Chapter Twenty-Nine

Emily considered not texting him. She climbed out of the shower, regarding herself for a moment in the full length mirror that ran the length of her hotel bathroom. Tracing the length of the scar on her abdomen, the puckered, pale pink line that Hotch hadn't even seemed to notice. She tried to see herself as he had, clean of her scars; with no evidence of Doyle, or any other wounds. Without the bullet wound in her shoulder, or the still healing graze across her arm, where Ryan Foulder's knife had cut her. Hotch hadn't seen any of that. He had just seen her.

There were red bruises on her throat, slowly purpling around the edges, and Emily traced them lightly with her fingertips. As she touched them, she closed her eyes, and remembered the feel of Aaron kissing her there, his tongue tracing over her...blinking, Emily pulled herself out of the reverie, annoyed at herself for dwelling, and annoyed at her body for the way she involuntarily reacted to the memory of his touch.

Shaking her head against the memory, Emily tugged one of the huge, grey fluffy towels that the hotel had provided around her damp body, unable to stand the sight of her scars anymore. She left the steamy bathroom, leaving the door opened behind her, and wandered over to the bedside table where she had left her phone plugged in and charging. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she turned the phone over and over in her hand, mulling over Hotch's last words to her. The screen lit up in reaction to her touch, and a landscape photograph, taken at one of Rossi's gatherings, shone brightly up at her in the early morning gloom.

There was Morgan, with his arm thrown around her shoulders, grinning at the camera. Neither she nor JJ were looking at the camera. JJ was saying something and Emily's eyebrows were up, her mouth open in a shocked grin. Emily couldn't even remember the conversation, but she smiled anyway, because whatever JJ had been saying was obviously hilarious. Reid and Penelope were beside JJ, back to back, posing like Charlie's angels. Nobody else had noticed them until later, and the mystery of how Penelope got Reid into that pose still remained. And, on the other side of Morgan, there was Hotch. Also with one of Morgan's arms slung around his neck, his own arm around Rossi's shoulders. He was grinning, from ear to ear, at something Rossi had just said. That smile was the whole reason she had made the picture her lock screen. Those smiles were rare. It reached to his eyes. Staring at that picture, an image, of him smiling up at her, an entirely different expression in his eyes, invaded her mind. Even retrospectively, that smile made her heart clench in her chest. Emily closed her eyes against the picture, but she could see his smile in her minds eye. It wasn't the one from the picture, it was the one she had seen in person...the one that spoke a thousand words without saying a single one out loud. The one that had terrified her to her core.

She unlocked her phone and pulled up his contact, purely because he'd asked her to.

Arrived safe. Emily typed out, then paused, unsure of what should come next. She couldn't tell him she missed him. Not because it wasn't true but because it hadn't been that long since she'd seen him. And, even if it had, she still couldn't tell him she missed him. Or, at least, she wouldn't. She mulled it over a moment, looking at the screen ,before sighing and dropping her hands into her lap. Gazing out of her hotel window, Emily watched raindrops race each other down the glass in the early morning gloom. The sky was grey, dark clouds peppering the horizon.

Arrived safe. Weather's shit.

In the end, that was all that she sent. He'd asked to know she was safe. Small talk about the weather was a low blow, she knew, but what else was there to say, now?

Then she put away her phone and got ready, preparing herself for her first day on the new job.

Hotch knew he wasn't getting the job before he went for the interview. By now, he knew who the other applicants were and they were both older than him, both had more experience and both had adult children, for whom they were no longer responsible. Hotch would never look at Jack as a problem, he loved Jack more than anything in the world, but that didn't mean higher ups wouldn't take the fact that Hotch had a child to prioritise into consideration. It would be the same for JJ, or anybody else in the Bureau with dependants. It was logical; people without responsibilities outside of work could dedicate more time to their work. It was reflected in his file, he knew, down to the date when he had become a single father. His numbers had changed, dramatically. Even with Jessica helping him out, Hotch knew he needed to be there for Jack more than he ever had been before, and he hadn't once regretted that choice. Even today, as he sat and waited for the interview he had been worrying about and preparing for for almost two months, he didn't regret that choice.

