Author's Note: See how much I can crank out when properly motivated?
Thank you to everyone who dropped a note on the last one. I didn't actually have time to write back to anyone yet AND write this, but I will :)
And I wanted to add on a related note, your reviews gave me some good ideas! I don't want to 'ruin' anything now so I'll explain at the end a couple bits I added specifically because of stuff somebody said.
Kaleidoscopes
They pulled into the driveway of the grandparents' ranch just after six. The shadows were getting long, but not from the lateness of the hour. Off in the distance, Aaron could see that black clouds were moving in from the East.
There would be a storm tonight.
As he slipped the keys from the ignition, he heard a rustling of the paper and plastic bags in the backseat. Emily was picking up their purchases, both from the farm stand and the little mom and pop grocery that they'd just stopped at in the center of town. And just like a few hours before, again he slipped off his sunglasses, turning to face her before he got out of the car.
"I want you to stay here while I check the place out. So," he extended his hand, "keys please."
Emily nodded as she began digging into her purse for the house key. A second later she yanked something from the depths of her bag and handed it to him.
Aaron's lips began to twitch as he accepted the item from her hand.
"Uh," he cleared his throat, "thanks."
The keys were attached to a giant Donald Duck key chain.
Seeing his amusement, Emily chuckled.
"I know. It's just that I don't use these keys very often and I was afraid that I'd lose them. That was the biggest keychain I could find."
He gave her a little grin.
"So I guess if you had a bigger bag, then you would have hung them off a hub cap."
Emily's mouth quivered in response.
"Get me a bigger bag and we'll find out."
That was the third joke since they got back on the road. Now that they were on first names he'd really loosened up.
And it was so nice to see him smile!
He had DIMPLES! She hadn't known that before, but she'd said something to him in the car about the big oaf in the parking lot and he'd grinned at her in the mirror.
It was adorable.
Aaron snorted at Emily's joke, but then his amusement began to fade as he looked back at her again.
Even if the car was locked and he was only a scream away, he really wasn't feeling all that comfortable about leaving her alone. But he was less comfortable doing a security sweep of the house with her hanging off of his belt.
She'd be a distraction and he might miss something.
"Okay," he said gently, "you lock up and I'll be back in a few minutes."
Emily gave him a little smile,"okay," then she watched as he turned back around and stepped out of the car. A second later the door slammed shut behind him.
She immediately leaned over the seat to push down the lock.
And then through the window, she saw him remove his weapon from his holster . . . the first time she'd seen him do that since they'd met . . . and check the safety before he started around the corner of her family's summer home.
Even though she knew that it was his job, it was still a little weird seeing Agent . . . Aaron, she corrected herself . . . Aaron, actually carrying a gun.
Emily slumped back against the seat, chewing her lip.
Though she'd been around men carrying all manner of handguns and automatic weapons for her entire life, she still couldn't get used to the guns themselves. She thought that maybe it was the death of that agent years earlier that caused her personal discomfort with them.
Unlike most people, she actually had "intimate" knowledge of the damage that a bullet can inflict.
But the problem with that was, she'd been considering maybe going into law enforcement herself. But her gun phobia was clearly a stumbling block there. How could she possibly join any agency or police department tasked with protecting the public, and not carry a gun?
Well . . . she huffed to herself . . . she could move to England and become a bobby, but she'd really hoped to stay a little closer to home.
She sighed, well, maybe this weekend she could ask Aaron if he'd take her target shooting out by the woods. Perhaps if she had more direct knowledge of what she was afraid of, she'd stop being so afraid.
Okay . . . she checked her watch . . . something to remember to ask him after dinner.
/*/*/*/*
It only took Aaron a few minutes to finish his sweep of the yard.
Though he'd never been there before, he didn't find anything that looked amiss to him. No footprints, signs of squatters, etc.
Just as he was coming back around the front of the house, he remembered that he needed to the water on.
So he turned back the way that he'd just coming.
