They hardly ever argue. They don't have much time together, the time is never right, so the hurt exists in the quiet moments Emily spends alone on transatlantic flights, thinking about how he is never the one in this position.
But standing in his kitchen in the midst of her decision to start recruiting for her replacement and the feelers she's putting out in the FBI Academy, his obliviousness to the inequality in their relationship is just one thing too many, and she can't help it. The moment it slips from her lips, part of her wishes she could catch it and stop it before it shatters them, but the rest can see the reality: if this can break them, her silence is all that's holding them together. She has spent her adult life refusing to be that woman.
He is confused at first, defensive, utterly unaware that this could be the hill they die on, and she hates how hard she's willing him to say the right thing. "I didn't know you felt that way. If you don't tell me what you need -"
She feels a humourless laugh threatening and catches herself just in time – she won't let herself be bitter in his eyes. "I need to not be the only one of us who's in this one hundred percent. I'm about to hand over a job I was headhunted for, running a field office, and move back to a place I had to leave to save myself, because I believe in us and I want this."
"I want this too," he says, his voice strained, everything about his body language defensive.
"Sometimes," she replies quietly, and that shuts him up. The times he's panicked and pushed her away stretch between them, the times she's had to reach out and pull him back, and she knows she could start listing them at this point, and that it could quickly become a sermon. Instead, she holds his gaze and says evenly, "It's been too long and you're asking too much for that to be enough, Aaron."
She watches her words hit him and register, watches the flare of hurt and fear in his face, and she is relieved she doesn't have to give him the ultimatum outright. I'm leaving tomorrow, and if I'm still this unconvinced, I'm not coming back.
"It's never about not wanting you," he says, softer, his eyes searching. "I don't always know the right thing to do. For Jack, for you…"
"You don't get to decide what's right for me."
"I know that, I do, but when I think about what happened with…" He trails off, and she knows what he's thinking: Haley's name is more than this conversation can handle.
"She fell in love with a high school kid," Emily says, when it becomes clear he isn't going to finish his sentence. "She didn't marry a BAU Unit Chief. It would've been a miracle if she still wanted to be with the man you grew into. I chose that. You don't need to protect me from your screwed up life. Protecting me is my job – let me worry about it." He flinches, starts to speak, and she adds, more quietly, "And Jack? When do you think this is wrong for Jack?"
This, she knows, is where he could destroy her. He takes a moment before he answers. "He can't lose you too," he says eventually. She sighs, tension leaking from her even though on the surface his answer is completely unsatisfactory.
"That is an excuse," she says. "And you know it." She shakes her head, her frustration bare for a moment. "You don't need an excuse to be afraid of losing me."