A/N: Thank you for all your wonderful reviews! Really appreciate them :)
"Life was good. Everything was going right. It was almost scaring him because usually when things were going this well, it was the calm before the storm hit." - Michelle Sutton
Early June 2009
"Daddy, where's green?"
"Hang on, buddy; I'm still taking them out of the packet."
Passing the new bottles of paint over to Emily, the brunette squeezed tiny amounts onto the thick newspaper covering the dining table. Too impatient to wait, Jack stuck his finger in the red paint before smearing it all over the paper.
"Fingerpainting, huh?" Prentiss stated with a grin as she observed the little boy. "I guess fingers were made before brushes."
"What are you painting, buddy?" Hotch asked from the kitchen, grabbing a fresh glass of water and some paper towels.
"Spiderman," the boy replied confidently, smearing the remainder of the red paint all over his finger. Emily and Hotch shared a look, knowing this had the potential to get really messy. "I need more red, Emilee."
"What do you say?" Hotch interrupted, sitting down next to his son.
"Please."
"Good boy."
After squeezing out more paint for the boy, Emily grabbed her blank piece of paper and stuck her finger into the blue. Jack watched intently as she dotted small circles everywhere. "What you painting?"
"Just some flowers," the brunette replied, taking a paper towel and cleaning off the excess paint. They looked nothing like flowers, but it'd suffice for Jack. She wished she had more of a creative bone in her body. The best she could do most days was a stickman. And as she watched Hotch stabbing a paintbrush into the yellow, she knew immediately that he wasn't any better.
"I wanna use this one," Jack said, already in the process of taking Hotch's paintbrush.
"Hey, buddy, no. Daddy is using this one. You can use this paintbrush, though," he said, pointing to an idle brush lying in the centre of the table.
"Okay," he relented, dipping the brush carefully into the yellow before smearing it liberally over the whole page.
"What's Spiderman doing?" Emily asked softly, admiring Jack's creativity. "Is he flying into the sun?"
"No. He's crashing into Jello!" The boy announced confidently.
Aaron grinned at his son as he roughed one hand through his gold locks.
After the anthrax scare at work and nearly losing Reid, Hotch had wanted nothing more than to spend the remainder of the week with his little dude. And thankfully, Haley had been more than willing to let Aaron take him for the weekend. His naivety and mannerisms… His little laughs and grins… Even in the moments Aaron had to be stern and discipline Jack… It made him all the more grateful living to see his son.
"Into yellow Jello?" Hotch questioned. "Why is he crashing into yellow Jello?"
"Beecause his friends are stuck. They are stuck in there, daddy!"
"Who stuck his friends in there?"
"Um… Doctor Octpus," Jack stated, dabbing more red paint onto his brush. "He's a baddie."
Emily glanced at Aaron, looking down at his son with so much admiration in his gaze.
If there was one thing she loved the most about Hotch, it was how he interacted so sweetly with Jack. She knew he often thought of himself as a lousy and absent father who couldn't keep up with all the milestones. But, when the boy came to stay with his father, Aaron was patient and attentive to his son's feelings and needs. He'd always find fun activities to bond with his son and take him out on bike rides to the park. Lately, Jack had been interested in arts and crafts, so they'd stopped at Target and bought some paints for the boy to play with.
"That's right, Doctor Octopus is a bad guy, isn't he? Lucky superheroes like Spiderman can stop him."
"Aha." Jack's attention suddenly diverted to Hotch's picture. He started laughing maniacally, his contagious belly laughs echoing through the entire apartment.
"What's so funny, buddy?"
"Hehe, I think he's laughing at your blob of a masterpiece," Emily commented, washing her brush in the water.
"What do you mean blob?" Aaron defended, "Daddy's done a great job painting, hasn't he, buddy?"
"Daddy, you've painted a big poo!"
At that comment, Emily burst out into fits of laughter. "They say there's nothing like honesty from the mouths of babes…."
"What?" Hotch asked, grinning at his son. "It's not poo; it's meant to be a dinosaur! I think Emily's picture looks like a big poo…."
Rolling her eyes sarcastically at Aaron, Emily leant down to Jack. "Daddy is a silly goose, isn't he?"