Fortunately the family had the power on to the house from May to October. That was really very lucky because he would have hated to have to call the electric company for this weekend trip.
He might have actually vetoed the whole thing if it had come down to such a public advertisement of their activities.
But as it was, all he had to deal with was the water. And once he was done turning the gauge, he circled back around the house again. And after a quick check to make sure Emily was still right where he left her . . . sitting in the car, she gave him a little wave . . . he headed up the wide wooden steps leading to the open porch of the Prentiss family's summer home.
The ridiculous key chain went back into his pocket after he unlocked the front door.
Then he slowly pushed the heavy oak door and stepped inside the entry way.
Emily had told him there was a security panel just inside the door, and his eyes slid quickly to the left to locate the flashing the red lights. He quickly punched in the code she'd given him before the alarm went off.
And then . . . keeping his weapon out, but safety on . . . he began a quick search of the downstairs.
The place was pretty big. Six rooms on the lower level, pine floors, fire places in all the rooms, including the kitchen. It wasn't so much a family ranch . . . the term Emily used that kept making him think of cattle . . . as more a roomy New England style country home.
It was really nice.
He actually liked it even better than the main house he'd been staying at the last couple weeks. And that house made his very nice one bedroom apartment in Alexandria look like a room in the homeless shelter.
His eyes ran admiringly over the wainscoting running the length of the hallways . . . but if this was his place, he'd be here all the time.
And apparently . . . he started up the main staircase off the living room . . . they were here all the time when Emily was younger.
At least that's what she'd been saying in the car.
But since her grandfather's stroke a few years ago, and her mother's appointment to the cabinet halfway through the president's second term . . . she said they were lucky to get up there a week every summer.
His eyes scanned the thick layer of dust covering the railing . . . apparently they didn't get here at all this year.
He started feel a pang of sympathy for the pretty girl waiting for him in the car. He'd noticed on the last leg of their journey, that Emily had seemed sad as she talked about the happy memories she had of coming here when she was a child.
It was obvious that she missed things being the way they were before. Probably going many years back, before her mother joined the cabinet, and her father had become the Minority Whip.
Even if she was an adult now, Aaron could see that if the only real family she had, literally had NO time for her, that would be very depressing.
Though she hadn't actually come out and used that word, that's what he'd inferred from her subdued tone.
That's when Aaron realized that today was the first time that her conversation had been of a melancholy nature. Usually she was cheerful, talking about anything and everything.
Not that she ever sounded mindless or inane, not at all.
Emily was very intelligent and well educated, so she could literally go on for hours about almost any topic. And that was what had been an adjustment for him.
But . . . his brow wrinkled as a thought came to him . . . she never really talked about anything personal. He hadn't noticed that before. She didn't talk about friends or going to clubs or boyfriends or really anything typically social for a girl in college.
Though he knew because of the security detail that there was no current boyfriend, he found it hard to believe that a girl like her had never been in a serious relationship.
She was pretty, intelligent, kind hearted and good natured. Anybody with a brain should have snatched her up.
His lips pursed as he walked slowly around the second floor . . . but maybe not though.
Because, as he thought about the kind of girl that she was in the context of the life that she had led . . . he didn't see her being very trusting of strangers.
So it was probably hard for her to meet people.
He felt a stab of guilt . . . that's why she'd been trying so hard with him these past couple weeks. They were almost the same age, he was "safe," and she was probably looking for someone to talk to.
And he'd rebuffed her at every turn.
Even if he'd had a good reason, still though . . . he sighed . . . he felt like a real jerk.
Now that he'd finished the upstairs sweep, as he stood in the hall his eyes again tracked over the layers of dust, and the cobwebs in the corners of the bedrooms. Now he was seeing it all in a new light.
This was her favorite place in the world . . . and nobody had been here in months.
Maybe even a year.
A wave of sadness filled his heart. He was starting to see that perhaps he wasn't the only one that had been projecting a certain image these past few weeks.
