Title: Gotta Have You
By: dancerindisguise
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Rating: PG-13
AN: It has been forever since I got up the will to write something! Hopefully this isn't too confusing, but if it is: tell me! I'd love to know what you think about this story, because I'm not too sure myself. And just so you know, one of the little segments is in Emily's POV instead of Hotch's, but the rest are pure Hotch. Just keep that in mind, or you might get confused. You probably would, really. This story is unbeta-ed, so all mistakes are, were, and will continue to be for all eternity, mine.
Disclaimer: Criminal Minds is the property of CBS and whoever else it belongs to. Gotta Have You by the Weepies belongs to them, too. Which leaves me. Alone. –sigh–
Summary: "Hotch? Trust me." Emily has a Hotch issue. Songfic to "Gotta Have You" by The Weepies. Emily/Hotch angst.

***

Gray, quiet and tired and mean
Picking at a worried seam
I try to make you mad at me over the phone.

"Look, Hotch, we've been over this a million times already. I'm going to go, and you cannot stop me." You can hear the anger in her voice, almost see the way her eyes are blazing. You frown. The pen in your hand, of its own volition, tucks itself back into your jacket pocket. This is bad. You clutch at the phone.

"Emily—"

"No, Hotch. Don't 'Emily' me. This is the last word: I'm going on that raid and you will not stop me because you've tried to do this too many times, and I've let you do this to me too many times. This is it." You feel your breath catching in your throat—not her too. Please, not her too. You swallow, the lump in your throat stinging as you wait for her to continue.

It sounds like dead air and dead love.

"Emily?" your voice is soft. Whisper-like. She's gone, you fear, gone forever. This was all your fault. If only you'd been less protective, if only you had thought to let her do her job… You'll never get her back; she'll quit the Bureau and move to the State Department, or maybe she'll just leave and never come back… or maybe she'll fly to some faraway land and—

Life: she sighs. You sigh.

"I know you've been left before. I know what Haley did to you was horrible, and I know that I was there for you through that, but Hotch, that doesn't give you the right to pull me from the raid that I ordered. Okay? I know you're doing it because you care, and I know that you care so much that you're doing this against your better knowledge, but you have to stop. Trust me. So I'm going on that raid—you're not—and when I get back we're going to talk. Okay?"

Your eyes slip shut as you nod, even though you know she can't see you.

"Okay, Emily. We'll talk."

"Good. And Hotch?"

"Yes, Emily?"

"Trust me."

Silence.

Red eyes and fire and signs
I'm taken by a nursery rhyme
I want to make a ray of sunshine and never leave home

Without knowing it a solitary tear seeps from behind your eyelids and slowly traverses down, down, down.

"Daddy?"

Shit. You rub your eyes, turn, move, breathe. Hope to God that you don't look as disgustingly obvious as you think you do. "Yeah, Jack?"

He grins at you—that smile that she said was just like yours—and you hope vehemently that he's fooled. You doubt it, though: your son is one perceptive five year-old. But he knows better than to address it head-on, now, after all the experience. He's dressed in his green Shrek pyjamas, clutching at Quimby, his stuffed bear. "Can you wead me a stowy, pwease?" He thrusts a book at you from behind the bear and jumps onto the bed.

"Sure, Jack."

You smile, he smiles. He burrows deep into the blankets, grinning and laughing as he manages to hide within the folds of the covers.

Then he's out of them and staring intently at you, watching you attempt to breathe steadily.

"I'm gunna stay hewe tonight," he tells you, patting the spot next to him.

Maybe it'll be okay.

Maybe.

No amount of coffee, no amount of crying
No amount of whiskey, no amount of wine
No,no, no, no, no, nothing else will do
I've gotta have you, I've gotta have you.

The next morning you wake up with a stale feeling under your tongue and absolutely no feeling in your right arm. You look over, and Jack's dark hair greets you.

Oh.

You wonder if you have to move. You wonder what time it is—no work today because it's a Saturday, but there's always paperwork to do, and besides you want something to eat. You wonder what she's doing now. A quick glance at the bedside clock confirms your worst fears: it's ten-thirty.

Oh.

She said she'd be home by twelve at the latest, barring some freak accident or meeting with Strauss. You hope, for her sake, that it's the latter, but it's not exactly any more pleasant a way to die.

Shit.

