"Morning, guys," Emily said to JJ and Garcia as she entered the bullpen at 6:00 AM Monday morning – they'd gotten a case again, somewhere in New Jersey, and Hotch wanted them in early so they could get there by the start of the workday. The call came in at 4, and Hotch had gently woken Emily and Jack, who reluctantly untangled themselves from each other's arms and rolled out of bed for breakfast.

Then Hotch and Jack drove Emily home, and the three of them packed Ketshie up – he seemed to warm up to Jack very quickly, especially considering how shy he'd been a few days ago. Jack, though still feeling achy and lightheaded, happily helped Emily feed both Ketshie and Sergio, and then they left to go to Jessica's house. Emily finished getting ready for work, and then she locked up and prepared herself for what would no doubt be another ridiculously long week. Somehow Hotch had beaten Emily back to Quantico, she saw, looking up at his office to see that the lights were on.

"Hey, PG," Emily greeted Garcia tiredly.

"Good morning, Sunshine. I gotta go prepare my PowerPoint," Garcia said, hopping down from where she had been perched on JJ's desk, probably for early morning gossip. "See you at round table, my loves," she added, and then the clicking of her heels grew quieter as she moved towards her lair.

"Good morning, Baby Girl," Morgan's voice came from near the elevators.

"I'll show you a good morning, Hot Stuff," came Garcia's usual reply.

"Hi, Morgan," JJ said.

"Hey, Blue," he replied tiredly.

"Morning, Der," Emily greeted Morgan as he dropped his laptop bag onto his desk and shrugged his jacket off.

"Hey, Princess," he said without really looking at her. "How's your weekend?"

"It was good," Emily said, surprising herself a little, thinking over the events of the past few days. "It was really good, actually."

Morgan looked up at her now; her genuineness had caught his attention. "Yeah? What'd you do?"

"Well, Friday we got a kitten," she said, pulling out her phone to search for a picture. "And then I pretty much just hung out with Aaron and Jack all weekend."

"'Hung out?'" Morgan repeated with a teasing grin. "Is that what they're calling it these days?" he asked knowingly.

Emily rolled her eyes, denying it, but they were profilers, and they'd know her way too long to fall for her usual compartmentalization techniques.

"Oh, my God," JJ said, noting the look on Emily's face. "Did you guys actually –"

" – Prentiss," Morgan interrupted, the smile slipping from his expression and turning into a frown as he stared at her face – but not quite into her eyes. "Is that... you got a bruise on your cheek?"

Emily's mouth opened and shut a few times. "Um – yeah. But I can explain –"

"Did he do that to you?" Morgan asked angrily, his eyes darting up towards the window to Hotch's office.

Her hesitation was the only answer he had time for. Seemingly in some sort of angry daze, he started slowly towards the stairs, picking up speed as he went.

"Wait – Morgan," Emily called, getting up as fast as she could to follow him. "You don't know the whole story –"

" – I'm going to kill that son of a bitch –"

"Oh, my God – hang on a sec –" Emily said desperately, catching his wrist on the stairs in an attempt to stop him. He wrenched his arm away without even slowing down. Emily teetered a bit in her heels – she was getting to the point in her pregnancy where Bean was throwing her off balance. Luckily, JJ was right behind her, and the blonde's hand shot out to stabilize her.

"Morgan!" JJ yelled, not entirely sure what was going on, but she didn't like the sound of "I'm going to kill that son of a bitch" and she definitely didn't like Morgan angrily storming up the stairs and nearly causing Emily to go tumbling down. Soon they were all stumbling into Hotch's office.

He looked up at them in surprise. "Is there a problem?" he asked, standing. He noted their expressions and body language – Morgan's was quite threatening, Emily's desperate, and JJ's extremely tense.

"Yeah, I got a problem," Morgan said angrily, still coming at Hotch, with Emily right on his heels. Morgan pushed Hotch aggressively.

"Morgan!" Emily shouted at him, now yanking on his t-shirt.

Hotch instinctively shoved him back.

"Did you hit her?" Morgan demanded.

