Author's Note: Picking up just after the ceremony.

Bride and Gloom

Emily stopped short at the top of the church steps.

"Ah boy," she murmured while reaching over to catch the front of Hotch's overcoat, "that looks really slippery."

The wedding ceremony had just ended, and they'd walked outside to find that it had started to snow again. There was now a fine layer of white crystals piling up on top of what had already been treacherously smooth marble steps on their way into the church. Emily's free hand clenched into a fist.

It was going to be a miracle if she didn't break her neck.

"Eh," Hotch's nose wrinkled, "yeah, probably. But," he slipped his arm around Emily's waist and slowly walked them over to the left side of the staircase," you hold onto me, I'll hold onto the railing," he shot her a look, "we'll be fine."

Granted, walking in snow would be easier in proper winter boots rather than dress shoes, but he was still better off than Emily, and the rest of the women coming out the door behind them, who were all in heels. And most of them were wearing heels reaching a height of three or four inches off the ground.

Which were RIDICULOUSLY inappropriate for the weather conditions!

At least Emily's weren't stilettos.

So with her clutching his arm and his coat, both for dear life, he carefully walked them down the dozen steps leading up to the front door of the one Catholic Church in the city of Richmond that was big enough to hold the circus that was, cousin Caroline's wedding.

And make no mistake, it was a complete circus.

Caroline had actually decided to be 'late' for her own wedding. And at first, he'd had no clue why that was, except for the woman actually perhaps being even more narcissistic than Emily had led him to believe. Because the groom and the groomsmen, had all been lined up down at the altar, right on time, at five o'clock sharp. And then the flower girls (there were three) had started down the aisle, then the ring bearer (just the one, who was actually adorable, he'd reminded Hotch of Jack) and finally the procession of bridesmaids had begun.

There were FIFTEEN bridesmaids!

Seriously FIFTEEN women marching by in ENORMOUS pink, sparkling, bell skirted ball gowns! It was like an invasion by the breast cancer awareness army! So by the time ALL of those men, women, and children, almost two dozen, were neatly lined up at the altar, it was about quarter past five. So the wedding march started . . . and then it started again.

And again.

On the FOURTH playing, that was when Caroline had finally appeared at the back of the church. Admittedly, at that point, Emily had been reaching a state of euphoria at the thought of her cousin pulling a Runaway Bride and humiliating herself, and her mother, in front of not only all of their snooty society friends, but also EVERY mover and shaker in the upper echelons of business and government.

But then . . . Hotch pushed down an eye roll . . . just after Caroline had finally appeared at the top of the aisle (with a classy snapping of her fingers at the organist to begin playing again), he saw the Secretary of State being very 'discreetly' seated in the back pew.

Which was just two rows back from where he and Emily were sitting.

And Hotch had realized then, right when Emily did, that Caroline had actually HELD up the wedding, of which three HUNDRED people were in attendance, to kiss up to one extremely powerful member of the administration. One to whom the bridegroom was hoping to receive a recommendation from, when the next batch of offshore diplomatic appointments were announced.

It was, even by Washington standards, an unbelievable display of pandering and toadery.

It was at that point, Hotch had started to truly understand just why Emily despised these people so much. That is, despised them beyond the personal, terrible things that Caroline had done to Emily over their teen years.

Which were, empirically, quite awful by themselves.

There had been some serious bullying in high school. So bad in fact that when Emily had begun to cry telling him one of those stories, he'd actually, for a brief moment,, considered just shooting Caroline dead. Because really, if anyone could effectively dispose of a body without leaving a trace of evidence or DNA, it would be him. But he'd decided to let that option slide for a bit.

At least until Emily would forget that she'd told him that terrible story.

And though part of him wanted to believe that killing Caroline was just a passing thought, mostly he knew that deep down, he'd meant it. Perhaps the fact that he did, said something to how he'd been affected by the monsters that he spent his days with. But given the depth of his affection for Emily, and the display he'd seen from Caroline just in the first one point five hours of this evening, he was starting to realize that he wouldn't even feel badly about doing it, even if he did kill her.

She was an odious person.

Her behavior so far that night, it was just icing on the cake. Emily would likely agree. And as to her reaction to the delay, well, somehow she'd managed (somewhat heroically by his estimation) to keep it to a limited, stage whispered, "gross!" that he'd tried to cover over with a sharp cough. One that resulted in the people directly to their right, and left, immediately sliding three inches off in their respective directions.

