Two Dress Shirts Chapter Two

Disclaimer: Not Mine

A/N – Wow. This has been my most commented story yet which is simultaneously awesome and scary as crap. I hope that I can keep you interested!

"Are you ignoring me?" Derek said to Emily the following day in the office.

"Kind of." She answered frankly. "But you're making it hard." She was referring to the fact that he'd shown up at her townhouse and placed multiple calls to her cell.

He hadn't been expecting that answer and it made him frown. "Oh."

Emily took pity on him, gently squeezing his arm. "I just need to think, Derek."

"About?" He prompted.

"Whether or not Sergio is getting a balanced diet." She snarked. "Really? You have to ask?" She smirked at him. "That was quite a declaration you made."

He let two agents pass him as they meandered around the office. "I don't understand what the problem is." He hissed, lowly. "It shouldn't have come as a huge surprise."

It had. "Well I don't think this is the place to discuss it." She hissed back.

He frowned as all kind of activity seemed to explode around them, preventing him from saying anything further. He groaned as he watched Garcia hone in on them knowing that he wasn't going to get any further chance to discuss it.

"Oh you're back." She raced towards him and enveloped him in a tight hug. "It's so lonely here without you guys." She turned and gave Prentiss the same treatment.

"It's not our fault you can't travel with us, Baby Girl." Morgan told her, throwing an arm across her shoulder. "You're the one that had to go and get knocked up."

Penelope Garcia was currently seven and a half months pregnant. It was hard to say who was most anxious for her to deliver but the office pool was currently betting on the man walking towards her with a bouquet of flowers.

"Garcia," He began gruffly. "I just want to apologize…"

As usual, the blonde steamrolled right over him. "Are those for me?" Garcia held out her hands to accept the flowers Hotch was holding out stiffly towards her.

The man in front of her took a deep fortifying breath. "I'm sorry I upset you, I assure you that wasn't my intent. You know how highly I value your contributions to this team." He instinctively attempted a step backwards as her bottom lip trembled.

"Oh sir." Before Hotch could move she had him in her clutches. "You say the nicest things. I'm sorry I'm such a mess." She sniffled as both Prentiss and Morgan, clearly reading the distress signals their leader was conveying, tried to extract him from her grasp. "This wasn't necessary." She blubbered.

"Why don't we put these in some water, Pen?" Emily told her, finally successful in disengaging her.

"How much longer before she goes on leave?" A completely flustered Hotch asked an amused Morgan.

"She's probably got another eight possibly ten weeks." A fact he knew from the countdown calendar that she had installed on his computer.

Hotch rubbed a hand over his face. "You may need to take lead on all Garcia related contact. I'm going to go broke or end up crying myself if I have to navigate through that again." He shook his head at the departing figure.

Morgan just laughed. "You know that she adores you."

"Right." Hotch shot him a look full of disbelief. "Which is why every time I say something she thinks I'm critiquing her and bursts into tears, the last episode all I did was say her name." He shrugged at the other man. "I even kept my voice clear of any inflection."

Morgan laughed. "I don't know what to tell you, I'm certainly no expert on women."

Hotch opened his mouth and closed it, looking at the other man with sheer puzzlement. "I don't even know what to say to that."

"Listen, I won't mention you being close to tears if you don't mention my non expert status." He offered him his hand to seal the deal.

"Done." Hotch said, slapping his hand in his subordinates. "But seriously, you're going to handle her for the next eight to ten weeks, right?"

JJ ran into Emily on her way out of Garcia's lair. "Hey."

"Hey. How's our little momma today?" She looked towards the office.

"Hotch brought her flowers," Emily grinned, "Because he made her cry. Again."

JJ winced. "He made her cry?" The poor man was probably going to start hiding from her. Hotch was always appreciative of everything that Pen did for the team but dealing with her was becoming increasingly difficult for him.

Emily snickered. "It gets better. Now she's worried about him. She's decided that he's too sweet not to have a woman to take care of him. She thinks he's lonely and wants to find him a woman."

JJ's face looked like she just swallowed something distasteful. "Oh?"

"It gets better, she's recruited Dave to help, and she's going to ask you too since you know him so well." The snicker developed into a snort.

The blonde's head turned to make sure that no one overheard Emily's insinuation. "That's not funny." She glanced back at Garcia's office and knew that she was going to have to go in there and dissuade her from her plans. In a manner that didn't give away her own feelings for the man. "You couldn't talk her out of it?"

Emily gave her a look of complete disbelief. "She was difficult, at best, when she wasn't a hormonal land mine." She looked at her friend. "You realize that once she sets this in motion that she's not only going to aim for Hotch. She's going to try to partner up all of us?"

"You are so right, Miss Smartypants." Neither had seen the intrepid TA hovering around her door.

JJ winced wondering what, if anything, she'd overheard.

"Did Emily tell you?" Garcia asked her. "What do you think? Because Aaron Hotchner is absolutely the best. Did you know he brought me flowers?" Her eyes watered. "He so deserves to be happy." The first tear spilled over.

Ah man, not the tears! "Oh Pen, I know, he does, but honey, Hotch is a very private person. He will not appreciate you interfering in his personal life, regardless that it is with the best of intentions." She turned to Emily for support.

