Rossi leaned in Hotch's doorway and watched him for a moment before he went in. The circles under Aaron's eyes got worse every day, and as serious as the man always was, his countenance has become downright grave. Hotch was obviously completely and utterly miserable; and Dave thought he had a pretty good idea why.

"Something on your mind?" he asked as he stepped into the room.

Hotch looked up from his desk with a sigh. "Plenty."

"Funny," Rossi commented as he took a seat on the other side of the desk. "I didn't know 'plenty' had great big eyes and dark hair."

He was on the verge of either ignoring or denying the comment, but he knew that with Dave it would be of no use; he would figure it out eventually either way. "I'm worried about her."

"Emily's a big girl, Hotch. I'm sure she knows what she's doing."

"I'm still worried." He scrubbed his hands over his face, a gesture of obvious frustration that Dave was unaccustomed to seeing from the stoic man.

Leaning back in his chair, he decided to play Dr. Phil. "As worried as you are, I'm guessing you know something about why she left that the rest of us don't."

"You're too good at that," Hotch commented.

Rossi held his hands up. "What can I say, it's a gift. Want to talk about it?"

He glanced over to make sure that the door was closed. "That case not too long ago, when that bullet grazed Emily…"

"The one when she stormed out of the restaurant to give you a piece of her mind."

Hotch couldn't help but wince a bit. "We both gave each other a whole hell of a lot more that night."

It didn't take a lot to understand exactly what he was trying to say; and suddenly the light began to shine through. "You're worried what happened between the two of you had something to do with her taking off."

"I'm worried it has everything to do with it. After that night we talked and decided not to take it anywhere. I guess we both figured it was a mistake and we decided to just move on."

"So basically you decided that it didn't mean anything," Dave told him.

Hotch was on the verge of denying it, then it hit him. "Damn it, that's exactly what I did." He couldn't believe the thought hadn't crossed his mind. "Not only that, I basically told her that she didn't matter."

Rossi watched the emotions play across his friend's face and knew he couldn't just leave it at that. "She's it isn't she?"

"I don't know, Dave, maybe. I wanted her for a long time before she showed up in my room that night. Other than that." He shrugged, looking uncomfortably helpless. "I don't know."

"Well I'd say you need to talk to her."

Aaron shook his head. "I've tried. She's turned off her phone; and I know that Morgan and Garcia have seen her, but they're not saying a word about where she is."

He stood. "Well, I guess you'd need this then." A piece of paper dropped to the desk, and Hotch knew it had to be a phone number.

"How did you get it?"

"Morgan isn't the only one who knows how to get what he needs. Call her; see if you can work something out. Neither of you are doing any good living with being miserable."

Hotch stared at the paper for a good hour before he even contemplated doing anything. His mind was as usual running a million miles a minute, but cases had rather effectively been replaced by worry over one woman.

Ever since that one memorable night with her his mind had been reeling. They thought that forgetting about it was the best bet; after all they would be risking a lot if they went forward with a relationship. But Hotch was beginning to think they were risking a lot not beginning a relationship. It had been weeks, and not for a single second had he stopped wanting her; but more importantly he hadn't stopped missing her since he'd opened that letter the morning after JJ gave birth. He had never realized just how much her presence lifted his spirits, and without her in the bullpen something was just missing.

But just because he felt that way didn't mean that she did too. Obviously she had gone away for a reason. For a reason that seemed to have everything to do with him. What had happened between them had evidently changed the very fabric of their interactions, and all he could do was try to figure out if there was any way to salvage their relationship. Still torn, he dropped the paper into his drawer and decided to leave it there until he knew what he wanted.

Emily had less than a week before her plane took off to go back to the states, and much to her dismay, she still had no idea what she was supposed to do. Falling out of love with Hotch just hadn't happened; and the thought of going back to the BAU and spending every day with him again practically paralyzed her. She knew she wouldn't give up the BAU, so she would have to find some way to deal with the pain, but that didn't mean that it couldn't scare the hell out of her to think of it.

When the phone rang she picked it up without a second thought. Morgan and Garcia had been calling relatively frequently, and with her permission had given the number to JJ so she could check on the progress of baby Belle, so in the past week or she had gotten to the point where hearing the phone ring no longer made her jump out of her skin. "Hello."