It was clear that they'd thought he was infectious.

Hmph . . . he huffed to himself as they reached the last step . . . if only he was. Because then he could work on hacking up a lung for the first hour of the reception, so maybe THEN they could go home early. But alas, as they finally stepped down onto the sidewalk, he knew that they were still in for at least four to five more hours of hell. Probably longer actually.

Because the bridal party wasn't even leaving the church for another hour!

That was kind of a shock to everyone. But when the ceremony was over, the bride's mother, the esteemed "Aunt Margaret," had stepped up and "borrowed" the priest's microphone . . . he'd looked genuinely shocked when she'd snatched it out of his hand . . . to announce that everyone should go directly to the reception. The bridal party would join them at seven.

They had pictures to take.

Pfft . . . he grunted to himself . . . and he was quite sure that activity was going to be a nightmare by itself. Really, thank God Emily hadn't been asked to be one of the bridesmaids, because Caroline seemed like the type to throw a camera if she wasn't happy with their poses. He shook his head.

Emily would have shot her.

No doubt.

And he was just about to ask the possible shooter in question, whether she'd heard if there were any plans to do 'family pictures' later . . . i.e. ones that she'd be required to participate in . . . when his gaze shifted across the parking lot. His eyes widened.

Son of a bitch!

It seemed that since they'd arrived, eighty plus minutes earlier, the salt trucks had rolled through. Amazingly nobody thought to throw any of the salty stuff down onto the breakneck stairs. No, instead they'd just thrown it onto the unplowed, snow covered, asphalt of the parking lot. An action which had resulted in probably a solid inch of brown slush now saturating essentially the entire area.

Unfuckingbelievable.

More unbelievable, given the two MILLION dollar budget, was that nobody working with the family, (or the wedding planner), thought that to perhaps hire a valet, or a service to take people from the church to the hotel!

Seriously, how fucking stupid was that?!

Granted, there were a hell of a lot of limos and livery cars in the lot, but because there had been no clearing of the sidewalks, and the lot itself was now a slurpee mud field, it didn't matter how rich you were, there was no clean path to get ANYWHERE in that lot!

And when Hotch looked down to Emily in her ball gown, which was already getting damp just from the fresh snowflakes, he knew that there was no way in hell that he could let her traipse through that mixture of sand and dirty water, to get down to the car in the back of the lot.

There was really just one thing for him to do.

So after he'd pulled his keys from his pocket, and handed them over to her with a wink, he leaned down . . . and scooped her up off the ground.

Emily immediately started to chuckle as he pulled her to his chest.

"Asking you to take me to this wedding," she laughed, while slipping her arm around his neck, "was the BEST decision I've made all year!"

Seriously! Picking her up so she wouldn't ruin her dress in the slush! Who in the twenty-first century still did that?!

Aaron Hotchner was the sweetest, most CHIVALROUS, man alive!

And his actions as such, certainly were not going unnoticed by their fellow wedding guests. She could see the smiles and gestures as he started walking them down the sidewalk.

So she did a little Miss America wave over his shoulder.

"You've totally made us a topic of conversation," she whispered in his ear, "which is awesome, because now, even though they just walked out of the church, people aren't talking about Caroline's dress, or the ceremony," she pressed a kiss to his cheek before finishing with a whisper in his ear, "they're talking about that sweet man who picked up his date so she wouldn't ruin her outfit."

Really, if she'd scripted the night, she couldn't have planned this part, ANY better!

"Hmph," Hotch grunted, "well, it's Caroline's own fault for not paying some kids five bucks an hour to keep the sidewalks and parking lot clear." He shook his head, "really, given that we've had snow showers all week, it was incredibly poor planning on their part."

"Yeah," Emily huffed back, "and this is with them paying a wedding planner like thirty grand to make sure this whole thing came together without a hitch."

If it was anyone else, she'd say these people deserved their money back, (and she did kind of feel badly for Uncle Charles) but mostly she thought that this nice little cluster fuck in the parking lot . . . there were a WHOLE lot of unhappy people behind them . . . was something that they totally had coming to them.

"Oh," she patted Hotch's back as he stepped down onto the asphalt, "and now here are the altar boys coming down the stairs with a bunch of shovels. Aaaand," she winced, "ooh, they're just a minute too late because Mrs. Islington just landed flat on her butt, in a huge pile of dirty slush."

"Eh," Hotch's nose wrinkled, "is she okay?"

