Author's Note: Finally, Hotch returns!

The Other Side of the Story

Sean walked into the living room to hear his wife saying, "can I give him a message?"

His brow wrinkled as his gaze bounced down to the clock on cable box . . . it was almost eleven.

Who could she be talking to at this hour?

When she hung up a second later he asked the question.

"Who was that?"

Ileana looked over at him with a shrug.

"Um, I am not sure. The woman did not wish to leave a message, and I caught the call on the last ring, so there was no time to see the caller ID."

Sean started to nod and then his eyes widened when he suddenly noticed the phone that she was still holding.

It was a blackberry.

OH SHIT!

"Um, sweetie," he cringed slightly as he asked the question that he already knew the answer to, "is that Aaron's phone?"

His brother was going to be SO pissed!

"Yes," Ileana nodded, "it was so late that I thought it might have been the hospital."

Sean tipped his head . . . okay, he really couldn't fault her logic there. But still though, his brother had two rules. Don't go into his briefcase, and do not under ANY circumstances, touch his phone.

These were NOT negotiable rules!

So before they had a catastrophic incident, i.e., Aaron walked into the room, Sean quickly went over and took the evil device out of his wife's hand.

"Okay," he placed the cell back on the table exactly where he'd seen his brother put it before he went down to take a shower, "that was good thinking sweetie, but given that it wasn't the hospital, and you didn't actually take a message," Sean's nose wrinkled, "maybe we should just not mention to Aaron that you answered his phone."

Thank God she didn't take a message or else they would have had to GIVE it to him!

Despite the circumstances, Ileana's mouth quivered slightly.

"Liebchen, are you afraid of your big brother?"

Though Aaron was a bit serious, Ileana thought he was in fact quite a sweet man.

With a scowl, Sean immediately let out a loud protest of, "no!"

'Yes!' was unfortunately the automatic correction in his brain. But really, Aaron could totally kick his ass! And he was genuinelt quite scary when he was angry. Fortunately, Ileana had never witnessed his brother losing his temper.

But of course, she hadn't grown up in the house that they had.

Once he was old enough, and big enough, to fight back, Aaron's vicious temper had saved Sean from more than one beating at the hands of their psychotic stepfather. And for that, Sean would always be grateful, but he really didn't want to be on the receiving end of tapping into that anger. Obviously Aaron's reaction to a violation of the phone rule would be anywhere near that extreme, but still, it wouldn't be pleasant.

But Sean didn't want to get into any of that with his wife now.

So he just shook his head.

"I just think," he let out on a faith breath, "that Aaron wouldn't appreciate us answering his phone. That's his work phone. And given the nature of his work, you know how particular he is about people touching it."

This point had come up specifically when Sean's daughter had picked it up and Aaron had nearly had a stroke. And of course he'd scared the crap out of his three year old niece when he'd barked out, "GABBY NO!"

The phone had clattered to the floor and . . . her little heart now broken . . . Gabby had immediately burst into tears. Because not only had he scared her, but she adored Aaron and he'd never before raised his voice to her. And seeing his daughter so upset, Sean had felt a flash of his own rage that he wouldn't have previously thought possible. Though of course with her being so young, he'd never before witnessed anyone making her cry.

In that brief moment though, Sean was ready to see if it was possible to kick his older brother's ass.

But before he'd even taken a step across the kitchen, Aaron had scooped up Gabby, and hugged her to his chest, rubbing her back as he frantically apologized for what he'd done.

"I'm sorry sweetheart," he'd murmured, "please don't cry," he'd kissed the top of her head as he'd continued, "I didn't mean to scare you. You just can't touch Uncle's phone, okay?" Then he'd turned to Sean, whispering in a near panic, "I have CRIME SCENE photos on there!"

Sean's anger had instantly vanished, because then he'd understood the vehemence of his brother's reaction. And seeing the guilt and distress on Aaron face, he'd also felt a wave of sympathy for him.

All he'd been trying to do was protect Gabby from being traumatized, and he'd ended up traumatizing her in the process. The poor bastard.

