Chapter 4 – 'Children of the Dark'
The pages of notes are paying off when you sit and put them together like one giant, slightly frisky puzzle.
I don't own the characters or criminal minds, and this is purely the work of a delusional Hotchniss shipper and proud TG lover.
I do try and keep things in line with the show with my own interpretation of the 'what we don't see'/'what ifs'.
Emily's love for music is my love; Hotch's love for sport is my love.
Rated M
Thank you for your kindness and support.
Every chapter going forward will be inspired by a song. Hotchniss is 100% Taylor Swift's 'I Can See you'.
Inspired by 'These Arms of Mine' by Otis Redding.
'Good freeeeaking lord' she thought to herself. She shrugged when no one was around and murmured, "fuck me" under her breath.
This case, as all that involved children, was slowly becoming one that she would grow to loathe. Not that she didn't hate every single case and loathe every single bad guy but this was on a whole new level of fucked up. The team had been in Denver chasing a pair of family annihilators. A teenage girl survived the brutal attack but that didn't mean she wouldn't have scars. Emily let her head tip back against the brickwork of the hospital wall where her and JJ had rushed to Carrie's room to wake her from a nightmare. Those screams would stay with her for a while and to make it worse, she was in a grey patch with Hotch.
They hadn't spoken since they returned home from their last case. She hadn't turned up at the bar for breakfast and ignored Hotch's calls that day. She knew deep in her heart this wasn't the healthiest way of coping with their newly rekindled 'whatever-ship' but she needed balance… or some kind of stability. Space was best in order for him to gather his ducks in a row and through the grapevine, she heard that Hotch had landed an apartment.
Derek mentioned it to her because it wasn't far from her place and she wondered vaguely as to why Hotch hadn't told her yet. She couldn't be mad at him. At least he had taken something from their last conversation.
Now, though, she felt a pull and knew it was some kind of cosmic being or guardian angel of Hotch's who was tugging on that invisible tether of theirs. It was dragging her towards him.
Something somewhere knew how much she needed him and instead of ignoring it or shoving it into the remains of one of those poorly constructed boxes, she smiled to herself and found comfort in the fact that there was someone willing to hold her through the nightmares.
/
It was back at the local police department when both her and Hotch were packing up when she decided to make him privy to a lingering idea. This case and seeing those kids inside the house; how miserable they were and the uncertainty surrounding Carrie's future came to a screeching halt when Emily thought about her relationship history along with the fact that twenty-nine was looming and she was still single. Her current romantic interest was a married father. This could be a way for Carrie to settle in a safe place and for her to be any kind of mother.
When Hotch's hand brushed against hers accidently as he gathered the collection of papers to take back to Virginia, she knew now would be the best time to broach the topic. Emily stole a glance at him and finally spoke.
"I could take her."
"Take her?" he replied with a frown.
"Carrie. To DC." Emily nodded with a slight curve of her lip. She didn't notice Hotch had stopped packing and straightened his spine only to watch her like a hawk.
"You mean to live with you?"
"Yeah."
"Why would you want to do that?" he asked carefully and picked up another file all the while keeping his gaze fixed on his agent.
"I have room, money, you know, and she's smart." Emily responded in kind though she was hopeful this could work in her favour. She fought against a smile. "Two, three years she goes to college."
Hotch bit back a sigh and knew this wasn't about treading carefully with the object of his affections but a much bigger picture that didn't involve him. Or whatever may or may not happen between them.
"Prentiss" he said in a voice that caught her attention and when she looked up at him, she found the Unit Chief of the BAU, not her old boyfriend or her friend.
"This is the job, and I need to know that you can be objective." He stated.
She didn't give him a second to consider anything more than his words and her next, "And I need to know I can be human".
Emily shrugged as if the words were obvious. They were to her but not to him. Her power of compartmentalisation came in handy and just like that, her shield went up in front of him. Whether he saw it or not, didn't phase her. She watched his almost black eyes dart between hers as if he was searching for her. She couldn't take the intense heat of his stare and cast a look down at the files left on the table.
