A/N: Continued thanks for all the reviews so far. I do appreciate them. Without further ado...
February 2011 (Present Day)
Emily took a long drink of water and set her glass back down on the coffee table. She'd thought about the answer to this exact question on the way over, but no satisfactory answer had come to mind.
"Emily," Hotch said softly, mimicking Emily's position, his hands between his knees, elbows on his thighs.
"I don't know."
"Then how can we make this decision?"
Emily shrugged. "You tell me. Maybe it would be easier for me to figure out what to do if I knew why were friends for three years and then you acted like you hardly knew me."
As right as Hotch knew Emily was, as guilty as he felt for what he'd done to her, he'd selfishly hoped she would stop asking things like that.
"I don't know."
"Then how am I supposed to…" Emily groaned and buried her face in her hands.
"I know you don't trust me," Hotch cut in.
"Then you're right about one thing."
"But I'm sorry."
Emily was shaking her head when she looked up at him. "You know I already have huge trust issues. You knew that then. And you were the only one who knew."
"Am I still?" Hotch asked.
"Not that that has anything to do with this conversation, but yes, you are," she snapped. She frowned before continuing. "I…I don't know if I can pretend to trust you enough to raise children with you, Hotch. This is crazy."
"I know I've lost your trust, and I understand why. But let me ask you this. Are you sure you want to take the kids?"
Without hesitation, Emily nodded.
"Tell me why."
"Because I…I was not always a good friend to JJ." At the mention of her name, Emily felt herself tearing up again. She strove to hold them back. She didn't want to break down anymore in front of Hotch, didn't want to give him an opportunity to try to get back to her. To aid in this endeavor, she gazed at the floor as she spoke instead of meeting his gaze. "You were right. I should have told her what happened, and I didn't, and I considered it from time to time because I knew she knew I wasn't telling her something, and I felt like such an awful friend for hiding it from her. But I felt like eventually it just felt like so long ago that there was no point in dredging it up, because I had finally started coming to terms with it. And then you left and JJ knew I was hurting. She knew you and I were friends. Not…as good of friends as we really were, because I never told her that part either," Emily said, feeling guilty for the partial lie, "but she knew I was upset when you took off, and she was there for me. How could I not do the one thing she asked me to do? And I love the kids. Even if I didn't feel guilty, I would take them," she added, pretty certain that she was being truthful.
Hotch had been doing a lot of thinking since he'd left his post at the BAU—thinking about Emily, specifically, and whether he'd done the right thing. He'd come to the conclusion that he definitely could have done better. He'd had her number pulled up on his phone so many times over the past months that he'd lost count. The couple of times he'd seen her in person, not counting Charlotte's christening, he'd been tempted to ask Emily for a minute of her time so he could explain things, apologize. But what was there to explain? he would ask himself. How could he tell her the truth without hurting her? What was the truth, even? Could he honestly tell her he didn't see them together in the way she obviously had? If not, then he would just have to admit to being completely wrong about everything, something that he wasn't fond of having to do.
Instead of giving Emily the honesty she deserved, he'd remained silent on the subject. Silent on everything, really. And to know now that Emily had needed JJ—or needed anyone else besides herself—to get through those months with him ignoring her, he felt the guilt penetrating him deeper and deeper. An uncomfortable knot formed in his stomach. Of course he'd known his absence had had an effect on her, but when she had called him before anyone else with the news of JJ's death, he had naively thought that maybe he was in the clear. He thought that perhaps Emily had forgiven even if she hadn't forgotten. But he had only gotten a few hours of precious time where she didn't hate him, and now they were back to the place he had dreaded.
"Are you even listening? You're the one who asked the question," Emily said bitterly.
"I heard every word, unfortunately," Hotch answered. "I was just thinking."
"About what?" Emily's voice grew less harsh as she realized she wasn't going to get anywhere by being catty.
Hotch waited until Emily looked him in the eye before replying. "About how sorry I am. You didn't do a thing to deserve being treated like trash. And that's exactly how I treated you. There's no sugarcoating it. That's not how anyone should treat a friend. I thought…like I said, I didn't know what I was thinking," he lied, telling himself it was in Emily's best interests to continue doing so. "And I know you said at my retirement party that we were fine, no harm no foul. And I was selfish and made myself believe that even though deep down I knew we were anything but, because I didn't want to have to keep apologizing. So I walked away convincing myself I hadn't done any damage. And even though I missed you, that felt easy, maybe because I didn't have to admit my mistake."
"Should I have let you know somehow that you did hurt me?" Emily asked, wondering if Hotch was trying to hint that this was somehow her fault. She was ready to defend herself, and apparently Hotch picked up on that.
"No, not at all. Like I said, I did know that I'd been in the wrong and that you hadn't forgiven me. I was…as you said a few minutes ago…an asshole." He rarely swore around her and was a bit taken aback at even his willingness to quote her.
"So when you avoided me all those months, was it because you actually didn't want to be my friend anymore? I know I sound like a ten-year-old asking that, but seriously, did I do something?"
"It was because I was a coward. I don't know what else to say except that I'm terribly sorry."
Emily nodded. Am I ready to believe him?
"I'm not asking you to forgive me, but can you at least accept my apology and trust that it's sincere?"
Emily couldn't think of a reason to say no to that. She'd never heard such a humble apology, at least not from Hotch. "Okay."
"Thank you." Hotch knew he was taking a risk, but he got up and took the spot on the couch closest to the chair Emily occupied. "I need to know that you trust me."
"I trust that you're sorry," Emily clarified, backing away from him just slightly.
"But you don't trust that I won't do it again?"
"It's not so much that…I mean, who knows if we'll ever be that close again? So who knows if you'll have the opportunity to run away?" She stopped when she saw the deeply stung look in Hotch's eyes. "I…can trust you with the kids, though. If that's what you're asking."
"So you don't trust me with you, but you trust me with children that aren't mine or yours?"
"I know it sounds weird."
"Either way, I'm completely devoted to both."
Emily's mouth went slack. "Hotch, this can't be some decision we make because you want to be back in my good graces."
"Are you saying you don't believe that I care about the kids, and about JJ, and want to do what's right? Because you just agreed that you trust me with the kids—"
"I know what I said."
"I think we can get over what happened in the past and do this," Hotch said. "I honestly do. We're better than this. We can be friends again."
"You really think so?" Emily asked, twisting her hands together.
"You don't?" Hotch eyed Emily's hands with interest, but was afraid to go too far.
"This is a huge decision," Emily said, terrified. "They specified the kids would need to live in one household. Which means we either both live at JJ's, or here, or somewhere else, at the same time…or, the kids stay at JJ's and we swap between living at our own places and JJ's, or something odd like that."
"I honestly don't think the second option is what's best for the kids, or for us. And they said they wanted the kids raised by two people, preferably, and if we're going off of that, I think it would be a misinterpretation if we thought we could do a house-swap kind of thing. They wanted stability for kids. And given that they updated the will right after we became godparents…" Hotch said, trailing off for Emily to complete his sentence, which he knew she could. Some things never changed.
"…They wanted it specifically to be us."
"A mother and a father figure," Hotch added. "I don't think we can be that for the kids if we start off as a home more broken than the one they already have."
"This is way too much for me to process right now," Emily admitted, biting her lip until it stung.
"You said the decision might be easier than you thought," Hotch said. "What other viable option do you see? Do you think you can do this on your own?"
"What about Jack? You need to run this by him," Emily said suddenly.
"Don't dodge my question," Hotch said. "Do you think you can do this on your own?"
A/N: Thank you for reading! Please review if you have a second.