MONTHS LATER...
Derek looked up from the file he had spread over his lap on the jet as Aaron hung up his phone. "Everything okay?"
"Haley's not happy," he responded. "I had to cancel again."
Derek shrugged. "Nature of the job, man."
"I know."
His boss was a million miles away and so, Derek, glancing a Dave, gathered all of his courage. "Hey Hotch?"
"Yeah?"
He exchanged a look with Dave again. None of them had brought up his experiences on television before and no one had ever had a plan to. But now Derek couldn't keep his mouth shut. Or, more importantly, he couldn't watch his boss continue this way. "Ever think you made the wrong choice?"
That brought Hotch's gaze back to Derek. "What?"
"Ever think you made a bad choice in Haley?" Derek asked again carefully. "Do you ever regret turning Emily down?"
Derek fully expected Hotch to rebuke him, tell him it wasn't the time or place. But he just cocked his head to the side. "Why do you ask?"
"Because you're not happy," Dave spoke up, getting into the conversation now that it had come up. "Because all Haley's done for you is give you more grief and stress. Because the three of us all thought you were an idiot for turning Emily down."
Derek knew that if that statement had come from anyone other than Dave, they would probably be on the business end of Hotch's Glock. But it looked like this was something Hotch had thought about before if the look on his face was any indication.
"I made my decision."
"So? We know she works for the State Department, we know her mother is an ambassador, it can't be all that difficult to put two and two together to figure out where she is," Derek argued.
"Haley's a good woman," Hotch defended.
Dave looked at him. "But is she a good woman for you, Hotch. Whether she'd a good person or not has nothing to do with whether or not she can be supportive of you, of whether or not she can make you happy. And right now, I don't see a happy man. I see a man who is struggling to hold onto something because of an obligation."
"Only one couple has ever actually maintained their engagement through to the wedding," Derek revealed. "You don't have any obligation to stay with Haley."
Both men could tell they'd put a lot of information into Hotch's head.
"I have to think about it," Hotch said finally. "Can we focus on the case?"
Neither man argued.
Four months passed in agony before Aaron finally told Haley that it wasn't worth it. It took four months of nagging, four months of having her get upset when he had to cancel a date in favour of work before he finally told her that it wouldn't work. It was four months before he realized he'd made the completely wrong choice. And now, as he hung up the phone after telling Haley they were done and he was sorry, he found himself with a rather daunting task. He needed to find Emily and he needed to find some way to fix the hurt he knew he'd caused her. Because he'd known the woman didn't trust easily and he knew he'd only added to that grief.
So he did something he promised he'd never do. He called the team in for a personal favour. "I need your help."
"Come on, Em. Come out with us. You can't keep yourself holed up in your apartment and your office forever," JJ begged, almost bouncing in her seat.
"JJ, I just really don't feel like going out, okay?" Emily said in exasperation. "Why can't you just leave it at that?"
"Because you've been an absolute bear since coming back from Mexico, Beautiful," Penelope replied, leaning back in her chair comfortably. They were in Emily's apartment, both JJ and Penelope trying to convince her to leave her isolation, even for an hour.
"I have not," Emily argued sullenly.
"Are you kidding me? When was the last time you came out with us? When was the last time you didn't spend a night by yourself in your apartment? When was the last time you tried to get Aaron Hotchner out of your head?"
Emily winced at his name. She'd trusted him, and he'd only proven her right. He'd left her behind. For Haley. And that hurt more than anything. She shot a glare at JJ as her cell phone rang. The blond let out a squeal.
"What?" Penelope asked immediately.
"Remember that guy I told you about? The one I met at that conference a couple of months ago?"
"Yeah..." Penelope replied while Emily listened. She hadn't taken the time to actually fully catch up with the weeks of her best friends' lives she'd missed and so had absolutely no idea who JJ was talking about.
"It's him! I have to take this."
Emily arched an eyebrow at Penelope as JJ walked away. The other blond rolled her eyes. "She met this guy at a conference, you know, one of the ones the Department makes us do to increase our knowledge or whatever?"
Emily nodded.
"Well, she met this guy. They hit it off. They both live in Washington... they've been out on a few dates. JJ's smitten."
Emily liked the word smitten. It implied that it was puppy love and she could be happy for her friend. "What's he like?"