"JJ heard from the family and they're on their way from LA." Hotch said. His shoulders slumped ever so slightly, the dark look on his face had lifted and was replaced by something much gentler. Something that looked a whole lot like sympathy but she chose not to read further into it. He wouldn't understand.
"Oh."
Hotch eyes crinkled at the corners as he tried to gauge her tone, body, everything. He could feel her disappointment but whilst it was quiet around them, he hoped she would share her inner most thoughts with him. The raven-haired female nodded with a smile that didn't reach her eyes and when he opened his mouth, she cut in.
"That's…That's great." She added.
/
Emily turned off the tap of her large bath when she heard a knock against her front door. She grabbed her gun and tucked it into the back of her lounge pants as she hopped down the stairs and shuffled towards the door, careful not to slip on the shiny wooden surface. Not bothering with the peephole, she opened the door to find Hotch with his back against the wall opposite.
"What's up?" she asked.
Her casual tone caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand and he push himself away from the wall to take a step forward.
"I was wondering if you'd like to have dinner with me?"
"Uhh, I'm not really hungry but thanks." Emily answered dismissively. "Have a good night, Hotch". She made way to close the door when a size eleven shoe stopped it from shutting.
"Whoa, hey. What's going on?" Hotch asked with trepidation as the door swung open slowly.
"Nothing, I'm not hungry." Emily lifted her shoulders but moved to let him enter her condo.
"Talk to me, please."
Emily closed the door and folded her arms across her chest. The movement didn't go unnoticed by Hotch and something told him he needed to tread with caution.
"I know this case was hard for you."
"It was hard for Morgan too. Have you been to see him?"
"No." he mumbled. "Can you just talk to me?"
"Why? You won't understand… but I do have a bath that's getting cold, so-."
"Emily, come on!" Hotch spat impatiently, his voice raising as he spoke again. "Of course I won't understand. We have a job to do and you wanted to bring that kid home like you were choosing a puppy from a barn. She's a kid and a victim of a violent crime, not a toy."
He saw her flinch and her arms tightened around herself as if she'd been scolded by a white-hot branding iron and he immediately regret his choice of words.
"I know she isn't a toy and I can't tell you how thrilled I was to hear from JJ that the LA family are loving people. I was thinking that I could provide stability for her." She chewed on her bottom lip and her next words came out hushed, "I can't believe you would say that to me."
His eyes drifted closed and he rubbed the back of his neck as he lost the ability to form words.
"You might've understood but you chose not to listen."
"You haven't talked to me!" he snapped back.
"Oh, because you are so forthcoming… by the way, congratulations on your apartment."
He sighed and felt his nostrils flare. Tiredness and numbness consumed it. He knew he should have told her the second it happened but instead he let it create more distance, "It's not far actually… it's in Adam's Morgan."
Emily nodded and indulged in the change of subject. She had to admit, on a good day, it would be a nice, albeit very long walk to reach his new place.
"Isn't that a bit far for you to be from Jack?"
"Not really. I couldn't find anything closer to him. It's a twenty-five-minute drive to him, thirty-five to my mom's in Annadale and an hour or so to the office so it worked out well."
"Of course, I forgot they're only in Alexandria."
"It's also less than thirty minutes from my door to yours." He added.
Silence fell on the raven-haired duo as they stood in her hallway, neither having the courage to make a move or speak a word. Minutes went by before Emily had decided that she had enough.
"Well, if that's everything, I think I'll get back to this bath."
"What?"
"What?" she repeated.
"That's it?"
"I'm not sure what more there is to say or what you would like me to say, Hotch."
"I- I just want to know where your head was with this case."
"It's not just this case." Emily scuffed her toe against the floor, "it's every case involving kids. It's every time you talk about Jack."
"I don't-."
"Understand? Yeah, of course you don't. You have a child and-."
"And you don't?" he tried. Kids hadn't been a big topic of conversation when they dated. Sure both wanted a life and a family but school and career were first on the agenda.
"You know, Hotch, if you had been a little more human and a little less objective perhaps your marriage wouldn't have ended."
