Aaron looked up at the Watergate Apartments with trepidation. The fact that none other than David Rossi had been able to convince JJ, a woman that had intimidated him slightly, to give up the address of her best of best friends was nothing to scoff at. He'd told himself he could absorb the relationship between the two of them later, but for now, he had a different goal in mind. And JJ had made it very clear to him that if he screwed this up again, nothing Emily could say or do would keep her or Penelope from destroying everything in his life.
Finally, he climbed out of the car, slipping the little piece of notepaper from his pocket. JJ had assured him Emily would be home, that ambushing her was better than calling to let her know he was coming. The doorman looked at him oddly when he flashed his credentials – another thing he wouldn't tell Emily or anyone else involved in this little scheme – but allowed him up the stairs to her apartment door. He stood there for almost ten minutes before knocking.
"Coming."
Aaron found himself holding his breath as he heard her footsteps coming to the door. He was banking on manners ingrained in her through the political world to force her to open the door and let him into the apartment. Once he was there... well, he wasn't sure what was going to happen. His heart started beating faster as he heard the chain slide back and the door opened enough for him to see her head.
"What are you doing here?"
He clenched a fist at his side. "I need to talk to you."
"I think you've done enough damage," she replied, stepping back.
He knew what was coming next and it most certainly wasn't letting him in. "Please, Emily."
He wasn't sure whether it was the please, the tone of his voice, his body language or something else entirely that had her opening the door, but she did, wider this time. She searched his eyes for a moment before stepping back. "This had better be worth it."
Aaron stood awkwardly in the doorway, not willing to step any further without being invited. "I need to apologize," he said quietly.
Emily was quiet, her arms coming to cross under her breasts.
"I was in love with you, Emily. I knew it and i wanted to tell you. But there was more to it than that." He was scrambling for words and her silence wasn't helping. In fact, it was making him even more nervous.
"Haley was easy. Haley didn't take layers to figure out, and I thought easy was better. I thought easy would be better to balance with my job and my life. But then I found out that Haley just wanted a hero. When she found out what my job was really like, when she realized that it really did require me to fly across the country at the drop of a hat, things changed."
"That's great, Aaron, but what does that have to do with me? What does that have to do with why you're here?"
She wasn't giving him an inch, and when he truly thought about it, he wasn't surprised in the slightest. "Though all of this, I kept thinking 'Emily wouldn't do this. Emily would understand that I have to go away on cases'. I couldn't figure out why it mattered so much and why I cared. I'd let you go."
He took a deep breath before ploughing on. "It mattered because you actually took the time to get to know all of me. You learned early that my job was important and you tried to wring as much information out of me as you could so you'd be prepared. Hell, you stood up to my mother about me. No one's ever done that for me before. And I promised so many people I wouldn't lead you on, and then I let you down."
She wasn't about to contradict that and he knew it. He'd known he was doing the same thing so many people in her life had. He knew he was more than breaking her heart because she'd opened to him in ways she said she'd never opened to anyone. He knew things that no one else knew.
"Haley doesn't make me want to put something other than my job first," Aaron said quietly, imploring her to listen. "Being with Haley doesn't make the pain go away, it doesn't make it dim, but you... It didn't matter what I did, it didn't matter how bad it got, the thought of you, Emily... it's better than the greatest memory. The blood goes away, the pain, the anger... everything that drives our UNSUBs. I did the wrong thing picking Haley."
Emily sucked in a shaky breath. "What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to give me another chance," he told her, closing the distance between them in a few steps. "I made a mistake, a huge mistake."
She chewed her lip. "How can I believe that?"
"You have to trust me."
"I did," she replied, swiping at the tears in her eyes. "And then look what happened."
"I want to make it right," Aaron told her. "I want to wake up to you like we did in LA, like we did in Cancun."
"I want to trust you," she told him. "More than anything I want to believe this, but if there's one thing I'm good at and one thing I've always done it's-"
"Protect yourself," he finished for her. "Emily, you don't want to change me. You accept me for my job, for everything that comes with it." He looked away. "When I was in Washington, at your father's, he told me something important, something I hadn't thought of." He paused. "He told me he missed your college graduation."
Emily started, eyes wide. "He told you that?"
"He told me that there was nothing more important to him than his daughters, and that it was one of the things he regretted most in his life. If there was one thing he could change, it would be those things he missed in your life and in your sisters' lives."
"Where are you going with this?" she whispered.
"I don't want that to be my life. I don't want to wake up in thirty years and realize I'd missed everything in the lives of my family, in the lives of my children. I want to be watching the clock, counting down the hours until I can leave the office, but with Haley... I found myself wanting to stay at the office longer. I preferred UNSUBs to going out with her, to working on building our relationship."
Emily swallowed visibly. "And how do I know that it's going to be any different with me?"
"There is nothing I can say to make you believe the words. All I can do is ask you to trust me like you did while we were living in that fantasy world."
She took a shaky breath. Suddenly, their roles were reversed. He was waiting for what she was going to say, the decision she was going to make. And he couldn't breathe.
"I've had a lot of time to think about what happened," she began quietly. "And I have thought about it. A lot. I tried to rationalize it, then when I couldn't do that, I tried to compartmentalize it. Then I tried to bury myself in my work to get away from the memories and feelings. Even that didn't work. Which left me with one conclusion that no matter how much I didn't want to admit it to myself, had to be true."
She wrapped her arms around her middle, a gesture he recognized as one of protection and he couldn't stop his heart from soaring. She was opening up to him again, making herself vulnerable, and he'd never take a gift like these moments for granted again.
"I was in love with you. As painful it was to admit it to myself, there was no other conclusion I could come to. It explained the pain, it explained the heartache... It explained the turmoil and the tears and everything else. And it took me too long to figure it out."
"Emily-" But she held up a staying hand.
"As stupid as it is, I've dreamt of this moment, of you calling or showing up and telling me you've made a mistake and now that you're here... I'm not sure what I want to do. I can't be hurt again, Aaron. Not like that."
"I know. And I wish I could promise I won't hurt you. I'll disappoint you time and time again when I have to go away and I know that you deserve better... But I want you. I made the biggest mistake of my life and if you don't want me, if it's too much, I'll understand."
She was shaking her head. "This is surreal," she whispered. Her eyes were shining when they met his. She took a deep breath. "I'm still in love with you."
His heart sang and he couldn't stop the smile from spreading across his face. "Does that mean...?"
She nodded, her own smile blossoming despite her tears. "It means I want to see if this will work, in the real world, not with cameras or fancy dates or the chance of a lifetime. Just us, in our worlds, with our jobs, our families and our friends."
Aaron was sure his grin was going to split his face. "In that case, would you like to get a cup of coffee?"
Emily looked down at herself with a blush. "If you give me ten minutes to get cleaned up and changed. I'm not going out in public looking like this."
"One more thing though," he said, stepping closer. "Emily Prentiss... I love you."
Her eyes lit up so completely that Aaron kicked himself again for the pain he'd caused this spectacular and beautiful woman.
"I love you too."