"She's right, Pen. Hotch won't be happy." She attempted to assist JJ.

"But that's the beauty. He doesn't even need to know that we're doing it." She squealed in glee. "Rossi is going to arrange everything." She clapped her hands. "You're going to help aren't you?"

JJ's jaw was so tight Emily was concerned. "No. I can't to be party to this. I know that your heart is in the right place but I think it's a mistake." She dropped her eyes. "I've got to get back to work."

"Peaches?" Garcia watched in confusion as her friend walked away. "What the heck just happened?"

Emily sighed and tried to do damage control. "Pen, you know that Jay holds Hotch in the highest esteem, and she would never do anything to jeopardize that. Well this potentially could. You are one of her best friends and you're asking her to put herself in the middle when she knows that he won't appreciate it. Hotch," She looked at the pregnant woman and sighed, "well, Hotch is afraid of you so he won't take his displeasure out on you but JJ is another story."

"But, but, Dave is Hotch's best friend and he thinks it's a great idea." Garcia pouted.

"This is also the same guy that paid a stripper to give him a lap dance while we were working on a case. Sometimes he doesn't have the brightest ideas." Emily kindly pointed out.

Pen thought that over. "Huh, good point." She looked at JJ's retreating figure sadly. "I don't want JJ to get blamed for anything."

"Right, so maybe instead of finding Hotch someone you should turn that focus onto Rossi. Then maybe he would be too busy to plot against Hotch." She gave her a wide smile. "Hotch would definitely appreciate that."

Garcia's smile was slow. "You are sneaky Miss Prentiss. I like it." She looked in the direction JJ had gone. "Will you make sure you tell her that I'm not going to do anything? That I'd never do anything that got her in trouble."

"I know." She gave her friends arm a comforting squeeze. "JJ knows that too." She let out a heavy sigh when Garcia turned and moved back into her office. Turning around she started back towards her desk when suddenly two strong arms grabbed her and pulled her into JJ's old liaison office. Instinct kicked in and she gave her captive a hard elbow to the solar plexus.

"Damn woman, what is wrong with you?" Derek growled as he abruptly released her.

"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with you? What are you doing skulking around the hallway and pulling me into vacant offices?" She frowned when she looked up to find him grinning at her.

"Mmm mmm mmm, my god you are fine when you're pissed." He moved closer and placed his hands on her hips. "You can kick my ass any day."

"Are you nuts?" She hissed, slapping at his hands but he wasn't turning her loose. "We're at work you idiot."

"I don't like to be ignored." He informed her.

"Would you like to be shot?"

"Come on, Em. Cut me some slack, I put myself out there and your response is to flee." He pulled her close. "I'm a patient man, but give me a sign here."

"I told you I needed to think." She told him softly, but she didn't try to create any space, if anything she drew closer.

He smiled. "I know, but can I see you while you think?" His hands moved from her waist around her back and suddenly she was pressed up tightly against him. "I missed you last night."

She couldn't resist telling him that she'd missed him too. At which point he couldn't resist giving her a sample of what she'd missed. His mouth was cruising down her neck when she finally remembered where they were and pushed away from him. "What are you doing?" She asked breathless.

"Just saying hello." He told her with a grin.

"See? This is exactly why I can't think around you." She said backing up.

"What's to think about Em? I love you I want to be with you." Morgan told her.

"You're going to get us both written up." She mumbled.

"I don't care." He told her. "I love this job, but I love you more. I know that you doubt my sincerity. I just don't know what I need to do to prove to you that I'm serious. I want this. I want to be happy. With you."

Emily's eyes were huge and glassy by the time he finished. "I don't doubt your sincerity. Just… Why are you doing this here?"

"Because you wouldn't open your door last night." He reminded her.

She gave a tiny sigh. "Can we talk about it tonight?"

"Are you going to answer your door?"

She smiled. "Yes."

He moved before she could anticipate it. "Good." He wrapped her in his arms and kissed her deeply.

"Jeez, knock it off." She pushed off of him once again but she was smiling. "I have to get back to work. I think I need to do some mediation training, that's all I've been doing this morning."

He smirked. "I know. I've been lying in wait for you for a while." He'd followed her after parting with Hotch. "You want to tell me what's going on with JJ?"

"I don't have a clue what you're talking about?"

Derek nodded. "Sure. You might have waited half a second before you denied it, then I may have believed you." He looked at her. "She definitely had some reservations about Garcia setting Hotch up."

"Of course she did, it was a bad idea. Because Hotch would be pissed but he can't take it out on Garcia, like I said she would just cry and he'd feel bad so he'd take it out on JJ, and even if she didn't agree with Garcia she'd end up defending her because she's JJ and that's what she does."

He nodded. "That is highly plausible, but I think there's more."

"Gosh," She huffed, "Then take it up with JJ not me. Again, I'm just trying to help my friend out."

He studied her as she moved to the door. "We're not going to start a relationship with you keeping secrets are we?"

"I don't know are we starting a relationship? Perhaps we can discuss that topic this evening." She told him with a smile as she breezed out of the door.

Thanks for reading! Thank you so much for all the comments, favorites and follows I sincerely appreciate the interest.