Emily used to think Hotch would never be happy again. She’d drive him home after work, pick him up in the mornings, and she’d think about how miserable he was, the kind of misery that hooks you in its grip, has you turning to wine or whiskey just to keep breathing.
She thought for sure he’d buckle. When Hayley died, he’d have to. How could you not? But he kept going and proved she should’ve had more faith in him, becoming the father Jack deserves, and, surprisingly, your partner.
“You’re squeezing me too tight,” you mumble, just loud enough for Emily and the others to hear you where Hotch hugs you a few feet from the dinner table. “Why are you trying to break my back?”
“I haven’t seen you in three weeks.”
“Eighteen days is not three weeks.”
“It might as well be.” Hotch peels away from you to give you a once over. Emily’s half jealousy and half fondness, seeing him love someone so obviously. “Are you hungry? I ordered for you.”
“Super hungry. Do I smell like antiseptic?”
“Well, that’s not much better.”
Hotch puts his arm behind your back and guides you to the table. The team squeeze out hellos between mouthfuls and you take your place at Hotch’s side behind a steaming plate. You’re as ravenous as the rest of them after your long shift; Morgan can hardly get a word out of you for the first ten minutes, though he tries, and you attempt to be polite. Emily nudges him until he gets the hint to stop.
“Here,” Hotch says, putting a heaping of his food onto your plate with a large spoon.
“Stop.” You attack his spoon with a fork.
“It’s fine, you like it more than I do.”
“Don’t care. You need your energy. I’m going to make you carry me up the stairs home.”
He’s unintimidated. “Ah.”
“Ah,” you echo. “You sound so doubtful.”
Hotch looks like he might try to keep flirting with you, but he gives in quickly, betraying how much he’s missed you with a hand slipping under the table. Emily sees his fingers curl over your knee, averting her gaze with a feigned sip of coke.
She can deduce the silent question you ask one another about anyways.
“We’ll have dessert,” you say. We won’t skip out early. “What are you having, Dr. Reid?”
Hotch orders you three different things, which you eat fast.
“They’re not feeding you at the hospital?” Rossi asks.
“Three emergency transfers in twelve hours,” you explain, slouching now into Hotch’s side, one slow inch at a time. “I didn’t have time for much.”
“That’s not healthy,” Hotch murmurs in concern.
“I’m sure I can ask any of your friends about your eating habits and find a similar schedule,” you brush him off, raising your gaze to Emily, then Morgan, then Rossi and Reid. Everyone smiles the same way. Hotch is caught, and his laugh jostles your shoulder.
“Have you ever heard the saying, ‘do as I say, and not as I do?’” he asks.
God, Emily thinks with a huff of a laugh she can’t contain, get a room.
“He likes that one,” Spencer says.
“I don’t doubt it.” You lift your lips to his jaw and press a peck to the line of it. One, then two. “Maybe that’s why we've lasted as long as we have. Mutual disregard for our wellbeing.”
“And a great deal of care for each other,” Rossi says, nodding sagely. “This is why my marriages never last.”
“Is that why?” Spencer asks.
“You’ve gotten to be quite the lark.”
“Lark,” Hotch whispers to you. Emily, sitting at his other side, might be the only one who hears, the others distracted by Spencer and Rossi’s ensuing squabble.
“It’s gonna be a hundred percent better if you give me that,” you say, pointing hopefully at his full drink.
He doesn’t hesitate to press it into your hand. Emily would never suspect you hadn’t seen one another for weeks; you move and he follows. You rub your cheek against his shoulder. He touches his nose to your hair, his eyes shuttering closed for one stolen, blissful second. “Missed you,” he says under his breath.
Emily looks away with a smile. Hotch isn’t hopelessly miserable anymore.
