Author's Note: Sorry it took so long to get chapter two up on a story that has already been posted before. I had a couple weeks of "deathaversaries" and then migraine issues. The first of which derailed any interest in delving back into a grief driven storyline, and the second derailed any interest in writing, period. But, I think we're good again. And again, thanks for the warm welcome back on an old story :) Also, a reminder, in the Girl'verse, Em's dad was a CIA officer.

The Notifications

Emily awoke to a familiar smell. But it wasn't one that she was accustomed to experiencing at this time of day. She inhaled . . . what was it?

Oh, right . . . she slowly exhaled . . . Hotch.

When her bleary eyes slowly opened, she found that her head was tucked into the crook of his neck. And the fuzzy little part of her brain awake enough to think real thoughts, wondered why that was.

But then the reason suddenly slammed into her again.

The plane crash.

Her eyes immediately started to burn, but she tried to blink the tears away. There was no time for them now. Because as much as she wanted to just stay curled up there in Hotch's arms and cry for her parents, her brain was becoming more alert. She was remembering that there were things she needed to do today. One of those things was a really big one.

Travel halfway around the world.

Although as she nuzzled Hotch's throat, and her fingers clenched the fabric of his hoodie, she was thinking that maybe she could lay here for just another minute. Because she was remembering the promise he gave her last night. The one where he said that he wouldn't leave her. And here he was . . . she bit her lip . . . still with her. Still with her even though his body had to have been aching from sitting up and holding her for God only knew how many hours. Yet still, here he was.

Her eyes started to water.

He was such a good man, and waking up with him this way, was making her truly appreciate how lucky she was to have him in her life. Because even though she wasn't generally much for leaning on other people, Emily did acknowledge that she wasn't in ANY condition to deal with this situation by herself. For God's sake, she couldn't even regain CONSCIOUSNESS without starting to cry again! So how the hell would she ever be able to get herself halfway around the world, let alone deal with the actual situation, if she was already a mess just laying on the couch?!

She couldn't.

Feeling a stray tear that was running down her face, she reached up to wipe away. In response to her movement, Hotch tightened his grip around her shoulders.

That's when she realized that he was awake too.

And when he started whispering to someone that obviously wasn't her . . . he'd just told that person what time he'd arrived at her home . . . she also knew what had most likely woken her up.

His phone ringing.

And hearing him then confirm that he'd already told her about her parents, she found herself pushing down a sob that tried to rise up.

That's when he froze for a moment.

Hotch looked down to see that not only was Emily now awake . . . as he'd expected from the way her body had just shuddered . . . but that she was crying. His expression immediately softened as he moved to cradle her closer.

He pressed his lips to her temple.

Once upon a time, she had told him about her little boxes, and how they got her through the bad days. He had been hoping that they would help her here. But given how she'd only been awake for a matter of minutes, and she was already crying again, this was obviously a level of grief beyond any coping mechanism. And he would have been fine to sit there with her all day, and let her just cry in his arms if that's what she needed to do, but he knew that's not what she really wanted to do. No, what she wanted to do, was get to Egypt.

His head began to hurt just thinking about the steps involved in making that happen.

And now that he'd gotten distracted worrying about Emily and their nightmarish day ahead, Hotch realized that he had stopped listening to JJ on the other end of the line.

He had completely missed the last thing she'd said.

"I'm sorry JJ," his eyes were locked onto Emily's fingers curled into his sweatshirt, even as his attention refocused on his conversation with the other woman, "what was that?"

"I was just asking if you guys would be stopping into the office at all," she paused, "I wanted to give Emily my condolences, and to see if there was anything she needed."

JJ felt just awful about what had happened.

She'd woken up early that morning, just like she did every morning, so she could watch the news and check the headlines on the Internet. It sucked sometimes having to stay tuned in to all of the sad and depressing events that most people tried to avoid immersing themselves in. But as the media liaison it was her job to always know what was going on in the world.

Even when the world was falling apart.

Then this morning, to her absolute HORROR(!), on every news site, and every news channel, she'd seen pictures of Emily's mother and father. Once she'd gotten over her initial shock hearing about what had happened to them, she'd immediately grabbed for her phone to call Hotch so he could get to Emily before she woke up. That's when she'd discovered that he was already there with her.

