There's a limbo between Doyle's death and the senate committee meeting, and Hotch brings Jack, takeout and wine to the apartment Emily is renting. It's late by the time he decides to do it, nearly Jack's bed time, but despite his best efforts to explain to Jack that Emily is alive, and home now, he's had trouble really believing it, and Hotch doesn't think he can until he sees her. And he wants to see her. He still can't quite believe it himself – he knows their jobs are in real trouble, knows the team are going to be hurt and angry and that she's just lost a man that she must have loved. It's a mess, but he has missed her so much.

When she opens the door Jack bursts into tears in the doorway. Hotch leads him inside, eases the door shut behind them, and Emily drops to the floor at Jack's side, wraps her arms around him and he folds himself into her and sobs into her shoulder. Something shatters inside her – there is no holding back tears, no option to keep herself under control. She holds him close and lets her tears soak into his sweater, and eventually he settles, his sobs turning to sniffles. "You want to come and sit on the sofa?" she asks him softly, wiping her tears away with her sleeve. Jack nods, taking her hand before they even stand up.

Hotch beats them to the sofa, sits down on one side with his arm stretched over the back. Emily knows he's giving her the option – they haven't talked about what their relationship will be, now that she's back. They were tentatively reaching toward becoming something before, spending days together with Jack and evenings together alone, and she was always the one who pushed back against making it official. She hated the secrets she had to keep from him, couldn't imagine making a lifetime commitment with a secret life never quite far enough behind her, when he couldn't know about Declan. She takes a breath and sits by his side, his hand squeezing her shoulder as Jack clambers into her lap. She wipes tears from his cheeks with her thumbs and kisses his forehead. "You know I love you, right?" He nods. "And I am so sorry I had to leave, and -" her voice cracks and she closes her eyes and takes a slow breath "- and I promise I'm back now to stay, okay?" He nods again and leans into her, the warm weight of him a comfort she never imagined she'd feel again. She holds him close, runs her fingertips up and down his back until she knows he's asleep, and then she turns to Hotch. "You know I love you too?" she says, her voice so soft he wouldn't have heard her if he hadn't been waiting for her to say it.

He leans over and kisses her lips softly, picks Jack up and carries him into the bed Emily already has made up with Spiderman covers in her spare room. When he comes back, she's sitting on the sofa with her legs pulled up in front of her. He sits down beside her, slides a hand up her leg, up over her knee and lets it settle on her thigh. She looks at him with wide, dark eyes and he can almost see an apology in them. "I love you," he tells her, fighting the tightness in his throat, and her hand settles over his. "I can't believe you're home…"

He can feel tears threatening, the image of her and Jack crying into each other's shoulders more than he can handle – he reaches around her back, pulls her on top of him, her legs either side of his, and their arms wrap around each other and they hug hard. He buries his face in her neck and breathes deeply, trying to blink away tears. She sits back, her hands on his neck, thumbs brushing over his jaw and fingertips sliding into his hair – it feels so soft and comforting, and when she speaks her voice is gentle. "Aaron, I'm sorry. For never being able to be in this a hundred percent."

He shakes his head reflexively, closes his eyes and feels her reach up to brush a tear from his cheek with her thumb. "It's okay."

She leans forward and kisses his cheekbones, his jaw, finds her way to his lips and his head tilts back and he pulls her close. There's a lot they both need to say with this kiss, and when she pulls back again she's smiling, her eyes shining. "I'm in now," she says softly. "A hundred percent. If you are."