(2) Ambiguous

Suddenly, a familiar dark voice asks: "Mind if I join you?"

Your eyes wander up the body that the voice belongs to. Seeing Hotchner in casual clothes instead of the grey suit he wore earlier is more exciting that you expected it to be. His black shirt is stretching over his broad chest, and the short sleeves reveal his toned arms.

"Not at all." You answer and gesture at the chair on the other side of the table.

To make more room, you take your tablet and put it in your bag. Then you lift your arm to wave over the waiter. While he's making his way over, you hand Hotchner the menu. He quickly scans it, and when the waiter arrives, he orders the same dish you have.

You add two beers to the order.

After taking another bite of your food, you take a sip of your water and wait for Hotchner to say something. Right now, he has his arms on the table, his hands loosely holding each other.

"You did good today." Hotchner eventually tells you.

It makes you smile. It seems as if he doesn't dare to say something personal, so he says something that matches his work persona instead.

So, you say something to coax his real personality out: "You never stabbed someone before?"

His eyes wrinkle when he chuckles at your question. He shakes his head and informs you: "I have been stabbed but never returned the favor."

Oops. You swallow hard.

Trying to react casual, you ask: "How did that happen?"

Hotchner's food arrives, and he leans back to let the waiter place it in front of him. He clears his voice to answer your question: "Happened like six years ago, during a case."

"Oh." You swallow the food in your mouth. "I remember. I read the file."

"Did you really read all our cases?" Hotchner asks bemused.

"Well, I-" You get interrupted by your phone vibrating. Quickly, you take it out of your pocket and look at the screen. "Excuse me, I have to take this."

You get up and walk over to the seating area to answer the call.

When you turn around, you see Hotchner observing you. However, when he notices you looking, he drops his gaze to his food. After you hung up, you walk back over.

"Who was that?" Hotchner blurts out before he can stop himself. You see his jaw clench as he regrets being so straightforward.

"My boyfriend."

His eyes widen and his face falls. He tries to hide his disappointment but doesn't do a good job.

"I'm kidding. It was one of my student assistants."

"Oh." Hotchner lets out a chuckle while desperately trying not to sound relieved.

- - - - - - - - - -

A little later, when you both finished dinner, Hotchner orders a second round of beers.

"How about you? Do you manage to keep up a relationship in this line of work?" You ask nonchalantly.

He shifts in his seat: "I'm divorced."

"So, no?"

Hotchner shakes his head.

It almost angers you how much that makes your pulse quicken. You should really stop this. It's your first goddamn day, you can't flirt with your new boss. Is he your boss though when you're a liaison?

Be professional.

You empty your beer.

"We should get going." You smile.

"Right." Hotchner looks at his watch for the first time since he sat down.

The waiter brings the check, and you take it before Hotchner gets the chance. Handing the waiter your credit card, you wait till it's processed to tell Hotchner: "I doubt the FBI will pay for beer."

"But I-"He protest while you already get up.

Your bag in hand, you tell him: "You pay next time."

He puts his fist in front of his mouth and pretends to clear his voice to hide his smile.

"Goodnight."

"Professor." Hotchner nods.

You turn around and walk away before he can see your shit-eating grin.

- - - - - - - - - -

As you suspect, the victim was injected with a neurotoxin which was the actual cause of death. It steers the investigation in a new direction. Nevertheless, a new body turns up two days later. This time, you're the one who attends the scene first.

It's at someone's home again. This time, however, the body lays in the backyard. The whole team is driving to the crime scene together.

"Who found her?" You ask.

"The sister." Prentiss tells you.

"Did she touch or move the body?"

"I'll ask." JJ promises.

Gloved up and in an overall, you make your way through the yard. The others check out the house and talk to the sister. Hotchner, however, follows you.

The woman is lying on her back, the grass around her drenched in blood. You walk around her to take several samples of blood: from the grass, the wounds, and several spots on her body. Hotchner offers you an evidence bag and you put them in it.

Then you kneel down next to her, pushing the hair out of her face. You check out her eyes and lean down to smell if she threw up. When you take her hands to take a look at her fingers, you feel that they are moveable. Palpating her neck and jaw, you add: "Rigor Mortis is mostly loosened." Carefully, you push up her shirt to look at her back. You point at the large bruises at her side and on the back of her arms: "She's already in Livor Mortis."

Pushing up her shirt further, you look at the stab wounds in her abdomen.

When you turn to give Hotchner more information, you see how tense his shoulders are. Quickly, you pull down the shirt again and get up. With a soft voice, you ask: "Could you please bring the evidence to the car and tell Reid to come help me?"