JJ had been so relieved!

Because that had been her immediate fear, that Emily would find out on the news just like she had.

And that would have just compounded her tragedy.

At JJ's question, Hotch looked down at Emily again.

"Um, hold on a second, I'll just see if she's awake." He put his hand over the mouthpiece as he continued on in a whisper, "JJ wants to talk to you. Are you up for it?"

As she shifted and pushed herself up slightly, Emily gave Hotch a nod.

"Yeah," she cleared her throat, "it's okay."

So he passed her the phone and she took another breath before speaking.

"Jayje?"

Hearing Emily's gravelly voice coming through the line . . . it was immediately clear that she'd been crying . . . JJ's own eyes began to well up.

"Oh sweetie, I'm so sorry about your mom and dad! Do you need me to do anything?"

"Thanks Jayje," Emily answered with a wince . . . condolences, she was going to have to get used to them, "and um, yeah, actually if you could kind of monitor the stories and make sure they don't say anything about my dad's work being a contributing factor here." She tipped her head, "I mean, I know you can't control what they say, but if you see it getting picked up, if you could try and quash it. I really don't want my, my," and there was the stumble again, "dad's memory to be tainted, like somehow this was his fault because of where he worked."

It wouldn't be long before some reporter found out what he did for a living, and it was definitely going to become part of the story. She just didn't want him to be blamed. But she knew that the, "Covert CIA Operative," was going to be a salacious angle for the press to delve into.

Really, how could it not be?

JJ nodded vehemently.

"Of course, Em, I can do that. I actually know a couple people in the press office at the Agency. I'll call them right after we hang up and maybe we can come up with a strategy to handle it." She paused for a second before adding with a note of apology, "of course you know that's going to be their main concern anyway, though for totally different reasons."

Emily nodded as she rubbed the corner of her eye.

"Yeah, I know, but their 'cover your ass' mentality will actually work to his advan . . ."

And she trailed off then as she suddenly remembered that her dad didn't much care about his reputation anymore.

He didn't much care because he was dead.

Feeling a wave of panic suddenly rising up, she shoved the phone back at Hotch and started sucking wind.

Her dad was dead.

No more bear hugs. No more secret eye rolls behind her mom's back. No more birthday cards addressed to, 'My Pumpkin.' Really, nobody to call her Pumpkin. That was all gone now. Because he was gone now.

She didn't have a dad anymore.

Oh Jesus Christ . . . her hand clamped over her mouth . . . she didn't have a DAD anymore!

Seeing that Emily was about to completely lose it, Hotch muttered a faint, "we'll call you later," into the phone, just before he snapped it shut and threw it onto the coffee table. Then he was kicking off his sneakers and reaching out to pull Emily back into his arms. And as he pulled his legs up onto the couch, he pulled Emily on top of him.

He rolled them over and wrapped her up tight.

With her now pressed between him and the back cushions of the couch, he felt her tears spilling onto his neck. Then she whimpered against his throat, "my dad's gone."

Hearing the absolute hopelessness in her voice, Hotch felt his own eyes begin to sting. And he knew that anything he could say back would be pointless, but still he whispered, "I know, sweetheart, I know. And I'm so sorry," because sorry was all that he could think to say.

The "sweetheart" though, that wasn't planned.

But after he'd said it, he realized that he actually meant it. It was a term of endearment, and Emily was by simple definition of the word, and his deep affection for her, quite dear to him. And feeling her tears soaking into his collar, Hotch suddenly flashed on the moment that he'd realized his own father was gone.

Not just the factual knowledge, but the real, full, implications of what that loss meant.

It was almost thirty-five years ago now. At the time he'd been thirteen and walking home from school. It had been his first day back since his father had died six days earlier. And as he'd passed a field he saw some older kids playing baseball. Their fathers were on the sidelines cheering them on. That's when he'd realized . . . that was never going to happen for him.

His dad was never going to go to one of his baseball games. Or yell at him about his room being a mess, or explain to him again what the different ribbons meant on his old uniform. That last one he'd only done when he was drunk, but that was okay.

Hotch had still liked to hear it.

And when all of that hit him, he'd suddenly started to cry and had run to hide behind somebody's garage so nobody would see him. That day he'd felt like his whole world was over. And that was just losing his father.

