The weekend flew by for Emily. All of her boxes were in her new apartment by noon on Saturday. She spent the afternoon and evening unpacking and arranging her belongings.
On Sunday she went shopping for the items she noticed she needed as she had been unpacking. Her last stop before going home was at the grocery store. The rest of Sunday was spent finishing up in her apartment. It wasn't until after dinner that she let her mind wander to what she had been ignoring since Saturday morning.
What had happened between her and Hotch on Friday night? Why had he left Saturday morning before she saw him? How would they go forward from here?
As she thought more about the sequence of events that led to her bedroom on Friday night, she wondered what had she been thinking. The conclusion she came to was that she hadn't been thinking.
Even putting the whole 'Aaron is now her boss' part of the equation aside, it had been an unwise choice on her part given the other moving parts in her life right now. She didn't want to get involved with him(or anyone for that matter) until she had some clarity about the inquiries from her JTF-12 teammates as well as resolution on the best way to keep Declan safe.
With the inquiries from Clyde, Jeremy and Tsia she was on guard as she didn't trust any of them. Both Jeremy and Tsia had arrived in DC and separately ambushed her. It was bad enough that Jeremy had seen her with JJ and Garcia though she had played that off as coworkers instead of the close friends they were becoming.
Developing a personal relationship with Hotch right now would also be tricky as she could not give him details about those moving parts. If they were involved he would expect to have access to certain areas of her life in which she wasn't ready to answer questions. Or questions that she couldn't answer.
In addition to being a profiler who previously knew her personally, Hotch wasn't stupid. If they started spending more personal time together he would notice changes. She had been working for months on gaining his trust back. She couldn't easily explain who they were and why they were seeking her out.
However worrying about something coming out of what happened between them seemed to be a moot point since he just left Saturday morning without a word and hasn't contacted her since then. And it was that fact that had her stomach in knots as she got ready for work Monday morning. She really had no idea of how the day would go.
While she would have liked to have tested the new route to the office, she wasn't going directly there. That would have to wait until the next day. No today, she had an early morning appointment with Alicia. It was a planned appointment but the timing couldn't have been better as she really needed work through the situation with someone before she saw Hotch again.
As she drove to the BAU after her appointment she felt more confident than she had when she left home that morning. As complicated as the situation was, she needed to talk to Hotch as soon as possible so at the very least they could come to an understanding.
However as she took the elevator up to the BAU, she could feel her nervousness increasing again. After stepping out, she paused just outside the glass doors and took a few deep breaths before walking into the bullpen before she changed her mind.
As she walked to her desk, she noticed that JJ was in the break room while Morgan and Garcia were talking at his desk while Reid was attempting to construct something with paperclips and pencils.
When he saw her, Morgan greeted, "morning Prentiss. We were wondering if you were going to grace us with your presence today."
Looking down at her watch before she responded, "what do you mean? We aren't meant to be here for another 20 minutes."
Garcia chuckled before answering, "true gumdrop but you are usually here much earlier than that."
Emily sighed before answering, "yeah, I moved over the weekend and had to make a stop before coming in. I'll be back to my normal arrival time tomorrow."
"No worries Princess. We just worry. It's a paperwork day for the team, at least so far. I'm just glad you got here before it was time for us to head over to the Academy."
"I'm sorry, what?" Emily asked confused.
Morgan looked at her before saying, "today we are going over to the Academy to work with the trainees. We talked about it last week and you agreed."
As Morgan explained the memory of the discussion they had before the last case came back to her. She nodded as he said, "yes I remember now that you mention it."
Morgan nodded and then said as he looked at his watch, "OK. We need to leave in about 45 minutes."
She nodded before looking at her on watch. It was only then that she looked up at the window to Hotch's office to notice it was empty with the light off. Turning back to the others, she asked, "where's Hotch?"
"Meeting. He wanted us to try and get our reports done from the last case before we go." Morgan explained.
Emily nodded and then said "I need to get some coffee then I'll start on that." as she walked to the break room.
####
Hotch was at his desk having just finished the file for the last case. He placed it in his outbox to go over to Strauss' office to be signed off.
