Sometime during the night, Emily found herself being jerked out of a dream — something about shopping for bralettes with JJ and Garcia; for once, it hadn't been a nightmare. She frowned a little in her barely-conscious state. JJ had been showing her a pretty white one made of lace — it had looked like something made for a wedding night, and she'd wanted to try it on —

Another hard kick to her abdomen, and Emily let out a soft whine. She just wanted to sleep. Why did Bean have to be such a night owl?

She was about to drag herself out of bed and go pace in the hotel hallway — this usually helped the baby settle down — but then she felt Hotch moving next to her in bed. His hand slid under her camisole and he caressed her belly lightly.

The baby kicked again, and Emily almost said something, but then Hotch shifted again, into the position he'd been in the night before when he'd been reading to them, with his head right next to her bump.

"Shh, Bean," she heard him whisper softly, sweetly to her little one, who seemed to calm almost instantly. "You'll wake Mommy up, sweetpea."

The corners of Emily's mouth turned up — "sweetpea", he'd said; this was a new term of endearment, and her heart swelled with the realization that Aaron was taking care of her baby even though he had no idea that she was awake and listening. He really did love her little girl, then — it wasn't an exaggeration, a show to convince Emily to stay with him. She'd known this deep down all along, but her own personal doubts and insecurities had made her hesitant to allow herself to believe it for fear of getting hurt again.

At this point, she was almost not even concerned about Aaron hurting her. She had certainly given him the ability to hurt her — she'd gone and opened up to him, something she was usually painstakingly careful not to do in relationships. This time had been different, though. This wasn't just some random policeman/lawyer/agent/law enforcement officer she'd somehow picked up at work, like a majority of her exes — this was Hotch.

She'd known him, worked closely with him, for years — and they'd met for the first time even before that, and she'd gotten good vibes off of him then, too, before she even really knew him as a person.

It'd taken her awhile to acclimate herself to his team, certainly — she'd accused him early on of trusting men more than women, and for the most part, she still believed that to be true. His trust was hard to earn, and difficult to keep, and during her early days at the BAU there had been times when she'd contemplated quitting, thinking there was no way she'd ever get through this man's icy exterior. She'd wondered if it even was an exterior, or if SSA Aaron Hotchner was actually just ice, through-and-through. It wasn't until her first casual outing with the BAU that she'd caught a glimpse of his true nature, and even then that had been only because he'd had Hayley with him.

Emily didn't experience even a hint of his warmth, his good humor, his compassion, not for herself, not until the day when she'd walked into his office during his meeting with Strauss and quit her job to protect his, even though doing so nearly broke her heart after all she'd done to get to that point.

She'd been alone in her apartment, moping around and wishing she was in Milwaukee with the team, when he'd knocked on her door.

She'd proven that she was loyal, that she could be trusted — and that was all that it took for him to reach out to her and ask her to come back to the team with him. She nearly turned him down, too — if she hadn't been good enough for him before, why should she do as he asked now?

But then his deep hazel eyes met her dark brown ones, and she could feel him looking at her — really looking at her, for the first time. She hadn't realized it then, but when he'd said to her, "I want you on that plane with me" — that was him telling her that she'd finally earned his trust and respect.

She'd passed his test, a test that neither of them really even knew she was taking.

They didn't talk much on the plane, but they did both spend quite a bit of time stealing secret, slightly awed glances at one another...

Emily Prentiss realized something that day: Aaron Hotchner was not the man that she thought he was.

And then they quickly discovered throughout the remainder of that case that with this new mutual understanding between them, they made one hell of a team.

Hayley was gone when they returned, and Emily could see how much it absolutely crushed him, but she knew that it was not yet her place to try to talk to him about it, so she kept her distance. Their next non-work related conversation had been about the weekend he'd spent with his two-year-old son, and seeing his eyes light up when he talked about their trip to the zoo made her happier than she could logically explain.

