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imagineaworlds · 3 years

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I Love You (Part Forty-Nine) -- Aaron Hotchner

Written By: @desperately-bisexual

Request: None.

Warnings: SMUT!! Cursing. Dom/sub relationship. Sir kink. Oral (male and female (nb) receiving). Mentions and descriptions of sexual assault, child pornography, rape, wire cutting skin, PTSD, PTSD triggers, etc. IF YOU KNOW THE PIANO MAN CASE, JUST APPLY ALL OF THOSE WARNINGS TO THIS CHAPTER!

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Reader

Word Count: 14,753

Timeline: Season 7 Episode 12. Two months after part forty-eight.

A/N: Sub!Hotch is coming! :)

A couple of weeks ago, Hotch signed up for a triathlon that the FBI was holding in order to raise money to help support retired agents that needed psychiatric help. He insisted that it was important to him, and that he wanted to do it alone after I offered to sign up, too. As someone who needed help, he understood what it was like to be those on the couch in the therapist’s office. He knew better than anyone. Thankfully, we could afford to get him help—the best help that money could buy—but there were plenty of people who couldn’t afford it. Hotch loved the Bureau, and he loved making a difference in the world, so I knew exactly why this all meant so much to him, and why he was going to push himself to the very brink just to make sure he would raise as much money as possible. Not that I would tell him he couldn’t do it. I was just worried, and I didn’t want him to hurt himself since he wasn’t exactly as young as he remembers being. I just had to keep an eye on him.

When I found out that he was going to start training every morning by heading to the park to go on runs, I jumped at the opportunity. As he got up quietly that first morning to sneak around to make sure he wouldn’t wake me, and he put on his sneakers and athletic clothes, I rolled out of bed and started getting ready, too. He stopped when he came out of the bathroom to see me tying up my running shoes. Slowly, a smile started to form on his face. I smiled back at him, then patted his chest lightly as I walked around the bed and towards the stairs. Hotch chased after me to pinch my side playfully. I tried to slap his hand away because it made me giggle a little too loud, and the kids were sleeping just down the hallway, but Hotch predicted my attack, and instead grabbed my wrist and pulled me against his chest.

“Try it, baby girl, and see where it gets you.”

I bit my lip seductively. “In bed with you?” I teased.

He squinted. “In bed, sure. With me? No. With toys? Of course.”

“And… what would you do with said toys, Agent Hotchner?”

“A magician never reveals his secrets, Agent Hotchner.” He kissed my knuckles before releasing me and heading downstairs. I took a moment to catch my breath and regain my balance since my knees felt weak, then I followed him out to the car so that we could drive to the park.

We started going every single morning after that. When we started getting into the swing of things, we learned that we just didn’t have enough time between waking up and getting back on time to get the kids ready, so we started going after we would wake them up and drop them off at Jessica’s house so that she could drive them to school when it was time. At first, they hated getting up early. Like any normal kids, they hated getting up for school in the first place, but then we were insisting that they would wake up even earlier just so that Mom and Dad could go running in the park for an important race that he had coming up.

Eventually, Hotch and I turned our morning jogs into a competition. Whoever finished first always got to Dominate when we got home, no questions asked. Hotch kept fucking winning. I was sick of it. Now, I was determined more than anything in the world, to beat him at least once, just to see that devilish grin get smacked off his face, if nothing else. So, I started getting smart about it. I thought it like sex, right. Hotch liked to go slow and steady in the beginning in order to save his energy for the end. I always liked to go too fast and hard, which would wear me out by the end. So, I started playing by his rules. Slow and steady, and then sprint at the end. I wasn’t any good at it, if I were being honest, but I was working on it, and Hotch wasn’t exactly too happy to know that I was gaining on him, which boosted my ego somewhat.

But then slow and steady stopped working. The longer we raced, the better Hotch got at pacing himself and increasing his stamina, and it was getting hard to keep up with him again. So, I got smart, and I decided to play it my way. Rules were meant to be broken, right?

On Tuesday, when we got to the park, I started jogging normally. I followed closely behind Hotch at first, but the further we went, the longer the distance between us grew, and I got annoyed. But I played it cool. I waited until I could see the finish line in the distance. We always started at the car to limber up and stretch, then we would run around the park, head down a trail for a bit, then work our way back to the car. Whoever tapped the car first won. So, when I saw our car in the distance and I noticed that Hotch was kind of speeding up a bit more, I made my choice. This was it. This was my chance to finally win.

“Ow!” I cried out, coming to a halt while grabbing my leg. Hotch looked over his shoulder to see what happened. I hopped on one leg, my face cringing as I continued my act. “Aaron—” He stopped just as soon as he realized that something was wrong and started jogging back towards me. “Shit, my ankle…”

Hotch held his hands out for me, like he was ready to catch me if I needed to topple over for any reason. “What’s wrong?” His eyes tried to find mine to get a read on what was going on. “Are you alright?”

“You know I love you, right?” I asked, still looking down at my ankle to hide the smirk that was growing on my face.

“What?”

“Tonight’s gonna be fun.”

Before Hotch could put two and two together, I put my foot back down on the ground, and I ran like hell towards our car. It was just ahead, in the third spot in the parking lot, the trunk facing where we were in the park. I tapped the trunk of the car as fast as I could before spinning around, my arms raised in the air as I claimed victory finally. All that work trying to win, all those days of Hotch being so cocky because we would get home and he’d immediately claim his reward, yet I finally won just by juking him out. Sucker.

“You gotta keep up, old man!” I called to him. Hotch threw his head back and groaned. “Do you need a walker? Maybe a stretcher will suffice? Ooh— maybe one of those old-timey walking canes. Yes!” I laughed. “Oh, that’s going to be your birthday gift this year.”

Hotch squinted sourly at me as he got closer. When he was within range, I raised my arms and jumped on him. He caught me and let me kiss him suddenly. It didn’t matter that we were both still panting and sweaty, we’d continue to be until we could get home, finish my victory tour of his body, then finally take a shower. It was just something we had gotten used to recently.

“What about a blue one to match your vest?” I asked while jumping off him, still joking about the cane idea. “Or maybe red to match your favorite tie.”

“Y/N…” he warned.

I threw my hands up defensively. “You’re the one who lost.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you cheated,” he scoffed.

“I didn’t cheat. I just… abused the fact that you love and care for me so much that you had to come check on me before you crossed the finish line.” I grinned and threw my arms back around his neck to make him kiss me, but I didn’t jump up again. “That’s not cheating. That’s profiling.”

Hotch chuckled sarcastically, “Profiling? Hmmm… Interesting. Did your profile include that I don’t let cheaters get away scot free without punishment?” He was leaning in close, and he was whispering so that only I could hear the veiled threat. I gulped. “Car. Now.”

“We’re in a park, Hotch—”

“Then you better stay low.”

He grabbed my bicep and started dragging me towards the car again. He let go when I was set on my path to the front passenger’s side door. As he unlocked the car, Hotch eagerly jumped into the driver’s seat, and I slid into mine beside him. The second we were both settled in our seats, Hotch lifted his hips and pushed his shorts down to his ankles, then his underwear. Somehow, he was already hard without me even having touched him. I felt myself heat up and my thighs rubbed together when I started getting wet. I knew that it was a bad idea. Anyone could see us, and he probably wasn’t even going to fuck me, but—

Hotch grabbed the back of my head and pulled me over the arm rest between us. Before I could protest or do anything, Hotch pushed my open mouth onto his cock. I moaned around him in response to the sudden, demanding movement. He kept pushing me down until I was gagging and pushing against his thigh to find relief, but he didn’t let up.

I heard him let out a groan as his head fell back against the headrest. Knowing I wasn’t getting out of this easily, I decided to give in. When his fingers tangled in my hair, I started moving of my own volition up and down his length. His grip tightened. I moved my hands from his thigh to the base of his length, using my fingers to add stimulation.

“Baby…” he moaned lightly. I still heeded his earlier advice, keeping my head low, using my tongue to do the extra work. Usually, I took time to tease his tip because it was the most sensitive part of him, but he was holding me down, and I still didn’t want to be seen by anyone outside of the car. “I won’t last long.”

Already? Honestly, I thought to myself: the sooner the better. The faster he finished, the faster we could get home and I could finally claim my prize for winning this race. I was sure he was going to be stubborn about it, but that was part of the fun, wasn’t it? So, I hollowed my cheeks around him and took every inch of him into my mouth until he hit the back of my throat.

