Chapter 22

December 22, 2008

--

"Daddy, why you sleeping on the couch?"

Hotch opened his eyes in confusion, blinking away the fog that had gathered. Sure enough, he had fallen asleep on the couch, but with a companion.

"And why is Em'ly sleeping on the couch. Did you have a sleepover?"

Hotch noticed his son's voice had quieted down when he saw Emily curled up with him, her head still tucked into his chest. They'd moved during their make-out session the night before so he was sprawled across the expanse of the couch, while she found a home on his chest. "We fell asleep," he told his son, his hand rising to comb through her dark hair.

Jack wrinkled his nose. "Does that mean you had a sleepover or not?"

"Something like that," Hotch replied with a soft smile. It took some doing, but he knew Emily was a deep sleeper, so he slowly, gently and carefully shifted until he could pick her up in his arms. He'd let her sleep. It was the holidays, after all. He could hear Jack's little footsteps following him down the hall.

"Daddy, what are you doing?"

Now Jack was talking in a loud whisper. "I'm going to tuck Emily into bed," he responded just as quietly. Since his door was already open, it was easy to manoeuvre himself and his burden through to the bed. "Can you pull back the blankets, Jack?"

The little boy did as asked. "Is Em'ly okay?"

"She's fine," Hotch promised, settling her on the mattress and pulling the blankets up around her shoulders. Emily whimpered and turned but stayed asleep, burying her nose in his pillow.

"Wait!" Jack exclaimed, managing to keep his voice down. He raced out of the room returning seconds later with his own stuffed dinosaur. He managed to climb up on the bed with ease – now Hotch knew how he managed to get on the bed to bounce on him and wake him up in the morning – and crawled carefully across the blankets. He put the animal beside her.

Hotch came around the bed to lift his son into his arms. "Let's leave her sleep." Setting his son down as he entered the kitchen, Hotch went about grabbing pans and food ingredients.

"Whatcha making?" Jack asked, pulling the little stool Hotch kept close by to the counter.

"What do you think?" Hotch replied. "Eggs?"

Jack hummed in thought before shaking his head. "No."

"Pancakes?"

Jack shook his head again. "No."

"French toast?"

"Yeah! Can I help?"

"Not this time, Buddy," Hotch said, ruffling his son's hair. "Go play. I'll let you know when breakfast is ready and we can wake Emily, okay?"

"Okay!" Jack agreed, scrambling down from the chair and racing out of the room.

Hotch took the time he spent cooking to think. Cooking was a rare luxury, though he did enjoy it, and it often acted as a mind-clearing tool. It was too bad he couldn't use it on cases. Nevertheless, he could use it to plan out his strategy on how to approach Emily. She'd seemed so small and vulnerable as she bought up the state of their relationship the previous night and he hated seeing her like that. He knew it wasn't his fault, but the fault of the situation that had her on edge.

She had reason to be concerned about their relationship. If anyone was going to get slammed with the reaction of the Bureau, it was going to be her. She was the subordinate, she was the one who had already been accused of using her connections to get what she wanted in the Bureau. But more importantly, she was the woman, and though he liked to believe things were shifting, he knew she would bear the brunt of the rumours. He would be congratulated for melting the ice queen, the stoic, drop dead gorgeous agent who had turned down so many other men.

He shivered at that thought. Why had Emily turned down so many of the younger agents that had asked her to dinner? She'd had prospects from white collar to organized crime to cyber crimes as they floated through the building. Trainees and administration alike had vied for her attention, but he knew, both from overhearing conversations and in casual conversation with Dave, that they rarely lasted more than two or three dates. Eventually, the excuse became her schedule and her romances ended.

Yet here they were, so close to Christmas, having spent time together both in the office and out of it. He'd discovered things about Emily Prentiss that he liked to believe very few knew. Like her nieces. He knew for a fact that next to no one knew about the Harding family. Or her shutterbug tendencies. Or how incredibly into Christmas she really was. She toned it down in the office, but there had been times in the break room and after briefings that he'd heard her humming Christmas carols under her breath. Her art talent was extraordinary and though he'd only seen it in the crafts she'd done with Jack, Carissa had let slip that Emmeline and Emily often found interesting places to sketch. He'd meant to ask Emily about it, but it hadn't ever seemed like the right time.

By the time his mind had processed everything, making some decisions and leaving some answers yet to be discovered, he'd realized he'd made an entire loaf of French toast and had them warming beside the bacon he'd fried up in the oven. So he made his way down the hall, poking his head into Jack's room. His son, however, was nowhere to be found.