Emily grew more and more comfortable with the BAU as she proved again and again to the other agents that she was capable of filling Elle Greenaway's shoes, and then some. Both women were strong, fierce, and brave — but Emily was soft where Elle had been sharp, and she was compassionate where Elle had sometimes been too harsh, and it made her fit in all the better. Soon she was playing chess with Reid while they chatted about some obscure Russian author, and she was meeting JJ and Garcia for girls night on Fridays (followed, of course, by lazy, hungover Saturday mornings in their pajamas, with too much coffee and maybe a few mimosas), and she was meeting Morgan a few times a week for early morning jogs and late night boxing matches. She was pleased to discover that once their boss fully accepted her, she fit in seamlessly with the rest of them, even old David Rossi, who came back to fill Gideon's place.

It'd taken them awhile to train him to play nice with others, but once they did, the seven of them became a family. Rossi was the dad she'd never really had growing up, and Morgan and Reid were her brothers, and JJ and Garcia her sisters, and Hotch?

Well, she'd never really been able to put a name to her relationship with Hotch, at least not then. But there was no doubt in her mind that he was a part of her family, too.

Words could not describe the sinking feeling in her stomach that afternoon when she'd gone to his apartment after he hadn't shown up to work, and she'd found it empty aside from a bullet hole in the wall and a puddle of blood on the carpet. Nor were there any words to describe the all-encompassing relief she'd felt when finally he'd woken up at the hospital hours later with nine stab wounds in his chest.

Somehow, after he was released from the hospital and started down the long road to recovery — which was made even more difficult not only by the fact that he could no longer see his son, but also by the minor inconvenience of having a serial killer stalking him — he sort of became Emily's responsibility, at least in her mind. She found herself driving him to physical therapy three times a week whenever she wasn't on a case, and when she was, she and Rossi always made sure to bring him some takeout and a nice bottle of scotch as soon as they got back. Hotch had been reluctant at first — he didn't like the attention, and he certainly didn't like being fussed over — but soon the three of them grew quite fond of each other's company, even if they did spend most of their time in silence, nursing their drinks and watching the fire in his fireplace burn out.

Then one week Rossi couldn't go, so Emily went by herself. Maybe it was related to the fact that they both were consuming larger portions of alcohol than usual due to their friend's absence, but Emily and Hotch hadn't sat in total silence that night — quite the opposite, actually. They talked about just about everything there was to talk about, and they found that they were more similar than they'd ever thought possible. She slept in his bed that night, and he took the couch, and when they woke up the next morning so hungover it felt like their hair was throbbing, he'd made a pot of coffee and she'd offered to drive him to work the next week, his first official day back. He didn't object.

Morgan was technically their unit chief at that point, and he consistently put the two of them together on cases, sometimes with Rossi and sometimes not. Hotch was reckless for awhile, and he took quite a few unnecessary risks, but Emily did her best to keep him from going off the deep end and to keep Morgan off his back. The others may have questioned many of his actions during that time period, but Emily could see that everything he did was fuelled by his overpowering need to get Hayley and Jack back safely. She never questioned him.

After all, she'd made some questionable decisions herself back when she was in Tuscany. The other agents had doubted her then, but it was her love for Declan (and Ian?) that had made her so absolutely certain that her moves were the right ones. If Hotch thought his sometimes-extremely-risky calls were the correct thing to do in order to ensure his ex-wife and son's safety, then why should Emily claim that she knew any better?

Emily and Hotch had some sort of mutual understanding from his time off, and now, as partners and equals, their relationship began to morph into something new. They'd gone from strained boss/subordinate to partners to companions of sorts.

Maybe even friends on a good day.

He took time off after Hayley died, getting used to being a single dad to a little four-year-old and trying to decipher how the entire situation could've actually happened, and how the hell he was supposed to carry on now.

At work, the team fought for him, and when Strauss interviewed her again to try to twist the story against Hotch, Emily didn't even pretend to be nice about it.

She hated politics and she hated Erin Strauss. And she'd recently discovered that she really, really liked Aaron Hotchner. So when Strauss came to her trying to get her to admit that Hayley's death and Foyet's attack were somehow Hotch's fault, Emily had in no uncertain terms shut her down.