“Fuck—” There was his tell. Hotch’s hips bucked slightly, and he pulled at my hair, earning a groan from me. The vibrations of my moans and groans around him was enough to tip him over the edge. He cursed my name as he came in my mouth. “Good girl,” he hissed, snapping his hips up as he finished. “Look at me,” he demanded lifting my head off him slowly. As he raised me up, I looked at him through my lashes. “Open.” I presented myself for him. “Swallow.” I closed my mouth and did as I was told. “My good girl.”

“You’re in for it when we get home,” I told him with a smirk, facing forward in my seat.

Hotch pulled up his pants. “I’d like to see you try.” And then his phone started ringing.

I whined. “Please, no. Don’t answer it.”

However, Hotch was already grabbing it and swiping his thumb across the screen to answer it while saying, “I’m sorry, baby girl.” I sighed and slid down in my seat, knowing that it had to do with work and that our morning plans were going to be postponed. Hotch hung up. “We have a case.” I rolled my eyes. “I’m so sorry, baby girl…” He slid his hand onto my thigh, grabbing it lightly and playfully but still sensually so as to get my attention.

I forced myself to look at him. “You still owe me.”

“I know I do.”

“I won’t forget it.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to.”

I slowly felt a smile grow on my face. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

After that, Hotch and I headed home to get showered quickly. Apparently, JJ only gave us about an hour to get home, get ready for work, then head to the office. It was plenty of time. Hotch and I raced up the stairs and to our bedroom, tearing each other’s clothes off while kissing each other sloppily and desperately as we stumbled around. There wasn’t enough time for me to claim my prize yet, but there was still time for other things. So, while we were standing in the shower, soaking under the warm water, Hotch had me pushed against the wall, my arms pinned over my head, his tongue fighting for dominance against mine. I rolled my hips around to get him all worked up, and I succeeded. He knelt down in front of me and grabbed my hips roughly to hold me steady as he pressed his tongue flat against my clit and started flicking it side to side. I almost slipped at first. If he hadn’t been holding me the way he was, I would’ve lost my footing and fell right over, crashing into the constantly draining water. But Hotch wouldn’t let that happen. He made sure that I was safe so that I could just focus on moaning out his name and begging for more while pulling at his wet hair.

Once I came, Hotch kept holding me, sliding his hands up from my hips to my waist as he stood, and then he kissed me roughly again. I moaned into his mouth as I tasted myself. It wasn’t exactly the reward I anticipated getting after our run, but it was still perfect, and I let him know it as I continued to kiss him by keeping him trapped in my arms that were flung around his neck.

“We have to…” he began before I kissed him again. “We have to actually… Fuck… We have to actually shower, baby girl.”

“We could also call in sick.”

“No…” He moved one of his hands to my neck slowly, but then he quickly grabbed on and held me still against the wall so that he could pull back and catch his breath. “We have to actually go in today.” He used his free hand to brush his hair out of his face and wipe the water out of his eyes. He looked so hot like that, though… Fuck… “Behave.” He gently released me. When I didn’t jump him again, he relaxed. “Good girl.”

“I hate you.”

“No, no, no. What do you say after what I just did for you?”

I rolled my eyes. “Thank you, Sir.”

He grinned as he grabbed the shampoo from the ledge. “Exactly.”

By the time we were actually clean, we had run out of time in our hour that JJ gave us. However, it didn’t seem to be that big of deal, considering that as we were running into the office building with our case files from home and two apples for breakfast, Rossi was meandering up to the door casually like he didn’t care that he was late, too. He opened the door for us just in time to run in. He chuckled. While we raced through security, hardly getting a chance to stop and greet the guards we were friends with, Rossi was still slowly making his way through, yet we still waited at the elevator for him. We were great friends…

In the elevator, Rossi stayed quiet as he looked between me and Hotch, then looked us both up and down respectively. I furrowed my brows, curious as to what he was looking at or for. Did Hotch leave a button undone? Was his zipper down? Did I forget to brush my hair? What the hell did Rossi find so intriguing about us just standing in the elevator?

“What?” Hotch finally asked, also uneasy with Rossi’s silent profiling and wandering eyes.

Rossi shrugged and looked forward. “Did you two work out this morning?”

Wait— What? Did we smell? Was our wet hair from the shower somehow an obvious sign? Did I not fucking brush my hair! David Rossi, I swear—

“We did. We’ve been jogging.”

“Jogging.” Rossi nodded with a small smirk. “And how was the, uh… work out.”

I rolled my eyes. There it was. Somehow Rossi knew that more than a morning jog happened. That man had a scent and an eye for that kind of thing, and I never understood how. I could shower and not have sex for a week, and he’d take notice. I could fuck Hotch ten times in a day, and he’d notice. What was our tell? We’re we really that bad at hiding it? I mean, come on, we were married, we were still… young-ish. We had stressful jobs and home life, but we loved each other, and we loved to show it as often as possible. Could Rossi really blame us?

“It’s called training,” Hotch rolled his eyes, “and it was fine.”

“Right…” Rossi agreed sarcastically. “Training. Training for… what, though.”

“Rossi!” I hissed, hitting his arm playfully.

He shrugged like he didn’t know why I had yelled at him or hit him. He was acting all innocent. “What? We’re just talking about jogging!”

“Yeah, we are!” I insisted.

“There ya go. No harm, no foul.” The elevator dinged and the doors started opening. “Next time, though, just keep in mind that I walk my dog at 7:15 in that park every morning. I go back to my car in the fifth spot around 7:45. Maybe try not doing it in the front seat of your car in the third spot at 7:45.”

My jaw dropped and my eyes shot wide at the realization. Rossi stepped out of the elevator, still grinning, but I looked up at Hotch, both of us utterly horrified. “Then you better stay low?” I echoed his words from earlier as quiet as I could as we stepped out a few seconds after Rossi was gone. “Oh, my god!” I couldn’t help the smile that was widening on my face and the laugh that was growing in my chest. Hotch was red with embarrassment, but what the hell did he have to be embarrassed about when I was the one who had been choking on his length with his hands tangled in my hair! “This is your fault.”

“You’re the one who was being a brat,” he hissed under his breath. He opened the glass door for me. “I think there’s shared blame.”

“You insisted—”

“Do you want me to punish you again?”

I squinted at him. “You’re the worst.”

“I’m counting that.”

“I still won this morning. So, technically, I should be the one counting.”

He shook his head as we kept walking to the roundtable where everyone was gathering so that JJ could present the case. “You can count, brat; but I’m still keeping score of my own. Just keep that in mind.” He ushered me into the room without another word about it, but with a devilish grin plastered to his face.

“Good morning, everyone,” JJ greeted as everyone took their seats. I was squished between Hotch and Emily. “There’s a problem in Houston that we’ve been monitoring for a while, but they’ve finally called us in so that we can handle the case with a hands-on approach.”

“Why?” Emily asked.

“Because the Piano Man is back.”

I froze in my seat. “What?”

Five months ago, Houston PD reached out to us with a serial rapist case where at least twelve survivors had come forward in the last five years, all claiming to be attacked by the same man. Police identified and connected all of the cases because of the survivors’ testimonies. His MO was to knock them out with a date rape drug, then he would bind them using piano wire. Hence, the name—which I explicitly argued against in my original profile and consultation. This had been my case to handle while Hotch was gone. However, they took my profile, and they never got back to me. I simply figured they caught the guy.

“What do we know?” Hotch asked.

I answered that. Because of the drugs, none of the survivors could remember the assault. However, because of all the missing time, we could approximate that he was keeping all of his victims for about twelve hours each after being taken or attacked in different times, locations, and ways. The twelve hours were to ensure that he had as much time with them as possible before the drugs would wear off, leaving the police with no evidence. Even rape kits turned out to be a shitty lead.

“Brittany Anderson woke up the other day in front of the diner that she had been abducted outside of,” JJ said. Wait— “And Vanessa Campbell went missing last night.” No.

“Those were victims two and five,” Reid realized.

“He’s going back and attacking his survivors a second time,” Morgan added.

JJ nodded. “Unfortunately, that didn’t save Vanessa this time around. She tried, but…”

“What do you mean ‘she tried’?”