Hotch's eyes flicked over to meet Emily's in lieu of an answer, which Morgan apparently considered to be a confession. They all had realized he was obviously pissed, but none of them expected what happened next – Morgan's fist flew forward and collided with Hotch's face. The unit chief had raised his arms in an attempt to block Morgan's blow, but he wasn't entirely successful – he got hit in the nose, which immediately started spurting blood onto his crisp white button-down. Hotch shoved Morgan away from him again then, defensively, and Morgan's elbow flew back and hit JJ hard in the ribs. Both Emily and the blonde were now screaming at the men to knock it off, and JJ was clawing Morgan's arms, trying to get him to stop. They both smacked his back repeatedly, but it didn't seem to have much of an effect on him. Then men took another step towards each other, and it became clear that they were both fighting purely on some deep-seated alpha-male instinct – Morgan's to protect Emily, and Hotch's to defend himself... and probably to maintain dominance, too.

Seeing that there wasn't really any other way to end this, Emily swiftly wrapped her arms around Bean and ducked under Morgan's elbow so that she was standing between them.

Panic crossed JJ's face as it became clear what Emily was doing; for a second she was sure that at least one of the men would hit her best friend on accident.

Emily clearly didn't share that fear – she'd never have made the move if she thought that Bean could be hurt as a result. She knew that neither Hotch nor Morgan would touch her.

"Stop," Emily commanded, and just as she'd suspected, both men paused immediately.

"Emily –" Hotch and Morgan protested simultaneously.

"What the hell is going on in here?" Rossi asked, entering Hotch's office after hearing all the commotion, and the shouting. He was completely ignored as he took in the scene in front of him: he saw Hotch standing there with a bloody nose and shirt, and Morgan with lots of long scratch marks down his arms from JJ's perfect manicure. Hotch and Morgan glowered at each other over Emily's head – and she was sporting a nicely concealed bruise on her cheekbone, which possibly would have gone without notice had the swelling gone down just a bit more. JJ stood behind Morgan, clutching her ribs, and she looked like she was 100% ready to pounce on him at a second's notice.

"You are both fucking idiots," Emily hissed at them. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"An idiot for what?" Morgan demanded. "Tryin' to defend you –"

"How about for punching your boss in the face for something you don't even know the story behind?" Emily barked at him.

"He punched you in the face so I punched him in the face, I don't really think any explanation is –"

"He hit me on accident! In his sleep!" Emily snapped immediately. It seemed to take Morgan a second to process this – he could be somewhat slow when pissed off.

"Wh – really?"

"Yes, really," Emily said angrily. "God, did you seriously believe he'd hit me on purpose? Or that I'd put up with it?"

"I don't know – I didn't think –"

" – No, you didn't," Emily snapped.

Morgan stood there awkwardly, realizing what he'd done, and how much trouble his big-brother instinct might've just gotten him into.

"Morgan, go take a walk," Hotch said in a tight voice, surprisingly calm as he straightened up. "Round Table in twenty."

Morgan hesitated for a moment and then brushed past Rossi and JJ out the door, and Garcia and Reid, who had made their way halfway up the stairs to see what was going on.

Garcia took one look at Morgan's face and turned around to toddle down the stairs after him, but Reid looked back up towards the office. A second later Rossi appeared in the doorway, and he had JJ by the wrist – she looked like she was vaguely in shock – and he gently led her down the stairs.

"Come on, kid," the older man said to Reid. "Let's give them a minute. We'll get started on looking at the case."

Reid agreed, and the three of them went back down to the Round Table room.

"Are you okay?" Emily asked Hotch worriedly as soon as they were alone.

"Yeah, it's fine," Hotch said, wiping his nose on the back of his hand and smearing blood everywhere.

"Are you sure? It looks bad, Aaron. It could be broken –"

"It's not broken," he protested. "I think I deflected it enough that he didn't hit me full-force."

"Thank God," Emily said, grabbing a box of Kleenex and passing him a few. "God, what the hell is wrong with him?" she asked angrily. It was clear she was getting very worked up.

