A/N: My mindset for this one-shot is that Aaron and Emily had been secretly dating for a couple of months before Doyle ended up abducting and attacking her, but they had never gotten around to telling the team. I'm also not sure about how Emily would have gotten to Paris and I know that this probably isn't that realistic, but I loved the idea of Emily and Hotch having a proper goodbye in 6x18 and so I hope it's all right! Happy reading.

Wiping the last of the deep red lipstick from her lips, Emily tossed the makeup wipe into the bin beside the toilet before resting her hands on the sink and sighing deeply as she looked in the mirror at her reflection. How had he found her? There were nine airports in Virginia and the only person she had talked to about where she would be departing from was JJ. She knew that she should have told him as well. She owed him that after he had agreed to help her disappear and keep up the ruse once she was out of the country, but this was the exact reason she had hidden it from him. She had known that he would never have been able to accept their brief conversation at the hospital as their final goodbye and that he would come after her. When he knocked on the door to her suite in five minutes, she knew exactly what was going to happen. He was going to wander in, give her the look that he knew never failed to set her heart racing, kiss her senseless and make leaving in the morning ten times more painful.

She wished that she could say that she wished she had never invited him up to her room, but that would be a lie and she was sick and tired of lies at this point.

When she had scrawled the little note and pushed it into his hand when they had been stood chatting quietly at the bar it had been because she wanted – no. She needed those things. She needed him to hold her in his arms. She needed him to kiss her until she could no longer stand and she needed him to tell her over and over again that he loved her because she needed something to remember. As long as Doyle was alive and free to roam the streets, she couldn't come home. It wouldn't matter one bit if she changed her name and spent the rest of her life in disguise, one way or another news would get back to him that she was still alive and he would hunt her down and she knew that she wouldn't be as lucky as she had been the first time. He would do it quickly and quietly, learning from his past mistakes so that the team wouldn't know a thing about it until it was too late. No, she couldn't stay. Staying would put the team at risk, but most of all it would put Aaron and Jack at risk and she wouldn't be the one at fault for something happening to them. What she was doing was hurting everyone and just thinking about what the team was going through broke her heart, but if she had to choose between allowing them to be devastated and allowing them to be killed thanks to her then she would choose the former every time. No doubt about it.

Three gentle knocks on the door to her suite pulled her from her thoughts after a time and her heart began to race in her chest as she knew that that was Aaron's signal. She had told him to knock three times so that she knew that it was him because she had taken off the disguise that she had been wearing earlier on and she refused to take any more risks. Making her way out of the ensuite bathroom, she turned the light off and closed the door before heading across the room and cautiously opening the door to find Aaron standing in the hall with the smallest smirk on his face. 'Really, Em? Evonne Pachette? That disguise?' His voice was soft as she spoke to her while she peeked around the door, her gaze fixed on him as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall for a second while raising his brow at her in amusement. 'You know; if you really didn't want me to be able to find you then you probably shouldn't have used your aunt's name and worn your Halloween costume from last year.'

She rolled her eyes at him in response before opening the door more fully and allowing him to step inside the suite, a deep sigh leaving her as she closed the door behind him and locked it. For the next couple of seconds, she stared at the door as she was unable to bring herself to turn around. 'How did you find me?' She asked him quietly.

'I checked every airport in the state until I found the right one.' Was his response.

Finally bringing herself to turn around, she crossed her arms over his chest and gave him a look that said she could tell he was lying.

'How do you think I found you?' He sighed, his tone more serious. 'JJ told me. She told me that your flight had been delayed until the morning, so you were staying here.'

'But she promised me that she wouldn't say anything to you.' She was unable to keep her voice from trembling with emotion.

'Anyone would think that you don't want me here,' He seemed hurt. 'Have I done something to upset you? Our…our conversation at the hospital made me think…'

Blinking back the tears that were now clouding her vision, she ignored the pain that had started up again in her abdomen and limped towards him before sliding her arms around his waist and pulling him close. He brought his hand to her face when she grasped the back of his jacket in her hands and her eyes drifted closed when he cupped her cheek beneath the curtain of her hair and ran his thumb across her skin, the two of them standing in complete silence for a time as he rested his forehead against her own and they shared the same breaths. 'No…' She whispered, breaking the silence as she opened her eyes again. 'No, the reason for me not wanting to see you hasn't got anything to do with you. The reason that I didn't want to see you is because I knew that it was just going to make it so much harder for me to leave in the morning and it already has. I might never be able to come back here and that means that I might never be able to come back to you, so I…I suppose I was just trying to block you out.'

'You are coming back. We're going to find Doyle and put an end to all of this and then you'll be safe, I promise.' He soothed.

