A/N: As promised, here is the second part of this chapter... Hope you all like it!
It had been 2 whole days that they had been condemned to the apartment. And while it was nice to be with her family, with each passing day, the anxiety deep inside kept growing and growing.
She felt terrified.
Terrified about everything.
Emily lay in the guest bed with her eyes wide awake. She was unbelievably tired, but it just happened to be one of those nights where her mind couldn't shut off. Every time she closed her eyes, a new thought would pop into her head.
What if one of the unsubs break into the apartment?
What if something happened to her children?
What if something happened to herself?
Her mind was spiralling. And with each passing second, it was getting harder and harder to breathe. She needed to get out of here. Get out of the apartment. Craved fresh air.
Maybe that would lull her to sleep.
She tiptoed out of the bedroom, careful not to make any noise. Hotch's door was slightly ajar, and she heard gentle snores radiating from his room. That was a good sign. He was fast asleep.
Biting the inside of her cheek, she slowly and as quietly as she could unlocked the front door. But not before she felt a firm hand grip her wrist. She shrieked in fear and instinctively used her other hand to punch whoever it was that had gripped her hand, but he caught that one as well in mid-air.
"What the hell are you doing?" Hotch whispered through gritted teeth. Emily closed her eyes and tried to slow down her breathing rate, which was incredibly fast-paced.
She quietly yelled, "Aaron! You trying to scare the crap out of me?"
"You trying to get yourself killed?"
In the harsh moonlight coming through the blinds, she could see the outline of his sharp, chiselled face. His hands still gripped both her forearms tightly. She shoved them closer to her body, loosening his grip on them.
"Leave me alone… I'm fine."
She could have sworn that there was fire swirling around in his eyes. "I don't care if you are fine… Didn't we make an agreement that when someone leaves the apartment, we all leave together?"
Emily scoffed an action that offended Hotch. "What you think this is a joke now?"
She shook her head and locked the door again, "I just wanted some air… What the hell are you doing awake? I thought you were asleep." She realized the snoring she heard must have been coming from Jack's room.
"I heard you moving around." It wasn't a lie. He had been having a hard time falling asleep as well, and the one thing keeping him awake was hearing rustling sheets coming from the guest bedroom.
Emily bit her bottom lip. "Nothing wrong with your hearing, is there?" The little moment of humour evoked a small smile from Aaron. Only for a split second though, then his expression turned sombre again.
He was furious at her. Mad that he couldn't trust her. Angry that she had the gall to unlock the door and potentially get herself killed. His eyes narrowed down on hers, and he just stared at her for who knows how long.
It was hard to see her in the dark, but he could make out flickers of light in her dark eyes from the moonlight. There was also the silhouette of her bed hair. Emily broke the eye contact and touched her way into the kitchen, switching on a light and grabbing a bottle of milk from the fridge.
Hotch followed her, leaning his back against the counter, watching her pour milk into a glass. He crossed his arms together, his eyes never leaving her body. It was only then that he noticed she was wearing a red tank top exposing her bony shoulders, with long black track pants.
He always thought that she looked stunning in red. The colour really suited her.
She could feel his eyes burning her, but she honestly couldn't give a damn. She shouldn't have even been surprised that he was awake, he was Hotch after all. And after all the years that she had known him, there was always one other thing up his sleeve that surprised her. Such as; scaring the living daylight out of her during the night.
Skulling back the milk, she turned around and leaned back against the counter, mimicking his position. They were now opposite each other, just staring at each other with tired, yet alert eyes. "It's alright… You can stop looking at me. I'm not gonna try and escape."
Somehow, saying that didn't work, he continued to watch her like a hawk. With that somewhat intimidating gaze. Emily knew that it was his way of trying to scare her, he didn't consciously realize it, but he did that to every unsub he had ever interrogated.
Some things never changed.
"I don't believe you." He muttered after some time. Emily laughed to herself. What an adventure she had gotten herself into, getting out of bed in the middle of the night. Maybe she'd walk into his room next time and poke him, just to double-check he was asleep.
She cocked her head to the side, raising one eyebrow. "Even if I had gone out there Aaron, I wouldn't have gone far…"
But he wasn't having it, he shook his head and scowled at her.
Yup… He was pissed at her.
Whoops… Emily thought to herself.
"Have you suddenly forgotten the reason why we are having this conversation at 2 in the morning? There are two asses out there Em who are torturing us, and you think that it's okay to go for a little midnight stroll on your own?"