"Honey, it's okay," Hotch said soothingly. "I'm fine. You're fine. I'm pretty sure Morgan is fine," he continued, dabbing the blood away from his nose.

"You don't look fine," Emily snapped. "I cannot believe he'd hit you –"

"I can."

"You can?" she asked incredulously, looking up from where she was digging through his ready-bag to find him a new shirt and tie.

"Yeah, I can," he confirmed. He was leaning against his desk now, and admiring Emily, how she looked like a queen sitting at his Unit Chief desk. "He was just trying to protect you."

"I don't need protecting," she told him firmly.

"I know. But you do need to calm down, sweetheart. Stress isn't good for Bean. And I'm fine, really," he told her as she grabbed another Kleenex and started gingerly cleaning up his nose with it. He took it from her gently, and she slumped back into his chair with a sigh, resting her hands on her bump.

"I'm sorry."

"You don't have to be. It was my own fault."

"It was not," Emily protested, starting to get annoyed with his self-pity act. "Seriously, stop acting like you hit me on purpose. You need to get over it. I've had much worse - and I'm not fragile, okay? And I'd better not hear any of that 'Emily-stay-at-the-hotel' bullshit on this case, or I'm going to be pissed."

"Hmm, okay," Hotch said with a little amusement in his tone, and Emily realized that his eyes were crinkling a little bit even though he was wincing in pain with a bloody tissue pressed to his bruising nose.

"Do you think that's funny, Hotchner?"

"No, Ms. Prentiss, I just think you're very cute when you're worked up like that," he teased gently.

"Agent Prentiss," Emily corrected him with a little pout.

"Right," Hotch amended.

"But seriously," she went on, "I don't want you to treat me like a baby. I promise I'll try to take it easy and think things through if you promise you won't be ridiculously overprotective. Deal?"

"Deal," he confirmed. "Could you... do you think that you'd be okay with checking in with me every once in awhile, though? I just worry about you. And the baby."

"Sure," she agreed. "Does that mean that you're actually going to let me out of your sight? I wasn't expecting that."

"We'll see. Do you know if JJ is okay? It looked like Morgan knocked her..."

"I'm sure she's fine. It'll just be a bruise. We'll all match! My face, your nose, Morgan's back -"

"Stop reminding me," Hotch asked, glad that the stream of blood coming from his nose had seemingly ceased. He started changing his shirt.

"My point is that everyone on this team can handle a few scuff marks here and there, okay? You brush off a bloody nose, Rossi cracks a rib, Morgan's jaw gets dislocated, JJ got shot in the arm two weeks ago and she's already acting totally normal. I got impaled and came back to work seven months later," she added nonchalantly, and he looked up at her in surprise. "And I'm fine. Morgan's fine - I'm still pissed at him, but he's fine. He'll get over it. I'm sure JJ is fine, maybe just a little shaken up. And you're fine, right?"

He nodded. "Can I apologize one more time?"

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. But then I don't want to hear another word about it."

"I really am sorry, Em."

"I know. And you really are forgiven. But just so you know, if you ever did hit me on purpose, I'd kick your ass."

"I believe you," he told her with one of those rare smiles as he finished buttoning his shirt. She threw him a new tie.

"Good. And no more fighting with Morgan."

"I'll try my best," he promised, tying it around his neck.

"Can we go do Round Table now?"

"Yes, ma'am."

...

"Hotch, man, I'm sorry –" Morgan said immediately when the unit chief entered the Round Table Room with a swollen nose, closely followed by Emily.

"It's fine, Morgan. Just forget it," Hotch said, surprising the rest of them a little.

JJ shot Emily a look, and the brunette just shrugged as if to say Men. What can you do.

"You good?" Emily asked JJ quietly out of the corner of her mouth as she took her seat.

The blonde nodded. "You?"

"Yeah, I'm good."

"Okay," Garcia said, putting the slideshow on. "Let's just pretend all of that never happened, and get on with the case, yes?"

