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Emily hums contentedly as she squeezes Aaron’s hand, her eyes catching his as she looks up at him and smiles, “This is nice.”
He smiles back, relaxed and content and handsome in the fading light as he lifts her hand to kiss her knuckles, “It is,” he replies, kissing her knuckles again before he tucks their joint hands into his coat pocket to protect them from the chill in the air, “We’re near that ice cream place you like, we could get some on the way back to the car?”
Date night was something they’d established early on in their relationship. They had so little time just the two of them so it was important to them both to have this one night every month where they could have just that. Jack would spend the night at Jessica’s, often pouting that he wanted to come with them too, something Emily and Aaron would salve with love and assurances they’d all have breakfast together the next day, and the two of them would go to one of their favourite restaurants. The nice weather was fading, summer disappearing into Autumn. It was Emily’s favourite time of year. Not because her birthday was coming up, or because Jack and Aaron’s were too, but because of the cool air and the sun on her face. The ever-present reminder in the wind about the beauty of change as the colour of the leaves started to fade to orange and gold.
Aaron knew she loved this time of year, so he’d been easily convinced to go on a walk with her around the block before they returned to his car and back to their apartment. She’d moved in with him and Jack recently, the apartment that was once just theirs hers now too, and they were looking for a house. A place they could buy and call home, something they both wanted so desperately and had been denied for so long.
She smiles, leaning in so her shoulder bumps against his, “It’s too cold for ice cream.”
Aaron chuckles and kisses her temple. He stops them on the street, the hand not linked through hers on her hip as he guides her backwards so they don’t block the sidewalk. He leans in to kiss her, “You’re the one who told me it’s never too cold for ice cream,” he replies, leaning in to kiss her, stamping his lips against hers once more before he removes his hand from her hip and digs through his other pocket, smiling in victory as he pulls out a pair of her gloves, “Plus, I came prepared. Your hands won’t get cold and you can still have Rocky Road - the best of both worlds.”
She beams at him and cups his cheek, pulling him in for a kiss before she rests her forehead against his, “I love you.”
“Love you too, sweetheart,” he says, kissing the corner of her mouth before he pulls back and they continue walking down the street, content and happy in each other's company.
He buys them ice cream once they make it to the store, a double scoop of Rocky Road for her in a cone and one scoop of coffee in a tub for him. He chuckles at her as a drip of ice cream falls onto her gloves and she narrows her eyes at him, making a point of maintaining eye contact as she licks the remnants of it from the ridge of the cone, her smile wide as she watches him swallow thickly. She’s about to say something, to add to the teasing, when she hears a familiar voice behind her, one she hadn’t heard in years.
“Emily Prentiss?”
Her eyes go wide as she turns around, uncharacteristically caught out as she clears her throat, scrambling for something to say as she comes face to face with a piece of her past she hadn’t expected to see again, “Cat.”
Cat chuckles as she steps forward, pulling a still shell-shocked Emily into a hug, “I thought it was you, Em,” she says, squeezing her before she steps back, “It’s been a long time. 15 years maybe?”
“Closer to 20,” Emily laughs, the shake to it grabbing Aaron’s attention as he watches the interaction between the two women. Emily looks at him and curses herself internally for getting so flustered, “Aaron, this is Catherine Thomas, Cat, we…” she swallows thickly, her lips pressed together to keep the whole truth back, “We go way back,” she smiles as she turns to Cat, sees a spark in her eyes she hadn’t thought about in years, “Cat, this is Aaron. My boyfriend.”
Cat smiles and holds her hand out for Aaron and he shakes it, “Lovely to meet you, Aaron.”
“You too,” he replies, looking back and forth between the two women, curious at his girlfriend’s reaction, at the way her shoulders are slightly tight as she watches them interact.
“Anyway,” Cat says, looking back at Emily, “My wife is just getting some ice cream. I can’t believe you still come here after all these years.”
Emily nods, “Best ice cream in the city.”
Cat looks up at Aaron, “Emily introduced me to this place when we first met,” she says, smiling fondly at a memory that was just theirs, “And I bring my wife and kids here now too.”
Aaron smiles, “My son loves it here too.”
“Cat?”
They all turn at the sound of another woman’s voice to see her standing there with two pre-teens, both of them looking relatively irritated at being forced to spend the evening out with their parents, her expression curious as she looks at her wife. Cat nods and indicates she’ll be over in a minute before she turns back to Emily and Aaron.
“Well,” she says, “I’ve been summoned. It was good to see you, Emily. You seem well,” she hugs her again, something Emily returns, careful not to drip ice cream on her back.
“Nice to see you too, Cat,” she says, smiling as she pulls back, her gaze falling on her family behind them, “Your family is beautiful.”
“Thank you,” Cat beams before she looks at Aaron, “Nice to meet you, Aaron.”
“Nice to meet you too,” he replies. They watch as Cat walks back to her family, gratefully taking her ice cream from her wife as she makes it to her side, saying something they can’t hear, “She seems nice.”
