A/N: So, this is it. I'm not actually sure how many people are even reading this since the reviews have been rather...scarce...but I'm planning to write something else in this fandom in the future that would be, suffice it to say, a bit less rigid. Also, this is probably not how some readers expected me to end this, but I always said my only rule was that it had to be plausible and not contradict on-screen canon.

Oh, also, a salient detail for the tag to 10.10 - Busboys and Poets is an artsy, progressive, literary, postmodernist Beatnik fever dream and the last place anyone would ever catch Aaron Hotchner dead.

Season Ten

Let us cling together as the years go by.

(Queen)

10.01

At least he can honestly tell Rossi that he asked.

He's not expecting Dave's surprise at her refusal. Hotch had known she'd say no. He knows how much she loves her job, how she excels at it. He wonders if she's been playing it up for him or playing it down for the rest of them.

And then it dawns on him - Dave doesn't realize how deep it went. They hid it too well. Still do.

And so it's assumed they can go back.

Hotch has to ask himself if he'd known they couldn't, why he'd asked at all.

10.02

The minute he hears Morgan's voice, denying Garcia his support, he picks up the phone.

Her voice answering with his given name sends a spark up his spine.

"You need to call Garcia." He lays it out clinically, almost like a profile, and he hears her soft sigh crackle over the line.

"Oh, Garcia."

And that's why he'd called her. Because Emily empathizes as deeply as Garcia feels, sees the slivers of humanity, however deep they're buried. It's why she loved Doyle. Why she loved him.

She saw things below the surface.

That empathy is why he loves her.

Still.

10.03

When her assistant tells her there's a call from DC, she's not expecting someone at Homeland Security on the other line. She barely has time to ask what agencies are involved in the JTF, given the rate at which she's briefed.

She feels strangely possessive whenever the BAU gets involved and she has to hear it from some deputy secretary or, worse, Lyon. It's stupid, she knows, but still - she still thinks of them as hers.

And, of course, he knows that.

He makes sure he's the one who gets to brief her at the end of the day.

10.04

He doesn't have bugs crawling beneath his skin.

He has Emily crawling under it. Creeping through his veins, making his hair stand on end, and he doesn't know how to exorcise her any better than Leo knew how to get rid of his invisible bugs.

The solution should be the same, really - stop scratching the itch. Stop letting it overtake his life.

Except he's been doing that for two years and it won't go away.

When Beth tells him about the offer in Hong Kong, he can't ask her to stay.

Not when he can still feel Emily everywhere.

10.05

Her window's closed. Maybe not officially, but still - she'll never be someone's mother.

And it's her choice. She chose career over kids, and most days, she's okay with that. She knows JJ and Hotch manage, but given her own childhood, she doesn't think managing would be enough for her.

Other days, it aches. The photo of a somnolent Vader that pings on her phone hurts down to her bones, not just because she'll never have a child, but because she gave up her chance at that child, who she loves like her own.

London's never felt emptier than this.

10.06

It's because of Haley that he knows so much about fairytales. She'd loved them, the dark originals by the Grimm brothers and Anderson and the Disney versions, obscure stories she'd find in used bookstores and dramatized epics.

She'd never had delusions about them translating to reality, but it hadn't made him feel any less guilty for the way their story had ended.

When they get home, he finds himself going through the shelves of books she collected over the years, suddenly feeling nostalgic for a certain story.

There's always been something enchanting to him about Snow White and Rose Red.

10.07

She's battling insomnia after a nonstop week, irritated by how neatly they've wrapped things up, because she's listless without someone to suspect or a plot to foil.

She ends up going through the boxes that have been masquerading as coats in her closet, because it never seemed like a priority to unpack them.

It's junk, mostly: old magazines, a random remote control, a snowglobe she'd bought for a gift swap, a few of Sergio's long-lost toy mice.

Tucked in a book she forgets buying, she finds a precious memory: her and two Hotchners, captured at an angle by Aaron's reach.

10.08

Boston drains him. There's too many memories there. Too much pain.