"Four hours ago twenty-year-old Vanessa Devine was found wandering on the highway in rural New Jersey," Hotch said sternly, completely disregarding Garcia's statement. The technical analyst seemed satisfied with this, and she hit the remote, and the girl's picture popped up on the screen.

"Vanessa Devine?" Rossi repeated, confused. The rest of the team turned to look at him - none of the rest of them recognized the name.

Except Reid, of course.

"Wasn't she one of the little girls who was supposedly kidnapped by the Sussex Stabber in 2000?" he asked.

"Yeah, I remember that case," Rossi said. "We found six girls dead, all with multiple stab wounds to their abdomens, four to eight years old. We caught the guy, but he decided to slit his throat instead of going to prison. We all thought he had a partner, but we couldn't prove anything. There were, what, four girls still missing when we left?"

"Yeah, and Vanessa was one of them. She was four years old at the time," Hotch confirmed. "That was one of my first cases with the BAU."

"And one of my last ones before I retired," Rossi recalled, shaking his head. "That was years ago. I can't believe she's still alive."

"So, what? Do we think the other three are still out there somewhere, too?" Morgan asked.

"I think it's at least worth looking into," Hotch said. "The other girls were Caitlin Jones, Emma Jansen, and Audrey Rourke, five, eight and seven. They disappeared from Sussex County around the same time that Vanessa did."

"Is Vanessa talking?" JJ asked, blue eyes wide. The cases with kids always affected her the most.

"She's in surgery right now," Hotch told them. "She was in pretty bad shape when the trucker found her - she was cut up bad and lost a lot of blood. They think she might have climbed through a broken window or something. The trucker is at the station; I'm going to go talk to him there. Reid, you come with me. Dave and JJ, I want you two to go to the hospital and wait for Vanessa to wake up. Her mom is on the way, she lives in Nevada now, so her flight will be in in a few hours. You'll have to let her know what's going on. Morgan and Emily, you can go to where the trucker found Vanessa and see what you can find out. We're going to have a lot to discuss on the plane - it's obvious now that our original unsub did have a partner, so we'll need to think about how that changes the profile. Wheels up in twenty."

The rest of the agents filtered out of the room until only Hotch and Emily were left.

She was scowling at him.

"What?" Hotch asked.

"You put me with Morgan."

"I did," he confirmed. "Do you have an issue with that?"

She threw him an exasperated look.

"You know you'll sort it out within twenty minutes if you just talk about it. And you should talk about it, sweetheart. It was a misunderstanding and you know this team can't function properly if we're holding grudges against each other."

Emily let out an angry sigh.

"Besides, I thought you wanted to be out in the field. Otherwise you can come to the station with me, and I'll have Reid go -"

" - It's fine, Aaron. I can handle it."

"Good," he said. "Now let's go get our things together. You got your hiking shoes?"

...

"Hey, Em?" JJ called as soon as Morgan and Reid had headed for the elevator, leaving the two women to finish gathering their things.

"Hmm?"

"Is he having a lot of nightmares?"

Emily turned to look at her best friend. "What do you mean?"

"Hotch," she said, tucking a long strand of blonde hair behind her ear and trying to seem less concerned than she actually was. "Just... you said he hit you while he was dreaming, so I was wondering..."

"Oh," Emily replied with a glance up towards Hotch's office. "Um, not really. Or at least, if he does, it doesn't usually wake me up."

"And he wouldn't tell you," JJ assumed.

"I don't think so," agreed Emily somewhat reluctantly. "He thinks I'd worry too much."

JJ sighed. "He needs to talk to us more."

"Yeah..."

"So do you. Or at least talk to each other," JJ suggested.

"We do," Emily said softly, although... when she really thought about it, they definitely talked about her issues a lot more than his. "Why are you worried about him?" she asked curiously, hoping there wasn't anything wrong that she didn't know about.

"I don't know. Everyone worried about him after Hayley died, but then I guess after awhile it seemed like nobody else did, y'know? Someone had to look after him. And we're friends. I'm glad you guys have each other now, though. You're good for each other."

"I hope so," Emily said.