Him of being professionally detached from any feelings for her. And her . . . he stopped to look at a Christmas photo from Emily's youth . . . and her . . . he felt a knot in his stomach as he traced her smiling face . . . her of being a happy girl.
That was just an illusion.
Grinding his teeth for a moment at that realization, Aaron turned back around to look through the second floor picture window. It faced the woods behind the house.
At this time of year the foliage was so thick that he couldn't see anything past the tree line.
They were definitely isolated out here. And that most likely meant there would be no problems this weekend.
But on the flipside . . . the knot in his stomach twisted a little tighter . . . if something happened, there would be no backup.
None at all.
And with that disturbing thought . . . one he could have done without . . . Aaron suddenly took note of how much darker out it was now than when he'd come in a few minutes before. Though when he checked his watch, his eyes widened in alarm as he realized that it hadn't just been a 'few' minutes.
It had been almost ten.
SHIT!
He spiraled around on his heel and starting running down the staircase.
SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!
Though intellectually he knew that the premature darkness was just the storm clouds rolling in, he suddenly felt absolutely panic stricken about leaving Emily outside by herself.
Finally Aaron burst through the front door and sprinted down the steps. But he didn't let loose the breath he'd been holding, until he saw Emily still waiting patiently in the backseat.
She was just fine. And seeing that, his breath came out in a huff.
OH THANK YOU GOD! He thought as he smacked his knuckles on the window.
Thank you for that.
Emily jumped at the sharp rapping on the glass beside her.
'WHAT THE . . .!'
Then she let out the breath she'd sucked in when she saw it was Aaron back again. With a shake of her head, she leaned over to unlock the door. And as he pulled it open, she shot him a little scowl. "You scared me."
Her heart had stopped for a second. It was getting darker out and she was really hoping he got back before the thunder rolled in.
"I'm sorry," Aaron said apologetically with a wince at her reproach, "I didn't mean to," he put his hand out, "I just realized that it's going to rain soon, so we need to get everything inside quickly."
'Also I was afraid that somebody was going to slip out of the woods, break the glass and slash your throat while I was upstairs fucking around,' was the NON verbalized part of that sentence.
After he'd helped Emily out of the back seat, he paused for a moment to look down at her.
This trip was suddenly starting to seem like a bad idea.
Seeing the odd look on Aaron's face, Emily's brow wrinkled quizzically as she tipped her head to the side.
"Is something wrong?"
It was strange, but he looked almost . . . nervous. And this was a man who . . . in the two weeks that she'd known him . . . seemed pretty much unflappable. He'd stared down that huge creep in the parking lot without so much as a blink.
And that guy didn't even have a NECK!
"No," Aaron dragged his eyes away from Emily's to scan the dark woods around them, "no, everything's fine," he put his hand between her shoulder blades and guided her around to the trunk. "I was just thinking that maybe it would be best if we didn't separate again."
She stopped and looked up at him worriedly, "did you see something in the house that bothered you?"
Realizing that he was freaking her out . . . and most likely very unnecessarily, his rational brain pointed out . . . Aaron quickly shook his head. "No, no, not at all. Just being cautious. It's a little quieter out here than I'm used to, and I guess it's just making me a bit . . . jumpy."
That's all it was. Just the change in scenery.
Nothing more.
Emily suddenly realized that his arm had slid all the way around her shoulders and he was pulling her against his side. It would have been really nice if she didn't feel a bit of desperation in the way he was gripping her.
He definitely seemed rattled. And after years of living around the world with people that were trained to keep them alive, she'd learned not to dismiss their instincts.
If he was this jumpy, even if he was just chalking it up to country living . . . she moved an inch closer to him . . . then she'd go with his instincts too.
Feeling Emily's hair tickle his chin, Aaron suddenly realized how close he'd pulled her to his body. And though it was inadvertent . . . just protective instinct really . . . he knew that it wasn't particularly appropriate either.
Well, at least for the next two weeks it wasn't very appropriate.
