Criminal Minds, Prentiss/Rossi Gift Exchange
Title: Christmas Dreams Become Memories
Author: mingsmommy
Recipient: ilovetvalot
Rating: PG13
Characters/Pairing: Rossi/Prentiss
Spoilers for 100
Her prompts were: A Baby for Christmas/Dave proposes to Emily for Christmas/Smut/Wake-up sex on Christmas morning…I used one & hinted at another two. You have to read to find out which. I’m big on not spoiling surprises.
Author's Note: Beta provided by smacky30 whose beta services and friendship are some of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten at Christmas or any other time. Also, shout out to the uber amazing losingntrnslatn for kicking my ass into gear repeatedly. I am blessed. Also, many thanks to microgirl8225 for organizing the gift exchange and the other mods at 1hour2write for agreeing to host the exchange.
Every night for weeks after Haley Hotchner’s death, Rossi finds himself waking in the middle of the night just to check that Emily is breathing. Whatever it is that wakes him has his heart pounding, but he holds his breath until he can hear or feel hers. He reaches out to touch her and she invariably turns toward him, mostly asleep, but humming an inquiry which he can’t answer. Instead, he pulls her against him, tucking her head under his chin, tangling his legs with hers. She sighs in her sleep and he just sighs, kissing the top of her head, staring out into the darkness until sleep takes him again.
She never asks him about it in the morning, just gives him a coffee flavored kiss when he joins her in the kitchen. He doesn’t know if she doesn’t remember or if she does and doesn’t know what to say. Or maybe she understands. It doesn’t matter; the time holding her warm, soft body against his is gift enough to get him through the Hell the days have become.
There are worse things than death, he knows. And if he didn’t know it before, then watching Hotch, fractured, damaged, struggling to go on, well, that would be enough to educate him. The only thing keeping Aaron Hotchner breathing under the weight of grief and guilt is his son. He’s living for Jack, but that doesn’t make living any easier.
Rossi struggles, they all do, with trying to be there for Aaron, but he knows only time will help the grief. He’s not sure there’s anything that will stop the guilt. Secretly, he feels some guilt of his own every morning with Emily. It almost doesn’t seem fair to have this, to have this pocket of peace, this quiet love, running steadily through his life when his friend is suffering so much. But he’s no Jason Gideon; he’s not giving up what he has to fight demons that belong to other people. The joy that blossoms in the middle of his chest when she smiles at him, just for him, is enough of a reminder he is alive and life is good.
***
Waking one Saturday in mid-December he grumbles to himself when he finds Emily is already up and gone from the bed. It’s cold out beyond the nest of the covers and he would have liked nothing more than to spend a lazy day in bed sharing the warmth with his bedmate.
Bedmate
He thinks about the word mate and what it has meant to him before and what it means to him now. The word, three times in his life, has meant simply spouse, wife, significant other. But, now, with Emily, he thinks he finally understands why the word mate is used…a match, each half of a pair, a counterpart.
Ruminating on words and their true meaning is not really his style, though. For all that he’s written six books, he has always been more a man of action than words. Grudgingly, he leaves the cocoon of covers and goes to find where his mate has gotten to.
Emily, dressed in sweat pants and a long sleeve black t-shirt with a light dusting of flour on it, is standing in the middle of his kitchen, with three eggs in one hand and a yellow silicone spatula in the other, frowning down at an open cookbook. There are several bowls on the counter and both the sugar and flour canisters are out with their lids removed. There are what appear to be small islands of both and maybe some brown sugar as well on the countertop near the canisters. Feeling his eyebrows climb, he immediately catches himself and relaxes his facial muscles. He’s been trying to get her to feel more comfortable, act more “at home” here, so he doesn’t need to give her any attitude about her abuse of his marble countertops. Besides, it all cleans up. “Hey, Betty Crocker. What are you up to?”
She looks up, eyes narrowed, and daintily shows him the tip of her pink tongue and he smiles as he slips his arms around her waist. “I,” she begins haughtily, moving her arm out of the way, keeping the eggs intact, “am making cookies.”
Rossi pecks her lips. “Oh, you are?” Then goes in for a deeper kiss. Her mouth tastes sweet and slick, and he knows she has been sampling her cookie dough, though it appears all she’s assembled so far is the butter and sugars. He delves into her mouth pulling out all the sweetness of white sugar, brown sugar and Emily that he can. He’s loath to break the contact, but if he keeps going he’s going to have just as much flour on him as she does on her. “Cookies or not, you are rather delicious, Agent Prentiss.”
She rolls her eyes at him, as she often does. They are surprisingly playful with each other. He’s never had that before; it’s one of many things he’s never had before. “What would it take,” he pulls her in tighter, flour be damned, “to get you to abandon your cookie making and come back to bed with me?” He nuzzles her neck, enjoying the way she squirms against him when his goatee prickles the sensitive skin. “A trip to the cookie aisle at Giant?” His lips slide up the column of her throat and he deliberately lowers the register of his voice as his breath brushes her ear. “A visit to that fancy bakery you love in Georgetown?” He nips at her earlobe and feels her shiver. Prentiss has incredibly sensitive ears, both literally and figuratively; she’s just as likely to get turned on by a few suggestive comments as she is by his tongue tracing the ridges and valleys of her ear. “Paula Deen in my kitchen? Because at this point I’m willing to see if she makes house calls if it’ll get you back upstairs with me.”
Emily disengages just enough to place the spatula and the eggs on the countertop before sliding back into his arms and pressing against him, kissing his throat. “I’ll go back to bed with you no matter what, but I do want something.”
He’s breathing her in, the delicate scent of freesia and warm Emily, and he’s noticed how her t-shirt covers the notch at the base of her throat and he needs to move the shirt out of the way to kiss her there. He bends his head and tries to move the material with his lips, but all he manages is a kiss half on skin, half on the shirt. He raises his head. “Anything you want.”
Her eyebrows shoot up in a dubious look, so she obviously doesn’t understand just how thoroughly she has him wrapped around her elegant little finger. “Right.”
Slipping his hands under the soft cotton to touch the warm muscles of her back, he reminds himself that it’s December and he really shouldn’t divest her of her clothes in the middle of the kitchen, no matter how much he wants to. He can wait until they get upstairs. And that means he really needs to get her upstairs. “Name it, Prentiss.”
“I want you to have a Christmas party.” She’s smiling winningly at him, but there’s a look of uncertainty in her eyes.
“A Christmas party?” A Christmas party? his brain repeats. Of all the things she could have said, that was close to the bottom of the list, somewhere between “Buy me a potbellied pig” and “Let’s have a threesome with Strauss.” He hasn’t really done anything for Christmas since wife number two and he’s pretty sure she took all of the decorations with her when she left. And Prentiss wants him to have a Christmas party?