"Hello Emily."

Hearing that voice for the first time in over a month almost made her legs come out from under her, and she sat down on the window seat before she had no other choice. "Hotch, I…" She took a deep breath. "I wasn't expecting to hear from you."

There was a pause, and she could picture him shaking his head half way around the world. "I couldn't decide if I should call. Rossi found the number and gave it to me, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to invade that way."

"Obviously you're sure now."

"Clearly. Emily, are you okay?"

She hated that her voice was just a little bit shaky when she spoke. "I suppose that would entirely depend on your definition of okay in this case," she told him quietly.

Hotch breathed a quiet sigh, trying to clear his thoughts. "What happened between us…?"

"We don't need to go there, Aaron. I think the decision has already been made on that matter."

"Has it?" he questioned. "Obviously it's not worked out. We could barely work with each other when you were here, and then you taking off like this…"

Emily didn't know what to say. "I had to get away. I couldn't just stay there being miserable all the time."

"If you were so miserable why didn't you come to me? Why not talk to me instead of just leaving with barely a word?"

She didn't want to go there, didn't see that she had a choice. "I needed to get away from you Aaron. It sounds horrible but it's the truth."

He wouldn't have lied and said that it didn't hurt to hear, but he wasn't about to say it out loud either. "I think I can understand that, but Emily you don't know what's been going through my head, the possibilities."

"Like what?" she questioned. "You were afraid I wouldn't come back? Maybe you were afraid that I was pregnant?" The silence on the other line told her everything she needed to know, and she felt her heart clench. "Oh my God," she whispered. "You thought I was pregnant."

"Emily."

She was up on her feet and pacing in a second, anger rapidly replacing hurt. "Do you honestly think so little of me?" she spat out. "Do you honestly think that I would find out that I was pregnant and leave without saying a word to you?"

"I didn't know what to think," Hotch told her, clearly trying to maintain his calm.

"But you thought you knew enough to assume that I would get pregnant and take off to make a decision without even consulting you? I'm not pregnant Hotch, but I can assure you that if I were you would have been the first person I spoke to."

Aaron found that he couldn't stop his anger from exploding then. "Damn it Emily, don't you get it? I hurt you; I basically told you that what happened between us was completely insignificant. I wouldn't have expected you to come to me with anything."

Emily collapsed back onto the window seat, feeling all of the adrenaline flood away, leaving her spent. "I would have come to you with that," she whispered.

"I know that now, and I can't believe I ever thought otherwise."

"Why did you call Hotch?" she asked, battling back the tears she'd become so accustomed to.

There wasn't any good way to deal with this situation. She was hurt, he was responsible and unsure, and nothing he said could make any of it easy. "When Dave gave me the phone number, I just stared at it for a long time. I didn't know what to do, and I decided that I would leave it in my desk until I figured out what I wanted. That's why I called."

"And what do you want?" she questioned, leaning her forehead against the cool glass of the window.

"I want you."

The words made every molecule in her body freeze, and she found that she had to remind herself to breathe. She'd wanted to hear those words for so long, wanting to have him there in her life for so damn long, and now she was completely paralyzed. "Aaron, I don't know what to say to you."

"Say you want me too. We both know it wouldn't be a lie."

Emily nodded, and the tears that she'd been holding back suddenly flooded out. "I want you too, but I don't know if it's that simple."

"It's never simple," he told her. "But it's something."

"It's something," she said. "It really is, but we can't just fall into something, Hotch. We fell into bed together and after we made the decision not to take it anywhere my heart and my soul bled until they were raw. I want this, more than anything, but if I've learned anything while I've been gone it's that I can't just…"

"I know, Emily," Hotch responded, his voice barely more than a whisper.

She stood again, brushing herself off literally and figuratively. "I've got to think about this, because we know that we work in bed, but we may not work anywhere else; and I have to know if we work everywhere else before I take a step. If I jump into something again and it doesn't end well I can't guarantee that I'll be able to put myself together one more time."

"I understand. When are you coming home?"

"A couple of days, and I'll be back to work a couple days after that."

The pause came again, and again he struggled to find the right thing to say. "I'll be waiting."

"I know."