And then there was the BAU. His team was efficient, trustworthy, hardworking. They were also reckless, hot-headed and, at times, downright irresponsible. And they were his team, which meant their actions were, ultimately, a reflection on him as a leader. Every file he'd had to fill out, every statement he'd ever had to give, every explanation. They would all be stacked against him, not for him. It didn't matter how many positive outcomes they'd had, how many victims they'd saved over the years. All that mattered was the red tape they'd cut through to get here, the protocol that had been ignored, the dangers his team had put themselves in for the good of the case. Morgan with his bombs in ambulances, Reid with his brilliant ideas of splitting up and going after Unsubs alone, Emily with her I can take it. Each and every time, his chest had swelled with pride, but brave decisions weren't always the right ones, as they had found out on more than one occasion.

And then there was the disobedience. The BAU not following rules was one thing, but Aaron Hotchner purposefully turning his back on the rules was another. He'd done it an infrequent number of times over the years, but probably still more so than anyone else applying for the position of Assistant Director. Working on Sarah's murder, when Frank Breitkopf had returned, had been against policy and he had done it anyway. Refusing to take any other cases while the BAU worked tirelessly to find out who had shot Penelope. Going against all orders to find out about Emily's involvement with Doyle. It was personal. For Hotch, it had gotten personal. They would call him out on that, he knew. He was ready for all of the criticism, and he didn't have an excuse for any of it.

Sitting outside of the conference room, Hotch tried not to be aware of the shape of his phone in his pocket. It had been over a week. And nothing. She hadn't text, or called. There had been no update on whether she had landed safely, no text to say she was okay. She was okay. He knew because he had overheard the rest of the team talking about it. Morgan and Penelope were, to his understanding, going to visit her next month. So she was absolutely fine, and that was good. And she was in touch with the rest of them, which was fine. But she hadn't text to tell him, and that was...Hotch pushed the thought out of his head. He didn't care. He couldn't care. Whatever there had been between them was over now, she was making that crystal clear with her radio silence. And by moving halfway around the world.

"Aaron Hotchner?" The door to his right had clicked open and, standing there with a smile pasted onto her face, was the Director's secretary. She gave him a supportive smile as he stood up and straightened his blazer, and Aaron set his shoulders back, determined to give the best impression, regardless of the outcome.

It rained for weeks. For weeks, Emily woke up to the rain. She stumbled through the rain on her way to work, her stockings ending up soaked through so that she had to dry them on the radiator in her office. Eventually, she jus ended up taking spare pairs into work and keeping them in the bottom drawer of her desk, changing them when she arrived at the office. She went for lunch in the rain, and it almost always ruined her hair. The sleek style she arrived to work with everyday would frizz, and begin to curl, and then she just looked like she had that morning in the hotel and...and she couldn't think about that.

She spent whole days in her office, because field work wasn't in her job description anymore, and she had to be the figurehead in case anything went wrong. Finance meetings and sign-offs came and went, as the clock ticked past and Emily waited until she could leave. It was a strange feeling, doing practically nothing and being accountable for absolutely everything. It gave her an uneasy feeling in her stomach, and Emily wondered if this was how Hotch felt all of the time. When her day finally ended, the mountain of paperwork she'd had to fill out having subsided for the day, only to be replaced by an equally large pile tomorrow, Emily went home in the rain, too. And, when she got to the apartment she had finally found after weeks of looking, she would sit on the wooden floor, lean her back against the wall and stare out at the city.

The window had been the biggest selling point of the apartment. It took up practically an entire wall of her open-plan kitchen and living space. It reminded her a lot of her first apartment in Washington, except this one was bigger, and the view much nicer. She would watch from that window, exhausted after a long day of files and meetings and dealing with HR and PR and whatever other R's had come up that day, as it rained. She would watch the rain disturb the steady surface of the Thames, and would sit for hours. There was something almost soothing about the relentless and untiring rhythm with which the raindrops cascaded against the river. On bad days, days when the river wasn't still, Emily thought she understood what it felt like, to be so unsettled and turbulent.

Truthfully, Emily had never had more stability in her entire life. She had a permanent address, a bed she slept in every night, instead of hotel beds up and down the country, and a reliable job, where she knew how each day would unfold. She had never been more settled, or more bored.

Rossi found him first. Not that he was hiding. He was sitting at his desk, hands clasped on the polished wood. How long he sat there for, he didn't know. All he knew was that, at some point, the sun had gone down. The knock on his door barely registered, but Rossi's voice broke through his silence.

