Author's Note: First off, Happy Mother's Day! And if you're looking for Mother's Day stories there are a couple up in the TV Prompt forum :)

As to THIS story, we're picking up with them a few hours after dinner.

Finding a Pattern

Hotch stepped out of the bathroom, trying to stifle his yawn as he looked across the room. Then his brow knitted together in a scowl.

"Prentiss! Are you dropping food on my bed?"

God, he'd only left her alone for ninety seconds! But . . . he watched her frantically try to hide the remains of the petit four by shoving the whole thing in her mouth . . . it was his own fault for not hiding the box of pastry that the chef had given her.

They'd finished dinner almost two hours ago and that meant it was just about the time she'd be looking for some dessert.

"Um . . . no?" Emily garbled around the scrumptious pastry she'd just jammed into her mouth.

When in doubt a rhetorical nonsensical answer was always the way to go.

But she could immediately tell from the look on Hotch's face that her response wasn't accomplishing the deflection that she had intended. And a second later she knew why.

"You have frosting on your nose."

Hotch stated flatly as he crossed his arms at his chest. To which Emily smiled sweetly . . . he could now see the chocolate on her teeth . . . before she wiped the back of her hand over her nose. Then she leaned down and picked up something off the floor.

She turned back, swallowing her bite as she held the box up.

"Want one? They're really good!"

If a nonsense answer doesn't work, a bribe is also a good deflection. Granted Hotch wasn't generally into sweets, but she had nothing else to entice him with at the moment. Well, she of course had other "stuff," to entice him with, but they didn't actually have that kind of relationship.

Besides, sexual favors seemed rather an extreme apology for dropping some petit four bits on his bedspread. And yes, she did acknowledge that she had indeed dropped food on his bed after he SPECIFICALLY told when they got the box of desserts to NOT make a mess on said bed. But she was going to clean it up! Really, she was.

Just as soon as she figured out how to get butter cream frosting out of brocade silk with only spit and a fingernail.

Hotch's jaw twitched once before he rolled his eyes and walked back over to the white board.

Sometimes it was best to just let it go.

"Okay," he picked up his marker again, "what have we learned so far?"

Realizing that she'd somehow already been forgiven for making a mess on his bed . . . that was easy(!) . . . Emily quickly dropped the box of delicious pastries back on the floor as she picked up her notepad again.

"Um," she sucked the chocolate off her teeth as she read over her notes, "you know I was thinking that it might be easier if we do the geographic overlay before we do the summary."

After a few seconds of not hearing Hotch say anything in response to her suggestion, Emily lifted her eyes to see him looking quizzically at her.

"Why do you say that?"

It wasn't the way they usually approached these things. There was a process and the first step in the process . . . after they reviewed the evidence, which they had just spent the last two hours doing . . . was toss around what they knew, write it down, start trying to shape a profile.

Her brow scrunched up, "I don't know, it's just that," she folded her leg under her as she leaned back against the headboard, "we don't have that much time to review everything and I just thought that if we started at the end step, doing the detail work before we start getting tired, then we'd actually have something to look at while we're doing the discussion and analysis," she tipped her head, "you know what I mean?"

It wasn't the conventional approach, but Hotch . . . for all his rules . . . was generally open to new ideas. Whatever solved the case. And for some reason she just felt like they might have more luck this way.

They'd both been up for going on eighteen hours and . . . nap or not . . . at some point their mental acuity was going to be about as sharp as a butter knife.

Hotch looked at her for a moment, then over to the bulletin board where he'd pinned the maps.

City, county and geographic overlay respectively.

"Okay," he put the cap on his magic marker and picked up the pack of sticky flags, "you tell me where."

They were only here reviewing this evidence because of Emily's impassioned plea. So he figured if she thought this slightly unconventional approach was the best way to garner results, then he'd follow her lead.

And she did have a point . . . doing this part while their brains were still sharp seemed wise. They'd certainly put together profiles after longer days, but in those instances more of them were working. And more brains meant less chance that something would be missed.

With just the two of them working this way probably would be best.

Seeing Hotch pick up the box of flags, Emily realized that she was on deck.

"Oh, okay, um," she picked up the first file on the bed next to her, "start with the town map and put a red flag on 15 Howard Lane and uh," she flipped open the next one, "I guess a blue flag on 27 Maple Street."

Hotch did as requested as he clarified, "red for cats, blue for dogs?"

"Yeah," she swallowed, "right."

