Aaron was nervous. He hadn’t been nervous like this since his first date with Haley and if there was one thing he knew going into this without a shadow of a doubt, it was that Emily Prentiss was not Haley. He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his slacks as the elevator climbed to her floor. They’d decided on business casual for their outing, and the late August heat had made a sharp turn into the early September cool.
He tried to pace himself as he walked down the hall to her apartment. God, he was going out on a date. He was going out on a date with Emily Prentiss, his colleague, his subordinate… What the hell was he thinking? He started to turn around and stopped. Sure, she worked with him, but there was more to her than that. She was gorgeous, dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin. Her mind was sharp, her quips quick and biting. The times she couldn’t shoot back a response were minimal and he admired her for that. He’d be stupid to turn that away. And she had to know what she was getting into. If she hadn’t wanted him, she would have slapped him the first time he kissed her.
He was standing in front of her door before his mind had finished its closing arguments. He knocked three times, breathing deep when he heard footsteps padding towards the door.
“Hey,” she greeted, flashing him a smile as she pulled the door open. “Come on in. I’m almost ready to go.”
She looked, well, pretty. It wasn’t the drop dead gorgeous of formal wear and makeup, but her natural beauty shining through under the work of minimal enhancements. Emily was strikingly beautiful and he’d known that from the day he’d met her in his office. She looked it now in a red cardigan, buttoned, but sleeved rolled up her forearms slightly and a black a-line skirt. He’d always like red on her.
She snatched up her nearby handbag and slid her feet into low heels. “Shall we?”
He waited for her to lock up, still saying nothing. It was slightly surreal to be doing this. When he saw her hand shaking, he realized she was as nervous as he was. So he reached out for her, taking her hand as they walked to the elevator. Once they were inside, he smiled at her and held her arm above her hand, urging her to spin once. She was blushing when she faced him again.
“You look beautiful.” It sounded silly to say so late, but if it was the truth, he really had no problem saying it.
“Thank you.”
Her tone sounded perfunctory and it made him feel bad. He sighed inwardly. “I mean it,” he told her softly.
She smiled. “I know,” she promised. When silence followed, she turned to him with a little quirk of her mouth. “You know, this is exactly like the last four months, except we’re going out? There’s really no difference here.”
“So you’re not nervous?”
She smiled wider. “Terrified.”
And, like she had been doing since his relationship with Haley had started to fall apart, she’d completely put him at ease. “We can live together for five months and when we go out to dinner, everything is-“
“Weird,” she agreed as the elevator dinged on the ground floor. She led the way out of the building, pausing to let him direct her to the car. “So, Agent Hotchner, where are we off to?”
He was glad she was playful, even when terrified. It helped him relax, even going as far as pulling her door open for her before heading around the vehicle. “There’s a restaurant I overheard Morgan talking to JJ about.” He could already see the gears turning as she tried to figure it out for herself.
They fell into their usual discussion as they drove and Aaron felt himself relaxing into the relationship again. It was this ease that had led him to kiss her, that ease that had pushed him toward her to begin with. He watched a grin stretch across her face as he pulled into the parking lot of a cozy bar.
“You know this place?”
“Something like that,” Emily answered. “This is where we met Brad.”
“Brad?” Ex-boyfriend? He certainly hoped not.
Emily was already chuckling at the memory. “A real FBI agent.”
The reference was lost on him and he told her so.
“It was just before the case where the brothers kidnapped people and sent them running into the forest for their lives. JJ, Garcia and I were out for a drink and this guy in a suit came up to us introducing himself as a real FBI agent,” she explained as she unbuckled her seatbelt and hopped out of the car. They met in front and she brazenly took his hand as they went up the front walk. “Everything was classified with him.”
“Was he an agent?” Aaron prided himself on trying to know all of the agents that worked at Quantico and most of the Washington-Arlington office too.
Emily laughed. “No. He turned tail and ran when we showed our badges.”
He was feeling better about this Brad guy already. “First clue something was off?”
“Everything was ‘classified’. Sure, we can’t talk about a case while we’re working it, but like any other police file, if you go through the right channels it’s all there for you.”
He held open the door for her. “A common misconception.”
She murmured her agreement. “Bar?”