But then . . . he inhaled those roses again . . . well, he'd decided upstairs that maybe he'd see if she wanted to maybe go out sometime.
His gaze shifted back to the dark woods as he breathed in her scent once more.
Though he might have found her chatter a little frustrating at times, he had a feeling that he was going to really miss it when it was gone. And now that he'd begun to see that her little castle was made out of nothing but sand, he couldn't imagine completely cutting her out of his life once this was done.
It would feel a bit like abandoning her.
And for now . . . he rubbed her shoulder for a moment before he pulling his arm away to slip the key into the trunk . . . he felt better with her stuck to his side anyway.
It was safer.
But he knew that having her stuck to his side meant that it was going to take forever to empty the car. So he looked down at her with a raised eyebrow.
"How about we just move everything up to the porch and then afterwards we'll bring it in together?"
That way neither of them would be more than ten feet from the other.
Emily nodded as she shifted the paper bag in her arms, "sounds good. I'll just go drop this by the door and then I'll come back down and get my bag."
He watched her jog up the steps and drop her purse and groceries, then he turned back to begin pulling things out of the trunk. She was at his side again ten seconds later, hefting both of their duffel bags over her shoulder.
"Hey," he scowled slightly as he reached over, pulling them off of her shoulder and slipping them onto his own, "I'll carry those. They're heavy. Here," he pulled out the box with her VCR in it, "this isn't too bad."
She rolled her eyes good naturedly at him. "You know I work out every day. I bet I could have carried two duffel bags without tipping over into the dirt."
His eyebrow went up knowingly, "uh, but if you did tip over into the dirt then I'd have to carry the duffel bags AND you up the steps. And you'd be all dusty," he shot a dimple at her, "you'd mess up my good suit."
She chuckled, "nice save," before she turned and jogged up the stairs again.
Aaron grabbed the cooler of soft drinks and followed her up, dumping that, the duffels and the bag full of her videotapes and books into the pile.
"Crap," Emily said as she saw the first fat wet drop hit the roof of the car, "it's beginning to rain."
They both hurried back down the steps again and Emily grabbed the pillows and blankets out of the trunk . . . she wasn't sure if the ones in the house would smell musty . . . and Aaron ran around the side to get the two other bags of groceries from the back seat.
He slipped those handles through his fingers, grabbed his jacket hanging over the seat, and slammed the door shut. Just as he ran up the steps behind Emily the sky opened up.
She grinned at him, "just made it."
His lip quirked up, "yup," then he scooped the duffels back onto his shoulder and gestured with his chin, "after you."
After Emily had Aaron's jacket from him, she stepped inside with that, and the pillows and blankets. Then she disappeared around the corner to drop the things they didn't want to get dirty onto the couch. He dropped his armful onto the entryway rug, and turned back to heft the rest of their items through the open doorway.
Emily returned a second later and started sliding everything down the hall that Aaron had put inside.
All in all it didn't take more than a minute or so before all of their stuff was transferred off the porch.
Then Aaron stepped in, locked the door, hit the two deadbolts and set the alarm.
When he looked up he saw Emily looking worriedly at him.
"Are you sure there's nothing specific that's bothering you?" She took a step closer to him, "you can tell me you know. I'm not going to go all girly hysterical."
He closed the small distance between them and reached out to squeeze her fingers.
"I promise you Emily," he said seriously, "I wouldn't keep a secret like that from you. If there was something to be concerned about I would tell you. And honestly, if there was ANY concrete reason to be worried, you should know by now that I'd toss you back into the car and drive all night back to the city," he gave her a little smile, "really, I'm just a city kid and not used to all the quiet. It's rattling my nerves."
That was all it was. He was sure that's all it was.
In two weeks there had been no further threats against her. And there was no possibility that they'd been followed from DC . . . the drive was too long and the roads were too backwater. So nobody knew they were here now except for his boss and the team watching the house back home. And on the ridiculously off chance that any of those totally vetted people . . . all of which carried badges . . . were behind her death threat, they would have had ample opportunity to take a shot at her in the city.