“Yes, a Christmas party. On Christmas Eve.” She hurries on, evidently trying to rush to get her words in before his brain closes completely. “My place is too small. And I’ll do all the work, I promise. I’ll only need your help getting the tree.”
This is new. They’d been together last year at the holidays and though she’d had a modest tree tucked in a corner of her brownstone, she hadn’t expressed any particular fondness for the holiday and all of the accompanying festivities. Although they attended Christmas Eve mass together. They had been new then and he still recalls the way it felt to slip his fingers through hers and rest their joined palms against his thigh as the voices had risen around them in liturgy and song.
“You want me to have a Christmas party?” He knows his expression is beyond puzzled, probably drifting into what the fuck? territory. “That’s a little more energetic than I had planned.” Tilting his head, he smiles at her. “I thought we’d have a quiet Christmas Eve. Find out which mass Jimmy is saying, go flaunt our non-celibacy in front of him, you know?” He rocks her in his arms a little. “He asks about you every time I talk to him. He’d love to know you could get me back to church.”
Emily opens her mouth to speak, then stops herself. She gives him a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, absently patting his shoulder. “Okay.” Leaning forward, she gives him a small kiss. “That’ll be good.”
David Rossi is one of the world’s best profilers but he’s never been an expert at reading the women in his life. But he’s also not an idiot. Well, most of the time. There’s something about this that Emily had her heart set on and he needs to find out what it is. “Emily?”
“No. Really. That’ll be good.” She’s nodding, but he’s still not buying it.
“Hey,” he says, drawing back a little, eyebrow crooked, face serious. “I thought we had a no lying policy in this relationship.”
For the second time that morning, he gets the eye roll. “I’m not lying.” She shrugs a little, not meeting his eyes. “I’m not. That does sound good.”
He gives her the look, knowing if he doesn’t say anything, she’ll eventually give it up. So, he waits, just looking at her.
She’s squirming now, but not speaking.
Still, he waits.
Finally, she huffs out a breath. “It’s Jack, okay?”
“Jack? Jack Hotchner?” He’s tracing his fingers up her spine, his hand snug between her warm skin and the t-shirt. For all that this appears to be turning into a serious discussion, he can’t help but be distracted by the fact he doesn’t feel a bra strap. “What about Jack?”
Biting her lip, Emily dips her head for a moment, then looks at him. Her expression is so sincere, almost child like, he feels something shift inside his chest. “Em?”
“Hotch…” she shakes her head, swallows and starts over. “I know he’s trying. I know he’s trying for all he’s worth, but Jack was in the office the other day and I told Hotch I’d keep an eye on him while he went to see Strauss.”
She’s holding onto his shoulders and Dave can tell from her grip she’s more agitated than she’s letting on. “I asked him if he was excited about Christmas and he started telling me about the tree they had at Hotch’s place, that it was small and didn’t have many lights. He can’t tell how close it is to Christmas because,” she sucks in a breath that might have been a tiny sob, “he always knew it was Christmas before because of all of the smells when his mom made cookies. He doesn’t know if it can be Christmas because Christmas is supposed to be happy and his dad is so sad all the time.”
There’s a slight pause before she starts again. “And I just thought,” she shrugs, it’s supposed to be a careless gesture Rossi knows, but it conveys so much need, so much earnest compassion. “I know it’s dumb and it’s never going to be the same, but if we had a party, just the team and Kevin and Will and Henry, maybe we could…maybe he could have some good memories of this Christmas, even with the sad ones. He’s so young,” she swallows again, “what if his memories of Christmas with Haley fade? If we reinforce what he does remember and make it good, maybe he won’t forget.”
He’s silent for a moment, taking it all in. Not just what she’s saying, but how intense she is about it. It’s hard, this life they live, the work they do. They get so accustomed to horror layered over horror, that he gets concerned sometimes they might stop feeling anything. But then something like this happens, something so close to home, something to one of them and he wonders how he could ever be afraid of that; if anything, they feel too much. Everything is sharper, stronger, more real; razor blades to the soul and acid to the psyche.
Here’s the deal: he can’t fix Hotch, he’s not sure he can even help him for all that he tries. He’s even farther removed from Jack. But this woman, this woman standing here in his arms, his woman, who never had much of a mother, wants to give a happy Christmas memory to a child who has just lost his…well, there’s only one answer to that. “Sure.” He nods. “Sure. We can do that.”
Emily throws her arms around his neck, making an undignified noise, that, were it any other woman, he would call squealing. “Thank you.” Then she’s kissing him again, and he just pulls her in, pulls her in tight and kisses her back.
Sometimes it’s more than he thinks he can stand, loving and being loved by Emily Prentiss. She’s like air and water and sunlight to him. He feeds on her touch, drinks in her kisses, bathes in the light of her. Both of his hands are under her t-shirt now, his fingers stroking across the skin of her back, warm, vibrant and alive. He loves the play of muscle beneath his fingertips and he loves the way she moans into his mouth when he deepens the kiss. They fit together, everything rubbing just right, skin and clothes, taste and touch.
When he breaks away from her lips to kiss his way down her neck, she gasps. “Didn’t you say something about going back to bed?”
“Mmm,” he hums against her, still trying to find a way to move the t-shirt to kiss the notch at the base of her throat without doing anything so difficult as removing his hands from her skin. “Don’t we have a tree to get? A party to plan?” If she agrees, he might just die.
Throwing her head back to allow him better access to her throat, her voice comes out rough with desire. “An hour,” she makes an indescribable noise and breaks away from him long enough to pull the t-shirt over her head, “or two,” she’s standing there, bare breasted, chest rising and falling with her increased breathing and she is magnificent, “won’t make much of a difference.” The last ends on a gasp as he bends his head to take an already erect nipple into his mouth. She moans again, then growls. “Take me back to bed, Rossi.”
David Rossi is fully capable of being a son-of-a-bitch and he’s been known to be an idiot on occasion, but he has never, not once in fifty-four years, been accused of being stupid. He takes her back to bed.
***
The next twelve days seem to pass in a delirium of spasmodic chaos as Dave watches Emily, who he had previously thought to be relatively sane, turn into some sort of demented Christmas elf. The tree they drag home is at least twice as tall as the one she had at her place the year before. He’s expecting her to decorate it tastefully with white lights and bows made of silver ribbon, but she uses strand after strand of multi colored lights. They have settings for “on” and “flash” and he has to beg her just to keep them in the “on” position since the flashing was making him dizzy. She buys box after box of colorful ornaments, from glass globes to toy soldiers and the tree becomes a riot of light, color and shape. But it’s when he sees the half dozen dinosaur pieces and a few super hero ornaments along with a couple of firetrucks hanging from the tree’s branches that he gets it.