Her choice of words hadn't been very nice — she'd flat-out accused Strauss of twisting words and fabricating evidence, putting her own job on the line by completely disrespecting her superior, again in order to protect Hotch's job.

The difference now was that the team was her family this time, and she was risking not only her dream job, but also her day-to-day interactions with her favorite people in the world.

None of that even crossed her mind as she lashed out at Strauss — she wasn't about to put her own happiness above his, not even then. Somehow she made it out of that meeting with her job and his both safe, and as soon as she realized what she'd just put on the line, she was in her car on the way over to his apartment with Chinese food and a bottle of scotch in her passenger seat.

The scotch was quickly forgotten when Hotch let Emily in and Jack was playing in the living room with his toy police cars, but Hotch divided up the Chinese food between three plates — two glass and one plastic — and they discovered that Jack really liked crab rangoon.

But not as much as he liked mac and cheese, he'd clarified.

Jack curled up in his Spiderman blanket on his dad's lap, and Emily sat in the armchair opposite them, and that was the first time that the three of them watched a movie together.

It was also the first time that Emily thought that maybe — in another life, or something — maybe they could've been something. Together.

Maybe she was a little bit attracted to Aaron Hotchner.

She watched as he so gently carried his sleeping son down the hallway to tuck him into bed, that first flicker of attraction still at the forefront of her mind. It took about fifteen minutes for him to get Jack settled, and by the time he returned to the living room, she'd talked herself out of it.

He was still recovering from Hayley's death — they'd been divorced, yes, but he'd loved her nonetheless. There was no way he was looking for anything, not yet, and even if he was, why the hell would he look at her? It was unrealistic.

She must've looked upset when he returned because he'd wordlessly grabbed two glasses and poured the alcohol.

They drank in silence that night.

They carried on like that for the next year or so, limiting their interactions to work mostly, and sometimes get-togethers with the rest of the team, but it seemed like after that last time they were careful not to be alone together.

JJ's sudden departure deeply affected them both in more ways than one. Emily lost her sister and Hotch lost his media liaison, and even though he wouldn't really label the blonde as such, at least not out loud, his best friend. Instead of leaning on each other, Emily and Hotch fell further apart. But when Emily asked him to let her be Ashley Seaver's training agent, he hadn't really thought it was a good idea, but he'd seen in those wide brown eyes how very badly she wanted it, and he'd agreed.

By the time Hotch caught on that something was wrong, Emily (Lauren?) was already on her way to Boston, getting ready to attempt to take Ian Doyle on by herself.

Sitting by her hospital bed and watching her unconscious form struggling to stay alive seemed like the longest nine days of his life, and when she finally woke up — unable to speak, still on a ventilator and a feeding tube, with countless other wires and tubes and needles sticking in and out of her — he'd had to fight the urge to press his lips against her bruised, scabbed face out of pure relief.

He remained in the hospital the next few days, holding her hand through all of the uncomfortable tests and procedures she had to endure. Knowing now that everyone else believed she hadn't made it — she'd cried when he broke the news to her; it'd nearly broken his heart — Emily clung to Hotch's hand as though her life depended on it.

When she was finally stable enough to be released — an entire month after she woke up — they were nearly as close as they'd been when Hayley and Jack were in hiding and he was recovering from being stabbed.

He couldn't even describe how guilty he'd felt when it was time for her to go to Paris and he was on a case across the country. He knew she had JJ, but still. They hadn't had the chance to say goodbye, and there was no guarantee that they'd ever see each other again.

As soon as she heard that Declan was potentially in trouble, she'd gotten on a plane, both worried sick and almost giddy with the idea of seeing her family again, seeing him again.

Strauss had been none too pleased to see Emily around the office, and she'd been extremely pissed off that the team literally removed a terrorist from their custody to trade him for a child, making a deal with another pair of terrorists — but Hotch got everything together and left before ever asking for permission. And thank God he'd done so, because otherwise Chloe and McDermitt would've left the country with her sweet Declan, and God only knows what would've happened to the boy then.

And Hotch had risked his job for her now, too.

