Prentiss
I looked out the window at the passing landscape as Hotch drove towards the precinct. We had just gotten out of the hospital after the scan. We were silent for a while as I thought about the happiness inside of me. Hotch watched the road and occasionally looked at me.
I looked over to him when he pulled into the lot, "Are you sure that you don't want to know?"
"No." He shook his head.
"No you don't want to know or no you're not sure."
"I'm not sure."
"Well can I tell the team?"
He thought about it for a second before nodding, "Sure."
We walked towards the building and went through the safety checks at the entrance. Then we made our way to the elevators and we stood in comfortable silence for a few seconds before I spoke again. "Can I please just tell you?"
He sighed and looked into my eyes as we walked off the elevator and across the smooth flooring towards the glass doors. He nodded, "Fine, tell me."
I smiled, "So…we're having…a boy and a girl!" I said excitedly as he opened the glass door and I walked through backwards, looking at him. I had a large smile on my face and one spread across his. I laughed at his reaction. I jumped up and down a few times before jumping into his arms. He caught me and spun me around before placing a few chaste kisses on my lips.
"I'm so happy; I couldn't decide what gender I would have preferred but we're getting both so it doesn't matter!" I expressed happily as we walked over towards my desk. I was still walking backwards in front of him.
He smiled at me and I saw the love and adoration in his eyes as they looked back into mine. He usually kept it professional at work unless he was trying to make amends after a fight or if he was sure no one was around to bust us that weren't the team or he was particularly happy about something. I guess this was one of those "particularly happy" times, but normally he'd place one or two kisses and he'd stop there; this was still frowned upon. Today, he placed at least six or seven and he hadn't even so much as glanced around to see if anyone was watching us. That made me all the more elated; he would rather kiss me than keep his job safe.
"I love you." I smiled.
"I love you too, gorgeous." His put his arms around my waist and looked up to greet Morgan, Reid, JJ and Garcia who were all at the desks too. I looked up when I heard a door open and Rossi walked out of his office and down into the bullpen to join us.
"So what's the verdict?" He asked.
I looked up at Hotch and he looked back at me, "What?"
"Can I tell them?"
"I already said yes."
"Yes, but earlier you said that you didn't want to know their genders and then you changed your mind twenty minutes later and let me tell you."
"Emily, I assure you that you can tell them."
I looked back at my team with a big smile, "We're having a boy and a girl."
"Ah!" Garcia exclaimed excitedly. She stepped forwards quickly and Hotch removed his arms from my waist. She hugged me for a few seconds and congratulated us before hugging Hotch.
"It's about time for a baby girl!" JJ said excitedly with a smile and hugged the both of us. Morgan and Reid hugged me and shook Hotch's hand, Rossi both hugged me and kissed my cheeks before he congratulated with Hotch with another handshake.
"Yes, so name suggestions would be greatly appreciated." I nodded as I looked at all of them.
"Oh, we are all over it. Pen, come on." JJ said, pulling Garcia away. The two of them walked towards Garcia's office quickly, talking excitedly about what I assumed was my children.
I smiled at Hotch and he kissed my cheek before making his way to his office. It was almost time for us to leave…well, for everyone else around here to leave; we usually stayed later for paperwork.
"So when are you going on maternity leave again?" Reid asked.
"At 26 weeks, so in five weeks from Monday, but I'll probably still be around here. I'll help Garcia out or something. Maybe I'll just do paperwork."
"Doesn't having twins raise the chances of being put on bed rest?" Morgan asked.
"Desk work." I shrugged my shoulders.
"Hotch won't let you come in." He shook his head.
"Hotch will be away on cases and I will be here at my desk or with Garcia."
"I'm sure that'll go down well…" Rossi said, "Congratulations, mio caro." He commended me again.
"Thank you." I smiled as he kissed my cheek again. He went back to his office and I looked at Morgan and Reid.
They both congratulated me a second time and went back to their desks. I sat down at my own and opened a file, taking the paperwork from inside of it and moving it to the side so I could look through the file and photos to refresh my memory. Even while seeing the terrible things in the file, I couldn't stop the small smile from sticking on my lips.
My phone vibrated after a while and I looked at JJ's text. "Team dinner again tonight?" I heard Morgan and Reid's phones receive the message too. I stood up and walked up to Hotch's office. I knocked and waited for him to allow entry. I opened the door and walked in. He smiled at me and put his pen down.
"Did you get JJ's text?" I asked.
"I did," He nodded, "Do you want to go?"
"I don't mind, that's why I came to ask you."
"Well I think the main reasoning of it is to celebrate our children, so we probably should go." He nodded.
I frowned.
"What?" He sat up straighter and his voice was concerned.
"I hate that I can't drink."
He shook his head and laughed, "Only a few more months."
"Yeah, and then I have to breastfeed."
"You will be able to drink again eventually," He rolled his eyes, "You'd think you're children were more important than your ability to consume alcohol." He raised his eyebrows.
"They are," My voice was offended, "I can love my children and still miss drinking at the same time."
"I know, I'm teasing," He stood up and walked around his desk to me. He kissed me once and then turned, putting his things into his bag, "Go get your things, we can pick Jack up before we go to dinner."
"Okay." I walked back out of his office and pulled the door closed behind me. I went down the steps of the catwalk and down the small hall that led to Garcia's office. I knocked and opened the door, "Hey."
