A/N: Can't believe that I am writing prompts for season three now. Here is a short prompt after Hotch gets suspended from the unit.

Late May 2007

"Always a pleasure." He muttered with the slightest hint of sarcasm as he sauntered away from Chief Strauss' office, leaving the badge under her watchful eye.

Aaron should have seen the suspension coming from miles away, and an inner voice berated him for it. That was his job; to predict behaviour and consequences. What good of a profiler did that make him if he couldn't even read his boss' body language? Aaron had to admit though, getting suspended had lifted a heavy burden off his shoulders; he wasn't fired… Just absent for a while.

However, the simple thought of permanently leaving the BAU haunted Hotch as he knew that Strauss could change her mind in a heartbeat. The witch could have fired him right there and then on the spot had she no influence from the director- well, there is no could… She WOULD have fired him. For once in his life, Aaron had never been more grateful for the director of the FBI. This job had become his life, one of the only things he knew he kicked ass in. Still, just because he was suspended didn't mean that he wasn't angry. The heat of his blood increased by the second, and he didn't need a mirror to know that his eyes were red livid.

It felt difficult in these sorts of situations to look at the pros, as Aaron always fixated on the cons. Being at home would mean more time spent with Jack and a decent chance to clear the air with Haley. Their marriage had been slowly falling to smithereens each day. He had been drifting away from her, and all she asked each night he would return is just an hour—an hour of his time.

Nothing more, nothing less.

And yet, Hotch struggled. Because he couldn't help but bring in all this baggage from the cases he worked. Some days he felt incredibly low, and one of the only things that helped him cope was talking to his wife about it. But the stuff he talked about traumatised Haley. She could listen to Hotch talk all day, but she loathed hearing about women slaughtered or children drowned.

So, some days he wouldn't even bother to talk about it with Haley, for the sake of protecting her mental wellbeing.

As Aaron strolled back into the bullpen, he glanced over in the general direction of Morgan, Reid and Prentiss working hard at their desks. In that second, a wave of guilt overwhelmed him; he was letting his team down by getting suspended, even though the suspension honestly just was a pot of bad luck. He grabbed his belongings from his office before making his way down the stairs.

Prentiss caught his eye.

Hotch never left this early. So, when she spotted the brunette making his way out of his office with a go-bag draped over his shoulder, Emily couldn't help but investigate. "Finally choosing to retire early, Sir?" However, the joke soon faded into thin air when he approached her desk with a deep scowl. The sort of scowl that Emily had learnt to mean 'This is not a laughing matter.' It frankly was a terrifying expression to anybody who didn't know Hotch well.

"I'm afraid I don't have a choice in the matter…" He took in a sharp breath. "I've just been suspended for two weeks."

The pit at the bottom of Emily's stomach grew more abundant, and she struggled to close her mouth in disbelief. Hotch had been suspended? One thought made itself well known to her.

Did she have something to do with it?

Morgan and Reid, who had been listening in on the conversation rolled over in their chairs. "You're kidding?" Morgan stated. Hotch made eye contact with the floor and slowly shook his head. "What for?"

"Strauss has it in for me… Every decision, every blink she's been monitoring. And this last case was the cherry on top of the cake."

Emily shook her head in disgust. Strauss made everyone's life a living hell, and it's probably why the woman accepted the job in the first place. But Emily felt terrible for Hotch. It just… Wasn't fair. "This last case, we had no way of knowing that girl was going to commit suicide. Besides, that meeting was the last opportunity we had of catching the killer… Wouldn't she be concerned if someone innocent died rather than the actual killer?"

"I think she's more irked I let the meeting happen in the first place…"

Emily noted the use of the word 'I' rather than 'we'. He already was blaming himself when the truth was that the decision was unanimous.

"Anyway…" Hotch muttered, "See you all in a couple of weeks…" He turned on his heel to walk away from the BAU, the trio of agents watching sullenly.

Emily bit the bottom of her lip extra hard, drawing blood. Infuriation grew in her veins by the minute, and she could feel heat rising to her cheeks. Even though Emily knew there was always the chance that Hotch could get suspended, she didn't think that it would have been today, and she hadn't realised how much it would affect her.

Strauss was a ruthless piece of work.

One thing Emily knew was that she couldn't have Hotch out of the BAU. She really enjoyed working with him, even with his harsh scowl and cold outer shell. But he was just as human as the rest of them. She racked through her thoughts over the past few days, wondering what she might have admitted to Strauss that could have invoked the suspension. Emily had tried her hardest to not report anything to the woman, purely out of loyalty to her superior. However, there was always a chance she had said the wrong thing, which had triggered this whole debacle.

She was always good at letting something stupid slip out of her big mouth.

The room suddenly seemed like a sauna. "I need some air…" Emily whispered before making her way down to the shooting range.

Pulling her firearm out, she fired a round of 20 shots right into the mid-chest of the figure on the cardboard. Reloading, she then fired another 20 shots directly into the head of the picture. With every rebound, every bang, each click of the trigger, she visualised Strauss standing there with that smug smirk plastered to her perfectly manicured face.

She imagined the woman's neck flinging backwards as the bullet struck her in the chest, before falling to her knees and struggling for breath. Emily thought about the life and regret flowing out from the open wounds. Conceptualised her begging to be saved…

The Glock emptied. And she lowered it, releasing the breath she hadn't realised she had been holding.

Shooting cardboard felt so liberating… The anger had somewhat subsided. However, there was still that pit of guilt in her stomach. Guilt that would not vacate any time soon.

Strauss would only keep antagonising Hotch, and that was not something Emily wanted to be a part of. She didn't want Hotch to lose his job because of her feeding titbits to Strauss, and she definitely didn't want him out of the office when he was perfectly capable of the job. So, the best thing that she could do was resign from the unit. As upsetting as that was, there were plenty of other fish to fry. Potentially, she could go into linguistics or work for a different agency.

Anything that wouldn't incriminate anyone else.