Season Four
"No one else knows/So take my hand/I'll carry you, you can carry me."
(Mat Kearney)
4.01
The explosion sends shrapnel tearing through the status quo. The confined exception in which their one night exists is ripped open, bleeding into reality.
The feeling of her fingers grazing his skin as she examines his cuts almost breaks him. It's been so long since anyone touched him like that.
She feels his breath on her wrist and for a moment, they stand on the precipice of friends and lovers.
Need overwhelms logic, and he moves his mouth to her pulse, pushing them over. There's no undressing, no lust, but it's unmistakable. They've crossed a line and there's no retreating.
4.02
She sits in the dark, deciding. She's gone back and forth a dozen times already and her left thumb is bleeding from nervous biting. The thing is, they don't have the sort of relationship where they check up on one another. They've slept together a few times, but there hasn't been much talking. Immediately after New York she'd been gentle with him, let things border on platonic comfort at first, but it had still been about physical intimacy. Not emotional.
She takes one last look at his building and makes a choice.
Once in awhile, she lets cowardice win out.
4.03
He watches as she lets a paramedic treat her cuts, insists she feels fine. He feels Dave's hand grip his shoulder. "This goes down as one of the wins."
"Yeah." He doesn't take his eyes off her.
"I know you're not the touchy-feely type, but it wouldn't be totally out of line to give her a hug and tell her you're glad she's not dead."
Hotch stays silent, because he'd rather seem cold than admit he's been blindsided by the depths of what he feels for her.
In her foyer that night, he does hold her, and it feels right.
4.04
She leans against the doorjamb, the low light of early morning casting a hazy luminescence over her. "No one's perfect at this. Not even you, Hotch."
"I know." He barely looks up from his paperwork.
"Then stop beating yourself up. We saved two lives."
"I know."
"Good."
"Anything else?"
She moves close enough to his desk that the solitary lamp illuminates her face, eyes soft. Not judging him. Only understanding. "Get your stuff, Hotch." Her voice is soft, and he meets her expression and finds himself unwilling to argue.
He's starting to feel like casual is fading into the distance.
4.05
"That was a hell of a shot you made." She's backlit by the bathroom, standing on the threshold of his bedroom in the dress shirt she'd taken off him not an hour ago. "Secret sniper training?"
He just looks at her. A little spellbound.
"Hotch?"
"Lucky shot, I guess."
"Uh-huh." She sits beside him, a little tentative.
"Stay tonight." It comes out rushed, awkward.
"Are you sure?"
His mouth is dry. "We're off tomorrow. I thought…it's late. You're probably tired." God, he sounds pathetic.
But she smiles, almost shyly. Says she will. Buttons come undone.
This can't possibly be real.
4.06
He's used to being woken at all hours, though rarely by knocking. And almost never by one of his agents, plastered and unkempt and giggling uncontrollably (the almost being Rossi, and only twice).
Emily Prentiss, he concedes, is a better looking drunk than Dave.
He hauls her inside, checking the hallway before turning to find her grinning lasciviously and kicking off her shoes.
"Do bad things to me, Agent Hotchner."
He's torn between shock and the instinct to comply, but the gentleman in him wins out, and it's barely ten minutes before she's asleep.
Beside her, he can't help smiling.
4.07
His face when he sees JJ's baby is so placidly joyful that it's surreal. His devotion to his son is one of the things she admires most about him. Half the male agents carry a photo or two around in their wallets, but in the Bureau boys' club, plenty of them act like parenting is a side job.
She knows Haley left because she felt like family came second, but it doesn't. There's never a moment in his day when being Jack's father is an afterthought.
She loves that about him, even if she's not in love with him yet.
4.08
"Everything okay with Jordan?" He pulls a slice of greasy pizza from the cardboard. It's their first dinner together, even if it is post-coital and impulsive and she's only wearing a sheet.
She shrugs. "Yeah. I think it was just a combination of insecurity and Morgan being Morgan."
"He didn't…?"
"Not today. Last week at the coffee shop…different story."
It's oddly comfortable. They sit, talking about nothing important, occasionally flirting, until the pizza's gone and so is the merlot, and it's another hour before he'll let her drive.
She's surprised when he kisses her goodnight. It's starting to feel real.
4.09
"I'm sorry."
"For what?" Her voice has a sleepy quality he's come to associate with her being tangled in sheets and pressed against him.
"For putting you under the microscope when you started at the BAU. For making it harder than it had to be to prove yourself."