Without questioning your order, Hotchner nods and walks away. You sigh and turn your attention back to the body. At least now you know where he has been stabbed.

Notepad in hand, Reid writes down the data you give him to calculate the time of death. He appears exited to do the math for you.

"She died between twelve and fourteen hours ago." He concludes.

You nod and add: "The Livor Mortis as well the blood on the ground match the position of the body. She wasn't moved."

"Did you find the weapon?" You ask when Reid is done taking notes.

On cue, Morgan yells from the back door: "Got the murder weapon."

- - - - - - - - - -

In the afternoon, when you're done with the autopsy, you drive back to the precinct to meet the team. Reid, Rossi, and Hotchner are in the conference room while the others are out. You hand each of them a copy of the summary you wrote of the autopsy.

Of course, Reid is done first and asks: "You state the knife we found matches the wounds, but the blade is shorter than the stich channels."

"If enough force is applied, the body is compressed. When it relaxes again, the wounds appear deeper than the length of the weapon."

He silently nods at your explanation.

"No track mark?" Rossi looks at you.

You shake your head: "I didn't find any indication of the victim being poisoned. I still ran a tox screen, the results will be in tomorrow morning."

Sitting down, you sip of the coffee you brought and wait if they have any other questions. Hotchner looks at you. You hold up the eye contact, allowing your eyes to dart to his lips just once.

He blinks and suggests: "Maybe he was practicing. He poisoned the first victim and then stabbed her. After gaining confidence, he stabbed the second one without poisoning her first."

The others agree, but you question his statement: "What makes you refer to the perpetrator as a man?"

Reid speaks up before Hotchner can and gives you several statistics about violent crimes and murder weapon usage in relation to gender.

"Okay." You nod, writing down the most important information.

"Doesn't the depth of the wounds also suggest a taller, stronger person, which usually points towards a male?" Rossi asks.

Furrowing your eyebrows, you look at him: "There is no relation between the depth of wounds and the strength of a person."

Everyone turns their head to look at you.

You put down your cup: "Do you seriously believe the depth of a wound gives you information about the gender of the perpetrator?"

Reid tells you: "We never base a profile solely based of such information, but it can support it."

Shaking your head, you take your trusty pen again: "Okay, listen up."

Hotchner observes you, looking half-offended, half-amazed.

"That theory is something male medical examiners that got their license two centuries ago like to support – they make up most of the examiners in this country, so I don't blame you – but it simply reinforces gender stereotypes."

"Thank you!" Prentiss suddenly calls from behind you.

You throw her a look and smile at her; her cheeks flush a little when you lock eyes.

"Meaning," once again, you pretend being stabbed, "the hard part is to break the skin. That's the only barrier. After that, you're good to go, regardless of your gender."

Hotchner nods: "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

When Prentiss sits down next to you, she leans over and whispers: "I'll take you out for a drink when we're back just for saying that."

You lean towards her: "I'll take you up on that."

Hotchner notices your exchange and narrows his eyes. However, he doesn't comment on it, he simply moderates the discussion following. They start to fill each other in, and bounce ideas off each other. You listen and quietly keep sipping on your coffee.

- - - - - - - - - -

The team gears up to go arrest the unsub. It's the first time you're with them when that happens, so you ask: "Should I come?"

Hotchner stops what he's doing and tells you: "You can't go in with us."

"I'll wait in the car in case someone is injured, or you find another body."

"Okay." He hands you his FBI jacket.

You furrow your eyebrows.

"You don't have your coat." Hotchner explains without any expression on his face.

You put it on.

It smells like him and it feels like a weirdly intimate gesture, even though he did it so nonchalantly.

Sitting in the back of one of the SUVs, you observe as the team gets ready to breach. You like how they look, especially Hotchner. The concentrated look on his face, the weapon at the ready, his underarms exposed because he took off his suit jacket to strap on the bullet proof vest and rolled up his sleeves. Maybe you like it a little too much.

Even though you're alone in the car, you clear your voice to remind yourself to focus. A moment later, Morgan kicks down the door and everyone starts yelling. You watch them until they all entered the house.

It gets quiet, their voices barely audible now that they are inside. Suddenly, one of them comes running towards the car. Maybe something happened?

You take off your seatbelt and lean forward.

That's when you realize it's not one of your colleagues but the unsub. He doesn't see you sitting in the car because of the tinted windows.

You don't know what to do and in the second you have to make a decision, you grab the handle of the door. Opening it, you lean back to kick it as hard as you can, making it swing open. The unsub smashes against it, the air audibly being pressed out of his lungs. He collapses onto the ground and you get out of the car, your first aid case in one hand.