"You are," JJ reassured her, grabbing her ready bag from under her desk. "Ready to go?"

The two of them got on the elevator and made their way down to the jet terminal.

...

In New Jersey, Emily slid into the passenger seat of the SUV Morgan had selected, and she buckled herself in, facing forward without looking at him.

He didn't say anything; he just put the address in the GPS system and pulled the vehicle onto the road.

A few minutes passed in silence, and then Morgan said, "Hey, Em –" at the same time that she sighed and said "Morgan, listen –"

They both fell silent again, and turned to look at each other.

"You first," Emily invited.

"I'm sorry," he said simply. "I know I apologized to Hotch earlier, but I should've apologized to you, too. I just got so fucking angry when I thought he hurt you –"

" – he wouldn't hurt me, Derek. You know that."

"Yeah, I do. I wasn't thinking. I just really care about you, y'know? You're like a sister to me. And if I found out Sarah or Desiree's boyfriends weren't treating them right, I'd've done the same thing."

The corners of Emily's lips curled up a little at this statement, and her eyes sparkled with fondness. "That's true," she agreed. "Their boyfriends aren't your boss, though."

"Also true," he said, and then he paused a second before adding, "Damn. How pissed is he really? I feel like I got off way too easy."

"I feel like you got off way too easy, too," Emily agreed. "But apparently he's legitimately not mad. He said it's fine because you were just trying to protect me," she huffed with a roll of her eyes.

"Not that you need protecting, of course," Morgan added teasingly, earning himself an elbow to the shoulder. "Hey, none of that while I'm driving," he scolded. "That's why Hotch paired us together though, isn't it? I'm babysitting you right now."

"Shut up! No you're not," Emily protested. But when she actually thought about it, she realized it was probably true. She'd been surprised when Hotch hadn't paired her with him, and she'd been even more surprised when he'd sent her out to actually do something rather than just interviews – which she wouldn't really even have complained about. Instead she got to actually go and meet the police at the crime scene and walk around the highway to canvass the area – it wasn't dangerous, not really, but it was certainly riskier than going over the profile with the police officers or talking to the family at the hospital.

"I don't know, P," Morgan went on in his favorite falsely-serious voice. "I think maybe I should write my phone number on your leg, just in case you get lost. You got a Sharpie?"

"No, I don't. And you're lucky, because if I did, I know exactly where I'd shove it –"

"Alright, alright, simmer down, Sassy," Morgan laughed, and the two of them settled into a comfortable silence. Like a real brother/sister pair, they forgot their conflict almost before it'd even started.

"Wait so, Prentiss," Morgan said a few minutes later. "This weekend... did you and Boss Man actually, y'know..."

Emily was about to tell him to mind his business, but then she saw some squad cars up ahead and knew that they were arriving at their destination. Just as Morgan put the car in park, she turned in his direction, threw him an evil smirk, and said quickly, "JJ gets the details before you."

"Wh – Prentiss! You can't just –" Morgan protested, but Emily didn't even hear the end of his complaint; she'd already swung the car door shut and was making her way towards the Police-Line-Do-Not-Cross tape.

...

Later that night, in the living room of the hotel suite they were all sharing, Hotch sat on the sofa, looking over some old case files. He'd been torturously unable to fall asleep when they all headed to bed, so after an hour or two of tossing and turning, he'd given up and headed to the couch in order to at least attempt to get some work done.

"Hey," came Emily's sleepy voice softly from the doorway to the room she was sharing with JJ, startling him. "You okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm okay," he told her. "Just couldn't sleep. What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Bean keeps kicking me. I thought maybe walking around would help," she told him. "How come you can't sleep? Bad dreams?"

"No, I never fell asleep. Just thinking too much, I guess."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No, that's okay. It's really nothing specific. You should go back to sleep, though."

"I can sit with you for a little while. I miss you."

He leaned over and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"I think Bean misses you, too," she told him, taking his hand and pressing it flat against her belly. "That's why she's kicking."

"You think so?"

"Mhmm."

