The headline from the gossip website glares at him and he can't believe he hadn't thought of it when he was confessing his feelings to Emily. She might already have her eyes set on someone else. Daughter of Ambassador Elizabeth Prentiss Falling For Her Own Ambassador? He finds himself glaring at the photo underneath the title of another man in a suit with his arm wrapped around Emily's waist. It's a good thing he didn't show up to see her at the ball with her date, he scoffs at the word. This was the man she was willing to risk her heart on instead of him? He can't even bring his eyes down to the main body of the article. Hadn't she asked him to wait for her? Instead, his eyes are pulled to look down towards where the brunette who always holds his attention is- or well should be sitting, but her desk is empty.
"Hotch?" His office door opens and her head pops in.
"Come in." He minimizes the browser, not wanting her to catch him in the act of looking at articles about her.
"I have that case file for the New York office." She notices the anger hiding in his eyes. "Is something wrong?"
"It's nothing," He says as he takes the file from her outstretched hand. "I'll look this over and send it off." Emily doesn't let him off that easy. Instead she takes a seat in the chair in front of him.
"You know you can talk to me about anything right?"
"I know. But it's nothing." He decides to change the topic. "How was your weekend?" With the Ambassador, his brain fills in.
"Awful. Mother had this function she wouldn't let me get out of and she kept trying to introduce me to 'suitable' matches." Emily adds air quotes around her own words. "Which basically means they're all tangled up in politics, so I'm destined to hate all of them." She rolls her eyes. "How were Jack's soccer games?"
"He won both games." Aaron's mood is instantly brightened by the indicator that she doesn't have any feelings for the man that she was pictured in the arms of. Emily notices his face get brighter, and she doesn't think it's just about the soccer games, since he doesn't elaborate on them.
"You knew about it didn't you?" She knows that Garcia had sent him the invitation, but maybe he hadn't seen it. Or maybe he did see it and decided against going like JJ suggested.
"Yeah, wait no. What?" Aaron looks at Emily like he's trying to figure out what answer he's supposed to give.
"You knew about the Ambassador's Ball, didn't you? How?" Aaron doesn't say anything, but instead opens back up the browser he had minimized before turning his laptop to show her. He could have told her that Garcia sent him the invite, but he doesn't want her to get mad at Garcia. "You were looking up articles about me?" Emily asks as she looks at the screen in front of her.
"No. Emily I wasn't. I promise. I went to search something and it was under trending news articles."
"Why didn't you just ask me about it instead of reading gossip magazines?" Emily asks defensively.
"I am asking you."
"No you asked me about my weekend. Not about if I went on dates with anyone. Which even if I had, why do you care?" Emily spits out.
"You know exactly why I care." Aaron's voice hushes down an octave.
"No you told me you're in love with me weeks ago. And then when I kissed you, you shut it down. Then you told me that we needed space from each other. For all I know, you moved on to other people." Emily shrugs. "Maybe you're in love with JJ now. Or Morgan. I don't know where your feelings lie anymore."
"Emily when I told you how I felt, you ran out of my apartment. I shut down what I thought was going to be a one night stand. And then I told you I needed space because you told me that you couldn't risk your heart on us. But now you seem angry even though you already knew that I lo- that I care about you. I don't know what you want." Aaron runs a hand through his hair, unsure what to do about the situation in front of him. "I wasn't going to make any further moves until I knew where you stood in all of this. But if you would rather look for suitors elsewhere I'm not going to stop you."
"Really? Because you seem pretty jealous of the idea of me looking for love elsewhere." Emily says defensively.
"I'm going to be jealous of anyone else who gets to be with you. But I'm not going to stop you from looking elsewhere if that's what you want."
"And what if I want you?" The words leave her mouth and he's left breathless at even the idea of it.
"Just say the word Emily. All you have to do is tell me."
"What do you want me to say? Because me sitting in your living room telling you I loved you didn't seem to be enough. I wasn't going for a one night stand." Emily says firmly, but with no hint of anger. "I just wanted you, all of you."
"Let me take you out then. On an actual date."
"Why? You don't need to wine and dine me to get me."
