Chapter Text
LEG 1:
“They’re sheep, Hotch! What were you going to do? Arrest them?”
On an all-new season of The Amazing Race, 13 dynamic teams of two will embark on a breathtaking, unpredictable journey.
A life-changing adventure that will test their physical and mental fortitude…
Only the best will get a shot at racing to the finish line for $1 million.
It all begins here in Melbourne, Australia, a city famed for its coffee culture, laneway art, and effortlessly cosmopolitan charm.
The camera panned down to the line of teams assembled along the banks of the Yarra River, the Melbourne skyline glittering in the distance. Emily adjusted the straps of her backpack, shifting the weight of what felt like half her apartment. The bag was almost as heavy as the disbelief sitting squarely in her chest.
“You realise,” she murmured to Aaron, “that we actually let Dave and Penelope do this to us.”
He exhaled and glanced down the line at the other teams, all of whom were still extremely chipper after their 16-hour flight from LAX. “I’m still not sure how it happened.”
“Oh, I am,” she said dryly. “They thought it would be funny… and here we are.”
It had started as a joke over a post-case team dinner in a restaurant where the TV was playing an Amazing Race rerun. Dave had insisted that the two of them, seasoned agents and world-class problem-solvers, would make perfect contestants. And after they’d wrapped up their next case, JJ had filmed a mock audition video on the jet “just for fun”. Emily hadn’t even known it was submitted until she’d received the email congratulating them on being selected.
Now, here they were under the Australian sun, about to be filmed for national television, surrounded by cameras and an array of very fit strangers, wondering what exactly they’d agreed to. She looked up at Phil Keoghan, who was impossibly composed and grinning like he knew something they didn’t.
“Welcome to The Amazing Race!” he called out.
Aaron adjusted the straps of his backpack, as if that might somehow make this more normal. “You ready for this?” he asked, and even though his voice was steady, she caught a hint of incredulity beneath it.
“Not in the slightest,” she said, smiling despite herself.
“Is everybody ready to race?”
The teams erupted in cheers.
Phil raised his arm. “The world is waiting for you. Good luck. Travel safe. Go!”
And just like that, hearts pounding and adrenaline flooding their veins, they were running.
ROUTE INFO:
Teams must drive to the iconic Queen Victoria Market, located in the heart of Melbourne. The historic landmark spanning over two city blocks welcomes nearly ten million visitors per year, and is home to over 600 vendors. Once here, teams must locate one of thirteen vendors displaying a red kangaroo scarf to receive their next clue.
It was barely mid-morning, but Queen Victoria Market was already a riot of colour and noise. The air was thick with the scent of coffee and meat and seafood on the grill, and the little that Emily read about the market in the in-flight magazine didn’t prepare her for the way the stalls seemed to stretch endlessly in every direction. She adjusted the straps of her backpack and scanned the rows ahead, one hand clutching their clue card: teams must locate one of thirteen vendors displaying a red kangaroo scarf to receive their next clue.
Easier said than done when every other stall seemed to sell some permutation of souvenirs in that exact shade of red.
“Left or right?” she asked, raising her voice just enough to be heard above the chatter.
Aaron didn’t answer right away, and she wondered for a second if he’d heard her. He stood a couple of feet ahead of her, eyes steady and methodical as he took in the chaos in the same way he used to assess a crime scene. She could make out the other teams sprinting ahead of them, and his calmness surprised her.
Or maybe it didn’t. He still had that steadying presence she’d always relied on in the field, even now when there was no case file or unsub, and all they were met with were blur of tourists and cameras and the pressure of a race she still couldn’t believe they’d agreed to.
“Left,” he said finally, pointing toward a row of stalls draped in flags and scarves.
“See, I knew that being a profiler would come in handy,” she quipped as she sidestepped a man carrying a crate of strawberries. “Are you trying to read which stall owner looks guilty of holding a clue?”
“I doubt profiling applies to souvenir vendors,” he replied, although there was a faint trace of amusement in his voice.
“You say that now. Wait until we get to the mind games.”
He smiled under his breath, and it made her chest tighten in a way that she didn’t quite expect. She followed his lead through the crush of shoppers, effortlessly dodging a group of students and a child clutching a melting ice cream cone. Somewhere behind them, the production crew trailed at a careful distance, cameras catching every movement, and she tried to forget that they were being filmed for national television.
