Ghosts • Aaron Hotchner

Chapter Seven

"So what's it been like since I left?" Fallon asked Emily as they sit on Fallon's couch. The two had been catching up for the past two hours after the case, and both of them were holding their third glass of wine in their hands.

"Different. Sean said that it was a lot quieter without you around, and I agreed with him," Emily told her and Fallon laughed lightly. 

"It was definitely an adjustment when I moved here. Going from living with you for years, and then living by myself was strange," Fallon told her, and Emily laughed as she nodded her head.

"Yeah I had to learn to cook for myself because I didn't have you there to do it," Emily told her, which made Fallon laugh just as hard. 

"You were never good at cooking," Fallon commented, as she remembered the days when the two lived together and Emily would try and cook. She always ended up almost burning the apartment down so eventually both of them just decided that Fallon would be the one to cook.

They spent the rest of the night talking and catching up on the years that they had missed, and they learned that neither of them had really changed too much. Fallon told her about Michael, but she told Emily his fake cause of death. Emily of course went into comfort mode, but Fallon assured her that she was okay since she had had a few months to cope with the loss.

***

A few months later and everything in the BAU has changed. Gideon disappeared without so much as a word to any of the team but Spencer, which really pissed Fallon off because she considered him to be like a second father. Garcia also became a full time member of the team, which is always fun. It was also an inevitable thing, that both Morgan and Fallon had been waiting for for awhile. 

They were all gathered around Spencer's desk as he read the letter for probably the thousandth time that morning.

"Gideon left everything except the photographs," Garcia said from the walkway above them.

"He always said those were like his family," Spencer told her. Fallon could tell that Spencer was a bit bitter about Gideon's disappearance as well, but at least he had received a letter.

"What should we do with all of this?" Garcia asked, as she walked off with a box of his stuff in her hands, probably knowing that none of them had an answer for her.

"Guys, we have a case," JJ said and they all nodded, making their way into the conference room as JJ grabbed Hotch.

"It's still weird to not have him sitting with us," Fallon whispered to Emily and Emily nodded in agreement. It was pretty warm so Fallon took off her blazer and rested it on the back of her chair which left her in a simple short sleeved light blue shirt, and her black dress pants.

"Okay, we have four victims in Oregon, two male, two female," JJ started.

"I got this," Hotch said, interrupting her and confusing the rest of the team.

"Uh, sure," JJ commented.

"I know that we've all been wondering what this was all about, and uh, you know I've known Jason for many years, and I can tell you I have no idea. But it doesn't even matter. What matters is we're here, and we're gonna continue," he told us. They all nodded in silence and then Hotch continued with the briefing. "Portland field office uncovered a mass grave with three bodies, killed six months ago. Nearby they found another body. Causes of death range from burning alive to asphyxiation, and there was no sexual assault."