As he glanced down into the bullpen, he noticed that Reid was quietly working at his desk after Hotch found him cleaning up a mess of pencils, paper clips and push pins when he returned after his meeting. He knew better than to ask what the younger man had been up to while he had been alone in the bullpen. He just told him to get back to work after Reid had apologized and said he would clean it up.
Hotch was both relieved and disappointed to find that Derek and Emily had already left for the Academy when he got back. As much as they needed to talk, he was still nervous about that first interaction. Now that they were here he was regretting not at least trying to contact her on Sunday.
He had still been upset and hurt when he had arrived home on Saturday morning. The only times he didn't think about what happened was when he was with Jack. After showering and dressing, he had gone to pick up Jack to spend time at the park together before taking him for lunch before taking him back to Haley. On Sunday, he had spent the afternoon with Jack before taking him back to Haley after dinner. He would be relieved when the divorce was finalized as their interactions were becoming increasingly strained.
By the time he got home after dropping Jack off on Sunday, he thought back to what happened Saturday morning. The thought had crossed his mind that perhaps he had overreacted however he had quickly pushed it away.
Now he just wished that he would have waited until she returned from where she had disappeared to so they could have had it out then. If she had left because of regrets or second thoughts then have her tell him directly instead of accepting the assumed brush off. At least then they could have had it out before coming back to the office.
And between his meetings and Emily with Derek at the Academy for most of the day, he most likely wouldn't see her until the next day. Delaying what needed to be discussed was only going to complicate things.
####
Emily slowly made her way out to her car to head home. She had enjoyed the exercises her and Derek were reviewing with the Academy trainees which had made the day go faster.
When they arrived back in the bullpen at the end of the day, Reid mentioned that they had just missed Hotch. As she sat at her desk, Emily looked up at his darkened office once again deflated that they keep missing each other.
Turning, she looked at the large pile of paperwork that was building up on her desk since they had been on a case last week and then she was out most of today. Since it wasn't that late, she decided to stay for a while and try to make a dent in it not knowing when the team would be called away again.
After working at her desk for a couple of hours, Emily stood up and stretched before deciding she was done for the night.
As she walked through the parking lot, she grumbled to herself about being so much further out because of her later than usual arrival in the morning. As she was walking, footsteps near her had her on guard. After a couple of steps, she heard a familiar voice call out her name. Turning, she came face to face with the man who she had been thinking about for the last three days.
####
After dropping Jack back off with Haley after having dinner, Hotch headed back to the BAU. Since they were in the office with no cases pending, he had left early to spend time with his son. But with it still being early and having no one waiting for him at home, he decided to go back to his office to try and get through some more paperwork since he spent a large chunk of his day in meetings.
After parking, he noticed someone walking through the lot away from the building. A second glance as the person walked under a light surprised him. It was Emily. Not pausing to overthink it, he walked towards her before calling her name. When she turned around and saw it was him, she looked surprised as well.
"Emily."
"Hotch." Emily answered in surprise.
Looking at her he stated, "we should talk."
Emily nodded as she responded, "yeah, I know. When?"
Looking around before his eyes rested on her, he asked, "are you doing anything now?" While it was late, he didn't want to assume that she was just going home as much as a part of him hoped that was what she was doing.
Emily shook her head as she adjusted her bag on her shoulder before answering, "no, I was just heading home. You?"
Hotch let out the breath he had been holding before responding, "I was just going to go back in and get through some more paperwork. Nothing that can't wait until later. Come on." He gestured her to walk with him back to his car. When they reached it, Emily sat in the passenger seat while Hotch got behind the wheel.
His plan had been to talk in the car however as they had been walking to the car, he noticed that he was parked just under one of the video surveillance cameras. This was a conversation that he didn't want them to worry about someone bored in security lip reading what they were saying.
After explaining his concerns, Emily agreed to go back to his house which was closer than her apartment so they could talk privately. They silently sat in the car as Hotch drove. It seemed much longer than the 20 minutes it took to get back to his house.
Once he parked in the driveway, they walked into the house and settled in the living room. As she nervously looked around the room, Hotch went into the kitchen to get both of them a glass of water. When he returned and sat down across from her, Emily asked, "what do you want to talk about?"
Hotch raised his eyebrow at the question before shaking his head as he responded, "I think you know what we should discuss Emily."