She watched his jaw tighten and the rise of his shoulders. His breathing became laboured as he fought to calm himself. Emily knew she was playing with fire and guilt washed over her as she watched Aaron hunch over to rest his hands on his knees. Emily's eyebrows knit together in confusion when he swayed forward and suddenly barrelled over.
At any other time, he might have winced or shown any sign that the hard wood of her floor against his knees under his weight was painful but right now and later on, the ache would slice through the numbness he had been feeling.
"Hotch?" Emily stepped up to him slowly. Even on his knees, he was still tall. She put a gentle hand on his suit clad shoulder and tried to meet his eyes but they veered off and stared blankly at the hallway behind her.
"Hotch! Hey!" she jostled him. "If you don't give me anything, I'm calling an ambulance."
Her mild threat seemed to snap him out of his brief state of catatonia. When his eyes meet hers, her heart broke for he just looked through her.
Hotch cleared his throat once and then again before he sat back against his heels and tried to fight against the nausea swirling low in his stomach. He reached up to loosen the knot on his tie when he became aware of the sheen of perspiration on his palms. "I need… to get this off…" he choked.
"Okay, let me." Emily answered and bent down to undo his tie. "Jesus Christ, maybe loosen this damn thing once in a while."
When the grey silk fabric finally slackened from around his neck, he felt the back of her knuckles brush against his Adam's apple and then cool air hit the hollow of his throat and his chest when the first three buttons of his shirt came loose. Emily threw his tie onto the back of the couch and Hotch wiped his sweaty palms up and down his thighs. His body had started to tremble as if someone was repeatedly walking over his grave.
"Has that happened before?" she warily asked.
"No."
"Do you know what it was?" she asked again.
"No". Hotch replied.
"It's called a panic attack."
His head jerked up at the brunette who still stood patiently in front of him. He started to shake his head at her answer but she quickly interjected.
"It's not weak, Hotch. And just because you didn't hyperventilate, doesn't mean it wasn't real."
"I couldn't breathe."
"I know." Emily smiled sympathetically, "I'm sorry for what I said about your marriage. You were right, I should have talked to you."
Hotch shrugged and his body lolled. The exhaustion one felt after a panic attack on top of the level of exhaustion he was already feeling made his limbs feel like jelly. "I said it first and who knows? Maybe things would have been different."
He blew out a shaky breath, clearly still reeling and Emily wondered how she had the control to still be stood stock still. "I'm sorry too, for choosing not to listen." Hotch's head tipped upwards and she saw a glimpse of him. Aaron when he was twenty-six. The thought him younger and much more carefree made the corner of her mouth curl.
"No one gets married to get a divorce, do they?" It was rhetoric but he had a point. "But I won't stay in a marriage where both adults are unhappy. Does a child really benefit from that? Look at our jobs, we know how badly that could end."
Hotch exhaled and continued to rub his thighs. His tone was flat and she could tell this had knocked the wind out of him. "I came from that and the second I held Jack, I swore I would never become my father."
Emily hung on every word. Anytime he opened up, she clung to every syllable as if they were the only thing that kept fixed to planet Earth. "I understand." She replied.
"I know you do." Hotch smiled at her response much to her surprise. "I want you and I want us, Em."
"I know you do." She sucked in a deep breath as she repeated his compassionate words. "So do I… but it's still complicated, Hotch."
"We've always been so simple. You and me against everything." He offered and was pleasantly startled when she nodded instead of argued.
"It's always been you. From the second I laid eyes on you with your miles too big Yale sweater and those terrifying boots." He smirked at the memory. "I know it's complicated and it is, but I'm so… tired, Emily." Hotch blew out a shaky breath already feeling a hundred pounds lighter for opening up to her.
Emily's eyebrows rose at his honesty. She wondered when his curtain would come down and she certainly didn't expect it to be now. He was the most infuriatingly stubborn person she had ever met and tonight, he had admitted for the first time that this was complex territory. The admiration for him she already had soared and this was a 'Hotch' she knew she could date however, the ever-present voice of one Elizabeth Prentiss croaked from the back of her mind.