The road gets cold, there's no spring in the middle this year
I'm the new chicken clucking open hearts and ears
Oh, such a prima donna, sorry for myself
But green, it is also summer
And I won't be warm till I'm lying in your arms

You spend the rest of the day on edge, rushing Jack off back to Haley's for… something (it momentarily—a moment being the span between the time she left and the time she is going to come back, if ever—slips your mind), and you find yourself hiding in your office back at home, waiting.

The paperwork before you, some absurd excuse for sitting in the last place you ever saw her before the Fight, doesn't even shift. (You already know everything about the Palmer case and the ones beneath that one haven't been there for very long any way.)

You sit.

And you hope.

And you cry.

No amount of coffee, no amount of crying
No amount of whiskey, no amount of wine
No,no, no, no, no, nothing else will do
I've gotta have you, I've gotta have you.

Evening arrives in a brilliant display: hues of gold and rust and happiness trembling across the span of worlds. There's nothing but silence in your office as you sit, waiting. Wishing. Hoping.

You can't appreciate the beauty of the sunset—and it is a breathtaking one, with the Capitol Building so faintly silhouetted far in the background—without her. She would have stopped working, if she was here, and dragged her chair over the hardwood floor all the way to the window and sat there until the sky darkened.

She would have done a lot of things.

But where is she now?

You wait.

As the sun sets, the last vestiges of hope fade from the strange peripheral view of your life. You wonder where she is, where she's gone—you're her emergency contact, you remember, (it's just dawned on you, roughly eleven hours and forty-two minutes later than you hoped it would have) so if anything had happened there would be a call.

You wonder if it's a good thing that the call hasn't come.

I see it all through a telescope:
Guitar, suitcase, and a warm coat
Lying in the back of the blue boat,
Humming a tune

You wake up to the sound of creaking floorboards and rustling cloth. Burglar? is your first thought, much to your chagrin. You wish sometimes for a Normal Person life—the kind where going out for lunch doesn't carry a debate about whether to bring your piece—but that's too far beyond your comprehension now.

The door squeaks open. You gravitate towards your bedside table, where your piece is locked.

Lights. Blinding, shooting lights.

"Don't shoot!"

Oh.

Familiarity in your frail, foggy mind. It's her.

Thank God.

No amount of coffee, no amount of crying
No amount of whiskey, no wine
No, no, no, no, no, nothing else will do
I've gotta have you, I've gotta have

The first thing you think when you step foot into the house: oh shit, Hotch is going to kill me

Second thought: Oh shit—he actually might.

You subconsciously take a step back, breathe one little calming breath in. Run your fingers through your hair and start ascending the stairs. You know he's going to be up when you open the door, so you mentally prepare yourself, listing down everything you think might just come up in the conversation. Please don't kill me? I'm sorry? We still have to talk?

You wonder if you should just tell him straight out.

But "Hotch, I'm pregnant" is at least slightly startling in the middle of the night when you've been gone the entire day. (It dawns on you that he was probably worried sick and you feel an internal 'shit' rising in your throat.) What to say?

"Oh hey, Hotch, I was raiding a drug dealer's den and I got shot so I spent the rest of the day in the hospital but I didn't want to call you because you'd know that I'm pregnant and I wanted to tell you myself"?

You frown. The door creaks open.

"Don't shoot!"

No amount of coffee, no amount of crying
No amount of whiskey, no amount of wine
No, no, no, no, no, nothing else will do
I've gotta have you, I've gotta have you

She dumps her bag on the floor and makes her way over to the bed. She looks apprehensive and afraid. She's hiding something from you, but after the events of today you don't really want to know. You want for her to just lie here and sleep.

At least she came back.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, her voice cracking slightly. "We still have to talk…but I'm sorry." She looks like she's going to cry.

You sit up, gingerly wrapping your arm around her shoulder. She winces, and you know something's wrong. "What is it, Emily?"

"Nothing. It's—it's nothing."

Maybe tomorrow.

She leans into you, her eyes drooping closed. Her breathing fumbles over itself—ragged, jumpy. You can tell she's crying silently into your chest. Her arms hang loosely by her sides, and slowly wrap around you.

Slowly, slowly, her shallow breathing spreads out, slows down. You continue rubbing circles on her back, until you fall asleep too.

I've gotta have you, gotta have you
I've gotta have you