[For Aaron]

[wildlyconflicted]

It was 1:05 AM by her watch when Pepper woke up in a strange bed next to the very tangible, sleeping body of Aaron Hotchner. The night was warm, and while they'd opened the shutters to let in a breeze, the sheets had been mostly habitual. Aaron was stretched out across the bed with the top sheet bunched low over his hips, and when Pepper sat up beside him, she spent a long time quietly looking at him, at the scars twisting pale over his skin in the moonlight.

By 1:15, she had slipped carefully from the bed and shrugged on his dress shirt, cuffs skimming her fingertips as she padded barefoot out onto the front porch. Leaning forearms against the railing, she peered up at the scatter of stars in the sky and wondered how complicated one life could become in just over a fortnight.

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[o-heart.livejournal.com]

He wakes and finds her gone. For a moment, a brief, split second, he lets himself think that it's a different bed, and that Haley must have slipped down the hallway to see to Jack.

And he knows that's not true. And it takes him a minute to get his breath back.

Pulling on his underwear, he pads out of the open door and finds her, leaning against the rail, the hem of his shirt brushing the tops of her thighs. He sits, settles himself in the chair on the porch, and looks up at her.

"What?"