Chapter Two
By Monday, it still hadn't settled in.
On Saturday evening, they were all exhausted by the time they fell into bed, having spent the entire day and evening together. Liv's three beers turned into an entire crate by the time the sun had set, and, as usually happened whenever the Hotchner's got together, Trivial Pursuit was brought out.
So it was late when they finally got their heads down. Ava, Jack and Cassidy all ended up staying over rather than driving back home as had been the plan and, instead of using her own perfectly fine bed, Ava had crawled in with her little sister, and the two of them sat giggling long into the early hours of the morning so that nobody saw sight nor sound of either of them until past noon on Sunday.
"Tell them we said bye," Jack said, standing on the porch with his arms around Cassidy as they said goodbye to his parents and Alex.
"We will," Aaron nodded, "If we see either of them today."
"Come for dinner in a few weeks," Emily was eager to keep the two of them close during the pregnancy, to be involved while letting them have their own space. She recalled how overbearing Elizabeth had been whilst she was pregnant with Livvy, although following the accident those were exceptional circumstances, and how it used to drive her crazy. Determined not to be the domineering mother-in-law, she was happy to go at their pace, but wanted them to know they were welcome whenever.
"Or you can come to us," Cassidy smiled, and Emily felt her heart swell as her almost-daughter-in-law beamed at her, without any irony, "You've not seen the apartment yet, and I'd love your opinion on the nursery."
Aaron, who felt Emily squeeze his hand tightly with delight, smiled as he watched her interact with the next generation. He felt an excitement he hadn't in years; it was similar, but not nearly the same, as the excitement he felt when they'd been expecting. Sixteen years had passed since the last time, and he still remembered the feeling as though it were yesterday. He knew the excitement Jack was feeling, and he also knew the lingering sense of foreboding that came with it, the one new parents tried to hide from everyone around them.
"Not to overstep," he said, and Emily was glad he spoke up, glad he wasn't worried about being too heavy-handed, "but we've got some experience in the area of kids." This sort of thing was always better coming from Aaron, who could say it casually, but comfortingly, "So if you need anything-"
"Either of you," Emily added, earnestly, although her eyes were on Cassidy.
"You know where we are-"
"Just a phone call away." Ava yawned, from behind her parents.
Turning, they saw both girls standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking worse for wear. Aaron smiled as she recited the same message he'd given his children throughout their lives, never wanting them to feel like something was too big or too scary or too terrible to share.
"That's right," he said, wrapping his arm around Ava's shoulder as the girls joined them on the porch and Liv stepped forwards to hug the expectant parents.
"I'm gonna come visit next weekend, okay?" She said, hugging her big brother.
Whenever Liv wasn't in classes at Columbia she was doing one of three things; bugging Ava, bugging Jack and Cass or painting.
"Sure, you're going to paint the nursery for us, right?" Jack grinned at her; he thought he was giving her a chore, but Liv's eyes lit up.
"You'll give me free reign?" She was already picturing intricate, colourful designs, playing with patterns and images in her mind.
"Happily." Cass agreed, looking relieved.
They said their goodbyes, Emily reminding them to call or text when they arrived safely home and Ava bending down to tell Cassidy's flat tummy "You behave and don't make your mommy too sick," making them all laugh, and Aaron closed the door softly after they'd watched Jack and Cassidy's Ford pull out of the drive and out of their road.
When he turned, Ava had already started making her way down the hall towards the kitchen, mumbling about coffee, but Liv was watching them both with a slight smile on her face and her arms folded across her chest, one hip dropped. He wondered, not for the first time, if she would ever stop looking exactly like her teenage self.
"What?" He asked, suspiciously, putting his arm around Emily, who snaked her own around his waist as they meandered after Ava.
"Jack and Cass are gone," their middle child, always too insightful for her own good, said, raising a smudged eyebrow, "You can panic now."
"Panic?" Emily chuckled, "Why would we panic, Liv? Panicking is what Jack and Cass are doing right now, I assure you. They look calm but under the surface, they're kicking frantically like ducks. We know, we've been there."
At her side, Aaron was nodding. Liv, too, nodded, but there was a glint in her eyes that told her parents she wasn't quite finished, that she had something more up her metaphorical sleeve.
"So…you're not feeling… old , at all?" She dropped the hammer, and her parents, the experienced profilers that they were, locked their facial expressions into place immediately. Emily gave a good performance of rolling her eyes, while Aaron smiled a little and set about brewing another pot of coffee.
"No, Liv, we're not feeling old , thank you," Emily sat herself down at the island counter, although even as she spoke the words she met her husband's eye and knew she was lying, that they both were.