Even now he couldn't have imagined losing both of his parents at the same time.

Hotch tipped his head down to press a kiss to Emily's temple, because he had just realized that she still hadn't fully processed that her mother was gone too. And given how complicated their relationship was . . . and how much unfinished business he knew that the two of them had . . . he was sure that one was probably going to be even harder to handle than the death of her father. He just prayed it didn't hit her when they were locked in the cabin of a 747 with a hundred other people around. He winced.

Talk about compounding a nightmare.

Emily sniffled as she grappled to curl her fingers over Hotch's . . . he immediately wound them together.

At that moment she was infinitely . . . and somewhat perversely . . . grateful for every other horrible thing that the two of them gone through together over the past year. Because if they hadn't had such a shit time, then their relationship wouldn't have evolved to what it was, and he wouldn't be here with her right now. Well, he definitely still would have knocked on her door at two am, but if he was still, 'just her chief' . . . which was something he hadn't been for a VERY long time . . . after he'd delivered the news, he probably would have called JJ or Morgan to come over and sit with her. And she loved them both dearly, but really, she couldn't imagine falling apart with either of them, the way that she had with Hotch. Grief was so personal and intimate.

It wasn't something to share with just anyone.

But she and Hotch had shared a lot of intimate moments these last six months. Some of those events were bittersweet, as they'd revolved around her helping him deal with his divorce and then later his trauma after the attack in New York. But some of them were purely happy memories too. Their holiday kisses were a genuine bright spot in her recent past.

And if she asked, she was sure that Hotch would say the same.

And between those kisses, and their bathroom make out the night Hotch had received his divorce papers, a level of physical intimacy had been brought into their relationship which obviously they wouldn't have had otherwise. But that intimacy is what allowed them to be curled up together the way they were now, without it being awkward or strange. Thank God.

Because right now he was the only thing holding her together.

And she knew him, and she knew how awful it would have been for him to have to be the one to give her this news. But he had. And then he'd held her while she cried like the world was going to end. God . . . she scrubbed her hand across her face . . . at this point her nose had run on him so many times that she was going to have to find him a clean t-shirt to put on before they could even leave the house!

She really should go find a box of Kleenex.

That's when she lifted her head slightly, so could see the time on the cable box across the room.

6:24 am

She knew that JJ caught the headlines when she first woke up, which meant that the news had to be everywhere by now. She winced.

Other people would be calling soon.

As if on cue, her house phone started ringing . . . she and Hotch both ignored it. Four rings later, the machine picked up. Hearing the broken, disbelieving, voice coming through on the message, asking her if she'd heard yet, she winced again.

Uncle Jason.

Damn it . . . she felt a stab of guilt pierce her grief . . . her dad's little brother. God, she wished that she'd thought to call him last night. The two of them had been close, and he never should have found out about his brother's death on the news.

At the last second, Emily scrambled to push herself up enough to grab the phone off the end table . . . but she was too late. He hung up before she was able to grab the call. Then with the cordless in her hand, she bit her lip as she looked down first at it, and then to Hotch who was still lying beneath her.

He was watching her with a worried crease in his brow.

"That was my dad's younger brother," her lips pursed even as she was sniffling back her tears, "I have two more aunts and three uncles. And I just realized that I really should try to catch the rest of them before they find out on the news too."

Then her eyes popped as another thought came to her.

"And oh, God! Gram and Gramps!"

She looked down at Hotch in horror.

"How am I supposed to tell my grandparents that their daughter is dead?!"

Hotch bit down on the inside of his cheek.

"I can help you with the calls." He tipped his head, "I mean obviously they don't know me, but a personal call is still better than them finding out on the news."

Ideally the State Department would have been handling the notifications, but Hotch knew that there was no way this was on anyone's radar right now. That was the problem with being a public figure. The public was immediately notified when you were dead.

To hell with the trauma that caused your family.

Emily had been staring at Hotch while he was speaking, and then she nodded.

"That's true. And, um yeah, if you don't mind helping, because I definitely can't make that many phone calls before the rest of them start waking up." She shook her head, "I'm still probably not going to get everyone in time."