Ice-cold and condescending. 'He, like every ex-boyfriend, knows which buttons to press, dear.'
Emily's mind drifted back to the man still on his knees in the middle of her condo baring his soul to her.
"I've not slept a night since you joined the team, but my god, I'm so glad you did." His voice raspy and thick with emotion.
"You hated me." Emily folded her arms across her chest once more but this time the pose wasn't one of defence but instead of simple chatter.
"I didn't hate you and I've said that I was sorry. I want to make it up to you, so let me."
"Hotch-."
"And please, for the love of everything, you have got to say my name." he interrupted.
"Just say my name, please… only once. I need to hear you say it again or anything other than 'Hotch'. If we're going to do this, then no more 'Hotch'. Please." He pleaded with her, none the wiser of his own slip up.
Emily knelt down in front of him, her knees touched his and the floor just as unyielding against her. She reached up and cupped is cheeks, holding him to face her.
'Baring soul- for- baring soul; tit-for-tat.' She thought to herself.
She raised up on her knees so she could rest her forehead against his and then, in the softest of whispers, he almost didn't catch it, she spoke.
Not in anger or anguish.
Not out of regret or in a plea.
It was just her and just them.
"Aaron…"
Hotch's heart jumped. He could almost see himself as a cartoon and the shape of the organ leap out of his chest.
He knew that he finally had her. He knew her weakness was him and he used it as if straight from an 'Emily Prentiss: play-by-play' book.
He removed his forehead from hers to look at her fully and caught sight of her bottom lip trembling. She sucked on her teeth and he didn't miss her nostrils flare.
"Touch me. Here" he grasped her hand and pressed it against his heart. She felt it racing under her fingertips. She thought for a moment that he could force himself into a heart attack but the rest of him was deadly calm. There was no lingering tremor in his body and his breathing was even. "You do this to me. My every feeling is controlled by the look on your face. You own me. You control me. I belong to you." Hotch forced his voice to not betray him "I watch for you: I wait for you."
"You can feel what you do to me and I know what I do to you."
A single teardrop escaped from the corner of her eye. Hotch bit back a smile and leaned forward to brush his lips against her statin soft cheek where he whispered, "No more tears, angel."
"We're really in this together, huh?" She asked, pleased to hear that her own voice hadn't faltered. Emily lifted her head to meet Aaron's gaze. It was soft, his eyes no longer black but hazel and full of a richness that made her tummy do summersaults.
"I'm afraid so." He replied with a soft smile. His voice now like velvet, caressed her ears and she turned her head and stamped a quick kiss to his lips before standing gingerly. She rubbed her knees and held out her hands.
"You need to be careful standing." Emily stated when he slipped his hand into hers.
He hummed in acknowledgment and untucked one leg from under his ass so he was on one knee. Pins and needles crawled over his legs and he knew he'd have to take this easy otherwise he'd collapse in a heap. "Now, you wouldn't let me fall, right?" his tone playful.
Emily was so wrapped up in making sure he didn't hurt himself that she had completely missed the look on his face. "No, I've got you."
Hotch managed to bring himself to stand with Emily's help and found both of his legs were dead. He chuckled to himself as they waited for his limbs to wake themselves up.
"Still ticklish?" Emily asked.
"No, the sensation is only mildly irritating." His thumbs stroked the inside of her wrists. "I was thinking about the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz."
Emily grinned at his analogy and lifted one perfectly shaped eyebrow. "Can you walk yet, Hunk?"
Immediately, Hotch burst out laughing as he let go of her hands to slip his arms around her waist instead. And hearing the laughter from him, a man who so rarely smiled, brought out a joy in her that had been locked away for so long. One in which only held the key to.
He buried his face into her neck and supressed a groan when her own arms wrapped around his shoulders.
"I'm sorry about your bath." He said when he pulled back from her though his arms remained around her like a vice.
"I'm not," Emily countered. "I think I would prefer to have dinner with… you."
Hotch grinned at her again reeling in his own thoughts of, 'so this is what it's supposed to be like.'