He tried to shield her afterwards, both from the investigation that they had to go through and from Morgan and Reid's anger. He tried to take care of her, too — he knew how bad the nightmares could be, knew how the tiniest things could trigger the most painful memories. And they grew close again as she leaned on him for comfort and consolation — until Beth came into the picture.

It wasn't that she was jealous — Emily was in way too rough a mental place to even consider getting into a relationship at that point, and she'd long since given up the idea of ever being with Hotch. She did not, however, want to get in the way of his new relationship. It'd been two long years since Hayley had died, four years since his divorce, and she wanted him to be happy with someone, even if that someone wasn't her.

Once Hotch and Beth started getting more serious, Emily gradually removed herself from the picture. She didn't want to get in the way, didn't want Beth to feel threatened by the friendship she had with Hotch... she had no idea of how genuinely upset he'd been when he felt her starting to pull away, thinking it was something he'd done.

Then that one night at JJ's wedding, when she'd given him that sad little smile and a half-assed explanation as to why she was upset, he'd known exactly what was coming. And so he'd made sure to spend a little extra time with her, held her a little closer while they were dancing than he normally would've, and he made sure to tell Jack to give her an extra tight hug before they headed home that night.

He could tell that Beth had noticed, but she didn't confront him about it, so he never brought it up.

When Emily officially told him that she was leaving, Hotch had seen through her careful facade and he knew exactly how hard it was for her to keep the tears at bay. She told him she felt lost and she needed a change — she'd told him this not just because they were sort-of-friends, but maybe because she wanted to hear him telling her to stay.

Instead, he encouraged her to go. It broke both of their hearts a little bit — Hotch only said it because he thought it was what she wanted to hear, thinking it would've been selfish of him to ask her to stay. And Emily was upset because she thought he meant it.

But soon enough her things were packed and she was running her own Interpol branch halfway across the world. The work was satisfying, but she missed her family horribly. It felt like Paris almost — at least they knew she was alive this time, but somehow that almost made it worse. She was constantly forcing herself not to text and call, since she didn't want to seem clingy. The only things keeping her from reaching out now were her own insecurities (maybe they didn't miss her, maybe they were mad that she left again, maybe they didn't care how she was doing...), whereas before she'd at least had the excuse that she was trying to keep her identity safe.

She actually had to force herself to contact Hotch sometimes. A casual text or email or postcard never felt natural with him like it did with the others. There was a time when it definitely would've — during the high points in their relationship, she probably texted him more often than she did JJ — but for some reason that she didn't want to admit to herself, it was just weird now.

If only the two of them weren't so damn stubborn and insistent on compartmentalizing everything they felt, they could've been happy together so long ago.

Then that one night came when Emily was working late in the office, and she'd been surprised to see Hotch's smiling face pop up on her caller ID, although she was wary because of the hour.

No good phone call ever came in the middle of the night.

She'd heard the fear in his voice before he'd even gotten done greeting her, and when he'd said that something had happened to JJ, she was on the plane faster than ever before.

He knew he could always rely on her.

Somehow they ended up paired together on that case, and though it was at first a little awkward, they quickly sank back into their old routine, making some crazy decisions, and pretending it wasn't happening.

After all, it wasn't like they had time to think about each other when JJ was in danger.

The bar afterwards was awkward. She was pleased when he asked how long they had her, but sad to tell him it was only six hours. JJ wouldn't budge from Will's side, so Emily clung to Morgan and Garcia that night, avoiding Hotch.

She didn't want to tell him about Mark... but it definitely didn't escape her notice that Beth wasn't there.

In the end, nobody asked about her relationship status. Maybe they all assumed she wouldn't get into a relationship. She was partially relieved and partially offended.

They all brought her to the airport and hugged and kissed her goodbye, and somehow on the flight back to London she felt lonelier than she ever had, and she knew it had nothing to do with the fact that Mark was in Egypt again.

Why had she even dated Mark? She wasn't really sure. He was nice and handsome enough and he treated her well. He didn't ask too many questions and it seemed like he cared. And it pissed Clyde off to see her waltzing around with another man. And she was getting older and she didn't want to be alone forever and she was starting to think she'd never get a family of her own...