Aaron never could catch a break.

So Sean had gone over to the two of them . . . her still crying and him still desperately trying to fix it . . . and he'd rubbed his daughter's back as he'd whispered in her ear, "it's okay baby, it's okay."

Then he'd looked back up at Aaron with a sympathetic smile, "just give her a scoop of strawberry ice cream and she'll love you again."

And it had worked. It took a good half hour, but at the end of those thirty minutes, Gabby had been sitting on Aaron's knee as she'd shoveled the last few melty bites of her sweet treat, into her still tear streaked face.

And given how that incident was less than forty eight hours ago, Sean was pretty sure that if Aaron discovered yet another member of his family had been touching his phone, that he'd pack his bag and move to a hotel for the duration of his time here.

But Sean didn't want that to happen.

As it was, Aaron was already much too solitary. And he desperately needed to be around the family right now. It wasn't good for him to be alone. Fortunately though, with the exception of the incident two days ago, he had bonded with Gabby from the moment of his arrival.

She was the only one in the family that could get a smile out of him. And it was obvious to Sean that with all of the added stress going on, that Aaron was missing Jack like crazy.

It was also clear him that his brother was lonely.

But even taking all of that into consideration, Sean knew that he actually needed his brother right now, probably more even than his brother needed them. Because Aaron was the oldest. And although Sean might have a family of his own now, he still wasn't up to making the hard calls like his big brother was.

Maybe he never would be.

But he knew for sure that this week, Aaron would be the one that would decide when the doctors had done enough. And Aaron would be the one to decide when it was time to let their mother go.

Sean wasn't even sure if those were decisions that he was capable of making on his own.

He honestly didn't know what he would do if Aaron wasn't here right now. And it was already a suck ass week for everyone, and Sean sure as hell didn't want to make it any worse by causing a fight over something as ridiculously preventable as violating his brother's cell phone rule.

That would be stupid.

For a moment Ileana just stared at her husband. Finally she nodded.

"Okay, I suppose you are right," then she gave him a quick kiss before her expression softened, "because I do not want to cause him any more stress."

The poor thing always seemed so heavy hearted. And this week certainly wasn't helping. If not for the time that he had spent with Gabby, Ileana was sure that Aaron would not have smiled once since his arrival.

She put her hand out to her husband, "come now, Liebchen, we have an early day. Let's go to bed."

/*/*/*/*

Hotch walked out of the guest room to his brother and sister-in-law passing him in the downstairs hallway. And to his surprise, Ileana leaned up to kiss his cheek as she said good night.

Then to his amusement, Sean gave him an apologetic smile to make up for it.

It wasn't as though Hotch was categorically opposed to expressions of affection from his extended family. He wasn't. He just wasn't very comfortable with expressing affection that way himself. Well, except with Jack of course.

Basically Hotch stayed inside his little bubble and he expected other people to do the same.

But he did like Ileana. He was just going to have to get used to the fact that she was a kisser. Though with as little quality time as Hotch had spent with Sean and his wife, it hadn't come up that often. In the past, mostly he just saw them on the big holidays or other major family events. A day here or there.

And those were the types of occasions where people always hugged and kissed anyway.

It was just now staying with them these past couple of days which had been the adjustment. Ileana was more outgoing and expressive than either he or Sean. With the exception of the fair hair and coloring, she was actually a bit like Emily.

That was probably why he liked her.

At the thought of Emily, Hotch checked the time on the wall and realized it was after eleven again.

'SHIT!' he cursed to himself, 'he should have called her before he took his shower!'

But then he remembered that he'd smelled like hospital disinfectant and he'd just wanted that stench off of him.

The only call he'd made before his shower had been the one to Jack.

Even though he could only see his son once a week, Hotch still called him every day. And Jack's bedtime was being stretched too late this week as it was.

Fortunately Haley was being good about that, or Hotch wouldn't have had a chance to talk to his son at all. The God damn cell phones didn't work in the hospital, the temperatures outside had been sub-zero since before he'd arrived in New York, and the roads were too treacherous in the evening to risk trying to make a call in the car.