It was surreal, she thought, being here in a foreign city with Aaron Hotchner. Not as colleagues or BAU agents, but as a team of two thrown into a televised scavenger hunt by one David Rossi. She wondered what the next few weeks would look like. How many cities. How many hours spent side by side, on planes and trains and highways, chasing clues and luck.
And as she watched him move through the crowd in his usual unflappable way, eyes sharp even amid the chaos, she realised that the very things that made him such a good agent made him the ideal race partner too – patience, focus, and his quiet and contained drive that never seemed to waver. If anyone could handle the unknown, it was Aaron.
She tried to picture him at the wheel of a rental car on the wrong side of the road, navigating a country they’d both barely seen, and found herself smiling. He’d adapt. Of course he would. And somewhere deep down, she knew she would too.
“There,” he said suddenly, and she looked up to see the flash of a red scarf fluttering in the mid-morning breeze. The vendor beamed at them like she’d been expecting this exact moment.
They broke into a jog, the crowd parting just enough to let them through. The vendor retrieved the envelope with a wink, and as the camera swooped in on them, Emily caught Aaron’s eye, and the same silent thought passed between them.
We’re really doing this.
There was a thrill to this absurdity, and a pulse of possibility that came with not knowing what lay ahead. But somehow, she knew that they could find a way around anything that the race would throw at them.
DETOUR:
Teams must drive nearly one hundred kilometres south of Melbourne, to the Mornington Peninsula, a popular tourist region known for its sweeping natural landscapes and beautiful beaches.
In this detour, teams will test either their patience, or their problem solving. It’s their call: Tend, or Bend.
In Tend, teams must drive to the Binbarra Farm. Here they will need to corral a flock of twenty sheep into a pen. Once they’ve maneuvered the sheep to the liking of the shepherd, they’ll receive their next clue.
In Bend, teams will put their puzzle skills to the test, as they try to solve a series of mazes at the Enchanted Adventure Maze Garden. Once they’ve completed all required mazes, they’ll receive their next clue.
“Have you been to Australia before?”
Emily didn’t take her eyes off the road as she sped down the freeway. “Once, with my mom and sister when I was a kid. Not Melbourne, though. Sydney.”
Although Aaron had a copy of the street directory in his hands, Emily hadn’t asked him for many directions since they’d left the city centre an hour ago, and a part of him wasn’t convinced that she actually remembered the route they’d quickly mapped out just before setting off. But the road signs indicating that they were, indeed, heading towards the Mornington Peninsula were promising, and he decided to allow himself just a few minutes to breathe before their first Detour.
He’d known all along that Emily was a well-travelled person. Back when he’d worked for Ambassador Prentiss’s security team, he’d marvelled at just how many overseas trips the life of an ambassador entailed — his glimpse into the childhood and teenage years of the woman who’d one day become one of his agents. Over the years she’d been at the BAU, he’d seen that traveller’s streak show up in myriad ways, from the arsenal of languages she spoke to the random cultural trivia she always seemed to have at the ready, or even just the ease with which she navigated unfamiliar places.
And today, when they hopped into their rental car and she didn’t even bat an eye at having to drive on the other side of the road, Aaron realised that Amazing Race partners probably couldn’t get any more ideal than Emily Prentiss.
It only made him wonder what the rest of the race would have in store for them.
He might have asked her more about those childhood trips, since they still had an hour of open road ahead and little else to distract them, but he was acutely aware of the two members of the production crew in the car with them: one with a camera that looked far too large for the space, the other juggling a boom mic and a tangle of cords. Pretend we’re not here, just keep talking, they’d said before setting off. Easier said than done, he thought, when the microphone hovered perpetually in the corner of his vision.
“So… we’re sure we’re heading for the farm?” he asked, hoping that he sounded less anxious than he felt. Only three hours into the race, and already the air in the car thrummed with nervous energy, which was not helped by how quickly the crew members lifted the camera and microphone within a split-second of him opening his mouth.
The Detour. A safe conversation topic. Safe for national television, at least until they figured out how to forget the cameras existed.
“I think we’ll be able to get that done more quickly,” she nodded. “Who knows what kinds of mazes we’ll get thrown into at the park.”
“Let’s do that, then. Sheep can’t be that hard to wrangle, right?”
He wasn’t sure why, but he had a feeling those words were going to come back to haunt him.
It was mayhem.
