When nothing goes as planned


Week 8

It was five pm on Sunday night, and Emily was standing at the front door of the Hotchner resident just as planned. They were going to talk about what they were going to do now, and she was nervous – almost as nervous as she had been just before she had told him about the pregnancy.

Emily took a deep breath and then rang the doorbell. A moment later she heard scraping on the other side of the door and a little voice asked, "Who's ringing? And I will know if you are lying, because pushed the chair in front of the door so now I'm looking at you."

"Well if you are looking at me then you will know that it's me, Emily," she said with a smile.

Jack giggled. "You have a pretty coat on. But I can't open the door for you, because daddy says I'm not allowed to open the door for anyone. Not even if I know the person on the other side."

"Well thank you and you shouldn't open the door for anyone, but do you think you could go get your dad now, so I wouldn't have to stand out here in the hall all night?"

"Oh yeah!"

Emily heard a bump and then running steps that quickly faded away. She was left in complete silence so when the door opened suddenly, Emily almost jumped a foot into the air. "I'm sorry I startled you," Hotch said. Emily nodded and walked around Hotch into the apartment. She took off her coat and Hotch hung it for her on the high peg row as she bent down and sat her bag on the floor. When she rose, Emily noticed a row of blue elephant shaped pegs about two feet from the ground, with Jack's small coat hanging on one of them. Emily smiled. She would never have thought that Hotch would have elephant pegs in his hallway, but then again, he was the father of a four year-old.

"Do you want something to drink? Water? Milk? Iced tea? Soda?" Hotch asked as he walked into the kitchen area.

"Iced tea will be fine," Emily said following right behind him and leant against the counter as Hotch grabbed the carafe from the fridge. He poured iced tea into two glasses and then asked, "Jack, do you want something to drink too?"

Jack's head popped up over the back of the couch. "Yes please."

Hotch turned and grabbed a blue plastic cup with Spiderman from the cupboard. He filled it and put the carafe back in the fridge. "Come and get your cup, buddy," Hotch said and handled one of the glasses to Emily. She took a sip of the iced tea and watched as the little boy slid from the couch and ran to his father.

"Is it in the right cup? The blue one with Spiderman?" Jack asked. Hotch nodded and gave him the blue cup. Jack drank some of the iced tea and then stretched to sit the cup back on the counter. He was just about to walk away again, but stopped and looked up at Emily. "Oh, you look really pretty!"

"Thank you," Emily said blushing and Hotch looked from his smiling son to Emily and saw what he had not seen before. Emily was not just pretty, she was beautiful and there was no doubt about it. Her hair was down and curly and she was wearing a sweet light green dress with a white flower pattern. But it was not her dress or her that made her look more beautiful than usual. No, it was the fact that she was glowing. She was glowing like only a pregnant woman could glow.

Jack stepped closer to Emily and laid his small hand on her stomach and asked, "Do you have a baby in your tummy?"

Hotch looked surprised at Jack. How could he know that? But then Hotch noticed the small baby bump under Jack's hand. A baby bump Emily did not feel the need to hide away, because he already knew about the baby, because this was his baby.

Emily laughed. "Yeah there is a little baby in there."

Hotch laid a hand on Jack's head and ruffled his hair. "Buddy, why don't you go and play in your room. Emily and I need to talk a bit."

"Grown up talk?" Jack asked looking up at Hotch. He nodded and Jack sighed. "Okay I will go to my room and play."

He began to walk away when Hotch said, "We can watch Toy Story together after dinner, if you want to."

Jack stopped and turned around with a smile on his face. "I'd like that." He looked at Emily. "Will you watch it with us? Please."

"I wouldn't miss the chance to get to watch Toy Story. It's like the best movie ever!"

"Yeah it is," Jack laughed and ran into his room.

Hotch smiled. "You just scored a lot of points with Jack there." He stepped around Emily and walked to the couch and sat. Emily followed him and sat down so a seat was between them. For a long moment neither of them said anything. They just sat there on the couch not looking at each other. Emily looked straight ahead and Hotch fiddled with the glass of iced tea in his hand. He could feel how nervous Emily was and Hotch wanted to say something he just did not know what to say. From the corner of his eye, Hotch could see Emily moving her shaking hands to lay on her baby bump and he could hear her slowly breathing in and out as to preventing herself from panicking.

Hotch leant forward and placed the glass on the coffee table. "You definitely want to keep the baby."

It was not a question, but a statement. Emily answered anyway, "More than anything." Tears were now in Emily's eyes and her voice was faltered. "Hotch…I…I can't do this alone."

Hotch leant back in the couch and turned to look at Emily for the first time since they sat down. He could see the tears falling down her cheeks and thought that this was the second time in a week that he has seen her cry and again it's because of him that she was crying. Hotch lifted his hand and cupped her left cheek. His thumb brushed over her cheekbone wrapping away the newly falling tear. "Emily, this isn't just your baby or mine – it's ours and we are going to take care of it together, okay?"