So he really was completely disconnected for most of the day.

But now he'd lost track of time, and fucked up his big plans to talk to Emily. And he really did need to talk to her tonight.

Hotch stared over at the glowing red numbers of the cable clock . . . 11:04 . . . she could still be up.

Either way though . . . he grabbed his phone off the coffee table . . . he should try her anyway. Otherwise the poor thing was going to start thinking that he was avoiding her.

God knew that he didn't want that.

Not only would it hurt her feelings, but with everything that had happened over the past couple days, he'd had a lot of time to think. Too much time. So even though he'd been unsure of what to do about their relationship that night in hallway, he'd now made a decision about what he wanted.

Her.

He wanted her. That was the conclusion that he'd come to yesterday afternoon as he'd paced in the hospital, waiting for the doctors to come out and give them an update on his mother's latest surgery.

That's when he'd realized how much he missed Emily. How much he wanted her there with him. Because he knew that if she had been there, that she would have been fussing over him, and holding his hand and telling him that he needed to think positively because he was too negative.

He was always too negative.

Hotch actually had heard her voice in his head saying that to him. And even though it was just his imagination . . . it had still comforted him.

And that's when he knew that he would be a fool to let her go. As far as she was concerned, they had already moved things to the next step anyway. And in the face of the tragedy he'd been dealing with this week, all of his fears about screwing up their work relationship seemed so stupid.

Work was just work.

This was his life that he was talking about. And Emily, she made him happy. She was sweet and kind and funny and smart. So smart that he could barely keep up with her sometimes.

She was perfect.

He should have been thanking God that she'd ever want to be with him, and instead he had been trying to decide if he wanted to be with her.

Jackass.

Looking back now with a clearer head, he could see that he'd been pursuing her for months. For some reason though, he just hadn't really thought anything would come of it. After all, why would somebody so good, want to be with someone as broken and screwed up as he was?

So he'd sort of figured that his feelings for her were one sided, which meant there had been no risk of hurting her. Until he'd kissed her and had seen her reaction, he hadn't actually considered the possibility of a future with her actually being possible. Of course if he ended up chasing Emily off with his silence, it might not matter what he'd wanted.

She would make the decision for both of them.

So he picked up his phone off the coffee table and as he went into the kitchen to get a glass of water, he started dialing her number. He was mid-sip when her voicemail picked up. He disconnected and tried again.

Voicemail again.

That was when he put down his water glass and snapped the phone shut.

Suddenly it seemed unbelievably important that he talk to her tonight. There were things that he needed to say. And God knew with what was scheduled for tomorrow, and how the surgery went, he really might not be able to call Emily again for ANOTHER twenty-four hours.

And that was MUCH too long to wait.

At some point tomorrow maybe he could find a minute to call her on the payphone and say hello. But he knew that they actually needed to really talk, and he just wouldn't be able to do that during the day.

He had to stay close to the waiting room.

And besides that, he certainly wasn't going to have a personal conversation with her on a public payphone! It was a major New York City hospital so there was zero privacy there, and he didn't want everyone knowing his business. Also, he didn't want to have this conversation while she was sitting at her desk either.

So yeah . . . he nodded to himself . . . he definitely needed to say what he needed to say now, while they'd both be alone.

Most likely she was sleeping, but this was important enough that he decided tonight he should wake her up. So he went back into his contact list and hit her house number.

But . . . he frowned as the phone rang over and over . . . she didn't pick up her house phone either.

'What the hell? Where was she?'

Hotch knew that they weren't away, because if they'd had a case then Dave definitely would have left him a message.

Now vaguely concerned . . . and perplexed . . . Hotch tried her cell again.

Still no answer.

He stared at the floor, running scenarios through his mind and then finally he hit on one that made sense.

She was in the bathtub.

Her cell phone was downstairs and she hadn't brought the house phone in with her. Yes . . . he nodded to himself . . . that made perfect sense. She was taking a bath.

And as he suddenly pictured a wet, naked, Emily, his battered spirits picked up slightly.

