Aaron took a nervous breath as he adjusted his tie. Dave was out to lunch with Penelope, which lent him the perfect time to make the call to Georgia and see if she would be amenable to making the move up to them. A part of him hoped that she would, because his next choice was to ask Becca or Josh. There was no way that he could ask Molly to look after her mother, since she was too much of a loose cannon, no matter how much she might try to stay in line for the first few days.

"If you don't do it now, you'll chicken out, Hotchner," he muttered to himself as he pulled out the piece of paper that had Georgia's number on it. He had taken it from Erin's phone before he left for work that morning, knowing that if he asked Erin for it, she would be too suspicious, and he didn't want to tell her what was going on until he had a firm answer from one of her kids. Picking up the receiver, he dialed the number as quickly as he could, listening to the ringing as he waited for the call to connect.

Finally, just as he thought he'd be sent to voicemail and then have to wait on a return call, the call connected, and he smiled in order to keep a friendly tone in his voice. "Hello? Who is this?" her sweet voice asked, and he let out a small sigh before speaking.

"Georgia, this is Aaron."

"Aaron! It is so good to hear from you! I was just getting back from my morning class, so you're lucky to have caught me. What can I do for you?"

"This has been some time in coming, and I truly hope that you are in the place where you can agree to my proposition. I don't know if your mother contacted you at all, but she had a serious spell a short while back, and she's been placed on complete bedrest."

"Are she and the baby okay?"

"So far, yes. But her doctor thought that it would be a good idea if she went on total bedrest for the rest of the pregnancy. And while I know that Jessica would love to help us out more, she has her own job and life to lead. Not that you don't, but I know that you're getting close to being done with your Masters degree, and I was wondering what your plans were following graduation?"

A soft, low, chuckle slipped from Georgia's lips, and in that sound, Aaron heard his wife, and that thought made him happy for some reason. "If you're asking if I would like to come home and live with you and Mama until the baby is here, I would love to do that. This would be the perfect opportunity to get to know her better, and I get to help you both out, too. There's just one little problem."

Aaron's heart sank to hear those words, since he didn't want there to be any problems. He wanted everything to work out perfectly the first time, since that would mean that things were actually working out right for the first time in a while. "And what would that problem be?" he asked, hoping that his disappointment didn't come through in his voice.

"I'm not free from my program for another six weeks. If I was able, I'd do remote learning, but that is rather hard when my university is in Iowa and you are in Virginia."

"That would be an issue, yes. I suppose that I can see if Becca would be able to…"

"I didn't say no, Aaron. I just said I need six weeks. I'd need time to pack, anyway, even if I was free right this minute. And I don't know if I'm old enough to rent a truck to bring everything East with me."

"I'll look into that for you, and we'll pay for any moving costs that you incur, along with renting a storage facility for any furniture and belongings that won't fit into our house. I know that Erin would be so happy to have you with us, and this way, you might get to know everyone better, not just your mother."

"I'd like that. From what Mama's written, it seems like you have a really strong friend group, and that's so nice to have when you do the jobs that you do."

He nodded as he took a deep breath. "So, just to confirm, you are going to come stay here, once you've graduated?"

"Yes, Aaron, I will be coming there as soon as I can. This just gives me more of a fire under my bum to start decluttering now, so that I won't have quite so much stuff to get rid of at the end. Do you think that I can make that happen in that short a time?"

"I have faith that you can do whatever you set your mind to, Georgia. And if you still feel a bit overwhelmed when the time gets closer, I'll hire professional movers for you, so that will take some of the worry off your shoulders. Would that be all right?"

"I think that that would be a lovely arrangement that I hope I don't need to utilize. The cleaning and decluttering will also help to take my mind off all the papers that I have to write, along with finishing up my novel. I am so close to the end with it, and even if it doesn't get published, I'll still let you and Mama read it, to see if you think it's any good."

"I would really like that, Georgia. I'll keep in contact with you, to see how things are going. Perhaps once a week?"

"And let me guess, we're not telling Mama what we're planning until I show up on your doorstep, bags in hand?"

Aaron flushed a little as he cleared his throat. "Something like that, yes. I'm trying to keep the stress Erin's under to a bare minimum, and I think that as long as everything is just tentative, I want to keep it under wraps?"