She raises herself on one elbow, hovering over him. "Hotch, I grew up with the constant fear that I was only accomplishing things because of who my mother was. You were a little bit of a jerk, but you were also the first person who's given me the opportunity to disprove that."
4.10
"We're daring him to go after you, Hotch."
"I know."
"You have a son," she hisses. "You have a team. You have - ."
"I have a responsibility to keep people from being killed." His gaze burns. Threatens to singe her. "Just like you did when you put your life on the line for Reid. For everyone in that compound."
"Hotch - "
"I listened to him beating you."
It aches right now, not being able to touch him. "I get it."
He nods curtly. Turns, then reconsiders. "Emily."
"Sir." It comes out a whisper.
"I know what I have."
4.11
Something shifts that night. He sees her face when her eyes fall on Henry, hears the protective tone as she reminds Morgan to cradle his head, and in that moment he feels a door open to a future he hadn't seen coming.
He doesn't realize it's written on his face until JJ tells him that he's smiling.
He'd imagined it would be one night. In retrospect, he doesn't know how he'd thought it could be. One dance and a hand of cards have stayed with him for twelve years.
Being able to stop now that they've started something feels impossible.
4.12
She hasn't even reached for her wallet before he's handed the cash to the girl. She huffs a little laugh. Dominance, chivalry, and a badge are a dangerous combination.
As they walk away, he nudges her arm. "Here."
She rolls her eyes. "You shouldn't have."
"Is that how you thank everyone for flowers, Prentiss?"
"Only when there's a murder involved," she deadpans. "Although…considering it's been at least a decade since I got flowers, I guess I shouldn't complain."
The night they get back to Virginia, she finds a dozen roses on her doorstep.
She blushes until she matches the flowers.
4.13
"I gotta start selling tickets to your 'good cop, bad cop' act." Rossi sits across from him, a subtle smirk playing on his face.
"Prentiss is naturally sympathetic. That she's a woman is certainly helpful in these situations."
"Oh, I'm sure."
"Whatever you're getting at, Dave - "
"I'm getting at the fact that you two work exceptionally well together. And it might not be a bad idea to see if you work well together outside the office. Say, over dinner."
The ambiguity of what they have doesn't allow for dinner.
Still, Hotch thinks, that doesn't mean it never will.
4.14
"Romantic encounter?"
"Garcia's been reading the stars again. Apparently Jupiter is going to have me taking a cold shower."
He looks at her skeptically. "Jupiter?"
"I don't know, Hotch, I'm not exactly versed in the nuances of astrology. Jupiter, Pluto…Uranus…celestial bodies don't have much of an impact on my love life. Dead bodies, on the other hand…"
"I think I'd like to keep those two topics separate for awhile."
"And ruin some perfectly creepy pillow talk?" She catches his eye as he holds open the door to the precinct.
Their brief respite leaves them lighter, warm comfort in the cold.
4.15
She understands why they don't realize. It's cognitive dissonance. People don't want to see the darkness in the ones they love, so they block it out. Even when it means blocking out the signs of a serial killer.
There's something freeing about being with him. She doesn't feel compelled to suppress the shadowy parts of her psyche, the blackened bits of her soul. Because he has pieces to match, and somehow, they cancel one another out.
She's never felt that before, and it's dizzying, the extent of the safety she feels in his arms.
The solace he provides is addictive.
4.16
Dallas gets to her. Not the crimes, not the hypocrisy, but the politics. Self-preservation, greed, backstabbing, everything that disgusted her about the diplomatic corps.
But it also reassures her that what they're doing isn't about keeping secrets. It's about honesty. With each other, they don't have to pretend.
It's late when he knocks. They sit on her sofa, sipping bourbon and watching the rain.
"She said I was the first man she met who didn't let her down."
"You're that man for a lot of people, Hotch."
For the first time, sleeping together doesn't involve sex.
There's more to this.
4.17
"You called the Vatican."
He looms in her doorway, dusted in snow. "Yes."
"Why?"
"I should have done it earlier. I wanted to prove I could separate the job from…this."
"Hotch."
"I can't. Separate it."
She looks away. "So what now?"
"I don't know."
"If you're going to dump me, you picked a shitty time to do it."
"That's not why I'm here." In his pockets, his fists clench. "I love you."
"Hotch…" It comes out hoarse. "Aaron."
"I'm not expecting you to say it back. Not tonight. I just needed to tell you."
In his arms, she finally cries.
