Disclaimer: *sigh*
This chapter is dedicated to: CrimStudent47, NCIS-fan-cecy, Rolfy, Megz-and-Tori, Ninja Bagel and nataliebianca.
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Day One- Sunday Morning
As promised, Emily and Aaron arrived at Haley's at five on Sunday morning. Jack flew out of the car at a rapid speed, and tossed his suitcase into the trunk. A gigantic smile hung on his face as he jumped into the car and clicked his seatbelt on. Riley trudged out of the house slowly, barely able to keep her eyes open. If she got up of her own accord, she was fine but if someone woke her up, she became the worst morning person ever. Emily knew how she felt, as she felt the same way. Still, Emily managed a small hello. Riley grunted in response and put her suit case in the car. Emily couldn't suppress a giggle at Riley's tired response.
"Alright, is everyone ready?" Hotch asked, mustering up all of the excitement he could at 5 in the morning.
"YES!" Jack screamed.
"What about you, Ri?" He asked, knowing full well she'd rather be sleeping. Still, who can resist toying with a sleep deprived teenager?
"Mmm." She mumbled.
"Woah, calm down Riley. Your excitement is too much." Hotch scoffed and Riley glared at him.
"You know the camp ground will be the same if we left at 9 right?" She whined.
"But we wouldn't get there until after 1. We'd lose half the day." Hotch explained.
"God forbid." Riley rolled her eyes, and Emily snickered. The car was getting warmer as they drove, so Emily reached to turn on the air conditioner. When she flicked the switch however, there was simply a bang.
"What the hell?" She said. Riley groaned, and said something about only being on the road for half an hour and something is already going wrong. Aaron pulled over and got out of the car to look under the hood.
"Oh no." Jack said when Hotch shut the door.
"It's okay honey, we'll be there soon." Emily reassured.
"No, it's not that." Jack mumbled.
"What is it then?" Riley asked.
"Daddy doesn't even know what he's looking for. He's going to make it worse." Both Emily and Riley laughed. It was true. They both knew that Aaron was smart, but he only knew the basics about cars. If it was something bad, there was pretty much nothing he could do. He opened the door, and came back in.
"I think the air conditioning blew." He determined.
"No kidding." Riley said, and he glared at her.
"Oh well, we'll just have to suck it up." Emily said. She didn't realize how bad that was going to be. The next three and a half hours of their drive were overly hot. Having the windows down was pretty much useless. All it was doing was making the hot air circulate through the car. They were all beyond happy to arrive at the campsite. The rest of the day was decent. They took a long hike in the morning and spent the rest of the evening swimming.
Day One- Sunday Night
Riley was pretty surprised at how the day turned out. She thought that the air conditioning breaking was a sign of imminent doom. However, no one got hurt on the hike, and no one drown in the lake. Riley was never one to enjoy camping but if there was one thing she liked about it, it was the campfires. She applied about ten pounds of bug repellent, and got out her guitar to play a campfire song. Suddenly, as she pulled the guitar out of the trunk, she heard her father yell. She ran out to see him clutching his hand, standing above the freshly started fire.
"MOTHER FU-" He began yelling when he saw Jack crawl out of the tent he and Riley were sharing.
"What the hell happened now?" Emily asked, emerging from the tent she was sharing with Aaron.
"The damn fire!" He hollered.
"Did you touch it?!" Emily exclaimed.
"The wood fell, I was trying to fix it. Son a bitch." He yelped.
"Daddy!" Jack gasped. It was rare that the young boy heard his father swear.
"Riley, get the first aid kit." Emily said, walking over to Hotch. She grabbed his hand and examined it. "Ouch."
"You think?" Hotch asked sarcastically. He realized that he had snapped at Emily for no reason. He apologized, but Emily didn't care. From the look of the burn, he had a right to be pissed off. Riley grabbed a water bottle, and the first aid kit. She then took her father's hand from Emily's.
"It's first degree." Riley said quietly.
"How do you know?" Emily wondered.
"No blisters." Riley pointed out. "Plus, it's swelling, but it's minimal. Poor this water on it for a minute then put some aloe gel on it. There's some in the first aid kit. After that, throw some gauze on it and take an Advil. I took a first aid course last October." Riley said when she noticed that Emily and her father staring at her.
Riley was correct about the burn. All of her ideas worked, and thought it hurt, Hotch was able to get through the night. Emily extinguished the fire shortly after Hotch was burned, so the 'gathering round the fire' idea went out of the window for that night.
Day Two- Monday Morning
"Daddy!" Hotch awoke to the sound of Jack's shrieks. He pried his eyes open and looked at his watch. It was just about 6 in the morning.
"Mmm." He mumbled, noticing how much he sounded like his daughter.
"You said we can go fishing in the morning. It's morning." He exclaimed. Hotch sat up and stretched. It was difficult, but he managed to shoo Jack out, get dressed and exit the tent and not wake up Emily. When he got out of the tent, Jack was already waiting for him. To his surprise, so was Riley.
"He made me." She said, pointing to Jack.
"He's a bit excited." Hotch said, and the three Hotchner's walked down to the dock where they would fish. It took a while to set up their fishing rods, and Hotch was excited when he was finally going to help Jack cast.
"I'm going to get a bobber." Riley said, retreating to where the dock met the shore.
"Okay, so you just flip this." Hotch explained to Jack. "You bring the rod back, and then you flip this back."
"I can do it!" Jack exclaimed, and he took the rod from his father. He was following Hotch's explanation quite well. Jack flicked the rod backwards, but span as he did it. Hotch looked back just in time to watch the fishing rod collide with Riley's stomach as she walked back to Aaron and Jack. Apparently, Jack was spinning quickly because the force from the rod sent Riley into the water.
