Hey guys! Yes, I'm alive lol It took me a while to update because I've been really busy - all work and no fun :( - but here's another chapter of this fanfic! Again, I must thank you all for the reviews, faves and follows *wink* Ooh, we have some revelations here (and some supposed to be cute moment somewhere lol)

A huge thank you to Lisa, she beta'd this part and she kinda helped me with the whole thing - and she volunteered wow. And a big hug to ma sis lol Franjp for encouraging me to write this!

Hope you enjoy it :*

"A HIGHER POWER"

Her hands ran through her silky dark hair, a curtain of strands covering the face in front of the mirror. As she brushed with care, layer after layer, Emily found some different line on her face. She didn't know for sure what it was, how could she? The sleepiness was dazzling her, small black spots forming in front of her eyes.

Long eyelashes heavily battered. Once, twice… three times before darkened orbs could focus on the worn out – though satisfied - image. Her cheeks were still gently flushed, rosy lips aggressively swollen and oh those teenage hickeys along her long neck. Some bites near her breasts crowned the filthiest of the looks. She would need to hide herself inside overprotective garments.

Emily's fingertips slowly, painfully, traced the marks he inflicted on her alabaster skin, tasting the reminders of how she was his and no-one else's. It was possessive and goddamn she was feeling deeply used. But she had a role in the play, she invited him for a drink, she asked rougher and harder. And Emily Prentiss knew – from the first moment their parallels crossed - how dominant Aaron Hotchner could be. 'We can go as hard as you want', his words rounded her ragged mind whilst the recollection of him shoving her against his new bed made her shudder.

They never made love – would day one day? – but, although his primal instincts spoke to him louder as he fucked her thoroughly, the too gentle way their kiss lingered as he cupped her cheeks told her there was something there. Something else. Memories plundered her lack of attention and her mind drifted - like the refreshing breeze just outside his tiny flat - with the smallest of the details.

She remembered when he ghosted his thumb only the slightest against her collarbone, when he entwined their fingers, pressed their touching palms against the mattress as they came in exhausted screams. Most of all, his breath warming the nape of her neck when she woke up to another hellish morning.

That day Emily tasted the liquor on his lips, she knew only one thing for certain. She– accidentally – had him exposed. She had him Aaron.

His hands dragged themselves to meet his face, the thick skin of his palms hooded his closed eyelids, feeling an abnormal hangover tripping inside his skull. It was now a bad habit, and Hotch found himself frustrated with how much he was drowning. Bottle after bottle, glass after glass, and he knew this had nothing to do with Haley or Emily either. This was who had been from the beginning: a monster lying quiet inside, waiting for the right opportunity to psychologically pummel his next victim.

Only his new victim was himself and he was aware of the droplets splashing at each one of them. He knew Reid would be eternally frightened with the momentum he sensed between Hotch and Hardwick. Even Rossi questioned his sanity when he almost barked at JJ when they debriefed the morning before.

Long white legs walked out of the enclosure of his bathroom. He hated this new place, he hated how empty and homeless it looked. There had no feelings of family, warmness, only that idling sensation, in which he'd meet the vacant, mocking stare in the mirror. He had been left behind and grounded with unsettling strength.

Her slim frame crawled beneath the sheets, wearing all the gentleness of how broken she seemed as she stood bare-skinned, overexposed to his very – almost abysmal - eyes. Hotch pretended he was asleep, because he couldn't bring himself to testify the mess he made with her graceful body. He should have worshiped every little inch of Emily, he was one hell of a grown man to admit that.

Yet, he managed to screw it all up. Again.

He never discussed with her whether he should take some time off to be with Jack or not. Still, one week later, his go-bag stood silently upon his table – yes, the very table where all he could think of was her – as his eyes transfixed the glass of the small rectangular windows with appraisable view to outside the building.