Garcia and JJ both smiled at me, "We have so many names that we will share with you tonight." JJ smiled.
I nodded with a smile, "Well we'll will be there. Text me the time and location; we're leaving in a minute to get Jack."
"Okay, see you later." Garcia smile. I closed the door again as I walked out and I went back to my desk. I put my things in my bag and packed a pile of paperwork in too. Hopefully Hotch hadn't seen me take it; he hated that instead of relaxing over the weekend, I would do paperwork instead. I guess he knew that I never used to do that until we starting dating so he thought I was just doing it because he used to. He actually didn't do as much work over the weekend as he used to; he spent as much time as he could with Jack and he tried to take me away from my own work to spend that time with him.
I closed my bag and saw Hotch exit his office with his bag out the corner of my eye. "Are you two coming tonight?" I asked Reid and Morgan.
"Hell yeah, I love celebrating on a Friday night." Morgan smirked.
"We will see you there." Reid smiled.
"Okay, see you soon then." I smiled. Hotch said a brief goodbye to them and linked his hand with mine. We walked through the glass doors and out them.
"…I saw the paperwork." He said once the elevator doors closed.
I looked at him, "I have a lot to do this weekend."
"You're overworking yourself."
"You used to do more than I do."
"I know, and why do you think I don't anymore? Because I overworked myself."
"I won't even be allowed to work properly in five weeks; let me work now."
"You're not doing any paperwork while you're on maternity leave." He said as the doors opened. We walked out and towards the exit. I rolled my eyes but I wouldn't argue it until it was happening. I still had a few weeks. We walked to his car and he took my bag before opening the passenger door for me. I stepped into the car and he put our bags in the trunk. He walked around to the driver's side and he started to drive out of the lot.
We picked up Jack and dropped our things home before leaving again and making our way to the bar that JJ had texted me.
We were sitting with the team and we all had our drinks; I had water, of course. We had told Jack about the gender of our children on our way here. He was excited to have a little brother, but not so much a little sister.
"Okay, let us begin by saying that it is extremely difficult to find names for either gender starting with the letters Q, U, V, X and Y and you should forget about wanted a name starting with them if you wanted one because it is not happening." JJ said.
We all laughed, "I'm sure it couldn't have been that hard." I said.
"Oh, wait until you hear the names…" Garcia said, "So we made two lists. One for female names and one for male names and they all have one name for each letter…with a few exceptions." They smirked at each other.
"Oh no…" Hotch said quietly as we looked at each other.
"Okay, for girls," JJ started, "Amelia, Baylee, Colette, Darcie, Evie, Faye, Georgia…or Garcia, Harley, Imogen, Jayde…or Jennifer, Kimberly, Laynee, Mackenzie, Nadine, Olivia, Paisley or Penelope, Quinn, Raine—"
A small laugh escaped me and interrupted her, "Rain?"
"Yeah, but it's spelt with an E on the end." Garcia said.
"Yeah, okay, sure…continue."
"Sadie, Tahlia, Ursula—"
"Oh, come on."
"You try finding a name starting with U!" JJ laughed, "You probably won't like the next one either but I'm going to say it anyway. Verity…" I dropped my head into my hands to keep my laugh back. She continued, ignoring me, "Waverley, Xena—"
"Okay, neither of you is every allowed to have a daughter." Morgan said.
JJ smirked at him, "Yasmine and Zoe."
"Great; we'll definitely consider those…" I looked at Hotch with a smirk. He bit his lip to hide his own smirk and cleared his throat.
He looked back at them, "And the male names?"
"Oh dear god, please be better than Verity." I said quietly.
Garcia laughed, "We told you not to use those letters," She unfolded a piece of paper, "Austin, Bruno—"
"Oh god, we're not German."
"Shh. Caden, Dallas…or Derek…or David, Elliott, Fraser, Gideon, Hugh, Ia—" She stopped and looked at JJ, "Why did you write that down?"
JJ looked over her shoulder, "Oh…that is my writing. Sorry, just skip that one."
"I'm going to take a wild guess and say that it's Ian." I said.
They both looked at me, waiting for a reaction, I assumed.
I rolled my eyes, "Continue."
"Okay…Jeremy, Kieran, Logan, Monroe, Nathan, Oliver, Pierce, Quinton, Ryder, Sebastian…or Spencer, Tristan, Uriah, Vincent, Wesley…or William, Xavier…" Garcia laughed and pointed to a name when JJ looked.
"Yeah, well there are no male names starting with a Y." She defended herself.
"Yusuf…and Zander."
"Yusuf?" Hotch raised his eyebrows.
"There are no names!" JJ said again, laughing.
I shook my head and sat forwards. I took both lists and looked at them. I took the pen out of Rossi's chest pocket at my side and started crossing out the names that I hated. I put little asterisks next to the names I liked, including Imogen, Nadine, Gideon and Zander. I gave the lists to Hotch and he looked at the asterisked names. He pointed to Gideon and raised his eyebrows.
"A middle name." I smiled.
"Okay." He gave the lists back to me with a smile.
"I'm going to keep these." I said to JJ and Garcia and folded them again before putting them in my handbag.
We talked more for a while about names before I changed the subject. We ordered and ate while we laughed. It was a nice night.