Up until he asked the question, she'd been doing very well all evening distancing herself from her earlier emotional response to the situation. She didn't want Hotch to think she was getting too soft so she'd been averting her eyes from the pictures . . . the little collars . . . and just reading the words on the page.

Fortunately . . . as with human victims . . . the incident reports simply referred to "the body."

And the rest of it . . . the true brutality of what had happened to those animals . . . was coached in the standard, cool detachment of police reports the world over.

The use of words like "excavate and "vivisect," rather than "gouged" or . . . "hacked."

Regardless of the species of the victim, that emotionally distant language is what enabled them to do their jobs. But now Emily had to be descriptive with the nature of the body found.

And . . . her gaze drifted to the stack of pictures at her side . . . it was interfering with her objectivity.

Noting the lull in Emily's log, Hotch looked over his shoulder to see her staring down at the glossy photographic remains of what was once a golden retriever.

His name was Bernie.

And he had lived with the Cazekas family out on Rural Route 6. He'd been found by the thirteen year old son, Andy when he'd come home from little league practice. And Hotch knew these things because after what had happened with Emily at the makeshift morgue, he had made a point of consciously noting all the little personal details that ordinarily he'd shuffle to the side of his brain.

Though these weren't human victims, Emily did help to remind him that all life was precious, and that there were families . . . children . . . that had grieved these losses.

Children they may very well have to visit tomorrow to ask questions about . . . what were surely (hopefully) . . . the most traumatic events they'd undergone in their young lives to date.

It was only right that Hotch at least knew the name of the pet that they were mourning.

Though he was somewhat worried about the toll those visits were going to take on Emily.

As the children were often the ones that had gone in search of their pets, the children were often the ones that had found this butchery. And of the two of them . . . really of the whole team . . . Emily was the one that children responded to best.

If they did need to conduct any interviews, she would be the one taking point.

"Prentiss," Hotch said softly, and her eyes snapped up.

"What? Oh, uh," she shook her head slightly, "sorry. All right," she cleared her throat, "the next one is the county map, a red flag on Rural Route 6, mile marker 27."

'Focus Em, you only have a few hours to review this evidence. You can't let your brain wander thinking about the families again.'

Hotch stared at Emily for a moment longer before he pursed his lips and turned back to the map.

"Red flag, got it."

And on they went. Emily pushed her emotional response to the moment into one of her boxes as she dispassionately called out the flag and the address that went with it. Then Hotch added each location to the street map on the wall. Before they'd even reached the end he could start to see a pattern forming, but he was trying to ignore it.

They didn't have all the facts yet.

When Emily called out the address of the last animal desecration Hotch placed a blue flag on the map before he picked up the box of yellow tabs.

He turned to her.

"And now the arsons."

For a moment Emily stared at the map on the board, her eyes widening slightly in alarm. Then she nodded as she crawled across the mattress, "right, one sec."

"Okay," she picked up the Fire Marshall's report and started scanning the summary page, "the first one was an abandoned property on County Road 37," she pushed herself off the bed and walked over to Hotch, "here," she looked at the report and then back again to the evidence display, "yeah, that looks right."

Hotch placed the yellow flag where Emily put her finger and then he looked back at her.

Her jaw was working nervously as she was stared at the map.

"Prentiss, just because that's the image we're seeing doesn't mean that it's still not a coincidence," he reminded her, "you know your brain attempts to assert patterns to organize the data its seeing." Her eyes shifted up to his as he finished softly, "but that doesn't mean that's what's really there. We need to finish adding in the arsons and then we'll better be able to tell what's probably intentional and what we could be imagining."

She nodded, "I know," she looked back at the array of flags, her brow wrinkling with worry, "I know. But Hotch, that's just . . ." she shook her head, "troubling."

There was a pentagram in front of them.

And devil worship . . . in conjunction with the horrific nature of these mutilations . . . indicated that these animals were most likely sacrifices.

"Well," Hotch tried to push off her concern for the moment, "let's finish up the flags and see where we are then."

She was correct though, if the pattern was what it appeared, then it was indeed troubling.

"Right," Emily tried to shake off her uneasiness as she turned and walked back to the bed, "the next one is," she flipped the page on the Fire Marshall's report, "an abandoned lot on Turner Stre . . ."

Her last word was cut off by a knock on the door.

Hotch's brow wrinkled at the interruption and Emily looked up at him with a frown, "who could that be?"