That seemed to sober her up. Her 'I don't give a crap' expression turned into pain and anguish. It burdened him to see her upset, but he'd rather see her upset than see her dead.
She shook her head and made eye contact with the kitchen floor. He was right. She had made a foolish mistake, and he potentially had just saved her life. "What the hell is wrong with me?"
Hotch hadn't really known what she was going to say and was surprised by what came out of her mouth. He wanted to reply, 'I want to ask the same thing', but at least he had a brain. And a soul. You didn't say that sort of thing to someone who had suffered years of torture. He was still mad as hell at her, but he didn't want to rip her to pieces.
He just wanted her to understand the cost of her actions. And to be safe.
The last thing he wanted was for his girls to lose their mother for good. He'd learned his lesson when Haley had died. And that wasn't going to happen again.
Instead, he asked her, "Are you okay?"
She was silent for a moment, processing the last few minutes.
She shook her head.
Of course, she could have easily nodded and said, 'yes… I am okay', but she was sick of the lying. There was no point in lying to him any more than she had, so she just shook her head. He would have been able to tell if she was lying anyway. They may have been apart for years, but that didn't mean they had forgotten their 'tell-tale' symptoms.
"What's bothering you?" He whispered.
Emily bit her cheek and opened a window in the dining area before pulling a chair next to it. Hotch followed suit, feeling the warm July air diffuse through the apartment.
Truth be told, a million things were bothering her. And she didn't know where she wanted to begin. Should she start with picking up the pieces of their relationship? Talk about all the memories she'd had with Madison over the years? Or should she talk to him about her feelings; the good, the bad, the ugly.
Her hands fell to her lap, much to her surprise, she didn't feel an inch of anxiety or jitters. Not when he was around. She felt completely at ease. Secure. Finally, she felt ready to talk to him.
"Did she ask about me?" Aaron assumed that she was asking about Bailey. He nodded.
"I wanted to tell her so much about you… But I honestly couldn't." His breath hitched momentarily. "It was too painful."
Emily nodded, pursing her lips together. She told him how she had done the same with Madison. How she would start to tell stories about him but would get distracted, and go entirely into another world. She laughed to herself. "Madi has always been so much like you Aaron… She's so observant and so…" The right words couldn't come out of her mouth. "She always noticed everything I did. I couldn't exactly get away with a lot of stuff."
Hotch let a dimpled smile rise to his cheeks as he heard about his daughter. And he felt nothing but pride. "And Bailey… She's like your clone."
Emily laughed, looking at the moon, high in the sky. "I hope to God she is nothing like I was as a teenager. I was terrible to my parents…"
Aaron followed her gaze and leaned back in the chair. "She hasn't started smoking, or robbing corner stores… Not yet, anyway." Emily smiled and shook her head.
"Don't joke about it, Aaron…" She heard a giggle.
She couldn't believe it. He was giggling to himself, and it made her want to wrap her arms around all of him and kiss him to death.
Immediately, she pushed that thought far, far away. Part of her couldn't believe that thought had even popped into her head. She wasn't ready to kiss him; wouldn't that be a little wrong given their situation?
On the outside, her expression was utterly poker-faced; however, Hotch could see underneath that she was deep in thought. He took a moment to truly look at her. There was something about her face that had always attracted him, and to this day, he still couldn't place what it was. Maybe it was everything, how her round cheeks harmonized with her pale skin. How her eyebrows perfectly complemented her eyes.
There was no other way to describe her apart from 'beautiful'. He wanted to reach out and stroke her face, but he had to physically hold his hand to stop himself.
He didn't know what her thoughts were about restarting their relationship. The relationship they had lost. It was something that he had been craving. After Emily had left, it had been incredibly difficult for him to get back on the dating scene, and part of the reason for that was because he didn't want to. There was always a part of him that believed she would just show up.
That and the fact he didn't think he could love anyone else as much as he loved her.
Emily smiled as the warm breeze hit her face, gently moving wisps of her hair. "I want to show you something…" Hotch watched as she left the room and returned moments later with a small light pink box. She sat back down again and removed the lid.
His eyes widened as he saw at least a hundred photographs of Madison. He could already feel tears wanting to water down his eyes. Glancing up at Emily, he felt immense gratification for her, for capturing these moments.
Emily passed him the picture of their daughter that had been on her desk at Interpol. Madi looked so incredibly different with long hair, but still just as beautiful. He traced his hand over the outline of her face, over her small smile.