She shook her head in response, a single tear rolling down her cheek as she swallowed the lump that came to her throat. 'You say those things because it's something you want to believe, but we have to be realistic. Doyle is incredibly smart. I hate him and I want nothing more than for him to rot in prison, but I can't stand here and say he isn't because he is. If he wants to stay hidden, he'll stay hidden and he knows what strings to pull to see to it that he's never found. I want to believe that you'll find him and put him away. I want to believe that I'll be able to come home to you and Jack one day because I love you both so much, but at the moment I don't see it happening and I can't ask you to wait around just because there's…there's the slightest possibility that we might be able to have this again at some point. It isn't fair on you or him.'

'Wait…what are you saying?' He asked even though he had an extremely strong feeling he wouldn't like the answer.

'I'm saying that I have to let you go,' She admitted, choking out the words. 'When I get on that plane in the morning we have to be over.'

'No, this is ridiculous.' He said bluntly as he removed himself from her arms and began walking over to the bed situated in the middle of the room.

'Aaron.'

'No, Emily!' He snapped, spinning around to face her before he forced himself to calm down when she flinched. 'Doyle is not going to take this from us. Do you hear me?'

Walking over to the purse that was hanging over the back of the chair near the door, she opened it and took out the bottle of morphine tablets she had been prescribed before opening it and turning back to Aaron. 'This hasn't got anything to do with Doyle,' She explained as she tipped two tablets out into her palm, reached for her bottle of water and quickly took the medication in the hope that it would ease the pain a little. 'Well, it does but he's only a small part of why I'm doing this. It has more to do with the fact that we have no idea how long I'll be gone and we can't have any contact. I can't call you whenever I want to hear your voice and I can't just drive to your apartment whenever I want to see you. Our lives are going to go on, Aaron, whether we want them to or not and we both know that we're going to end up meeting new people. I don't want you to hold back from someone who you know is going to make you happy just because you miss me and I like to think you don't want that for me.'

He remained silent as he sat down on the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands.

'I love you…' Her bottom lip trembled uncontrollably as tears began to stream down her cheeks. 'I love you so much and it's because I love you that I'm doing all of this.'

'But…but the only person I want is you.' He lifted his head then and the tears that were rolling down his own cheeks didn't go unnoticed by her.

Putting her bottle of water down again, she made her way over to where he was sitting before sitting down on his knee and wrapping both arms loosely around his neck. 'Sweetheart, please…' She whispered as she pressed her forehead against his and stroked her fingers against the soft hairs at the nape of his neck. 'You have to let me go.'

He was silent for some time then before he pulled her close and said: 'Tomorrow. Tomorrow at 9:30 when you get on the plane I'll let you go, but you're mine until then.'

She nodded through her tears, her breath trembling as she pressed her lips against his in a long and tender kiss before pulling back to look at him again. 'I'm yours…'

Even though she had told him to wake her up if she ended up falling asleep so that the two of them didn't waste a second of the last couple of hours they had together, Aaron just couldn't bring himself to do it as she laid there in his arms and he combed his fingers through her hair in a soothing fashion. She was snuggled as close to him as possible, her leg tangled with his beneath the covers and her arm draped over his stomach so that he couldn't move from her side while she slept with her head on his shoulder. She looked so beautiful and at peace as she laid there and he wasn't going to take that from her, especially not when she had an eight-hour flight ahead of her in the morning and she was still recovering from surgery. He wanted to make as much of their last night together as he could, of course he did, but she had been so tired when he had reached her suite and there wasn't too much that they could have done anyway considering she was still in so much pain. That didn't matter to him though.

He was content to just hold her until the sun came up if that was what it came to.

Untangling his fingers from her hair, he ran his hand slowly down the side of her neck and across her shoulder before running it down the side of her body and letting his hand come to settle on her hip through the covers. He was still struggling to come to terms with the fact that this could very well be the last time he would ever be able to hold her like this. That there was a chance that he would never see her or hear her voice again. He realized now that he had been taking her for granted over the past couple of months and he wished that he could go back to the beginning and savour every moment. Every little thing she did for him, he would remember to thank her for it and let her know just how much he loved her. He would kiss her regardless of whether or not they were at risk of another member of the team walking in on them. He would do everything so much better and appreciate her so much more, but he would never get those months back and that would definitely always be his biggest regret.

There was no point in dwelling on that now though.

No, all that he could do now was spend the next couple of hours making sure that he was the man she deserved.

He would hold her close and remind her of just how much he loved her even though she was asleep because they still had tonight.

They still had tonight…

A/N: Thanks for taking the time for checking out this little one-shot and I hope you liked it! Please review to let me know what you think :)