And she missed Ian and she missed Aaron, that was what it really boiled down to. Mark was a distraction. That wasn't fair to him — she knew it then and she knew it now, too — but she'd honestly managed to convince herself that she'd fall in love with him eventually.

She never did.

When he asked her to move in, she'd used Sergio as an excuse. She could tell that Mark was offended but he was allergic to cats, and there was not a chance in hell that she was going anywhere without Sergio.

She loved the cat more than she loved Mark, honestly.

It was definitely her own fault that the two of them hadn't worked out. She never told him anything, put all of her feelings in tiny boxes in her head and shoved them way in the back. She'd wake up with nightmares and not tell him what they were about, and when he tried to hold her afterwards, she'd get up and head to the living room, preferring to curl in a ball on the couch than to try to explain to him why she still woke up screaming and why she never took her shirt off while they were having sex and why she was so extremely reluctant to give her heart to him.

That's why she ran after Doyle came back for her.

She was frankly a fucking mess for a few days afterwards, opting to eat and sleep in her office rather than go back to her apartment for fear that he'd be there again. She even had Sergio living in the Interpol headquarters. Tamsyn and Max loved the little guy, and he loved being with Emily all the time.

When Clyde had yelled at her to get rid of the cat, she'd screamed at him to fuck off.

He left her alone after that.

For a month after her period was late, she was still convinced that it was just stress. But once she started noticing the other signs — after all, she'd been in that boat twice before — she knew she had to buy a test.

She'd sat on the floor in some police station bathroom for a good ten minutes, just staring blankly at the two little pink lines. It wasn't until she'd taken two more tests that she started bawling.

For a brief moment she thought of her first baby, that maybe she could get rid of this one, too — it'd be easier, certainly — but she shut the thought out after maybe twelve seconds. Mahan was the next thing on her mind, and then her sweet Declan. This one would no doubt be just as perfect as the other two.

Then she realized she was thinking like Lauren again.

Those first few days she almost felt like she had a split personality. Emily wanted absolutely nothing to do with the baby, and Lauren had already fallen head over heels for it. And then she'd gone to that first prenatal appointment and seen her little bean on the sonogram screen. And Lauren won.

Her first thought was to just lie to Mark about it — but that wasn't exactly a great idea. She'd feel like a piece of shit making him love a baby that wasn't his, and besides, Mark was African American and if the baby came out with Ian's blonde hair and blue eyes, that could be difficult to explain. She still didn't love him, anyways, and the thought of being tied to him for the rest of her life wasn't very appealing.

The thought of telling him the truth was even more unbearable; it would require way more backstory than she was willing to discuss.

Knowing he was due back in about a week, Emily hastily packed all of her belongings into the cardboard boxes that she always kept close by. She was nearly an expert at moving by now, having done it at least two dozen times throughout her life. At first the boxes were dumped into the hotel room she'd been living out of, and then gradually she started sorting through everything and subconsciously donated or sold whatever she couldn't take with her on a plane.

It was sort of remarkable how she'd known deep down exactly where she was going long before she'd actually made her mind up.

On her worst night, she'd called home, called Hotch for the first non-work-related thing in years.

She wasn't sure what she would've done if he hadn't been able to maneuver things so she could come back. Maybe she would've gone for counterterrorism, or the LA field office, or New York, or anywhere really, just so long as it wasn't London.

Even then she was running away from Mark and Clyde and what other people would think of her. She wasn't running from Ian.

When she got home she knew things still weren't going to be easy. She had to learn to reintegrate herself into the team, and she had to figure out when/if/how she was going to tell them the truth about her baby's father.

She wondered now how things would've been different if Hotch hadn't taken her in that first night.

But now, as she lay in bed, tangled in his sheets and listening to him singing softly to her little Bean, she knew that regardless of the shitshow that had been their lives for the past dozen years or so, everything was going to be okay in the end.

Hotch stopped singing abruptly, right in the middle of the refrain of Golden Slumbers by the Beatles, and Emily knew right away that something was wrong.

He sat up suddenly, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, resting his head in his hands.

