"Did she just tell us to lie to a material witness?"
"No." Hotch says softly. "She told us that we could." He doesn't tell her that he thinks they should and she doesn't express it differently. Her eyes are focused on the woman in front of her. That woman just lost everything and was about to lose her life. For the first time in Emily's life, lying didn't seem so bad.
She was torn between doing her job and following her heart, but before she has time to prepare herself, he blocks her line of vision on his way to get prepared to enter the burnt unit. After they were given some instructions, a nurse helped them to correctly put on the disposable gown, boots, and gloves to keep the room as sterile as possible.
"Mrs. Cutler? I'm Special Agent Aaron Hotchner." Emily is surprised by his sweet tone of voice. His voice is shaking, she bets no one else could notice how he tries to not show how disturbed he is. She does because she's used to his confident tone, this is not it. "This is Special Agent Emily Prentiss."
She thought she could be professional and keep it together, but seeing that woman's body so up close is disruptive. Emily feels a hurricane of emotions going through her and being reflected on her face. Keep it together.
"Paul?" The woman calling her child's name, which she doesn't know is dead, makes her eyes wide open.
This is new for Emily, not even as a rookie she felt this inexperienced. She has no idea how to help this woman. The strong need to do something is overpowering, the only thing she can give is the truth. "Your son…"
But he can't let that happen. "Was with you the night of the fire. That's why we're here." Emily would never admit it, but she's grateful for the interruption. She feels too fragile, her own impotence is not letting her act clearly.
"I don't understand." That phrase is the last thing she registers before taking her time to examine Mrs. Cutler's body. She can hear Hotch speaking, it doesn't matter, she can't formulate a full sentence.
The image of an alive woman being sixty percent burned will stay with Emily for years. She knows how a three-degree burn looks, she studied them in her forensic science classes, but this woman has too many. They cover her body as a blanket leaving most of her face untouched. Every move, every breath looks painful. Emily tries to picture how the woman looked before the attack and her heart aches just trying to think what it must've felt losing so much of herself.
"I want you to think back to that night. Was there anything out of the ordinary?" Hotch's question helps her to snap out of her trance.
She sees how confused the woman looks and decides to breathe deeply and gather some strength to speak. "Think about the things that you normally do." She pauses, noticing the sorrowful look on the woman's face. Things that she will never be able to do again. "Get undressed, wash your face."
"I couldn't brush my teeth." The woman pauses, taking a second to get her facts straight. "Dennis got the water back on, and then we-" Mrs. Cutler started shaking in the middle of her sentence. Emily wasn't a doctor, she couldn't tell if she was cold, in shock, in physical pain, emotional pain, or all the previous options. She just knew that this was the first and last time this woman would tell her story.
Sparring Charlotte from any more emotional pain, Emily decides to try with yes or no questions. "Then you went to bed?" The woman nods.
"Do you remember what woke you up?" It's the first time he talks in a while and Emily wonders if they're taking turns or he's just processing the information. She wonders if his small tone is because he's suffering too or trying to make things easier on Mrs. Cutler. Either way, Emily would like to see his face, to see how he looks helping somebody through their suffering.
"Paul." It comes out broken, the woman is remembering more and more.
"Not the smoke alarms?" But they had a job to do, the woman's pain won't be in vain. Emily is going to make sure of that.
"It was Paul." And she breaks. They get a clear look at how her face goes from calm to completely disturbed. The melancholy taking over her body made her shake even more intensely. She looks like she's trying to escape her own skin, to go back in time and stop everything. They see how some deep love for her son flashes through her eyes, the kid waking them up is the reason she's here, what gave her more time. If that time was a blessing or a curse was a whole other thing that neither of the agents would comment on.
"What else do you remember?" Emily mentally thanks him for taking the lead because she feels like she can't take it anymore.
"Dennis unlocked it and it wouldn't open." The woman's cries were heartbreaking, but Hotch needed her to be specific. The more he talked with her, the more he wanted to catch the guy that did this to a family for the thrill of it.
