A/N: Um. Hi. This is a new fandom for me. And a new style. It's an exercise of sorts. Trying to stretch my writing muscles. Or something.

The gist (and hopefully, you're reading this and not skipping to the story, because this is probably important information) is that, for each episode beginning with the first appearance of Emily Prentiss, I've written a drabble (a drabble, for the record, is not just a short piece, it's 100 words. Exactly. So stop calling things drabbles if they're not. You're insulting Monty Python). That's the first part of the exercise. The other part is that I'm sticking with canon, or at least, on-screen canon, while trying to craft a continuous, unseen story that doesn't conflict with said canon while simultaneously changing the impact of some of what we've seen. If that makes any sense. If it doesn't, oops. But I thought I'd attempt to explain what's going to happen here.

I'll be posting each season as a chapter, with each episode as a drabble therein. I have every intention of writing through the end of season ten, though I haven't actually decided how to end this whole mess just yet. Chapter titles will correspond to season numbers.

Season Two

"Hello, I love you, let me jump in your game."

(The Doors)

2.09

Aaron Hotchner is an exceptional profiler.

He is not an exceptional actor.

He knows his performance when Emily Prentiss walks into his office is on par with his run in Penzance.

He hopes she's a lousy profiler. That she can't tell he knows exactly who she is and exactly where she went to school the minute she walks in. But she's dead on about the I-80 killer, and when she stands close to him and looks him in the eye, he knows she's aware of the way she throws him.

And that she holds a strange, terrifying power over him.

2.10

"New girl's a decent chess player." Gideon ambles into his office, contemplative as ever, stopping in front of the window. He gently nudges a spoke on the bicycle wheel suspended from the wall, never making eye contact. "Better than the kid."

"How was she as a profiler?"

"Like I said." Gideon peers at his fingertips, studying whatever's rubbed off from the bike. It's unnerving, how he's able to deduce a fragment of Hotch's life from that smudge. "A decent chess player."

Knowing she's earned praise from Jason Gideon in less than forty-eight hours only makes Prentiss more of an enigma.

2.11

"Prentiss, hang back, please."

The team scatters, and he plows ahead, lest she have the chance to tell him to go fuck himself. Not that he'd blame her.

"The Congresswoman is going to want my blood after this, but we still need her help. If you would - "

"Keep her from unhinging her jaw and swallowing you whole?"

"I was going to say 'mediate,' but yes, if you wouldn't mind."

"I believe I made clear this morning that I'm here to do the job."

"You did."

"Then don't insult me by asking me if I 'wouldn't mind' doing it."

2.12

He has a grudging admiration for the way Prentiss stands by Morgan. She's been there a handful of weeks, barely been in the field with him, but there's not even a moment's hesitation from her.

It's possible she's hiding her misgivings, but Hotch doubts she is. She trusts her gut more than she wants to be liked, and if she saw even a hint of Morgan's guilt, she'd have said something.

It makes him wonder, though - does faith in Morgan stem from faith in Hotch's own judgment?

He's not sure he's earned her faith, but he does want it.

2.13

In the desert sun, her hair is four colors at once, purple and red, black and brown, and he doesn't know why it fascinates him, but it does.

He rationalizes that it's because he's trained to notice. The moment he learns a person's name, he files away their height, weight, eye color, and hair color.

So maybe that's it. It's about risk, about the fact that if something were to happen, and he had to give those details, he'd come up short.

In the fluorescence of the jet's interior, sunset spilling through the windows, Hotch settles on a word.

Chocolate.

2.14

He's not sure what it is about watching Haley and Prentiss laughing at Morgan's antics like they're old friends, but it makes his skin crawl. He's not much for dancing, but he feels an intense need to get away from her, get Haley away from her, and he doesn't understand it.

He doesn't understand why he didn't tell Haley about the new agent nor about their brief shared history, why he goes out of his way to avoid being alone with her, why he avoids eye contact with her, or why he instinctively distances himself.

He doesn't want to understand.

2.15

When he asks for a list of his flaws, she has to rack her brain. Not because he's flawless - hardly - but because she has to come up with one that isn't too personal.

You act like you've never met me whenever we're alone.