Hotch ran his hand down her arm as he gave her a little smile of encouragement, "well, we'll just do the best we can."

So with that, they both shifted around to sit up and Emily reached over to the coffee table to switch out the house phone for her cell phone. But when she picked up the smaller device, that's when she remembered that her extended family wouldn't be in her cell contacts.

They really only interacted on the holidays.

Shit.

Now with a growing sense of urgency, she bounded up from the couch and ran out to the kitchen to find her address book.

What really sucked at that moment, was her thought that as much as she needed to make these calls immediately, she also had just realized that she was going to need coffee to get through them. It would be crass to stop and make the coffee first though.

That would be awful.

The thought came into her head as she began digging into the second drawer for the address book she hadn't used since last December. That's when she felt Hotch come up behind her.

He put his hand on her back.

"Hey," he asked with a gentle rub of her shoulder, "where's the coffee? I'll start a pot."

She turned them to him a grateful, watery, smile just before she leaned up to press a kiss to his cheek.

"Bless you," she dropped back down to her bare feet, "canister's on the counter. Filters are in a tin on the bottom shelf, second cabinet over from the stove. Measuring thingy's up there too. Two of those, and three cups of water."

Hotch's eyes crinkled slightly at her use of the word, "thingy." Then he patted her side and went over to start digging around in her cabinets.

It took a few minutes for him to get the coffee percolating, and during that time, Emily moved over to the sideboard drawers in her ongoing search for the still missing address book.

That's when the doorbell rang.

Emily's head snapped up, and she spun around to give Hotch a panicked look. He nodded and whispered, "don't worry. You don't have to talk to anyone if don't want to. I'll take care of it."

After she gave him a tight nod, he walked out of the kitchen and down the hall to check the peephole. His eyes widened slightly in surprise.

He turned back to Emily.

"It's Derek," he called back softly, "is it okay if he comes in?"

Her eyes widened as her fists curled.

"Um, yeah," she nodded and started walking down the hall, "I uh, I guess so."

Not that she really wanted to see anyone else right now . . . or more particularly she didn't want anyone else to see HER the way that she was right now . . . but she couldn't very well turn Morgan away from her door.

Hotch quickly worked the locks and opened Emily's front door to see a slightly sweaty, EXTREMELY agitated, Derek Morgan.

Derek's eyes widened in surprise to see a rumpled Hotch there in front of him.

A half hour ago he'd gone out for his morning run and as he was going past the newsstand down the street from his house, he had seen the headlines about Emily's parents. He'd raced home as fast as he could, to get his car and over to Emily's before she woke up. But seeing their boss there in front of him, also out of regulation uniform . . . he was even barefoot . . . Derek knew that he wasn't the first one to reach her.

So he asked worriedly, "how is she?"

Hotch stepped back and Morgan saw that Emily was actually behind him. Her mouth twisted in a faint, sad smile.

"She's okay."

Derek rushed past Hotch to pull her into a hug.

"Oh, girl," he whispered as he pulled her slightly up from the floor, "I'm so sorry."

Feeling her eyes starting to well up again, Emily winced . . . this was what she was afraid of, more crying in front of others . . . as she gave Morgan a faint squeeze back.

"Thank you, Derek."

Luckily he put her back on the ground before she got even more upset. Then he wrapped his arm around her waist and looked first at Hotch, and then down to her.

"What do you need me to do?"

Hotch caught Emily's eyes and she tipped her head in approval.

"Uh, actually Derek," he gestured back towards the living area, "if you could help us notify Emily's aunts and uncles, that would really help."

Morgan looked down at Emily with a sharp nod.

"Of course, anything."

So she tipped her head towards the kitchen.

"You two grab some coffee," she responded, while slipping out of Morgan's grasp so she could begin walking backwards down the hall, "and I'll check the last of these drawers." She rolled her eyes in exasperation, "because we can't call anyone until I find the damn numbers."

The two men were directly behind Emily as she stepped back into the kitchen. And when she moved back to start digging into the sideboard again, Hotch directed Derek over to the coffee maker. As Hotch began taking the mugs off the rack on the kitchen wall, the other man leaned over to whisper, "how is she doing, really?"

