A/N: So this is it! The final chapter – and I am relieved and sad at the same time. Relieved because this story was in my head all the time during the last weeks and now I perhaps will be able to concentrate on other things more (real life?) and sad, well, actually for the same reason. ;-)

I tried to solve the loose ends and most of all this means that Hotch and Emily finally have a talk about Doyle. Remember that it's my point of view of what might have happened between her and Doyle and of what she might have felt (or not felt) for him. So consider yourself warned since perhaps not all of you share my estimation.

Rating for language and - of course, yay! - the much-anticipated steamy H/P scene in the end. (Now don't you scroll down! Read right from the beginning!) ;-))

My heartfelt thanks to all of you who read my story, tagged it as your favorite, put it on story alert and reviewed it. Especially the reviews make writing so much fun and are balm for a writer's soul. So let me give each one of you a virtual embrace with this well deserved front page appreciation (in alphabetical order): AB, Alice Prince, AureliaMarie, babygurl0506, brittanydelko4ever, charleantheresas, Cellzo, D, EmmaBerlin, gnilsia, HGRHfan35, HPforever-after, Illyria09, I luv emily prentiss 2012, maggie06, miaa29, moonserenity089, Mydnyte Houre, Nena Cero, Odainath, phoebe9509, PrincessHotch, romiross, Rosajean, sarweber22, springfiry, Tigereye77, vampiremuggle, Withoutatracelover996.

I'm still hoping that the review count will reach the magic 100 in total. It would make sooo happy! (cf. A/N of the last chapter)

So R&R please! And have a good time!

Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended. This is for fun only. CBS owns Criminal Minds.

Her apartment was the obvious place of choice. It had all started there. The hasty release, the shameful departure. Now they would close the circle.

They decided to drive there everyone for him- respectively herself. It was odd enough as it was. Driving together would have exceeded the known limits of oddness.

Their coping mechanisms during the ride were different. Hotch thought about unsolved cases. Emily counted – traffic lights, pedestrians, curves. None of them could escape the images that flashed through their minds though – images of what had already happened and of what would happen tonight beyond that. That was the moment when Hotch stopped thinking about the unsolved cases and Emily stopped counting. It was too exciting, too unbelievable.

Emily was relieved that Hotch had to search for a parking lot while she had the advantage of parking her car in the underground garage of her apartment block. That bought her a little time to reach her apartment first. To arrive there side by side would have implied more oddness beyond any measurable scale.

Yet her head start wasn't as extensive as she had hoped. Already he was knocking on her door. There hadn't even been time for a short look at herself in the mirror. But who was she trying to fool? She didn't need to check her make-up or underwear. She was prepared for exactly this moment and she had been prepared for it each day during the last weeks. Ever since their conversation at the hotel. It only had been a matter of time. She had always known that.

When she let Hotch in she couldn't suppress a smile, because here he was inside of her apartment and any moment they would continue what they had broken off. All the more she was irritated when he passed her by without smiling back at her, without even looking at her, and went straight to the "wall of shame" in her hallway – as she called it. The wall where it had all started between them. He stared at it and just when he was beginning to give her the creeps, he turned round to face her and reached out his hand.

"Come here." He said and his voice wasn't unkind, but it didn't have any husky undertones either, didn't give her the shudders as earlier at his office.

Emily approached him and he grabbed her shoulders - albeit softly - and positioned her with her back against the wall whereas he stood in front of it. That was weird!

"What is it with you and your urge to always trap me with my front or back against a wall or a closed door?" She was trying to relieve the tension that she felt considering his strange behavior by joking, but the joke fell flat.

Hotch gave her a serious explanation instead. "You're a fighter so I have to trap you to make sure you won't dodge my questions."

Now that was even more weird! Emily looked into his eyes and saw an endless darkness that scared her. And suddenly she knew what this was about. There was only one issue that caused his eyes to darken like this.

"Oh, no!" She exclaimed. "Really? You wanna talk about Doyle? Now, of all times?"

"This is exactly the right time." Hotch growled.

"Why?" She insisted. "Because we're both horny and more likely to tell the truth?"

"Because it has to be now." He just said and his firm expression made abundantly clear that there would be no further touch, no kiss, no nothing between them until they had solved this issue. Hotch really wanted to talk about Ian Doyle. Here and now.

"Okay..." Emily surrendered with an exasperated sigh. "Then go ahead – ask me!"

