Season Three
"And I wonder/If everything could ever feel this real forever/If anything could ever be this good again."
(Foo Fighters)
3.01
He's not stupid. He knows, in hindsight, that Prentiss didn't maneuver her way into the unit, but his suspicions regarding Strauss' hand in her assignment never dissipated. If anything, they've grown, along with his resentment, because he's come to realize just how good Prentiss is, and he hates that she's being used for political gain.
The self-doubt in her eyes tells him Strauss has made her move.
He's not worried about what she'll do. Not only does he recognize her integrity, but he recognizes what a mistake Strauss is making in trying to control a woman who won't be caged.
3.02
There's a moment as he's walking into her apartment, a pang of primal urge that tears through him like a bullet. Something untethered by Haley's veiled ultimatum that sets loose a flood of repressed desire, and he can barely breathe for how desperately he wants to back her into a wall and give in to baser instinct.
And then, as quickly as it rose, it settles, and he is in control once more.
Later, as blood trickles down her forehead and Strauss signals her retreat, he wonders if this will be the thing that undoes him.
Something's going to give.
3.03
Hearing him tell Morgan that Haley's left sends a surge of emotions through her, splintered like light hitting a prism: anticipation, sadness, fear, resentment.
She writes it off as empathy.
But she thinks she understands, at least, why he's put some distance between them again. He's in unfamiliar territory, unsteady without Gideon, and she knows him the least. She's too much of a variable when the rest of his life is uncertain.
A seat away, Hotch knows: the distance is self-preservation. His rug is already out from beneath him, and he's certain she has the power to make him fall.
3.04
She doesn't know if she could be a mother. Doesn't know if the instinct is in there, somewhere.
And because Hotch is a father and profiler at once, she tests the waters. Mentions the prospect of taking Carrie.
Somehow, she thinks his reaction hurts more than if he'd simply told her she'd make a lousy mother. It's a compounded insult, rejection of her prospects as a parent coupled with questions of capability.
When she tells him she needs to know she can be human, she knows she's hitting back. Hard.
They leave each other in pieces for Jack and JJ.
3.05
Hotch goes from the mall to his son, and from there, the office. He won't be sleeping tonight.
He's shocked by what he finds in the bullpen. Prentiss looks every bit as perturbed as he feels. She glances up as he walks in, and he feels suddenly like she's been expecting him.
Like she's here, in part, so he won't be alone.
He stops short of her desk, weighing the risk. But he's only human.
"Do you drink Scotch?"
Shock flashes in her eyes, but she recovers fast. "Tonight I'd drink toilet wine."
"Johnny Walker Blue will have to suffice."
3.06
He forgot to warn Rossi. To the man's credit, he just leans over like he's looking at a crime scene photo and raises his eyebrows.
"New tradition?"
"Only when we go to Texas." He'll admit - he's always been impressed by the straight faces the two of them maintain throughout.
"Gideon's doing."
"Who else?"
After the third hummed refrain, Dave gamely taps his pen in time and murmurs along.
"Deep in the heart of Texas…"
Hotch feels a surge of envy when he sees delight flash in Emily's eyes.
He wonders how long it'll take Dave to figure him out.
3.07
If asking her to call him "Hotch" was their formal détente, their night spent drinking in the dark was their rapprochement. Neither knows how or why things have changed, but there's no question that they have. They're fluid in the field, able to anticipate one another and move precisely, two people who have never been much for partnership realizing the value of complementarity.
They don't acknowledge this development, nor the boundary between them that's hazy at best. Neither voices the realization that if they work this well together in the field, anything they had in private would be profoundly spectacular.
3.08
"This," she murmurs, "is not what I signed up for when I joined."
He's first on the jet, and she's sitting beside him. Deliberately.
"My fondness for chili has certainly taken a hit."
"You like chili?"
"Before this, I did."
She grins. "Ever been to Ben's Chili Bowl?"
He cocks an eyebrow. "I'm offended you'd even ask."
"I don't know if I'll ever be able to go back."
"Give it time."
Two weeks later, he finds a Tupperware container on his desk bearing a Post-It in her handwriting:
"It's not Ben's, but let me know what you think. - Prentiss"
3.09
The fire in his eyes when he tells them he doesn't care about protocol spreads, burning her up. The intensity, how fiercely he cares for them all, hits her in the split second their eyes meet.
It's overwhelmed almost immediately by concern for Garcia, but it simmers, agitates, and then things come to a head it's all over. The BAU empties, one by one, until it's just them.
"Drink?" His voice echoes.
She nods, ascends to his office and accepts a proffered tumbler. He sits close, eschewing the barrier of his desk.
They both feel it.
They're being burned alive.
3.10
"Are we all capable of becoming like that?"
Her voice brings him out of his morose daze. He remembers, years ago, watching her argue with the French Ambassador over something to do with Sartre, switching between English and French and what he thought sounded like German. She'd thrown up her hands and snatched a first edition from a display case to prove her point, quoting word for word before thrusting it back and demanding a glass of wine from a passing waiter.
She's always had a way of making existentialism enthralling.