Plus, Jack's handling the breakup with Beth almost too well, and he's concerned, so he seizes the opportunity for a long weekend.

Jack's been begging to see Harry Potter World.

He pulls out some interrogation skills to steer Jack onto the subject, because broomsticks take precedence, but eventually they talk, and Hotch realizes his son grew up when he wasn't looking.

As they're picking out postcards the next day, Jack pulls one from the rack and, with a knowing look to rival Rossi, suggests they send it to Emily.

10.09

"Hey, Grandpa."

Rossi groans. "You're killing me, all of you. I haven't heard my own name in a week."

"Immersion program. Hotch sent a memo."

"He would, wouldn't he?"

She taunts him on and off for the better part of an hour as he tells her everything, and the pop of a cork in the background suggests she's hearing more than the others have.

She knows the bottle's nearing empty when gravel weighs down his words. "I have a family, Emily."

"You always have."

There's a telltale cough of an aging Italian fighting off emotion. "Right back at you, kiddo."

10.10

He doesn't give Audrey his number, but he's barely surprised when she calls.

Obviously, Dave took it upon himself.

Still, he's a gentleman, and offers to play tour guide.

They meander through Barracks Row and Eastern Market, up past the Folger Library toward Massachusetts. As they're passing Busboys and Poets, a memory assaults him: Emily dragging him to a reading, looking so out of place it was borderline hilarious.

Audrey interrupts his rumination. "The one that got away or the one that broke your heart?"

Damn. Maybe she could be a profiler. "It's complicated."

She smiles ruefully. "It always is."

10.11

She has Reid text her, and times out when to call.

"How did you manage?" JJ asks, voice devoid of everything but fatigue.

"I didn't. I'm still not. I love London, but I'm still just the walking dead."

"Emily - "

"He took everything I had, JJ. I don't know what I have to do to make it mine again, and I don't know what you have to do, but if you want to talk to somebody who's just as fucked up, I'm here."

"Mutually assured destruction?"

"Or Thelma and Louise. Somebody beside you on the way over the cliff."

10.12

He'd been on the phone with her last night. This morning, technically - he hadn't realized until they'd hung up that it was getting light out.

The last time he'd spent that long on the phone was in college, Haley quizzing him on statutes all night, their desperate attempt to stay connected.

He sleeps through his alarm for the first time in a decade and covers by telling Garcia he'll meet them at the plane. He's glad she's not a profiler because he's sure there's a tell he can't hide.

Hotch hadn't realized it was possible to fall even further.

10.13

Gideon's taught him a thousand things, and his death makes a thousand and one.

Hotch doesn't want to die with regrets.

He doesn't want to live with them, either.

Dawn's barely breaking when he gets there, but she only hesitates a split second before letting him in.

"Is Jack okay?"

"Yes."

"Are you?"

"Yes."

"Good." She reaches up to run her hands over his jaw as she brings his mouth down to hers, and he realizes she knows exactly what this is, and how long it's been coming.

"Nothing's changed, Emily," he whispers.

Against his skin, she smiles. "I know."

10.14

He only gets a day and a half with her, but it's a day and a half more than he had before.

They only leave her apartment once, for dinner at her favorite pub. In his arms, it's the first time she's heard Irish folk music in a decade without thinking of Doyle.

He can't stop thinking about her in Indianapolis. Somehow that translates into insight to Allan Archer, because he knows what it's like to try to live up to a past love.

Even if, for him, he's not the one who's a criminal.

And it won't destroy him.

10.15

Things are different from the last time. Real. Even when they'd been on the cusp of taking their relationship public, the years of secrecy had permeated everything to the point that they were still tentative behind closed doors.

It's too early to tell the team, but the hesitation is gone. They both know what it feels like apart, and neither one wants to go back.

He's been holding it back so long that when he tells her he loves her, it's freeing, and he says it every time they talk.

If anything happens, that's what he wants her to remember.