"He unlocked what?"
"The front door." Something snaps in Mrs. Cutler. "Somebody please help us, please." A desperate cry leaves her throat while flashes of the fire get re-acted in her mind, but not for her. In her mind, she's there, she's trapped inside her wonderful home burning alive with her husband and son. She can even smell the smoke. "Help us, please." Her eyes moved fast watching the horror and trying to find a way out, but something else was there. "And then I saw the fireman." She takes a deep breath to ground herself to the hospital bed. Emphasizing that she was in a hospital, she was safe and sound. "And I knew it was going to be okay." But she didn't know if her family was okay. "Dennis! Paul! Where's my baby?" For the first time during the whole interview, she turns to look at Hotch. "Paul, where are they? Are they okay?"
It was at that moment that Aaron decided what he had to do. "They're fine." The helpless look on the woman's face told him that she didn't deserve to die knowing what she lost. She needed someone to have a little mercy, to save her from her sorrows and he could do it. He shouldn't lie, but he could and he would.
Emily can't believe what he did, but how could she correct him? How could she say that he was wrong when she was seeing that look too? His compassion is what she needed to fill her already glassy eyes with tears, but she shouldn't cry, it's not her pain. She raises her head and blinks a couple of times promising herself she won't break in front of this woman. She needs to keep her strength.
"They're just outside in the waiting room." Except that they aren't, they're being taken to a medical examiner near the police station.
"Oh." He almost felt bad for lying to her, but the pure cry of joy and relief told him he was doing the right thing. Emily couldn't wait to be out of this room.
They give the woman a moment to process the lie and to admire the scenery that would haunt them for years, but the gasp she lets out takes them by surprise. "I don't want them to see me like this." She stops looking at the agent imagining that her husband and son would stare at her just like that. Like a victim. "No, I'm not ready, could you, please, tell them to wait a minute? Please? I'm not ready."
He takes that comment as the right opportunity to set the person who hasn't spoken free of watching more of this. "Agent Prentiss will tell them." Aaton turns to look at her and he is not surprised to see her broken eyes. "You call Gideon and Morgan." She nods as a thank you and takes out, exiting the room.
She stays outside in front of the door to listen to him. "I can stay with you until you're ready if you like."
"I'd like that." Emily turns to look at him through the window. The irony of the situation doesn't go unnoticed. She's looking at his back, amazed at how his emotions seemed to be surrounding him. She takes a second to digest the way he's just there by her side, taking in the woman's breathing and listening to her cries doing nothing but looking at her with what she guessed is his most beautiful and peaceful face. She wishes she could watch him for a few more seconds, but she needs to call Gideon before she forgets the precise details. So she rips out the protective gear from her body, throws it in the nearest trash can and she calls him and briefs him quickly.
She was about to hang up when he interrupted her. "Prentiss, wait till you're inside the car. Nobody inside that hospital needs to see that we're vulnerable too. They need to believe we're strong enough to defeat the monster." Gideon says calmly and in a low voice to avoid other people eavesdropping.
She doesn't even wonder how he knew her current mental state. "Yes, sir. Thank you." She hangs up already feeling that empathic sadness taking over her body, but he's right, she needs to keep it together just like Hotch is doing. Emily turns back to the window. She feels like she's watching a movie. Everything is happening so fast. She missed five minutes, but it breaks her heart how it's ending.
She can feel how the doctor exits the room and stands at her right side looking at the window. "She went into cardiac arrest due to a hypovolemic shock." The doctor pauses to simplify the next information. "But if that didn't kill her, she was on her way to suffering from acute respiratory distress syndrome because of the smoke inhalation."
"That's what made her shake?" Emily's curiosity is genuine. She had to watch the woman's body start to fail.
"No, it was the shock. She was probably feeling cold and her body responded." Emily feels like she's listening to too much. As if things couldn't get worse.