There were sheep everywhere, bouncing, bleating and darting in every direction that wasn’t the one they were supposed to go. Wool and dust flew in the air, and Emily was thinking that this bedlam defied both logic and physics. They had been briefed by the farmer to move as a unit, guide the sheep toward the gate, and above all, stay calm, but that hadn’t prepared them for the reality of twenty sheep who apparently had no interest in being guided anywhere.
Emily’s travels and the occasional case had taken her to a handful of farms in her lifetime, and she certainly wasn’t opposed to a zoo or nature park visit once every few years. She’d touched stingrays, sat on the backs of camels, trotted on horses, and even fed a kangaroo before, and now she could add wrangling EXTREMELY fast-moving sheep to that list – or, more accurately, wrangling these fast-moving sheep and failing.
“No one told me that sheep BOUNCED,” she half-yelled at Aaron as she waved her arms in the general direction of a particularly spry offender that seemed determined to evade capture. Somewhere to her left, Aaron was trying to maintain composure like a man being betrayed by nature itself: his jaw was set and his eyes narrowed, as though sheer FBI authority might somehow persuade the sheep to cooperate.
It did not.
Then, as if sensing weakness, a cluster of them suddenly turned on him, a flurry of wool and indignation, and before she knew it, he was actually backing away with arms raised, the world’s most dignified man being chased across an Australian paddock by a horde of fluff.
“Jesus Christ!” he swore, and the cameras caught his pure Hotch-ness collapsing into chaos before her eyes.
Emily doubled over and laughed so hard that she could barely breathe. “Did you just swear on camera, Aaron Hotchner?” she wheezed.
His expression was somewhere between exasperation and disbelief. “They came at me.”
“They’re sheep, Hotch!” she said with a grin. “What were you going to do? Arrest them?”
His exhale was a sound that was perilously close to a laugh. Dust streaked his sleeves and his shirt was untucked, and for the first time since the race had begun – and possibly ever – he was no longer the stoic and controlled man she’d known for years, but someone almost boyish. Disarmed. Human.
“Don’t say it,” he warned. “And they’ll probably cut this scene from the episode anyway.”
“If you say so,” she said, still laughing.
By the time they finally managed to corral the last of the sheep, mostly by luck and possibly also divine intervention, both of them were red-faced, sweating, and utterly dishevelled. Somewhere in the distance, the farmer was shouting encouragement and the crew was stifling laughter. Emily couldn’t stop grinning.
She brushed a smear of dirt from her arm and shook her head, still smiling. “This show might actually kill us,” she said.
“Not before the sheep do,” he muttered with one final glare at the bleating mass of fluff.
The look they shared lingered for half a second too long before the chaos pulled them apart again. It was ridiculous and chaotic and utterly unlike anything they’d ever done, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him look so alive.
PIT STOP: Royal Exhibition Building
They arrived at the mat breathless to the evening sun slanting through the trees lining the Royal Exhibition Building. Phil stood beside a smiling local in traditional Aboriginal dress, with hands clasped and his familiar unreadable expression hovering between amusement and judgment.
He nodded once. “Aaron and Emily… you are team number eight.”
Relief came first, alongside a shared exhale that was part laughter and part disbelief. Emily straightened and brushed her sweat-damp hair from her face. “We’ll take it.”
“Happy with that?” Phil asked, his expression still as inscrutable as ever.
Aaron hesitated and exchanged a quick look with her before answering. “Not exactly disappointed.”
Emily added, “But maybe we could’ve pushed harder.”
Phil’s mouth twitched in amusement. “Sounds like you already know what went wrong.”
Emily grinned. “There were sheep.”
Aaron made a quiet noise that might’ve been a groan. “We’re not talking about the sheep.”
“Oh, we’re absolutely talking about the sheep,” she said, glancing up at Phil with mock solemnity. “They chased him halfway across the pen.”
Phil chuckled. “Well, you’re safe for another leg. But maybe next time, less running from livestock?”
Emily laughed; Aaron managed a dry “we’ll do our best.”
As they stepped off the mat, the adrenaline began to fade, leaving behind only the ache of exhaustion and their awareness of this strange new rhythm they were still learning to navigate.
Before they could catch their breath, the producers ushered them toward a waiting area, ready to pull them into confessionals and a long-awaited dinner. Somewhere behind them, a crew member called for batteries and another for b-roll of the skyline. The sounds of production had already begun to fold back in on themselves, turning the day’s mayhem into television.