10.16

She's not expecting the visceral response when Garcia calls, even more breathless than usual, having a conniption because her Chocolate Thunder could have died.

Emily talks Garcia down enough that she won't suffocate Morgan when he lands, and then she calls Hotch and chews him out because it could have been him, and she had to hear it wasn't secondhand.

"Don't start something with me you don't intend to finish, Hotch."

"What makes you think I'd ever be finished with you?"

The timbre of his voice sends vibrations through her, sparking every nerve.

She'd forgotten she could feel this much.

10.17

"What do you know about a book called Bare Reflections?"

"Hey, I'm all for experimenting in the bedroom, but I'm not - "

"Emily." There's a warning tone to his voice, but she knows he's fighting back a smile. "I would really prefer not to hear it from Garcia."

"Okay, okay."

When she's done priming him, he sighs. "And people actually find this erotic?"

"Some. Not me, personally."

"Good to know."

"Well…except for this thing in chapter four. That…I would be very okay with."

Later, he sneaks a peek at chapter four.

He can't wear a tie for weeks after.

10.18

As if he didn't have contempt for politics and the Russian mob already, he finds himself in the middle of an absolute cluster, the director breathing down his neck, and frustrated in several ways.

This was supposed to be their weekend. Him, her, and Jack. Calling her, telling her not to come, he wants to scream.

Because it's her.

The weight of disappointment suffocates him for twenty-two hours straight, but the second he gets home, it all evaporates.

"I took an extra day." From the sofa, Jack grinning beside her, her eyes sparkle.

As if he didn't love her already.

10.19

"I heard a scandalous rumor about you."

He smiles. He's almost used that. "Oh yeah?"

"I heard that Super G-Man traded in his suit for short sleeves. JJ was in shock. I don't think she knew you had elbows."

There's a silence. Miles away, they can see each other smile.

"Lambert asked me if I travelled with Jack much."

"Aaron..."

"It's beautiful here. He'd love it." Then, softly - "You'd love it."

"Aaron."

"I don't want to have any more regrets."

"Neither do I."

His voice is rough. "I want to bring you here. Both of you."

"Then you will."

10.20

It's overwhelming, knowing what he's going through and that she's not there to hold him, run her fingers through his hair, remind him what an extraordinary man he is.

The thing is, he didn't have to tell her. He could've lied and said everything was fine, but he didn't, because they really are trying.

He's trying. She's not always sure she is. He's the one pushing, working for this, and she's afraid he thinks he's more invested than she is.

But he's not. Because he's been a constant undercurrent in everything she's done for eight years.

Him, and her fear.

10.21

He's petrified that she's just an illusion. That this is the final blow meant to tear his psyche to shreds.

Rossi warned her, though, and so she takes his hands and wordlessly places them on either side of her face, giving him tactile proof.

She holds him as he unravels, strokes his hair, allows him to collapse in exhaustion against her and keeps the terror at bay.

He wakes feeling fingers at his nape and sees her, kisses her to be sure. Her eyes flutter open as his mouth moves over her throat, and she tells him:

She's coming home.

10.22

Hotch is pretty sure that if Emily weren't back in London, he'd tell Cruz to shove his paperwork up his ass.

Even without her at home, he's not thrilled to find hours of work piled on his desk. He's not expecting what's sitting on top of the stack - an envelope bearing his name and an airmail stamp.

Inside he finds a business card bearing a familiar logo, the title below her name crossed out and replaced, in slanted script, with "Director, INTERPOL Washington."

He stares at it, mesmerized, imagining one more edit: his last name.

He can't help himself.

10.23

There's a fleeting moment as he watches Kate go when he considers asking Emily to come back. She's too good not to want on his team.

He knows, though, that they can't go back to that. And he's not sure he could handle it, after everything.

Doesn't want to.

But the last few weeks, Kate's speech in his office, it makes something else clear: he can't keep taking things for granted.

He doesn't plan it out. There's no ring or kneeling. It's not a question. He simply tells her what he realized five years ago.

He wants to marry her.