"Yeah," Emily nodded as she turned back around, "she looks uninjured. Though very angry, very wet, and her dress, which I believe was a Vera Wang original, is completely ruined."

"Isn't she the wife of . . ."

Hotch started to ask, but then Emily cut in.

"The head of the Senate Banking Committee?" She nodded, "yes. And bridegroom Darren's father is the CEO of a hedge fund that is currently under the Senate Finance Committee's review for misappropriating the funds from the government pensions in two states." She smirked, "and I believe he's supposed to testify next week. Which is very unfortunate timing for that slip."

"Yes," Hotch looked up at Emily with a faint twitching of his lips, "yes it is. Now," he jerked his head towards the car parked under the farthest sodium lamp, "can you please hit the locks. Black Audi, dead ahead."

Though as a general rule, he wasn't really 'into' cars, or cared much what other people thought about what he drove, he was pleased for Emily's sake, that they didn't look like paupers showing up in some jalopy. His car was sleek and shiny and expensive, and less than two years old. Basically he'd bought it because he made a fair amount of money, and he liked to drive fast (a byproduct of getting to drive fast for a living), and that slick little black car handled VERY well on hairpin turns.

So as they reached the end of the back part of the lot . . . given the time of their arrival, premium parking had been long gone . . . and he suddenly waded into the deepest part of the slush (the pavement was uneven), he saw the lights flash not far ahead. A second later the locks clicked. And with his shoes now squishing through some very cold ice . . . though fortunately it wasn't quite deep enough to reach the tops of his shoes, he could still feel the chill through the leather . . . he quickly moved to get Emily into the car.

Fortunately, with the space next to the passenger side being empty, it only took a small amount of maneuvering, and Emily actually pulling the door open, for him to stoop down and place her inside. As he went to straighten up, she reached out to pat his cheek with her cold hand.

"You are the best."

He just winked. Then he tucked her skirt in around her legs and slammed the door shut. After that he hurried around the front of the car to get to his own door, before he finally dropped inside with a shiver he'd been holding back. Fortunately Emily had already put the key into the ignition and started the car, so he reached over to flip on the heat.

"You know . . ."

Hearing the woman in question begin to speak, he turned to see her looking out the side window.

She was making a face as she stared back up at the church.

"What do I know?" He asked, hoping to prompt her to finish the sentence she'd just started.

"I was just thinking," she murmured while turning back to him, "I didn't even think to look for my parents when we came out."

"Well," Hotch's brow wrinkled as he reached up to pull down his seat belt, "there were three hundred people in there, and you said they were supposed to be sitting somewhere down front so," he jiggled his head, "odds are good, they're still working their way out of the building. We were lucky we got there just before five, so we got to sit in the back."

That was a lucky break for more than one reason, because Emily had uttered a few comments under her breath during the ceremony. The most memorable being, "your self-written poem is stupid, you dumb crotch rotted, skank."

Really, not your 'typical' church stuff.

And definitely the type of comments that the other family members/VIPS in the crowd, would have picked up on if they'd been sitting any closer to the altar. As it was really, the guests in their area in the back, were fairly spread out. And unless he was blanking on famous faces, the only person 'of note' in their vicinity at all, seemed to the Secretary of State.

And she hadn't seemed to have been paying Emily any attention at all.

Which was probably quite fortunate, because she and the Ambassador CLEARLY ran in the same circles. In fact Emily had said that the two of them usually caught lunch together every few months. So Emily likely would have gotten a hell of an earful later on, if Hillary had happened to mention to the ambassador, what a guttermouth she had for a daughter.

And as he looked across the car, in the glow of the dashboard lights he could see said 'guttermouth' (though he adored her, she really was) staring back at him.

"Good point," she nodded, "we'll catch up at the reception." Then she paused for a second, before a slow grin spread across her face.

"Were those not the most RIDICULOUS bridesmaid dresses you ever saw?! I mean, I know traditionally, bridesmaids' dresses are supposed to be bad, but they really looked insane! Those women were like size zero to two, and they barely fit down the aisle!"

That was not an exaggeration, one of the girls had actually cleared the bouquet of flowers tied to the end of a back row pew. They were then stomped on by the next seven women that had marched down the aisle behind her. The ground up stems and rose petals, had really left a beautiful stain on the snow white aisle runner.

For Emily, that was the highlight of the service.

And she could see from the flicker of amusement on Hotch's face when he turned to back them out, that he too was likely flashing on that moment.

