Hello, everyone. Thanks a lot for still reading this (if you're still are). Hotchlover, thanks again for reviewing.

I'm sorry it took me so long to update, but I'm still fighting myself over this story. More about that at the end.

Sorry for the spelling and the grammar, this chapter might be worse than the previous ones.

Disclaimer: yeah, Criminal Minds, not mine.

Damn it! She really wanted to go out, vent, forget, have fun. She wanted noise and drinks and people. Instead, she had a throbbing headache and an intermittent, sharp, pricking pain in her ear, as if a needle was being inserted right into her brain through her ear. She popped a couple of Ibuprofen pills into her mouth and swallowed them with bathroom's tap water.

She went into her dark bedroom. The lights were off, she couldn't really handle any sort of brightness at the moment. She couldn't handle sound either. But she wanted the pills to kick in before she went to bed. She decided to take a shower to kill time and maybe relax.

With the water hitting her with the perfect amount of pressure, she began to loosen up a little and her anger over her ear injury dimmed down. Unfortunately, that sent her brain back to the topic about which she shouldn't be thinking. He wasn't showing up, was he? He was not coming to hear the answers. She had expected he would, if not for any other reason, at least out of sheer curiosity. Or to clear thing up, to give it a clean cut. They were rooted in honesty. They asked the questions and gave the answers. And her answer had been honest. Vague, uncertain, but sincere. But they had never given up, they had never quit over the other one's hesitation.

His cowardness infuriated her, sent her body into full tension. He had seemed so open, so willing to… deal with whatever was going on with her that his sudden change was simply… inacceptable. Ok, ok, it was still acceptable. They still where within the time limits, the ten days maximum, if she took the last few month as a parameter. Ten days was the longest period of time they had spent without lapsing. There was still some time left. Not much.

And yes, yes, of course she could go. She could go and ask, or explain, or explain why she wasn't explaining. But no. She was not going to do that. No, she told herself as she shook her head under the falling water. If he didn't care, she wasn't going to do anything. She had decided a long time ago that she was not going to be a martyr over someone else's needs. She was done playing the masochist role. That was old Prentiss. And yes, old Prentiss had been craving for attention, had surfaced, and tried to rein her actions, but no. Not this time. Not anymore.

If he came, if he set the cards on the table, she might go all in. She might be honest, throw everything onto him. Not as a sign of surrender. She was not going to give him that much power. She would give him knowledge so he could understand why she was stepping out. Because they had fucked it up. They had totally fucked it up. It felt too much like a relationship, like a true, real, deep relationship. At least for her. He might just have been accepting the company, the bond for those many hours at a time and nothing else. Because, she had to admit, Hotch choosing her might not have even been a choice. She might just be the only one that fitted his needs at the time. And it was fine, it was just freaking fine. Because, at the time, he fitted hers too. And, in the meantime, he had also fitted them.

Shit, it still hurt like hell. Damn it. She shouldn't have been so reckless, she thought as she shampooed her hair with an excessive amount of force. She should have paid more attention.

But now it was fucking late. The thing had jumped from her subconscious mind into her conscious one. Now she knew. She could refuse to name it, she could pretend it didn't exist, she could compartmentalize her ass off, but her fucking needs had changed. Damn it! She hated having those needs.

Those needs made her feel frail, fragile, weak. She wanted to go back to kicking butt and braking bones, and taking punches. And coming out of it all in one piece and prove that she was just as strong and self-assured as she had been before. She wanted to go back to slightly masculine. And she also wanted to be appealing and noticeable. Yes, damn it, it was stupid. It was stupid and pathetic, and a touch schizophrenic. But she truly wanted to be herself, her Agent Prentiss self and the other self too. The self that had, in fact, made an impact on a guy that was handsome and attractive, and a little risky, a little sizzling, and that was so incredibly nice and understanding and who was willing to be her pal. The fucking perfect catch. Except, of course, she didn't want him. Why would she want the man that was perfect for her? That was not her MO. No, her signature was to bury herself in a deep, deep well of crap. And fall for the other man, the one that was bigger than life, she almost punched herself at that weak, clichéd line that had popped in her head at the mere thought of a man that was closed as a clamp and that covered everything with a thick coat of anger. Except during their nights.

Again, her anger simmered down. Because, whether she wanted to admit it or not, she had been extremely proud. She had been so proud of herself. He trusted her, he wore no masks, he gave it all. And that last night… that last night, maybe because she wanted to believe it, maybe because it was real, maybe because he had perfected the character, he had been exactly what she sought. The same warmth from that night spread. Best sex ever. The memory clenched her heart, her stomach, her lungs. So delicate, so safe, so reciprocal if such a word accommodated to the situation. She had felt so cared for that night, so taken care of, so important to him. Since the hand on her shoulder all the way up until he asked about Mick. And again since she came out of the bathroom until she fell asleep. And once more in the morning, since he grabbed her hand until she closed the door behind her. And never again since that moment.

And, damn it, who wanted that, anyway? Who wanted to be that soft? That dependent on someone else's view of oneself? She yelled at herself as she shut the water down.