They walked on in silence after that, past the cameras and crew, and into the soft glow of the evening. And beneath the noise and the weariness, they realised that the adventure had only just begun.
Aaron heaved an audible sigh of relief when he and Emily stepped into their hotel room for two distinct reasons.
The first was that they finally were free of the cameras and microphones that had been waved in their faces all day (despite the best efforts of the crew to be inconspicuous).
The second was that the hotel room had two beds.
Truthfully, a part of him knew exactly why Dave and Penelope had insisted they sign up for the race. He wasn’t clueless or ignorant enough to overlook all the signs that the rest of the team had been… rooting for him and Emily for months now, especially since the demise of his relationship with Beth.
There really hadn’t been anything wrong with Beth. She was cheerful, bubbly, and most importantly, kind to Jack. But she just wasn’t Emily — and Aaron had more than just a nagging suspicion that Dave had detected that a long time ago.
If Emily had been just as concerned about the rooming arrangements as he was, she certainly did a good job of hiding it. She triumphantly set her backpack down by the door and basked in the much-welcome A/C, which provided respite from the oppressive Australian summer.
“The bathroom’s yours,” Aaron said as casually as he could, hoping that she would say yes. He desperately needed some alone time to recalibrate and get his head on straight.
When she beamed in response, his chest tightened slightly. “Great, thanks.”
The teams had been briefed by the producers countless times before they’d set off from Los Angeles, and once more as they were driven from the Pit Stop to the hotel. No cell phones (as if they’d be able to pass the numerous bag checks they’d been subject to), no contact with the outside world, no research or preparation beyond materials you brought with you to the Pit Stop. The TV beckoned, but he was in no mood to sit though an episode of the The Big Bang Theory when the remnants of the adrenaline were still coursing through his veins. And so he rummaged through his bag for the brand-new notebook that the team had gifted him for the race and started writing.
Leg 1: Melbourne, Australia
He’d done some research on the race before setting off, poring over interviews with previous participants and behind-the-scenes clips to get a sense of just what he and Emily had gotten themselves into. Taking detailed notes was a suggestion that had come up frequently, and he wasn’t about to let any details of their days in the race slip by, lest they come in handy at some point.
(He realised, after watching episodes from previous seasons, that teams’ notes usually came in handy during the final leg of the race.)
(Was it wishful thinking that they’d make the finale, when they’d finished in a middling 8th on the first leg?)
(He decided not to think too hard about that — but he could take notes in case they needed them.)
Route info: Queen Victoria Market
Atmosphere: Chaotic. Filled with a healthy mix of locals and tourists.
Located a vendor with a red kangaroo scarf. Vendor was dressed in a black T-shirt, green apron, and navy blue cargo pants. Long brown hair in a ponytail.
Was that too much? he wondered. Might as well, since the day was still fresh in his memory.
“I see you’ve beaten me to it.”
He jumped slightly when Emily appeared behind him with freshly-washed hair and clad in a worn grey FBI T-shirt. “Beaten you to what?”
“Taking notes. You must have done your homework too.”
“Of course, Em. We didn’t take this leave of absence from the FBI to not at least give this a decent shot.”
The nickname slipped out effortlessly and he couldn’t take it back. She smiled faintly at the sound of it, but didn’t comment.
She crossed to her bed and sat down with the same easy grace that she carried everywhere, pulling her damp hair over one shoulder. “A decent shot,” she repeated. “That’s generous. I think a mildly organised stumble would be a better term for us.”
He gave a low huff of laughter and closed his notebook just enough to mark the page. “Maybe a little strategy wouldn’t hurt. It could have been worse.”
“Eighth,” she confirmed, tilting her head back against the wall. “Not terrible. But apparently herding sheep is not our strong suit.”
He allowed himself a small smile. “We could’ve gone with the maze.”
“I know,” she said, half a groan, half a laugh. “Everyone else did. I think we were too caught up in the actual task, like it was a case. Get the job done, follow the rules, don’t think about what the other teams are doing.”
“Tunnel vision,” he said quietly. “We’ll have to be smarter about that.”
“We will be.” She nodded and glanced over at him with a confident smile. “I think we’ll get the hang of this.”
“I know we will.”
The air between them felt lighter now; it was tinged with the pleasant exhaustion that followed a day that had been equal parts chaos and exhilaration.