“Vanessa tried to throw up the drugs using a salt and water mixture.”

“A homemade emetic,” Emily said, impressed. “She knew how to protect herself from ever getting drugged again, but it just didn’t do the trick. Whatever he’s drugging them with must be stronger this time around.”

“Yeah,” JJ agreed, “because everything she’s done since her first attack has been to protect herself. She got a new home security system, she stopped drinking alcohol, she doesn’t take public transportation anymore, so on. She’s been extremely cautious.”

“He’s getting off on upping the stakes,” I whispered. Everyone turned to look at me. I cleared my throat and shifted uncomfortably in my chair, trying to straighten my posture without raising any questions. “He’s getting off on knowing that no matter what, no matter how safe they feel, he can still get to them.”

“So, the question is, how did the Unsub drug her and take her in her own home?” Hotch questioned. He looked at me to say, “I want you to take the lead on this case since you did the original consultation and profile.” I nodded. “Okay. Wheels up in forty.” He immediately stood with his things in hand and headed towards his office.

Everyone began collecting their things and pushing out their chairs so that we could hurry to our desks in the bullpen and grab our go-bags. Morgan was eyeing me warily the whole time. I tried to ignore it, thinking that he had probably just caught my awkwardness in the roundtable room. Out of everyone, he probably understood most of all why.

“Y/N,” Hotch called from his office. I looked up from my go-bag on my chair and saw him curling his finger towards himself and his office.

“Ooh,” Morgan chortled, “someone’s in trouble with the principal.”

I squinted at him. “Bite me.” I stood and started walking up the ramp.

“Every day you stray further from the sweet and innocent Y/N who first walked through those doors. When do I get them back?”

“I was never sweet and innocent, Derek! Once you learn that, you’ll think of something smart to say back to me one of these days.”

“And the shots just keep coming.”

“They never stop!” I laughed.

“Hey,” Hotch greeted as I entered his office. “I just wanted to make sure that you’re alright with working on this case.”

I furrowed my brows. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Hotch hesitated. “Well, I figured with… the nature of it…”

I rolled my eyes. “I’ll be fine.”

“Y/N, I saw you during the case presentation. I know that what happened to you in high school isn’t something you like to talk about, but it’s okay if you can’t—”

“It made me uncomfortable, Hotch, because we should have taken this guy down five months ago before he started going back to his survivors. No one should ever have to endure that twice. Ever.”

He didn’t say anything.

“I want to lead this case. I want to be there when we take him down. Okay?”

He nodded.

“Okay.” I nodded, too. While I hadn’t exactly told him the entire truth, I only told him what mattered—and, honestly, since he lied to me about Prentiss, I had some wiggle room to lie to him, too. He didn’t need to know that this was putting me on edge. Not yet at least.

“I got Prentiss’s evaluation back,” he told me quietly. I cocked a brow. “She lied to her therapist in order to pass.”

“Well, that’s okay.”

“What?”

I shrugged. “She’s just trying to move past it all. She really just wants things to go back to normal.”

“Y/N…” He hesitated. “I know that she wants things to go back to how they were…” He eyed me carefully. “But she’s still going through it. She can’t just snap her fingers and make things the same.”

I eyed him back. That was about more than just Prentiss. This was about how it had been a solid two months since he got back, and things weren’t back to how they were before he left. Honestly, I knew that I told him that they would eventually, but I wasn’t so sure. It wasn’t that things were bad. In fact, they were as good as they could get, considering all the pain he caused, but to say that it would ever be how it was… No… That was impossible. The best thing we could do now was to just look to the future and create a new normal.

Hotch shook off his thought. “I’m going to talk to her before the team gets on the jet. Think you can hold them off for me?”

“I’ve got you.”

“Thank you.”

----

On the jet, Hotch and I sat in the two seats in the very back while everyone else was huddled around the four seats—except for Emily, who was still reading the case file on her own. Hotch held my hand during takeoff. Four years into working at the BAU, and I was much better at flying than I was when I first started, but it was still nice to have him there to comfort me whenever the plane would bounce while climbing in altitude.

Then, once we were high up in the air, coasting for a few minutes like we would be for the next few hours, I nonchalantly laid my head on Hotch’s shoulder—not even realizing what it was that I was doing and where I was doing it. I just needed to rest my eyes. That was all I was thinking about. Houston was a couple hours away, and we weren’t going to keep talking about the case yet, so I could afford to just shut my eyes for a little bit… Even if it while laying on Hotch in front of everyone on the jet. Though, to be fair, we had done a lot worse on that jet while people were around.

“Why are you so exhausted, my love?” he whispered, careful not to disturb me or catch anyone’s attention.

I sighed and relaxed even more against him. “Between staying up all night with Scar, then keeping up with you while jogging, then going to work, then… you know… stuff at home…” He chuckled. “It’s all a lot.” Then I realized how that sounded. “But I’m happy!” I insisted quickly. “I’m happy, baby, I promise. I’m just tired.”

He grabbed my hand and brought my knuckles to his lips. After pressing a gentle kiss on them, he wiped his thumb gently over every bump. “Why don’t you go sleep on the couch for a bit while Emily and I catch up on the case since we weren’t here when you guys first got it a couple of months ago?”

I nodded against him. “Okay. Thank you.” I lifted my head off of his shoulder, and with half-open eyelids, I pushed myself out of my seat and slowly meandered over to the couch on the opposite side of the jet. I plopped down with a groan.

“Rough morning?” Rossi asked from his seat.

With my eyes still closed, I responded, “I will cut your tongue out if you don’t figure out how to hold it.”

I heard him chuckle, earning a smirk from me, too.

----

I jolted awake when I felt a hand on my bicep, scaring the absolute shit out of me. When I caught my breath, I realized that it was just Hotch carefully coaxing me awake on the couch. That was when I realized that there was no one else on the plane. We weren’t moving anymore. Shit.

I groaned as I sat up. “You let me sleep the whole way?!”

“Sorry,” he apologized quietly, “but we heard from the local PD as we were landing.” He handed me my go-bag when I was ready. “There were no date rape drugs found in Vanessa Campbell’s stomach contents.” I cursed under my breath as I stood and we started walking off the jet together to find that the team was already gone, leaving us with the last black SUV that we had waiting to drive us into town. “They didn’t find anything in her system, actually.”

“Wait, what?” I inquired while sliding into the backseat. That was odd, considering she would have only just been drugged, so there should have been some traces of the drug in her bile.

“That’s not even the worst part.” He settled in the seat beside me, then patted the driver’s seat to reference that we were ready to go. The chauffeur started driving. “Three more victims have come forward to admit that they had been re-assaulted.”

I didn’t even have to ask why they didn’t come forward earlier because I already knew the answer. They didn’t think it was worth it. At least once someone came forward and the story hit the news, it encouraged more women to come further. I was sure that if Reid were riding in the car with us, he would’ve given some statistic—one which I really didn’t want to hear in this case.

At the station, Emily and I went to sit in the boardroom all day, ready to ask each of the survivors the questions we had prepared. When the first girl showed up, I took the lead. I asked the questions, and Emily just sat by and took notes; but the longer we sat there, hearing the same depressing story again and again, I found that I was slowing down, and it was getting hard to keep asking the same questions while already knowing how gut wrenching the answer was going to be.

The first question was always about what they had changed in their lives since the first attack. Vanessa Campbell had changed her appearance, her home, her work, her lifestyle—everything for the sake of protecting herself. When we first started asking the question, we anticipated different answers. We thought that we would have to grasp at straws to find connections, but we were not at all prepared to hear that they all did the same things. Hair, clothes, home, work, partners, lifestyle, pets—everything. They all changed the same things.

And then there was a moment when I asked myself if I had done that, too, without realizing. After it happened, I stopped going to parties. I mean, it happened at the end of senior year at one of the last parties that our graduating class ever threw, so it didn’t really matter. But in college, I never went to one. I thought about it, but every time I did, I felt sick. So, I stayed in. I stopped wearing clothes that were revealing all the way up until I met Hotch. But I think that stood out the most was my sex life. While I never had any “boyfriends” or “girlfriends” after it happened, I certainly had my fair share of fuck buddies. BDSM parties, swinger parties, orgies, even. For some reason, I took what happened to me, and my brain made sense of it by telling me that I had to relinquish control in that part of my life—but only with people I absolutely trusted. I never, ever participated in one of those events unless I was with a friend that I trusted with my life.

