Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds. I have an obsession with the characters but that's about it.
AN: Never written much of anything before sooo. . . I apologize in advance.
Emily walked through the hotel room door without looking up. She didn't want to look into the mirror the hotel had oh-so-graciously thrown directly across the entrance. After the week they'd had, she was pretty sure she looked like hell. It had been difficult enough trying to keep the others from noticing a difference, she couldn't keep it from herself. She wasn't sure what it was about this case that brought back so many memories from her days of being Lauren. It had taken a long time to get to the point where she didn't think about Doyle and those days, to where every day and moment wasn't a reminder of the awful time she had when she was undercover.
Ugh. She needed a drink and she needed to sleep. At least she hoped that recipe would lift her spirits enough to pretend she was fine on plane ride in the morning. They had to know something was up. They were FBI trained profilers after all. But she was hoping they knew her well enough to give her the space she needed to shove the awful memories way back down where they belonged. Deep. Deep. Down.
She had just managed to drop her stuff and pull a drink out of the mini bar when she heard a knock on the door. If that wasn't room service, she was gonna blow their brains out. Or at least she was pretty sure that was how this was gonna end, based on her current emotional state. Whoever it was barely waited a few seconds before knocking again, louder and faster this time.
"Whatever this is better be damn important," she whispered to herself as she set down the yet unopened bottle and walked to the door. She yanked the door open as hard as she could. "What the f-" she stopped short when she came eye to eye with Hotch.
"Oh, sorry, I didn't realize it was you." Her eyes fell downward, a natural response when she was feeling like this, but still one she wished she could hide.
"Um, yeah," his eyes followed a path roaming her doorframe, "I probably shouldn't have just shown up at your room like this," they finally settled on her face, while she continued to look down. She wasn't sure exactly how to place the tone of his voice but it was something she hadn't heard from him before. "I just felt like you haven't been acting quite like your normal self this week and I know we've only been on a couple dates," he was rambling, "but I really wanted to check on you, make sure you really are okay, but I also didn't want to embarrass you by asking you what's been going on in front of everyone else and anyways here I am now. Hopefully you'll let me in?"
A small grin graced her lips as she let him in without ever fully looking up at him. She wasn't sure what the grin was about. Maybe because he was just as weirded out by this situation as she was. They HAD only been on a couple dates after all. When he had asked her to dinner the first time, never cracking even the semblance of a smile, she couldn't figure out why she had said yes. Her answer had surprised even herself. But despite all of that she had a really great time at dinner that night. . . and the following night as well. Work had been interesting to say the least but the others had only recently begun to notice a difference in their relationship, even though the pair had been on five dates in the past three months, and they were hesitant to make the formal announcement. Slow and steady seemed to be their motto as she was still unsure of relationships in general and was letting him lead. And he didn't want to push her too far, too fast. Though he was pretty sure showing up unannounced at her hotel room, late at night, when it was located three floors from his own was going to decide their fate. Either it would push her far, far away from him, or right into his arms and he still wasn't sure which way it was going to be.
He set his briefcase down next to the door but didn't move to do anything else. It was kind of weird, she thought, him just standing there, watching her as she walked across the room back to the mini bar. She tossed the unopened bottle back into the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water instead. Turning around, she cracked open the bottle and leaned casually against the fridge while taking a sip. Her confidence had come back in the form of defiance as she stared him down the whole time she chugged half the bottle. She didn't mind that he had showed up, but she wasn't going to put in the work. If he had nothing to say, he shouldn't have come. And she would wait it out until he came up with something. Mercifully, it wasn't as long as she was expecting.
"I'm worried about you," he practically whispered.
The words hit her like a ton of bricks and she almost choked on the water she had been downing. Despite all of his bravado, and the ridiculous macho he put on at work, he had a softer side, a side she had only seen in their few moments outside of work. But the weight of what he had said hit her harder than she expected. All of the thoughts and feelings she had been trying to stuff away had burst their way back to the forefront of her mind. Normally she was the picture of calm, but the moment was so ridiculous and so out of character and so heartwarming and all the thoughts were so overwhelming that the tears just started coming and she couldn't hold them back. They silently started to flow as she quickly cast her head downwards.
He was next to her before she could try to blink the second tear back. Instinctually, she turned her body away from him, using her hair to hide her face. She wanted to just walk away before he could say anything else. But there was no where to go. This was her room and her place and all she had at the moment. There was no place to go and she was beginning to feel trapped. As he caressed the back of her arm, her breathing started to pick up and she jumped away from him, throwing his hand off of her as she went. She wrapped her arms around herself and sniffed the tears back, backing away and raising her head to look at him.
"I'm so sorry," he said as she backed away, "I didn't mean anything, I wasn't going to do anything."
The logic caught up to the instinct and she realized how uncalled for that reaction was. She also realized he thought she was scared he would hurt her.
"No, I know you wouldn't," she said, "I'm sorry I reacted that way, I don't. . . I don't really know what happened."
He looked quizzical for a moment before responding; "So should I be concerned about you? This case can't have been easy for you"
"Yeah? And why is that?" Her instinctive rebellion always came out at the worst time and her brain had immediately gone there. She was questioning what he thought he knew about her and how he thought he had any right to know it.
"I just. . . GOD!" He tossed his hands up slightly at he sat down on her bed and began to remove his jacket. She jumped a little at his exclamation and sudden movement, but he didn't give her much time to question it before he continued. "Why is this so fucking difficult? I don't think I've ever had such a difficult time talking to someone before. All the things I have to say slip right through my fingertips the moment I look at you."
There was a pause. She was trying to figure him out, figure out how to handle this. His suddenness had scared her a little, and she wasn't sure she was okay with that, but she sat down next to him anyways, arms still folded, hoping it would encourage him to continue. With his heart beating through his chest, he glanced at her, took a deep breath, looked forward and continued.
"The whole time you were gone, when you were in Paris, I thought about you every single day. I missed you, yeah, but I was also worried about you. I couldn't keep all these . . . pictures out of my head. I kept seeing you, with Doyle, your life riding on you pretending to be someone you weren't, pretending to be in love with someone you weren't in love with, and your whole freaking life was riding in the balance. 'How did she do it?' I would think. 'She must have been so fucking scared.' And from the moment Reid figured out what this case was about, I just couldn't stop thinking about you.
Those women were so much like you Emily. Half of them even looked exactly like you! They were young, barely starting out in life. And I know the circumstances were different since they were basically sold into freaking slavery but they were the SAME! Their ENTIRE LIVES, EVERYTHING THEY KNEW, hung on them being able to pretend to be and be in love with someone they weren't. And the last four days, all I could think about was you, and how awful it must be for you to see this, how you've probably been reliving it all week and that's probably why you've been drinking eight cups of coffee a day and sleeping for two hours. And why you've been run the most ragged by this case out of pretty much the whole team.
I've spent the whole goddamn week trying to convince myself to talk to you. 'It's okay, you guys are sort of together now, you're allowed to ask her how she's doing.' But I also didn't want to cross the line and have you mad at me for giving you 'special treatment' and so. . . here I am, at the end of the case, when you probably need me the least, but I just have to know if you're okay."
The silence was deafening as she let the last of the tears fall down her face. Neither one of them dared to look at each other. She wasn't sure what to say and didn't want him to misread the tears and he didn't want to see the expected rejection as well as hearing.
"Well for starters," she began as she loosened her grip on her arms and leaned her head on his shoulder, "I drank eight cups of coffee because I have a problem, but we already knew that." They both chuckled slightly at the sudden shift in mood.
"And second," she took a very deep and audible breathe, "I did love him. And I think that might make it worse."