a second chance - Hotchniss

First conversation [Emily]

Aaron and I walked down the hall to Alaska's room hand in hand. On our way, we met Dr. Adams.

"Good morning", he nodded, reading through some papers on his way.

"How is she?", my husband directly asked.

"Worse than yesterday", the doctor replied. "She's having a hard time today, questioning everything and fighting against herself. She's in a very 'talky' mood, but she wants other's to tell her something she can listen to, not talking herself. And she asked one of the nurses if Jonas had stopped by the past days."

Since Alaska had told everyone that she didn't want to see Jonas anymore, he hadn't been at the hospital at all. I guess he was hurt like hell as well, but if we told him that she asked for him, he would directly come to see her.

"She misses him", Aaron said. "Is that good?"

"Well, it could be that she realized that her disorder pushed him away and now the real Alaska wants to fix this. If it's really like this, she soon will discover more things which her illness ruined and this could be an important step to make her recover.", he explained.

"What about this trigger?", I asked as we arrived in front of the door.

"It's still important to find it. If we don't, the chance of a relapse in the future is very high.", Dr. Adams replied and walked to another room.

"Hey Honey", I smiled as we entered our daughter's room.

"Hey", she casually replied as Aaron placed a kiss on her hair and I pulled her into a light hug.

"How's it going?", he calmly asked and sat down next to her bed.

"I wanna get out of here", she hissed. "At least out of this bed. I wanna move, I wanna be able to move like I'm human!"

"You soon will be able to move around in the hospital", I answered. "But at the moment, your body is too weak for that."

"Yea, right", she sighed. Then, she looked down on her hands and whispered: "I miss Jonas." Her eyes widened in surprise, as if she couldn't believe that she had just said that out loud.

"I bet he misses you, too", Aaron said.

"He hates me", she spitted.

"Why should he?"

"Because I pushed him away", Alaska mumbled. "and you don't push away the people you love."

"You didn't push him away", I directly said. "It was your disorder, you know that."

"As if there is any difference", she whispered to herself, probably thinking that we wouldn't hear it.

Both, Aaron and I did not know what to say and looked at each other, whining for help. The room fell silent, until Alaska spoke up: "Can we switch the topic and talk about you two? I didn't get any detailed update so far, concerning.. well, concerning everything."

"She's in a very 'talky' mood, but she wants other's to tell her something she can listen to, not talking herself", I remembered Dr. Adams words.

Again, I looked over to Aaron who gave me a small nod, so I turned back to Alaska and started to explain: "Well, I guess you could already tell, but... we gave us another try. We talked a lot and solved many problems and conflicts, finding solutions."

A tiny bit of joy sprinkled in her eyes as she asked: "After all this time? After all this, you finally managed to talk it out? This shit has been going on for months!"

"I know", I whispered. "And it was my fault. I wasn't able to tell your father about my current feelings, and I'm sorry that you had to go through this as well."

"Don't get me wrong, I am more than happy that you finally fixed this, but why did it even happen? It has always been obvious that you two only love each other and no matter how much you tried, it would have been impossible for you to go separated ways!", she sighed.

I didn't know what to say, so I turned my head to look at Aaron, who just in that moment said: "Sometimes things need to get broken in order to be put back together again. Sometimes you have to face the pieces and put them back together in a different succession."

I kept staring at him, all my love for him shooting through my body. God, it was insane how much I loved him. His words seemed to get to Alaska, she remained silent and looked at her hands. It was obvious that she was thinking about Jonas again.

"You okay?", I then whispered and she directly looked up.

"Yea", she nodded. "It's just... No, forget about it. I don't want to think about it anymore."

Aaron and I both raised our eyebrows, so she took a deep breath and said: "I just keep replaying the first time Jonas and I met in my head. I cannot get this moment off my mind and I don't know why. Are first meetings this important? I mean - as if you two remember your first meeting!"

I let out a chuckle. I so did remember it.

"You do?", Alaska asked in surprise.

"Of course", I smiled. "Your father hated me."

"That's not true!", Aaron directly exclaimed.

"You didn't even want me in your unit, admit it", I grinned.

"No, I just hadn't been informed about your transfer and after that, I thought your parents pulled some strings to get you to the BAU. You could have been a spy or something. Remember how Strauss tried to blackmail you?", he asked.

"How could I forget that?", I sighed. "But I quit instead."

"And that was the moment I realized that you were special."

"But you have to admit that you couldn't stand me before", I grinned. "I still remember how I walked into your office with this box, and how you politely shook my hand because you thought I was there for some other reason. You turned pretty unfriendly after I told you that I would work with you."

"I was unfriendly, I was just... confused?", Aaron smiled.

"Of course", I laughed sarcastically and turned my head back to my daughter. "See, even we can remember our first meeting and conversation. Do you want to tell us how you met Jonas?"

"The love of a family is life's greatest blessing." - Unknown