"Jack?"

He wasn't in the bathroom, and Hotch hadn't seen or heard him in the living room, so it left one more place. Sure enough, Jack was on the floor at the foot of his large bed, toys that he'd obviously taken from his room to play with. "There you are."

"Hiya, Daddy!"

"What are you doing?"

"Playing," Jack answered innocently. "Is it time to wake Em'ly up?"

"It is," Hotch agreed. He watched again, as Jack made quick work of climbing onto the bed and didn't bother to be careful as he bounced across the mattress.

"Em'ly! It's morning!"

She'd burrowed her head almost beneath his pillow, so only a mass of dark curls showed above the comforter. He chuckled as she groaned and tried to pull the blankets even more over her head. He heard her mumble something incoherent as Jack giggled. Then the little imp went even further. Pulling back the blankets on the other end of the bed, Jack shuffled under them and Hotch watched the little bump that was his body, crawl under the sheets to Emily's side. He just hoped his son didn't scare her. His answer came a few moments later when Jack squealed loudly before the little bump that was him merged with the lump that was Emily. He smiled as one lump wiggled and could only come to the conclusion that Emily was tickling Jack.

"Come on," he called, laughter in his voice. "Breakfast will get cold."

That got Jack out of the blankets fast, leaving Emily still reclined against the pillows. He had to draw on endless wells of will power to keep his feet from moving at all. "Good morning."

"What happened?" she asked, her voice rough from sleep.

It made him shiver again. "We fell asleep."

"Here?" she inquired. "I don't remember moving from the couch."

"On the couch," he replied, finally unable to keep from moving towards her any longer. She sat up as he found a spot on the edge of the mattress. "Jack woke me up."

"And you moved me here," she surmised.

"Even insomniacs need to sleep sometime."

She blushed. "And you made me breakfast."

"Well, I wasn't about to just send you home on an empty stomach. Who knows how much you ate last night."

"I do hate formal functions for that," she agreed. "One in every twenty has good food."

"And last night wasn't one of them?" He moved out of her way as she stood.

"No, it really wasn't," she agreed, coming to stand right in front of him.

He reached out first, aware that she was still unstable and unsure of where their relationship was going. His finger tucked under her chin, tilting her head so his mouth could meet hers. He didn't care about her morning breath and breakfast came secondary to kissing her good morning. She responded willingly, her arms coming around his waist to wrap around his back.

"Mmm, now that's a good way to wake up."

He chuckled as her eyes widened and her hand came up to clap over her mouth. Apparently the filter between her brain and her mouth hadn't kicked in yet. "I liked it."

Her smile was soft and she still looked sleep-rumpled. All he wanted to do was throw her back on the bed, just for a little bit, but he knew Jack was in the kitchen.

"Just let me find a hair elastic or a brush and I'll be there," she reassured him.

He kissed her forehead and her cheek. "Don't be long. Jack's favourite breakfast is French toast."

"French toast?" Emily said on a moan that had him seriously reconsidering his previous decision to not throw her down on the bed and have his wicked way with her. "That's my favourite."

"I thought breakfast was your favourite."

She arched an elegant eyebrow. "Last time I checked, French toast was a breakfast food."

He grinned. "Touché."

--

Emily was thankful for the little reprieve the bathroom gave her. She had both her brush and a hair elastic and though it was extremely easy to pull her hair up in to a very neat ponytail without a brush, she took the opportunity to just breathe. It had been horribly disconcerting to wake up to Jack's little face beneath the covers. She'd been having a rather... nice dream.... that had her absolutely surrounded by Hotch's smell, at least until Jack's voice invaded her consciousness. It was in the middle of tickling Jack that she realized she wasn't at home and she was indeed surrounded by Hotch's scent. She was in his bed. And that had sparked a new reaction.

Then to find out she'd stayed the night, even if was innocently on his couch, had her brain running too fast for her liking. If she'd been worried about things moving too fast yesterday, it was a little late to care now. And he'd even made her breakfast. But she was still nervous, still largely unsure of what was going on. She trusted him, trusted that he wanted a relationship with her, but wondered if he'd really thought it all through. She wondered if he knew the position he was putting them both in. Though Milwaukee had been over a year ago, she was reluctant to bring any of Strauss' attention to the team. They'd almost lost two agents in one day and she didn't want to be responsible for the possibility of it happening again.