"Aaron?" Emily asked, concerned. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," he replied in a tight voice, which just raised her concerns even more — she'd just pushed herself into a sitting position when he practically jumped out of bed and all but sprinted into the adjoining bathroom.

A second later, he was throwing up. Emily hoisted herself out of bed and followed him into the bathroom.

Her hands rubbed gentle circles across his broad back and shoulders until finally he stopped long enough to sit up and talk to her.

"I'm fine, sweetheart," he told her, but his voice – and his hands, actually – were shaking. "Sorry I woke you up."

"You're not fine," Emily said pointedly. "You just threw up like six times."

"Don't worry about me, okay? I can take care of it myself. Why don't you go to sleep?"

Ignoring him, she reached out a thin hand and pressed the back of it to his forehead; just as she'd suspected, he was burning up. "I think you have what Jack had. I'll get you some water and aspirin."

"I'll probably throw it up."

"Well we might as well try. You'll get dehydrated otherwise." Trying not to wake Morgan, who was sleeping in the living room, she went into the suite's little kitchen and shuffled things around in the mini fridge until she found a bottle of water that hadn't been claimed yet, marked an 'H' on the lid with a Sharpie, and brought it back to him with the pills.

He was throwing a pillow and blanket on the floor. She arched an eyebrow.

"I don't want you to get sick. It could be bad for Bean," he explained. "I'll sleep on the floor."

"Then it's harder to get to the bathroom," she pointed out. "And I already had the flu this year; I won't get it again."

"Emily..." he protested weakly.

"Let me take care of you," she pleaded. "Please, Aaron."

He looked at her with pursed lips – he was shivering slightly, she noticed. Seemed like he definitely was coming down with whatever Jack had had a few nights before.

"You're cold," Emily stated, taking his hand and giving it a little tug back in the direction of the bedroom. "Come on."

"I'll just grab a few more blankets, really, the floor isn't that bad –"

"Aaron, if I was sick you would take care of me," she said, and then her teeth closed on her bottom lip like she was questioning whether or not this was actually true. "Right?" she added a bit insecurely.

"Of course," he said quickly.

"And you wouldn't make me sleep on the floor?"

"Well... no."

"If you're not willing to let that work both ways, I'm not sure that this will work out. You don't need to protect me from every little thing," she said stubbornly. "And I don't want to keep having this argument."

He sighed, and reluctantly picked his pillow off of the floor, placing it back onto the bed with hers.

"Good. Use that," she commanded, tossing him his old, somewhat ratty-looking plaid felt blanket. "I'm gonna run to the store. Which Gatorade do you like, again?" she asked, completely ignoring his protests as she slid her black raincoat over her slim shoulders — like most of her other jackets, this one didn't zip in the front, either.

"Emily, you don't have to."

"I know. But I'm going anyway. I'm fine. It's only eleven. I'm not even that tired. You need soup and crackers and some fluids," she insisted. "Now tell me which color or I'll buy that nasty chalky purple one that tastes like cough syrup."

He still didn't reply.

"Red? Blue? Orange? Yellow?" she prompted.

"Green," he said, finally giving in. "Get yourself something too, okay? Take the ten in my wallet."

"Fine," she agreed, although she had every intention of putting the money back as soon as she got the opportunity. "Need anything else?"

"No, that's okay. Thank you, sweetheart."

"You're welcome," she said, giving him a little smile. "Try to go to sleep, okay?"

"Okay. I love you."

"Love you, too."

"Hey, Em?" he called once she was almost out the door.

"Yeah?" she asked, poking her head back into the bedroom they were sharing. He could hear the not-so-quiet sounds of Morgan's snoring floating into the room from behind her.

"You have your gun?"

"Yeah, I'll bring it."

"Is anyone else awake? Maybe they could go with you."

Emily shook her head. "I'll be fine."

"Take the SUV out in front of the hotel," he said, and she could tell that his eyelids were growing heavy. "The parking lot out back doesn't have lights. And I'm not sure how much gas Morgan has in the one on the side."

"You worry too much," she told him.

"Humor me, then. I'm sick," he reminded her.