The doctor noticed her discomfort. "What I mean by this is," She turns to look at Emily. "Any kind of shock can kill you, but it can do it faster when you're not willing to fight." The doctor explains to her in a soft voice. "She signed a DNR when she got here." Emily is taken back by that and opens her mouth to speak, but the doctor interrupts her. "Nobody told her, a mother knows, we always know."
Emily swallows that she doesn't know if she would ever have it because her mother never showed it and turns to look at the doctor trying to decipher this woman's intention. "If I told you to not tell her it's because listening to it makes it real, I've worked here enough time to know when someone is going to make it and when they're not. Charlotte Cutler died the second her family burned alive." The last words come out broken with palpable hurt in them and the doctor leaves before the agent says anything. She is also too scared of someone telling her she did the wrong thing.
What the doctor ignored was the other agent that had to watch the life leave Charlotte's body. Emily wonders what is taking him so long to leave the room when she already feels a foot out of this hospital. She sees him wait till the nurse turns off all the equipment.
The nurse disconnects Charlotte out of every machine and takes out her I.V. "I always close their eyes till I'm ready to put the sheet on top of their heads. It allows them to say goodbye to this world." Emily feels guilty for listening to what the nurse is saying to her boss and quickly cleans the tear that left her eye. She is incapable of seeing this and the nurse already has a ritual for it. "Do you want to do it? You and your partner need to say goodbye too." Aaron turns to look at Emily and she nods begging him to do it. He responds with a similar nod in agreement and turns, taking a second to mentally prepare himself.
Aaron takes his hand to Charlotte's eyes and softly puts her eyelids down letting her eyelashes fall naturally. "Thank you." He says directly to the nurse.
"Just catch whoever did this, then I'll be thanking you." She says with so much conviction that he doesn't feel he needs to add anything else.
He exits the room and relief overwhelms him at knowing he can take off the gown. He proceeds to rip the boots out of his shoes and leaves the gloves till the end. He does it slowly, allowing himself to process that those neoprene things were the barrier between him and a dead mother's body. "Let's get the hell out of here." They march through the hallways fast with their heads held high. Emily repeats Gideon's words in her head over and over again until they reach the underground level. As the elevator opens, she runs to rest her back on the nearest wall, bringing her hands to her knees trying to not fall to the ground. She lets out her first sob when she feels Aaron's hand on her back.
"We're alone, completely alone." She keeps crying as he rubs circles on her back. She feels guilty for using him as her rock when he was the one in the room and talking the whole time. Before Emily knows what she's doing, she stands straight and looks up at him. She stares right into his eyes and when she finds those dark brown orbs so shattered, she wraps her arms around him. She isn't surprised when his arms make their way around her waist and pulls her to him even tighter.
Aaron is thankful that she hides her head in his chest due to the fact he would never allow a tear to slip while she's looking. He rests his chin on her head making their embrace even more intimate. They were reminding themselves they were alive, their families were fine, their team was fine, but someone else's friend just died. A mother, a father, and a son just died. Emily rested her ear against his chest listening to his rapid heartbeat. The slight thump she can feel against her head keeps her from spiraling down.
They don't know for how long they stay like that, but Emily is the first one to move. She looks up at his face and gives in to temptation. She needs to be closer to him. She takes her hands to his cheeks. "Let it out." Almost as magic, Aaron allows himself to shed some tears. Emily cleans them, one by one ignoring how intensely he's staring at her or how his hands feel warm around her waist.
He stays silent as she caresses his face after she's done. He feels the need to reciprocate the action so he does. Their hands switch places, he takes his hands to her face and she takes hers to his waist. Emily feels she could drown in how he's holding her as if she was made of water. Carefully so he doesn't spill it, but with a strong grip so she stays safe in his palms. Aaron doesn't know what makes him do it, but without taking his hands off her face, he leans and joins their foreheads. The shared oxygen calmed their hearts. "We did the right thing." He also doesn't know if he said that to ease her or his conscience.