And, sure enough, as the weekend passed and the news settled in, alongside their joy and excitement there began to grow a smaller, quieter feeling. Something like a deep seated sense of dread and compromised identity as Emily realised that it wasn't just Jack and Cass who were entering a new phase of life.
Come Monday, her nails had been bitten down to stubs. Aaron, on the other hand, seemed to have overcome his initial nerves altogether. He kept talking about helping Jack to build the crib, kept asking Liv if she'd come up with any ideas for the nursery, wondering aloud what they might name the baby - if they might have twins!
Emily, on the other hand, felt as though all of the air was being torn from her lungs.
Suddenly every wrinkle on her face seemed deeper, and she knew she wasn't imagining the age spots that had appeared on her hands seemingly overnight.
Studying herself in the mirror as she got dressed for work, she eyed the black shirt that seemed to fit all wrong, hanging in places it shouldn't, clinging unflatteringly in others. Shifting her shoulders, Emily tried to adjust it and only made it worse, the fabric pulling taut against her chest, highlighting the slight sag she'd noticed but didn't think anyone else had just yet.
With a sigh, her fingers went to the buttons and she snapped them open one by one.
"Hey," Aaron stepped up behind her, his hands settling gently on her shoulders. Emily sighed, flicking her hair out of her face and her head back to meet his gaze in the mirror. Even as she looked into her husband's eyes, she could see her telltale grey roots beginning to bleed through into her dyed black hair, and she grimaced, "What's wrong?" he asked, gently.
Aaron, though, was apparently on cloud nine since the news, and Emily wasn't about to bring him down.
"Just tired," she said, with a tight smile she knew he would see right through, "And this shirt has a stain on it," she lied, shrugging gently out of his hands. Aaron's eyes creased in a smile as his brow furrowed.
"I didn't see a stain," he said with a laugh, but Emily ignored him, dragging another shirt from the closet. A silken red shirt she hadn't worn in a long time. She studied it for a moment. Red had always made her feel powerful; she knew how good she looked in it, and the neckline on this particular shirt was perhaps a little more provocative than other outfits she wore these days, something that the Emily of twenty years ago wouldn't have thought twice about. Emily did hesitate but ultimately - because, regardless of her claims, Emily Prentiss was by and large the most stubborn member of her family - she decided a stupid shirt wasn't going to get the better of her and stepped into the bathroom to change.
Aaron watched her go, watched Emily close the door behind herself to change, and frowned; after over two decades of marriage, there was very little to be left to the imagination anymore. He couldn't actually ever remember a time when she'd hidden from him whilst changing. Even before they were a couple he'd seen her in various stages of undress in hotel rooms and precincts and on the jet; Emily had never been the most modest of women. So he frowned, approaching the bathroom door. His knuckle hovered over the wood, but lingered there.
He knew what this was about, and, honestly, he was as shaken as she was. This particular speed bump, he reasoned, might be best left alone for the time being and, anyway, when she emerged a moment later, his concern was almost forgotten in light of her attire.
"Emily-" he said, appreciatively, the familiar ruby shade of the shirt seeming to light his wife from within as it always had, "You look beautiful."
The smile she gave him, though genuine, was tight. "Thanks, honey," she sailed past his compliment, still frustratingly uncomfortable not just in the shirt, but in her own skin. "I'm going to drop Alex at school, will you grab me a coffee on the way into the office?"
"Okay, sweetheart," He trailed off, Emily having already breezed from the room.
He watched her carefully for the rest of the day, stopping by her office a few times - years ago, shortly before his retirement, Rossi had roped the rest of the team into helping decorate it for her. By that point, she and Hotch had been sharing their Unit Chief duties for a couple of years but she had always refused to take over Rossi's office, ending up with a smaller, cramped office a little ways down the corridor. It had always felt slightly removed, but Emily constantly claimed she didn't mind. On Rossi's last day of work, when he brought her up to the office that had been freshly painted a rich, forest green and decorated with not only all of her accolades but photographs of the team and her family, a gifted bottle of his favourite whiskey sitting on the desk as well as his old crystal tumblers, she'd been overjoyed.
The office was still the same now, although the paint probably needed touching up almost twelve years later.
She put up a good show, and perhaps the Unit Chief she'd fooled two decades ago wouldn't have seen past it, but he'd fathered three children to her since then, not much about her got past him these days.
Every time he tried to strike up the conversation though, a distraction presented itself.
"Luke needs my help with a report!"
"There's a situation downstairs that needs my attention, darling."
"Sorry honey - I have my standing Monday lunch date with the girls."
At her standing Monday lunch date with the girls, though, Emily voiced all of the panic she couldn't bring herself to admit to Aaron.
