Chapter Twenty-Six

A guy and a girl can be just friends, but at one point or another, they will fall for each other... maybe temporarily, maybe at the wrong time, maybe too late, or maybe forever. -Dave Matthews

For a long moment after the lights of JJ and Will's car had turned around the corner, Emily stood there and stared at the place where it had disappeared. That was it. The last time she would see her team for who knew how long. It had been a balmy, warm evening but as she stood there on her own, a breeze disturbed the skirt of her black dress and the chill crept into her chest. Wrapping her arms around herself for warmth, Emily started when she felt gentle hands lay her own black, military style coat across her shoulders.

"You look cold," Hotch's voice rumbled in her ear. "I ordered a cab, I thought we might as well share, seeing as how we're heading in the same direction."

Turning her head to look at him over her shoulder, Hotch's eyes were infinite pools of darkness. Emily's eyes flickered down and settled for a moment on his lips. She remembered the feel of them, as he kissed her, soft but insistent. He had tasted like coffee. She knew he wouldn't taste like coffee right now. Suddenly, her own mouth felt very dry.

"Emily?" His voice pulled her out of her reverie and Emily realised she had turned to face him. Her long black coat hung from her shoulders like a cloak, much longer than her dress and therefore much more protective against the cold. She couldn't feel the cold anymore, but Emily didn't think that had anything at all to do with the extra layer. Hotch hadn't stepped back, she realised, when she had turned to face him. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her face, and as she looked at him, she noticed one shocking white eyelash against the black, and smiled.

"Yeah, sure," She agreed, sliding her arms into the sleeves of her coat and pulling her hair out of the collar where it was tucked in. Her hands slipped into her pockets out of habit and she stepped to the side of him. "Let me just go and say goodbye to Dave."

Inside, Emily paused and breathed deeply. The familiar smell of the Rossi mansion, as they had dubbed it, with it's solid oak wooden floors and banisters, accented by the warming scent of Rossi's cooking that always permeated the air, felt like home. Together, the team had spent so many evenings here. If there was an epicentre, a homing base, for the BAU, it was here. This was where they congregated to celebrate, to mourn, to recouperate. No matter what, this was where they always made their way back to. Emily's heels clicked against the wooden floor as she made her way through the foyer and into the kitchen. Rossi was loading the dishwasher. Leaning on her forearms against the counter, Emily watched him a moment before she spoke.

"I wish you'd let me help," She had offered, but he had waved it away, like he always did. Turning to smile at her, he finished loading the last few plates before straightening up. The dishwasher hummed to life behind him.

"Never, bambina," He said, wiping his hands down on a kitchen towel, "And especially not on a night when you're the guest of honour."

Leaning her palms against the counter, Emily pushed herself to stand straight and cast a glance around the room. She could see them, in her minds eye, the many times the team had gathered around this counter, or that dining table.

"There will be more happy times," Rossi could read each and every one of them like a book. She rolled her eyes in his direction and he chuckled, low in his chest. "I know, I know. But you're too easy to profile."

"It's just..."

Rossi's brow furrowed as she trailed off. "Just, what, tesoro?"

Treasure.

Emily's eyes glassed over at the term of endearment, filling with tears she had thought were spent for the evening. Rossi always reminded her of time spent in Italy and, sometimes, when she was around him, Emily felt like that lost little girl all over again. She shook her head, trying to hold back the tears, and bit her lip.

"Am I making a mistake?" She wanted to tell him everything. Not the everything she had told JJ and Penelope but...the other stuff. She wanted to tell him how her heart beat harder in her chest every time Aaron looked at her. She wanted to tell him all of the lovely things he'd said to her that night, and how she felt like she'd seen a vulnerable side to Hotch that nobody else got to see. She wanted him to tell her 'stay.' Somebody had to tell her to stay.

"I think there's only one person who can answer that question, Emily. There's only one person who knows what's best." Looking at her, he heaved a sigh that shook his shoulders. "But I don't believe you'd be going if you didn't think it was necessary."

"I'm just really going to miss you."

He crossed the room quickly and held her close, mumbling softly to her in Italian.

"Non piangere, piccolo." Don't cry, little one. That only made the tears fall harder. Clinging to him felt like she could cling onto this part of her life, for just a moment longer. But then he let her go, and the moment was gone, and Emily knew she had to turn around and walk away, or she never would. "Come and visit us soon, yes?"

Nodding, Emily brushed at the few remaining tears lingering on her eyelashes. Rossi pressed a kiss to her forehead, turned her manually around and gave her a gentle shove towards the door. "Enjoy the rest of your evening."

Already at the door by the time his words had sunken in, Emily stopped herself, holding onto the door frame, and turned to look at him, eyes narrowed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Rossi, however, was already turning away, though Emily thought she could see the ghost of a smile in the way his cheeks moved.