'Well, that was definitely something to look forward to seeing. But what to do right now?'

After another minute, Hotch decided he'd just have to leave her a voicemail. He had specifically NOT done that last night because the things he needed to say to her, he most definitely didn't want to say to a machine. But he really couldn't let another day pass with her in the dark. And if she wasn't getting to a phone tonight, it was best that she at least got a message in the morning, rather than another day of silence.

So he dialed her cell phone once more, cleared his throat, and just started talking.

"Hey, it's me," he started quietly, "I'm sorry I wasn't able to get back to you earlier tonight. And I'm sorry that I didn't get a chance to call you before I left, but everything happened so fast. I'm in Westchester at my brother's. My uh," his voice started to get husky, "my, uh, mother's in the hospital. I got a call a few hours after I left you, that she'd fallen down the stairs. She broke her hip and her leg and she fractured her skull in two places," he scrubbed his hand down his face as he said sadly, "she's not doing well, Em. She hasn't regained consciousness. They've already had two surgeries to relieve the pressure on her brain but they don't," his voice caught, "well, they don't really think that the prognosis is very good."

There was more he could have said there, but he knew that she would understand.

He paused . . . this was the hard part . . . he hadn't told a woman he had feelings for her in twenty five years. As he recalled, he was just as nervous then as he was now. So he took a breath to steel his courage, and then he continued on softly.

"I miss you. I miss you more than you can know. And I wish you were here because I'm having an unbelievably shitty week, and you always make me feel better when things get bad." He sighed, "and I really hate that I'm having this conversation with your voicemail, but I was afraid that with everything planned for tomorrow that I'd miss catching up with you again," his voice started to get husky again, "and I was afraid that if I didn't talk to you today, that by the time I got home it would be too late to continue what we started the other night."

Realizing that sleep deprivation and his overwrought nerves and were starting to get the better of him, Hotch cleared his throat before he started wrapping up.

"Anyway, I'm sorry we didn't catch up. And I'm sorry to leave such a long message, but with city traffic and the condition of the roads, we haven't been getting back from the hospital until late. And I had to call Jack first because it was already past his bedtime. I really wish I could call you during the day, but there's no reception in the hospital. And," he huffed humorlessly, "the weather here's been brutal. It's about ten below with the wind chill, so it's kind of hard to make a call outside. But tomorrow I'll try to get to a coffee shop or something for a couple minutes to try you again. Otherwise I promise we'll catch up tomorrow night. You can call my brother's if you want. I'll text his number when I hang up. His name is Sean. And if a woman answers that's his wife, Ileana," he swallowed, "okay, well, I guess that's it," his voice faded for a moment before he added softly, "sweet dreams Emily."

And he hung up, hoping that he hadn't just made a complete ass out of himself.

A/N 2: Come on! You knew I wouldn't make Hotch a two timing cad! I would have had to label this bad boy AU :) Of course he had a good reason for his seemingly inconsiderate behavior. He's got this horrible thing going on with his mom.

I do promise that next chapter they will once again have a scene where they are both in the same zip code! I think this is the longest I've ever separated them anywhere.

In the Girl'verse I have Hotch from Virginia and his mom retired down to Charleston, South Carolina (which is – fun fact - where TG was born). But I decided to have them be from New York in this world just because the one time we saw his brother he was living in NY so it was a perfectly acceptable alternate theory of Hotch's upbringing. And besides, I needed it to be really brutal winter weather and south of Pennsylvania, it just doesn't get cold enough to ever have a situation where it's regularly below zero with the wind chill. However, the northeastern United States does have a few cold snaps every winter where it is that dangerously frigid outside. And Hotch needed to have a damn good reason why he couldn't use his phone outside the hospital and I thought frostbite would count :)

And I gave Sean a family because again, it's been a few years since we've seen him so he's really had plenty of time to settle down. His wife was originally going to be "Alicia" but she was rechristened for Ileanna22 because she was such a good kid when I had my little bout of writer's block. So there you go hon, as thanks for your support, you got to be a Hotchner for a day! Or two, you might turn up in the next chapter as well :)