She’s profiled Jack.
Not that profiling a four year old is difficult, but she’s made sure the tree is every magical, wonderful thing the little boy could imagine. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not much, not when compared to the loss of a mother, but just the idea behind it leaves him with a bittersweet ache in the middle of his chest. And he can’t say if the ache was for Jack or Emily.
However, he draws the line when he sees her eyeing the thirty foot extension ladder in his garage. Telling her she can buy all the lights she wants, but she’s not setting foot on the first rung of that ladder. Dave calls his lawn service. They have a winter business hanging lights and decorating houses for the holidays. Most people already have their decorations in place, so the service isn’t busy and they’re at his house the next day. He ends up tipping them rather generously just for the aggravation factor of having to deal with a hyperactive Emily, hopped up on fudge, directing them as they attach lights and hang wreaths.
His kitchen has become a war zone, only instead of blood and ammunition; it’s covered with flour and cookie sheets. The house smells amazing though…vanilla, ginger, cinnamon, and chocolate all tinge the air. He remembers his first wife complaining that men just did not understand the effort women put into Christmas but he’s willing to believe her now. Prentiss has thrown herself into this with a fervor that would frighten lesser men, and despite thoughts of Jack, Rossi’s patience is wearing thin. When Emily starts talking about all the food she’s going to make for the party in addition to her weird cookie obsession, he snaps.
“You’re going to be dead before Christmas Eve if you keep this up, Prentiss. We’ll hire a caterer.” He knows he sounds angry, but he’s really starting to worry about her and the memory of Haley’s lifeless body is still too fresh in his mind for him to take any type of worry lightly even one that only involves cookies and exhaustion. She’s pushing herself so hard, he’s not sure he’s ever seen her this tired yet wired at the same time. There are packages and bows and lights and cookies everywhere, and Emily is responsible for all of it.
The tone of his voice must have conveyed how serious he is, because she looks at him, wide eyed and slowly, she nods. Then she comes over and climbs onto his lap, kissing him over and over, whispering “I’m sorry”s and “thank you”s between kisses. “I know I’m acting insane. I just want it to be perfect for him.”
“I know you do.” He rests his forehead against hers. “But, you making yourself crazy, maybe even making yourself sick? Em, you’ve got to stop.”
Emily, face contrite, nods. “I know. I’m sorry.” Wrapping her arms around him, she presses her mouth to his.
They spend an hour trading kisses in the chair and another making love in bed and he has a feeling they both feel a bit better.
Of course it’s too late to find a caterer, but they manage to snag a few dishes from their favorite restaurants here and there. Emily is much calmer after his outburst and she suggests they go shopping for the rest. He’s dubious about the process, but she gives him a challenging eyebrow and he shrugs. Aside from the traffic, which is even more horrendous than usual, it actually turns out to be fun. They take a trip to Costco and Giant, and he pretends he’s not staring at her ass when she bends down to get things off of shelves and she pretends not to see him. They buy a ridiculous amount of food, more than the team could eat in a week, but he’s never seen a ham with that kind of glaze before and she promises he can eat what’s left of the cheesecake using her body as the plate, so, it’s really a no brainer.
He contemplates hiding the entire cheesecake, just to keep it for his own pleasurable agenda, but in the end it joins the other ton of food on his dining room table Christmas Eve night when the team begins arriving. JJ and Will are first with a wide eyed Henry, bouncing and full of baby babbles. “Wow,” Will’s Louisiana drawl manages to turn the three letter word into two syllables. He hitches the baby a little higher in his arms. “Henry, I think Santa’s workshop might have relocated to northern Virginia.”
“Oh, Dave,” JJ breathes, turning in a slow circle, staring at the overloaded table and brightly glimmering tree, “it’s amazing.”
He doesn’t know quite what to say; he hadn’t thought about this, not being able to give Emily credit for all the effort she’s put into this. It doesn’t even take a second to decide he doesn’t care any more whether the team figures out they’re together or not. “All of this was Emily’s doing.” JJ’s eyebrows rise and he shrugs. “I just provided the address.”
The media liaison eyes him speculatively, lips twitching and Rossi scowls at her. JJ laughs outright, then kisses her son’s cheek, taking him from his dad’s arms. “Come on, Henry. Let’s go look at the tree. It looks like a little boy’s dream.”
Emily emerges from the kitchen, slightly flushed from the heat of the stove and the last minute flurry of activity. Beaming, she takes Henry from his mother, blushing when JJ says, “Rossi says you’re responsible for Christmas central. It’s beautiful, Em.” The blonde adds quietly, “Jack will love it.”
The blush goes beautifully with the red sweater she’s wearing. It may be the only thing on earth that is softer than her skin. He’s going to have a hell of a time not touching her all night long. But when these people are out of his house, he’s going to spend the next three days in bed with her, touching her as much as he can.
And eating cheesecake.
He’s brought out of his lascivious reverie by the arrival of Garcia and Kevin, followed closely by Morgan, then Reid. Thirty minutes later, when Emily is in the kitchen with Garcia and JJ, Hotch and Jack arrive. For all that he’s wearing a casual sweater instead of his usual suit and tie, Hotch’s expression is his usual stoic, but it’s not hard to see the pain and sadness underneath. Jack is a little shy at first, hanging behind his father’s legs through the greetings, until he catches sight of the tree. Rossi watches the little boy and sees the moment everything registers, sees his eyes go wide, hears his gasp, watches his mouth move into a silent O.
Dave crouches down to Jack’s eye level. “You like the tree, Jack?” He smiles at the youngster’s stunned expression. “Emily decorated it especially with you in mind.”
Jack, eyes even wider, looks up at his father, then back at the tree, then back up to Hotch. There’s a soft smile on Aaron’s face as he nods. “It’s okay. You can go look.” And he actually laughs when his son shoots from behind his legs and stands, so excited he’s nearly vibrating, in front of the tree. He gasps again and reaches out for something, but Hotch’s voice, firm but quiet, admonishes, “Don’t touch, Jack.”
“Actually,” Emily comes back through the door, smiling brightly at Jack, “I’m not going against what your dad is saying, Jack. But everything from here,” she indicates a height that roughly corresponds to the top of Jack Hotchner’s head, “down is meant to be touched or even taken off and played with.” She glances back at Hotch. “If your dad says it’s okay.”
