Chapter 2 Denial

A/N: For Meowser Clancy and Smart Kira ask and you shall receive! Here is chapter 2 where Hotch and Ashley talk about the woman he wants to remember and she wants to learn.

They were sitting in the living room silently a glass of red wine in their hand; the aroma of the drink was almost hypnotic.

"Do you miss her?" Ashley asked startling Hotch who was starring at the bookcase in front of him. "I didn't have time to miss her yet. We had back to back cases, Jack still doesn't know… missing her is a luxury, I can't afford it." His voice was distant, it made the old doubt and almost, almost hate Ashley felt rise up again. "I'm not sleeping… that's when I miss her, when I'm going to bed and she isn't there I miss her. Her feet were freezing and she had this nasty habit of running them up my legs, it drove me mental, but she always did it. Now I miss it, to feel her freezing cold feet, hear her complain because I forgot my case files on the dining table, or because of my inability to hit the hamper. Sometimes… sometimes I think I can hear her sing in the bathroom, or her heels on the floor, the corridor outside." He stopped talking his eyes wide but unfocused looking straight ahead at the pictures on the bookcase, which gave Ashley the chance to truly see him for the first time ever. His jaw was set, probably the last piece of control he had over his crumbling body. She never had seen him so beat down.

He suddenly got up and walked away, leaving the young woman alone in the living room looking stunned around the room. She didn't know what to do, how you react when you are alone in your boss' living room. She looked around the room her eyes fell on the pictures, on the bookcase and the walls, pictures of a happy life or two people who loved each other a lot. One thought, one particular caught her eye. Emily was dressed in the same shirt Hotch was now wearing, the old worn down FBI grey t-shirt while he was still dressed from work, only his tie missing, by the angle of the picture Ashley could guess that it was a selfie, they were lying on the couch smiling widely, cuddled up together, Emily had her head on his shoulder and he was smiling in her hair. She reached forward to get it, took the frame in her hands examining it.

"We took it three weeks before you joined the team." She jumped when she heard his voice from behind her. "She would always wear this shirt when at home." He played with the fabric of his shirt, the small holes on the shoulders, the stains of makeup on the neckline, "It still smells like her." He walked closer and then she noticed everything he was carrying. A couple photo albums and a thick folder were in his hands. He moved around the room gathering frames from the shelves and some from the walls and moved back seating down next to the younger woman, leaving his precious cargo on the coffee table.

"Open them" he suggested to the younger woman, Ashley reached over and took the folder in her hands, turning it over and having a few dozen of pictures slip onto the table. Moments of their lives slipped onto the glass, two smiling happy faces forever frozen in time… never falling out of love, never stop smiling. Her eyes were stuck in one particular one on top of the stack, Emily, she looked asleep, wearing a long white dress, "We had just gotten married, I came out of the bathroom and saw her sleeping I… I had to take a picture of that moment; she looked so perfect, angelic. I knew that I had to take the picture. We didn't took many pictures from that night, we were just the two of us, we only got three or four pictures the most. The dress… I still have it. It's in the bedroom… you know in reality Emily got three dresses. The newest was just delivered the day of the funeral, I couldn't return it, call it a delusion but I hoped that one day she might be back and I might see her in it." He looked at the picture still in Ashley's hands, dreaming about the first time he saw her in the dress.

"It was late at night, I got the tuxedo and waited for Emily to come out with the dress but she didn't, she came out with the dress in a bag and I didn't saw her till she was walking down the aisle. The dress fit her in all the right places. She looked amazing."

"You said three dresses. Why?" she asked looking up from the picture.

"One was the dress in the picture, the dress we got married. Then six months after our wedding we decided to redo the ceremony with all our friends and family around us. She bought the second dress but this wedding never happened… you've heard what happened to my ex-wife." He saw Ashley nod "About George Foyet?" another nod "Well, we broke up… two weeks, that's how long I could stay away from her. She was my breath of fresh air… Few months ago we decided that it was time we'd finally have a normal wedding, Emily didn't want to wear the dress she had gotten last time so she bought another… when I came back from the funeral the box with the dress was on the door…" Ashley looked at her unit chief, she was shocked, it was probably the first time she saw him like that… crying.

"Can I see them?" she asked shyly. She remembered Emily talking about her wedding dress how in love she was with the mermaid, off the shoulders dress.

"Sure." He said softly getting up from the couch, Hotch gave her his hand which she took hesitantly and followed him to the bedroom. "Sit." He said showing the bed, it was perfectly made, something that made her look at Hotch in question, she clearly remembered Emily saying that neither she nor Hotch saw sense in making the bed when they were going to mess it up again in few hours. "I haven't slept in the bed since she… she's gone." Ashley noticed how he avoided saying the words died, death or dying, as if him not saying it means that it didn't happen.

"Died"

"What?" he turned, a while dress in his arms, his eyes wide

"Since she died. You avoid saying it as if it's not acknowledging it makes it any less true. You are in denial, which means that you have barely started the mourning process yet. You're avoiding the subject, you are in the first circle 'Denial and Shock' you're avoiding the subject, blaming others"

"No."

"I'm sorry?"

"I'm not blaming others" he drops the dress on the bed and sat down next to the black clothes' bag "I blame myself. How could I do that? Leave her face him off alone. And I know the circles, Avoidance, fear, confusion, numbness and blame, are those in the first? Am I right?" his voice was hard, shocking her and making her rethink her choice of coming here, he probably wasn't even ready to face what was happening to him.

"I know you know sir, but…"

"Please Ashley, call me Aaron, I'm not your unit chief here." His head was still hanging low staring at the floor ahead of him. "I… I know where I am, and I know logically that at some point I have to move on and accept it but I can't. I want to cling on her for as long as I can." She nods to him although he can't see it with his head low. She knows the feeling, when your life crumbles to the ground most times you beg to cling to any and all pieces of normality you might have.

"Which dress is this?"

A/N: I decided to make it multi chaptered since I got the idea and it appealed me, Hotch goes through the five stages of grieve with Ashley after Emily's death.

Please let me know what you think J