Late that night, Emily and Hotch lounged around in his living room. Emily had dropped Declan back at school on the way home from Rossi and JJ's and then she went to get some things from her apartment before heading over to Hotch's for the night. Jack was now in bed, giving them a little alone time. They were watching a rerun of Seinfeld, but not really paying attention to what was happening because they were too wrapped up in each other to focus.
"Hey, I have something for you," Emily said suddenly as she remembered it.
"I have something for you, too," he said, his eyes crinkling. If there was one thing that Emily really noticed about Hotch now that they were together, it was that he smiled way more than people thought he did – he just showed it a lot more subtly. Little twitches of his lips, a mostly-concealed twinkle in his eyes, even just a tiny shift in his tone of voice – he smiled, just not in an obvious way. His happiness was private.
But not with her, not anymore. Now he was smiling at her all the time – real, genuine smiles with chuckling and laughter and his perfect dimples. And every time she effortlessly coaxed one of those smiles from him now, she fell a little bit deeper in love.
"Do you?" she asked, eyebrows raised in amusement.
"I do," Hotch confirmed, getting up. "I'll go get it. It's in the kitchen."
"Okay."
He returned a moment later with a little box tied up with ribbon.
"You actually bought me something?" Emily asked, brow furrowed. Hers wasn't exactly a real present. "Aaron, you didn't have to –"
"I know," he told her simply. "I wanted to. Now go on and open it."
She undid the ribbon and opened the box. Inside was a beautiful necklace – a delicate gold chain with a little pink topaz gem on the charm. It was pretty, it was romantic. It was expensive.
Her lips parted a little in admiration and her big brown eyes darted upwards to meet his. "Aaron – it's beautiful, but it's way too much –"
"– No it isn't," he argued, sinking onto the couch next to her. He took the box from her hands. "You deserve it."
"I – but just out of the blue like that –"
"–It's not out of the blue," he told her, carefully removing the necklace from the box it rested in. "It's pink for Bean."
A beautiful necklace for a beautiful woman, to celebrate the fact that she was going to have a beautiful little girl.
Emily's eyes instantly filled with tears – she was touched. "Aaron – you are so sweet. But you really didn't have to –"
"–You're the one growing a human inside of you," he pointed out, one of those subtler smiles on his face. "The least I can do is spoil you a little bit."
Neither of them said it, but it hung in the air between them for a moment: it wasn't like Ian was buying her gifts of appreciation for having his baby. So Hotch would gladly accept that role of doting boyfriend and father.
Emily leaned in and kissed him. When she pulled away, one of those dimpled smiles she loved was on his face.
"I guess that means you like it?"
"I love it," she told him truthfully.
"Are you sure you like the gold? There was silver, too, but I thought maybe you'd like it to match your Gimmel ring, so you can wear both."
She looked up at him in surprise, searching his face to try to decipher exactly what he meant by that. But there was no judgement in his eyes, and no hidden message in his expression – he'd truly picked gold because he wanted her to be able to wear the only thing she had left from Ian, the only thing she had left from the only other man she'd ever genuinely loved.
And she'd been so sure that if anyone knew she still wore those rings, they'd think she was crazy, but not Aaron. Somehow he just understood. Her heart swelled with gratitude, and maybe a little bit of guilt – if Hotch loved her enough to completely accept that a part of her was still hopelessly in love with Doyle… why couldn't she love Hotch enough to stop loving Doyle?
"Thank you," she whispered, fighting back tears. How comforting it was to know that he actually wanted her despite it all. He'd seen her darkest secret and looked past it, yet he fully understood and still wanted her to be a part of his life, a part of his son's life…
His calloused fingers carefully manipulated the tiny clasp and he put the jewelry around his Emily's neck. It settled perfectly between her collarbones.
"You are stunning," he told her sincerely, and she flushed. One of her hands seemed to move on its own to reach out and grasp his, and he felt the intensity with which she clung to him, as though holding his hand was her only way of keeping him there with her. He squeezed hers just as tightly, hoping it would convey his message back to her: he had no intentions of going anywhere. He was staying right here.
"What'd you have for me?" he changed the subject, trying to put her at ease. The corners of her lips twitched up a bit; he looked like a kid at Christmas, just dying to know what his present was –
"Oh… it's nothing, really –" she sniffled. How could her house key possibly compare to what he'd just given her?
"Let me see."
She hesitantly pulled it out of her sweater pocket and held it in a closed fist. She looked up at him, uncertain, but then decided to just go for it. Emily flipped the hand that was still in hers over so that his palm was open, face up, and she carefully pressed the key into his hand. He gave her fingers a little squeeze before looking down at what she'd given him.