Emily then passed him a picture of Madison at the beach as a baby. Her chubby feet were digging into the sand, and she had a cute little polka-dotted sunhat on. His eyes squinted at her, and his head tilted to the side. Emily thought that he was going to cry.
"I knew that one day, you would see her again… I tried to capture as many memories as I possibly could. I even recorded some…"
Aaron nodded and took the box from Emily, trundling through pictures of Madison's life back in England. He didn't even bother to hide the tear that was trickling down his cheek. When it came to his children, he was the most sensitive man out there.
He came across a picture of her dressed up in make-up, in a selfie with her mother. There was a happy expression on both their faces. Personally, he thought the picture was adorable. "She's a sucker for getting into all my make-up," Emily stated as she saw the picture.
Most of the photographs Emily hadn't looked at for years… Madison occasionally would come into her bedroom back in England and dig under the bed, looking for the box. She liked to look at pictures of herself as a baby, but Emily was confident that she didn't know about the videos she had taken of her.
They must have spent at least an hour, looking through all the pictures, until he finally came across a USB stick which he assumed contained all the videos of Madison. He wanted to watch each individual video right there and then, but part of him wanted to wait until Jack, and the girls were awake so they could watch too.
Closing the pink box shut, he was utterly speechless. He had hardly taken any pictures of Bailey growing up, it was mostly JJ and Penelope who had taken on that role. He looked over to Emily, who was watching him curiously.
"I know… That's it's not the same, but… I wanted you to see. I didn't want you to miss out on some of the big milestones." Aaron slowly nodded, wiping away another tear down his cheek.
Emily watched on in pain as the man that she loved shed a few tears. In her years of knowing him, she had only seen him cry on a few occasions, but with his children, he really was just a big marshmallow.
She didn't care what boundaries they had anymore, she removed the box from his lap and awkwardly hugged him. It wasn't anything romantic, it wasn't anything sexual. She just wanted to give him a friendly hug. Wanted to show him that she was there for him like he was there for her when she bawled on the couch.
Aaron didn't resist, instead, pulled her a little closer to himself, smiling amongst his pain. He stood up that way he could adequately hug her.
Her chin rested on the soft pad of his shoulder, and her hands softly caressed the muscles of his upper back. Hotch did the same, smelling her berry shampoo and moisturizing creams that she had rubbed on her neck. It felt like an eternity being in his arms as they stood there, tired, not saying anything, only reminiscing.
She began to close her eyes, feeling the heaviness of the night weigh down on her. He felt so warm, so content in her arms and she didn't want to pull away.
She had missed this.
Hotch whispered, "What about us, Emily?"
The question took her partly by surprise, she opened her eyes, just staring around the room, wondering the exact same question. She didn't 'not' love him, and she didn't hate his guts, although on some occasions they had bickered like an old married couple. But that was natural with any sort of relationship. Wasn't it?
She hummed, "Why is love so damn complicated?"
Aaron's hands on her upper back started to rub circles, and he felt her lean her ear against his shoulder, her warm breath hitting his neck. "I know you want us together as much as I do…" He lingered. Emily closed her eyes, moving her arms so that they were loosely wrapped around his shoulders and buried her head into the warmth of his neck.
He was so right… She wanted them to be together. She wanted their relationship to be like what it was when it began 14 years ago. Innocent, fresh, loving… Happy.
"Yes…" Emily whispered. She bit the bottom of her lip and swayed with him. "I just… Don't want us to fall into the same trap we did 10 years ago…"
Aaron nodded. His hands smoothed over the curves of her shoulders. It had been the trap of lying and miscommunication that had fractured their relationship. The same things that had ruined his marriage with Haley.
Her eyes truly felt heavy, and all she craved right now was his arms around her. "No more lying…" He whispered. Emily hummed in response. "Come on… I'll take you to bed."
He guided her down to his bedroom, letting her collapse into the right side of the bed- which he knew she preferred- and watched as she buried herself into the blankets. Aaron lay down next to her, wrapping his arms around her waist and nosed his way into the crook of her neck, kissing her softly for the first time in 10 years.
A/N: So yep... I decided that they had waited long enough.
I figured that they hadn't had any feelings for anyone else apart from each other, and I thought that bonding over pictures of their daughter would really draw them closer. I'm really happy with how this chapter turned out.
Please review and let me know what you think and once again guys, thank you for all the support!