"By all means, lets feed the beast." He quipped and chuckled at the feigned shock on Emily's face. The bubble of laughter popped when he pressed his lips against hers and let everything, he had ever flet convey through the joining as did she.
Less than a few hours later, Emily had curled up in bed and listened to the faint footsteps of the man in her bathroom. She had been pleasantly surprised to find that Hotch was more than comfortable being domestic. Both agents decided to order pizza and open a bottle of wine and Aaron had directed her towards the stairs telling her that he would tidy up the little mess they had made.
He had only spent the night once and they had fallen asleep in each other's arms on the couch. She was looking forward to sleeping next to him but nerves had gotten the better of her, 'what he just leaves?'
Just as the looming voice of her mother began to fill her ears, he appeared across the room in just his navy-blue boxers and faded FBI t shirt, she couldn't fight the shy smile she flashed in his direction. Her eyebrows creased when he didn't crawl in next to her but instead padded over and tucked strands of stray hair behind her ear, purposefully gliding his thumb along the apple of her cheek. The look of contentment dotted on her face was replaced by an inkling of fear, he could see, and she lifted her head slightly to ask him-
"I'm not going anywhere. I promise." He said and his insides lurched upon hearing her sigh of relief. 'Had I hurt her this much' He thought.
"Okay," her smile grew as she reached her hand out from the warmth of the covers and gripped his fingers tight. "Then what's wrong?"
Hotch straightened his spin but kept his hand within hers. "It's just… you're on my side" he gestured to where she was laying.
"No." she elongated the 'o' and argued, "this is my side."
"Since when do you sleep on this side?"
"Since eight years ago, now are you getting in or not?" she smirked when he blew out dramatic huff in defeat. She felt him lift the duvet and the mattress dip under his weight. It didn't take long for Hotch to scoot his long body over to her side where he then plastered himself against her soft curves.
A contented groan like sigh escaped him, a little louder than intended. He was thankful the room was pitched into darkness as he felt heat rush to his cheeks. He had been wound so tight that now he let himself go and relax, he had forgotten what that actually felt like… when the weight of world abated, even if only slightly.
"Wow." Emily's voice cut through the darkness.
"Mmm. What is it?"
"Just... this." He felt Emily reach around under the duvet until she found his hand. She linked their fingers together and dragged his arm around her body. Hotch smiled against her hair when her lips met his knuckles once and then twice before settling their intertwined fingers under her chin.
"Cuddling was never really my thing until I met you." Hotch spoke against her shoulder.
"Who hates cuddles?"
"I never said I hated them but I guess I was never truly comfortable." She felt the vibrations of his already baritone voice thrum heavily against her back from deep his chest when he continued to speak, "but, having you in my arms or being in yours, just made me feel so calm."
"Do you remember the fight night we spent together?"
"After the assault?" his mind scurried thinking back to the summer romance he never spoke with anyone other than the woman in his arms about. He felt Emily's head move on the pillow they now shared.
"No, my cousin's wedding."
"O-ohhhh, you mean 'together' together."
"I woke up and you were holding me so tight. Every time I tried to move, you just held me tighter. Like a kid with a teddy bear."
"Really?" Hotch remembered waking up to an empty bed but hearing Emily move around in the adjoining bathroom.
"Uh-huh" she yawned.
"Well, I think I could get used to this" he suggested and tightened his arm around her middle to pull her closer to his chest. He spooned behind her and pressed his lips against her bare shoulder. "Are you going to be warm enough?" He noted she wore a tank top and the tiniest sleep shorts when he got into bed.
"Are you kidding? You're like a furnace." She mumbled.
For the last time that evening, Hotch let his lips skim her skin and for the first time in a long time, he succumbed to sleep. The kind of sleep where it was as if he lay on a beach and there was nothing but only the gentle sway of water lolling over his toes. It was warmth and silk. The slight hint of strawberry in the air pulled him back to the reality that the warmth and silky belonged to the woman who was finally in his arms.
It was time for happiness with these two, wasn't it?
There will be angst but there will always be Hotchniss.