Parent
It is sometime after late night has ticked over to early morning, when the world is still dark and quiet and she is naked and wrapped around him in their bed, his fingers trailing nonsense patterns on the smooth skin of her back and leaving goosebumps in their wake. She presses a kiss to his shoulder where her head is lying and shifts infinitesimally closer, and the movement makes him smile.
He falls asleep smelling cinnamon and vanilla, and wakes again a few short hours later to chocolate eyes and a pout he wants to kiss away, so he does, and then he does it again, and again, and when he pushes her back onto the mattress and covers her body with his own, the laugh that escapes from her lips fills him with a warmth that is different than the heat pooling low in his stomach and he wants to catch it, to seize this moment and keep it for the rest of his days, so he presses another kiss to her lips and captures the tail end of her laugh, and then he joins them together and everything is beautiful. It is dark, and everything is on fire, and cinnamon and vanilla is swirling all around him, and he thinks that this must be what love is like, what it is supposed to be, not sweet and safe, like it was with Haley, but burning and all-consuming.
And after, when they have both caught their breaths and he has tugged her back against his chest, he ghosts his fingers over her stomach and drifts back into sleep, knowing that he'll dream of her tonight.
It is sometime after summer has given way to fall, when the world is blanketed in oranges and reds and she is chasing Jack around the park they've walked to, his son's happy squeals ringing through the crisp air as she catches up with him and spins him around. She hoists the almost-five-year-old up on her hip and carries him back to his father, and in that moment he knows, and the knowing brings a rare, two-dimpled smile to his face.
He takes the small boy from her and tugs her by the hand down onto the blanket he is sitting on, his smile softening as she leans into his side. She is still chattering to Jack from where he is cuddled into his father's chest, and he should be impressed by her vast knowledge of the Muppets, and he would be, really, but he is much too distracted by the way her (his) Rolling Stones t-shirt is riding up on her hips, exposing the creamy flesh of her midsection where he knows their future is housed, and then the ice-cream jingle is sounding and she and Jack both jump up, and he is laughing as he watches them race to get their frozen treats, picturing a third running with them.
And after, when they have returned and he steals a lick of her ice-cream amid her protests and his son's giggles, he trails his fingers just above the waistband of her jeans and smiles as her muscles ripple beneath his touch, and he knows that he'll dream of her tonight, too.
It is sometime after the blue line has shown on the stick in her hand, when the world is only him and her, and she is silent and unmoving, her tension evident in her tight shoulders and straight back and the way she refuses to look him in the eye. He can read her like a book, can see the hesitation masking the joy in the way she breathes and knows that she is only unsure because they haven't talked about having children, but then, she doesn't know what he knows.
She should, though.
And because she hasn't looked up yet, she hasn't seen the face-splitting, ear-to-ear grin that is stretched across his lips, and that needs to change, too.
Gently, so gently, he reaches a hand to cup her jaw, tilting her face until her eyes are locked on his own, and she can see the unadulterated love in his and she feels all of her worries melt away, and the kiss they share is echoed all the way to her toes before he is pulling her up the bed to lay with him.
"It's going to be a girl."
She laughs.
"Aaron, we found out I'm pregnant three minutes ago."
He smiles at her teasing and gives her another kiss, quick and sweet.
"It's going to be a girl."
"There's no way you can know that."
"I can. I'm the one who decides."
The twinkle in her eye warns him that he's playing with fire, and they've played this game enough times for him to know that if he continues on his current path, it's likely he'll be burned.
He continues anyway.
"You don't have any conscious choice, you big goof! You don't know any better than I do if it's going to be a girl or a boy!"
"Yes I do. It's going to be a girl." He rolls her underneath him and smirks when she shudders.
"Why are you so sure?"
His smirk softens into a smile she hasn't ever seen before, and she is intrigued by the change. He falls to the side and pulls her flush against him, sweeping her hair behind her ear so he can see her face.
"I've dreamed her, Emily. Probably a thousand times, since I was twenty-three. I knew her before I met you. And she's beautiful, Em. The prettiest girl I've ever seen." He pauses to press a kiss against her temple. "She has dark curls and eyes the color of chocolate. She has perfect little rosebud lips and delicate fingers, the Hotchner dimples and your cheekbones and a little button nose."
The picture he is painting of their daughter is vivid, and she can almost see her.
"What else?"
"She's afraid of thunder, and spiders, and the dark. Her laugh is infectious. She loves history, and she likes to read mystery novels. She's smart, so smart, like her mother. And stubborn, and proud, and passionate, and kind." He punctuates each of those points with a peck to her lips.
