A/N: Thank you for all the reviews and interesting that some folks thought Jack would be with Hotch. In a word, no. However, we have not seen the last of the little tyke. There might be two parts after this one because I might split it up to make it read better. I'm not sure yet. But the story is winding down. I'm trying to see if maybe I can have it finished this holiday weekend. Hope you enjoy, and please remember to leave feedback if you have a chance.

"Running, Prentiss?"

There was a coolness to his tone with a hint of…mocking? It was something she had never heard in Aaron Hotchner's voice before. Anger, shock, annoyance, exasperation, but mockery? Never. He was always so serious, so focused and intense. He was all those things now, but there was something else too that she couldn't identify and it both drew and frightened her.

"Of course not," she returned in a chilly tone that she used to cover up the uneasiness she was feeling. She stood her ground, but when he moved closer towards her to enter the room, his chest almost brushing against hers, one of his legs nearly coming between both of hers, she hastily retreated in surprise, her feigned demeanor quickly shattered by a simple step by him.

The corners of his mouth tilted slightly upwards, the only indication he found her reaction amusing and he pressed his advantage, pushing her back into the room without laying a finger on her. She could do nothing but fall back as he kept stepping towards her. He followed and then closed the door and leaned against it, effectively cutting off her exit. Hotch crossed his arms and regarded her.

"Then where are you going?" he asked calmly with a tilt of his head towards the duffle bag that she had now dropped to the floor as she kept a comfortable distance between them.

"I was discharged, so I'm leaving. I can't very well stay here forever," she snapped, unnerved by the way he was acting.

"Where will you go?"

Emily hesitated and wondered if she could get away with lying to him and bring up the CIA job offer that no longer existed, but something about the look in his eye made her think that would be the dumbest thing she could do right now. Instead, she opted for another tactic.

"I don't see where it's any of your concern," she asked aloofly, hoping to freeze him out and get him to leave her alone.

"And why wouldn't it be?" he replied as he pushed himself off the door and came towards her, stalking her almost like a large, sleek cat after some prey.

And prey was what Emily Prentiss felt like at that moment. She didn't know what the Hell was up with Hotch nor why she would suddenly feel so jumpy around this man. While she could not honestly say that she's always felt at ease in his presence, he's never made her so skittish and uncertain before. As he approached her, she started to move towards the window, pretending she wasn't trying to scramble away from him.

"Maybe because you're no longer my supervisor," she retorted, trying to gain some ground she hadn't even realized she had lost.

"But we're still friends, aren't we, Emily?" he asked quietly as he stopped right next to her. While it had amused him to see her clearly disconcerted by his presence and attitude, something he had done to try to regain some semblance of authority and control in this entire situation, both of them needed to stop playing such games and simply be honest with each other. It was time to get to the heart of the matter and what mattered now, was what Emily was going to do next. He needed her to know that even if there were trust issues between them and if she didn't feel that indefinable something else he was beginning to feel for her, that she knew they were still friends.

She sighed and appeared to deflate a little before his eyes, looking smaller, more fragile. His hand twitched, aching to reach out to comfort her, but while a moment ago he was enjoying invading her space to confuse her, he knew now was not the time for such contact.

"Emily?" he said in a gentle tone. "We are still friends. As your friend, I'm concerned about you. Tell me what you're thinking."

"I think, Hotch," she said in a slightly broken voice. "It's probably best for you to just let me go."

He felt a cold hand grip his heart and panic threatened to overwhelm him, but he retained his outward calmness. Anything else, any other type of reaction would likely send her heading out the door forever. She didn't need Aaron Hotchner, the man who might be falling in love with her making an emotional plea or blackmail or guilt to force her to stay. She needed SSAIC Aaron Hotchner who will calmly talk to her as her friend and point out all the very good reasons for her to stay.

Emily was leaning against the edge of the credenza that was underneath the window and both hands were gripping the lip of it. Hotch, still not touching her, stood next to her, leaning against the furniture too. To help him control his already twitching hands that ached to reach out to her, he folded his arms over his chest.

"Why would you think that?" came his measured response.

"Time has passed. You've all moved on without me here. My being back just complicates things. It's just best to keep on that path." She wouldn't look at him, merely staring straight ahead at the opposite wall.

He wouldn't look anywhere but at her. "You really think that's what happened? That we moved on? Emily, look at me." When she stubbornly refused to do so, he did reach out now to gently turn her towards him. He tilted her face up so he could see her eyes and she his.

"We didn't move on, Emily. None of us did. There wasn't a day that went by where we didn't think of you. Where I didn't think of you. Every day, I would think about all the things I could have done differently so you will still be here with us, with me."