"Yes." She whispers closing her eyes and the image of Charlotte Cutler invades her mind again bringing her back to tears.
"Hey," He grabs her chin with one hand and rubs his other on her cheek. "You're here with me. It's over." She nods and opens her eyes, finding so much tenderness and empathy on his face. This is the man she idolized for years, the one that could make everything better with his words, the one she could never have.
She takes a step back, breaking their moment. Aaron feels a little bit shaken by this, but he sees how the sadness leaves her body, leaving her with a strong poker face that tells him that she probably felt the metal of his wedding ring on her cheek. The moment was too intimate, too personal, and too close.
They walk to the car in silence while their minds are trying to make sense of what just happened.
After a long and incredibly uncomfortable drive to the police station, they act as if for a moment in a hospital's parking lot their heartbeats didn't sound in harmony. In the end, whatever happened didn't matter because they don't matter, only the case matters. Emily even ignores how he finished her train of thought a few minutes ago at the crime scene. It seemed that they could only bond when tragedy was involved and now they were going to be forced to stay together following a suspect.
The first hour was easy, their suspect being too busy running errands for them to have a second to talk, but as they wait outside the Century Plaza Bank, their fourth bank, she can even feel the tension on her skin. "Hotch-"
"Don't." He was waiting for her to say something, he knows Emily Prentiss confronts things, or better said, she always confronts him.
"Why not?" But Emily feels offended by how he dismisses her.
"Because we're going to be stuck in a car following this guy for a good while and talking about it is going to make it worse, and I already regret everything." He should've been more careful with his words.
Emily is left open-mouthed, not believing his audacity. "Woah, okay, regret me all you want, but I wasn't the one that got closer and I'm definitely not the one-" He stops her, and she will never admit it out loud, but she's grateful he did. What she was about to say would've scarred even their work relationship forever.
"Emily," She thinks this is the first time he has ever directly referred to her with her name. "We did nothing, we were vulnerable and we needed each other. That's it." He doesn't mention how good it felt, or how she felt like a gift from the heavens in that second. She doesn't mention how his words make everything sound exactly the opposite.
"You do know that this is talking about it, Aaron?" If he wants to dismiss her feelings, she could do it too. He turns to look at her with fire in his eyes and she knows she has to give in. "Anyway, I get your point, I regret it too." The lie exits her mouth with ease.
"Prentiss," He needs to keep it impersonal. "I'd appreciate-" He feels ashamed so his voice is softer.
"I won't tell anybody and yes, we can keep it professional, no grudges." And she feels the same shame. They were fighting over nothing.
"Thank you." They give each other some awkward smiles. It was inevitable to not get lost in the others' eyes. They could sense neither of them told the whole story. The guilt was there, but there was no regret. Well, it wasn't until his phone started ringing, breaking the moment, but what shattered it was who was calling him, his wife. "Hello, honey."
Emily feels like in less than ten hours, she was already intruding in her boss' life way too much. She's so close to him in a car after that talk listening to how his wife asks him if he's going to be in time for dinner. Apparently, they had reservations.
"Honey, I don't know." The guilt in his voice causes her to briefly glance at him, but seeing his head low lets her know that she was intruding, again. "I will and I promise I'll make it up to you." She pretends that doesn't sting. "Okay, I love you, too." She decides to forget their whole mess after that comment. Her mixed feelings won't get in the way of that.
However, after listening to the call she senses that he needs a friend. "Everything okay?" Emily commits the mistake of glancing at him again, but she doesn't expect an honest response from him. She needs to see his face to read him.
"Yeah." And he doesn't give her one disappointing her.
"You know, for a guy claiming to be innocent, he's acting pretty guilty." She changes their subject back to their work, but she's not sure if she directed that statement applies not only to her suspect.
Aaron knows it was meant for him.
