PROMISES, emily prentiss

CHAPTER ONE

August 23rd
present day
the BAU
7:45 A.M.

Unit Chief Aaron Hotchner sat at his desk as he tiredly, meticulously filled out paperwork, he's done so so frequently that sometimes he finds himself not even reading the words, he can at this point just predict what they say. If anyone were to look at him right now they would easily be able to tell that he didn't get nearly enough sleep the previous night, which would be the truth. Aaron was up into the early hours this morning doing paperwork and getting aggravated voicemails from Haley, he couldn't really bring himself to go home and face her wrath. He looked up at the clock he kept on the wall in front of him and noted to himself that it was a quarter til 8.

He hadn't had the chance to go home yet, he was too busy filling out paper after paper, of course every hour he stayed at the BAU instead of going home to Haley and his son, he received a rather aggressive text or voicemail from his wife telling him this behavior wasn't acceptable anymore. His phone started to vibrate and he groaned to himself thinking it was going to be yet another annoyed phone call coming from his wife. But to his surprise when he picked it up and read the name "Strauss", this caused him to groan again, this was somehow much worse than his angry wife, before putting the phone up to his ear and he spoke "Hotchner."

"Agent Hotchner, it's Erin, you need to come by my office as soon as you can, we have some things we need to discuss," she said.

"What things Erin? Are you trying to cut the BAUs budget again? Because we really can not handle another hit," he asked while rolling his eyes and glancing up at his clock again to see it was still around 7:45, which he thought was way too early for a meeting with Erin Strauss.

"Quite the opposite actually, I've decided to add a new agent to your unit. Agent Aurora King, she's very talented and will make a very great addition to your team, she'll be arriving sometime in the next few hours," she spoke nonchalantly. These words caused Hotch to scoff and roll his eyes, he couldn't believe she hired a new agent behind his back, without even running it by him, again. The only thing he probably hated more than the vicious serial killers he devoted his life to catching, was new agents who came in and ruined the natural flow of everything his team had worked for.

He had already suffered through the same thing with Emily. Luckily, Emily was someone very sufficient at her job and has quickly become someone Agent Hotchner has come to admire. But, he can't see someone else being able to earn a spot on the team at this point.

"New agent? I never agreed to any new agents. So please tell Agent King that i'm not interested in her assistance and she should find someone that actually wants her," he replied coldly. Deep down the man knew that it wasn't up to him, but as long as he could give Erin Strauss some sort of headache for causing this grievance. That was enough for him.

"It's not your decision Aaron, she's coming whether you like it or not, and she will be here today. So get over to my office so we can discuss it further," Erin said very quickly before hanging up and not giving him the chance to dispute.

He looked up at his clock that now read 7:50. He made a mental note that he would run over to Strauss' office at 8:00. Until then he would take a deep breath and refocus on his paperwork.

~

August 23rd
present day
Auroras apartment
8:00 am

Aurora physically groaned as her alarm screeched in her ears and she reached over to turn it off without really moving from her spot in bed. She sat up very slowly before rubbing at her eyes aggressively with her knuckles, smudging some of her makeup from last night around her face. She grabbed her phone off the nightstand beside her at the same time as she turned on the lamp that sat on her bedside table and saw that she had received a text.