"A baby!" She said, as they took a seat at their favourite table. The bistro was five minutes from HQ, perfectly situated for a quick girls lunch whenever they were in the office, and served the best Italian coffee in town.
"Excuse me?" JJ raised her eyebrows, shrugging out of the blazer she wore and laying it across the back of her chair.
"A baby!" Emily repeated, snatching up a menu from the middle of the table, as though she didn't order the same eggs benedict with salmon and avocado every week.
"We're going to need a little bit more." Tara prompted, making a little circle with her wrist, as though to draw more of the story out of her boss.
"Jack and Cassidy are having a baby." Emily sighed, her eyes not leaving the menu.
Penelope squealed, clapping excitedly, and the others flinched away from the piercing sound. "Oh, my god - I am sorry but it's about time!" She said, "My horoscope said I'd be getting good news today and my god this is the best, it's been too long since we had a baby around here."
"This is amazing news," Tara said, looking at her friend appraisingly, "So why does it sound like you've just been told you've got to write everybody's reports for the next year?"
Emily rolled her eyes, shoving herself up straighter in her seat. They waited for her to speak and JJ lifted her eyebrows, prompting her.
"I'm just…do I look like somebody's Grandma?" She said, and the three women opposite her looked at her.
Emily, it was true, was ageing like a fine wine. They were well aware that she still took a box dye to her hair every other weekend, but besides that her signs of ageing were minimal. After three children her hips were a little wider, her stomach a little softer than it had been twenty years ago, but she kept herself strong by going to the gym whenever she could, and by keeping active with Aaron. The Hotchner's took their family camping every Summer, even now that the kids were grown, and each time tried to beat their record number of steps.
"Not in that shirt," JJ answered, eventually, a devilish glint in her eyes as the waitress arrived and Emily glared at her across the table.
They gave their orders, Emily forgoing the English muffin on her brunch and switching her beloved cappuccino for a water.
"Come on, you can't be seriously worried about this." Tara laughed, noting the changes as the waitress left them alone.
"I'm not worried ," Emily insisted, although she was fooling neither herself nor her friends, "I'm just…"
"Nervous?" Penelope offered, helpfully, "Flustered. Panicked. Overwhelmed."
"Unsettled," Emily cut her off, finding the word that still wasn't perfect but was close enough. "I met Jack when he was two and now he's twenty-seven and having a baby of his own." Her eyes were distant now, as though she were no longer there with them but somewhere in the past, seeing the little boy that Jack used to be, "Don't get me wrong," she said, giving her head a little shake and putting her fingers to her temples, "I'm completely thrilled for them," and when she smiled, they could see it was true, "It's just…I'm not old , am I?"
"You're fifty-six, Em." JJ said, which wasn't really an answer, Emily noticed.
"I'm giving up smoking." At this, the other three women all exchanged a wry smile. Emily made this same sweeping declaration at least twice a year. And, in all fairness, she had cut back on smoking enormously since having her children, but still indulged in the occasional smoke, "Wholesome Grandma's don't smoke. Who am I, Smokey the Bear? Smokey the Grandma." Then she grimaced, "And another thing, am I a 'Grandma'? My mom is a Grandma. Is Nanny better?"
"Yes," Penelope nodded, at the same time as JJ said,
"No."
Now Aaron appeared to be putting on a good front to his wife, mostly because sitting at dinner on Saturday night he'd seen the panic behind her excited eyes, but also because he genuinely was overjoyed with the news that he was going to be a grandfather.
A grandfather .
He had been apprehensive when Alex came along, the knowledge that he'd be sixty-four by the time his youngest child went off to college enough to give him pause in between his moments of elation.
Of course, then Alex had come along and age didn't matter, as is so often the case with children. Oftentimes they arrive at inopportune moments and, frankly, once they've arrived that doesn't matter one bit.
He kept fit for his age; they all did. They all had to, what with the job. But Aaron knew he'd been slacking lately. Between family life, his career and his age, he was finding less and less time for the gym, for exercise in general.
But after the panic he'd seen in his unshakable wife's eyes, he knew only one of them could wobble at a time, and placed his feet firmly on the ground, for her.
And if he found himself at the gym for the first time in a month that night, then that didn't necessarily have anything to do with the worry he felt about suddenly being old. Because grandpa's are old.
"Grandpa," he muttered to himself, puffing along as he pushed himself - too hard, too fast - on the treadmill, ignoring the stitch that had formed under his ribs, "Grampy." He grimaced at that one. Definitely not grampy.
He was aching by the time he arrived back at the house that evening. So focused was he on the soreness of his back, cursing himself for pushing himself so hard after a long hiatus from the gym, that he didn't even notice the smell until he was part way through the living room and on his way into the kitchen. He paused, setting his bag and briefcase down in the hallway.