It was nearly ten and they had the Do Not Disturb out there so housekeeping wouldn't bother them. And that's about all Emily could think of for visitors given that they didn't actually know anyone there.

"I don't know," Hotch put down his pack of flags and walked over to look through the peephole.

His eyebrow quirked up slightly as he saw who was standing there. Then he called back over his shoulder.

"Lorelai."

He pulled the door open and the innkeeper smiled at him.

"Good evening Agent Hotchner."

Though Lorelai had immediately felt comfortable calling Emily, well . . . Emily. This man was way too big bad FBI Guy to be so familiar with him so quickly. Though as she thought about it Lorelai realized that it was unlikely their acquaintanceship would be extended long enough to morph into a "yo what's up Aaron?" Or that other nickname that Emily called him.

Hotch.

Now Lorelai was wondering if that was a little personal thing between them or something everyone called him.

He tipped his head, "Lorelai," he raised his eyebrow as he continued drolly, "was my credit card declined?"

Lorelai laughed but before she could respond Emily called out in surprise from the bed, "Lorelai what are you still doing here? Don't you have a husband waiting for you?"

God, her hours were as bad as theirs were. Though Emily imagined her work was a damn sight more pleasant.

"Hi Emily," she peeked around Agent Hotchner to see her new friend, "Luke's closing up the diner and I already went home to feed Paul Anka so I decided to . . ."

Hotch interrupted in confusion, "I'm sorry, Paul Anka?"

Was he even still alive? And if he was what the hell was he doing in Lorelai's house?

But then Lorelai helpfully explained that Paul Anka was her dog and Hotch felt much better about the condition of the lounge singer.

"Ah," he nodded, "sorry for the interruption. Please go on."

"Well, like I said," Lorelai continued, "Luke's closing up, and the dog's fed and my daughter's out on a date and I've already called and bothered her twice but she's stopped picking up the phone and I was thinking about you guys stuck here working so I decided to bring you some uh," she turned back to the hall and took a silver tray off the cart, "some cocoa."

Then she smirked at Agent Hotchner, "though I didn't really think you were a cocoa kind of guy so I brought you coffee," she tipped her head, "well decaf, which really generally I'm like what's the point, but I didn't know if you drank caffeine this late. I do and Rory does, Rory's my daughter's name but I think I already told you that. So yeah, anyway basically coffee at night is not that common so I figured better safe than sorry I get you decaf and you'll at least have something to drink while Emily's enjoying her fabulous gourmet hot chocolate courtesy of Le Swiss Miss."

After hearing Lorelai's full, one breath of air, ramble about their beverage options, Emily's lips started to twitch as she pushed herself off the bed.

Hotch had to be borderline apoplectic.

And as Emily walked over to the door in her stocking feet it did take all of her self control not to burst out laughing when she saw the nerve twitching over his left eye.

Poor thing.

Figuring it would be best to take over from there, Emily brushed past him as she put her hands out to the tray, "thank you so much Lorelai," she smiled, "that was really nice of you and totally not necessary."

As Emily pushed him out of the way, Hotch suddenly remembered his manners . . . dismissed the momentary belief that Emily had been cloned at birth with her twin dropped in Connecticut as Emily herself traveled the world . . . and immediately reached to take the drinks from the women.

"Yes," he deftly shifted the tray from the innkeeper's hands before Emily could take it, "thank you Lorelai."

"And," Emily piped up as she looked at the two cups, "thank you for bringing him decaf. He's definitely had more than enough caffeine already today."

Hotch rolled his eyes as he turned to put the tray down on the dresser.

"You're not my mother Prentiss," he called back over his shoulder.

Once upon a time he thought he had seen a piece of paper that said she reported to him. Emily apparently had received a reverse set of orders.

The ones which said HE reported to her.

Emily shot him a look, "if she was here your mother would agree that NINE cups of coffee is entirely too much caffeine consumption for one day. You're lucky your heart hasn't beep, beep, beeped itself right out of your chest . . . SIR."

The sir was a last minute addition which generally allowed her to boss him around with impunity.

Lorelai started to chuckle as she saw Agent Hotchner shoot Emily an incredulous look.

"Why the hell is my heart going beep, beep, beep?"

Emily's brow wrinkled, "oh right, that's the heart monitoring machine. Well," she flapped her hand at him, "whatever, you know my point is valid regardless of the sounds effects I used to make it."

What the hell was the right sound though? Oh yeah . . . she remembered . . . thump, thump, thump.