Hotch composed himself. He briefly closed his eyes and then looked at her again. "I know that Doyle was your only undercover mission that required such a close contact with the target." His voice was calm and confident. This had been deep in his mind for a long time, waiting for the right moment to come out. "You wouldn't have been so affected by it, wouldn't have done it at all had there been an undercover mission like this before, because you tend to learn from your mistakes."

Although Emily also thought of it as a mistake she felt a wave of anger. It sounded as if he was lecturing her and she didn't like to be lectured. So she couldn't resist a snide remark. "That wasn't a question."

Hotch nodded. "Yes, I know. I just needed to clarify that I don't haunt myself with the belief that you have done this more than once."

She knew that he had told her for her benefit. Nevertheless the anger about his remark was still there and found its way into her next words. "So now that we've stated the obvious and agreed that I made a mistake, perhaps there is an actual question you want to ask me."

"There are in fact many questions I want to ask you. And they indeed do haunt me." Hotch told her quietly and his honest admission caused the wave of anger to vanish. He was such a strong and unwavering character and yet here he was acknowledging that her past with Doyle deeply unsettled him.

"Okay..." Emily said again, but this time without the exasperated sigh. If he could do this, then she could too. Somehow she owed it to him. "What do you want me to tell you?"

Hotch looked, no stared fixedly at her. The silence stretched and became uncomfortable. "If it was vice versa..." He finally spoke. "...and it had been my undercover mission. What would you like to know?"

Whoa! Now that was a low blow! He didn't look away, not for a second, didn't blink, just watched her reaction and suddenly she realized that this was a very dangerous game. His search for the truth was legitimate, even essential. She hadn't been aware until now though - albeit it should have been obvious - that it also was a balancing act. Reveal too much and be caught forever in the middle, reveal too less and forfeit the chance to be trusted. By turning the tables he ensured that she would give him the right amount of information by letting him answer the questions in her stead.

Despite her awareness of the precarious situation Emily endorsed his approach and played along. Maybe this way it would be easier to talk about it. "I would like to know how you managed to fake an entire relationship. This wasn't something that lasted only for a few days. There was no easy way out. To fake feelings for such a long time..." Her voice trailed off, lost in thoughts, but she pulled herself together. "What does it take to do this?"

It was the obvious first question, the basis of everything else.

"First of all you need the conviction that you're doing the right thing and you need, of course, the talent to act." Hotch's answer came without hesitation. This was fairly harmless terrain. At least compared to other tacit questions. "But you can't pretend to be someone else all the time. So you have to let your real personality shine through here and there to establish a connection between reality and pretense." He stopped when he saw that she nodded in confirmation of what he had said. "Nonetheless such an approach can't completely avoid that the lines blur sometimes, that reality becomes more and more only a distant imagination while pretense turns into something real, because there is nothing else to hold on to."

He had nailed it! Emily very rarely cried, but that last part about pretense turning into something real had brought tears to her eyes. How often had she told herself that Doyle wasn't her real life, that it all would end sometime. But the end never came. And pretense became her reality. It had been difficult at the beginning, agonizing as weeks and months passed by and almost broken her in the end.

Hotch swallowed when he noticed her emotional reaction to his words. There was no doubt that this was exactly what she had went through and he regretted it with all his heart. They were only talking about the basics and yet it was already getting to her, affecting her deeply. He knew that she probably had had counseling after her undercover mission since this was standard procedure to make sure that the emotional damage stayed within tolerable limits. So he could merely guess what she hadn't told her counselor, what she had held back until today. As far as he knew her most likely she had held back a lot. Emily pressed her hands against the wall behind her. It was heartbreaking how she was longing for someone to hold on to and didn't dare to reach out to him. As difficult as it was, he also didn't reach out to her. This wasn't the time for consolation and actually it would get worse before it hopefully would get better.

"What else would you need to know?" They were far from being done and his exchange of verbs - like for need - was intentional. Not so harmless terrain anymore.

"I would need to know..." She had registered the different wording and knew where this was going. "...how it felt to be someone else even in the most intimate moments." Emily kept her word choice vague on purpose, spared him the details. They both were aware what she was talking about. Hotch probably had enough unwanted images of her and Doyle floating around in his head; she didn't want to add another one.

Emily felt the wall behind her, increased the pressure of her hands against it until it almost hurt – everything to take her mind off her worries. Please let him understand! Please don't let it all go straight to hell! Please...

"Well, the thing with physical intimacy is that one can only pretend so far." Hotch's voice was still calm despite the blunt topic. He didn't need to specify. If he – as a man – had been undercover it would have been impossible to fake an intimate relationship. Anatomy would have required the real thing. And although a woman in the same situation had an ample scope to pretend, in the end it amounted to the same thing - without any physical response there could be no convincing intimate relationship and as a consequence the cover would be blown. When Hotch spoke again it was him this time who spared her the details. "There is a difference between detesting a person's character and a person's appearance. A good undercover agent has to have the ability to separate the one from the other to deal with the requirements of the exceptional situation to get that close to a subject."