It would have been a waste of gas for them to follow them all the way out here.
Emily squinted hard at him for a moment before nodding.
"Okay, just checking," she said while leaning down to pick up the groceries they'd bought at the little market, "I've had security officers keep things from me before because they thought they were protecting me from things I couldn't handle," she straightened up then, turning back to give him a hard look as she said firmly, "don't do that to me, okay?"
He nodded once, "I promise."
There was no doubt in his mind that she was strong enough to handle whatever came along. And he wouldn't be so disrespectful as to treat her like a child.
This was her life, and she certainly had the right to know if she was in danger.
With a shake of his head at those men who had lied to her before, Aaron picked up the cooler and bag of farm stand purchases. Then he followed her down to the kitchen.
The refrigerator wouldn't be cold for a few for more hours so he put the cooler on the counter and went over to remove the lower shelves from the fridge.
The ice in the cooler was melting so he figured one inside the other would provide a bit more insulation.
When he turned back around, he saw that Emily had taken all of the soda out of the thermal box and was about to put their perishables into the icy water.
"Wait," he spotted a large metal mixing bowl on the other side of the kitchen. He went over and grabbed it, blowing off the dust as he returned to Emily and dropped it into the cooler.
It just fit.
"There," he gave self satisfied nod, "now if the bag leaks the containers won't get soggy."
Her eyes crinkled as she lowered the egg crate into the bowl, "so smart," she turned to wink at him, "they teach you that at Harvard?"
He nodded seriously, "yeah, I did an anthropology internship in Jellystone National Park."
She stared at him for a moment, saw that he was serious, and then burst out laughing, "you goofball! That's not a real park! That's where Yogi the Bear lived!"
God, what the hell did they teach him up north!
His eyebrow rose in confusion, "are you sure? Because I could have sworn it was Jellystone."
He tried really hard to keep a straight face as he stared at her but then his mouth started to quiver. And as the reality that she'd just been played hit her, Emily's jaw dropped.
"You're so dead mister!" She squealed at him.
Emily snatched an ice cube out of the cooler . . . but he'd anticipated that move. And before she could take more than a step towards him he'd caught her around the waist, pulling her against his body with one hand as his other deftly caught her arm and slipped the piece of ice out of it. Then he tossed it back into the cooler before he looked down.
"You might work out every day," he responded flatly, "but I graduated from what is essentially marine boot camp, less than seven months ago."
Her lips twitched for a second.
"Fine, I will allow that you, a trained MALE federal agent that has probably zero body fat, has greater upper body body strength than I do," then her eyebrow quirked up in amusement, "happy?"
She for one was quite happy. Her entire front was pressed against his entire front. And she didn't know what the hell he had to do to get through Quantico, but given the hard muscles she could feel she'd really like to see what he looked like without the suit on.
As the reality of what she'd just thought hit her, she started to blush profusely and dipped her head down.
'Geez . . . that was REALLY inappropriate Emily,' she chastised herself.
Aaron wasn't sure what he noticed first, that he still had Emily pinned against his body . . . he probably should let her go . . . or that she appeared to be really rattled about something.
The second realization overrode any concerns he had about the first.
And his brow wrinkled in concern as his free hand came over to lift her chin.
"Hey," he asked gently, "what's wrong?"
Trying to calm the blush from her cheeks . . . it was SO embarrassing to have your hormones take over like that(!) . . . Emily shook her head as she tried to give him a little smile.
"Uh, nothing, just . . ." her nose wrinkled, "nothing."
There wasn't really a plausible . . . platonic . . . excuse she could give him that would explain her reaction to him. She hadn't been this close to a cute guy, in well, ever.
No relationships that lasted longer than coffee meant no relationships that lasted long enough for her to even consider having sex with that person.
So . . . she swallowed hard as she looked up at him . . . Aaron Hotchner and his fabulous cheekbones were really SERIOUSLY messing with her hormones right now.