Outside, Emily found Hotch waiting at the bottom of the steps. The taxi, it's engine running smoothly, was waiting at the end of the drive way and, wordlessly, Emily closed Rossi's front door behind her and followed Hotch to the car.

Catching sight of her tearful face, he frowned. "You alright?"

She nodded, and wiped at her cheeks. Ever the gentleman, Hotch pulled the door of the backseat open for her but Emily paused a moment, turning to glance back at the house, taking it all in one last time, before she moved to climb into the cab. As she did, she and Hotch exchanged a look and Emily saw a fraction of her own sadness mirrored in the small smile he gave her before he closed the door behind her. A moment later, he was sitting in the seat beside her and giving her address to the driver.

"Did you, uh, did you have a nice evening?" The question was almost awkward. Hotch was the only one she hadn't really spoken to that evening. At dinner, they'd been sat diagonally across from one another, opposite JJ and Derek, respectively, and had both taken part in the general chit chat that they all engaged with. But she hadn't sought him out. She had sought out every other member of the team, and he had to have noticed that. Glancing at him, Emily saw that he wasn't looking at her, but straight ahead, at whatever view he could see past the drivers headrest.

"I was going to come and talk to you-" She started, unsure of whether she was telling the truth or not, but Hotch cut her off, turning his head away from the road to look at her. He was still smiling, and it looked fixed and fake.

"We don't have to do this, Prentiss." The return to addressing her by her surname did not go unnoticed and it wounded her. She was silent a moment, debating over how to respond to that statement.

"Yes, we do," She said, finally.

"No, we-"

"Yes, we do, Hotch." She was raising her voice now, whether as a product of her mildly drunken state or the annoyance she was starting to feel towards him. She didn't notice the way the drivers eyes flickered to his rear view mirror, but Hotch did.

"You don't need to shout at me." Hotch held the bridge of his nose. She hated when he did that. There was something so condescending about that. Scowling at him, Emily shook her head.

"You're not my boss, anymore, Hotch, remember? I quit. So I can shout at you all I please." With a gesture of disbelief, Hotch turned back to the window. Clearly, when he said they didn't need to talk about it, he meant that he didn't want to talk about it. That stung, but Emily wasn't about to tell him that. Instead, she lowered her tone and rolled her eyes. The car was pulling to a stop and Emily didn't want to spend a moment longer in his presence. "You know what, fine. If you want to be a child about this, be one. If this is how you want to leave things between us then I- Goodbye, Hotch, it's been really nice knowing you."

Knowing he couldn't leave it like this, torn between wanting to let her walk out of his life and wanting to beg her to stay, Hotch pressed his palms into his eyes, frustrated by them both.

"Prentiss-" He tried to halt her, but she was up and out of the car before her name was completely off his lips. Growling to himself, Hotch flung open the door on his side of the car and climbed out. "Emily!" He raised his voice this time. It carried across the street, several passers by glancing around to see where it had come from. Hotch glanced, too, acknowledging them. Emily had paused on the stairs to her apartment building and, sighing, Hotch reached into the pocket of his coat, pulled out his wallet and handed two $20 notes to the driver. "Keep the change." He mumbled, knowing he had massively overpaid, before making his way around the car in a jog towards where Emily stood.

Her arms were folded across her chest, her face the picture of thunder. Pursed lips threatened him with silence, and, exasperated, Hotch gestured to the street and to the passers by who were dawdling; trying, and failing, to look as though they weren't listening into their conversation. "Do you want to do this out here?"

For a moment, he thought she might say she did, just to spite him, and Emily would be lying to say it didn't cross her mind. She had every right, too, to leave him standing there on her steps. All she needed was for it to rain on him, and then she'd be satisfied. Angry as she was with him, though, they did need to talk. With a petulant huff, she turned on her heels and finished her ascent up the stairs and, though she didn't hold any doors open for him on the way, she didn't object when he followed her inside, into the elevator and into her apartment.

It wasn't much different to the last time he had been here. Emily Prentiss always seemed to be moving in or out of somewhere. The boxes piled high against the wall could be waiting to be unpacked. Knowing that, instead, they were waiting to be shipped off to London, Hotch frowned at them, as though they had offended him. Emily threw her purse down onto the counter, where it skidded across the empty, gleaming top, stopping just short of the hob that Hotch doubted had ever been used. He watched as she kicked off her shoes, leaving them lying haphazardly against the wall. The long, black military jacket was the next thing to go. She threw it across the back of the couch before turning to face him, one hand leaning against the coat, the other perched on her hip.

"Well?" She asked. "Go on, then. Talk."