"I'm not trying to just get you. It's what you deserve Emily." Aaron hopes she sees his emotion across his face. "I want to take you on a date, because you deserve that and so much more. Not just tumbling around in the sheets."
Before Emily can reply, there's a knock on the door and Penelope's head pops in. Aaron shuts the computer as she leans in the doorway. "Bossman, my dark haired beauty, we have a new case to brief on."
"We'll be there in a moment." Aaron says before Emily has a chance to leave the room before giving him an answer. "Can you shut the door behind you?" Penelope nods slowly, trying to catch Emily's eyes, but gets nothing out of them. "So can I?"
"We have a case to work." Emily says, not revealing anything.
"After it? We both love each other, we've both dreamed about each other in different manners, and have both imagined a future with the other. So why not give this a chance?"
"What happens to the bet we have? With Insanity?"
"We can still keep it. It would just be a follow up date. I just can't wait another forty five days to take you on a date." Aaron pleads.
"Fine. After the case though." She turns towards the door, but Aaron's hand grasps her wrist lightly and she turns back to face him. "Yes?"
"When you asked me to wait for you…" He trails off, not knowing how to finish the question.
"I was almost ready. Now I am." She says with the lightest of smiles on her lips and Aaron can't stop the smile that explodes from his own lips. "And now, we go and solve this case so we can come back and have our date."
"Not with the ambassador?" Aaron can't help but ask, thinking back to the article that started all of this.
"Marshall is a friend from childhood." Emily releases a smirk. "I hung out with him so I could escape the men Mother thought were 'suitable' matches."
"And Marshall isn't a suitable match?" Aaron asks, confused.
"She might think he was if I was his preferred dating gender." Emily says. "But also he's engaged, which I don't know how the press missed that."
"So soon the press might say you're trying to break up their engagement." Aaron teases her.
"Oh clearly. Especially since I introduced them. Definitely want to break them up."
"So any of these suitable matches catch your eye?" Aaron asks, not missing that her mother was trying to set her up the other night. But Emily shakes her head.
"I hate politics, remember?"
"Oh I know you do. But the heart will want what the heart will want."
"My heart already knows what it wants and that's not a political match made by my mother." Emily says as they make their way over the catwalk towards the conference room.
"And what's that?"
"Si tu savais." Emily says with a wink, before opening the door to enter the room. She's going to kill him, he's pretty sure about that. But he will die a happy death.
"What do we have?" Aaron asks as he and Emily sit down in the last two seats around the table. Penelope makes eye contact with Emily and she can tell that she wants to address what she saw in Aaron's office, but Emily shakes her head ever so slightly. So instead, Penelope jumps to the case instead of questioning her friend.
"Today's forecast is sunny and warm in Los Angeles, city of angels, which is where you are heading today. Over the past four days, four little girls have been taken from their beds in the night and a super creepy, if I may say, look alike doll has been left in their place. It started four nights ago with Mila-Rose Price. Then the next night Neveah Hayden was snatched from her bed. Followed by Ingrid McKay and then Aimee Reeve taken last night." Penelope clicks her pointer at the screen as she pulls up school photos of each girl along with their bed sitting with sheets ruffled and the lookalike doll sitting where the child should have been.
"What were the girls last seen in? Do we have that?" Morgan asks.
"That's where it gets well creepy. The dolls are wearing the exact outfit the girls were wearing to bed." Penelope explains. "That's what freaked Ingrid's parents out. She woke them up in the middle of the night because she threw up and had to change pjs. So the unsub would have had to have been already watching or something."
"Or he waits until they're wearing a specific set?" Reid suggests.
"And by chance all four happened back to back?" JJ points out. "That seems unlikely."
"These girls are what seven to nine years old right? Could it be that their parents have them on a rotation of pjs?" JJ shakes her head ever so slightly.
"Most likely not. Children like to make their own choices as well as there are nights where Jack would wear the same pjs night after night if I let him. If I had to bet, they're just pulling random sets out of the drawer." Aaron explains, having a child that fits the age of their victims.
