Author's Note: Just a refresh on point in time. It's the end of 2008, and we've entered Christmas week. Christmas was a Thursday that year.

Again, I loved the chapter title but again, can take no credit for it. It's the title of a book, ironically, about a man with a brain tumor.

Prompt Set #19 (June)

Show: Desperate Housewives

Title: The Coffee Cup

Late December: Monday

How Starbucks Saved My Life

"Aaron, is that your coffee?"

After hearing Emily's whisper in his ear, Hotch's gaze switched from the meeting notes in front of him, and over to his girlfriend sitting next to him.

"I'm sorry?" He whispered back in slight bewilderment as he put the coffee in question back on the table.

"I was just wondering," Hotch noted that she stressed the word 'wondering,' "if that was YOUR coffee, the one that you're drinking. Right. Now."

Although Emily's tone was very calm and outwardly professional, Hotch could read the underlying . . . inexplicable . . . irritation.

Why in God's name was she irritated with him? And why was she wondering if this was HIS coffee?!

He looked back down, his brow wrinkling as he stared into the now empty canteen cup.

But unfortunately there were no answers there to those two questions. Because he already knew without a shred of doubt that this was INDEED his coffee! He'd bought it, and a cup for Emily, in the cafeteria downstairs just after the two of them had arrived at work. These days, ordinarily, they would've both had their first cup at home, but today he'd woken up with Emily nibbling on his ear, which had led to all of the expected activities early morning ear nibbling would generally lead to.

Including them running slightly too late to have breakfast at home.

But Emily needed her morning caffeine more than she needed oxygen. Hence him being a good (wise) boyfriend and stopping in to get them each a coffee and a donut (said donuts were sitting on their respective desks) before the morning briefing.

So given how he'd already provided her with both caffeine AND sugar, two of her four favorite food groups, why was she so irritated with him right now?

He looked back over to see her jaw now twitching . . . yep, definitely pissed about something . . . and then back to the cup. Now what was the prob . . .?

And then he saw it.

The faint smear of brown lipstick on the corner of the lid.

A split second later he flashed on the last place he'd actually seen his own canteen cup . . . on the corner of his desk after he'd put it down to grab a call on his way out the door. So that meant that this cup belonged to . . . his gaze snapped back over to Emily's.

Uh oh.

Emily could see the exact moment when Hotch FINALLY realized his mistake. He'd been staring down at her cup with the 'what the hell is she talking about' look on his face . . . it was a look she was intimately acquainted with . . . when suddenly his eyes had popped as they bounced back over to hers.

That's right, honey . . . she raised her eyebrow while giving him a barely perceptible nod . . . it's mine.

Halfway through the meeting Hotch had coughed, and then he'd leaned over to take a sip out of the cup to his right. It had been her cup, but at the time, that hadn't been a problem. Given how they were now sleeping/living together, as intimate exchanges went, taking a sip of her coffee was no longer an action even worthy of note.

Initially anyway.

But then he seemed to have forgotten that it was her cup and not his, because when he put it back down, it was not where he had found it . . . he put it off to his left. And then he'd CONTINUED to drink out of that cup for the rest of their case discussion.

An additional forty-five minutes.

Now, giving the man half of her closet space, two point five shelves in the medicine cabinet, and a lifetime of complete and utter devotion was one thing, but this . . . she grumbled to herself . . . this was TOTALLY unacceptable!

Of course she didn't mind sharing with him, but that was an ENTIRE cup of coffee! She'd only taken two sips before it had been annexed by her new housemate.

And the worst part was, she couldn't even SAY anything!

If he had done it a month ago, then she probably would have interrupted the meeting to take her drink back. By then, the team had known that they'd become close friends, but their relationship at that point was still technically platonic.

At least there hadn't been any declarations made yet.

But things had changed completely since then. And now that they were officially, declaratively, together, to Emily's mind, this kind of thing fell under the umbrella of 'domestic discussion.' And those were not conducted at work.

That was one of their rules.

Well, maybe she could have gotten away with joking about it, but she was pretty sure that Dave . . . at the minimum . . . was on to them.

The other day, when she'd walked out of Hotch's office after lunch, Rossi had given her a knowing, toothy grin. To deflect any lewd comments from him she had simply stated, "just get your teeth polished there, Mr. Ed," before she'd continued down the steps to her desk.

Subtlety wasn't really Dave's strong suit though. So Emily knew that eventually the man was going to flat out ask, "so you two doing it now or what?" but she was trying to push that question off for a bit longer. In a few weeks they'd be telling everyone everything, but for the moment she didn't want to do anything to add more grist to that mill.

It might inadvertently push up their timetable for the already planned conversations for January.

So she'd kept her mouth shut for those forty-five . . . caffeine deprived . . . minutes. But then when the meeting had ended thirty-seven seconds earlier . . . seconds matter when you're suffering from withdrawal(!) . . . Emily had seen her opening to casually bring this matter to Hotch's attention, and therefore allow him to make amends for this transgression.

Immediately.

Hotch looked over to see Emily's eyebrow now twitching dangerously. That's when he felt a little stab of unease as his eyes shot back to the empty cup.

Oh shit.

He was in big trouble.

But . . . he began rapidly pulling his paperwork together . . . he could fix this. He could fix this RIGHT NOW. A caffeine less Emily was something that he'd had to endure on a few occasions in the past.

One time though had been MORE than enough!

So as he jammed his files under his arm, he simultaneously jumped out of his chair.

"I'm going to Starbucks," he announced to the group at large even while he stared down at Emily in particular.

By his estimation . . . depending on whether or not there was a line at the coffee shop . . . he could get this whole matter cleared up in ten to thirteen minutes.

Though as he saw her eyebrow twitch again, he decided that he should definitely be shooting for the low end of that estimation.