"Go to sleep," she commanded, and then she grabbed her gun from the hotel safe — combination 1130, Gideon's birthday. The BAU had been using that number since long before Emily joined the team. Since they'd been founded in 1972, actually.

She went outside and got into the SUV in the front of the hotel like Hotch had asked, and she was glad for the short drive to WalMart to clear her head.

Emily hated convenience stores in the middle of the night. They were always oddly eerie — the absence of the usual hustle and bustle made the place seem almost unsettlingly empty, almost like she was in an alternate reality or something.

Emily gave a tiny smile to the lone cashier and then wandered over to the grocery section to look for some things that would hopefully settle Hotch's stomach.

She was looking at soup when the hair on the back of her neck stood up, and her fight/flight instincts started screaming at her. Slowly, Emily set the chicken noodle soup in her hand into her cart, and her hand went casually to her side where her gun was tucked away under her raincoat.

Emily Prentiss, after all, didn't really have much of a flight instinct.

She turned around somewhat abruptly, and pretended to scan the aisle signs for something while glancing into every corner, shadow, nook and cranny in sight. Nothing caught her eye. In fact, she didn't see a single person anywhere. The memory of the person outside Hotch's house suddenly came back to her — if it was Ian... would he really be so obvious?

Emily's phone started to ring then, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. It seemed ridiculously loud thanks to the absence of sound in the dead supermarket, and she answered it as quickly as possible to make the noise stop, not even bothering to look at the caller ID. She could hear the thudding of her own heart, and Bean started to squirm.

"Sorry," Emily breathed a hasty apology to her daughter, before addressing the person on the phone. A big of movement caught her eye at the end of the aisle opposite her, but whatever — or whoever it was, if it even really was something — they were gone before she could make them out.

"Prentiss," she said finally, eyes still darting around. But she could sense that she was no longer being watched.

"Hello, darling," a familiar British voice greeted her. "Did I wake you?"

"Oh, it's you," she replied, glancing around nervously. "I'm up, actually." She decided to hurry up and get the hell out of there — she grabbed a few more random cans of soup off of the rack (one was Star Wars, Hotch would love that), and she headed down the next aisle to find herself some iced tea.

"Don't sound so excited," he chuckled. "Isn't it late by you?"

"Only midnight," she replied easily. "We're on a case." She placed a jar of pickles in her cart — the cravings were getting to her again. "I'm grocery shopping," she added.

"Darling, you should be asleep," he chided, sounding almost legitimately concerned. "A pregnant woman out by herself in the middle of the night —"

"You're the one that called," she reminded him, slightly annoyed that he seemed worried about her now, when not long ago he'd acted like Bean was the spawn of the devil. "You would've woken me up, anyway."

"Is Hotchner not taking care of you?" Clyde demanded.

"Of course he is," she replied crossly, surprised at how pissed that one little comment had managed to make her.

"If you and I were together and you were pregn—"

"Well we're not Clyde, are we?" she snapped. "Now, why are you calling me?"

"Right," said Clyde, sounding slightly more annoyed than usual — and he almost always sounded plenty annoyed already. "You wanted me to keep you in the loop."

"News about Ian?" she asked quickly, lowering her voice.

"Yeah," he replied, and she could practically hear him frowning. "Doyle," he began, emphasizing the last name — she'd used his first, she realized a bit too late — "was spotted by one of my colleagues in Dublin a few hours ago. Rumor has it he's been there for a couple of days now. He was seen with your old friend Carrick O'Reilly, remember him?"

"Sure," Emily replied, that same feeling of deep, deep dread washing over her as it had earlier when she'd thought that someone was watching her — only now it was about ten times worse. It took her only half a second or so to pinpoint why.

If Ian really was in Dublin, it meant that someone else was watching her, too. Both here, and at Hotch's condo the other day.

Emily quickly wrapped up the conversation, and she had never beelined towards the checkout so fast in her entire life, nor had she ever been quite so nervous to walk twenty feet through a dark parking lot to get into the SUV.

Back at the hotel, she practically sprinted inside the lobby up to the suite where the team was staying and, once inside, she wasted no time in flipping the deadbolt into a locked position and sliding the chain across the door.