Emily had feared for her life the first time she had been with Doyle – that way. Unnecessarily so as it had turned out. She had been prepared to come up with some lies about how she didn't feel well, how it all was too soon, assuming that it wouldn't work, that her body would betray her. And it had betrayed her – but not in the way she had expected. When Doyle had touched her she had felt no disgust. This man, this murderer - for God's sake - had had the ability to touch with a tenderness and aptitude that had allowed her body no way out. Instead of having to fake it, she had desperately tried just to fake it and eventually given in when her reactions had made it all too real. Doyle had been attractive and simply a good lover. After a while it had become easier for her to sleep with him than fake the rest of the relationship. In bed there had been no haunting thoughts, just physical reactions; everywhere else she had needed to control her words and actions in every way. Emily felt sick because of what she had done. No apology would wash this sin away. And despite her long gone belief in religion she thought of it as a sin. No other word implied better what had happened. She didn't regret that she had slept with Doyle for a profile – that had been part of the job. She despised herself though for what it had done to her – the slow change into someone else. She had almost lost herself back then and once in a while – on days like this – she wasn't sure that she had come back at all.

"You are a good agent, Emily." Hotch - interrupting her penance, watching her closely. Obviously he had given up his approach to let her pose the questions and confess in her stead; her reactions too moving, her inner uproar too apparent so that he addressed her now directly. "And that tells me that you must have been a good undercover agent back then. So I assume you had the ability to separate the man from the monster to be able to get... intimate with him. I understand how you managed to do it, how you were able to get through it."

No, he didn't understand anything. She didn't get through it. She had betrayed herself and in a way had betrayed him hereby. Suddenly she felt like drowning. "I can't do this!" The words slipped out before she could hold them back and she got ready to turn away from Hotch.

He just raised a hand to stop her, but didn't touch her. "See? This is why I trapped you. When you're cornered you fight back."

Emily didn't respond and he could see that she was weighing her options. At least she didn't make any more attempts to turn away from him.

"I won't forgive you." Hotch said quietly and with that he had her full attention. Somehow this was what it all came down to. Forgiveness. "I won't forgive you, because I can't. The only person who can forgive you, who has to forgive you are yourself."

"How could I?" Her words were almost inaudible. Emily still stood there with her back against the wall, half turned away from him, the fight-or-flight response almost overwhelming.

"Well, perhaps I can help you." She hadn't anticipated his soft touch. Hotch reached out his hand and caressed her face tenderly. His fingers found their way to her neck and down her arm, until they came to rest on her hip. He slipped his hand under her shirt, touched warm skin and drew lazy circles with his thumb. A touch that was as exciting as comforting. But why now? Why touch her now when he had avoided it all the time?

Emily's thoughts were racing and she closed her eyes. Looking at Hotch was too much of an emotional overload right now. In the past she had been able to deal with either her guilt concerning Doyle or her feelings for Hotch. The two components combined were just too much.

"Do you want to know what I see when I think of Doyle and you?" He didn't have to add in bed together. It was fairly clear anyway. Emily couldn't answer. All energy had left her body. She wondered that she was still steady on her legs. So she just shrugged, even if she didn't feel certain that she wanted to know. Not certain at all.

"At first I see you both and... it tears me apart." She could hear it in his voice - strained and yet strong - how difficult this had to be for him. "But then Doyle..." Saying his name always was the hardest part for Hotch. It came out like a spit. "...vanishes and I only see you. Because you are all that matters."

"What if that's not enough? What if one of us will never be able to forget?" Emily voiced her deepest fears, whispered them with her eyes still closed. Perhaps this was just a dream; she would wake up and nothing would have happened. Doyle would have never existed. If wishes were horses...

"You think it's realistic to forget about something like this?" Hotch's fingers continued their slow dance on her skin that made her dizzy and woke up the butterflies in her stomach. Then without a warning his hand moved higher under her shirt, reached her bra and brushed over the silky lace. Her eyes flew open. She sucked in a sharp breath. This wasn't something she had excepted. It didn't... feel right. Yet she felt her body respond to his touch. How could she not?

"So what do you feel?" Hotch asked almost casually.

"What?" He was right. She was a fighter. Emily felt the energy return, felt anger burn. What was he trying to prove?