"Older, from what I understand. I haven't gotten a name out of her yet, but I'm still working on it. In law enforcement... you know Jayje. She keeps things incredibly under wraps," Penelope replied just as JJ came back. The younger blond looked a little stunned.
"JJ?" Emily asked in concern.
"I have to go," JJ said quietly, her eyes cloudy. "Is it okay?"
Emily was concerned, but nodded along with Penelope. "Call me."
"I will," she promised. Then she was gone.
The last thing JJ had expected when David Rossi's number showed up on her caller ID was the news he delivered to her. And so she'd immediately demanded to meet the man and he'd immediately agreed. As he'd explained it, he was reaching out to all of his contacts to find a woman, a woman that his boss and close friend had let go. A woman named Emily.
JJ knew right then that he was friends with Aaron. It made perfect sense. She had been too busy to catch anything other than the recaps on the internet and hadn't been able to actually watch the show. She'd been clueless, hadn't seen him on the show when he'd made his appearance. It had been plain coincidence that she'd met him at that conference. JJ knew she was going to be early as she paced back and forth in front of the Washington Monument. She'd come from Emily's apartment, but it wasn't as far away as he was.
"Jen?"
She looked up as she heard her name to find David walking towards her briskly. "Is everything okay?"
She actually slapped him.
"What was that for?"
"You're looking for my best friend!" JJ exploded.
"What?" David asked, his jaw dropping.
"You're looking for a woman named Emily. You're looking for a brunette woman named Emily with an ambassador for a mother. You work for the FBI... I should have known!"
"Jen, I'm still confused," David said, stepping closer, one hand on his jaw, the other reaching out for her hand.
"You're one of Aaron Hotchner's best friends!"
"And colleagues. Wait, Emily is your best friend?"
JJ nodded. "My best friend. The woman whose heart your colleague broke on national television. Why the hell are you looking for her?"
"Because Hotch made a mistake," David said honestly and swiftly. "Haley's done nothing but drive us all batty since she came into Hotch's life. He broke up with her two weeks ago."
JJ growled, all of her protective instincts coming to the forefront. She could still remember how broken Emily had been as she stepped off of the plane in Dulles. JJ had wanted to hunt Aaron Hotchner down immediately and make him do more than apologize to her best friend. She'd wanted to maim him at the very least. "Give me a good reason why I should tell you anything about Emily."
Now, David's other hand came up to grab hers, to hold them both in his hands. "Did you watch any of the episodes, Jen?"
"No," she replied. "I couldn't."
"You didn't see what I did. You didn't see what Derek saw. And yes, Hotch was an idiot to let Emily go, but JJ... she's special."
"You think I don't know that?" JJ spat. "Emily deserves better than him."
"He knows what he's done," David said softly. "He knows he's hurt her beyond what he thinks he can repair, but he wants the chance to try."
"She won't trust him," JJ shot back, her tone softening. Really, she just wanted Emily to be happy and she had seen them together at her own apartment. There was no denying what was between the FBI agent and her friend. Chemistry wasn't enough to cover it. Right now it really looked like the only way that was going to happen, was if JJ allowed and helped Aaron do his grovelling. And it looked like David was willing to facilitate every minute of it.
"He knows that," David told her. "He won't tell us anything, but he knows he's broken her."
JJ looked down. "Why did he do it?" she asked quietly. "Why did he let her go?"
David blew out a breath, stepping closer and wrapping his arms gently around her waist instead. Things had moved very quickly between them, but she'd made her impact and she knew it. "Because he got scared," David said. "At least, I'm pretty sure that's what happened. We don't talk about it."
"Neither do we," JJ admitted. "It's too painful for Em to talk about."
"I think Hotch got scared. I think he saw simplicity in Haley and complications in Emily. Emily isn't the easiest woman to figure out, she's very difficult to pin down. I think that with the job that we do, he just wanted someone who was simple to come home to and he didn't think that was Emily. Then Haley showed her true colours. We all knew what was coming, we all knew that Emily understood the job better than any outsider had and we all knew Emily was his better match, but Hotch chose Haley and at the time, there wasn't anything we could do," David tried to explain.
"Profiling?" JJ asked, well aware that her mind was made up. She'd help Aaron try to fix this mostly because Emily needed the closure, but also because she was putting her trust in this man's analysis of the entire situation.
"Most of it. Some of it comes from experience."
"Three ex-wives. Right," JJ said with a chuckle. She took a deep breath. "What did you have in mind?"