"But you've got closure now, Hotch," she responded. "You know I'm alive and you did nothing wrong. You can put all this behind you, you and the others. Put me behind you and let go of the guilt. Let me go."

"You think that was all it was about?" He looked intently into her eyes. "It wasn't just the guilt, Emily. It was missing you. We all did. It was not having you with us. It felt like a very important piece of each of us was gone. And it felt like that every day. Not hearing your voice. Not seeing you put Morgan in his place. Or giving Reid the encouragement he needs without him realizing what you're doing. It was not hearing Garcia call you Night Beauty or some other name that would only fit you. Do you know without you, we had to rely on Dave as our foreign language expert and that wasn't a pretty thing? And it was missing you coming into my office and nagging me to get out of there so I could be with Jack and then slipping into my hand the DVD I had promised to get him but forgot so I wouldn't go home and disappoint my boy. We missed you, Emily, not because we felt guilty, but because you are and will always be family. We could never let you go. You're a part of each of us."

He could see her eyes fill with tears, the most emotion she had shown since she'd been back and he thrilled at the sight and that he was the one who had drawn it from her. He reached out a hand to place it gently on her shoulder and offered her a comforting squeeze, letting his hand linger on her delicate shoulders, feeling her heat and the too prominent bones under his fingers.

She wanted to believe him, and for the second time in less than a half hour, she saw something in Aaron Hotchner's eyes that she had never seen before and while it still made her nervous, she also felt a warm fluttering within her. Then her cool logic took over again and she shook her head.

"It's too dangerous," she murmured. "My face is plastered all over the news. Doyle's organization-"

"Already knew you're alive and that you must have had something to do with his death," Hotch said simply. "But would they really care? How many devoted followers does he have left? Remember that man who tried to help us back at the warehouse? He seemed to indicate that a new type of thinking was taking over Doyle's group." However, if she was in danger because of the news leak, Hotch was going to hunt down Clyde Easter and beat the crap out of him. Something the Englishman had said forced him to ask the next thing. "But you have to tell me, Emily. Is there anyone else? Another old case where you could be in danger because they've seen your face on TV?"

Hotch watched her frown as if puzzled that there was even an issue or question about old enemies outside of Doyle. She shook her head.

"No. It was just Doyle."

Whether Hotch took that as Doyle being her only case with the CIA or that he was the only enemy, she didn't elaborate. Either way, while the Irishman hadn't been her only case with the Agency, he had been the only threat to her. Of her other three cases with the CIA, one was a profiling consult where she hadn't even left the agency, the second had actually become entwined with the third case and she knew the man involved there was long dead. She knew this fact intimately, as she had killed that monster herself; the first time she had ever taken a life.

She shook her head again. "No. There's no one."

"So there's no threat to any of us," Hotch responded easily. "What do you think is standing in your way?"

She eyed him uncertainly and licked her lips. For a second, his focus centered on her mouth but Hotch quickly snapped himself out of it when he realized she was worried about something.

"Trust," she finally whispered.

Hotch nodded, having anticipated the need to address this if he was going to convince her to stay. "I know there are trust issues on both sides, which is all the more reason for you to come back so we can work on them."

"Would they even want me back though if they don't trust me? Or find out that I've never fully trusted all of them?" She looked piercingly at Hotch, anxiously anticipating his answer.

He was aware of her probing stare and prepared for it. Knowing now that she had trust issues with him and the rest of the team before Doyle, Hotch anticipated that she might use the team's own trust issues with her as the excuse needed to leave their lives completely.

Hotch answered carefully, believing Emily needed just that little extra push and she would be back, but he had to do it right or she would be walking out that door and leaving him forever.

"I'm not saying it'll be easy or smooth, Emily," he began. "I anticipate it being rocky for everyone at some point or another. Trust will need to be earned by everyone. But I think you want to give us that opportunity to earn your trust. Otherwise, you would have left us long ago."

He watched as she bit her lip and looked down at her feet. "I do," she said softly, looking back up at him. "And part of it isn't even really you guys, it's just what happened-" She stopped herself abruptly and Hotch watched intently as her features shifted slightly as flickers of pain, fear and anger swirled in her eyes for an instant before they were gone. "In the past that makes me…cautious, maybe too cautious."

"Emily," his fingers tightened slightly on her shoulders. "What happened to you?"

He realized as soon as the words were out of his mouth that he had pushed too hard. She gently shrugged his hands off and took a step back from him, her face beginning to shut down as she created distance between them again. Hotch mentally kicked himself. In his eagerness to dig deeper and know her better, he had gone too fast. He just hoped he hadn't undone any progress he had been making.