"Her favorite color is butter yellow…"
"Butter yellow?" Her teasing tone is back, but his soft smile remains.
"Yeah. It reminds her of duckies, and sugar cookies, and sunshine. She likes daisies, because they're easy to make into crowns, and lilacs, because they smell pretty. She prefers strawberry ice-cream, and you joke that no daughter of yours is going to prefer fruit to chocolate, and I say 'At least we only have to buy one carton to keep us all happy', and for the rest of our days there's always Neapolitan ice-cream in the freezer, vanilla for me, chocolate for you and Jack, and strawberry for our girl."
She smiles at that, because she was about to speak those words.
"She's the first girl that Morgan falls in love with, and he falls hard. She always dresses up with Reid to go to Comic Con, and JJ and Garcia spoil her rotten because she's the only girl, and she's Dave's favorite because she's the only one of the kids who appreciates his cooking. Jack will teach her to talk, and walk, and climb trees, and land on her feet after jumping mid-swing on the swing set. They'll twirl around, and around, and around in the backyard until they collapse in a heap on the grass, laughing until tears fall down their faces. She loves the ocean, like Jack does, so we'll go every chance we get, and they'll work together to build the biggest sandcastles, so big they can't reach to put the flag on the top, and we'll stay on the beach until the waves swallow their hard work."
He pauses, closing his eyes, and she takes a moment to memorize his face while he thinks of a dream he's held for so long.
"I'm going to teach her to ride a bike, and you're going to teach her to speak every language you know, and she's going to love it so much she's going to learn a few more, too. She'll cry when we drop her off at kindergarten, and Jack will hold her hand all the way to her classroom, and he'll brush the tears from her cheeks and kiss her head, and he'll tell her that she's going to have the best time, and that he'll see her at lunch. And I'll nobly hold myself together until we reach the car, and then I'll cry too, and you'll roll your eyes and tell me that she's going to be fine, but later you'll pretend not to notice when I slip out to check on her and Jack at lunch."
Her own tears were gathering at the corners of her eyes, and the gruffness of his voice told her that he was holding his own back as well.
"She's going to fight with us about the dumbest things, Em, and she's going to break our hearts a million times, but it's going to be perfect. She's going to be perfect, because she's ours." A few of his tears slip down his face, and she kisses them away.
"You sound like you know everything about her already."
"I've dreamed her for twenty-five years, Em. A quarter of a century. More than half of my lifetime, I've waited to meet her."
"What if this baby is a boy?"
He leans down to press a kiss just below her navel and she giggles when his breath tickles her skin.
"It's going to be a girl."
Another kiss, and his lips linger.
"All I need to know is her name."
She looks at him in amused surprise, then, and pulls him up to rest beside her before pillowing her head on his chest.
"All this time and you don't know her name?"
"I know that her mother gives it to her. So, what's her name?"
She thinks for a moment, and then she knows.
"Anna Claire. Named first for herself and second for your grandmother."
He chuckles, a low sound that sends tingles racing through her, and tips his head to whisper in her ear, "Well, her nickname makes more sense now."
"Nickname?"
"Yeah. Morgan calls her Ace."
It is the last word either of them speaks for some time, and after, when they are tangled together and their hands are intertwined over where their child is growing, he dreams in technicolor of the daughter he can't wait to meet, and wakes with a smile on his face.
It is sometime after the cherry blossoms have fallen to the ground, when the world is alive with the promise of spring, and he is carrying a little girl with dark curls and chocolate eyes and strawberry ice-cream smeared across her perfect rosebud lips on his shoulders while her mother and brother walk hand-in-hand beside them. She taps a nonsense rhythm on his head and hums a happy tune to herself, and the perfection of it all makes him smile.
"Daddy?"
"Princess?"
"What's your favorite color?"
The answer is easy as it rolls off his tongue – it's been the same since he was a boy.
"Blue, like the ocean." But he's thinking of lines on white sticks instead of waves on white beaches.
"Mommy?"
"Red."
"Jackie?"
"I like green, like summer."
He moves to hold her legs with his left arm and catches the hand that isn't holding his son's in his right hand. She locks eyes with him, noting the knowing look as he asks, "What about you, Annie? What's your favorite color."
"Yellow, like butter."
He suppresses a chuckle, and her mother's eyes narrow for a moment before she looks at her daughter.
"Why butter yellow, Annie?"
"It reminds me of duckies, and sugar cookies, and sunshine."