"Very silly!" Jack agreed. "Look at my picture, Emilee!"
"Oh, that looks so cool, dude… Do you know what? Maybe you can paint Uncle Reid a special picture for him."
"That's a great idea," Aaron added. "Did you know Uncle Reid is in the hospital at the moment?"
"Just like I was!" Jack answered, looking up at his father.
"Yeah, that's right, buddy. Just like when you had your tonsils out… Uncle Reid has a bad cold, so he needed to go to the hospital to get some medicine to help him feel better."
"I don't like taking medicine," he muttered adamantly as he mixed a couple of colours to make a pale brown.
"Yes, you do," Hotch corrected. "You like the yummy strawberry medicine. Remember they gave that to you when you were in the hospital?"
"I'm gonna paint a hulk!" Jack suddenly blurted, changing the subject off hospitals.
"For Uncle Reid?" Emily prompted, drying off her paintbrush with a paper towel. The little boy simply nodded. "I think he'll really like that…."
As the afternoon neared, Jack was getting to that time of day when he'd start to get restless and fidgety. Aaron mentioned to Emily that it was due to the boy beginning to refuse to take naps in the afternoon, even when he really needed them. As a result, more temper tantrums and bad behaviour ensued to the joy of Hotch. In the hopes of trying to burn off more energy to get him asleep, Aaron suggested a bike ride, to which Prentiss immediately screwed her nose up.
"Come on, Prentiss, you know what they say about riding a bicycle…."
"Hotch. One word… Don't."
Glancing up from tying his son's shoelaces, he passed the woman an amused look. "Oh, I'm looking forward to hearing this story."
"The story is I've already been to the hospital a thousand times this week, and I'm not interested in going back on a stretcher. I will walk."
Concluding it was a probably sensible idea considering how clumsy the woman could be every day, Hotch nodded with a little smirk. It wasn't unheard of for her to accidentally stub her toe getting out of bed or trip over her own feet walking to the kitchen. It surprised Aaron that it didn't happen more often on the job with the physicality of their work. Perhaps it was because she was more alert in the field, and as soon as she arrived home, it all vanished.
The short bike ride to the park was calm and pleasant, with a light breeze evening out the harsh sting of the summer sun against their skin. Hotch rode slowly so the brunette could keep up, sprinting every now and then to match the pace while Jack sat at the back of Aaron's bike in a little booster seat. He looked so darn cute with his tiny spiderman helmet and sneakers, making silly faces with Emily as she ebbed and flowed in and out of his view.
When they reached the park, Jack was eager to get out and play, immediately sprinting to the slides. Hotch and Emily sat on the wooden bench at the bottom, smiling and laughing as the boy came tumbling down the slide. "Emilee, slide with me!" He yelled, getting up from the ground and holding up his hand. Aaron passed a grin at his lover, knowing by the end of their session at the park that she'd be exhausted. Perhaps it was a good thing she hadn't taken a bike.
"Okay, I'm coming!" She enthusiastically yelled back, taking the little boy's hand and trundling up the ladder with him. Luckily, there didn't seem to be many kids around, which worked in her favour. She took a seat on the yellow slide and motioned for Jack to sit on her lap, securing him with her hands around his waist. "Ready? One… Two…"
"Three!" Jack finished, laughing as Emily pretended to be scared, sliding down. Unbeknownst to the brunette until they reached the bottom, Hotch stood with a camera and ecstatic grin, photographing them as they fell to the ground in bouts of laughter.
"Oh! I was so scared!"
"Come with me again!" The boy motioned, once again taking Emily's hand.
Aaron watched from the ground in awe, noting how infatuated Jack had become with Emily. They'd grown close over the past few weeks, playing together and bonding whenever the brunette stayed. It was good for the boy to interact with someone else besides himself, and it helped that Emily was such a natural when it came to children. Every child she ever encountered just absolutely adored her. So, to see her interacting so tender and sweetly with his son, Hotch couldn't help but pull the camera out and click.
Sensing Emily needed a break from the slide, Aaron stepped in as they fell to the ground again. "Hey buddy, do you wanna play in the sandpit with daddy?"
"Can we build a sandcastle?"