Hotch stared at Emily without any expression . . . moving past her ridiculous sound effects, perhaps she had a small point about the nine cups of coffee.

And his mother's reaction to that knowledge.

Still though, God knows he couldn't let her know she'd made a valid point. Then she'd feel free to add her two cents into so many other aspects of his life.

More so.

So he flicked his eyes back to Lorelai who he could see was laughing openly at him. But he ignored that because of the gift of hot beverages.

He tipped his head as he walked back to the door.

"Thank you for the coffee Lorelai."

That's really all it came down to. She was being nice and they'd just subjected her to some sort of day player scene from the retirement home.

Next thing he knew Emily was going to be on him about his cholesterol and sodium intake.

Lorelai cheerfully shook her head, "no, no, thanks, I knew you needed to work late and I just wanted to make sure you had everything you might need."

The more she thought about the Michele thing . . . and the more she thought about all the nasty things Michele had said to all of the other guests over the years . . . the worse Lorelai had felt about the whole thing with whatever the hell insult he'd hurled at Agent Hotchner.

That's really what had driven her out of her house and back to the inn. She was just trying to think of some way to make it up to them.

That's how they got the box of petit fours from Sookie too.

Given her own penchant for sweets . . . and fine footwear . . . Lorelai was quite sure that Agent Emily would be appreciative of the pastries.

And she had been.

She'd honest to God squealed, and Agent Hotchner had muttered something about not eating them in his bed. Which had tickled Lorelai at the time, because she'd thought they were really cute together and that definitely seemed to be a confirmation that they were a couple. But now that she'd seen that Emily was sitting on his bed working, Lorelai didn't know what the hell was going on with them. Not that it was really any of her business either way.

She was just being a nosy busybody.

Oh God . . . a terrible thought came to her . . . she was turning into Babette! The next thing she knew she was going to start calling people "Sugar" and dressing up her cats in baby clothes! Not that she had cats, not that she was even particularly fond of cats. She had a dog.

Oh poor Paul Anka! That was going to be so humiliating for him riding around in a baby carriage!

"Lorelai, are you all right?"

Lorelai's head snapped up to see Agent Hotchner staring worriedly at her. Then her gaze shifted over to Emily.

Same expression of concern there.

"Uh, yeah, ha!" She barked a laugh, "sorry guys, I'm fine. My brain just started running down a weird road.

'Way to make an ASS out of yourself in front of the nice FBI Agents Lor!'

"Anyway," she looked around their room to make sure they didn't need anything, "I guess I'll be . . ."

And then the words caught in her throat as her eyes caught on the photographs on the bed.

'Oh. My. God.'

Seeing that their evening's work unfortunately hadn't escaped Lorelai's attention, Hotch and Emily exchanged a quick 'oh shit,' glance as they both moved to block her view. Then Emily took a step closer to the other woman, putting her hand on her arm as she asked with concern.

"Are you all right?"

Shit. Hopefully she hadn't seen much. It's not like the photos were posted to the wall, they were flat on the bed so she was getting a downward angle view.

Still though . . . Emily winced as a few images flashed in her brain . . . the angle was bad enough.

"Uh," Lorelai bit her lip as she stared down at the carpet, "is that . . ." she swallowed, "did I just see?"

How could somebody do something like that? Jesus Christ, THIS was their work! No wonder Emily didn't answer her question earlier.

Hearing the horror in her voice, Hotch stepped closer as he said firmly, "Lorelai these aren't things you need to think about. They aren't things you need to see."

He paused for a second before he finished softly, "just try and put them out of your mind."

God, he really hoped they hadn't scarred this poor woman for life.

Lorelai's eyes came back up and locked with his. And she could see then not the professional shield he'd been projecting to her all day, but instead simply . . . kindness.

Compassion.

It made her feel better. It actually made her feel better because whatever she'd just seen . . . whoever had done those terrible things . . . there were people in the world like him and Emily.

Good people.

And they were the ones carrying the guns and the badges.

She blinked and broke her eye contact with him again. Then she cleared her throat, "okay, well, I'll leave you to your work."

Just as she turned away she suddenly remembered something and turned back to him again.

"Wait," she started digging in her pocket, "you wanted some allergy medicine."

"Here you go," she held out a packet of Benadryl which he took from her hand.

Hotch stared at her for a moment longer before he tipped his head, "thank you Lorelai."

And then she stepped out into the hall and he slowly closed the door behind her.

