10 things I love about you - Hotchniss

the bullpen

The next day, Emily arrived at work way too early. Even though she had a light headache, she had told herself to get up and work up the last cases the BAU had been working on. She was determined to show that she was a useful addition to the team, to prove herself to the team, Hotch and even herself - even if that meant overcompensating in the first few weeks or months.

The bullpen was completely empty and quiet, nobody was there yet. After pouring a coffee into one of the cups, Emily sat down at her desk and opened the first file.

An hour later, she was about to open third file as someone suddenly spoke up: "What are you doing there?"

"God, you scared the shit to of me", the brunette cursed and glared at Hotch, who was standing at railing in front of his office. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough to see you doing unnecessary work", he replied.

"Why unnecessary?"

"We don't need your help or opinion on old cases", Aaron just scoffed. "It would be more convenient to concentrate on new cases."

"Well, JJ is not here yet, so no new cases", Emily spat.

"Then why are you here yet?", the Unit Chief asked.

Crossing her arms in front of her chest, Emily leaned back in her chair and furrowed her eyebrows as she continued to glare at him. All of the sudden, she felt weak and embarrassed. She must seem really desperate in Aaron's eyes, she thought. Just yesterday night she had sympathized a bit with him, but now, she was forced back to reality.

"Well, why are you here yet?", she then shot back.

Hotch clenched his jaw as he stared down at her. God, how furious she drove him - just like all these years ago. She knew how to provoke him, and she did it without any mercy.

"I was actually waiting for you to show up", he replied calmly.

"How did you know that I would come here earlier than the others?"

"I'm a good profiler."

"Don't flutter yourself", Emily mumbled to herself.

"Excuse me?", Hotch asked.

"Nothing", the brunette sighed and unfolded her arms again. "So, why were you waiting for me?"

"I had an interesting thought", he said. "About your transfer. It seemed really curious to me that you just showed up here, as a new agent for my team, without my knowledge. The only who seemingly knew about your transfer were you and Strauss. Weird, isn't it?"

"Why would this be weird? She's your supervisor, after all."

"And she's not really a friend of mine, however, she has always informed me about new agents - apart from this time.", Hotch continued.

"What is your point?", Emily sighed, tired of this whole transfer thing. She had thought that this topic had been off the table, especially since he had (unwillingly) approved of her transfer yesterday.

"I'm going to ask this question only once, but I really need you to answer honestly", Aaron said sternly. "Why are you really here, Emily?"

She froze at the sound of her first name coming from his mouth. Clever card of him to play.

"Because I worked my ass off and was transferred here", she hissed.

"So it's not because Strauss offered you this position in exchange for some insider information on my team?", the Unit Chief asked.

Anger boiled in Emily veins as she realized that he really thought of her as a traitor. Angrily, she jumped up with such force, that her chair was pushed away behind her.

"No, it's not, Sir", she replied, stressing the 'Sir' even more than she had intended to. "And you, out of all people, should know how much I hate politics, Aaron. I can't believe that I used to think of you as the only person who really knew me."

And with that, she rushed off. Aaron just stood there, stunned at the situation and at how she had thrown his first name back at him. Letting out a sigh, he turned around to walked into his office again. He hated himself for being so distrusting all the time, especially towards women, and he hated himself for taking his bad mood out on her.

The truth was that he had arrived at the BAU even earlier than Emily, after he had spent the night sleepless next to an angry Haley. At one point he hadn't been able to take it anymore and had just left to work, his safe place.

Or at least, it used to be his safe place, until Emily had shown up. Usually, this was the place where he could forget about all his personal problems and just go after his passion. But ever since Emily had arrived, his personal problems seemed to catch up with him and old feelings and thoughts made his usual shield unstable.

Of course he knew that Emily Prentiss was the last person to spy on something for people like Erin Strauss, but he just couldn't help his behavior towards her. Sometimes, he was glad that they had met again, other times - however - he felt threatened by her presence and the possible chance of his reviving feelings for her. And even though he would never show it, he wasn't able to properly cope with this mixture.

His mind wandered back to the moment where he had really insulted her when they had been younger, and how she had punched him and broken his nose. Young Emily would probably have punched now, too, after excusing her of being an intruder. And he would've deserved that, without doubt.