"Ok so somehow the unsub has the exact matching outfit to the kids. Are they popular pjs? Easy to find? Are they sold by brands that make matching sets for the dolls. Like what is it American Girl Dolls do?" Emily asks, thinking back to the girl she used to babysit.
"Not really. These clothes look like they're handmade."
"Well right now we have four missing girls and the only lead so far is the clothing on the dolls. So Garcia work on looking at companies that would supply the materials needed. Also see if there's anything notable about any of the clothing. The rest of us, wheels up in twenty."
In Los Angeles, the heat is sticky. It may only be the end of March, but the heat is already hitting the high nineties. Emily can feel the sweat dripping down her neck as they get out of the car and walk towards the LAPD station. The sun is hiding between some clouds, but Emily hopes that rain will hold off. If it pours, it will just be sticky and humid which is the last thing she wants.
After having a day off doing nothing yesterday, getting back into the swing of everything by jumping into a case is good. They team heads in to set up, while Rossi and Reid head over to the latest crime scene. Garcia has sent over information for them to get started on. So they're going to spend time going through them until the parents of their young victims arrive.
"Once the parents get here, Emily and JJ, I want you to talk to them. See what else we can learn about the children and anything that might have been different about their nights last night."
The day drags out. They don't have a ton to go off. There isn't much of anything from the crime scenes and they're still sorting through the information from the parents. To make it worse, they have a guess on which child might be their first dead victim.
Their youngest victim, Aimee Reeve, might have been their last one to be taken, but there is something different that puts her at risk. Aimee, is a type one diabetic on an insulin pump. Her pump only contains enough insulin for three days, but it had been changed the day before she was taken. So when she was taken, she only had enough insulin for two days. So if they weren't on a time crunch before, they are now.
Stepping into her hotel room, she knows she needs to just get her workout in and then she can go to bed. Even though it's late, she texts Aaron.
Insanity?
Ugh.
Fine.
Ten minutes?
Meet you there.
She wants to workout with him? It's like the past week didn't happen. Or it's like it happened and they're finally moving past it. It's late and he doesn't want to work out but, seeing her for something other than looking at case files that aren't giving them the answers that they are looking for, he'll take it. In the gym, he finds her in one of her typical tanks. This one is a peach color and reads 'Do Mimosas Count As A Juice Cleanse?'.
"Garcia?"
"Nope I'm Emily. The one you asked on a date, remember?" She teases him.
"I meant the shirt. Is that one from Garcia?" She glances at it.
"It is. Good guess. Most of my ones about drinking or that have foul language are from her."
"That's what I was betting." He breathes in the sight of her. "I would never forget the fact that you finally said yes to going out with me. That will be burned in my memory forever."
"You're ridiculous you know that?"
"Yeah but you love me and that's all that matters." Emily can't even roll her eyes at that because she knows he's right.
"Fine, you got me there. Now we should probably get our workout in so we can go to sleep." She opens her laptop to where she already had today's video pulled up.
"Pure Cardio and Cardio Abs? Can we do anything but that?" Aaron whines.
"I get the feeling you hate all the workouts Aaron."
"They suck." He responds honestly. "I think I'd rather eat nails then do this."
"Metal ones or finger ones?" Emily asks.
"Either. Both. Whichever gets me out of having to do this workout." She laughs at that.
"Well, unless you're planning on doing that instead of this…" She trails off and hits play. Aaron hears that dreaded montage that makes him want to throw the computer off a cliff. Once they get into the actual workouts it's not that bad, but the montage makes it worse he's pretty sure about that. It hurts his soul to know that it's starting again. But before he knows it, forty minutes have passed and they're done with the workout. "Still want to eat nails?"
"I mean, we have to get our post workout meal in."
"I'll stick with shakes. They go down easier." Emily replies with a smirk. "You're welcome to have your nails though. Lots of… iron?" He can't help but let the laugh explode out of him. Suddenly she's laughing with him and she knows that this is the ease that she knew she would have being with him. He's her best friend. Dating him doesn't really change that apart from adding in some added benefits. "If we're finding that funny, we definitely need to get some sleep." Emily says, closing her computer. "Come on, I think it's time for bed." He follows her out of the gym, but in all honesty he would follow her anywhere.