"I totally understand, Aaron, and I would probably feel the same way. I am so sorry, I actually need to get to class. If I were just a student, I could come in late, but since I'm teaching…"

"You need to be there on time, I understand. And I'll look forward to speaking with you soon, Georgia. Have a good class."

"Thanks, Aaron. I hope that your next case goes smoothly. Talk to you soon!"

He heard the call disconnect before he could say anything further, and he smiled a little as he replaced the handset on the cradle before letting out a long breath. That was one hurdle out of the way, and now he just had to figure out how to take care of Erin during the month and a half that they would be alone. A part of the reason why he was unsettled by that knowledge was the fact that he knew these next few weeks would be critical in the pregnancy.

Sighing, he leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. It was still weird to grow accustomed to this new position, though it seemed like he was finally settling into a rhythm of his own. A part of him knew that this calm would only last until the first mistake that was made by one of his teams, when he would be required to be the heavy and discipline them. Shaking his head, he sat back up and rolled over to his computer, wanting to get a jump on the reports he was supposed to have filed by the end of the week. Just as he started going over them, his phone rang, and he chuckled as he pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and answered. "You're saving me from starting on these files, Erin."

"And you're going to save me from being bored. I sent Jessica home, since she has her own life to live, and I want to grow used to doing some things on my own. Our doctor did say that I could safely move around in our house, and I promise that I will take things slowly and not do anything rash. And I'll stay downstairs until you get home and can help me up them."

"I'm glad that some small bit of rationality has managed to seep through to your brain," he teased, and she gasped in mock indignation. "Listen, while I have you on the phone, I was thinking that we could perhaps talk about Blake and why she has such a poor opinion of you. I'm assuming that it's work history?"

There was a long pause before Erin cleared her throat. "I wish that there was an easy way to explain what happened between us to create this ocean of bad blood between us. I wish that I understood fully. But I will tell you as much as I know."

"That's all I ask, Erin."

"All right, settle in for a long story, then. If I start at the very beginning, Alex and I were roommates at the Academy, and it was fate that we ended up that way. We were the most unlikely of friends, but something drew us together, and I was so glad to have a friend going through everything that I did, too. We both decided to become part of the BSU, and since there was a drive to diversify and add women to the profiling team, we were both selected. It was nice to have a friend in that boy's club, though we were often at odds in our analyses of cases. We just looked at them differently."

"I can see that, based on what I know of her so far."

Erin sighed. "I hope that she's more like her former self, rather than the shell of a friend that I left in my wake. Anyway, after Wyoming, when I was fast tracked to become Section Chief, I knew that she was angry with the decision, that she didn't understand why it wasn't an advertised position, that I had just slipped up through the ranks. There were rumors swirling through the BSU that I slept with the Director, or David, to get my position. While Alex didn't exactly feed into those rumors, she didn't quash them either. And then, she ended up pregnant, and it took everything in me to keep from sharing with her that we were going through the same experience. I didn't want anyone to know what had happened to me. Which was for the best, since Erik made me give Georgia up."

"About that…"

"What did you do, Aaron?"

He took a deep breath. "I slipped up and told her that Jack has four older stepsiblings. She didn't say anything, but I know that she caught the slip, because she gave me a look. But maybe this will be the first step in the two of you reconciling?"

"I don't think that will be the case, since I haven't told you the worst of things that happened between us. Do you remember the Amerithrax case? I believe that you were still in Seattle at that time."

"I was, yes."

"Well, I was in charge and Alex and her partner brought some linguistic findings to me that they were certain incriminated one man. And on those findings, I had him arrested. Only for everything to go to hell when, whilst the suspect was in custody, another attack took place. And I was tasked with the difficult job of removing them from the BAU and demoting them. John reacted so angrily, but Alex's fury was cold and silent. We went from friends to nothing in the space of a heartbeat, and there's a dull ache in my heart when I think about her. So, I do not think that we're just going to be friends once more, now that she's back in the BAU and I'm on maternity leave before heading into retirement. Though you can try to facilitate a reconciliation, and we'll go from there." She took a deep breath before speaking once more. "I think that I'm going to take a short nap now. This subject honestly exhausts me. We'll talk more when you get home?"

"Of course, Erin. Rest well, and I'll bring home something for us to eat, so you don't have to worry about that small detail."

"Thank you, Aaron. I'll see you when you get here." They finished up saying goodbye and then Aaron slipped his phone into his pocket before settling down to focus on the reports that he needed to finish before he left for home that evening.