"Aha, let's do that…." Hotch turned to Emily with a smile as the boy raced off to the sandpit. "Having fun?"
"The best," she replied with a grin, following Aaron over to the other side of the playground. Jack was already there, gathering the sand into one big pile.
"Look at what I'm making!"
"Wow, buddy," Aaron said, sitting cross-legged in the sand next to the boy while Emily took a seat on the ledge, admiring them. "It's getting so tall it might fall over."
"Hey, Jack," Emily interrupted, passing him a small twig. "I think this might go wonderfully with your castle."
"It's like a flag!" He commented, immediately stuffing it into the top of his creation.
"It does look like a flag, aye," Hotch answered, dumping a lot more sand on the castle.
"Emilee?" The brunette hummed in response to the little boy. "Where's more sticks?"
"Hmm. Let me go look for some more." Off Emily went, scanning her eyes over the ground for anything suitable to pop into the castle. To her surprise, Jack followed after her, slipping his little hand into hers while they scavenged. "I think this one here might be good," she said, pointing to a medium-sized twig lying on the asphalt. Jack picked it up.
"I'm going to run this back to Daddy…."
Grinning at his naivety, Emily kept a watchful eye on him until he was back in reach of Aaron. He returned moments later, taking a little pile from the brunette she'd collected in the few seconds he'd been gone. "Do you think that's enough twigs? I think it's enough," she concluded. "Let's go back to Daddy and add these to the castle."
"Daddy, look at this!" Jack announced, throwing the few twigs Emily had collected in the sand.
"That's lots of branches, buddy; where are you going to put them all?"
"Here, and here, and… here. Oh no, they're all gone! We need more!"
Before his toddler waddled off again, Aaron called him back. "Jack, why don't you and I make a tunnel underneath? You dig from that side, and I'll dig from that side."
"Okay," he answered, plopping down opposite Hotch and pawing out the sand bit by bit. A strong gust of wind suddenly flew by and sprayed sand through Jack's eyes. He started crying, and to make matters worse, the castle and sticks collapsed.
"Ooh, buddy, that's unfortunate!" Emily empathised as she gave Hotch a bottle of water to help take the sand out of his eyes.
"My castle!" He cried, looking down at it devasted as Aaron rubbed his back.
"It's alright, buddy; we can come back another day and rebuild it. How about we start to head back home?"
"No! I don't want to go home!"
"What if we got a special chocolate ice cream treat on the way home?" Suddenly, Jack's wails quieted as the thought of a creamy dessert distracted him. "Yeah? How does that sound? What flavour would you like?"
"Chocolate," he concluded, taking Hotch's hand as they climbed out of the sandpit.
"Okay, chocolate it is," Aaron said. "Do you need to go toilet, buddy? You haven't been in a while."
With a quiet nod as confirmation, Hotch walked with the boy to the restrooms while Emily waited outside. They returned moments later, Jack immediately latching onto Emily's hand as they walked back to the bike.
"Are you hopping on the bike or walking with Emily?"
"Walking with Emilee," Jack whispered, keeping his grasp on her hand.
They strolled along the main road, Jack pointing out colours on homes and foods people were eating as they walked past shops. About ten minutes into the journey, Jack started complaining of sore feet. And after gentle encouragement to hop onto the back of the bike, to which Jack refused, Emily ended up propping him onto her hip for the rest of the walk.
"Let me know if he's getting too heavy, and I'll take him," Hotch said, strolling the giant bike to his side.
Ruffling a hand through his locks of hair, Emily shook her head. It was the first time Jack had allowed her to pick him up, and he was surprisingly light. "He'll be fine until we reach the shop."
"Daddy, I need water, pelese."
Aaron obliged, stopping to take his son's water bottle from the backpack Emily was carrying and passing it to the boy. "Ooh, look!" Emily pointed out. "I see the ice cream shop!" The comment evoked a big smile from Jack.
After ordering a small plain chocolate kiddy cone for Jack, a caramel melt for Hotch and a chocolate caramel and chip for Emily, they walked across the road, finding a wee bench in the shade to sit on while Jack feasted on his ice cream. The treat dribbled down his chin and shirt to no surprise, but at least he was humming and aahing in satisfaction at the taste, which was all that mattered.
And so was Emily.