His eyes dropped to the carpet for a moment before Emily said softly.

"At least we hadn't hung the pictures on the board yet."

He looked back at her, then over to the photos on the bed.

"Let's get back to the arsons."

/*/*/*/*/*/

Two hours later Hotch snapped his cap back on his black marker.

Okay, they'd finished the geographic overlay and the basic profile was done. The pentagram was unlikely to have been simply a figment of their imagination. And he could say that because there were two of them, both inverted.

One outlined by the arsons, one outlined by the mutilated bodies.

He didn't believe in coincidences, especially when the overlapping tip of both symbols was the location of the dead HUMAN body.

Emily had been right from the beginning . . . something terrible was going on in this town. Whether or not they had a serial killer, he still wasn't sure. They had evidence of animal sacrifices but no human ones.

Not yet.

That autopsy report had been inclusive, but . . . given its geographic location . . . there was no doubt that the death was somehow significant to the other acts.

"All right," he sighed, "in the morning we'll start talking to the pet owners, and I'll have Garcia run the names, see if any of them have a known connection to the occult. We should start packing up," he moved over to pick up the evidence box.

"Prentiss can you hand me the Fire Marshall's reports? Prentiss?"

Hotch looked over his shoulder to see that Emily had fallen asleep with the autopsy report open in her lap.

His expression warmed slightly as he straightened up and walked over to take the photos off her lap. Then he touched her arm as he said softly, "Prentiss, wake up."

In response she murmured unintelligibly and rolled over.

Great . . . he rubbed his hand across his mouth . . . she was asleep on his bed.

But as he listened to her slightly raspy breathing he remembered that Lorelai had brought up the allergy medicine with their drinks. And Emily had specifically waited to ingest it because she was afraid that it would make her sleepy.

Apparently she was right.

Because she'd just popped the pills in her mouth ten minutes ago and now she was passed out cold. And as proof of that supposition he again tried to wake her up.

This time by rubbing her leg and saying her name more loudly. But all she did was curl further into a protective ball.

For a second he stood there trying to decide what he should do. They had been up for almost twenty hours so screaming in her ear to wake her up seemed rather cruel.

That meant his options were to just leave her where she was and go sleep in her room, or he could pick her up and carry her back where she belonged.

He was leaning towards carrying her next door. But then he suddenly pictured the maneuvering involved in working the locks on two doors while holding her to his chest and he decided to just leave her be.

But . . . his brow furrowed slightly . . . he couldn't just leave her the way she was.

For one thing she was wearing her gun. For another she was on top of the blankets and lying on the very edge of the bed.

In her drugged up state, he had images of her rolling over and falling on the floor. So okay . . . he rolled his neck . . . first things first.

Get the rest of the evidence off the bed.

So he finished scooping up all the photos and incident reports and carried them over to the desk. When he thought she was awake he'd planned on putting everything away tonight. But with her already asleep he decided to just pack them back up into the proper boxes in the morning.

He was much too tired to decide what goes where all alone.

Once that was done he turned back around to see Emily rubbing her eye in her sleep. His lip quirked up slightly . . . Jack did that sometimes.

With that thought his amusement faded as he unexpectedly felt a wave of loss for his boy. It was happening fairly often lately. The same thing had happened when Haley first left him last June, he was going nuts all the time missing his son. And then he'd found a way to deal with that hole in his gut.

But then the divorce . . . the finality of it . . . had uncorked the bottle on those emotions again.

So after a minute of deep breaths while staring at the floor, Hotch felt he'd shoved everything down deep again. At least deep enough to not feel like crying.

And that's really all he was going for.

He walked back over to the bed and slipped Emily's pistol out of its holster and her room key out of her pocket. He placed the first item on the nightstand and the second into his trousers. Then he moved up to pull the blankets down, shaking his head as he saw the chocolate smudge on the bedspread.

Serves her right having to sleep here now.

After the blankets were pulled back Hotch moved over and placed his arms under Emily's back and legs, pulling her to his chest. And suddenly that wave of loss rose up once more. So for a moment he just stood there, cradling her close as he tried to get his emotions locked back up in the box again.

Holding her like this . . . having some actual physical contact with another person . . . was helping him cope. And because it was Emily, he didn't feel too strangely about holding her this way.

The night in the bathroom had clearly broken down whatever normal intimacy boundaries he'd have with her. This certainly wasn't something that he'd ever even consider doing with another woman that he worked with. But Emily had always been more tactile with him than anyone else would dare to be.