"Yes, they were an unusual," he shifted the car back to drive, "pick."

Then he paused for a moment to let one of the limos pull out in front of them. In that second of quiet, he heard Emily's stomach growling.

"Are you hungry?" He asked rhetorically with a quick glance across the front seat.

She gave him back a sheepish nod.

"Yeah," her hand fell to her stomach, "starving. With that damn nap I ended up taking, I missed lunch."

A point that she'd been paying for dearly. For the last half hour of the ceremony, she'd had to keep clutching her stomach to keep it from growling! But she'd resigned herself to having to wait at least another half hour before they were able to get to the appetizers at the hotel.

Hmm . . . her brow popped up then when Hotch reached over to tap the button on the glove compartment . . . what was this?

"Look in there," he said while straightening up, "I think there are some Jack snacks left over from our trip last fall to Busch Gardens. I had to keep him busy for two and a half hours each way." He shook his head slowly, "that was a long day."

With all of the kiddie rides at the park, it was a good time for Jack. But yeah, definitely a LONG day for him.

Feeling her lips twitching, Emily reached over to pat Hotch's arm before she turned her attention to what was in the glove box. With the glow of the small light within, she could see a couple small snack bags tucked down.

"Ooh," she reached in to pull out the one on the bottom, "Potato Stix! I haven't had these in forever!"

She sat back and started tugging on the edges of the bag.

"Good choice, dad."

"Yeah," Hotch huffed as they started driving forward, "Jack was pleased with that one too. I usually make him eat healthier snacks, but I thought he might be in a better mood if I loaded him up with fat and grease."

It worked with Emily on long stakeouts . . . though he wasn't about to say that to her . . . so he'd figured he'd give it a shot with his son too.

"And was he?" Emily asked while popping two of the greasy sticks into her mouth.

"Eh," he shrugged, "it's difficult to keep any five year old in a good mood if he's cooped up in the car for that long. Let's just say," he tipped his head slightly while hitting the directional to take them out of the parking lot, "he was as good as he could be."

Really, aside from an inordinate repetition of the phrase, "are we there yet, Daddy? Are we there yet, Daddy? Are we there yet, Daddy?" it could have been worse.

For a moment Emily was quiet while she slowly chewed the bits of potato, then she added softly.

"If you want some company next time to help keep him busy, you know," she shrugged, "I do enjoy a good tea cup spin."

In all the years that she'd known Hotch, she'd only seen his son maybe a half dozen times. Once was when Hotch was still with Haley, and she'd had to stop by the house to pick him up.

Haley and a Baby Jack had waved from the door.

Since then there had been three or four random encounters over the last two years. Two out of those run ins were just a couple minutes in the street if they happened to be the same part of DC. The last time though, that had been different. She'd run into them at the Georgetown Safeway one Friday night last October. And with both her and Hotch having lengthy shopping lists, she'd end up staying with them for almost forty minutes.

Until they got out to the parking lot.

And that night she'd actually been able to talk to Jack (well, after he'd stopped hiding behind Hotch's leg, she'd been able to talk to him) and eventually she'd even had him giggling at silly Knock Knock jokes, and tugging on her fingers to get her attention. It was adorable.

He, was adorable.

And he looked just like his daddy, and really, he was just the sweetest little thing, and all she could think when she said goodbye to them in that parking lot, was 'God damn, I need to get me one of THOSE!' And by one of those, she meant of course, a Baby Hotchner. Because clearly, awesome, sweet, smart, funny little well behaved four year olds (how old Jack was at the time) didn't grow on trees.

They grew from good mommies and daddies.

And Hotch (from direct observation that night, and general knowledge of his fine character) was clearly a good daddy. So as she saw his jaw twisting slightly at her suggestion that she be allowed to spend a full day with his child, she started to feel just a tiny bit of anxiety. Because maybe he didn't think that was a good idea for her to see him again. Maybe he thought she would be a bad influence. Or maybe . . . another thought occurred . . . he just thought she was overstepping the bounds of their relationship.

Maybe his kid was off limits.

And she was just about to take it back, with an awkward, joking, "eh, or, whatever," which would probably make the rest of their evening VERY strained, when she saw him slowly begin to nod.

Oh, thank God!

"Yeah," Hotch bit down on his lip, "yeah, that might be fun. I mean," he shrugged, "we wouldn't be going again until sometime in the Spring, but I'll let you know and maybe we can plan a day."

