Hello guys! Shoo, I finally found a new beta! Yay! I'm so glad I did because I was sorta desperate. Her work will start from chapter 5 until the end of the season what is just great! Thank y'all for the beautiful reviews you left for me :) I love reading them, it makes my day!

I hope you enjoy this new part and I can tell that this is second fave (the number one is still to come, though). A huge thank you to Franjp for basically making me write this and for, you know, everything lol

"DAMAGED"

The papers had been filling his briefcase for over a month, enraged folds attesting his not most recent failure, because that place was held by Emily and her new messy bangs, playing across her forehead, almost mocking of the regretful look he had in his eyes. It was a surprise – a bad one – when she showed up with them. She was still one the most beautiful women to cross his path, but the meaning it had was overwhelming.

New haircut could express a bunch of different things, many of them positive, still a few of them sorrowfully preoccupying. Prentiss, from day one, appeared to be almost as neat freak as he was and, yet, her hairs were disheveled, too careless to be considered usual. Plus, it was a way to expand her visions, watch herself change in front of the mirror like a getaway after the smallest of the crimes. Both of them always spoke more through body language and glances, it had always been their tell to what they wouldn't let break the uneven water of that insane river called their lives.

Hotch captured her deep eyes through the glass and reality knocked him down to the conversation they have been avoiding from the diner. Yes, the one in which he could do nothing but inwardly beat himself senseless, until he was cold and numb enough to apologize regretless for their not-to-be-repeated mistake. They agreed on that particular point: never to talk about the episode again.

"Hotch?" blue wide orbs shone as the petite blonde knocked on the open door of his office "The fraternization seminar is due half an hour"

Fraternization seminar. Of course, there had to be a painful reminder. There always had to be one.

He could have taken her with him, he was supposed to in the first place, because that was the way it was from day one. Hotch would pick up Prentiss to join him as a consultant to the many prisoners they had to visit throughout the period she had been with them. Under the intent gaze of the team, constantly, but never even a word flew about the matter. One day, she'll be thankful for that.

But, not today. Today she had eyebrows furrowed and the greatest of the unamused faces. She applied no efforts on concealing her angered displeasure. One with a pair of eyes could tell she was about to tackle Hotch down and knock some sense into him, he just needed to breathe near her and that was that.

She didn't even take a glimpse at him during the stressful day of pure paperwork. Every report seemed absurdly long and enraging and Emily was about to break down when she finished her last one. It was late and, besides Spencer – who had left for a short visit to the shower -, the Unit Chief and the infuriated brunette were the only two still at work.

She climbed the steps to his office, stroding inside without even bothering to ask for permission. Emily had to speak her mind and it had to be quick enough therefore the boy genius wouldn't catch up with their matter. And she did, she yelled at him at the top of her lungs, gesticulating and losing all her forsaken temper. The subordinate had been giving him the cold shoulder; he had said what he wanted. He chose to be that ruthless disaster he was. She didn't.

"Look, I don't care if you are all fussed because of that damn divorce, you gotta let me do my job!"

Within a few seconds – it took him only the brief period he took to stand on his heels and run into her - he had crossed the line again, the same rush of adrenaline making his heart slam in his ear as he took her mouth roughly. He tugged her lower lip, teeth grazing as she vainly attempted to push him back before he had her pressed against his table, conveying her to sit upon the neatness of his workplace.

It was wrong - degrading even - but she found her core aching for him as she motioned to dig her short nails in the lapels of his buttoned up. The vicious grip he had both on her hips and hair pressed her against him in the right places, bulge of his slacks proving how bad he had been craving for her. There had never been one day he forgot about that night. Not a bloody single one.

They drew apart - panting and lost in their own sick desires – when his phone rang loudly, the small screen shining for what he told her to be the only thing he really dreaded for.

Haley.

He was torn. Torn wide between the woman flung on his table and the mother of the most important thing in his miserable life. Aaron Hotchner found himself divided between what was appropriate, what had been long decided as correct, and what felt sinfully reckless, what felt fucking hot.

However, before he could make up his mind, Prentiss left his embrace with ease, pushing him forward and moving towards the door with brown hardened eyes locked on her figure.

That day, he saw the veracious outcomes of that rainy Friday. He– finally – had her exposed. He had her Emily.

Happy endings didn't happen every day, not in their line of work. They were rare and even though they were almost always able to arrest the bad guys, some leave scars bigger than others and the aftermaths of their chase was much more satisfying. For Dave, that was what this case was all about. About handling his past and fixing his present or maybe his future. Tonight, one of them would sleep with a smile – likely a smirk – plastered on the face, maybe some fancy wine sipped as a commemoration.

Whilst Emily tried her best to fake somehow a shock and even mutter how scandalous fraternization looked - although she made clear her playful tone – Hotch had the papers out of his briefcase. He had his Mont Blanc swirling his left fingers as he pondered whether he should take this to another level or be selfless and stop playing pretend like his marriage could be magically saved. No one – and he knew it – would be able to retrieve every stumble they had all the way to the fall.

Through the corner of his eyes, he had the smooth vision of her green top and grey suit, the messy bangs looking even messier and he blamed himself inwardly for the heavy load he was putting on her. The Chief signed the papers, defeated, his fingers coming to thoughtfully touch his lips, every remembrance flooding his mind. In the very end, there was the flushed face of Emily Prentiss, upon this very woodened surface, where he somehow sealed his fate.

For a while, a short while, Hardwick punched Hotch mentally as he shove the reality against the Unit Chief. 'Nobody gives a damn about the truth'. And he had his harsh tongue tied. That was the exact same thought he had when he hid the truth from Emily a couple of nights ago. He felt like a pathetic monster, selfish to begin with.

His eyes met her slim figure, focused on the job though faux to the last drop. Her mind was prowling the memory of their last encounter, ready to attack and destroy their momentum at the first opportunity. It was called compartmentalization, and she was good at it. Or she used to be, leastways.

For a split second their sights crossed, some awkward realization downed on both of them.

Aaron told her within less than a flick about the unspoken. He told her how much he missed her. He told her he wanted her for him, only him. He told her he signed the damn papers.

Emily sighed, eyes flying away from the intense stare. She told him she was his. And hadn't she been from the first moment anyway?

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