She had grabbed his arm with the aim to stop him, but remained motionless, wasn't sure what to do, how to react.

"You didn't expect this. And even if I assume that you want this in general, right now you think of it as inappropriate." Well, thanks for giving her this nice wrap up of how she felt! But then, all of a sudden, she realized where he was going with this. "Yet..." Hotch added. "...you can't prevent your body from responding to my touch, now can you? It's as simple as that."

So he knew! All the time that Emily had tortured herself with possible scenarios how to tell Hotch about her and Doyle without really telling him, he already had known.

"I won't pretend." Hotch eventually said after a brief pause. "I tried not to care, but it doesn't work. And I don't want to deny. Therefore I have to accept. What happened was long before we met and part of your job. Do I hate the thought that his hands touched you? Yes! Does it worry me that you were attracted to him in some weird way, had to be to play your role perfectly? Yes!" Emily flinched, but his following words made up for it. "Does it affect my feelings for you? No!"

It would have been too much to crave for salvation. Even acceptance was better than expected. And suddenly the capability to forgive herself was within reach. There was only one obstacle left. However it was an obstacle that had the potential to destroy the fragile trust they had just begun to rebuild. But it was out of the question to stop now. They had to conclude this to begin anew.

"What if I told Doyle that I love him?" Emily spoke so quietly that Hotch thought at first that his imagination was playing tricks on him. But it didn't - although her next words were barely a whisper. "Could you accept that too?"

Hotch never would have known. Doyle was dead. There had been no witnesses to her confession. But she would have known and Hotch had made unmistakeably clear that they were done with holding back and pretending.

Emily felt Hotch's hand pull back from under her shirt. When the cold air replaced his warm touch she felt tired and defeated. So this was it? After all they had been through had she finally pushed him away?

Hotch didn't know what to say. He knew that he should say something. After all he had been the one who had started this and her admission didn't come out of the blue. Somehow he had led her there. Emily had almost lost herself in the virtual reality of her undercover life; the intimate relationship with Doyle her last resort that had kept her sane. He had been aware of all this. It was like a basic arithmetic operation when you knew her. You just had to put two and two together. Yet Hotch had needed her confirmation that he had gotten it right. Now that he had it, he could leave it all behind, forget Doyle. Conveniently he had skipped the part what she might have felt for Doyle in the course of all this. He had told himself that he would ask her about it later. When their relationship was stronger, when he was sure that an honest answer wouldn't carry the risk of breaking them apart. Because you knew what her answer would be! Because you're afraid that this is the one thing you won't be able to forgive and forget!

When Hotch remained silent, Emily spoke again and he could hear the desperation in her voice. "I thought you wanted to talk about everything and this... even if it's... it happened and I can't take it back no matter how much I want to. You got it all so right that I thought you'd understand this - even this - too." He didn't respond and noticed with a fierce satisfaction that this reinforced her desperation. Although she tried to keep her voice steady, it was shaky and unconfident when she went on. "Of course most of the time I just played along, said it because he had said it before." She probably wasn't aware of it; nevertheless her words hurt Hotch even more. He hadn't been completely certain how deep Doyle's feelings for Emily had been, but her casualness was a clear statement. Doyle had loved her and told her every little while. Well, otherwise she wouldn't have been his maximum loss, now would she?

Hotch perceived his surroundings with a sharp clarity. The dim light in her apartment. The muffled sounds from outside. Her rapid breath. It was what he did when things threatened to get out of control - see the big picture and not concentrate on a single detail only. He didn't want to be angry. Rational thinking told him that Emily had had no other chance during her undercover mission than to develop feelings for Doyle. That - even if the wording was the same - this had been a different kind of love. Weird, twisted and dark. No threat at all to what was between them.

Her next words confirmed that. "Looking back it's all like a bad dream and I don't recognize myself. But back then... sometimes when there was nothing but this endless darkness around me... it felt right to tell him. It held the darkness in check, stopped it from consuming me completely."

It should have been so easy. Tell her that it's okay. That you understand. And in fact he understood. Nonetheless Hotch felt an irrational and blinding rage. He had been controlled and rational when it came to her for such a long time, had even accepted - and it hadn't been a lie when he had told her - that she had slept with Doyle. But shouldn't there be a limit somewhere? Was he really supposed to understand everything? Hotch was done with political correctness. He didn't want to be rational and in control anymore. He...

"Hotch?" Her hand touched his face. She sensed that they were drifting apart, unaware that touching him was not a good idea right now.

