"Little do you know" - Hotchniss

little do you know

The music was playing, people were dancing happily. The whole crowd of people was filled with joy, no matter if it was someone of Hotch's family, Emily's family or their friends.

Aaron and Emily found themselves standing some meters away from the dance floor, watching their guests, while he had his wrapped around her and she drew circles on the back of his hand.

Nearly two years had passed and that day, they had finally managed to get married. It had all been quite hard to organize, but thanks to the support of their team, they had had the most beautiful day in their lives.

Both of them had tried to hold back their laughter while they were standing in front of the priest, which was so typical for them. It had been the excitement, the happiness and especially the love making them behave that way in that moment. Nevertheless, especially Emily had teared up in the end. Aaron had already felt the tears of joy in his eyes when he had seen her walking down the aisle in that beautiful white dress, but he would never openly admit that.

It had all taken place at Rossi's mansion, like they had wanted it.

"How are you feeling?", he whispered in her ear.

She turned her head to look up to him, smiling. "I am so happy." And she meant it, every single word of it. After all this time, their long way of getting together and the huge fight for Sadie's and Avery's lives, they had finally received a feeling of settling down, like heaven and earth had finally aligned.

"Me too", he smiled. "Me too." And the next thing he felt was her small hand in his neck, yanking his lips down to hers. He smiled into the kiss, loving the way she had always to pull him down since she was so much shorter than he was.

"So, Mrs. Hotchner", he grinned, holding out his hand. "Do I have a chance for another dance with my wife?"

"Of course you do", she chuckled, taking his hand. "But don't forget how much I suck at dancing, so no more free-style moves like you did earlier!"

They both laughed as they headed back to the dance floor. On their way, they discovered Jack, talking to some little girl in his age, while Kaia was 'dancing' with Reid. JJ and Morgan were taking care of Sadie and Avery while Garcia was holding Daren, their youngest son, who had been born some months before the wedding. Emily still sometimes felt the pain of the scar on her belly, since she had gotten a Caesarean due to the previous scar of the twins' birth.

"We should really stop having kids", Emily chuckled and nodded into the direction of their team, all happily occupied with children. "We're running out of baby-sitters."

"I guess Rossi is still free", Aaron grinned as they slowly started dancing.

"Is that a threat?", she grinned. "We don't even have a room left!" She was right, they had already changed his office to Daren's room, and a household with five children in the age from some months to nearly 11 years was already a huge mess sometimes.

He shrugged. "We can take care of that."

"You're insane", she chuckled.

"That's all your fault", he grinned.

"Well then, I'm certainly not sorry", she whispered and leaned up to kiss him. He closed the small gab between their lips and kissed her passionately, pulling her closer by her waist. She brought her hands to his neck, lightly tugging on the hair on the base of his skull.

"Aaron?", she smiled as they continued to dance.

"Yes?"

"When was the moment you realized you loved me?", she whispered as they continued to dance slowly.

"Oh, that's easy", he smiled down at her. "I always felt some kind of affection towards you, but the first time I really realized that I loved you was when we got drunk for the first time at my place."

"You still remember that night?", she chuckled.

"Of course I do, you threw up on my bed!", he laughed.

"I was actually hoping that you'd forget about this part", she sighed but smiled.

"What about you?", he asked her back.

"Well, to be clear, when we met for the first time, I thought you were an ass. You were so annoying and serious, I swear", she grinned. "But the first time I understood that I really loved you was the time you showed up at my place for the first time after I had a really bad date."

"I brought you ice-cream", he smiled, remembering that night.

"Tons of it, yea. And you gave me your sweater.", she nodded. "From that day on I could not stop comparing other guys to you."

His smile grew even wider, since he perfectly understood how she had felt. It had been the same for him.

"I guess we should call ourselves lucky that we made it then", he chuckled and she nodded, kissing him again.

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

It would be a lie to say that they had the perfect life afterwards, but they were pretty close to it. Of course they were always some discussions and fights, problems with the kids, tough cases or something else, but in the end, everything always worked out again.
Both of them would have never dared to believe that they would end up like this one day, but there they were, happier than ever.

So if you ever have feelings towards someone, no matter if you are already close or not, tell them. It won't always work out, but life is short and in the end, nobody should waste as much time as Emily and Aaron did to get together, right?

Note from the author:

Hello to everyone! I can't believe that this story is now over. I am thankful for all the votes and the comments for this story! Every single one of you made me truly happy and I appreciate that you always took your time to read all the chapters!

I was actually quite unsure about this story at first, and I am really glad that so many of you liked it so much! I hope the end didn't disappoint you. To be honest, I had actually planned to not give them a happy end, but they really deserved it, didn't they?

My next story is going to be a "spin-off" to this one, but it will deal with the story of JJ and Reid which was already partly mentioned in some chapters. I'd be really happy if some of you would take a look at it, if you want to.

Once again, thank you all so, so much! All this means so much to me!

See you in the next story :)