"You're the one who-"

"No, Hotch, stop." Holding up her hands, Emily decided she'd had enough. Walking past him, she headed for the fridge. Watching as she pulled out a bottle of white wine, Hotch let her speak, uninterrupted, as she poured "I said I wanted to talk, you cut me off. I say fine, we don't have to talk, you rush out of the taxi and follow me up to my apartment." Slamming the bottle of wine down onto the counter just a little too hard, Emily picked up her glass and put it to her lips. "So, you clearly have something to say. Go ahead, say it."

Her tone, her attitude, the way she was staring at him with angry, accusing eyes, it all made his blood boil. Try as he might, Hotch never could keep a level head around her. Once again, he held the bridge of his nose, trying to keep himself from exploding at her.

"Will you stop doing tha-"

"Dammit, Emily," He muttered, before slamming his fist against the marble of her counter top. Emily jumped, the wine in her hand sloshing over the edge of her glass and down the front of her dress. "After everything, after all of it, you spent the entire night saying goodbye to everybody else and..." Every way he wanted to end that sentence felt pathetic. And you forgot about me? And you decided not to acknowledge me? And you left me out? "I just thought better of you. That's all. I thought we'd been through enough that you had a little more respect for me than you demonstrated tonight."

This wasn't how he'd wanted tonight to go. When Emily came to him, when she sat across from him in his office and told him she was leaving, and she was leaving immediately, Hotch had felt an unfamiliar, unpleasant jolt in his stomach. He hadn't told her she was making a mistake, he hadn't asked her to reconsider, he hadn't tried to convince her to stay. There were lines that were never supposed to be crossed and, Hotch knew, they had both crossed them with seemingly reckless abandon. But, more than that, he remembered. He remembered every word said that night in her hotel room. She didn't know that. She didn't know how much of it he had meant, how he couldn't look at her without wanting her. How painful it was for him to accept that he wouldn't see her everyday. None of that was for her ears; it wasn't his job to tell her what to do, and he wasn't about to guilt her into staying by professing his feelings. Hotchner's didn't do that sort of thing. Aaron didn't do that sort of thing. If she wanted to leave, it was her choice and he would grin and bear it for her. It didn't take the hurt away, and Emily could sense as much when he spoke to her, and at the very least, he deserved a goodbye.

"I'm not just anybody, Emily. I deserve a goodbye." He said, aloud. One simple, final admission. "You owe me a goodbye."

Emily stared, speechless, the wine glass in her hand caught somewhere between the counter and her lips, though apparently forgotten. She stared at him, her mouth slightly agape, and Hotch watched as she tried to form words. Nothing. Feeling rather ridiculous after his outburst, Hotch glanced around, helplessly, then turned and moved to sit on her sofa. Leaning his elbows on his knees, head in his hands, Hotch waited a moment, sighing heavily. Still, Emily said nothing. It took her a moment, a moment longer than he would have liked, but eventually, he heard the clink of a glass, the slosh of wine, followed by her padding softly across the kitchen floor. Her perfume washed over him like a wave as she passed him and sat beside him on the sofa. There were two glasses in her hands now, and she held one out to him.

"Take it," She said, when he hesitated. "I have a flight tomorrow and if you don't drink it, I'll drink it and then I'll hold you personally responsible for my 8 hours of hell."

Hotch took the glass then, and couldn't help but smile. All of her anger was gone. There was still an edge to her voice, but that was just Emily. He wouldn't recognise her without it. The wine was sweet, sweeter than he usually liked, but Hotch drank it. Having something to do, something to hold, made him feel better. The wine was gone in a few mouthfuls and he set it down on the coffee table that was, otherwise, entirely bare.

"You're right," She said, finally, swilling her own wine around in the glass. Then she, too, set it down on the table and turned entirely to face him. Fixing him with those giant, brown eyes, Emily inhaled deeply, nodding. Hotch thought she was nodding more to herself than she was to him. "You're right, I'm sorry. You deserved a goodbye. You deserve a goodbye." She held her hands out, palms up, helplessly, and shrugged. "I just don't know how to say goodbye to you, Hotch." The statement was followed by a small laugh of disbelief, and her hands moved to her hair, pushing it back from her face. She fiddled with the hem of her skirt, she twisted the rings around her fingers. Emily couldn't sit still as she spoke more candidly with Hotch than she thought she ever had with anybody. "I don't know how to process the fact that I'm not going to see you everyday. I'm not going to talk to you, or hear your voice. I don't know...how to be okay with that. So, I couldn't do it. I spent the whole night looking at you, waiting for a moment, and there were plenty. But I just...can't. Because being around you, looking at you, seeing you look at me it all...it makes me not want to go. And I have to go. So, it's not that you don't deserve a goodbye, Hotch...it's that I can't say goodbye to you."