Emily gave a mirthless laugh before looking at him narrowing her eyes as she answered, "what is there to discuss? We had sex. Multiple times. You left without a word the next morning and I didn't hear from you after that. I can be professional. No one will hear about from me. I hope you can say the same. Are we done?" She stood up as she shook her head. It had been a long day. She just wanted to go home and soak in the hot tub that her new apartment had with a glass of wine. If she needed to get a cab to get back to her car, she would.
Hotch's eyes widened as she stood up and looked like she was going to leave as he was still processing what she had just said. She hadn't wanted him to leave Saturday morning.
Before she could reach the front door, he said loudly, "NO. Stop. What do you mean I left without a word? You weren't there when I woke up. I took it as a not so subtle hint that you wanted me to leave so I did."
With her bag now on her shoulder Emily huffed and crossed her arms over her chest before responding, "if I wanted you to leave then why would I have left a note saying where I was going, what I was doing and when I'd be back."
"Note?" Hotch said quietly as he could feel the blood drain from his face. What had he done? That must have been what was next to the coffee maker that he ignored before he walked out of the apartment.
Emily cocked her head as she saw his reaction to her question before she answered, "yeah I left a note for you next to the coffee pot. Did you not see it?"
Hotch sighed before honestly answering, "I saw the paper there but didn't look at it. I was just expecting a message would be by text instead."
Emily shook her head before replying, "I specifically didn't leave a text message either that morning or since then. The next time either of us got audited, we'd have a lot of explaining to do. Strauss is already watching us, why give her easy ammunition?"
Just in the time since Emily had joined the team their text histories had been audited three times. Each time it was in the course of a follow up investigation about a case but once they were checking an agent's message history, they could look at any date and time, not just the one in question as Morgan and Garcia had found out a few months earlier. They had had a text chain that had caught the eye of HR. It had resulted with both of them needing to attend a sexual harassment seminar after a lecture on proper workplace communication.
Anything that she would have written in a text that would have made sense that morning would have looked very bad if Strauss or some other official were to look at it later. Hotch sighed and nodded at her rationale before answering, "you're right. I should have looked at the note."
"Why didn't you?" Emily asked still standing close to the door at least until she saw the pained look on Hotch's face. At that point, she could presume that it had been more of a miscommunication then a deliberate act. After putting her bags back down on the floor, she returned to where she had been on the couch.
Hotch sat down as Emily returned to where she had been sitting. Once settled he replied sadly, "because a note was what had been waiting for me here when I got home from Milwaukee. My wife and son were gone but what was here was a damn note."
While she had known from the process server than they were separated, she hadn't known this part of what happened. Emily sighed and sorrowfully looked down at the floor as she said, "I'm sorry Aaron. I didn't know that."
She paused before making eye contact as she explained, "I woke up early that morning and could turn my brain off. You were still sound asleep. I got up so I wouldn't wake you. Since it was going to be a busy day, I decided to go downstairs to get my workout out of the way. Then with moving I didn't have food in the house so I went down to the bakery and got us breakfast."
"That is where you went." Hotch asked having wondered where she had disappeared to that morning.
Emily sat back and nodded as she replied, "yeah. I knew that we would need to talk about what happened. I thought I was doing the best thing. I didn't realize that reasons would be misunderstood."
Hotch sighed before answering, "No Emily, it's my fault. You left a note and I didn't look at it or stay to talk to you."
They sat silently until Emily looked over at him and said, "you do know that if I wanted you out, I would have just told you." as she attempted to lighten the mood between them that had become increasingly somber.
Hotch chuckled at her comment before replying, "somehow that doesn't surprise me. I'm sorry Emily."
"Me too." She paused as she contemplated if she was going to ask a question that had been on her mind since Saturday morning. Before she could change her mind, she blurted out, "can I ask you a question?"
Hotch looked at her nervously, not really sure what she was going to ask and if he was going to feel comfortable answering but replied, "sure."
"Do you plan what happened?" Emily asked while looking directly at him.
Hotch looked over at her surprised. This was not the direction he thought this conversation was going. Looking back at her he answered firmly, "NO. No, I just came over to talk."