“Yeah,” Emily says, feeling out of sorts from the flashback to a past life, something from so long ago it felt like it had happened to someone else. A part of her she kept secret, even from Aaron, “She is.”
“Shall we go home?” He offers, his gaze on her as she smiles at him, a tenseness to it that she doesn’t hide well as her eyes meet his. She nods, shaking her head to rid herself of the feeling that had settled over her the last few minutes. The strange mix of nostalgia for her past when she was young and unburdened by responsibility and everything to come, and happiness for someone she’d once loved, all whilst she stood next to the person she knew was the love of her life, the man she’d spend the rest of her life with.
“Yeah,” she says, smiling as she presses her lips together, her focus back on her ice cream as she eats some more, “Let’s go home.”
___
She thinks about it for a couple of days.
She’d told herself for years that she’d never mention it, her relationship with Cat and the other women she’d dated over the years, because it wasn’t relevant. Since she’d come back to DC, still on uneven ground after being Lauren Reynolds and being with Ian, she’d only dated men. It wasn’t a purposeful act, not something she’d particularly tried to do, but it had happened. So it meant telling her friends, her new family, seem unimportant.
It was, after all, not the biggest secret she was keeping from them.
She’d never even told her mother. Sure that, at best, her reaction would be to tell her it was ‘just a phase.’ At worst, she was sure her mother’s rather selective catholicism would make itself known, and she didn’t want to put herself through it. Instead, she kept the few relationships she’d had with women from her, and the one time she’d met Cat she’d introduced her as a friend, something that she hadn’t known at the time would start to unravel their relationship. The first pull at the thread that held them together, Cat’s confidence in her sexuality so much stronger than Emily’s had been at the time. Cat had been out and proud the entire time she’d known her, and, in the long run, their difference in how they approached it would never have worked.
There were times when Emily had considered telling the team. When she’d make eyes at a woman across a bar when they were all out together, but she’d always chicken out, even with her tongue loosened and her cheeks warmed by tequila. People, mostly ex-boyfriends, had reacted poorly before. Either telling her that bi-sexual wasn’t a real thing, dismissing something she’d always known to be true about herself, or over-sexualising it, a familiar look in their eyes as they saw how her sexuality could benefit them.
After Paris, she decided she’d simply keep it to herself. Her friend's view of her had been changed anyway, the person they thought she was dead and gone, buried in the grave that had always been empty. She couldn’t bear to do it again, to once again change what they thought they knew about her, even for something like this, so she didn’t. Even when she started dating Aaron, sweet, kind loving, Aaron who had never been anything but supportive and unflinching whenever she told him anything she hesitated.
Ever since they’d walked into Cat, she felt the need to tell him. To uncover this last final part of herself that she’d kept hidden away. He knew everything about Ian. He knew about Rome. It was time he knew about this too.
Even though she wants to tell him, she feels nervous. A familiar kind of anxiety settles in her chest as she snuggles up on the couch with him one night, determined to not put it off any longer. Jack was in bed, safe and asleep in his room down the hall, and the TV was on, a movie they’d watched countless times before fading into the background as she sinks into her boyfriend’s side. She presses her face against his shoulder, breathing him in, breathing in the last few moments of how things were before she changed them forever.
“I need to tell you something,” she says, her words partially muffled by his shirt before she pulls back, her brows furrowed as she corrects herself, “Actually, I don’t need to tell you. But I want to.”
He watches her carefully for a moment before he nods, reaching for the remote to turn off the TV, ensuring she has all of his attention. He turns so he’s facing her, his knee skimming her thigh as she turns too, her focus on the top of the couch. She tugs nervously at a loose thread, a nervous habit he’s grateful distracts her from her cuticles. He thinks of the ring he has tucked away in his sock drawer, of how he pictures her twisting it around her finger when she is nervous or worried. He reaches out for her, frowning when she jumps ever so slightly when his hand lands on her knee. He squeezes gently, smiling even though she doesn’t look up at him.
“You can tell me anything, you know that,” he assures her, and she nods, her lips pressed together as she continues to pull at the thread on the couch.
“You…” she swallows thickly, her eyes closed as she trips over the words she’d practised in her head for days, “You remember that woman we bumped into the other day, Cat?” She asks, her eyes darting up to his face as he nods, “She…she wasn’t just a friend. She was my girlfriend. We dated for almost a year when we were both in college,” she blows out a breath, her chest shuddering with it, feeling somehow lighter and heavier at the same time with the admission, “I’m Bisexual.”
Her words hang in the air around them and she holds her breath, waiting for his reaction, unable to bring herself to look at him, worried about what she’d find.
“Thank you for telling me,” he says, his words even and calm, his softness so jarring she looks up at him fast enough it cricks her neck, a pain she barely feels as he carries on, “And thank you for trusting me - I know that can’t have been easy.”
