Written by ilovetvalot.
Note: This story is taken after 100th Episode.


Miracles Amidst the Darkness

He heard her soft approach from behind him, her footsteps rustling on the dead leaves carpeting the ground of the deserted cemetery around him. Closing his eyes against the wave of regret washing over him, he clenched his jaw. He didn’t want to be comforted anymore. Especially not by her. He didn’t deserve it.

It was his fault. His fault for not taking the deal that would have saved her life. His fault that his beautiful son was now motherless. His fault that she was resting inside a wooden box interred in the cold earth. All of it. His fault. And there was no comfort anyone could offer that could ever alleviate that guilt.

“Go away, Emily,” Hotch offered without opening his eyes. He didn’t need to look at her to know it was she that sought him out.

Staring at the back of his dark head, Emily wrapped her arms around her waist as the chilling wind sailed over her, sending an involuntary shiver down her spine. She’d known this was where he’d be. This is where she always found him when he disappeared. By her grave. She knew she shouldn’t feel bitter about it. His grief was a natural process. Years with Haley and the child they’d shared had created an unbreakable bond, even in death. But she loved him, too. And she wouldn’t…she couldn’t leave him to suffer alone. “The temperature is dropping, Aaron,” Emily said, for lack of anything better to say.

Staring at the grey stone that marked Haley’s final resting place, Hotch tonelessly replied, “I stopped feeling the cold a long time ago, Prentiss.”

Sighing, Emily silently noted that he’d reverted to using her last name, his way of distancing himself from her. He’d been doing it for three months. Since the day his ex-wife had died. It hurt. It hurt more than she cared to admit, even to herself. But, she also knew it was Aaron’s self-protective mechanism and she chose to let it pass. She’d been doing that a lot lately, too. Letting things pass, that was. Maybe it was time to stop doing that.

“Aaron, you’ve got to stop doing this to yourself. To us,” Emily said, her voice quiet in the solemn cemetery. “Neither one of us deserves it.”

“You don’t know the first thing about what I deserve,” Hotch snapped coldly. “I did this to her.”

Biting her lip to keep a scalding retort from passing her lips, Emily inhaled the crisp air deeply, holding it as she strived to hold her fraying temper. Finally, regaining her composure, she asked, “Okay, Aaron. What about what I deserve?” She knew from experience that trying to tell him that none of this had been within his control would be a wasted effort.

“I can’t do this right now, Prentiss,” Hotch replied in a tight voice, his eyes never wavering from her tombstone.

“I know you loved her, Aaron. She loved you in return. You created a beautiful little boy together. But she’s gone now…and no amount of sitting in a cold, barren cemetery is going to bring her back. She wouldn’t have wanted you to do that,” Emily tried to explain, her voice tinged with bittersweet knowledge.

“And how the hell could you possibly know what she would want,” Hotch snapped angrily, his temper straining against the leash his mind had mentally strapped around it.

“Because I’m in love with you, too, and it’s not what I would want for you if the situation were reversed,” Emily replied patiently as she knelt just behind him, her hand reaching out to tentatively stroke his tense back.

Hanging his head in defeat, Hotch drew in a shaky breath as he felt Emily’s familiar touch sliding over him. “I’m sorry, Em. I’m really sorry. I don’t mean to push you away. It’s just….I’m so angry. All the time.”

“Anger is part of the healing process, Aaron,” Emily murmured, smoothing her hand up and down his spine. “You know that. In time, it will pass.”

“It isn’t fair,” he ground out, tightening his hands into fists against his thighs. “What happened to her,” he hissed, nodding at the dirt of her grave, “isn’t fair. She didn’t want this life for herself. It’s why she divorced me. And it got her killed anyway.”

“Unfair things happen to good people every day,” Emily reminded him softly. “It’s why we fight harder to catch the bad guys. And you got the bad guy, Aaron. You gave her the only justice you could.”

“It doesn’t compensate for what she had to sacrifice,” Hotch said with a vicious shake of his head. “It doesn’t even come close,” he added, more softly.

“The only thing you can do for her now is love your son. Give him the life she wanted him to have…she wanted him to know about love and happiness. At the end, that’s all she was concerned about. Your son. Don’t allow the bitterness to consume you, Aaron. Foyet still wins if you do. And everything Haley was trying to save will be lost,” Emily urged, praying with each word she spoke that at least a portion of it was slipping past the barrier he had built between them.

Biting the inside of his jaw, Hotch lifted his eyes heavenward and took a deep breath. “I guess the first step would be to stop using her grave as my second home, huh?”

“It wouldn’t hurt,” Emily admitted with a small smile.

Looking over his shoulder into her soft brown eyes, he whispered, “I’m putting you through hell. I’m not even sure why you’re sticking around for this, Emily. You definitely didn’t sign on for this.”

“I’m a firm believer that we don’t choose who we love, Aaron. It’s just an inevitability…and you happened to be mine,” Emily replied, her eyes smiling.

“Poor you,” he grimaced. If her supposition was, indeed, correct…then she got cheated.

“I don’t share your opinion,” Emily shrugged. “I happen to be very grateful that I’m in your life…in both your lives,” she amended, her thoughts automatically going to his son.

“We’re lucky to have you, too. Despite how I might have been acting over the last few months,” Hotch replied, surrounding one of her hands with his.

“You’ve acted exactly like someone who lost a loved one unexpectedly is conditioned to react, Aaron. Stop beating yourself up. You’re still learning how to deal with this. We both are,” Emily replied, allowing him to pull her up off the hard ground.

Turning to cast one last look at his former wife’s grave, Hotch sighed. Life went on. It was a new reality. It would take a heavy amount of adjusting. But it was an unavoidable necessity. He couldn’t permit his family to lose any more than it already had. Emily was right; he wouldn’t let Haley’s ultimate gift to be in vain. Emily was offering him a miracle…her love. Throwing away the treasure she offered him would be as much a travesty as Haley’s death. He could do better. And that began with showing the people he cared about how much he loved them. Entwining his fingers with Emily’s, he held her hand tightly as he turned back to her. “Let’s go home, Emily.”