Most people, on the other hand, would have never done what I did. Understandable. I took the route that said I needed more sex in order to forget about what happened to me—whereas most survivors were the opposite. But everyone was different. I handled my trauma the way that made sense to me, and each of the women we interviewed that day took the other approach.

But then they all said something that was all too true about me, as well. They didn’t tell the police because they didn’t think that anyone would believe them. I was in high school. I was underage at a party, photographed doing illegal things. If I would have gone to the police, I would have been in more trouble than the boy who took those pictures because his face was never in them. There was evidence that I had been drinking, there was evidence that I had been smoking pot, and there was evidence that I was fucking a boy. Yet, there wasn’t a single shred of evidence of what he actually did—other than my word… But knowing the statistics, what were the odds that they would have believed me over him?

“Besides, who would ever believe the slut who cries wolf?” Dana, one of the survivors, asked. I cocked a brow at her. “Can we take a break or something? I need a smoke.”

I froze while writing. After hesitating for a moment, I looked at Emily, then I looked at Dana. That was the fourth time we had heard that request from the survivors. Four out of four.

After Emily told her that she could smoke outside the building, Dana grabbed her purse and left. I spun in my chair to look at Emily. We were both thinking the same thing, I could see it in her eyes. If the victims weren’t being drugged through their drinks or food, then there was only one common link between them that made sense. Their cigarettes.

My phone started ringing with a call from Morgan. I answered to check in with him and Spencer on what they found at Vanessa Campbell’s house. Just like we had seen in the case file, there was vomit on the kitchen floor, a broken glass from the homemade emetic, the glass door had been busted in, and there was a clear sign of a struggle throughout the kitchen and living room. But what the cops failed to mention in their report before Morgan and Reid got there was that the TV was on, and that the Unsub had been playing a song that Vanessa absolutely hated, according to her husband.

“Can you try asking the other victims if there’s any song they can’t stand since their first attack?” Reid asked me. I asked why. “If there’s a pattern, he could have possibly chosen to play that exact song on purpose.”

It sounded reasonable enough, so I gave in to the idea. When Dana came back from her smoke, we asked her about the songs. She told us that there was one piano ballad specifically that she couldn’t stand anymore because it had been playing during both attacks. After we talked to her, Emily and I went back to talk to the other survivors, and they all told us the same. So, Reid had been right about a pattern.

I collected my things as Emily saw the survivors to their cars just outside of the station. Hotch, Rossi, JJ, Morgan, and Spencer headed into the boardroom and took some of the empty seats, making sure not to steal Emily’s next to mine. I watched Morgan as he sat down. I wondered if he was okay since getting back to the station from Vanessa’s house, after seeing everything that man did to her. Morgan and I had different experiences, don’t get me wrong. But assault was assault. Just because mine aligned more with the Piano Man case didn’t mean that the content didn’t still bother the great Derek Morgan.

Hotch cleared his throat, catching my attention. He made a smooth gesture my way to tell me to start leading the meeting. They all wanted to know what Emily and I had found out while talking to all of the survivors, and I wanted to know what Morgan and Reid thought of the songs and the crime scene at Vanessa Campbell’s house. With confirmation that the song was part of the Unsub’s signature, Reid started putting all of the pieces together so that Rossi and Hotch could start building an official profile off of the one I had given the local PD months ago.

Reid finished what he was saying with, “It’s possible that while they’ve lost consciousness during their attacks, the Unsub is playing each of these songs on repeat, and in the victims are retraining the information—perhaps like a Pavlovian response, which turns the songs into a trigger.”

“The question is, why these songs?” Hotch questioned.

“Well, piano ballads are usually comforting, romantic songs. He could be setting the mood while also torturing them with the fact that music will never sound the same to them,” Rossi offered.

I cleared my throat like I had something stuck that was choking me up, and I used that as an excuse to leave and grab some coffee. No one said anything as I left.

----

That night, while Hotch and I were getting ready for bed at the hotel, I got lost in thought. I was standing in front of the sink with the water running, staring into my own reflection in the mirror, remembered the photos he had taken of me and used against me just to get some fucking money… Not that he even needed it. He came from a good family that was sending him to a good school so that he had a bright future. But he just wanted to make my life a living hell. I could remember that even after the bruises on my hips faded and the hickeys on my neck and collarbone disappeared, it never felt like they were gone because they were always there in those pictures. Even though Morgan and I burned those pictures a long time ago, it still felt like they were following me around. It felt like the bruises were still on me.

“I thought you said you could handle it,” Hotch whispered from behind me. I snapped out of my trance to see him leaning against the doorframe. “This case. You said it wouldn’t be a problem.”

“It isn’t,” I insisted while shutting the water off.

“I thought we weren’t supposed to lie to each other.”

I glared at him through the mirror.

“I’m serious, Y/N,” he said, approaching me to try to hug me from behind. I dodged the attempt and stepped around him, heading for the bedroom. “It’s okay if you need to sit this one out because of what happened—”

“Like I’ve told you a thousand times, Hotch, I’m fine. I don’t need you worrying about me when I just need you to focus on helping me find this guy. Okay? Drop it.”

“I have every right and reason to worry about you!” he exclaimed while following me into the bedroom.

I rolled my eyes and turned to face him. “Aaron.” He stopped to stare at me, fear in his eyes, an obvious debate running through his mind about what the hell I could be so serious about all of a sudden. “Do you remember when I told you that I’d ask you to lay out all of the lies for me one day, when I was ready to talk about Emily and everything?” He nodded warily. “I need you to tell me or I’m going to go crazy during this case. I can’t be battling knowing that you’re still hiding things from me and also swallowing the fact that every time I hear someone on the team call those girls ‘victims’, I want to throw up. So, I need you to just… lay it all out for me. Right now.”

“Baby, are you sure—”

“Yes, I’m sure. You promised me. This was the deal that if I stayed, if we were going to work through this, then you had to fess up. No matter how bad, no matter how stupid, I need to know, Hotch. I don’t keep things from you, and all I ask is that you share the same courtesy.” I huffed and sat on the edge of the bed. “Please.”

Hotch took a moment to himself, standing there in front of me, watching as I stared at anything on or around him in order to avoid his gaze. It was humiliating to ask my husband to be honest with me. I knew that there was no way he had cheated on me, and I knew that there was no way that he stopped loving me, so I didn’t fear that something like that would come up, but I was still terrified that he would admit something that would break my heart, and maybe make things worse. But, honestly, nothing could have been worse than him lying about Emily’s death and letting me name our daughter after her.

He finally gave in. Slowly, he sat beside me, keeping his hands to himself, and he followed my lead by just staring at the wall opposite us. “Okay,” he croaked. He cleared his throat to reiterate, “Okay.” He shifted uncomfortably on the bed. “I lied to you about Kate.”

Oh, my fucking—

“When I was working with her in England, there was one night when we slept together. We had both been drinking, and one thing led to another, as they usually do, and it happened before I could stop myself. I regretted it the next morning… I told her that it could never happen again, and it didn’t.”

“Did Haley know?”

Hotch shook his head. “She would’ve left me if I told her. And it didn’t even mean anything, Y/N. Kate was one of my best friends. It’s like if you slept with Morgan—”

“Don’t be vulgar.”

“I’m serious!” He chuckled. “There would be feelings, sure, but it wouldn’t ultimately mean anything—” He suddenly stopped himself. “Or. Well. Would it?”

I punched his arm lightly. “No, it wouldn’t.”

He rubbed the spot where I hit him while still smiling, but then he started thinking about other lies he had told or secrets he kept from me, and his smile faded. “I don’t think I ever stopped loving Haley…” he whispered. “And I don’t think I ever will.”

I grabbed his hand and intertwined our fingers. “That’s not a secret, Aaron Christopher Hotchner.”

He looked at me. “It’s not?”

