The Sixth Year
By the sixth year, she feels disconnected.
It's her fault. Integrating back into the BAU fold has been much more difficult than she could have imagined. She always feels a little bit apart, always feels a little bit like a foreign entity where she'd been warm family before. They all try, bless them, but it's all very, very different.
Especially Hotch.
Things had changed between them last Christmas. So very many things and for a long time it had been so very good. Then Ian Doyle had broken out of his North Korean prison, hunted her down and threatened each and every member of her family. She'd done what she'd had to do and she does not regret her actions. The consequences, yes. The actions, never.
But she can't seem get into the spirit of it this year.
Everything's decorated, of course. Penelope wouldn't have it any other way. So the BAU is covered in reds and greens, tinsel and mistletoe and holly. She's gone all out, dragged Emily and JJ around for hours – and she's trying not to think of his soft smile, the one he'd saved just for her for so bloody long before the lies and the secrets and the whole story came out in blood and witness protection – and it certainly looks like Santa's workshop threw up in their offices.
No one seems to really be complaining though. In fact, they all look quite content with it, happy and joyous and she hates that she just cannot feel it. Hates that she feels like a spectator no matter how hard they all try to fold her in again.
She's separate now, different.
"Hey," Derek says, startling her out of her maudlin thoughts. "You're coming to Rossi's later, right?"
"Yeah," she says with a stiff smile. It's a lie, but she's practiced at it now isn't she? Isn't that what they all think? That she just lies through her teeth, to everyone. She might as well live up to it.
God, that's a terrible thought. She mentally apologizes, her eyes fluttering closed. She's not supposed to be the bitter one, not when she knows they have the right to be mad at her.
"Em?"
"Yeah," she says again. "I'll be there."
She won't.
Except, right about the time she's texting Rossi to apologize, right when she's about to pull up their group conversation, a knock sounds at her door. Hotch.
"Hey."
"Hi," she says, a little breathless, definitely surprised. A moment later, it sinks in. "You're here to make sure I come."
He watches her, face impassive. She hates it. She'd cracked through that wall before Doyle, had broken through to the warm, beautiful man beneath. And with a few deft gunshots and a well-placed table leg, Doyle had unraveled it all.
"Rossi thought it would be a good idea."
Traitor. And here she thought Rossi was the one she could count on. Maybe JJ, the only other person who had been in on the whole thing from the beginning.
She sighs, runs a hand through her hair. "Telling you I'm not feeling well isn't going to help is it?"
His smile is wry. "Rossi said something about not caring if you were in skimpy pajamas."
She snorts, but there's a smile there and she knows it, warm and affectionate. "He wouldn't."
She looks back at him then, at this face that was once impassive and is now a little breathtaking. "Hotch?"
"You haven't smiled in a while."
"I smile all the time." Because she's been trying dammit. She's just… out of effort. She's tired.
"Not like that. Not like-"
Not like she used to.
It all comes crashing down on her again, his attempt at lightheartedness falling flat in the face of his honest truth. She folds her arms across her stomach, cups her elbows with opposite hands.
"It's a bad idea," she says. "Me being there."
Silence falls then, not exactly comfortable.
"We all know you're still… Recovering," he says finally, carefully, hands in his pockets. Before Them – which, yes, deserves the capitalization – she would have thought nothing of it. But now, now she knows. He keeps his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching for her. Even now, even here as he scolds her, he's holding himself back.
Like everyone else.
"No one wants to push you, sweetheart."
Her heart clenches at the pet name. It feels good and torturous to hear him call her that again. She swallows, glances away then back. She is not a coward and she will say this right to his face.
"Even you can't touch me."
He doesn't even startle. He watches her, silent and strong and resilient. "I'm not sure you want me to."
She laughs, this gross watery sound she hates but can't seem to stop. "Hotch. Aaron. I want nothing but."
Then she's in his arms and his mouth is on hers, hard and bruising and everything she'd wanted. He has her pressed against the wall before she breaks away, before any kind of thought returns.
"Jack?"
"Jessica's."
She gasps as his hips press into hers, the wall hard and unyielding against her back. "They'll be expecting us."
His eyes are so dark, so relieved, so full that, God, she doesn't care what everyone else is going to say. She cares about this man, about the feel of him, the way her hips are already arching, already rocking. Oh. Oh if they're really going to do this it's going to be hard and fast and she's already half way gone.
"I don't care."
Yeah. Turns out, neither does she.