By the end of her small speech, Emily's throat was thick with emotion and Hotch was frowning. Then, his eyebrows lifted, he met her eyes, and they were both laughing. The absurdity of it all, the impossibility of their hideous timing, the absolute improbability of the two of them...they laughed until they cried, red in the face from the hysterical giggles that wracked them both, and Hotch was sure it was the wine that had tipped them over the edge for the evening.

"You know, we never did talk," She looked up at him through her lashes, all of her laughter slowly subsiding. "About...it. You said we would, that morning you made me coffee, but we didn't."

Nodding, his lips turned up at the corner, not quite a smile, more of a smirk, really. "We can talk about it, if that's what you want." He looked from his hands to her, finding her eyes half-closed, as she picked at her nails. Suddenly, he found his heart beating harder in his chest, blood beginning to pound in his ears. The air between them had changed, was charged. The next question he asked was low, suggestive, and once he said it aloud, he couldn't take it back. "Is that what you want to do, Emily? To talk some more?"

Suddenly, nothing about this seemed very funny. Something about the way he said her name, the knowing, confident smirk on his lips, the understanding that after tonight, she didn't know when she would see him again, took hold of her. It was like that day in his office all over again. He was like a magnet, pulling her closer and in that instant, all of Emily's inhibitions abandoned her. She wasn't nervous anymore. The coiled apprehension in her stomach released, like a spring she hadn't realised was tightened around her stomach, and she breathed out, sharply, as she saw all of the playful teasing in Aaron's eyes turn to something darker.

"No."

He didn't taste like coffee this time. He tasted sweet, like wine and wasted time and sex. Hotch's hand came up to tangle in her hair and Emily was aware of only him. Everything else faded away as Hotch kissed her. This kiss wasn't a battle, like so many of their other interactions. For once, it was a union. The closeness of it, the sharing of breath and one endless moment during which the Earth might have stopped spinning, and Hotch didn't think he would even have noticed as he explored her mouth with his tongue. Heat rose in Emily's cheeks as she felt Hotch groan into her mouth, tasting his tongue with her own, the kiss deeper, longer than any they had previously shared.

There were no mirrors, no cars, no profilers in the next room to catch them doing something they shouldn't be. It was just the two of them, a fact that Emily was intensely aware of as she moved, stretching one leg over Hotch and straddling his lap, feeling the rise and fall of his chest against hers as she pressed herself against him, his need for her growing steadily as they kissed. His hands, his huge, strong hands, came to rest on the dip where her waist met her hips, but he didn't grip, he didn't bruise, not this time. Not yet. Emily shivered as she felt his thumb running over the sensitive skin there and, even through the material of her dress, the touch made her stomach muscles contract, as he brushed over a nerve. Gasping, Emily broke their kiss, breathing heavily and leaning her forehead against his. He was smiling now, really smiling and Emily took a moment to commit that smile to memory.

It didn't feel real. Every other time he'd touched her, it had been rushed, a race to the finish line, the endgame clearly in sight. This...this was different. Her hands came up to cup his face, feeling stubble that was already growing back prickle her fingers. He was breathing heavily, trying to catch his breath, just as she was. Her chest brushed his as Emily tried to steady her own erratic breathing and Hotch's eyes roamed from her own, down her body, as his hands travelled from her hips up, tracing the curvature of her spine, to her shoulders, and back down again, taking in every curve of her body, unable to believe his luck that this was finally going to happen.

When his eyes came back to meet hers, there was a question there, hidden in the depths of his dark eyes and in the deep lines that framed them. Emily moved her hands, one travelling up into his dark hair, the other tracing the curve of his jaw. Her thumb brushed, tentatively, over his lips and Hotch closed his eyes, catching her thumb between them, kissing it, his tongue tasting the salt of her skin for the first time. When he opened his eyes again, she was staring, wide eyed and breathing heavily, bottom lip caught between her teeth.

Then she was gone. The weight of her, the warmth of her, withdrawn from his body and Hotch groaned aloud and reached for her, wanting to pull her back to him. With a laugh, Emily's arm slipped out of his grip, replaced by a hand and fingers that laced effortlessly with his own. She looked at him then, really looked at him, and this time it was Hotch who wanted to commit this moment to his memory. There was a playful, mischevious sparkle in her eyes, and the hand that grasped his own held tight, as though she never wanted to let go. Her dark hair was tousled by his hands, the strap of her black dress hanging off of one shoulder. He should have ran. A long time ago, he should have run away. Because she was getting on a plane tomorrow, and he was in too deep and that...that was going to hurt like hell.

But she pulled, gently, on his arm, and Hotch got to his feet, towering over her for a moment, seeing no flicker of doubt in her eyes, before she turned and let him to her bedroom.