Though it was very much against his better judgment, Aaron held onto Emily a moment longer. He was just trying to figure out what her deal was . . . if she really was okay . . . but then she gave him a shy smile and he couldn't help one of his dimples sliding out of their usual hiding place.
Well, it looked like she was okay now.
And he was just about to let her go, when a huge clap of thunder broke over the house.
She jumped in his arms.
So he tightened his grip around her waist again while whispering, "it's just the storm." And when she jerked her head and whispered back a nervous, "right," he asked worriedly.
"Do thunderstorms bother you?"
The metro area had been going through a bit of a drought, so . . . even though it was the season for them . . . they hadn't had any major storms in the city for a few weeks.
At least as long as he'd been staying with her.
She shook her head, "not like phobically. I mean I'm not a big fan but," her lip quirked up, "I'm not going to go hide in the closet or anything."
"Glad to hear it," he said assuredly, then he added a beat later, "after all if you're hiding in the closet, who's going to make my dinner?"
Whether or not she was going to admit it, it was becoming obvious from the way she jumped every time the thunder boomed, that Emily had a serious problem with the thunder. He thought keeping her distracted with a joke might help alleviate some of her tension.
Also . . . he winked at her . . . it gave him a legitimate excuse to hold onto her for another minute.
He was realizing that he could easily get used to it.
Before Emily could even call Aaron a sexist pig for the dinner comment, he'd winked at her and she ended up laughing instead.
She couldn't believe the difference between "Agent Hotchner" and "Aaron" was this dramatic. And all she needed to break through the shell was to get permission to drop his title.
Hmm . . . the title thing must be his main method of keeping distance. Interesting. If only she'd realized that fact two weeks ago, she would have been working on changing what she called him rather than what he called her.
Though . . . he'd dropped her title too, so perhaps it had been the combination of both actions that resulted in this new, much more approachable, man in front of her.
Aaron smiled as he slowly let go of her and stepped back.
"I'm going to go pull the curtains and check the locks on the windows," he looked down worriedly, "you'll be okay by yourself?"
They both knew he was talking about the thunder. And he would have stayed longer in the kitchen but he didn't want to coddle her.
He didn't really think she'd appreciate it.
She smiled, "yeah, I'll be fine. Thanks."
He shot her one more dimple as he walked away calling back over his shoulder, "I'll bring the bags upstairs too."
Once he'd disappeared into the hall, Emily sighed. Then with a huff, she turned back to start putting away the groceries.
/*/*/*/*/
Aaron stood at the top of the landing. His gaze was bouncing from doorway to doorway as he tried to decide just where the hell they were supposed to sleep. He'd already done the sweep up here earlier, so he knew that the room on the far right was a master suite.
As was the room down the opposite side of the hall.
Okay . . . he started working things out logically . . . so those would be the rooms . . . most likely . . . where the grandparents and Emily's folks stayed.
That left three more moderate sized bedrooms running next to each other down the hall.
And after poking his head into each one, he decided that the second one was most likely where Emily stayed when she was visiting.
There was nothing that he could put his finger on that made that guest room any more likely to be hers than the other two, but he still felt good about his choice.
So he went in to drop her things on the bed when he suddenly saw a brown recluse spider crawling across the headboard.
Without even thinking, he dropped everything that he was holding to dive over and smack it with the palm of his hand before it disappeared. And hearing the crunch . . . and feeling the squish . . . he knew that he'd definitely killed it.
Though the body had disappeared behind the bed.
For a moment he considered going looking for it . . . just because it seemed rude to leave an insect corpse in someone's home . . . but then his nose wrinkled unpleasantly as he felt the venom start to make his hand itch.
Well, he comforted himself as headed back out to the main bathroom off the hall, at least it hadn't BITTEN him.
Still though . . . he rolled his eyes . . . that probably wasn't his wisest move. But as soon as he'd seen it, he'd just suddenly pictured it crawling into Emily's hair when she was sleeping. From there he kind of acted on instinct.
