a second chance - Hotchniss

Over her [Aaron]

"Wait, you slept with her?!", Rossi blurted out.

"Do you want to shout it a bit louder for the people in the back?", I hissed.

We sat in my office, he had actually just stopped by to drop off some files but since he was what comes closest to a best friend for me, he had recognized that something was different today. I had told him what had happened between Emily and me the previous night and whatever he had expected, he hadn't expected this.

"Were you at least drunk?", he asked and I shook my head no.

"Oh dude, this is messed up", he sighed.

I did not respond anything, but then I decided to tell him how I really felt: "You know, I don't know whether I regret it or not. On the one hand, I miss her so much and when we are alone, I always ask myself if we should try again. It's like neither of us know how to handle it, we're both too scared. And on the other hand we had so much trouble the past year, we fought so much and with this divorce, everything had finally settled a bit. But this spark between us will probably never die, I mean - she is without any doubts the love of my life..."

"Do you still love her?", Rossi simply asked.

"Yes", I answered without hesitation.

"Then go for her", he nodded. "She clearly loves you too, I know that both of you are going to a lot at the moment, especially with Alaska, but you two need each other. Especially now."

"Should I tell her? Just like that?", I asked him nervously.

"You'll know when the right moment is", he smiled and got up. "But now I have some work to do."

"Me too", I sighed as he walked towards the door. "Hey Dave?" "Yea?"

"Thank you", I smiled and he just nodded before leaving my office.

I drifted off and thought about Emily. She had acted so weird this morning. What if she regretted what happened, what if she still wanted to sign the divorce? Suddenly only thinking about this divorce felt so wrong. I asked myself how I could have ever been this stupid, to only think or suggest to get divorce from the women I loved?

A sudden knock on the door pulled me back into reality and I looked up, before announcing: "Yea, come in?"

My eyes widened as Emily stepped into my office, heavily packed with files. "JJ said you need those", she mumbled, not knowing where she should put all of them.

I had no idea what JJ had told her, but I immediately got up and took the files from her before placing them on one of the sideboards. "Um, thanks", I said.

Awkward silence filled the room and as she was about to turn around to leave my office, I asked: "Are you okay?"

She just nodded before quickly walking through the door. 'God, could this have been more awkward?!', I asked myself. 'Why didn't I say something else?'

"Seriously?", suddenly JJ stood in my office, closing the door behind her. "Seriously?! I sent her right to you, packed with so many unnecessary files and you just ask her if she is okay?!"

"Oh, so our relationship is a public issue now?", I asked her.

"It wouldn't be if both of you would just get your asses up and fix it!", she snapped. "But even if you get the chance to do something, you mess up! Is it really that hard?!"

"Did she tell you what happened?", I raised my eyebrows.

"She is my best friend, she didn't even have to, I already knew when she walked into the office having this 'sex-hair' this morning! Anyways, what is wrong with you guys?! I have never ever seen two people making it themselves s difficult and-"

"JJ, please stop, okay? I appreciate all your efforts in trying to help us, but we have to figure that out on your own. Is that clear? This is a thing between my wife and me.", I interrupted her harshly.

She stared at me, showing me how mad she was. "Okay", she then sighed. "but don't forget that she soon won't be your wife anymore if you don't clear things up soon." And with these words she left my office.

I stood there, going through all three conversations I have had in the past 15 minutes. JJ was right, if I wanted to save my marriage, I should definitely do something. But it was not that easy. Emily and I were broken, and nobody of us knew how it fix it. Maybe I should just tell her. Tell her how I felt about everything. I could not do worse than I already had done.

With these thoughts I headed out of my office towards her desk. As soon as they saw me coming, JJ, Reid and Luke quickly got up and left, leaving a confused Emily. When she saw me walking in her direction, she looked down on her computer again and tried to ignore me.

"Emily, can we talk?", I straightly asked her as I stood in front of her.

"I don't think that this is a good idea", she answered, without raising her head to look at me.

"Why?", I asked her.

She finally looked up to me: "Things got out of hand last night, okay? We should not have slept with each other, especially not now where Alaska is having such a bad time. Look at us right now. We can barely talk to each other with feeling awkward since last night. We had built up such a good friendship until last night and I don't want to ruin this with possible-", she did not continue and looked away.

"And what about the kiss?"

"I don't know", she whispered. "I know nothing at the moment, okay? Can we just leave this topic away?"

"Okay.", I answered.

"So we're good?", she asked carefully.

"Sure", I forced myself to say.

"Good...", she whispered, not looking happy at all.

"Yea..", I nodded, realizing that this had changed nothing at all, since she was still as tensed as she used to be before, and me as well. This was not what I wanted, and neither did she, but nobody said anything.

Suddenly my mobile phone rang.

"Hotchner?", I answered it.

"Mr. Hotchner, this is Principal Declan. I have to inform you that Alaska fainted some minutes ago and is now being checked by our school doctor-"

"We are on our way", I interrupted him and hung up the phone. Emily was already looking at me like she knew what has happened, but was still hoping that she was wrong.

But sadly, she wasn't.