And that meant he was going to have to run.

At Hotch's announcement, Jordan's brow wrinkled as she looked up at him from the laptop where she had been clearing her presentation.

"But Hotch," she asked in confusion, "weren't we going to meet to go over last month's press releases?"

Damn it . . . Hotch winced . . . that had completely slipped his mind. But press release review wasn't a life or death discussion.

Not like the matter he was currently attending to.

Jordan could wait a few minutes.

"Yes, Jordan," he responded matter of factly as though he hadn't COMPLETELY forgotten about their planned sit-down, "we are still meeting, but let's push it back twenty minutes," he started to the door, "I just need to get some coffee."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Hotch realized that sounded a bit rude so he stopped to look back at his (temporary) media liaison.

"Would you like anything?"

He might not be all that fond of the woman, but she'd been getting a little better lately. For one thing, it had been at least ten days since he'd last wanted to lock her up alone with Emily and two pairs of boxing gloves. Regardless though, even if they had moved beyond him wanting his girlfriend to literally BEAT some sense into her . . . and sick or not Hotch had no doubt that Emily could still kick Jordan's ass . . . if Hotch didn't offer to get the woman something when he went out, then he was going to look like a complete schmuck.

Jordan was slightly taken aback that Hotch, a man who she was fairly sure hated her guts, was offering to get her a coffee.

Hmmm . . . she thought . . . maybe he was being nice because it was Christmas. Either way, she was due for her second cup.

"Um, sure," she responded hesitantly, "if you don't mind, sir. Grande non-fat peppermint mocha, no whip . . . uh, thanks."

"Grande non-fat peppermint mocha, no whip," Hotch muttered back so he wouldn't forget. And he turned to walk out.

But then Derek piped up from the end of the table.

"Hotch, you doing a coffee run?"

Derek knew full well Hotch was doing a coffee run.

Hotch's eyes narrowed as he turned to shoot the full wattage of his glare onto Morgan.

"I am," he said through grinding teeth, "would YOU like something, Derek?"

Though Derek could clearly see the death glare that was being shot at him, he thought nothing of it. Given that he usually incurred that look at least twice a week, he'd become immune to it around year two. So he responded casually.

"Grande iced frappuchino, two shots, extra ice, extra whip," pause a beat for effect, "thanks, man."

As Hotch's nostrils flared, Derek chuckled to himself, because unlike the boss, HE had known that was Emily's cup of coffee. And he had seen that Hotch himself hadn't realized that fact until it was much, much too late!

Now, Derek would follow the man to the gates of hell without question, but it wasn't often that their chief made a mockworthy . . . HUMAN . . . mistake. And in honor of this rare event, he was more than willing to pile onto the pain that Emily was inflicting.

And it was quite clear to him that was indeed what she was doing.

Although he still didn't know if the two of them were actually sleeping together, when she'd started grinding her teeth halfway through the meeting, he had known one thing for sure.

Hotch was a dead man.

"Oooh," Reid suddenly exclaimed as his finger waved in the air, "veinte triple espresso please for me."

Spencer knew that Hotch was replacing Emily's stolen coffee, which worked out really well for him, because it was cold out and he needed a refill.

Finally accepting his fate, Hotch took a deep breath as returned to the table and began scribbling down this laundry list of orders on the sticky pad in front of Jordan. Then he looked over at Rossi.

Just one ballbuster left.

"Dave?" He asked flatly.

Rossi had been watching the entire Starbucks exchange with barely contained mirth. Of course he'd noticed when Aaron had taken Emily's coffee cup, and . . . although Dave had continued to appear engrossed in his paperwork . . . he'd heard her question to him a moment before.

So he knew exactly what was going on with this sudden need to run to Starbucks even though he had a previously scheduled meeting with Jordan. Hotch didn't put off his Jordan meetings.

He just got them over with as soon as possible.

And as a good . . . okay, mediocre . . . Catholic, Dave could see that Hotch was now suffering penance for his sin. So with an obnoxious smirk he looked back up at his friend.

"Medium black, two sugars, and a slice of that marble pound cake if they have it."

The words were barely out of his mouth, before Dave heard Reid yell out.

"Oh yeah, that sounds good! I'll take a slice of cake too!"

Hotch's jaw twitched as he stared at Dave's quivering mouth . . . any other day and he'd tell Rossi to shove his pound cake up his ass. But unfortunately today . . . he grunted something deliberately unintelligible as he added TWO slices of marble pound cake to the order . . . the jackass had him by the balls.

And after he'd ripped off the now completely ink covered scrap of yellow paper, Hotch started towards the door again. And that's when Emily called out.

"Oh, Hotch," she added sweetly, "as long as you're going out, could you please get me a grande black? No sugar. Thanks."

Though she loved the man dearly, Emily couldn't have been more thrilled that the rest of the team had just designated him Coffee Bitch. So although this whole trip was of course for her, she couldn't resist OFFICIALLY putting in her own order just to bust his chops.

Hotch turned to see Emily's mouth twitching.

"Of course, Prentiss," he stated flatly before turning back to mutter as he walked out the door.

"I guess I should stop and ask Garcia too or I'll never hear the end of it."

Emily smirked as she started stacking up her case files.

'Well, he definitely won't do that again!'

A/N 2: Just because you're sick doesn't mean your whole life revolves around said sickness. For these four minutes of their lives the only crises that needed to be addressed was Hotch's replacement of Emily's coffee. Also, once I'd stumbled over that chapter title "How Starbucks Saved My Life" (which I didn't have the first time) I had to use it. And if I'd added anything here then I probably would have needed to rename the chapter, and that would have been a true tragedy :)

If I haven't thanked you individually yet for your feedback on this story, thank you! It's much appreciated.