And here comes the fluff, ofc, with a bit of angst bc I love the darkness lol but I can tell this is 99% love. Also, chapter 10 is the season finale therefore it's the last chapter of this fanfic. Am I emotional? Not yet, but I'll certainly be next update. As you can tell for the summary, this work is part of a series so there's a part 2 about season 4 (which is my fave). I'll always keep this possible onscreen canon, so that you can imagine this happening in the spaces between the eps or the scenes they don't show us ;)
As always, a huge thank you to my beta, Lisa! A hug - bc now I can send her this - to Franjp, bc she makes me keep going, & an enormous THANK YOU for all the readers.
Hope you enjoy it!
"TABULA RASA"
They had spent the whole rest of week together, gleefully bound to this chase after a new place that both didn't realize how much it was a giveaway. Dave knew – and he made no efforts on concealing his thoughts – that the brunette pair finally headed to a closure. One day, they'd thank him for this. But now was still too early, too uncertain to affirm.
Although Emily had determined Saturday as a date, Hotch dropped by her apartment that Thursday, after hours, in order to peruse some magazines she mentioned throughout lunch time. He could buy them, he was aware. Yet something told him to just go there, to show her he was more than able to carry a casual conversation out of the bureau.
And he did. Even though her eyes were sparkling, her legs were bare due skimpy pajama shorts, beautiful raven-hair dripping, fair skin wild as nature had formed it. Prentiss was quite a woman, a breathtaking one. Realization downed on him while she fell onto the couch right beside him, handling a pack of rentable precincts. The dark-haired woman seemed particularly amused with his persistent gaze, strings of her pulled and heated senses surfacing. But what she found in his abysmal eyes was different from anything she had ever witnessed.
There was no darkness, no lust. There was an old gleam, faltering still but it was there, flaring from the cellars and readying to be set free. 'Soon', her mind reeled with her lips curving into a tiny smile.
It was a look - short, obstinate, meaningful. It started everything and ended everything and it was the only way they ever really connected.
"It's the last one", her voice interrupted a tired silence, drizzling wrapped his suburban in yet another sleepy morning, "The Langham"
Albeit his quiet demeanor reflected his uneasiness – Aaron hated such activity, deeply, and Emily could tell for he complained about possible places they verified before –, when the engine came to softly stop across from a comfortable building, she didn't miss his facial expression to change as he took in a pleasing sight.
A green rounded awning lead to great doors, the trees surrounding a picturesque entrance contrasted with light grey bricks that composed the structure. It was an epitome, just perfect. As he strode into a light hall, cream walls, vast stairs giving access to some few floors he hadn't been able to count, Hotch hardly noticed the younger agent's presence there, right beside him. And she realized that, until a ginger forty-something approached them.
She was the owner, in a hurry to sell her place and more than glad someone finally acknowledged its existence, "Mr Hotchner, I'm glad to meet you" their hand-shake turned to be absent, eyes of him never leaving the details from the walls to the ceiling "I spoke to your wife on the phone"
It startled her - the both of them. Something twitched within her, throbbed slightly under her skin and more than caused a tender warmness to fill her depths. On the other hand, his confused frown had a tense line, bitter one. And in front of her very dark eyes, Emily watched as it morphed into new features, almost at ease and pacing and inquiring all at once - for a brief instant, indeed, but she could read it anyway.
Without further explanation, none actually despite a polite greeting, they were ascending to meet a brown wooden door, anticipate as it swung open until an empty living room appeared to them. Nevertheless nothing saved the environment from pale shades reflected through endless windowpane, they felt a different tinge. Just as the owner showed every curve, every detail that she considered necessary, Hotch stood in the middle of the corridor.
There, silent and in near peace with himself, the father of one could finally let a sensation to dwell his mind, a single image invading his closed lids. Little boy's steps to be heard up and down, red lips curved into a smile as her frame moved to fix her routine, himself marking each space as he made it to be his home.
Aaron unhooded his hazel orbs, met her pure smirk down where cold rays kissed alabaster skin, natural dimples flashing. She never looked more Emily, he noticed.
The case got to him. Not for the same reasons it usually did, not as much as it got to Reid or as much as it enraged Morgan. Still, there was something odd about it, something unusual that unsettled many strings all at once. It all started with a call, with him finding their tech analyst, the resident genius and his – yes, he was a smug bastard – dearest subordinate down where they sat in the bullpen. Bad news, brainstorms and a gathering later, there was Cece flirting with him the whole way through it, exactly how she used to do back to when they worked together in this. Then it turned to be Matloff's M.O. that actually made him cringe.
Young, brunette, jogging alone early morning.
Whether Hotch decided he'd join Prentiss in her morning demeanor or not, this was his problem to deal with later. And if she wore a damn black dress to work, plundering his thoughts and his every breath – put aside how he struggled to keep his eyes off her, professional, cold – this was nobody's business but his. Hers as well, though the Unit Chief could tell the team's vixen was doing this on purpose.
Emily was experimenting, testing a delicate soil just in case they were supposed to follow this path anyway. Because these recent weeks changed everything, they turned tables and got them out of that limbo they had trapped themselves into.
"I brought you dinner" her red buttoned shirt rounded his imposing table, leaned hips into it right beside his spot while Chinese was placed in front of him. "It's not your fault; don't put this on your back"
"You blame me" he cocked an eyebrow, half sure, half doubting his own sentence.
Though the ambassador's daughter craved to show him she didn't, they were not in a place to do so. Not yet. Chopsticks mixed the contents inside her own box, brown eyes following every movement as she held her gaze there.
There was just so much more behind his sentence, so much more under that cool exterior, stoic façade. Suddenly, their conversation was not about Brian Matloff, about the case or how well he could do in the court. Quite not what she expected, if she had to be honest with herself.
"I don't, not at all" her sigh heaved her full chest, shedding a lump she didn't know she was holding "I never did"
His remorseful grin screamed guilt, screamed a side of Aaron Hotchner he had been keeping from her. The older agent shrugged in mere defeat, somehow released of his mistakes – although they'd haunt him to his very end. "Why you never told me this?"
In the meanwhile she left his side to occupy an empty armchair right across from him, Aaron unpacked his last meal until his nostrils captured a delightful smell. He was distracted, lost to his activity when she mumbled between a portion and other.
"You never asked" it was an assumption, timid one but sharp against his built up walls; he never did, not even as he tried to recollect those hazy nights they connected their bodies in such mind-blowing intensity. "Cognitive Rehabilitation, that is"
They linked sights, translated each feeling into that delicate gesture, that minimal instant. Out of time, exquisite. No, he wouldn't buy it. He'd have the closure that would bring peace to him – to them. It was a quotation, which earlier that same day left Reid rereading every action of his boss for at least the last couple of months, after he bluntly declined a blonde to pass by the office.
"Yes" his crooked smile tossed a tiny one from her, breaking their outspoken conversation in order to feed himself casually. "Cognitive Rehabilitation"
Cuteness, am I right? Do tell! I wanna know.
AND thanks to Scousedancer they are finally talking about their problems, even if it's all indirect lol