Whatever, she thought as she toweled herself. If she couldn't push it back to the back of her head, if she couldn't crush it down, at least she could tough it out. She could wear it off. She could ride it until… until… Until what?

It was such a depressing idea. Because, really, until what? What had to happen for her need of him to extinguish? She pondered as she put her pajamas on. Because, truth be told, honest to God and herself… if he came to her door right now wearing either sadness, happiness or anger on his face, or if he simply asked her what was wrong, she would transform into a spineless, brainless, tender ball of nothing, even if she was mad. Just because of the privilege, even more significant in it rareness, of being the one that saw the private Hotch. Just because he gave her comfort and warmth … God, Brainless and spineless.

As she got into bed and prayed for sleep to come soon, one only thought came to her mind. Love sucked.

It had been over fifteen days ago. That felt like a small eternity. And that was not normal for their late schedule. But maybe it was going back in time, pretending that Mick Rawson, the night in San Francisco had never happen. Or further back, a few months, or even a year, when things were much clearer, when it was what it was and not that other thing that he had come to understand just now. Or maybe he just wanted to pretend that none of it had ever happened. Or that it all had happen and that it was time to end it. He hadn't decided yet. He excused himself saying that he didn't have time to ponder and wonder and mope as if he was a high school boy. He had work, he had a son, he had responsibilities. He was not, had never been, the type of man that… his lips disappeared into a thin line. That was the problem, wasn't it? He was a horrible distant husband, and he was a terrible open lover. Because, at this point, that was how he was referring to it, to them. They were/had been lovers.

Lovers. As if it had been an affair. A distraction. Something that does not last or, if it does, does not imply nor warranties a future. Something out of which one is free to walk away whenever one wants, no explanation needed.

And, frankly, did he have to give an explanation? Was there something that could be sorted out by saying things out loud? Hadn't that screwed things up? Because, perhaps, if he had kept his mouth shut, if hadn't asked, if he had just held her and watched her sleep... The point of inflection, the moment in which the line of their continuum bent, had been when he forced her to decided if there would be another night or not. We'll talk about this, right? You'll tell me what's going on? He had used future tenses. Damn it!

But, again, he had felt he had the right. He was sure they were marching at the same pace down the same path. He had been so sure, even if he hadn't acknowledged it. Even if he didn't want to have the conversation. Even if the conversation could not happen because it would have brought things to reality. And questions much more complicated than did you set the alarm? would have had to be answered. Questions he did not want to answer, nor did he want to ask. The question that could, and would, end everything whether they wanted or not.

However, it had taken him an hour and a half on a jet to be convinced of the opposite. She was not walking with him, she just crossed to his lane every now and then, and she just moved on afterwards. Had it been like that all along? No. It couldn't have. If it had, this thing would have blown up before.

He flipped through the channels. He wasn't watching anything but he needed to do something, even if it was pointing the remote and pressing the buttons. It was then that the little thing that had been swimming somewhere in his head jumped in front of him in the form of a concrete thought. Of course he would notice, he snapped at himself, noticing things was his job. But he had some kind of delay when it came to Prentiss and everything made itself evident days, weeks or, apparently, months after the fact.

The cell phone thing, for example. She was suddenly very attached to her cell. She didn't talk on the phone all the time, nor did she text. She didn't even check for miss calls. She just kept her cell with her at all times. If she went to brew coffee, she took her cell. If she went to get a snack, she took her cell. If she went to the restroom, she took her cell. Even when she was chatting nearby her desk, she palmed her pockets until she knew in which of them her cell phone was. It was, Hotch thought, a drastic change on her behavior. She had never been so dependent on it. But she wasn't now either, was she? No. She wasn't waiting for a call. She was just guarding her phone. The realization enraged him.

Hotch also noticed her mood swings. Prentiss always had her emotions floating out of her. She was transparent, much like her skin, he thought before clenching his jaw and reprimanding himself for such a lapse. She was mostly stable, though, he continued his analysis. Unless there was something particular about a case that triggered a strong emotion, she was usually in a stable mood. And even when that happened, when something bothered her, she wore that feeling out. But since their return from San Francisco, she seemed to bounce around states. She was fine, but then would suddenly lash out for no reason at all. Which, he had to admit, even if it was as vile and self-centered as he had been that night, was gratifying. She wasn't yet totally gone. She was not utterly out of his grip and influence. He still had, even if by making her angry or snappy, power over her mood. He was a horrible man, yes, but he was perversely proud of having her at least a little flustered.

Which didn't matter at all, he thought as he turned the TV of and a new, invigorated rush of anger, of resentment towards himself and his life, ran through his veins with the strength and violence of an electric shock.

You hate me? Don't, I'm a nice person. Just a little troubled.

As means to explain myself, I'll tell you that this story is actually the middle of a longer, much, much longer thing that has been going on in my head for some time. It begins at the beginning, that first night, and ends somewhere in the future, maybe a year or a year and a half after this particular point in time. So, as I write, scenes from before and after jump on me. That's one of the reasons for my delay updating.

Ok, that said, I hope you're still enjoying this. Let me know either way, 'k?

allthatisevil.