Insight

by lowrider1213

There was a chorus of snickers from the unaffected members of the team, and he turned his head to glare at the normally stoic profiler who now wore the faintest traces of a smirk on his lips. "And this, Aaron, is why the next time you feel the need to interrupt my Friday night with a call to arms, I'll be taking a sick day." A series of unrelated snapshots.

20. Tie

Tie

Twenty minutes before they had to leave for the cemetery and he was only mostly dressed, and it was the mostly part that was very nearly bringing him to his knees.

It was ridiculous, really.

All these years, the hundreds and hundreds of times his hands had completed these movements, through broken bones and pulled ligaments, after shootings and explosions, he should be able to knot his necktie with muscle memory alone, but his fingers trembled as he tried to force them to work so he stopped trying and resigned himself to the knowledge that even with all of the accidents and heatwaves and nights out with the team over the years, his ex-wife's funeral would be the first time many of them would see him without a tie, and he might've cried except that he didn't think he had any tears left, or he might've laughed except that it really wasn't funny. Instead, Hotch collapsed onto the bed, his eyes staring unseeingly into the mirror in front of him as his hands grasped the black silk, the weight of what he was holding rendering him frozen for what it implied, frozen but for his still shaking hands, and that was how Emily found him, empty eyes and shaking hands and an untied tie, and that alone told her more about his state of mind that anything he could've said.

With a confidence she did not feel, the brunette stepped farther into her boss's bedroom, pausing to close the door quietly behind her and set her clutch on the ground before moving to stand in the space between his knees. She threaded her fingertips through his hair, surprised at its softness, before moving her hands to cup his jaw, forcing his stare to meet her own. There was a flicker of something in his eyes, but it was gone with a blink and then she was faced with nothing again, and she was suddenly filled with an intense urge to do something, anything, to bring him back from wherever he was at that moment. Her hands trailed down his neck to meet his hands where they were clutching his tie, and she gently pulled the black silk from his grasp. His fingers circled around her wrists as she pulled the tail end over and through, the elegant knot coming together in mere seconds, and the act was so intimate, the brush of her fingers against his chest so loving, that it made his breath catch in his throat, and to his absolute mortification, he felt tears welling up in his eyes.

She cinched the knot to rest against his collar and his infamous self-control betrayed him, allowing a single tear to fall down his cheek. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, worrying it. She knew that he would want her to pretend that she didn't see the overflow of his grief where it was still sitting against his skin, but she couldn't leave him like that, so she brushed the tear away so gently he might not have known she'd moved at all, except his hand was still clasped around her wrist. Releasing her lip from the assault of her teeth, she turned her hands over to grasp his, using them to pull him forward against her chest. She threaded one hand back into his hair and rubbed his back with the other, and was surprised when she felt his arms snake around her back to clutch her to him. She blinked at the pressure mounting behind her eyes and held him tighter, not stepping away until there was a knock at the door.

She opened it and found a solemn JJ and a teary Jack, catching the little one as he threw himself at her and nodding when JJ told her that the car was waiting out front for them. Taking the black silk from the blonde's outstretched hand, she watched as her friend gathered her handbag before following the rest of the team out of the front door. Pressing a kiss to sandy blonde hair, she set the boy in his father's lap and knelt in front of them. Two sets of dark eyes watched as she threaded Jack's tie around his collar, knotting it and pulling it to rest in its proper place before rising to her feet once more. She turned to retrieve her clutch from where she had set it as Hotch tugged on his jacket, and then he pulled his son up to rest on his hip and she couldn't help herself. She stood up on her toes to press a kiss to first his cheek, then Jack's, returning the boy's shy smile with a grin of her own, and slipped her hand into the one that wasn't supporting the four-year-old. She grinned again at the light squeeze of gun-roughened fingers before leading them all out to the waiting car, releasing his hand so he could help Jack climb in and then slide in after him.

She was careful not to let her surprise show on her face when he slipped his hand back into hers as she settled onto the seat beside him, instead twining their fingers together and resting them against her thigh, gracing him with a watery smile when he turned his unreadable eyes to look at her. Softly, so that only she could hear him – and barely even then, he whispered, "Thanks", and though he felt like it wasn't nearly enough, it was all he could bring himself to say. Emily could see that the hold he had on his emotions was tenuous at best, so in lieu of saying anything that would tip them both over into tears, she simply tightened her hold on his hand.

The rest of the drive to the cemetery was made in relative silence, broken only by the occasional sniffle of the child pressed into his side. As they pulled to a stop beside the green lawn, he felt a familiar hand at his neck before a breathy whisper sounded in his ear.

"Your tie was crooked."

All he could do was squeeze the hand still encompassed in his own.