4.18
His knuckles are still white, gripping the phone in its cradle, when he hears the knock.
"What's wrong?" She can see the anguish in his eyes, the tension radiating through his body. "Aaron?"
He closes the door behind her, locks it. "He called me."
It takes a minute. "The Reaper."
"He offered me the deal."
"You didn't take it."
He sits stiffly on the bed. "You sound sure."
"I am. I know you. You couldn't do that to the families of the victims." She sits beside him and takes one of his hands in hers. "It's not who you are."
4.19
The fires bring up memories of that first arson case. He'd exposed himself then, let her glimpse the man he truly was, the one whose arm is draped across her stomach, whose warm breaths tickle her neck.
Who does this job not out of perverse fascination or a hero complex, but because he craves justice.
In retrospect, it was always a given, because he had to have known what he was risking in political capital by getting between her and a drunk dignitary.
What everyone sees as adherence to protocol, she recognizes as integrity.
She never really fell.
She jumped.
4.20
"Nice necklace."
"My eyes are up here, Agent Hotchner."
"Wear more eye jewelry."
She huffs. "I'll have to ask Garcia. She must know where to get eyelash bangles."
"Are you calling my bluff, Agent Prentiss?"
"So now it's Agent Prentiss?"
"What?"
"Earlier. On the plane. You called me 'Emily.'"
"I did?"
"Mmhmm." She reaches for a cup, leaning low.
"My mind must've been elsewhere." His eyes aren't focused on her pendant.
She straightens up the moment Rossi steps through the door, but not before shooting him a look that throws him for just a moment, sending sparks through his veins.
4.21
He knows finding the Murphy boy gets to her. He's learned to read her in the way a profiler never could, but a lover can. She's agitated by the revelation that it was Danny, that a child could kill his own brother.
The day after they get home, he asks if she'd like to meet Jack. It's been coming for a while, but now, he takes the leap because he knows she needs it.
They're both cautious at first. And then she folds a piece of paper into a boat and Jack is almost as far gone as his father.
4.22
Hotch is pretty sure it's going to keep him up at night for a while. Even in the course of an investigation, he can't stand play-acting something he always feared his father would do.
It's part of who he is, that willingness to take the blows rather than watch them directed at someone he loves. He wonders if maybe his father realized that, and lashed out at him because he, too, would do anything to keep from hurting Hotch's mother and brother.
When they're alone again, he kisses her, and she lets him hold her until the guilt has subsided.
4.23
"I can't decide if you're incredibly brave or incredibly stupid." She glares, the kind reserved for unsubs about to be tackled. Her voice is raspy. "I could kill you."
He remembers a few months ago, when Jack, in his Batman pajamas, had shouted for his father to watch, and Hotch had turned to see his son leaping from the coffee table.
Jack had been fine. Hotch, less so. The fear had been all-encompassing, and for the first time, he'd yelled at his son.
The impact of her anger slams into his chest as it hits him how much they've become.
4.24
She tongues the Cipro and pockets the pills when no one's looking.
She's five days late.
She knows the chance is slim. And Cipro's Category C, so even then, it's a safe bet. But she's still struggling to process the reality of the situation, and coupled with the fact that the drug's a Hail Mary, she can't bring herself to take them until she's standing in the street and the gravity becomes clear.
The stab of guilt when she swallows sticks with her, even when she gets her period.
She doesn't tell him, because seeing him relieved might kill her.
4.25
It's the worst they've had in a while. Since before this thing between them started. Death and despair clings to them all, stinging their eyes and choking them.
He realizes almost immediately that it's going to be hell compounded, because she's so close and he can't do a thing about it.
Before, when he'd been alone, he'd thought he'd reached the nadir. It had been hard with Haley, because he had to wall off that part of him, but having her there tempered the angst.
Now, he's experienced the succor of someone who understands, and he can't have it, here.
4.26
Every time the knife slides into his flesh, he thinks of a reason not to die.
One.
Jack.
Two.
Not letting Foyet win.
Three.
Fixing things with Sean.
(It's getting harder to hold on.)
Four.
Apologizing to Haley for taking her for granted.
Five.
The half-finished profile on his desk could save a family in Oregon.
Six.
Reid and Garcia will never recover.
Seven.
(Everything is numb now.)
Morgan could be a great leader, but he needs guidance.
Eight.
JJ and Rossi deserve his thanks.
Nine.
(The thought won't crystallize as blackness creeps in, but he sees her face.)
Emily.