For a second he had hesitated in responding to Emily's suggestion, because he had been thinking about what it would mean not only for him to schedule a 'date' with Emily, but also what it would mean to Jack. Though Hotch had dated a few women since the divorce, they'd all been very casual, short term relationships. Mostly just a few dinners, and some sex. Maybe a couple more dinners.

That was it.

And certainly he had no intention of introducing his son to any woman unless he felt that woman was, A) going to have some semi-permanent to permanent relationship in his life, and B) would be a sound role model/good influence on his child. Of course he had no concerns about Emily in regards to B. She was one of the kindest, most thoughtful, intelligent, people he'd ever known. But as it related to A, well, it seemed a bit of 'wagon before the horse' thinking, to allow Jack and Emily to bond, before Hotch himself had quite figured out where their relationship was going. But an outing some random day later in the Spring (four to five months away), was kind of perfect. It would actually force him to figure things out with Emily, and take the next step with her, before that day arrived.

Basically it just seemed like a good push to get them to where they needed to be.

And it also helped that when they stopped at the next red light, he could see Emily trying to hide her smile from him. His eyes crinkled.

Clearly his answer had pleased her.

And though he wanted to reach over and catch her fingers, or squeeze her knee . . . really just be able to have any random, affectionate contact with her at all . . . he kept his hands steady on the steering wheel. They hadn't reached that random spring day yet.

And there were still too many days in between.

So instead of reaching out, he changed the subject to over to asking her confirm the directions to the hotel. Though he was not unfamiliar with Richmond (they had a field office and had coordinated cases with them from time to time) it was dark, and it had been at least eight months since his last visit.

It would be nice if he didn't get them lost.

But after he'd heard Emily crinkling the invitation, and then scanning the little map on her iPhone, he did get his confirmation that they were going the right away. And when they stopped at the next light, he felt her tap his arm. When he turned to look over at her . . . she popped the last of the potato sticks into his mouth. When his mouth closed and his lip quirked up, she gave him a sheepish shrug.

"I just realized that I was rude not to offer to share them earlier, so," she looked down to tuck the now empty bag into the trash, "there you go."

"Well," he started slowly chewing the potato bits, "thanks, but you weren't rude. I offered you the snack, you had no obligation to share it with me."

"Maybe," she sighed as her attention shifted back out to the lightly falling snow, "but I still should have. It's only polite. But I think I just got distracted thinking."

Seeing the light turn green, Hotch took his foot off the break before asking softly.

"Were you thinking about anything that you want to talk about?"

Given that their next stop was to actually have to physically interact, for MANY hours, with all of her relatives, and every other God forsaken person who had been invited to this fiscally obscene gathering for two people that she despised, it was likely that was the topic that had her distracted. And sure enough, after another momentary pause, she did murmur something back. Unfortunately her voice was so quiet that he had to ask her to repeat it.

"I'm sorry," he shot her a quick look across the front seat, "what was that?"

"Just . . . eh," she shook her head, "nothing. Doesn't matter."

Feeling a pang of sympathy at both her tone, and her body language . . . whatever she'd just been thinking, she seemed miserable thinking about it again . . . that time when he felt the pull to reach out and touch her, he decided to give in. But that was only because this time the circumstances were different. It wasn't just him wanting to do something, it was him needing to do something.

He needed to make her feel better.

So after another quick glance across the seat to see where her hand currently was in relation to his . . . just a few inches away . . . he reached out and caught her fingers. By her reaction . . . the quick turning of her head . . . he could tell that the action startled her. But of course he didn't usually do things like that. Actually express his affection for her.

It was part of that line he was always trying so hard not to cross.

But after only a momentary pause, he felt her tug his hand a little closer. And then his skin was brushing against the soft fabric of her dress.

She'd pulled his hand up to rest on her thigh.

"Thank you," she whispered as her thumb stroked across the back of his wrist. His eyes crinkled slightly.

"You're welcome," he murmured back.

They were quiet for the rest of the ride.

A/N 2: If you'd like to see the enormous bridesmaids dresses, there's a pic with the Tumblr posting.

And unfortunately, this is the last of what was posted here :( It was only ever going to be a three shot anyway, and I did draft out a good chunk of the final chapter but it was never wrapped. It's possible my brain might be so inclined to get it cleaned up now that I've waded back through this world, but obviously no promise there. As it is, the story ends here. Thank you all for reading though! I hope you liked as far as it went!