Rossi watches Aaron do the mental math, sees the moment when he realizes the tree in Dave’s living room was decorated by Emily Prentiss for his son’s enjoyment. His look to Emily is one of profound gratitude but then he gives Rossi a look that clearly states You and I will be going over the fraternization rules again on Monday.
Dave just smiles.
Hotch looks at his son and nods. “If Miss Emily says it’s all right, then it’s okay. Just be careful.”
It’s less than twenty minutes later when Jack’s Spiderman ornament is battling Reid’s Iron Man ornament, while Garcia’s firetruck ornament runs interference around them and Kevin is complaining there’s no Superman ornament. Penelope tosses him a Tyrannosaurus Rex that looks a little less fierce than it should due to it’s Santa hat, “Here. The original super hero.”
Rossi shakes his head at the epic battle going on beneath his Christmas tree, then laughs when Henry crawls into the middle of the fray, momentarily disrupting the battle by gnawing on one of the dinosaur’s feet. His parents don’t bother stopping him as they are currently occupied under the mistletoe in the entry hall and have given his care over to Garcia who is actually encouraging him. Dave turns to say something to Prentiss about the chaos only to see Morgan with not one, but two, pieces of cheesecake; his eyes narrow. Emily sees his expression and he can tell from her trembling lips and shaking shoulders that she’s fighting a giggle fit. Hotch looks from one to the other, rolls his eyes and shakes his head; he’s obviously figured out the fraternization talk he had planned for Monday is too late.
Way too late, Dave thinks, grinning widely.
It’s after midnight when Morgan leaves to head towards the airport to catch the red eye home to Chicago and JJ and Will take Henry home in preparation for Santa’s first visit. Rossi and Hotch talk quietly while Jack, passed out from the aftermath of a sugar and adrenaline rush, sleeps by the tree and everyone else helps Emily put up the remaining food. Garcia and Reid say they’re playing refrigerator Tetris getting all the leftovers in there. He’s thinking most of it is going to one of the homeless shelters tomorrow.
“Thank you for this, Dave.” Aaron nods toward the tree and Jack. He’s more relaxed than Dave’s seen him in over a year. “I knew he’d always remember this Christmas, but I was thinking they wouldn’t be good memories. Now, I think they will.”
Rossi holds up both of his hands in a negating gesture. “I didn’t do anything but provide the space. All the rest of it is Emily.”
Hotch chews on the inside of his lip for a moment. “Be careful there, Dave.”
His eyebrows go up. “What do you mean?”
Looking uncomfortable, Hotch huffs out a breath. “Just that, be careful. Don’t…don’t hurt her.”
Rossi almost laughs. Nobody, including Emily, seems to get that he is in way deep, and he is much more at risk of being hurt than she is. But Hotch wouldn’t appreciate it if he did laugh, so he just nods. “Don’t plan on it. The plan is all about keeping her happy.”
“There’s a plan?” Hotch’s tone is half amused, half curious.
At that moment, Emily and Reid come in and Emily plops down beside Rossi. Deliberately, he grasps her hand. “Did it all fit?”
He can tell she’s struggling not to react to his display of affection, “Yeah, barely.”
“Did you put the cheesecake where I could find it?”
Her laugh rings out, but when Jack stirs, she claps a hand over her mouth. Hotch doesn’t give her a chance to answer. “Since Santa still has to visit the Hotchner household we should probably go.” He looks at Emily with an expression of intense gratitude. “Thank you, Emily.” He takes a breath. “Actually, thank you seems really inadequate. I know this…” he indicates everything around them “…was a lot of effort. Thank you for that and the thought behind it. It means,” he swallows heavily, then starts again, “it means more than I’ll ever be able to express.”
Rossi thinks the look on Emily’s face is worth the chaos, the money, the time, the trouble, all of it. Her smile is soft and her eyes are shining. “You’re welcome.”
Hotch hoists Jack to his shoulder and prepares to leave which causes a bout of embarrassment when Garcia and Kevin are caught in a rather too enthusiastic for public use of the mistletoe. Penelope looks like she wants the floor to open up and swallow her, but Hotch looks more amused than anything. Garcia is stumbling through apologies and Jack rouses against him, “Did Santa come, Daddy?”
“Not yet, Buddy. We’ve got to get you home to bed so he can come see you.”
Whimpering a little, Jack settles back against his father and Hotch soothes him. Everyone bids Dave and Emily goodnight and Merry Christmas and Reid whispers it was the most fun Christmas party he’s ever been to. He, Garcia and Kevin help Hotch carry Jack’s considerable pile of presents out to his car and they all buckle up and Reid, then Kevin and Garcia drive away as Dave and Emily watch from the storm door. Rossi enjoys standing with his arm around her waist. He sees Hotch shake his head as he adjusts the strap on Jack’s car seat.
“Let’s not do that,” Rossi murmurs.
Emily is waving as Hotch finally pulls away. “Do what?”
“Drag our kids out on Christmas Eve.” He feels her start against him, but goes on as if he hasn’t said anything unusual. “Seems like it’d be easier to keep having everybody here.”
She turns in his arms, eyes huge, mouth open, shock on her face. Her voice, when she finally speaks, is shaking. “Dave?”
Pulling the jeweler’s box from his pocket, he opens it. “It was my mother’s,” he says of the diamond twinkling at her. “If you want something new, we can do that. But,” he looks into her tear filled eyes, and he finds he’s fighting tears himself, “nobody…” he frowns, searching for the right words, “You’re the first woman I’ve wanted to wear these rings, the first woman I wanted to say ‘let’s pass these on to one of our kids’ to.”
Her lips are trembling, he thinks her whole body might be trembling. “Dave, I don’t know what to say.”
He frowns at her. “I’m asking you to marry me, Prentiss. You say ‘yes.’”
Emily, laughing and crying, wraps her arms around his neck. “Yes.” She presses her mouth to his. “Yes, please.”
Letting out a relieved sigh, when he didn’t even know he’d been worried, Dave pulls her close and kisses her for all he’s worth. “Merry Christmas to me.”
He wakes during the night to find her still wrapped in his arms, her bare skin under his hands, her hair tickling his chin. Smiling sleepily, he pulls her tighter against him.
“Mmmm?” she inquires, rubbing her cheek against his chest.
“Nothing,” he murmurs, kissing the top of her head. “Go back to sleep.”
“Love you,” she mumbles, her hand stroking up his side and he feels the ring on her finger.
It’s good, he thinks. She’s alive and so is he and they’re here with a life together in front of them and he’s more blessed than he thinks he deserves and more grateful than he can ever remember being.
“Merry Christmas, Em,” he whispers down at her, but her breath wafting gently across his chest is the only answer and he smiles into the darkness.