But he was difficult to resist, especially when he was dangling what she wanted in front of her. She'd pretty much contented herself with her fantasies, assuming it would never actually happen. So when it had, when the opportunity had been pressed against her – for she had had a feeling that there were alternative motives than body heat in Montana – she hadn't really believed it. Even now, her lips still slightly swollen from his kiss, she wasn't sure it was real. And he'd told her he wanted it to be.

With a deep breath, she shook her head. This could wait. Right now, there was an adorable boy and a handsome man waiting for her with breakfast on the table. So she made her way down the short hall to the kitchen, smiling reassuringly at Hotch as she ruffled Jack's hair. He looked concerned, probably at how long she'd spent in the bathroom, but she'd needed that time to regroup.

"Any plans today?" he asked her when they were all settled around the table.

"Gingerbread with the girls," Emily replied. "Their favourite tradition. And a sleepover."

"They're sleeping over?" Hotch asked in surprise.

She nodded. "Mmhmm. Annual tradition." She tilted her head to the side, considering a moment. While it would be nice to have a break from him, she'd stuffed that part down into a box to be considered at a later date. So she turned to Jack. "What do you think?" she asked him. "Want to bake cookies?"

"Cookies!" Jack agreed.

Hotch looked torn between surprise and pleasure. She knew it had everything to do with the anxiety and vulnerability she'd shown the night before. She didn't blame him. "So? My apartment around four?"

It seemed that was the invitation he was waiting for. He grinned, his dimples showing. "Sounds fantastic."

Her apartment smelled like gingerbread. She smelled like gingerbread but he didn't care either way. What he cared about at that particular moment was the soft moan she was making as he had her pressed against her refrigerator. All three children were asleep, Carissa and Emmeline in the guest bedroom and Jack on Emily's bed, having been exhausted from baking, decorating and Finding Nemo. It was the first spare second they'd had to clean up and instead, he had her effectively pinned with cool steel at the back and his heat at her front.

Not that she was complaining.

He was taking advantage of the time he had. He'd always found her irresistible but had managed to hold back for her sake and his sanity. Now, however, he had the right as the man pursuing her. And before either of them had the chance to think or talk their way out of whatever was building between them, he fully intended on taking full advantage of his right. The fact that her hands had slipped under the t-shirt and sweater he wore drove him on.

"Hotch," she groaned out. "We need to-" She cut herself off with a gasp. "Oh!"

"What? What do we need to do?" he asked, his hands trailing slowly up her sides, alluring, tempting.

She reacted, arching into him. "We need to stop," she managed. "Jack, kids..." She kissed him, cutting herself off in the process.

But he didn't want to push and willingly slowed his kisses down. His hands slowed, coming to rest on her hips. "We need to stop," he agreed. Slowing down was more of a task than he'd expected but eventually they got back to cleaning the kitchen. He could tell something was up with her by the way she bit at her cheek. Still, she didn't say a word. He left it alone, hoping that in time she would just say it. He just hadn't expected it to be while they were washing the last mixing bowl.

"Are we moving too fast?"

He almost started at the question but managed to maintain his composure. "I don't know," he told her honestly.

She blew out a breath. "Neither do I."

He took the bowl out of her hands and left it on the drying rack, leaning his hip against the counter so he could face her. "What do you think, Emily?"

"I don't know," she repeated quietly. "Sometimes... Sometimes I think we are. We haven't talked about this. I don't want to talk about this."

"But we are," he said, tucking a short stray strand of hair behind her ear."We need to."

"We weren't going to," she pointed out.

He nodded. "Emily, you have to know that I'm going to put my all in this. I can't not."

--

Of course she knew that. Hotch was an intense person who couldn't do anything but put his all into everything he did. He focused on things he felt were important to him and it was an intensity that shook her. It was a scary thought to consider all of that attention focused on her. She had no choice but to believe that he was telling me the truth.

"What does that mean?" she asked.

"It means I want to try a relationship with you," he told her. "I want dates, I want mornings, I want time with you and Jack. I don't know when it happened, I'm not even sure why or how... I can't answer questions like that. I can't answer most of your questions except we have chemistry and I'm sick of fighting it. I don't know what else I can say."

She felt herself sniffling against her will. "That was pretty good."

"Thank you," he said with a smile. He kissed her forehead. "We can take our time. We can go at your pace."

"Our pace," she said, leaning up and kissing him quickly and softly. "I trust you."

And for now, it was enough.

I braved a shopping mall today because my Christmas shopping wasn't done and that's why this is late. I didn't have as much time as I'd have liked to write this and because I got distracted the end feels a little disconnected.

3 more chapters...