Earlier this same morning, he watched her walk in with her turtleneck sweater and neatly brushed hair. Part of him felt better, guiltless at some point. She could stare at herself in the mirror and enjoy being that new person she was inventing every day, most of all, because Emily had been recreating herself minute after minute from the single one she knocked on his door with the prettiest of the smiles. He didn't know, for sure, why so, but he was sure the truth would eventually surface.

However, she was hiding her - not so marked - skin from the others. Prentiss was keeping herself Prentiss for the outer people. Even them being her family – they used to consider her like that anyway – the brunette knew where to draw to line, she always did.

Quiet and rueful, Hotch stood in his Oxfords with salty tears pricking his lids, begging to be released. Musings ran wild to the image of the young sandy haired boy, the smile he so rarely got to see, the small fingers he eventually interlaced his large ones with. His son, his only son, he failed him too.

And Dave walked in.

She forced her best to ignore Dave and JJ's conversation as she climbed into the backseat of their black SUV. Emily knew, though, what their tense exchange of words meant. They were worried about Hotch and, in extension, about Jack too. Inwardly, the goateed man had that gut feeling his friend was caught up with something, whichever way of release it was – maybe even a combination of them – he perceived the cues of enraged guilt kept as a lump in his throat.

Firstly, he considered alcohol, because he knew how much they all stuck to that at different levels. Him, Aaron and Emily were the ones with the greatest tendencies to succumb to this kind of addiction, he was aware. But then last week, he saw.

They were on the plane, finally heading back home after a short, though tiring, case in Oklahoma. JJ had fallen asleep upon her opened case file, just across him, a blonde curtain of straight hair hooding her beautiful features. Morgan had his headphones brutally banging some catchy song against his eardrums and the older man vaguely questioned how someone could sleep with that. Reid, oh well, his eyes were closed, a pained line twitching at his expression and the young boy was probably facing yet another nightmare.

Only his eyes captured that scene, thank God for that. They were whispering secrecies to each other at the kitchenette, their closeness and the sly glances the woman shot at him as she bit her lower lip did nothing to conceal how intimate the subject was. For a split second, he clutched the nape of her neck almost lovingly, rubbing the spot in order to dissipate the whiplash she had been complaining throughout those days. Darkened orbs vainly scanned the place and then their lips met without the same sweetness he watched seconds before.

From that moment forward, Rossi became a silent watcher of whatever they had. They were good at hiding, almost too good to even believe. It was late and he met her impatiently waiting for the elevator. Even as Garcia almost ran into Emily, bouncing and bubbling because she had a date with Kevin the other day and apparently nothing to wear, the brunette maneuvered her way out of that with discreet grace.

"I'm so sorry, Pen, but this killing headache has me worn out today"

When he slipped the car's key inside the ignition, a hungry shadow disappeared near Hotch's parked suburban. A narrow-eyed stare and he gathered the last proof he needed as the curtain of hairs came down just in front of the lost man. She was giving, he was taking and they were fucked up.

'He is back for good', she thought to herself as his severe image yielded her mind to wander not only about the case, but about how stupidly she missed him. Derek had been denying her attempts to prove him those were not suicides. He had been almost annoying if she had to be honest with herself. She loved him, of course, but sometimes he had those hard ass moments in which she had to compel herself to maintain her blankness whole way through it.

"Good. Prentiss?"

His baritone voice etched on her skin and for God's sake, she felt that urge to embrace him right then and there and go after every detail of his conversation with the younger Hotchner. They were still friends, at least. But she didn't, she gave him what he wanted. Evidences, theories, notes she even kept to herself.

When they headed towards the station, he followed her right behind, his gaze locked on the raven-hair swinging softly as her hips swayed in smooth, bewitching movements. Natural and beautiful and so Emily. He was in trouble, immersing in the curves of her body and the curl of her lips. His warm hand slipped beneath her suit jacket, sending a thrill down her spine that made some of her muscles stiffen in anticipation. Instead of expressing how he was eager to press her soft and rough against his body, his thumb brushed the fabric of her shirt ever so slightly. It was a gentle reminder that he was back and he was hers.

Leave me some words, if you can, please! I'm eager to hear from you :)