She chokes on a humourless laugh, “Thats…that’s it?”
He smiles at her, his dimples carved out in his cheeks in a way she loves, and he squeezes her knee, “Did you…want a different reaction?”
“No,” she replies, shaking her head, choking on something she can’t name - a sound between a sob and a laugh caught in her chest, “No, not at all. I’ve just never had someone react so…well before.”
He furrows his brow, “What do you mean, sweetheart?”
She laughs bitterly and shakes her head, wiping away a tear she hadn’t expected until she felt it on her cheek, “I once had an ex-boyfriend ask me if it meant we could have a threesome,” she says, scrunching her nose up at the memory. She looks at Aaron and smiles at the pure horror on his face, his brow furrowing in indignation for a past version of her, “I broke up with him when it became very clear he already had a list of women who’d be ‘up for it’ at the ready.”
He clenches his jaw, “I’m sorry he reacted like that,” he replies, “You deserved better than that. You deserve better.”
She presses her lips together and shakes her head lovingly as more tears slip past her lash line, “Well, I have better now,” she says, playing her hand over his on her knee, linking their fingers together, “Do you have any questions?”
“Have you dated any other women?” He asks softly, curious more than anything, and she nods, running her thumb back and forth over his hand.
“Yeah, a couple of others but none as serious as my relationship with Cat. And I’ve had a few dates and drunken hook-ups,” she replies, her cheeks burning with embarrassment she knows she shouldn't feel.
“Have you always known?”
She nods, “Since I was pretty young,” she smiles her lips pressed together at the memory, “Let’s just say, The Dukes of Hazzard was a bit of an awakening. Luke Duke was hot…and so was Daisy Duke.”
He smiles and squeezes her hand, lifting it to kiss her knuckles, “What made you tell me now?”
She blows out a slow breath, “After we walked into Cat, I realised I didn’t want to hide it from you anymore. All the reasons I had for doing so suddenly didn’t make any sense.”
He pulls her into a hug, his arm tight around her as he kisses her cheek, “I’m glad you told me,” he says, smiling as she turns her head to kiss him.
“I’m glad I did too,” she replies, nudging her nose against his, “I…I was so worried it would change how you looked at me.”
He frowns and pulls back to look at her, shaking his head as he tucks some of her hair behind her ear, “Never,” he assures her, “Nothing ever could. Especially this.”
She furrows her brow and tilts her head at him, “What do you mean?”
He sighs as he chooses his words carefully, “You’ve always been bi, sweetheart, right? It’s been part of who you are as long as I’ve known you, and it’s been part of you as long as I’ve loved you,” he smiles as he reaches out to wipe away a tear from her cheek, “So it doesn’t change anything because it’s always been who you are, even if you hadn’t told me.”
She leans forward, her forehead against his neck as she breathes him in again, the world the same as it had been before she’d told him, but somehow different too. His understanding of her deeper but everything else unchanged. She takes a moment to hold him close, and she plays everything he’d said back in her head. A conversation she’d remember again and again as a reminder of how much he loved her, how well he loved her. Something she thinks that, after everything, she might just deserve. She furrows her brow as she thinks about it, the way he’d said part of all those wonderful things catching in her chest. Aaron was purposeful in everything. Not calculated, but purposeful. He never said anything he didn’t mean, and she narrows her eyes at him as she pulls back.
“Wait…you said ‘even if I hadn’t told you…” she tilts her head as he clears his throat, avoiding her eye contact, “Oh my god - you knew?”
He sighs, scratching the back of his head with the hand not tangled up in hers, “Sweetheart-”
She scoffs and lightly hits his chest, her cheeks burning at the thought that she’d got herself so worked up over something he apparently already knew, “Why didn’t you say anything?”
He smiles at her indignation, catching her hand before she slaps his chest again for laughing at her. He kisses her knuckles and smiles fondly at her, disarming her ability to be annoyed at him so easily she’s annoyed at herself.
“It wasn’t my place to, Em,” he says, “It’s your story to tell.”
She knows he’s right and she huffs out a breath, her cheek against his shoulder as she pouts in a way she’d deny if he brought it up, “How the hell did you know?”
“As someone who has been in love with you for much longer than I care to admit, I paid close attention to your interactions with anyone I thought might be flirting with you,” he smiles as she tilts her head to look at him, “It didn’t take long to realise you have chemistry with literally every person you ever meet.”
She suppresses a laugh, her lips pressed together as one more wave of anxiety rolls through her, “And you don’t mind?”
He shakes his head, leaning in to kiss her, his hand on her cheek to hold her in place, “If anything, it just makes me feel even more lucky that out of everyone you could be with you chose to be with me.”
She sighs but it catches in her chest, love for him filling her lungs so fast she can’t catch her breath, “Oh, no honey,” she says, placing her hand over his on her cheek, shaking her head as he catches a tear the moment it slips free from her lashes, “I’m the lucky one.”