"Hotch," she began warningly.

"I know," he hastily interrupted. He gave her a faint smile as he took a cautious step towards her. "That's the point of earning trust, isn't it? To have the honor of hearing about those types of things when you're ready to share. Sorry, I didn't mean to push."

It was with relief as he watched her relax marginally, and that cool mask she wore slowly began to fade. He pushed forward.

"So, will you come back?"

She wanted to go back, badly. Even with her trust issues, the BAU felt like the family she never had, but will it still feel that way? Would they still feel that way about her? Her trust issues she could always hide and deal on her own, but for each of them to look at her suspiciously, to wonder about her, it would be starting all over again, but only this time, they would have good reasons for never believing in her again. Did she want to go through all that?

"Emily, trust is a two way street," Hotch said, reading her mind. "We all have work to do. It's not just on you."

She was reminded of another time when Aaron Hotchner had come racing after her to bring her back to the team. He was doing it again now. Back then she had wondered what his motives where and had chalked them up to needing her for the team and maybe in some ways screwing with Strauss. She never asked why he did it, but had always wondered. She did ask now.

"Why?"

"Why what?" he asked, puzzled by the question.

"Why are you trying so hard to bring me back? You told me when I first started that trust was the most important thing to everyone on the team because of the work we did and because we all relied on each other. Why are you bringing back the one person who everyone doesn't seem to trust and who doesn't trust them in turn?"

One corner of his mouth lifted up at that as he gave her a lopsided grin. "It's because you've taught and reminded me of some very important things. I'm bringing you back because you reminded me that we're not a team, we're a family, and we need our entire family together. You taught me that it can't just be about you having to earn our trust we have to make sure we have earned yours as well. I've always demanded loyalty, excellence and faith from all of my agents, but I think I've forgotten I've needed to give that to them too. You've reminded me of that. But most importantly, Emily, not everyone distrusts you. I trust you."

From her wide eyes and the little "O" her mouth formed, Aaron Hotchner knew he had accomplished the rare feat of stunning Emily Prentiss into speechlessness.

"You-, you trust me?" she stammered in surprise.

"Yes," he couldn't help but give her a full smile this time, her complete confusion and surprise both amusing and endearing to him. "Completely. I know my job now is to earn your complete trust. I'm not saying everyone feels the way I do, Emily, but know that I trust you and that everyone wants you back. At least trust me to know that."

They had come full circle to when she had first joined the BAU. At the time, Aaron Hotchner was the one who was full of suspicions and she had felt compelled to prove herself to him. Now, their roles were reversed and while she was far closer to trusting him than he had her back then, he acknowledged he would have to earn her complete trust, something she had not given anyone in years.

"So what do you say?" he continued. "Will you come back?"

She could start over. It would be so easy. Now that Doyle was gone, it would be a fresh start for her, literally. No regrets, no mistakes, no betrayals, it would be a brand new life and a second chance.

Hotch grew more and more anxious the longer she remained quiet. He had to suppress the urge to suddenly order her to return. He could see her struggling and knew what she was thinking, that she could have a fresh start in life and he admitted that would be tempting to anyone who went through what Emily had the last few years. But a fresh start meant she would be gone, and away from him, and as the seconds ticked by and it seemed that possibility became more real, Hotch realized, he could not bear to have that happen.

Almost without thought, he held out his hand to her, his palm up. It was a silent plea of the words, "Stay here with me."

Emily looked at his offered hand and then up into his eyes. That indefinable look was back in them and she felt that nervous fluttering in her stomach again. She didn't know what it all meant and wasn't sure if he did either, but she knew by taking his hand she would be sealing her fate in some way. What way, she wasn't sure. But as her own hand began to rise and grow closer to his, each millimeter it moved, she became more certain it was a path she was destined to take.

His eyes were transfixed on hers so he was only aware of the movement of her hand, but he felt its warmth and softness as she gently placed it into his offered one. Slowly, his larger hand closed over her delicate one, encasing it almost reverently in a warm cocoon of his strength.

"Welcome back, Emily Prentiss," he said quietly.

Don't forget that the 2nd Annual Profilers Choice Award for Criminal Minds fiction is now open for nominations. The ballots are found in the discussion forum (when in the list of stories for the CM fan fiction section, look to the top right hand corner of your screen and you'll see a link for "Discussion Forums"), Chit Chat on Authors Corner, 2011 Profilers Choice CM Awards - Nomination Ballot.