He wanted a table, but Emily wasn’t conventional. It was why he’d paid attention to Morgan’s suggestion. Emily wasn’t one to stand on tradition when it came to dates. And why should she? She worked in a male dominated field. Convention wasn’t something she was used to as a whole.
Emily knew Aaron was one for tradition and knew that he was stepping slightly out of his comfort zone to bring her to a low key place. But it was fine. She had full faith she could convince him of a walk when they got back to her apartment. It would give him the quiet atmosphere he expected on a date, and she’d get her laid-back mentality at the same time.
They ate, talked, laughed and generally had a good time, all the while avoiding the real subject that needed to be discussed. They were going to have to figure out if this date thing was going to become regular. And stemming from that, they were going to have to decide what they were going to do about work and what they were going to do about the team. Nevertheless, it could wait until they were out of the general population.
She was almost sad to see time fly and actually sighed out loud when they reached her apartment building. Aaron shot her a concerned look. All she could do was smile slightly, trying to reassure him that nothing was technically ‘wrong’. She climbed out of the car, unsurprised when he followed, then held out her hand. “Walk with me?”
He fell into step with her as they strolled away from her apartment building, worry building in the pit of his stomach. He stopped when she did, turning to face her and taking a deep breath. If she wanted him to stay in the coworker part of her life, she was going to have to tell his face.
Emily looked down at their still-linked hands. It felt good to do something like that, to feel the reassuring weight of his hand in hers as they walked. “Thank you,” she said softly. “For leaving the shirt.”
Aaron nodded. He’d left it to see if it would help with nightmares. It was well worn and well-loved, but he figured she needed it more than he did. “Did it help?”
“Surprisingly,” she answered, smiling up at him briefly. “Aaron, we do need to talk.”
This was the part of the night he’d been both looking forward to and dreading. Emily had to know that his presence meant he wanted this, wanted to get to know her outside of the Bureau and the BAU. She had to know that he hadn’t made this decision lightly, had to know he’d been battling with this, with these feelings, since she’d been hospitalized.
“We have to make a choice. Well, I have to make a choice and… There’s a lot to think about and consider before anything goes any further.”
That much he agreed with. “Do you want this?”
So he wasn’t going to beat around the bush. That was perfectly fine and even easier to Emily. Aaron had always been straight forward though, so it made perfect sense. “I do,” she admitted. “I really, really do.”
“But.”
“The team, the policies, the cases, the rumours… there’s going to be a lot to contend with.”
He knew that. He knew she knew he knew. Aaron didn’t have to do anything more than nod.
“I guess…” she paused, gathering her thoughts. “We need to have a game plan. We “ I “ need to be sure-“
He interrupted her by kissing her, firmly and slowly. He watched her eyes flutter open as the slow heat of arousal spread through is abdomen. “Are you sure?”
All of those issues, she decided, they could deal with when they came up. The team wouldn’t care if she and their supervisor were occupying themselves with each other off the clock. The brass might, but they were good at their jobs for a reason, it couldn’t be that much more difficult. Emily looked at him, at the intensity of his gaze, at the imploring nature of their depths. Why was she even considering anything but yes? She had the opportunity staring her right in the face, she would be absolutely insane to turn it down now.
“Yes,” she said finally. “I’m sure.” She paused for a beat, the decision washing over her and making her almost giddy with excitement. “What about the team?”
Aaron knew JJ and Garcia would get it out of Emily eventually, and he wasn’t naïve enough to think that Morgan wouldn’t find out from their brilliant and bespectacled technical analyst. “They’re bound to find out somehow.”
She nodded her agreement. “We don’t admit it, but we don’t hide it?” she proposed. “It’ll probably be useless to hide it anyway.”
He started tugging her back to her apartment. He’d brought his ready bag, not out of a pretense of getting lucky, but because it would be easier come morning if he had everything already there. It wasn’t like they had a problem sharing a bed either.
The journey back to her apartment, including a short stop for him to pick up his bag, was made in silence and they went about their night time routines without words or fuss. There wasn’t anything to do or say, nothing that hadn’t already been. It felt like there was less weight on their shoulders, less to contend with come morning. They’d both taken a risk and they were both sure, in the long run, that they’d be handsomely rewarded.