Her touch burned like fire. Hotch had grabbed her wrist and pushed her back against the wall before he had been able to think through what he was doing. His body pressed against hers, but she didn't put up any resistance. He froze in place and let time lapse away, wasn't sure whether he felt his heartbeat flutter anxiously or hers. His outburst had been a catalyst for his fear and frustration. No matter how often he had told himself that he was prepared for this discussion, no matter how much he was convinced that it was essential for them – he was hurt much more than he was willing to admit, right now and hereafter. And he didn't know how to heal this wound.

"Love..." Emily said hesitantly and the word alone set his teeth on edge. "...it has different manifestations." Her lips were so close that each word sent a soft breath across his face. "You and me we both have the ability to plunge into darkness if need be. And it was only in the endless darkness that I felt it. So I hope you know that I didn't really love him." She didn't say his name, didn't say Doyle and the message was clear - he was just anyone from her past, not relevant anymore. When she spoke again Emily looked straight into Hotch's eyes. "I didn't really love him, not like..." She couldn't say it out loud. It was too soon, too much, wrong timing. By all means she didn't want this special confession to be remembered as a defense mechanism. "I know that it hurts." She whispered instead. "Believe me I know." If someone had told her several years ago that misguided love could cause that much pain she wouldn't have believed it. Now she knew better. "It's a good thing though that we feel the pain. Imagine what it meant if we didn't."

The tension slowly left Hotch's body. He felt sore as if he had been in a fight and in a way he was still fighting against his demons. But she was right. Not feeling the pain would have meant that they had no feelings for each other. And it wasn't a one-way street either. He was hurt, but she had admitted that she was hurt too, could feel the pain he felt. He let go of Emily's wrist, but didn't step back. Her hand touched his face again and this time the contact was welcome, warm and comforting. Somehow the air around them had changed. Hotch could sense it. The darkness was backtracking. When he closed the small gap between them and kissed her, her lips promised him there would be a future for them. Doyle's shadow no longer was in control. They had debunked his legend.

When Hotch broke their kiss off this time, it was only to look at her, to take in what was happening to them.

"Pull that off." He said hoarsely and gave her shirt a tug. She didn't need to be told twice. The shirt dropped to the floor, followed by his jacket and tie. While he was kissing and tasting and feeling everything with a sensory overload she fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, both wanting finally to touch skin to skin.

The friction was marvelous. Their bodies tangled up in each other. The sensation of naked skin. If they continued that way they wouldn't last long, but Hotch didn't intend to repeat their first time. This was supposed to be different.

He grabbed her shoulders and switched their positions so that he was now the one standing with his back against the wall. Emily looked at him confused albeit he had to admit that it was the most sexy confusion he had ever seen. Her hair was tousled and one strap of her bra had slipped. He couldn't tear his eyes away from that sight, imagined what it would feel like touching her everywhere.

"Hotch!" Her voice interrupted his daydreams (although they would soon turn into reality, yet right now that was what they were – daydreams) and he remembered why he had switched their positions.

"No more traps." He explained to her. "You're free to go – or to stay."

This didn't diminish her confusion. "Well, since this is my apartment I won't leave in any case." She smiled mischievously when she sized him up. "And I think you should better not leave either, because you'd be arrested for public nuisance. But still... thanks for the offer and for setting me free – I guess." Emily frowned and suddenly became serious again. "We've smoothed things over, haven't we?" She had assumed this due to his behavior, but now she wasn't so certain anymore. Sex wasn't a cure-all. This had to be the real thing. "You know, I really would hate having to break this off again." She leaned against him and the sensation of her soft skin made him growl.

"Yes, we have." God, she loved his voice like this. Deep and sexy and... urgent. She was driving him crazy and she loved every second. Emily knew that they wouldn't last long this time. But there would be another time and another – they had all the time in the world. No need to rush things. Or maybe, yes, rush it, because he was undoing her pants right now and his hands were very unerring and this felt so good...

Her breath became increasingly erratic and Hotch smiled inwardly that he wasn't the only one about to lose control. In fact he planned on making her lose control much more and had several ideas how to do this. Despite his own quickened breathing he managed to speak. "So now that we start all over again, shouldn't we take it slow?"

"Yes." Emily seemingly agreed, but fumbled with his belt simultaneously. "Next time." Her last words were muffled, because she was already kissing him again. Well, perhaps the slow teasing would have to wait. This was just too good.

The room was silent except for the soft sounds of their bodies. Their shadows were moving slowly at first and eventually adjusted to a faster pace to find release.

Acceptance. Forgiveness. Salvation. So much more than they had ever hoped for. The wounds were healing.

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The end