I looked at him. “No.” The temptation to run my fingers through his hair overthrew me, so I gave in. He nuzzled into my touch as I did so. “Someone once told me that we’re capable of loving more than one person in our lifetime. They never really believed in soulmates, and I don’t think I do either. I think that there are just a string of people in our lives that we meet and we fall in love with them as hard as we can, and there’s no stopping it. Sometimes it’s just one person, and that’s enough to last a lifetime. But there are other times when it takes a few ‘soulmates’ before finding the one you don’t ever want to move on from.” I brushed his hair off his forehead. “I’ve only ever loved one other person the way I love you. Only one. Even now, years later, having not seen them in a long time, I’m still in love with them. Does that mean I love you any less? No. You are my forever love, Aaron Hotchner.” I cupped my palm on his cheek. “Haley was your soulmate—one of them, at least. You grew up loving her, and you dedicated your life to her for as long as you could. You had a family with her. That doesn’t wash away just because you’re not legally married anymore or because she isn’t around. It’s okay to love her, Aaron. It’s okay to miss her. I would never, ever judge you for that because I know that you still love me, and that I’m one of your soulmates—”

“You’re my forever love, Y/N,” he whispered while pressing his forehead against mine.

“Then, you don’t have to worry about me getting jealous over Kate or Haley. You don’t have to be scared that I’m going to run off because you’re still in love with your first soulmate. I’m not going anywhere.”

He slid his hand around the back of my neck, bracing me because the next thing I knew, he was kissing me deeply. I exhaled through my nose as I kissed back. I knew that he hadn’t gotten all of the lies and the secrets out yet, but I was honestly content with what he had said. I knew how hard it was for him to be truthful. I knew that him and Haley had a relationship that sorely lacked communication, and that was why they ultimately failed. So, I couldn’t push him too hard, and I couldn’t make him start piecing together all of the lies and the secrets of his life in one night. I thought that was what I wanted, but now that we were in the moment, I realized that it was too much. Too much for him, and too much for me. It was okay to just leave it where it was.

Hotch pulled from me shortly to catch his breath. “I’ve got another one.”

I smiled and ran a finger over his bottom lip. “Okay.”

“I used to sell pot in high school.”

I let out a laugh. Shaking my head at how stupid and silly he was, I pulled him in for another kiss, moving so that I was laying down and he was towering over me, his legs straddling my hips, his hands holding my face for balance, my fingers still tangled in his hair to keep him close. He must have run out of actual lies and secrets if he pulled that one out of his ass.

----

The next morning, we got the worst news possible. Just as we were settling in at the precinct to get to work on the profile, the cops got a call about a body in a river that ran through downtown. The detective who called us in for the case let us know that he was heading down there just to see if it had anything to do with our case or not, and I decided to send Morgan and Reid with him. Only, at the time, I didn’t think anything would come of it. But then my phone started ringing with a call from Morgan, which I eagerly answered, only to feel my heart drop to my stomach.

“Hey, peanut,” Morgan greeted. “We just found Vanessa Campbell’s body.”

I let out a sigh as I braced my elbow on the desk in front of me and hid my face in my hand. “You’re sure?”

“She matches the description, and her body is covered in cuts from piano wires that were restraining her.”

“Can you guys tell if she was…” I hesitated.

Morgan knew what I meant, though. “We won’t know for sure until the coroner runs a complete autopsy. But, listen, Reid found something that might help.” I cocked a brow and put the call on speaker so that the rest of the team could listen in. “We found pieces of surgical gloves in her mouth, like she bit it off the Piano Man’s hand or something.”

“Okay? So what?” JJ questioned.

“These gloves aren’t latex— and they’re expensive ones, too. He couldn’t just get these anywhere. Our Unsub has an allergy to latex, and Reid and I are betting on the fact that he works at a hospital.”

“He could have been one of the doctors that treated all of the survivors when they went in for their rape kits,” Emily said.

“Stay with the coroner for now, Morgan,” I said into the phone, “and I’ll let you guys know if there are any updates later.”

“Sounds good.”

I hung up on him and leaned back in my chair, looking at the team as they all stared at me. The glove changed some things, but not much. I mean, it was a solid lead, and JJ was already getting in contact with Garcia to start looking for the doctors that treated all of the survivors and had a latex allergy—but in terms of the profile… Things changed a bit. The gloves were just a counter measure. He was evolving because he knew that we were hunting him, and when Vanessa fought back, he got rid of her.

“Garcia couldn’t find any record that any of the surgeons or doctors that treated some or all of the survivors have a latex allergy,” JJ said. But then her phone started ringing. “Penelope?” After a moment, she put the call on speaker.

“I found something,” Garcia immediately said. “I couldn’t find a connection with the surgeons or doctors, but I did find one link with an orderly named Herman Scobie. According to hospital computer records, he accessed each of the victims’ medical and insurance records after they came in for a rape kit the first time.”

“That’s how he’s been finding their addresses after they moved,” I realized.

“Y/N, Dana’s back,” Emily said from beside me. We all turned around in our seats to see one of the survivors, Dana, standing in the middle of the precinct, aimlessly looking around for us.

“Everyone, clear the room, please,” I told the team. They all stood and began filing out of the room. Emily and I followed behind them, but we walked towards Dana instead of staying with the herd.

“He killed Vanessa?” she asked instantly.

Emily nodded. “Yes.”

“He could be after any one of us now, right?”

She hesitated. “Yes.”

Dana sucked in a shaky breath while clearly contemplating something. After a long moment, she relaxed and looked at us. “I remember some things about that night. I… I lied when I told you guys that I completely blacked out.”

“Would you be willing to tell us now?”

“If it’ll save us… yeah…”

Emily smiled lightly. “Okay. Let’s head to the boardroom again.” She gestured across the office, and Dana turned to head there. Emily started following, but I stayed still. She waited up for me, taking a step back when she realized that my gaze was glued to the wall. “Y/N?” She put a comforting hand on my bicep. “Are you alright?”

I looked at her. “I can’t listen to it.”

Emily looked like she wanted to ask why, but I could tell that she also understood that there was no point in prying. “I’ll handle it, then. Why don’t you go with the team to the Unsub’s house, get some fresh air, clear your head a bit.” I nodded obediently. “It’ll be okay.”

“Yeah,” I croaked. “Yeah, I know. Thanks.” I put a friendly hand on her shoulder as I walked around and past her, meeting up with the team as they were gearing up to head to Scobie’s house.

On our way there, Hotch and I sat together in the front seat of one of the SUVs with Morgan and Reid in the back. Every so often, Hotch would glance over at me, his eyes trying to get a read on if I was any better since last night when I somewhat admitted that I was struggling—at least specifically with the fact that no one was showing the survivors the respect they deserved. Even Morgan was still referring to them as “victims”. But I felt somewhat better, especially since Emily said she could handle questioning Dana on her own. I knew that I would feel a thousand times better, at least, when we would catch this son of a bitch, and it meant that one less predator was out on the streets.

“Y/N, we have a plan to stick to,” Hotch whispered. He must have seen the hungry look in my eye for revenge. I tried to shake it off. “I don’t want you to be the one—”

“It’s going to be me,” I insisted.

He hesitated. I wasn’t like my sister, he had to know that, right? Elle wasn’t able to control her emotions, so she arrested Lee before we had enough evidence, so we had to release him, and then he attacked her. I wasn’t going to let that happen again. We were going to do this the right way and we were going to make every single goddamn charge stick.

But even as we were pulling up to the house, I could still see that Hotch was unsure about letting me out of the car, so I just had to make sure that I was the first out, and that I was assigning orders to everyone as fast as possible. The plan was that Hotch and I were going to take the front door, Rossi and Morgan were going to take the back door, and Reid and JJ were going to search the van that was parked out front. I couldn’t wait to serve the search warrant to this asshole.

As Hotch and I approached the front door, I pinched my comm on my shoulder to ask if everyone was in position. When I got confirmation, I nodded to Hotch. He steadied his stance before roughly knocking on the door and exclaiming, “FBI, open up!” But there was no response. We had reasonable cause, so Hotch stepped back, then kicked the door in. Together, we rushed into the house, searching the living room, but that was when I saw Scobie, dressed in his work scrubs, dash through the hallway, heading straight for the back of the house.

“Morgan, he’s headed your way!” I yelled into the comm.

Within the next few moments, I heard a loud thud outside, followed by Scobie’s quick protests to be released. Seemed like Morgan got him.

“Y/N!” Rossi called through the comms. “We got him. There’s boxes and boxes of Neoprene gloves in his van.”

Hotch was watching me as I smirked and started heading towards the backyard to get a good look at the Piano Man.