"So, how'd it go?"

"You're a profiler, Dave." Hotch said, putting a hand to his face and rubbing his eyes, suddenly itching with tiredness. "You can see very well how it went."

"I'm sorry, Aaron," Rossi took the seat opposite him and set the bottle of scotch and two glasses Hotch hadn't realised he was carrying onto the desk. He poured his own, and then poured Hotch a double. Handing it over the desk, Dave settled back into the comfortable, leather seat, and they sipped in silence.

"Have you heard from her?" He asked, eventually. Hotch had been expecting it, but not so bluntly. He glanced up from the amber liquid he had been staring into, raising an eyebrow. Dave shrugged, in response, and Hotch shook his head.

"No, no I haven't." He admitted, lifting the glass to his lips and letting the liquid burn down his throat, as though it could burn away the embarrassment of the interview, of everything that had happened with Emily. As though it could burn away all of the feelings she had left him with. "At this point, I don't expect to." He practically heard the why before Rossi even asked it. "It's been almost a month, Dave. If she wanted to talk, I would have heard from her by now. She's moved on."

"And what about you?" Rossi asked, leaning forwards to pour himself another drink. Hotch's glass wasn't yet empty, but Dave topped him up, anyway. "Are you moving on?"

He had thought about it, really he had. But how do you move on from something that never really was? She hadn't been his girlfriend, she had barely been his lover. It didn't make sense to move forwards when there was nothing to move on from. He shrugged, non-committal and hesitant, words failing him. It made him uncomfortable, speaking like this with Rossi. There had been no acknowledgement of his relationship with Emily between them, until this point. He'd always had the inkling that he older man knew, that Rossi's profiling skills hadn't let anything slip by him, but to talk so freely about it, to admit it aloud to someone other than himself, or her, made him feel strange. Especially now, now that it was over.

"I don't know." He admitted, finally. "I'm not not looking, I suppose. I just-with work, and Jack. It's not like I have the time to be dating. And I'm too old for dating, anyway."

"Nonsense, Aaron," The older agent shook his head, scowling his disapproval. "I'm offended by proxy. If you're old, what does that make me? I won't listen to it. I don't care how, just get yourself back out there. Because you're moping."

"I am not moping!" Hotch protested, hotly. Dave raised an eyebrow, knocked back the last of his drink and stood up to take his leave. "I don't mope." He sighed, heavily. "Maybe I'll run the triathalon."

At that, Dave laughed, heartily.

"Either call her, or find someone new," Dave ordered, "Because, yes, Hotch. You do mope, and you are moping." He picked up the bottle of scotch from the table, taking the empty glass that Hotch offered to him, and made his way towards the door. By the time he turned back, Hotch had already settled back in his chair, hands clasped in front of him once more. "I'm sorry about the job, Aaron. Their loss."

With a nod that he hoped portrayed his gratitude, Hotch spoke.

"Thanks, Dave."

She spoke to them most days. Garcia was always checking in, sending message after message, with updates on their day. Opening her messages at the end of the day, glass of wine in hand, was fast becoming one of Emily's favourite past times. Where the others stuck to pleasantries and occasional event summaries, Garcia gave her every little detail, a step by step account of each of their days. Before she knew it, it had been a month, then two. At the end of this month, Penelope and Derek were coming to visit, and Emily told them over text how good it would be to see them. She wished the others could come, too, but JJ had the boys, Spencer didn't like to fly that far away from his mom, and Hotch...

Hotch hadn't responded to her text. That first night, when she'd gotten out of the shower and text him she was safe, like he had asked her to, was the last time she had tried to contact him. He'd ignored it. At first, it had infuriated her because why bother asking her to text at all, if he wasn't going to acknowledge it. Then, slowly, she let it go. He was moving on, she ought to do the same.

But, she quickly realised, it's hard to move on when you're the boss. Or, at least, that was what she blamed her lack of attraction to anyone at the office on. And when was she supposed to find time to look outside of the office? The hours might not be as haphazardly structured as they had been at the BAU, and her job might not be half as interesting or exhilarating, but somehow, she was busier. Somehow, she was tireder. She used to wake up before her alarm and, after a coffee, be buzzing to get into the office. Lately, she usually snoozed it a minimum of three times, each time pleading for an extra five minutes in bed.

