PART NINE
Summer passed by faster than Emily would have liked as she continued to cross days off on her calendar. She knew she was getting older, knew it would be so much more difficult, but she hadn't planned on this. And it was starting to get honestly painful. The stigma of sleeping with her supervisor aside, it was getting harder and harder to pull away from him every time. So often she just wanted to tell him that she wanted to stay, wanted to tell him to stay, but could never open her mouth to do it. She liked to believe she was a very strong and courageous person, she had to be to do her job, but now… it was just getting out of hand.
Because now she was reacting to his presence in the office. While she'd had a Hotch radar for a while, it had never been to the point of the hairs on the back of her neck standing up when he walked past. She'd never been so acutely aware of the way her body heated when he touched her, and it had been a long time since she'd actually taken to noticing the way a tie deepened his eyes, or the way his dimples made him look so much younger. And he was starting to haunt her out of the office too. There were times when she was curled in her own bed that she swore she could feel his arms wrapped around her stomach. It gave her an empty feeling when she realized he wasn't there at all.
So when August slipped into September and then into October, Emily became more and more worried. By the time November rolled around, she'd managed to find the courage to bring the topic up with Hotch.
"I think we need to look into alternatives."
He looked down at where her head was pillowed against his shoulder. "You do?"
"Aaron, we've been doing this for too long," she whispered. "I'm only getting older."
His hands started running through her hair. "We'll have to do some research."
"We have two options, Aaron. How much research has to be involved?"
"Have you looked?" he asked.
"A little. Just enough. We need to really start thinking about it."
"The new year," he proposed. "We wait until January. We can look into everything when we're on stand-down for the holidays."
She wanted to tell him she wasn't sure if she could do it, if she could take another month of trying the conventional way. Because it was more than just trying to conceive a child now and there was so much more at stake now. Her heart was in this now and she wasn't sure she liked that kind of idea. In fact, she was pretty sure she didn't like it. And yet there was nothing she could do to change it and that felt almost worse.
An uneasy peace settled over the entirety of the BAU for the next three weeks. No one was quite sure how to deal with either Hotch or Emily as they tried to figure out what they wanted to do about their latest predicament. There were days Emily was the happiest woman in the world. Other days, she was the devil incarnate, or at least that was what Derek called her when he was sure she wouldn't overhear him. Even Hotch hadn't been able to stabilize Emily during some of those days and that was something the team had never seen.
So JJ was almost floored when Emily came all but racing into her office, almost slamming the door behind her. Her eyes were panicked, but they sparkled with some other sort of emotion that looked something like hope.
"Em?"
"I'm late."
JJ knew what that meant and her eyes widened. "Stress?"
"Look at my job, look at my life. I've never been late, Jayje. Maybe two or three days, but this is a week and a half," Emily said almost breathlessly. "But I don't... I don't want to get my hopes up."
JJ bit her lip. "There's only one way to know for sure, Em. And we're on stand down as of tonight, you know that."
Emily bit her lip. "JJ I don't know..."
JJ sighed, standing and coming around the desk. "Let's go out for lunch, okay? We'll make a stop at a drug store, no one has to know unless you want them to."
"What happens if... What about if I'm..."
JJ eyed her friend carefully. She wasn't going to say it for Emily. Saying it would make it real and JJ was hoping that Emily would feel better if she actually made the possibility of a pregnancy real. "What if you're what?"
Emily bit her lip. "Pregnant," she finally said.
JJ almost laughed. "Isn't that what you and Hotch want?" She hoped to goodness Emily wasn't about to back out now. The team had been waiting too long for them to do something binding about their relationship and JJ had a feeling this was just the first step to something much more permanent. She'd seen the changes in both her boss and her colleague since she'd learned about their little deal and was more than happy for her friend.
"It's… big," Emily whispered, looking down, not at all the agent JJ was generally used to in the Quantico setting, but definitely the insecure friend the blond had seen a few times.
"But the whole point of your little arrangement," JJ replied quietly. "Em, if anyone can raise a happy, healthy baby under unconventional circumstances, it's you and Hotch." Actually, at this point, she'd say anything reassuring to make sure that Emily eventually found out how completely head-over-heels the man was for her.