"Princess?" Morgan's tired voice called from the sofa sleeper in the living room area. "That you?"

"Yeah," Emily called back softly, trying not to wake anyone else — Reid and Rossi were in the room just to her left, and this hotel's walls were paper-thin. "Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm good," she said, forcing herself to compartmentalize so he wouldn't pick up that her carotid was pulsating — she didn't trust him not to profile her, even if he was mostly asleep.

She stood in the doorway another few seconds, waiting for his response — when the snoring resumed, she knew she was in the clear.

Emily slipped back into Hotch's room with a green Gatorade and a sleeve of Saltines in her hand, but to her relief, Hotch was already asleep in bed. She remembered how weak, achy and cold Jack had been on that first night he'd been sick, and she decided not to wake him. If someone had been following her, well, it's not like they would break into the hotel room, right? It could wait until morning.

She slipped her coat and shoes off by the desk chair and then stripped down to her underwear and a tank top and climbed under the covers next to Hotch. She pulled him gently closer to her, tucking his face up against her neck and chest and wrapping her arms around him. He was burning up, she could tell, but he burrowed into her, presumably for the additional body heat she had to offer.

In his sleep, he pressed one hand against her bump. She smiled and gently kissed the top of his head, running her fingers gently through his hair.

"Em?" he mumbled against her skin.

"Mhmm," she confirmed. "Go back to sleep, babe."

He hummed softly and pulled her even tighter towards him so that they were pressed together the entire length of their bodies, and Emily sent up a little silent prayer that he wouldn't notice that her heart was still racing.

"You okay, sweetheart?" he asked.

"Are you feeling better at all?" she replied, opting to answer his question with a question.

"A little," he said sleepily. "Aspirin is helping, I think."

"Okay," she said, still gently running her fingers through his hair. "Do you need anything? Or want me to get anything for you?"

"No," he murmured. "Just... stay here with me."

"Okay," she agreed softly. "I love you, Aaron."

"Love you, too. Thank you, Emily."

"Of course," she whispered, and then, just as Hotch was almost back asleep, Bean gave nice series of hard kicks.

Which, of course, because of their position, landed right on Hotch's chest.

Emily grunted — the scar tissue had been pulled funny — and Hotch woke up immediately.

"Sorry," she apologized, pulling a bit away from him. "She's really acting up tonight. I think I'm going to go for a walk, that helps sometimes —"

"I'll talk to her," he said somewhat hoarsely.

"You'll talk to her?" Emily repeated, amused. She was pretty certain he was still half asleep. He sat up by her torso, and carefully pulled her t-shirt up to the top of the bump.

He laid his hand flat against it, and pressed his lips gently against her swollen belly, and he started talking in a low voice. "Bean, I know you just want some attention, right? You're wondering why it's so quiet out here and how come nobody's paying attention to you. But Mommy is trying to sleep right now, sweetpea, so it would be wonderful if you could please go to sleep too, okay? We love you very much, Bean, but I don't want you to keep Mommy awake, else she'll be stressed out at work tomorrow."

Emily was equal parts amused and amazed as she felt her daughter's movements gradually slow, until the baby only wiggled every once in awhile.

"Is that better?" Hotch asked, lying back down next to her, but keeping his hand flat on the bump.

"Much," Emily said, kissing his nose. "How do you do that? She really likes your voice."

"Daddy's girl," he mumbled, already mostly asleep.

Emily's mouth popped open and she was pretty sure her heart stopped beating for a second or two, but Hotch either didn't think she'd be surprised by his statement, or he hadn't realized what he'd said, because he wasn't looking at her. His eyes were closed, and she could tell he was already drifting off to sleep.

She blinked a few happy tears away and kissed his cheek, curling up in his arms, and she was glad to know that no one was there to see that she was completely unable to wipe the stupid grin off of her face.

Much like herself, Emily knew, Hotch was unable to compartmentalize when he was on the brink of sleeping, which meant that he most likely meant what he had said — he really was thinking of her baby as his own daughter.

Maybe Bean wouldn't grow up without a dad, after all.