"Honey?" He called.
Instead of his wife, Liv came out of the kitchen shaking her head. "Good luck, dad," She scoffed, shaking her head as she stepped past him in the hallway and stomped off up the stairs. Aaron watched his daughter go, a bemused expression on his face, and then looked back towards the kitchen door. Above him, he heard Liv's bedroom door slam.
"Honey?"
The smell was worst in the kitchen, and Hotch scrunched his nose up as he entered. Alex's usual spot at the dining table was vacant and through the patio doors he could see that his son was instead sitting at the deck table, his laptop lighting up his face and attracting insects.
A clatter alerted him to his wife's presence and as Aaron turned, his eyes went wide at what he was confronted with. When they first met, Emily had been no clean freak; he was the one who liked things a certain way and kept his apartment to a certain standard. But Emily had been just one woman living alone, she didn't mind if there were a few pieces of clothing on the floor, or if she left dishes for a few days…all of that changed once they moved in together and had Ava.
With two children to look after and a house to maintain on top of her career, finally Emily saw things from Aaron's point of view and, if anything, became even more of a neat freak than he was. The idea of spending her rare free time cleaning up was so off putting that she never left clothes lying around, the dishwasher was always loaded immediately after a meal, and all of the other household chores that could be done quickly and promptly were.
Aaron had grown accustomed to this, as had they all.
So that was why his eyes went wide when he turned to the kitchen and saw the Emily of old. There was flour everywhere . Egg shells littered the counter, the remnants of their gooey contents giving him anxiety as he watched it leak onto the marble top. There were trays upon trays piled high, as though Emily had been looking for a very specific tray and finding it had required the total dismantling of the order of their cabinets.
He located the smell; it was the pile of burnt…something's that was half falling out of the bin. He frowned at the scene, and then at his wife, who had kicked the oven door closed behind her and dropped another tray of the blackened baked goods onto the counter with a frustrated sigh.
"Honey?" He tried again, gently, "Are you alright?"
"No," Emily shook her head, tearing the oven mits from her hand and slapping them down onto the counter, "No, Aaron, I am certainly not alright ."
Now, if Aaron knew anybody in the world, he knew his wife. He knew that they had reached a crossroads here where he had two choices, only one of which was right; he could step away and leave her to calm down and return later to question and resolve whatever was bothering her, or he could ask now. It was a sensitive, delicate matter, and he knew the wrong choice could result in several undesirable outcomes up to and including; a screaming match, the cold shoulder or, even, god forbid, a sex ban.
He studied his wife closely, the tension in her shoulders, the frown on her brow, the way her fingers were white where she clutched the counter top too tightly. Then he looked at her eyes, and he knew the correct course of action.
"Sweetheart," he said, soothingly, stepping towards her and wrapping his hand around her forearm. It took a second, a heartbeat during which Aaron thought he'd made the wrong choice, but then he felt her melt towards him and pulled her into his chest, smoothing down wisps of dark hair that had escaped the bun she'd wound it into, "Why did you try to burn down the kitchen?"
It had all been going so well, until that moment. Until he attempted humour.
Emily stepped out of his embrace, her face like thunder as she regarded him, as she shook her head.
"There it is," she said, as though he'd confirmed something she was already suspicious of, and she slammed her hand down on the countertop, "There it is. Emily can't cook - the running joke, right? Can't cook, can't bake. Can't do anything."
He watched, helpless, as she stepped around him and out of the kitchen, muttering angrily to herself, and left him standing among the mess of plates, pans and burnt up somethings .
By the time he'd cleaned up the mess downstairs, Emily had cooled off.
She was sitting on their bed in her robe, rubbing lotion into her legs as he ascended the stairs and paused in their bedroom doorway. He playfully regarded her as he stepped inside, making a performance of hesitating at the threshold, but she just rolled her eyes and gave a small shake of her head.
"I'm sorry," it had taken years, years, for there to occur an argument after which Emily apologised first. Nowadays, it was much easier for her to do so. She sighed, and he knew she was embarrassed, "I'm sorry, for leaving you with that mess and for taking it out on you."
Aaron, luckily, knew his wife well and simply smiled, fondly at her. Sitting himself on the edge of the bed, he ran his hand up her smooth leg.
"Can I ask, now?" He hesitated, and Emily frowned a little at him, "What were you baking?"
"Oh," she chuckled, "Cookies."
Aaron nodded, "Thank god." Emily raised her eyebrows in question, "Things have to go wrong to burn cookies…things have to go really wrong to burn cupcakes that badly."