniper, this man had decided to kill others before his primary target. For security sake, Hotch and Emily had decided that they would split up on dangerous cases, and so she and Rossi escorted the Secretary to a secondary location while Hotch and Morgan led the decoy through some back-hallways in the belly of an opera house until their primary 'package' had been delivered safely. They all knew the risks of coming to work every day, but what Emily and Aaron hadn't planned on was the bomb set to blow in the very hallways Hotch and Morgan were in. The ground shuttering blow had caused Rossi and Prentiss to bolt back the way they'd came, leaving the Secretary with secret service whilst yelling into their comm units. Prentiss knew that, like her, Rossi was clinging to any kind of sound that might shine through the static on the other end of their ear buds, but she was holding her breath, she was freaking out inside, she was praying to God that the bomb hadn't taken the only man she felt whole with. Forced from the building against their wills, Rossi and Emily were ordered to stay clear of the building until the bomb squad had checked the area effectively. And some quiet part of Emily lurched when it started to rain; there were rarely rainy, happy endings.
It took them twelve hours, twelve-hours-to-long, to dig Hotch and Morgan out safely. And when the two had resurfaced from the bits of rubble, Emily wanted to rush to his side, to check him over, to berate him for leaving her side for that long of time in a dangerous situation…to just see him but she had to wait another agonizing sixty-seconds before a paramedic or two helped him hobble over. He was bleeding from a cut above his eyebrow, and he was dusty, his leg obviously a bit sore, but nothing broken…and he was alive! Rossi gave her a gentle push in Hotch's direction as he moved to check over Morgan, who appeared to not be in too bad of shape either. Before she knew it, she was running to him, grabbing him into a hug and away from the paramedics before anyone could stop her. The rain was soaking through their clothes, their hair…but they didn't care. She felt him sigh into her, she felt the coiled muscles in his back relax as he let her hold him, finally wrapping his arms around her for what seemed like several minutes. They leaned back, rain soaking their skin, to stare at each other. And suddenly, Prentiss hit his chest, not hard, just bumped it with her hands as she spoke, other times gripping the fabric of his dress shirt in frantic desperation.
"You're not allowed to do that, you promised! What would I have done? How could I have lived without-" Her ranting was interrupted, his lips suddenly covering hers, their tongues entwined in a dance like two lovers separated for decades. It felt like the first time, like falling in love all over again and she was crying, again she was crying! When they pulled away he managed to say so much more with his eyes than actual words; something she cherished because he was always so guarded in their line of work. But for her, he had learned to portray that love when words were seemingly lost. She buried her head into his chest, feeling his lips as kissed her head, the warmth of his breath as he whispered an apology over and over and over again.
"Mom…Mooooom!" Emily peeked out from behind sleepy eyelids at an impatient Jack Hotchner. It was their eighth Valentine's Day since getting married and Jack seemed extremely adamant about her being away. Her eyes glanced at the clock to her left (9:15 am), well at least she'd gotten to sleep in a little bit.
"What is it hun?" She asked sweetly, eyeing the suspicious bottle of whipped cream in the Thirteen-year-olds hand. Jack caught on fast and broke into a huge smile; getting more handsome by the day.
"Dad taught me this really cool thing that he wanted to show you tonight when you go out to dinner, but I said I wanted to show you first." He wiggled the can of whipped cream in front of her, parading it triumphantly for winning the argument she hadn't been privy to.
"Oh?" She asked, rising into a sitting position on the edge of the bed. All kinds of dirty images, both provocative and scary flashed through her mind as she reminded herself that it was indeed her son holding the can and not her husband. There were all kinds of wrong with this situation. After all, she had learned that whipped cream and the Hotchner boys never really mixed too well. As she drifted off into her own little world, trying to come up with something clean that Aaron could have taught their son, she was barely aware of Jack filling his mouth with whipped cream, a dorky smile on his face as he turned back to her.
"Don't even-" Pop! Jack slammed his fists into his cheeks, the whipped cream exploding into her face and hair as he giggled profusely.
"It's a zit. Get it?" He launched into another fit of laughter until she yanked the can away from him in professionally-faked anger. But before the boy could do anything, she sprayed him with the cream, white flying everywhere as he ran from the room with Emily on his heels. Somewhere along the way, they both managed to run into Aaron who was carrying Claire; all of them toppling to the family room floor.
"What is going- Jack I said later!" Reprimanding his son with a sly wink which didn't go unnoticed by his wife.
"Oh you did, did you?" Emily was leaning over him, the whipped cream can hovering dangerously close to his face.
"You're bluffing." He taunted, letting the squirming Claire up from the floor. Jack was quietly egging her on from the couch.
"Depends." She states matter of factly before withdrawing the can away from his face and leaning her head back to put some in her mouth. A devious smile curved her lips as she leaned down and kissed him deeply; drawing a small, deep sound from her husband.
"Ew! Mom, Dad! Aw, gah stop it!" Jack fell back into the couch, dramatically covering his eyes and complaining about their kissing while he laughed. "You guys are killing me!" Following her brother's reaction to them kissing, Claire jumped onto the couch and daintily slapped her hands over her eyes with a small, "Oh brother."
Emily snapped back to the present as Jack sprayed the window she was watching them from. He was waving his arm at her, beckoning her outside. She held up a hand, signaling that she'd be there in a second. Aaron was swinging Claire around as Jack sprayed them both with water from the hose. The tiny droplets caught light, dazzling the air with diamonds, and for a moment Emily blushed, aware of how cheesy she felt by merely thinking how beautiful that one family moment seemed. Jack was laughing hysterically, Claire was giggling, and Aaron had a smile of such childish glee that something in her stirred so elatedly that she jumped up from her seat and rushed outside. There was some innate need to be a part of the fun, some kind of desperate need to share the moment; because life was a bunch of jumbled moments. That and how you make the most of them.
So it was mostly from Emily's POV….I might make this a two shot and do the second chapter from Hotch's. Hope you like it! Sorry this is so last minute! And I know I didn't use the whipped cream as….'creatively' as I could have. Haha. But I thought it was fitting for the story.