“You know,” she said after a moment, “for all the sheep and the heat and the cameras, today was… actually fun.
He looked up, genuinely surprised. “Fun?”
“Don’t tell Strauss,” she said dryly, but there was warmth behind it. “It felt good to do something completely different. Just… running around in the sun, trying not to get trampled. And you not chasing me for paperwork.”
He chuckled under his breath. “That’s one way to describe it.”
The silence that fell over them was comfortable and almost domestic, and he realised with a quiet astonishment that he hadn’t felt that in a long time, not since before everything had fallen apart with Beth, and definitely not since the last time the job had demanded every part of him and left nothing behind. And yet here he was, sitting across from Emily Prentiss in a small hotel room halfway across the world, watching her twist her hair into a loose knot and smile to herself as if she were genuinely, uncomplicatedly happy.
“Maybe Dave was right,” she said, almost to herself.
He raised an eyebrow. “About what?”
“That we needed this. To just… live a little.” She met his eyes then, just briefly, but it was enough to make his heart pound in his chest. “Even if it’s insane.”
For a moment, he didn’t trust himself to speak. So he just nodded, returning her look with one of quiet understanding. “Then let’s make sure we do it right.”
Her bright, unguarded grin reached her eyes, and leaned back against the headboard. “Deal.”
When they turned off the light an hour later, their journals both filled with detailed notes from the day, the room fell into a peaceful hush. He lay awake for a while, listening to the soft rhythm of the air conditioner and the faint city noises beyond the window, the darkness edged with the sound of her breathing. Every shift of the sheets and quiet exhale seemed impossibly loud in the stillness.
And when sleep finally came, it did so slowly, and he was caught between his exhaustion and the realisation that he was no longer thinking about the race at all, but about her.
Quantico, VA - 6 months later
“Care to tell us why you’ve assembled everyone in your office?” Derek asked Penelope with a raised eyebrow.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is the moment we’ve all been waiting for.”
Emily cursed under her breath.
“You will watch this. And you will laugh,” the blonde declared.
Penelope’s computer screen flickered to life, and Emily’s suspicions were confirmed.
In the season premiere of The Amazing Race…
There were shots of the Melbourne cityscape and fast-cut glimpses of teams racing away from the starting line… and then, there he was. Aaron Hotchner, being chased across a paddock by a bouncing horde of sheep, arms flailing and eyes wide. “Jesus Christ!” he swore, and the team erupted into laughter. Emily snorted, and even Dave, who had been leaning against the wall with his usual cool detachment, was grinning from ear to ear.
“Can you believe that Hotch swore on national television?” Penelope exclaimed with tears in her eyes from laughing so hard.
“You made the trailer, you know,” Derek smirked. “Prime time.”
Aaron shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe they kept it in.”
“I thought he was going to arrest those poor sheep,” Emily chimed in, and another wave of laughter echoed in the room.
A sharp click of the office door made everyone freeze. Before anyone could react, Section Chief Erin Strauss was there, arms folded and eyes narrowing like twin lasers. She had caught the tail end of the laughter and the trailer playing on Penelope’s laptop. Her gaze swept the room — Emily, JJ, Derek, Spencer, Rossi — and, of course, the man she recognised immediately from the screen: Aaron, in all his misadventurous glory.
“You did not inform me in advance that your leave of absence from the FBI entailed filming a reality television show.”
Emily swallowed a laugh, to which Aaron gave her a pointed look. “For a television show. A competition. With sheep. And cameras. And… swearing.” Strauss’s expression softened, but only slightly, and Emily felt a small thrill watching the usually unflappable Section Chief try to reconcile her agents’ new claim to fame with the BAU’s ever-present demands.
Penelope couldn’t wipe her grin off her face. “It was worth it… just to see Hotch get chased by some sheep.”
Aaron pinched the bridge of his nose, muttering under his breath, while Emily smiled amusedly at the rare cracks in his otherwise stoic composure. Strauss, still fuming in the doorway, had yet to speak, and everyone wisely stayed silent.
As the trailer ended and the laughter faded, Emily found herself leaning back in her chair with a quiet smile. Despite the chaos, Strauss’s glare, and the absurdity of their friends watching them sprint after livestock on national television, she couldn’t help looking forward to the airing of the full episode.
She and Aaron would never admit it out loud, of course, but the anticipation lingered in the room like a shared, secret thrill.