If there was one thing they could agree on, the job comes first. Even if the job meant hours together stuck in a car watching a guy. Thankfully, they had a couple of things to discuss about the case and they had to build Abby's profile so it wasn't that unpleasant. It was just odd. When you're around a person for that long, whether you want it or not, you learn to co-exist without disturbances. The silence was good for the troubled minds so they drowned in it for hours. They didn't want to shatter the peace, but they did have to discuss more unprofessional subjects, like bathroom breaks and sleep shifts, who would go first into the questionable bathroom at the nearest gas station to change and the food.
Emily wanted to laugh when he suggested McDonald's. He was such a dad, but she didn't say no, she gladly accepted the chicken nuggets. She took her time to study how he tore apart the hamburger that he chose, so you don't like pickles as much as you don't like me, little did she know that he was watching her too. "Are you going to eat those?" She pointed at the pickles in his paper wrap.
"You like pickles?" Aaron judged her, but he did hand her the wrap.
"You don't?" Without saying further, she grabbed one pickle and placed it on top of a nugget. She added some ketchup and mustard. Aaron grinned at the way she moaned when she took the first bite of her creation.
"You're a child." He chuckled.
"And you're too old." She said with her mouth full, making him burst into a strong laugh that sounded heavenly in her ears. She smiled in amazement at the many faces of Aaron Hotchner.
"I hope that you don't get a milkshake for breakfast." He said knowing in the morning it was her turn to pick.
So in the morning after going to the station to print her photos, she got each one of them a milkshake, vanilla for him and chocolate for her. She also got them some pancakes. Emily was expecting another comment after he opened the plastic bag with their food. He said nothing, during the whole time they were eating. She could see that he was enjoying the breakfast so she couldn't understand his silence.
Aaron liked being playful with her, but he felt like he was enjoying himself too much. The more he interacted with her, the more it felt like they should put some distance between them. More importantly, he was starting to feel more reckless. It didn't matter because their suspect decided it was time to start his day.
They followed the guy to a hospital and the possibilities of what a suspect of murdering three families could do invaded them. Emily never expected to be told that their suspect had cancer, but it made every piece of the puzzle fit. So they set their plan to share the profile with Abby in motion. She sees how Hotch takes a deep breath before exiting the car with the photos she took yesterday.
She waits for him for a couple of minutes. Through her mind memories of the past twenty-four hours pass. She studies their little moments, their hug, their fight, their lunch, and their breakfast. Everything flashes through her eyes and she hates the version of herself she sees. She looks like a fool holding on to the idea of someone and how the minimal gesture can drive her crazy. Nonetheless, that doesn't change that she feels connected to him.
The power he has over her terrifies her, from the second she joined his unit, all she wanted was his approval. She feels like she's at a point where he respects her and trusts her work, but her greedy heart wants more. He's the kind of guy you would want to have more, but she knows she can't. She breaks her train of thought when she sees him walk back to the car looking troubled.
Hotch enters the car in a hurry. "He gave us a name." Emily nods, understanding it was time to chase a bad guy. He starts the car and drives to the station with a look she has seen a couple of times. He's ready for this case to be over.
During a red light, she sees that same look turn into something else she can't put a name to. "Do you still smoke?" The question caught her off guard.
"You remember that?" Emily says softly. This wasn't good for the mess in her head. The first time he has ever addressed that they knew each other from years ago. Yes, this wasn't good.
"Do you?" He insists, turning his face to look at her, the concern she finds there is endearing.
"Sometimes." So she thinks he deserves her honesty. "When I need help to cope."
"Please, stop." Their eyes stayed on each other for a brief second while both of them relived the first time they talked, but didn't get to meet each other.
"Okay." However, the loud beep of a car's horn breaks the spell and he turns his eyes to the road.
He doesn't tell her that his conversation with Abby made him relive his dad dying of lung cancer. He doesn't tell her that this case makes him empathize with the father he never got to fully know or understand. He doesn't tell her that he will never act on whatever desire he feels for her because that would turn him into that same father.