"You are so beautiful," he told her, eyes crinkling.

Emily bit the smile that was forming on her lips, blushing, and she nudged him with her shoulder. "You are," he insisted.

She leaned her head on his shoulder, and he pressed his cheek to her hair, rubbing the baby rhythmically.

"What case are you looking at?" she asked tiredly, peering at the photographs paper clipped to the inside of the file he was studying. "Oh. Is that the original Sussex Stabber file?"

"Yeah," he said, feeling a twinge of something as he noted how little emotion she showed while examining photographs of little girls covered in blood. It seemed like such a contradiction for some reason. Here was this beautiful woman sitting in front of him, with no makeup on, and her hair tied in a sloppy knot on the top of her head, wrapped in a blanket, wearing an oversized t-shirt as a nightgown, seven months pregnant. She was soft and obviously sleepy, melting into his side, and she seemed so innocent and yet – she sat with him talking about dead little girls with knife wounds as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

That was probably a dozen kinds of fucked up, but it also made him realize that he didn't feel the need to shield her from the gruesome images in front of them. Somehow Emily could be both of those things – his sweet, expecting girlfriend and one of his fearless agents – and she could be both simultaneously, effortlessly.

He felt a little warmth growing in his chest as he realized he was falling even more in love with her. Maybe he really did need to give her more credit with staying in the field - she was quite clearly still on top of her game.

She sat up talking to him for a few more minutes, in hushed tones so as not to wake the rest of the team, and soon he saw her fighting sleep as she started to nod off a few times.

"Do you want to go back to bed?"

"No," she mumbled, forcing her eyes open again. "I want... to stay with you."

"You need to sleep, baby," he commanded softly after the third time her chin took a dip towards her chest. "I can finish reviewing this file by myself."

"Okay," she finally agreed, surprising him. But then she rearranged herself so that she was curled in a ball and her head rested in his lap, and soon her breathing evened out as she fell asleep.

Hotch smiled down at her, running his fingers gently through her hair.

The next thing he knew it was morning, and Rossi was standing over them with a knowing smirk on his face, offering him a cup of coffee.

...

"Hey, ladies," Morgan said, exhaustedly flopping down into a swivel chair at the table the two of them had been sitting at.

"Hey," JJ greeted him crossly, not looking up from the whiteboard she was making a timeline on in her irritatingly perfect handwriting.

Morgan noted her weird tone and looked at Emily for an explanation – or even just an acknowledgement that JJ was, in fact, being weird – but the brunette didn't react. She was leaning over a map of the area and drawing on it with a blue marker and a compass, the shadow of a scowl uncharacteristically on her face.

Then it hit him. They were pouting.

Morgan sighed. "Okay," he said, leaning forward to pluck the markers out of their hands. Emily looked surprised, and JJ frowned and quickly erased the messed-up letter he'd made her write. "What's the issue?"

They exchanged a dark look and didn't reply.

"Guys?" Morgan prodded.

"It's nothing, Derek. We're fine," JJ told him. "Can I have my marker back now?"

"No. I don't believe it's nothing. Something I did?"

"No, not you," Emily told him.

"Someone else on the team?"

"No –" she said, involuntarily shooting a dirty look out the door over his shoulder.

"Oh, I think I know what this is about," Morgan said, finally understanding. "This about the sheriff deputy giving you a hard time?"

"Not just him," JJ said lowly. "All the cops here. I swear to God, I don't even want to know what's going to happen to the next man that mentions the fact that I'm wearing heels –"

"–And the next guy who makes a pregnancy joke is going to lose his balls. And they won't be able to trace it back to me, either," Emily added. "At this point, even if I did get caught... I'm thinking it might be worth it. I mean, I'd get twenty five to life, probably. Parole doubtful, but you never know. I think I'd do okay in prison. Rossi would post bail, right?"

"Oh, yeah. For sure," JJ confirmed with an emphatic nod.

Morgan rolled his eyes. "Come on. It can't be that bad."

"They keep calling us 'Mrs.'," JJ complained as though this were a great insult. "Mrs. Jareau and Mrs. Prentiss."