----

When we were back at the office, Emily was already done talking to Dana, but asked her to stick around so that we could get a positive ID on Scobie being the Piano Man. She accepted. So, after we got him in the interrogation room, we led Dana to the mirror room where we told her that she would watch with Hotch and JJ while Emily and I went in there to talk to him. We made it clear that we would have to play his game. We were going to say things that we didn’t really mean, but Dana just had to trust us. She nodded nervously.

“You okay to go in there after earlier?” Emily questioned me.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Okay, then. I’ll take the lead, then. Be the strong, dominant personality or whatever.”

“I’ll follow,” I said with a smile.

It was a good interrogation tactic. Two women going in to confront a serial rapist. One of the women fit the dominant role to a T, while the other was submissive and shy to whatever he wanted. The conflicting responses to him would fuck with his head.

So, Emily and I headed into the interrogation room, letting the door to the mirror room close before Scobie could see Hotch, JJ, or Dana standing behind the glass.

“Where’s my lawyer?” he asked.

“We called him,” Emily answered. Not true. He technically hadn’t invoked yet, so we were just waiting for him to actually say that he wanted counsel. “He’s on his way. Actually—You know what, Y/N?” I cocked a brow. “Maybe we should just let him tell his client about the Piano Man investigation. What do you think?” I shrugged. “Yeah. Okay. We’ll do that. Sorry to bother you.” Emily moved to the door, holding it open for me.

“The what?”

“The Piano Man. You might have read about him in the paper.”

“You think I’m him?”

There was our in. Emily slowly ushered me back into the interrogation room, closing the door again behind us. As she said, “No, I don’t,” she pulled out a chair for me to sit in, and I did so obediently. “Well, we don’t,” she clarified while sitting next to me. “The problem is that there are other people out there who think that the way you treat your dates is a little similar to this guy. Some guys like it rough. In fact—” Emily stopped herself with a chuckle. “No… Never mind…” I blushed as part of the game, and hid my face away from him and her, earning a playful chuckle from her. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry.”

“No, go ahead,” he insisted.

“No, we can’t.”

I bit my lip and continued to blush.

“Maybe you already did,” he said. “I can tell that you’re like me… You know… Rough.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“Well, maybe the three of us. But out there, people don’t understand.”

“I agree,” Emily said. “They just don’t get it. But I do. I know that it’s easy and fun to lose control. So… did you? You know, did you ever get a little too rough?”

“Never.”

“Never?”

My blush faded.

“Never.”

“What about those naughty girls that came back for seconds?”

“What about them?”

“They’re the ones making the most noise. What I need from you is a reason to kick them to the curb, because we just want to help get you out of here, to prove that you did nothing wrong.”

He leaned forward in his seat. “Look at the notches on their bedposts. You think they’re innocent?” He eyed me up and down. “Are any of you ever innocent?”

Emily leaned back, slyly keeping her distance from him, and she casually chuckled. “Good one.”

“Besides… Nobody ever believes a slut who cries wolf. Right?” He continued to stare at me. “You would’ve liked being rough, too.” I didn’t say anything to give into his fantasy. “I know you like it. Don’t deny it.”

What the fuck? That motherfucker!

“What did you just say to me?” I questioned sternly. “You son of a—”

The door opened to reveal Hotch who was there to say, “Out. This is over.”

Something within me snapped. I felt this sudden urge to start crying, but I couldn’t let myself break in front of him. Not when we had come so far. So, I swallowed every overwhelming feeling that was crashing through me long enough to push my seat back and calmly hurry out of the room without saying another word or giving Emily a heads up.

When we broke into the mirror room, the door slamming behind us, I saw Dana crying in JJ’s arms while hyperventilating. Through cracked words that just couldn’t seem to leave my lips, I asked what happened. JJ explained the wolf comment triggered her. Hotch ordered JJ to take Dana back to the boardroom and to get her some water to help her calm down.

When they were gone, that was when Hotch grabbed my shoulders and turned me to face him. I sucked in a shallow breath and screwed my eyes shut.

“What is it?”

“How does he know?” I asked quietly. A sob was building in my chest even though I didn’t know how or why.

“What?”

“How— How does he know all of the right songs to play and the right things to say?”

“What are you talking about?”

He knew that playing all of those songs while attacking his victims again was a perfect way to retraumatize them all over again, and now they all had mantras—which he proved came from him during that interview. But what I didn’t expect was that last part. I didn’t expect that he would turn to me and know exactly what to say to make me relive that night all over again. It had been years since that night in high school. Sure, there were times when I would have a nightmare, or I’d see flashes of his face, or feel like he was whispering in my ear… But every time that happened, I was able to turn to Hotch, hold him in my arms, and relax. I could forget because I had the love of my life. And then that man looked me in the eye and said: “I know you like it. Don’t deny it.” Something suddenly snapped inside of me. It was an involuntary response. Again, I wasn’t sure how or why, but I knew that him repeating those same words spoken to me years ago somehow managed to break me.

I shivered against Hotch’s touch. “I think I lied.”

“Y/N, what are you talking about?”

“I don’t think I can do this.” I buried my face in his chest. “I didn’t think it would get to me—but he did. He got to me, Aaron. I’m so sorry. I thought I could handle it.”

“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.” He winged his arms around me, holding me close as I started to cry against him. “Just breathe.” But I couldn’t, though, so I just grabbed onto his suit jacket and held on for dear life as I kept crying. “We’ve got a positive I.D. It’s over. We can go home, and we can talk about this, forget about this, whatever. It’s going to be okay. You caught him, just like you said you would.”

Yeah, after I was a fucking mess the whole case and couldn’t even listen to the survivor’s testimonial when she came back in to admit she remembered more than she originally let on. I technically failed at my job. Hotch assigned me to lead this case, and instead of stepping up to the plate like I had done every single day while he was halfway across the world, I slowly fell apart until there was nothing left of me except that scared high schooler who felt entirely trapped and alone that summer after it happened.

“Why don’t you go take a breather outside while we wrap up the case officially and I reach out to the D.A. to help them build an airtight case.”

I sucked in a deep and shaky breath. “Okay.”

Hotch kissed the top of my head. “You’re here with me, and I love you more than anything in the world. You’re here with me, and I will protect you from anything and anyone who would ever want to harm you again. Do you know that?”

“I know.”

He hugged me as tight as he could for a short second, then he let me go entirely. As he took a step back, he lifted my chin with his thumb, and using his other hand, he carefully wiped my tears away. “I. Love. You.”

I kissed his fingers as they drifted to my other cheek. “I love you, too.”

“Go catch your breath. I’ll be here when you’re ready.”

I nodded and began stepping around him, heading towards the door with my head lowered so that no one could see my red and puffy face. When I stepped outside, I took in a deep breath of fresh air, letting the wind blow past me and through my hair. I let out a heavy sigh.

And then the door opened again. I looked up, half expecting Hotch to be there, but I was shocked to see that it was Emily. I didn’t say anything to her. I looked down at the concrete and slumped against the wall. After taking a moment to watch me from a distance, Prentiss decided to lean against the wall with me, too. No one said anything for a bit. We just stood there in silence, listening to the different cars as they drove by, and how the birds were chirping on a seemingly normal day. And then the silence broke.

“Hey, why’d you freak out like that?”

I quickly glanced at her, shocked that she was so forward. But then I realized just how off I was, and that if I were in her shoes, I would have been worried, too. So, I answered. Kinda. “It’s nothing, Em. It just got intense in there.”

Honestly, there were only a handful of people who knew the truth about what happened to me. Before joining the BAU, I was the only person who knew. But since joining and since the Fisher King practically ruined the secret, I had to fess up to Morgan. Once Morgan found out, he spent forever trying to convince me that telling Hotch the truth was the right thing to do, and I eventually believed him. When I went to Hotch, he told me that he already knew the truth because Garcia went digging. So, at least three people on the team knew the whole truth. As for everyone else… Well, Elle, Reid, JJ, and Gideon were only told that the photos were just images of me topless at a party. That was it. But Rossi and Emily hadn’t been around at the time, so they didn’t know any of it, and I was completely fine with keeping it that way.

But Emily could still sense that something was wrong. “Y/N, I don’t want to live with regret for not knowing you or for making you feel like you can’t be open with me. This second chance we have should be to recognize that it’s okay to talk to each other.” She shuffled on the balls of her feet. “I think that I have a clue as to what’s going on, but I think that it’s important if you’re just honest with me.”