It was hard to make friends, too, being the boss. She spoke to Clyde much more frequently than she had ever thought she would, just because she knew him and he was, occasionally, around. Her secretary - it was strange that she had a secretary - was sweet enough, but a little vapid. A little too bland to strike up a stimulating conversation with. Emily was lonely and, for the first time in her life, the loneliness bothered her. She had never experienced that problem before. Before the BAU, she thought nothing of being alone. She had actually preferred it that way, for a long time. It was easy to be alone when you didn't trust anybody. Now, she'd give anything to be surrounded by that family.

Elizabeth visited, much to Emily's chagrin. She wasn't quiet lonely enough to appreciate that, yet. But, nevertheless, Elizabeth insisted on taking her out to dinner. Emily was only grateful that Elizabeth was too grand to accept the offer of her spare room. Instead, she had opted for a hotel. Emily had to hide her sigh of relief. So they went to dinner.

"This place is lovely, Emily," Elizabeth regarded the restaurant with approving eyes. Emily glanced around, too, a small smile on her lips. It was a restaurant she had walked past plenty of times on her way home from the office, but she'd never had cause to come inside. It definitely wasn't the kind of place you could go alone so, more often than not, Emily found herself ordering in an Indian and sitting in front of her window, watching the rain, or reading through texts from her team. "Have you been here before?"

"No," She shook her head, accepting the menu the waiter held out to her. "No, I haven't, mother."

Three courses, two £90 steaks and a £145 bottle of wine later, and Emily was just about done with her mother's presence. She had talked for almost an hour about Donal. He was the son of a friend of hers, from some sort of Irish ancestral background, and apparently very eligible. Whatever that meant in the 21st Century. And Emily hated it. Mostly, because once Elizabeth started talking about men, Emily had a horribly uncomfortable feeling in her stomach, and it felt suspiciously like guilt.

"Now, I know you're settling into your new job and your new place, but I don't see the harm in giving him a call. You know, he's head of a huge security firm. I'm told he runs half of London-" Emily had no idea what that meant, but Elizabeth was three glasses of wine in, and she never could hold her alcohol. Setting down her own glass, Emily sighed.

"Mother, did you come to London purely to set me up with somebody?" She demanded, impatiently. Their waiter, who had been on his way to their table holding the coffee and desert menu, halted on his journey and abruptly changed course to avoid their table. Elizabeth paused, regarding her daughter a moment. Her eyes were steady, her lips pursed, and Emily had the horrible feeling she was being appraised.

"Emily, I know I've not always been the most...present of mothers," At that, Emily snorted, but Elizabeth powered on, raising her voice slightly over her daughters exclamations. "But I am your mother and whether you like it or not, I know you. I know when you're sick, when you're sad, when you're happy, when you're hiding something. And you, Emily, are not happy. You're managing, you're getting by, but you're not happy. I don't know why, but I know that much. And, whether you believe me or not, I care very much about your happiness."

Emily was, momentarily, at a loss for words. She took up her wine glass and sipped at it, just for something to do, while she digested her mothers words. It was a rare display of sincerity that she wasn't used to from Elizabeth, and, given it's unpredictable and elusive nature, she wasn't quite sure how to respond to it.

"I don't mean to pry into your life," Elizabeth continued, when it was obvious that Emily didn't know what to say. "I only mean to help, where I can. So, if that means setting you up with somebody then, yes. I suppose that is what I'm here to do."

At this, Emily smiled. She dropped her head back and sighed, amused.

"Mom," She reached across the table and covered Elizabeth's hand with her own, speaking softly now. "I'm fine. I'm adjusting. But I have never, and am not about to, need a man to make me happy. That is not the problem here. I'll be fine. Although, I appreciate the sentiment. And the expensive dinner, because you're totally paying, right?"

Elizabeth laughed, reaching over the table, and Emily saw it happen as though in slow motion. It was the same thing Reid had done, months ago, in Utah. Elizabeth reached for the last of the wine, knocked her glass over on the way, and slapped her palm down as a reflex. The pool of red that appeared wasn't just wine. Waiters rushed over, offering cloths, and Emily took one. Elizabeth's face had gone deathly pale.