"I will." She says before leaving the car and walking into the station leaving a bewildered Aaron behind.
Everyone that knew Aaron Hotchner was not the man that walked into the station. Head low and with an attempt of a poker face that couldn't fool anyone so they left him alone to process his emotions before he could snap. He wouldn't take it out on them, they are aware of that, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Emily could feel how much pain he was in. She knew his silence, and could tell the difference between 'I don't have anything to say' and 'I have too much to say'. This was worse than any of those, he was barely keeping it together. He is feeling guilty.
She knew what happened, Gideon and Morgan briefed them as soon as they got there. That gave him time to sit at the conference table while everyone picked out their stuff. She had all of the stuff in the car the police lent them and they were planning to go to the hotel in those cars so she had more than enough time to watch him from a very considerable distance.
"Talk to him." Emily jumped a little bit, not expecting Gideon. "Right now you're the only one that understands him".
She gazed at him with curious eyes. Were Hotch and her that obvious about their issues? "I…don't-" Great, a stutter with a profiler, she thought.
"I don't care about anything else you might feel for him." Emily's eyes widened at this, so she was being obvious and not Hotch. This was affecting her and not him. "Your mother created her own fires that you had to put out."
She was about to respond but he left her so baffled that no words came out of her mouth. She just nodded because what else could she do when her superior voiced her biggest secret?
"Good." Gideon goes into the chief's office to say goodbye to everyone, already guessing that the Unit Chief would be busy.
Emily stays in her position watching Hotch. She feels sorry for him when he looks at the clock and then at his phone. It was too late to call his wife. She was about to take back the idea of talking to him when she sees the Arson Unit guy give something to her boss, a letter. That could only mean more guilt for Hotch.
She approaches him making a little bit more than necessary noise with her high heel boots to not scare him. "Let's go outside." Aaron looks up at her and he knows he shouldn't use her when he couldn't reach his wife, but it would be rude to discard Emily's concern.
He stands up and they walk in silence to the exit. A quick deja vu flashes through their minds as they find themselves vulnerable and alone in a parking lot. Emily decides to speak first to let him just listen to her, for once. "It's not your fault, you did everything you could to honor his legacy." Hotch's eyes are so broken that she has to cross her arms in front of her body to keep her hands from reaching him.
He stays silent because he knows that, but that doesn't make the feeling go away. "You do know that Abby was not whoever you think he was?" She never thought she would mention what she discovered in her time with him. However, somebody should tell him what he needs to hear, not what he wants to hear. "I know you see something in him that you see in somebody else-"
He interrupts her because he doesn't want her to get the wrong idea. "I see me and my father, I see the father that gave everything up to do the right thing and the father that had to give up doing the wrong thing because he ran out of time to keep screwing his family life." He looks down to the floor.
"Hey." Her calling stops his self-pity party and he looks at her. Emily never expected that much honesty, she's not sure anymore of how much is too much. "You're not Abby, and you're not your father." She says strongly. Seeing him so insecure, so small, reminds her of the Emily he met that night in her back garden. It was time to return the favor.
"But I am because my father would've kissed you at the hospital." Everything starts to make sense for both of them. "Or at your mother's house years ago." It comes out as a whisper bringing to the surface the one thing they could agree on. Whatever connection they had, it didn't start now.
It's funny how he's saying the words she could only dream he would say to her, but she will never allow him to ruin his life for her. "But you didn't and you won't." Aaron takes his eyes off her because he is not so sure of that. "You feel guilty because you think you're destroying your family, but you're doing the impossible to not do it." You're destroying me. "Remember, nothing happened, stop making me your pain."
"But I don't regret it." He says without thinking.
"Neither do I." And she responds after analyzing what this means for them. Aaron takes a step closer, his hand almost touches her cheek when they listen to someone screaming for them and they take a step back as quickly as they can.
"Guys, it's time to go." They are grateful that Spencer caught them in their moment because he's looking at them as he usually does. His mind didn't process what he just interrupted.