“So, do you think it’s important to be more honest with your therapist, too, then?” I snipped.

She backed down, even though regret was immediately washing over me, and I was trying to find a way to apologize. “Okay… I, um… Well, I’ll be here if you’re ever ready to talk about—”

“Em, I’m sorry. I just—It’s not you, I swear. It’s just hard to tell people the truth and to explain it. At least with the others on the team, they know part of the story, so it would be somewhat easy to explain, but you don’t know any of it, which means that the truth is going to hit you like a train, and I don’t want to do that to you.”

“I can take it, Y/N.”

I searched her eyes for a moment. Even though I knew that it was true, I was still hesitant to unload all of this on her. But Emily Prentiss was just stubborn as I was. I knew that she wasn’t going to let this go, even if she insisted. So, I decided to tell her the truth. The whole truth.

Afterwards, while she turned and calmly pulled me into an embrace and I hid my face in her shoulder, the door opened again and Hotch stepped out to tell us that there was a problem. Reid, JJ, and Morgan found out that Scobie was too young to be the Piano Man, which meant that he was being set up. Scobie was just a copycat.

“Shit,” I cursed under my breath. I quickly pushed past both of them and hurried into the boardroom to ask Rossi what we knew now that changed the whole fucking profile.

“His music taste,” he explained to me.

I squinted at him. “His music taste? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Reid, Morgan, and JJ have been tearing his house apart for evidence proving that he’s the Piano Man—maybe trophies, or even the piano wire he used to hurt them. While they were there, they noticed that all of his music taste is heavy metal. He doesn’t own a single piano ballad.”

Angrily, I turned and threw some of the papers on the desk at the wall. “Fuck!” I kicked the wall, then bit my lip to ignore the wince that left me when it hurt like a bitch. “Fuck,” I whispered under my breath, defeated. “Fuck.” I looked up at him just as Hotch and Emily came in. “How can he not be the Piano Man? We found the gloves, we know he pulled their medical record after the first attacks, and he even repeated Dana’s mantra after she was attacked the second time—” I froze. God fucking dammit. How did we miss that? “Fuck,” I whispered again. “He’s not the Piano Man.” I looked at Hotch. He obviously knew that, so he just shrugged, trying to see where I was going with this. “He’s not a copycat. He’s a doppelganger.” He shrugged again. “He has to know who the Piano Man is if he was able to mimic the attacks.”

That was when it dawned on Hotch. “Prentiss and I will handle it.”

“His lawyer just got here, Aaron, you’re not going to get anything out of him,” Rossi said.

“He’ll talk when he finds out that he’s being set up by the Piano Man. Just like Mill Creek. Right?”

This time, it was my turn to shrug. So, with nothing else to be said, Hotch and Emily left the boardroom again to go talk to Scobie, but this time I followed. I knew that I couldn’t go back into the interrogation room, but I could at least watch from the mirror room. That wasn’t so bad. It was like watching a dangerous animal from behind glass at the zoo.

Scobie’s lawyer groaned when he saw two federal agents coming back into the room. “My client has nothing to say.”

“Good,” Hotch said. “We’d rather he just listen, anyway.”

Sometimes I really wondered what Hotch was like as a prosecutor; but then there were moments like this, or in court for the Matloff trial a couple of years ago, and I realized that if I would have known him then, we would have never gone to work because he would have been too busy keeping my hands off of him. Not that he didn’t already struggle with that. The two of us were incredibly handsy people—our love language was clearly touch—but we at least had enough restraint to save it for when we weren’t working.

“You’re going away for rape, there’s no doubt about it. The question is whether you’ll let your competition hang Vanessa Campbell’s murder on you, too.”

“I didn’t kill her,” Scobie defended calmly. “I didn’t even touch her.”

“From what you’ve told us, we know exactly what you think of women—especially survivors.”

That caught my attention. That was the first time throughout this whole case that I had heard him use the word “survivors” instead of “victims”. He had heard me last night. Even though I was a mess, and we had a long night after talking, he heard that one complaint, and he fixed it. All I could think about was to thank him. Just a defeated, simple “thank you” to let him know that I appreciated that small gesture. It probably didn’t mean anything to him, but it meant the world to me.

“But we know that you don’t think that they’re worth killing. You would rather that they live with what you’ve done to them. So, you didn’t kill Vanessa. In fact, we don’t even think you raped her. But if you don’t want to go away for her murder, you need to tell us who he is or how to find him.”

Scobie didn’t say anything.

Emily jumped in this time. “How do you think we found you? Just like you, he’s going back to his old victims. Only, with Vanessa, he wanted it to make it look like it was you and not him, so he shoved a piece of Neoprene down her throat. That’s how we got you. He’s not on your side, Herman, and he’s not going to protect you. He’s going to make sure you go away for all twelve assault counts and the single murder count. But if you help us right now, you’ll only have four counts of rape.”

“I need to discuss this with my client,” the lawyer insisted.

Hotch shook his head. “No. He talks to us now, or he takes his chances with a jury.”

“I don’t know who he is,” Scobie immediately said. “I just read about what he did in the hospital and insurance records. The weird thing, though, was that I had two chicks picked out to do next. I was going to start with Vanessa, but he got to her first.”

“Who was the other one?”

“Regina Lampert.”

I immediately grabbed my phone and dialed Garcia’s number to have her get in touch with Regina Lampert. We needed to get to her before the Piano Man. So, while Garcia started calling every number Regina had, Hotch and Emily came out of the interrogation room. Garcia let out an annoyed groan in my ear.

“What is it?” I asked, putting the call on speaker.

“She’s not picking up,” she said.

“Keep trying.”

“I am.”

“Garcia, we need a home address or workplace,” Hotch ordered.

“Well, she only works nights at a bar…” She drifted her words as she got lost in thought, then hesitated. “Oh?”

“Oh?” I questioned.

“I found something. I’m sending it to your phone right now.”

Just as the notification buzzed, I opened it. There was security footage from Regina’s work the other night where she went to go confront the man playing the piano.

“He’s taunting her,” Emily said.

“And she knows it, too. Look at her behavior around her versus otherwise,” Hotch said.

We watched as Regina kept her posture strong and tall when she was around him, but the second she was away, her face towards the camera, we saw her break down somewhat. She knew that it was him. He had probably been playing her trigger song at the time, which was why she confronted him, and now it was all coming back to her. Then, come closing time, she actually left with him—but she didn’t look scared anymore. In fact, she was smirking.

“She set herself up as bait,” I whispered.

“His name’s Hamilton Bartholomew,” Garcia began, “and… his wife reported him missing yesterday.”

“Regina knows that he’s her attacker, so she took him before he could take her.”

Hotch looked through the glass to watch as Scobie panicked in his own skin, then he looked back at the security footage on my phone. “Garcia, pull Regina’s rape kit. They found a fingerprint on her glasses after her attack. Compare the fingerprint to Bartholomew’s, please.” Hotch looked at me. “You sure you want to go with us?”

I rolled my eyes at him while thanking Garcia for her help and turned to leave the mirror room. Reid, Morgan, and JJ were back, already pulling their vests off, but I stopped them and let them know that we were headed to Regina Lampert’s house. In the case that the Piano Man was really there, we needed to be prepared. Otherwise, we would just bring her into protective custody. The three of them re-strapped their vests, then Morgan threw mine at me.

I didn’t ride with Hotch this time around. After my meltdown earlier, I didn’t need him to coddle me or ask a thousand questions about whether or not I was alright. I wasn’t alright. But I would be.

Emily got the call from Garcia in the car while I was driving her and Morgan. We got a hit on Hamilton’s DNA matching the Piano Man’s on Regina’s glasses. I started going faster.

At Regina’s house, while I was assigning positions again, just like at Scobie’s house, we heard a gunshot rang. Hotch made the call before I could. Everyone started racing inside behind SWAT, trying to figure out where the shot came from and who shot it. Hotch stepped in my way every time I rushed into another room with my weapon raised, and every time I tried to clear a corner. I groaned at him before turning around and running away from him. He tried to catch up, but by the time he did, he crashed into me in the kitchen where I found Regina standing over Hamilton, pointing a gun at his forehead.

“I got him! I caught him!” she cheered. “This is the Piano Man!”