And after the trip to Smokey's last month, Hotch had finally admitted to himself that Emily was about the only person besides Jack that he was completely comfortable with invading his personal space.

Though of course he'd never tell her that.

She'd never adhered to his personal boundaries anyway so God knows what she'd do if she felt that she actually had cart blanche to invade his space whenever she damn well pleased.

He'd probably end up with her . . . well, he was going to say climbing into his bed but given the situation he'd now found himself in, clearly that was a rule that she'd drop kicked to the curb awhile ago.

His expression softened slightly as she murmured something against his chest . . . he couldn't deny that his affection for her was strong though.

Her joke downstairs was quite intuitive . . . she was indeed his favorite. Again, her and JJ both, but he certainly wouldn't feel comfortable holding JJ this way. His relationship with Emily was different.

Still though, he knew that he couldn't very well stand there with her half the night. For one thing, it would be creepy. And for another, well . . . with a sigh he moved over to place her on the mattress . . . she could wake up.

And then he'd have to explain what the hell he was doing . . . and that just wasn't happening.

He'd probably end up getting flustered and yelling at her for falling asleep on his bed. Then she'd get that hurt look and he'd feel like a total jerk for being a fucked up bastard who couldn't have any meaningful contact with another person if he thought for a second that person might be able to reciprocate the action.

So to prevent that cluster from happening . . . these were interpersonal relationship issues he'd deal with eventually . . . he gently tucked her into the bed.

For a second he stared at her clothes, not that he was going to undress her completely, but he was just trying to decide if she had anything on that was going to bother her.

The belt did appear to be cutting into her stomach . . . he huffed to himself as he reached down to unbuckle it . . . too many donuts today. Nobody else on the team would he feel comfortable removing any article of clothing but again . . . he tugged the belt from the loops . . . they'd once passed second base in a public bathroom.

This was nothing.

He placed the belt on the nightstand next to her gun, then he turned back and pulled the covers up to her shoulders. Just before he turned away he saw a strand of hair on her cheek and he brushed it back.

Hotch's brow wrinkled slightly when she started to cough in her sleep, and he pressed the back of his hand against her forehead.

Though he was pretty sure it was just allergies, there was nothing to say that she wasn't actually getting sick.

But no . . . he pulled his hand back . . . she felt cool. So no fever.

As he snapped the table lamp off, Hotch made a mental note to stop into that grocery store in the morning so she could get some non drowsy allergy medicine.

He shook his head as he stepped out into the hall.

'Her being in a comalike state for the rest of their trip would definitely slow down their productivity.'

A/N 2: It's funny, I actually wrote in Emily's allergies like 8 months ago and it's a coincidence that they're BRUTAL right now in the NE so I could totally feel her allergy related pain! And the inadvertent passing out from the taking the wrong meds.

Of course it's just not possible to keep all the story balls in the air at once, but I do have a clear focus now for this story's resolution now. And that's a good thing :) So I think we'll have a teensy bit more momentum than we've had in the past. Though on the flipside, it's going to go a little longer than I'd thought initially but we'll see where we end up. This chapter is the longest of all of them and I think that's, again, because I now know what I want to do with it beyond the relationship building element. Outside of The Snake Pit I've never done anything approaching a case fic, and clearly Snake Pit is very NON traditional for that genre so this will be a tad more conventional in that respect. That said, just having them alone without the whole team dynamic, I thought they'd approach things a little differently. Trying to make the best use of their limited time/resources they come at things a different way. It just seemed more logical.

This is a good side story for me to explore Hotch's emotional state immediately following the divorce. Again, when I wrote those Girl chapters initially, I was sticking to a canon spin so there wasn't much of the in between. Here I'm trying to dig a little into what he would have been like in his own head. Not yet having the events in NY to cause him to get it in gear and realize he couldn't go on the way he was, alone and miserable. So here he acknowledges that he's really quite F'd and not (at this point) capable of building a meaningful relationship with another person. But that he knows he needs to start dealing with that eventually. And just by virtue of all the things he and Emily went through around the divorce, he'd feel drawn to her but incapable yet of processing what that meant.

Update to the A/N: Almost forgot to give a shout to Arcadya for use of Smokey's bar. It's been so long since she invented it that it's now stuck in my head so I totally forgot it wasn't a real place in DC :)

Updates this week in Girl and Making Spirits Bright. Girl might be up tonight but it depends on how the day goes, obviously I do have family stuff :)