Emily sniffled and nodded her head. "Okay." Then she leant into his touch, closed her eyes and began to cry. Her cries quickly turned into stifled sobbing and her body started to shake. Hotch moved closer to her and wrapped his arm around Emily bringing her head down to his shoulder. Hotch did not know why Emily was crying, but he did not ask any questions, he just let her cry.

After a couple of minutes, Emily's cries slowly faded to a loud sniffle and then nothing. Emily dried the tears off her cheeks and as she did so she became aware of the wet spots on his light green polo t-shirt. Emily pulled away from him completely and with a blush. Not only because she had cried on him and gotten his t-shirt wet, but because she had not noticed until now that he was wearing a polo shirt and jeans, clothes that was so unlike the ones that she usually saw him in. Emily did not understand why she had not noticed it before. Maybe she had just been too nervous to really look at him earlier.

Emily cleared her throat and said without really looking at Hotch, "I'm sorry I got your shirt wet."

Hotch smiled. "That's okay. It will dry quickly."

"I'm sorry for crying too. I didn't mean to do that," Emily said still not looking at him. She was too embarrassed to do so. And Emily felt how her cheeks were getting hotter and hotter and she could only imagine how red they were becoming.

"Crying is not a thing you ever need to apologize for or get embarrassed about." Hotch paused, but then asked, "If you don't mind me asking, why did you cry?"

Emily slowly lifted her head and him in the eyes. "I was so nervous and scared that you were going to tell me that you didn't want to have anything to do with the baby. So I have been preparing myself for the worst, but then you said you wanted the baby and I was so relieved."

Hotch tilted his head to the side. "I have to say Emily that it didn't sound like you were crying out of relief."

Emily sighed and felt her eyes fill up with tears. "It wasn't." She swallowed. "I'm scared. What are we going to tell the team? And the other people at work? When are we going to do that and when are we going to tell Jack and our parents. And what are we going to do about us?"

Emily stopped to take a deep breath and was just about to go again, but Hotch interrupted her. "Emily, stop! Stop thinking about all that and let's talk about it together."

Emily nodded and said with a small smile, "Okay I'll stop."

"So who from the team already knows about you being pregnant?" Hotch asked.

"Only JJ. She kind of knew I was pregnant before I even did by pointing out a lot of things, like why I have to pee all the time and why my breasts are getting bigger." As Emily said the last thing Hotch could help but quickly look down at her chest. Emily rolled her eyes. "But I would like to wait a little longer to tell the rest of the team."

"Okay, that's fine, but I don't think you will be able to hide that bump for much longer."

Emily smiled and laid her hand on her stomach. "Yeah I know. It's getting bigger a lot faster than I had thought I would."

"Maybe there are two in there," Hotch said only half joking.

"Don't even think that! One baby is enough."

"Okay I won't," Hotch said with a chuckle. "So when should we tell our parents?"

"Well if it was up to me I would never have to tell my mother, but that would probably just make her madder at me when she learns the fact that I'm pregnant with my boss' child," Emily said.

"She would be mad at you?"

"I don't know." She shrugged her shoulders. "When do you think we should tell Jack?"

"Soon," Hotch said. "I think we need to involve him in everything that is going on quickly so he has time to get used to it, because I don't know how he is going to react when he hears that the baby in your belly is going to be his little brother or sister…" The sentence faded out when Hotch saw the look of near panic on Emily face. "What's wrong?"

Emily did not answer him instead she said, "Hey Jack."

Hotch quickly turned around and saw Jack standing in the doorway to the living room with a look of surprise on his face. At first Jack did not move, but then he started walking to them slowly. He said nothing as he walked and neither did Hotch or Emily. Jack stopped in front of Emily and looked down at her stomach. For some time he just stood there silently looking at Emily's baby bump, but then all of the sudden he looked up at his father and asked, "How did the baby get in there?"

"You are having that talk with him, you are his father," Emily quickly said.

Hotch sighed in relief. "We can talk about that a little later, okay?" Jack nodded and Hotch pulled the small boy into his lap. "Did you hear what I just said a moment ago about the baby in Emily's tummy being or little boy or sister?"

"Mmhmm."

"What do you think about that?"

"Will the baby take my toys?" Jack asked a bit concerned.

"The baby will get its own toys," Emily said.

Jack nodded while looking from Hotch to Emily a couple of times. "Are you boyfriend and girlfriend?" Hotch was not able to answer when Jack asked, "Do you love each other?"

Neither of them knew how to answer the little boy's question, because the truth was that they did not love each other. They were not even really friends or anything and they only knew very little about each other. But they did care about one another. Emily stroke Jack's cheek. "We care a lot about each other."

"Okay." Jack nodded and then turned around in Hotch's lap and looked up at him. "So how did the baby get in Emily's tummy?"