"You think so?"
"I know so," JJ replied. "Now, here's what we're going to do…"
Per JJ's instructions, Emily hid the pregnancy test she'd purchased while at lunch with her friend in her purse, then set it on the bathroom counter when she got back to her apartment. Then, she called Hotch. He was more than happy to come over for dinner, and even offered to pick something up. She refused. Cooking would keep her mind off of the little stick in the bathroom, at least for a while. It gave her something else to focus on while she waited for him. Because JJ had made it abundantly clear that it was endlessly important for him to be there for that moment.
She took a deep breath and wiped her hand on the nearby dishtowel when his knock sounded on the door. He was smiling widely when she opened it and her smile popped up out of reflex and automatic response. "You really do need to smile more often."
"Hello to you too," he said, pressing a kiss to her cheek and a bottle of wine into her hand. "And I try."
Oh, she hadn't thought about that, but it was the perfect excuse to tell him the actual reason she'd invited him over. "Try harder."
"It smells good in here."
Her smile, she knew, was tremulous. "I thought I'd actually cook tonight."
He caught her hands after she set the wine bottle on the counter. "Emily?"
He knew something was up. He always knew when something was up. She chewed her lip, trying to find the right words.
"Let me open the wine, we'll sit and talk, okay?"
She shook her head. "I don't think that's a good idea, Aaron."
His eyes flashed, and she realized she'd used his first name. He had to know now what this was all about. "Is there a particular reason you don't want a glass of wine?"
"I'm late, Aaron. And I know it's not stress. A couple of days is one thing, but a week and a half…" She swallowed. "It's not stress."
"You think…"
She nodded before he was half way through the first word. "I have a test in the bathroom."
"You waited?"
And now she understood why JJ had told her to call him. "I didn't want to do it alone."
He hugged her, wrapping his arms tightly about her body. "You don't have to," he promised.
She thought she heard him say something like 'never again', but shook it off. "Do you mind if we find out before dinner? I'm not sure I could eat anything right now."
He shook his head. "Not at all."
She could see the hope in his eyes, even as they bored into the fear she knew showed in hers. Now that they were here, in this situation, actually talking about their baby, her pregnancy, it was a completely different matter entirely. Carrying Hotch's baby would be a completely different adventure. "I'll be right back."
By the time she emerged from the bathroom, leaving the stick on the counter, he was seated on her couch, two glasses of juice in front of him on her coffee table.
"Sit," he requested.
She sat.
"How long?"
"Five minutes. Less now," she replied softly.
He pulled her close to his body. "Nervous?"
"Terrified." She couldn't lie to him, not even if her life depended on it. "A baby Hotch. A real live human being. Are we really ready for this?"
"Hey," he said, catching her face in his hand. "We can do this. We've planned everything out."
He was right, she knew he was right, and yet her stomach wouldn't calm. "What about the Bureau?"
"I told you, Em. I'll deal with Strauss. If this is real, you just work on keeping my daughter safe and healthy. Everything else with the Bureau, you leave to me."
"The team?" She hadn't told him JJ knew. Not yet. Though she was sure he had his suspicions. JJ wasn't always as subtle as Emily was sure she wanted to be.
"Cross that bridge when we come to it. We've talked about all of this Emily. You have to trust that everything will work out okay," he said.
She looked up at him, feeling so much better that his own nervousness and fear lurked under the surface. "You don't have to be strong for me," she whispered.
He chuckled. "I should have known you'd see right through me."
"I usually can," she agreed. "You don't close off on me."
"Not anymore," he agreed. "How much longer?"
She looked at the clock and sucked in a breath. "Now."
Neither of them moved.
"Emily?"
She shook her head. "I can't."
Surprised at the outright fear in her voice, Hotch stood, leaving her reluctantly on the couch as he walked into her bathroom. Emily held her breath as she watched him walk back into the room. "And?"
I know, I know. I'm a terrible person to leave it at that! But all of you smart people are totally aware of what's going to come next! I just didn't want to write it here 'cause the chapter was getting extremely long. And it would have been too short to cut it any earlier. But, on the bright side, if everything goes according to plan, the next bit should be up tomorrow. Think you can all be patient until then?