Hotch was just picking up the carafe to pour the coffee, when Derek asked the question. His lips pursed right before he let out a faint sigh, "not good." Then he quickly prepared Emily's coffee the way she liked it . . . hot and black, just like his . . . and walked over to the sideboard.

Seeing that she was still too busy digging to notice him standing there, he reached out to squeeze her shoulder. When she looked up at him, seeing the panic and desperation in her eyes, his heart actually clenched.

His expression twisted as he put her cup down on the sideboard.

He pulled her into his arms.

"It's okay, Emily," he whispered in her ear as he rubbed his hand down her back, "you go sit down and drink your coffee. I'll find the book."

Her eyes started to burn again.

"But Hotch," she bit her lip as she pulled back to look up at him, "I have to call them before it's too LATE!"

Hearing that slight bit of hysteria inching into her tone, and knowing that he needed to calm her down immediately before it got worse, he simultaneously picked up her coffee and shook his head.

"No," he soothed, "all you have to do," he started guiding her over to the couch, "is sit down." He gently pushed her down onto the cushions, "that's it. Just sit. Derek and I will take care of the calls."

Then he crouched down and with one hand on her knee, with the other hand he handed her the mug he'd carried over.

"You just stay here and drink your coffee, okay?"

His words were gentle, and they came with a faint smile. So he was pleased to see that Emily didn't fight him on the request. She just took the cup and sniffled back a sad, "okay," that made him want to pull her back into his arms again. But he resisted, partly because they really did need to find that damn address book, but mostly because it was starting to make him uncomfortable knowing that Derek was seeing them interacting this way. Not that he wouldn't continue to do everything he could to comfort Emily . . . and he knew that she did feel better when he held her . . . but he would obviously prefer for their private moments to remain private.

That wasn't possible with another profiler in the room.

But with Emily settled well enough for now, with a final squeeze of her knee, he stood up and then walked back over to the sideboard.

All right . . . he took a breath . . . her apartment wasn't that big, so the damn book had to be around here somewhere. Most likely she'd just missed it because she was in a panic.

He turned around then to see Derek watching him worriedly from the other half of the kitchen.

So he gestured to the cabinets behind him.

"Can you check over there again, please?"

"Oh," Morgan blinked and nodded as he put down his coffee, "yeah, right."

And he quickly turned to start searching through the drawers behind him. But Jesus, he'd never seen Emily that out of sorts before! Hotch was right, she wasn't doing well at all.

That was the last thought he had as he hit the third drawer down. And then there, way in the back, he saw a small spiral notebook with yellow and blue flowers etched across the front. He yanked it out, and flipped it open to see exactly what he had hoped would be there.

Neatly printed names and addresses.

Oh, thank God!

"Got it!"

After that exclamation, Morgan hurried over into the living room and handed the book to Emily.

Seeing the look of relief on her face, for a second he almost thought she was going to cry. But instead, she took a deep breath and started hurriedly flipping through the pages.

And then Hotch was there sitting down next to her, placing a piece of paper and pen down on the table. As thanks, Emily reached over and squeezed his thigh.

Derek had never seen her touch Hotch like that before, so intimately, and his brow twitched a little bit seeing it now. But the thought, whatever it was flitting through the back of his head, was lost as Emily let go of their boss' leg to pick up the pen. Then she began scribbling down the names and numbers of her relatives.

So Derek went back to get his coffee.

Realizing that Emily had begun to cry again as she was writing . . . she was sniffling and wiping her hand across her face . . . Hotch put his hand on her back. Then he lightly scratched his fingertips down her spine. The action was enough to make her pause for a second just before she turned her head to give him a watery smile.

'Thank you,' she mouthed.

He just winked back.

Seeing the spot of color hit her cheeks then . . . it came with a shy smile . . . he was inordinately pleased with himself. Because he'd been able to give her a distraction.

At least for a moment.

And fortunately Derek hadn't noticed. He had been walking out of the room to get his coffee.

As she heard Morgan coming back into the living room, Emily was doing her final flips through the address book. She added two more names and numbers to the list.

She was done.

That's when she folded the paper into thirds, opened it up again . . . and carefully tore it along the creases. She gave each of them a section. Though when she looked over to Hotch again, it was with a nervous bite of her lip.