"And you've corrected them?"

"Yeah, at least four or five times. They can't seem to remember," Emily said.

"You should've seen the look one of them gave Emily when we pointed out that neither of us are married."

Suddenly a deputy popped his head into the room. "Sorry to interrupt," he said. "My shift is over. This is Officer McKinley. He'll be taking over. McKinley, this is Mrs. Jareau, Agent Morgan, and Mrs. Prentiss from the BAU."

"Nice to meet y'all," the officer said. "I'll be around if you need me."

"Thanks," Morgan said, and the officers disappeared.

The fake smiles slipped immediately from Emily and JJ's faces.

"See what we mean?"

"Yeah, I do," Morgan said, making a face. "That's just disrespectful."

"It is, right? They're treating us like their little wives or something! We're not being overly dramatic, are we?"

"No, you're not dramatic. You think they're like that because you're both handling things here while me and the boys are out in the field?" Morgan asked.

"Maybe," Emily conceded. "I mean, it does look like you're out doing the fun stuff while we're tucked away here for safekeeping."

"You are," JJ pointed out.

"Well, they don't need to know that," Emily muttered.

Morgan frowned. "Alright. I'll see what I can do."

"You don't have to do anything –"

"–I'm just going to tell Hotch what's going on. He needs to know."

"We don't want to be a bother," JJ said hesitantly.

"It's no bother," Morgan said earnestly. "Trust me. It pisses me off when people underestimate you, too."

They both beamed at him approvingly.

"Yeah, there they are," Morgan grinned back. "My favorite smiles. Now, come on. Tell me what you got on this guy."

They delved into the profile.

...

"Emily, come to the dump site with me," Hotch said sternly later that day, right in front of all of the cops, who looked at Hotch with their eyes full of doubt, and maybe disrespect. They clearly didn't like a pregnant woman going out in the field - actually, they probably didn't like the idea of any woman going out in the field.

Emily just nodded eagerly at Hotch's suggestion and felt all of their disapproving gazes on her as she followed him out the door.

She couldn't resist throwing them a little smug smirk on her way out.

The dump site was a cemetery, and it was bustling with activity. CSI was there finishing their photos; a large portion of the small town's police force and the county coroner were also there. The body was still draped over a headstone, and Emily and Hotch examined it for a few moments, making note of the stab wounds – shallow and hesitant, it was obvious that the partner hadn't been involved in killing the other girls back in 2000. Then the coroner started loading the body up into his van, and the two FBI agents had a conversation with the lead detective.

Emily hadn't realized how cold it would be, and as they talked, a few scattered raindrops began to fall. She wrapped her arms around herself to try to keep warm, and attempted to stay focused on what the detective was saying.

Hotch saw this out of the corner of his eye, and without breaking eye contact with the sheriff, he wordlessly took off his suit jacket and held it out to Emily.

Her lips parted a little in surprise as she looked up at him, but he was still paying attention to the sheriff. She took the jacket and tugged it on over her sweater, wrapping herself in his comforting scent, and then she looked back up to the sheriff as well.

He looked a little surprised at this action and maybe a little confused - although Hotch and Emily didn't really think much of it, this definitely wasn't normal boss-subordinate behavior - but the man didn't comment.

...

After finding them on the couch that morning, Rossi had insisted that Emily just sleep in Hotch's bed with him for the rest of the case. After all, he had his own room, and it wasn't like they were going to do anything inappropriate, and the team certainly wasn't going to tell on them.

"How come you brought the first one?" Emily asked, crawling into the scratchy hotel sheets next to Hotch. He had Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone on his lap – odd, since she knew he was in the middle of the fourth book.

"Well... I was thinking maybe I could read it to Bean. If that's okay with you," he added quickly, almost like he was too shy to suggest this.

Emily's eyes crinkled. "Of course you can," she told him happily, hands on her bump. "Gotta start her off early, right?"