Author: mingsmommy
Recipient: ilovetvalot
Rating: PG13
Characters/Pairing: Rossi/Prentiss
Spoilers for 100
Her prompts were: A Baby for Christmas/Dave proposes to Emily for Christmas/Smut/Wake-up sex on Christmas morning…I used one & hinted at another two. You have to read to find out which. I’m big on not spoiling surprises.
Author's Note: Beta provided by smacky30 whose beta services and friendship are some of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten at Christmas or any other time. Also, shout out to the uber amazing losingntrnslatn for kicking my ass into gear repeatedly. I am blessed. Also, many thanks to microgirl8225 for organizing the gift exchange and the other mods at 1hour2write for agreeing to host the exchange.
Every night for weeks after Haley Hotchner’s death, Rossi finds himself waking in the middle of the night just to check that Emily is breathing. Whatever it is that wakes him has his heart pounding, but he holds his breath until he can hear or feel hers. He reaches out to touch her and she invariably turns toward him, mostly asleep, but humming an inquiry which he can’t answer. Instead, he pulls her against him, tucking her head under his chin, tangling his legs with hers. She sighs in her sleep and he just sighs, kissing the top of her head, staring out into the darkness until sleep takes him again.
She never asks him about it in the morning, just gives him a coffee flavored kiss when he joins her in the kitchen. He doesn’t know if she doesn’t remember or if she does and doesn’t know what to say. Or maybe she understands. It doesn’t matter; the time holding her warm, soft body against his is gift enough to get him through the Hell the days have become.
There are worse things than death, he knows. And if he didn’t know it before, then watching Hotch, fractured, damaged, struggling to go on, well, that would be enough to educate him. The only thing keeping Aaron Hotchner breathing under the weight of grief and guilt is his son. He’s living for Jack, but that doesn’t make living any easier.
Rossi struggles, they all do, with trying to be there for Aaron, but he knows only time will help the grief. He’s not sure there’s anything that will stop the guilt. Secretly, he feels some guilt of his own every morning with Emily. It almost doesn’t seem fair to have this, to have this pocket of peace, this quiet love, running steadily through his life when his friend is suffering so much. But he’s no Jason Gideon; he’s not giving up what he has to fight demons that belong to other people. The joy that blossoms in the middle of his chest when she smiles at him, just for him, is enough of a reminder he is alive and life is good.
***
Waking one Saturday in mid-December he grumbles to himself when he finds Emily is already up and gone from the bed. It’s cold out beyond the nest of the covers and he would have liked nothing more than to spend a lazy day in bed sharing the warmth with his bedmate.
Bedmate
He thinks about the word mate and what it has meant to him before and what it means to him now. The word, three times in his life, has meant simply spouse, wife, significant other. But, now, with Emily, he thinks he finally understands why the word mate is used…a match, each half of a pair, a counterpart.
Ruminating on words and their true meaning is not really his style, though. For all that he’s written six books, he has always been more a man of action than words. Grudgingly, he leaves the cocoon of covers and goes to find where his mate has gotten to.
Emily, dressed in sweat pants and a long sleeve black t-shirt with a light dusting of flour on it, is standing in the middle of his kitchen, with three eggs in one hand and a yellow silicone spatula in the other, frowning down at an open cookbook. There are several bowls on the counter and both the sugar and flour canisters are out with their lids removed. There are what appear to be small islands of both and maybe some brown sugar as well on the countertop near the canisters. Feeling his eyebrows climb, he immediately catches himself and relaxes his facial muscles. He’s been trying to get her to feel more comfortable, act more “at home” here, so he doesn’t need to give her any attitude about her abuse of his marble countertops. Besides, it all cleans up. “Hey, Betty Crocker. What are you up to?”
She looks up, eyes narrowed, and daintily shows him the tip of her pink tongue and he smiles as he slips his arms around her waist. “I,” she begins haughtily, moving her arm out of the way, keeping the eggs intact, “am making cookies.”
Rossi pecks her lips. “Oh, you are?” Then goes in for a deeper kiss. Her mouth tastes sweet and slick, and he knows she has been sampling her cookie dough, though it appears all she’s assembled so far is the butter and sugars. He delves into her mouth pulling out all the sweetness of white sugar, brown sugar and Emily that he can. He’s loath to break the contact, but if he keeps going he’s going to have just as much flour on him as she does on her. “Cookies or not, you are rather delicious, Agent Prentiss.”
She rolls her eyes at him, as she often does. They are surprisingly playful with each other. He’s never had that before; it’s one of many things he’s never had before. “What would it take,” he pulls her in tighter, flour be damned, “to get you to abandon your cookie making and come back to bed with me?” He nuzzles her neck, enjoying the way she squirms against him when his goatee prickles the sensitive skin. “A trip to the cookie aisle at Giant?” His lips slide up the column of her throat and he deliberately lowers the register of his voice as his breath brushes her ear. “A visit to that fancy bakery you love in Georgetown?” He nips at her earlobe and feels her shiver. Prentiss has incredibly sensitive ears, both literally and figuratively; she’s just as likely to get turned on by a few suggestive comments as she is by his tongue tracing the ridges and valleys of her ear. “Paula Deen in my kitchen? Because at this point I’m willing to see if she makes house calls if it’ll get you back upstairs with me.”
Emily disengages just enough to place the spatula and the eggs on the countertop before sliding back into his arms and pressing against him, kissing his throat. “I’ll go back to bed with you no matter what, but I do want something.”
He’s breathing her in, the delicate scent of freesia and warm Emily, and he’s noticed how her t-shirt covers the notch at the base of her throat and he needs to move the shirt out of the way to kiss her there. He bends his head and tries to move the material with his lips, but all he manages is a kiss half on skin, half on the shirt. He raises his head. “Anything you want.”
Her eyebrows shoot up in a dubious look, so she obviously doesn’t understand just how thoroughly she has him wrapped around her elegant little finger. “Right.”
Slipping his hands under the soft cotton to touch the warm muscles of her back, he reminds himself that it’s December and he really shouldn’t divest her of her clothes in the middle of the kitchen, no matter how much he wants to. He can wait until they get upstairs. And that means he really needs to get her upstairs. “Name it, Prentiss.”
“I want you to have a Christmas party.” She’s smiling winningly at him, but there’s a look of uncertainty in her eyes.
“A Christmas party?” A Christmas party? his brain repeats. Of all the things she could have said, that was close to the bottom of the list, somewhere between “Buy me a potbellied pig” and “Let’s have a threesome with Strauss.” He hasn’t really done anything for Christmas since wife number two and he’s pretty sure she took all of the decorations with her when she left. And Prentiss wants him to have a Christmas party?
