Scotch // Aaron Hotchner

Chapter twenty

"Yes, I meant it."

He opens his mouth to say something but is interrupted by his phone ringing. He gives me a look that says this isn't over yet and he goes to answer his phone. He walks into the kitchen as an attempt to stop me from overhearing the phone call but it doesn't work. 

"Hotchner"

"Yes she's at my house"

"No Garcia, nothing happened she was just wasted."

"No, I drove her to my house so she wouldn't drive drunk."

"She's fine now."

"No she doesn't have her car."

I'm pretty sure that they're talking about me and it made me feel weird for sitting her in Aaron's dining room. I tune back into the conversation.

"He can come pick her up here."

"Listen Garcia, I'll just bring her back to Quantico and she can use her own car. Okay?"

I hear him hang up the phone and start walking back into the dining room. I try to act like I wasn't just snooping in his conversation but it doesn't work.

"I know you were listening, I'm taking you back to Quantico so you can go home to your fiance, who by the way is worried sick about you."

I sigh, "I don't want to go see him."

"I don't think you have a choice Natalie." We both sit in silence for a minute before he looks back at me, 'What are you going to do?"

"Well I don't have too many options do I?"

He laughs a little. "We still need to talk but we can do that later."

"We both know once I leave this house we're going to go back to ignoring each other. Let's just do it now."

"You have some where to be and-"

I cut him off, "That can wait."

He sighs and then sits back down, "You really were that in love with me?"

I feel tears coming to my eyes. "I was."

He stutters a little bit, "I-, I had no idea."

"Yea." I really want to cry now but I prevent myself from doing it. He looks at me with a sad look in his eyes. "But it doesn't matter now, right? I mean, I have Ben and you have Beth." I like to act like it wasn't true but I knew that I would leave Ben in a instant for Aaron. It's silent for a while until Aaron finally speaks, "But Beth's not you."

"Aaron-" I start but he interrupts me. 

"She's not Natalie. She's great but she's just not you."

I'm crying now. There was no use in holding it back anymore. I was hurt, "Why are you just saying this now?"

He get's up from his seat and walks over to me. "I didn't know you felt the same way."

I was hurt by that. "Well it doesn't matter anymore does it?"

He looks upsets, "I guess not." It's silent for a few seconds, "Get your stuff together so we can leave."

I walk up to his bedroom and grab my go bag. I decide to stop in the bathroom before I leave and I realize that it's obvious that I was crying. I tried splashing water on my face to see if it would help but it didn't. I walked back downstairs to see him waiting by the door for me. We didn't say anything to each other, he just opened the door and I followed him out. We didn't speak the entire drive to Quantico. He pulled into the parking garage driving extremely slowly up to my car. He parks next to my car and I start to get out when he stops me.