"I know that I really should call my grandparents myself, but I don't know how I'm going to do it."

His brow wrinkled as he tipped his head with concern.

"Are you sure that you wouldn't rather that I did it? You know, it might be a little too much for you right now."

The words were spoken kindly, but still, she winced. And he found himself reaching over to touch her arm. Her gaze immediately dropped down to where his fingers were curled around her wrist.

Her voice was hoarse when she answered him.

"I know," she let out a heavy sigh, "but," and then her eyes snapped back to his as she cleared her throat, "I owe it to my mother."

For a moment he just stared back at her. Finally he let out a slow breath.

"Okay," he nodded, "if you're sure. But I'll stay with you while you do it."

That's when his gaze snapped over to Morgan who was still sitting on Emily's other side. And apparently understanding from the look Hotch was giving him that it was time for him to step away, he immediately pushed himself up off the couch.

"I'll go into the kitchen," he murmured while pulling his cell phone out of the pocket of his sweatpants.

Once he was gone, Emily leaned over to pick up her mug. After she'd taken a sip of coffee, and then a deep breath, she switched out the mug for the house phone. From behind her she could hear Derek murmuring to one of her relatives . . . giving them the worst news of their lives . . . but she tried to ignore that as she stared down at the phone in her hand.

It took her almost a minute to shift her gaze to the strip of paper sitting on the table.

Finally she started punching in the numbers.

When she hit send, Hotch shifted closer and let his hand slide down her wrist so he could take her fingers instead. And when the phone began to ring in her ear, she leaned into his side and bit her lip.

Her grandparents were in their early eighties, and both of them had had health issues in recent years, so she knew without a doubt . . . this was going to kill them.

It wasn't until the ninth ring of the phone, that she heard her grandmother's sleepy voice coming through the line. Emily winced as her eyes filled for the hundredth time that morning. That's when she squeezed Hotch's hand.

She squeezed it so tight.

"Hi Grams," she took a breath, "it's Emmy. I'm sorry to call you so early but I uh, um," and her voice started to break, "I have something to tell you!"

A/N 2: Good place for a scene break. I can't even tell fictional parents that their kids are dead.

As soon as I began writing her waking up, I flashed on all of that horrible 'death in the family' process that you have to go through. The situation hits you again, panicking, when you remember people you need to call, trying to keep your shit together long enough to be functional. And then still continuously crying even as you are performing functional tasks. My nephew died some years back, and for three days straight I had tears running down my face no matter what I was doing. On the subway, making dinner, talking to my boss. I told him if he could just ignore all the crying that it would probably be best for everyone. And God bless him, he did! But it just all sucks! And I realized that as long as I was writing this horribly angsty thing anyway, I might as well try and do that part of it justice. Just the annoyance of having to do 'stuff' when you aren't really in any condition to be doing anything.

Also, I'd mentioned in chapter one, that since the original posting my own dad died, and my mom now has dementia, and I wasn't sure how that would impact my redo. It's rough. I wasn't expecting it to be, but it is. And trust me when I say that your mom suddenly losing her mind, definitely leaves you with a lot of 'unfinished business.' It feels like a cheat, in a way that even death doesn't. So I will be happy when we have shuffled forward out of these more draining chapters :)

In all though, I ended up adding three full pages to the original version of the chapter. I think it filled out the shippy bits well. Because again, this was my first spinoff, and my holiday stories hadn't been written yet back when this story started. So now it's easier to see the foundation for their relationship was already built. It just needed this event to push them back to their softer interactions.

I also consciously changed it from the original to have Emily become more uncomfortable with Derek's arrival, just for the reasons outlined. She would NOT be happy to have multiple people, even close friends, seeing her falling apart the way she has been. Nobody wants that. Your grief is personal. And I think, again, having my own more recent experience here, it was a good reminder of how much you don't enjoy having an audience when you're upset. I actually couldn't even attend my brother's funeral, because I couldn't get my shit together. I was hysterical for days, and I refused to be a complete basket case in front of everyone we'd ever known. And here, for fictional grief, that shift also allowed me to work in a bit of Protective Hotch there at the end in giving Morgan the look to go away, because he would understand her feelings on this point. So again, I'm happier with the newer version than the original. Hope you all are enjoying the ride too :)