“No, I’m not! This woman’s crazy!” he cried on the floor. “Please, you’ve gotta help me!”

“Regina, look at me,” I pleaded with her. “Please. Look at me.” When she did, I said, “Drop the gun.”

“I can’t,” she answered while looking back down at him. “I’ve waited five years for this.”

“I know. I know, Regina. I know what that feels like.”

Her gaze snapped back to me.

“Try eleven years, Regina. Eleven. But you don’t see me waving a gun in his face because there are better ways to go about this. I promise.”

The rest of the team came running in, ruining the rapport I had been building with her while she was focused on me and not Hamilton. I cursed under my breath. Hotch should’ve held them back, but he was too concerned about me to just fucking—I’d be mad about it later.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, moving her finger for the trigger.

“Regina!” Emily exclaimed. “Regina, we ran the rape kit to match his DNA, and it’s not him.”

She froze. “What?”

“He’s not the Piano Man. You have the wrong guy.”

“That’s impossible. That’s him. I know it is.”

“If you pull that trigger, you’re gonna kill an innocent man. Drop the gun.”

Regina whimpered as she realized what she had done, and she quickly elected to drop the weapon like we asked her to. Morgan hurried over to pick it up. While he moved out of the way and Emily went to restrain Regina for the next part, I leaned over to help Hamilton to his feet. Hotch held out his cuffs for me. For a moment, I hesitated. I had my own cuffs, and I was capable of making the arrest on my own… Why was he… And then I saw the plea on his face. He wanted me to make the arrest, but he wanted it to be an apology, too. He was sorry for being overprotective when I clearly didn’t need it, he was sorry for all of the lies, he was sorry for what happened to me long before he met me, and he was sorry for acting weird during this case. So, I took the cuffs and silently thanked him.

“Hamilton Bartholomew, you’re under the arrest for the rapes of twelve women and the murder of Vanessa Campbell,” I said while cuffing him. His face immediately dropped as his entire world flipped on its head. I made sure to tighten the cuffs until they hurt. “Asshole.” And then I started reading him his Miranda Rights.

----

When we got back to Virginia, the team headed back to the office to grab some work that had been left around before we left, and to make sure that they had everything from their go-bags so that they could replace them tomorrow. While everyone packed up, I sat down at my desk when I saw that Hotch was just sitting in his office, already nose deep in paperwork. He didn’t seem to be in any rush. I checked my watch to look at the time. It was too late to go anywhere fancy, but there was still time to head to our favorite diner… Or maybe we could just go home and eat something there. Since it was so late, Jack and Scarlet were still at Jessica’s house, which meant that we had the whole house to ourselves. I thought Hotch would’ve been jumping at the chance. He must have forgotten. It was Valentine’s Day, and he forgot. Great.

“Hey. I know that Hotch looks busy up there… on Valentine’s Day… Us loners on the team are heading out for drinks, if you want to come. Hang out with the cool kings like old times,” he teased. I smiled lightly at him before looking back at Hotch. “Hey, sunshine,” Morgan caught my attention again, “I’m sure he didn’t forget. Just come drink with us for a bit.”

“I don’t think—”

“Come on, your three children can afford to not see you for a couple more hours.”

“Three?” I raised a brow. Either he miscalculated or I forgot something very important about myself.

Morgan chuckled and nodded. “You know; Jack, Scar, and Hotch. Three.”

I chuckled with him, “Touché.” My face fell flat again as I turned back to Hotch’s office windows to gauge what he was doing. He seemed so distracted with work, not at all in a rush to sweep me off to somewhere secret and romantic. He really did forget. “Alright,” I answered Morgan’s offer. “Just a few drinks.”

I stood with my things. As we started walking out of the bullpen, Morgan threw his arms across my shoulders, pulling me in for a friendly, reassuring hug. I needed it. While I was putting on a brave face and was trying to feign excitement about going out with the team, I really thought that Hotch and I were going to do something special for Valentine’s. I knew that we had been too tangled up in the case for a reservation somewhere nice. I knew that he was still worried about my reaction after interrogating Scobie, but… I would’ve subbed for him. I trusted him and loved him. I would have done that for our fifth Valentine’s together.

I tried to forget about it all when we stepped into the bar. Rossi had insisted on paying for everyone, so Morgan and I started competing to see who could drink more—which was a helpful way to forget about how sad I was that my own fucking husband forgot what day it was. At least it wasn’t my birthday. Or maybe even our anniversary. But still… It was Valentine’s… How could he forget that?

I drank again.

Emily joined in once she heard about our little competition, but Rossi and Reid stayed out of it. Rossi was gently sipping on a scotch while eyeing a group of women across the bar, probably searching for the fourth Mrs. Rossi. Reid, on the other hand, wasn’t drinking. Well, kinda. He didn’t exactly “drink” like we did, but Rossi got him a soda.

“So, Y/N, it’s Valentine’s Day,” Rossi began. I nodded while picking up my drink. “Why are you here with us instead of ‘training’ with Hotch?”

“Training?” Prentiss inquired before downing another shot.

“Oh, yeah.” Rossi smirked. “They call it jogging; I call it catching them doing it in the car after they’ve jogged all morning.” I nearly spit out my drink. Everyone else laughed along with Rossi. “I’m never going back to that park, I swear it,” he said through his laughs.

I kicked Morgan’s shin under the table to make him stop laughing, but that only seemed to encourage it more.

Suddenly, the door of the bar flew open, letting in the cold winter air, making me shiver. I silently cursed which ever asshole it was that was just standing there. But then the door still didn’t close. I rolled my eyes and sat up straight to look around the back of the booth and yell at whoever it was, but then I stopped when I realized. Hotch. He was standing there, wet and freezing from the rain, holding a bouquet of roses while anxiously glancing around the bar in search of me. Holy shit.

I stood on the seat of the booth, then jumped over the back. Everyone at the table stopped talking to watch what I was doing. Hotch only noticed me when I was running at him, my arms open wide for a hug, and he finally let the door close behind him so that he could catch me. I jumped into his arms. Hotch immediately started kissing me, towering over me when I fell back with the passion he gave me. My back nearly fucking broke before he let up.

“I am… so, so, so, so, so, so—”

“Aaron,” I interrupted his ramble before he could keep going all night.

“I’m so sorry, baby. I’m such a freakin’ idiot.”

“No, you’re not.” I shook my head.

“I swear, I’m going to make it up to you.”

“Mmm…” I slid my hands up his chest. “Well, I still haven’t claimed my prize for winning our jog yesterday…”

Hotch smirked and held my chin up with his fingers. “You’re right. You wanna cash in the win?”

I nodded and bit my lip. “More than anything.”

He leaned down slowly and kissed me. “Okay.” He kissed me again. “I love you.”

“I love you, too…” I flung my arms around his neck and let him hold me close for a moment as we continued to kiss passionately, hardly pulling back for air.

The team, still sitting at the table behind us, started whistling and cheering us on. Hotch and I finally parted completely, separating and turning so that we could look at the team, both of us glowing a bright pink with a blush. Rossi raised his cup at us.

“Go train, you two!” Emily teased. Morgan held her bicep as he almost toppled over with laughter. “Happy Valentine’s, or whatever. Don’t make it a free show next time.”

“She’s got a point,” Garcia added.

Hotch spun me around and gently pushed me towards the door. “Goodnight, you guys. Don’t get too drunk.”

“You are three drinks too late, my friend,” Rossi replied.

Hotch caught my waist as I pushed on the doors of the bar and stepped out into the cold Virginian winter air. I laughed as I fell against him. He lifted me slightly and pulled me close before spinning us around in a circle. I laughed harder and started hitting gently at his hands to force him to let go of me, but he did no such thing. It wasn’t until someone else came out of the bar that he relented. I stumbled on my feet, then turned to face him. I held his face in my hands, staring at how handsome he was in the moonlight, and how I loved him more than anything in the world, and that I would literally die for him if I had to. I never felt like that with anyone else before. I mean, there was one person that I had loved before him, but this was… real… This was infinite. It felt like being at home and being endlessly safe when I was in his arms and looking at him. How did I get so lucky?

“Are you going to stare all night or are we going to head home?” he whispered.

“Little bit of both.”

He chuckled. “I love you, Y/N Hotchner.”

I tangled my fingers in his hair. “I love you, Aaron Hotchner.”

And then we kissed again.

-----------

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