“Yes, a Christmas party. On Christmas Eve.” She hurries on, evidently trying to rush to get her words in before his brain closes completely. “My place is too small. And I’ll do all the work, I promise. I’ll only need your help getting the tree.”
This is new. They’d been together last year at the holidays and though she’d had a modest tree tucked in a corner of her brownstone, she hadn’t expressed any particular fondness for the holiday and all of the accompanying festivities. Although they attended Christmas Eve mass together. They had been new then and he still recalls the way it felt to slip his fingers through hers and rest their joined palms against his thigh as the voices had risen around them in liturgy and song.
“You want me to have a Christmas party?” He knows his expression is beyond puzzled, probably drifting into what the fuck? territory. “That’s a little more energetic than I had planned.” Tilting his head, he smiles at her. “I thought we’d have a quiet Christmas Eve. Find out which mass Jimmy is saying, go flaunt our non-celibacy in front of him, you know?” He rocks her in his arms a little. “He asks about you every time I talk to him. He’d love to know you could get me back to church.”
Emily opens her mouth to speak, then stops herself. She gives him a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, absently patting his shoulder. “Okay.” Leaning forward, she gives him a small kiss. “That’ll be good.”
David Rossi is one of the world’s best profilers but he’s never been an expert at reading the women in his life. But he’s also not an idiot. Well, most of the time. There’s something about this that Emily had her heart set on and he needs to find out what it is. “Emily?”
“No. Really. That’ll be good.” She’s nodding, but he’s still not buying it.
“Hey,” he says, drawing back a little, eyebrow crooked, face serious. “I thought we had a no lying policy in this relationship.”
For the second time that morning, he gets the eye roll. “I’m not lying.” She shrugs a little, not meeting his eyes. “I’m not. That does sound good.”
He gives her the look, knowing if he doesn’t say anything, she’ll eventually give it up. So, he waits, just looking at her.
She’s squirming now, but not speaking.
Still, he waits.
Finally, she huffs out a breath. “It’s Jack, okay?”
“Jack? Jack Hotchner?” He’s tracing his fingers up her spine, his hand snug between her warm skin and the t-shirt. For all that this appears to be turning into a serious discussion, he can’t help but be distracted by the fact he doesn’t feel a bra strap. “What about Jack?”
Biting her lip, Emily dips her head for a moment, then looks at him. Her expression is so sincere, almost child like, he feels something shift inside his chest. “Em?”
“Hotch…” she shakes her head, swallows and starts over. “I know he’s trying. I know he’s trying for all he’s worth, but Jack was in the office the other day and I told Hotch I’d keep an eye on him while he went to see Strauss.”
She’s holding onto his shoulders and Dave can tell from her grip she’s more agitated than she’s letting on. “I asked him if he was excited about Christmas and he started telling me about the tree they had at Hotch’s place, that it was small and didn’t have many lights. He can’t tell how close it is to Christmas because,” she sucks in a breath that might have been a tiny sob, “he always knew it was Christmas before because of all of the smells when his mom made cookies. He doesn’t know if it can be Christmas because Christmas is supposed to be happy and his dad is so sad all the time.”
There’s a slight pause before she starts again. “And I just thought,” she shrugs, it’s supposed to be a careless gesture Rossi knows, but it conveys so much need, so much earnest compassion. “I know it’s dumb and it’s never going to be the same, but if we had a party, just the team and Kevin and Will and Henry, maybe we could…maybe he could have some good memories of this Christmas, even with the sad ones. He’s so young,” she swallows again, “what if his memories of Christmas with Haley fade? If we reinforce what he does remember and make it good, maybe he won’t forget.”
He’s silent for a moment, taking it all in. Not just what she’s saying, but how intense she is about it. It’s hard, this life they live, the work they do. They get so accustomed to horror layered over horror, that he gets concerned sometimes they might stop feeling anything. But then something like this happens, something so close to home, something to one of them and he wonders how he could ever be afraid of that; if anything, they feel too much. Everything is sharper, stronger, more real; razor blades to the soul and acid to the psyche.
Here’s the deal: he can’t fix Hotch, he’s not sure he can even help him for all that he tries. He’s even farther removed from Jack. But this woman, this woman standing here in his arms, his woman, who never had much of a mother, wants to give a happy Christmas memory to a child who has just lost his…well, there’s only one answer to that. “Sure.” He nods. “Sure. We can do that.”
Emily throws her arms around his neck, making an undignified noise, that, were it any other woman, he would call squealing. “Thank you.” Then she’s kissing him again, and he just pulls her in, pulls her in tight and kisses her back.
Sometimes it’s more than he thinks he can stand, loving and being loved by Emily Prentiss. She’s like air and water and sunlight to him. He feeds on her touch, drinks in her kisses, bathes in the light of her. Both of his hands are under her t-shirt now, his fingers stroking across the skin of her back, warm, vibrant and alive. He loves the play of muscle beneath his fingertips and he loves the way she moans into his mouth when he deepens the kiss. They fit together, everything rubbing just right, skin and clothes, taste and touch.
When he breaks away from her lips to kiss his way down her neck, she gasps. “Didn’t you say something about going back to bed?”
“Mmm,” he hums against her, still trying to find a way to move the t-shirt to kiss the notch at the base of her throat without doing anything so difficult as removing his hands from her skin. “Don’t we have a tree to get? A party to plan?” If she agrees, he might just die.
Throwing her head back to allow him better access to her throat, her voice comes out rough with desire. “An hour,” she makes an indescribable noise and breaks away from him long enough to pull the t-shirt over her head, “or two,” she’s standing there, bare breasted, chest rising and falling with her increased breathing and she is magnificent, “won’t make much of a difference.” The last ends on a gasp as he bends his head to take an already erect nipple into his mouth. She moans again, then growls. “Take me back to bed, Rossi.”
David Rossi is fully capable of being a son-of-a-bitch and he’s been known to be an idiot on occasion, but he has never, not once in fifty-four years, been accused of being stupid. He takes her back to bed.
***
The next twelve days seem to pass in a delirium of spasmodic chaos as Dave watches Emily, who he had previously thought to be relatively sane, turn into some sort of demented Christmas elf. The tree they drag home is at least twice as tall as the one she had at her place the year before. He’s expecting her to decorate it tastefully with white lights and bows made of silver ribbon, but she uses strand after strand of multi colored lights. They have settings for “on” and “flash” and he has to beg her just to keep them in the “on” position since the flashing was making him dizzy. She buys box after box of colorful ornaments, from glass globes to toy soldiers and the tree becomes a riot of light, color and shape. But it’s when he sees the half dozen dinosaur pieces and a few super hero ornaments along with a couple of firetrucks hanging from the tree’s branches that he gets it.