While all indications told her he was telling the truth, she could feel that something was off and needed to know what it was. Not taking her eyes off him she then asked, "then tell me why were you carrying condoms around in your briefcase? If memory serves me right, you hate them. We never used them after we got back together that summer after we both confirmed we were clean and I was on birth control. I told you on Friday night that I was clean and on birth control and you still insisted on them. Why?"
Hotch sighed as he should have realized that she would pull those pieces together. He had meant to explain it all to her Saturday morning however they were here now because the conversation hadn't happened then.
Now he needed to explain everything and hope that she would at least hear him out. And even if she did, he wanted to believe that she would accept the explanation. He sighed before nervously stating, "your memory is correct. I do hate them and I hated that I needed to use them with you. But it was for your protection."
Emily's eyes widened as her anger grew as he explained. She wasn't sure what she had expected him to say but what he had revealed was not it. Jumping up, she yelled, "WHAT? So what you're telling me is that you aren't clean. What the hell Aaron? Condoms or not, that is something you should have told me before we had sex." before she started pacing across the room.
As soon as he saw her reaction, Hotch knew that he had screwed up the explanation and he had very little time to fix yet another miscommunication. He hadn't wanted to go into detail with what happened with Haley but right now he didn't see that he had another option. Walking over so he was standing in front of her and said sternly, "Emily stop." When she did he continued, "it's not like that. Come with me please." as he gestured towards the stairs.
Emily glared at him before she said, "I'm not going to your bedroom. I'm leaving." as she started to walk towards the door.
Just as she was picking up her stuff, he pleaded, "Please. I want to show you something in my office."
When she turned around, Emily saw something on his face that she couldn't place but also couldn't walk away from. Against her better judgement, she nodded as she said, "fine. You have five minutes to explain then I'm leaving." as she walked over to where he was at the bottom of the stairs.
She followed him up the stairs. They stopped at a closed door while he unlocked it. When the door opened, he stepped aside and gestured for her to enter. As he had stated, it appeared to be his home office. There was a desk and file cabinet as well as a chest on one wall while a couch was on the other. A couch that had a bed pillow lying on it with a couple of blankets folded at the bottom.
After she was in the room, Hotch walked in and quickly went over to the desk, looking for the lab report from his doctor. He knew she had trust issues and after his misstep downstairs, he thought the best way to continue the explanation was to show her the report he had.
Once he found it, he turned and handed it to her. When she took it and began to look through it, he explained, "as far as I know I am clean. Here are my lab results. You can see when they were done by the date."
Emily looked up at him after paging through the document, her brow wrinkled as she responded, "I don't understand. You just said…"
Hotch sat down on his desk chair while Emily sat on the couch still holding the report. He looked over at her and explained, "I know. I didn't start the explanation correctly. When I was suspended, I was suspecting that Haley was cheating on me."
Pausing briefly, he considered what he wanted to tell her other than that before continuing, "when I got home from Milwaukee, she wasn't here but there was proof of an affair. While it appeared that they were using condoms there was no guarantee that they always were so I went to my doctor to get checked. These are the results."
He pointed to the papers in her hand before continuing, "while everything looks good now, he recommended using condoms until they redid the tests in a few months. The ones I had in my briefcase were what my doctor gave me when I went to that appointment. Other than Haley, you are the only other person I've been with in over five years. I wanted to protect you. I'm sorry. I should have slowed us down Friday night and explained."
Emily looked down as he finished suddenly feeling guilty for her overreaction. She trusted his explanation as she had been in a similar situation after the Doyle mission. While she hadn't been with anyone between the two sets of tests, the doctor she saw had told her the same information about using condoms until the second set of results were known.
Shaking her head, she replied, "I could have stopped us too when I saw them. I'm sorry about what happened with Haley. I should have known that you had compelling reason. I'm sorry I overreacted."
"Emily, you have every right to ask and every right to be upset that I didn't talk to you beforehand. At that moment it felt so right to be with you again that I justified what I was doing. But that was wrong. You had the right to know before we slept together." Hotch answered.
Emily sighed before replying, "if it helps, from what you told me tonight, I wouldn't have changed my mind if you had told me about this then. Though at least then I would have understood why you were insisting on condoms."