A stupid instinct perhaps, but . . . he turned on the faucet with a sigh . . . he'd meant well.
It took almost thirty seconds for the water to run clear from the rust in the pipes, and then he ran his hand underneath it, rinsing off the poisonous venom. He picked up an old piece of soap off the ink, scrubbed up and then rinsed again.
His palm was still a little pink and warm when he was done, but he could see that there were no puncture marks, and it had stopped itching. Basically he figured if he just left it alone, it would be fine.
Hopefully.
Before he left the bathroom, Aaron dug around under the sink until he found some old rags. Then he sprayed one with 409 and brought it back down to the room where he'd just killed the spider. He washed the guts off the headboard and then wiped the cobwebs out of the corners and from the lamp. After that, he folded the towel in half and wiped the layer of dust off all of the surfaces in the room.
And once that was done, he took the blankets off the bed, shook them out . . . and put them back on again.
Once the room looked clean . . . and most importantly, spider free . . . he picked up Emily's things and put them down on the end of bed.
Though it was probably nuts, he suddenly had an image of the current pillow being a brown recluse nest. And the thought rattled him enough that he grabbed the pillow by the corner and yanked it off the bed before he threw it out the door.
He replaced it with the one she'd brought from home.
After Emily's room was all put back together nicely, he went out to the landing and yelled down the stairs.
"You doing okay?"
The thunder was down to a low rumble.
She immediately called back, "I'm good, just finished cleaning the kitchen so I can start dinner."
He yelled back, "'kay, I'll be down in a few. I'm just wiping things down up here."
After another trip to the bathroom to wet a fresh rag, Aaron went in and cleaned out his bedroom in a similar fashion as he'd done hers.
That pillow also went flying into the hall.
And once he'd put everything away he also decided to wipe the dust off the railing and clean the bathroom . . . might as well get the whole upstairs livable . . . before he kicked both pillows down the stairs, unlocked the front door and put them out on the porch.
Sometimes you just get creeped out enough that no rationalization will make the creepy thought go away. And sme small part of his brain was convinced that there were spiders nesting in those pillows. And it wasn't that farfetched an idea . . . so it just got stuck in his head.
He shuddered as he relocked the front door.
Gross.
"Are you okay?"
Aaron spun around on his heel to see Emily looking at him with curious amusement.
Crap.
"Uh yeah," he stepped away from the door, "I uh, just needed to put some stuff outside to air out."
That statement was just close enough to the truth for him to say it with a straight face.
Emily tipped her head, "oh, okay. Well, I got your pie in the oven and I was just about to start dinner, but then I realized I didn't ask what you wanted."
They'd picked up hot dogs, hamburgers and deli meat.
Aaron started walking closer as he gave her a little smile, "why don't we just have hot dogs and maybe a salad. That'll be quick and easy, right?"
Though he really appreciated her making the pie for him, he did hate to put her out.
He was there to look after her, NOT for her to wait on him.
Tomorrow he figured he could do hamburgers outside, and then he'd be contributing a little bit to the dinner prep. He would have offered to cook something before, but again, he was trying to maintain that detached professionalism. And he was afraid that with them already living together and watching the news together and splitting English muffins in the morning together, if he started actually making meals with her too, then things would get a little too . . . domestic.
But he figured that now that they were on a first name basis . . . and he'd for all intents, basically taken the girl away for the weekend(!) . . . there was really no way to avoid the domesticity trap. So he decided that he might as well just loosen up a little and start pitching in to help on the few things that he wasn't before.
Emily nodded as they started to walk back towards the kitchen, "yeah, that sounds good," then her lip quirked up as she shot him a look, "do you think you can 'cook' the hotdogs while I do the salad?"
For the past two weeks, they'd been eating take out or she'd been cooking dinner for both of them. So she had no idea the extent of his culinary abilities. He always helped out with the dishes, but he hadn't actually prepared a meal in front of her.