"Mom," Emily crouched down beside her, taking Elizabeth's hand in her own. It was clenched shut, like her mother couldn't bear to look. Emily pried her fingers open and pressed the cloth into it, to soak up most of the blood. "You're fine. It's a cut, and I think there's some glass in there. That's fine, we can get you to the ER and they'll sew you up, good as new. Can we get the bill, please?" She directed towards the waiters.

The ER, or A&E, was busy. Apparently London, much like New York, never slept. Emily sat her mother down on one of the hard, blue plastic seats near the vending machine, and then headed towards the desk. A receptionist, tired and bad-tempered, presumably from a long evening working the emergency room, was on the phone and, at Emily's approach, held up one finger. Wait. Emily's words caught in her throat and she swallowed them back down, closing her mouth, impatient but unwilling to be rude, as she leaned on the counter. She watched the minutes tick by and, presumably, the receptionist was on hold because Emily didn't hear a single word come out of her mouth.

"Excuse me," She tried to be polite, but the receptionist held up her whole hand this time and Emily's eyebrows shot up her forehead in shock. "Excuse me-"

"Can I help you?" A voice from behind her interrupted and Emily turned, confronted with what she assumed to be a doctor. She was slightly shorter than Emily, blonde hair curled around her face and pulled up into a ponytail. Her brown eyes were smiling, but Emily could see the tiredness there.

"Actually, yeah," She told her about Elizabeth and, moments later, the doctor had her checked in and had led them both to a consultation room. The doctor introduced herself as Dr Isla Gartland. The whole procedure, if you could truly even call it that, was as easy as Emily had predicted.

"You're going to feel a little pinch, I'm sorry," Dr Gartland told Elizabeth. Emily, sitting beside her mother, rolled her eyes when Elizabeth's unwounded hand reached for her own. She patted her mothers hand, trying to be reassuring, but caught the smirk on Dr Gartland's face; obviously her eye roll hadn't gone unnoticed. The stitches were worse, and Emily tried to distract her mother.

"So, tell me more about Donal." She insisted, and Elizabeth, pleasantly surprised and blissfully oblivious, continued on to tell her all about Donal and his country estate and how he had been engaged but it turned out his fiance was a...lesbian. Elizabeth whispered the word, as though it was a secret, and, once again, Emily saw Isla's lips upturn, amused, as she concentrated on her mother's stitches. She worked quickly and, not ten minutes later, told them they were all set. She told Elizabeth to buy some painkillers, but that she would be absolutely fine on the whole.

"Thank you, Dr." Elizabeth graciously thanked her, then muttered something about going to phone her driver to collect them, and disappeared off down the long corridor towards the front doors of the hospital.

"Yes, thank you, Dr. Gartland," Emily smiled, about to follow her mother.

"Isla." The blonde corrected. Emily glanced at her, questioningly. "Uh, Isla. I usually let girls I wanna take out on a date call me Isla."

It took Emily a moment to register what was happening. "You're-you're hitting on me?"

"I'm sorry," Isla laughed, awkwardly, and Emily noticed the dimple in her cheek, "It's completely unprofessional and inappropriate while I'm at work, but you're gorgeous and I figured, I'm unlikely to just bump into you again, you know, London's a pretty massive city so...I guess, yeah, I kinda am. Maybe we could get coffee sometime,...?" Her statement trailed off into a question and it took Emily a moment before she realised what Isla was asking her for.

"Oh, Emily, I'm Emily Prentiss." So used to introducing herself this way, Emily found herself offering her hand, to shake Isla's, before she could even register what she was doing. Isla looked from her face to her hand, then back and, with that once again bemused smile, she took it.

"Emily, right. That is, unless you'd rather go out with Donal." The teasing was obvious and Emily actually laughed. Isla smiled at that. She was pretty. Beautiful, even. Emily still didn't know what to say.

"So, this is the part where you fob me off or you say yes, right?" Emily was still getting used to the British slang, and found it jarring most of the time, but, coming from Isla's plump lips, it was suddenly almost endearing.

It wasn't until later in the evening, when she was curled up on her couch, updating JJ on her eventful dinner with her mother, and Isla's first text buzzed through to her phone, that Emily realised, for the first time since being in London, she had stopped thinking about Hotch.