She’s profiled Jack.
Not that profiling a four year old is difficult, but she’s made sure the tree is every magical, wonderful thing the little boy could imagine. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not much, not when compared to the loss of a mother, but just the idea behind it leaves him with a bittersweet ache in the middle of his chest. And he can’t say if the ache was for Jack or Emily.
However, he draws the line when he sees her eyeing the thirty foot extension ladder in his garage. Telling her she can buy all the lights she wants, but she’s not setting foot on the first rung of that ladder. Dave calls his lawn service. They have a winter business hanging lights and decorating houses for the holidays. Most people already have their decorations in place, so the service isn’t busy and they’re at his house the next day. He ends up tipping them rather generously just for the aggravation factor of having to deal with a hyperactive Emily, hopped up on fudge, directing them as they attach lights and hang wreaths.
His kitchen has become a war zone, only instead of blood and ammunition; it’s covered with flour and cookie sheets. The house smells amazing though…vanilla, ginger, cinnamon, and chocolate all tinge the air. He remembers his first wife complaining that men just did not understand the effort women put into Christmas but he’s willing to believe her now. Prentiss has thrown herself into this with a fervor that would frighten lesser men, and despite thoughts of Jack, Rossi’s patience is wearing thin. When Emily starts talking about all the food she’s going to make for the party in addition to her weird cookie obsession, he snaps.
“You’re going to be dead before Christmas Eve if you keep this up, Prentiss. We’ll hire a caterer.” He knows he sounds angry, but he’s really starting to worry about her and the memory of Haley’s lifeless body is still too fresh in his mind for him to take any type of worry lightly even one that only involves cookies and exhaustion. She’s pushing herself so hard, he’s not sure he’s ever seen her this tired yet wired at the same time. There are packages and bows and lights and cookies everywhere, and Emily is responsible for all of it.
The tone of his voice must have conveyed how serious he is, because she looks at him, wide eyed and slowly, she nods. Then she comes over and climbs onto his lap, kissing him over and over, whispering “I’m sorry”s and “thank you”s between kisses. “I know I’m acting insane. I just want it to be perfect for him.”
“I know you do.” He rests his forehead against hers. “But, you making yourself crazy, maybe even making yourself sick? Em, you’ve got to stop.”
Emily, face contrite, nods. “I know. I’m sorry.” Wrapping her arms around him, she presses her mouth to his.
They spend an hour trading kisses in the chair and another making love in bed and he has a feeling they both feel a bit better.
Of course it’s too late to find a caterer, but they manage to snag a few dishes from their favorite restaurants here and there. Emily is much calmer after his outburst and she suggests they go shopping for the rest. He’s dubious about the process, but she gives him a challenging eyebrow and he shrugs. Aside from the traffic, which is even more horrendous than usual, it actually turns out to be fun. They take a trip to Costco and Giant, and he pretends he’s not staring at her ass when she bends down to get things off of shelves and she pretends not to see him. They buy a ridiculous amount of food, more than the team could eat in a week, but he’s never seen a ham with that kind of glaze before and she promises he can eat what’s left of the cheesecake using her body as the plate, so, it’s really a no brainer.
He contemplates hiding the entire cheesecake, just to keep it for his own pleasurable agenda, but in the end it joins the other ton of food on his dining room table Christmas Eve night when the team begins arriving. JJ and Will are first with a wide eyed Henry, bouncing and full of baby babbles. “Wow,” Will’s Louisiana drawl manages to turn the three letter word into two syllables. He hitches the baby a little higher in his arms. “Henry, I think Santa’s workshop might have relocated to northern Virginia.”
“Oh, Dave,” JJ breathes, turning in a slow circle, staring at the overloaded table and brightly glimmering tree, “it’s amazing.”
He doesn’t know quite what to say; he hadn’t thought about this, not being able to give Emily credit for all the effort she’s put into this. It doesn’t even take a second to decide he doesn’t care any more whether the team figures out they’re together or not. “All of this was Emily’s doing.” JJ’s eyebrows rise and he shrugs. “I just provided the address.”
The media liaison eyes him speculatively, lips twitching and Rossi scowls at her. JJ laughs outright, then kisses her son’s cheek, taking him from his dad’s arms. “Come on, Henry. Let’s go look at the tree. It looks like a little boy’s dream.”
Emily emerges from the kitchen, slightly flushed from the heat of the stove and the last minute flurry of activity. Beaming, she takes Henry from his mother, blushing when JJ says, “Rossi says you’re responsible for Christmas central. It’s beautiful, Em.” The blonde adds quietly, “Jack will love it.”
The blush goes beautifully with the red sweater she’s wearing. It may be the only thing on earth that is softer than her skin. He’s going to have a hell of a time not touching her all night long. But when these people are out of his house, he’s going to spend the next three days in bed with her, touching her as much as he can.
And eating cheesecake.
He’s brought out of his lascivious reverie by the arrival of Garcia and Kevin, followed closely by Morgan, then Reid. Thirty minutes later, when Emily is in the kitchen with Garcia and JJ, Hotch and Jack arrive. For all that he’s wearing a casual sweater instead of his usual suit and tie, Hotch’s expression is his usual stoic, but it’s not hard to see the pain and sadness underneath. Jack is a little shy at first, hanging behind his father’s legs through the greetings, until he catches sight of the tree. Rossi watches the little boy and sees the moment everything registers, sees his eyes go wide, hears his gasp, watches his mouth move into a silent O.
Dave crouches down to Jack’s eye level. “You like the tree, Jack?” He smiles at the youngster’s stunned expression. “Emily decorated it especially with you in mind.”
Jack, eyes even wider, looks up at his father, then back at the tree, then back up to Hotch. There’s a soft smile on Aaron’s face as he nods. “It’s okay. You can go look.” And he actually laughs when his son shoots from behind his legs and stands, so excited he’s nearly vibrating, in front of the tree. He gasps again and reaches out for something, but Hotch’s voice, firm but quiet, admonishes, “Don’t touch, Jack.”
“Actually,” Emily comes back through the door, smiling brightly at Jack, “I’m not going against what your dad is saying, Jack. But everything from here,” she indicates a height that roughly corresponds to the top of Jack Hotchner’s head, “down is meant to be touched or even taken off and played with.” She glances back at Hotch. “If your dad says it’s okay.”