He smiled. "Before Jack was born Reid told me that if you read to a baby before it's born, aftewards the child prefers stories it heard in the womb. So if we want to make sure that Bean loves Harry Potter as much as you and Jack –"

"– We should start now," Emily finished for him, still beaming at him. "How come the women weren't lining up to date you after your divorce?" she asked, legitimately baffled.

"I don't know," he said, eyes crinkling. "I think women tend to be afraid of me."

"Afraid of you?"

"Yeah. I think it's just my face, the glare. It... I don't come off as approachable."

"Hmm," Emily considered. "I like your glare."

His eyebrows went up in amusement. "Do you?"

"I do," she confirmed. "I like that smile too, though."

"Stop it," Hotch mumbled, and Emily swore his cheeks flushed.

"Are you blushing, Agent Hotchner?" she teased.

"No," he denied firmly, his usual scowl crossing his face where the red tinge definitely lingered.

She put her Stephen King book down.

"You're not going to read?" Hotch asked.

"No, I'm going to listen to you, too," she said, moving so her side was pressed against his. She leaned her head on his shoulder.

"Okay. Is she listening?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

Hotch slid down in the bed so that his head lie right next to Emily's bump. "Hey, Bean?" he said.

There was no response. Emily froze.

"Is she okay?" she asked worriedly. The baby almost always responded to Hotch's voice, especially when he was that close to her.

"Maybe she's sleeping," Hotch said, his hand coming to rest on her belly. He massaged it gently. "Wake up, baby," he cooed, growing nervous.

After a minute or two, they both breathed a sigh of relief as Bean started to move around again, responding to their voices and touches.

"Okay, Bean," Hotch said sweetly to Emily's belly. "Are you ready? We're going to read Mommy's favorite book, okay?"

She kicked around in response to Hotch's voice, and he smiled, patting her gently. Then he cracked the book open to the first page – Emily saw 'Jack Hotchner' scrawled messily on the inside cover, and she smiled, running her fingers lazily through Hotch's hair.

He cleared his throat and began to read in a rhythmic, soothing voice. "Mr and Mrs Dursley, of Number Four, Privet Drive were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much..."

Emily, half-asleep, couldn't manage to wipe the stupid grin off of her face as she watched this man read to her belly.

She thought back to six years ago when she'd first started working under him – her first day at the BAU, when she'd been put there by Strauss as a spy, essentially, to gather info on Hotch so that Strauss could fire him.

That didn't sit well with Emily, though – it was way too similar to what Lauren had just done to Ian, and she'd realized she wasn't a big fan of spying, especially at someone else's expense.

And thank God that she'd refused. The Emily Prentiss of six years ago never would've dreamed she'd now be lying next to her boss in bed, while he read Harry Potter to her unborn baby – nor would she have thought she'd fall madly in love with the man who had treated her so coldly during her first few weeks on his team way back then. But here they were, and his calloused hands were rubbing her belly while Bean kicked her from the inside, and her hands were in his hair and he was pressed against her side and she would not change it for anything, not even the chance to go back to Tuscany and be Lauren again.

"Aaron?" she said sleepily, interrupting his story a few minutes later.

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

Hotch's eyes crinkled. "I love you, too, sweetheart. Go to sleep if you want, okay?"

"Mhm," she agreed, eyes fluttering shut as he resumed reading.

It wasn't long before he fell asleep, too, and the book fell opened on his chest, and his head lay so that his cheek was pressed against her bump.

Bean, presumably noticing the absence of sound, aimed a kick at this external heat source which was Hotch's head, causing the Unit Chief's eyes to pop back open. He laid the book down on the floor beside the bed and then slid one of his hands under Emily's t-shirt, caressing the baby lightly.

"Shh, Bean," he said softly, trying to ascertain a volume which the baby would hear but wouldn't wake Emily. "Go back to sleep now, sweetpea," he mumbled tiredly. "We don't want to wake Mommy up."

His gentle touches must've lulled the baby back to sleep, because soon she was still, and the only movement of the bump was from Emily's chest rising and falling evenly as she slept on.

"Love you, Bean," Hotch murmured, and then he was asleep, too.