"Do you have any regrets?" Hotch asked nervously. He hoped that she didn't but knew that she would be honest with him. Given their working relationship, he needed that honesty. And hoping that the confusion and miscommunication hadn't undermined their budding friendship.
After shaking her head, Emily looked at him and responded, "No. It felt right being with you again as well. Do you? Have regrets?"
Emily tried not to show how nervous she was about his answer to her question. She had never really gotten over him. While what happened Friday night wasn't planned, it would be a blow to her self esteem if he now said he regretted it.
Hotch shook his head before answering, "of being with you - no. Of how I screwed up the next morning and now tonight - definitely."
"Aaron." Emily said pleadingly, her guilt flaring back as he wasn't the only one to blame for the miscommunication. She didn't want him to continue to beat himself up about it. They had talked it through and now needed to put it aside so that they could move on.
Hotch shook his head as he held out a hand to stop her argument as he continued, "no please let me get this out. I jumped to conclusions and made assumptions about you and your intentions based on my recent experiences with Haley. I should have talked to you and I didn't. I could have ruined the professional relationship we are building.
The more I think about it, the more sure I am in that I'm not ready for a serious relationship with anyone right now. I need to work through what happened with Haley and get to a better place. I value your friendship too much to have you be a rebound. But it doesn't mean I don't care about you."
Emily sighed and nodded, understanding where he was coming from. She had come to a similar conclusion about herself and what she needed. She would rather keep things the same that try to push a relationship neither of them is ready for and ruin what they have.
Looking over at him, she answered, "no to say that shows me you do care. I do understand Aaron. Given my own reactions, I don't think I'm ready either. I value our friendship too. I don't want to lose that now that we got all of the anger at each other out of the way about what happened years ago."
She stood up and walked over in front of him before nudging him to stand. Once he was, she wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug that he quickly reciprocated. They stayed in the hug for several minutes, enjoying the closeness as they knew when it was over that they were going to be putting some separation between them, at least for a while.
"Thank you." Hotch whispered in her ear before they slowly let go and each took a step back.
The awkward silence that followed was broken when Emily gently asked, "have you been sleeping in here?"
"Yeah. I won't sleep in my room again." Hotch answered stoically though Emily could see the misery in his face. From his answer she could infer that what was happening with Haley was somehow involved in the decision. But he didn't elaborate and she wasn't going to ask.
Hoping that the couch as a temporary measure, she asked, "what are your plans?"
Hotch sighed before answering, "either have the house be part of Haley's settlement in the divorce or sell it. She wanted this house so she will probably decide to keep it. Either way, I need to go look at apartments soon."
"Well Garcia was very helpful in finding options that met my criteria." Emily offered as the technical analyst's help had saved her a lot of time. While she knew how little free time she had, she knew as Unit Chief, Hotch had even less.
"Yeah I need to talk to her." Hotch answered as he expected that Garcia could help but making the step just made the situation all the more real. He was brought out of his thoughts when Emily asked, "what's this?"
He looked up to see Emily running her fingers over the rich detailing on the wooden chest that was next to his desk. Smiling, he answered, "oh this is where Jack likes to hang out when he is in here while I'm doing non BAU paperwork - bills, taxes, etc.
I always kept case files in the locked drawers of the desk so he would never see them. I keep the room locked when I'm not in here so he can never get in and see something he shouldn't.
But when I'd work in here he'd hang out in there, we'd talk and he'd help me on whatever it was I was working."
Emily smiled back as he saw him visibly relax and he talked about his son.
After talking for a while longer, Emily let Hotch know that she was ready to head back to the FBI building to get her car. She declined his offer to just take her home as it would have her without her car in the morning.
As they were getting ready to leave the house, Emily turned to him and asked, "can I kiss you?"
Hotch considered the question briefly before nodding as he stepped in closer to her. Emily stepped closer to him as she put one hand around his torso while the other went up to his shoulder.
Their kiss was hesitant at first as neither of them wanted to escalate as it had Friday night. And then before either was truly ready, Hotch pulled back and rested his forehead against hers. They looked at each other and then took a step back, not sure what they should do or say next.
It was then that headed back to Hotch's car knowing while difficult they had made the right decision for now.