Heal Thyself

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Criminal Minds and receive no profit for publishing this work of fiction.

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner / Emily Prentiss

Genres: Angst and friendship.

Rating: K+

Spoilers: Post "Lauren" (6x18)

Summary: Aaron refuses to feel guilty for missing her.

Author's Comment: A little overdue but it's up before the premier!

"To die and part is a less evil; but to part and live, there, there is the torment."

~ George Lansdowne

Thankfully there is no one else here.

It's just after dawn, which seems like an odd time to visit a cemetery even to Aaron, but he has a full day ahead of him so it isn't like he has another opportunity to come by. On the upside, he considers, coming early does have the benefit of lacking others' presence. The skyline is beautiful, the sun rising over the horizon and a strange orange coloring the sky, and Hotch is a bit taken aback by it. When he looks down at the bouquet of flowers he is fisting, he takes note of how the sunlight hits the petals. Aaron continues his trek forward.

Some day, Aaron tells himself, he will read every headstone in here. He wants to imagine every life and every story, the good and bad. It's a compulsion and pretty ridiculous now that he thinks of it but it still would be interesting to know, wouldn't it? These thoughts, as irrational as they are, also allow Aaron's mind to wander just a minute or two longer before he standing only a few feet from the specific headstone he came to see. Emily Prentiss. Or Lauren Reynolds but that name leaves a bitter taste in the back of his mouth each time he hears it.

October 12 1970 – March 7 2011

He feels the letters and numbers under the pads of his fingertips. There they are, real but not really. Aaron feels so stupid for being here, the way he had felt when he had visited Haley and still, on occasion, does. He runs his fingers through the grooves again and again and again until he has memorized the curve of each engraving. At least when he visits Haley, Aaron is assured that there is something—someone—down there. In this case, Aaron knows otherwise. There's no one here, just an empty casket six feet below the surface. It should give him hope.

But it just breaks his heart.

Because Prentiss isn't dead, not yet, and the only person on the team other than Aaron who knows that is JJ. And they aren't talking about it. He tells himself that it's because of the hush-hush around Emily's new identity, that they're staying silent for her well-being and he knows that JJ is just being her usual self: loyal, protective, and strong. It was exactly what everyone needed at the time, which was what JJ has always been so good at. But Aaron doesn't ever want to admit out loud that the real reason why he and JJ don't talk about Prentiss is because it's just too difficult.

It sounds horrible even to him but some times Aaron is envious of his unaware agents, the ones who get to mourn Emily properly while Aaron has to accept the fact that Emily chose to leave them. He thinks it hurts more than if she had been taken away. Hotch reminds himself that he shouldn't be feeling this way because Emily never really had a choice in what had happened either, not even before she was Lauren Reynolds, because something inside of her made her agree, the same thing that must have compelled her to join Interpol in the first place, and what had led her to join the BAU.

He's still mad though.

Mad with the circumstances of their job, which is to work closely with the same people day in and out, people who have accompanied him into the abyss, and to do so without becoming too emotionally attached. He's angry because the lives of countless have been bumped off thanks to one man who has little to no regard for anyone beyond himself; his son and Lauren Reynolds being the exceptions. But most of all, Aaron is upset that his team, his family, had been endangered. What kind of unit chief can't protect his own team?

On his knees, Aaron lays the bouquet in front of the tombstone, and starts to speak.

He talks about how they all miss her, especially Reid, Morgan and Garcia. Aaron admits that the bullpen looks like a puzzle with a vital piece missing and that when they think no one is watching each team member looks to her desk, unable to forget that she isn't there. Knees sunk into the lush green grass of the graveyard, the unit chief shares that more than once he had to bite his tongue to stop from teaming her up with someone to interview the parents of a victim or to go straight to the crime scene. It should probably bother him that he's having these slip-ups but for one glorious second they make him feel like things are normal and that Emily's still with them.

Aaron refuses to feel guilty for missing her.

When he runs out of words, Hotch sits. He sits cross-legged at the foot of her grave and stares straight forward, reading and rereading the words on the tombstone as if they might magically change. After Aaron's father passed away his widowed wife would visit him weekly and then as she began to move on in her life only monthly. More often than not Aaron and Sean would accompany their mother but even though they were physically near the dark haired dark eyed man had never felt more distant from his relatives than when they stepped foot in that graveyard.

They all had a different way of mourning: Aaron would stand stoically, lost in thought, whilst Sean would say whatever came to his mind, and all the while their mother would simply squeeze their shoulders and hold back tears. Hotch recalls how once Sean was finished sharing his thoughts he would travel the graveyard with his thumbs tucked into his jean pockets, not knowing what else to do. Today, however, Hotch feels like it would be a waste to leave just because he can't think of anything else to say. And so Aaron waits, not exactly certain for what, but he does so anyway and doesn't regret a single second.

It's only early April so there's still a nip in the wind and Hotch is glad he decided on wearing his fleece zip-up. A bitter cold shiver rushes down the unit chief's spine causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up rigidly. There's no one else in the yard with him, not this early, but Hotch feels another presence. When he looks around, not know what to expect, but is ultimately met with nothing. And then the scent picks up, something familiar, and Aaron is suddenly lax. It may simply be a figment of his imagination but Aaron chooses to believe that for one moment he wasn't alone.

When he leaves later that morning, flowers left to rest over his friend's grave, Hotch is unsure whether he's more upset or pleased with the woman that he had come to remember as he feels that same presence surround him. It's dangerous for her to be doing this, the unit chief in Hotch realizes, but the argument isn't strong enough to combat that dizzying scent. With one hand, Aaron digs his keychain out of his pocket, unlocks his SUV remotely, and slides into the driver's seat. The first thing Hotch notices is a white long-stemmed flower lying across the dashboard. Key in the ignition, Aaron pauses for a moment, taking in the scent.

The joy of meeting pays the pangs of absence; else who could bear it?

~ Nicholas Rowe