Hotch's eyes snapped up to meet hers – he was surprised, she could tell, but after only a fraction of a second that surprise was already being replaced by elation. He'd been wanting to give her his key for a while now, but he was afraid it was too soon. He wanted to make sure they were going at her pace, not his – now that he knew her better and saw how often she second-guessed and doubted not only herself but also the other people in her life – he'd never call her fragile, but in a way she was, and he needed to make sure that she was completely comfortable with whatever they were doing. He didn't want to pressure her in any way. So he was going slow, even if it was a bit slower than he'd prefer.
Anything for her.
But now she'd made this big move, and she'd done it long before he expected her to. She was watching him again with those big brown eyes, trying to see if she'd done the right thing.
Apparently he took a second too long to respond, because she was once again doing that sweet thing that she did where she just started talking because she couldn't stand the quiet.
"I just… I don't know if you think it's too soon, and you definitely don't have to give me yours or anything, but I just realized this morning that I really miss you when we're not together, and I was thinking maybe if you had a key you could come over more – I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to –"
God, did she really think that he didn't want to spend time with her?
He hated to profile her, but he was really starting to think that Emily's whole situation with Doyle had messed with her far more than she was willing to admit. He'd known her for so many years, and yet even as a profiler he'd never seen through her confident façade: he'd never seen how her little insecurities added up, how she couldn't see the good in herself, how she constantly pined for the approval of her coworkers, and more pertinent to her relationship with Doyle, he had never noticed how she shied away from romantic relationships, like she didn't think she deserved to be loved…
He'd be damned if he let her think that for another minute.
Emily abruptly stopped talking when Hotch got up and grabbed his keys from where they were sitting on the kitchen island. He came back over to the couch and twisted her key onto his keychain, and then he carefully took his extra key off – he'd already had one made for her – and passed it to her.
"Are you sure?" she whispered.
"Absolutely."
They both knew this was a big act of showing trust – giving each other the keys meant that they were opening up in a way. They trusted each other enough to be in their homes unsupervised, to give each other full, unfiltered access to their private lives. Besides, Emily thought, maybe this could be a thing for convenience, too. Maybe if she was busy for some reason, he could come over and feed Sergio. Maybe she could bring his mail in or take Jack home from school.
"Hey," he said suddenly, remembering something else. "Let's go into the bathroom."
Emily tilted her head in confusion, an amused smile working its way onto her lips. "The bathroom?" she echoed.
"Yeah. I wanna show you something."
"Okay," she agreed, getting up to follow him down the hallway. She had no idea where he was going with this.
When they squeezed into the tiny bathroom, Hotch pointed proudly at the countertop.
It took Emily a minute to figure out what she was supposed to be looking at. He'd bought a new toothbrush holder. This one had room for four toothbrushes, unlike his old one, which only had room for two. And the toothbrush he'd gifted her when she forgot hers was taking up one of the extra slots.
Her heart melted. God, she was going soft. Who knew something so domestic could seem so overwhelmingly romantic?
He was making room for her in his life. In his home.
She stretched up on her toes to kiss him, her arms snaking around his neck. The kiss lasted about as long as it could without tempting them to go further, and then they both pulled away, smiling at each other.
"All that for a toothbrush slot?" he asked teasingly. "Imagine what would happen if I gave you a drawer."
"Try it and see what happens," she winked.
#
"Good morning, darling," Clyde Easter's smug voice greeted Emily as she answered her phone at 4:08 AM.
"What do you want? And how do you always manage to 'forget' the time difference?" she groaned, sitting up in bed and accidentally waking Hotch.
"No time difference. Plane just landed."
She paused. "Wait, what?"
"Everything okay?" asked Hotch groggily. She didn't answer.
"The plane just arrived," said Clyde. "At the Richmond Airport."
"Okay, why?"
"International serial killer just killed a couple in California."
"Then why are you in Richmond?"
"To pick up you and your lovely little team, of course."
"We don't have jurisdiction in California if the local PD doesn't invite us in –"
"–aren't you listening? It's international. Interpol has jurisdiction. And we're inviting you in right now."
She frowned. "You can't just call me – you have to tell Hotch. You know, my unit chief?"
"But I like you so much better, darling. And besides, I'm well aware that he's most likely lying in bed next to you right now. So you tell him. They're expecting us around eight their time, so we'll be in Quantico to brief you in, say, an hour and a half? I'll see you and your team there. Ta ta."
He hung up and Emily stared at her phone for a moment in disbelief. Arrogant ass. And how the hell did he know about her and Hotch? Not that she was really surprised.
"Clyde has a case for us," she told Hotch. "He wants everyone at the bullpen in an hour and a half."
"A case?"
She nodded. "International serial in California. That's all I know."
Hotch nodded, sitting up. "I'll talk to Cruz. You call the team, okay?"
"Okay."
They rolled out of bed and got to work.