The man is laying down on his side, letting out groans. His head hit the pavement and he's bleeding.

"Over here!" You yell at the top of your lungs.

Squatting down, you push him onto his back. He looks disorientated.

"I'm Emilia. What's your name?" You ask while opening your case.

"Peter." He breathes out.

"Okay, Peter. You hit your head and I need to take a look at it, alright?"

"Yeah."

You hear Hotchner and Prentiss calling for you, apparently running in your direction.

Carefully, you get disinfectant and a compress, starting to clean laceration on the side of his head. He inhales sharply.

"I know it's unpleasant, but I need to clean the wound."

Peter grabs your arm, and you look him in the eyes.

"Thank you."

"What are you doing?" Hotchner yells when he sees you.

"He's hurt." You answer unfazed by his anger. "Call an ambulance."

Prentiss takes a step back and does as told, but Hotchner comes closer.

"Get off him."

You look up: "No."

He sees that Peter is holding your arm and yells: "Let go off her, now!" His dark voice makes Peter wince, and his eyes widen.

"Stop it!" You raise your voice, just a little.

Hotchner walks around you and grabs your shoulders, starting to drag you away.

"What the fuck!" You get to your feet and forcefully rip your arms out of his grasp.

You're staring each other down. Both of you panting, faces mere inches away from the others.

"The ambulance will be here in five minutes." Prentiss interrupts and you both turn to look at her. Her eyes dart between the two of you before she leans down to pull Peter to his feet and cuff him.

The others join you, Morgan padding your back: "Damn, Byrne. Not bad for a forensic liaison."

It makes Rossi chuckle, but you barely react.

"What did you do?" Reid asks curiously.

You point at the door of the car that has a visible blotch where it met the unsub's face.

- - - - - - - - - -

Needing to calm down, you throw the jacket Hotchner gave you in the back of the car and walk to the other side of the street to take a few deep breaths. You have adrenaline pumping through your veins and shake your arms to relax your body.

"I need to talk to you." Hotchner suddenly appears behind you.

Propping your hands up on your hips, you turn around, still angry that he grabbed you like that.

His face is stern, and he mirrors your posture by propping his hands up as well.

"You cannot get close like that." He chides you.

"What was I supposed to do? Let him run?"

"That's not what I mean."

"He was hurt!" You raise one of your arms to point at the spot the unsub fell.

"He could have been armed! You saw what he did to those women!" Hotchner starts to lose his composure. "This isn't a lecture hall!" He continues.

When you see the look in his eyes, you let your arms hang down. He isn't angry. He is scared.

You nod: "Okay."

"Okay?" Hotchner's body visibly relaxes, and his voice is way calmer.

"This is your métier. I shouldn't have questioned your order."

He lets out a breath.

You quietly look at each other before he gives you a smile and says: "Good job though."

You lightly punch his shoulder: "I'll put it on my bill."

- - - - - - - - - -

On the jet back, you go to the toilet to change into fresh clothes. You let your hair down and ruffle through it, reapplying your makeup and deodorant. You sit back down next to Emily and get out your laptop to work on your next lecture.

She looks you up and down and asks chuckling: "What are you planning on doing when we arrive?"

You meet her gaze for just a second and keep typing while you answer: "You're taking me out for drinks."

The others hear your comment and Morgan laughs out loud. Rossi joins in and says: "And I thought you couldn't get more fun."

"She offered it." You calmly tell them.

"Alright." Prentiss confirms bemused.

You can feel Hotchner staring holes into you before you even look in his direction. His face is stern, but you can see how fast he's breathing. And you could swear his cheeks flush when you make eye-contact.

- - - - - - - - - -

You parked your car at the Hoover Building, so that you can just take the metro in the morning. In the elevator, you ask Prentiss: "Won't JJ join us?"

"Why would she?"

"Because she's your girlfriend?"

She choughs: "What? No!"

You turn to her and raise an eyebrow: "I appreciate you taking me out, but I see how you look at each other."

"I- ehm." She shakes her head. "No one knows."

"I'm not planning on telling anyone."

"You could tell from how we look at each other? You're not even a profiler and no one else notices."

"Probably because I don't automatically assume everyone is heterosexual."

Prentiss laughs while waving down a cab.

It makes you wonder, however, why Hotchner seemed jealous. Maybe you're reading too much into his behavior. Maybe he is just like that because you are new. That would explain a lot. You seriously need to calm down.

Just when a cab stops in front of you, you see Hotchner and JJ exit the building.

Throwing everything you just told yourself overboard, you yell: "You coming?"

Both of them come to an abrupt halt in their steps.

Prentiss smiles whimsically and adds: "First round is on me, now come on!"