Rossi watches Aaron do the mental math, sees the moment when he realizes the tree in Dave’s living room was decorated by Emily Prentiss for his son’s enjoyment. His look to Emily is one of profound gratitude but then he gives Rossi a look that clearly states You and I will be going over the fraternization rules again on Monday.
Dave just smiles.
Hotch looks at his son and nods. “If Miss Emily says it’s all right, then it’s okay. Just be careful.”
It’s less than twenty minutes later when Jack’s Spiderman ornament is battling Reid’s Iron Man ornament, while Garcia’s firetruck ornament runs interference around them and Kevin is complaining there’s no Superman ornament. Penelope tosses him a Tyrannosaurus Rex that looks a little less fierce than it should due to it’s Santa hat, “Here. The original super hero.”
Rossi shakes his head at the epic battle going on beneath his Christmas tree, then laughs when Henry crawls into the middle of the fray, momentarily disrupting the battle by gnawing on one of the dinosaur’s feet. His parents don’t bother stopping him as they are currently occupied under the mistletoe in the entry hall and have given his care over to Garcia who is actually encouraging him. Dave turns to say something to Prentiss about the chaos only to see Morgan with not one, but two, pieces of cheesecake; his eyes narrow. Emily sees his expression and he can tell from her trembling lips and shaking shoulders that she’s fighting a giggle fit. Hotch looks from one to the other, rolls his eyes and shakes his head; he’s obviously figured out the fraternization talk he had planned for Monday is too late.
Way too late, Dave thinks, grinning widely.
It’s after midnight when Morgan leaves to head towards the airport to catch the red eye home to Chicago and JJ and Will take Henry home in preparation for Santa’s first visit. Rossi and Hotch talk quietly while Jack, passed out from the aftermath of a sugar and adrenaline rush, sleeps by the tree and everyone else helps Emily put up the remaining food. Garcia and Reid say they’re playing refrigerator Tetris getting all the leftovers in there. He’s thinking most of it is going to one of the homeless shelters tomorrow.
“Thank you for this, Dave.” Aaron nods toward the tree and Jack. He’s more relaxed than Dave’s seen him in over a year. “I knew he’d always remember this Christmas, but I was thinking they wouldn’t be good memories. Now, I think they will.”
Rossi holds up both of his hands in a negating gesture. “I didn’t do anything but provide the space. All the rest of it is Emily.”
Hotch chews on the inside of his lip for a moment. “Be careful there, Dave.”
His eyebrows go up. “What do you mean?”
Looking uncomfortable, Hotch huffs out a breath. “Just that, be careful. Don’t…don’t hurt her.”
Rossi almost laughs. Nobody, including Emily, seems to get that he is in way deep, and he is much more at risk of being hurt than she is. But Hotch wouldn’t appreciate it if he did laugh, so he just nods. “Don’t plan on it. The plan is all about keeping her happy.”
“There’s a plan?” Hotch’s tone is half amused, half curious.
At that moment, Emily and Reid come in and Emily plops down beside Rossi. Deliberately, he grasps her hand. “Did it all fit?”
He can tell she’s struggling not to react to his display of affection, “Yeah, barely.”
“Did you put the cheesecake where I could find it?”
Her laugh rings out, but when Jack stirs, she claps a hand over her mouth. Hotch doesn’t give her a chance to answer. “Since Santa still has to visit the Hotchner household we should probably go.” He looks at Emily with an expression of intense gratitude. “Thank you, Emily.” He takes a breath. “Actually, thank you seems really inadequate. I know this…” he indicates everything around them “…was a lot of effort. Thank you for that and the thought behind it. It means,” he swallows heavily, then starts again, “it means more than I’ll ever be able to express.”
Rossi thinks the look on Emily’s face is worth the chaos, the money, the time, the trouble, all of it. Her smile is soft and her eyes are shining. “You’re welcome.”
Hotch hoists Jack to his shoulder and prepares to leave which causes a bout of embarrassment when Garcia and Kevin are caught in a rather too enthusiastic for public use of the mistletoe. Penelope looks like she wants the floor to open up and swallow her, but Hotch looks more amused than anything. Garcia is stumbling through apologies and Jack rouses against him, “Did Santa come, Daddy?”
“Not yet, Buddy. We’ve got to get you home to bed so he can come see you.”
Whimpering a little, Jack settles back against his father and Hotch soothes him. Everyone bids Dave and Emily goodnight and Merry Christmas and Reid whispers it was the most fun Christmas party he’s ever been to. He, Garcia and Kevin help Hotch carry Jack’s considerable pile of presents out to his car and they all buckle up and Reid, then Kevin and Garcia drive away as Dave and Emily watch from the storm door. Rossi enjoys standing with his arm around her waist. He sees Hotch shake his head as he adjusts the strap on Jack’s car seat.
“Let’s not do that,” Rossi murmurs.
Emily is waving as Hotch finally pulls away. “Do what?”
“Drag our kids out on Christmas Eve.” He feels her start against him, but goes on as if he hasn’t said anything unusual. “Seems like it’d be easier to keep having everybody here.”
She turns in his arms, eyes huge, mouth open, shock on her face. Her voice, when she finally speaks, is shaking. “Dave?”
Pulling the jeweler’s box from his pocket, he opens it. “It was my mother’s,” he says of the diamond twinkling at her. “If you want something new, we can do that. But,” he looks into her tear filled eyes, and he finds he’s fighting tears himself, “nobody…” he frowns, searching for the right words, “You’re the first woman I’ve wanted to wear these rings, the first woman I wanted to say ‘let’s pass these on to one of our kids’ to.”
Her lips are trembling, he thinks her whole body might be trembling. “Dave, I don’t know what to say.”
He frowns at her. “I’m asking you to marry me, Prentiss. You say ‘yes.’”
Emily, laughing and crying, wraps her arms around his neck. “Yes.” She presses her mouth to his. “Yes, please.”
Letting out a relieved sigh, when he didn’t even know he’d been worried, Dave pulls her close and kisses her for all he’s worth. “Merry Christmas to me.”
He wakes during the night to find her still wrapped in his arms, her bare skin under his hands, her hair tickling his chin. Smiling sleepily, he pulls her tighter against him.
“Mmmm?” she inquires, rubbing her cheek against his chest.
“Nothing,” he murmurs, kissing the top of her head. “Go back to sleep.”
“Love you,” she mumbles, her hand stroking up his side and he feels the ring on her finger.
It’s good, he thinks. She’s alive and so is he and they’re here with a life together in front of them and he’s more blessed than he thinks he deserves and more grateful than he can ever remember being.
“Merry Christmas, Em,” he whispers down at her, but her breath wafting gently across his chest is the only answer and he smiles into the darkness.