You never acknowledge my contributions unless it's to correct them.

You always stand close to me but never look at me.

You still owe me for a game of blackjack at the French Embassy twelve years ago.

In the end, she generalizes, but she's fairly sure he understands.

He doesn't trust her, and it hurts.

2.16

He's pleased that she's bonding with Morgan, but he can't help the twinge of envy. He knows he's been a complete jackass where she's concerned, but he can't figure out how to shift their dynamic at this point.

It's because of that last night before she left for Yale (not Brown), and he'd been there when her mother told her, in essence, that if Emily turned down an invitation from the French Ambassador's nephew, it would spell the end of free trade.

She'd looked stunning in red, and now he doesn't know how to tell her he likes Vonnegut, too.

2.17

He purposely sits beside Morgan on the plane, anticipating that she'll sit across from them, now that she's found a friend. He stays silent until Morgan gets up to check on Reid, and Hotch is glad, both because Reid's been off lately and because it gives him his opening.

"You did well with the girl."

Her head snaps up and she sees the surprise in her expression, and the flash of pride. "Thank you, Sir."

"You don't have to call me Sir, Prentiss. 'Hotch' is fine."

There's a twitch of a smile on her face.

They've entered a new condition.

2.18

"Could I talk to you for a minute?"

"Have a seat."

She obeys, tentatively.

"What is it?" He cringes. Too harsh. He softens. "Nothing you say here leaves this room."

She nods. "I know Reid's having a hard time, justifiably. You know him better than I do. If there's something I should be doing - "

"You can't cover for him again."

Her eyes widen. "I - "

"I understand why you did, and once is fine. But if it happens again, you need to tell me."

"I will."

"Good. And Prentiss?"

"Sir?"

"Thank you for looking out for him."

2.19

It's a side of him she wasn't sure existed.

She's shocked when he breaks protocol at the hospital, reassures a dying woman that her child and husband are safe. Sends her out of the room but stays, himself, so the woman is not alone at the end. Tells her to sit out the profile, reassures her it's not as punishment, that he doesn't fault her.

"Fire is different," he says. "We all struggle."

But it's his reaction to being unable to save Abby, to his son's loss, which overwhelms her.

He is exquisitely, beautifully human.

She doesn't realize she's slipping.

2.20

"How many languages do you actually know, Prentiss? Besides Spanish, Arabic, and Russian."

"Well, I - "

"Don't tell me you're 'passable,' because I know better."

She shrugs. She's a perfectionist. "Doesn't it say in my file?"

"It says a lot in your file."

Huh. She has a feeling there's subtext there. "Well, I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."

"I see."

"Thank you, by the way. For today. If I'd known she was coming - "

"Don't worry about it. Family's important. Besides…who says it was a favor to you?"

"Still scared of the Ambassador?"

"Terrified."

2.21

He mimics the posture of sleep, but his mind doesn't follow suit. He overhears her talking to Morgan, wondering aloud the precise concern that's tormenting him.

They think like monsters because they have to, because it's how they catch them. But he's always been aware that a paper-thin line separates the hunters and hunted. After Elle, it's only become more acute.

He watches them, now, for signs that the line has blurred. Sometimes he worries that seeing that line means he's too close to it.

But she sees it, too. And he thinks maybe that's a point in his favor.

2.22

She's been trying to figure it out since she started at the BAU. And as they stand on opposite sides of the girl, leaning over her like new parents over a bassinet, she realizes. It's his eyes.

He's intimidating, imposing, the very model of a modern G-man. A few hours ago, she'd seen him intimidate a man simply by standing there.

Logic dictates that he should not put victims at ease, but he defies logic. He can transform in an instant from hardened agent to steadfast protector.

They see in his eyes the man he is, and so does she.

2.23

Until the moment she's ordered to betray him, she doesn't realize the extent to which she cares for Aaron Hotchner. She'd known she respects him, admires him. Trusts him more than anyone she's ever worked with. Begun to like him, even.

She's always been willing to take a bullet for one of her team. Just as she knows he would.

It only comes crashing into her conscious as Strauss issues her ultimatum that she would do it out of something more than principle.

She realizes in that moment that she's over the precipice, and the fall may well kill her.