a second chance - Hotchniss

Memories [Aaron]

I opened the door to my flat and let my keys drop on the sideboard next to it. God, how I hated this place. It was so empty and silent. I missed my family. Even though Alaska came here at least every second day I felt like I was missing out a lot of her life. And now she was relapsing. It killed me that I had not been there for her when she needed me, that I had not been the father she would have needed. Maybe Emily was right. Maybe our divorce had made her relapsing. I would have never told Emily that I thought this way, since she was blaming herself enough already. Plus, this divorce was not all her fault. I guess it was mine, mainly. I had given up on us way too quick.

It all had started with small arguments, back then. Emily had gotten mad at me because I had been overprotective again. I knew that she was able to take care of herself, I knew that she was strong but my feelings and my love for her were as well. When it came to the people I loved, I tended to become way too overprotective. My wife was aware of that, but she was also as stubborn as I was. And then we collided and reached a point where we both said that it would be the best to 'take a break'. After some weeks we both could not take it anymore and both of us started to think about a divorce. A divorce that neither of us actually wanted since we still loved each other, but maybe we loved each other too much.

That was when I had moved out, about a month ago. I would never forget Alaska's face when she had seen me leaving the house with my bag that night.

"Where are you going, Dad?", she had asked me in confusion.

"I'm moving out", I had whispered.

"For how long?", her eyes had widened and she had started to panic.

"I don't know", I had answered.

And then Emily had appeared in the doorframe, not saying a thing. We had talked about me moving out before, but she still looked like she had been hit by a truck.

"I know that you do not get along very well at the moment", Alaska had said. "But are you just gonna give up, just like this?"

Emily had remained silent, so I had said: "I'm sorry."

Alaska had changed ever since. At the moment it seemed like she was behaving more like an adult than we did when it came to the divorce. I thought she was okay with the situation now, but I had been so blind. It was my fault.

I headed over to the living room and sat down on the couch. I looked at my phone in order to see if Emily had called me, but I she had not. I kept looking at my lock screen. It showed Emily and Alaska at JJ's birthday party last year. Both of them were laughing, I guess they hadn't even been aware that the photo had been taken, which made it so natural and honest. A smile formed on my lips as I looked at the photo. I wished both of them could still laugh like this nowadays.

Random memories suddenly flashed through my head. I remembered my proposal to Emily 13 years ago. It had been the evening of Alaska's third birthday and we were cleaning up in the kitchen. I actually had planned to propose to her in front of everyone, but planning this kid's party had her so stressed out that I had decided to wait for another moment.

"God, this day was exhausting", she moaned as she put the last plates in the dishwasher.

"At least she's happy", I smiled and pointed at our daughter, who slept curled up on the couch, smiling happily in her sleep.

"She's all worth it, right?", my girlfriend smiled as she followed my look.

"She is", I smiled as well and put my arms around her from behind. She leaned back against me and sighed. "I love you."

"I love you, too", I said and placed a kiss on her head. She turned around in my arms, so my hands rested on her hips then and put her arms around my neck.  I looked into her eyes and asked myself if I should just ask her now. I knew that she actually wouldn't have liked a proposal in front of many people, but I at least thought about doing it in front of the BAU team.

"What?", she grinned.

"Nothing", I smiled and leaned in to kiss her. And as our lips met I knew that now was the right moment.

"Marry me", I whispered.

"Wait - wha-", she looked at me, shocked.

"Make me the luckiest man on this planet, and marry me", I smiled. "I love you, more than anything else in this world, you gave me the most amazing daughter and you amaze me every day. I should have already asked this some time ago, because ever since I met you, I knew that I want to spent the rest of my life by your side because I cannot live without you anymore." My hand reached into my pocket and I knelt down in front of her as I opened the little black box, presenting the ring to her. "So, I'm asking you, Emily Prentiss, will you marry me?"

Her eyes widened as the saw the ring and she was way too surprised to form a proper answer, so she just nodded and stuttered: "Yes - hell, yes!"

I felt my body relaxing as I slipped the ring on her finger and pulled her into a tight kiss.

"I love you", I repeated.

"And I love you", she smiled as she kissed me again.

I jumped as my phone rang. It took me some seconds to come back to reality until I looked down on my phone. Emily.

"Hey, are you okay?", I directly asked her.

"I failed", she sobbed at the other end of the line.

"What?"

"I wanted to talk to her but she blocked and went up to her room, and I did not ask her any further, which I definitely should have done - she looked through me way too quick and said that she is not relapsing - and now, now she knows that we suspect her to relapse so she is not going to open up to anyone of us - it's all my fault, I should've-"

"Emily, stop!", I interrupted her. "You did nothing wrong, okay? We had to expect something like this, Alaska is very clever. We have to do in another way, and if the only solution is carrying her her to the clinic against her will, then we have to. Let's give her another chance tomorrow. Okay?"

"Okay", she whispered. I knew she wanted to say a lot more, but she was way too tired to argue.

"Do you want me to come over?", I asked.

"You don't have to, it's okay", she sniffled.

"No, I will come", I said and reached for my jacket.

It was around 1:00 am when Emily opened the door of our house. Her eyes were red from crying, the dark circles surrounding had gone even darker and her dark hair was a mess.

"Shh, it's okay", I whispered and pulled her into a hug. As she cried into my chest I thought about how close we suddenly were again, but I knew that neither one of us wanted to talk about the kiss now.

"Is she already asleep?", I asked her quietly.

"She headed back to Jonas and wanted to stay there over night", she whispered. "I know I shouldn't have let her but she was so mad at me and-"

"Hey, I would have let her go, too", I smiled as I closed the door behind me.

We sat down on the couch with something to drink, not talking much. Emily tried to hold back her tears, until at some point she was not able to do it anymore and they basically flooded her face.

I put my arms around her again until she started to calm down, but even then I did not let her go and she did not seem to want to pull out of my arms. As I looked down on her, I realized that she had fallen asleep on my chest. I decided to stay like this until she would wake up, since this was perhaps the first time she could really sleep for once.

Soon, I fell asleep as well.