"Oh shit!" Hotch exclaimed, running for the edge of the dock. He heard Jack yell at him for cursing, but he didn't care. When he spotted Riley, he noticed that the water wasn't overly deep, but Riley was still coughing and spitting out water. She waded over to the dock, and Hotch pulled her out.
"It..it..it's..f-f-freezing." Riley said through chattering teeth.
"Why don't you go back to the campsite with Emily? I'll fish with him." Hotch suggested as he draped the sweater he wore overtop of Riley's shaking body.
"Y-y-yeah." She shivered and walked back to the campsite.
Day two- Monday night
Much to everyone's dismay, the day went from bad to worse very quickly. The temperature climbed, and before he knew it, Hotch was totally covered in sunburn. Jack twisted his ankle while they hiked through the forest, and Riley fell over a rock and split her knee open. To make everything worse, a rainstorm started and flooded Riley and Jack's tent. Now, they were all squished into Hotch and Emily's two person tent, as the rain continued.
"This is spooky." Jack said out of the blue in the middle of the night.
"Shush." Riley hissed. "I'm already unable to sleep with your butt in my face; you don't need to talk all night too.
"Emmy, I'm scared." Jack whined.
"Jack, the monsters couldn't find you squished in-between everyone like this." Riley hissed.
"MONSTERS?!" Jack yelled, jumping up, and then falling on top of Emily. Much to everyone's dismay, when Jack fell, he brought the entire tent over with him. They all groaned in disbelief.
"You had to say monsters." Hotch hissed.
"Well, I didn't assume I'd say monsters and he'd jump nine feet in the air." Riley snapped. Emily, Jack and Riley all waited in the car as Hotch attempted to set up the tent again, in the rain.
Day Three- Tuesday Morning
"Hey Dad?" Riley called from outside the tent the next morning. Hotch looked at his watch and noticed both him and Emily had slept past nine. Apparently Riley had kept Jack entertained so they could sleep after the tent fiasco. He made a mental note to thank her profusely.
"Yes Ri?" He called from inside the tent.
"When we all got in the car last night, did you take all of the food out?"
"Yes...?" Emily began stirring and Hotch kissed her.
"Yeah. I thought so." Riley sighed.
"What's wrong?" Emily asked sleepily.
"Well, no one put the food away. And there were raccoons." Riley answered angrily.
"You've got to be kidding me!" Hotch exclaimed and he jumped out of the tent. Before he looked at the food, he noticed that Riley was covered from head to toe in mosquito bites. He went to see if she was okay, but she gestured to the grass surrounding their campsite. Sure enough, the coolers were open and the food was scattered, opened, half eaten and soggy from sitting outside in the rain. Emily came out of the tent and gasped when she saw that the food was gone.
"Oh shit!" Emily sighed. "We're supposed to be here until Saturday!"
"We can go to the store?" Jack suggested from the picnic table that he was sitting on.
"Do we know where one is around here?" Riley asked and Emily shook her head.
"Fuck!" Hotch yelled, and everyone stared at him. He rarely swore, and this was one word that neither of his kids, nor Emily had ever heard him use.
"Daddy!" Jack gasped. "That's a really bad word!"
"We're in a really bad situation Jack! Look around! No food, no second tent, no air conditioner in the car! Riley's knee is split open and she is covered in bug bites. You've got a twisted ankle that you're still limping on. My hand if fried and my ENTIRE body is covered in sunburn!" He yelled. "Emily-"
"Is holding poison oak." Riley finished for him. He looked over and saw Emily holding a plant.
"This is poison oak?" She asked through clenched teeth. "It was on the cooler. I was trying to get it off!"
"Yep." Riley said. Emily threw the plant at the ground, and she stomped on it in anger.
"Stupid plant!" She hollered.
"I'd have stomped on it too if I were you Emily, but I would have made sure I was wearing shoes." Riley said, trying her hardest to suppress a giggle. Emily looked down, and Riley correct. She was not wearing any shoes, and was now standing on the plant that was going to make her hands break out.
"Damn it!" She screamed louder.
"That's it!" Hotch yelled. "We're leaving! I'm sorry this isn't as good as when Eric took you camping and that was all you could talk about."
"Eric took us to a cottage." Jack said. Hotch went silent and he aimed a kick at a rock. After his foot collided with the rock, he noticed that he too, wasn't wearing shoes.
"Everyone in the car." He said, deadly calm taking over his voice. "Now." They all followed orders and packed up. Once the site was clear of their stuff, they all got into the car and sat in silence for a few moments.
"Hey Dad?" Riley began.
"Yes Riley?" He said, his voice was calm, but he wasn't masking his anger.
"You still have us until Saturday and your still off for the week."
"And?"
"Why don't we go on an actual vacation?" She asked. Emily perked up.
"What did you have in mind?" She asked Riley.
"That sign up there said there is a hotel in a few miles." Riley said.
"And?" Hotch said again.
"Well, I didn't want to be rude... or at least, more rude than usual, but I don't think camping is a real vacation. A hotel is." She said happily. "We should stay there. No raccoons, no bugs, no lakes, no sunburns, no tents. Everything that pissed you off is gone!"
"Don't say pissed." Hotch corrected.
"Okay, but seriously!" Riley said.
"What do you think?" He asked Emily and Jack.
"Yeah!" Jack exclaimed.
"Nothing could be worse than that trip." Emily agreed, nursing her poison oak. "They might have calamine lotion in the hotel gift shop." She said happily.
"Alright." Hotch agreed. "We'll stay in the hotel." They all grinned, hoping the same thing; that they could salvage their trip by staying in the hotel.
A/N Alright readers, that's all for now. Please tell me what you thought, aka Review :D