Then again, he thinks, maybe it's just her essence.
3.11
The resignation in his eyes when he says he's been served takes her breath away, sends a searing ache through her body.
She has to force herself not to follow him. She knows if she does that it will spiral - he's raw, abandoned, and she just wants to take it away, and there's enough mutual care and attraction that he's going to take what he needs from her and she's going to give it willingly. And they're both going to wake up ashamed.
She's seen that regret before, and she thinks seeing him regret her would undo her completely.
3.12
"You wouldn't, you know." She lingers a moment in the doorway before moving forward through the dark to lay the file on his desk.
"I wouldn't what?"
"Do what he did. You've been asking yourself, if that had been your son, would you have done it."
"How did you - "
"I'm a profiler." She smirks, hip resting against his desk. "Even if he begged you to do it, you'd never put that on Jack. You wouldn't let the evil we see bleed into his world."
He looks at her, dumbstruck.
Her eyes find his. "Have a good night, Hotch."
3.13
It begins with a dream. They're chasing an amorphous figure through back alleys slick with rain, darkness all around them, the sound of footfalls and hard breaths overwhelming his senses. A gunshot echoes, and he dives for her, like he's trying to shield her. When they hit the ground, he feels softness. Skin on skin. Her hands are on his face and her eyes are wide, waiting for him.
When he looks across the conference table at her the next morning, shockwaves go through him.
He can remember her ragged breaths.
He stops partnering himself with her.
He's losing control.
3.14
He's heard more than a few women - Haley and her sister among them - lament that they will never understand men. He never responds, but he thinks about it sometimes - about saying he's one of them, and he doesn't understand men, either.
He's turning into some kind of werewolf, except more idiot than wolf. All day, he mourns the loss of his marriage, ruminates on his failings. At night, he has lurid dreams about a subordinate who is nothing like his wife, wakes overwhelmed with need.
The lone overlap is knowing that he doesn't deserve either of them.
3.15
She doesn't think flipping properties is for her. She needs something she can see, something that feels like righting just a little of the world's evil.
Something warm and fuzzy.
She's pouring coffee on Monday morning when he asks her about the scratches.
She looks down. "Oh. I…got a cat. Sergio."
"Sergio?"
"After Sergio Vieira - "
"- de Mello."
She shrugs. "I thought…he was the polar opposite of the people we deal with."
Hotch doesn't tell her it was the same reason he'd considered naming his son that. Instead, he reaches out, barely grazing her shoulder. "I like it."
3.16
He knows she wasn't riding a desk in the Midwest before she came to the BAU - the impassivity she shows in the field, that it's the ambiguous things that get to her and not the horrific, it's not about compartmentalization. She's seen too much already. She's not jaded, but she's impervious far beyond her years.
The way she reacts when Reid puts himself on the line is proof, because that sort of visceral terror only comes from a realized fear. Hotch knows from experience.
It dawns on him that she might actually be the one person who'd understand him.
3.17
Miami is screwing with all of them. Morgan is toeing the line between flirty and cartoonish and it's wearing Rossi's patience thin, Reid is even more clueless than usual, JJ's acting jumpy, and Garcia's speaking Italian. And she's not even in Florida.
For his part, Hotch seems to be avoiding Emily like the plague, shooting her strange looks when they do end up in the same room. She suspects it has something to do with the effects of humidity turning her into Diana Ross.
She wonders what this heat would do to all of them, given a few more days.
3.18
After JJ turns down her invitation, she stops by Hotch's office. She knows the answer, but she asks anyway.
"Morgan, Reid, and I are going to grab dinner if you want to join us."
He barely looks up. "Thanks, but I need to finish here."
"Hotch…" She trails off, seeing the legal papers. "Let me know if you change your mind."
His stony expression stays with her through dinner, and she makes an impulsive decision. When she taps on his office door, holding the carryout container, he looks stunned.
Sadness engulfs her then, because he's surprised that anyone would care.
3.19
"That sock thing must be a hell of a party trick."
He stops short of her desk. "I was a real hit at college parties."
"You're joking." Her chair spins toward him.
"It was a quick five bucks. Although…it wasn't socks."
Her expression as she registers the meaning is one of unrestrained glee. "You didn't."
"I plead the fifth." He's almost smiling, and there's a boyish glint in his eye she's never seen before.
It's intoxicating.
"Good thing there's that rule against profiling team members."
He walks away before she sees his face flush, because he's thinking about navy blue.
3.20
Everything is ablaze. Nerves and muscles igniting, blood rushing.
"I need a drink."
"Minibar?"
He can't breathe. His lungs burn.
"I'm not sleeping with her."
"Okay. I'm not sleeping with Cooper. What's your point?"
Her heart races. It's surreal.
"This case…everything…I don't…"
"Tell me what you want from me, Hotch."
He's breaking apart in a blinding moment.
"It's complicated."
"It doesn't have to be."
Emotions flood to the surface, ones she hasn't felt in so long.
"Would you…my name…"
"Aaron."
Death comes for them head on the next day, and finds two people more alive than they've been in awhile.