He looked down at her, "do you mean, can I boil water? Yes, yes Emily, I can boil water," he stated flatly.
For the past decade he'd been living completely on his own. So he could actually make most basic meals and they came out quite edible if he did say so himself.
"Learn that at Jellystone too, did you?" she asked with amusement as they reentered the huge farm kitchen.
His eyebrow rose in surprise, "how did you know?"
She laughingly threw a dishtowel at him, "just get cracking on those hot dogs there Ranger Smith!"
He caught the towel one handed just before it hit his face. Then he winked at her before he dropped it back on the counter.
"Yes, ma'am."
A/N 2: If you don't know it, Yogi the Bear was a Hanna Barbera cartoon from the 60s. And Ranger Smith was the one that was always trying to keep Yogi from stealing those picnic baskets :)
As to the title, hopefully it wasn't too "yeah, that's kind of random sienna" :) It was just of an image in my mind of turning the little knob and suddenly seeing the world in a completely different way. Which is obviously how the chapter goes. That was the only word I could think of that summed it up.
Pakiesgirl posed/raised a question about whether or not Emily would have had the abortion in this world. And I figured no, with the change in circumstances (for one thing they were already back home by the time she was 15) and I didn't see her issues with her mom or her self esteem being that severe that she'd be rebelling in such a self destructive way. But then I started thinking about that more (thanks again to the review) and thought that going the opposite way with her might work better here. So in this world, they've been much more high profile, so she's been more isolated and taught to not be trusting of strangers at all. So she's kind of taken that rule to heart, and as a result she's not very experienced around men. As I said to KittyDemon18, I see her as "introverted extrovert". She projects this image of herself, the person she wants to be, but in actuality she's very shy so she talks to fill the silence and keep from getting nervous. I don't see her with self esteem issues, just really lonely with a bit of social anxiety.
Also, Hotch/Aaron, I've changed his background enough that I probably won't make him quite as messed up either. Again, as in the other AU, he hasn't gone to the BAU so his world is much lighter. In case you don't know the term, HRT is Hostage Rescue (sort of the FBI version of SWAT) so he hasn't even gotten that far out into the world yet that he would have lost anyone on the job.
And if him joking around with her now seems a bit unusual, keep in mind his age (27, 28), and the canon story about him wooing Haley with the Pirates of Penzance. He's now acknowledged to himself that he's attracted to Emily and that would be a bit of the back in the day, more lighthearted Aaron making an appearance. Really, now that he's made an ass out of himself by showing how badly he screwed things up with Haley, there's no reason to go back to the stiff formal interactions. It would be kind of silly. He figures as long as he keeps his hands/lips to himself for the next two weeks then there's no reason that he can't just be normal with her.
I know I did some POTENTIAL foreshadowing with his panic attack about leaving her alone. Not sure how I'm going to play the whole thing out yet so you'll just have to wait and see. We'll find out together ;)
Lastly, but certainly not leastly ;) Chiroho pointed out some excellent points about how far the dollar would have stretched back in early 90s so I'm going to tweak a couple things in chapter 2. But, even more importantly (!) you can thank him for Hotch's whole brown recluse mental meltdown. He made a comment about my Spiderman line and that made ME think of Peter Parker getting bit by the radioactive spider and then the next thing you know, Aaron's diving across the room and freaking out about a nest of imaginary spiders living in their pillows. I thought giving him a little normal freak out neuroses would be refreshing. I figure "grownup" Hotch would have dismissed such a thought as nonsense and just made the bed up. His younger self would kick the pillows down the stairs and whip them out in the rain :)
I really might get another one of these up tonight. Though that would probably be at the sacrifice of anything else. I was SO not planning on getting completely sucked into this world with them but I can like see their whole cabin in my head and smell Emily's pie baking and I hate to leave them alone for too long. Somebody could be lurking in the woods ;)
Seriously guys, really do appreciate the feedback, as you can see, you can totally influence the course of the story with the most innocuous of remarks.
